“Friendship.”
“You’d die for me? That’s not friendship. That’s dumb.”
“I have to hand it to you, Katla.” Bram walked around her to the stove. “You have this uncanny ability to make someone feel useful and appreciated.”
She ignored him. “I know why you want to come along, Zeph, but if you lack excitement in your life, go play laser games or take up bungee jumping.”
“Paintball,” Bram put in, taking the kettle from the stove. “Skydiving.”
“Skydiving is expensive.” Katla rinsed her cup. “Material, air fare, courses. Parasailing is cheaper, more like a cross between parachuting and hang gliding.”
“What’s the difference between parachuting and skydiving?”
“The time elapsing before opening your parachute,” Katla replied. “Skydivers delay opening as long as possible.”
The Rastafarian tapped his spoon against his cup to draw her attention. “I scare easy, that it?”
“You handle yourself well, Zeph, but I might have to do… illegal things.”
“You think I care about the law? I’m a criminal too.”
“You grow weed. Real criminals don’t bother with misdemeanours.” She pointed at her leg. “You want to get shot, Zeph? I don’t recommend it. Even with the reconstructive surgery my leg might never regain its former strength and agility.”
“I could drive you. Stand watch. Things like that, sista.”
“Zeph is right,” Bram said. “You might want someone to watch your back.”
She pulled him close and whispered, “Don’t interfere.”
“You can trust him,” Bram whispered back. “Just don’t kill anyone.”
She turned back to the Rastafarian. “I can watch my own back, Zeph. Like Bram says, if I need help, I know where to find you.”
He shrugged and finished his coffee. “I go home, feed Shaitan.”
“Pat her for me,” Bram said, removing the strainer from his tea and adding sugar.
Katla waited until the door closed behind Zeph and put her arms around Bram’s neck, burying her nose in his hair and breathing his scent.
“You smell good. Didn’t take a shower yet, did you?”
“I wanted to take a bath and figured you might want to share it.”
“You figured right,” Katla replied and leant against him, listening to his heartbeat while he drank his tea.
-o-
Katla gazed out the rain-splattered windows at the dark sky over the zoo. Soft jazz music played on her stereo, the music only disturbed by the sound of the occasional peanut dancing over the floor and the squeaking of tiny rubber wheels.
Kourou bumped against her ankle and said, “Happy?”
“Yes, I’m happy,” Katla told the macaw and turned away from the window. The soft yellow lights gave the room a cozy feeling, although she also credited Bram’s presence. Kourou bopped his head, his bright eyes focused on Bram sitting cross-legged on the far side of the living room. Bram fished another unshelled peanut from the paper bag in his lap and tossed it across the wooden floor in the direction of the hallway. The macaw screeched and skittered around the coffee table on his roller skates, tiny wheels squeaking as he skated after the peanut.
Katla walked back to her laptop on the coffee table and completed the transaction. Pascal had files on his computer. Files pertaining to Sphinx Shipping. She needed them and she didn’t want anyone else to have access to the contents of Pascal’s computer. Although she was an adequate hacker and could circumvent most security measures, she wasn’t a creator. And you needed a creative mind to create a virus. Like the one she just bought.
Bram cocked his head and pointed at the ceiling. “I think you caught one.”
“You think, or you know?”
Katla rose from the couch and walked to the stairs leading up to the gym. Only directly under the trapdoor could she hear the hysterical chirping and the flutter of tiny wings. Smiling she ascended the stairs and went to the small roof terrace.
The tiny sparrow tried to fly away, its feet stuck to one of the glue sticks Katla left scattered around the bowl with pigeon food. She donned a pair of motorcycle gloves and opened the sliding door. The sparrow panicked, dragging the glue stick along the pebbled tiles, but before he could entangle himself in the other glue sticks Katla scooped him up and carried him down the stairs to the kitchen. Bram had already filled the sink with warm water. Katla held the sparrow’s feet in the water until the glue softened and the stick could be removed from the bird’s feet. She put the sparrow in a lunch box and closed the lid. Small holes in the lid would allow the bird to breathe.
