Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2)

by Martyn V. Halm

  If you had to die, it was better to die instantly.

  -o-

  Whoever had trained the client had done a great job.

  With the PGM fitted with the night scope ready in his hands, Chang had watched the brightly-lit office through the spotting scope held by Kiekendief as the client stabbed Zhang in his face just before the lights went out. He’d instantly moved to the PGM and shot out the three windows, aiming high to avoid hitting the client. Without the reflection of the windows, he had a clear view of the office, and his fourth round went through Ri’s head. The mediator’s body slammed Zhang against the desk and he put a bullet in the vanguard’s other eye. The client had whirled around, fighting with her cane, but someone slammed into her and she went down. Chang ejected the magazine, reloaded, swung right and dispatched two standing soldiers, all within eight seconds, as Kiekendief yelled, “Left!”

  A dark figure dropped from the window and Chang followed him down, but the dark figure scrambled behind an SUV. The two sentries walking around outside ran to the front of the building to help. Chang quickly fired two rounds into their heads, and ejected the magazine, with one round still in the breech and his eye glued to the scope. Kiekendief put a fresh magazine in his hand and he slapped it into the PGM.

  The solitary shadow behind the SUV stayed hidden. He swivelled the PGM back to the office. In quick succession he dispatched every visible head.

  In the far corner of the office Chang noticed the client fighting furiously for control with someone strangling from behind. When the client head-butted the man and spun around, her assailant released her, providing Chang with a clear shot to blow his head off.

  Near the far wall, Nicholas was lying on a body and firing in the corner where the client tried to hide. Chang aimed at his head and squeezed the trigger just as the Red Pole reared up on his knees and aimed his Glock at the corner with the file cabinet. Chang’s round went into the far wall, splintering the panelling. Nicholas flinched and glanced out of the window as something bulky flew threw the air. The Red Pole instantly threw himself forward and the bulky thing landed on his back instead of in his face. Although obviously in pain, the Red Pole struggled to aim his Glock again, but Chang put a round in his side just below the armpit and Nicholas slumped forward.

  Another head came up near the left window and Chang aimed just below the window sill, remembered not to damage the façade, and took a bead on the man’s scalp. He fired and the head disappeared from sight.

  He spotted movement near the file cabinet and saw the client’s hand with a pistol, flame spitting from the barrel as the pistol fired a round into the man he’d fired at. The barrel of the pistol moved to the lower right corner of the office and fired twice in the corner, put a bullet in Nicholas dead body, then aimed at the middle of the room and fired repeatedly.

  Chang kept his scope on the file cabinet, his finger caressing the trigger as the client limped from her hiding place to the middle of the room, making no effort to hide. He studied her through the scope.

  Even in the greenish hue of the night scope she looked a mess. Streaks of blood ran down her face, one side of her face was swollen and her shoulders were slumped with the intense weariness he’d witnessed often on the battlefield.

  “Seems like we’re done,” Kiekendief said. “The threats to the client are eliminated, right?”

  Chang studied the still figure. She’d moved like a pro, fighting her way through a room full of hostiles while under fire.

  He wasn’t looking at the director of a shipping firm. He was looking at a colleague.

  His scope suddenly tilted up as Kiekendief put a hand on his arm and said, “Chang!”

  Hissing at Kiekendief, Chang slapped his hand away and took aim again, but the client had moved out of the office door into the stairwell, where the reflecting windows hid her from his view. There was movement by the SUV near the door and he took aim, but a dark figure sprinted away to the right, moving from one Lexus to the next as Chang followed him through the scope. The dark figure turned the corner and disappeared into the stacks of wood littering the terrain behind the office building. An outboard puttered and Chang checked the Zodiac moving closer to the quay. The client had left the building and was about to descend the ladder.

  Kiekendief grabbed his arm and pulled him down. “You can’t take the risk. She might be Loki, but Loki might be more than just one person.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Chang glared at him, but Kiekendief stared back at him without fear.

  “You can’t shoot her, Chang.”

  Chang followed her slow descent down the ladder. “Who says I want to shoot her?”

