“Then you deserve to know who we’re fighting.” He made his voice low.
“Yes.”
“It’s not the police. It’s a man. Bahjat Zaid.”
“I know that name.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Military equipment manufacturer; I read the Economist, you know.” I risked a frown. “Did you counterfeit his goods? Rip him off?”
“Not me. He has a grudge against Edward.”
“Legit business types don’t hire gunmen.”
“Zaid does.”
So true. “And this respectable businessman’s trying to derail your big job?” I wanted to know if he would confide in me about Yasmin. “Why doesn’t he just call the cops?”
“He has his reasons.”
I took a sip of my beer. “What are you smuggling to the United States?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Piet, I have to know. I can’t get it packaged and shipped without knowing. Be reasonable.”
His need to trust me won out. “Military equipment.”
“What kind?”
“Electronics.”
I didn’t like this vagueness but I wasn’t sure he’d tell me more, not in a public place. “What kind?”
“Experimental. Zaid has his reasons for keeping the police out.”
“What reasons?”
Piet finished his beer, watched the remaining suds inch down the empty glass.
What mattered was getting Piet and Edward and their group all together. I had to work that angle relentlessly.
So. Put the edge of the knife against Piet’s fears. “So you’re in a mess. You’re moving counterfeit cigs to the U.S., and you’re hiding Edward’s secret military experimental equipment inside the shipments. Now you’ve lost your cigarettes and your means of smuggling Edward’s gear.”
Piet clenched his eyes. “I’m screwed, and I don’t like being screwed.”
“So. We need goods to ship, to serve as camouflage for whatever Edward wants to get into America.”
“Yes.” For a moment he looked like a stressed owner of a small business, worrying over his accounts payable and an anemic cash flow.
“I have a solution.” One, I thought, that would get me close to Edward and Yasmin and the rest of the group.
“What?”
“We steal replacements.”
“Replacements?”
“Yes. Hijack a load of goods. Preferably counterfeit; that way, whoever you rob won’t go to the police and we ship whatever secret stuff Edward wants in the U.S. in the stolen goods containers.”
“It is a bold thing to steal a freight shipment.”
“Easiest thing in the world, if you know how to do it. But you and I can’t do it alone. This Edward guy, he must have people, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then we need them.”
“They are not robbers.”
“Neither am I, but circumstance dictates. Do they want to get this electronic gear, whatever it is, to the U.S.?”
“Yes.”
“What is the gear?”
He leaned close to me. I could smell his deodorant, the soft stench of his scent, the beer on his breath. “Weapons.”
“Weapons. For who?”
“Not your concern.”
“What kind?”
“Terrible ones,” Piet said.
I said nothing for a long, long minute, let the conversation in the other parts of the Rode Prins rise and fall. Then:
“Define terrible,” I said. “Unlike you, I don’t bite off more than I can chew.” I had to play my part right, and it was okay to be scared of the enormity of a job.
“You can’t back out now.”
“Are you going to tell me the N word?”
“N word?”
“Nuclear.”
“Oh, my God,” Piet laughed. “Oh, no. No.” He laughed again. “No.”
“I need details.”
“Before I give you details, I need to talk with Edward.”
“Fine. I need to talk with Edward, too.”
“Why?”
“Because I blew Nic’s cover and I saved all your asses. I want payment. I want my slice of this, Piet. I’m getting shot at and I deserve a stake in this deal.” I made my words a hiss. Apply the pressure, I thought, crack him. Crack him now. Make the world an anvil falling from the sky in a twisted cartoon to obliterate his head. “I don’t share a bit of information on the shipments until I talk to this Edward and his people. Not a bit.”
I could sense the desperation coming off him. A dozen telling signs: in the flick of the tongue on his lips, in the way he held the heavy glass. This was a man not easily rattled and he was rattled, badly, by the thought of failing Edward.
He didn’t speak, so I asked, “When was your shipment supposed to arrive in Rotterdam?”
“Morning after tomorrow.”
“Then we don’t have much time, do we?” Tomorrow wasn’t enough time to plan a robbery, but I hoped that their desperation would be as great as mine.
“Edward does not rush. Ever. He will not be rushed by my deadline.”
In the mirrored wall of the bar, I saw Mila walk past us. She did not look at us; but she caught Piet’s eye.
He watched her pass with an appreciation that made my bones go cold. “That’s a prime little number.”
“Three or five?”
“Huh?”
“Little prime number. What, you don’t like math jokes?”
“Math only exists for money.”
Mila vanished through a door into the back of the Rode Prins. I wanted to talk to her, now, find out what had happened.
He finished his beer. “Come with me, Sam.”
I didn’t want to leave but I set my beer down. “Where are we going?”
“You want to meet Edward, you shall meet Edward. Let’s go.”
Finally. It would happen. I was going in unarmed, but I’d face the scarred man. Find my wife and my child.
Henrik watched us leave. I wondered if Mila was going to tail me again. But I never looked behind me to see. I couldn’t have Piet becoming suspicious.
57
I saw him. Howell stood in the quiet of the safe house in Amsterdam. Outside the spring light danced on the shallow waters of the Herengracht; bicyclists pedaled by slowly, savoring the lovely day. He could smell gunfire and blood as if it were burned into his clothes. “I saw Sam Capra. He fired on us. He left behind a warehouse full of goods that I suspect are stolen or counterfeit, and a room full of women I suspect are bound for sex slavery.”
“There has to be a reasonable explanation,” August said. A Company doctor was tending to his arm. He winced as the doctor closed a stitch.
“I think he went rogue long before his wife died. Has it occurred to anyone that he was the bad guy, not her? That Lucy wasn’t the driving force behind him turning traitor?” Howell said. “I appreciate your loyalty to him. But I am telling you, August, that it is misplaced and misspent on Sam Capra.”
“Or he thinks these people know where his wife is.”
“He shot at my men.”
“Did you see that?”
Howell hesitated. “No.”
August thanked the doctor, who left without a word. Then he turned to Howell. “ Novem Soles.”
“What?”
“You asked him about the words Novem Soles. Is it a group? Could these people be it?”
“These people are apparently cheap traffickers. I doubt they’ve endowed themselves with some grand Latin name.”
“What’s Novem Soles, Howell?”
Howell crossed his arms. “A term heard mentioned on some monitored lines tied to criminal rings, or to government officials who were on the take. I don’t know if it’s a group, or a code name for a person, or what it is.”
“That dead man in Brooklyn had a tattoo of a stylized nine and a sun. Novem soles, nine suns. I didn’t sleep through Latin.”
“Maybe Sam Capra was working with these people on the bombing, and now they want him dead. Or maybe he’s turned against us since we let him walk.”
“We’ve thrown him away; are you surprised he’s landed with trash?” August said.
“The hard, awful truth is that the only survivors of the London office are the Capras. Someone recruited either Lucy or Sam, or both of them. They killed our people. They attacked us with impunity. That’s what’s unacceptable. He’s acting like a criminal. Pretty it up how you want it, August, but he’s a criminal, too.”