Poe by Brett Battles Page A

friend’s. It’s definitely not his.”
    Looking annoyed, the cop studied her a moment before he turned to his partner. A quick conference resulted in the first one helping the boy to his feet as his partner grabbed Alex’s arm again.
    The officers escorted Alex and the boy back toward the station. Heike and Romee were waiting right outside the doors. The two girls ran over as Alex and the others neared the end of the platform.
    “Are you all right?” Heike asked.
    Alex nodded. “Fine.”
    Heike looked at the boy. “My God, what happened to him?”
    “He didn’t watch where he was going.”
    The cop holding the boy spoke abruptly, waving the girls out of his way.
    Seeing the passport in his hand, Romee said, “Is that mine?”
    “Yeah,” Alex told her.
    Romee pointed at the passport, and said to the cop, “Give that to me.”
    The cops stopped, and the one holding the passport opened it to look at the picture.
    “He’s got your money, too,” Alex said.
    “My money?”
    “A little zippered pouch. Flowers on the outside?”
    Romee stiffened and her face paled. She said something under her breath in Dutch, then whispered to Heike. Heike’s eyes grew big as her friend spoke, and her expression turned angry. Romee cowered a bit, saying something in a tone that could only be pleading.
    “What?” Alex asked, afraid of the answer.
    Heike stared at her friend for a moment longer, then turned to Alex. “Do they speak English?”
    “No, but Mr. Quick Fingers over there does a little, at least.”
    Heike looked confused for a moment, then seemed to understand who Alex meant. She leaned in so no one else could hear. “Did they look inside?”
    “Just enough to see the cash. Why? What’s in there?”
    “Not here,” Heike whispered.
    While they were talking, the cop compared the passport photo to Romee. Finally, he pointed at the two girls and gestured for them to come along.
    Pantomiming as she spoke, Romee said, “I don’t want to cause trouble for the boy. Just give me my things and we forget everything.”
    Son of a bitch , Alex thought.
    She realized now what was going on.
    Somewhere in that pouch was hash or marijuana or something similar. Whatever it was, it would land them all in a whole boatload of trouble. Which meant her mission was about to end before it even started.
    Shit .
    The police officer repeated his gestures, this time emphasizing it with words. He shoved the passport and pouch into his pocket, and grabbed Romee’s arm with his free hand. The other cop latched on to Heike and they continued on their way.
    They were quite a sight for all the waiting passengers. Alex would have laughed at the irony if she could have. There would be no problem getting thrown into prison now. Unfortunately, given that she was still hundreds of miles from Crimea, it wouldn’t be the right prison.
    How the hell would she get out of this?
    The police took them into a small three-room office down a back hallway of the station. They put the girls in one room and shut the door. Alex could hear them moving around in the outer room for a few minutes, then it grew quiet. She guessed they were getting the boy some medical attention.
    She looked at Romee, and said in a low voice, “What the hell’s in that pouch?”
    Romee hesitated. “Marijuana.”
    Jesus . “How much?”
    “Very little. Not even enough to make smoke, um, joint, yes?”
    Alex closed her eyes and counted to ten. Did this idiot not understand anything? In some countries, even a trace amount could get you a dozen years in prison.
    Alex wasn’t up on the latest Ukrainian laws, but she knew they had to be a hell of a lot harsher than those in the Netherlands, where you could legally buy pot at the corner coffee shop.
    “They probably won’t even find it,” Romee said.
    Alex opened her eyes again. “The moment they pull your money out, they’ll see it.”
    “No. It’s in the lining. There’s a hole at the bottom, closed with a safety pin. If