Terror Bounty (8 page)

Not being familiar with Amsterdam, Rick
had no idea where he was being driven to. He guessed it was probably why he
hadn’t been blindfolded. Why do so when he couldn’t identify the place
afterwards?

They went through an industrial area and
the dark gray cement everywhere was foreboding. They drove past rusty
chain-link fencing and stopped outside a warehouse.

It was only after everybody was out of
the car that Rick did the same. There weren’t any other vehicles in the
vicinity and even though there were street lamps everything was just plain
gloomy. The place seemed abandoned – or made to seem that way.

They walked into the warehouse. The woman
spun toward the blond guy.

“Dieter, lights.”

He flipped a switch and overhead lamps
came on. The warehouse was smaller than Rick had imagined. There were what he supposed
to be crates against the back though they were covered with tarps. There were
some folding chairs in no discernible order as well as a desk. The air smelled
like garbage.

The driver pushed Rick until he stumbled
into one of the chairs. He felt insanely vulnerable with the other three
towering over him.

“Hey!”

No one paid attention to his protest.

“Enough with sniffing bollocks,” the
woman said, bending toward him. “Who are you really?”

Their faces only inches apart, he was
breathing hard but remained quiet. Defiant.

She shook her head as if she was losing
her patience. She said, “I can’t do business with a copper.”

“I’m not a cop.”

She reached forward and probed his
pockets for his wallet. She read every ID card she encountered. He was glad he
didn’t store condoms in there anymore. She pursed her lips as she found out his
true identity.

“What do you want with us, Mr. Travis?”

“I want to buy guns.”

She popped open his shirt and the cold
air made him shiver instantly. What was she doing, checking for wires? The next
thing she did was run her hands down his legs. It made him uncomfortable like
nothing else before. It was humiliating even though in hindsight it was benign.

“In this line of work, we only provide
services to members. Like Costco, really.”

Rick shrugged. “Then sign me up.”

“We’re a rather tight unit in our little
netherworld. Until you get us credentials, there’s nothing we can do.”

She took a step back, basically just
walking circles around him. Rick took the opportunity to button his shirt
again.

“My sources swore me to secrecy.”

She laughed. “Isn’t that convenient?”

“Fine, I’ll go someplace else.”

Rick stood up. This was another dead end,
evidently. Coming to Europe was beginning to appear like a big waste of time.
He’d just go back to Washington and perhaps beg for his old job back.

But before he could take a step, Olivia
was on him. She reached behind his back and pulled out the revolver from his
pants.

Shit
.

“I’m not a cop,” he said meekly, without
much conviction.

She took a few steps to the side where
there was a desk with lamp on it, which she turned on. She placed the gun under
the light and searched for something specific.

“The serial hasn’t been filed off and if
I’m not mistaking this is a police issue. Very sloppy work, Mr. Travis.”

“I told you I’m no cop.”

She came back, her face hard as stone.

“You’re an amateur, which is even
scarier. Pros don’t pack, even the police would have taught you that.”

Rick sighed. “I admit it, I’m new at
this. Can we move it along please?”

“We don’t need your business, Mr. Travis.
And I don’t want you to contact us again.” She spun toward Dieter. “I don’t
want him to come back.”

She put the gun down on the desk and
walked away, disappearing behind a metal door. An office maybe? Rick’s eyes
darted between her vanishing silhouette and the approaching goon.

He knew what was going to happen.

“Hey, wait! Wait!”

Too late. Dieter grabbed him by his
collar and punched him hard in the face. The pain was atrocious, mostly because
he hadn’t been prepared for it.

Before Rick could react – either run away
or fight back – Dieter hit him again. He pounded him in the stomach, knocking
his breath away.

And he wasn’t done yet.

~  ~  ~  ~

The red Mercedes came to a screeching
halt. The rear door opened and Dieter pushed Rick out. The young man came
tumbling out and landed on the sidewalk with a thump. His joints ached from the
hard landing and the rest of his body hurt from the beating.

