Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) (14 page)

Katla opened the Burgman’s buddy seat and took the anonymous black Nolan N43 helmet from the storage space. The Burgman purred to life at the first touch of the starter button and glided out of the underground parking, Katla pulled onto the Hoogte Kadijk and rode past the Kadijksplein. She flipped down the Nolan’s integrated sunscreen to hide her face as she trundled past the SUV with the Kau Hong surveillance, mildly wondering how long they would be able to stand the boredom and find something else to do.

Zeph studied the fog hovering over the dark water of the IJ, his gaze slipping over Katla sitting in the bow of the Zodiac, legs outstretched and eyes closed.
 

Clad in black from head to toe, with a woollen cap pulled over her short brown hair and smudges on her face, Katla looked like a soldier taking a nap between battles, the knee brace around her right leg strengthening the illusion.
 

The thickening fog forced him to shave past the buoys to read the numbers. A bow light came up straight ahead and Zeph swerved to starboard as the angular bow of an old freighter loomed up from the mist and bore down on them. As the Zodiac tilted, Katla opened her eyes and gazed without moving at the dark hull gliding past at a distance of less than two meters, the freighter’s backwash throwing the dinghy to the side. Zeph steered the Zodiac into the freighter’s wake, the dinghy pitching violently before reaching calmer waters. Holding on the guide ropes, Katla pulled herself up into a sitting position and peered after the stern of the freighter being swallowed by the fog.

“No worry, sista.” Zeph removed the spliff from his lips and tapped the ashes over the side. “This Zodiac is practically unsinkable.”

“I wasn’t worried about the dinghy, Zeph.”

He shrugged, stuck the spliff back in his mouth, and consulted his handheld GPS, wishing he had radar to locate other ships in the area.

“Where are we?”

He showed her the screen. “Oude Houthaven.”

Katla sank back to the bottom and folded her arms across her chest, closing her eyes again.

“Sleepy, sista?”

“No. Meditating.”

Zeph smiled to himself, sitting easily on the port side of the Zodiac, his right hand wrapped around the Mercury’s handle, keeping her at half-throttle as they puttered past the Houthavens. He turned the throttle all the way back and they drifted through the dark fog as he checked his GPS again. He should be close to the next buoy.
 

Katla opened her eyes. “Trouble navigating?”

“Just making sure I&I are still on course. Fog make it difficult.”

“We’re not in a hurry.” Leaving her right leg with the knee brace stretched out, Katla pulled up her left leg and rested her chin on the raised knee. “The fog also swallows the sound of your outboard, making our approach even stealthier.”

Zeph found the buoy and twisted the throttle again. The Zodiac entered the Mercuriushaven and he kept close to the buoys on starboard, the invisible cranes on the quay creaking in the dark. Lights were visible on shore, but not clear enough to guide him. The damp rising from the water left chilled beads like cold sweat on his face as he piloted the Zodiac past the hulls of berthed freighters into the Vlothaven.

Katla pushed herself up until she sat on the bow, holding on to the guide ropes while she looked around. “Can you find a ladder? On that side?”

Zeph crossed the harbour to the other side, watching Katla adjust the straps of her knee brace and flex her leg. As he caught sight of the quay, he pushed the handle of the outboard away to make the Zodiac describe a semicircle and putter along the quay wall. He cut the engine and allowed the dinghy to drift slowly in the direction of a ladder, one of the many set at intervals into the quay wall. The Zodiac jarred to a halt as Katla grabbed one of the bottom rungs and braced herself. While Zeph lashed the Zodiac to the lowest rung, Katla started to climb the ladder, left foot first and dragging right leg after. He finished securing the rope and grabbed one of the rungs when she halted halfway up, looked down and shook her head.

“Stay here, Zeph. I won’t be long.”

“You no want my help?”

“Piloting the dinghy is all the help I need.”

He halted and watched as she climbed on, stepped onto the quay and disappeared. He sat down again, feeling used. Was this all he was to her? A means of transport?

It’s a test, a voice inside his head said. She has to learn to trust you to do what she says.

Yeah, right.

