Brothers In Arms (6 page)

“Where’s the other man and the woman?”

“Still in Minneapolis. The woman is in a private-sector safe house with a crew around her; the man is a psychiatric patient at a specialty clinic at the University of Minnesota. The Torture Rehabilitation Center. They’re used to getting patients on somebody’s hit list, so they maintain low profiles for their patients and practice decent security. Problem is, they’re not prepared to deal with the Twins. So that’s where we come in. We want to take over protection of this man and move the woman to a secure location. We want Dale Miller to be a team leader of the protection team on the man.”

Callan pushed his Styrofoam plate to the middle of the coffee table, then cracked his knuckles one by one. “Not to blow my own horn, but I’ve got top-shelf executive protection teams I can rent you, Ray. Ex-Delta, SEALs, Secret Service . . . I’ve got shooters as well as technical support. Why run a contract with a loner when you can get a top flight team?”

Ray bobbed his head in quick agreement. “Dale was one of us. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still one of us. We want to keep things compartmented, but you’re right, you’ve got the resources. We want
Dale and a contract crew for deniability, with you as a fallback.”

“Little conflict of interest here, Ray. If I succeed with your favor, I’m doing myself and the company out of a tasty bit of business.”

“There’s a substantial consultation fee to soften the blow. And favors in the favor bank.”

“There’s that,” Callan conceded. “Me and Dale go back to Delta. So if I can help him, I will. What are you not telling me?”

“Full disclosure,” Ray said. “I’d like to bring Dale in myself, but there’s that ugly bit of history between us.”

Callan stood up, wiping his hands with a napkin, then balled it up and dropped it into his plate. He went to Ray’s big window and looked out. “Jonny Maxwell drove a wedge into everybody. He needed to die sooner than he did.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I’m sick of this traffic. It takes forever to get anyplace. You know it took me forty minutes to get here?”

Ray leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “Will you do this for me, Mike?”

“Minneapolis is a pretty city. I’d like to see Dale again, and it’d be nice to get out of here for a day.”

Ray got up and went to the window and stood beside Callan. “Thanks, Mike.”

“I’m doing your dirty work again, Ray. Big favors in the favor bank.”

“Done.”

Youssef bin Hassan stood outside the Central Train Station in Amsterdam, part of the milling crowd composed mainly of young people on holiday from all over the world. He was a thin, stoop-shouldered young man with a perpetually narrowed look on his face, dressed casually in baggy denim pants, light boots, and a white collared shirt open at the neck. He had a courier bag slung over his shoulder, weighty with his laptop computer, the latest I-Book from Apple.

It was a beautiful day in Amsterdam, clear and warm, and the sunlight glittered from the windows of the hotels that looked over the canals. He stood by the arched stone bridge that crossed over to Dam Street, and watched the canal water buses go by. When he judged he’d killed enough time, he looked at his wristwatch, an inexpensive Casio, then went to a public phone outside the tourist information center beside the bridge. He swiped a locally purchased phone card in the slot, waited for the tone, and punched in the local telephone number he’d been given. The phone was answered on the third ring.

“Yes?” a woman’s voice said. The voice sounded tinny and crackled with static as a cellular phone would.

“This is Joe from the States,” Youssef said in good English. “I’m looking for Marta from Minnesota.”

“This is Marta, Joe,” the woman said. “Do you have it?”

“Yes,” Youssef said. “I can do it for you anywhere, from your location if you like.”

He listened intently. The woman said nothing for a moment, but there were noises in the background and the babbling of a small child.

“It’s not necessary,” she said. “Do it and let us know. We have our own means to verify it.”

“But there are other matters to discuss,” Youssef said as he’d been directed to.

“Are there?”

“Yes. There’s your payment, and then the final disposition of the project in Minnesota.”

“One moment, Joe.”

The background sounds were lost in more static as though she held her hand over the mouthpiece. He heard the blurred sounds of a short conversation, then she came back on the phone.

“I’ll come to you,” the woman said. “Where are you?”

“At the VVV, the tourist information booth, at the Central Train Station.”

“How will I know you?”

Youssef thought for a moment. “I’ll be standing beside the phone booths. I have on a white shirt and blue pants, and I have a navy blue courier bag on my shoulder.”

“I’ll be along shortly.”

“How will I . . .”

She hung up the phone and he heard nothing else. He shrugged, and hung the phone back in its cradle. He looked at the crowd under the bright sun, and decided he had time to go into the train station and get a cup of espresso. After he bought his coffee, he took it in a paper cup and brought it back outside, where he stood beside the phone booth in the warmth of the sun.

