Choke Point

The rug shop is on Kinkerstraat, sandwiched between a bra shop and an optiek, hardly a neighborhood for upscale rugs, but then again, looking around the narrow shop, Knox realizes the rugs are more Pottery Barn than Heriz.

Gerhardt Kreiger is smoking in the back with the floor manager. Kreiger looks like a history professor in a tweed sport coat and black turtleneck. The manager needs to gain more than a few pounds. Knox searches the stock for anything of quality.

“You’re wasting my time, Gerhardt.” Knox turns for the door.

“Easy!” Kreiger has all the panache of a Buick salesman. “Not these! Wait, my friend.” Gerhardt hasn’t had a friend since 1978. He sidles up to Knox. “This is our gallery, nothing more. Patience, please.”

It isn’t going the way Knox had hoped. He’d wanted a tour of the facility and says so. “As much as I appreciate you, Gerhardt, I’d hoped to talk directly with the seller.”

“For obvious reasons, my friend, this is impossible.”

Knox whispers, “For this much cash, nothing is impossible.”

“You wanted samples. I have brought you samples. Third stack, rugs two through five.” He points, his fingertip yellowed by years of cigarettes.

Gerhardt is being far too smart about this. Knox had hoped for incompetence.

Knox peels back the top rug from the waist-high stack of rugs. It’s like looking at high-def television: an eye-popping clarity with wonderful dye-lot imperfections and gorgeous symmetry to the traditional design. Knox has run himself through a crash course and he’s shocked by the quality. He’d expected something passable; he’s looking at floor and wall art. He realizes Gerhardt had no idea of a price range when they’d spoken earlier. These have five to ten times the value Knox had expected.

“Remarkable work,” he says, moving slowly back and forth among the five samples.

“It is,” says the store manager, trying to worm his way into the conversation. “Oushak, for the region in Turkey. Vegetable dye. Hand-knotted. Two hundred fifty thousand per square meter. Persian tea rug design.”

The number swims around in Knox’s head. His jaw locks. He pictures Berna and her friends in leg irons circled around a rug tying all those knots. Each rug several meters. Enough rugs to fill a shipping container. It’s like looking at the Great Wall. It’s slavery at any wage.

As he speaks his voice cracks. “Gorgeous. But are you sure it’s not Chinese?”

The man approaches the stack. He ignites a cigarette lighter and places it close to the wool. If synthetic or plastic, the fibers melt quickly in a tiny puff of black smoke. Nothing happens. Natural fibers. He pockets the lighter and inspects the jute backing. “Turkish,” he declares.

Knox and Gerhardt know otherwise—this is a product of the sweatshop. That it convinces the merchant of its Turkish origin is impressive.

“I am sure you are right,” Knox says. He eyes Gerhardt, who arches his eyebrows declaratively. Knox thanks the merchant and moves to the door, Gerhardt alongside him like a dog heeling.

“Nothing is impossible,” Knox repeats. “Call me when it’s arranged.”

—

THE MOMENT THE TEACHER’S EYES fall upon her, Maja knows the man—her “father”—is waiting at the classroom door. As the teacher heads to the door, Maja slides out of her desk chair like every bone has gone to jelly. On hands and knees, she gathers her books and looks to the window. The steel-framed half windows hinge at the top and open out. She steals across the room to the jeers of her seldom seen classmates and opens a window. It comes open only fifty centimeters, forcing her to throw a leg over the frame and wiggle to get through. When no one else comes to Maja’s aid, a girl finally jumps up and helps get her books out the window. This child then leaps back into her chair as the door opens and the teacher turns around.

The visitor wears a heavy one-day beard. His face is florid and his eyes are glassy with rage. Many of the children stiffen, knowing such expressions well from home. Their teacher’s wide eyes and the sharp cry of Maja’s name are followed by her hurried approach to the window, from where she sees only the empty asphalt playground.

Maja wisely holds to the exterior wall, ducking beneath windows, racing to the end of the long building. Her first concern is for her mother.

She knows the shortest route through the streets, which bridges to take.

Maja won’t know until she gets home how bad it will be for her. She can stay into the evening if she chooses, making up for most of the lost money—two euros a day.

She has been betrayed. Either her shop boss contacted her father, or someone at school reported her. Neither of her parents owns a phone. The likelihood the shop would bother to contact them is slim, and then it would be her mother not her father, who is rarely at home. So who and why? Whoever it was has earned Maja’s mother a beating. Her own sentence is unknown.

