by Jeff Abbott
“You might do anything to get your child back.” She raised a hand before I could interrupt her. “Sam. You work for me. Let’s leave it at that. If you wish to stop working for me, you may rest here, for however long you need, until you feel ready to leave. And we will not bother you if you do not bother us.”
“You have resources I need to find my child,” I said.
“That is an uncomfortable truth. For you.”
I looked out the window. “You dropped out of sight for a while, Mila.”
“I was busy.”
“How are the women?”
“They’re safe. We’ll get them back to their families, or find a place that’s safe for them.”
“I’m glad you helped them but you could have let the police handle them. I needed your help.”
“I could not let the police handle it,” she said. “I needed to. The police deport them, they just go back to Moldova where they could be targeted by the recruiters and the traffickers for revenge. Such has happened before. They need protection, them and their families. I had to arrange that.”
“I understand.” I closed my eyes. “I am going to find Bahjat Zaid. I am going to go to London in the morning. Either you can arrange the travel or I’ll risk using one of my forged passports and getting picked up at the airport or the ferry. Howell will be looking for me. Get me into England, if you’re so clever.”
“You won’t give up, will you?”
“I have a child to find. I cannot give up, Mila. My kid is to me what those women were to you. Innocents who cannot be abandoned. I can’t stop.”
She got up and closed the door. I sat in bed and I swallowed one of the pills the doctor had left, and then I fell into dreamless sleep.
78
MONDAY IN LONDON. Gray, bleak, the sky smeared with rain. My body hurt but not as bad as yesterday. I’d slept the rest of the day until early the next morning, gotten dressed in new clothes Mila brought me, and we’d taken a private jet to London. Very posh. Mila’s deep-pocketed employers must have given us the okay to chase down Bahjat Zaid. She used one of the new passports for me and there were no problems with immigration. Mila had a Jaguar waiting for us.
It was strange to be on British soil; where I’d been happiest, where I’d faced the worst day of my life.
Zaid’s office was near the Bank of England Museum, in a modern tower. Mila and I were dressed casually: slacks, shirts, jackets. I wore a dark cap to mask the bandage on my head. Zaid’s secretary at Militronics gave us a chilly smile.
“Mr. Zaid is not available,” the secretary said. “He was called away on a matter of urgent import.”
I glanced at Mila.
“Urgent import?” she said. “Do you really talk like that?”
The secretary frowned. “Perhaps if you’d care to leave a message?”
“You tell him that Sam and Mila came by to talk to him about his daughter. We know where she’s been.”
The secretary’s frown deepened. “He left to go see his daughter, sir,” she said. “But I will relay the message.”
“When did he leave?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
We left. We stood on the busy street corner. “Yasmin’s contacted him,” I said.
“Or they’ve finally worked out an exchange,” Mila said.
“We need to find where he’s at. Because if they’re delivering Yasmin to him, then Lucy and Edward are there.”
We walked back to the Jaguar. “You drive,” she said. I got behind the wheel and she opened the glove compartment. A modified netbook, wired into the car’s satellite system, lay inside. She slid it out, opened it, and began to type furiously on the small keyboard.
“There are cameras all over London,” she said. “For traffic and security. We have limited access to the grid. Let’s find out if we can see when Bahjat left.”
She found a video feed that displayed the front of Zaid’s building, rolled it back to the time Zaid stepped out of the building. A Mercedes was brought to the curb, the driver got out, Zaid got inside. He headed up Princes Street.
Mila opened another window on the netbook. Found him turning onto Gresham Street. Followed him making a turn onto St. Martin’s Le Grand, past the Museum of London. Then it looked like she lost him. She rechecked the video. He was heading north on Aldersgate Street. She tapped keys and a map of London appeared in the corner, turning the camera stations she’d tapped red so we could see his route through the city.
It was time-consuming, trying to spot his car in the press of autos, backtracking when she missed it, hoping he hadn’t made a turn when the video feed wasn’t snapping images.
A few more dots and she said, “He’s gone to St. Pancras. I’m a fool. Drive fast, now, come on!”
“What’s at St. Pancras?”
“The Eurostar arrives there. The train. From Holland and Belgium. Edward may have decided now to give 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 Moldov
an 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. PANCRAS IS 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.”
“What’s in the briefcase?”
“Cash. Nothing more.”
“After all this, they just want some cash? What did you give them in Budapest, Mr. Zaid? What experimental weapons?”
Pure hatred came into his eyes. “Your services are no longer required. I will have my daughter back and she is safe. No one can talk about her now. They will be here at any moment. They could be watching us now. You being here may cost me my daughter’s life.” He so badly wanted to scream at me. To punch me. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t draw attention to us.
