by Jonas Saul
“You’ve got it wrong,” Buck said, loud enough for only Dekker to hear.
Dekker brushed hair out of his eyes. “You are welcome to stay in Amsterdam, Mr. Schaffer. Take a canal tour. Drink wine. Find a café and smoke up. I don’t care. But you’re not an official advisor in any capacity. I agreed to your terms.” Dekker wiped his nose which had started to run. “I agreed to scare Sarah even though half the passengers on that flight called her a hero. I agreed to bring her to this warehouse to help the Americans locate James Wong. I understood from your assurances that my people were safe. I understood that Sarah was willing to be bait. Evidently, I misunderstood.” Dekker turned away from Buck and waved his arms high. “Find that American girl Sarah Roberts and arrest her for the murder of one of my informants. I want every available officer on the streets of Amsterdam looking for her until she is caught. Go! Now!”
Men ran in all directions. Dekker walked by Buck so fast that he brushed his shirt sleeve and bumped his arm.
“And clean up these bodies. I want to prepare for this man’s funeral.” He looked back over his shoulder. “And I want his murderer behind bars before we bury him so he can rest in peace.”
Dekker pulled his cell phone, clicked something, held it up to his ear and disappeared outside.
“Dammit,” Buck whispered.
He too, got on his phone and dialed his office.
Maybe someone higher up would need to contact Dekker’s boss. They had to lay off Sarah. He needed her for Mexico. Losing Sarah now would cost too much.
Too much would be lost.
Like maybe his career.
Chapter 24
The empty glass reminded Sarah that she had fallen asleep in the armchair while nursing the wine. When the adrenaline had worn off and the wine settled in over her system last night, she had been a victim of sleep.
Now the sun rose over the city of Amsterdam and beamed into the second floor apartment’s front window. She rolled to her side to avoid the sun in her eyes, but that was too uncomfortable.
Amber emerged from the hall and entered the kitchen.
“Ahh, you’re awake,” Amber bellowed. “Coffee?”
Sarah straightened herself in the chair. “Coffee sounds great. It’s early. I didn’t think you’d be up yet.”
Amber banged something in the kitchen. Then a kettle started up.
“Nikki didn’t come home last night,” Amber yelled from the kitchen. “I checked her bedroom door, but it’s locked.”
Sarah got up from the chair, stretched and yawned. “Does she stay out all night often?” Sarah asked.
Amber stuck her head out from the kitchen. “Many times. When we first starting living together, she let me know those kinds of things. Common courtesy shit. But not anymore.”
Sarah nodded. “I need the bathroom.”
“You want a bath?” Amber asked.
“Well no, maybe a shower. But just the bathroom now.”
“Oh, you mean you need the toilet. Or the WC.”
Sarah frowned. “Oh yeah, they called it a water closet in Hungary, too. I forgot about that.”
Amber smiled as if she knew what Sarah meant from the beginning but was making her spell it out. “It’s just down the hall.”
When Sarah was finished in the toilet, Amber had placed a French press on the coffee table with two cups.
“Just the way I like it,” Sarah said. “But I have to ask you, what’s that smell by the bathroom?”
“Smell? What smell?”
Sarah headed back down the hall. Amber followed. At the bathroom door, she breathed in. Amber did the same, then scrunched up her face.
“That’s disgusting,” Amber said. “What is that?”
Sarah shrugged. “At first I thought it was the sewer backing up. But I have a suspicion it’s coming from behind that door.”
Amber pivoted in the confined space. “Nikki’s room.” She approached the door and placed her nose by the crack. When she turned back around, she nodded. “Definitely coming from Nikki’s room.”
“We need to get in there.”
Amber knocked. “Nikki, you home?” she asked. “Nikki?”
“Do you have a key for this door?” Sarah asked.
Amber shook her head.
“Step aside, then.”
When Amber moved, Sarah rushed the door with a side kick, aimed two inches to the left of the door handle. It took two kicks to crack the door and buckle in the locking mechanism enough to pry the door open the rest of the way.
Cautiously, Sarah entered the room. Inside, the smell intensified. She had to cover her nose to breathe. A small desk sat in a corner covered in magazines and cutouts from magazines. It made Sarah think of a collage in progress. On the hardwood floor, piled a foot high and running the length of the wall under the window, were magazines like Elle, Glamour, Vogue, Lucky and Allure. The only other furniture was the bed, made up of frilly pink sheets, pillows shaped like hearts and two teddy bears. The room of an adult female who grew up but kept the special, fun part of being a girl ever present in her life.
At the foot of the bed, a soft, small feminine hand stuck out. It was easy to see the blood under it.
“You sure you want to see this?” Sarah asked.
Amber nodded. “I have to see for myself.”
