Fundamental Error - A Katla KillFile (Amsterdam Assassin Series)

by Martyn V. Halm

  “And you think the Secret Service would bungle it.”

  Brandt shrugged. “My brother isn’t a run of the mill terrorist. He studied at the Technische Universiteit of Delft. He’s a technical wizard. If the AIVD would start sniffing around his ‘brotherhood’, Roel would find out in a heartbeat.”

  “How extreme is your brother?”

  “Roel went for a trip to Morocco, but I found out later he went to Pakistan. I don’t doubt that he’d be a martyr for a cause he believes in.”

  “If he traveled to Pakistan, your brother might be on the AIVD’s watch list already. Most foreigners visiting Pakistan are flagged.”

  Brandt shook his head. “My brother is extremely astute. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept tabs on the AIVD instead of the other way around.”

  “I’m going to ask you a difficult question,” Katla said. “And I want you to think carefully before you answer.”

  The young man nodded. “You want to know how far you can take this?”

  “We need to know. How important is your brother’s survival?”

  PRESENT DAY II

  Standing on the slowly ascending escalator, Fahd was terrified. The plastic poodle was heavier than he thought it would be, but he couldn’t put it down. His hands were slimy with sweat and he was constantly afraid the slick plastic toy would slip from his grasp. Although the pressure switch was attached to the wheels of the poodle, he was worried a mere shock would detonate the bomb before he reached the balcony.

  Someone muttered in protest and he glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a burly man charging up the escalator past the elderly woman directly behind him.

  For a moment Fahd thought he was going to be stopped by some undercover cop, but the man looked past him and pushed him aside. Fahd managed to lift the wheels of the poodle clear as he was wedged against the side of the escalator. Sweat popped out of his skin all over his body and his mouth was too dry to curse.

  “Are you all right?” The elderly woman behind him on the escalator studied him. “You’re awfully pale.”

  “Something I ate,” Fahd muttered, remembering the lavish meal the brotherhood had prepared for him two days ago, right before the fasting and cleansing ritual Muhammad had put him through. “I’m okay.”

  “Where’s your little one?” the woman said. “I have two granddaughters myself, but they’ve outgrown those stride-to-ride horses.”

  “I—I just sent her home with her brother,” Fahd lied, glad the escalator had reached the end. “Enjoy your day.”

  Although he had studied the floor plans of Magna Plaza several times, Fahd still needed to turn around to locate the balcony on the other side of the building, next to the descending escalator.

  Looking at the waist-high banister, he saw a way out of his predicament. If he dropped the poodle over the parapet, the bomb would detonate when it hit the marble of the ground floor. If he threw himself backward at the same time, the floor of the balcony would be between him and the shrapnel. He could just say that he reached too far and dropped the bomb over the edge, instead of setting it down firmly on the banister.

  For the first time since the bright pink bomb had been pressed into his arms the sense of doom lifted and Fahd smiled. Not too confident, because he still had to cross the busy arcade with the lethal poodle package, but he would manage.

  He had to.

  On shaky legs, Fahd started the long walk down the arcade to the balcony.

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER II

  Katla looked with compassion at the young man pondering her question. Condemning a family member to prison or death is not a choice made easily.

  “I don’t want to delude myself into thinking that Roel will come to his senses,” Peter Brandt said. “Everything makes perfect sense to him.”

  “So you don’t think he’ll respond positively to an intervention?”

  “Well, I think Roel considers me and everyone else to be in denial. In his eyes, we’re all heathens and stupid consumers of the crap fed to us by our capitalist governments. And he has arguments to back up his beliefs.”

  “I don’t want to mince words here, Mr. Brandt. If your brother is a true believer, Loki might have to put him down to stop him.”

  “I think Roel is fully committed to his cause.” Brandt bowed his head. “I love my brother, but I cannot live with the idea that innocents will have to die just to prove his point.”

  “We’ll do our best not to hurt your brother, but if he does get hurt, you can rest assured that there was no other solution.”

