Текст книги "Adrenaline"

Автор книги: Jeff Abbott

Соавторы: Jeff Abbott
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

44

NIC PUT ME IN THE back of a van. He held up a blindfold.

“You asked me to trust you,” I said. “That works both ways.”

“It does. But I’m not going to let you see where we’re going. You don’t need to know. Everything within our group is need-to-know. You get to that point, you’ll be told.”

It wasn’t a bad thing for him to believe he had full control of the situation, so I allowed him to put the blindfold on me.

He said, “I’m going to search you,” and he did, thoroughly. From hairline to throat to belly and below, down to my heels. He was thorough, but he missed the transmitter under my collar. I’d made the choice to keep it alive and broadcasting despite knowing that if he found it he would kill me immediately.

I didn’t fight the search; I told him once it tickled and he ignored me. I heard him go back up to the front of the van, crank the engine, and, with a sway, we pulled back out into traffic.

“Where’re we going? Am I going to see Piet?”

“Yes.”

I wanted to ask, and his bosses? The scarred man and Yasmin might be there. The scarred man would recognize me; I had to assume if he’d taken Lucy he knew my face. I didn’t want to end up tied to a chair like the Turk. But I had to take the risk.

The van drove for a long while; I figured given the number of short, sharp turns that we weren’t heading out of Amsterdam, but rather that Nic was trying to shake off any possible tail. Or confuse me. I wondered if Mila was sticking close to me. I could only hope she had dodged Howell and August. Otherwise I was alone. How on earth had he found us? It had to be the hit on my Peter Samson ID from Nic’s computer guy. He must have been working in the Internet café, perhaps masking his work behind its server. But Howell and August were in Amsterdam, hunting me no doubt, and they’d cornered Nic’s hacker. Which meant Howell might be hot on the trail of Nic’s people, and in that case he’d ruin my chance to find my family.

There is a time on every job where you say, Screw caution. I’m not foolhardy. I’m not stupid. But sometimes you have to be the battering ram. Howell was getting way too close. So my time to find the scarred man was running short.

“I want to tell you how to handle this,” Nic said. “Piet will be there, and so will another man. You don’t need to know his name.”

I realized I was holding my breath. “Okay.” Let the other man please be the scarred man. Please.

“You will tell them exactly how to set up an alternate route.”

“And in return, I get money and work?”

“Yes. But I want you to make Piet look bad. You tell Piet’s boss that you know of Piet through smuggling in Moldova—that you’ve worked the same routes. That Piet sold girls that he moved, along the way, and pocketed the money before delivery. He cheated his clients.”

My guts twisted. “Piet is a human trafficker.”

“Piet is mostly a mover of commodities.” I could practically hear the shrug in Nic’s voice. “Women from Moldova, shipped to Britain and Germany and Israel for the whorehouses. Babies sold to adoptive parents in Italy, brought in from Macedonia and Albania. Mass-produced counterfeit goods, brought in from China to western Europe. It doesn’t much matter. He moves what needs moving.”

A sick tickle feathered the back of my throat as the van stopped. I could smell a tang of fuel, of exhaust, and in the distance I could hear the purr of freeway traffic.

“We’re here, Sam. Showtime,” Nic said. “Do good and I’ll do good by you.”

45

THE FOURTH BLOW TO THE FACE produced their desired result. It was Howell’s experience that hired computer hackers were easily broken. Their loyalty was earned only with money and access to technology. The Chinese boy—who, according to his ID, was a graduate student in computer science at the Delft University of Technology—made it through two black eyes, a torn lip and a badly cuffed ear before he screamed out an address. It was a warehouse off the A10 highway, which ringed Amsterdam. Van Vleck stepped back from beating the hacker, and August checked the address with his smartphone.

“And who will we find there?” Howell asked.

“Nic. Nic.”

“Who’s Nic?”

“Guy who hired me.” The boy broke into a babble of Mandarin, calling Howell a worthless stump of a penis, and Howell slapped him and told him in Mandarin that his mother was a disgusting whore and to not talk to him that way. The student’s mouth twisted in shock and pain.

