A single butcher’s knife remained in Talyssa’s hand; she’d not even tried to take one as they fell, but she found her fingers wrapped around the hilt and the hardened steel blade pointed up and in the direction of the Dutch black-hat hacker. Meyer looked at her with fear, and then he turned to check behind him for something else to grab. He opened a drawer full of bakeware, then ran his hands across the counter, desperate for a weapon. He knocked over a coffee grinder and a rack of porcelain cups, and jostled a toaster, but he came up empty.

Spinning back around towards the woman with the knife, he found that Corbu had climbed over the island in desperation, and now she was inches away, the blade under his chin.

He froze solid, and she held her position without moving, either.

No one said a word for several seconds; they were both out of breath from the tension and action.

Finally she spoke through her rapid breathing. “We will go into your office and you will sit down.”

* * *

• • •

Ten minutes later Talyssa Corbu left Meyer affixed to his chair by the legs and arms with the zip ties Harry had directed her to buy once she got to Amsterdam. Facing his monitors and the keyboard on his desk he sat there, staring straight ahead, sweat shining on his brow.

She stepped out of the room, but only into a hallway where she could still see her captive, and here she placed a call to the American who was so much better at this sort of thing than she.

“Harry?” she said as he answered.

“What’s wrong?”

“I . . . I have him. He is tied up. But he refuses to help.”

She could hear the American breathe a long sigh of relief, and this served as the first and only thing to relax her since she’d first rung Meyer’s doorbell thirty minutes earlier.

He then said, “It’s okay. You’ve done well so far. I doubted he’d go for that.”

“But you said—”

“I just had to get you this far. We can do it together from here.”

“Why are you whispering?”

She heard Harry chuckle a little. “You think you have problems?”

“What is happening there?”

“It’s fine. Let’s focus on Meyer. You are going to have to resort to other measures.”

With a tremble in her voice she tried and failed to control, she said, “I . . . I don’t think I can do what you are going to ask me to do.”

“We have to find answers. Look, I’m not going to get us what we need tonight. There are too many men around. I can’t threaten, capture, torture, follow, or kill anybody here tonight. So it’s up to you now. You have to get us some fresh intelligence.”

Talyssa looked at the man in the other room and wondered if she had what it took to go forward. But she lifted her head, brought her chin back, and said, “What do I do?”

“Exactly what I tell you to do, without hesitation. I need you to become me. If I were there I could get that little dipshit hacking into NASA in fifteen minutes, because I would put the fear of God in him.”

“Yes. I saw you do it with Niko Vukovic.”

“Exactly.”

“But I am not you. I am not scary.”

“Intimidation is about selling an attitude. The more they believe you will do something, the less you will have to do. I can’t give you the ability to snap some bastard’s neck, but I can give you the attitude so that he thinks you will snap his neck.”

“How?”

“Keep your earpiece in. I’ll hear him and you, and you will hear me. I can talk you through every single thing to say. But you can’t waver.”

“Okay,” she said after some hesitation.

Harry replied, “But look, Talyssa. This plan is not guaranteed. It may not be pretty. If I tell you to stick an ice pick in that fucker’s eye, you’re going to make him think you are going to do it.”

Her stomach lurched. “An . . . ice pick?”

“I need you to be a heartless, soulless robot for the next few minutes. If you can do that for me, then we can get Meyer to do what we need him to do, and we can find out where they are taking your sister.”

“All right.”

* * *

• • •

I direct her to the kitchen, and I give her a list of items to collect. In the garage she finds a toolbox, and, despite her persistent questioning about what all this is for, she brings all the equipment I’ve specified upstairs.

Once there, she says, “I have it all. What do I do with it?”

“Put it all down next to him. If it’s there where he can see, that will amp up his anxiety.”

A minute later she has done what I ask, and then I hear her talk to her prisoner for a few minutes more. I direct her on what to say, but this Maarten Meyer is a hard sell. Other than some “fuck yous,” he barely responds.

Finally I say, “Okay, Talyssa. You’re going to have to hurt him some. I’m sorry, but you can do it. Pick up the pliers.”

I can’t see her, I don’t know if she does it or not, but I’m assuming she’s made no moves towards the tools. I say, “Pick up the fucking pliers.”

She can’t answer me, but I hear slow movement, the shuffling of tools on the table.

Then the noise stops.

Right in front of him she says, “I can’t!”

Damn. I say, “It’s fine, Talyssa. Put me on your speakerphone.”

“Okay.” I hear a click, and then I talk. My voice is nothing like Talyssa’s, because if I were there I’d tear that piece of shit apart without a moment’s thought, and I sound like it.

“Hello, Maarten.”

“Who is this?”

“I’m the guy she warned you about.”

“You’re Europol?”

I laugh. “Do I sound like I’m Europol? I’m not European, so I’m not Euro. I’m not the police, so I’m not pol.”

“So you are . . . you are what?”

“Right now I am the guy trying to convince the young lady holding you to place that pair of pliers on your nuts and squeeze, but I’m having a hard time getting her on board with that. Some people aren’t as crazy as me, I guess.”

He barks out a thin laugh. “She won’t do it, and you aren’t here. You don’t scare me. Go fuck yourself, American. You’re bluffing.”