Marie Garvais stood on the city side of the canal that separated the Central Train Station from the Old Center, beside the railed bridge, and watched Youssef bin Hassan. She’d taken her time coming to the
meeting, riding her bicycle from the canal where the houseboat she and Isabelle lived in was moored, and paused beside the bridge as though she were merely taking a break or enjoying the summer day. But what she was looking for were the signs of surveillance. A top flight team with time to prepare would be nearly invisible, even to her seasoned eyes, but she had sufficient confidence in her ability to determine that it was a reasonable risk to meet the cutout in public. All of her dealings with the people the young man represented had been professional; while this meeting was less so, there was a great deal of money involved, which made it necessary. When she was satisfied, she mounted her plain black bicycle and eased into the steady stream of cyclists crossing the bridge, and rode till she was almost upon the young man. She stopped her bicycle, still astraddle of it, right beside him.

“Joe?” she said, as though delighted in meeting a friend. “Fancy seeing you here!”

The Arab smiled nervously. She got off her bicycle, put down the kickstand, and hugged him in greeting. Her hands moved surely over him, checking for weapons.

“Hello, Marta,” he said. “How nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, Joe!” Marie said. She plucked the courier bag from his shoulder, opened it and looked inside. “You have a gift for me?”

“Only what’s in my computer,” he said.

“Then let’s go where we can have a look,” Marie said. She slung the courier bag over her thin but muscular shoulders and pushed her bike along, leading the young man back across the bridge toward the Old Center. “There’s a cyber café nearby that has laptop portals.”

They walked along in silence for a time, Marie cutting through the crowd, using her bicycle to carve them a path. They came to a cyber café and went in after Marie locked her bike to the rack in front. She got them two cups of coffee while Youssef paid for a card that allowed him to dock his laptop in a portal and access the Internet. He powered up his computer while Marie watched. Once his machine was up, he accessed the communications program and logged onto the Internet. After a few minutes of working the keyboard, he
showed her the screen, which contained financial information and the routing address of a bank in Oranjestad, Aruba, in the Dutch Caribbean.

“Does it look all right?” he said.

Marie looked over the substantial figures and said, “Yes. It’s fine.”

“Would you like to . . .”

“Yes,” she said, smiling girlishly. She pushed the
RETURN
key and watched the progress bar appear and count off the percentage of the money transfer taking place between two secured accounts. It took only a few brief moments for the transaction to be completed, and now Marie and her partner enjoyed a substantial increase in the funds available in one of their many numbered accounts protected by Dutch privacy laws.

“That concludes that part of our business,” Youssef said. “But we have some other . . . what about the other man and the woman?”

Marie shrugged. “The only obstacle is payment.”

“Money is not a problem . . . when could you do it?”

“Do you have the same quality of intelligence on those two?”

“Yes.”

“We’d need a reasonable amount of time to work it up.”

“Then I’m told to tell you to consider it a tasking.”

Marie nodded sharply and said, “Wire the initial amount, then. Same as the last. Do it now, if you’re in a hurry.”

Youssef nodded and said, “As you wish.”

It took only a few keystrokes to transfer more money.

Marie stood and said, “I’ll be in touch the usual way. Check your e-mail often. Do you intend to stay here in Amsterdam?”

“For a few days. I’ll need to pass on to you what we have, when I get it.”

“Enjoy your stay. This is a civilized city.”

“Yes,” said the young terrorist. “It is.”

Marie locked her bicycle against the rails that separated the sidewalk from the canal, then stepped gingerly down the stairs that led to the
deck of their houseboat. She ducked through the low door entranceway and almost stumbled over the small blond girl playing with blocks beside the doorway.

She knelt by the child and said in a scolding tone, “Come, Ilse. Not so close to the door. Isabelle, you must keep her away from the door.”

Isabelle came into the front room from the kitchen. She was dressed in a black unitard that clung to her muscled arms and legs, with a blue denim smock worn over it.

“Give her to me,” Isabelle said. She took the smiling child from Marie and said, “Come here, you naughty girl. What have I told you about playing so close to the door?”

The little girl laughed and buried her face in Isabelle’s shoulder, and wrapped her arms and legs around the tall woman.

“Oh, you think you can get away with it by playing one against the other?” Marie said, smiling. “No, you don’t.”

“So?” Isabelle said, stroking their daughter’s hair.

“The money went fine,” Marie said, chucking Ilse under the chin and then going into the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and the front room. “They want us to go back and do the other two.”

“I thought he was the important one.”

“They want to be thorough. They paid the initial fee in advance and they promise the same quality of intelligence.”

“I want to take Ilse to Bruges next week,” Isabelle said. “To see the swans . . .”

“I don’t think so,” Marie said. “We’ll be traveling. We can take her later, we have the whole summer.”

“She’s growing so fast, Marie. We need to think of that, too.”

“We need to make a living, and this goes a long way . . .”

Isabelle hugged her child and set her down. Ilse sank cross-legged to the floor and began to sort through her blocks. Isabelle watched her, a fond faint smile on her face, then said, “You’re right, of course. I just hate leaving her. Each time it seems as though she’s grown so.”