Requiem for an Assassin (32 page)

“My mobile phone is over there,” he said, inclining his head toward the dead guy by the tree. “My knee is broken, I can’t get to it. Would you lend me yours? Please?”

What difference did it make? A small mercy, like he said. I pulled my mobile out and tossed it to him.

“Thank you,” he said. He grimaced and flipped it open with his good hand.

If I was going to stop, I had to find a way to stop, a time and place to stop. I would have to make a decision to stop. The decision would carry risks, it was true. But so, always, would the alternative.

Maybe this was what Delilah had been talking about, when she told me about choices, and how I would make the right one.

Hilger was supporting himself on his left elbow, inputting his sister’s number with his left thumb. It embarrassed me to have to hear whatever he might say to her.

Yes, that was it. I’d been telling myself for so long I had no choice, that maybe my choice reflex had atrophied. But I could reawaken it. I could let him live. By walking away, I would prove that Dox and I were no threat to him. He’d have no incentive to come after us after that.

It made sense. I could do this. It was up to me. My choice. Everything would be possible. A thousand new directions. I thought about how I would tell Delilah, how she had been right, and how much her confidence had meant to me, how much it had helped me. I would tell her…

The phone! Not his sister, he’s detonating the bomb!

Without any other thought, I brought the gun up and shot him in the face. Again. Three times. He jerked and twitched and dropped the phone.

I sat there dumbly for a long moment in the sudden silence, the rain beating a steady drumbeat on my arms and shoulders. A tendril of smoke curled coyly from the muzzle of the gun.

I stood and picked up the mobile. I checked the screen. An access code, then 1, for America, 212, for New York…and six more digits. Christ, he’d been one digit away.

But was it the bomb? Or did he really have…

It didn’t matter. For all I knew, Boaz was elbow deep in the device right now. If Hilger had detonated it, Boaz would have died. Even if I was wrong, I had no choice.

The rain beat harder. And through the echo of that sodden drumbeat, I thought I heard a whispered voice, at once familiar and distant.

No choice.

I stood there in the cold and dark and rain. I’d known, at some level, of the possible danger if he made a call. But I’d let him make it anyway. Because once he had the phone in his hands, I had…

No choice.

My mobile buzzed. I looked and saw that it was Boaz.

I picked up. “You okay?” I asked.

“Did you hear a boom?”

“No, I didn’t. But I wasn’t listening closely.”

He laughed. “I have a simple rule. If there’s no boom, it’s good news.”

“You disarmed it.”

“Disarmed and disabled. We’ll need experts to handle the radioactive material and make sure it’s disposed of properly, but that’s someone else’s concern.”

I started walking toward the car. Jesus, I didn’t know I had so many places that could hurt. “Whose?” I asked.

“Let’s just say Mister Boezeman is very eager for no one ever to learn of this incident. And my organization is very eager to own a Rotterdam port official. It’s going to be a beautiful friendship.”

“You’re going to bring the organization in on this?”

“Of course. With results like these, a little—what do you call it, moonlighting?—is easily forgiven. But enough about me. I’m so relieved not to be blown into a million pieces that I’m forgetting to ask you about Hilger.”

“He’s dead.”

“How?”

“How do you think? Bullets.”

“And you’re okay? You’re not hurt, you’re out of danger?”

“I’m okay.”

“Fantastic! Naftali will be so pleased he might talk again. He was hoping to do it himself, but he’s a big boy, he understands that what matters is, it’s done.”

“Where are you?”

“On the train, on the way back to Amsterdam. Let’s have a beer. Debrief, decompress.”

“I’ve…got a lot to think about.”

“Bullshit. No one should be alone after something like this. Besides, you have our car and all our shiny toys. You have to give them back or we’ll get in trouble.”

I tried to smile, but I felt sick. “I’ll meet you at the station and give you the keys. But I can’t stay long.”

I
PARKED NEAR
Centraal Station, took my bag from the trunk, and locked the car. As I walked along one of the canals, I dropped Hilger’s gun over the side. I had left the USP in Vondelpark. I didn’t have time to search for it in the mud, but it was okay. I hadn’t even fired it, and if Boaz was using it, it must have been sterile.

I met them inside the station, as they came down the stairs from the Rotterdam train. Naftali shook my hand. “I owe you, Mister Rain,” he said.

