Well, that complicates things.”
The two men have moved Grace from the surgery to a hostel west of downtown in the Audi. It’s a bare-bones backpack establishment with a kid in dreads behind the counter, ten minutes from the KLM Jet Center FBO used by corporate jets.
They’ve taken a room with a set of bunk beds and an open-shelf dresser that holds a sink basin. The mirror is bolted to the wall. The room is registered under a Dulwich alias.
Grace was carried up a back stairwell by Knox, the limping Dulwich trailing. That Dulwich curses his failure to heal completely goes unspoken. He’s boiling over on a daily basis, no more so than at times like this when Knox can do what he cannot.
The door is closed and locked. At Grace’s request Knox has taken ten minutes to splice into a co-ax cable found in the hung ceiling. He seems impressed Grace would know such a cable would be found there, impressed that she understands it will provide them access to the hostel’s closed-circuit security cameras.
Dulwich never takes his eyes off the parking area. Knox’s iPhone plays Jimi Hendrix from Museeka.com as loud as it will go. It isn’t much, but it covers their hushed voices.
Grace has an e-mail from Kamat in Hong Kong. The Canon PowerShot used to photograph Berna and friend for their Internet posting was indeed under warranty, but to a man in Paris—stolen on a trip to Amsterdam six months earlier.
“There is more,” she tells them.
Dulwich continues to surreptitiously watch the parking lot. Knox scrapes off a fleck of bloodstain from his water-resistant jacket.
“The model of camera carries geo-tagging.”
Both men look over at her sharply. She’s propped up in the lower bunk, her laptop open. “The feature was functional at the time the photos were shot, with the coordinates embedded in the code.”
Dulwich gasps. “Coordinates?”
“The operator was likely unaware of the feature. Kamat is making every effort to log the chip’s usage for the past two months.”
“We can follow a camera?” Knox asks. Technology is not his long suit.
“We know the approximate location of the girls on the day they were photographed, six days ago.”
“Approximate?” Knox asks.
“Geo-tagging is not always perfect. We would be mistaken to kick a door based on these coordinates. That said, we should be within a radius of one hundred meters of where both photos were taken.” She spins the laptop toward them. “I have marked the geo-tag with the red star. Please notice it is well outside Demir’s mobile usage hole.”
Knox marvels how she can sound like a robo-telephone operator.
“One supports the other. The dormitory is nowhere near the knot shop. I believe we can trust the geo-tag,” she says.
“It’s either the knot shop or the dormitory,” Dulwich says.
“Still in a hurry to fasten your seat belt?” Knox asks.
“Shut it,” Dulwich responds.
“Boys . . .”
—
DULWICH DRIVES. The men don’t speak two words. Knox rechecks the handgun lifted from the corpse along with a box of self-loads found in the man’s front pocket. Dulwich glances at the weapon uncomfortably. Says nothing.
Masts of a great ship appear dead ahead as Valkenburgerstraat nears the tunnel entrance to Noord. The merging of old and new. The car’s interior goes dark as they enter the tunnel; the overhead lights strobe against the dash. Still, not a word.
As they emerge, the evening sky is the same endless pewter it has been for days. Knox catches himself grinding his teeth. Dulwich has previously complained about the sound. Not now. Not today. Knox tries Sonia’s mobile for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time it’s out of service. Will she turn to the pen or the sword? Given the mood he last saw her in, he’s thinking the latter. He’d assumed she would cool off and reach out to him. He’s wrong.
After a mile, they pass woods on the left. The suburbs are giving back to the farmland they were stolen from. Up ahead, low-rise apartment blocks loom like something from the Cold War, juxtaposed by all the vegetation. The Audi slows to a satisfied purr.
“There won’t be a neon sign, you know.”
Knox doesn’t speak.
“Until we know exactly where it is, you could do more harm than good.”
Knox connects a wire between his iPhone and the car’s stereo. “All the windows down. Play it loud.”
“You’re dreaming.”
“Someone has to.” Knox jacks a round into the handgun, clicks out of the seat belt and stuffs the weapon into his lower back.
Dulwich conducts a drive-by. Dozens of four-story apartment complexes crowd Cleyndertweg, all nearly identical, all separated by landscaping screens.
“It’s too upscale.”
“Not for this city. It’s perfect,” Knox says. The look of the buildings and the parklike environment support Dulwich, but the apartment density and the older cars parked outside suggest a blue-collar bedroom community with residents who have too little time to pay much attention to the neighbors.
“We’re talking ten to fifteen girls. Someone’s going to notice!”
Knox says, “We have no idea how many they board. It could be a handful. They’re here. Somewhere.”
“It lacks a double egress.”
“The bike path to the west,” Knox says, “and through the trees, more surface streets. They covered themselves well.”
Dulwich snorts.
“Drop me at the first parking lot. Don’t hit the iPhone until you’re alongside the pin.” Knox has marked the geo-tagged location on the car’s navigation system.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“This will work,” Knox says.
“You act on this, and it blows up in our face. If word gets back to the knot shop, it’s blown.”
“Sixes.”
“Keep it in your trousers.”
“Keep the engine running.”
“You can’t undo what’s done,” Dulwich says, throwing salt into the wound of the Sonia breakup.
“Right here,” Knox says.
Dulwich pulls over.
—
KNOX CHOOSES A LINE OF TREES with an unobstructed view down Cleyndertweg. He could stand here for a week and no one would notice him. Dulwich and the Audi roll one block. Two. The car windows open smoothly in unison.
The downloaded singsongy catchy tune plays loudly, sounding like bells and trumpets. Ten or twelve notes that repeat in an obnoxious loop: a call from the most popular ice cream truck company in the city. Dulwich lets it repeat for the length of the block, then shuts it off and turns right at the next intersection.
The geo-tag is tied to an apartment building in a west-running cul-de-sac on the north side of the street. Knox has a view of it and three other four-story monstrosities, all with a string of brightly painted garage doors at ground level. The call-to-arms draws two curtain views and causes another woman to step out onto a small balcony to look for the truck. From an adjacent structure, two more balcony visits. All of these are disqualified by a ripped man in his early thirties who emerges at ground level. He’s close to Knox’s size, and carries a don’t-mess-with-me air that’s as much a part of him as the neck tattoo that opens to engulf his left ear. It’s not his body-building or the tattoo that interests Knox, but the fact he’s come out of one of the many doors that are tied to a particular garage, and that a white van is backed up to the garage door. Dulwich has schooled him to challenge coincidence, that trusting a single piece of evidence can get a man in serious trouble. But this is the trifecta: the geo-tag, the Gold’s Gym guy, the white van.
The guy has come outside to buy ice cream for his captives, testimony to the monotony of routine, boredom and a human heart buried below all the muscle. His charity has exposed him.