Choke Point gc&jk-2

by Ridley Pearson

  His left arm is not as strong as his right. The man in the back is winning the tug-of-war with the sliding door. Knox applies the same strategy: he runs to his left, pulling the door open, assisting his opponent. He reaches in, grabs for clothing and pulls.

  He throws a small girl onto the asphalt. The mistake stuns him. Freezes him, half turned in her direction.

  A gunshot from behind. Knox spins and drops as a body falls on top of him. The driver was not killed. He’s fired a round into his own man who was moving to jump Knox. The jumper has a golf-ball-sized hole in his upper chest. The exit wound of a hollow point. Holding the jumper as a shield, knowing the hollow points won’t pass through him with killing velocity, Knox carries him into the van, pushing him toward the wounded driver, who fires two more rounds into his colleague.

  The passenger turns in his seat, sticks the barrel of his weapon to Knox’s temple and pulls the trigger. It clicks. Knox pounds a fist into the man’s face, flattening his nose for a second time, delivering the man unconscious. He heaves the dying man forward into the driver like a stuffed doll and the two wrestle with the wounded man between them. The van’s horn sounds as Knox dislodges the weapon, the driver weak from taking one of Knox’s two rounds.

  The girls flee the van behind Knox.

  “Wait!” Knox calls out in Dutch.

  The driver is stubborn. The now-dead man between them sinks out of the way and the two pummel each other, Knox pounding the sticky wet area in the man’s chest until at last he goes limp.

  Knox collects the weapons and tosses them out of the van.

  The boat has turned and is heading away. Knox slumps down onto the asphalt, knowing he must make the swim before the police arrive. He calls out, but the girls have fled. Screams Maja’s name, implores her to come back. But the girls have scattered into the dark, putting as much distance behind them as possible. They are left to find their way back into the city and be reabsorbed into another sweatshop or brothel. The lucky ones like Maja will find their way home; though what, if any, promise that holds remains uncertain. Marta, and recruiters just like her, litter every street corner.

  Exhausted, limping, he makes his way to the water as police cars close in, slips into the blackness like a crocodile and swims quietly for the far bank.

  Knox is on foot on the streets of the city center, his stomach full, his mind alert. He’s on the hunt—he feels exceptionally good. Time is against him, but he understands the value of patience. This can’t be rushed.

  Without the girls who fled the van, he has nothing to trade Brower for the release of Grace and Dulwich. By now the constables have taken the injured delivery team into custody; without hostages, the police may lack enough evidence to hold them for long. Knox has this one night at most.

  He is presented with a choice: turn everything over to Brower and hope to win favor, or deliver the prize no cop could resist: Fahiz. The knot shop ringleader.

  Grace’s work has been unable to specify a source location for the incoming messages to Kreiger, and has explained that an outgoing data stream would improve their chances. He needs Kreiger to contact Fahiz directly. It would allow him to track the e-mail through an ISP server to a particular router, to identify a city district, possibly narrow it down to a few blocks.

  Knox walks the length of Kreupelsteeg, the alley that contains the entrance to Kreiger’s Natuurhonig. Circles fully around a long block, canal to canal, and back to the alley’s southern entrance, a fifteen-minute walk. It’s growing dark. The sex tourists are out in droves. The red-light district is hopping.

  The pale, scantily clad girls stand in the windows like mannequins, smoking cigarettes, talking on cell phones, credit card processors on a table, ready to go. It’s the Gap of prostitution. It all reflects in the black water of a canal, doubling his distaste.

  He crosses the canal in order to look back and get a wider view of the block that houses Natuurhonig. He’s taking into account every drain pipe, every intersection of architecture. It doesn’t look promising. Old Amsterdam is a warren of abutting, narrow brownstones without logic or reason. Many of the blocks contain courtyards common to all the buildings. He assumes there must be fire egress from upper floors of commercial buildings like Natuurhonig, but there’s little evidence from the outside, and he saw nothing while inside. He would have liked to leave by the front door. He’s not so sure about that anymore.