“No, you don’t. You had my back. That’s good enough.”

He shook his head. “I know my brother was sent to kill you. I’m glad now he didn’t succeed.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said, and Naftali actually smiled.

“I told you he would be excited,” Boaz said.

I laughed weakly, then grimaced. My chest felt like I’d stopped a truck with it.

“Where will you go now?” Boaz asked. “To Delilah?”

I couldn’t have fooled him even if I’d been inclined. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t call her, you know. After Singapore. It was up to you.”

“Well, do you want me to go see her?” I said, handing him the car keys. “Or do you want to stand here talking?”

He laughed. I explained about the USP and told them where they could find the car, then went to the ticket booth to see about a train to Paris.

There was a nine o’clock that arrived at Paris Nord at one in the morning. I bought a ticket and headed to the platform. I called Kanezaki just before boarding the train.

“How is he?” I asked.

“He’s going to be okay. A lot of bruises, some fractured ribs, and a hell of a sunburn.”

Yeah, my skin was itching, too. I’d been so busy I hadn’t noticed until now.

“Good.”

“How about you?” he asked. “Did…”

“You were right about everything. And everything we came here to do, we did, including rendering our friend defunct. I’ll post the details. But you can probably reach the Israelis on their mobiles right now.”

“I may do that.”

“You did well, Tom.”

“And you did good.”

“Well, no good deed goes unpunished. I’ll be in touch, okay?”

“I hope so.”

I took my seat on the train and five minutes later, we pulled out of the station. I was wet and shivering from crawling through Vondelpark, and my chest ached. I just wanted to get somewhere warm and dry, somewhere I could close my eyes.

I leaned my head against the window. As we left the lights of the city behind and the world outside grew darker, my reflection appeared in the glass.

For so long, I’d been asking myself whether I had a choice, and always answering no. But maybe the real question was why I never had a choice. Why I always put myself in a position where I had no alternative but killing.

What was that saying of Henry Ford’s? “You can have any color you like, as long as it’s black.”

I thought I heard the iceman:
You can have any choice you want, as long as it’s mine.

Maybe. But I’d made at least one right choice, in New York when I’d walked away from Midori’s boyfriend. And maybe I was making another right now, in going to Delilah.

I thought about those three small words she had uttered, the ones I didn’t know how to respond to. I’d think of something, maybe even what she had called “the traditional response,” although the thought of it scared me. I had told her I needed her to guide me back, and staring at that ghostly image in the glass, I knew I did need her, that without her I would just give up and surrender to the iceman. It would be so easy. I was used to it. A part of me even wanted it.

But there was something I wanted more. And with Delilah…

That was it.
With Delilah.

The iceman was a loner. Why was I fighting him alone? That was what he wanted, the nature of the fight was itself his victory. But I had allies, Delilah foremost among them. Maybe if I could just be a little less stupid about accepting what they wanted to give me, I could stack the odds in my favor.

I didn’t need to kill the iceman. I didn’t even need to fight him. I just needed to make more of myself, so that he would be less of me.

I didn’t know how, exactly, and I was too tired to figure it out now. But I wouldn’t have to figure it out on my own. That was the point.

I closed my eyes. The reflection was still there, of course. I just couldn’t see it. And for the moment, that was enough.

Once again, I’ve written a book that has been made much better through the generous contributions of many friends. My thanks to:

My agents, Nat Sobel and Judith Weber of Sobel Weber Associates, and my editor, Dan Conaway of Putnam, for helping me keep the stories fresh and the prose sharp.

Michael Barson (master of Yubiwaza), Carroll Beauvais, Katie Grinch, Summer Smith, Caroline Sun, and Matthew Venzon of Putnam, for doing such an amazing job of getting out the word on the books. Go, Barsonians!

Massad Ayoob of the Lethal Force Institute, for sharing his awe-inspiring knowledge of and experience with firearms tools and tactics, for the great instruction at the LFI I and II (see you at III, Mas), and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Tony Blauer, for teaching Rain and Dox some of the pattern interrupt / verbal distraction techniques they use several times in this book to gain a tactical advantage.

Matt Furey, for again providing some of the Combat Conditioning bodyweight exercises Rain uses to stay in top shape (and that his author uses, too).