“And Nic hired you why?”

“We have a back door into a passport-monitoring exchange… used by North American and European governments.”

“And you were checking Peter Samson’s passport and records.”

“Yes. To see if he was for real.”

“Who does Nic work for?”

“He does work for hire.”

“For Samson?”

“No, Nic wanted to be sure Samson was who he said he was. He was hiring Samson.”

“For what kind of job?” Howell’s voice sharpened. He leaned close to the battered face and he could smell the milk and stale coffee on the student’s breath, under the coppery blood from his ear and his nose.

The Chinese student started to cry. “I don’t know any more. I swear. I was just supposed to verify his story as he told it to Nic. That he was a Canadian named Samson.”

August gestured at Howell and they stepped out of the van, where the hacker couldn’t hear them.

“If Sam’s risking using a legend, he’s trying to get close to this guy Nic,” August said, “so maybe he has a lead on whoever took Lucy.”

“We’ll know soon enough. Let’s go see who’s at this address.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for recon?”

“Sam Capra is close, August,” Howell said. “No way in hell we’re waiting.”

“That’s not standard protocol.”

“Neither is letting his friend be part of the search team,” Howell said. “You coming or staying, Holdwine?”

August got back into the van. He did not notice the small blue car, at a distance behind them.

46

NIC KEPT ME BLINDFOLDED until I was inside. When he shut the door, it made a steely echo. He pulled off the blindfold, and I could see that it was an old machinists’ shop. The equipment to reshape and refine steel into tools remained in place.

Near the entrance, the shop was crammed with boxes and pallets along two walls. I could smell the tang of curry and the yeasty aroma of spilled beer. A metal table, scattered with papers, stood in the center of the room. Windows, smeared with dust, let in a slant of brownish light.

Two men—twins—stood on either side of me. One was armed with a Glock, the other with an assault rifle. Both had dead eyes. One was shaved bald, the other had scant reddish hair. Smiles with cruel mouths.

“These are the twins,” Nic said, as if I hadn’t noticed they shared the same scowling face.

The twins searched me for weapons and wire. They found nothing; they too missed the little transmitter in my shirt collar.

I looked to see if any of these guys sported the same Novem Soles tattoo as the killer in my apartment. No, no sign of it. So maybe Nic and the twins were just hirelings.

Sitting at the table was the dyed-blond man I’d seen on the videos. Piet. The trafficker.

He was taller than me, six-six, wide shoulders, narrow hips, the curve of powerful arms under his sleeves. He looked like a guy who’d fight with gusto. His nose had been broken in the past, and he had eyes like two dots of oil. Cold and unyielding. Under the iced eyes and the twisted hook of nose he wore a smile twisted with malice. I had a sense that smile had been the last thing seen by many people. He was the kind of guy, I guessed, who thought cruelty was funny.

And yes, he had a little sword. A wakizashi. It sat on the desk and gleamed in the faint light.

There was no sign of the scarred man.

I smiled back at Piet.

“I understand you can help us, Mr. Samson,” he said in English.

“I’m sure I can.”

He got up and walked around me. I doubt I looked forbidding. Old jeans, worn shoes, an old gray jacket. Mila had bought my clothes secondhand, clipped out all the labels. I looked like I was neatly dressed but desperate. I met his gaze but then I let my eyes drop. Let him think he was the alpha.

“So. I have fifty parcels I need to get inside the United States. They cannot be discovered; they cannot be seized. I need them there in ten days. They must arrive together; they must not be separated during shipping. At the same time, I want the most secure cover for them imaginable. How would you do this?”

“How big are the parcels?”

“Less than a meter across, a meter long.”

There were fifty of them? Okay. “And heavy?”

“No. Five kilos.”

