Requiem for an Assassin (30 page)

You’ll be okay,
I told myself.
It was only a little. What the hell…

I felt the outer edges of my perception beginning to fuzz over. It was nice, actually. It reminded me of a time I hadn’t realized I’d missed. And it made me aware of how strung out I’d been since receiving Hilger’s message in Paris. Sex with Delilah, and all the booze that night…it was like I had been trying to get outside myself, or anesthetize something within.

Sometimes you need the anesthesia. Because what you learn about yourself when fear finally overtakes you isn’t pretty. You understand that the person you thought of as yourself, your immutable, indivisible self, is just an overlay, fragile and frail. Fear strips away the façade. And having to see what lies beneath, and accept it, makes you different from everyone who hasn’t been similarly forged. You’ve been aged; they remain neophytes. You have brutal clarity; they, comforting illusions. You’ve looked into the abyss, and can still feel it looking back; they don’t even know such a place exists. And for all of it, you hate them.

Why had I insisted on Saigon with Hilger? There were other places we could have gone, places that offered the same operational advantages. But the iceman wanted Vietnam. He wanted to take me back, back to the place he was born, where he thrived, the place that was purely him. Why?

Because you need me.

I started. The voice was whispered, intense, familiar.

I looked around. No one had spoken. The bartender was at the other end of the bar, talking to one of the girls at the corner tables. The house music seemed far away.

What are you talking about?
I thought.
I know I need you.

No. You’ve been trying to kill me.

I’ve been trying to accommodate you.

Bullshit. You’re ignoring me. Smothering me. Letting me run loose at night in Paris like I’m a fucking dog that needs to be walked so it won’t crap the house. And then when you need me for Dox, you second-guess me, fight me, tolerate me like I’m the hired help and you can’t wait until I’m finished with the chores so you can send me off again. That shit is over. Get the fuck out of my way.

No. You don’t own me.

The hell I don’t. You’d be dead now if it weren’t for me. You would have died the first night you pissed your pants in a firefight. Your life is mine. I don’t own you? I fucking
am
you.

“You okay?”

I jumped to the side and my right hand went to clear a blade clipped to my pocket, a blade that wasn’t there. Before I knew it, I had the stool in my hands, cocked back like a baseball bat.

It had been the bartender talking to me. He took a step back and raised his hands, his eyes wide.

“Hey, man,” he said. “It’s cool. It’s cool.”

Fear had blown away the marijuana trance like an arctic wind. I looked around and realized where I was. And what I was doing.

I put the stool down. Everyone was looking at me.

The bartender slowly lowered his hands. “You were pretty zoned out there, man. That Thai weed can be strong.”

“Yeah, it can be,” I said, nodding. “I don’t think I’ll be having any more of it.”

I walked in the wet, cold air until I found a cheap hotel, where I slept for several hours. When I woke, I still felt exhausted, the way you do from a post-combat parasympathetic backlash, but at least my head was clear again. All the flying, the stalking, the near catastrophes. Then getting Dox out, knowing he was all right. And now that thing in the coffeehouse…it was like facing off with your worst enemy, then getting pulled apart with everybody still armed, nothing really resolved.

I stopped for some food and coffee at a place called Café Bouwman, on Utrechtsestraat along the Prinsengracht canal. It was good—a neighborhood kind of place, low-key, unpretentious, with old wooden tables and leather seats, and a bartender who knew her customers. When I was done, I called Boaz from a pay phone.

“How are we doing?” I said.

“We finished up ahead of schedule. We were waiting for your call.”

“Good. How soon can you be in the place we talked about?”

“We’re here now. But we have a car, we can meet you anywhere.”

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have accepted the proposal. But I wasn’t worried about Boaz right now. And the Krasnapolsky was less than a fifteen-minute walk from where I was. It would save time to go straight there.

“I’ll meet you in front in fifteen minutes,” I said.

B
OAZ AND
N
AFTALI
were waiting out front as promised. Boaz had lost the Hawaiian shirt and was wearing a bulky down jacket and jeans. He looked thoroughly unremarkable, nondescript, unmemorable. Naftali had on a nylon windbreaker and a backpack. But for a certain hard look in his eyes that not everyone would know what to make of, Gil’s brother looked like a young European tourist on a budget. We walked down the street to a pizza place. Boaz and Naftali ordered a few slices, and we sat in back to talk.

