Requiem for an Assassin (31 page)

“Yes, to pick up the rest.”

“There is no rest. The only reason he hasn’t detonated the bomb yet is because he needs to kill you first. Where did you last see him? Someplace public?”

“Yes, it was…outside the gate. There were guards near. And he tried to…he wanted…”

“What?”

“He wanted me to come to the station with him. But I couldn’t.”

“He was looking for someplace private enough to kill you. That’s all.”

“But if he wants to kill me, and he knows I’m here, why doesn’t he just…”

“It’s not that kind of bomb,” Boaz said. “The conventional explosion is small. It might not kill anybody. It’s the radiation that does all the damage, mostly by causing panic.”

Boezeman moaned softly, but said nothing.

I put myself in Hilger’s shoes for a moment.
The bomb is armed; all that’s left is to silence Boezeman. How do I get to him? Time and place…

“Mister Boezeman. Did Hilger ask you any questions about what time you leave work, what time you get home, how you commute, that sort of thing?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then he said, “Yes. All those things. I thought…”

“That he was just making conversation, learning about life in the Netherlands, yes. Tell me exactly what you told him. Be specific.”

“I told him…I’m usually home by six o’clock. That I commute by car.”

That was all I needed. With a nod of my head toward Boaz, I said, “Can you get this man into the container?”

“Not again, I don’t…”

“This man is a bomb-disposal expert. If he can disarm the bomb, you walk away from this without anyone ever even knowing. You can even keep whatever Hilger paid you. If the bomb goes off, you burn in hell.”

Boezeman stood there, struggling not to hyperventilate. “I…all right, I can take him.”

Boaz looked at me. “Go. Take the car.”

“You…”

“You take care of Hilger. I’ll take care of the bomb.”

Naftali got out of the Mercedes. The keys were in and the engine was still running. I looked at my watch. It was five o’clock. With luck, I could intercept Hilger. With luck, Boaz wasn’t about to die in a radiological explosion.

With luck.

R
USH-HOUR TRAFFIC
wasn’t kind to me, and I didn’t make it back to Leidseplein until six-thirty. I hoped Hilger, who knew he would get another try tomorrow, hadn’t given up for the night. But I had a feeling he’d stick it out for a while longer. Silencing Boezeman was important, and he’d want to do it as soon as possible so he could complete the op.

The real question wasn’t whether, but where. I put myself in his shoes again.

No need for anything to look natural. Just a bullet in the back of the head, or a knife in the liver, ideally while he’s going in his own front door.

But you couldn’t wait right by his front door. There were too many apartments, too many passersby. It would be too suspicious. The end of the street? Similar problem. You might miss the target entirely.

Vondelpark would be ideal. It was big, dark, and had lots of bushes and trees for concealment. You could lurk there for hours, with a view of Boezeman’s apartment. If you had a sniper rifle, all you’d need would be line of sight. With a pistol, maybe you could drop the target from just on the other side of the Vondelpark fence. With a knife, the trick would be getting from the park to Boezeman’s door before he got inside. At a run, it would take ninety seconds, considerably longer than it takes a man to let himself in with a key.

Unless, of course, someone’s broken off something inside the lock.

That was it. That’s how I would do it. Even with a rifle, you’d want to slow the target down, give yourself extra time for the shot.

I parked the car and set off, pulling my wool hat down low over my ears and turning up the coat collar as I walked.

I started walking down Overtoom street, thinking I would enter the park from Van Baerlestraat, the northwest side of the eastern quadrant of the park, and a good distance from Boezeman’s apartment. That would maximize my chances of seeing Hilger while he was focused on spotting Boezeman, before he had a chance to see me.

It made sense, but suddenly it felt wrong. The iceman didn’t like it, and he was trying to tell me why.

And then I knew. I’d considered the possibility that Hilger would be here. Why couldn’t he, with all his experience, have come to similar, mirror-image conclusions? Sure, by all means, jam Boezeman’s lock. But then monitor the door some other way, from somewhere else in the park—from where he could ambush me.

I thought for a moment. What about another man? I doubted he had any left. Dox had said four on that first phone call. After New York and Singapore, that left Hilger.

A camera, then? A magnetic mount, or even duct tape, on the iron fence would work. And then he could wait anywhere. He could set up at Van Baerlestraat, the direction from which he knew I would hunt him. Lie flat on the ground, the muzzle of the gun up, waiting and watching.

I changed direction and entered the park from Stadhouderskade, the eastern end. As soon as I was inside the gate, I moved off the path and into a line of trees. I dropped into a squat, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. There were a few people about, all with umbrellas, all hurrying through the rain, doubtless on their way home from work. I saw no one loitering anywhere.

