“Yes. Just a few girls getting into the vehicle. They looked scared, exhausted. But I’m sure there were others in that bus.”

“Why do you think that—”

“Because the windows were blacked out with paper. They were hiding something. Why a bus if they weren’t hiding people?”

“How big was the vehicle?”

“A commercial Daewoo. I looked it up. It has seating for thirty.”

She may not have a mind for tradecraft on the streets, but she does have a hell of a mind. Both Ratko Babic and Liliana Brinza had said there were about twenty-five girls at the Mostar farmhouse, and while I didn’t take the time to count heads, I estimated roughly that number myself. Twenty-five women and girls, along with a few guards, would just fit in a bus of that size so, for the first time, a part of her story checks out with my own knowledge.

She says, “I knew I would lose the girls if I followed Vukovic, but I thought I could make him tell me where they were taken.” Her head droops, and I wonder if she’s about to cry again.

“And you brought a gun.”

“I bought it on the street in Belgrade. I don’t even know if it works. I’m afraid to test it.”

“Your plan was to . . . to do what, exactly?”

“I wanted to get into his house. Wave the gun in his face. Intimidate him.”

I don’t want to insult her by telling her she wouldn’t intimidate me if she waved a flamethrower in my face, so instead I say, “Your plan is dangerous. He’s got security around him, day and night, apparently.”

“Yes.”

“So your idea won’t work.”

She looks up at me now. “Apparently not, because I’ve been kidnapped by a gangster.”

“Kidnapped?” I ask in surprise, then consider the fact that I have a Glock 19 pistol on my knee, pointed vaguely in her direction. I holster it but say, “I haven’t searched you, so if you make any sudden moves, we’re going to have a problem. But otherwise . . . I have no intentions of hurting you. Looks like you’ve been through enough already. And I’m not a damn gangster.”

Holstering the gun seems to calm her down, but I can tell she still sees me as a potential enemy.

I drum my fingers on my leg a moment, then say, “Here’s my problem with your story, Talyssa. You can lie about what you’ve been doing for the last week, you can fake your entire timeline, but you can’t fake the smell of terror that is pouring off you right now. You look like you haven’t slept in a week. How am I supposed to believe you took on the Belgrade mob all by yourself, and you’re in the middle of a one-woman op against the head of the police here, a man who has armed bodyguards and a man who, you say, is tied to the mob? How the hell are you able to—”

“Because of Roxana! Because she’s my sister! Because I’m all she has!” Talyssa screams it. “She is either dead, or she’s their prisoner. But either way, I have to find her, or find out who killed her.” She begins weeping again. “I have to.”

If this part of her story is an act, it’s a damn good one.

Through sobs she asks, “What is your name?”

“Harry.”

“Harry what?”

“Just Harry.”

“Let me ask you, Harry, whoever you are. Have you ever lost a loved one? Someone you cared about more than anyone in the world?”

Yes, I have, more or less, but I don’t answer her. Still . . . I think about this, think about the anguish I felt back then, and I dial back my skepticism about her story. “Okay. There’s more to you than meets the eye. I can believe that.”

Sniffing back more tears, she nods. “But you’re right. Pointing a gun at the captain will probably just get me killed.”

“And even if it doesn’t, with that crazy bright red hair of yours, it won’t be long before the opposition IDs you, realizes you’re following them, and then they will grab you.”

“They’ve . . . they’ve already identified me. In Belgrade.”

I was wondering how a girl like this was able to tail mobsters without getting made. Apparently, she wasn’t.

“As the bus was leaving, I tried to get the license plate number, so I stepped out in the street. They had a truck following the bus. I didn’t know.”

“A chase car,” I say. “Pretty standard stuff.”

“Yes, it chased after me, but I managed to get on a streetcar and get away. I don’t know if they told others what I looked like and what I was doing, but—”

“Trust me, they did.” I look at her hair. “Let me guess. After you were blown, you dyed your hair thinking it would throw them off.”

“Yes.”

I want to laugh, but this shit isn’t funny. “And to make sure you would blend in with the crowd, you chose candy-apple red. Is that it?”

She runs a hand through her hair self-consciously. “It . . . I didn’t know it would look like this. I’ve never dyed my hair before.”

I let it go. It is a damn miracle this girl is still alive with her nonexistent tradecraft, but she is. Beginner’s luck is a thing, but in my experience it’s nothing to bet your life on.

I say, “You are blown. You are absolutely and positively compromised to the enemy.”

“But I have to—”

“No. Trust me, you are done with fieldwork. But . . . but there is another way forward.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t been compromised. Not yet, anyway. I can snatch Vukovic instead of you.”

“Snatch? Is that like capture?”

“Yep.”

“But you are a one-man operation, as well. Correct?”

“Yes, but . . . this is kind of what I do. No offense, Talyssa, but I’m guessing you’re a first-timer.”

She looks at me for a moment, and I hate it when people look at me. Finally she says, “For what purpose do you want Captain Vukovic?”

“I want to know where the women are.”

She looks up at me. “One of them . . . she is close to you?”

I shake my head. “I have a reason, but that’s not it.”

“And when you have Vukovic, you will interrogate him?”

I think, Sure, that’s one word for it. “Exactly,” I say out loud, knowing well that she and I probably have wildly divergent definitions of the word “interrogate.”