Tension grips her tummy as she nears the shop, unsure if they’ll take her in. If they’ve reached their quota for the day, there will be no space for her. What then?

Home is not an option.

—

GRACE PLAYS THE EU CARD AGAIN, trying to speak with a health clinic nurse about Kahil Fahiz. But it’s soon clear the daily volume of walk-in patients results in a bleary-eyed anonymity. No one remembers him, or if they do, they don’t want to get involved. She abandons her effort after fifteen minutes of being annoying, having lighted on a better idea.

Dulwich drives her to the southern boundary of the Oud-West neighborhood, to the health clinic where Berna was treated. She requests a stop at a computer store on the way.

At the clinic, she asks for Dulwich to remain in the car. “It could be a while.” She enters a crowded waiting area. She could stay in here an hour or two without sticking out. She may need to.

Vinyl flooring and overhead fluorescent tube lighting. Parents with kids. Adults with casts, or walkers, or their hands gripped tightly on the arms of the contemporary stainless-steel furniture. Flu and STD posters line the wall alongside Elmo and Tinker Bell. A TV running a cooking show hangs in the corner above the fire alarm and a water dispenser.

No EU card this time. The Great Wall of corporate IT is passwords. Sophisticated high-bit encryption schemes have made hacking more difficult and time consuming. Cracking a password can take weeks, not hours.

Grace comes prepared, having anticipated certain impossibilities: she won’t be able to get a video camera in place to watch a keyboard; she can’t install key tracking software without the password.

The Achilles’ heel of such systems is complacency. Working a computer terminal has become second nature. Employees are accustomed to the look and feel of the terminal—to switch out a keyboard might sound an alarm or win an inquiry. Conversely, they pay no attention whatsoever to the snarl of wires and blinking lights at the back of the machine, and Grace knows this. This is where she has been trained to attack. She will need thirty seconds.

Phase one is simple enough: a prescription bottle with a small amount of lighter fluid and a cotton wick lit as it’s placed into a trash can. This goes off smoothly. Grace steps up to the counter, her purse open. Inside her head the clock is running.

“Name, please?” the nurse asks.

Grace explains she’s waiting for a friend who asked to meet her here.

Poof. The trash can ignites: her cue.

Grace, alarmed by the sight, knocks her purse across the counter, its contents spilling onto the desktop and the floor. The nurses rush the fire as a team. Grace comes around behind the counter and begins collecting her spilled items. On hands and knees, she scrambles under the desk’s ledge and, locating the body of the PC terminal, pulls the keyboard’s USB connector. In her hand is a thumb drive, a USB passthrough. One end of the device plugs into the terminal; the keyboard plugs into its opposite end. It’s a Wi-Fi memory stick tweaked to record and transmit each keystroke. She hears the discharge of a fire extinguisher.

“May I help you?” comes a voice from above. “Excuse me, please!” Irritation.

“My purse,” Grace says. “I apologize. The fire . . . I bumped my purse.” She motions to the Tampax on the desk and the lipstick, wallet and change on the floor beside her.

“No problem. May I be of help?” A nurse, by nature, is more kind than suspicious. She’s alongside Grace collecting her personal effects.

“The fire,” Grace says, “it rattled me.”

“Did me the first time as well.”

“The first time?”

“Are you kidding? Some fool dumps a cigarette in there at least once a week.”

Grace had not anticipated this. She fights off a smile.

Back in her seat in the waiting room, her tethered iPhone creates its own Wi-Fi network and is connected to the USB passthrough. She checks the device’s log. The nurse hit the spacebar to clear the screen and then typed her ten-character alphanumeric password. Grace has what she needs. The USB can transmit up to sixty feet.

It’s a waiting game now. Grace has an iPad sideways in her lap, her purse supporting and screening it from view. She can only take over the terminal when the nurse is away, which isn’t often. She builds macros to automate the process. The first time she has access, it takes her over a minute to menu through to records. The nurse returns.

The second time, Grace has only to push a macro button to access the records, saving her the minute. She builds on her past accomplishments: records, sorted by first name, Berna. Now she’s studying the admittance form: last name, Ranatunga.