He gazed at the oil-slicked black water, hawked and spat a white gob over the side of the Zodiac, watching it drift past the bow. No wonder harbours were so unearthly quiet at night. What bird would want to float around in that? He shivered and hawked another gob of spit into the water. He could’ve been at the Roustabout right now, maybe sit in on a jam session, instead of freezing his ass in a fogged-up harbour. The fun of the ‘expedition’ was rapidly fading and silently he urged Katla to hurry up so they could go back to the Mojo and play a game of Aliens.

From overhead came a scraping sound and he glanced up, expecting Katla to reappear, when an Asian man with a moonlike face stepped into view and pointed a big black gun at him.

“Good evening,” he spoke pleasantly. “You’re trespassing.”

“No shoot, mahn.” Zeph tapped the dark screen of his GPS, hoping the Asian wouldn’t regard it threatening and plug him. “I lost the way. This Houthaven?”

“No. Come here or I’ll sink your boat.”

It probably wouldn’t be smart to point out that a Zodiac couldn’t be sunk with a bullet. Anyway, he didn’t want any holes in his boat.
 

Trembling all over, Zeph climbed the ladder to the quay, fear buzzing his brain like a horde of angry bees. The Asian man stepped back from the edge of the quay, his gun poised at his midriff, unwavering. Almost as tall as Zeph, the Asian was slimmer, or maybe it was his black suit, the unbuttoned jacket exposing a white dress shirt without a tie.

A smile split his moonlike face in two. “Where’s your partner?”

“Partner?” Sweat broke out in rivulets all over his body as the placid features of his captor shifted into mask of anger and the gun swung up, the barrel touching the skin between his eyebrows.

“The one I saw scurrying away from this spot.”

“I—I be alone, mahn.” The acrid smell of metal and gun oil invaded his nostrils and turned his legs to jelly. He swallowed thickly and added, “I swear.”

The Asian took the gun from his forehead, smiled and rammed the barrel of the gun hard in the pit of Zeph’s belly.
 

Gasping for breath, Zeph doubled over, the crack of his knees on the bricks no comparison to the blinding pain radiating from his stomach to his heart. The Asian fished a metal tube from his pocket and screwed it tot the barrel of his gun. “Last chance, pal. Where’s your partner?”

“No partner,” Zeph croaked. A dark shape appeared through the fog behind the Asian.
 

The Asian chuckled and twirled the gun around his finger. “I’ll shoot you in the kneecaps first and work my way up to your head.”

Katla appeared like a wraith out of the fog behind the Asian, her pale face calm and determined, her dark eyes narrowed. With gliding steps, she closed the distance, her limp gone, her hospital cane stuck in her belt like a sword. When she was two steps behind the Asian, Katla sank down to her haunches, her knees popping like firecrackers. The Asian whipped around, spiralling clockwise down to the ground, his right arm outstretched, the hand with the gun slicing the air. His gun arm connected with a dull crack against Katla’s right forearm. Her arm wrapped around his arm and her free hand crossed their linked arms in a blur as she hit him in the throat.
 

Everything froze for an instant, then the Asian crumpled like a marionette whose strings were cut. He toppled sideways and rolled on his back, his knees sticking up at an angle. Katla remained crouched low, her right foot forward and her left hip turned to the front, her left arm straight out with blood dripping from her clawed hand. Zeph shifted his gaze to the Asian staring glassily at the dark sky, a hole the size of a fist in his throat. Bile floating behind his teeth, Zeph watched Katla glide forward and push the bloody clump in her left hand back in the torn hole, as if that might somehow restore the Asian back to life.

“Sweet Jesus,” Zeph groaned, biting the knuckle of his index finger to keep from throwing up. Katla wiped the blood from her hand on the dead man’s jacket, her eyes dark pits in her pale face. She rose slowly to her feet, the Asian’s gun still clamped in her right armpit. Like a juggler, she let the gun drop from her armpit and caught it in her right hand.

“Are you all right?” she asked, moving in his direction. “Did he hurt you?”

Clutching his belly, Zeph shied away from her bloodstained fingers. His midriff felt crushed as he tried to get to his feet. Katla pulled him up, her arm around his waist as she steered him away from the corpse, guiding him to the edge of the quay. His wobbly legs almost gave way under him and she sat him down on the edge of the quay, his legs swinging over the side.
 

“Stay here, Zeph. Don’t fall into the harbour, I’ll be right back.”

Katla turned and was about to walk back to the body, when he reached out and grabbed her trouser leg.

