Barry Eisler: Requiem for an Assassin

“No,” Naftali said.

Boaz and I both looked at him. Boaz said, “I knew you could talk.”

“He doesn’t leave right away,” Naftali said, ignoring the commentary. “He’s lost all his cutouts and he’s dealing with Boezeman directly now. Boezeman can connect the operation to him. First, he kills Boezeman. Then he gets the hell out of Dodge.”

We were all quiet for a moment. Naftali had just made a damn good point.

“All right,” I said. “Where does he get to Boezeman?”

Naftali shrugged. “Where are we talking about getting to him?”

Boaz nodded. “You’re right. And I don’t like the idea of waiting for Boezeman in the same place and at the same time as Hilger. A lot of things could go wrong.”

“Why don’t we call him?” I said. “Boezeman. Flush him out. If he knows anything, we’ll be able to tell.”

“It’s risky,” Boaz said. “It would be warning him.”

I shrugged. “He’s still got to come home tonight. If the call doesn’t get the results we want, we can always use the apartment as plan B.”

I took out the notes I had made from the information on the Kanezaki bulletin board. “Here’s his mobile,” I said. “Let’s see what happens if our friend Boezeman gets an unexpected phone call.”

Boaz handed me a mobile. “Sterile,” he said.

I input the number. Two rings, then a deep voice: “Hoi.”

“Hello, Mister Boezeman?”

“Yes, speaking.”

I thought of the names Kanezaki had mentioned on the bulletin board. “I’m a friend of our mutual acquaintances, James Hillman and William Detts.”

I paused. Boezeman said, “Yes?”

Not an “I’m sorry?” or a “Who?” Something about the word choice, and his tone, told me I’d hit pay dirt.

I waited longer, seeing what the pressure of silence might produce.

“Uh, is this about the rental property?” he said.

Goddamn, it was working. That was a bona fide if ever I’d heard one.

“I’m supposed to give you a signal in return, right?” I said.

“Who…who is this?”

“I’ll explain who I am, Mister Boezeman. Right now, I’m either your best friend or your worst enemy. I’ve been investigating James Hillman for more than two years. I know what he’s doing in Rotterdam. I know how he’s using you to do it. Cooperate with me, right now, or the next call you get will be from the national police and security services.”

There was a long pause. I could hear his breathing. It was fast.

“I…what do you want?” he said.

“To meet you. Right now. To tell you what Hillman has really been up to and for you to brief me. In return for that, I won’t make that phone call to the police. But one thing first. It’s very important. It’s for your safety. Did you meet with Hillman earlier today?”

“I…I…why?”

He met him. It was all right there in his voice.

“You’re not safe,” I said. “You can’t go home tonight. Not until we’ve taken care of this.”

“How…I don’t even know who you are.”

“Are you at work now?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’ll have an hour to think about all this, and you’ll see that trusting me is your only option. I’m on my way to Rotterdam now. I’ll call when I arrive. We can meet anywhere you like. You’ll want to choose somewhere public.” I clicked off.

Boaz frowned. “You’re going to let him choose the place?”

“Of course not. I just want to get him moving. Once he takes some action, he’ll take more. Now let’s go. I’ll brief you on the way.”

Their car was parked near the hotel, a Mercedes C Class with a navigation system. Naftali drove. Boaz input Boezeman’s work address. We were there in less than an hour-not the city of Rotterdam, which I’d heard was pretty, nor even the port itself, but instead the refinery complex, a sprawling network of waterways plied by freighters and garbage scows; thousands of miles of pipes twisting in all directions, carrying who knows what to God knows where; squat oil tanks and rotating power turbines and towers belching smoke into a sky the color of lead.

I called Boezeman again. He answered immediately.

“I’m here,” I said. “Near your office at the refinery.” I gave him the address of a gas station we had just passed, and he said he was coming.

“Told you,” I said to Boaz, and he smiled.

We drove a little ways off and parked on a rise with a view of the gas station parking lot. Like his apartment, Boezeman himself was a Hilger nexus, and we had to be careful.

Five minutes later, a blue Fiat pulled into the corner of the gas station lot, eschewing the pumps. We waited a minute, watching through the binoculars, and saw no cars following.

Naftali drove us in. Boaz and I had the USPs out and ready. As we pulled into the gas station, we saw Boezeman, sitting alone in the car.

I rolled down my window. “Let me see your hands, Mister Boezeman,” I said. He complied, and we crept closer. I could see the backseat now. It was empty. Okay.

“Watch my back,” I said to Boaz. Never a phrase that made me particularly comfortable. But if it was good enough for Dox with Boaz, it would have to be good enough for me.

“We’ve got you,” Boaz said, and I stepped out of the car. Boezeman got out, too.

We stood there in the rain, looking at each other, Boezeman’s expression plainly afraid. “What kind of trouble am I in?” he said to me, and I thought, Thank God this guy’s just a civilian and not a hard case.

“I’m going to give you some information,” I said, “and then you’re going to give me information in return. Fair enough?”

Boezeman nodded, looking nervously at Boaz and Naftali.

“The man you know as James Hillman also goes by Jim Hilger. He’s working for radical Islamic interests. He’s smuggled a radiological device into Rotterdam. A dirty bomb.”

The color fled Boezeman’s face. “Oh, my God.”

“I can tell by your reaction that you didn’t know what you were mixed up in,” I said. I expected that in his distressed state, he would pick up the possibility of exculpation and run with it.

He did. “I never knew. Never. They never told me, but I thought…”

“Drugs?” I offered.

“Yes, only drugs. Oh, my God.” His face had gone from white to green. It looked like he might puke.

“Mister Boezeman. This is important. You met with Hilger today, didn’t you?”

He nodded. I waved to Boaz and he got out of the car.

“Did you give him access to the refinery facilities?” I said.

“He…had to retrieve something from a container. I had the container brought from the port and stored on the refinery grounds.”

“Why?”

“I have more access at the refinery. And Hillman-Hilger-he told me to do it that way.”

“Did you ever take a look at what’s inside in the container?”

“I tried once. There were cases, but both were locked.”

“All right. Did you let Hilger into the container?”

His frozen expression was all the answer we needed.

Boaz said, “The bomb is armed.”

Boezeman turned away, doubled over, and vomited.

I looked at Boaz. “Can you disarm it?”

He shrugged. “I can disarm anything. With proper tools. And enough time. And with access, of course.”

“Well, you’re only going to get one out of three,” I said. “If we’re lucky.” I turned to Boezeman. “Listen,” I said. “You have to pull yourself together. We can still rectify this if we hurry. But we need more information. Where is Hilger now?”

“I…I don’t know.”

I wasn’t asking the questions right. Boezeman was so agitated, he was getting the mental equivalent of tunnel vision. He was responding too narrowly, I could feel it.