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

Disgusted Pascal pinched the cigarette between his fingers and threw the butt into the canal. He checked the seat. A dark spot marked the tan leather. He cursed again. His pants were probably ruined as well.

With the rain dripping into his collar Pascal straightened and looked around, but Lau was nowhere to be seen. He took a last look at the cigarette mark on the seat, cursed Lau again and crossed the cobblestone road to his office.

Katla Sieltjes sat at a window table in Café Nooon on the ground floor of World Trade Center Amsterdam, sipping ginger ale and watching people through the immense glass façade while she waited for her target to arrive. Her disguise was simple—a smart suit to blend in with the financial crowd and a pair of non-prescription tortoise spectacles that altered perception of the bone structure of her face.
 

Dusk arrived early at Zuidplein, a rectangular square separating the old and new buildings of the WTC. Snowflakes danced in the yellow light of the street lamps and landed on the muddy tracks around a largely ignored temporary skating rink.
 

A man wearing sunglasses in the dusk attracted her attention momentarily, but he wasn’t blind like her boyfriend Bram—just another fashion victim. Besides, Bram never covered his damaged eyes.
 

Cyclists rode carefully over the snow toward the escalators leading down to the massive bicycle parking under the frozen square. Opposite from Nooon, on the other side of Zuidplein, was an Albert Heijn To Go supermarket, bristling with people grabbing something to eat before they hurried on toward train station Zuid/WTC.

Two businessmen came down the escalators from the second floor, strolled into Nooon and sat down at the bar, ordering Glenlivet. Katla studied them in the reflection of the window. The short one was Bert Hamerling, her client. The tall one, Ronald Heiboer, was the target. Together Hamerling and Heiboer had started a business, H&H Unlimited, currently housed on the twelfth floor of Tower B. Katla didn’t know details, but she knew Hamerling was getting tired of Heiboer. Enough to hire the services of Loki Enterprises. Hamerling was a decent actor though, didn’t show his animosity at all. He showed amusement at something Heiboer told him and his smile looked genuine enough.

After two whiskeys each, Hamerling clapped Heiboer’s shoulder and told him to be careful out on the road with all the snow. Hamerling strode past the enormous Christmas tree, went through the revolving door and walked down the square to the metro station, while Heiboer ordered his third Glenlivet. Three was his habit, so he’d be leaving in another ten minutes.

Katla left a five euro bill under her empty glass and strode to the escalators opposite the revolving door. The first escalator went down to P1, the visitor parking deck. She took another escalator to the P2 parking deck, reserved for WTC tenants. Heiboer’s Porsche Cayenne was parked in a corner under the old section of the World Trade Center. The low ceiling featured fluorescent lights that illuminated the interior of the Cayenne. That wouldn’t do. Katla donned a pair of disposable nitrile gloves, unclipped the translucent cover of the light fixture and twisted the round starter fuse. Both fluorescent tube lights winked off. She reattached the cover and went to the second fluorescent light fixture, repeating the procedure. The Cayenne was still visible in the gloom, but the interior was no longer illuminated.

Heiboer was lazy—he didn’t lock his doors with the key, but with the button on the key fob, sending the alarm code over the airwaves. According to the security system, the code changed every time any particular key was used and would be secure that way. In a way, it was. To track down the code of a particular key was a time-consuming job that would be counterproductive for the average car thief or car burglar.

Since Katla was neither a thief nor a burglar, she’d put in the effort.

The code-hopping security system was difficult to crack—not only was there a particular manufacturer’s unique code, every manufacturer could give another unique code to each type of vehicle. Keys might appear similar, but worked with different key generator algorithms. Cloning Heiboer’s key required copying the code from a key at the Porsche dealership and making sure she was close enough to Heiboer to copy his code when he used his fob to disarm his alarm. With two key codes, separating master from identifier was easy enough to clone Heiboer’s key on a blank fob with an identical microprocessor. And presto, undetectable access.

Katla pressed the button on the cloned key fob. The Cayenne’s indicators flashed and with a whirring click the doors unlocked. She climbed into the back seat and checked the trunk space. Carpeted and empty, except for an umbrella, a fire extinguisher and a first aid kit, strapped securely to the upholstery. Katla removed the tortoiseshell glasses and climbed into the trunk, did a last check of her gear and pressed the key fob, arming the alarm.

