Katla wiped the other flakes from her breasts. “Just because I didn’t shy away, doesn’t mean I want to—”
Anouk put a finger to her lips and tenderly covered Katla’s swollen eye with soft kisses. “Tell me to stop if you don’t want this.”
“I think we should stop,” Katla murmured. Her hands went up and her warm palms covered Anouk’s breasts through her shirt, but didn’t push her away. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I want you.” Anouk kissed Katla’s cheekbone and moved down to her full soft lips. “From the first moment I saw you.”
The doorbell rang.
Anouk startled, and sat up.
Katla’s arms dropped back on the bed. “I forgot. Bram was on his way to drop off some clothes.”
The bell rang again, then a key entered the lock.
“Thanks very much.” Anouk jumped from the bed. “You couldn’t have mentioned that before?”
Katla sat up. “Before what? Before you tried to seduce me?”
Anouk stepped into the hallway, where Bram was just closing the door behind him. “Bram.”
“Hey Nookie,” he replied. “Katla still in bed?”
He walked up to her and Anouk took his face, kissed his cheeks.
“She looks like hell. The guy really did a number on her.”
“Hel looked different,” Katla spoke from the bedroom. “The right side of her face was an abyss, not a lump of bruises.”
Bram brushed past Anouk and entered the bedroom. “So maybe it’s a good thing I can’t see you?”
As he sat down on the bed, Katla took his hand and brought it up to the undamaged side of her face. Bram leant over and kissed her face, and Katla embraced him. She looked at Anouk over her shoulder and motioned with her hand to close the door.
The green-eyed monster squeezed her heart and Anouk was confused. She used to covet Bram, but now she begrudged him for holding Katla in his arms. Most of all, she was angry at herself, for desiring someone who would never be hers. She walked to her kitchen to make tea, but instead Anouk stood at the window and looked at her garden through the raindrops, trickling down the windowpane like the tears she felt gathering behind her eyes.
-o-
Bram had left again, but now Katla was immersed in the folder he’d brought, not even looking up when Anouk brought her tea. Seemed to be sheets with a photo and information in tables, like personnel files. As she walked around the bed to get a better look, Katla closed the folder.
Anouk placed the cup of tea on the nightstand. “Interesting?”
Katla stretched her long legs, her left knee no longer swollen but still discoloured. “Any information that can give me an edge is interesting.”
“So what is it?” Anouk reached for the folder, but Katla put her hand on it. She tilted her head. “What? Can’t I take a look?”
“This information is for my eyes only,” Katla said. “Privacy, you know.”
“So Bram can know, but I can’t?”
“Bram can’t read this.” Katla took her cup of tea and blew in it. “That was probably why my partner selected him as a courier.”
Anouk snatched up the folder and ran from the bedroom to the kitchen.
“Not funny,” Katla yelled after her. “Give that back.”
“No, I’m going to read it.” She opened the folder and looked at a mug shot of a Chinese man, with a list of arrests. “Who is this guy?”
“A bad guy.” Katla limped into the kitchen, holding her hand out for the folder. “Give me that folder, Anouk.”
“No kidding.” Anouk riffled through the pages. Four criminal records, most of them two pages listing criminal acts, and one solitary photo without an accompanying file. “Hey, this one has no record.”
She looked up and Katla was staring at her, her left eye filled with such cold fury Anouk flinched involuntarily. Katla snapped her fingers and held out her hand. Anouk handed her the folder and Katla limped back to the bedroom, where she grabbed the weekend bag Bram had just brought over. Anouk watched as Katla put the folder in her bag, took the plastic pharmacy bag with her toiletries and started putting away her make-up and toothbrush.
“Katla?”
Katla turned around, her left eye expressionless. “What?”
“I was joking.”
“I’m not,” Katla said. “I can’t stay with someone who doesn’t respect my privacy.”
She turned back to her bag and put her toiletries inside, pulled out a knitted sweater and pulled it over her head.
“Please,” Anouk said. “I’m sorry, okay?”