Her country of residence jumps off the page: Belgium. Her language, French. A runaway, or a kidnap victim. There’s a note: indigent. A “citizenship” box checked: immigrant. It’s unclear if Berna walked in on her own or was dropped at the clinic. There’s no money trail to follow. She is required to have private insurance, but has none. The state takes over. Grace follows this in a series of checked boxes.

The nurse arrives. Grace returns the screen to how the nurse had left it.

Grace Googles “Ranatunga.” A common Sri Lankan family name. Berna is an Irish version of Brenda. Irish/Sri Lankan—that accounts for the young girl’s intriguing look. Irish/Sri Lankan living in Belgium. Chances are the parents can be found if they’re alive, if they didn’t sell their daughter into child slavery.

Grace is desperate to find connective tissue to follow back to the knot shop. Some hint, some clue to where Berna was being kept. She has to wait for the nurse to leave her station again, and the wait is interminable. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. Finally, Grace macros through to Berna’s form. About to give up, she discovers two tiny paper-clip icons. She touches the screen.

Photographs. Her age or her situation required them to document her condition upon admittance. Grace gets a look at Berna prior to the hospital gown that she escaped in. She’s wearing a pair of filthy blue jeans and an equally soiled blue-and-white-striped long-sleeved tee. Her hair is matted and filthy. Her eyes are sullen and her face malnourished. She appears exhausted. Grace saves the image and the next—Berna shot from behind—to the iPad.

It’s the two dark stains below the girl’s knees that capture and hold Grace’s attention. The same height up the legs for both stains. Water. Berna had waded through water before arriving at the clinic.

A woman’s voice. Grace looks up sharply to see the nurse has returned to her terminal. The woman sees an image of a young girl’s backside on her screen instead of the screen where she left off. She calls over a colleague to have a look.

Grace’s finger hovers over the icon that will return the screen to the nurse’s last page view. She doesn’t dare trigger it until the nurse looks away . . .

“Maghan!” the nurse calls out. Her eyes lift.

Grace touches the screen, hoists the iPad and drops it into her purse. She leans her head back with her eyes closed.

Maghan joins the nurse, who is clearly befuddled by the terminal’s miraculous return to her original page.

Grace hears a discussion about how there was a picture of the girl—“the girl!”—just a moment prior. Berna is famous here since the publication of Sonia’s article.

It’s everything Grace can do to keep her eyes closed. Five minutes later she approaches the counter and, in an irritated tone, tells the nurse that if Julia Schmidt checks in, please tell her that her friend has left.

Muttering to herself, Grace leaves.

—

KNOX IS SUPPOSED to be going door to door showing Berna’s photograph as he agreed to do for Sonia Pangarkar. But Knox is not great at following orders; he’s better at following people, and so it’s Sonia he follows.

She knows more than she is letting on. Reporters make their livings exploiting secrets. He has yet to determine where she lives, but she’s a creature of habit. She has chosen Melly’s Cookie Bar and Gourmet Coffee bakery several blocks west of Café van Daele on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. It’s a small space that offers only a few bar stools looking out at the street. She arrives promptly—predictably—at 9:30. He needs to talk to her about that.

By ten A.M. she’s on a tram, Knox bicycling close behind. Each time he’s about to lose the tram it makes a stop, allowing him to ride at an even pace while still keeping up. She disembarks, walks four blocks west and rides another tram. Ten minutes later, she’s moving store to store showing Berna’s photograph as Knox is supposed to be doing. She’s depressingly predictable. He stays with her another ninety minutes and is about to give up when she checks her watch. It’s the first time she’s done that. Right or not, he grants this weight. Encouraged, he stays with her, having little better to do.

At 11:30, she’s on the move again. He can see it in the urgency of her strides and her passing up storefronts she might have gone inside only an hour earlier. A second check of her watch less than ten minutes after the first confirms it for him: she has an appointment.

It might be a hair appointment, or a lawyer, or a deadline filing, but her body language says differently. Excitement and anticipation show in her every step, in her eagerness to cross streets. She is charged, and he along with her.

At 11:45 she enters Plaats Riche, a restaurant undeserving of its name by the look of its pub exterior. Looks more bratwurst and Guinness than duck pâté and foie gras. The size of the place prevents him from following her inside. There’s no question in his mind that she’s meeting someone. If Sonia has arrived first, then Knox stands a chance of identifying her company. If she is late, then he’ll have to hope for after the meal as she departs.