Peyton Quinn of Rocky Mountain Combat Applications Training and author of
A Bouncer’s Guide to Barroom Brawling
and
Real Fighting,
for his concept of the previolence “interview,” in this case the fast interview Rain receives in chapter 3.

Ernie Tibaldi, a thirty-one-year veteran agent of the FBI and now a top security consultant, for continuing to generously share his encyclopedic knowledge of law enforcement and personal safety issues, for turning Rain on to Katz’s Deli in New York, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Jonathan Shay, for
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
, from which I derived a greater understanding of Rain’s own Vietnam experiences, related in chapter 8, and their long-term effects.

When I visited Saigon to research this book, it was my first time. Rain, of course, had been there long before, and I needed to see the city through his eyes. The website When from Our Exile: Ivan in Vi?t Nam (www.pauahtun.org/Exile/Default.htm) was an enormous help.

Sensei
Koichiro Fukasawa of Wasabi Communications, for continuing to guide Rain in Japan, for lifelong friendship, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Laurent Boudin, Marie Jeanne Denis, François Laurent, and Françoise Triffaux of my French publishers, Belfond and Univers Poche, for introducing Rain to Le Petit Célestin on the quai des Célestins and La Closerie des Lilas in Montparnasse.

Naomi Andrews, for guiding me on all things French and Parisian, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Lori (aka Laure) Kupfer, for continued insights into what sophisticated, sexy women like Delilah wear and how they think, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Paul Guyot, for inspiring Rain horologically.

Roberta Parks, M.D., Owen Rennert, M.D., Evan Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., and Peter Zimetbaum, M.D., for continuing to answer my strange questions about the medical implications of unarmed killing techniques, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

The extraordinarily eclectic group of “foodies with a violence problem” who hang out at Marc “Animal” MacYoung’s and Dianna Gordon’s www.nononsenseselfdefense.com. A special thanks to Marc himself, for sharing his thoughts on leaving the life and coming to grips with the “dragon” within and the “gray man”—thoughts that inspired and helped shape my notion of the iceman, with whom Rain struggles in this book—and for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Dox’s stunning stream of invective in chapter 35 is courtesy of a rant by one David Jefferson Bean, philosopher, iconoclast, owner and operator of the Bean Machine, and brilliant blogger (http://mygreenhell.typepad.com). When Dave gets up a head of steam, you’ll want to set down your coffee, lest you spew it on your keyboard laughing—and nodding your head in stunned agreement.

Terry Trahan, who no longer clanks when he walks (but then again, he doesn’t need to), for his insights on getting out of the life and on the fine art of Weaselcraft.

Three men I count myself privileged to know have characters named after them in this book: Wim Demeere, Frank “Pancho” Garza, and Montie Guthrie. In addition to their names, the characters share some positive characteristics with their real-world namesakes. But the characters also have certain…negative characteristics, which are entirely fictional and have nothing to do with these gentlemen as I know them. I say this because I wouldn’t want anyone to mistakenly conclude that I hold Wim, Pancho, or Montie—friends and teachers all—in anything other than the highest regard. Plus, they might beat me up or shoot me if I didn’t provide a disclaimer. Special thanks to Montie, for always taking my calls about firearms tools and tactics, and for helpful comments on the manuscript. I hope it goes without saying that any firearms mistakes in the manuscript are entirely Montie’s fault.

The line Rain recollects in Chapter 6, “Hell, I’ll kill a man in a fair fight…or if I think he’s gonna start a fair fight,” is from Joss Whedon’s terrific movie
Serenity
.

Eve Bridberg, Vivian Brown, Alan Eisler, Judith Eisler, Jack “Spook” Finch (no pregnant yak he), Tom Hayes, Rachel Holtzman, Mike Killman, Yukie Kito, novelist J. A. Konrath, Dan Levin, Doug Patteson, Matt Powers, Sandy Rennert, Ted Schlein, Hank Shiffman, The Man Called Slugg, Pete Wenzel, and Caryn Wiseman, for helpful comments on the manuscript and many valuable suggestions and insights along the way.

I feel like I’m forgetting to mention someone…

Kidding. My wife, Laura, helps with, suffers through, and then enjoys these books like no one else. Thanks for everything, babe.