34
THERE IS A MAN TRYING to infiltrate our group,” Piet said. “Nic told me about him. He is a former intelligence agent. He has been seeking a means to get close to me, and presumably to you. I’m pretty sure he’s tied to your little bitch’s daddy.”
Edward had just gotten off a plane, his flight delayed by bad weather, and he was tired and irritable. His stomach rumbled. The lunch he’d eaten in Budapest disagreed with him. The fish, he thought. That would teach him to eat seafood in a landlocked country. And he’d gotten word that Simon, his man dispatched on a critical errand in Brooklyn, had failed. Which meant Sam Capra was alive. This was a bad night. But he would not be afraid. Fear was for fools.
“Where is he now?” Edward asked. He put down his suitcase. He took a calming breath.
“Earlier he was at a bar. Nic can tell us.”
“And he wants to see me?” Edward said. “Bring him to me. I will put him to good use.”
“And your little bitch?”
“If anyone is my little bitch, Piet,” Edward said, “it’s you. You will undo my work if you speak of her that way. She’s one of us now. Be nice.”
Piet sucked in air and crossed his arms. Edward hated him. But Piet was necessary.
“You better be getting what you need to get out of her,” Piet said. His voice was a low growl. “Otherwise, you’ve risked us all for nothing. And nothing doesn’t pay my bills.”
“Life is getting what you want, and I’m better at life than you are, Piet.”
“Her father caved?”
“Caved, collapsed, avalanched.”
“You’re overconfident,” Piet said. “Bahjat Zaid is behind this infiltration; he is trying to outflank you.” He had his plaything, the wakizashi sword, pulled free from the custom holster on his pants. “Let me go van Gogh on her ear, send it to him. He’ll behave.”
“You don’t touch her. Ever.”
“I’m starting to think you have feelings for the little bitch—”
On the last word, ignoring the short sword in Piet’s hand, Edward seized Piet by the throat and pushed him, almost gently, back into the wall. Piet brought the sword up quickly, the edge of it touching Edward’s wrist.
“You know if you cut me, you’re dead,” Edward said. “The sword is a stupid prop, Piet. Carrying it, you look like a refugee from a bad samurai film. Now put your toy down or I’ll yell out and my friends will come up here and kill you with their bare hands. That’s their loyalty to me.”
After a long moment, Piet lowered the sword.
Edward released his grip. Piet was afraid of losing respect, of face. Easy to manipulate.
“The routes to get my goods—you did an excellent job. The pickup in Budapest went very smoothly.” It had been so hard to leave his treasures behind and get on the plane back to Amsterdam, but now the treasures were on their way, hidden in Piet’s smuggling route. They would be in the Netherlands soon enough. “Let’s have a look at this spy and make him useful. Get the cameras set up. Please.”
The modicum of respect worked. Piet left with a curt nod and Edward went to Yasmin’s room. He touched the place where the sword had lain against his wrist; he could still feel the edge of the blade. Piet was starting to be more of a problem than he was worth, but Edward needed him right now. Everything was lining up: the money, the goods, his future.
Yasmin lay on the bed—that was her privilege now.
Edward was proud of his fair lady, the woman he’d modeled from raw clay into a killer. He stood over her as she slept in an uneasy drowse.
After she’d dropped the backpack behind a book display inside the small magazine store in the train station, they’d hurried her out to a van two blocks away and driven off. She had not panicked or freaked out or tried to flee. She had followed her orders without question. Without fear.
Edward could see the admiration for his work in the eyes of the others.
That night they had moved her to the attic. Edward brought her favorite food, cinnamon pastries. He told her she had done a wonderful job, that she had done great good today.
“You eliminated a serious problem for us today.” He began to unbutton her blouse. “You are a heroine to me, Yasmin.”
“Are they listening?” she whispered.
“No. You are one of us now. You proved that at the station. No one is listening to us. It is only you and me here, little bird.”
He slipped her blouse from her shoulders; she did not resist. He held up a small wooden dove. “I saw this on a street vendor’s table at the Albert Cuyp Market and thought of you. Beauty, strength. And wood can be shaped… into so many things, Yasmin.” He eased off the skirt they’d put her in; she lay nude and shivering on the narrow bed.
“There is no going back now, Yasmin. The bombing went well. You did your part exactly as we asked.”
Bombing. She didn’t blink at the word.
“Your old dirty life is done.” He put the wooden carving—a dove—around her throat. It hung on a leather thong and he tightened the string, almost unconsciously, as he put it against her flesh. He felt the pulse of her throat through his fingertips.
Edward stood and undressed. His body was lean and muscular. He lay down on her and kissed her throat, her face, with gentleness. She did not kiss back. She lay still.
“You’re troubled by what you did?” he asked. “We went through this a thousand times.”
She didn’t resist his kisses. He took her, with urgency. She closed her eyes. He finished, lay next to her, then took her again, this time with gentleness. She lay as though not feeling his touch. He didn’t care.
The whole time, he whispered, “This is how you stay alive, Yasmin. Do what I say and you live.”
Now he sat and he watched her, thinking, until he heard a commotion, a struggle downstairs, and he knew Piet had readied the show for the cameras.
He woke her. “Yasmin? Wake up.”
The first thing she saw was the gun he was holding.
“Is that one of the—?” she began, and then she blinked past the bleariness of sleep.
“No. No, it’s not.”
She blinked and sat up from the pillow.
He sat next to her on the mattress. “Listen. I have a duty for you, but one you will like. Would you like a shower? Some food?”
She nodded.
