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Spinning back around towards the woman with the knife, he found that Corbu had climbed over the island in desperation, and now she was inches away, the blade under his chin.

  He froze solid, and she held her position without moving, either.

  No one said a word for several seconds; they were both out of breath from the tension and action.

  Finally she spoke through her rapid breathing. “We will go into your office and you will sit down.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ten minutes later Talyssa Corbu left Meyer affixed to his chair by the legs and arms with the zip ties Harry had directed her to buy once she got to Amsterdam. Facing his monitors and the keyboard on his desk he sat there, staring straight ahead, sweat shining on his brow.

  She stepped out of the room, but only into a hallway where she could still see her captive, and here she placed a call to the American who was so much better at this sort of thing than she.

  “Harry?” she said as he answered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I . . . I have him. He is tied up. But he refuses to help.”

  She could hear the American breathe a long sigh of relief, and this served as the first and only thing to relax her since she’d first rung Meyer’s doorbell thirty minutes earlier.

  He then said, “It’s okay. You’ve done well so far. I doubted he’d go for that.”

  “But you said—”

  “I just had to get you this far. We can do it together from here.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  She heard Harry chuckle a little. “You think you have problems?”

  “What is happening there?”

  “It’s fine. Let’s focus on Meyer. You are going to have to resort to other measures.”

  With a tremble in her voice she tried and failed to control, she said, “I . . . I don’t think I can do what you are going to ask me to do.”

  “We have to find answers. Look, I’m not going to get us what we need tonight. There are too many men around. I can’t threaten, capture, torture, follow, or kill anybody here tonight. So it’s up to you now. You have to get us some fresh intelligence.”

  Talyssa looked at the man in the other room and wondered if she had what it took to go forward. But she lifted her head, brought her chin back, and said, “What do I do?”

  “Exactly what I tell you to do, without hesitation. I need you to become me. If I were there I could get that little dipshit hacking into NASA in fifteen minutes, because I would put the fear of God in him.”

  “Yes. I saw you do it with Niko Vukovic.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I am not you. I am not scary.”

  “Intimidation is about selling an attitude. The more they believe you will do something, the less you will have to do. I can’t give you the ability to snap some bastard’s neck, but I can give you the attitude so that he thinks you will snap his neck.”

  “How?”

  “Keep your earpiece in. I’ll hear him and you, and you will hear me. I can talk you through every single thing to say. But you can’t waver.”

  “Okay,” she said after some hesitation.

  Harry replied, “But look, Talyssa. This plan is not guaranteed. It may not be pretty. If I tell you to stick an ice pick in that fucker’s eye, you’re going to make him think you are going to do it.”

  Her stomach lurched. “An . . . ice pick?”

  “I need you to be a heartless, soulless robot for the next few minutes. If you can do that for me, then we can get Meyer to do what we need him to do, and we can find out where they are taking your sister.”

  “All right.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I direct her to the kitchen, and I give her a list of items to collect. In the garage she finds a toolbox, and, despite her persistent questioning about what all this is for, she brings all the equipment I’ve specified upstairs.

  Once there, she says, “I have it all. What do I do with it?”

  “Put it all down next to him. If it’s there where he can see, that will amp up his anxiety.”

  A minute later she has done what I ask, and then I hear her talk to her prisoner for a few minutes more. I direct her on what to say, but this Maarten Meyer is a hard sell. Other than some “fuck yous,” he barely responds.

  Finally I say, “Okay, Talyssa. You’re going to have to hurt him some. I’m sorry, but you can do it. Pick up the pliers.”

  I can’t see her, I don’t know if she does it or not, but I’m assuming she’s made no moves towards the tools. I say, “Pick up the fucking pliers.”

  She can’t answer me, but I hear slow movement, the shuffling of tools on the table.

  Then the noise stops.

  Right in front of him she says, “I can’t!”

  Damn. I say, “It’s fine, Talyssa. Put me on your speakerphone.”

  “Okay.” I hear a click, and then I talk. My voice is nothing like Talyssa’s, because if I were there I’d tear that piece of shit apart without a moment’s thought, and I sound like it.

  “Hello, Maarten.”

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m the guy she warned you about.”

  “You’re Europol?”

  I laugh. “Do I sound like I’m Europol? I’m not European, so I’m not Euro. I’m not the police, so I’m not pol.”

  “So you are . . . you are what?”

  “Right now I am the guy trying to convince the young lady holding you to place that pair of pliers on your nuts and squeeze, but I’m having a hard time getting her on board with that. Some people aren’t as crazy as me, I guess.”

  He barks out a thin laugh. “She won’t do it, and you aren’t here. You don’t scare me. Go fuck yourself, American. You’re bluffing.”

  I turn my attention to Talyssa. “Think of your goal. Just think of your sister. There is one person between her and you right now. The man sitting right there.”

  It’s quiet for a long time. Finally she says, “Yes. I . . . I understand.” To my surprise, I hear the sound of metal tools being moved around.