He wins a break five minutes later, when a fairly tall woman arrives at the door. She wears a head scarf and carries a shoulder bag. She pauses at the window, cupping the glass to see inside.

Grace didn’t give him much of a description, but Knox is not shy about jumping to conclusions. He likes pieces to fit. Doesn’t expect them to, but isn’t one to fight it when they do. A tall woman wearing a scarf was seen in the market. A tall woman Tasered Grace’s attacker.

Knox shoots a long-distance photo from waist high, as if reading e-mails, having no idea if the resolution will be good enough to see the woman’s face. He considers some way of getting inside Plaats Riche for a salad. It’s a small enough place to eavesdrop on any table.

He messages the photo to Grace.

look familiar?

She texts back:

where are you?

But it’s Dulwich Knox texts next, asking how far he is from Knox’s current location. The answer comes back:

15 mins

Knox considers all that he’s missing inside the restaurant. He texts:

leave G and meet me. hurry. you just got hungry

—

“WASTE OF TIME,” DULWICH SAYS, “except they make a damn good burger. Did it ever occur to you that both ‘frankfurter’ and ‘burger’ sound German? We’re in the land of plenty over here.”

“Nothing?”

They are walking on the canal side of a street, a block behind the woman in the scarf, who is alone. Dulwich’s limp is causing them to lose ground; Knox will have to ditch him soon and both men know it.

“They talked so quietly I’m not sure they could hear each other half the time.”

“That’s something,” Knox says.

“That’s bullshit. Coulda been pillow talk, coulda been nukes. Who knows?”

“But they knew each other?”

“Couldn’t tell,” Dulwich answers. “I would say no. Too many uncomfortable pauses between them. Leaning back, studying the other person. Nice rack on the tall one, by the way.”

“Focus,” Knox says. For once, they’ve reversed roles. “Ethnicity?”

“Indian? Pakistani?”

“Working for Sonia?”

“You two on a first name basis, huh?”

“Maybe we are.”

“They do not know each other. Not well, if at all.”

“Was Sonia conducting an interview?”

“Maybe. Could be. She definitely took notes. But the way it looked, that wouldn’t be my first guess.”

“The tall one was spying on Grace. Rescues her at just the right moment. Meets with Sonia the next day for lunch.”

“So maybe they do know each other,” Dulwich concedes.

“Or maybe she’s freelance. Someone Sonia hired, someone a friend recommended. Poses the question how she knew about Grace, how she knew where to find her.”

“Grace has been making some noise,” Dulwich says. He burps loudly. “Meal so nice you enjoy it twice.” Dulwich laughs at his own joke. Knox does not.

Dulwich limps straight ahead at the next intersection where the crossroad spans a canal to the left. Knox crosses the bridge, moving away from the woman, picking up his pace to catch up and stay even with her while across the canal. Natural barriers create mental barriers; she won’t be looking for anyone over where he is. Knox quickly overtakes Dulwich, but has to run hard as the woman in the scarf turns right, away from the water, away from downtown. Knox has guessed wrong. He crosses back at the next bridge and staircases his way through the neighborhood’s blocks trying to intercept her, but he has lost her.

He finds himself in a regimented, neatly planned residential zone of tree-lined narrow streets with endless four-story brick buildings, some with retail at street level. It’s a massive housing project done with class. Block after block. Kilometer after kilometer. A dizzying place where it’s easy to get lost because of the architectural similarity. An easy place to stand out. Small shops and banks are all he sees. No supermarkets or car dealers or theaters. No hotels or shopping malls.

No people.

The place appears inhabited by only cars and bicycles. The machines have taken over. It’s a back lot for a science fiction film. It’s the Blade Runner no one ever saw coming. It’s suburbia.

He spots a tall woman at a distance; she’s wearing the same color head scarf as the woman who’d dined with Sonia. She’s walking away from him. He follows, careful to stay so far behind that he’s still not sure he has the right woman. But anyone who can surprise Grace Chu in a crowd has his respect, is a formidable mark. He’s not going to push it. Holds back several blocks trusting his good fortune; he found her once, he can find her again. He’s a dog on a scent, a spy behind enemy lines—he lives for this shit. He can see, hear, smell and taste everything, everywhere: the couple coming out of the building a block behind him; the truck about to turn onto his street; the taste of winter in the air. Realizes why he loves this work, why import/export is a waste of his talents. It’s like the ghost of Dulwich whispering over his shoulder. He thinks about Tommy. Feels the weight of the burden, regrets both their situations, is angry at his parents for dying on him. He’s something of a mess when, a few dozen blocks later, he sees an oasis rise out of all the brick.