“You yell and bring the cops down on us, and I’ll tell them everything your daughter has done since they grabbed her.” He stared; I think he was too stunned that I was here, or unsure of his next step. “You lied to me, you lied to Mila. And when we needed you, to help your own daughter, you hid from us.”
“I did what was necessary. If you ever wanted to help Yasmin, you will go. Now.”
I took a tiny sip from the flute, to show I had no intention of vacating my seat. “I might get up and leave, or I might not. Cooperate and I’ll play along with you. Who’s coming? Edward?”
He nodded as though it cost him physical pain. “Yes. I was told you were dead.”
“Then he won’t be expecting me, will he? Go back to your seat at the bar, Zaid. You’ve got champagne to toast getting your daughter back. Shouldn’t you be rushing her home?”
“I am taking Yasmin to a psychiatric center where she can be cared for, where she can forget all she was forced to do.”
“I wish you luck.”
“Leave. This is suicide for us both. This Edward—he is both insane and calculating. You can’t beat him. I beg you.”
“Go sit yourself down. Right now.” My voice was cold and measured.
He retreated, slowly, unused to the idea that here was someone he could not get rid of. He returned to his spot at the bar and sat down. He made a production of not looking at me. I moved to another part of the bar, farther from the entrance and from Zaid, so I couldn’t be easily noticed.
How much backup could Edward and Lucy have here? I had to assume they had contacts to help them in London. But if they were arriving on the Eurostar… what, with Yasmin in tow? No. Yasmin would be squirreled away somewhere, and Zaid was trading the briefcase for that location.
“Did Zaid signal to anyone else in here?” I asked into the microphone. He could have his own security backup, after all.
“Not that I saw,” Mila said.
He wasn’t taking any chances with his daughter’s life. Except that I’d changed the math.
Twenty minutes passed. Champagne drinkers came and went. Friends met, lovers toasted, business types dealt. A low, constant murmur of talk, broken by the happy pop of corks leaving bottles at velocity. In my ear, Mila sang Coldplay songs, bored, until I asked her to stop. He kept a glass of champagne in front of him, and another glass across the table. Zaid kept eyeing his watch, as if willing Yasmin to appear.
And then she did. I saw her before Zaid did. She was walking unsteadily, as though she’d been doped. Edward held her arm; he was almost holding her up. Half of Yasmin’s face was hidden by a scarf.
I glanced around the bar. There might be backup here, but it wasn’t Zaid’s.
Behind me, Lucy.
80
SHE SAT AT MY BOOTH. And for one second I thought she would kill me where I sat.
“You are a bad father,” Lucy said. “I told you if you want the baby, back off.”
“Irony is wasted on you,” I said.
“You’re going to make things difficult for me, aren’t you, Sam?”
“You don’t know difficult.”
“Don’t open fire here, Sam. So many innocent people. Not to mention expensive, easily broken champagne bottles.”
“Edward thinks I’m dead.”
“Not anymore. He’s seen you. You will let this exchange happen, or I will never tell you where Daniel is.”
“Daniel.” The name cut like a knife.
“Our son. I named him for your brother, like I said we should.”
I felt my heart shift in my chest.
“Don’t interfere,” she said.
“What is Zaid giving you for his daughter?” Now, thirty feet away, Edward and Yasmin approached Zaid. They stood by the booth, facing him.
“He’s giving us,” Lucy said, “everything he’s worked for in his life. You could learn a lesson here, Sam. He’s doing whatever it takes to protect his child. Back off and Daniel will be yours.”
Yasmin blinked, heavily. The scarf hid the rest of her face.
Zaid handed Edward the case. Edward spoke softly and Yasmin sat beside her father, sagging into the booth. Edward remained standing.
“Stay in your seat, Sam, and I’ll tell you where Daniel is. Don’t interfere,” Lucy said.
Edward turned and hurried away, carrying the case. Zaid embraced his daughter. She seemed very small in his arms. She did not hug him back.
“Reunions are lovely,” Lucy said, and I wanted to tell her to shut the hell up. “You and your son can have a reunion, too. Just stay seated.” She leaned forward, plucked the tiny earpiece from my ear, and crushed it under her boot. “Who are you working with?”
“A crazy woman. I only say that because now she can’t hear us.”
“Sam, come with me. Daniel is very close. I can give him to you now. And then we’re done.”
She’d protected me twice before. I so wanted to believe she’d just give me my son. That, I know, is the definition of both optimism and insanity.