“Then I’d probably disguise them as leaded crystal glassware from Poland. Mark it as fragile, but it explains the weight. You could also do frozen fish.” I shrugged. “If the goods can be packed in ice without harm, then it’s a good call.” This was standard smuggling tradecraft. “Or electronics from Finland. They ship tons of cell phones and related equipment. If it’s electronic goods, then that would simplify the camouflage in case it’s X-rayed. Or an easy route is counterfeit cigarettes. Fake British or French or Turkish brands.” One out of three cigarettes smoked in Canada today is counterfeit. It’s big business.

“I want you to make sure it’s not X-rayed.”

“I have a contact in Rotterdam who could make sure the container’s not singled out.” I was lying, but it didn’t matter.

“And what about dealing with American customs?”

“I have a friend on the customs staff in New York. He has three children currently in college and grad school, so he has large bills. He’s rather open to not inspecting whatever I say.”

“And where would you get the appropriate export documentation, and the packaging, and the manifests from a legitimate manufacturer?” Piet asked.

“Well, before I give away all my trade secrets, I’d like my money first,” I said.

Piet stared at me. “Why did you come to Amsterdam?”

“I came for the waters,” I said.

“Ha!” Piet said. “One of my favorite movies. Casablanca.”

I used a line from Bogart’s character, the bar owner Rick Blaine, when he is asked to explain his presence in the intrigue-filled city. I smiled. “I needed a change.”

“You were based where?”

“Prague and Croatia. I stayed there after I got out of the army. I liked the country.” I looked at Nic, then back at the smile. “What’s in the fifty packages?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Where’s Edward?” Nic asked suddenly. After all, my performance was supposed to convince Piet’s boss that Piet was untrustworthy, more trouble than asset, and Piet appeared to be alone. There was no one to convince. Edward. Edward was the scarred man. Edward. I let the name roll around in my brain. Edward. The man with the question mark close to his eye who’d taken my wife.

“Edward isn’t here,” Piet said. “Left it up to me to take the measure of this man.”

“This man ended up in a bar fight last night defending your good name,” I said, “and I don’t even know you.”

“Yeah, interesting, that. Thanks for the good turn. Not really used to altruism.”

“I was looking for you,” I said.

“You and the Turk both,” he said.

“Popularity is a curse,” I said. “But I wasn’t really looking for you until the Turk started threatening you. That was an opportunity for me and I took it. But I hope you don’t have more loudmouths around here.”

Piet glanced at Nic. Then back at me. “I’d like to hear what you heard the Turkish gentleman say last night.”

“The Turk was talking to one of his friends at the bar before Nic here showed up.”

“You speak Turkish?”

“Enough. I used to run goods down to Istanbul. Excess Russian ordnance bound for Africa, mostly. The Turk said he had arranged to smuggle something to America for you. And that he was going to get you to give up some woman you have, in exchange for the smuggling going smoothly.” I watched his face as I laid down the trump. Nic wasn’t so good an actor; he jerked his head toward me at this unexpected twist.

“Some woman,” Piet repeated.

“Yes. He was going to guarantee that whatever you were smuggling wasn’t harmed, wasn’t captured by the cops, if he got some woman who’s with you. Yasmin?” I shrugged. “I may not have the name right.”

He didn’t blink. But his hand, curled into a fist, unfolded, fingers close to the wakizashi sword. Like its weight called to him. Then he made his hand a fist again. “And that was all?”

“Yes.”

“And on that basis, you fight for the honor of my name?” He laughed.

“No. I thought you might not want him screwing up your deal. I need a job. I didn’t realize until later that what I heard might be valuable to me.” I shrugged. “You can’t use his route to America now. But you could use mine. I’m guessing, if you’re using the Turk, it’s because you don’t have a regular route into America.”

“But we don’t know you.”

“You want my creds? Ask Petrova in Kiev about me. Ask Djuki in Athens about me.” I threw out the name of two traffickers.

“Petrova is dead,” Piet said.

“I hadn’t heard.”

“Last month. She was shot by a rival.”

“Oh. Too late to send flowers, I guess.”

Now Piet flicked a smile, like he was tossing a card to me, sure my hand would crash. “Djuki went missing a few months ago.”

