“Stop right there!” a man yelled from the alley’s entry. Adriana turned her head slightly to see who was yelling at her. It was another city cop, dressed in the same navy blue pants and white, short-sleeved button-up shirt. He kept his Walther pointed at her with both arms extended.
She eased her hands into the air, keeping her back to the policeman. Meanwhile, she searched the water for any sign of the other thief. The surface rippled and undulated from the splash, but the woman was gone.
“Hands on your head!” the officer shouted.
Adriana did as instructed and lowered down to her knees, assuming that was what the policeman would order next.
“I’ve got her over here!” he yelled at another officer on the other side of the canal.
He was alone. At least for the moment. But reinforcements were on their way.
She watched the other cop nod and say something into his radio before sprinting off to the right toward a bridge forty yards away. The officer behind her scuffed one of his shoes on the street. From the sound of it, he was only a few feet away. She heard him remove the cuffs from his belt, and they clanked together as he brought them near.
Her mind calculated the risks. If she was arrested, her chances of getting the Bellini and saving her father were almost nil. If she took out the cop, she’d have the whole of the Amsterdam police looking for her, which would make getting out of the city nearly impossible.
The officer slapped the cuff over her right wrist and grabbed the other. Her decision was made. She spun around, sweeping her leg just as her former captive had done a few minutes earlier. The cop didn’t take the attack as well as she had: He tripped and fell hard to the street. His face smacked against the surface, knocking him out cold.
Adriana pressed two fingers to his neck to make sure he was still alive before standing up. A quick look across the canal told her no one saw what had just happened. She crouched down and sifted through the cop’s belongings, producing the keys she needed. A second or two later, and she was free of the bonds. She dropped them on the man’s chest and looked around again. She could hear footsteps coming down the side street; they were approaching fast. She glanced back at the water and then off to the side. A narrow ledge ran along the water just behind the house. It was about five inches wide, more than enough to hold her as long as she kept her balance. A twenty-foot houseboat with a dark green hull and black cabin was moored to the wall just behind the rear of the house.
The footsteps drew closer.
She acted fast and rushed over to the corner of the building. Her feet shuffled along the ledge almost involuntarily, moving faster than was probably safe, but at this point, she had to hurry. On the other side of the wall, she realized the boat was docked next to a patio with a rear door leading into the home. It wasn’t uncommon for Dutch homeowners to maintain houseboats on the water for pleasure, or more often, for the use of relatives or friends when they came to visit. Suddenly, Adriana was presented with two options.
11
Allyson kicked her legs as hard as she could. Her arms paddled hard, using a breaststroke under the water’s murky surface. She tried not to think of how dirty the water might be and what could be in it. The only thing that mattered right now was getting away alive. Visibility was minimal at best,but she could see outlines and shadows above, which she used as a guide. She’d already been under for about thirty seconds, and Allyson knew that she was going to have to come up for air soon. Putting as much distance as possible between her and the police was of equal importance, though. Not to mention the other thief who’d nearly put a bullet in the back of her skull.
The silhouette of a large oak loomed overhead — eerie, black, and monstrous. To the left, she saw the outline of a boat hull and could faintly make out its underwater portion. Her lungs started to squeeze tighter, desperately pushing the last bits of air through her body and crying out for more. She kicked hard three more times and rounded the front end of the boat and then with all her strength pulled with both arms toward the surface. Her head shot through the gently rippling water, and she gasped for ten seconds, gulping down as much air as possible. Allyson was at the tip of the boat’s stern on the port side and clear from view of any onlookers in either direction.
She free stroked over to the lip of the canal and found a ladder carved into the side. She pulled herself up onto the edge where a small patio sat behind a brick home. The seating area was empty, the home’s residents probably at work for the day. Water dripped off her nose and trickled from her soaked clothes. Her body desperately cried for a moment’s pause, but she didn’t have time to rest; fifty yards away, she could hear several loud voices shouting in Dutch. Police. She moved quickly, stepping over to the short gangway that led onto the houseboat and crossed it in one leap. The door to the boat’s cabin was closed, and when she tried the knob, realized it was locked too. In three seconds, she examined the cherry wood and determined it wouldn’t stand up to much force. She leaned back and kicked her heel into the door at the point nearest the knob. Her assessment proved correct, the door splintering easily from the power behind her heel. Her inertia carried her into the boat’s cabin, out of sight from any police. If anyone were home, though, they would have surely heard that noise.
Then again, she thought, they would have probably heard the gunshots earlier and been out on the patio looking around to see what was going on.
She twisted around and eased the door shut. Her sopping wet clothes still dripped freely onto the floor. In the back of the cabin, she noticed a bed. Where there were beds, there were usually bathrooms and closets. She stepped lightly to the rear of the boat, hoping her movements didn’t cause the vessel to rock back and forth too much in the water. Allyson felt safe for the moment, but that could change in a matter of seconds.
In the boat’s rear compartment, she found a full-sized bed and a small closet with folding doors. There were several old sundresses and ladies’ pants inside but nothing she felt she could wear. Fortunately, there was a stack of blue towels just outside the little bathroom. At the very least, she could dry off before heading back to her room.
She grabbed one of the thick towels and started to dry her hair, realizing that when she ventured back out into the city, her hair would look wilder than ever. That didn’t matter. Soon, she’d be on a plane to Mexico to find Francisco Espinoza. The name didn’t ring a bell, but why would it? She wasn’t in the drug game, and she’d always stayed away from that world, partly because of the life her parents had led. They’d made drugs look so unappealing that she made a silent oath to herself that she would never use them. So far, she’d stayed true. The idea had never even tempted her in the slightest.
Now she was going to look for a way into the home of one of the biggest drug dealers in the world; at least that’s how van der Wahl made it sound. Allyson could research the guy’s background on the plane.