“Do you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah?” Boaz asked.

“Neither.”

“Well, you’ll like our presents regardless. USP tacticals and suppressors, and some sharp pointy things, too. I love the holidays.”

I briefed them on the layout around Boezeman’s building, then we discussed how to proceed. Boaz agreed that intercepting Boezeman as he came home tonight, or failing that as he left in the morning, was our best bet. But as we started talking about Hilger, I began to feel uneasy. We weren’t taking his possible presence adequately into account.

“If this whole thing is real,” I said, “and he really does have a radiological device that he needs to arm, he could be here already. He might already have contacted Boezeman. Hell, he might already have armed the bomb for all we know.”

“All right,” Boaz said. “Let’s assume he did. What does he do next?”

“He gets the hell out of Dodge. The op is done. Maybe the device is on a timer; maybe it’s mobile-phone-activated. Either way, he’d want to leave town before detonation, otherwise there’s too much chance of getting caught up in a security sweep. So he catches the train to Brussels, straight from Rotterdam.”

“No,” Naftali said.

Boaz and I both looked at him. Boaz said, “I knew you could talk.”

“He doesn’t leave right away,” Naftali said, ignoring the commentary. “He’s lost all his cutouts and he’s dealing with Boezeman directly now. Boezeman can connect the operation to him. First, he kills Boezeman.
Then
he gets the hell out of Dodge.”

We were all quiet for a moment. Naftali had just made a damn good point.

“All right,” I said. “Where does he get to Boezeman?”

Naftali shrugged. “Where are we talking about getting to him?”

Boaz nodded. “You’re right. And I don’t like the idea of waiting for Boezeman in the same place and at the same time as Hilger. A lot of things could go wrong.”

“Why don’t we call him?” I said. “Boezeman. Flush him out. If he knows anything, we’ll be able to tell.”

“It’s risky,” Boaz said. “It would be warning him.”

I shrugged. “He’s still got to come home tonight. If the call doesn’t get the results we want, we can always use the apartment as plan B.”

I took out the notes I had made from the information on the Kanezaki bulletin board. “Here’s his mobile,” I said. “Let’s see what happens if our friend Boezeman gets an unexpected phone call.”

Boaz handed me a mobile. “Sterile,” he said.

I input the number. Two rings, then a deep voice:
“Hoi.”

“Hello, Mister Boezeman?”

“Yes, speaking.”

I thought of the names Kanezaki had mentioned on the bulletin board. “I’m a friend of our mutual acquaintances, James Hillman and William Detts.”

I paused. Boezeman said, “Yes?”

Not an “I’m sorry?” or a “Who?” Something about the word choice, and his tone, told me I’d hit pay dirt.

I waited longer, seeing what the pressure of silence might produce.

“Uh, is this about the rental property?” he said.

Goddamn, it was working. That was a bona fide if ever I’d heard one.

“I’m supposed to give you a signal in return, right?” I said.

“Who…who is this?”

“I’ll explain who I am, Mister Boezeman. Right now, I’m either your best friend or your worst enemy. I’ve been investigating James Hillman for more than two years. I know what he’s doing in Rotterdam. I know how he’s using you to do it. Cooperate with me, right now, or the next call you get will be from the national police and security services.”

There was a long pause. I could hear his breathing. It was fast.

“I…what do you want?” he said.

“To meet you. Right now. To tell you what Hillman has really been up to and for you to brief me. In return for that, I won’t make that phone call to the police. But one thing first. It’s very important. It’s for your safety. Did you meet with Hillman earlier today?”

“I…I…why?”

He met him. It was all right there in his voice.

“You’re not safe,” I said. “You can’t go home tonight. Not until we’ve taken care of this.”

“How…I don’t even know who you are.”

“Are you at work now?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’ll have an hour to think about all this, and you’ll see that trusting me is your only option. I’m on my way to Rotterdam now. I’ll call when I arrive. We can meet anywhere you like. You’ll want to choose somewhere public.” I clicked off.

Boaz frowned. “You’re going to let him choose the place?”