Kourou flapped his wings and landed on the kitchen counter, eyeing the lunch box with avid curiosity, but Katla took the boxed-up sparrow away from the macaw.
She held the lunch box up to her eyes and looked at the hunkered down sparrow, smiling softly. “You’re going to be a burglar this evening, little fellow.”
OFFICE
The dented Vespa swerved onto the tram rails just in front of a tram, rode past the line of cars waiting for the light to change and passed in front, hooking a right onto the Prinsengracht. With the rails now occupied by the tram, all Zeph could do was to try to pass the queue in front of the traffic lights at the other side with the borrowed Puch Maxi moped. The space between the waiting cars and the parked cars was filled with bicycles, so he had to wait at the rear of the queue. Either Katla had caught on to him or she didn’t like traffic lights, but he knew he had lost her. The idea had been foolhardy anyway, to follow a motor scooter with a moped. The tram pulled away and he glanced over his shoulder, wary for other trams, and swerved onto the tram rails to follow Katla, but just as he intended to cross in front of the queue the light turned green and the cars pulled up. He remained half on the tram rails, fervently hoping no tram would come before the light turned red again.
It seemed to take an eternity.
Zeph turned the corner onto the Prinsengracht, but the Vespa was nowhere to be seen. A gaggle of tourists aimlessly wandered in front of the Anne Frank Huis, strolling onto the road without looking.
Zeph halted to let them pass, his gaze drifting to the other side of the canal where he noticed Katla parking her scooter at the quayside. Behind him someone honked. The tourists had cleared the road and he turned the Puch’s throttle, pulling up again. A hysterical shriek sounded behind him and a moped courier passed on his right side at breakneck speed, his flapping jacket slapping Zeph’s elbow.
Zeph hunched his shoulders, his heart racing in his throat as the courier turned at full speed to flip him his middle finger, zoomed up the bridge and rode down the other side of the canal, against the traffic.
Behind him the car honked again. Zeph swallowed the bile in his mouth, shivering with the overwhelming urge to urinate, the rapid beating of his heart filling his ears. Hands clamped on the handlebars he rode on, the sweat turning cold on his back. As he turned left onto the bridge, Zeph wondered if cowardice was physiological. At the merest indication of danger his body went into full ‘fight or flight’ mode, except the ‘flight’ mode seemed predominant. Despite Bram’s insistence that ‘flight’ was a better survival instinct than ‘fight’, he would gladly trade his cowardice for Katla’s courage. A smidgen would do, just enough he wouldn’t be shaken so easily.
Zeph rode along the canal and gazed at the beautifully embossed brass or stone plaques by the doors, wondering which house Katla had entered. Most of the meticulously renovated houses along the elegant Prinsengracht were no longer privately owned. Like the other grand canals—Keizersgracht, Singel and Herengracht—the exorbitant rents drove the original inhabitants out and attracted small prosperous businesses. Accounting and tax services, real estate agents, foreign banks, doctors, lawyers. And like most businesses, they were closed on weekends.
Slowing down the Puch in front of the house opposite Katla’s scooter, Zeph scanned the names listed on a brass plaque rendered almost illegible by the winter
sun reflecting from its glossy surface.
Dove Inc. Zenith Publishing Ltd. Vermeer Financial Services. Phaedra Media Services.
Katla would probably resent him for following her, so he rode back to the bridge, parked the Puch Maxi, and lit up a spliff. Leaning on the railing, his gaze turned to Katla’s scooter, the dented body hardly reflecting the sunlight sparkling on the oily surface of the canal.
For someone with her apparent affluence Katla had modest tastes. She used her Vespa more than any other mode of transport, claiming the scooter was better suited to the dense city traffic, but Zeph suspected she preferred the scooter for its ability to blend in with the scenery, whether the scenery was the city centre, the suburbs or the financial district. A quality reflected in its owner, for Katla herself seemed to loathe attracting attention, concentrating so much on being inconspicuous it was always she who spotted him, never the other way around.