Frederik Hendrikplantsoen—Frederik Hendrik Park—rises as a forest to his right and across the wide boulevard before him. He has instinctively closed in on her, following now by a block, and on the opposite sidewalk as she slows nearly imperceptibly. They’ve arrived at her destination; she has telegraphed this unintentionally but clearly.

It gives him the chance to get the jump on her. He doesn’t doubt his instinct. Advantage is a gift given in glimpses. With no time to consider pros or cons, Knox has only to choose a side of the boulevard that divides the park. He can be wrong and he’s still okay; if he goes right and she goes left, a park is a place where a person takes her time; he’ll have a second chance.

He crosses the street and enters the park’s manicured lawns and gardens. He loses sight of the woman immediately. The smell of car exhaust is traded for loamy earth and sap. This is the part of his import travel he misses: the jungles, deserts and beaches. He walks a route that bisects the green ahead. Sensing more such space, he navigates to the right and reaches and crosses an asphalt path, moving deeper into the grounds. Parks himself on a bench with a view of the next path, realizing it leads back to the street. A man occupies a bench twenty yards up the same path. A woman runner approaches, then passes him.

Knox waits with his ankles crossed on outstretched legs, his shoulders back—a man at rest. In the periphery of his eyesight he sees the woman in the scarf coming up the path toward him. He sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, she’s nearly upon him. Then passing him. For all his apparent calm, his chest is tight behind a heart twice its normal size. The man to his left comes off the bench, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

Knox has to judge the coincidence of the timing. It feels like a baton pass, the runner in front gaining speed to match the runner approaching. He doesn’t stare, doesn’t study. Closes his eyes again. Another deep breath.

He’s grabbed from behind. Two of them, both going for an arm. Knox rocks forward slamming both men into the back of the bench. The grip holding his left arm lessens; he breaks free, swings a fist into the throat of the man on his right.

He sees the uniform too late to pull the punch. Slugs the patrolman off him and into a choking, coughing slurry. Throws his hands up, but again too late. Takes a club strike to the side of his head that sends him into a purple fog. Manages to keep his arms overhead as he spins to face them from the other side of the bench.

“Okay! Okay!” Knox says in English.

The one patrolman has recovered. The other is ready to punish him again, the club held high, but his red-faced partner waves him off.

“You will come with us,” the patrolman croaks out. He spits into the grass and stares at his phlegm, looking for blood.

They’re standing too close together. Another few feet apart and it would make things much more difficult. Knox can take them out. Debates doing just that. But what are they doing here in the first place, and why the rough treatment? Why the surprise? They aren’t after an indigent, they’re after Knox in particular.

Knox jerks his head to the right: no one there. But he’s thinking: the guy on the bench; the cell phone; the arrival of two uniforms.

His mark has a meeting with the police. Knox is unwanted. They can’t hold him; they have no real charges against him. Though that won’t stop them if they want to. Advantage is a gift given in impulses. He lets this one pass.

He interweaves his fingers atop his head. “Okay, okay,” he says again.

—

THE INTERVIEW ROOM OWNS a predictable blandness. Vanilla cream walls, a no-smoking poster burned by a match on the lower corner, a single table, two chairs, one bolted to the floor. A compact fluorescent bulb fails to provide enough reading light, like a hotel bedside lamp. The sergeant adjusts a pair of supermarket reading glasses to read Knox’s exploding passport. It has gotten wet too many times, dried in the sun, stuffed into tight pockets. He has promised himself to renew it, not because of its condition but because there is barely space enough left on any page for a new stamp, a quality that catches the eye of customs officers. They study his passport like it’s a piece of archaeology. The sergeant does the same, flipping pages, adjusting the orientation in order to read a date or location. He looks over the top of his glasses at Knox. Suspicious? Impressed? Jealous? It’s hard to tell.

“You will please tell me what you were doing in Hendrikplantsoen,” the sergeant says.

“I told the constables—the two who abducted me.”

“Detained.”

“I also told them I will speak with Chief Inspector Joshua Brower. No one else.”

“You are hardly in a position to make such demands.”

