by Jeff Abbott
After a long moment, Piet lowered the sword.
Edward released his grip. Piet was afraid of losing respect, of face. Easy to manipulate.
“The routes to get my goods—you did an excellent job. The pickup in Budapest went very smoothly.” It had been so hard to leave his treasures behind and get on the plane back to Amsterdam, but now the treasures were on their way, hidden in Piet’s smuggling route. They would be in the Netherlands soon enough. “Let’s have a look at this spy and make him useful. Get the cameras set up. Please.”
The modicum of respect worked. Piet left with a curt nod and Edward went to Yasmin’s room. He touched the place where the sword had lain against his wrist; he could still feel the edge of the blade. Piet was starting to be more of a problem than he was worth, but Edward needed him right now. Everything was lining up: the money, the goods, his future.
Yasmin lay on the bed—that was her privilege now.
Edward was proud of his fair lady, the woman he’d modeled from raw clay into a killer. He stood over her as she slept in an uneasy drowse.
After she’d dropped the backpack behind a book display inside the small magazine store in the train station, they’d hurried her out to a van two blocks away and driven off. She had not panicked or freaked out or tried to flee. She had followed her orders without question. Without fear.
Edward could see the admiration for his work in the eyes of the others.
That night they had moved her to the attic. Edward brought her favorite food, cinnamon pastries. He told her she had done a wonderful job, that she had done great good today.
“You eliminated a serious problem for us today.” He began to unbutton her blouse. “You are a heroine to me, Yasmin.”
“Are they listening?” she whispered.
“No. You are one of us now. You proved that at the station. No one is listening to us. It is only you and me here, little bird.”
He slipped her blouse from her shoulders; she did not resist. He held up a small wooden dove. “I saw this on a street vendor’s table at the Albert Cuyp Market and thought of you. Beauty, strength. And wood can be shaped… into so many things, Yasmin.” He eased off the skirt they’d put her in; she lay nude and shivering on the narrow bed.
“There is no going back now, Yasmin. The bombing went well. You did your part exactly as we asked.”
Bombing. She didn’t blink at the word.
“Your old dirty life is done.” He put the wooden carving—a dove—around her throat. It hung on a leather thong and he tightened the string, almost unconsciously, as he put it against her flesh. He felt the pulse of her throat through his fingertips.
Edward stood and undressed. His body was lean and muscular. He lay down on her and kissed her throat, her face, with gentleness. She did not kiss back. She lay still.
“You’re troubled by what you did?” he asked. “We went through this a thousand times.”
She didn’t resist his kisses. He took her, with urgency. She closed her eyes. He finished, lay next to her, then took her again, this time with gentleness. She lay as though not feeling his touch. He didn’t care.
The whole time, he whispered, “This is how you stay alive, Yasmin. Do what I say and you live.”
Now he sat and he watched her, thinking, until he heard a commotion, a struggle downstairs, and he knew Piet had readied the show for the cameras.
He woke her. “Yasmin? Wake up.”
The first thing she saw was the gun he was holding.
“Is that one of the—?” she began, and then she blinked past the bleariness of sleep.
“No. No, it’s not.”
She blinked and sat up from the pillow.
He sat next to her on the mattress. “Listen. I have a duty for you, but one you will like. Would you like a shower? Some food?”
She nodded.
He led her to a bathroom, and fresh soap and shampoo and a toothbrush. When she started to take off the dove, he stopped her. “No. I want you to wear it always. A hope for peace.”
He gave her fresh pants, a shirt, underwear. Demi brought up bread and fruit for breakfast. He thanked Demi, and so did Yasmin. Demi gave her a surprised glance as she went back downstairs.
“It’s nice to be one of us. To be free from the closet, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Come with me.” He felt a thrum of excitement in his chest; it was just like going back onstage.