Katla turned to face her. “No, Anouk, it’s not okay. I can’t be your friend if you don’t respect my privacy.”
“I respect your privacy,” Anouk said. “I just—”
“Just what?” Katla folded her arms. “Just thought I was joking? Teasing you?”
“I didn’t know you’d react like that.”
“Well, now you know.”
Katla turned back to the bag and pulled out a pair of sweat pants. Anouk walked up to her and embraced her from behind, resting her forehead against her shoulder.
“Please, don’t go. I promise I will respect your privacy.”
“I don’t think you can,” Katla said. “I don’t even think you like me. You just like the mystery I represent.”
“No, I really do like you.”
Katla shook her head. “You don’t know me. You’re only interested in me because you can’t figure me out. The enigma fucking your ex.”
“Please,” Anouk murmured. “Please, don’t go.”
“I don’t like to be interrogated,” Katla said. “I don’t interrogate you, do I? Not because I don’t care, but I respect your privacy. I know there are unresolved feelings between you and Bram, I could see it in your eyes when he kissed me this morning, but I don’t ask. Because it’s not my business until someone makes it my business. Until then, it’s a private issue.”
“I had no idea you felt this way. Really, you can ask me anything you want.”
Katla pulled her arms from her body and turned around. The coldness was gone from her gaze, but she looked sad. “It’s the questions that make these conversations intrusive. I won’t ask you why you look so pained whenever I kiss him, but when you come on to me, I feel like a fucking proxy.”
“Didn’t Bram tell you?” Anouk looked up at her face, her vision blurring. “Tell you what happened?”
“We didn’t pry in each other’s past love lives, beyond the usual stuff.”
“The usual?”
“Whether you still care about your ex, and if you hope to get back together again. The first is commendable, the second is a deal breaker.”
Anouk felt a hand squeeze her heart. “So he doesn’t want to get back together? Ever?”
“I’d never be with a man who carried a torch for another woman, Anouk. Did you really think you’d get back together?”
In a way, Anouk had known Bram was lost to her, ever since he hooked up with Katla, but she never really accepted it as fact. But now the truth was irrefutable and she could feel the trembling in her knees creeping up her body. She tried to hold on, to hold back the tears, but the truth came crashing through the illusion and her belly was on fire like she was punched in the gut. Hot tears streamed down her face from her closed eyes. She reached behind her for the bed. Katla gently took her shoulders and sat her down. Anouk crumpled, curling up inside her grief, only dimly aware of the warm arms that held her as she sobbed.
“I’m sorry,” Anouk said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sssshhh,” Katla murmured in her ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
And the floodgates opened.
-o-
Anouk sipped her second cup of hot tea, her eyes still red from crying. “I feel like such a dope.”
Katla nodded. Her left eye was a bit red too, enough to mimic empathy. “Love makes fools of us all.”
“Lust,” Anouk corrected. “Love is great, but lust
trips us up, every time.”
“You said you screwed up,” Katla said. “But with most break-ups, two are at fault.”
“I cheated on him,” Anouk said. “I assumed he wouldn’t find out.”
“Because he was blind?”
“Maybe, but also because the woman I slept with lived in America. She runs a gallery in New York, a very influential one. I sold most of my work through her.” She looked at Katla and shook her head. “Not because I slept with her.”
“I didn’t think that. Your talent is obvious.”
“Talent is not enough, though. I struggled for years until I met her. One exhibition at her gallery and the clients queued up at my door.” Anouk finished her tea and rolled the empty cup between her palms, just like Bram always did when he was lost in thought. “I was in New York, After Party for my second exhibition at her loft, and I ended up in her Jacuzzi. Next thing I know everybody is gone and we’re in her bed and she’s making love to me.”
“You were under the influence,” Katla said. “Not that that would exonerate you, but—”
“I wasn’t high when I returned the next day.” Anouk tilted her head. “I couldn’t stay away from her. She was like you. Absolutely in control. Deliberate, never impulsive.” She sighed. “What I wish I could be, sometimes.”
