Adrenaline (44 page)

“Yes, Sam, that’s an order,” Lucy said.

Mila pulled the Jag over in a screech of tires. She launched herself toward the backseat and she hit Lucy, hard, two snapping blows to nose and mouth. Blood gummed under her nostrils, in the corner of her lips.

“Listen, Mrs. Capra,” Mila said. “Let us be clear as the crystal. You’re nothing to me. You don’t speak to Sam unless I give you permission. You are going to talk to us, or I am going to kill you.”

“I doubt your superiors want me dead,” Lucy said, her voice a half scream. Blood dotted her spittle. “I have information to barter.”

“You do not understand who Sam and I work for now. I do not work for a government accountable to voters who do not bother to inform themselves on basic issues. I do not work for an agency worried about budgets controlled by petty politicians. My only rule is that I have to return the car clean.” She flicked a little smile. “I don’t have to be a good example to anyone. I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did to my friend Sam. I don’t like a woman who uses her child as a pawn. You are an infinitely bad mother and an even worse person.”

“I know what I am,” Lucy said through the blood on her lips. “And I’ll make a deal with you. I will take you to where I think Edward and Yasmin will go. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll tell you where Daniel is.”

“And your price for this jackpot?” Mila asked.

“You let me go. When you’ve recovered Edward and his goods, which I promise you will be of great interest. Guarantee me that. If Sam says you’ll do it, I’ll trust him.”

Cars honked madly; Mila veered back into the flow of traffic.

“You have no reason to trust me,” I said.

“Yes, I do. I know you. I know your word is good.” Lucy looked at me, and for a moment I could think we were back in our Bloomsbury flat, a young couple, happy, a baby coming, in love.

“You let her go and she cannot testify to the Company that you are innocent,” Mila said. “They will never take you back. They will never stop looking for you. A life on the run, Sam, think long and hard about it. Are you going to drag your child along for the ride?”

A trade-off. My child for my freedom. At least this way I could find my kid, see him, hold him, be a father. Lucy had to deal with me, fairly, or she was dead. She knew it. Her game was over. She wasn’t going anywhere until I had my kid safe in my arms.

I glanced at Mila. She gave the barest of nods. I leaned back. “Fine, cooperate and we’ll let you go.”

“If you survive,” she said.

Mila said, “Where will they go?”

“New York,” she said. “We were to meet with my boss.”

“For what reason?”

“You get Edward, and you’ll know.”

“This boss. Your tattoo. This is Novem Soles—the Nine Suns?”

Lucy nodded.

“What is it?”

“A group that wants power and doesn’t care how they get it. I can’t give you a single name, though. I don’t know them.”

“But you got the tattoo.”

“They make you do that.” She shrugged. “It’s part of owning you. They made me, like they made me do everything else.”

“Made you? Like you had no free will? What’s Edward smuggling?”

“Only he and Zaid, and maybe Yasmin, know. I don’t.”

“You’re lying.”

“I have no reason to lie,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Where will they go right now? To New York on the next flight?”

“I think Yasmin will go home,” she said. “She and Edward have unfinished business.”

L
ONDON’S ADRENALINE BAR OCCUPIED
an old power station on the border between Hoxton and Shoreditch; it was all open space and brick walls and a gorgeous, long steel bar, much bigger than its brothers, the Rode Prins and Taverne Chevalier, and the bartenders were serving actual cocktails, precise with the measurements, using fresh ingredients. I saw a proper martini being mixed (shaken is still the fastest way to chill, and bruising the liquor is a myth), a bull and bear made with genuine Kentucky bourbon, an excellent bottle of French Bordeaux being opened. The barkeeps had been well trained. My kind of bar. The tables were low and long and rustic, more French farmhouse than elegant, but cool looking. I had thought given its name that it would be a frenetic dance club; rather, Adrenaline seemed an ironic name, a place where cool control would win the day more than frantic action.

We walked through it, keeping hold of Lucy by the arm. It was easy for a moment to think about the loveliness of a proper bar, rather than to think about my traitorous wife.

I liked the open space, which somehow seemed warm
and inviting. Bright, forceful modern art and bold photographs hung on the walls, all done, Mila said, by local artists, many of whom patronized the bar.

“You’ll see movie stars here as well,” she said. “I have to do my damnedest to keep us out of the guidebooks so we don’t go touristy.” I knew artists had reclaimed once-blighted Hoxton for their own, and the developers followed the artists, quickly pricing most of them out of the territory they’d staked. A large outdoor patio held sculptures and large blow-ups of photographs; it held a circular stage for live music, currently empty as it was midmorning.

A thin, well-dressed man approached us. He was handsome, in his early thirties, wore a perfectly tailored suit, and spoke with a West African accent. “Mila, hello. How nice to see you.”

“This is Kenneth,” Mila said.

“Kenneth, help me,” Lucy said. “They’re holding me prisoner.”

He ignored her. Mila introduced me, just as Sam, and he shook my hand.

“Give Sam whatever he needs,” Mila said.

He nodded and regarded Lucy.

She said, “I’ll scream.”

Kenneth said, “I believe you have no interest in speaking to the British police, do you?”

Lucy shut up.

Upstairs was a much bigger office than the bars in Amsterdam or Brussels; it housed an array of computer screens. Mila locked the door behind us and sat at a keyboard, began to type. The back of her computer monitor faced us. I pushed Lucy into an office chair, handcuffed her to it and sat across from her.