I moved slowly along the trees at the northeastern edge of the park, knees and elbows the whole way, my face an inch from the sodden ground. It felt like coming home. I paused frequently to check my surroundings. A few bicyclists went by on the path to my left, but that was all.

A hundred yards in, I stopped. Straight ahead of me was a thick cluster of trees. It was where I would have waited for me. I crept closer. There, at the base of the thickest of them. Prone on the ground. Hilger.

I waited and watched him. He was on the eastern side of the tree, taking cover and concealment from anyone approaching from the west. It was as I’d thought: he’d anticipated me. Only I, and the iceman, had played one step further ahead.

It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it looked like he was holding a pistol in his right hand. Something glowed periodically on his left. A small monitor, maybe a mobile phone. I’d been right about the camera setup, too, which meant he had no one with him.

Slowly, painstakingly, I circled behind him, and then gradually moved in. The rain muffled sound, but I didn’t need it. If there was one thing my body had learned and would never forget, it was how to move silently through the mud. Hilger had said his conflict had been in the desert. Too bad for him.

Twelve yards. Ten. It was easy to get overeager at the moment of the kill, and I forced myself to stay slow and steady.

“Don’t move,” I heard from behind me, in a commanding tone.

It was Hilger’s voice. I froze and didn’t try to turn. The person on the ground in front of me remained still.

“Very slowly, place the gun on the ground, far from your body. Then get your hands up high, fingers spread.”

I did as he had asked, then snuck a glance back. I couldn’t see much more than a silhouette holding a pistol, ten feet away. The muzzle was abnormally long, and I realized it was a suppressor. With the gun on me, it was too far to rush him. If he shot center mass, the Dragon Skin might carry the day. But if he aimed low or high, I’d be done.

“Who’s the guy on the ground?” I asked, wanting to engage him, see if I could create an opening.

“I have no idea.”

“You just shot someone to use as a decoy?”

I heard him laugh. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I couldn’t deny it.

“Are you going to give me a hard time about it?” I heard him say. “How many people did you kill this week?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

He laughed again, and I felt a slow-burning rage ignite deep within me. He hadn’t moved to pat me down, probably because he was wary of getting too close after our run-in in Saigon. I had the knife Boaz gave me clipped to my front pocket. If I rushed him, I could probably open him up even as he was shooting me. I might die, but I’d take him with me to hell.

Do it. Do it now.

It was the iceman talking.

No. There’s a better way.

A distraction. That’s what I needed. Something to buy myself the extra second.

“Tell me where Dox is,” I heard him say, and I realized that was my opening. He didn’t know how messed up the big sniper was. He thought he was here.

“He’s with Boezeman,” I said. “Boezeman let him into the container. He disarmed the bomb.”

There was a second of silence while his mind grappled with his new understanding of just how much I knew. Boezeman, container, bomb, disarmed…it was a lot to process. It required thought, and made it hard to focus.

“You’re lying,” he said.

This time I was the one to laugh. “You’re right. You want to know where he is? Dox. Take him out.”

Hilger had spent enough time in the military, and was sufficiently acquainted with Dox’s deadly skills, for the words
take him out
to have an almost Pavlovian effect. Klaxons were going off in his mind now:
Rain must be wearing commo gear, Dox is close by with a scoped rifle, where’s the line of sight, get off the X—

I spun and rushed him. I was five feet away when the first slug hit my chest. I felt like I’d run into a tree, and the air was driven out of my lungs. He got off two more, both to my torso, and then I had both hands wrapped around the gun. I twisted hard to the left, forcing the muzzle out to his right. He rotated his body to keep his wrist from breaking, and two more shots went off to the side. We struggled with the gun.

I couldn’t draw breath. It felt like I’d been kicked by a horse, by three horses. Hilger snapped a knee into my groin and pain rocketed through my abdomen. I got a hand around the long suppressor and shoved back and over, toward Hilger’s right shoulder. He couldn’t get out of the way, and he couldn’t let go. His wrist snapped. He howled and I tore the gun away from him.

I took a step back, and with my last strength blasted a desperate side kick into his knee. He yelled again and collapsed. I fell to my knees a few feet away, fumbling with the pistol, trying to breathe, breathe…

I bobbled the gun and dropped it in the mud. Hilger, his face a rictus of pain, was struggling with his belt buckle with his left hand. I remembered Saigon, and thought,
belt knife.

Of course, no backup pistol. That’s what I’d seen in the dead guy’s hand.

Breathe, breathe…

I groped for the gun. I couldn’t find it. The outer edges of my vision were going dark.

Hilger twisted the buckle, and suddenly there was a blade in his hand.

I gritted my teeth, and with all my strength tried to suck air into my lungs. No go. Tiny red dots danced before my eyes. My phony command to Dox had unbalanced Hilger enough to deny him the time and the focus to shoot for my head or pelvic girdle, but the rounds had reverberated through the Dragon Skin to hammer my diaphragm into spasm. The knee to my groin had made it worse. My brain wasn’t getting oxygen, and it was beginning to shut down.

