The Last Minute

20

Amsterdam

‘You know, a friend is a good thing to have.’ The Watcher sat down across from Ricki; she perched on the edge of the couch, shivering. He had forced his way in, the gun steady on her.

‘You don’t need to be afraid.’ He smiled. ‘All I want is information and then I’ll leave.’ And to prove it he put the gun down. ‘We have a mutual friend. Pierre in Brussels, who just rushed creating documentation for a friend of yours. A Chinese boy.’

She said nothing.

‘Pierre found out that we were looking for your friend after he overnighted you the false IDs.’

‘Pierre doesn’t work for you.’

‘He doesn’t have to work for me. He’s just afraid of me.’ As soon as the Watcher had received the tip that someone using an Amsterdam exchange dial-up had contacted the CIA with crucial information on Novem Soles, he had known it must be the Chinese boy, the one their hireling had failed to kill. He was the only remaining loose end from the spring offensive. And now he was a real danger.

‘I don’t know anything about Ming’s business.’

The Watcher smiled at her. She was lovely. He’d spent a lot of time in Nigeria, in Italy, where many of the women in his former line of work were African. He had not taken one in a long time. So much for past pleasures.

He studied her wall of bootlegging machines. ‘You knew my friend Nic, too?’

‘Yes. Slightly.’

‘Of course. You worked in film… and he worked in film. I guess content is really what computers are all about now. Remember when they used to be about solving problems? Thinking more creatively?’

Ricki stared at him.

The Watcher put on his warmest smile. It was a very cold flexing of the mouth but he was unaware of this; he thought it looked like a real smile. He smoothed a hand along his thin mohawk. ‘So you steal and copy movies and he made nasty ones.’

‘I didn’t know about that. I just knew him because he sold me software to crack the copyright codes.’

‘Nic was generous. And now you are generous to his friend Ming.’

Ricki ran her palms along her jeans. ‘Ming wanted to get out of the country. All I did was give him some names of people who could help him.’ She raised her gaze to his, her eyes defiant.

Oh, a bit of spark. He used to know how to stomp out that flicker of individual flame. ‘I want to know where Jin Ming is, and what evidence he has about the people Nic worked with.’

‘I don’t know the answer to either of those questions.’

‘He is eventually going to New York. I have someone trying to crack the flight reservations database to find out if he’s flying from here or another city. But I’m guessing you can just tell me and save me the money and effort.’ His steely gray eyes looked at her, then at the gun, then at her again.

She didn’t speak.

‘It’s really best that you help me.’ He stood up. ‘How much is this equipment worth to you?’ He pulled a weight from his pocket. A magnet, a large one, the kind you’d find in a factory. Pierre in Brussels had told him what kind of work Ricki did and so he’d decided to take it away from her. He began to run the magnet along the shelf.

‘Stop it, you’ll ruin them!’ She stood up, horror on her face.

‘Yes. I’ll erase’ – and he laughed at the idea of it – ‘about forty thousand euros’ worth of business in about five minutes if you don’t answer my question.’

He thought he saw one more flash of anger in her dark eyes. Then she gave in. ‘He flew to Dublin,’ she said quietly. ‘Then a direct flight to Boston. Then a train to New York. He was trying not to be obvious.’

‘Thank you. He is meeting the CIA there.’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.’

He believed her.

‘He has some evidence against me. What is it?’

Now her fear – and he knew it was there, under the surface of her false confidence – showed itself. ‘I really don’t know. He didn’t show me any evidence. He wouldn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask. Better I don’t know.’

‘Better, of course. Did he have a computer?’

‘Not when he got here. I gave him a spare laptop.’

‘What about a disc? Or a flash drive?’

‘I didn’t see one, but he could have hidden it.’

‘How can I reach him on the phone?’

‘He didn’t take a phone with him. I don’t have a way to call him. He didn’t want to implicate me if he got caught.’

Once again he believed her. ‘He has evidence I want. You know it.’ He slid the barrel of his gun along her jaw. ‘You have such a good bone structure, Frederique.’

She paused. ‘He… He… ’

‘What?’

She trembled. ‘He left today. Before he left, he got dressed… and when he was putting on his shirt I saw he had an envelope taped to his back. He lied and said it was a bandage but I could see it wasn’t.’

‘How big?’

She made a rectangle with her hands. Maybe a bit smaller than a sheet of paper.

‘What was inside the envelope?’

She bit her lip. It made her look gentle, pretty. Oh, he thought. The hunger, it never went away. Ever.

‘Ricki. I’ll make sure your business is safe if you tell me. I’ll give you the equipment to grow it, young lady. Or I’ll destroy it. Your choice.’ He could tell by her hesitation that she knew. She knew. Maybe she’d looked at it when Jin Ming was in the shower, or while he slept.

‘It was a notebook,’ she said. ‘Like a journal. A red moleskin cover.’

‘And what was in this notebook?’

‘Photos. Emails. Screen captures. Spreadsheets. Printed out and pasted in. But I didn’t understand any of it, I didn’t. He said it was stuff Nic had stolen from people you were blackmailing.’

The Watcher’s mouth twitched. ‘Did he digitize the notebook?’

‘Not here. It would have taken a while.’

Her equipment would have to be taken or kept, analysed, checked to see what actions had been performed. Jin Ming might have left a trace to follow. The Watcher decided he had to get to New York, now.

‘Excuse me, please, Ricki.’ He opened up his phone, ordered the person who answered to come around to Ricki’s address. He said, ‘Hold on one moment’, cupped his hand over the receiver, and said, ‘Here’s what I can offer you, Ricki, and I’m sorry it’s not a better deal for you. My group is taking over your business. You will continue to run it, but we will take fifty per cent of your profits. Do well and we’ll help you take over other operations in Brussels, Antwerp, and you can run them. I’m going to have some people in here soon to go through your computers to make sure you’re telling me the truth. Then we’ll leave you alone.’

‘You can’t,’ she said, shock in her tone.

‘I certainly can. Now, if you decline or you betray us, what we’ll do is I’ll have one of my employees load you up with heroin, hand you over to a dealer in whores who will rape you and sell you, probably to a brothel in Nigeria or Morocco or South East Asia. You might have an easier time of it in Asia; a girl from Senegal would be considered more exotic, and would be treated better.’

She stared at him, speechless, jaw quivering.

He gestured to the phone. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘Get the hell out of here.’

He stood up and he slapped her, hard. She fell across a stack of counterfeit SpongeBob DVDs, scattering them to the floor.

‘Hostile takeover or heroin and whoring, bitch, decide. I don’t have all day.’

She looked up at him, her mouth trembling. ‘Hostile takeover.’

‘That’s the right decision. You’ll see I treat my employees very well. Unless you betray me. If that happens you’ll be dreaming up chances of suicide, because you’ll see death as the least of all evils.’

He opened his phone, made another call.

‘Bring someone who knows computers. I want to know what photos have been scanned here, what emails sent, even if they’ve deleted the photos or the emails. Keep Ricki off the systems.’ He listened. ‘No, man, you don’t get to rape her when you’re done. Behave, all right?’ He winked at Ricki. ‘She’s one of us now.’

He clicked off the phone. ‘I think Jin Ming will know when we find him that you must have squealed on him. Let him think you cared about him, until then. He calls you, you say nothing. You warn him, our deal changes.’ He patted the top of her head; she flinched.

He headed for Schipol airport to catch the next flight to New York.

A notebook. Of all the things to be afraid of. Of all the things that could destroy him.