  Now Maarten says, “What are you doing?”

  I speak in a robotic, dispassionate voice. “Talyssa. Don’t wait. He’s just trying to buy time. There will be no more delays. We have to begin destroying his will now. To do that we have to destroy his body.” This disconnected tone only increases the certitude in the captive that I don’t give a shit about what’s happening. Like I could torture him to death and then order lunch without a moment’s pause. It’s psychological warfare, which is effective. Not as effective as actual warfare, but since I’m not there in the room, it’s the most powerful tool I have at my disposal at present.

  I hear the Dutch hacker begging, and I hear Talyssa’s heavy breath. I worry she’s about to pass out, but apparently Maarten Meyer worries she’s about to start fucking him up with hand tools, because he screams now.

  “No! Please! No!”

  Talyssa Corbu speaks, and her voice surprises me. Apparently she’s found a wellspring of strength. “I’ve got it from here, Harry. I’ll call you back when I have what I need from him.”

  “Wait, what are you going to do?” shouts Meyer.

  Her own tone has become robotic now as she answers him. “I’m going to do to you everything my friend told me to do to you.”

  I remind her, “We need him alive. Listen to me. You puncture an artery and he’s no good to us. We need him—”

  “He’ll live,” she says. And then, “Just.”

  And then she hangs up on me.

  Holy shit.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Who is he?” Maarten demanded. “Who is he?” Spittle flew from his mouth, and tears drained freely from his eyes.

  Talyssa leaned close to her prisone
r, just as she’d seen the intense and frightening American who called himself Harry do in the bunker in Herzegovina. In a soft voice, still bereft of personal connection or passion, she said, “I don’t know, exactly. But he is a mass murderer. I’ve watched him kill in three countries over the past few days. I myself have never done anything like this, but unfortunately for you, I have reached my breaking point. I can see myself picking up that ice pick and filling you with little holes. Also unfortunately for you, I am not very well versed in human anatomy, so there is a reasonable chance I’ll hit one of those arteries he warned me about.” She shrugged. “Maybe we will both be lucky tonight. Let’s find out.”

  “I’ll do the fucking hack! I’ll do the hack!”

  “My friend warned me about you stalling, didn’t he? I think I better go ahead and show you my conviction to—”

  “No stalling! Release my hands right now and I’ll get to work. You just tell me what you need.”

  Talyssa thought it over for a few seconds, the ice pick shaking in front of her face. Finally she said, “I’m going to need to see some very fast progress from you.”

  “You will get it! You will! I’ll show you! Just don’t hurt me.”

  Talyssa’s heart had never beat so hard in her life, and she wasn’t even the one in mortal danger at present. But she cut off his wrist ties with the butcher knife, and she pushed his chair up to the computer.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Jaco Verdoorn stood in a window on the top floor of the Casino of Venice, looking across the passageway in front of him, down to the north-south street a block away. He saw men pass, and he thought they looked suspicious, but like Klerk said before, he didn’t see Gentry.

  He radioed Hall inside the auction taking place in the next building over. “Hall? Lion Actual. How much longer do you anticipate the market lasting?”

  Hall answered in a whispered voice. “I’m guessing no more than a half hour, but you know the boss. He’s amped up right now; he might decide to leave at any time.”

  Verdoorn knew that meant Cage was snorting coke, which was no surprise to the South African, because they traveled together regularly.

  Frustrated that he only had a few more minutes to bag Gentry before he’d be on a plane back to LA, he decided to ramp up the pressure.

  He then transmitted to his own team. “Lion Actual to all Lions. Everybody pull in tight. If he’s here, he’s here, and if he’s not here, then it doesn’t matter.”

  A minute later he saw the first of his men. Klerk and Van Straaten turned off the road to the alley from opposite directions. They then began walking idly up the slight rise towards the casino.

  He watched them for a moment, then scanned all the windows in view. There were dozens, but his eyes kept returning to three windows on three different stories of the building down at the mouth of the alleyway that led to the casino. It was about seventy meters away, and the ground floor and first floor were the rear of a restaurant and nightclub.

  Above the establishment, however, the windows were pitch-black.

  To himself he said, Perfect sight line, close enough to see with binos, far enough away for a chance to escape and evade, and easy to get into with the activity of the patrons.

  He nodded.

  That’s where I’d be.

  He lifted his radio to his ear. “Jonker. Duiker. What are your positions?”

  A second later the reply came back. “This is Duiker. I’m two blocks north.”

  “This is Jonker, sir. I’m a block east, in the north-south passage. You want us in tighter?”

  “I want you both to go to the building with the club again. Go up to the second and third floors, check out any and all vantage points on my poz. Then go to the attic.”

  “Right away,” Duiker replied, and then Jonker followed suit.

  But Verdoorn wasn’t satisfied. “Loots. Back them up. Go to the employee entrance and stay outside, ready if anyone tries to leave.”

