Now he replies with “What women?” and I punch him in the jaw. I know it hurts, because I’ve gotten my own face bashed in a time or two.

Talyssa gasps again.

Vukovic grunts, and his head shakes inside the hood. After a moment it begins to hang. He’s not unconscious, he’s just showing signs of defeat, coming to the frightening realization that his future depends on me. It gives me some slim hope that I won’t have to pound on him all day.

“The women and girls who were locked in the cellar of Ratko Babic’s house. Where were they taken?”

He spits inside the bag, and bloody phlegm drips out of it, down onto the tunic of his uniform.

I ask with more authority in my voice. “Where . . . were . . . they . . . taken?”

“They gone. I don’t know where. I don’t know what happens before Mostar, I don’t know what happens after Mostar.”

Talyssa Corbu surprises me by stepping forward and shouting now. “Liar! I saw you in Belgrade with the Branjevo Partizans. You picked up the girls, brought them to the farm near Mostar.”

His head cocks to the side; perhaps he’s surprised to hear a woman’s voice, but he makes no reply.

I lean closer to his face. “Oh, shit, Niko. You’re lying to me? I guess it’s time to knock your block off.” I punch him again. It’s not a particularly hard blow, but I am pacing myself. Still, my right hand throbs with pain and I think I’m going to have to look around for something else to bang against his face if this goes on much longer.

More blood and spit drip out of the bag. Corbu has stepped back against the graffiti-covered wall, apparently surprising even herself with her outburst.

I say, “Okay . . . if you know about Belgrade, the previous stop in the pipeline, then I bet you know about the next stop.”

His head shakes hard. “They tell me nothing. Belgrade is Serb mafia, like here. That’s why I go there. I work with them. The next stop . . . it is different group.”

“What group?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where does the pipeline lead?”

Niko just shrugs. “I do not know. The men who run it . . . they are somewhere else. I do not know. Not mob.” The bag stops moving, and it appears he is thinking for a moment. Then he says, “I don’t think mob. Not Serbian. All I know. It is business. Only business.”

“Only business?” I say with growing rage, and I realize I have to smack this asshole again, but this time, Corbu beats me to the punch. Literally. She appears on my left, charging forward, and she throws a crazy haymaker at Vukovic’s head.

The Romanian woman hits the Serb in the cheekbone, and I can tell by the sound of the impact that Talyssa Corbu is going to feel the strike a lot longer than Niko Vukovic.

She clutches her hand in pain, and I’m certain she’s regretting the first and only punch she’s ever thrown in her life. I pull her back a few feet. “Let me handle the rough stuff.”

Ignoring her injury, she says, “My sister.” She pulls out the photo and gives it to me with her uninjured hand.

I return to the police chief again. “I need you to look at a picture of a girl, and I need you to tell me, truthfully, if you have seen her.”

He snorts a laugh. “One of the whores? That’s what you want? One of the whores?”

“She’s not a whore!” Talyssa shouts, and she rushes forward again, swinging the same fist as before. I catch it before she makes contact, not for the prisoner’s benefit but for hers, and I spin her around and walk her back to the corner.

“Allow me,” I say, and I walk forward now and hammer Vukovic’s face with a left jab.

Speaking to Talyssa, he says, “They are all whores. Like you . . . whore.”

I slug him harder now, connect with his right cheekbone. His head pops back and I know he’s going to feel that all the way down his spine, because I feel it all the way up to my shoulder.

As his head hangs again I say, “I’m going to show you a picture.”

“Who cares? Who cares about this woman?”

“I do. Which means you’d better care, too.”

I put my balaclava back on and yank off his hood. He looks at the picture without any emotion as blood runs from his nose and mouth. “Never seen her,” he says.

I can’t tell if he’s being truthful, but I push him. “You’re lying again, and you are trying my patience.”

He shakes his head once more. “No. I don’t have time to look at all the property.”

I bet he takes time to do more than that with the prisoners. I ball up a fist but calm myself and hold it back, deciding to try another tactic. Taking the picture from him, I say, “You are worried about what I will do to you now, but maybe you should worry about whoever it was who sent the Hungarians after you.”

He looks at me with confusion, his nose and mouth dripping blood. “Hungarians?”

“Three assassins were outside your building last night. I stopped them before they got to you.” When he says nothing I add, “You’re welcome.”

“Lie,” he says. “I have no problems with Hungarians.”

“I could be wrong,” I say, “but I’m guessing someone high above you in all this wants to send a message to other little people in the pipeline about the price of failure. They brought these guys in from another gang.”

Niko does not respond for a long time. Finally, he whispers, “Pitovci.”

Talyssa leans into my ear and whispers, “Slovakian mafia. From up north in Bratislava.”

“How do you know this?”

“When I worked for the Romanian federal prosecutor’s office we dealt with them. They are active in Bucharest.”

To Vukovic I say, “But the Slovakian mafia didn’t order the hit on you, did they? Somebody else is pulling their strings.”

He doesn’t respond.

“It was the Consortium, wasn’t it?” I don’t know what the hell the Consortium is but, again, I’m doing a presumptive interrogation approach, and sometimes it requires taking a chance.

His eyes rise to mine, and I know I’ve struck gold.

I’m completely improvising now. “They aren’t happy with you after what went down at the general’s farm. You are being made an example of, and then, after you’ve been brushed aside, you will be replaced.” He looks away, sniffing bloody air, but I press him. “Time is short, Niko. The Slovakians will send more killers, and I won’t be there to beat them up for you. Somebody wants you dead, Chief, and it’s the exact same people you’ve been serving.”