“Not a demand, a condition.”

The sergeant puts down Knox’s passport deliberately.

“Import, export,” Knox says.

“Uh-huh.”

“As you can see, I often trade here in Amsterdam. As I have for several years.”

“You ‘trade’ in thirty or more cities and countries, Mr. Knox, many of which are not on the best terms with your government.”

“Do not make the mistake of jumping to conclusions, Sergeant. I am an importer. It’s what I do. Period. Chief Inspector Brower, please.” The sergeant thinks he’s a spy.

Knox has a dozen questions he would like to reciprocate with, all having to do with the rendezvous in the park. But he can’t go there. He and the sergeant bat the birdie over the net until Knox folds his arms and bites his tongue and challenges the sergeant to a staring contest that the sergeant cannot possibly win. Knox is the world champion.

The sergeant is too prideful to contact Brower. He returns Knox to a holding cell believing he can break him down this way, but the hours stretch out and it’s only then that Knox realizes Brower’s absence can be attributed to his having the night shift.

They’ve taken Knox’s possessions, including his watch, so he has no idea of the time when two officers lead him back to the same interrogation room and leave him.

Chief Inspector Brower is a freckled redhead with pale green eyes, a round face and thick bones, a man who might be ten years younger or older than the forty he looks. He wears chinos, a white shirt that was ironed at home and a Scottevest, a source of amusement for Knox, who wears the same coat.

He shuts the door.

“I’m sorry about this,” Brower says. “Not terribly hospitable of us.”

“I don’t think we ever met in Kuwait,” Knox says.

“David and I . . . we go back a little further than Kuwait.”

Knox puts that down as military service but he’s not going to push. Dulwich’s time before Kuwait remains foggy; despite the closeness and length of their friendship, Knox has heard little to nothing about it.

“Your sergeant didn’t like me.”

“We take a dim view of people following our superintendents.”

Knox takes note of the superior rank of the cop in the park. The mystery woman is well connected. He tries to measure how much capital the Dulwich connection gives him. He believes he misjudged it initially. Brower’s eyes suggest a stubbornness and a loyalty to his department that concern Knox. He waits him out.

“Do you want to tell me how you ended up on that bench?”

“I was following the woman.”

“We take an even dimmer view of stalking.”

“She’s of interest to us.” Knox strives to remind Brower of his connection to Dulwich.

“I can try to find out for you, but chances are it will only impede your efforts.”

“Poke the nest.”

“Just like that. Yes.”

Knox shrugs. “Her name would help.”

“I’m sure it would.”

“She had a colleague of ours under surveillance.” Knox can safely go this far, but not much farther. Brower knows more than he’s telling—how much more, Knox can’t tell.

“You received the police report,” Brower says. It might be a question.

“That was helpful,” Knox says. “Extremely helpful.”

“You and David must not make the mistake of interfering with an active investigation.”

“Of course not.”

“The young girl, Berna, is ours. The article caused a political firestorm. You get in the way—”

“Never our intention,” Knox lies. “Our interest is”—Knox vamps—“protecting the free speech of the people interviewed in the article.” He’s been told this is how Dulwich pitched it to Brower. Private concerns don’t shut down illegal sweatshops; that is reserved for authorities.

“Important, certainly. But should that work interfere—”

“It will not.”

“This woman you were following has nothing to do with those interviewed.”

“There you go,” Knox says. “That’s all I was trying to find out.”

“So there’s your answer.”

“So it would appear.” Knox hesitates, wondering how honest he dare be. “I can’t tell if we’re on the same side or not.”

“David is a good friend.”

Knox nods.

“You will be released. You must appear before a magistrate in the morning. I will vouch for you—it was mistaken identity. There will be no charges.”

“Thank you.” Knox is surprised it must go this far. “Who is she?”

“It is not my case.”

“Can you find out for us?”

“It is possible. I will let David know, if so.”

“What do you know about the community center on Speijkstraat?”

“In regards to . . . ?”

“There was an assault. Two teenage boys. On a woman.”

“Was this reported?” Brower’s concern is genuine.

“No. We didn’t want to make our efforts any more difficult. I’m sure you understand.”

“Teens?”

“Yes.”

“This is a good neighborhood. But these are difficult economic times for everyone.”

“Unusual?” Knox asks. “We need to determine if my colleague was the real target.”