  Brandt nodded.

  Katla took out a business card and wrote on the back. “This is our fee for this job. I already subtracted the consulting fee. Corporations usually have twenty-four hours to remit the fee, but I understand that this is privately funded, so I need to know how much time you’re going to need to raise the money.”

  Brandt studied the card, no surprise on his face. “I should be able to raise this in seventy-two hours, if that’s all right with you.”

  “The fee must be in our accounts before we act.” Katla smiled at him. “We don’t work on credit.”

  “The brotherhood has been planning for a while now. I think they’ll strike within two weeks.”

  “I’m in charge of prepping the assignment, Mr. Brandt. I have to draw up a strategic plan, and I need to compile a full dossier on your brother and his brotherhood.”

  “You’ll need my help for that.”

  “Yes, we will. Do you think you’re up for that?”

  Brandt nodded. “I will spy on my brother for you.”

  “The most important thing is to find out where they will strike, so I can inspect the location. If you have intel about the cell phone numbers they use, the vehicles, anything that will give us an edge.” She handed him a hard disk with a mini-USB connector. “If you can, connect this to his smart phone and press the button. It will copy the contents of his phone without leaving a trace.”

  “How will I know if it finished copying?” Brandt turned the hard disk over in his hand. “Does it give a signal?”

  “A blue light flashes while copying. The LED will burn steadily when it’s finished. You can just pull out the USB connector and it will shut down.”

  Brandt put the hard disk in his bag. “Anything else?”

  “If you have a phone or digital camera, try to see if you can find any documents or blueprints and take pictures. You can connect the hard disk to your own phone or camera and do the same thing as with your brother’s phone.”

  “Won’t it also copy everything else on my phone?”

  “Loki Enterprises is not interested in your contacts or saved text messages, Mr. Brandt, but if that worries you, just back-up your smartphone files on your computer before you connect the hard drive.” Katla got up from her chair and shook his hand. “If you need to contact us, just call the pager. Preface with hashtag 112 if you need to be contacted urgently.”

  “I will.”

  He gathered up his stuff and left the hotel room.

  Katla waited a moment, then left the room and took the emergency stairs, crossing quickly to her Vespa parked on the other side of the street while she waited for Brandt to leave the hotel. She almost missed him coming out of the hotel parking garage, driving a four or five year old Nissan Sunny.

  Katla started her Vespa and followed the Nissan to the A10 ring road. She regretted taking her Vespa. While the top speed of the modified scooter was close to a 120 kilometer per hour, cruising speed was less than 100. If Peter Brandt was a speed demon he’d lose her easily, even on the busy ring road.

  Her luck was with her, because Brandt turned out to be a considerate careful driver, keeping close to the 100 kph speed limit, so she had no difficulty following him to the southern ring road where he took the exit for RAI. Brandt drove down Europaboulevard past the towering Novotel hotel and turned right on Van Nijenrodeweg, halting before a high-rise overlooking the lush green of the Gijsbrecht van Aemstelpark.

/>   Katla waited until he disappeared inside and checked the rows on name plates near the entrance. She found a simple tag with ‘Brandt’, jotted down the number and the plate of his Nissan Sunny, then went home.

  PRESENT DAY III

  Feeling the incredible rush of adrenalin at the sight of the suicide bomber with the pink poodle toy, Raymond Greve was glad they hadn’t alerted the Magna Plaza security staff to the impending terrorist attack.

  While TTT security was by no means the worst of the private security firms, the retail security guards were severely underqualified to negate a serious threat. The few times Raymond had responded to a bomb threat at De Bijenkorf, the in-house security staff had shown excitement at having to evacuate the building, as if it had all been part of some elaborate charade.