He brought her down into the main dining room and there they were: Piet, Demi, six other men including the twins who often stared at her. Now they all stared at her. And in the middle, where the dining-room table should have been, there was a man tied to a chair. Thick rope bound him; a gag protruded from his mouth.
He moaned as Edward and Yasmin entered, his face bruised and beaten.
“Do you see this man, Yasmin?” Edward said.
“Yes, I see him.” Her voice was flat.
“He’s a terrible man, Yasmin. He has been working on a scheme to take you from us and to kill you if he cannot take you away.”
“To take me and to kill me?” Her tone was quiet, unruffled.
“Yes, to take you back to your father. He contacted one of our people with a mouthful of lies; we followed him. Do you know this man, Yasmin?” Edward grabbed the former spy’s head, twisted it toward her. He’d been beaten badly, but she studied the face and finally she shook her head.
“Your father knows we are protecting you from him. Your father sends people to destroy us. In secret. Like this man.”
She said, “Well, that’s wrong. I don’t want to go back to what I was.” And she spat in the man’s face. The gob of saliva hung off a clotted eyebrow, dense with dried blood.
The group gave a soft murmur, watching her.
“Are you sure you don’t know him? He has tried to infiltrate us, through Piet.”
“I don’t know him.” She looked at Edward.
The man bound to the chair stared at her and Edward took the gag from his mouth. “I just… I just want the money I’m owed. By Piet. That’s all. I don’t want to know about anything else.”
“You know about me. From who?” Edward said.
“I don’t know…,” the man said in Turkish, and then Edward started to beat him. Yasmin tried to look away and Demi said, “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare look away or we’ll tie you to the chair,” so she didn’t.
Under his fists, Edward saw the blood leap in its little splatters and the teeth break. He stopped and picked up one of the man’s hands. “I have ten ways to make you talk, right here. Bahjat Zaid sent you, yes?” he said, and he began twisting the fingers hard.
Finally the man screamed, “No, no. All right, Zaid sent me,” and then a torrent of words that Yasmin couldn’t follow, and Edward, leaning close, his hand on the man’s shoulder, gentle now, like they were friends.
“You were going to steal our shipment when it arrived in Rotterdam?”
“Yes… trade it for Yasmin. I would get it and then trade it for her. So I could take her back to her father. I will tell you all. Please just don’t…”
“So your route to smuggle our goods from here to America, that was all a lie? I just want to be sure I understand. You have nothing to fear if you tell me the truth.”
“Yes. It was a lie. All a lie. There was no route.” His breathing came in hard jolts.
Edward stepped away, wiped a speckle of blood from the toe of his shoe. He gestured at Demi, standing by a camera. He snapped fingers and said, “Action!”
Demi started the video camera.
Edward pulled out a gun, its barrel capped with a silencer, from the back of his pants. He handed it to Yasmin. He could hear the sudden gasps of the others.
“Act one,” he said. “Kill him.”
She took the gun in her hand. She looked at him in confusion.
“It’s not a test, Yasmin. It’s a duty.”
The man was broken, blood dripping from his mouth. His gaze met hers.
/> “Yasmin, do it. Now, please, my to-do list is not getting shorter,” Edward said.
She didn’t raise the gun; she stared at the beaten man.
“Yasmin…” He hoped he wouldn’t have to threaten to kill her again.
“I’m deciding where to shoot him,” she said. “I don’t want to hit the ropes instead.”
Edward smiled, a teacher’s pride in his student. The man began to babble in his own tongue, begging her not to shoot, pleading for mercy.
She raised the gun, steadied its grip.
“Yasmin!” the Turk yelled in perfect English. “Your father is trying to help you. Whatever they told you, it’s a lie! Don’t do this!”
“My father is the liar.” The gun wavered a moment. She blinked and fired.
The spit noise was soft; the bullet hit him in the chest. The chair fell over. He was still alive; he screamed in agony.