“Katla… Sista, I&I have to go.”

She looked down at his hand, her eyes dark pits in her pale face, and he released the trouser leg. Her voice was eerily calm and detached. “I’m not finished. If you feel better, go on down and wait for me.”

“Him dead, sista.”

Without another word Katla limped back to the dead man and crouched by his side.
 

Zeph turned and climbed down a few rungs, then stopped and watched Katla as a small beam of light shone from her hand, playing over the dead man. Looking like a ghoul from a B-movie, Katla opened the dead Asian’s jacket, took his wallet from his inside pocket and slipped it in a side pocket of her bomber. Her fingers delved in the wound and lifted something from the pulped mess. A string connected the object in her hand to the body and she tugged sharply, the string parting with an audible snick. The second load of bile was queuing up to enter his mouth, but he was unable to look away. Katla tore a piece from the lining of the dead man’s jacket and wrapped the object into it before sticking it away in her pocket. As she rose to her feet and turned to the quay, Zeph descended the ladder and sat next to the outboard, closing his eyes and taking shallow breaths to keep from vomiting.

The Zodiac rocked and he opened his eyes.

Katla was standing in the bow, untying the nylon rope that held them to the quay. His midriff screaming in agony, Zeph turned to the Mercury and yanked the starter cord. He sat down beside the spluttering outboard engine, his left hand holding the nylon guide rope, while his right held the Mercury’s handle. Paying no attention to him, Katla stretched out in the bow, her legs on the side of the Zodiac, crossed at the ankles. Her bloodstained fingers loosened the straps of her knee brace and she leant back, closing her eyes as the Zodiac puttered away from the quay and was swallowed by the fog. He wondered if she was meditating again. She seemed way too calm for someone who just ripped out someone’s throat. The pain in his stomach got worse and he rubbed his belly softly while he piloted the Zodiac. Katla shuddered and opened her eyes, gazing numbly at her left hand. She looked up at him, a haunted look in her eyes.

“His skin tore under my fingers,” she whispered. “Just like that.”

“I know you no mean kill him, sista.”

“You’re wrong.” She swallowed thickly. “I think I did.”

“Why?”

“I could’ve stunned him with this.” Her bloodied hand floated up from her leg, wavering horizontally in the air, the web between the thumb and index finger stretched taut. “But I turned my hand and sank my fingers into his throat. I knew it would kill him.”

“You wanted him dead?”

She nodded and hung her head, unable to meet his eyes.

Katla followed Zeph up the gangway, noticing his slow progress. He was bearing up well, but the vicious blow of the sentry must have hurt him severely. When they reached the deck of the Mojo she said, “Maybe we should have you checked for internal injuries.”

“I’m all right, sista. A bit nauseated, that’s all.”

Shaitan padded around the corner, eyeing her suspiciously as she nudged Zeph’s leg with her blunt snout. The Rastafarian patted her head and sent the Rottweiler away, then shuffled into the pilothouse. Katla followed him inside and sat down beside him on the mattress. When she was sure she had his attention, she started to shake again, flexing her fingers while small crumbs of dried blood dropped on the carpet in front of the bed.
 

“I have to wash my hand,” she murmured. “My nails are caked with blood.”

“I have hot water in the kitchen.”

She limped to the kitchen and turned on the taps over the sink, rinsing the blood from her fingers. The strike had driven blood under her nails, too deep for the water to reach.

“You have a nail brush, Zeph?”

“Nail brush?”

Clearly the concept of a brush to clean nails was alien to him.

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied and turned off the taps. She could clean her nails with her knife, but she didn’t want to whip it out in front of Zeph. After she dried her hands, Katla flexed her fingers, staring into the blue.

“You want drink something, sista?”

She shook her head. “I’m tired, going home.”

With Zeph hovering behind her, Katla walked unsteadily to the steps leading to the pilothouse. He watched her from the pilothouse as she limped slowly down the gangway to her Burgman and removed her helmet from the storage space under the seat, slow and halting in her movements.
 

“Katla?”

She looked at him with a dreamy expression, noted concern in his eyes and blinked. “I’ll be all right, Zeph.”

“Take care, sista. No accident, sight?”

“I’ll take it slow,” she said and started the Burgman, pulling away with a slight jerk. Another small sign to show that she wasn’t herself.