Adrenaline (9 page)

T
HE TEXT MESSAGE DISPLAYED:
Do not return now. Lay low. Destroy this phone and I will destroy mine. Call backup number in three days. Good luck
.

Well, that was not helpful. English sent to a Dutch phone number meant little. Practically everyone in Holland spoke English; including any Company operatives there who might consider me a traitor worth killing. And if the person on the other side decided to call this number and saw that the phone still received calls or texts—hmm, he’d realize his buddy had disobeyed orders and figure out that said buddy might be dead.

Understood
, I texted back, hoping to get more.

I hope he suffered
, was the answer.

Wow.

He did
, I texted back. I knew this was a huge risk; it might raise suspicion that I wasn’t following orders.

The call failed. The other end had broken or dismantled the phone; I was texting to ether.

I turned on the lights in the apartment. I found the bullet buried in the bookcase; it had sliced into a copy of
Great Expectations
. I pocketed the bullet and threw the shredded book in the trash under the kitchen sink.

I went and stared at the body. How was I going to get it out of here? There was not only the matter of the neighbors, but Howell’s watchers might check the apartment at any time when I was at work, and I wasn’t inclined to call Howell and say someone took the bait until I knew who this someone was.

My link to Novem Soles, whatever it was, was that someone in Amsterdam wanted me dead and thought they had gotten their wish.

I could call August. But what could he do?

For the next hour, I retrieved the bullet from the mattress, made the bed, tidied the apartment, then sat and paced and thought about what to do with this dead body.

There was a quiet knock at the door. It was four in the morning. I took the intruder’s gun and went to the side of the door.

Howell’s soft voice came through the wood. “Sam?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to open it.

“Are you okay? I got a report your lights have been on for a while.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Open the door.”

I tucked the silencer-capped gun in the back of my pajama pants and made sure the T-shirt covered it. I opened the door. Howell stood there, in jeans and a black sweatshirt. “Is everything okay?”

I let him step inside and then I shut the door. I hoped he didn’t have to use the bathroom.

“You get a call if I leave my lights on?”

“Yes. Especially on a day like today. When you tried to run.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“You’re not up thinking about a new way to run?”

“No. It’s just standard-grade insomnia that is the curse of accused traitors. I hope to get an Ambien endorsement next week.” I kept my voice steady, so unbelievably I-am-a-statue steady.

“You’re tense.”

“You showing in the middle of the night reminds me that I’m basically still your prisoner. Tension is a by-product.” I shook my head. “Honestly. I can’t believe you get up out of bed in the night to come check on me.”

“You matter to me, Sam. I know you want to believe the whole world is your enemy, but
I’m
not.”

I wanted to believe him. I could hand over the intruder’s phone and, you know, validate Howell. Show him the Novem Soles tattoo and say, well, you asked if I’d heard of it and now I have. Make him happy. But Howell and his peers had been so ready to believe the worst of me for so long, I had no reason to trust them. And whoever was gunning for me thought that I was dead. I had to take advantage of that temporary illusion.

I had to move. Quickly.

Howell said, “Well, if you’re all right.”

“I appreciate the concern.” I didn’t look at him. It just occurred to me that maybe I had marks on my throat from the intruder’s attack or bruises on my face. I hadn’t looked in a mirror. “I think now I can sleep. I mean, knowing that your team is watching over me. You all are better than a night light.”

He shook his head at my sarcasm.

If they’d watched everyone enter the building, then they’d notice on their logs that a guy in dark clothes who’d entered at some point hadn’t left. Questions would be
asked, probably by the morning. I didn’t have much time. I met Howell’s gaze.

Howell looked at me and he tried, God help him, a smile. “I know this is a pressure cooker. Just be patient, Sam. The truth will come out.”

“I’m sure of that, Howell. I’m all about the results.” The results were in the tub. And I smiled at him, the tentative way you do when you want a job and you’re not sure the interview went well.

He left. I went back into the bathroom and I looked at the dead guy for a minute. I looked at the useless phone number on his cell and then I took apart the phone. I didn’t want whoever wanted me dead to be the least bit suspicious. I went next door to an apartment under renovation and I picked the lock, then I carried the body there and put it in the bathtub. I cranked the air-conditioning to its highest setting. The body would start to stink in the next day, which was Saturday, but the remodelers didn’t work weekends so as not to disturb the current tenants, so I might have two days before the body was found, if I was extremely lucky. Fine. I would be gone by then.

I put the pieces of the cell phone into a plastic bag I could throw away after I left the apartment. I didn’t want the Company finding it after I was gone; I didn’t want them on my trail.

I went back to bed, and I thought that having killed, I would never sleep again. But I slept the deep and restful slumber that comes after making a hard decision.

M
Y SPARK OF INSPIRATION CAME
from a complaint Ollie had made about some missing imported whisky. Because there are thousands of containers holding crates of fine whiskies shipped from Ireland and Scotland, and nearly nine billion metric tons of all sorts of cargo shipped on the seas every year. These goods are mostly carried in two hundred million containers—twenty-foot-or forty-foot-long steel coffins you can fill with whisky or shoes or computers or frozen meat or whatever. Even me.

