Look-Alike. Meredith Fletcher

Meijer. Joachim didn’t know the nature of that arrangement, but he was paying careful attention.

      Getting sent after Meijer couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Joachim was close to getting away from Günter for good. During the last year, pursuant to the agreement he’d made with the German police, Joachim had been steadily betraying his employer, easing out of the shackles of crime that had bound him for all these years. It hadn’t been an easy trick to accomplish. His life was currently several layers of lies deep.

      But he desperately wanted out. Enough so to risk everything he had in the attempt.

      Joachim stepped into the dark shadows that draped the houseboat. With a lithe coil of muscles, he leaped onto the rear deck. He tried the door, because he’d learned while collecting for Günter that doors weren’t always locked.

      This one was.

      It was also armed with an alarm.

      Kneeling, Joachim pulled on a pair of thin surgical gloves and took out an electronic lock-pick kit from his pocket. Working quickly, he held a small pen-flash in his mouth for light and then cut into the alarm wiring. He bypassed the secondary alarm, then popped the plastic cover on the main alarm and connected the lock-pick’s alligator clips to the circuitry leading to the operating system. A quick tap on the electronic lock-pick device sent the digital readout scurrying to chase out the alarm code.

      Less than a minute later, the readout flashed the eight-digit code. He pressed the activation button and the lock opened with a quiet snik.

      Pocketing the electronic lock-pick, Joachim opened the door and went inside.

      The boathouse smelled like the inside of a gym locker. Joachim breathed through his mouth. Evidently Tuenis Meijer spent his ill-gotten gains on sex and drugs but not on maids. He pulled the shades and played his pen-flash around.

      It looked like a dirty clothes bomb had gone off inside the living area. Pizza boxes and fast-food containers littered every flat surface. The only thing that looked clean was the computer desk.

      Joachim left the computer alone for the moment. During his time as a collector, he’d learned that people who used computers as their preferred weapons often left them booby-trapped. He wasn’t proficient in computer usage. Günter had other people for that.

      His cell phone rang.

      Taking it out, he opened it and said, “Yes.”

      “Hey, kiddo,” Günter said in his deep voice. He was a large, broad man with a nose that had been broken many times and a thick shock of black hair only now going to gray. He liked American movies, particularly the crime dramas known as noir.

      “Hey,” Joachim said. Neither of them used names. It was a practice of many years because they both knew their phone lines could be tapped at any time.

      “How’s it going?” Günter asked.

      “I’m still looking for our package.”

      Günter sighed, and the sound was filled with all the sadness old Germany could muster. “I’m counting on you to pull this out, kiddo.”

      “I will.” Quelling the unease that talking to Günter created, Joachim made a quick circuit of the galley. The clutter continued there. How can Meijer live like this?

      Intrigued by the closet, Joachim tried to open the door. It was locked. He set the pen-flash on the galley table so the beam played over the door and he could free his hands. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out two lock-picks, shouldered the cell to his ear and knelt to work on the lock.

      “I just want to warn you to stay on your toes,” Günter said.

      “I am. I always do.”

      “Don’t trust anybody over there.”

      “I never do.” The lock clicked open.

      “And you’ll let me know the instant you find the package?”

      “Of course.” Joachim put the lock-picks away and pulled the closet door open. Once the lock was released, the door opened quickly, forced into frantic motion by the weight on the other side. Stepping back, Joachim reached for a long knife in the cutlery block on the galley table. The cell phone tumbled from his shoulder to the floor.

      A man sprawled at Joachim’s feet, barely illuminated by the pen-flash’s wide beam.

      Joachim brought the knife up smoothly, the blade positioned along his forearm so it wouldn’t easily be knocked from his grasp. The technique didn’t allow him to immediately stab an opponent, but he could slash an opponent’s face, hands, arms or stomach. Once an enemy started to bleed, it was only a matter of time till he succumbed.

      The man at Joachim’s feet didn’t move.

      Picking up his pen-flash, Joachim surveyed the man. A neat round bullet hole between the man’s eyes showed blue-black. A tiny streamer of blood zigzagged down his face.

      “Hey, kiddo,” Günter called from the phone. “Hey.”

      Senses flaring wildly, sensitive now to the rocking motion the houseboat made on the water, Joachim waited in the darkness. He fully expected to hear police sirens and helicopter rotors overhead.

      “Hey,” Günter called out a little more strongly. “Can you hear me now?”

      Moving slowly, making himself breathe and not bolt off the houseboat, Joachim scooped up the phone. “Yes.”

      “What happened?”

      Joachim shined the pen-flash down on the man’s face. His head rocked slowly back and forth with the houseboat’s motion.

      “We have a problem,” Joachim said, struggling to keep himself calm. But he knew the problem was his. With everything so delicately balanced in his life, with all the lies he’d told, he felt certain that something had fallen through the cracks. He didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d just been set up. He could already feel the jaws of the trap springing closed on him.

      Chapter 3

      Elle’s mind buzzed as she rounded the corner of the alley and stepped onto the sidewalk. She automatically swept the street, looking for suspicious pedestrians, parked vehicles and passing cars. Nothing pinged the personal warning system she’d developed since becoming an intelligence agent.

      Sam remained behind her, alert and ready. Remembering how they’d met in Berzhaan, how Sam had beaten her in an unarmed fight, Elle knew her twin could take care of herself. But the situation Elle was leading them into was doubtlessly going to turn ugly fast. She had a history with the man they were going to see.

      “The place we’re going,” Elle said, “is going to be dangerous.”

      “All right.” Sam never missed a beat or showed any sign of hesitation.

      “The men we’re going to see are killers,” Elle continued. “Jan, the man we want to talk to, will have at least two bodyguards. The store he runs is a cover for his other business. He traffics in drugs and weapons, but he has a lot of contacts and knows a lot of things. Tuenis Meijer is someone he’ll know.”

      “Good.”

      “He may also try to kill me on sight.”

      “Why?”

      “A couple years ago, I cost him a major portion of his business and almost got him killed. I also put him in the hospital because I nearly burned his face off.”

      “That would do it,” Sam said lightly.

      Elle glanced at her sister. Sam looked a little tense. Then Elle focused on the street in front of her. She was feeling nervous herself. Jan wasn’t a good man to meet under any circumstance. The history they had made it worse.

      For just a moment, Elle wondered why Sam wanted Meijer and what her twin wasn’t telling her. Elle didn’t like walking into operations without knowing