Beyond the entryway I could detect a scent of spicy food, of laundry detergent, of sweat. Another man, a blond, stood at the end of the hall. Three to kill. But I would kill them, somehow.

A young woman stepped out next to him. She wore jeans and a faded T-shirt and held a gun. She had brown hair, pulled back. Not Yasmin Zaid. She stared at me with flat eyes. Four to kill.

And on her arm, a nine paired with a sun, stylized. Just like the man in Brooklyn who I’d killed with my bartender’s guide.

I wondered if the guy in shades could smell my fear, my tension. I didn’t want to die. The realization was on me like a weight slamming between my shoulders.

“You’re enjoying this,” I said, as he ran probing fingers up my leg, toward my crotch. “Those are some gifted hands.”

“Shut up. You talk when I say so,” he said in perfect English. Since his fist was close to my groin, I decided silence was the best option. I could see the gun in the back of his pants. Good to know. I’d already decided I’d take the woman’s gun; she was holding it a bit loosely, as though it were more prop than weapon ready to use.

“This is Samson,” Piet said. “He’s all right. He—”

And he didn’t get a chance to finish. The sunglassed man jabbed a hand hard into Piet’s throat. Piet slammed against the wall, choking, and the sunglassed man—probably about six-four, two hundred very solid pounds—said, “I’m not happy with you, Piet.”

Piet—big, tough sword-ninja Piet—started to beg. “Ah, Freddy, please. Please.”

“We all want to know how today went so bad. How Marc and Dirk died.” I guessed those were the twins.

“He can’t answer you if he’s choking to death,” I said. Piet gurgled and brought a bit of color to the dour room, turning a nice shade of robin’s-egg blue.

Freddy shot me a look. “I don’t know you.”

“Marc and Dirk got killed because Nic sold us out,” I said. “Nic’s dead. The revenge is done, if that’s what you’re after. I killed Nic and I’m going to get us some goodies to hide your junk.”

“They were our friends.”

“I’m very sorry. They died standing up.”

He had the same tattoo as the woman, the nine that was partly a sun. It looked very fresh on his forearm.

These guys were Novem Soles? These guys were… nothing. What had they done that ranked a Company file before the London bombing?

Freddy gave me a long, funny look. Piet started to kick the wall. Freddy’s bicep looked like it was hewn from marble. He probably didn’t keep a gun at hand because he could kill you with one blow.

The woman said, “Freddy. Let’s hear what Piet’s come to say.”

Freddy dropped Piet, who coughed and rolled on the dirty floor. I helped him to his feet. I couldn’t get my hands close to his gun, though. And Freddy had a gun out now and had it very close to my temple.

He steered us into a den at the end of the hallway and I thought: here we go, moment of truth.

But it was empty. No Edward. No scarred man. He wasn’t here.

“Edward wanted to talk to us,” Piet said.

“Edward doesn’t talk to people he doesn’t know,” the woman said. She had an odd tone, as though English and Dutch accents had been puréed in a linguistic blender. She was pretty, in a technical sense that proportion and balance were in her features, but she was ugly at the same time. Like the rot in her soul had inched its way to the surface. I disliked her immediately, and intensely.

“That must make his social circle very tiny,” I said.

“Yes.” The woman seemed to be in charge. Freddy wasn’t contributing to class discussion.

“My name is Samson,” I said. “And you are?”

“Demi.” She gestured at chairs. I sat.

“Like the actress?”

“Like the actress. Did you know her name is very popular with Dutch parents?”

“I did not,” I said.

This wasn’t right. They looked like low-level crooks, nothing that could pull off multiple bombings to rid themselves of enemies, or blackmail a corporate titan like Bahjat Zaid. But as my mind flashed across the video images from the Turk’s execution, I felt sure that Freddy and Demi and Piet and the other guy had been among the masked crowd on the tape. I could recognize Freddy’s bulk, the Dutch kid’s slouch, Demi’s crossed-arm stance.

The house was old, and it smelled, and they looked like youngsters playing at gangsters rather than being real criminals. On the TV a SpongeBob cartoon played, muted. I could smell burned popcorn wafting from the kitchen. A disassembled gun lay on the table. Sloppy.

“When’s Edward going to be here?” I said.

“He’s not,” Demi answered. She watched Piet slide into the chair next to me. The blue tint in his face had been replaced by a flushed red. He was pissed.

“What the hell is this?” he yelled.

“Edward said he’s making sure the shipment reaches us okay. He’ll see you when you’ve got the American side of the trip ready. Not before.”

I could hardly ask if Yasmin Zaid was here. “Is this all I have to work with?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are four of you, including Piet. I need more people to grab a shipment.”

“Piet was hired to arrange the shipment. We’re not helping you at all.”

“But we need more people.” I gained nothing by taking down this group; it wasn’t all of them, and Yasmin and Edward weren’t here.

“You don’t get to talk to Edward, or anyone else, until you’ve fixed the cargo problem.”

I glanced around the den; it wasn’t the room where they’d shown Yasmin shooting the Turk. This wasn’t their base of operations. This dump was a backup safe house for them.

I was going to have get Edward’s operation back on track. That was the only way to get him and the whole gang within reach, close enough to kill, close enough to get answers.

No choice. Starting tomorrow, I was going to have to steal a shipment of cigarettes from gun-toting Chinese smugglers to give me the man I was hunting.

Lucky me.

59

GREGOR SAID, “I don’t do a lot of business with the Chinese.” He looked at me and then at Piet. He swallowed. “Seriously, guys, I don’t think I can help you.”

“I just need someone in the counterfeiting chain,” I said. “You must know someone. No way are all these Rolexes entirely real.”

“I beg your pardon, Sam, but they are.” Gregor managed a moment’s outrage. He turned to Piet. “I honestly can’t think of anyone to aim you at.”

I was going to owe Gregor big-time. But killing Piet and removing all danger to him would probably be a good settling of the accounts. “I need to know, Gregor. You must have a contact among the Chinese.”

Gregor looked gaunt and frightened and once again like he was fending off a cold. He shook out a garlic lozenge from a package and slipped it between his lips, sniffling.

“I have one or two. But I’m not sure they’d appreciate me giving you a name. The Chinese counterfeiters are very, very careful about their associates.”

“They are also very, very entrepreneurial,” I said, “and I’m sure that we can make them an appealing offer.”

“What do you want them for?”

“We want to hire them to smuggle goods for us,” Piet lied.

Gregor clicked the garlic lozenge against his teeth. “Ask your friend Nic. Wouldn’t he know?”

“Nic is dead,” I said.

Gregor dragged a tissue across his nostrils with a wide swipe. “Really?” He looked at me as if to say: Well done.

“Yes. So. We need a name with the Chinese. We’ll pay, Gregor.”

He pulled a piece of paper close to him, wrote down a name and a phone number. “You want Mrs. Ling. She handles a lot of trade coming into Holland. I’ve gotten watches from her before. She has a legit export company, but she uses it as a front. I take fake Swatch watches from her, sell them online.” He finished his cigarette. “I would not cross Mrs. Ling.”