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  “You have a point. But threatening a public official, no matter how petty or corrupt, could come back to haunt us.”

  “If you weren’t with me, I would’ve sliced off one of his fingers or an ear. Just to show that we mean business.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that we’re facing scrutiny by the national police as well as the Koninklijke Marechaussee. We have to be careful.”

  Albert said, “I trained with the Koninklijke Marechaussee when I was in the army. They’re mostly muscle. They don’t really investigate. This all has to do with that one detective, Marie Meijer. She has it in for us.”

  Hanna nodded. He was right.

  “I have no idea what we ever did to her,” Albert said. “Maybe we should offer her a cut of our profits.”

  “I don’t think so. She’s a true believer. A bribe won’t work this time.”

  “I could deal with her. Permanently. I could even make it look like an accident, although that’s more work and less fun. Drop her in the Markermeer.”

  “No. Bodies always wash up on the shore eventually. Besides, cops never give up chasing someone who’s killed another cop.”

  Albert looked down the road at the approaching cab and pouted like a little boy. “You don’t let me have any fun at all.”

  Chapter 12

  Miami

  THE TASK FORCE was officially called Operation Guardian, mostly because when it was known as International Criminal Investigations, ICI, everyone referred to it as “Icky.” Now we had an okay name and office space in North Miami Beach, a few miles from the main FBI office.

  No one outside of law enforcement seemed to understand that Interpol didn’t make arrests. Interpol was just a global organization that shared information. For instance, if there was a jewelry heist in Paris that was somehow connected to Miami, a French detective would fly to Florida and work with either the FBI or the Miami police.

  That was one of the rationales for taking the best investigators from the most active agencies—now there was a single unit that took on the biggest international crimes. And we had to make a name for ourselves. Make a big splash.

  The problem with an active unit, though, was that the office was always busy. It was hard to find a space where six kids could hang out.

  I’d moved my laptop into the conference room so that I could work at the end of the table and also keep an eye on my new posse. No one in the office had shown much interest in helping me babysit.

  The kids were a distraction, but only because they seemed like they were having fun and I didn’t want to be left out. I abandoned my report to play the Monopoly game someone had brought in to keep them occupied.

  Monnie said, “I’ve never seen this game before.”

  Jacques was amazed. “It’s old. I saw a TV show where they said the British POWs in World War Two played it.”

  Olivia said to me in Spanish, “Can I play?”

  I hugged her. “Of course. We’re all a team. We all play or no one plays.”

  And that’s how one of my best days started.

  Forty minutes later, while I was considering putting houses on Ventnor Avenue, Anthony Chilleo stepped into the room. Sometimes, dealing with Chill was like dealing with a wild animal; he might disappear or he might eat out of your hand. I hadn’t quite figured out the quiet ATF agent yet.

  Chill was about average size, but he was solid. He also had a certain intensity to him that made everything he said seem vital. I hated to generalize, but that was a characteristic I’d noticed in all the ATF agents I’d worked with—they brought this intensity to everything they did. I figured it was one of the reasons they had such a high conviction rate. And I guess if I worked for a small, underfunded agency whose main task was getting illegal guns off the street, I’d develop the same kind of determination.

  He placed a black camera bag at the end of the table. All he said was “This is for you.”

  As he started to leave the room I called out, “Whoa, Chill, what are you trying to give me? That doesn’t look like a gift.”

  The wiry forty-five-year-old ATF agent said, “It’s a bag of electronic-surveillance shit. As the second in charge of the unit, you’re supposed to keep it in your car in case we need it in the field. A couple of recorders, a camera, and a tracker. Usual stuff.”

  He hesitated like he had something else to say, then motioned me out of the room so the kids wouldn’t hear us. He said, “I heard something that might be related to your new case.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Roman Rostoff was part of the group trafficking the kids.”

  “Rostoff? I thought he was more of a drugs/extortion/pimp kind of gangster. Now he’s involved in human trafficking?” Roman Rostoff tried to present himself as a legitimate businessman who had a ton of political influence from his donations, but most cops knew he was the Godfather of Miami.

  “He’s involved in anything that’ll make money. I’m looking at him for exporting guns to Syria.”

  “You got any snitches into him?”

  Chill shook his head. “It’s tough to get someone close enough. He only has other Russians near him. They’re the ones that talk to people outside the organization. He’s a shifty one. I hear things through the grapevine. And I heard he’s pissed. He had plans right away for the girls in your new little family.”

  I shuddered at that thought.

  I said, “Do you think he could cause trouble?”

  “He can always cause trouble. The question is if it’s worth it for him. If he thinks losing these kids reflects badly on him, he might do something. I just have no idea what.”

  “I thought you said he only cares about what makes money.”

  “Yeah, but Rostoff thinks ahead. If he believes losing a load of people hurts business later, he might do something crazy. I’ll keep my ears open.”

  “Thanks, Chill.”

  And just like that, he was gone. Chill didn’t like wasting time in idle chitchat. He wanted to get things done right away. That’s probably why he’d joined the ATF instead of the FBI.

