Choke Point

In attempting to match addresses from the stolen GPS to the area to which Kreiger’s message was sent, Knox has two possibilities. He conducts drive-bys of both. Amsterdam’s homogeneity doesn’t help any: both are nearly identical four-story brick apartment buildings that make up the thousand city blocks west of Singelgracht canal.

Knox must pick one. He selects the second property, for no other reason than this address is the farthest out of the addresses on the GPS, and is well located near a bus and train station.

Concerned there may be hidden cameras, he stays away from the building. He parks the bike around the corner from which he takes a long hard look at the four yellow doors. He counts eight mail slots alongside each of the four yellow doors. The red doors separating the yellow appear to be ground-level storage or a shared laundry room. Residents of thirty-one of the thirty-two apartments are innocent bystanders. Fahiz is, in effect, using human shields.

He could call in Brower and his men. Would information alone be enough to win his colleagues’ release? But the reason firms like Rutherford Risk exist is in part due to law enforcement’s ineptitude in hostage situations. He can picture a SWAT team charging through corridors. Fahiz will have countermeasures in place—an escape route at the very least.

He anticipates no fewer than two men with Fahiz, possibly several times that. He’s tired and hurt, his shoulder wounded. He likes the odds.

He considers smoking them out, but abhors the risk of innocent casualties. The most effective means would be to ask a resident, but that’s a crapshoot at best; if Fahiz has ingratiated himself with his neighbors, it’s suicidal.

He circles back around to consulting Brower. Denies himself again the easy out.

He collects himself; thinks it through. How would he and Dulwich do it? Where’s the point of egress? Given a raid, where’s the out? Leans around the corner and studies the building again.

Four yellow doors, each servicing eight apartments, four to either side of a common stairway, judging by the curtainless windows rising in a column over each door. The only other windows without curtains are small ones at head height on the ground floor. Storage. No visible fire escape. It makes the top two end apartments ideal safe houses. Your enemy can only reach you by coming up the common stairs. With eyes on the door and stairs, there are no surprises.

But where’s the out?

He walks completely around a neighboring structure, identical to the others. Each apartment has a balcony.

And there’s the out: in the event of a raid, Fahiz can quickly escape by lowering himself from one balcony to the next until he reaches ground level. There’s even a downspout outside the balcony for an express route, should the back prove to be guarded.

Dulwich would have a camera on the yellow door and two more inside: one looking down from the first landing; a second, from the highest landing, making the castle impenetrable to a surprise attack. Dulwich would not bother to put eyes on the egress; an escape route exists only in case of an assault—a frontal attack.

He would put a man on the ground.

—

KNOX MAKES A SECOND PASS around the apartment building, this time from a wider radius, alert for a guard he might have missed. Seeing none, he convinces himself a guard in such a quiet cul-de-sac would only attract attention and arouse suspicion, no matter how carefully placed. It is the solitude, the remoteness, of the setting that makes it so perfect to its purpose.

He double-checks the handgun, hoping to find more than the four rounds left in its magazine. Reminds himself it isn’t just Fahiz he’s after. Despite circumstantial evidence connecting Kreiger to Fahiz, and Knox’s hope that Kreiger’s external hard drives may further implicate Fahiz, he needs hard evidence to trade to Brower. A captive girl is unlikely—the girls were meant for the shipment Knox interrupted. There could be rug or fiber evidence linking the man to the knot shop, accounting, phones or a computer. Any and all of it is equally as important as the man himself. He can’t trade half a package.

Satellite dishes hang off the half balconies in the back, including the first-floor corner balcony that is Knox’s destination. A blue glow behind the gauze curtains warns him that a television is on in the bedroom, just on the other side of a double-glazed glass door, also curtained from the street.

The drainpipe is a cheap aluminum; he rethinks the idea of anyone using this as a fire pole; it won’t support him. But it provides enough of a grip to allow him to extend himself as he jumps, and catch hold of the balcony’s concrete platform. He pulls himself higher, takes hold of the banister rungs and gets a knee secure beneath him. He can hear a sound track and dialogue traveling less than a meter, can ill afford a neighbor crying out an alarm or calling the police. He holds to the very edge of the tiny concrete balcony, climbing up onto its south wall in order to reach the balcony directly overhead.

An irritated voice from inside freezes him. The music and dialogue have stopped as well. It takes him several seconds to process that his legs are now blocking the dish, have interrupted the satellite transmission. He pulls and swings his legs high just as the door opens. Knox is parallel to the balcony below, stretched along the outside of the next balcony’s rail. An African man passes just feet below him. He bends to inspect the dish just as the music and dialogue start up again and a woman calls out in Dutch that everything’s fine.

The door shuts and locks.

Knox climbs from the second to the third balcony; from the third to the fourth. He’s suddenly more mechanical, more in control. He places his ear to the door as he slips the pick gun into the lock and pulls its trigger. Tumblers are caught. With a slight wiggle, the pick gun turns. He rids himself of all expectations. This is his gift: the ability to exist entirely in real time. It allows him to be prepared for anything, for nothing, for everything. He takes what he’s given and has the evolved nervous system to react with split-second timing.