“You want us to take down Edward to help keep you safe? Then you talk to me.”

“Go to their house. Zaid’s house. That’s where they’ll go.” She turned to Mila. “Since the bar’s open, I’d like a Scotch.”

Mila ignored her. I went around and looked at what she was doing. She turned off the computer.

“Your wife is correct,” she said. “We have to go to Zaid’s house.”

“Why?”

She looked at Lucy. “Come with me to get your wife’s Scotch.” She leaned down close to Lucy and wheeled her chair into a small, empty, windowless room. She slammed the door and locked it.

“What’s going on?”

“My employers insist I go to Zaid’s country house and make sure there is no evidence of his connection to us.”

“What do you mean? Wipe out his computer?”

“Yes.”

“He was just murdered in full sight in a train station. The police will be swarming over his residences.”

“That is why we must hurry. Remember Zaid telling us that his estate was equipped with bunkers for the government in case Britain was invaded during the war? I think if he has kept secrets from us on what he has given Edward, those secrets will be there. It is his best hiding place.”

“But why would
they
go there?”

“It is hiding in plain sight. Zaid covered for Yasmin while she was a so-called kidnapping victim. He told us, remember, that no one knew she was missing, not even her mother. So now she cannot be missing. Whatever
they are up to, she must be in sight now or she would be suspected.”

I ran a hand through my hair.

“You’re right. That underground complex would be the perfect hiding place. Do we know who’s living there?”

“A small staff, I would suspect. He keeps a sizeable stable of horses.”

“I love horses,” I said.

Z
AID’S DEATH AND THE GUNFIRE
at St. Pancras dominated the news the rest of the day. No one else had been seriously injured and the shooters had escaped. The police were already at Zaid’s London home, interviewing his family. I saw news footage of Zaid’s blond wife, walking into her London home in Belgravia, filmed at a distance. Yasmin, with no scarf on to mask her face, walked with her mother, a supportive arm around her shoulders. Mrs. Zaid had said that her husband had gone to meet their daughter, who was returning from a trip, and that Yasmin had phoned her to say she’d been running late and, when she arrived, her father was dead from an apparent heart attack.

She’d killed him, vanished in the panic, and then boldly returned, her face uncovered, for her “meeting.”

“She poisons her father and now pretends to be the doting daughter.” I felt sick. Yasmin would have to vanish before poison was identified in her father’s body. We did not have much time.

On the television, I watched Yasmin Zaid and her mother step away from the press of the reporters and go back into their perfect house.
My daughter belongs to me
,
Zaid had said a million years ago, back in Amsterdam. He had been so, so wrong.

Early the next morning I drove past the Zaid country estate in Kent, not far from Canterbury. High stone walls rose and fell with the gentle sway of the rolling landscape. I followed the road, looking for signs of cameras or monitors hidden in the trees or the fence itself. I drove a few miles past the property and then drove back again. I wanted to get a feel for the terrain, based on the satellite map Mila had shown me, together with the plans of the house she had somehow obtained the night before. The complex lay under the Georgian mansion, stretching toward the western edge of the estate. Near the end of what would be the far side of the complex were stables. A private airstrip lay on the far western side, and stretching halfway across the ample property was a small river, which seemed to start in the grounds itself, and a number of small creeks. It looked like one tunnel ended close to the stables, which lay about two hundred yards from the wall. A private road fed from the wall past the stables. No guard, at least right now, but a heavy gate with a key-card reader.

I drove past again one more time, then wheeled back to the closest village.

I keyed in the phone number.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice, crisp, undaunted, apparently, by the tragedy that had befallen her master.

“Stables, please.” I hoped this would work. Even with Zaid dead, his horses would have to be cared for. Someone should be on duty.

“One moment.” Then the phone rang again.

“Hello?” This time a crabby man’s voice.

“Hi,” I said. “I’d like to speak with whoever handles purchasing for Mr. Zaid’s stables, please.”

“This is a most inappropriate time, young man. We have had a death in the family,” the man scolded me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I am so sorry.” I could not have sounded sorrier.

“Good-bye, then—”

“Sir? Could you please tell me who I should ask for when I call back?”

“That would be Gerry and he’s not here today. Who’s calling, please?”

“I’m Mike Smith, with Service-First Equestrian. We’re a brand-new firm, and I think we could give Gerry great service at a very attractive price.”

The voice surprised him with a laugh. “You better give Gerry service, or he’ll yell your ears off. Just fair warning.”

I laughed a false salesman’s laugh. “Yes, sir, I appreciate the candor. Might I ask if you know who supplies Mr. Zaid’s horses now?”

“Um, yeah. Blue Lion Horse Supply. They’re close by.”

“Very fine company. But we have better deals with our suppliers we can pass on to you.”

“Save your pitch for Gerry. D’you want to leave a number?”

“No, sir, I’ll call back next week and make an appointment with Gerry. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“All right, then. Good luck. Bye.” The man hung up.

A search on my phone gave me a listing for Blue Lion Horse Supply, and I drove the two miles to the business;
it was in a stand-alone building of old stone with a paved parking lot.

I walked inside. Horse feed and equestrian equipment lined the walls and the shelves. A young man stood at the counter, tapping on a keyboard and frowning at a computer.