79
ST. PANCRAS IS A HUGE RAIL and underground station. It has undergone a serious, high-cost beautification process in recent years: massive, pale blue steel arches sweep against original brickwork. Glass ceilings lend an air of openness in the concourse. High-end shops and restaurants fill the walkways. A sign advertises the world’s longest champagne bar. Thousands of commuters and travelers moved through the station, but I walked through St. Pancras alone.
Mila stayed with the netbook in the car; I had a microphone nestled in my ear. She was watching Bahjat Zaid on the video feed, having hacked into St. Pancras’s security system. We were running a big risk; the security system might notice it was being invaded, and a security team might decide to investigate if they discovered the hack was occurring so close to the station. Security was naturally heavy—if not obvious—at such a critical travel hub.
“Found him. He’s waiting at the champagne bar on the upper level,” Mila said.
“Is he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you reading anyone watching him?”
“No.”
I headed upstairs toward the impressive stretch of the champagne bar; it was packed with beautiful people and a few tired-looking travelers. The bar ran for hundreds of feet, broken only by waiter stations. Stretches of wood were designed for solo travelers to sit with their laptops; other lengths were actually booths for four. Its far and only wall was glass and steel, and it faced the Eurostar station where trains from the Continent arrived and departed.
Zaid sat in a booth, alone, in his Armani suit and his polished, gleaming shoes, and he looked as bent and as ill as though he’d been consumed by a cancer. The confidence I’d seen in him was gone. He wiped a trace of sweat from his forehead and he kept a briefcase close to his legs. Very close. I sat to his left, where he couldn’t see me so easily, where a square bar formed the entrance and where the waiters, nattily attired, gathered their poured flutes and moved with grace back to the tables. I stayed on the other side of the bar and hoped my sunglasses and the dark cap would keep him from recognizing me. I ordered the cheapest glass of champagne on the menu but didn’t touch it.
Zaid kept scanning the crowd. Eagerly, nervously. He craned his neck around when groups walked alongside the Eurostar. Waves of people came and went. A crowd to my left was getting a bit loud, fueled by a magnum of champagne. Zaid kept glancing toward them. I turned away. I couldn’t risk him seeing my face.
“Do you still have him?” I said into the mic.
“Yes,” Mila said into my ear.
“He’s nervous, constantly scanning the crowd. I can’t risk him seeing me.”
“You don’t think you should just go up and speak to him?”
“Not if he’s getting Yasmin back. Edward could see me.”
“You are afraid of Edward?”
“I am afraid he’ll kill Yasmin if he spots me,” I said.
Mila said nothing, but I could almost hear her sneer.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned. Bahjat Zaid looked as though he meant to stagger toward his death bed: sweating, pale, mouth twisted into an angry tremble.
“Get the hell out of here,” he said. “You must leave. Now.”
“Is Edward bringing Yasmin here?”
“I am ordering you to leave,” he hissed.
“I know you’ve given Edward weapons for keeping his videos of Yasmin’s crime spree to himself. Are you swapping your snazzy briefcase for your daughter?”
He looked as though he might vomit on my shoes. “Leave. Now.”
“Answer me and maybe I will.”
“I give them the bag, they give me Yasmin, and this nightmare is done.”
“What’s in the briefcase?”
“Cash. Nothing more.”
“After all this, they just want some cash? What did you give them in Budapest, Mr. Zaid? What experimental weapons?”
Pure hatred came into his eyes. “Your services are no longer required. I will have my daughter back and she is safe. No one can talk about her now. They will be here at any moment. They could be watching us now. You being here may cost me my daughter’s life.” He so badly wanted to scream at me. To punch me. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t draw attention to us.
“You yell and bring the cops down on us, and I’ll tell them everything your daughter has done since they grabbed her.” He stared; I think he was too stunned that I was here, or unsure of his next step. “You lied to me, you lied to Mila. And when we needed you, to help your own daughter, you hid from us.”
“I did what was necessary. If you ever wanted to help Yasmin, you will go. Now.”
I took a tiny sip from the flute, to show I had no intention of vacating my seat. “I might get up and leave, or I might not. Cooperate and I’ll play along with you. Who’s coming? Edward?”
He nodded as though it cost him physical pain. “Yes. I was told you were dead.”
“Then he won’t be expecting me, will he? Go back to your seat at the bar, Zaid. You’ve got champagne to toast getting your daughter back. Shouldn’t you be rushing her home?”
“I am taking Yasmin to a psychiatric center where she can be cared for, where she can forget all she was forced to do.”
“I wish you luck.”
“Leave. This is suicide for us both. This Edward—he is both insane and calculating. You can’t beat him. I beg you.”
“Go sit yourself down. Right now.” My voice was cold and measured.
He retreated, slowly, unused to the idea that here was someone he could not get rid of. He returned to his spot at the bar and sat down. He made a production of not looking at me. I moved to another part of the bar, farther from the entrance and from Zaid, so I couldn’t be easily noticed.
How much backup could Edward and Lucy have here? I had to assume they had contacts to help them in London. But if they were arriving on the Eurostar… what, with Yasmin in tow? No. Yasmin would be squirreled away somewhere, and Zaid was trading the briefcase for that location.
“Did Zaid signal to anyone else in here?” I asked into the microphone. He could have his own security backup, after all.
“Not that I saw,” Mila said.
He wasn’t taking any chances with his daughter’s life. Except that I’d changed the math.
Twenty minutes passed. Champagne drinkers came and went. Friends met, lovers toasted, business types dealt. A low, constant murmur of talk, broken by the happy pop of corks leaving bottles at velocity. In my ear, Mila sang Coldplay songs, bored, until I asked her to stop. He kept a glass of champagne in front of him, and another glass across the table. Zaid kept eyeing his watch, as if willing Yasmin to appear.
And then she did. I saw her before Zaid did. She was walking unsteadily, as though she’d been doped. Edward held her arm; he was almost holding her up. Half of Yasmin’s face was hidden by a scarf.
I glanced around the bar. There might be backup here, but it wasn’t Zaid’s.
Behind me, Lucy.