Yasmin fired again. The bullet struck the man’s throat. He spasmed and then went still. One of the men laughed and then they all clapped for her. She just stared at the dead man, as though he might fade from her sight. She didn’t lower the gun; she was a statue.
“That’s a wrap. Demi, load the footage onto the computer. Blur our faces if they’re visible. Then we’ll get it ready to premiere it for her idiot father.” Edward took the gun from Yasmin and lowered her arm, like settling a marionette back onto its wooden stage. “You are perfect now.”
She cupped her elbows as if she felt cold, and she seemed confused. He took her chin in his hand.
“Your father is now under our heel. He will not give us any more trouble, Yasmin.”
She glanced at the eyes of the others, all on her. “May… may I go back to my room? Or do you need me to help you clean up?”
“Go upstairs.”
She obeyed. The group watched her in silence.
“I wonder,” Piet said, “if that girl is playing you.”
“She is not.”
“I think she might do anything to survive,” Piet said. “She knew it was her or that Turk. You said she was a scientist, right? I think she just might be stone-cold. Don’t turn your back on her. She’s shot a man now. It will be easier the second time. Always is.”
“Shut up and get rid of the body,” Edward said. Piet could do the dirtiest job, given his mouth. “And Demi, I want that tape ready to send. I want her father to start his day with his lovely, perfect daughter.”
35
I OPENED MY EYES.
I heard a baby crying and for one sweet moment I thought it was my and Lucy’s Bundle, and that all was right in the world. That London had never happened.
But the ceiling was weird, a blue peaked roof with white beams cutting across it at an angle. I was in Amsterdam. Morning light shone on my face. I could still hear the baby. I got up and went to the small window that overlooked the Prinsengracht canal and saw a harried mother walking by, pushing a stroller. The night’s rain had gone and it looked like a pretty morning.
I had not thought much about being a father. When Lucy had told me we were going to have a baby, there was at first the shock of surprise and joy. Then I thought of my dad, who’d taken me and my brother to six continents by the time we were ten, who was busy saving the world and often ignoring us. He had been a good father in some ways and an indifferent one in others. I would not repeat his mistakes, assuming I got that chance.
A knock at the door. I kept my gun close and opened it. Mila, dressed like a young account executive, a neat gray suit, muted scarf, stylish shoes. She carried an expensive briefcase and a bag of groceries. She was a little chameleon.
“Are you job-hunting today, Mila?”
“Yes. I hope to work with a better class of people very soon. Get showered, I’ll make coffee. We have a busy day.”
I showered fast, dried, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt and a jacket. When I came out to the small kitchen she had breakfast pastries on a plate, coffee steaming from the percolator. Her laptop was open and a video was playing on it.
Yasmin, shooting a man. The video reached its end, started again.
Mila munched on a roll, sipped coffee. “The quality of the film is dodgy, but impact is there.”
“My God,” I said. I rewound and looked at the murdered man’s face.
The man executed was the Turk I’d fought in the bar the night before.
I hit the space bar on the laptop and the video stopped—Yasmin frozen, raising the gun. Her face was clear in the video. Every other face, except the dead man’s, had been digitally blurred.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Blackmailing Bahjat Zaid, chapter two.”
“This arrived in his e-mail at six o’clock this morning. He forwarded it to me via a secure line.”
“So they’ve made her into a bomber and a murderer,” I said. “They can’t, or won’t, take her to a bank for her Patty-Hearst-joins-her-captors moment, so they’re manufacturing them.”
Mila made a noise as she sipped her coffee.
“Did Zaid send that man?” A slow anger started to smolder past the soreness I felt from last night’s fight. “He hires me, he hires this guy, we don’t know about each other? I don’t like it.”
“He could have named you before they killed him if he’d known.”
“Yes, but now they’ll be on guard like never before. We both took the same tack, trying to connect to Piet, and now I’m screwed, Mila. My job just got a thousand times harder, just when I’d started to get close to Nic.” I stood and paced the floor. “Get Zaid here. We have to talk. What the hell is this shipment that his other hired gun was supposed to steal?”
