I really didn’t want to know Piet as a person, but some instinctive need to understand took control. So I asked, “Why the sword?”

“The sword is who I am.”

“But it makes you memorable. I thought the idea was to stay under the radar.”

“It honors my mother.”

“She was Japanese?”

“Yeah. She came here for love. Boyfriend brought her, dumped her, she stayed.”

I remembered Nic called Piet a whoreson. Perhaps he meant it as more than an insult, as a description. His mom might have been a worker in the Rosse Buurt; many of the women there were not Dutch.

“I thought I wanted to study art, do Japanese-style stuff, like netsuke or watercolor painting. My mother did that in her spare time.” He shrugged. “But art school didn’t work out. They hated me there and a girl made trouble for me. Assholes. So I left.”

I had not thought of Piet as someone with smothered dreams. He read my expression. “Eh, you thought I was just a snake.” He laughed.

“Well, I—”

“Man, we’re all snakes. Gregor likes to pretend he’s shed his skin, been reborn as an honest soul, but his scales are still there. And I suspect you’re a very crafty snake, Sam.”

I shrugged. “Sure. I got run out of the army. I spoke some Czech from my grandmother’s side of the family. I couldn’t find a real job in Prague so I made my own there. So you went straight from art school into trafficking?”

“Not right away. I used to do contract work for the police department in Amsterdam, designing their websites and brochures,” he said. He gave a long, low laugh. “Then I saw how much the opposition paid.”

I glanced at him. “That’s a switch.”

“You make serious money by being a player. If I’d stayed with the police, then I would have been a cog in their operation. I paid attention. I wanted to own cogs—not be one.”

“So you picked girls for your commodity.” My mind kept saying shut up, but it was a strange thought to sit here, making conversation with a monster in the shape of a man.

He shrugged. “Good profit margin. Growing demand. Not likely to run out of raw materials.”

It was brutally cold accountancy. I wondered if it was a sort of twisted revenge on his mother. “You sell people, Piet.”

“You sound like a schoolmaster.” He shrugged. “I think of it as selling comfort and convenience.”

“Not to the people you sell.”

He flicked a smile. “They don’t have money. They don’t count.” The smile turned greasy. “You know, they live better here, even as whores, than they do back home. I’ve done them a favor, I have.”

“It would be one thing if they chose it. But most don’t.”

He gave me a look of disapproval. “I didn’t know I’d offended your sacred morals.”

I had overstepped. I could show my loathing for him when I killed him, not before. “I just think counterfeit merchandise is a lot easier to control than people.”

“I like the control.” His voice became a low slur of gravel. “You should try it. I’ll treat you to the choicest morsels from my next batch from Moldova. Got some girls coming in four days, an order from a house in London. You and me, we can break one of the girls in. You get a taste for this business, then fake goods will pale.”

If I looked at him I would kill him on the spot. And I needed him. So I watched the sweatshop parking lot.

He misinterpreted my silence. “Ah. Maybe you don’t like the girls. We get boys, too, not so many, but I know a couple of boys back in Amsterdam you might like—”

“No, thank you,” I said. “Not interested.”

“You’re weird,” he said, “worrying so much about people. Other people don’t matter; all that matters is you. You judge me. But you are no different than me, Sam. You lie, you kill when you have to, you live under a false name. I never shot anyone down the way you did Nic.”

“I did you a favor with Nic.”

“True.” He rubbed his lip. “I keep thinking that I will be arrested any moment, because I don’t know what he was transmitting, or who he was talking to. I need a big payday, Sam. I need to be able to run and hide. That’s a great luxury, to hide well. That’s the mark when you’re not a pawn no more, when you’re a player.”

“Tell me about Edward,” I said. “Is he a player or is he more?”

“What do you mean, more?”

“You said he’s moving experimental weapons.”

“I think he’s pulling corporate espionage—stealing from one company to sell to another.”

“What’s he want to put into this shipment, Piet?”

“Not for you to worry about.”

“If we get caught I’d like to know what I’m serving time for.”

“You’ll never see the light of day if we get caught on this job.” Piet’s gaze went back to the warehouse. “Ach, hello.”

A truck, marked with a stylized lion and dragon, pulled into the back of the warehouse where the sweatshop sat. Three Chinese men spilled out. Two wore black trench coats. Another, more portly, wore a regular tan jacket and blue jeans. He walked to the bay of the warehouse.

The two in trench coats stayed close to the truck.

“Let’s go,” Piet said.

“No,” I said. “They’ve got shotguns under the coats.”

“How can you tell?”

“See the way the fabric bulges, right below the arm? One guy was riding in the cab, but the second came out of the truck itself. They won’t go into the building. They’re guards.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?”

“We can’t grab the truck here. They’re picking up extra goods—they’ve already dropped off fake cigs along the route. We go in now, while they’re parked at a friendly spot, the Lings get a phone call.”

“Not if we kill them all.”

“I didn’t sign on for a massacre,” I said. “And it’s bad business practice.” Interference with profit was the only argument that might sway Piet. “The Lings would start hunting for us fast. We need to tackle the truck crew alone.”

“So how do we steal the shipment?”

“We don’t,” I said. “We hijack it.”

63

AUGUST WAS SITTING IN THE HALLWAY of the safe house, waiting for the pilot flying him to New York, when he heard an exchange between Howell and one of the operations techs:

“Mr. Howell, we have a match on the description of the man at the warehouse based on the description you and August gave. Is this him?”

“Yes. Who is he?”

“Piet Tanaka. Dutch national, formerly a contract employee for the Amsterdam police.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He’s dropped out of sight, sir. No listed address, no listed occupation.”

“August!” Howell called.

August got up and walked to the computer screen.

“This the guy you saw in the warehouse?”

August nodded. “Yeah, distinctive face. That’s him.”

Howell turned back to the tech. “Find this guy. He’s got Sam Capra working for him.”

“I don’t think that’s accurate,” August said.

“Don’t you have a plane to catch, Agent Holdwine?” Howell said.

August left and found the pilot downstairs, ready to take him to the airport; Howell didn’t wish him well or thank him for taking a bullet. Treason poisoned the air; they all felt it since Howell had seen Sam Capra leaving the scene of murder and trafficking. Treason put people in a sour mood.

64

AFTER LOADING SEVERAL BOXES, the Chinese truck pulled back out onto the highway and we followed at a distance, three cars back. Piet was good; he knew how to tail.

“How are we going to get this truck grabbed before they stop again?”

“We force them off the highway.”