It was Sarah’s turn to move aside as Amber stepped past her. At the end of the bed, Amber gasped and held a hand up to her mouth. Amber ran from the room. Retching sounds came from the bathroom a moment later.
Sarah moved forward until she was looking down at the corpse of a once pretty girl in her mid-twenties. Whoever did this had to be angry. The blade was still embedded in the girl’s neck all the way to the spine. The girl’s head had been almost cut clean off. She resembled a human Pez Dispenser. Defensive wounds were evident on her hands.
Sarah knelt down and without touching the woman’s body, examined the fingernails. It looked like she had collected human skin under her nails. Investigators would have a lot to go on. Rigor mortis had just set in. Time of death would be easy to establish as well.
It probably happened within a few hours before Sarah and Amber came back from the warehouse last night.
She got to her feet and left the bedroom. In the living room, she took a few deep breaths to clear her lungs, poured the coffee and waited for Amber to collect herself and return.
They needed to gather their things and leave as soon as possible. Find another place to stay. A dead body would complicate things unnecessarily for them. Once James Wong was located and dealt with, they could see if there was a connection between him and the body in the other room. At least try to match his DNA to the skin under the dead girl’s fingernails.
She took another sip from her coffee, every second anxiety building in her stomach because they were still in the apartment where a murder had taken place.
The bathroom door clicked.
When Amber appeared from the hallway, she held up a purse. “This isn’t Nikki’s.” Amber’s eyes were rimmed in red. She had been crying but tried to hide it.
“Do you know whose it is?” Sarah asked.
Amber was nodding. “Mila Visser’s.”
“Who is Mila Visser?”
“She’s the other girl Wong sleeps with when he’s in town. They came here. He killed Nikki and ran with Mila. She must’ve left her purse.”
“Find Mila, find Wong.” Sarah set her cup down. “Sounds reasonable. Do you know where we can find Mila?”
“Yes. And Wong, too. It’s a half-hour walk, maybe longer.”
“Then let’s go. We can’t stay here.”
“I agree. Let me get my things.”
“Amber,” Sarah said. Amber turned back to her. “I’m sorry.”
Amber nodded. “I hated Nikki, but I didn’t want her dead. I just wanted her to take her shit and live with someone else. Now I have to carry that guilt.”
“Don’t punish yourself. It’s not your fault.” Forgetting the coffee, Sa
rah said, “Now let’s go. Don’t forget the gun and bring your cell phone. We may need that recording from yesterday. If the police think we had anything to do with Sven’s death, they’ll hold us for Nikki’s murder.”
“That’s probably the reason Nikki was murdered here,” Amber said from the other room. “In my apartment.”
If that were the case, the authorities would come to Amber’s apartment. They could be on their way right now.
“Amber, we have to go.”
Amber appeared in the hall. “I’m ready.”
Sarah had her shoes on and was standing by the apartment door when someone knocked.
“Open up. Police.”
Chapter 25
Sweat ran into his eyes. The heat was unbearable but they did nothing to relieve it. Since they’d attacked him in his apartment in Toronto, they hadn’t given him anything to eat or drink. He was so thirsty, his salty tongue felt like a dead piece of weight. They kept him in a room fashioned from bamboo. It was too strong for him to break through, but with his energy dwindling, he wouldn’t be able to break out of an origami prison cell.
Weakened by lack of food, tired, and eternally thirsty, Aaron lay out on a bed of straw. A hole in the corner served as a toilet. He had stopped yelling hours ago. No one listened to his pleas. No one came to check on him.
There had to be a reason they’d taken him and brought him here. Whatever that reason, it wasn’t to allow him to die a slow death. Eventually he would be given water, food.
He opened his eyes and turned his head slowly toward the door. The sun crept under the door and through a few cracks in the walls. It was the sun that was killing him now. The heat made him sweat, losing liquid that wasn’t being replenished.
Maybe they knew more about him than he had previously thought. Being a black belt of Shotokan Karate meant he could be lethal. The no drink and no food treatment had to be a formality to weaken him so he wouldn’t be able to fight back. Hopefully they wouldn’t wait until death’s door to offer him some kind of nourishment.
A fly alit onto his arm. Not wanting to expend energy by jerking his arm to scare it off, he felt it crawl in a zigzag until it flew off at the sound of footsteps approaching outside.
He tried to get up, but couldn’t without too much effort, so he rested his head back down.
A chain clanged outside the door, a lock clicked. A moment later the door opened and four men entered. Aaron turned away and raised his hands to ward off the heat of the sun as it bore down on him.
“Get up,” one of the men ordered in an Hispanic accent.
Aaron moved slowly and rolled to the side to push off in his attempt to rise, even though he wasn’t sure he’d be able to remain standing.
The two largest men moved up to either side of him and grabbed his arms. They lifted him to his feet so fast, stars swam in his vision and his weakened neck couldn’t support his dangling head. There wasn’t enough energy in his body to hold himself up by his own two feet, so the men had to support him.