  He buys a souvenir, an expandable duffel bag with a gold marijuana leaf emblazoned on it. He takes up position on a bench and makes a call. He gets an automated answering voice that repeats the number called but no indication of the owner’s identity.

  “If this reaches you,” he says, “I forgive you. Berna is safe. But I need you if we’re to save the rest.” He names a restaurant/bar a half block away and a time: an hour from now. “Alone, or I can’t help the remaining girls.”

  The time passes agonizingly slowly. He switches SIM cards, checking for messages: nothing. The dinner crowd flows into the red-light district; a few windows are lit, scantily clad girls reflecting green neon. Many more stand dark, awaiting a later hour. Knox has not moved. He measures the body language and the look of every new face. He looks to see if she has compromised him. He has four routes of egress available and a handgun tucked into the small of his back. Warmed by the adrenaline pumping through him, he rides it like a drug. He feels exceptionally right and good. This is where he thrives. Dulwich now owns him.

  Sonia arrives alone. Knox first feels nothing beyond a negotiator’s appreciation that the deal appears to be going through. That acceptance causes a rush of grief and disappointment. He waits a long time, on alert for surveillance. He accepts the futility of it. She could be electronically marked. It could easily be a trap.

  The bar isn’t busy. She sits on a stool. Knox passes her and takes a table for two, his back to the wall, where he can see the front entrance and a back hallway marked as an exit. She joins him after her drink arrives.

  The cold in her eyes isn’t an act. She’s eager to be gone.

  “They tried to kill us,” he says.

  “He said a warning. I swear.”

  “You negotiated.”

  “I did. But, I swear—”

  “I saw you on television,” he says, interrupting. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  “What other girls?” She must know about the discovery of the dormitory and the knot shop by now. She has nothing to say about his successes.

  “I can’t be in two places at once,” he says, tapping Grace’s laptop. “I need you to monitor the laptop while I do something.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m going to shut him down.” He doesn’t need to tell her whom he means. “It’s what we all want and what I happen to need. You just do the monitoring. Keep the laptop safe.”

  “You cannot possibly trust me for such a task. How can you possibly do this—whatever your name is?”

  “Knox. It’s John. And yes, I do trust you to do this. I’m afraid there’s no other way.”

  “You are desperate.”

  He shrugs. A gnarly-looking waitress arrives—half sex kitten, half dominatrix. Amsterdam. Knox orders a coffee; Sonia waves the girl off.

  “It’s over,” she says.

  He takes that to mean many things, none of which he wants to face. Nor is he sure how to respond. She is beyond beautiful, without trying; she amplifies the light emitted by the pathetic candle that’s trying to stay lit. The sound of her voice is music and he’s suddenly so bone-tired he wishes he could just put his head back and listen to her speak. She could read the menu for all he cares.

  His coffee arrives. It’s freshly brewed and surprisingly good.

  “I want to hate you,” she whispers, hanging her head.

  “That’s a start,” he says.

  “No. It is an end.”

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  “It is less than nothing.”

  “For now,” he says.


  She looks up through glassy eyes. “We both got what we wanted,” she says.

  “Not even close,” he tells her.

  “What do I do?” She’s looking at Grace’s laptop.

  “Mainly, keep watch. I can’t very well set it on a table and hope it will be there when I return. It must remain on, connected to the Internet. Running. There’s a screen capture key that I need you to operate. It will shorten the analysis time.” They spend nearly twenty minutes at the keyboard together. Knox works her through what little he knows.

  “Natuurhonig,” she says.

  “Why would you say that?” He has trouble keeping suspicion from his voice. He fears a second betrayal.

  “It is less than two blocks from here.”

  “She’s a coworker, nothing else. This is her laptop.”

  “She’s under arrest.”

  Sonia knows more than he suspected. She must be in direct contact with Brower to know their status. “There have been shootings. Deaths. It is serious for her.”

  “For all of us,” he says.

  “Natuurhonig,” she repeats.

  “The less you know, the safer for you.” He wants to avoid the melodramatic because she’ll call him out for it. Sees no other way. “If I’m not back, if you don’t hear from me within the hour—”

  “Oh, please.”

