Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin

I did. In addition to a full complement of fishing gear, there was a Benchmade Mini-Reflex with a three-inch blade. I pressed the catch and the blade sprung into place.

“Nice,” I said.

“Don’t get caught with it. It’s illegal except for active duty military and law enforcement. You could get in trouble.”

I laughed and pocketed the knife. “What about the body armor?”

“In the closet.”

I glanced over. Two blue vests hung from a pair of hangers. I walked over and hefted one. “Christ, it’s light,” I said. “You sure this is any good?”

“Dragon Skin. It’ll stop a 7.62 round at twenty-four hundred feet per second.”

I nodded, liking the sound of that. “You’ve got two in here,” I said.

“I’m going with you.”

I looked at him, and saw he was serious.

“No,” I said. “It’s not necessary. It’s not even a good idea.”

“I’ve thought it through. I don’t see how you can do it alone. Figure at least two fixed defenders, maybe more, and…”

“Do I seem to be getting old?” I asked.

“What? No. I mean, the same as usual.”

“At the rate I’m going, I half expect someone to try to take my arm when I go to cross the street.”

“Why, who else is trying to help you?”

“Never mind.”

“Anyway, it wouldn’t matter if you were twenty. That’s not the point.”

I thought of Boaz. “I’ve got something that’ll change the odds.”

“What?”

“Let’s just say you’re not my only low friend in high places.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Look,” I said, “it’s not that I’m not grateful. But you and I have never operated together before, not when it comes to kicking down doors, anyway. We’re as likely to get in each other’s way as we are to do each other any good. Trust me on this, okay?”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re an ops guy, Tom, and you’ve turned into a damned good one. But you’re not a shooter. Play to your strengths. You’ll live longer.”

We were quiet for a moment. He said, “You’re still going to need someone to drive. I’ve got a van.”

I thought for a minute. I had been planning to rent a car myself. If I managed to drop everyone cleanly inside the boat and Dox was in good shape, we could walk leisurely out to the parking lot when it was done. If he wasn’t in good shape, or if there was pursuit, having a car waiting with the engine running could make all the difference.

“All right,” I said. “You drive, and I go in.”

“Deal. How about the rest?”

“Hilger wants to do the call at sixteen hundred local time. That gives me the rest of the morning and early afternoon to pick up the other equipment I need, get a feel for the layout of the yacht club with Google Earth, reconnoiter the perimeter, and go in.”

“You sure he’ll make the call from the boat?”

I paused, seeing a disconnect between us that I’d missed until just now. “Yeah, I’m sure. The purpose of the call is proof of life. He’s got to be able to put Dox on, assuming Dox is even still alive, and there’s no way they’re going to move Dox off the boat. So the boat is where the call happens. But the call isn’t when I want to go in. I want Hilger off the boat, not on it.”

“I don’t get it. How…”

“Hilger is secondary. If I hit the boat early, maybe he won’t be there. It’s one less person shooting back at me, and Hilger is a damn good shot. If I wait until the call, their numbers likely go up, and my odds of getting Dox out go down.”

Not that I hadn’t been tempted to go for the “two birds with one stone” scenario. Certainly, the iceman wanted to do Hilger badly enough to wait until he was sure to be on the boat. But if Dox got killed because of my lust to kill Hilger, I wouldn’t be able to live with it. We could always pick him up later. One thing at a time.

Kanezaki almost said something, didn’t, then almost said it again.

“What?” I said.

“If you’re not going to do Hilger, help me with something else.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I told you in the bulletin board message, this is bigger than just Hilger. The kind of thing I was hoping to prevent by taking him out, I think it’s already under way.”

I said nothing, and he went on. “Hilger used to be military, and after that, the Agency. You know what the difference is now?”

I shook my head.

“There’s no oversight now, and he’s running a for-profit outfit. Translation: He can do anything, for anybody. Look what he was mixed up with in Macau-radiological-tipped missiles with that arms merchant, Belghazi. Then in Hong Kong, nuclear matériel to the terrorist, Al-Jib. Do you see a pattern here?”

“I suppose so, but…”

“So what do you think it means that he’s found a way to put his own agent temporarily in charge of Rotterdam port security?”

“I don’t know.” I might have added that I didn’t care, but there was no advantage in provoking him.

“It means he can bring anything he wants into the port.”

“So…”

“Rotterdam is the largest container port in Europe, and every one of the world’s leading oil and chemical companies is active there. You’ve got four world-class oil refineries and more than forty chemical and petrochemical companies. We’re talking jet fuel, gasoline, everything. It’s a major terrorist target.”

“Because…”

“Because if something shuts down the refineries, the price of refined petrochemical products skyrockets. Driving, flying, heating oil, you name it. Shortages of everything, and the world economy drops to its knees.”

“You think that’s what Hilger’s up to?”

“I think that’s what he’s being paid to do, although I don’t know by whom. But here’s the way I see it. Accinelli’s company sells chemicals, right?”

“I know.”

“Including radioactive materials like cesium 137, which is used in oil drilling, atomic clocks, certain medical applications…and dirty bombs.”

I was quiet, waiting for him to go on.

“Hilger and Accinelli went way back, all the way to the first Gulf War. I think they were friends, as you suggested. I think Accinelli introduced Demeere and Boezeman at that security conference in New York, and I think Accinelli procured cesium, or something like it, for Hilger, maybe under false pretenses. I think the reason Hilger had Accinelli killed was because he knew too much, he’d be able to connect Rotterdam to Hilger if something happened there.”

“That’s a lot of speculation.”

“There’s more. Remember the British Petroleum Prudhoe Bay shutdown? Because the pipes were rusty? That was Hilger.”

“Hilger put rust in the pipes?”

“There was no rust. Hilger has information on everyone, he blackmailed the people who make those decisions at BP. All pipes have some rust, just not enough to matter. But who could contradict the company? It was the perfect excuse. I think Hilger wanted to see the global impact of an interruption. And I think he found it unsatisfactory. He wants something bigger-not just a pipeline, a whole refinery complex. Like the one at Rotterdam.”

I sighed. “Why can’t you deal with him through channels?”

He laughed. “I’ve got a friend in the Inspector General’s Office. I talked to him about Hilger once. He told me the man is untouchable. No one even wants to mention his name. The word is, he’s got leverage on a lot of people, and powerful friends, too. No one’s willing to go after him at the top, and if you try from down below you’ll run into obstructions, or worse. Do you get it now? The system’s broken.”

We were quiet for a moment. I said, “What are you asking me?”