“He told me he was leaving Amsterdam.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then let’s find him.” I sat down, reopened the e-mail he’d sent on the laptop. The original e-mail source—from Yasmin’s captors—had gone through an anonymizer service and was untraceable. But I looked at Zaid’s e-mail to Mila. Encoded in the source headers was information about the provider. I looked at it, plugged the information into a website that provided information on server locales. “Zaid sent this from Hungary. Why the hell is he in Hungary? He’s hiring me to save his daughter, and instead of being here, close to the action, he’s in Hungary.” I heard my voice rise. “That’s where Yasmin worked. Why is he there?”
“I don’t know, Sam, and yelling at me is not going to put a GPS on him. His company has a facility there. He might simply be tending to business.”
Right. The one Yasmin worked at. “I do not like this. Zaid hiring another agent to attempt a rescue—we could have tripped each other up. We could have killed each other, mistaking each other for members of the gang. I assume the Turk was given the same orders I was—rescue Yasmin and wipe out the kidnappers.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps. We need a different approach.”
“No, we don’t even have the full story. Zaid wanted the Turk to steal whatever’s being shipped so it could be exchanged for his daughter. We need to know what that shipment is.”
“I will find out,” she said.
I considered. “Okay, I was in the bar before Nic was. Maybe I can say I heard the Turk make a threat that will concern both Nic and Piet.”
She gave me a slight smile. “Eat your breakfast. You must be prepared to frighten Nic very badly.”
I watched the tape again. “What will they ask Zaid for now? They did this because they knew the Turk was chasing them, but they did it to ruin her again. Now there’s footage of his daughter bombing a station and executing a man. What if she hasn’t been brainwashed? What if she’s a willing participant?”
“Nothing in her background suggests violence.”
I stared at the video. Watched Yasmin become a murderer again. “It’s like they want Zaid to suffer. This is personal.”
“That is your guess. You could be wrong,” Mila said.
“Here’s the problem. I don’t know how I can get leverage with Nic, and therefo
re Piet, and rise above suspicion.”
“We could grab Nic, force him to tell us.”
“No. You want this whole group eliminated, then I have to get inside. I have to get them all together. Nic is the key right now.”
“So how will you convince him that you are necessary?”
“Any operation like this faces a challenge,” I said. “I need to know what their challenge is, and be the cure.”
“How will you find that out?”
I considered. “Gregor told me that Nic lives above a coffee shop in the Jordaan. I know his last name is ten Boom. That’s a start.”
36
IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO FIND NIC. He was not listed in the phone book. I could have called Gregor, but I didn’t want him any more scared. The Jordaan is an older neighborhood, not far from the Prinsengracht, that’s gotten a bit trendy. It wasn’t a canal district; the streets were narrow in some stretches and wide in others, even with parking for cars in the middle of the street. The buildings were the narrow, tall sort favored in Amsterdam: the roofline was a jumble of angles and heights. Many of the shops were appropriately hipster, or aimed at students: bookshops, clothing stores, and many places to get coffee or beer. The ninth coffee shop I tried, yes, there was a ten Boom listed on the door buzzer to the corresponding doorway. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs when I heard Nic’s voice, raised, feet coming down the stairs.
Hell.
I bolted out the front door and hurried into line in the coffee shop. If he came in for his morning jolt I would have a bitch of a time explaining why I was here. I thought. Hmm. Maybe it would show initiative that I had found where he lived. More likely it would freak him out.
I heard the door jingle behind me. Best to face the music. I looked over my shoulder. It was a pretty young woman entering. And beyond her, Nic, on a cell phone, talking with animated gestures. He unlocked a bicycle, pulled it free from its railing and got on it. He didn’t bother with hands on the handlebars, like many of Amsterdam’s daredevils, and he rode off, still jabbering on the cell phone.