  “You need to get this to her. Don’t even think about hacking it—it’ll zero itself with any attempt at that. You turn it over to Brower, or anyone else, and it’s useless. In her hands, only.”

  “There is no way I can accomplish this.”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  Some of the ice is gone from her eyes, but there’s a veil of self-preservation in place that feels impenetrable.

  “It’s operating now,” she points out. “Unlocked. If I take it, I do not need the password.”

  “Which is why I need someone I can trust.”

  She stares.

  “I can end this.”

  “It’s over.”

  “You don’t believe that. Not for a second. You want it over or you wouldn’t have come.”

  He finishes the coffee. Removes Grace’s power cord from the Scottevest. “In case it runs low on battery.” He adds, “I’ll give you exclusive rights to the story.”

  “You do not know me so very well.”

  “I’d like to,” he says.

  He leaves by the back door, pausing at the narrow hallway to look back at her. She’s looking at him, her face unreadable.

  Knox is not built for second-story work. He’s more of a ground-floor man. The Kreiger tactic is a risk. Calculated or not, he cannot allow it to backfire; there’s more to accomplish.

  Using the pick gun, he enters a darkened souvenir shop, and turns to relock the door as the security alarm begins beeping its warning to enter the alarm code. He’s upstairs in a matter of seconds. The alarm begins whooping moments before he’s out the third-floor window, which he carefully returns to closed. He’s methodical, having rehearsed this in his mind a dozen times.

  With the front door relocked, it will look like a false alarm, which accounts for over ninety percent of such calls. The interlocking roofs remind him of being above the knot shop. He walks carefully, avoiding breakable tiles, staying to the structurally sound and supported valleys and seams. It seems much farther than it should be, but at last he faces a peaked roof sandwiched between two flat, tarred roofs that are hidden behind ornamental Dutch facades. The skylight to his left offers a clouded aerial view down into Kreiger’s office.

  He makes the call while watching the man at his desk.

  “Ya?” Kreiger answers.

  “I have the contents of your safe,” Knox says. “You know who this is. Either get me the goddamn rugs, or some people are going to be very angry with you.” He ends the call.

  Below him, Kreiger heads directly to a large Asian floor urn. The urn separates at the rim. The silk plant rotates out of the way. Kreiger leans over. Knox sees only the man’s back as he’s leaning over the urn. He never for a moment doubted that the hyphenated number at the bottom of the man’s own contact information was a safe combination, but he gambled it was an office safe and not in the man’s home. Grace’s work has borne fruit. She reported watching over the computer’s webcam as he counted a great deal of cash, of hearing noises, and his return to the desk without the cash.

  Kreiger returns everything as it was and leaves the office, presumably to have a talk with Usha.

  Knox has just minutes. He retraces his steps, jimmies one of the windows in the peaked roof and lowers himself through. All the third-floor bedroom doors hang open. The brothel won’t be at capacity for another several hours. Business is confined to the second floor for the time being.

  He can only hope the damage to the upper window won’t be noticed in the next few minutes. He’s into the man’s office and has the safe open on the first try. Empties it into the marijuana duffel, relocks it and slides the plant back into place.

  He leaves a handwritten note on Kreiger’s keyboard. He winks at the screen, assuming Sonia is watching. Taps his wristwatch to let her know her part in this has come.

  Returns to the hallway, the duffel slung over his back. There was a good deal of money in the safe, along with a pair of external hard drives and, more intriguing, no fewer than a dozen plastic bags containing what appear to be pubic hairs.

  He’d planned to stash the duffel, surprise Kreiger by being in the man’s office upon his return, and to later leave by the front door. But he has misgivings about such brashness. He can hear Grace cautioning him.

  The hallway’s overhead window is too high, even given his enormous reach. He jumps, trying to catch his fingers on the window frame, but it’s no good with the duffel awkwardly weighing him down.

  The sound of someone climbing the stairs drives him into one of the open bedrooms. There’s an antique hand mirror on a dressing table; Knox uses it at an angle to scout the hallway.

