The Kill Artist

I'm talking about! She overdosed!"
    "Drugs?"
    Tariq inched closer to his jacket. If he could pull the silencer from the pocket and screw it into the barrel, then he could at least kill him quietly…
    "She has a needle hanging from her arm. Her body is still warm. She probably shot up only a few minutes ago. Did you give her the fucking drugs, man?"
    "I don't know anything about drugs." Tariq realized that he sounded too calm for the situation. He had tried to appear unfazed by Maarten's arrival, and now he seemed too casual about his little sister's death. Maarten clearly didn't believe him. He screamed in rage and charged across the salon, arms raised, fists clenched.
    Tariq gave up on trying to get the silencer. He gripped the Makarov, pulled the slide, leveled it at Maarten's face, shot him through the eye.
    Tariq worked quickly. He had managed to kill Maarten with a single shot, but he had to assume that someone on one of the neighboring houseboats or along the embankment had heard the pop. The police might be on their way right now. He slipped the Makarov back into his waistband, then grabbed his suitcase, the flowers, and the spent cartridge, and stepped out of the salon onto the aft deck. Dusk had fallen; snow was drifting over the Amstel. The dark would help him. He looked down and noticed he was leaving footprints on the deck. He dragged his feet as he walked, obscuring the impressions, and leaped onto the embankment.
    He walked quickly but calmly. In a darkened spot along the embankment he dropped his suitcase into the river. The splash was nearly inaudible. Even if the police discovered the bag, there was nothing in it that could be traced to him. He would purchase a change of clothing and a new case when he arrived in Antwerp. Then he thought: If I arrive in Antwerp.
    He followed the Herengracht westward across the city. For a moment he considered aborting the attack, going directly to Centraalstation, and fleeing the country. The Morgenthaus were soft targets and of minimal political value. Kemel had selected them because killing them would be easy and because it would allow Tariq to keep up the pressure on the peace process. But now the risk of capture had increased dramatically because of the fiasco on the boat. Perhaps it was best to forget the whole thing.
    Ahead of him a pair of seabirds lifted from the surface of the canal and broke into flight, their cries echoing off the facades of the canal houses, and for a moment Tariq was a boy of eight again, running barefoot through the camp at Sidon.
    The letter arrived in the late afternoon. It was addressed to Tariq's mother and father. It said that Mahmoud al-Hourani had been killed in Cologne because he was a terrorist-that if Tariq, the youngest child of the al-Hourani family, became a terrorist, he would be killed too. Tariq's father told him to run up to the PLO office and ask if the letter spoke the truth. Tariq found a PLO officer and showed it to him. The PLO man read it once, handed it back to Tariq, ordered him to go home and tell his father that it was true. Tariq ran through the squalid camp toward his home, tears blurring his vision. He worshiped Mahmoud. He couldn't imagine living without him.
    By the time he arrived home, word of the letter had spread throughout the camp-other families had received similar letters over the years. Women gathered outside Tariq's home. The sound of their wailing and the fluttering of their tongues rose over the camp with the smoke from the evening fires. Tariq thought it sounded like birds from the marshes. He found his father and told him that the letter was true-Mahmoud was dead. His father tossed the letter into the fire. Tariq would never forget the pain on his father's face, the unspeakable shame that he had been told of the death of his eldest son by the very men who had killed him.
    No, Tariq thought now as he walked along the Herengracht. He would not call off the attack and run because he was afraid of being arrested. He had come too far. He had too little time left.
    Tariq arrived at the house. He climbed the front steps, reached out, and pressed the bell. A moment later the door was opened by a young girl in a maid's uniform.
    He held out the flower arrangement and said in Dutch, "A gift for the Morgenthaus."
    "Oh, how lovely."
    "It's quite heavy. Shall I bring it inside for you?"
    "Dank u."
    The girl stepped aside so Tariq could pass. She closed the door to keep out the cold and waited with one