68
AMSTERDAM, WELL PAST MIDNIGHT. The night was a mirror of the city, the lights of Amsterdam reflected in the sky by a sprinkling of stars peering through the tracery of clouds. It was not a city that ever slept deeply or soundly. Too much business in Amsterdam needed the night.
I followed Piet. There would be ten of them, including Edward, if the count in the group in the video held true. We’d have to meet at a place with privacy for the weapons to be repackaged with the cigarettes. Some of the gang would be dispatched to unload the cigs. Another group would probably be inside the facility, guarding whatever Edward’s prize was. That division of targets might make it easier for me, but not for long.
Yasmin would be held separately, I guessed. I should be able to make a sweep and not worry about her in the cross fire.
Don’t you need a gun? a little voice chimed in. That was, I told myself, only a temporary problem.
Piet drove to the southern edge of Amsterdam and stopped at what appeared to be an old brewery. An unweathered sign announced in Dutch that the brewery was closed for renovations. Another truck was there, unmarked. Next to it was an Audi sedan, and I felt my heart jump.
The silver Audi I’d chased through the streets of London, with Edward and Lucy inside. Different license plate, but I recognized the scuff on the back bumper where he’d scraped through the jammed street to get away.
He had taken my wife. And I was close to him now. I felt a primal rage rise in me, the raw anger we like to think was banished with cave fires and wall paintings. But I couldn’t be angry. I had to be cold.
Thin lights flickered in the windows. They were here. This was it.
Time to live or die.
Piet had already walked back to the truck as I got out. “Van keys, please,” I said.
“Why?”
“I left my smokes in there.”
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Well, I do,” I said.
“Well, hell, you got a whole truck of cigs right there.”
“I don’t feel like opening crates.”
“Fine. Go get them.” And he pressed the van keys into my hand.
I turned and went back to the van. He went around the back of the truck, presumably to open up so the unloading could start.
Go.
I could only guess where Eliane had hidden the gear. Under the driver’s seat.
They took your wife and your child. Be cold.
I made a show of searching the seat for the cigarettes in case Piet was watching.
Then I put my hand under the van’s seat.
Nothing. I leaned over, groped under the passenger seat. Nothing. No way Eliane would have hidden it under the back seats. I glanced into the emptiness of the van.
And felt the barrel of the gun press against the back of my head.
“You tried to fool the wrong guy,” Piet hissed. “Stupid move.”
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“Your guns, your phone, your little devices. The phone went off, someone in Amsterdam trying to call you. Why do you have this stuff?”
I didn’t answer him and he pushed the barrel of the gun harder against my head. “To protect myself.”
“From me?”
“No. From them.”
“Them?”
I turned to look at him; he kept the barrel on my face, so that the gun slid along my cheek, settled below my eye. “Edward and his people. What do you think they’ll do to us the moment we’ve delivered the goods? They’ll kill us, man. They don’t need us anymore. We’re two and they’re, what, a dozen?”
“They won’t hurt us.”
“Edward’s not just a smuggler, Piet. I know who they are. The people who blew up the train station.”
His face went pale. “How the hell do you know? Who are you?”
“Peter Samson, just like I said. My friend at the bar got me the gear,” I said. I didn’t blink. I didn’t look concerned. Because old Piet had tipped too much of his hand, confronting me outside.
If you are heading toward a rendezvous with very bad criminals, and you think you have a spy on the inside coming with you, and you have brought said spy close to said very bad criminals, it might be a very bad idea to let the very bad criminals know that you have put them in grave danger of exposure. So I figured he hadn’t said a word in warning to Edward.
All this cut through my mind in seconds. Along with the realization that Edward’s team, having heard the low rumble of the truck’s arrival, should be stepping out of the old brewery within seconds.
I didn’t have time for Piet anymore.
“Aren’t you going to shoot me?” I said.
“I want to know who you work for,” he said. His life depended on information now. He’d brought the spy close, now he needed to know who I was. It was the only way to redeem himself with Edward and his people. “Tell me, God damn it, or I’ll kill you.”
I said nothing.
“Who are you?” he raged. And then he took the gun off me because he remembered he had a better way to hurt me.
He pulled out the wakizashi from under his jacket, lifted the blade.
He stepped back to launch his swing; he wanted to scare me, to have me know I couldn’t stop the sword from opening me up. So he stepped back too far, and he gave me room. He slashed the wakizashi toward me with a singing hiss. I pivoted and blocked it with a kick. The blade went halfway into the thick sole of my work boot. His melodramatic toy of a weapon stuck. For one sweet second he was so surprised he didn’t know what to do.
So I grabbed the handle of the van for leverage, and kicked him with the other foot. My work boot caught him hard on the chin and he flew back, teeth flying, lip splitting.
I landed on the asphalt, awkwardly, one leg. I yanked the wakizashi loose from the thick, rugged sole and advanced on him. I pointed the tip at his groin.
His front teeth were gone. He tried to skitter backward on the pavement. “No, please.”
I yanked him to his feet, put the blade at his gut. He let out a broken-toothed mew of surprise; he thought I was going to eviscerate him.
Then I heard the brewery door open. The van was between us and the doors. I slammed a fist hard into his bloodied mouth and he crumpled.