“Of course not. I just want to get him moving. Once he takes some action, he’ll take more. Now let’s go. I’ll brief you on the way.”

Their car was parked near the hotel, a Mercedes C Class with a navigation system. Naftali drove. Boaz input Boezeman’s work address. We were there in less than an hour—not the city of Rotterdam, which I’d heard was pretty, nor even the port itself, but instead the refinery complex, a sprawling network of waterways plied by freighters and garbage scows; thousands of miles of pipes twisting in all directions, carrying who knows what to God knows where; squat oil tanks and rotating power turbines and towers belching smoke into a sky the color of lead.

I called Boezeman again. He answered immediately.

“I’m here,” I said. “Near your office at the refinery.” I gave him the address of a gas station we had just passed, and he said he was coming.

“Told you,” I said to Boaz, and he smiled.

We drove a little ways off and parked on a rise with a view of the gas station parking lot. Like his apartment, Boezeman himself was a Hilger nexus, and we had to be careful.

Five minutes later, a blue Fiat pulled into the corner of the gas station lot, eschewing the pumps. We waited a minute, watching through the binoculars, and saw no cars following.

Naftali drove us in. Boaz and I had the USPs out and ready. As we pulled into the gas station, we saw Boezeman, sitting alone in the car.

I rolled down my window. “Let me see your hands, Mister Boezeman,” I said. He complied, and we crept closer. I could see the backseat now. It was empty. Okay.

“Watch my back,” I said to Boaz. Never a phrase that made me particularly comfortable. But if it was good enough for Dox with Boaz, it would have to be good enough for me.

“We’ve got you,” Boaz said, and I stepped out of the car. Boezeman got out, too.

We stood there in the rain, looking at each other, Boezeman’s expression plainly afraid. “What kind of trouble am I in?” he said to me, and I thought,
Thank God this guy’s just a civilian and not a hard case.

“I’m going to give you some information,” I said, “and then you’re going to give me information in return. Fair enough?”

Boezeman nodded, looking nervously at Boaz and Naftali.

“The man you know as James Hillman also goes by Jim Hilger. He’s working for radical Islamic interests. He’s smuggled a radiological device into Rotterdam. A dirty bomb.”

The color fled Boezeman’s face. “Oh, my God.”

“I can tell by your reaction that you didn’t know what you were mixed up in,” I said. I expected that in his distressed state, he would pick up the possibility of exculpation and run with it.

He did. “I never knew. Never. They never told me, but I thought…”

“Drugs?” I offered.

“Yes, only drugs. Oh, my God.” His face had gone from white to green. It looked like he might puke.

“Mister Boezeman. This is important. You met with Hilger today, didn’t you?”

He nodded. I waved to Boaz and he got out of the car.

“Did you give him access to the refinery facilities?” I said.

“He…had to retrieve something from a container. I had the container brought from the port and stored on the refinery grounds.”

“Why?”

“I have more access at the refinery. And Hillman—Hilger—he told me to do it that way.”

“Did you ever take a look at what’s inside in the container?”

“I tried once. There were cases, but both were locked.”

“All right. Did you let Hilger into the container?”

His frozen expression was all the answer we needed.

Boaz said, “The bomb is armed.”

Boezeman turned away, doubled over, and vomited.

I looked at Boaz. “Can you disarm it?”

He shrugged. “I can disarm anything. With proper tools. And enough time. And with access, of course.”

“Well, you’re only going to get one out of three,” I said. “If we’re lucky.” I turned to Boezeman. “Listen,” I said. “You have to pull yourself together. We can still rectify this if we hurry. But we need more information. Where is Hilger now?”

“I…I don’t know.”

I wasn’t asking the questions right. Boezeman was so agitated, he was getting the mental equivalent of tunnel vision. He was responding too narrowly, I could feel it.

“But did he give you any indication?” I said. “Did he say he was leaving town, or that he would meet you later, anything like that?”

“He has to come back tomorrow,” Boezeman said. “He told me…he couldn’t move everything all at once. He had a big duffel bag, and it was full when he left.”

“Probably with newspaper,” I said. “They shipped it over with the bomb so you would think he was carrying something important out of the container. But he told you he had to come back?”