Just as he was sitting up, the revolver
was thrown out of the car and it careened to a stop a couple of feet away from
him. The bullets were dumped a second later. Smart of them, he thought, because
what he wanted to do was shoot at the car for how he’d been treated.

Getting his bearings, he saw that he was
surrounded by bright lights and neon signs. He didn’t know much about Amsterdam
but he knew where he was: the Red Light District.

There were a couple of scantily-clad
prostitutes leaning against the wall of a building five yards away. Instead of
being scared by what had just happened, they were amused.

“Glad to entertain you,” Rick said though
it wasn’t loud enough to be overheard.

He grabbed the gun and promptly shoved it
back into his pants before it became an issue with anyone. Then he
painstakingly picked up the bullets one by one and walked away.

He found a tissue in his jeans and
cleaned the blood off his face. He was amazed there was very little blood
actually. Dieter had known how to cause him maximum pain without inflicting
permanent damage. Rick found a taxi and headed to his hotel, a Holiday Inn.

Jesus
,
what time was it? He wasn’t sure anymore. He was exhausted, depressed, but also
angry enough that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He took a shower as soon as he
got to his room and then called room service for bottles of water, some snacks,
and a Coke.

He changed into fresh clothes and went to
the desk, sitting in front of his laptop.

“Okay, let’s see if this works…”

He fetched his travel notes and memorized
the login information uncle Peter had given him. Then he browsed to the FBI’s
network. He was actually taken aback by the fact that he was granted access on
the first try. This was his first American felony.

Getting into search mode, he typed “gun
trafficker” in the category field and “Amsterdam” in the location field. A
dialogue box marked “Searching…” appeared.

There was a knock at the door. Startled,
he pushed his chair back but it caught on the carpet. He had to act quickly so
he wouldn’t tip over. Man, why was he so jittery? It was just room service.

He stood up and at the last second
grabbed the now reloaded Smith & Wesson from on top of the mattress. He
went to the door and looked through the peep hole, cocking the hammer.

“Shit.”

It wasn’t room service.

Hertz took pleasure at Rick’s disappointed
expression. He strolled in.

“Hi, Rick.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you I’d be following you.”

Rick closed the door and put the gun down
his pants, behind his back. This was turning into some sort of nightmare. He
had embarked on this adventure thinking it would be him against the world.

Who cares if he didn’t succeed? The only
person he had to look after was him. If it didn’t work out, he could abandon
the project and go back home.

But now there were Russian gangsters and
this British woman arms dealer and the fucking CIA. Rick felt the weight of the
world on his shoulders.

Hertz turned around. “It’s a good thing
you didn’t fight back with the guy.”

“How would you know about that?”

“Your face tells a lot, an epic saga. If
you’d fought back, you’d be dead by now.”

Instinctively, Rick inspected his face in
the mirror next to the bathroom. There was a small cut on his cheek and for the
first time he realized his entire face was tender.

“Okay, smart guy. Why didn’t you stop him,
do something?”

“I’m like God,” Hertz whispered. “I’m an
all-seeing eye but I don’t intervene.”

“God complex much?”

“Hey, it’s a tough job but somebody has
to do it.”

“Did you come here just to bust my balls?”
Rick asked.

“I can do whatever I want, one of the
perks of working for the CIA.”

“What do you want?”

Hertz came forward, becoming serious at
last. “I’m here to tell you to keep on pushing.”

“It’s a dead-end, they don’t want to do
business with me. Look at my face, you said it yourself.”

The middle-age man waved the comment
away. “That’s the standard industry response. If you go back for more, they’ll
know you’re for real. You gotta keep at it.”

He pulled out a folded piece of paper
from a pocket.

“What’s that?”

“Your girl is at a club right now, this
is the address. You have to lead me to Greenwood, Rick. You have to. No more
fucking around.”

Hertz dropped the piece of paper with the
address on the bed and headed out. While the door was closing, a server showed
up with a cloth-covered cart.

“You ordered room service, sir?”

“Yeah well apparently I can’t enjoy it.”

“Excuse me, sir?” the young man said.