  Kreiger arrives at the top of the stairs and returns to his desk, where he sees the note ahead of when Knox would have wanted. It reads:

  Nice banana plant. Get me the rugs.

  Kreiger checks his safe. Roars to where the building shakes. Lumbers quickly downstairs shouting in Dutch.

  Knox slides a chair into the hallway to make up the height he needs. Climbs up and out the jimmied window, the duffel over his shoulder. Knows the chair’s placement will give him away.

  —

  “YOU MISSED THE SHOW.” Sonia has succumbed to a glass of red wine and a calamari appetizer. Maybe two or three glasses, because she looks entrenched and comfortable, her earlier trepidation calmed. She emotes an air of respect for him.

  “Did I?” Knox signals the waitress and orders a coffee. Maybe it’s all an act, adrenaline giving way to shock. Or a fatalistic surrender. But she’s eerily stable as she crosses her legs and treats him like they’re out on a date.

  “No beer?”

  “No beer.”

  She angles the laptop in his direction. Knox is watching the restaurant’s back exit, the foot traffic in front on the sidewalk and, across the canal, the mouth of the alley that leads to Natuurhonig. One eye finds the laptop.

  Kreiger’s office chair is empty. Suddenly a man screams.

  “That would be Kreiger checking his safe,” Knox says.

  Four minutes later, the florid-faced, winded man deposits himself into the desk chair and begins typing. Knox borrows Sonia’s wineglass and upends it. She covers her smile. When the waitress delivers the coffee, he orders her another.

  Knox now divides his attention to include two smaller windows open on the laptop screen. The first scrolls code he doesn’t understand. The second shows a map where a red line stretches from Amsterdam to Berlin and back to Amsterdam.

  “I captured these screen shots,” Sonia says. The resulting screen shots play out like a slide show. The last shows a district in Amsterdam as an island of pink. Knox studies it l
ong enough to get its street boundaries.

  He tests the temperature of the coffee and then drinks down half the cup. He can feel her watching him.

  “You are not going to tell me,” she says.

  He passes her the duffel. “To help Berna and the other girls. I’m assuming the hard drives will give you a story worth publishing, including human trafficking. Enough evidence to bring down Kreiger. Hopefully, Fahiz. That’s a work in progress.”

  She unzips it, peers inside at the cash and gasps. Zips it back up. “I cannot,” she says, aiming the strap back at Knox. Her eyes stray to the bag repeatedly. She consumes a good deal of the wine as it arrives. “Jesus! It’s so much, John.”

  He studies the laptop one more time to make sure he has it right. The Dutch street names drive him nuts. Alphabet soup. He enters several numbers from Grace’s contacts into the new phone: Primer’s direct office number; the tech center; Dulwich’s mobile; the Rutherford Risk emergency number. Some of these he has memorized, but the mind does strange things when juiced on adrenaline. Knox knows what’s coming.

  “I want to help you,” she says. He won’t look at her. Knows the power of those eyes.

  “Then get as far away from me as possible. Go to ground. Write your story. The pen is mightier, and all that.”

  “And you are the sword?”

  “I’m dull, but I’ll have to do.”

  “Not dull,” she says, “just not honest.”

  He nods. Finishes the coffee. It’s not as good as the earlier cup.

  —

  KNOX DROPS THE LAPTOP into the canal as he crosses the bridge. Feels its loss in his chest for it signals the endgame, a point of no return. There might be a dozen routes to the same end but he can only think of the one. Having started it in motion there’s no going back, even if he wanted to. This is what he tells himself, though a voice of conscience suggests otherwise; there’s always time to change plans. But he’s robotic, preprogrammed. His pace increases, his demeanor intensifies. He passes the curious and the creeps, the Indiana innocents and the perverts. The full-length windows are alight with wan skin and scant underclothing, navel rings and wigs. The air reeks of marijuana, tobacco and perfume. Of Indian food and motorboat exhaust. A dozen songs compete, Euro-rock to The Fray. Oddly enough, it’s the perfect place to hide—all attention is on the window girls and the promise of depravity.