32
TAKE THE GUN DOWN,” I said. “You’ll get arrested in about five seconds.”
He kept the gun under his jacket, me close to him. I didn’t pull away because I didn’t know if he’d shoot me.
“Walk,” he said. “Just walk normally.” He kept glancing back to see if the Turks were surging out in pursuit—and yes, here they came.
“You might point that at them,” I said.
He lowered the gun and I grabbed the first Turk by the throat. There was a window with a hooker standing in it and I gestured, with a slash of my hand, for her to move out of the way. She got the message and bolted behind the red velvet curtain that was her backdrop. I pushed him through the glass and ran like hell. Because once the hookers are in danger, here come the police, and they closed in fast, talking into shoulder-mounted mikes, hurrying past me and Nic.
“You put that gun back in my ribs, I’ll break you,” I said. “Let’s go talk. Someplace quiet.”
Near Dam Square we found a quiet bar/café. No karaoke, no drunken Turks, no fights brewing.
I had blood on the front of my shirt, and the bartender’s gaze widened slightly as we came inside. She was an older, brittle-smiling woman, and she started to shake her head no. Nic went to her, spoke softly in rapid Dutch that I couldn’t catch, and she nodded after a moment. We sat across from each other at a corner table, out of sight of the street in case the Turks kept roving, my back to the wall so I could see the entire room. But we were blocks away now, and I hoped they’d decided to drink away their anger and embarrassment if they’d dodged the police.
He ordered us two beers from the waitress. She looked at me and I had blood in the corner of my mouth. She brought me a wet napkin and no questions. I cleaned my face. She set beers down in front of us, with a tall shot glass of clear liquid. “Kopstoot,” Nic said, pointing at the chaser. “It means a blow to the head. You’ll like it.”
“At least it’s not a hole in the head,” I said. I wasn’t done with the fighting—I wanted to hit some more. I am not proud of that. But it is what it is. I used to prefer quiet nights at home, reading, watching good movies with Lucy, going to bed early and making love. Now I just wanted to hit fist against flesh, boot against jaw. The brutal dance of the fight shook awake a darkness slumbering inside of me. I tamped it down with a long draw on the tall shot—it tasted a lot like gin—before I even bothered with the beer. A drunken bar brawl; wow, I was really sliding into smooth gear here. I had to clear my head.
“That’s backwards,” Nic said. “You drink the beer first, then the jenever. Do you do everything backwards?”
“Huh?”
“Usually you get to know a man before you risk your life for him in a bar fight.”
“Those guys were a*sholes. I don’t like a*sholes. And you’re an a*shole for sticking a gun in my ribs when I helped you.”
Nic took a sip of his beer.
“Forgive me. I am a cautious man,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Peter Samson. My friends call me Sam for short.”
“You fought like you are a soldier.”
“I was, once. Now I’m not.”
“Does Piet really owe you money?”
“I don’t know who Piet is,” I said.
He stared. “What, you just decide to—” he fumbled for the right English word “—insert yourself into a fight?”
“I was bored. I don’t have a job to go to tomorrow.”
He took a long hard sip of his beer and rubbed his jaw. He followed it by a sip of jenever. I saw his glance wander over to a family sitting a few tables over: father, mother, little girl about eight. He watched the girl laugh and take a bite of her mother’s dessert. Then, reluctantly almost, it seemed, he pulled his gaze back to me, as if he’d decided on his questions. “Where were you a soldier?”
“Canadian Special Forces.”
“You left them?”
“They asked me to.”
“For fighting in bars?”
“No. I stole some stuff and sold it on eBay. Dishonorable discharge but no jail time once I paid them back. My commander wanted to avoid the embarrassment of me implicating him.” I shrugged. “I did it. I can’t blame them for giving me the boot.”
“Well, a fighter and a thief. Aren’t I lucky?” He gave me an odd, crooked smile.
“I prefer to think of myself as an entrepreneur.”
“You said you don’t have a job. Maybe you want a job?”
“What, fighting your fights for you?”
He took the slap of the insult well. “I haven’t thanked you. Fine. Thank you, Sam. I could have handled them, but thank you.”
“You didn’t pull the gun.” I’d missed wherever he was carrying. It must have been strapped on his lower leg. Nowhere had I seen a broken drape in his shirt or his jacket.
