‘Remember what I told you.’ Jared crouched down and held the boy’s gaze. ‘We’re going through the window and then we’re going for a swim using scuba gear. It’s just like the snorkelling gear you used to use, only better.’
‘Like what you used when you checked the hull for bombs. You showed me.’
‘Exactly like that. But it’s going to be dark underwater and you won’t be able to see much.’
‘And I’m going to be clipped to you.’
‘That’s right. And we’ll only be this far under the water.’ Jared’s spread his arms about a meter or so wide and then shortened it to half that before lengthening the distance again. ‘So the moment you want to go to the surface you tug on my arm and up we go. Got that?’
The boy nodded.
‘And what does this mean?’ Jared continued the drill, commanding the little boy’s attention with his voice and eyes as he made the universal sign for okay with his fingers.
‘It means I’m okay.’
‘When we come up to the surface—and we will a few times—that’s the signal I want to see. It’ll tell me that you’re ready to go back under again. Okay? Make the sign.’
He held up his own curled fingers as an example. Celik made the sign and Jared nodded.
‘Good. Are you ready?’
The boy nodded enthusiastically, and Jared picked him up and stood him on the bench he’d placed below the window. They watched together as a long, many-seated, shallow-bottomed tourist boat stalled right in front of the little window. The pilot would slip overboard and then the boat would catch fire and provide them with some smoke and cover. Bless Damon and his remote management skills.
‘Remember when I told you that a boat was going to help hide us while we slide out the window and into the water? That’s the boat. And it’s going to blow up now.’
Celik’s eyes grew big and round.
Yeah, not a sentence a seven-year-old boy heard every day … Not even Antonov’s son.
The explosion was a good one. The boat went up in flames, accompanied by a roil of black smoke. Jared took the window out and hoisted himself through it and into the inky black water, and then motioned for Celik to come. It helped that the boy could swim like a fish and looked upon this as an adventure. It also helped that one of Antonov’s thugs had shown him as a six-year-old how scuba gear worked and had let the boy play around with it in a swimming pool before Antonov had put a stop to it.
The scuba gear he’d set in place earlier was still there. Less than thirty seconds later they were two feet underwater and swimming away from the blaze. Jared kept them close to the side of the canal and brought them to the surface beneath the shadows of the nearest bridge. He wanted to see that okay sign.
The kid was like an eel in the water, and when Jared gave him the sign the kid nodded vigorously, wrapped an arm around his neck and signalled right back.
So under they went again.
Two more times they surfaced, and soon enough came upon a row of houseboat hulls. Jared started counting them off. Six—and then a sharp right into an adjoining canal.
They were halfway through the turn when another boom sounded—a boom that shook the water. That didn’t bode well. Forward progress suddenly became a whole lot more difficult, with water flowing swiftly in the opposite direction, and Jared clung with all his strength to the canal wall.
That secondary explosion was neither his nor Damon’s doing.
Something to worry about.
Their last crawl along the side of the houseboat hulls took as much time as the rest of the swim put together, but eventually they surfaced again. Every muscle in Jared’s arms and shoulders was screaming with the weight of Celik and the drag of the water.
This time they’d surfaced next to a ladder that was half hidden between a houseboat and the canal wall. Jared wasted no time in getting the scuba gear off them and sending Celik up the ladder first.
‘There’s a towel waiting for you. Grab it and get warm.’
Moments later they were in the bowels of a comfortably shabby tourist houseboat and Jared was turning lights on.
‘Are we good?’
Celik nodded, his eyes bright and his hair sticking up in tufts. ‘Did we lose them? The bad men?’
‘Yes. Jump in the shower and get warmed up while I put some soup on. Then I’m going to tell you a story about a little boy who never knew he had an aunt. An aunt who loved him very much, even though they’d never met. An aunt who wanted nothing more than to meet this little boy named Celik and help him to grow up healthy and happy and strong. Do you like the sound of that story?
Celik nodded.
‘Good. Because next time I tell it I’m going to add speedboats, aeroplanes, sleepy mice and penguins.’
Rowan stood in front of the stern-faced grey-eyed man and stared down at a picture of what had once been an elegant Amsterdam canal house and was now little more than a pile of rubble, courtesy of some kind of explosion or bomb. The owner of the house—one Cerise Fallon—had not been injured in the explosion, but according to her there had been two others in the house at the time of the incident. A client, whose details had been lost along with her phone, and her seven-year-old son.
The next picture in the pile showed a picture of a beautiful woman standing in darkness, staring up at her burning house, her face lit by the nearby flames. Her tears looked convincing.
‘Two days ago you asked me if you could brief Jared West on a situation involving Antonov’s son,’ said Rowan’s boss. ‘Know anything about this?’
‘No, sir. I know nothing about this.’
‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘I never briefed Jared. I haven’t been able to get hold of him. Have they found any bodies yet? Her son? The body of the client?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then how do we know this isn’t something that the Dutch authorities set up in order to spirit the child away? With the mother’s full co-operation?’
‘We don’t.’
‘Do we know what caused the explosion?’
‘From what we can gather a boat caught fire outside the house. And then someone shot a grenade into a first-floor window. There’s a Dutch forensics and recovery team working on it now.’
‘A grenade?’ Rowan winced.
‘Was it West?’ he asked again.
‘I don’t know.’ Nothing but the truth.
‘You said you hadn’t been able to contact him. How many times did you try?’
‘I called his number immediately after I spoke to you about the case two days ago. My assistant has been trying to get hold of him ever since.’
‘And your inability to reach him didn’t make you suspicious?’
‘He’s just bought a yacht. I thought—’ Rowan stopped. There was no point continuing.
‘You presumed?’
‘Yes, sir, I presumed to know where he was.’
‘Get him in here, Director. Preferably tonight. Make me believe that Jared West had nothing to do with this.’
‘Yes, sir, I’ll try.’
When Rowan still couldn’t raise Jared she called his sister.