Parking garage near Central Park
Mila put the camera in a bag in the back of the van. She pulled off the dark wig she’d worn under a stylish hat, shook her sweaty hair free and pushed the black sunglasses back on her head.
Now. Sam had forgotten for a moment that he worked for her; he had forbidden her to come after them. Ridiculous. He could not go off with a man as evil as Zviman and expect to have an exchange go smoothly. And she did not trust Leonie. And although Sam had been clever enough to slough off her tracking chip the other night, Leonie was not. The chip went into the pocket of the light jacket Leonie wore, that Mila had lent her from the apartment over The Last Minute.
From the back of the van – the same one she and Bertrand had used to move out the corpses of the bodyguards, what felt like a thousand days before when she and Sam had pretended to be baby buyers – she pulled out a GPS device. A slight red gleam showed her Leonie’s position. She could follow, unseen, at a distance.
She heard the footsteps behind her as she shut the door. She turned and the Taser needles hit her. Shocking her. Then a tall, spare man stepped forward and closed a damp cloth over her face.
The man who sat at The Last Minute, the man Sam thought suspicious.
‘You’re my million-dollar baby, Mila,’ he said to her, before the darkness closed in.
Braun handcuffed Mila, all with the van doors closed. He heard the laughter of children, a family walking past the van as he worked. He made sure she was secure: he had no intention of underestimating her. He relieved her of the knife in her boot and the gun at the small of her back. He bound her feet with rope.
He examined the GPS reader. Clever. Either Lindsay or Capra were tagged, and Mila was going to follow them.
He could see that they were now off Manhattan, heading north into Westchester County. A cold tingle touched his spine. No. Surely not. Surely Zviman was not taking them there.
He took the keys from her pocket. He opened up his phone. He sent a text message to the email address where the reward had been posted. I have your Mila and I want to collect the million. Caught her trying to help your friends in the car. May I make your day and bring her to you?