About Face (30 page)

I turn on a light on the nightstand. The room, like the rest of the apartment, is smart, contemporary. The floor is wide, chocolate-colored planks of wood. The walls are the same shade of gray as the satin sheets and blanket covering the bed, and me. There's no sign of Julia. I look at the clock on the nightstand.

9:22 a.m.

Not good.

I hear my iPhone blowing up, but I don't see it. I notice my clothes neatly set on one of the gray-and-brown-striped Donghia Klismos chairs. Naked, I spring from the bed. I'm so disoriented I nearly lose my balance. I can't help wonder if no sleep even with all that's gone on—is still going on—would have been better.

I pull the iPhone from the right inside suit jacket pocket. Five missed calls from Cobus, who's calling me again. Numerous
unanswered texts from both Cobus and Arnon. I clear my throat, then say a few words to no one in order to gauge the grogginess in my voice, and assess just how much effort it will take to seem I'm fully awake.

“The time got away from me,” I answer.

“What is going on, Ivan?”

Cobus sounds pissed. He never—ever—loses his cool, but when he's pissed I can definitely hear it in his voice.

“Where are you? And why are you anywhere but here?”

“I've been on with Angelique…”

Angelique, my five-foot-nothing, walking piece of art of an assistant.

“I'm on my way.”

I hang up before Cobus can inquire any further. I call Angelique.

“
Dag; Ivan Janse's Kantoor
—”

This is, “Hello, Ivan Janse's office,” in Dutch. I'll just give you the English version of our call straightaway.

“How are we this afternoon? Any new piercings? Maybe a new tattoo during lunchtime?”

“What's up, Boss Man? What do you need?”

“Every single file, document, e-mail regarding the Berlin deal scanned and e-mailed to me immediately.”

The time nearing ten a.m., I walk into the hotel and straight to the restaurant. No sign of Cobus or Arnon. I call Cobus.

“Come up to my room,” he says.

I enter Cobus's suite. He's sitting on the couch, wearing his usual black-on-black uniform, finishing up a call. He motions for me to sit down.

“Where the hell have you been this morning, Ivan? What's going on?”

Just as I'm about to open my mouth, he keeps going.

“Something doesn't seem right. We're on the cusp of closing a major deal—a historic deal—for this firm, yet you're MIA. What am I missing here?”

I take a deep, defeated breath.

“You got me. I was on with Angelique, as I said, and the time got away from me.”

“On with Angelique about what? What could have been
so
important with regard to any of our properties back home that you might get this sidetracked by a conversation with Angelique?”

“I was telling her exactly which documents I needed from the Berlin file scanned and e-mailed to me.”

“The Berlin deal. Just as we're moving toward this close. Why?”

“Because it is my duty to always make sure we're ready for anything; that we're in position to make any play we might need to make. Something I won't ever apologize for.”

“When you didn't show for breakfast, I knocked on your door. You didn't answer.”

“I must have been in the shower,” I counter. “Now, if it's okay with you, I've got some housekeeping to do in these next couple hours before lunch at Alessi's place. I do have other properties of yours back in the Netherlands I need to worry about.”

“Good morning. And you are?”

“I'm here to see Dr. York. Please have him meet me in his office.”

I know York's here. I called to make sure from the cab on my way over. Without another word, I head through the door leading from the waiting room into the office.

“Sir, excuse me, sir, you can't just walk in there like this! Please, sir!”

A
MSTERDAM
, T
HE
N
ETHERLANDS
2011

It was a beautiful spring Saturday night. Amsterdam had been nuts all day with crazy drunken Scottish men in kilts and construction boots who had descended on The Netherlands for their homeland's World Cup qualifying soccer match versus Holland. The two teams had played to a zero–zero draw. The streets still had some mild activity, but the crowds had thinned out considerably since the game's completion earlier in the day. Max, Perry, and I had just had a late dinner by Rembrandt Plein and were walking back toward home. Perry stepped in front of me and asked if she had something stuck in her teeth.