She settled down to wait, breathing slow and shallow to avoid changing the stifled air in the car. Although she had waited in less comfortable spaces, she hoped Heiboer would arrive soon. The longer she waited in the car, the more she’d warm up the air with her body heat and the more obvious it could be for Heiboer to notice he wasn’t alone.

Six minutes after she crept into the trunk, footsteps approached the car and the doors unlocked with a beep. Heiboer didn’t unlock the trunk, Katla noted with approval—always nice to have a target who doesn’t stray from his habits.

-o-

Ronald Heiboer woke with a splitting headache and knew something was terribly wrong. His eyes seemed to be covered with sticky stuff and there were tubes in his nose and mouth. He tried to lift his hand to feel his face, but his arms and legs were spread out and immobile, as if he was stuck in deep mud from the neck down. He tried to move his head, but it was also stuck and covered by the same substance as his arms and legs. The tube in his mouth was hard and unyielding, forcing it open into an O-shape. In comparison the two tubes in his nose were soft and flexible, but they irritated the nasal mucosa in his nostrils and he felt like sneezing. He listened, but his ears were covered too and the noisy rushing of blood in his ears drowned out any sound of his surroundings.

The last thing he remembered was getting into his car at the underground parking of the World Trade Center Amsterdam. Before that he’d had a couple of single malts at Nooon with David as was their custom before David took the train home to his family. The few drinks he had couldn’t account for the headache, though. Single malt whisky rarely—

A hand suddenly touched his chest and Ronald flinched, but couldn’t pull away. With a feeling of weightlessness while being compressed all over his body at the same time, he felt his body change position from being horizontal to almost upright. When the motion ended he felt like he was lying on a slope under an avalanche of snow.

The voice came through his covered ears like through a thin wall. Warm and soothing, but he couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.

“I know you’re awake, Ronald. You have to co-operate. I know you can’t speak, but grunt twice if you understand.”

He made two grunting noises through the mouth tube, aching to speak properly, to ask questions, to understand what was going on.

“Good,” the voice spoke. “I’m going to insert a tube down your throat to your stomach and I want you to relax your throat muscles.”

Ronald wondered if he’d had an accident. Even hampered by the tubes in his nose, the air he breathed smelled stilted and industrial—with traces of metallic dust and exhaust fumes—not the sanitized antiseptic air of a hospital. And latex. Like in a fetish boutique in the Red Light District.

Something slipped through the tube in his mouth and touched the back of his throat. The urge to gag was involuntary and Ronald was afraid he would vomit and suffocate. Panic was rising within him, but then the tube was retracted and the soothing voice spoke, “We’ll try it again. Try to breathe through your nose, Ronald. Easy does it.”

He breathed through his nose. The tube came through his mouth again and angled down into his gullet. He swallowed and the tube felt like a lump in his throat as it traveled down into his stomach.

“Keep breathing through your nose, Ronald.”

Cold liquid gurgled down through the tube into his stomach and blazed like molten lava. He struggled, but he couldn’t move. The liquid kept gurgling down the tube, but the molten lava turned into a warm glow—a glow he recognized. Alcohol. He could smell it now, rising up from the bottle near his mouth.

“You’re already inebriated,” the voice spoke. “Too bad this single malt by-passes your palate, but I’m sure you can imagine what Glenlivet tastes like, seeing how you already had a few.”

Oh God. This was premeditated. Some twisted fuck was getting him drunk.

Ronald tried to struggle again, but it was no use. Whatever held him down was too strong and he grew weaker as the warm glow in his stomach spread to his limbs. Tears squeezed past his covered eyelids. Despite the soothing voice, he couldn’t imagine any positive scenario following being force-fed whisky while rendered immobile. The gurgling of the whisky trickled down to a stop.
 

And everything grew silent.

Drowsily he struggled to stay awake. He had to stay awake. More tears struggled past his eyelids and he wondered why this was happening to him.

There had to be a way out. There had to be.

An angry voice yelled outside and Gene Zhang, Vanguard of the Kau Hong, took his gaze from the television and glanced out of his second story office window down at the busy street below.
 