  In case of a suspected suicide bomber, the normal procedure—evacuating the building and cordoning off the site while remote bomb sniffers searched the building for explosives—didn’t apply. Evacuating Magna Plaza would alert the bombers and cause them to delay their attack, while informing them their plans had leaked. They could just as easily change tactics or locations. With political terrorists like the IRA, the main goal was to disrupt business and drain economic resources with the ensuing carnage a secondary goal. Religious zealots were a whole other bag. Suicide bombers elevated carnage and suffering to their primary goal. Religious nutters wanted to punish the wicked.

  “RG, first floor, North-East corner,” he spoke softly in his earpiece that looked like an ordinary bluetooth cell phone. “Target in view.”

  A slight hiss of static then the voice of his commander Sander Dauw came through bright and clear. “RG, remote trigger not yet acquired.”

  “Target looks jumpy, SD. Heading towards central balcony.”

  “LL? KR? Anything yet?” Sander sounded calm, but Raymond knew he would be as tense as the team inside.

  Leonard answered first. “Negative, SD.”

  Karel came in just after. “Negative, SD.”

  “LL, converge on balcony. RG, don’t allow target to drop the device.”

  The information they’d received mentioned pressure switches in the bomb, but not how they were triggered. They’d have to bundle him up with the device and get him out of the building to the mobile bomb container parked in the Spuistraat, hoping that there wouldn’t be someone armed with a remote detonator. If there was, they were screwed as soon as they moved in. Or even spotted.

  Raymond noticed Leonard striding through the crowd. “LL, slow down pace.”

  Leonard slowed down and checked out a shop display, using the shiny plate glass window to track the target’s progress. Raymond did the same, turning to the shop window of the Emporio Armani store to follow both the target’s progress and Leonard’s slower pace. Even with the slower pace Leonard would make it to the balcony in time for their pincer movement.

  The commander’s voice came over the headsets again. “KR, status report?”

  “Heading for top floor, SD. No sign of remote trigger yet.”

  Raymond spotted Karel halfway up the escalator, his stooped posture belying his battle-readiness. If there was someone with a remote detonator on the second floor, Raymond had no doubt Karel would spot him.

  Another thirty seconds went by with the target slowly moving to the balcony, looking pale and shifty-eyed. Raymond prayed he wouldn’t drop the device prematurely. If their information was correct, the ‘martyr’ was supposed to detonate the device on the balcony for maximum effect.

  “We’re running out of time. RG, are you ready for intervention?”

  Raymond fingered the telescopic baton in his pocket. “Affirmative, SD. Keep stairwell clear.”

  “Stairwell cleared, RG, you’re good to go.”

  The adrenalin in his system was raising his heart rate to the point where everything seemed to go in slow-motion. The man with the pink poodle seemed to come in his direction as if he was wading through molasses with Leonard coming up behind him. Timing would be crucial. They needed to incapacitate the bomber at the precise moment. Dropping the ball, or the poodle in this case, was simply not an option.

  Raymond turned and entered the balcony, his gaze purposely avoiding the nervous man clutching the bomb. He had to act natural, as if he wanted to enjoy the view.

  His fingers tightened on the telescopic baton. The guy would probably be high as a kite on adrenalin overload and maybe even drugs. Despite their so-called purification rituals, investigators had found traces of PCP in the blood of several suicide bombers. Made sense, to take Angel Dust when you went to meet your maker. Even without drugs, the effects of the adrenalin dump would cause heart palpitations, excessive sweating and tunnel vision that could only be lessened by rigorous training under high stress levels that would make adrenalin dumps less debilitating. Also, similar to being high on PCP, adrenalin dumps increased people’s pain thresholds to almost superhuman levels. They’d have to come down hard and hit to incapacitate, not to hurt. Hurting him would give him a chance to react, and any reaction would most likely be fatal to them.

  From the corner of his eye he spotted the pink poodle coming closer. Jesus Christ, it looked just like the Little Pony strider Suusje used to have, now almost a decade ago.

  Don’t think about your family or you’ll freeze at the moment of action.

  The man halted about two paces away.