Hilger slid toward me, the knife in his left hand, his left forearm digging into the mud, pulling himself forward like an injured reptile.

I rubbed frantically at my diaphragm. A tiny whistle of air made its way into my lungs.

Hilger slashed with the knife. I fell away from him to my back, getting my feet between us, still rubbing, trying to coax my diaphragm out of spasm. Another snatch of air stole down my throat, like a prisoner dashing across a mine field.

Another slash. The blade hit my boot. I drew a tiny, hitching breath. Hilger screamed and slashed again. Again he hit a boot.

I put my hands down to shove away from him, and my right fingers touched cold metal. The gun. I grabbed it and kicked away to create a precious extra two feet, then got it out in front of me with my right hand, my left still massaging my abdomen. I drew an inch of breath. Then another. The red dots disappeared, and the darkness retreated.

Hilger saw the gun, saw that he couldn’t reach me. His body sagged and he dropped the knife in the mud.

We sat there like that, neither of us able to move. After a few moments, Hilger laughed and said, “I guess you are bulletproof, after all. Body armor, right?”

I didn’t answer. I was still working on getting my breath back.

We sat there like that for almost a minute, neither of us able to move. When I could finally speak, I sighted down the muzzle and said, “Tell me how to disarm it.”

He smiled. “Then you haven’t yet. You were lying.”

“I don’t know. Somebody’s been working on it. Tell me, and I’ll let you live.”

He laughed.

I thought about calling Boaz. But without Hilger’s cooperation, there was nothing I could do to help him. And a phone call could distract him at a delicate moment. I would have to wait.

“Who are you working for?” I asked. “AQ? Hamas? Hezbollah?”

He laughed again.

“What?” I said.

“I work for my country.”

“I don’t get it.”

He sighed. “Someone has to deny America’s enemies their funding, Rain. How can the country prevail against radical Islam while simultaneously underwriting it?”

“What does this have to do with Rotterdam?”

“It has everything to do with Rotterdam. America’s oil addiction is a sickness that’s killing the patient. Christ, Americans would rather send soldiers to war than carpool to work. And Congress is worse. The idiots actually proposed to offer taxpayers a hundred-dollar rebate to buy more gasoline—they want to give the addicts more money for a fix, more money to send to the mullahs and the al Saud, our enemies.”

“So Rotterdam is an inoculation.”

“Yes. That’s well put. You increase the price of oil enough to lower demand and create market incentives for alternatives, but not so much that the patient goes into the shock of economic depression. It’s a shame the patient doesn’t have the sense or the will to inoculate himself through a carbon tax, but denial is the nature of addiction, and doesn’t change the fact that the patient badly needs help.”

“What about British Petroleum, then? Prudhoe Bay?”

He looked at me. “How do you know about that?”

“What difference does it make?”

There was a pause, and I thought he would refuse. But I’d told him I might let him live. No matter how tough you are, in extremis, it doesn’t take much for a drop of hope to blossom into a full-blown mirage of salvation.

“Prudhoe Bay was a test of the new treatment,” he said. “On the one hand, it was a failure because it didn’t have the desired effect. But it was successful, too, because it demonstrated that for the patient to get well a higher dose was needed. There were other possibilities, including Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia. But…”

“You had an unwitting access agent in Rotterdam. Boezeman.”

“That’s right. And I wanted to keep casualties to a minimum. The layout at Rotterdam is good for that.”

“So with Rotterdam inoperable…”

“Right. The price of oil would spike, demand would slacken, and I would single-handedly have hastened the advent of a post-oil, post-OPEC world economy. You get it now? Do you understand what’s at stake? We live in perilous times. We’re battling a new kind of enemy. An enemy that can’t be deterred. What do we do to fight him? Become like him?”

“Haven’t you?”

“I didn’t say ‘me.’ I said ‘we.’ Someone has to do what needs to be done, Rain. Someone has to live in the shadows so others can enjoy the light. Someone has to sin so others can enjoy innocence. Now, if you don’t understand my reasons, go ahead. Do the only thing you’re good for. You beat me. You won. Again.”

I didn’t say anything.
The only thing you’re good for.
It was stupid, but the words cut into me.

“But grant me a last request,” he said. “Let me call my sister. She’s the only one I have to say goodbye to. Or is a small mercy against your code of killing?”

I watched him, the front sight of the pistol even with his forehead. I thought about how easy it is to retract a fingertip, how easy to take a life.

It had always been easy for me. What others could accomplish only with the greatest encouragement, with fear and regret and swallowed revulsion, I could just…do. And I’d kept on doing it. There would always be a reason, it seemed. And if there weren’t, maybe I would invent one.