Requiem for an Assassin (28 page)

“Why did it have to be in front of you?” he said, half laughing, half crying. “You never puke, you never cry, and you’re going to make fun of me for this for the rest of my life.”

“I’m going to tell all your lady friends, too,” I said, and he laughed again through the tears.

It lasted another minute, then played itself out. “Thanks for bailing me out,” he said, looking around. “All of you. You too, Boaz, whoever you are. I will not, ever, forget it.”

“I’m glad we could help,” Boaz said. “And I’m sorry about the sunburn.”

Dox tilted his head back toward Kanezaki. “Where are we, anyway?”

“Singapore,” Kanezaki said. “On the way to a private jet at Changi. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” Dox said. “Good. ’Cause I’ve got a joke to tell.”

“You don’t really have to,” I said, familiar with Dox’s notions of comedy.

“Tell me,” Boaz said, with the boyish grin.

“I swore I’d tell John the
kabunga
joke if I came out of this alive, and I mean to keep my word, even high on morphine.”

“You really don’t have to…” I tried again, but he was already rolling.

“There are these three missionaries,” he said, “and they get captured by a nasty tribe of aborigines deep in the jungle.” He looked at Boaz. “You don’t know this one, do you?”

Boaz shook his head. “Keep going.”

“Well, the aborigines tie them up and set them down before the chief, who as it happens speaks a little English. The chief says to them, ‘We are a hostile tribe, and we despise you and your missionary ways. So you have only two choices. Death or…
kabunga.
’ Then he gestures to the first missionary and says, ‘Choose!’

“Well, the man doesn’t know what this
kabunga
business is, but he knows what death is, all right, and he knows he doesn’t want that. So he looks at the chief and says, ‘I choose…
kabunga.
’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out,
‘Kabunga!’
And a dozen warriors rush out. They throw this boy down, pull off his clothes, and sodomize him but good.”

“There’s a theme in your jokes, are you aware of that?” I said.

Boaz said, “Shhh. I like it. Keep going.”

“So now the chief looks at the second missionary, and he says, ‘My friend, what do you choose? Will it be death, or…
kabunga
?’

“Well, this boy knows what
kabunga
is now, and he doesn’t want any of it. But choosing death, well, that’d be suicide, and suicide is against his religious principles. So he swallows hard and says to the chief, ‘I…I choose…
kabunga.
’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out,
‘Kabunga!’
And once again, a dozen warriors rush out, and they have their way with this boy, and it goes on for an awful hour. Finally, it’s over. The chief looks at the third missionary and says, ‘What will it be, my friend? Death, or…
kabunga
?’

“Now this boy’s seen just about all the
kabunga
he can stand. And even though it’s against his religious principles, and even though he knows death is the end, he just can’t face
kabunga.
So he screws up all his courage, sticks out his chin, looks the chief straight in the eye, and says, ‘I choose death!’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out, ‘Death! But first,
kabunga!
’”

Boaz threw back his head and roared, and his hilarity was infectious. Within seconds, the inside of the van reverberated with laughter. As Dox had said, it had been a near, near thing. Laughter was one of the reactions. There would be others.

“Wait, wait,” Boaz said, wiping his eyes. “I’ve got one, too. These three missionaries…”

And it went on from there. I had a feeling we would be seeing Boaz again when all of this was done.

I didn’t mind the thought at all.

A
T
C
HANGI,
Kanezaki showed his credentials to a uniformed guard. The man spoke into a radio and waved us through the gate.

“That worked well,” I said.

Kanezaki called someone from his mobile. “We’re on our way,” he said. “Two minutes.” Then he glanced back at me and smiled. “Low friends in high places.”

We drove through another gate to the part of the airport I assumed was reserved for private planes. There were two dozen small jets parked on the tarmac. Kanezaki drove up to one of them. The hatch opened, and a young, crew-cut man came down the stairs. His back was ramrod straight, his civilian trousers were creased, and if he wasn’t a Marine, the Marines didn’t exist.

Kanezaki pressed a button and the van’s side door slid open. He got out and met the Marine around the side.

“Two to transport,” Kanezaki said. “Plus me.”

“Sir,” the Marine said, “I’m not authorized for other passengers.”

“Come over here,” Kanezaki said, and walked the man out of earshot. I watched them talking. Kanezaki gestured and spoke; the Marine nodded and listened.

After a minute, they came back. The Marine extended a hand to Dox. “Sir, can I help you aboard?”

“Yes you can, son, and I’m glad to see they sent the Marines. Just give me five minutes with these reprobates first, all right?”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, and stood off a respectful distance.

“Well, this is the VIP treatment,” Dox said. “What did I do to qualify?”

“The jet is part of a small CIA fleet,” Kanezaki said, “used to render very bad people to very secret places. You might have read a bit about it in the newspapers. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

“We know about the program,” Boaz said.

Kanezaki smiled. “I know you do. You’re part of it.”

“What did you tell the pilot?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Mostly I reminded him of the shame he would bear for the rest of his life if he flew off leaving a wounded Marine behind.”