“No, you seemed to eliminate the need to do so.”
I didn’t say anything and I drank, slowly, the rest of my beer. He wasn’t very smart, to be a poor fighter and not produce the gun when threatened by an angry group. There was only one reason he might have hesitated: he did not want the attention. He wanted to stay below notice, and pulling a gun even in a rough bar would result in unwanted interest.
Silence is my most powerful weapon. Most people literally cannot sit in silence with another human being around, especially in a café over drinks. We consider it odd.
The quiet bothered Nic. “So. If you might be interested in bodyguard work, I might be able to get you a job.”
“I don’t have a Dutch work permit,” I said. “I lost the paperwork.”
“You wouldn’t need a permit. My clients are, um, very discreet.”
“Um, like pimps? I don’t beat up on hookers.”
“Oh, no. Much more high-class.” He lowered his voice. “But one of the perks is, you know, girls.”
I kept my face still. “I think I ought to get a beer for each guy I downed.” I hoisted the glass. “You owe me two more.”
A smile inched across his face, slowed, faded back to the solemn frown. “All right.” He was a busy man, he gave off an air of impatience, but he liked what he’d seen in the bar fight—he had to know I’d acquitted myself far better than he had—and he’d decided not to walk away from me. Not yet. He gestured at the waitress for another round, sans the jenever.
“Where in Canada are you from?” I knew all this would be checked tomorrow.
“Toronto.”
“I know it well.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Did you ever eat at the Rosedale Diner on Parker Street?”
“It’s on Yonge Street. Best hamburger in town.” I could smell a test.
“Your parents?”
“Dead.” I shrugged. “They left me a little money to see the world.”
“Which high school did you go to?”
“St. Michael’s College School. Then to McGill. Studied history, barely passed. But enough to get into Canadian Forces Officer Candidate School.” My legend as Peter Samson, Canadian scofflaw, had been built by the Company. Nic wasn’t going to be able to dent it. I was Peter Samson, from birth until now, and there were school records and credit histories and a Canadian military record to support me.
Unless the Company had wiped out that identity. In which case, no records on Peter Samson would exist.
“You know Amsterdam?” Nic asked me.
I took another long drag of beer and stifled a belch. “Pardon. Not well. I know Prague and Warsaw and Budapest better.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time in eastern Europe.”
“That’s where the more interesting work opportunities are.”
“Such as?”
“Such as stuff I really shouldn’t tell a stranger,” I said, with a kidder’s laugh, and he laughed, too.
“No, really,” he said after an awkward silence. “You put a man through a window for me, Sam. We’re friends now.”
“Protecting stuff. I guess it’s like protecting people. I just made sure the stuff got to where it was supposed to be.”
That was a kind and subtle description of smuggling, but if Piet was a smuggler like Gregor suggested, then I might be more interesting as a potential employee. Or at least I might get an interview. I just had to get close enough to scout them out, kill them all except the high-ranking one—which I assumed was Piet—and force him to lead me to the scarred man.
Simple.
Subtle worked on Nic. He lit a cigarette, sipped at his beer.
“Like to where?”
“Mostly to North America.” Getting a secret shipment to there was Piet’s goal, I hoped. And I wondered, from the Turk’s words, if maybe he’d arranged illicit passage to the States, and now the arrangement had gone sour.
“I might be able to offer you a job, but I need to speak with the client.”
“Your client’s not this Piet guy who doesn’t pay, is he?”
“Piet pays. Those dumbass Turks need to learn patience.”
I made a noise in my throat, shrugged. “Look, I’m good at getting stuff to the States, protecting it, making sure nobody screws with it. If that sounds good to you, fine. If not, thanks for the floor show.” It was critical I not look too eager.
Nic waited a few seconds and then said, “I think I can use you. The pay is excellent. Two thousand euros a week, in cash.”
“Well, I’m running low on beer money. So yeah, I guess, maybe.” I ran my finger in a circle along the beer smudge on the table. “How do I get in touch with you?”
“You got a cell?”
“Yeah.”
He pushed a napkin toward me. “Write it down.”
I did. I didn’t put my name on it. “Decide quick,” I said with a shrug. “I get bored, I might move on.”
He tucked the napkin into his pocket. “All right.”
“Question,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You pulled a gun on me after I helped you. You’re kind of a jerk.”