“Being in control can be tiresome.”
“It’s still preferable to being a tiny boat on a sea of emotions.”
“Maybe it’s your lack of emotional equilibrium that allows you to be so creative,” Katla said. “If that’s the case, it seems a small price to pay.”
Anouk studied her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You make a better friend than I thought you would.”
Katla gave her a lopsided smile. “I’d hug you, but my ribs hurt too much.”
KILLING JAR
Fog descended over the dark harbour in the early hours just before dawn as the Zodiac puttered into the Vlothaven. Zeph looked apprehensive, but Katla pointed at another ladder set into the concrete quay. Shutting off the engine, the Rastafarian allowed the Zodiac to drift closer to the quay, using a paddle for the last few meters. Stiffly, despite the two Vicodin she’d taken earlier, Katla climbed out of the Zodiac and clung to the ladder as she pushed the dinghy away. She climbed up to the quay and stretched for a moment to warm up her muscles before she moved silently over the cracked concrete and the rails that guided the enormous cranes, their heads now firmly in the milky white blanket of fog.
They wouldn’t see her, but she wouldn’t see them either. There had to be sentries about.
Picking her way carefully, she crossed the quay to the low building. Keeping the dark building just within view, she moved to the side. What she needed was in a small shed at the rear of the building.
A red dot flared up in the fog. Cigarette. Whoever the sentry was, he didn’t have the discipline not to smoke on duty. Or hide the glowing tip in his palm.
Katla circled around the smoking sentry and didn’t find anyone else near the shed. The cheap padlock opened without resistance. Pocketing the padlock, she entered the shed, pulled the door closed and used a piece of wire to lift the hinged hasp back in place, hoping no sentry would notice the absence of the padlock. In the dark shed, she located the junction box and removed her backpack. She adjusted her headlamp to focus on the junction box, sprayed the hinges with WD40 and picked the lock. Moving slowly, she opened the lid of the box, pressing a cloth against the hinges to muffle any creaking noises from being carried away on the night air. She squatted down by her backpack, her fingers closing around the packages as she heard a step behind her. She switched off her headlamp and looked through the wooden slats of the shed as two dark figures came into view, the beams of their flashlights penetrating the darkness.
Katla took the blowpipe from her pocket and slipped it through the crack between the wooden slats. She aimed at the dark figures, then moved the blowpipe up and blew hard. Her ribs groaned with the effort, but the two plastic pellets flew noiselessly over the two sentries and clattered somewhere behind them in the darkness. The beams of the flashlights swivelled away from the building as they tried to determine where the noise came from.
As they moved away into the fog, Katla switched her headlamp back on and looked in the junction box. After fixing the small packages to the wire connections, she connected the battery and pulled the switch. She hadn’t installed a control light, so she just had to assume it all worked. She switched off her headlamp and closed the junction box, covering the handle with the cloth to mask the click of the locking mechanism as she pressed down. As she left the shed, she could see the beams of the flash lights in the dark, moving over the ground to find the source of the noise. She put another pellet in the blowpipe and shot it with a wide arch over the sentries. The new noise took them even farther away. Katla padlocked the shed and moved back to the quay again. The smoking sentry either wasn’t there anymore or he wasn’t smoking anymore, but Katla gave the corner wide berth to avoid chance encounters.
Taking her time, she found her way back to the ladder. Katla descended the ladder down to the water line, held her tactical light low over the water, and pressed the back button briefly. A thin beam of three hundred lumen shot out over the water. She counted to twenty, then pressed the button twice more. Out of the darkness, the bow of the Zodiac glided over the water and she breathed a sigh of relief. Climbing aboard, she nearly lost her footing and one of her legs slipped outside the dinghy into the freezing cold harbour water. The splash and her gasp of surprise seemed incredibly loud in the stillness and she rolled into the Zodiac, dragging her wet leg inside. Zeph tossed her a towel and turned the Zodiac around with the paddle. Katla slumped in the bow, watching the quay being swallowed by the fog as the dinghy moved towards the middle of the harbour.
