Yasmin back.”
Driving in London is often an exercise in madness and patience. I drove like a man possessed.
“This doesn’t make sense. Say Edward has decided to give Yasmin back,” I said. “They could easily have asked for Zaid to come to Holland. But they take the risk of moving her, a kidnapping victim? So they want something from Zaid, goods he couldn’t bring to them.”
“Sam,” she said. “If Lucy is here with them, and we catch them, would you like me to kill her for you? I know it may be hard for you to do so.”
It was the single strangest offer I had received in a life full of bizarre opportunities. “Thank you, no. I don’t want you to harm her. I will deal with Lucy.”
“Unwise. I have no baggage with her to slow me. I am worried enough if you are emotionally stable for this, knowing she is a crazy loser bitch.”
“I won’t hesitate if need be.”
“The words ‘if need be’ are hesitation,” she said, and she was right.
“I want to talk to her.”
“The child. Forgive me. I mean no cruelty. But you don’t even know if she had the baby, Sam. You have no proof the child is alive.”
“I don’t think she’s lying about this.”
“She’s lied to you every second of the day for the past three years. Now she tells the truth?” Mila made a disgusted snort. The tires lost their hold on the road, hissed wetly as they grappled for the grip. I eased up, and the car regained its footing as we sliced through an intersection.
“She could have killed me. Why would she spare me and lie to me?”
“A thousand reasons. She wanted you found, alive, with all those dead people. Again, you alive is a distraction for the Company. You attract blame and investigation. She wanted to feed you false information. She is cruel and she toys with you. Leave her to me.”
“You don’t touch her, Mila,” I said. “You do not touch her. I want to know where my kid is. She knows.”
Then Mila said the truest thing I’d heard in months: “Your wife has made herself bulletproof to you with that lie, Sam. You do not know that there is a baby anymore. Or that it is even yours.”
“It’s mine,” I said.
“She lied about everything else. Perhaps she and this Edward were lovers here in London.”
“Thank you for the head screw.” Then I made my words bricks: slow and steadily added, building a wall. “I have considered all these options, long before you did,” I said. “I knew maybe she’d fooled me, maybe she was a traitor when I saw the evidence. But it was all circumstantial. She saved me then, she saved me now. She knows where my child is. It’s the ultimate insurance policy and she wouldn’t give that advantage away.”
“It’s only insurance if you believe her. You cannot properly interrogate her. I will. I will get to the truth.” Mila set her mouth in a firm line. “You are not much use to me if you are distracted by this loose end of your kid.”
Loose end. I wondered what forge had formed Mila, that she could think such a way. I was afraid to know. I thought of her solicitude for the captured Moldovan women back in Amsterdam. She could be kind. She could be cruel. I thought Piet might have suffered mightily at her hands. She might also be right. Lucy would dance a dance with me; she would play on our past, on the embers of my feelings for her, on the obvious wish that I had that she had loved me. Mila would not dance. I almost felt a tremble of fear for Lucy-misplaced and ill-advised-thinking of her at Mila’s mercy.
Unleashing Mila might be the quickest path to my child.
My child. I didn’t want to think about what Mila was saying. I had to know. I couldn’t walk away from the possibility of my child, lost in the world, or worse, being raised by a woman like Lucy Capra. Lucy and Mila were both willing to use my child to reach their goals; I was willing to let them think they could use me, but I would use them. It’s an ugly world when we fight over children.
I veered the Jaguar into a parking garage. We were here.
79
St. Pancrasis a huge rail and underground station. It has undergone a serious, high-cost beautification process in recent years: massive, pale blue steel arches sweep against original brickwork. Glass ceilings lend an air of openness in the concourse. High-end shops and restaurants fill the walkways. A sign advertises the world’s longest champagne bar. Thousands of commuters and travelers moved through the station, but I walked through St. Pancras alone.
Mila stayed with the netbook in the car; I had a microphone nestled in my ear. She was watching Bahjat Zaid on the video feed, having hacked into St. Pancras’s security system. We were running a big risk; the security system might notice it was being invaded, and a security team might decide to investigate if they discovered the hack was occurring so close to the station. Security was naturally heavy-if not obvious-at such a critical travel hub.
“Found him. He’s waiting at the champagne bar on the upper level,” Mila said.
“Is he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you reading anyone watching him?”
“No.”
I headed upstairs toward the impressive stretch of the champagne bar; it was packed with beautiful people and a few tired-looking travelers. The bar ran for hundreds of feet, broken only by waiter stations. Stretches of wood were designed for solo travelers to sit with their laptops; other lengths were actually booths for four. Its far and only wall was glass and steel, and it faced the Eurostar station where trains from the Continent arrived and departed.
Zaid sat in a booth, alone, in his Armani suit and his polished, gleaming shoes, and he looked as bent and as ill as though he’d been consumed by a cancer. The confidence I’d seen in him was gone. He wiped a trace of sweat from his forehead and he kept a briefcase close to his legs. Very close. I sat to his left, where he couldn’t see me so easily, where a square bar formed the entrance and where the waiters, nattily attired, gathered their poured flutes and moved with grace back to the tables. I stayed on the other side of the bar and hoped my sunglasses and the dark cap would keep him from recognizing me. I ordered the cheapest glass of champagne on the menu but didn’t touch it.
Zaid kept scanning the crowd. Eagerly, nervously. He craned his neck around when groups walked alongside the Eurostar. Waves of people came and went. A crowd to my left was getting a bit loud, fueled by a magnum of champagne. Zaid kept glancing toward them. I turned away. I couldn’t risk him seeing my face.
“Do you still have him?” I said into the mic.
“Yes,” Mila said into my ear.
“He’s nervous, constantly scanning the crowd. I can’t risk him seeing me.”
“You don’t think you should just go up and speak to him?”
“Not if he’s getting Yasmin back. Edward could see me.”
“You are afraid of Edward?”
“I am afraid he’ll kill Yasmin if he spots me,” I said.
Mila said nothing, but I could almost hear her sneer.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned. Bahjat Zaid looked as though he meant to stagger toward his death bed: sweating, pale, mouth twisted into an angry tremble.
“Get the hell out of here,” he said. “You must leave. Now.”
“Is Edward bringing Yasmin here?”
“I am ordering you to leave,” he hissed.
“I know you’ve given Edward weapons for keeping his videos of Yasmin’s crime spree to himself. Are you swapping your snazzy briefcase for your daughter?”
He looked as though he might vomit on my shoes. “Leave. Now.”
“Answer me and maybe I will.”
“I give them the bag, they give me Yasmin, and this nightmare is done.”