“He’s probably hiding.” The fact I knew their names was not cred enough. I didn’t expect it to be. “Or he’s in China, running Gucci and Ralph Lauren counterfeiting action.”

“And if I could reach him, I’d hire him over you. Him at least I know. You could just be cleaning up the mess left behind,” Piet said. “You could work for the same people as the Turk.”

“That’s a theory.”

“What did you work on with Djuki?”

“Girls from Moldova and Ukraine, shipped to Israel and to Edinburgh and Toronto. I moved guns from Albania and Uzbekistan to Mexico. I shipped in fake cigs and fake Windows software from China to Canada and the U.S., mostly Houston and New York.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You moved girls with Djuki?”

“Yeah. Twice. You find him in China, you can ask him about me.” I shrugged. Djuki wasn’t hiding; he was dead. He was a Greek trafficker who’d been turned by the Company, spilled information on his routes and methodologies for a hefty sum and immunity, and then been killed when he tried to vanish after the Company put him back out in the field to serve as an informant. Djuki was scum. I’d met him once or twice, and the Company had entrusted me to put out the word he’d gone to China to work deals on that side.

“Where’s his scar?” Piet asked.

And my mind went blank.

47

I DIDN’T BLINK. “There are so many to choose from.”

“The most embarrassing one.”

I swallowed, trying to picture the photos in the smuggler’s thick file. Not on the face. Not on his chest. Then I smiled as I remembered Brandon, my boss back in London, cracking a joke.

“Across his ass,” I said. “His girlfriend gave it to him with a kitchen knife. She should have had your wakizashi.”

He smiled at my using the Japanese term. “And why did he get it?”

“He was screwing around with girls he was shipping to Israel and Dubai,” I said. “Breaking them in for the customers.” I couldn’t let the disgust show on my face. Most of the girls trafficked were from the former Soviet republics, desperate for work; they’d been promised waitressing or secretarial jobs; they were going to be broken with rape and heroin before they met their new pimps. “Girlfriend didn’t approve. He was lucky she cut his backside and not his front.”

“And how did you see the scar?”

I’d seen it in his file, of course. I hoped Djuki’s explanation as to the scar’s origin was accurate. If it wasn’t, I was dead; Piet would kill me on the spot if I couldn’t kill him first. “He kept up his practice of breaking in the girls when needed. I saw it then.”

Piet gave me the slightest of nods. I was inside the circle, at least for now. My creds proven by knowledge of a rapist’s ass scar.

“Make your calls,” he said to me. “The goods will be here in two days. You will arrange a pickup of them when they arrive, repackage them for shipment to America, and then get them past customs and onto the ship in Rotterdam. You’ll be paid fifty thousand in euros. If you need help forging documents, my boss Edward is an expert forger.”

Repackaging the shipment. Oh, yes. That would be it, the key. I would need help. I would need the whole gang together to help me.

And that’s when I could take them down, rescue Yasmin, and find out the truth from the scarred man. The opportunity dangled before me, bright as a diamond.

I hid my sudden relief by holding up hands. “Wait a minute. You’ve cut the Turk loose, right? I’m not coming aboard if he’s about to bring the law down on you.”

“He’s not a worry for anyone anymore.” This was one of the twins speaking, the bald one.

“Oh,” I said.

Piet said, “The Turk is a former MIT agent.” MIT was Milli stihbarat Tekilatı—Turkey’s CIA. “He got run out of the agency for malfeasance. He bribed a group of Turks here to let him work with them to get close to me; I won’t ever work with those guys again. He tried to screw me over; he failed.” He leveled a stare. “The twins are very good about finding out what we need to know about people.”

The Turk was like me, then; Bahjat Zaid had found a fellow reject to try and save his daughter. “Well, I don’t fail when I take on a job.”

Piet glanced at the twins and then at me and said, “You want to break in a girl, Samson?”

“What?”

He jerked his head toward a door. “I got eight girls heading to Nigeria and Israel. Two still giving me a bit of lip, even with the horse in their veins to settle them down. But nothing settles them like getting broke in.” A second test; if I was experienced as a human trafficker, I shouldn’t blink much at raping the merchandise.