He led her to a bathroom, and fresh soap and shampoo and a toothbrush. When she started to take off the dove, he stopped her. “No. I want you to wear it always. A hope for peace.”
He gave her fresh pants, a shirt, underwear. Demi brought up bread and fruit for breakfast. He thanked Demi, and so did Yasmin. Demi gave her a surprised glance as she went back downstairs.
“It’s nice to be one of us. To be free from the closet, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Come with me.” He felt a thrum of excitement in his chest; it was just like going back onstage.
He brought her down into the main dining room and there they were: Piet, Demi, six other men including the twins who often stared at her. Now they all stared at her. And in the middle, where the dining-room table should have been, there was a man tied to a chair. Thick rope bound him; a gag protruded from his mouth.
He moaned as Edward and Yasmin entered, his face bruised and beaten.
“Do you see this man, Yasmin?” Edward said.
“Yes, I see him.” Her voice was flat.
“He’s a terrible man, Yasmin. He has been working on a scheme to take you from us and to kill you if he cannot take you away.”
“To take me and to kill me?” Her tone was quiet, unruffled.
“Yes, to take you back to your father. He contacted one of our people with a mouthful of lies; we followed him. Do you know this man, Yasmin?” Edward grabbed the former spy’s head, twisted it toward her. He’d been beaten badly, but she studied the face and finally she shook her head.
“Your father knows we are protecting you from him. Your father sends people to destroy us. In secret. Like this man.”
She said, “Well, that’s wrong. I don’t want to go back to what I was.” And she spat in the man’s face. The gob of saliva hung off a clotted eyebrow, dense with dried blood.
The group gave a soft murmur, watching her.
“Are you sure you don’t know him? He has tried to infiltrate us, through Piet.”
“I don’t know him.” She looked at Edward.
The man bound to the chair stared at her and Edward took the gag from his mouth. “I just… I just want the money I’m owed. By Piet. That’s all. I don’t want to know about anything else.”
“You know about me. From who?” Edward said.
“I don’t know…,” the man said in Turkish, and then Edward started to beat him. Yasmin tried to look away and Demi said, “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare look away or we’ll tie you to the chair,” so she didn’t.
Under his fists, Edward saw the blood leap in its little splatters and the teeth break. He stopped and picked up one of the man’s hands. “I have ten ways to make you talk, right here. Bahjat Zaid sent you, yes?” he said, and he began twisting the fingers hard.
Finally the man screamed, “No, no. All right, Zaid sent me,” and then a torrent of words that Yasmin couldn’t follow, and Edward, leaning close, his hand on the man’s shoulder, gentle now, like they were friends.
“You were going to steal our shipment when it arrived in Rotterdam?”
“Yes… trade it for Yasmin. I would get it and then trade it for her. So I could take her back to her father. I will tell you all. Please just don’t…”
“So your route to smuggle our goods from here to America, that was all a lie? I just want to be sure I understand. You have nothing to fear if you tell me the truth.”
“Yes. It was a lie. All a lie. There was no route.” His breathing came in hard jolts.
Edward stepped away, wiped a speckle of blood from the toe of his shoe. He gestured at Demi, standing by a camera. He snapped fingers and said, “Action!”
Demi started the video camera.
Edward pulled out a gun, its barrel capped with a silencer, from the back of his pants. He handed it to Yasmin. He could hear the sudden gasps of the others.
“Act one,” he said. “Kill him.”
She took the gun in her hand. She looked at him in confusion.
“It’s not a test, Yasmin. It’s a duty.”
The man was broken, blood dripping from his mouth. His gaze met hers.
“Yasmin, do it. Now, please, my to-do list is not getting shorter,” Edward said.
She didn’t raise the gun; she stared at the beaten man.
“Yasmin…” He hoped he wouldn’t have to threaten to kill her again.
“I’m deciding where to shoot him,” she said. “I don’t want to hit the ropes instead.”
Edward smiled, a teacher’s pride in his student. The man began to babble in his own tongue, begging her not to shoot, pleading for mercy.
She raised the gun, steadied its grip.
“Yasmin!” the Turk yelled in perfect English. “Your father is trying to help you. Whatever they told you, it’s a lie! Don’t do this!”
“My father is the liar.” The gun wavered a moment. She blinked and fired.
The spit noise was soft; the bullet hit him in the chest. The chair fell over. He was still alive; he screamed in agony.
Yasmin fired again. The bullet struck the man’s throat. He spasmed and then went still. One of the men laughed and then they all clapped for her. She just stared at the dead man, as though he might fade from her sight. She didn’t lower the gun; she was a statue.
“That’s a wrap. Demi, load the footage onto the computer. Blur our faces if they’re visible. Then we’ll get it ready to premiere it for her idiot father.” Edward took the gun from Yasmin and lowered her arm, like settling a marionette back onto its wooden stage. “You are perfect now.”
She cupped her elbows as if she felt cold, and she seemed confused. He took her chin in his hand.
“Your father is now under our heel. He will not give us any more trouble, Yasmin.”
She glanced at the eyes of the others, all on her. “May… may I go back to my room? Or do you need me to help you clean up?”
“Go upstairs.”
She obeyed. The group watched her in silence.
“I wonder,” Piet said, “if that girl is playing you.”
“She is not.”
“I think she might do anything to survive,” Piet said. “She knew it was her or that Turk. You said she was a scientist, right? I think she just might be stone-cold. Don’t turn your back on her. She’s shot a man now. It will be easier the second time. Always is.”
“Shut up and get rid of the body,” Edward said. Piet could do the dirtiest job, given his mouth. “And Demi, I want that tape ready to send. I want her father to start his day with his lovely, perfect daughter.”