“This woman . . . the one you were following. She sent your colleague there, to the stichting?”

Dulwich knew how to pick them.

“I can understand your interest in her,” Brower says.

“Nice to know who your enemies are. If the police are—”

“She is not ours.”

Knox ticks this off his list. Brower looks confused. Knox says, “A CI for your superintendent?” He adds, “Confidential informant,” though it’s unnecessary, perhaps insulting, given Brower’s dismissive reaction.

“Doubtful,” Brower says.

Knox has to make a judgment call. He decides this is not a time for holding back. “A vendor at a street market put my colleague in that alley. This other woman—who later met with your superintendent—intervened during the assault.” He cuts off Brower before the man can interrupt. “There’s no question it was her. The question is whether or not the vendor created the assault to allow a partner to intervene and appear the hero, or if that’s overthinking it.”

“And you stayed with this woman all night?” Brower sounds dubious. “This is how you came to connect her with our super?”

Knox doesn’t answer, which to him is not technically lying to the police. “The next thing I know, she’s meeting some guy in a park. And here I am.”

Brower is warming up to Knox. He considers him carefully for the better part of a minute. It seems like much longer. “The city government is in the midst of a facelift that is politically charged and possibly economically suicidal, at least in the short run. There is a transformation under way from the Amsterdam of marijuana bars and open prostitution to a city with core family values. We are doing what your Las Vegas did over a decade ago. We’re a little late. This newspaper article, the idea of child slave labor and all that implies—child prostitution, sex slaves—this is exactly what the city can ill afford at the moment. It also hurts the Netherlands’ standing in the EU. Which is a long-winded way of saying your presence here is ill-advised and unwanted. This is not to say child labor is in any way condoned, or that we would turn a blind eye. Quite the opposite, I assure you. It’s more the outsider element, and of course the international publicity. The existence of a sweatshop is being investigated. It is an active investigation—any interference in an active investigation is itself a crime. You and David and this colleague of yours—I’m assuming it’s a woman because of the assault—should take note of this. How and if this woman you were following connects to our work as opposed to yours . . . as I have said, I will look into it and report back to David. In the meantime . . .”

“I appreciate both the explanation and your efforts. It will be taken under advisement. But to remind you: our concern is freedom of the press.”

“One other piece of unsolicited advice,” Brower says, his concentration fixed, his brow tight. “These black market operations are well organized and well defended. I suspect the bottoms of the canals carry the bodies of many who tried to cross them.” He pauses and lowers his voice. “I cannot vouch for all my colleagues. There is a great deal of money at play.”

Knox refuses to react. His only response is a slight nod. Brower is trying to save his life.

“Until tomorrow morning, then,” Brower says, leaning back.

Knox provides him the phone number of one of the SIM cards he carries. Brower will text the time and location of the hearing.

As Knox leaves the constabulary, he keeps an eye over his shoulder as he advised Sonia to do, Brower’s warning echoing in his mind.

—

GRACE’S DRIVER, DULWICH, catches her eye from across a crowded Starbucks where a good deal of English is spoken. She packs up and joins him. He holds open the rear door of the rented Mercedes for her and then climbs behind the wheel himself.

“So?” she asks.

“Your scarf lady had lunch with Pangarkar.”

Grace has been waiting impatiently for his return. It has been nearly an hour and the wait has been killing her.

“And?”

“I had the burger.”

“Please.”

“Knox may have lost her. It’s unclear. He played a hunch that didn’t work out. It happens.” He reviews for her what he and Knox discussed about the meeting between the two.

“They know each other, Pangarkar and this woman?”

“They do now,” he says. “What about Berna?”

“Her full name is Berna Ranatunga. She’s from Belgium.”

“Well done.”

She passes her laptop over the backseat. It shows the two photos of the girl. Dulwich drags it toward him at the next light.

“Wet legs.”

“She arrived there that way. I am working on it.”

“Working?”

“The canals are not knee deep. I’m looking for ponds and fountains . . . someplace a child might have waded through.” She hauls the laptop back over the seat. “Turn left in two blocks.”

“You have a nicer voice than the GPS,” he says. The device speaks female robot in Dutch. It’s hardly a compliment. Dulwich zooms out to try to see where she’s directing him.

Four blocks later as his eyes leave the mirror, he says, “Interesting.”

She knows better than to turn around to look. There isn’t enough tinting to hide her actions.

