Lost(26)

CHAPTER 34





HANNA GREETE SAT with her brother at Mata Hari, a little restaurant on Oudezijds Achterburgwal, right on the canal. She liked the food, but even more, she liked how quiet it was.

Albert bitched about it being too fancy. She knew his real complaint was that they didn’t sell pot, although he had already smoked a joint with a pretty Canadian tourist earlier. The three beers he’d downed here had only made him mellower. This was the best time to talk to Albert.

He put a hand on Hanna’s and said, “We only lost two girls from our load. Some groups lost as many as ten. We should feel lucky they hit that place instead of the one Gregor runs. Not only would we have lost most of our load, but you know that fat little turd wouldn’t have hesitated to flip on us to the police.”

It took Hanna a moment to realize her brother was actually making sense. He was a loose cannon and a hothead, but no one had ever accused Albert of being stupid. In fact, if he hadn’t been thrown out of school for sleeping with his teacher, he might have had a fine academic career.

Hanna sighed and shook her head. She still couldn’t speak.

Albert said, “She’s getting to you. That policewoman, Marie Meijer. Are you bothered that she has made it her business to cripple our business?”

Hanna slapped the flat of her hand on the table, startling her brother, and said, “Yes, that’s exactly what’s bothering me. It’s what’s been bothering me for months. That smug detective. All we hear from our contacts is that she’s leading the charge against our industry.”

She looked at Albert. She noticed for the first time a gray streak running through his goatee.

Albert said, “It’s easy to focus on Marie Meijer, but we have plenty of other problems to address.”

Hanna glared at her brother. “Not until we deal with her. I don’t even want to hear her name again. If you need to refer to her, call her Funky-Eyed Bitch or Snake Plissken.”

A broad smile spread across Albert’s face.

Hanna said, “What is it?”

“First, I like the fact that you can see a little humor in this. Second, you know Escape from New York is my favorite movie, and now, every time I see Kurt Russell, I’ll smile, thinking about the one night when I was the reasonable sibling.”

Hanna said, “It just starts to be overwhelming. You try to make a better life for your family, but there’s always someone looking to stop you—the Russians, the police, or someone on your own payroll.”

Albert said, “Then let’s deal with the detective.” He paused, then said, “No, let’s deal with Funky-Eyed Bitch first. That should be relatively easy.”

“When do you want to do it?”

“We can do a little surveillance tonight. Let’s see what happens. But I promise, by the time you’re ready to ship those people to Miami, she won’t be a problem anymore.”





CHAPTER 35





TWO HOURS LATER, Hanna and Albert stood on a street corner in Haarlem, about twenty kilometers outside of Amsterdam.

Albert glanced down the slowly sloping hill to a redbrick road that led to a pleasant-looking three-story apartment complex.

Albert turned to Hanna and said, “How on earth did you find exactly where she lived?”

“Heinrich got the information for me. And he’s still quite upset that you threatened him with a knife. I had to pay him more than double what I normally do.”

Albert grinned. “Usually the knife gives me a discount. Maybe next time I can make my point more clearly.”

Hanna said, “He even found out that she lives with two cats. It sounds like he knows someone at the national police headquarters. Say what you want about Heinrich, he can be subtle and inconspicuous.”

Albert pulled his survival knife from under his sports coat. In the lamplight, his eyes seemed to glow. He said, “I can go down there and finish this right this minute.”

Hanna shook her head. “We need to wait. We can’t do it anywhere around this apartment complex. The cops would be all over us. And I don’t want to risk anyone finding out that I have ears everywhere. If we did something like this, there’s no way Heinrich would ever give us information again. And there’s no guarantee he’d keep his mouth shut.”

She turned and looked down at the building. The apartment was on the second floor, and several lights burned. The Funky-Eyed Bitch was home.

“We need to do this in the street somewhere,” Hanna said. “That way it won’t be traced back to us. With any luck, it could be written off as some kind of random act of violence. Maybe they’ll believe some refugee went crazy and stabbed her. I’m just not sure how we might find her later.”

Albert said, “I have an idea.” He reached into the outer pocket of his sports coat and pulled out a case about the size of a deck of cards.

“What’s that?”

“The tracker you told me to buy. I was going to test it to make sure I understood it. This will work perfectly.” Without waiting for a reply, Albert started walking toward the parking lot on the side of the apartment building. The very first car in the lot was a Volkswagen Golf hatchback with a police emblem on the dashboard.

He was already on his knees checking the batteries in the store-bought tracker when his sister caught up to him.