It would be wasting time explaining
himself, Rick thought. He couldn’t find a proper way to convey in a coherent
sentence how he’d managed to thoroughly screw himself by getting involved with
gun traffickers and spies.

Instead he said, “Thanks.”

He tipped the kid, picked up the water,
soda, and snacks from the table, and returned to his room to get ready. He was
about to get dressed when he remembered his laptop.

He went straight to the computer, his
hopes soaring. A search results page had appeared on the screen.

It read, “No items found.”

~  ~  ~  ~

The nightclub was packed and immediately
Rick remembered why he didn’t hang out in places like these anymore. He
recognized the music playing as Cascada’s energetic
Evacuate the Dancefloor
and he found it difficult not to at least bob his head.

Lights were flashing, the crowd was
difficult to see clearly. He felt like a salmon swimming upstream as he went
farther into the club, rubbing up against people. It wasn’t so bad, he decided
after he brushed up against a redhead in a tight black dress.

He kept an eye on the center stage but
didn’t find the woman he was looking for. She wasn’t among the people dancing.
He went around the floor, constantly scanning people’s faces.

He wondered if she was supposed to look
different. Maybe she was wearing buckets of makeup. Maybe she had a pink wig
on. This would definitely make his job more challenging.

However, when he reached the
triangle-shaped bar he saw that his apprehensions were unfounded. The arms
dealer was standing there, swaying with the music while sipping on a highball.

She was wearing a red form-fitting dress
which showed off long, perfect legs. Her hair was down with a few more curls
than before. A few hours ago he’d wanted to hit her but now his feelings were
conflicted.

She was breathtaking.

Her eyes locked onto his and she stopped
moving just as the song morphed into Paul Oakenfold’s
Ready Steady Go
.
It was the first time in which he saw her uncertain and he enjoyed this
tremendously. He went to her.

“What are you drinking? Is that a Tom
Collins? Somehow you struck me as a tequila shots kind of girl.”

She rolled her eyes and turned away from
him, now facing the bar. He came closer still.

“Dieter didn’t do a really good job
getting rid of you. You’re still walking. I’ll have to chat to him about it.”

Rick grinned. “Are you a workaholic?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What’s the highest level of education
that you have, lady? I would’ve figured you were well-versed in the English
language.”

It was her turn to smile at having this
thrown back at her. “Are you trying to be cheeky?”

“It’s a simple question. Are you a
workaholic?”

“No, I don’t suppose I am. I haven’t been
clinically diagnosed anyway.”

“Then why are you talking business?”

She shrugged, conceding the point. Rick
waved the bartender over and ordered a Heineken.

“What’s your name?” he asked the woman
who had remarkably not run away by now.

“Olivia.”

“Nice to meet you, Olivia. I’m Rick. You
still live with your parents?”

She almost choked on her drink and
chuckled. She glanced at her watch.

“What the hell, I have nothing better to
do.”

~  ~  ~  ~

It was insane how a simple change of
scenery, a change of clothes, could alter one’s perception of another. Rick
acted as if he hadn’t been beaten up by Olivia’s people, that he hadn’t been
dumped in the middle of the street as a de facto death threat, and in return
she did the same.

They drank and talked and danced for the
next two hours, just like two regular people. After half an hour, Rick was
shocked to find that he wasn’t even on his guard anymore. He just enjoyed being
with her.

“You smell nice,” he said when the music
slowed down and she fell into his arms for a dance.

She was the one who kissed him first.

Going back to his hotel was a foregone
conclusion and he pinned her against the door as they alternated between
giggling and making out.

“If you’re gonna strip my clothes off,
please shut the door first.”

“What about the people who want a show?”
Rick asked. “Don’t you want to please the viewing public?”

Laughing, she pushed him away, closed the
door herself, and she was back into his arms. His gun was locked inside the
room safe and if she had a weapon it was in her purse. There was nothing to
remind either of them of who they really were.

Following these past crazy days, it was
fine with Rick.

He crushed his mouth against hers and
carried her to the bed, stretching out her body gently under his. He caressed
her curves, nuzzled her throat as she moaned, and nature took its course.