“He works for Nic,” Piet said. “Hacker.” For some reason he retreated back toward the table.

The Asian kid stumbled forward into the dim light and I saw he’d been beaten. Really worked over. One of the twins—the bald one—said, “Hey, what are you doing here?”

The answer was a bullet that sang out and caught the bald twin in the throat. He sagged to the floor. His brother bellowed a shocked scream and started blasting the boxes with his assault rifle. Puffs of brown powder danced in the air: the fragments of cigarettes, tobacco exploding into miniature clouds by the impact of the bullets ripping through the boxes.

And someone, from cover near the front, shot out some of the lights. I saw the Asian kid scream and run, and then he caught a bullet and sprawled to the floor.

Chaos. Near darkness. I couldn’t let them shoot back—this could be Mila. Piet ran around one corner of the stacked boxes and I followed him.

Ping. Another light shattered. One light left, directly over the metal table.

I saw a figure standing near us, laying a round down toward the remaining twin. A dark-haired man. Piet fired before I could react and the man toppled, screaming in English. Both he and Piet raised to fire and I yanked Piet back, out of the line of fire. I needed him alive for now.

“God damn it, what the hell…,” Piet coughed.

“These have to be cops,” I said. “Who else would give Nic a wire like that? We need to get the hell out.”

We ran and an explosion of bullets tore through the cardboard maze.

52

I HEARD A CLANG, metal landing on concrete, and then a blast tore open the biggest stack of the cigarette boxes. Flame erupted from the flying debris; the hot, sweet scent of tobacco crowded the air. The thrum of the blast nearly deafened me. I turned as Piet fired back and I saw him drawing aim on a man through the tendrils of smoke.

August. The Company was here.

I grabbed Piet’s arm, spoiling his shot. The bullet pinged to August’s left and he ducked behind an unused machinist’s lathe. He hadn’t seen me.

“What the—”

“Just run, come on!” I shoved Piet toward the exit. I ran back toward the attackers, vaulted over the lathe and hammered both feet into the side of August’s head as he risked standing up. He sprawled. I didn’t think he had seen me yet. I had to keep it that way without killing him. I grabbed his gun.

The remaining twin ran toward me, expecting me to put a bullet in August’s head. Instead I raised the gun I’d just taken off August and fired right between the twin’s eyes. He had about a second to look surprised before he collapsed.

I ran like hell.

If Howell took me back into custody now, I was done. I would spend the rest of my life in a prison. I couldn’t prove that I worked for Mila’s secret do-gooders, that I was trying to infiltrate a criminal’s inner circle. I would just be a bitter ex-employee keeping company with a slaver. I would vanish back into Howell’s prison, sealed in stone. Or be dead and buried, unmarked, unmourned. Everyone who thought I was a traitor was going to think they were right.

I heard a roar from the lathe. Howell’s voice. Yelling.

I ran past Nic’s body. Piet reappeared, gun in hand, and laid down fire behind me, driving Howell back into cover. I could see Howell returning fire, and then—in a moment when Piet paused to reload—fire coming from the front door.

Someone was shooting at Howell from the other side.

He turned, returning fire. On the other side of the steel door I heard the captive women screaming and sobbing.

I grabbed at Piet. “Come on.”

“No. I’m not leaving these bitches here.”

“They’re not worth your freedom. They’re not worth losing the big job.”

I could see on his face he hated to give up—but he listened.

We ran down a hallway and hurtled out into the clouded light of the gray day. A Volvo van was parked in the rear.

Piet held out an electronic key. The van’s lights blinked; it made the oh-so-welcome click of locks opening. We jumped inside; Piet jabbed the keys in the ignition and slammed into reverse. We roared backward, straight, Piet not taking the time to spin out and turn yet.

Howell came through the back door when we were about thirty feet away.

He saw me, and a scowl swept across his face. He had been wrong to give me a moment’s trust. I was a traitor. A criminal.

The evidence was running away before his eyes.

Piet jerked the wheel and we hurled around the edge of a building, gunning out of their sight.

“They’ll throw up roadblocks,” I yelled.

He just spun the wheel around and floored the van. We exploded out of the industrial park, revving onto the service road, dodging around several slower-moving cars.

“Got to get enough distance then find new wheels,” he said. “We can carjack someone. There’s a school nearby, a mother won’t fight us.”

“But she’ll see our faces.”

“You still have a bullet?”

“Let’s do this the easy way. I can hot-wire anything.”

“Takes too long.” He slammed a frustrated hand against the wheel. “I hate losing those whores.”

I was free from agonizing about the captive women; Howell would make sure they were safe. Now I just had to keep Piet from killing someone else so we could catch a ride.

“Those weren’t cops,” I said. “They’d already have blocked out the industrial park. They didn’t. So who the hell was Nic working for?”

Piet didn’t answer for a minute so I did.

“Rivals.”

“Rivals?” Piet said. “You mean other traffickers.”

“Or maybe whoever the Turk was working for,” I said. I wondered if Piet would now mention Bahjat Zaid’s name.

“Well, we are going to take care of that problem.”

I loved that we, although he was horrifying company. Fine for him to think we were a team; easier for me to slide the knife past the ribs when the most happy time came. I fought down the thought. Enjoying killing people? That was a downward slide in which I had no interest.

He pulled into another sprawling industrial park that wore a concrete gray anonymity. He wore a mulish frown on his face; he seemed almost eager to find a victim, to vent his rage.

He spotted a young man carrying a box, walking toward a Mercedes parked at a remove from the others. “Him. We’ll take his.”

“I don’t want you to kill someone over a car, Piet. Every small crime we have to do is a crack in the chances of pulling off the bigger job.”

“Don’t talk to me like I haven’t worked before,” he said, annoyance in his tone.

“I’m not. But you kill only when absolutely necessary.” That was true. “This isn’t necessary yet.”

His face reddened. He did not like being lectured.

“I’ll take care of the car. Without killing the guy. You stay here. Keep your face out of sight. I don’t want him to see you.”

“He’ll see you. If he does, you kill him.”

“He won’t see me.” I slipped out of the van as Piet kept driving, slamming the door, running. The guy, bespectacled, thin, started to turn toward me and I hit him, a single precise blow at the base of the neck. He crumpled and I caught him. I pulled him out of sight, gently set him down in front of a cluster of other parked cars, where a narrow strip of anemic grass lay facing the concrete wall of the office park. His breathing was regular.

He had Mercedes keys in his pocket and I fished them free. Piet was already out of the van and running toward me. I ran to the Mercedes, unlocked it and slid behind the wheel.

“That was extremely smooth,” he said. But his tone of voice wasn’t admiring. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Canadian Special Forces.”