“A tail?” she says.

But Dulwich has his mobile out and is one-eyeing the street as he navigates the phone’s screen.

He speaks Dutch. “Inspector Brower, please.” He pauses intermittently. “Josh? It’s me, David . . . He’s not great with authority . . . I’ll tell him. Question for you . . . How quickly can you run a vehicle registration plate? . . . Please.” He consults the mirror and begins reciting the plate information when he’s cut off. He ends the call, placing the phone in the cup holder. He explains, “Our contact at the police. His guys grabbed up Knox. Our guy, Brower, smoothed the waters.”

She didn’t hear the groan of a motorcycle. “The car behind us.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No one followed me,” she says absolutely.

“No one’s accusing you of anything.”

“You’re assuming it was me,” she says. “You’re wrong.”

“We want you followed,” Dulwich says, reminding her. “This is a good thing.”

“But I wasn’t followed.”

“It’s a taxi. A private taxi.”

“I do not understand.”

“We’ve underestimated the reach of our adversaries, as well as your celebrity.” He pauses. “The same thing happened to Knox in Shanghai. Money gets spread around the taxi drivers, the tram operators, hotel doormen. A private network of informers who have their eyes everywhere.”

She experiences a chill. Doesn’t want to acknowledge she was spotted. “Four blocks, and then a right,” she says, directing him. “Let me out anywhere along the green. I will meet you on the opposite side, at the film museum, in ten minutes.”

“Too risky.”

“You are getting exactly what you want. We will see to what lengths they will go. I can handle him . . . them. You would not have chosen me otherwise.” She’s eager to make her points with Dulwich where she can. Her Army training and her performance in Shanghai are worth reminding him of.

Their eyes meet in the rearview mirror and she knows she has him exactly where she wants him. Men like Dulwich are so predictable. Knox, far less so. Dulwich is the drill sergeant type: he’ll push to the edge of sanity, but ultimately believes both in a person’s abilities—as he defines them—and the expendability of any one player to the greater cause. She’s glad it worked out for Dulwich to drive her; she knows how to play him.

He pulls to the curb. She’s out of the car and headed into the park. It is a beautiful setting of lawns and paths interlaced with a dozen ponds. The sudden change from brick and asphalt to grass and birdsong has a calming effect on her. The cabdriver has followed her, but he’s lagging behind and she can feel the tug of his parked vehicle drawing him. Whatever money he’s been offered doesn’t measure well against the hassle of a parking violation and abandoning his cab. She quickens her step and by the second intersection she’s lost him.

The pond she encounters has a three-flume fountain shooting water thirty feet into the air. There are couples on blankets despite the cold. The lawn tapers into the water where a child could easily wade. There are bushes along the water’s edge behind which a child could hide.

She passes a gazebo where the water is behind a retaining wall, and offers an unlikely place to hide. The park is enormous and would take an hour or more to circumnavigate, but she puts it on her list of possible locations.

She is well trained at increasing her pace without the appearance of doing so. Much of her sudden increase in speed over ground is the product of flexing her ankles with each step. It results in an incremental burst of speed which is unseen to the eye—a sprinter’s trick—along with a slight increase in stride and standing up straighter, her posture implying a body more at rest than one leaning into her efforts. A person attempting to follow her will find himself losing ground, distance he can’t make up without revealing himself. Her Army Intelligence instructor, a woman in anatomy only, used video and timing drills that, at the time, seemed overly harsh and exhausting. Only now does Grace appreciate them.

Fifteen minutes later, she and Dulwich are driving the streets surrounding the park. The real estate doesn’t match her needs. It’s hard—impossible—to picture a knot shop in such a classy neighborhood where brand-name companies occupy converted mansions along the park’s perimeter. This isn’t an area to recruit hungry girls or to have them seen entering and exiting a building at all hours.

“We are going about this all wrong,” she says, blurting it out before she realizes she’s challenging Dulwich’s original plan.

“Are we?”

“That is, I may have an alternative plan to bring these people to us.”

“Are you going to share?”

“How committed is our client in terms of investment?”

“Less ambiguous, please.”

“I will need . . . That is: it will require substantial investment in infrastructure. Five figures easily.”

“If it means we can shut it down, I believe the client will bring the necessary resources to bear,” Dulwich says.

“Not all of the funds will be recouped.”

“I’m listening,” he says.