With a blanket wrapped around the outboard, Zeph pulled the starter cord and the small engine puttered to life. Using the illuminated GPS screen in his free hand, he steered them out of the harbour, back to the IJ.
-o-
Nervously pacing the dark quay in front of Sphinx Shipping, Lau looked up at the evening sky. Only stars twinkled in the dark-blue velvet expanse. He didn’t need an almanac to know it was the night of the new moon. The words of the psychic rang in his mind as if she was standing next to him, whispering in his ear.
“The sound of leaving,” he whispered to himself. “Leaving this life.”
Nicky came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “I’m doomed too, right?”
Lau looked at his brother-in-arms. “I know you don’t believe her, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“The tables are turned.” Nicky gave him a cigarette and lit up one himself. “Loki won’t be able to touch us now.”
Lau nodded, but he wasn’t as sure about their victory. Feng had dug up some more information on Loki, and while most of it was unsubstantiated rumours, that alone was a sign that Loki’s expertise shouldn’t be underestimated.
Lau had killed plenty of people, but that was always straightforward, like the psychic had foretold. He was a soldier, not an assassin.
“We have the upper hand,” Nicky said. “No matter what that psychic said, it won’t be us who’ll die tonight.”
“How is your arm?”
“The cut was superficial,” Nicky said. “Zhu stitched it up. And I shoot with my right arm.”
“We have superior numbers anyway.” Lau looked around as two Blue Lanterns came around the corner after circling the building. They nodded politely at the Red Poles and walked on to make another circuit. Lau watched them until they turned the corner.
“Pretty useless,” he said. “But at least it’ll give them something to do.”
The walkie talkie hanging from Nicky’s belt crackled and Chen announced Zhang’s arrival. The Vanguard and the Cho Hai got out of the car and Nicky went with them up to the office. Lau was supposed to wait for Sieltjes and frisk her before she was brought up to the office. His though
ts went back to their first meeting. He should’ve noticed the death in her gaze. Her lack of empathy when he shot the accountant. He’d thought her calm was the shock of watching someone die before her eyes, as he’d witnessed often in people confronted by the violent death of others.
He wouldn’t underestimate her this time.
-o-
Manfred Kiekendief sat in the back of his van on the deserted quay. He peeked past the curtain that separated his work area from the driver seat and looked up at the crane. Chang had been sitting up the crane’s tiny cabin since the pale winter sky had turned from red to dark-blue. Manfred shifted his position to look across the water at the other side of the harbour, where the only lights radiated from an office one floor up from the quay. Three hundred and fourteen meters he’d measured with the rangefinder. A PGM in a regular conversion would have no trouble bridging the distance, but the suppressed version Chang was using gave the 7.62mm round a one-in-eight twist instead of a one-in-twelve, and accuracy dropped quickly beyond the two hundred meter mark. A toss-up between silence and accuracy. Manfred had offered to replace the barrel with the Commando II barrel, but Chang told him not to worry. They’d zeroed the PGM in on three hundred and twenty meters, but that was under ideal situations. Not in the dark with a night scope. At least the elevation wouldn’t change and the cold wind had been factored in, both in temperature and force, and wasn’t liable to change for the next few hours.
The cabin was unheated and Chang had sent him down to the van, maybe because he couldn’t stand his chattering teeth anymore. The van was warmer, and he had a small generator for the heat, so he didn’t have to keep his engine running. Chang would call for him when needed. He changed the page on his e-reader, the soft glow around the edges illuminating the screen.
-o-
Chang sat up in the cabin, gazing through the spotting scope at the lighted office at the other side of the harbour. For a non-sniper, Loki had excellent instincts, suggesting a crane cabin. The crane offered a great view of the harbour, and the angle between the crane and the office at the other side of the harbour was excellent. Even if someone would stand with his back against the far wall, he’d still be able to shoot them in the kneecaps, bringing their upper bodies down for the final headshot.
Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) Page 30