  “So why are you tracking her?”

  “To follow her until she’s safely in the dinghy,” Chang said. “Even if she is Loki, shooting her wouldn’t get me my money back.”

  “Sorry. I thought—”

  “You thought wrong.” Chang looked at the Zodiac puttering away, leaving the Vlothaven harbour. “Why does everyone think I’m a sociopath?”

  “I don’t,” Kiekendief said. “You’re probably the last friend I’ve left.”

  Chang smiled at him. “Let’s get down to your van and call the cleaners.”

  He followed Kiekendief down to the van, waited until the gunsmith stepped inside and shot him point blank in the back of his head, vapourising his brain before his body noticed his head was gone. Kiekendief’s body sank on its knees and toppled forward against the workbench. With the mess contained in the rear of the van, Chang closed the doors and said, “Rest in peace, my friend.”

  He climbed behind the wheel of the van and called the Irishman and his clean-up crew.

  DARK

  Seething with rage, Lau sat with his back to a stack of wood and licked the cut on the back of his shaking hand. When he closed his eyes, he saw Gene Zhang with the fountain pen in his eye. The psychic had been right, being top dog for so long had dulled his sensibilities.

  He’d underestimated Sieltjes again. Even after Nicky had kicked the stuffing out of her, Sieltjes was more resourceful than he’d given her credit for. He should’ve wondered why she agreed to go unarmed into the lion’s den, but he hadn’t noticed her hidden weapons or expected her to have snipers as back-up. Getting out had been sheer luck, his friends were probably all dead. No doubt all exits to the harbour had been sealed off. He’d better not take the easy way out.

  In the distance he heard the faint sound of an outboard and remembered the Zodiac drifting in the harbour. That was how Sieltjes would get away.

  Taking a deep breath, he stole a last glance over his shoulder and ran from one stack of timber to the next, expecting his head blown off at any moment. Sweat drenched him by the time he reached the storage sheds as the far end of the yard. He ignored the regular exits and looked for a suitable spot to vault the fence.

  The Vlothavenweg seemed pretty deserted, but he needed to stay away from the intersection at the Einsteinweg.

  Lau took a beeline to the canal that separated the harbour area from the Nieuwe Hemweg. The canal was filled with cooling water, flowing from the industrial complex to the Neptunushaven. Spanning the canal were concrete beams twice as wide as a balance beam. Ordinarily no great feat to cross, but in the dark, with a bleeding hand and bruised ribs from a kick in the chest was a different matter. Arms outstretched for balance, Lau crossed the canal and stepped onto the marshy grassland with an embankment for coal wagons.

  He climbed through the coal train and tumbled from the embankment in a ditch overgrown with weeds. Luckily he went in feet first, but the ditch, or ‘sloot’ as the Dutch call them, turned out to be both deeper and wider than he’d expected. Lau gasped as he hit the water, his balls shriveling to peanuts as the freezing water engulfed his legs and pelvis. He managed to avoid going under, and gained uncertain footing on the muddy bottom of the sloot. As his feet sank in the bottom, the stench of rotting eggs bubbled up from whatever was decomposing in the cold mud. He ga
gged and struggled through the sucking mud to the other side of the sloot, holding his injured hand above his head in case the middle part would be deeper.

  The slope at the other side of the sloot was less steep, and he crawled on dry land again. His pants were caked with mud and his shoes were sopping with water. His teeth chattered with the cold as he ran across the Nieuwe Hemweg to the bicycle path on the other side.

  A police cruiser appeared in the distance and he stepped behind a tree, almost sliding into another ditch. When the police car passed by, he wondered if someone had alerted them to the shots and mayhem, but the area was pretty remote and close to deserted at night. He checked his knives and started walking along the bicycle path in the direction of the city.

  After fifty meters, the shipyards on his left opened up and Lau could look past the Neptunushaven to the Mercuriushaven. Sieltjes would’ve been picked up by the Zodiac by now, and transported back to the city. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but if he’d keep moving along the water he might pick up her trail further along. He’d have to move quicker than walking though.