On the bridge with the Raadhuisstraat, a large black SUV with dark windows halted, the left indicator blinking. At the green light the SUV swooped onto the road along the canal, slowing down like Zeph had done opposite the Anne Frank Huis to avoid hitting tourists. The window on the driver side whispered down and Zeph noticed the driver was a Chinaman.
And the Chinaman was looking across the canal at Katla’s scooter.
Zeph felt a flutter in his bowels. He had to warn Katla.
He fished out his cell phone and called her number, but got her Voicemail straight away. Probably switched off.
Strolling down the bridge with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Zeph headed for the building, his eye on the SUV resuming its way, cruising along the other side of the canal like a shark in a fish pond. Before Zeph was halfway the SUV passed him like a cold shadow and came to a halt in front of the building. Both rear doors and the passenger door popped open and three Chinamen in business suits emerged from the car, slamming the doors behind them.
Zeph slowed down and stood undecided, watching the trio head for the steps leading to the front door.
Do something, a voice yelled in his head, but he could only stand with jelly in his legs, watching them halt at the foot of the steps and the SUV pull away again. While the SUV drove away, one of the Chinamen stayed on the sidewalk while the other two ascended the ancient stone steps, one of them producing keys.
The Chinaman watching the street studied him and Zeph strolled to the cars parked at the quay, his gaze scanning the cobblestones as if he had lost something. A tabby cat noticed his approach and jumped from the hood of a Peugeot, disappearing underneath. From the corner of his eye he noticed the two Chinamen step into the lobby of the house.
“Katla!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Katla! Come here, you stupid cat. Katla!”
The tabby ran from the Peugeot to another car and he followed, yelling her name and hoping Katla would hear the noise inside.
-o-
From previous visits to Vermeer’s office, Katla knew the front door of the building was not wired, but his office had two infrared motion detectors. No security cameras, which would involve time-lapse recorders. At the end of the hallway was an alcove with cleaning materials, which was where she set up her satellite laptop.
Returning to the solid oak door to his office she picked the lock in less than a minute and entered, ignoring the shrill beeping issuing from the control panel by the door. The response time for the security firm would be at least five minutes.
Heading straight for his desk, Katla switched on his computer and by-passed the password. Without selecting she sent all the files on his hard drive to an FTP server and typed some commands to allow the computer to be accessed remotely from her laptop in the hallway. Katla switched off the screen to avoid drawing attention to the softly humming computer and limped to the rear of the office where she opened one of the sash windows. While she walked back to the door, she fished the box with the dazed sparrow from her backpack, releasing the bird into the office before stepping into the hallway and locking the door with her picks.
Three minutes to spare.
She limped to the rear of the building when a key entered the lock of the front door. Cursing under her breath Katla hurried down the hallway and slipped into the cleaning closet. Judging by the footfalls more than one person entered the building, which was unusual for security firms. In most cases the response to an automatic burglar alarm was a car with a single security officer, but maybe the firm sent two cars to check out the alarm. With the door slightly ajar she tried to see who entered, but the gap was barely sufficient to see their shadows move over the marble floor.
Just before the front door closed behind them she heard her name called in an angry tone of voice. It sounded like Zeph. The beeping of the alarm became louder as they opened the door and one of them spoke a guttural sentence that didn’t sound Dutch. A moment later the beeping became softer as the door closed again. She turned her attention to the screen. The files had arrived at the FTP server. Katla accessed the computer and loaded the virus, following the progress. The download reached a hundred percent just before the computer went offline. Someone had pulled the plug. Hoping she’d been quick enough, Katla switched off her laptop and slipped the computer in her backpack.
-o-
The tabby came from under the cars to sniff his trousers and Zeph scooped the cat into his arms, stroking its fur while walking back past the vigilant Chinaman and sitting down on the steps of the next-door building.