The room is dark on the other side of the glass. He closes his eyelids and waits for his pupils to adjust. Slips the gun from his lower back.

The door opens slowly and he peers in to see a loveless room with a floor mattress, alarm clock and cheap lamp. He is exceptionally careful closing the door behind him, aware that even a small gust of wind could reveal him.

A knife blade of light cuts beneath the bedroom door, beyond which the murmur of male voices carries. Knox stretches out on the tile floor, closes his right eye and peers beneath the gap with his left. The smell of cigar smoke taints the air.

Three pairs of shoes, a few feet away, around a table set with four chairs. The heels aimed toward him are polished, the seams tightly stitched. To the right, black Reeboks size 12 or 14. Barely seen: the toes of a pair of black military boots, exceptionally wide. Like the Reeboks, they look big.

His index finger slips through the trigger guard, finding the trigger. He practices swiveling the barrel from right to left—the Reeboks to the military boots. He must keep his face away from the recoil, knows he’ll be momentarily deafened by the reports.

His vision refocuses: two sleeping teenagers on mats beyond the military boots. Enfolded in a tangle of blanket. Knox catches two of the spoken words: French. North African French at that. The men are playing a game of cards.

“I need a piss,” a voice says in French. The polished shoes turn toward Knox.

Is it Fahiz? Does he have the wrong apartment?

Knox rolls out of the way of the door coming open, stands and tucks behind. The man who appears in the soft light invading from the adjacent room is African, not Turkish. He spots Knox out of the corner of his eye and his voice catches. Knox eases the door back toward the jamb with his heel as he seizes the man by the throat and lifts him off his feet, one-handed. The door clicks shut.

Knox walks the flailing man into the bathroom. Closes this door as well. Runs the water. Indicates for the man to remain quiet—the gun aimed into the man’s forehead. He smells shit in the air; the man has crapped himself.

“Turks?” Knox says, speaking French. “This building. Men. Possibly small girls.”

The man nods. He would have agreed if Knox had mentioned green-tailed aliens, but Knox takes it as progress.

“Where? Which apartment?” He cautions, “You call out, and it’s your last, my friend.”

The terrified man points over his shoulder.

Knox eases his grip on the man’s throat. “Across! Across the hall.”

“How many?”

This adds to the man’s horror: he doesn’t have the answer.

“One man? Three?”

The man shakes his head violently. “More than one, certainly.”

“They live here long?”

Another denial. “Come and go. Not so often.”

“Turks?”

The man nods. “Not nice, these men. Never speak.”

Knox studies the bathroom: concrete walls. It’s a bunker.

He says, “We will go into the other room. You will tell your friends it’s okay. The children and your friends . . .”

“Brothers. They are my brothers.”

“You, all of you, must come in here. Stay in here. It’s safe in here, these walls.” Knox reminds the man of the gun in his hand, and the man nods. “Silently. No sound. These are bad men.”

Another quick nod from the man.

Knox keeps the man in front of him. Together they pass into the room, and his hostage speaks rapidly, telling the two younger men, “It is all right!” The men are on their feet, the tension thick. The kids come awake.

“No heroics,” Knox speaks in French.

His hostage serves as his ally. The panic is diffused. Knox takes their cell phones, not wanting any emergency calls made. The men cooperate, surrendering their phones. The five lock themselves in the bathroom. Knox hides the phones in a drawer.

He’s not going to climb any more balconies. His nerves are electric with the events of the past few minutes, and he can’t afford a post-adrenaline slump.

He peers through the security peep. The webcam is a round piece of plastic mounted in the corner by the opposing door, aimed toward the stairwell.

The door will be locked, likely barred from the inside as well. He’s not going through it; they will have to open it for him. Too late for a pizza delivery. The idea of climbing the balconies resurfaces, but his patience is worn thin. His batteries overcharged, he wants to do this now.

He sees the ball cap hanging on a peg.

Opens the door, plasters himself to the wall and hurries across, hooking the cap over the camera. Rolls to his left, back to the wall, the shut door alongside.

If they’re asleep, if no one is watching the screen, he’ll need to start climbing. But if they’re awaiting confirmation the girls are gone, they don’t have it and nerves will be high.

He hears a man approach the other side of the apartment door. Likely eye to the peephole from where he won’t have a view of the dysfunctional camera. Knox waits for the sound of the lock turning, the door coming open.

Nothing. Too smart for that, Knox thinks.

He suffers a panic attack. He can hear Dulwich say, “Always beware of unintended consequences.”

He has scared the rabbit from the hole—and there’s no one watching the hole.

He crosses the landing back toward the mistaken apartment. A shot rings out and takes a chunk from the door in front of him. Mistake number 2: the man at the door had not left.