“Do you know why you’re here?” the leader asked.
Aaron tried to shake his head. “No,” he muttered.
“Bait.” The man grunted. “Like a worm on a hook. That’s all you are, a fucking worm.”
Aaron opened his right eye and focused on the man talking. He resembled a warrior of some kind. Like someone out of a video game. Bronze skin, muscles bulging everywhere, thick shoulders, thick neck. His tank top was crisscrossed by a belt loaded with thick bullets. A large machine gun was strapped to his back and three different handguns were holstered, two on his waist, and one on his right thigh.
“Why?” Aaron managed to ask.
“We want your girlfriend.”
“Sarah—”
The man slapped Aaron’s face so hard, he wondered if he would lose consciousness as his head dropped forward, chin to chest.
“We need to send a message to her,” the man said. “How do you suppose we do that?”
Aaron focused on his breathing. Keep it regular. Keep awake. He decided to not lift his head. There was no point in wasting the energy.
“Don’t,” he said, then added, “know.”
“That’s not good enough. You’re her man. Where has your woman gone? Tell us and we will make life easier on you.”
Easy? This was easy? He would hate to see difficult.
Whatever they wanted with Sarah, he couldn’t help as he had no idea where she was. Even if he did, he wouldn’t help. There was no way he would be a part of having Sarah meet the likes of these men.
Not wanting to talk, but still needing to send a message, Aaron rolled his tongue around inside his mouth and tried to muster up enough saliva to spit. The minute amount that he gathered wasn’t worthy of spit material, so the sound alone would have to suffice.
He lifted his head a few inches, puckered up and spit toward the leader’s shoes. As expected, nothing came out, but they reacted to the sound, to the disrespect.
Another slap across the face. Then another. His eyes closed, he didn’t see the fist until it crashed into his stomach.
The arms holding him up on either side let go. He crumpled into a ball on the dirty prison cell floor, gasping for air.
After a moment, the leader told his men to get him up again.
They lifted him up and then they were dragging him out of his makeshift prison. He tried to open his eyes, take in his surroundings, but the sun bit down on his irises when he lifted his eyelids. Another squint, away from the sun, revealed baked earth, cacti and a huge mansion a hundred meters away.
It was like he was at a tropical resort, the house was so beautiful. The cars out front gleamed in the sunlight. A Benz, a Porsche, and what he thought was a Rolls Royce Phantom. There was money here. A lot of it.
To the left, a tall fence topped with barbed wire lined the property with intermittent signs that read High Voltage.
They came up to a stone stairwell built into the terrain. On the right was a stable for horses. Behind that, another building that looked like a barn. Without a word, the men led him to the barn. As they drew closer, the door opened from the inside. Aaron tried to count how many men were present, but lost count at a dozen.
They entered the barn, the sting of the blazing sun gratefully left outside as the coolness of the barn wrapped around his limbs. He breathed easier. Maybe they were transferring him to the barn for good. He could survive in this cool climate. At least it wouldn’t add to his thirst as much.
A table with restraints was set up by the side wall. As the men turned that way, he understood that as the destination. Should he fight back? Could he fight back? What damage could he do in his current state against over a dozen armed men?
They levitated him, dropped him and spread his limbs out on the table. They secured his wrists and ankles to the table to the point where circulation was cut off immediately. A short, sharp, yelp escaped his lips.
“Are you thirsty?” That leader’s voice again.
Newfound strength allowed Aaron to squirm. He fought the restraints while the men around him laughed. He looked at them, an animal instinct to fight overcoming him, adrenaline flowing. He scanned each face, each man in order, wanting to never forget their look, their eyes.
If he walked away from this, each man in this room would regret their laughter. Each man would be hunted and Sarah was the best hunter he knew.
They didn’t have to go looking for Sarah. Sarah would come looking for them.
Then the barn went dark as a cloth was draped over his face. Something must have secured the cloth to the table because it forced his head back leaving him unable to lift his head back up.
“He’s thirsty,” someone shouted.
A few of the men spoke in Spanish. Aaron gritted his teeth and pulled on his restraints. More Spanish. He breathed in deep and tried to lift his head, but the cloth remained unforgiving.
Suddenly, a nightmarish amount of water cascaded over his face and his breath was cut off. The wat
er covered his mouth, nose and eyes, flooded down his throat, igniting his gag reflex. Aaron’s stomach convulsed and clenched as water reached his lungs. It was unavoidable as water reached his lungs. He was virtually drowning on the table. He needed to not breathe, but everything in him yearned to take a breath.
His body worked against him as vomit responded to the gag reflex. During this time, the water cascading over the cloth didn’t stop. The men shouted around him as if they were viewing a cock fight, the betting high, while terror enveloped Aaron’s body.
