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.