Requiem for an Assassin

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 tu

“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?”

“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 ru

With luck.

38

RUSH-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.