Knox dives and rolls into the apartment. One of his hostages has fled the bathroom in search of the phones and is hunched over, hands over his head. The man drops to the floor and crawls. Knox leaps over him and reaches the balcony door. They will escape by the front or back balconies, forcing Knox to choose, and he’s chosen the back because this is what he would do.

And there they are: two men, already lowering onto the second-floor balcony, two below Knox’s level, toward the middle of the structure. As one careens into a patio chair, he turns and takes a wild shot at Knox.

This is the starter’s pistol for Knox, the game changer. He doesn’t like being shot at. He turns and goes for the fireman’s act on the downspout to make up time. The downspout obliges by tearing loose from the wall and Knox goes down like a pole vaulter. It bends and then snaps, dropping him the final fifteen feet.

Two more shots ring out, but they’re chaff, meant as countermeasure, trying to force Knox to keep his head down. He braces his forearm in a prone posture and puts one of his four bullets into the man firing the weapon. He takes out a piece of the man’s buttocks, spinning him and causing a horrific scream. It’s a lucky shot at this distance; he’s not about to waste any of his remaining three.

The downed man is in a ball of pain and out of play.

Knox rises to his feet. The remaining man bursts through a hedgerow and vanishes. Knox leaps through the line of shrubs, ducking and rolling in case his opponent has used it to set him up. The move costs Knox by taking him off his feet. The man had no intention of pausing to shoot; he’s making for the line of parked cars.

He’s too far away for Knox to get off any kind of accurate shot. At which point Knox realizes his gun feels light. One touch confirms he’s lost its magazine. The handle stock is crammed with dirt. He has one round in the chamber, if that.

The car starts, its headlights switching on automatically. It rams the vehicle behind it as the driver cuts the wheel to escape the parking space. Knox is going to lose him.

The car’s engine whines as it overraces. The tires shriek. Knox runs for the lane. Vaults a row of large rocks that create a boundary between the parked cars and lawn.

The car speeds toward him. Twenty meters . . . Fifteen . . . He aims the handgun, but it fails to fire. He drops it and reaches down. Takes hold of the nearest rock—the thing is massive—and hits it, dislodging it. He kneels, wraps his arms around and maneuvers it out of the stubborn earth. His muscles tearing, his chest and head exploding, he pins it to his chest, turns and gets one knee up.

Ten . . .

Then his second knee. He squats like an Olympic weight lifter. Shuffles his feet forward a matter of inches.

Five meters . . .

Grunts as he struggles to stand. Feels something pop in his gut. Heaves the rock. It travels about two feet, no more. Takes out the front bumper and right headlight, but has the desired effect: the airbags deploy. The driver is slammed back in his seat, like a fist to the face. The car plows into the rear end of a puke orange hatchback, and rebounds back into the lane.

Knox throws open the passenger door, grabs Fahiz—it is Fahiz!—by the arm and pulls him across the front seat like a toy. Elbows him in the jaw. Hears a crack. Places the stunned man’s right arm against the dash, rotates the shoulder out of its socket and delivers a blow to the reversed elbow, dislocating it.

Hears a shot. Takes cover behind the car. Comes around behind the wheel and the collapsed airbag and floors it. Both car doors shut from the forward velocity. A bullet cleanly pierces the rear side window.

Fahiz—Polat—looks like a mannequin dropped from a third-floor window. But the guy is not going down easily. He tucks his knees, swivels and kicks Knox into a different time zone, pressing him into the driver’s door.

The car drifts through a corner. Fahiz kicks the steering wheel. The car crosses the lane and bounces off a retaining rail. Two more vicious kicks beat Knox’s head into the driver’s-door window. The gun is lost. Fahiz straightens his arm, grabs the wheel and throws himself backward, pulling his dislocated arm out far enough to reset it into the socket. He screams. Regains enough use of the arm to throw a punch, connecting with Knox’s temple. Fahiz screams again, but a curl of a smile takes to his wounded face.

“About time,” Fahiz says.

His left arm raises. But the elbow is dislocated so that the forearm flaps with Knox’s gun roughly aimed at Knox.

Knox shoulders the gun out of the way, gropes between the seats. Fahiz slaps away his efforts. The car scrapes along a row of parked cars and Knox manages to keep it on the road. The gun discharges. Knox is instantly deaf.

His fingers search blindly between the seats, with Fahiz pounding and slapping away his efforts.

But Knox wins: he yanks the parking brake. Fahiz and the weapon are thrown forward against the dash. The car slides through an intersection and is T-boned on Knox’s side by a slow-moving tram. The vehicle is pushed down the street, spins and is dumped into oncoming traffic.

Knox punches Fahiz in the previously dislocated shoulder. He then takes hold of the man’s left forearm and reverses it like it belongs to a gummy bear. Fahiz opens his mouth to cry out, but there’s no sound. The man is past pain. His eyes roll in his head. He waves the gun at the end of his rubbery arm up to head height—Knox sees the barrel’s dark hole out of the side of his eye.

Fahiz pulls the trigger. Click. Empty.

Fahiz is all whites where his eyes should be. He slumps.