Dutch police; but then there would have to be explanations as to how Company personnel had arrived at the warehouse and engaged in a gun battle. And although the industrial park looked neglected and empty, someone nearby might have heard the shots and summoned the police.
Ten seconds after the van roared off, she made her decision. Howell wasn’t waiting for the police, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t calling them, and they might arrive within minutes. She had very little time to scope out the building.
Mila slipped back inside the old machinists’ shop. The smell was of close-in gunfire, acrid; the sweet smell of tobacco.
She saw a spill of blood drops, heavy, near one of the lathes. The Chinese student had taken a bullet in the head. She glanced down at him, didn’t see breathing. The ID on him was still in place and she took that; anything that could delay the police investigation was to her advantage. She checked an abandoned office. Empty. She hurried through the entire office space, tense, her breath tight, expecting to see Sam’s dead body. But there was no sign of him.
Then she headed down a short hallway and found a shuttered steel door. Here. They had to be here.
Mila picked the lock with care, as quietly as she could. The mechanism eased and her hand went back to her gun. She took a deep, calming breath, leveled the weapon and kicked in the door. Screams greeted her. Eight women, half-naked, bruised, chained to the wall.
For a moment she faltered. A pain as sharp as a steel blade went through her chest, made her spine ache. She stared at the women and they stared back at her. Then a surge of indignant strength rose in her bones. Revenge was its marrow. Had Howell not realized these women were here? Or did he not care? Or was he calling the police anonymously to report their presence? It didn’t matter. She could not, would not, leave them.
Most of them kept their gaze low to the ground, but one, a redheaded teenager, glanced up at her.
Mila tried English. “It’s okay. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
The red-haired girl spoke to her in Moldovan. “Who are you?”
Mila switched to Moldovan. The words tasted like a sweet she’d loved as a child. “You’ll be safe. I’m getting you out of here. The bad men have gone.”
“Who are you?” the redhead asked again.
“A friend. I want you to do exactly what I say, because we may not have much time. I’m going to get you to safety. And then home.”
“We have no money to get home,” one of the other women said. Her lips were purple with bruising.
“I know,” Mila said. “I will take care of you all.” She stepped back out in the hallway, knelt by Nic’s body. In his pocket she found a set of manacle keys. In his palm she saw Sam’s transmitter, stripped apart. She scooped it up from the dead man and tucked it in her pocket.
Her hands shook as she unlocked the women from their restraints. Her head flooded with forgotten sensations: the low rumble of the traffic on the boulevard, the odor of cheap pizza, the warmth of a gun in her hand, the breeze through the open windows of the warm Israeli night as she walked through the rooms of the damned, the man that she’d left alive roaring that she’d be killed a thousand times one day for what she’d done. She shoved the memories down.
A couple of the women started to moan and cry, in Moldovan, hardly believing that their horrific ordeal might be over.
She was thinking: they need shelter, doctors, documents. She was not thinking about Sam Capra. For the moment, he was on his own.
54
I watched the gun pointed in my direction. “I just saved your life. If I wanted you dead, I could have shot you in the back when we were running to the van.”
“But I don’t know you. And you walk in and everything goes to hell.”
“Everything went to hell because of Nic turning against you. I gave him to you and everything that happened since then confirms he was trying to screw you over.”
“But I don’t know you.” Logic wasn’t his strong point. “I’ve lost everybody. Everybody.”
He was scared.
“Listen, Piet. I have a few friends in Amsterdam. Maybe you know them. Gregor, he used to run a watch shop in Prague, he’s living here now. He was a friend of Nic’s. We did a bit of business last year. Ask him about me.” I was gambling huge here that Gregor would play along. Welcome to the tightrope.
“I know Gregor. The watch geek. Who else? Give me another name. One is not enough.”
The only other person I knew was Henrik, the soft-spoken bartender at the Rode Prins, and I’d only talked with him once or twice. But-if he was smart, he could cover me. I had no idea if he knew what kind of work Mila and I did. And by giving Piet the Rode Prins, I was giving him my hiding place in Amsterdam. Mila would kick my ass.
But it didn’t matter if Piet tied me to the Rode Prins; he was going to die soon. “I drink at a place called the Rode Prins, on the Prinsengracht. You know it?”
“I had a drink there, once.”
“A bartender there, Henrik, he knows me.”
“And what’s your drink?”
“Usually beer.” Henrik had served me only once, but I’d drunk the beer on his recommendation. I held my breath. “I’m not real original.”
He worked his phone, presumably summoning up the Rode Prins number from an Internet search. He pressed the button so I could hear him make the call.
But to Piet, I was Peter Samson. I was just Sam to Henrik. This might not work.
Henrik’s voice came on. “Rode Prins.”
“Henrik, please.”
“This is he.”
“Henrik, this will sound very strange, but do you know a gentleman who goes by the name Samson who drinks there now and then? Not Dutch.”
A pause. A painfully long pause. The barrel of Piet’s gun felt screwed into my temple.
Henrik said, “Samson? You mean Sam?”
“Yes, is that what you call him?”
Thank God, thank God.
“Yes, everyone calls him Sam. Dark blond hair, tall, midtwenties.”
“Yes. What is he?”
“You mean what nationality is Sam? I don’t know. Wait. I saw him once take stuff out of his pocket to get his money, set it on the bar. His passport was Canadian. I remarked on it then.”
“Do you know what kind of work he does?”
“No idea. He is one of those who doesn’t talk much about himself. Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“No, he’s not. What does he like to drink there?”
“Heineken. And, you know, I have a business to run, and you sound like a goddamn stalker. You like Sam’s green eyes, maybe?” Henrik got a little edge going in his voice. “You want a date with him? He doesn’t swing that way as far as I can tell, but you could leave your number.”
Piet hung up. Silence stretched for five long seconds. “I like you don’t talk about what you do. I don’t like people who talk too much.”
He dialed another number. “Speak and you’re dead,” Piet said.
“Hello?” a voice said.
Gregor. I could be dead in the next ten seconds.
