saw the back of the van open; the Chinese student they’d grabbed lurched out, hands bound. She could see the kid’s face was battered and bruised, a wet smear of blood below his nostrils. Then the two thick-necked men. Then Howell. All armed.
The three men stopped at the door. She could see the Chinese boy shake his head. They’d stopped at an access keypad by the door. The Chinese boy, hands shaking, entered a code.
The four men entered. Mila hurried toward the van. They were going in full throttle, so they were more worried about their front than their back.
She slid under the van and began to count, watching the door. Her timing would have to be impeccable if Sam was to survive.
51
HIM OR ME?” I ASKED. Nic looked too shocked to speak.
“Or both?” Piet said. “I don’t need trouble.”
“But you still need help,” I said. “Or you wouldn’t even have bothered to talk to me. Nic thinks you’re a joke. He ever make fun of your sword?”
The corner of Piet’s mouth jerked. Sometime in those months, Nic’s disdain had been noted and filed. “Everything you said is correct,” Piet said. “Here. Fine.”
And he handed me the gun. “Kill him.”
Final test. If I was a cop or a plant, I wasn’t going to gun down an unarmed man. This was the line that no one with a shred of decency left would cross.
What decency did I have left? I raised the gun; my head crowded with Lucy and the baby. This man had helped kidnap and assault women, shipping them into slavery. He was smuggling weapons. He was hacking into government databases and stealing information. He was trading in photos of assaulted and abused children.
And I was what—a courtroom on two legs?
I guess I was.
Him or me. And with me, my family.
I fired.
The bullet caught Nic in the chest and he fell back. Bad shot. It didn’t kill him outright. Sorry, Nic. He looked at me with a wrenching stare of agony and hate and I fired again and his face didn’t matter anymore.
I wouldn’t see it again, except maybe in my dreams.
I pulled my shirt loose, wiped my prints off the Glock, and handed the gun back to Piet. My hand didn’t shake. And for one moment the past five seconds seemed like a life that happened to another man.
“Well,” Piet said into the silence. He stared down at Nic’s body.
“Well,” I said. Well, well, well. Who was I now?
“Let’s get to work.” He gestured at the goods. “I like your ideas, but I’ve already got a load of goods to use as camouflage. You reinforced my opinion as to what would work best.”
Nothing like brownie points from the trafficker. I inspected the boxes. Counterfeit cigarettes.
“You’re going to ship your super-duper top-secret stuff inside illicit cigarettes that you then sell in the United States and double your profit. Two birds, one stone.”
“I maximize my efforts.”
Piet was much smarter than he looked. He gestured at the boxes. “About a million euros’ worth.”
I pointed at the shredded, destroyed microphone. “You better hope there wasn’t a tracker in there. Whoever he worked for will be coming when contact gets cut.”
“Which is why we’re going to move everything right now. The women, the cigs.” He turned to the twins and started issuing hard orders in rapid-fire Dutch.
How could I get the women to safety without blowing my cover? Right now, I couldn’t. The thought hurt.
I heard a soft ping. A door opening. I couldn’t see the front door from here: the boxes and boxes of illicit cigarettes made a labyrinth between here and the front door.
I was counting on the arrival being Mila. Which meant I wanted Piet heading out the back with me, abandoning the captives and his goods. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No,” he whispered. We leaned against the wall. Stacks of boxes barred part of our view. He gestured at the twins, who took up positions ahead of us, closer to the door.
I saw a figure step into view. Not Mila. A thin, young Asian man, walking in, wearing an ill-fitting jacket and loose jeans. He had thick black hair cut in a bad slash; tufts stuck up like little exclamation points.
“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