61

AUGUST ARRIVED AN HOUR LATER. Alone. I was at a back table in the Rode Prins, near the curtain screening the corridor that led to the kitchen. He sat heavily across from me. I’d kicked him in the side of the head and a purplish bruise stretched from temple to jaw. I could see the heft of a bandage underneath his jacket.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like hell. Howell’s gone to a meeting and I told them I needed fresh air.” He stared at me. “Sam. What in God’s name are you doing?”

“One of the crime families the Company had an interest in are the Lings. They’re based here. One of the Langley guys mentioned them in London.”

“Okay. They behind the grab on Lucy?”

“No. But I need to know if they are still being tracked by the Company.”

“What for?”

“I need to know where their shipments are. I need to steal one.”

His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Insanity doesn’t agree with you, Sam.”

“It’s the only way for me to get close to the guy who took Lucy. He… he has a hostage, August, so I can’t force my way in. I have to draw him to me. But I need to know what we know about the Lings’ routes.”

“You’re crazy, Sam. I can’t imagine what you’ve lost. I can’t. But I think your grief has damaged you. Badly. And you have to accept—you’re not getting Lucy and the baby back. They’re gone. You know they wouldn’t have kept her alive for months. They wouldn’t have been saddled with a baby.” He stopped, as if horrified by his words.

I stared at him.

“This is all… for nothing,” August said. “You’re not getting them back. I’m sorry, man, sorrier than you will ever know. But I—”

“Please just do as I ask. If we were ever friends.”

“Friends don’t put friends in positions like this, man. I could lose it all.”

“You could. I already have. August, I know that you, as a decent man, are going to help me. You can’t not help me.” I wanted to say I saved your life today but I couldn’t play that card; he hadn’t seen me and it wasn’t fair.

“Howell will have my head.”

“Howell left a group of women behind in that machinists’ shop.”

“What do you mean?”

“After you and the other agent were hit, and he chased me out, did he secure the building?”

“He did.”

“Did he tell you there were a group of sex slaves being held captive in the back?”

August paled, dragged a finger along his unshaven jaw. “No. I didn’t know. I swear.”

“I believe you. Because Howell is Ahab, and I’m the white whale,” I said. “He’s losing perspective, August.”

“I… I don’t know.”

I took a deep breath. “I knew about you and Lucy seeing each other before Lucy and I dated. She never mentioned it. You both kept it secret and I don’t blame you; the Company doesn’t need to be in your business. But I knew. And you didn’t dump me as a friend for going out with your ex,” I said.

“Lucy and I weren’t a good match,” he said. “It only lasted a month.”

“Why?”

“I never trusted her.” He put his hands into his coat pockets and I wondered what I would do if he pulled a gun on me. I honestly didn’t know. August felt like the last strand of my normal life, and now I was asking him to do a job that was incredibly dangerous. I didn’t know what he was suggesting to me about my wife. I just couldn’t go there.

A long silence, and then he said, “Can I call you on this number if I find out about the Lings?”

“Yes.” I tried to keep the relief from my voice. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. No promises.” He turned and walked out of the Rode Prins without another word.

I sat and drank Henrik’s good coffee and closed my eyes and thought through how I would steal the shipment, given what I could guess about the limitations I would face.

Five hours later August called. “We have an informant inside the Lings’ operation. The Lings’ trucks stop at a sweatshop in France. You do not hit them at the sweatshop, you hear me? You do not. You’ll dirty up a current investigation into them.” He gave me the address. “Their trucks are marked as being part of a company called Leeuw en Draak. Lion and Dragon.”

“Thank you,” I said. And meant it.

“Don’t call me again, Sam. Good luck.” And he hung up. Now I’d lost my best friend as well. I mourned for all of ten seconds.

Then I called Piet. “I have what we need.”