Free The Last Minute by Jeff Abbott

balcony might attract attention; the police are rarely parkour fans. I studied the line of movement
     it would take to do the balcony drops. Part of my mind said too risky, but another part wanted to feel like I’d pushed myself,
     like I was testing myself for the final stretch of confronting Anna Tremaine and getting my son back. I wanted to be sure
     I still had my nerve, my daring.
    Drop, roll, vault, drop again, roll. I played the run in my head.
    I dropped down to the first balcony and from the edge of my eye I saw the car on the facing road brake to a halt.
    I should have checked first. I’d needed to be sure that I didn’t have a witness, someone who might call 9-1-1 on the crazy
     guy doing the balcony surfing. I stood up from the balcony.
    The road near the unfinished motel was empty. Except for the one car, stopped at a light at a deserted intersection.
    Okay, I thought, not me, it stopped for a light.
    A green light. I could see the double glint of binoculars past the window.
    I dropped back out of sight.
    Waited. I heard the purr of the car’s engine moving. I glanced over the edge. I could see the driver below, a sleeve of purple
     jacket, a snug knit hat pulled tight over the head.
    The car sped away.
    Maybe he just stopped because he saw you jump. That’s it. Yes, that’s all.
    But the run was ruined for me. I dropped down the rest of the balconies and ran back to my car.
    Mila would be here this afternoon, and then Anna Tremaine. And, by tonight, I hoped, I would have my son back.

9
Amsterdam
    The doorknob to Nic’s apartment turned under his hand. Unlocked. But Jack stood and knocked for the fourth time, his heart
     hammering in his chest. If Nic had a woman or a roommate still living here, that person was also likely connected to Novem
     Soles. But he had to know. And he couldn’t wait. The police were looking for him. The dead man had been discovered at the
     hospital. The papers carried a picture of both Jack’s face and one of the man he’d killed. The online news site had the most
     up-to-date information, and by noon Amsterdam time the police had released the man’s identity: a Czech immigrant named Davel,
     who had an arrest record a meter long, mostly as a rentedenforcer for eastern Europeans who were muscling into illegal activities in the West.
    A hired thug, sent to kill Jack, and he’d ruined Jack’s plan to slip out of sight.
    Jack remembered Hollywood blockbusters about a man on the run. Being on the run could look like a bit of a lark. You could
     always outpace and outthink the pursuers. It was not fun. Jack was sick with the thought that even walking on the street he
     would be seen, noticed, made for the man on the front page of the paper.
    He pushed the door open and called out: ‘Hello?’
    No answer. The apartment was small and not tidy. Old newspapers sat stacked, unread, on a coffee table. He could smell spilled
     lager. A muted television played in the corner, offering news of the world, ignored.
    He had the gun he’d taken from his assassin in his pocket.
    He stepped down the hallway to where a door was half closed and inside the room lay an old woman. She slept, a vodka bottle
     clasped loosely in her hands. Her pose could have been a poster highlighting the blight of alcohol. He glanced at the label:
     very cheap vodka, the kind the university kids with no money drank, and the room smelled as though she didn’t invest much
     in soap, either. She looked like a female, fragmented version of Nic – strands of red in the graying hair, short, stocky,
     a fleshy mouth.
    Nic lived with his mother, at his age? Jack couldn’t imagine. Of course, Jack’s mother didn’t want him around. He stepped
     out and made sure the rest of the apartment was empty. He guessed a back bedroom had been Nic’s. Large desks with a slight
     settling of dust, with clean spots where computers and monitors had likely sat.
    Naturally the police had taken all of Nic’s gear. It was evidence