One of the oldest and most infamous streets in Amsterdam, the Zeedijk—situated between the Red Light District and the Geldersekade—was the heart of Chinatown, always bustling with merchants, tourists and shoppers. Although it never ceased to amuse Gene to have an office on a street that was dubbed by the Chinese
Sin Tak Kai
—‘the place where charity and virtue meet’—the never abating noise was sometimes hard to bear.
 

Gene closed the window against the ruckus and turned his gaze back on the television, which showed
Xia Yi Zhan, Xing Fu
with the sound down low. Although
Next Stop, Happiness
was an acclaimed Taiwanese television drama, Gene didn’t dare turn up the volume to drown out the gabble of conversation and tinkling of cutlery on porcelain drifting up from the restaurant below.

A red light over the door flashed briefly.
 

Someone on the stairs. Probably Lau, but one never knew. He switched the television to a Chinese news channel and waited with his hand near the buzzer.
 

A staccato rap on the door.
 

Gene buzzed the door and rose from his chair to welcome his senior Red Pole. Although Vanguard, or operations officer, was a higher rank than commander of the enforcers, being cordial never hurt anyone. Lau bowed and closed the door behind him. Gene turned to the window that looked out into the Stormsteeg and motioned for Lau to stand beside him.

“The accountant,” he spoke, his voice barely over a whisper. “He’s on board?”

The Red Pole took his cigarette case from his pocket. “Fear and greed.”
 

Lau offered Gene a cigarette and they lit up.
 

“Sieltjes is confirmed?”

“Not yet.” Lau rolled the glowing tip of his cigarette in the ashtray. “Vermeer will make the arrangements, don’t worry. I’ll collect him around eight.”

From where he stood, Gene could look across the Geldersekade, to the Binnen Bantammerstraat or
Bat Tah Ngoi Kai
, ‘reaching to all cardinal points of the compass’, where Chinatown had originated in 1910, the second oldest in Europe, after London Chinatown.

“Sphinx is the only likely candidate, the only independent company.” Gene blew a plume of smoke against the glass. “We have to stay below the radar. I don’t want to lose more shipments to the 14K. Or the police.”

“I don’t foresee any obstacles. I’m sure Sieltjes won’t put up resistance.”

“Don’t underestimate Sieltjes because she’s a woman.” Gene extinguished his cigarette and turned away from the window. “The shipping world is male dominated—for a woman to get into an uncontested position of power is an accomplishment worthy of respect.”

Lau nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Who will you take?”

“Five Lanterns to guard the perimeter. Nicky will keep an eye on them and handle the outside. Chen and Wu will come with me. And Jian to drive the fork lift truck.”

Chen and Nicky were both Red Poles, but Nicky was Lau’s second in command and Chen’s senior. Chen was recently promoted, still on probation. Lau was wise to keep him close. The Blue Lanterns were all prospects, eager to be initiated and promoted to ’49’ or soldiers, like Jian and Wu.
 

“Good men.” Gene gazed out of the window again. “I’m sure everything will go well.”

Lau knew a dismissal when he heard one. He squashed his own cigarette in the ashtray and left the office. Gene waited until the light flashed over the door to show that Lau had descended the stairs and switched the television back to
Next Stop, Happiness
again.

-o-

Nicky Wang missed riding the hills around Kowloon, but the Galaxy enduro motorcycle he’d left behind in China was no comparison to his current ride. He raced down the Herengracht to the Brouwersgracht, and noticed at a glance that the pedestrian bridge across the canal was empty, so he pulled the KTM 690 in a controlled skid and rode up the steps. The bridge itself was wide enough, but the posts on the steps were little wider than his handlebars. Nicky popped a wheelie and braked slowly at the end of the Melkmeisjesbrug, keeping his front wheel aloft as he rode between the posts down the steps back to the road. The front wheel hit the road and he went full on the front brake, lifting the rear and tilting the KTM sideways. Compared to the Galaxy, the KTM was a heavy brute, but the motorcycle handled exquisitely. His rear wheel landed on the bricks again and he balanced for a moment, then rode off down the Brouwersgracht in the direction of the Haarlemmerdijk.