A trolley passed behind her when she did. Something struck me. In the window, because of the streetlights, I saw the reflection of a large, well-built man wearing a kilt, about twenty feet behind us. And I couldn't help thinking I had caught the tail end of his going from a beer in the air to turning away—as if trying to blend in.

As if trying to seem like he wasn't following us.

A real threat hadn't presented itself in a while. I was probably just paranoid, I thought. I told Perry there was nothing in her teeth. We kept walking.

I still felt…something. I couldn't turn around; if I was right, that simply meant cover blown leading to God knows what.

I stopped short and spun Perry around.

“What about me?” I asked.

Using my peripheral vision, I could tell he was still there. Same turn away. I turned my head and looked at him. He pretended to be answering his cell phone.

“Grab Max's hand,” I said.

“What?”

“Grab his hand, Per. Now. And stay close.”

“What's going on, Jonah?”

“Now, Per!”

She did as I asked and we began moving. My senses told me to move toward people, not away from them. I had learned enough to know that in times of great improvisation clueless people can make very useful props. After another hundred feet or so I turned around.

Kilt Man was still on us. And he seemed to have three friends.

My right hand had Perry's left hand; my left hand helped clear our path. The simple goal being survival, I shooed people aside, their protests falling on deaf ears. I could feel Perry pulling back. I knew it was because Max was having trouble keeping up.

I needed to keep them safe.

Always get what you need. Clean up later.

I wheeled around, picked Max up, and threw him over my shoulder.

“Let's go, Tess! Keep up!”

We had trained ourselves well. Talking amongst ourselves was one thing. But talking at a level where there was even a chance someone else could be listening, we were Tess, Johan, and Ivan. We switched back and forth effortlessly between English and Dutch. As did our voices, our accents.

I couldn't hold her hand any longer. I needed to be able to use every ounce of my unoccupied physical self for propulsion, people clearing.

“Grab my shirt and don't let it go!”

Perry did as I said, and we kept moving.

“What's happening?” screamed Max.

We both disregarded him. A few seconds later, I didn't feel Perry's hand grabbing my shirt. Barely breaking stride I turned around. She had fallen back. She was caught up in a group of the drunken Scottish soccer fans who had wrapped their arms around each other and broken into raunchy song. Though it was presumably English, I remember not being able to recognize a fucking word, the accents were so thick.

Not far past Perry, over her head, I saw Kilt Man and his boys. They were closing fast.

“Let's go, Tess! Now!”

She must have seen my eyes looking over her as I screamed in her direction. She turned around. When she saw the objects of my attention she fought her way through her temporary blockade and dashed for us. Even with all I had seen in my life, I had never seen panic like the fear in Perry's eyes at that very moment.

Just as Perry got to me, gasping for air, I turned, and we continued to charge through the crowd. She had my shirt again; order restored amidst chaos. As we approached what looked like the fringe of the crowd traffic, another gaggle of boozy Scottish men in plaid dresses belted out songs, beers in hand. Unsure of what was happening, and fearful for the only two people in the world who mattered to me, I let my gut take control.

“Please!” I yelled to them in my English-with-Dutch-accent voice, “Guys—please! Those men chasing us—”

I pointed at the three surprised men screeching to a halt.

“They attacked my wife! All we were doing was—”

The terrified look on Perry's face was all it took. The team of jolly, drunken men just looking for a reason to fly into an alcohol-induced assault, swarmed Kilt Man and his boys. Not interested in sticking around to see the result, we kept moving.

Not five feet farther, before I'd even had the chance to ramp up my speed, I was completely blindsided at the corner of Amstelstraat, tackled around the waist by someone hitting me as if it was
the last thing they would do in their life. I remember hearing Perry scream. Max went flying from my shoulder, and we all went rolling end over end, a mishmash of flying limbs. My face smacked, dragged against the sidewalk. Seeing the world sideways, I watched a screaming Perry go for Max. Before she reached him, two more huge, kilt-wearing guys rolled up on her. One bear hugged and lifted her into the air. The other tagged her across the jaw without a second's hesitation. Perry was in a sheer panic, fighting and flailing like an impala caught by a lion. That's when I heard the first gunshot. And the one who had cracked her in the jaw went down.