He cracked a smile. “I have to be. I wanted to be sure you didn’t really come after me next. You told the Turks Piet owed you money. You might have fought them just to get at me.”
“Yeah, I don’t know your Piet. I said that just to get them to shut up,” I said. “Didn’t work.”
“The fists worked well enough. All right, Sam.” He tossed more euros on the table. “Treat yourself to more blows on the head, or get yourself dinner. You did me a favor tonight and I think we can do business together.”
“Okay. You got my number.”
He got up and left. I had my back to the wall and I watched him go out of the door and across the long flat stretch of Dam Square, under the Nationaal Monument.
I stepped out into the night and caught sight of Nic at a distant corner. He was heading south, in the direction of the Prinsengracht. It was full dark now, and I hung back in the shadows as he crossed a street and a bridge. I followed. If he turned he might see me, but no, he was back on his electronic nipple—the cell phone—talking.
I followed, but not too close. A car stopped, picked him up. He got in and the car roared off then turned toward Singel, a major street that made a large U-shape through Amsterdam.
I looked around for a cab. None.
I just started walking the direction he’d gone. You never know what you might see. And home—the Rode Prins—was the same direction.
Thirty seconds later a small blue sedan pulled up next to me. The passenger door opened. Mila. “Get in, dummy.”
“You were watching me?”
She roared away from the curb before I even had the door shut. “You could have screwed up, gotten captured. I would have had to kill you. Can’t have you talking about us.”
It was hard to know with her if she was serious. “If he’d grabbed me you would have killed me instead of rescuing me?”
“If you screw up the first job, no point in giving you harder work,” she said. “Cut losses, move on.” She turned, revved fast, slowed as we caught sight of the car that had picked up Nic.
“I got into a bar fight.”
“Good way to stay in the shadows.” She sounded disgusted. “You could have gotten arrested. Guess what happens when they run a check on your face, dumbass? You’re on your way back to your boogeyman Howell.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“We’re not like the Company, Sam. I don’t do job reviews. I just cut you loose if you’re a problem.”
“It’s nice to know you have my back.”
She glared at me. “Don’t misunderstand me. I will have your back, always. As long as you prove it’s worth having. Now all you prove is you like to make stupid fight.”
“I made contact and he’s trying to get me a job with the blond guy. Named Piet.”
We watched Nic’s car turn onto Singel. “Tell me all the details.”
Mila drove with intensity while she listened, keeping just the right amount of distance behind. I wondered where she had worked, who had taught her her skills. “So he might be going to talk to Piet,” I finished.
“About you? A job applicant? You flatter yourself,” she said.
“I meant he made a call that said he had the goods. And he’s having problems with a Turk who’s making trouble for Piet, who was setting up a route. You understand smuggling? You don’t just load your illegal goods up and hope for the best. You plan out the exact path your goods take, with all supporting documentation and people along the way to protect it and keep it out of the authorities’ attention. Solid, unbreakable routes are a valuable resource. If their route has been messed up or compromised by this Turk, it might cause a meet to happen.”
She kept Nic in her sights as he turned onto another side street.
“These guys are weird,” I said. “They’re smugglers. So why do smugglers kidnap Yasmin and have her blow up a train station? Can you get me more details on the bombing, on the victims, the response, the investigation?”
Mila didn’t look at me as she made the turn. A soft rain began to fall. “All right. I’ll get you what I can. But you don’t have a lot of time, Sam, to be analyzing these guys. You just need to find them and get Yasmin back. Don’t lose sight of that.”
“Understanding them will help me find them.”
She snap-snap-snapped her fingers. “Our time. It is going, Sam. You can’t conduct psychoanalysis on a bunch of crooks before the Dutch police ID Yasmin on a security tape. Right now she’s just some girl with a backpack. But if they can ID her… we’re out of time. The damage to Zaid’s company will be done.”
“If I was going to psychoanalyze anyone, it’d be you.”
She glanced at me. “Analyze away. You will simply have to trust me that we are the good guys.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know. Ah.”
Nic’s car sped up, took a hard turn. She revved, followed close. In the street where he had taken the left, five streets led off, like the spokes of a wheel, each street short, intersected with another turn.
“You distracted me,” she said. “Your fault.”
Nic was gone. The rain began to come down harder.