The Turk was like me, then; Bahjat Zaid had found a fellow reject to try and save his daughter. “Well, I don’t fail when I take on a job.”

Piet glanced at the twins and then at me and said, “You want to break in a girl, Samson?”

“What?”

He jerked his head toward a door. “I got eight girls heading to Nigeria and Israel. Two still giving me a bit of lip, even with the horse in their veins to settle them down. But nothing settles them like getting broke in.” A second test; if I was experienced as a human trafficker, I shouldn’t blink much at raping the merchandise.

“Go choose one you like, give her a ride,” Piet said.

“You said we could have a turn,” the bald twin protested. “Why does he get first pick?”

I thought how pleasant it would be to kill Piet. I had not killed but once before, and it was not an experience that I had liked. No human being would. But with Piet, I wouldn’t blink at it at all. It would be a service to humanity. Part of my heart, the part that thought I might be a husband and father again as soon as I found Lucy and the baby, said don’t be so ready to kill. But this guy… if Edward had taken Lucy, had this monster been near her?

Had Piet touched my wife?

It took a total gripping down inside my heart to say, “Do you move a lot of women?”

“My best revenue stream. From Moldova, mostly. Doing more from Russia and the Baltics as the economy worsens. About thirty a month. Usually special requests. Can’t keep up the demand for the young ones. Come see.”

I glanced at Nic, who trafficked in pictures of kids. Filling specific demands. Welcome to the personalized world of human suffering.

I followed Piet down a short hallway to a side office. The twins and Nic followed me. I smelled rotten fruit, burned steak, and a chemical stench, with sweat an uneasy undercurrent.

He opened the door into a dimly lit room, a side parlor to hell. In the flickering gloom I could see eight women along the wall. Manacles cupped their ankles and their wrists. The chains threaded back to the concrete on the floor. The women sat huddled. They wore their tops still—stained, torn. But their skirts and jeans and underwear were gone, robbing them of dignity. I saw bruises and tears and emptiness in faces that had endured too much horror. I felt a hot red rage glow in my brain.

But if I killed Piet and Nic now to free these women, I ruined any chance of getting close to Edward, to finding Lucy and the baby.

But I could not permit this. Rewrite the scenario, I told myself. Let Mila know what horror lay inside this room. “You’re trafficking in women,” I said. Piet scowled at me as I stated the obvious. I hoped Mila was still in range, that she was listening. Once we left the machinists’ shop, Mila could rescue these women. But that would put me in danger. Being the new guy, if this operation got compromised, I would be compromised. They would kill me on the spot.

Impossible choice. I needed an option, fast. I needed a scapegoat.

“Which one you want? The redhead?”

Six awful little words. The redhead looked to be seventeen and I could see her lip quivering in horror, in fear.

“Just don’t hit the faces or the tits. You got to whip one, do it on the back of her legs. No one ever looks at the back of their legs,” one of the twins said.

“No,” I said. “No thank you.”

“What’s wrong with you? They’re like ripe fruit. Pluck one.” Piet laughed. “We’ll both take one. Seal our friendship. And we won’t get cut on our asses like stupid Djuki, will we?” He laughed, and I saw the women shudder. I tried not to think about what he’d already done to them, what he’d do to them if I left them in his grip. He prodded the closest one with the tip of the wakizashi and she burst into shuddering tears.

I looked at Piet’s neck and thought about how I would break it.

Nic had followed us, watching me, seeing me dipped in this inhuman litmus test.

“I’m a businessman,” I said. “I don’t stoop to sampling the goods. That’s for the muscle.”

“Eh?” Piet didn’t like that. I’d implied he was not a boss, that he was muscle. I could see rage rising in his stare. He stepped back from the terrified woman and the edge of the sword glittered in the faint light from the hallway.

“Are you serious?” I said. “Is this going to be how you test me? Whether I’m willing to break a girl?”

Piet’s mouth worked.

One of the young women—the redhead—looked up at me. I’d spoken English and who knew if she understood.

“Don’t talk to him this way,” Nic said. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tension, tight as wire, strained his voice. I stared at him.

At this point I was only just inside the circle. But only just in wasn’t good enough. I needed to be all the way in. I glanced at Nic. Rock, meet hard place. If I played Nic’s game of betrayal, Piet might never let me near Edward. If I didn’t—Nic was unpredictable. I didn’t need Nic. I needed Piet.

I gave Nic a last smile. He was a traitor to his friends and he was a scumbag who used children. I didn’t mind paving my road with his bones.

48

I WANT IN,” I SAID TO PIET. “But on my terms.” Then I turned and launched a hammering kick into Nic’s face. He crumpled. I didn’t want him talking, so I slammed a second kick, precise, into his throat. Not hard enough to kill but enough to keep him nice and quiet.

Piet had a gun out, leveled at me, before my foot was down. It was good to know he had more than that stupid for-show sword. The women screamed and retreated against the wall; I raised my hands.

“He’s your problem. Not me.” I pointed at the sprawled Nic with a tip of my toe. Nic made gaspy, breathy noises, eyes blinking in shock. “He’s setting you up. He wants to take over your operation.”

“Outside.” Piet gestured with the gun, screamed at the women to be quiet. They fell into a snuffle of tears and whispers. He gestured toward Nic. I pulled Nic to his feet, shoved him staggering out into the hallway and back to the main room. I pushed him as the twins hurried out and Piet shut and locked the door. Five seconds I was alone with Nic, but that was all I needed as the twins and Piet rushed up behind us.

“What the hell is your problem?” Piet said.

“He’s busting on you,” I said. “Selling you out. Check him.”

Nic moaned through his ruined lip and broken teeth. He started to sit up, consciousness rousing, and Piet pushed him back down to the floor with the barrel of the gun.

“He wanted me to lie about you to Edward. Say that you had been stealing girls from shipments for another client, reselling them.” I kept my voice steady, looking at Nic as his eyes widened in horror. Because, you know, I was telling the truth. It’s always easier to tell the truth than to lie. “He wanted you out, and himself in as lead trafficker. He figured there’s more in live women than in photos of little kids. He’s working for someone else who wants your business, and betraying you is the cut.”

Piet kept the gun glued on Nic, who stayed still and bubbled blood from his mouth where my heel had smashed lip and teeth. He ran a hand along Nic’s pockets, under the jacket.

At first I thought Piet had missed it. He stood, not even aiming his gun at Nic anymore. Then I saw the thin little tube in Piet’s hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger. He held it up to Nic’s face. Nic blinked.

“What is this?” Piet asked, in a whisper that sounded like dirt sliding off a coffin’s top.

“I don’t know, it’s not mine,” Nic mumbled. “He’s a goddamned liar, Piet. Who are you going to believe, him or me? You know me.”

“Yes. Yes, I do know you Nic.” Piet inspected Mila’s little transmitter. He tried to cut it apart with his thumb, failed. He opened a knife from his pocket and sliced into the microphone and unpeeled it apart carefully. I’d had seconds to slip it into Nic’s pocket. Giving up the transmitter would be cutting my only link with Mila, assuming she hadn’t been grabbed by Howell and his men, but I had to do it. It was my way to save Piet’s victims and to put all the blame on Nic when Mila rescued them. My heart beat out a hard, skittering rhythm in my chest.