  As if through a haze, Raymond turned full circle with his hidden hand drawing the telescopic baton and his thumb on the switch. Behind the oblivious terrorist Leonard gave him a tense smile and a nod.

  Ready.

  The terrorist shifted the poodle from under his arm to both his hands, as if he was about to set it down.

  Raymond looked into Leonard’s eyes, noticing the white spots around his nose. He pushed the stud on the baton and the well-oiled parts slipped out of the handle, clicking softly into position. Starting his half-turn, Raymond gave Leonard the nod.

  They were moving in perfect symmetry when a terrified shriek of desperation pierced their ears through their bluetooth earpieces and echoed through the spacious hall. They both froze in their tracks as the terrorist darted for the railing.

  ONE WEEK EARLIER

  Peter Brandt had returned her hard drive on their second meeting. Katla had forwarded the list of contacts from Roel Brandt’s telephone to Moghul, a blackhat hacker who specialised in penetrating databases. Within 24 hours she received a list of places where the numbers had been.

  With triangulating software Katla managed to pinpoint convergences. Brandt’s telephone and those of his fellow terrorists converged several times on two locations: twice in a house near Rijnstraat and eight times in the apartment in Buitenveldert, where he lived with his brother Peter. More importantly, Brandt and one other number had frequently visited Magna Plaza for half an hour at a time. From the data Moghul had harvested emerged a pattern that showed their phones circling the shopping centre in a methodical fashion.

  Casing the building.

  Magna Plaza would be the target. No doubt about it.

  Obscuring her face with oversized sunglasses and a jaunty beret, Katla went to Magna Plaza at half past two, knowing most security shifts changed at three in the afternoon. Under her trench coat she wore an unmarked security uniform, her pockets stuffed with badges from a variety of security firms.

  As soon as she found the security guards were with TTT, Katla ducked into the public restrooms, flipped through the patches in her pocket and selected the appropriate badges that attached to her jacket with velcro. Not to mingle with the guards—who might actually realise she wasn’t a colleague—but to fool Magna Plaza personnel into thinking she was either beginning or ending her shift. Uniforms had the strange tendency to make the wearer forgettable and blend with the scenery, allowing Katla to use the corridors and stairs behind the stores without raising suspicion. The sunglasses and beret would look at odds with the uniform, so she slicked back her hair with water and put on thick horn-rimmed glasses th
at changed perception of her already pretty nondescript bone structure.

  With the trench coat in a plastic shopping bag, Katla left the restrooms and began her inspection.

  The emergency doors were protected with an electronic lock that could be opened by a keycard or breaking the glass holding a button suspended in a tiny green box. Katla sorted through her keys for the thin plastic manufacturers rod that allowed technicians to change the glass without tripping the alarms. She inserted the rod into the underside of the box to trip the lock, opened the door and slipped the rod out of the box.

  Moving with nonchalant ease, Katla roamed the bare access corridors behind the shops, noting where reality deviated from the 1992 blueprints. Or details that were never shown in the blueprints, like most backdoors to the shops being protected by card readers similar to the ones guarding the emergency doors. Twice Katla encountered shop personnel in the narrow corridors, but in both cases a friendly nod was enough to allay suspicion.

  Small dome cameras mounted on the ceilings to observe the corridors and stairwells were probably recording her passage, but she didn’t raise any alarms. Either nobody was paying attention or the uniform convinced them of her legitimacy. And the cameras high position combined with her thick glasses would make positive identification pretty difficult, as long as she didn’t look straight up in the lens.

  As she went down to ground level, Katla came to a door that doubled as emergency exit and delivery access, propped open to provide an improvised smoking zone for personnel.

  None of the smokers standing around chatting with each other questioned her as Katla stepped through the open door into the Spuistraat and walked away to her Vespa motor scooter parked by the main entrance.

  Katla unclipped the camera from her lapel and switched off the recording, before she mounted the Vespa.

  Her pager vibrated and she checked the number. Peter Brandt, his number preceded by #112.