A white Volkswagen Golf with the emblem of a security firm halted at the door and a uniformed security guard observed the situation, calling in on a two-way radio before leaving his car and approaching the Chinaman, who was speaking into his cellular phone. Behind him the door opened and the other two Chinamen reappeared, looking grim. Zeph placed the tabby on his lap and scratched the cat behind his ears, trying to listen in on the conversation, but he was too far away. The security guard didn’t seem worried, especially when the oldest of the Chinamen showed him the keys and invited him to step inside.
After a couple of minutes the security guard came out alone, nodded at the lone Chinamen on the steps and moved to his patrol car, talking into his two-way radio before driving off. When he was gone, the Chinamen on the steps were called inside. All was quiet, then the black SUV cruised back in view and halted in front of the building. The door opened and the three Chinamen came out, the youngest carrying a bag. The older man took out a gold case, stuck a cigarette in the left corner of his mouth and accepted a light from the junior man before moving down the steps and climbing into the back of the car. The Chinaman with the bag slipped into the passenger seat, the bag on his lap.
As the SUV drove off, Zeph memorised the license plate number and put down the cat. He climbed the steps and wondered whether to ring the bell, when the door opened and Katla appeared, smiling at him.
“Maybe I can use some help,” she said. “You followed me?”
Zeph nodded. “On moped.”
“Follow them and let me know their destination. Don’t show yourself.”
“Them bad people, I know.”
“Good. Call me later.”
She closed the door while Zeph skipped down the steps and ran to the Puch.
MISSING
Katla left Vermeer’s office, hoping she had been in time extracting the files and infecting his computer. No doubt the Chinese would try to access the computer and the virus would erase the hard drive and corrupt all the files. She wondered if they would think Pascal was smart enough to protect his computer like that. If they suspected anything, well—it might be time to get out of the shadows and go on the offensive anyway.
She rode her Vespa to Westerpark and sat down at Café De Bakkerswinkel, switched on the Sphinx phone to see if anyone had called the number and found a 020 number. She called back, prepared to hang up if it was answered by the Chinese, but the phone was answered by the police. Asking if she could come in to answer some questions concerning a certain Pascal Vermeer.
> She made an appointment to come by in an hour and settled down with her laptop at one of the long wooden tables to check Pascal’s files.
-o-
The police station was housed in an old brick building that used to be a hospital and the wide hallways and doors used to accommodate wheeling around beds and wheelchairs still reminded of that previous function. A petite woman in a tight fitting police uniform guided her down the hall and ushered her into a small office. A young detective with short blond hair and piercing grey eyes got up from behind the scarred desk and extended his hand, while he took in her faded jeans and battered leather jacket.
“Bert Goedhart, thanks for coming.”
“Sieltjes.” Katla returned his firm handshake. “I guess I don’t look like you thought I would.”
“I didn’t know what to expect.” Goedhart pointed at a chair on the other side of his desk. “A shipping firm is different from an accountant’s office, so I didn’t expect a three-piece suit, but you don’t look like management.”
“It’s my day off. You wanted to talk about Pascal?”
“Yes.” He pointed at a Nespresso machine in the corner of his office. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine.” Katla fished a water bottle from her backpack. “What about Pascal?”
“Pascal Vermeer was reported missing.” Goedhart put his hand on a stack of paper. “We pulled his phone records. Yours is among the last numbers he called.”
“Do you have any indication of foul play?”
“We found his car at Spaarnwoude. Locked, the alarm engaged.”
“But no sign of him?”
Goedhart shook his head. “We combed the area, but no-one fitting his description was seen or found.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be much help, Bert. Pascal is just the accountant for Sphinx Shipping. I’m a major shareholder, my partner Emil Bootz does the day to day business.”
“We questioned Mr. Bootz, but he has no idea, hasn’t spoken Mr. Vermeer for at least a week before his disappearance.” The detective steepled his fingers and looked at her earnestly. “You had contact the last day anyone saw him alive.”
Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) Page 7