“Why not have them meet here on our turf?”
“Because I wish to protect our turf,” she said. “You must treat the Rode Prins as your safe house. I know the Pelikaan. I know what we will do. Hurry, we don’t have much time.” She rose and I touched her arm.
“Did you get a hold of Bahjat Zaid?”
“No,” she said. “No one seems to know where he is.”
“Look, I think he gave them something from his office in Hungary, the one that Yasmin works at. That’s what they’re smuggling across Europe.”
She bit her lip.
“He’s an arms manufacturer, Mila. What the hell is he giving these people? He’s paying ransoms and they’re never going to give her back to him.”
“You and I have our orders, Sam. We rescue Yasmin, eliminate her kidnappers as witnesses and as a threat. Do that, and you don’t need to worry about whatever he gave him.”
“Do you know? Be totally honest with me.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, and I believed her.
“I still have to know what they want to get to America.”
“First things first. Yasmin. This gang. That’s the way to find out the truth about your wife, Sam. Stay focused.” Her voice got a new steel to it. “I have some leverage for you with Nic. Most unpleasant.”
“What?”
“On his computer.” She opened a file. Photos. Photos of youngsters, in awful, provocative poses. Boys, girls, a range of ages, a range of poses, from coy to hardcore. I saw a list of names, of e-mails. I looked away.
“He’s a child molester?”
“Perhaps. At the least he is a broker of smut. It seems that if you want a photo to your specifications-Nic can provide it.” The steel in her voice faded and she cursed under her breath.
I thought of the odd glance he’d given the little girl in the cafe by Dam Square last night, and felt ill. “Okay. That’s leverage. I can force his hand.”
“And then,” Mila said, “you can cut it off.”
40
Howell studied the video feed in the security center at the Rotterdam train station. There. The cameras caught the man he’d seen on the port coverage that looked like Sam Capra. The blond-haired pixie in the huge sunglasses walking a few steps in front of him.
“The train they’re boarding?” he said.
“That was the 10:15 service to Amsterdam,” August said, checking a train itinerary.
“I want every record of a pair of tickets bought together on a credit card.”
“They could have paid cash, or used a prepaid ticket,” August said.
“Or they could have made a mistake,” Howell said.
Ten minutes later Howell had a name, en route to Amsterdam. Most people traveling on the 10:15 service already had their tickets; but one pair, in car five, were charged to a credit card belonging to a woman named Fernanda Gatil.
He called the CIA office in Amsterdam and gave them the name, requested a full workup on Fernanda Gatil, told them to put her name out on the wire to the Dutch border stations. He wanted to know where she worked, where she lived, every detail of her life. He wanted photo enhancement on the images pulled from the train station security cameras; he wanted to know who this woman was and why she was traveling with a man he felt reasonably sure was Sam Capra.
41
Ten after noon.
Nic the scumbag was late. I sat outside the Pelikaan, on the south side of the canal, sipping a half-pint of Heineken. The sunlight shimmered on the water.
I wondered, for the first time, who the Turk was that Zaid had hired. A soldier of fortune? An actual smuggler? Someone, like me, with his own personal vendetta against the scarred man? Bahjat Zaid was a panicked father who hadn’t put his entire trust into Mila or her secret employers. After I calmed down a bit on the way to this meeting, I could not blame him. I didn’t know if my child was dead or alive, either.
I was getting closer to the truth and to Lucy. I knew it. This was the most important meeting of my life. I tried not to sweat. I tried not to think too much. Just play the right note and I’d be in.
Nic worked his way through the strolling Saturday crowds. He gave everything and everyone a disdainful glare. He did not look happy.
He sat across from me. In the daylight he looked pasty, robbed of sleep. I wondered if he’d figured out he’d had an intruder in his room, parsing his hideous secrets. But probably none of them had slept well last night after learning of the Turk’s attempt to infiltrate them.
“Hello,” I said. I absolutely had to keep the contempt from my voice. I know what you are.
“I’m having a very bad day,” he said. The waiter stopped by the table; Nic ordered a Coke. The waiter brought it and vanished. No one sat near us.
“So. This Turk compromised your route?”
“It was all bluff,” Nic said. “The Turk was a liar.”
“Was?”
“I mean is. Forgive my English.”
I had to sound like a guy desperate for a job; which I was. “Nic. Listen. I’ve moved plenty of stuff from eastern Europe to Holland, to England and America. I know how to get contraband of any sort through. If you’re worried that the Turk has screwed up your planned route, let me design an entirely new route for you, with new transport. Be safe.”
Nic sipped his soda. I waited. If they’d depended on the Turk to set up transit for their goods to the U.S., they couldn’t use whatever he’d arranged, so they had to be desperate. Unless they’d already found a solution. But the Turk had died a few hours ago, and maybe I was their best chance of keeping their operation moving forward. Nic would have been sent to take my measure.
“Why are you so desperate for work?” he asked.
“I like eating and sleeping under a roof. And I need a foothold in the Netherlands.”
“Why here?”
“A few minor difficulties for me in eastern Europe. I need to focus on smuggling goods to the West.” I took a long sip of beer. “I wouldn’t mind a slice of the action of whatever you’ve got going. What is it? Counterfeit cigs or luxury goods? Designer drugs?” All of those were trades worth billions-nearly twenty percent of the world economy these days is in illicit goods.
“You must be in dire straits to be hanging out in seedy bars looking for work to appear.”
“Actually I’m just a big karaoke fan. And if you’d said dire straits there last night, I would have sung one of their hits.”
A smile flickered and vanished. “What’s your full name, Sam?”
“Peter Michael Samson.”
Nic’s phone rang. He opened it, listened carefully. He kept a poker face, mostly-I saw the slightest tug of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He got up from the table, walked to another empty one, made a second call. He listened, watching me. I raised my glass to my lips, whispered behind the camouflage of the half-pint.
“Did you get that?” I said.
Mila answered. “Yes.” The transmitter was hidden beneath my collar, thin as a toothpick. Hard to detect under my starched shirt. Hence dressing for the meeting like it was a job interview. Mila had slipped the transmitter into my clothes. The earpiece where I could hear Mila speak to me was a risk; it would be easier to spot. State of the art; I wasn’t sure the Company had field gear this good. It made me wonder again exactly who I’d decided to work for.
“If they have passport records access… they could be digging my name up right now.”
The Company could have killed the Peter Samson legend, eliminated the IDs, the passport records. And surely there would be a trace put on any queries made against my old, discarded names, as well as watching for any use of them.
Which might bring the Company right down on Nic and his friends. But that couldn’t happen before I got what I needed from them. Not before I had the scarred man in my grip. Not before I had got Yasmin to safety and knew the truth about Lucy and my son.