The thought was crushing. “Please don’t say that.”
“Sam. You are aimless. That’s a waste. You should be aimed, like a handcrafted bullet.”
“So where would you aim me?”
“At some very dangerous people.”
Recruitment. Mila wasn’t Company, but she was… big. Mila was capable of accessing my no doubt top-secret file and could have a jet helicopter intercept and search a ship, with an armed team. “I’m offering you a chance to do the work you’ve been trained to do, with support, and to regain your credibility and dignity.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“Of course you are. The Company believed for months that you were a mass murderer and a traitor. Now they simply believe you’re an idiot who was played by his traitor wife.”
“They said I was innocent, that they had proof.”
“The only proof in your file was that you never broke. That you never changed your story. Howell argued for you to be put out as bait. That Lucy, if a traitor, would come out of hiding to kill you to eliminate you as a loose end or to keep you from coming after her. Or if Lucy had been kidnapped, then putting you out was no risk. If you ran, you ran, and they would find you.”
“If she wanted me dead, she didn’t have to get me out of the office.”
“Unless you living was useful to her, in the moment and its aftermath,” Mila said. “Traitors are not rational. They live in a bizarre limbo. Not poster children for the good adjustment.” Her English was nearly perfect but not quite.
“She’s not a traitor.”
“I should get you a T-shirt with that on it,” Mila said. “And then my Christmas shopping is done.”
“You’re brutal.”
“I am the first person in months, Sam, telling you the truth. Love me for it, okay?”
“Whatever you’re peddling, I’m not interested.” I set my empty whisky glass on the table. I had hardly realized I’d downed it. “My wife is gone. I don’t care what they think. I just… don’t… care.”
“The TV, you watch the news yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Train station bombing in Amsterdam yesterday.”
It had been mentioned on the TV in the truck stop near Albany. “I heard about it.”
Mila slid a stack of pictures to me. A stack. I flipped through them. Several of the pictures caught the magnified face of a young woman. Attractive, dark-eyed, much of her face masked by a scarf around her throat, pulled high to her nose as if warding off the chill. She wore a long-sleeved shirt and jeans.
“Who is she?”
“The daughter of a man I know. A nice young woman. Yasmin Zaid. She’s from London. She has never been in any trouble; she has a doctorate from Oxford. Blameless life. She’s been missing for three weeks and yesterday she shows up, walking through Amsterdam Centraal, with a backpack on her shoulder. It had the bomb inside, I believe.” Mila slid another photo out. “The man walking four feet behind her…” Her voice trailed off.
I felt a jolt in my chest. It was the same man who’d driven my wife away in the Audi. The hair was cut into a short burr, makeup smeared over the scar that lay near his eye. But I knew the shape of his face, the question-mark scar seared into my head.
22
I SEE A SLIGHT RESEMBLANCE,” Mila said.
I looked up from the photo. “You think this young woman bombed…”
Mila handed me another picture. The same woman, hurrying out of the station, no backpack, the man who took my wife close behind her. I glanced at the time stamp.
Mila followed my gaze. “The bomb detonated ten minutes after Yasmin Zaid left, in a store inside the station.”
I studied the girl’s face. A blank canvas, waiting for the delicate touch of the brush. She didn’t look afraid or excited about her bombing mission. She was… blank. Behind, the scarred man was grinning ever so slightly.
“He certainly matches your description. He has… affected or influenced Yasmin Zaid. Perhaps as well your wife. Gotten good people in his thrall. To commit violence.”
“I don’t understand. Is he a terrorist?”
“No. I don’t believe he is. No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, and it wasn’t placed on a train, where they could have killed many more people. They could have blown up Yasmin if they were simply using her as a tool. Instead, they blew up a little newsstand that sells candy and paperback books and magazines. It makes no sense, from the standpoint of an extremist. Like the London office bombing.”
I thought of the Money Czar—I had always been sure our investigation of him drove the London bombing. From her accent, Mila was Russian—could she be connected to him? But she wouldn’t be hiring me; she’d just kill me. I put the picture down. “I imagine the Dutch police are looking for them.”
“The Dutch have not identified her, but they will be using face-recognition software. Even with only a partial match on her face, it’s only a matter of time before she’s identified. Perhaps days.”
“How did you get these photos? Have the Dutch authorities released them?”
“No.” And she didn’t say more.
“Why tell me your troubles?”
“I want you to find Yasmin and bring her back to me.”
“I’m not going to work for you. I can’t.” My voice sounded hollowed, like a ghost’s. “The Company—”
“Bah,” Mila spat, like the word was a nail. “Stop pretending to be such a nice guy. Stop playing by their rules, Sam. Their rules put you in jail when you were innocent. Their rules presumed your guilt when they should not. If you could, you’d want to find the man who took her, to know why he killed your friends, what he’s done with your wife and child. Don’t lie to me. It’s a fever in your blood. To find them.”
A slow, awful fire burned in Mila’s voice.
“Lucy and your child are your holy grail, Sam. I know you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Of course I do. You are all about fighting the evil, Sam. You joined the Company for revenge. A revenge you can’t ever get.”
I froze. Mila raised an eyebrow at me.
“The desire for revenge drove you to the Company, and now revenge can drive you to find the man who tore apart your family. Oh, what a shrink could make of you.”
“I just want Lucy and the baby back,” I said. “I don’t want revenge.”
“Don’t believe revenge isn’t fantastic,” Mila said, “until you’ve actually exacted it.” She shrugged. “I find revenge absolutely thrilling and satisfying.”
I reached for the Glenfiddich, refilled our glasses.
Mila sipped the whisky. It was a nice big, comradely gulp. “If you come to work for me, you will have a free hand to look for her. I am best boss ever.”
I didn’t say anything for a long minute.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“This could be a Company trap. A test to see if I’m willing to sell my services. I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. I cannot help you. I am practical.”
She made a face at the word. “Practical is what Soviet architecture was. Practical is not always the answer. The offer expires in one minute.”
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll get you to Holland. But then we part ways and you never saw or met me, and be certain you will be back in prison within days. With no hope of ever finding your family.”
“And if I say yes?”
Mila tasted the Scotch. “Find Yasmin. Bring her back to me, and you may exact whatever revenge you like on the scarred man. If he knows where your wife and child are, it’s your concern. But Yasmin is saved first.”
“She’s killed people.”
“No. You can see it in her face—she has been drugged or broken. Break this group of kidnappers for me, and I will give you every resource to find your wife.”