Requiem for an Assassin

29

HILGER STEPPED OFF THE BOAT, leaving Guthrie and Pancho with Dox. He needed to check the bulletin board, and preferred to do so from anonymous points like Internet cafés. He was able to tell where Rain was accessing it, and although he had taken steps to ensure that Rain couldn’t do the same thing on the other end, a little extra caution never hurt.

He did a surveillance detection route, then caught a cab to the Ritz-Carlton, where he logged in at their business center. No response from Rain, but…

He checked, and sure enough, Rain had accessed the board a few hours earlier, from Paris. He must have gone back there after New York. That’s where he’d been when they first grabbed Dox. Maybe he was living there these days. Something to consider, if they didn’t wrap him up soon somewhere else.

He wondered why Rain hadn’t responded. Maybe he hadn’t felt the need to. Hilger had told him to call at 08:00 GMT; maybe Rain simply planned to comply.

Or maybe Rain had found unpersuasive Hilger’s protestations of innocence about what had happened outside Accinelli’s apartment. So what, though? They still had Dox, meaning Rain had no choice but to play along. Playing along meant, at a minimum, calling in to make sure Dox was still okay. At which point, Hilger would deny everything again, assure Rain there was a third target, and just keep stringing the man along for another couple of days. Once Rotterdam was done, he’d give Rain a fictitious target and finish him off when he showed up for the job. But for now, Rotterdam was the main thing. He needed to focus on that.

He went to a pay phone and called Boezeman. They had never met-Demeere had recruited and run Boezeman precisely to keep his knowledge of Hilger’s operation as limited as possible-but they also had a backup plan, just in case. Agency SOP, and Hilger still followed it. Because if something happens to the primary case officer, how do you make contact with his assets? And how do you establish your bona fides when you do?

Demeere had implied to Boezeman that he was fronting a heroin operation. Demeere had never said so in so many words, of course; just a wink here and a nudge there, and Boezeman had filled in the details he was most comfortable with. Why else would the blond Belgian want a Rotterdam port security official to escort him onto the facilities, look the other way while he removed something from a shipping container, and escort him out? For a million dollars U.S., it had to be drugs, and a big shipment at that. And it wasn’t as though anyone was going to be hurt by it. Holland’s drug laws were the most liberal in the world, but they were still fundamentally silly, distinguishing between “soft” drugs, like cannabis and magic mushrooms, on the one hand, and heroin and cocaine, on the other. But people wanted them all, and what right did the government have to interfere with that? Or with a man’s right to profit so handsomely from the government’s hypocrisy?

The problem, Boezeman had explained to Demeere, was access. Only the head of security had the authority, official and perceived, to move an unauthorized person around the way the Belgian wanted. Didn’t the head of security take vacation? Demeere had asked. Boezeman had laughed at that, pointing out that Henk Jannick hadn’t taken a vacation in more than two years. Well, we can wait, Demeere had assured him. Maybe something will come up, and you’ll find yourself in a position where you can help me.

The phone rang twice on the other end, then three times. It was six in the morning in Amsterdam. Maybe Boezeman turned his mobile off at night, although most Europeans Hilger knew never did.

Then a voice cut in: “Hoi.”

“Hello, Mister Boezeman?” Hilger said.

“Yes, speaking,” the man said, switching to English.

“My name is James Hillman, and I’m a friend of William Detts. He told you I might be calling, right?”

“Uh, yes, he did.”

“Well, unfortunately, William can’t make it to Amsterdam as he was hoping. But perhaps you could hold open that rental property he discussed for me? The one with the western view and the sunsets?”

The reference to rental property and the rest was a prearranged signal that would establish Hilger’s bona fides. He waited for the prearranged response.

“Yes,” Boezeman said. “It’s a good property, and the sunrises are even better than the sunsets. I can hold it for you.”

“Wonderful. I expect to travel to Amsterdam in the next two days. Perhaps you could show me the property then?”

“I’d be happy to. Just let me know your itinerary.”

“I’ll call again as soon as I have the details. I assume you take cash?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Perfect. I’ll make the arrangements, and call you again shortly.”

