establishment, to a narrow hallway decorated with black-and-white photographs of the Prinsengracht through the years. I followed Mila as she headed for the rear of the bar and up a flight of stairs.
Mila stopped and looked at me. “Bahjat Zaid is a man who is absolutely terrified for his daughter. He doesn’t know you and he’s trusting his daughter’s life to you. Don’t rattle his trust. We’re his only hope. He can’t go to the police.”
“Why?”
“He can explain.” Mila turned and I followed her up the stairs. In a private apartment above the Rode Prins, a tall man sat, shoulders hunched, as though he’d played at Atlas carrying the world, and failed. He stood as we entered, smoothing his palms on his tailored suit jacket.
“This is the man I told you about, Bahjat,” Mila said. “Sam Capra.” I was surprised she used my name but I didn’t let the shock show. A woman like Mila had a reason.
Bahjat Zaid shook my hand, measuring me with his eyes. He had a firm grip and a firmer stare. He looked at me like a boss looks at an employee who might be about to give him bad news.
We sat; Mila asked if I wanted coffee. I said no.
Bahjat Zaid had a narrow face, worn with anguish, and he spoke his English with the faintest of Beirut accents. His navy silk tie was perfectly knotted at a collar of snow-white cotton. A cup of coffee, grown cold, sat untouched at his elbow. He was immaculate and enraged, all at once.
“Tell me about your daughter, Mr. Zaid,” I said.
“Yasmin. She is my pride. My only child. Last year she completed advanced degrees in both chemistry and physics. She is twenty-five. She is about one point seven meters tall. Her…” He stopped suddenly, as though embarrassed by the spill of words.
“Yes,” I said, “but Mila can tell me all that. Tell me about her.”
He blinked, and opened a manila folder next to him. He seemed to gather himself.
“This is Yasmin,” Bahjat Zaid said, pushing a photo toward me.
I studied it. The young woman was lovely. A spill of dark hair, eyes alive with joy and intelligence, a narrow smile. She wore a pretty blue sweater and jeans, and the sky behind her was gray, pregnant with rain. She was pushing a windblown hank of hair from her eyes. Behind her a large estate stood, trees swaying in the wind.
“That’s a nice house.”
He swelled with pride.
“My estate in Kent. It is historically important. It was to serve as a redoubt for the government should England be invaded. It has underground offices, a bunker, that would have housed Churchill in the event of a Nazi occupation. The house has been in my wife’s family for many years. We have a town house in London, but we love living in Kent. So did Yasmin.”
I didn’t say that if England fell to invasion, Kent, being in the southeast corner, would likely go first. “How interesting for you,” I said. There were more photos: Yasmin with her family, Yasmin with the estate staff, Yasmin on horseback, Yasmin graduating from university.
The next photo was Yasmin as a small child, looking up from a book. She was smiling, her two front teeth missing. “She indicated from an early age she wished to be a scientist. You see? She is reading a picture book about Madame Curie. Given my business interests, I felt a position in one of my companies would suit her, and I began to prepare her for such a career.”
I thought, You decided her future when she was still missing her front teeth? “Your companies?”
“Mr. Zaid is one of the partners in Militronics. A major firm that does a great deal of business with Western governments,” Mila said. I knew the company; they made a large variety of small-scale military equipment. Digital binoculars, night-vision goggles, bulletproof vests, and specialized military software and hardware. Their technology was considered among the best in the world; the Company was a client.
“Yes. Yasmin works in a research facility near Budapest. Mostly on defensive technologies: building better armor, more efficient weaponry and equipment. Her research centers on using nanotechnology.”
“And how long has she been missing?”
“Twenty-five days.”
“Has she ever gone missing before?”
“No. Never. She was always a most obedient daughter.”
Obedient. Not a word you heard every day. It was up there with nanotechnology on the rare-word scale, and my own words telling Howell about the Money Czar thundered in my ears.