store was busy—it was amazing that more people hadn’t been killed. I saw a man stop before the book display; next to it was a newspaper display. He reached for the paper and then the screen went white-hot blank.
I backed up the film and froze it. Five people in the store, caught in the camera’s unblinking eye. The four Dutch I could see and guess at from their photos in life. The Russian was the man reaching for the newspaper display when the bomb detonated. I backed up, a frame at a time. He stepped back from the newspaper display. He was in profile, his face turned slightly away. He backed toward the magazine display. And then I saw his face.
I know him. It can’t be.
37
BEHIND ME, IN THE HALLWAY, a door opened. Feet shuffled on hardwood.
“Nic? Ben je wakker?” Are you awake?
“Ja,” I called in my best impersonation of Nic. I couldn’t stay. I pulled the drive from the port. I could hear the bathroom door shut and then water running in a sink, the flush of a toilet. A shower started. And beyond that, I heard the front door open.
Nic was home.
No way out the front. I tapped carefully on the computer, making sure I was not leaving traces of my time there. I logged out and the screen returned to its prompt page. I put it to sleep.
I put my leg out over the window. I could still hear the crash of the water in the shower and I hoped Nic wasn’t heading straight back to his room. I pulled myself out, standing on the sill.
I couldn’t go down: I looked up. There was a beam extending from the brickwork several feet above my head. Most of the buildings in Amsterdam had them; I presumed they were used to haul large pieces of furniture up to the homes, given the narrowness of most Dutch stairwells.
It was quite a jump. I waited for someone on the street to notice me but no one was looking up. I gathered my thoughts; let the muscle memory of hours of parkour training settle in. I could do this. I raised my eyes to the beam. I jumped. I extended my hands to catch the beam.
I missed.
I fell. I reached and barely seized, with my palms, the brick ledge below the windowsill I’d been standing on. My body hit against the brick and pain lanced up my arms. My fingertips burned like fire but I didn’t dare cry out. I used my feet to muffle the impact and that gave me leverage to strengthen my hold on the brick. Parkour hardens the hands and the arms and the abdominals, but I was too out of serious practice. I glanced down. The street was mostly empty. A woman walked out of the café, past the bright yellow awning, didn’t look up.
I heard the door open. Nic, inside his room. Whistling. I was screwed. I heard a clatter on his desk; he was probably only a foot away from me. He might even see my hands if he looked out the window. I heard him speaking rapid Dutch to his mom, annoyed, telling her he didn’t have time to chat.
Thank God. I risked a pull-up and saw through the window that he was walking away from me, down the hall. But he’d left the bedroom door open.
Parkour is about effective movement from place to place. Efficiency. I made my mind a knife. I cut the problem into small steps that could be done in one fluid movement. I had been hanging on to the windowsill for less than ten seconds. I had no time to spare.
I pulled myself up cleanly. I managed to get a foot on the sill and I stood the rest of the way. Nic’s mom called to him from her room, complaining about him not bringing her breakfast. Nic told her to piss off and go back to bed until she was sober. His voice got louder, walking back in the direction of the bedrooms.
I had to make the jump again. I jumped, and this time I closed hands around the beam. I swung my legs up quickly, hearing Nic’s voice berate his mother and her answering bray. I heard a shout from the street—I’d been seen. All I could do was to vanish quickly, before the police were summoned. I moved to the top of the beam and eased myself out of view onto the roof. On the roof