  In the distance along the bicycle path, he saw a tiny light growing brighter and he stepped behind a tree. A low velocity scooter, what the Dutch called a ‘snorfiets’, was heading his way. Not really fast, but snorfietsen could get up to twenty-five kilometers per hour, still way faster than a bicycle. Peeking around the tree, Lau could see the lone rider, a young girl, her hair streaming behind her in the breeze.

  Snorfietsen didn’t require a helmet. Another advantage.

  Timing his assault, Lau pushed away from the tree and darted onto the bicycle path, before the girl had a chance to react. His wet pants hindered him too much for a high kick, so he simply elbowed the rider squarely in the face, her forward momentum and the impact throwing the girl from her snorfiets, which wobbled and crashed on the grassy shoulder. The girl was knocked out and Lau dragged her from the bicycle path into the grass near the ditch. Rubbing his elbow, Lau looked down dispassionately at the unconscious girl, blood bubbling from where her nose had been. He couldn’t take the risk of her regaining consciousness and alerting the authorities. Grabbing her chin and her long hair, he twisted her head and her neck snapped with a wet crunch.

  With his boots he rolled her lifeless body into the ditch. Her dark clothing made her almost invisible in the murky water. Lau hoped her water-logged clothes would make her sink below the surface. With a little luck, her body wouldn’t be found for hours, maybe not until the morning. He righted the still purring snorfiets and turned it around. She’d been about his height, so he didn’t have to adjust the saddle.

  Lau straddled the snorfiets gingerly, the wet pants clinging to his legs. Cold wind whipped around his legs, chilling them to the bone as he rode back to the city.

  -o-

  Zeph peeked under the hood of the rain poncho and studied Katla, lying with her eyes closed, wrapped in the emergency blanket in the bow of the Zodiac as the dinghy puttered over the choppy waves of the IJ.

  Katla looked like she’d been through hell and back. Her blood-streaked face was ashen and her raspy breathing worried him. She’d looked hurt when she scuffled across the quay and descended the ladder into the dinghy, but now she looked even worse. He’d been frightened just being outside on the water, listening to the sounds coming from the office. To see Katla walking out of there alive had been a relief, but maybe she had come out to die here, with him.

  He looked at the weeping sky, praying for her under his breath.

  They were passing behind the rear side of the Centraal Station, when Katla stirred and reached in the inside pocket of her long coat. She took out some papers, shredding them and tossing the pieces onto the dark water. Zeph wanted to tell her not to litter, but that seemed so trivial after what had just happened. She’d probably just laugh at him.

  Katla dropped the last pieces of paper over the side of the Zodiac and gave him a weary smile. “You did great, Zeph.”

  He nodded, his throat still to dry to speak.

  “Can you drop me off at Bram’s place?”

  “Sure,” he croaked and set course for Oosterdokseiland.

  -o-

  Amsterdam was so peaceful, viewed from the water.

  Huddled in the blanket, Katla looked up at the night sky, feeling the adrenalin fading from her body as the soft rain drops plastered her hair to her face. The thrumming of the outboard and the rocking of the boat made her sleepy. She looked at the brightly illuminated OBA public library in the distance as the dinghy puttered under the Prins Hendrikkade. Zeph had to swerve to the quay of the Kalkmarkt to let a canal boat pass, the sightseeing tourists eyeing them with mild curiosity. When the canal boat entered the Kikkerbilsluis, Zeph steered the Zodiac back to the middle of the canal.

  At the corner of the Oudeschans and the Waalseilandsgracht squatted the Montelbaanstoren.

  Zeph looked up at the tower. “I always wonder who built a mismatched tower like that.”

  “The bottom half was a defensive tower that lost its function. The elaborate top half was designed by the same architect as the Westertoren.”

  “It look weird.”

  “Its nickname is Malle Jaap,” Katla said. “Because the bells used to ring spontaneously at the weirdest moments.”

  Zeph cocked his head. “How you know all that?”