“Go choose one you like, give her a ride,” Piet said.

“You said we could have a turn,” the bald twin protested. “Why does he get first pick?”

I thought how pleasant it would be to kill Piet. I had not killed but once before, and it was not an experience that I had liked. No human being would. But with Piet, I wouldn’t blink at it at all. It would be a service to humanity. Part of my heart, the part that thought I might be a husband and father again as soon as I found Lucy and the baby, said don’t be so ready to kill. But this guy… if Edward had taken Lucy, had this monster been near her?

Had Piet touched my wife?

It took a total gripping down inside my heart to say, “Do you move a lot of women?”

“My best revenue stream. From Moldova, mostly. Doing more from Russia and the Baltics as the economy worsens. About thirty a month. Usually special requests. Can’t keep up the demand for the young ones. Come see.”

I glanced at Nic, who trafficked in pictures of kids. Filling specific demands. Welcome to the personalized world of human suffering.

I followed Piet down a short hallway to a side office. The twins and Nic followed me. I smelled rotten fruit, burned steak, and a chemical stench, with sweat an uneasy undercurrent.

He opened the door into a dimly lit room, a side parlor to hell. In the flickering gloom I could see eight women along the wall. Manacles cupped their ankles and their wrists. The chains threaded back to the concrete on the floor. The women sat huddled. They wore their tops still—stained, torn. But their skirts and jeans and underwear were gone, robbing them of dignity. I saw bruises and tears and emptiness in faces that had endured too much horror. I felt a hot red rage glow in my brain.

But if I killed Piet and Nic now to free these women, I ruined any chance of getting close to Edward, to finding Lucy and the baby.

But I could not permit this. Rewrite the scenario, I told myself. Let Mila know what horror lay inside this room. “You’re trafficking in women,” I said. Piet scowled at me as I stated the obvious. I hoped Mila was still in range, that she was listening. Once we left the machinists’ shop, Mila could rescue these women. But that would put me in danger. Being the new guy, if this operation got compromised, I would be compromised. They would kill me on the spot.

Impossible choice. I needed an option, fast. I needed a scapegoat.

“Which one you want? The redhead?”

Six awful little words. The redhead looked to be seventeen and I could see her lip quivering in horror, in fear.

“Just don’t hit the faces or the tits. You got to whip one, do it on the back of her legs. No one ever looks at the back of their legs,” one of the twins said.

“No,” I said. “No thank you.”

“What’s wrong with you? They’re like ripe fruit. Pluck one.” Piet laughed. “We’ll both take one. Seal our friendship. And we won’t get cut on our asses like stupid Djuki, will we?” He laughed, and I saw the women shudder. I tried not to think about what he’d already done to them, what he’d do to them if I left them in his grip. He prodded the closest one with the tip of the wakizashi and she burst into shuddering tears.

I looked at Piet’s neck and thought about how I would break it.

Nic had followed us, watching me, seeing me dipped in this inhuman litmus test.

“I’m a businessman,” I said. “I don’t stoop to sampling the goods. That’s for the muscle.”

“Eh?” Piet didn’t like that. I’d implied he was not a boss, that he was muscle. I could see rage rising in his stare. He stepped back from the terrified woman and the edge of the sword glittered in the faint light from the hallway.

“Are you serious?” I said. “Is this going to be how you test me? Whether I’m willing to break a girl?”

Piet’s mouth worked.

One of the young women—the redhead—looked up at me. I’d spoken English and who knew if she understood.

“Don’t talk to him this way,” Nic said. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tension, tight as wire, strained his voice. I stared at him.

At this point I was only just inside the circle. But only just in wasn’t good enough. I needed to be all the way in. I glanced at Nic. Rock, meet hard place. If I played Nic’s game of betrayal, Piet might never let me near Edward. If I didn’t—Nic was unpredictable. I didn’t need Nic. I needed Piet.

I gave Nic a last smile. He was a traitor to his friends and he was a scumbag who used children. I didn’t mind paving my road with his bones.