  Chapter 13

  A FEW MINUTES after Chill left, Stephanie Hall popped her head into the conference room and greeted us; she addressed each kid by name and in his or her native language. Maybe what people said about the education you get at Ivy League schools like Brown, Steph’s alma mater, was accurate. I could barely pronounce some of their surnames.

  Steph pulled me out of the conference room to give me a quick heads-up. “I’ve heard that the bosses are annoyed you took the kids without anyone’s approval. Be ready if the skipper calls you into his office.”

  She must’ve seen the concern on my face because she added, “Don’t worry. You handle him really well. We’re all glad you’re the second in command so we don’t have to talk to him.”

  I said, “Does he always start off with the ‘I have two years before I retire’ speech?”

  “He does it more during stressful situations. I think it’s a mantra he uses to keep calm. By telling someone else about his retirement, he’s reassuring himself.”

  Right on cue, after my conversation with Steph, I got a text saying the boss wanted to see me, and I didn’t waste any time getting to the office of the FBI supervisory special agent in charge of our unit. He seemed like a decent guy, but I’d heard his background as an accountant made him risk-averse. He weighed every decision and tried to anticipate every possible outcome, even though any cop out of the academy knew you couldn’t plan for everything. Shit turned bad at a moment’s notice and you had to improvise.

  One thing my mom had taught me was not to overthink things. Make a decision and go with it. I had helped my mom since my dad left, when I was fifteen and Lila was only seven. That’s why I chose a college so close to home. While my friends went to far-off Florida State in Tallahassee, almost five hundred miles away, at the University of Miami, I was never more than forty minutes from home. Some of my teammates used to call me a mama’s boy. If being rai
sed by a strong, decisive woman made me a mama’s boy, I was not offended at all.

  I was still getting used to having a friendly, measured boss. Police department supervisors are much more straightforward than FBI bosses, and they don’t have too much regard for your feelings. I always knew when a Miami PD captain was mad at me because he or she would yell and maybe even throw something. I liked that directness. No fuss, no muss. Get it out in the open, know where you stand, and move on.

  The FBI didn’t seem to work like that, but they liked the fact that I had done well at UM and knew how to talk to people. And this time, when I sat down, my FBI supervisor was direct and to the point.

  “Next time you intend to kidnap a group of kids, give me a call first. DHS is all bent out of shape. They’re being a pain in the ass about getting the kids back to Amsterdam.”

  “What? When did you intend to send them back?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry, did you want to play board games with them a little while longer? We need to get them home as soon as possible.”

  “Fine, let me escort them home. That way I can confer with the Dutch authorities and maybe gather some more evidence on this shithead we locked up yesterday.”

  “You have any idea how much that would cost?”

  “You sound like it’s your money. Someone is gonna have to fly back with them. Why not me?”

  “What if something happens here while you’re gone?”

  “Steph Hall can handle anything that pops up. I thought that was why we had a whole task force to work with. You can’t imagine what these kids have been through. And it happens to kids every day. We’ve got to make a case on the entire ring smuggling people into the U.S. That might make a difference. I can’t do that if I let my best witnesses disappear.”

  I studied the supervisor’s face. He didn’t look worried. He was thinking. Thinking this through to see how it might affect him over the next two years.

  Finally, he sighed.

  That was usually a good sign.

  “Make the arrangements and be on your way in the next two days.”

  Chapter 14

  AT LUNCHTIME, I took all the kids out. No one seemed sorry to see us leave the office. Maybe I was already used to how much noise my new posse made. They were kids; what were you going to do? Maybe they were a little rambunctious. After all, most of them hadn’t had much parental supervision for a while. But God, I enjoyed spending time with them.

  As we hustled out the door, Monnie said, “Where are we going?”

  I said, “You can’t visit Miami and not have a little fun. We’re going to do some sightseeing and have a lot of fun.” I didn’t tell them that I also wanted to be away from the office in case my supervisor changed his mind and sent them back to Amsterdam with a DHS representative.

  I drove through the city, giving the kids more fun facts, like how it was the only major city in the United States founded by a woman.

  Annika asked, “Who was she and what’d she do?”

  “Her name was Julia Tuttle. She did it by sending an orange to a railroad magnate named Henry Flagler. It was after a frost, and everyone thought the Florida orange crop was destroyed. She convinced Flagler to extend his railroad all the way to where Miami sits today.”

  I glanced around the car and realized they needed a different form of fun.

  We visited the Miami Seaquarium, where I had a contact who let us in for free. It’s amazing that a couple of University of Miami football tickets twelve years ago still got me free shit around the city. This city loved its team, warts and all.

  The kids thought they were at SeaWorld. I explained to them that SeaWorld was two hundred and fifty miles north and this was a local attraction everyone loved.

  Once they saw the sharks, they thought the Seaquarium might be the greatest place in the world. I agreed. I remembered my dad taking me here when I was a kid. I didn’t care if the other kids thought it was lame; I was with my dad. It was cool.