“That would be me,” Dox said. “Hope you didn’t mention John here was Army.”

Kanezaki laughed. “I didn’t. It must have slipped my mind.”

I watched Kanezaki, strangely moved. He reminded me so much of Tatsu. The way he was willing to work outside the system to fix the system. The way he connived to make other people complicit in his nefarious means and noble ends.

“Am I right in assuming,” Boaz said, “that despite Jim Hilger’s surprising failure to be on the boat as we all expected, we all still want him to take…early retirement?”

“Hell, yes, you can assume that,” Dox said. He turned to me. “Do you know where to find him?”

“Feel free to ask me after we’re on the plane,” I said. “You know, when we’re not right in front of a foreign intelligence operative.” I looked at Boaz. “No offense.”

Boaz smiled. “None taken.”

“I don’t care if Boaz is from Mars,” Dox said. “I’d trust him to watch my back anytime. And I hope he’d trust me to watch his.” He looked at Boaz, who nodded back. “Plus the man appreciates a good joke. Unlike some people I could mention, despite their possession of other positive attributes. So tell me: where do we find this miserable, trouser-shitting little dick-puller of a whining, chickenshit, yellow-bellied, squealing, pissing, piglet motherfucker and put him down like the rabid dog he is?”

Boaz looked awed. Before he could ask Dox to repeat it all with annotations, I said, “‘We’ don’t find anyone. You can barely walk. From the way you’re breathing, your ribs are probably broken and morphine is masking the worst of it.”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Dox said with a grimace. “I’ve had worse.”

“You lie,” Boaz said, in a weird British accent. The two of them broke up, Dox half laughing, half groaning. I didn’t get it.

When they stopped, Boaz said, “It’s true I’m a foreign intelligence operative. But that’s my, what do you call it, a day job. This operation…let’s just say, it wasn’t sanctioned by my organization.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Naftali. He’s Gil’s brother.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “I thought he looked familiar.”

“Yes, he looks a bit like Gil. And he’s dangerous like Gil. He doesn’t think our management has been sufficiently motivated about avenging his brother’s death.”

“That’s management for you,” Dox said. “If they’re not doing nothing, they’re overreacting. Never anything in between.”

“You’re on your own on this?” I asked Boaz.

He shrugged. “Certain people…are happy to look the other way while Naftali and I are on vacation. You know how it works. Sometimes people want something done, but don’t want to know about it. They don’t want their fingerprints on it. I believe America’s former defense secretary Rumsfeld was known for this. The ‘rubber glove syndrome.’ No fingerprints, no attribution.”

“Christ,” I said, “doesn’t anyone just work for the government anymore?”

Dox groaned. “I told you once, man. Privatization is the wave of the future. Hey, you don’t think we still have a shot at Hilger here in Singapore, do you?”

I shook my head. “I doubt Hilger goes to the grocery store for a quart of milk without five different currencies and three different passports. He’ll come back to the yacht club, hear the sirens, and just melt away.”

Kanezaki said, “And we can’t wait for him at the club. It’s too hot right now. We can’t go back.”

“All right, forget Singapore,” Boaz said. “But if you have information about where we can find Hilger after this, Naftali and I will act on it. Privately, discreetly, and immediately. You can count on that.”

Kanezaki shrugged. “These secrets always get out sooner or later anyway,” he said, and Boaz grinned.

I wasn’t surprised. Kanezaki wanted Hilger dead enough to bring me in for it. Why not the Israelis, too? And it wasn’t as though he would be sharing classified intel. Everything he knew on this op, he had generated with me.

Kanezaki briefed Boaz on what we knew. When he was done, Boaz said, “So this port security guy in Amsterdam, Boezeman, you think he’s integral to whatever Hilger is planning.”

“That’s right,” Kanezaki said.

“And you have his particulars? Work and home addresses, telephone numbers, photographs?”

“Of course.”

“Who is Hilger working for?”

“I don’t know. There are a lot of groups that would love to take down the refineries at Rotterdam. AQ, Hamas, Hezbollah…and Hilger is mixed up with all of them.”

Boaz pursed his lips and blew out. “If you’re right about what Hilger’s been doing, how long do you think we’ve got before this whole thing goes down?”

Kanezaki nodded as though this was exactly what he’d been considering. “It’s hard to say. We know he’s been planning Rotterdam for a while, that it’s important to him. With the losses he’s taken, my guess is, he’ll get to the Netherlands as soon as he can to see it through.”

Dox said, “If he shipped a device, why not just use a timer? Or a detonator rigged to a mobile phone? Call the number from wherever and whenever, and boom.”

Boaz shook his head. “Too many potential problems. The timer isn’t good because he wouldn’t know precisely when the package arrived. The mobile phone isn’t good because there might be no reception inside the container. And either way, he’d be taking a chance that the device might have been damaged or otherwise rendered inoperable if the container were dropped or mishandled at sea.”

“Boaz’s specialty is bombs,” I said.

