The Mark of the Assassin

seen in a nightclub in Zamalek. A place called Break Point."
    "I know it," Michael said. "He was dancing with a European woman--tall,
    blond, German, maybe."
    "Her name is Astrid Vogel. She used to be a member of the Red Army
    Faction."
    "She did this?"
    "No, I suspect she had some help. You have videotapes of all arriving
    passengers at Cairo airport?"
    Hafez pulled a face that showed he found the question mildly amusing.
    "Mind if I have a look?"
    Hafez covered the body and said, "Let's go."
    THEY PLACED MICHAEL in a room with a videotape deck and monitor. A pair
    of factotums moved silently in and out, bringing new tapes in one
    direction, taking the old ones in the other. They brought him tea,
    Russian style, in a glass with an ornate metal holder. They brought him
    Egyptian tobacco when his Marlboros were gone. He worked backward,
    beginning twenty-four hours before the murder. October would be
    meticulous. October would plan it carefully. He found her sometime after
    midnight. She was tall and erect, and her hair was drawn back tightly,
    accentuating her long nose. Her large hands seemed to struggle with the
    passport as she handed it across to the customs officer. October
    appeared five minutes later, short, light on his feet, like a fencer.
    The brim of a baseball cap, pulled low over his brow, obscured much of
    the face, but Michael could see enough of it. He froze the two images
    and called for Hafez. "Here are your killers," Michael said, when Hafez
    came into the room. "This one is Astrid Vogel, the German woman whom
    Stoltenberg was dancing with at the nightclub."
    Hafez pointed at the second image. "And that one?" Michael stared at the
    screen. "I wish to Christ I knew."
    CHAPTER 30.
    Amsterdam.
    IT WAS A BITTERLY COLD DAWN when Delaroche and Astrid returned to the
    houseboat on the Prinsengracht. For twenty minutes Delaroche inspected
    the vessel carefully to make certain no one had been aboard.
    He checked his telltales. He tore through the cabinets in the galley and
    the drawers in Astrid's bedroom. He prowled the frozen deck. Astrid was
    no help to him. Content to finally be aboard her beloved Krista, she
    collapsed fully clothed on the bed and watched him with one eye as if he
    were mad.
    Delaroche felt alert and refreshed, despite the long journey. The
    previous morning they had flown from Cairo to Madrid, having first
    explained to Mr. Fahmy that they were cutting short their stay at the
    Hotel Imperial because madam was very ill. Fahmy feared it was the
    toilet that had driven them away--he offered the hotel's best suite to
    entice them to remain--but Delaroche assured him it was the water, not
    the toilet, that had forced them to leave. From Madrid they had taken
    the train to Amsterdam. Delaroche spent the journey hunched over his
    laptop like a businessman, planning his next assassination. Astrid slept
    fitfully next to him, reliving the last. The canal had frozen again, and
    once more the Krista was filled with the joyous shouts of skaters.
    Astrid took sleeping pills and covered her head with a pillow. Delaroche
    was too wired to sleep, so at midmorning, when the sun burned away the
    clouds, he went onto the foredeck and painted, bundled in a heavy
    sweater and finger less gloves. The light was good and so was the
    subject matter--skaters on the canal, gabled houses in the
    background--and when it was done he thought it was the best work he had
    produced in Amsterdam. He had a curious desire for Astrid's approval,
    but when he went below and tried to wake her, she just mumbled that her
    name was Eva Tebbe, and she was a graphic artist from Berlin, and to
    please stop slapping her. He left her in the early afternoon, pedaling
    her bicycle through Amsterdam with his laptop computer slung over his
    back. He locked the bike outside a telephone center near the
    Rijks-museum and went inside. He entered a booth, hooked up his
    computer, and worked the keys for a few moments. He had one piece of
    electronic mail. He opened the mail, and it came onto the screen as
    gibberish. He entered his code name, and the message appeared in clear
    text.
    CONGRATULATIONS ON THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF YOUR MISSION IN CAIRO.
    PAYMENT HAS BEEN WIRED INTO YOUR NUMBERED ACCOUNT. WE HAVE ONE
    ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR YOU. IF YOU ACCEPT YOU WILL BE PAID ONE AND A
    HALF MILLION DOLLARS, HALF IN ADVANCE. TO ACCEPT, PRESS THE ENTER KEY.
    PAYMENT WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE FORWARDED TO YOUR ACCOUNT AND A DOSSIER
    AND