Requiem for an Assassin

controls wrong one way, and it has no effect. Wrong the other way, and you boil your friend’s internal organs. And while you’re trying to get it right, probably people on the boat will be shooting at you. Don’t be stupid.”
    I didn’t answer.
    “Besides,” he went on, “I’ve already got a van, a driver…”
    “Jesus, you’re not alone?”
    “No one works alone anymore, Rain. You’re the only one I know.”
    Again I didn’t answer. I was trying to account for how quickly and thoroughly I’d lost control of this op. And at the same time thinking, admitting, really, that my odds of success were better because of it.
    “You’ll like Naftali,” he said. “He’s, what do you call it, a wheelman?”
    “You could call it that, I guess, yeah,” I said.
    “Very serious. I don’t think he knows how to talk.”
    “That’ll be refreshing.”
    He laughed. “Here’s what I propose. Naftali drives. I operate the device. You do the shooting. I assume you’re equipped?”
    “With a cannon.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Nothing. I’m equipped. And I already have a driver.”
    “You’re bullshitting me.”
    “I’m not. I think we’re all going to have to sit down together. If we don’t coordinate…”
    “You’re right, it will be a cluster fuck.”
    He raised his eyebrows and looked at me, and I nodded to show that I appreciated his use of the idiom. “Yes,” I said. “A cluster fuck.”
    He smiled. “And you’re sure Hilger will be on the boat, as Delilah says?”
    I didn’t hesitate, or give any other indication that I was lying. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”
    “Good. Then let’s sit down with our two drivers. We don’t have much time.”

29
    H ILGER 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