She shakes her head emphatically, and I believe her. She’s so tense I worry she might spontaneously combust, and quickly I realize that she doesn’t have much of a background in this sort of thing.

Certainly not the way her three buddies obviously did.

Thinking for a moment, I decide I might be able to get some info off her about Niko Vukovic. The Hungarians probably know more about the man and his movements than I do, after all.

“Stay calm,” I say. “Just drive.”

The young woman stares at me, still breathing heavily from her run. Finally, she asks, “Drive where?”

“Let’s find someplace quiet to go talk.”

“I do not . . . I do not wish to go with you.”

“I do not give a shit.” Waving the pistol again, I say, “Drive!”

She doesn’t say one word while she motors her way out of the hilly town, up a dark, steep road. Nor do I, as my own heart rate is still up after the alley fight and the mad sprint. I need to focus on breathing, but through her silence I can feel the terror emanating from her.

I do nothing to calm her; her fear is a tool I can employ to earn her compliance, and I won’t give that up cheaply.

Nearly ten minutes later I direct her to park in a quiet hillside overlook, mostly out of sight of the road and with no other vehicles around. She does as ordered, and then, with the lights of Mostar down below us, I take the keys out of the ignition and put them in my pocket.

We are enshrouded in near darkness, but I can see her trembling hands well enough to know immediately if she reaches for a weapon, and my pistol is on my knee and ready for her.

I say, “Your friends will all live, but they’re going to need a doctor. I want them out of town tonight.”

“My . . . my friends?” She adopts a look of surprise and confusion. She puts on a good act, I’ll give her that.

“Or,” I continue, “you could just leave them and run home on your own. Looked like that was what you were doing. It’s your call.”

“I . . . I don’t have any friends here. I just arrived in Bosnia two days ago. I live in the Netherlands.”

“Wait . . . you aren’t Hungarian?”

“Who said I was Hungarian? I am Romanian.”

Now I’m confused, but I try not to let it show. “You’re not with the three guys watching Vukovic’s house?”

Now I see her first obvious lie.

“Who is Vukovic?”

Bullshit. Her mannerisms are all wrong for someone making a truthful statement. Whereas before her terrified eyes were locked to mine, now she glances down to the left and she brings one arm across her body, holding on to the steering wheel with it. These are tells I learned in my first day studying body language back at the CIA’s Autonomous Asset Develop ment Program in Harvey Point, North Carolina, and they are so obvious to me now I can often pick up on deception without making any effort to do so.

I say, “You were watching Vukovic’s place, too. I don’t need you lying to me right now, and you don’t need me angry with you.”

The woman looks out the windshield and nods. She looks exhausted. “Yes, I was watching the home of Chief Vukovic. I did not know others were doing this also.”

“You didn’t see the three big Hungarians?”

“No. I saw you, then I heard fighting in the alleyway. I didn’t know what was going on. When I saw you I got scared and ran.”

“You got . . . scared?” I get scared all the time, but I don’t run into many people in the field who would admit this.

She nods. She’s still scared. Her eyes show only mistrust and apprehension, all directed towards me. She says, “You are a gangster? You are part of the pipeline?”

Slowly I cock my head. I reach with my non–gun hand into her purse in the backseat, and I pull out a wallet. Flipping it open, I don’t see a Romanian driver’s license at first. Instead I see an official-looking identity badge.

And in my world, that’s never good news.

    Talyssa Corbu. Junior Criminal Analyst.

 Economic Crime Division. European Union Agency

 for Law Enforcement Cooperation.

 EUROPOL

Terrific. The last time I checked, Europol had published international warrants for me on about ten different charges, from Dublin to Tallinn, from Kiev to Stockholm.

Interpol, the world police organization, has a dozen more: from Hong Kong to Mexico City, and from Ho Chi Minh City to D.C. I’ve got a healthy fear of cops, because in their eyes I’m as bad a man as exists in this world.

But even though this woman works for an agency that would like to see me thrown into a windowless cell somewhere, she clearly doesn’t know who I am, and she’s clearly not here for me.

I say, “Europol coordinates with and supports law enforcement around the EU. Why would you be here, all by yourself, watching the home of a municipal police chief?”

She looks at me with even more suspicion now, but I guess I’d be suspicious, too, if some jackwad beat up three dudes, jumped in my car, stuck a gun in my face, and then took me to a darkened roadside turnoff.

“Is it any of your business?”

“I’ve got the gun, so my business is whatever I want to make it.”

She belts out a nervy laugh. “You are a gangster.”

“I’m not a gangster. Gangsters work for gangs. I don’t. I’m self-employed.”

She makes no reply, but I gather she doesn’t believe me. Her terror continues, and it’s absolutely palpable. Even in the poor light she appears almost ill to me.

Now I want to calm her down a little, because she’s no good to me while she’s this amped up, and I don’t need her tossing her cookies in my lap. I say, “Relax, Ms. Corbu. It’s possible you and I aren’t enemies. I’m after Vukovic, too.”

“Why?” she asks with genuine surprise.

“You first.”

“I am . . . I am here looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“I . . . I don’t have to tell you.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “You really have no idea how this whole ‘being held at gunpoint’ thing works, do you? I’m pretty sure that, in fact, you do have to tell me.”

She doesn’t speak for fifteen seconds, and then she starts to cry. I don’t love making women cry, but I don’t let off the pressure, because I don’t know what the hell is going on here.