  “Roger that,” Loots replied. “But be advised, I think I have two more men who don’t belong. Down by the canal on the south side of the passageway.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Just walking around, taking pictures. I’m not buyin’ it.”

  “Got it,” Verdoorn said. “Sounding more and more like Agency boys looking for their target. Avoid them.”

  “Right, boss,” Loots replied.

  Jaco Verdoorn peered through his Steiner binoculars at the windows, desperate to catch even the slightest sign of movement, still hopeful that the world’s greatest assassin was in the area.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’ve spent the last ten minutes thinking about calling Talyssa back, but I decide against it. She sounded like she knew what she was doing, although I can only hope she was playing a bit of theater when it seemed she was about to torture the man to get him to comply. She may have to in the end, but for her sake I hope she doesn’t do anything to him that’s going to haunt her in the future.

  I return my thoughts to my own predicament just in time to notice two men strolling from opposite directions, then turning up the alleyway that leads up to the casino and the building where the auction is taking place. Neither of them looks particularly out of place, but the coincidence of them converging like this causes me to focus on them carefully.

  Through the binos I try to make out weapons under their clothes, or shoes or boots or watches that look tactical, or commo gear secreted away.

  I see nothing, but somehow my sonar for bad guys keeps pinging.

  They aren’t Mala del Brenta, and they don’t have the look or feel of Italian mob.

  And these guys aren’t Ground Branch, or I doubt they are, because even if Matt Hanley is involved with the Consortium, the Ground Branch guys aren’t, so there’s no way he’d send his paramilitaries straight into their hands. Nope, these guys are moving too close to the action to be CIA officers tasked with shanghaiing me back to D.C.

  So then maybe these are the dudes I’ve been looking out for since Dubrovnik. Some sort of security force for the Consortium. They are here for me, and they were out of sight when they kept their distance, but now as these two men step into darkened alcoves on opposite sides of the street and light cigarettes, they’ve officially been made.

  And I know there will be more than two of these fucks out here.

  They are tightening the cordon, I guess, which could mean several different things. Maybe they saw the Ground Branch personnel, so they are bringing their men in thinking there will be less chance for an altercation. Maybe they are frustrated because they haven’t detected any signs of me, so they are recalling patrolling forces to create a tighter defense for the principal.

  And maybe they’ve seen me, and they are converging for the kill.

  I sit here weighing my options. For the last hour I’ve been fantasizing about taking out the Director when he leaves the auction, but there are a lot of problems with that plan. He moves inside a protective bubble, this I’ve already seen, so I know I may not get a good sight picture on him from this distance before he passes out of my line of fire. Also, and this is no small thing, me firing on him from this building would send God knows how many armed goons my way, and as I’m already surrounded, it would be damn hard to slip the noose.

  I consider trying to involve Ground Branch in the fight, basically finding a way to strike a match so that the two forces can duke it out while I sit up here and watch, and this may even give me an opportunity to make a play for the kidnapping victims in the building seventy yards away from me.

  But no, that could lead to a bloodbath, there are still civilians around, and although the Ground Branch dudes are here to fuck up my mission, they are still my brothers, and I’m not going to trick them into a gunfight they had no intention of fighting.

  I slowly determine there is nothing e
lse I can do from this vantage point other than take more pictures, so I wait, ready to do just that when the sale is over.

  But it’s not long before I hear footsteps on the same floor of the building I’m on. Two men, moving slowly and carefully.

  Predators.

  I have escape routes planned, taking into consideration all the access points to the floor, and since these guys are moving off to my right, I get up, leave the room, and go to the left. I’m careful with my footfalls, and careful to listen for the sounds of anyone else coming this way, but soon I’m at the rear stairs and heading down, towards the nightclub on the second floor of the building.

  I arrive seconds later, the place is dull and drab and the music is shit, and I move through it.

  On the ground floor I exit the stairs, make my way through an employee-only door to the kitchen of the adjoining restaurant, now closed for the night, and continue through the dark and empty space to the back door. Here, I hesitate; there’s no window, so no way to know if something awaits me on the other side, but behind me I think I hear more noise, and I wonder if the Consortium security people have decided to “flood the zone” in the hopes of rooting me out of here.

  I look around me, hoping to find a cook’s uniform or a waiter’s uniform to put on before leaving. I don’t see a uniform but hanging with a mop I find a large brown rubber apron like the kind used by dishwashers. I put this on, hoping it makes me look like a late-working restaurant employee heading out for the night, and then I open the door with authority.

  It’s an alleyway, narrow and high on all sides, and ahead I see a street that runs along a canal. There are boats passing by, both gondolas and powered craft, and I know this is the Grand Canal. It’s big and wide and well traveled, there are boats docked up and down the lengths of both sides, and this looks like a suitable escape route.

  But only for a moment.

  Then, on the street that runs alongside the canal, two men walk into view. They turn to see me, and then they stop.

  Then I stop.