60
THE RODE PRINS WAS EMPTY INSIDE; its few customers were all outside basking in the sun. Henrik wiped down the bar and nodded politely as I approached.
“You saved me,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Sam. I don’t like that man. Not a bit.”
“I don’t like him either. Where is Mila?”
“She is upstairs.”
I caught her coming down. “We need to talk,” I said.
She turned around without a word and we went into the apartment. I started to speak and she delivered a slap right across my face. It stung.
“What the hell—”
“We did not bring you inside,” she hissed, “just so you can find your wife, who is probably a traitor. We brought you in so you could do good. Actual, real good.”
“Didn’t I?”
“You left those women there.” Agony layered her voice. “It is beyond indecent, Sam.”
“The Company was there. My friend August was there—”
“And they abandoned the women. They left them behind.”
That couldn’t be. I tried to think of a reason why Howell would have done such a thing. “Mila… they had wounded and they were operating on Dutch soil without clearance. They had their covers to protect… they would have called the police, I’m sure.”
“You are sure. So they, and you, leave women chained like dogs in darkness?” Her voice broke.
“Mila, where are the women now?”
“They are with friends of mine. I will make sure they are returned home.”
“Mila, I did my best to protect them.” I took a step closer to her, her slap still stinging my cheek. “I kept Piet from hurting them again or taking them with us. I’m sorry if I let you down.”
She bit her lip, clutching her elbows. “You will have to fend on your own. I need to help the women.”
“You’re abandoning me?”
“You abandoned them.”
“You know that’s not true. I set it up so they could be freed. Mila, why are you being this way?”
She looked at the ground. “Because I have to be this way, Sam. Listen carefully. If you have to leave Amsterdam, my employers own a bar in just about every major city in the world. Do a search for ‘Roger Cadet’ on your phone and you’ll find the address for the closest one. Go there and tell the manager that Roger Cadet asked you to stop by and you will be helped, whatever you need.”
“Who’s Roger Cadet?”
“The supposed owner. But he doesn’t exist. It’s just a password. But every bar’s location is encoded with it so it’ll show up on a GPS map.”
“These bars are a chain?”
“No. Each bar is unique. But each can serve as a safe house for you.”
I took a step toward her. “I am so close, Mila. So close to finding this Edward jerk, and to finding my wife and child. To saving Yasmin Zaid. Please don’t walk away. Help me.”
“You don’t need me, Sam. You need only yourself, and your unbroken focus. Everything else is a distraction. And I have to help these women. I have to.”
She spoke from a place of pain and I couldn’t argue with her. “All right.”
“I can always be reached at this number.” She gave me a cell phone number; I repeated it and she nodded.
“Good luck, Sam.” She left. I didn’t want her to go; but in one way it was easier. Because there was no way in hell she would agree to what I was going to do next. I went to my duffel bag, where I’d stashed it under the bed, and I pulled out the cell phone August had given me a lifetime ago in Brooklyn.
I went downstairs and I walked a half mile away and stood on a bridge that spanned the Prinsengracht. A sightseeing boat cruised below me; a group of students, laughing, walked past me. I dialed.
It rang seven times before it was answered. “Yes?”
“Hi, August.”
A pause. “Where are you?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“You better be turning yourself in.”
“No. I need to see you. Face-to-face.”
“Um, I was shot today, you know.”
“Are you in the hospital?”
“No. Flesh wound in the arm and I took a blow to the head. The bullet is out and my head’s hard as steel. But I get sent home tomorrow. They didn’t have a plane available tonight.”
“I need your help.”
“You need help, all right, Sam. You know there was a dead body in the apartment next to you, don’t you?”
“I knew that.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Sam.”
“Well, he started it,” I said. “Can you come see me? Without Howell or anyone else?”
“You have to be kidding!”
“The guys I was with are tied to the man who set off the London bomb and kidnapped my wife,” I said. “Now, if you want to grab me, you will ruin any chance of getting this guy. He’s behind the bombing in Amsterdam and he’s working on getting experimental weapons of some sort to the States. He sent the dead guy who tried to kill me. He’s tied to the Money Czar we were investigating in London. August, it’s all knitted together and I’m this close to pulling it apart. I need your help.”
“You are so major-league screwed up, Sam. Look, come in; tell us all about it and let us help you.”
“I can’t, August. They’ll just put me back in jail. Howell thinks I’m in with these people. I don’t have time to explain to him that I’m not.”
“I’ll lose my job if I don’t report this conversation, and you know it.”
“Yes, you will.” I waited.
“Where are you?”