Read Online Choke Point by Ridley Pearson - Free Book Online

started, trouble is never over. That is a myth.” He returns her phone. Then he’s off into the departing passengers, putting a wall of flesh between them.
    You owe me,
echoes in her ears.
    Behind him follows a man walking a twenty-year-old bicycle.

T he bicycle’s rear wheel squeaks on each revolution, its rhythm steady as Knox keeps his distance behind Fahiz. He, and a few hundred others in and around Centraal Station, wears stereo earbuds on white wires. His are connected to an iPhone zippered into his Scottevest windbreaker. But Knox is not listening to Coldplay; he’s waiting for the call from Grace. He slings the camera bag over his shoulder.
    Fahiz circumnavigates the station, rather than taking the shortcut through it. An interesting choice that puzzles Knox. Fahiz arrives at the outdoor tram platforms. Riders crowd the stops. Jiggering the camera bag, Knox mounts the bike and rides ahead of Fahiz and stops at a crosswalk, looking back to see Fahiz board the number 5. Knox knows the line. He can get a jump on the trolley and beat it to its first stop if the lights are favorable.
    His ring tone purrs in the earbuds and he reaches into the windbreaker to connect the call, though he doesn’t answer at first.
    “Clear,” comes Grace’s voice.
    “Got it.”
    Grace has executed a series of procedures to determine she’s not being followed and Knox trusts her. She’s as good as—or better than—him in the field, having spent a year in Chinese Army Intelligence.
    Knox hangs up and dismounts the bike. The number 5 passes. He likes the bike too much to ditch it. He walks it across the pedestrian crossing, over another grouping of multiple tram tracks, and follows up a sidewalk, the bike off the curb. The island to his right is a vast construction site and parking lot behind wire fencing. Its top boundary is Prins Hendrikkade. The neighborhood is coffee shops, T-shirt stores and restaurants, all aimed at tourists. At the next light he hits speed dial and mounts the bike and rides straight.
    “Go ahead,” answers the deep voice of David Dulwich.
    “I’m shorthanded.”
    “I arrive this evening. I’m at the Sofitel Grand on Oude-zijds Voor . . . burgwal.” The Dutch words come out sounding like a soap brand.
    “I was thinking of someone half your age and twice your speed.”
    “Tell me how you really feel.”
    “A lot of balls in the air.”
    “So hire a juggler. You have a sizable expense account.”
    “Two men. Maybe three.”
    “Not going to happen, unless you agree to waive half your fee.”
    “Our client is rich.”
    “Every client has limits. My job is to see there’s something left for Brian Primer to put on the P side of the P-and-L.”
    “One more man, then.”
    “You’re talking to him.”
    Knox dodges a taxi and runs a red light. The street narrows a hundred meters ahead. Knox pinches the iPhone through the fabric of the windbreaker and kills the call.
    —
    T HE T UDOR ALE HOUSE Knox has named as the meeting place has a view across the Leidsegracht canal. The magnificent canal houses are out of the nineteenth century. A slim waitress serves him. She has a platinum bob and black ceramic ear gauges the size of buffalo nickels. Without her to interrupt his fantasy, he might have been time traveling. He might have been spying on Vermeer or Jan van Goyen across the dimly lit room, with its heavy, exposed wooden beams, plank tables, wrought-iron candelabra. He can imagine a big-breasted woman wearing too much rouge delivering warm dark beer. Instead, he gets a scene-kid waitress smacking chewing gum in a room filled with people in T-shirts.
    “I have caught you in meditation perhaps?” The older man with the scrubby white beard speaks his English with a Dutch accent so thick he’s hard to understand. His nose is cratered with acne scars and spiderwebbed with broken blood vessels. His ice blue eyes study Knox from behind wire-rimmed glasses. His meaty hand is inhumanly cold as they greet