  “I read a lot.” They passed under the Keizerbrug and Katla pointed over the side at the Oudeschans quay. “A houseboat exploded here, one late afternoon. I was around the corner at the Rechtboomssloot when the shockwave, that took out most of the windows on the quay, blew through my hair. The sky was filled with tiny yellow bits of glass wool insulation that landed on the Nieuwmarkt.”

  “You was that close?”

  “I had passed the houseboat just a few minutes before, when I crossed the Keizersbrug. Despite the hour and the nice weather, the blast only injured one person, a boy who passed the boat at the time of the blast.” Katla shivered and rested her head on the side of the dinghy. “That’s life, you know. Fate is fickle. One moment you’re riding your bicycle along the quay, the next the back of your head is sheared off by shrapnel because a houseboat owner closed all his windows, but forgot to turn off the gas before he took a vacation.”

  “Jah must have protected you.”

  “That’s right, Zeph. God saved a reprobate like me, but chose to put the shrapnel in an innocent boy.” She looked at him through half-lidded eyes. “I mean no disrespect towards your religion, but I’ll stick to fate over faith, if you don’t mind.”

  “Tonight you survive a shoot-out while you not armed, sista. Jah blesses the righteous.”

  “Well, the eight men who died certainly weren’t righteous, but that doesn’t mean I am.”

  “Eight? You count the dead?”

  “No, I counted heads when I stepped into the office. All of them died.”

  Zeph shook his head. “Seven die. One jump from the window and ran away.”

  Katla lifted her head. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. The sniper shoot at him, but only hit cars.”

  Katla thought about the scrambled cell phone in her holdall between Zeph’s feet, but she couldn’t call Chang as Loki with Zeph present. She closed her eyes. Whoever it was, he probably wouldn’t be in a position to do much damage.

  -o-

  The inability to help Katla was frustrating, and the aikido class had not diminished Bram’s anxiety. While the other students filed out of the dojo, Bram sat by the torii. Tetsuo approached the altar with burning joss sticks, his footfall almost inaudible. Bram meditated frequently after practice, so his teacher moved away to the changing room, perhaps sensing his need to be alone. On his way out, Tetsuo turned a switch and Bram could hear the buzzing of the lamps disappear as the lights went out. Students were not allowed to talk during classes, so the changing room was filled with laughter and conversation, but that too died down as their voices went down the stairs.

  Blessed
silence permeated the dojo.

  Bram wished he hadn’t annoyed Chang so much, now that Katla was in the sniper’s killing jar, as she called it. Chang might not be aware how precious Katla was to him, but pissing him off, for no other reason than payback for what he’d done to Zeph, was immature.

  And now all he could do was wait. And hope.

  Silently Bram rose to his feet and went into the changing room. He undressed and showered, but, even after standing in the hot spray for ten minutes, he was still restless. He took a clean kendogi from his locker, wound the wide kaku-obi around his waist and put his hakama back on again before he unlocked the cabinet and took down his sword.

  Alone in the dark dojo, Bram ran through all his iai-jutsu kata, performing each of them several times at varying speeds, his focus blocking out all other thoughts. Still, he felt an immense sense of relief as he heard Katla limp into the changing room. He bowed to the altar and went into the changing room, where the faint metallic smell of burnt gunpowder filled his nose as she limped up to him.

  “Hey, lover. Is that a sword or are you just happy to see me?”

  The joke seemed perfunctory, her voice missing its usual spark.

  “Both,” he said. “Did everything go according to plan?”

  “Your plan paid off.” She sounded out of breath. “I’m one-point-nine million euro richer, and I destroyed the papers.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Just tired,” she said. “I think I have to take a long rest. My ribs hurt like a bitch.”

  “Maybe you should have them checked?”

  “No, I’m all right.”

  She didn’t sound all right. He’d ask Tetsuo to call Otsuka. A doctor might be able to talk some sense into her.

  He smiled at her and stroked her arm. “And the Kau Hong? Chang killed everyone?”

  “Well, I killed a few myself.” Katla put a smelly finger on his nose. “And Chang missed one guy who jumped out of the window.”

  “One of them escaped?”

  “Yes. I don’t know who. Zeph told me on the way back.”