Jeff Abbott - Adrenaline

“And?”

“I don’t know what else. Muscle when needed: Sam’s dangerous in a fight.”

“Who did he work for when you knew him?”

“The Vrana brothers, but they’re dead now. Pissed off their partners and got axed in the bathroom. He worked with Djuki, too.”

“Is Sam reliable or not?”

“Reliable. Kind of a know-it-all. But he can move all sorts of goods. He had inside contacts at legit shippers. Made things easier.”

I could feel the air give in my chest, a hollow breath. Gregor was repeating words he believed to be true.

“Thank you, Gregor. How are things?”

“Fine but slow. Do you think people don’t wear watches so much with their phones telling them the time now?”

Piet didn’t answer his question. “I can throw some major business your way. Very soon.”

“Good. Okay.” Now I could hear the tension in Gregor’s voice, the eagerness to be done with the conversation.

“Thank you, Gregor. We’ll speak soon.” Piet clicked off the phone. The barrel stayed in place.

“What the hell more do you want? A resume?”

Now I pulled the car over to the side of the road, earning a honk from a truck behind me. I turned to look at him.

Piet was scared to death.

This stone-cold mother was in deep trouble. He’d lost his ally, who had betrayed him to an unseen enemy. He’d lost his distribution point for a lot of counterfeit goods and his slave trade. He’d lost two men that he’d counted on. He’d lost a warehouse full of goods and slaves that his clients would be expecting him to move. He had just lost a great deal of money. He’d been made by Nic, and he was being chased. This on top of the Turk blaring his name around town. Piet was rapidly becoming a liability, and he knew it.

“It’s gonna be okay, Piet. Chill.” And I carefully pushed the gun so that it was aimed at the van’s floorboards and not my body.

He let me.

“You don’t want to tell your boss about the day going bad,” I said.

“Shut the hell up and let’s go have a beer. At that Rode Prins.”

We stepped into De Rode Prins. It wasn’t too busy; a group of young men sat at the biggest table, laughing, drinking beer, talking sports. A woman sat by herself, sipping lager, studying a guidebook to the city. In the back, a group of Scottish tourists downed beers in the corner and munched on plates of cheese, sausage, and fried lumps of something mysterious; an older man in a nice suit sat at the far end of the bar with a small glass of jenever, reading a newspaper. I could love the Rode Prins because it truly was a quiet neighborhood bar. From the wall, the red-splattered prince looked down on us all.

No sign of Mila. Henrik stood behind the bar and I gave him the slightest of nods.

“Some guy’s looking for you,” Henrik said.

I raised a thumb toward Piet. “My friend. He found me.”

Henrik nodded. Piet ordered two Heinekens for us; we sat at the opposite end of the bar from the man in the suit.

Dilemma, I thought, as Henrik brought us our beers. Piet seemed calmer. He needed me, badly. He was on my turf now, and I could beat him senseless, haul his sorry ass upstairs and question him hard for the location of the gang. And then I would probably kill him, since I could hardly hand him to the police while I still had work to do. But right now, with an infiltration and an attack on his resources, Edward might scramble, run to distant corners, and take Yasmin Zaid with him. I needed Piet alive, and I needed him as camouflage.

“Not a good day for you,” I said in a low whisper.

Piet sipped at his beer. He should have been running straight back to his boss Edward. But no one likes to be the bearer of bad news.

I began my slow squeeze. “I can see the mess you’ve landed in. You’ve got your regular business here. Maybe Nic helps you forge documents on his computer. You make most of your money from the women, moving them from eastern Europe to here. And you got hired for a truly big job, with this Edward dude. You broke out of your comfort zone, having to get goods to America.”

He glanced at me.

“Why do you think I left Prague all of a sudden? Man, I’ve been there.” I shook my head, sipped at the beer. I had killed two men less than an hour ago and now I sat in a bar, drinking. They’d never feel the cool comfort of beer in their mouths again. Fine. They’d made their choices. If I hadn’t killed them, innocents would have died. I wasn’t going to dwell on what I’d done. I wasn’t proud of it, either; it was what it was. But it was important that Piet think I was as awful as he was. My hand didn’t shake as I picked up the beer glass. It stayed steady.

“Edward isn’t going to take this news well, is he?”

“No.”

“And he doesn’t fire people.”

“No.”

“What is he like?”

Piet considered. “Very smart but he’s a dick. He’s English. He mentioned once he used to act, on the stage, I don’t know where, maybe in some backwater. Expert forger-I think he might have worked in intelligence once. He’s good at getting people to follow him. Talks like he was raised around money. He throws money around, too.”

“How do you know so much? He should keep his mouth shut.”

“Edward likes to be the most important man in the room. That often involves bragging.”

Time to play. “You might have to fire him.”

“Fire him?”

“You know, some clients interfere with profitability. That’s what happened in Prague. I fired clients who tried to screw me over.”

He laughed. “And now you’re running.”

“No, I’m laying low. It was best that if I didn’t want to be fired from this good, sweet world that I relocate for a bit.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I know how a guy like Edward works. He’s got critical goods he needs moved. They want to use our networks, our connections, because they need us. But if the job goes wrong, they don’t hesitate to kill us.” I felt like I was slipping entirely into a new skin; I finished my beer, gestured at Henrik for another round. “The point is, we’re businessmen, and guys like Edward are bigger trouble than they’re worth.”

“I can’t fire this guy. It would bring so much heat on me.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you should,” I lied. “You just have to be prepared for every eventuality.”

“When I tell him what happened-”

“The fact you’ve waited is going to piss him off,” I said. Right now I needed to be the voice of reason, someone Piet could trust. “He might run.”

“No. The job is too important to him.”

“And the job is what?”

His gaze slid back to me.

“How many friends do you have left, Piet?”

“Lots.”

“And I’m sure, now that this Edward might be gunning for you, they’ll be lining up to help.”

He let the sarcasm hang in the air for a long moment. “Why would you help me?”

“Money. I’m very predictable. And hell, man, I’m sort of deep in this now.”

“If I don’t do this job, I have not so much money. I need it. Badly.”

I wasn’t particularly interested in his financial woes. These guys were all the same: big risks, big payoffs, and they blew it on bling and expensive girlfriends. “Here’s the deal. You’re crippled right now. I still have my resources to help you move what the mystery meat is that you’re shuttling for this Edward guy. You’ve lost your team, you’ve lost some of your capital. You take me on as a partner, just for this job. I get half.”

“Half!” Red crawled into his cheeks and he didn’t bother to keep his voice down. The Scots and the old man glanced at us.

“Half,” I whispered. “I’m pulling your fat from the fire.”