  Monnie pointed to a flock of parrots noisily fighting in a tree. “I didn’t know there were parrots in the U.S.”

  I smiled. “There weren’t, originally. People brought them to Miami as pets and let them go. Without natural predators, they multiplied fast. Now they’re everywhere.”

  Finally, the kids were appreciating my Miami trivia.

  After a couple of hours of fun, we got back in the car and started to make our way north toward my house. Joseph and I got into a deep debate about the merits of soccer versus American football. The next thing I knew, I’d bought a football at a local Walmart and we were in a park next to the Pompano Beach airport.

  I explained the basic rules, which they seemed to have a hard time understanding. We tried some simple plays with me as a quarterback and each kid taking a turn as receiver. I told Joseph, “Run a pattern along the sideline, then cut to the middle, and I’ll drop a pass right over Michele into your hands.”

  I called out a fake signal and Jacques hiked me the ball. I watched as Joseph ran in a random manner, went past Michele, then ran back toward me. I tossed the ball a few feet and he caught it.

  When he was done, I said, “Why didn’t you run the pattern I suggested?”

  He looked at me like a kid explaining something obvious to a parent and said, “I didn’t understand anything you said after Run.”

  That made me laugh. Hard and loud.

  After we were once more in the car and headed back to my house, Annika said in her elegant accent, “Did you play football in school?”

  “I did. I even got a scholarship to play football at the University of Miami.”

  Jacques was excited. “Did you play professionally after that?”

  I chuckled. “No, I never got close to the NFL. I barely played at the University of Miami. My position coach reminded me often that I had run the slowest forty-yard dash of any tight end ever at the school.”

  Olivia said, “What’s a tight end?”

  That made the older kids laugh.

  I said, “It’s a receiver who also blocks. Usually they’re bigger than wide receivers.”

  Annika said, “You’re really big.”

  I laughed. “Back then, I lifted a lot of weights, and I was thirty pounds heavier than I am now.”

  “Did you like playing?”

  “I did. It also paid for my schooling, and then, when I went back for law school, they gave me a huge discount. I’m pretty happy with my limited football career, even if I never did go pro.”

  Joseph said, “Did you have a nickname? Like ‘the Rocket’ or ‘the Greatest’?”

  After I finished laughing, I thought about how happy I was that no one from my old team had heard the question. Then I told them all my current nickname, “Anti.”

  Annika said, “Like someone’s aunt?”

  “No, like you’re against something or the opposite of something. Like anti-government means you’re against the government.”

  “What are you against?”

  I hesitated. “In this case, it’s a name people in the neighborhood gave me. They say that Ray Lewis is the greatest defensive player who ever came out of the U, so the real nickname they gave me was ‘Anti-Ray’ because I was the opposite of him. They were saying I was the worst offensive player to come out of the U. Over time everyone shortened it to just ‘Anti.’”

  “Isn’t that an insult?”

  “Yes and no. The local residents wouldn’t give me a street name unless they knew me and trusted me. I like to be called Anti by people in Liberty City. It means I made some kind of impact.”

  Joseph said, “Should we call you Anti?”

  “Not unless you want me to make up a mean nickname for you.”

  Chapter 15

  WE MADE IT back to my house in Coral Springs late in the afternoon. Lila met me at the door and said, “Tough day.”

  That meant my mom wasn’t herself. Or, more accurately, that she was herself at a different time and place.

  I followed the piano music, wh
ich was always great no matter what kind of day my mother was having. When I stepped into the small parlor, she looked up and said, “Hey, Chuck.”

  Ugh. Chuck was my dad. He’d divorced my mom sixteen years ago, and that was where she’d flashed back to when she’d checked out for the day. I suppose that was a time when everything seemed to be going well. I had given up trying to understand this goddamned disease a long time ago. I just wanted my mom to be happy. I didn’t care what the doctors called the disorder; whether it was dementia or Alzheimer’s, she was just as lost to me. I felt like one of the pillars of my life was gone.

  I pulled Lila into the kitchen and told her about my pending trip to Amsterdam with the kids. My sister poured her heart into working with special-needs children every day, and she still managed to deal with my mom without complaint. I felt guilty piling more on her.

  She said, “I can probably take care of Mom on my own, but it’s a scary prospect. I thought the reason you went with the Miami Police Department instead of a federal agency was so that you could help me.”

  “You’re right. If you really think I need to stay, I’ll work it out.”

  She thought about it for a moment, then said, “I can handle it. I think it’s great you want to take these kids home personally.”

  “I’m glad somebody thinks it’s great.”

  Lila cocked her head and said, “I’ve never heard Mom play Beethoven before. She’s more of a show-tune-and-pop-music kind of gal.”

  We walked back into the parlor and I was surprised to see Joseph sitting next to my mother on the bench playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 4. It was the first time my college music-appreciation class had come in handy. It was haunting.

  All of the kids stood around the piano, and my mother looked positively thrilled.

  And that made me positively happy.

  Chapter 16