He hung up, relieved that it had gone smoothly. It wouldn’t have been the first time an asset forgot his fallback instructions, but Demeere had clearly drilled the man well. Damn, he would be hard to replace. He’d reeled in Boezeman so efficiently after Accinelli had introduced them at that conference in New York, and then managed him perfectly afterward.

It had taken a while to get everything else in place. First, they’d needed the material. Accinelli had come through there. Cesium 137 was a radioactive element and therefore highly regulated, but Accinelli was willing to fudge the paperwork at Global Pyrochemical Industries and provide it to a fellow Gulf War veteran he trusted, who he believed was still with the Agency. Hilger had hinted that the cesium was being used to develop a new kind of ion propulsion engine for the military, a black program, totally off the books, everything acquired from private sources without any official government funding. Accinelli was a patriot, and was pleased to be able to leverage his success in the private sector in the interests of national security.

The only problem was that Accinelli knew of the Hilger-Demeere-Boezeman link. When the operation was completed at Rotterdam, it would be worldwide news. The initial explosion would be trivial-only a hundred pounds of TNT-and, with a little luck, wouldn’t even produce casualties. It was the fallout, literal and figurative, that would get all the attention.

Cesium 137 emitted gamma rays. Less toxic than the alpha rays emitted by, say, uranium, but prone to travel farther. Even better, cesium was hugely reactive, and combined eagerly with other elements. Roofing materials, concrete, soil…none of it could be cleaned afterward.

Thankfully, the people exposed to the radiation would be at minimal risk. The body could process half a cesium exposure in less than a hundred days. Strontium 90, another ingredient they had considered, would have been absorbed by bone, and the body would need thirty years to excrete half a dose of that. Overall, a one-mile swath-not coincidentally, the heart of Rotterdam’s refinery facilities-would see an increase of cancer rates to one in ten thousand. Only a.05 percent jump, and that would only be for anyone stupid enough to stick around afterward, but it would be enough to turn the area into a no-go zone for decades. Very low casualties, but a very high fear factor. No wonder people called radiological bombs “weapons of mass disruption.”

The key was to detonate the device at the very center of the refinery facilities. To do that, someone needed to access it on the premises, ensure that it was properly placed, arm it, and leave before it exploded. That meant cooperation from an inside man. It meant Boezeman.

But knowing the connection to Boezeman, Accinelli would have suspected his cesium had been involved. With Accinelli gone, that link was severed. He had been a good man, and was now another unfortunate casualty, another Hilger would have to live with. But the alternatives-the costs of inaction-were infinitely worse. And he wasn’t asking anyone to make a sacrifice he wasn’t willing to make himself.

It had gone so smoothly at first. They’d taken possession of the cesium, assembled the device, and sealed it in a lead-and-concrete container to prevent detection by the port radiation scanners that were coming into vogue since 9/11. As soon as Dox was taken and they’d made contact with Rain, they sent the device to an accommodation address in Rotterdam by commercial sea shipping, knowing it would have to go through the port. While it was on its voyage, Rain had killed Jannick. The man was so damn efficient that he’d actually gotten ahead of schedule, and they had to make him wait so Demeere could set up in New York to ambush him when he came for Accinelli.

Hilger knew Accinelli well, well enough to know his friend always kept some pretty young thing, usually a struggling artist or aspiring actress, in an apartment or loft. Demeere had traveled to New York a few weeks earlier, tailed Accinelli, and discovered the whereabouts of Accinelli’s latest. They had discussed it, and decided that, capable as he was, Rain would discover her existence, too, and that because the woman’s apartment represented more favorable terrain than either Accinelli’s home or office, Rain would likely hit Accinelli when he went to visit the woman. That’s where Demeere had decided to lay the ambush. But something had gone wrong. Somehow, Rain had seen it coming.

Hilger realized now he’d been too ambitious. Demeere could have silenced Accinelli, and they could have taken Rain out another time, another place. But the opportunity to have Accinelli dispatched naturally, like Jannick, raising no questions, and to set up Rain up simultaneously, had been so perfect…too perfect, he understood in retrospect. After all, the perfect is always the enemy of the good.

So, yes, there had been losses, but there always are in war. And on balance, things could be worse. Boezeman was still game. They still had Dox. And Rain…the man was resilient, no doubt. But no one was bulletproof. He was going down. And Hilger would relish it when it happened.