Boaz smiled. “These days, people call them Improvised Explosive Devices. It sounds more impressive. But nobody gave me a raise for it.”

“Besides,” Kanezaki said, “if he could have done the whole thing remotely, he wouldn’t have needed Boezeman or any other inside man in the first place.”

Dox nodded. “Right, right. And even if Hilger’s not in town, I’ll bet Boezeman will have plenty of information that could lead us to him. If he’s asked nicely, that is.”

“What about your organization?” I said to Boaz. “Feed this to them, they’ll feed it to…”

“To the Agency,” Boaz said. “Our counterpart relations with the Dutch are…not strong.”

I shrugged. “Then the Agency will feed it to the Dutch.”

“You can’t be serious,” Kanezaki said. “The Agency’s not going to pass along anything without studying it first. Most of what we’re going on comes from unvetted sources and the rest is speculation. They’ll probably never pass it along at all. Even if they did, I’d say the time frame is a month, minimum. No one wants to send a warning like this and have it turn out to be false. Believe me, in a bureaucracy, the fear of looking stupid is stronger than the fear of losing Rotterdam. Official channels are a waste of time on this.”

We were all quiet for a moment. Boaz said, “This whole thing may be…a wild-goose chase, true. But my gut tells me it’s worth looking into. Besides, I’ve been thinking about visiting Amsterdam. Rain, what about you?”

I looked at Dox. He said, “If you’re not going, I am, I don’t care if I have to crawl. It’s not just because of whatever nefarious shit Hilger’s up to there. And it’s not just because I want revenge, either, although hell yes I do. It’s because Hilger knows we’re going to come after him. First chance he gets, he’ll be looking to preempt us to improve his own longevity. I refuse to live my life wondering whether that bastard’s managed to acquire me again. I’ll take him out first, thank you, and I’ll sleep better because of it.”

We were all quiet again. Dox said, “Besides, if Tom is right, Hilger’s fixing to do something nasty in Rotterdam, and we’re the only ones in a position to stop it.”

I thought for a moment. What Dox had said was right, I knew. I didn’t want Hilger to live any more than he did.

But I was keenly aware also of Kanezaki’s point about doing something to thwart what Jannick’s and Accinelli’s deaths were intended to foster. I hated that he’d hit a nerve with that shit. I knew he was manipulating me. But I also wanted to believe there was some way to undo what I’d done.

I sighed and tilted my head toward Dox. “Let’s get him on the plane.”

Dox shook his head. “I ain’t going anywhere unless you’re going to Amsterdam.”

“I’m going,” I said.

Dox smiled. “All right, good, ’cause I could use a good nurse about now. Boaz, watch out that he doesn’t sneak off to the red-light district.”

Boaz grinned. “I’ll be careful.”

Dox shook his head. “Goddamn, I wish I could join you boys. The thought of looking at that little spot between Hilger’s eyes through a Leupold scope…man, it’s giving me wood right now.”

“All right, time to go,” I said.

Kanezaki called out, “Marine!” The crew-cut guy appeared a second later. He reached into the van and helped Dox to his feet. Despite his bravado, the big sniper looked awful. His face was red and blistering and he could barely support his own weight. But he was alive, and that in itself was a wonderful thing.

“Good hunting, amigo,” Dox said to Boaz. “When you’re done, I’m going to owe you a few beers, and then some. We’ll get together and tell each other a few more jokes.”

Boaz smiled. “I’ll look forward to it.”

We all got out of the van. The Marine helped Dox onto the plane.

“What about Naftali?” I asked Boaz.

“He’s returning the other van,” Boaz said. “Better not to leave loose ends.” He looked at Kanezaki. “What about yours?”

“I’ve got someone to take care of it,” Kanezaki said.

Boaz laughed. “It must be nice to work for a big organization.”

On cue, another young guy came off the plane, a civilian this time, from his appearance. Probably low-level CIA. Kanezaki tossed him the van keys. “You know what to do,” he said. The young guy nodded, closed the doors, got in the van, and drove off.

“I’ll meet you in Amsterdam,” I said to Boaz. “I’ll get the first flight I can.”

He nodded. “Likewise. I’d offer you a ride, but if I don’t return the plane I borrowed soon, someone will step on my dick.”

Kanezaki said, “That’s not quite how it’s…”

“All right, let’s get out of here,” I said. “Boaz, I’ll call you on your mobile. If for some reason I can’t reach you, the backup will be the lobby of the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, seven in the morning, then seven at night until we find each other.”

“You know Amsterdam,” Boaz said.

“I’ve been there,” I said, deliberately noncommittal. I was beginning to trust Boaz, at least “situationally,” as he might put it, but I still wanted a backup location with plenty of exits, entrances, and security. In other words, a difficult place for a hit.

He shook my hand, then Kanzezaki’s, and then walked off, presumably to whichever of the private jets was his. Kanezaki and I got on the plane. The Marine went to the cockpit, and five minutes later, Singapore was a thousand feet below us, and getting farther away by the second.