Many cargo ships carry six thousand containers or more. Almost none of these containers are inspected for contraband. A busy port may see thirty thousand containers a day enter and then be loaded onto rail and trucks. As the ships arrive to deliver their cargo—whether in New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Houston—they are met by a fleet of trucks. Stop the containers to conduct detailed inspections, which involves offloading a container onto a truck, hauling it to a scanner, having bureaucrats complete paperwork and watch the inspection, unpack and then repack if any anomalies are found, and then reload and return to a truck, and you get a logistical and financial nightmare. Any inspected container creates a delay,
strains a link in the surprisingly delicate economic chain. Trucks bring cargo or empty containers to the port and they take away cargo from the port. Stop for inspections, and the trucks and the trains moving the raw goods and finished products stop. The stores don’t have necessities on their shelves. The shoppers complain, the stores lose profits, the shareholders scream bloody murder, the politicians listen.

This is the big, gaping hole in our armor.

The security people brag that six percent of containers get inspected. That math means ninety-four percent don’t. But that number lies. Six percent at a major port would be nearly two thousand containers a day. It simply doesn’t happen.

I could get to Europe if I could get inside a container. The odds of being caught in an inspection were very low. Hide in the steel box for seven to ten days, get spit out in London or more likely Rotterdam, the biggest European port. Then hitch a boat into London. Start looking for Lucy and my son.

All I had to do was smuggle myself.

Amsterdam

E
DWARD LOVED FEAR
. The smell of it in the skin, the taste of it in the saliva, the feel of it in the drumming heartbeat. Fear was the most powerful force in the world. Edward knew fear was the engine for religion, the spark for war, even the kindling for love—because all people are afraid to be alone.

Fear had been the key to breaking the young woman’s soul.

Edward sipped his coffee at the kitchen table and considered the past three weeks. His experiment had proved to the malcontents and low-level criminals he’d formed into a loose gang that a careful application of abuse, drugs, and isolation, coupled with a consistent dose of rape and frequent threats of execution, could produce desired effects. He could tell each morning that the group’s nervousness about the kidnapping had lessened: the ransoms were paid, and the young woman had begun to drift into their circle. It wasn’t so different from his student days as an actor: you created a character and stepped into the skin. Now he’d done that for the young woman. He had remade her into a new character.

Edward made it clear to the others that no one else was to touch her; no one else was to speak to her without his permission. She was his clay. He knew, though, that they listened at the closed door as he told her of her evils, and the evils that she and her father had done, while he held the knife to her throat and pushed himself inside her. He knew they eavesdropped on the disintegration of another human being. And he’d told her they were listening, and it made her more afraid.

It was lunchtime, and most of the group had gone for a walk around Amsterdam to enjoy the sunny cool of the day. The others were eating in the main room.

He could talk to her alone now. Alone was best. He opened the knapsack and looked at the most interesting gear that she had rigged for him. It had taken a long while to get all the materials, but now it was done and there was only the final step. His only worry was Simon, who had to lay low in Brooklyn now that Sam Capra was dead but would be in touch, no doubt, in a few days.

He put down his coffee cup and went upstairs. She was kept in a small closet in the corner. He told the gang she was frightened of enclosed places, and her claustrophobia had played a critical role in her unraveling. Research was so important. He unlocked the door and inched it open.

She lay curled in the dark, holding her stomach, trembling. The room was not cold but still she shivered. She stared at him, not drawing away, just lying there, waiting to see what he would do.

“It is an important day,” he said. He did not climb atop her, pushing her legs apart and easing down the sweatpants she wore for his pleasure. He did not yell at her about why everything in her Old Life was bad, and disgusting
and criminal, and an affront against human dignity, and how they fought against injustice. He did not play her videos showing the burned people, the shot families, the results of her father’s commerce. The rest of the gang loved his speeches; they leaned against the door and listened to him preach to the girl. He had read a book on how the Symbionese Liberation Army had brainwashed Patty Hearst, and it held many useful and fascinating tips for reshaping a woman into a pawn. So far his approach had borne fruit: after a few hundred hours of careful torture the young woman was quiet and pliant now, a textbook victim of intimidation and fear. Suffering was a condition that forged strength, and Edward needed her to be strong. “What do you want to tell me?”

She glanced at the door.

“They’re not out there,” he said. “It’s only you and me.” He smiled; it would let her know that it was okay to smile. “So you can use the toothbrush today, and the toilet. And then we will take a walk.”

“A walk?”

“Yes. I have a job for you, one that is very important.”

Edward helped her to her feet and steered her into the small bathroom. She stank of sweat; she would need a shower before she could venture into public. It was important she not be noticed or remembered. He opened the door and told her to clean herself. She nodded, not looking at him.

He went downstairs and into his bedroom, where he had bought new clothes for her: modest slacks, a plain blue scarf she could pull over her mouth when needed to help mask her face, a gray pullover. She would be practically invisible. He came out and glanced in the kitchen. Demi stood at the sink, frowning.