The Mark of the Assassin

busied herself with coffee in the galley. They spoke
    Dutch, for she was passing herself off as a divorcee from Rotterdam and
    didn't want the neighbors to hear her chattering in German. Like all
    Amsterdammers, she was obsessive about her bicycle. She had lost four to
    thieves since settling in the city. She told Delaroche about the day she
    was strolling along the Singel and came upon a man selling used
    bicycles. Among the stock Astrid spotted one of her missing bikes. She
    told the man it was hers and demanded he give it back. He said she was
    crazy. She looked beneath the seat and found the name tag she had placed
    there. He said she was a liar. She grabbed hold of the bicycle and
    announced she was taking it back. He tried to stop her. She lashed
    sideways with an elbow, breaking his larynx, and then shattered his jaw
    with a vicious roundhouse kick. She picked up the bike and strolled away
    to a chorus of cheers, the heroine of every Amsterdammer who had ever
    lost a bike to the black market.
    She carried the coffee to the salon and sat down across from Delaroche.
    She removed the clasp from her hair and allowed it to fall about her
    shoulders. She was a stunningly attractive woman who had learned to
    conceal her beauty in order to blend into her surroundings. For a moment
    he enjoyed just looking at her. "So what brings you to Amsterdam,
    Jean-Paul? Business or pleasure?"
    "You, Astrid. I need your help."
    She shook her head slowly and lit a cigarette. Delaroche anticipated she
    might be unwilling to work with him. She had killed often, and she had
    paid a very high price--a life spent underground on the run from every
    secret service and police force in the West. She was more settled than
    she had ever been, and now Delaroche was asking her to undo it all.
    "I've been out of the game for a long time, Jean-Paul. I'm tired of
    killing. I don't enjoy it like you do."
    "I don't enjoy it. I do it because I'm paid money, and it's all I know
    how to do. You were very good at it once."
    "I did it because I believed in something. There's a difference. And
    look at what it's gotten me," she said, gesturing at her surroundings.
    "Oh, I suppose it could be worse. I could be in Damascus.
    Jesus, that was awful."
    Delaroche had heard she'd spent two years hiding in Syria, courtesy of
    Hafiz al-Assad and his intelligence service, and another two years in
    Libya as the guest of Mu'ammar Gadhafi. "I'm offering you a way out, a
    chance to put it all behind you, and enough money to live comfortably
    somewhere quiet for the rest of your life. Do you want to hear more?"
    She crushed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. "Damn you."
    He rose and said, "I'll take that as a yes."
    "How many people are we going to kill?"
    "I'll be back in a half hour."
    HE WENT BACK to his hotel, packed, and checked out. Thirty minutes later
    he was climbing down the companionway of the Krista, clutching his small
    overnight bag and a nylon case holding his laptop computer. They sat in
    the salon again, Delaroche hunched over his computer, Astrid perched
    atop an ottoman. Delaroche went through the targets one by one. Astrid
    sat still as a statue, legs folded beneath her, one long hand cupping
    her chin, another holding a cigarette. She said nothing, asked no
    questions, for like Delaroche she had the gift of a flawless memory. "If
    you help me, I will pay you one million dollars," De-laroche said, at
    the conclusion of the briefing. "And I will help you settle somewhere
    safe and a little more pleasant than Damascus."
    "Who's the contractor?"
    "I don't know."
    She raised an eyebrow. "That's not like you, Jean-Paul. They must be
    paying you a great deal of money." She drew on the cigarette and blew a
    slender stream of smoke at the ceiling. "Take me to dinner. I'm hungry."
    THEY HAD BEEN LOVERS once, a long time ago, when Delaroche assisted the
    Red Army Faction with a particularly difficult assassination. They went
    back to the Krista after dining in a small French restaurant overlooking
    the Herengracht. Delaroche lay on the bed. Astrid sat down next to him
    and silently undressed.
    It had been many months since she had brought a man to her bed, and she
    took him very quickly the first time. Then she lit candles, and they
    smoked cigarettes and drank wine as rain rattled on the skylight above
    their bodies. She made love to him a second time very slowly, drawing
    his body into her long arms and legs, touching him as though he were
    made