“I have no idea where they would go,” Mila said. “I lost them on the feed.”
“I know where they’re going,” Lucy said quietly.
“With you captured, I’m assuming that their plans will change,” I said.
“Sam’s not dealing with you,” Mila said. “You’re dealing with me .”
“I told you, Sam. Daniel is close. Let me go and you can have him within a few hours.”
“I don’t believe you. You didn’t know I was going to be at the station. You thought I was in Holland, probably in a hospital bed. You wouldn’t have brought Daniel with you. No way you’re carting a kid around while playing hired gun. You’ve hidden him somewhere, Lucy, and the deal is you’re going to tell me or I will hand you over to Howell and the Company as a murderer and a traitor. Howell was entirely right about you.”
“Kill me now, then, because I won’t just tell you. You have to let me go.”
Mila said, “You won’t tell him but you will tell me.”
“She’s charming,” Lucy said. “But he won’t shoot me, little Miss Russia. Do you have a name, by the way?”
“You can call me Mila,” Mila said. “I plan on beating you senseless, by the way. Just so you know, I will enjoy it.”
“She’ll talk without violence,” I said to Mila.
“Is this where you thought you would end up?” Lucy said. “I mean, you joined the Company because you wanted to avenge your brother. Now you’re a hunted dog, and you don’t have your kid. You’ve lost everything.”
“No. I still have you.” I stared ahead into the traffic.
Lucy said, “What will you do with me?”
“First, you will tell us where Edward and Yasmin will go,” Mila said. “Sam, shut up. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Sam, that’s an order,” Lucy said.
Mila pulled the Jag over in a screech of tires. She launched herself toward the backseat and she hit Lucy, hard, two snapping blows to nose and mouth. Blood gummed under her nostrils, in the corner of her lips.
“Listen, Mrs. Capra,” Mila said. “Let us be clear as the crystal. You’re nothing to me. You don’t speak to Sam unless I give you permission. You are going to talk to us, or I am going to kill you.”
“I doubt your superiors want me dead,” Lucy said, her voice a half scream. Blood dotted her spittle. “I have information to barter.”
“You do not understand who Sam and I work for now. I do not work for a government accountable to voters who do not bother to inform themselves on basic issues. I do not work for an agency worried about budgets controlled by petty politicians. My only rule is that I have to return the car clean.” She flicked a little smile. “I don’t have to be a good example to anyone. I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did to my friend Sam. I don’t like a woman who uses her child as a pawn. You are an infinitely bad mother and an even worse person.”
“I know what I am,” Lucy said through the blood on her lips. “And I’ll make a deal with you. I will take you to where I think Edward and Yasmin will go. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll tell you where Daniel is.”
“And your price for this jackpot?” Mila asked.
“You let me go. When you’ve recovered Edward and his goods, which I promise you will be of great interest. Guarantee me that. If Sam says you’ll do it, I’ll trust him.”
Cars honked madly, Mila veered back into the flow of traffic.
“You have no reason to trust me,” I said.
“Yes, I do. I know you. I know your word is good.” Lucy looked at me, and for a moment I could think we were back in our Bloomsbury flat, a young couple, happy, a baby coming, in love.
“You let her go and she cannot testify to the Company that you are innocent,” Mila said. “They will never take you back. They will never stop looking for you. A life on the run, Sam, think long and hard about it. Are you going to drag your child along for the ride?”
A trade-off. My child for my freedom. At least this way I could find my kid, see him, hold him, be a father. Lucy had to deal with me, fairly, or she was dead. She knew it. Her game was over. She wasn’t going anywhere until I had my kid safe in my arms.
I glanced at Mila. She gave the barest of nods. I leaned back. “Fine, cooperate and we’ll let you go.”
“If you survive,” she said.
Mila said, “Where will they go?”
“New York,” she said. “We were to meet with my boss.”
“For what reason?”
“You get Edward, and you’ll know.”
“This boss. Your tattoo. This is Novem Soles-the Nine Suns?”
Lucy nodded.
“What is it?”
“A group that wants power and doesn’t care how they get it. I can’t give you a single name, though. I don’t know them.”
“But you got the tattoo.”
“They make you do that.” She shrugged. “It’s part of owning you. They made me, like they made me do everything else.”
“Made you? Like you had no free will? What’s Edward smuggling?”
“Only he and Zaid, and maybe Yasmin, know. I don’t.”
“You’re lying.”
“I have no reason to lie,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”
“Where will they go right now? To New York on the next flight?”
“I think Yasmin will go home,” she said. “She and Edward have unfinished business.”
82
London’s adrenaline bar occupied an old power station on the border between Hoxton and Shoreditch; it was all open space and brick walls and a gorgeous, long steel bar, much bigger than its brothers, the Rode Prins and Taverne Chevalier, and the bartenders were serving actual cocktails, precise with the measurements, using fresh ingredients. I saw a proper martini being mixed (shaken is still the fastest way to chill, and bruising the liquor is a myth), a bull and bear made with genuine Kentucky bourbon, an excellent bottle of French Bordeaux being opened. The barkeeps had been well trained. My kind of bar. The tables were low and long and rustic, more French farmhouse than elegant, but cool looking. I had thought given its name that it would be a frenetic dance club; rather, Adrenaline seemed an ironic name, a place where cool control would win the day more than frantic action.
We walked through it, keeping hold of Lucy by the arm. It was easy for a moment to think about the loveliness of a proper bar, rather than to think about my traitorous wife.
I liked the open space, which somehow seemed warm and inviting. Bright, forceful modern art and bold photographs hung on the walls, all done, Mila said, by local artists, many of whom patronized the bar.
“You’ll see movie stars here as well,” she said. “I have to do my damnedest to keep us out of the guidebooks so we don’t go touristy.” I knew artists had reclaimed once-blighted Hoxton for their own, and the developers followed the artists, quickly pricing most of them out of the territory they’d staked. A large outdoor patio held sculptures and large blow-ups of photographs; it held a circular stage for live music, currently empty as it was midmorning.
A thin, well-dressed man approached us. He was handsome, in his early thirties, wore a perfectly tailored suit, and spoke with a West African accent. “Mila, hello. How nice to see you.”
“This is Kenneth,” Mila said.
“Kenneth, help me,” Lucy said. “They’re holding me prisoner.”
He ignored her. Mila introduced me, just as Sam, and he shook my hand.
“Give Sam whatever he needs,” Mila said.
He nodded and regarded Lucy.
She said, “I’ll scream.”
