Shaban arrived at the docks at three o’clock. Lou and Joey rode in the Porsche with him. He’d tracked them to a nightclub in Manhattan and spent time pouring coffee down their throats to sober them up. They hadn’t been happy about leaving the club, where they were both convinced they were going to score with a couple of cheap-looking pickups. But they’d gone with him, because they were loyal. He could trust them, even if he could trust no one else.
The guard at the terminal gate knew him by sight and let them in without asking questions. He drove directly onto the pier. He was parking a few yards from the freighter when he spotted a woman striding down the gangway.
At first he thought it was Parker he saw. The hat on her head and the purse over her shoulder confused him. But as she came closer, he made out dark hair and big eyeglasses and Kyle Ridley’s face.
If Kyle was leaving the ship of her own volition, without Parker as an escort, then she had not been a prisoner. Something else was going on.
She had never seen his car, and she didn’t realize he was there until he threw open the door and sprang out, grabbing her by the arm. To her credit, she barely flinched.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Who?”
He slapped her face. “Where is she?” he asked again, without raising his voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why are you here?”
“Let go of me.”
She had come here to meet Arian, her employer. This much he knew. But he saw no reason for it. She had failed in her assignment. She should not have been willing to risk seeing him again.
His gaze strayed past her face to the looming bulk of the Mazeppa, immense against a moving wall of fog. A dark figure stood on the bridge wing, looking down.
His grandfather. Watching them.
Shaban studied the distant silhouette. He could not see the old man’s eyes, but he could feel their angry, hateful intensity, powerful as an electric current.
And he understood. It had been a trap. A trap for Parker—and for himself, too, maybe.
He wasn’t worried about himself. And he had no personal feelings for Bonnie Parker. She meant nothing to him. But he had given his besa to her. He had sworn there would be no retribution on account of her involvement with Kyle Ridley. If she was in trouble now, the fault was not his directly, but his family had done it, his fil. And that made it his responsibility.
Joey and Lou were beside him now, silent and bewildered. He returned his attention to the girl.
“Give me the purse.”
Her mouth twisted in a scornful smile. “You robbing me?”
“Give it.”
She unslung the purse from her shoulder and handed it over. He looked inside. He saw bricks of cash, many of them, and he knew why the girl had come.
Exploring further, he found a hidden compartment, and in it, a Walther .22 and a silencer. Parker’s gear. He recognized the gun from the motel room.
“Is she alive?” he asked Kyle.
She gave up on her pretense of ignorance. “Yes.”
“In the hold?”
“I don’t know where they put her.”
This was probably a lie. But it didn’t matter. The question had been unnecessary. Shaban knew where prisoners of the Mazeppa were kept.
He took the gun from the purse, leaving the silencer and the cash inside. The gun went into the side pocket of his jacket. He gave the purse back to the girl. He cared nothing about the money. Let her have it—if she survived.
“I’m leaving now,” Kyle said firmly.
“Not yet. I talk to Parker, find out what’s going on. Anything we still don’t know, you will fill in for us.”
“Why would I?”
“To save yourself pain.”
“I thought you gave your word you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Sure, yes. So I did.” He smiled. “But Parker did not.”
She took that in. He saw a slight tremor in her throat, her first sign of fear.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her toward the gangway, with Joey and Lou trailing behind. “We go to her.”
“Your grandfather won’t like it.”
Shaban tossed another glance at the silent, immobile figure on the bridge.
“This I know,” he said grimly.