Fuck!

Was that meant for Perry? Or Max?

Who's shooting?

The crowd, erupting in a screaming frenzy, scattered.

“Johan!” Perry wailed.

“You fuck!” I growled.

I went to get to my feet as the guy who had tackled me—trying to get his own bearings—grabbed my legs from behind, pulling me down again and rolling me over.

“Mommy! Mommy!” I heard behind me. “Ivan!”

I kicked Kilt Man in the face. It was a glancing shot, but one that would have stunned most men. Kilt Man was determined. He lunged for me, landing square on my chest. We simultaneously punched each other in the mouth with our right hands. I immediately wrapped my left forearm and hand around the back of his neck and with everything I had tried to peel him off me.

That's when I heard a vehicle come screeching up right next to our commotion.

I arched my neck and took an upside-down look at the world around behind me. I saw a black van. Perry, kicking and screaming, was being carried toward it. And it looked like yet another huge guy was carrying a screaming, crying Max.

“Tess!” I cried, unable to cover the pleading in my voice. “Johan!”

A crushing fist found my face. I most definitely tasted the blood
filling my mouth from the two teeth that punctured my cheek. But I barely felt it.

Whoever these people were, they were trying to take all I had.

All I truly cared for.

In what must have been a millionth of a second, I had refocused my attention on Kilt Man, looking him square in the eye. The determination I had seen was gone, replaced by surprise. I grabbed the back of his head with my right hand, and grabbed his balls with my left. My left hand squeezed harder than it ever had before. My right hand brought his face to mine, then the animal that lurked deep inside sank my teeth into the portion of his face where his cheek met his nose. Instead of letting go when the tormented, high-pitched hollering spewed into the air, I lunged my teeth in farther.

Then, I yanked my neck back, and I tore.

Kilt Man fell backward clutching his bleeding face. I spit out a chunk of his flesh, jumped up and ran toward the van. Perry and Max were screaming hysterically as the side door slammed closed. Just like that, their voices were gone. Two gunshots came from behind me and hit the van, but they didn't slow anything down. The van peeled off.

Who was shooting?

Were they trying to slow the van down, or had they just missed me?

Without breaking stride, I ran after the van. I wasn't going to catch it, but as much as my brain felt like nothing more than scrambled egg something was telling me to keep running.

What the fuck had just gone down? In a blink, I had just gone from having a nice family dinner to tasting another man's fresh blood.

Why?

Perry and Max were obviously the targets. Or were they? Was this really about me? Was I the intended target? Maybe all three of us? Maybe the goal was all three, but they were willing to settle for any two of us.

But who? Why? What could this possibly be about?

Everything about the scenario screamed “hit.” The costumes, the number of guys, the surveillance—everything. How long had they been on us?

Days?

Weeks?

And why not kill us? What could the benefit be taking us alive?

Why?

For whom?

Fuck! Fuck!

My brain spinning, my legs kept churning. I simply couldn't stop. There could be more of them still gunning for me, I thought. Just because Perry and Max had been taken, that didn't mean the job was done.

The last thing I needed was anyone getting a look at or picture of me, no matter how different Ivan Janse looks from Jonah Gray, another reason my gut told me to keep moving. No matter how much I wanted to ask every single person in that vicinity what they had seen, heard, I couldn't. Plain and simple. My life didn't allow for such things.

When I returned to the house, I stripped off my shirt in the kitchen, rinsed my face, and grabbed the biggest knife I could find in the kitchen. I took a seat with it in the living room where, though essentially the length of the entire ground floor away, I could see the front door. Neo wanted up. I lifted him. He curled up next to me and soon drifted off. His eyes next opened when the sun came up. Mine had never closed.

Through the night, sitting there in the near dark, I did one thing—and one thing only. Play the entire scene over again in my head. Every time I did, I tried to slow it down. I tried to see if there was anything at all that could be a clue to what had happened, who these people were. There was nothing.