“And what about dealing with American customs?”
“I have a friend on the customs staff in New York. He has three children currently in college and grad school, so he has large bills. He’s rather open to not inspecting whatever I say.”
“And where would you get the appropriate export documentation, and the packaging, and the manifests from a legitimate manufacturer?” Piet asked.
“Well, before I give away all my trade secrets, I’d like my money first,” I said.
Piet stared at me. “Why did you come to Amsterdam?”
“I came for the waters,” I said.
“Ha!” Piet said. “One of my favorite movies. Casablanca.”
I used a line from Bogart’s character, the bar owner Rick Blaine, when he is asked to explain his presence in the intrigue-filled city. I smiled. “I needed a change.”
“You were based where?”
“Prague and Croatia. I stayed there after I got out of the army. I liked the country.” I looked at Nic, then back at the smile. “What’s in the fifty packages?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Where’s Edward?” Nic asked suddenly. After all, my performance was supposed to convince Piet’s boss that Piet was untrustworthy, more trouble than asset, and Piet appeared to be alone. There was no one to convince. Edward. Edward was the scarred man. Edward. I let the name roll around in my brain. Edward. The man with the question mark close to his eye who’d taken my wife.
“Edward isn’t here,” Piet said. “Left it up to me to take the measure of this man.”
“This man ended up in a bar fight last night defending your good name,” I said, “and I don’t even know you.”
“Yeah, interesting, that. Thanks for the good turn. Not really used to altruism.”
“I was looking for you,” I said.
“You and the Turk both,” he said.
“Popularity is a curse,” I said. “But I wasn’t really looking for you until the Turk started threatening you. That was an opportunity for me and I took it. But I hope you don’t have more loudmouths around here.”
Piet glanced at Nic. Then back at me. “I’d like to hear what you heard the Turkish gentleman say last night.”
“The Turk was talking to one of his friends at the bar before Nic here showed up.”
“You speak Turkish?”
“Enough. I used to run goods down to Istanbul. Excess Russian ordnance bound for Africa, mostly. The Turk said he had arranged to smuggle something to America for you. And that he was going to get you to give up some woman you have, in exchange for the smuggling going smoothly.” I watched his face as I laid down the trump. Nic wasn’t so good an actor; he jerked his head toward me at this unexpected twist.
“Some woman,” Piet repeated.
“Yes. He was going to guarantee that whatever you were smuggling wasn’t harmed, wasn’t captured by the cops, if he got some woman who’s with you. Yasmin?” I shrugged. “I may not have the name right.”
He didn’t blink. But his hand, curled into a fist, unfolded, fingers close to the wakizashi sword. Like its weight called to him. Then he made his hand a fist again. “And that was all?”
“Yes.”
“And on that basis, you fight for the honor of my name?” He laughed.
“No. I thought you might not want him screwing up your deal. I need a job. I didn’t realize until later that what I heard might be valuable to me.” I shrugged. “You can’t use his route to America now. But you could use mine. I’m guessing, if you’re using the Turk, it’s because you don’t have a regular route into America.”
“But we don’t know you.”
“You want my creds? Ask Petrova in Kiev about me. Ask Djuki in Athens about me.” I threw out the name of two traffickers.
“Petrova is dead,” Piet said.
“I hadn’t heard.”
“Last month. She was shot by a rival.”
“Oh. Too late to send flowers, I guess.”
Now Piet flicked a smile, like he was tossing a card to me, sure my hand would crash. “Djuki went missing a few months ago.”
“He’s probably hiding.” The fact I knew their names was not cred enough. I didn’t expect it to be. “Or he’s in China, running Gucci and Ralph Lauren counterfeiting action.”
“And if I could reach him, I’d hire him over you. Him at least I know. You could just be cleaning up the mess left behind,” Piet said. “You could work for the same people as the Turk.”
“That’s a theory.”
“What did you work on with Djuki?”
“Girls from Moldova and Ukraine, shipped to Israel and to Edinburgh and Toronto. I moved guns from Albania and Uzbekistan to Mexico. I shipped in fake cigs and fake Windows software from China to Canada and the U.S., mostly Houston and New York.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You moved girls with Djuki?”
“Yeah. Twice. You find him in China, you can ask him about me.” I shrugged. Djuki wasn’t hiding; he was dead. He was a Greek trafficker who’d been turned by the Company, spilled information on his routes and methodologies for a hefty sum and immunity, and then been killed when he tried to vanish after the Company put him back out in the field to serve as an informant. Djuki was scum. I’d met him once or twice, and the Company had entrusted me to put out the word he’d gone to China to work deals on that side.
“Where’s his scar?” Piet asked.
And my mind went blank.
47
I DIDN’T BLINK. “There are so many to choose from.”
“The most embarrassing one.”
I swallowed, trying to picture the photos in the smuggler’s thick file. Not on the face. Not on his chest. Then I smiled as I remembered Brandon, my boss back in London, cracking a joke.
“Across his ass,” I said. “His girlfriend gave it to him with a kitchen knife. She should have had your wakizashi.”
He smiled at my using the Japanese term. “And why did he get it?”
“He was screwing around with girls he was shipping to Israel and Dubai,” I said. “Breaking them in for the customers.” I couldn’t let the disgust show on my face. Most of the girls trafficked were from the former Soviet republics, desperate for work; they’d been promised waitressing or secretarial jobs; they were going to be broken with rape and heroin before they met their new pimps. “Girlfriend didn’t approve. He was lucky she cut his backside and not his front.”
“And how did you see the scar?”
I’d seen it in his file, of course. I hoped Djuki’s explanation as to the scar’s origin was accurate. If it wasn’t, I was dead; Piet would kill me on the spot if I couldn’t kill him first. “He kept up his practice of breaking in the girls when needed. I saw it then.”
Piet gave me the slightest of nods. I was inside the circle, at least for now. My creds proven by knowledge of a rapist’s ass scar.
“Make your calls,” he said to me. “The goods will be here in two days. You will arrange a pickup of them when they arrive, repackage them for shipment to America, and then get them past customs and onto the ship in Rotterdam. You’ll be paid fifty thousand in euros. If you need help forging documents, my boss Edward is an expert forger.”
Repackaging the shipment. Oh, yes. That would be it, the key. I would need help. I would need the whole gang together to help me.
And that’s when I could take them down, rescue Yasmin, and find out the truth from the scarred man. The opportunity dangled before me, bright as a diamond.
I hid my sudden relief by holding up hands. “Wait a minute. You’ve cut the Turk loose, right? I’m not coming aboard if he’s about to bring the law down on you.”
“He’s not a worry for anyone anymore.” This was one of the twins speaking, the bald one.
“Oh,” I said.
Piet said, “The Turk is a former MIT agent.” MIT was Milli
