An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam

by Michael Grant

I don’t think Hangwoman even noticed that I was recording video, video that caught the bright light of fanatic’s joy on her face, video that caught her reflexive reaction. Video that showed stacks of cash before her. She took the gold Hitler in her hands.

  I stopped recording.

  ‘No, no, no, you don’t get to keep it.’ I had to pry the damned thing from her. Like trying to get a piece of Christ’s robe away from a leper. Like the thing was magic.

  ‘Now, here’s what I’ve got, my little storm troopers. I have pics and video of this asshole naked on the floor, obviously distressed. And I have you, you insane bitch, with money on the table in front of you, eighteen carat Adolf in your hands, and a selfie proving we’re besties. Now, you may be able to convince your Nazi pals that it’s all a frame. But you already have to explain why you failed to kill me, and why you lost the hard drive with maybe not the only, but certainly the latest, version of your app. So my guess is they’ll shoot first, ask questions never.’

  ‘You’re going to let them live?’ Ian was astonished.

  ‘I don’t murder people.’

  ‘Well, I do if my life depends on it!’

  ‘You’re wearing a balaclava, Frank. Even if their Nazi pals buy their story they won’t know who you are.’

  ‘He knows you, Jimmy. And he knows you’ve got that.’ Ian jerked his chin toward the statuette.

  ‘I’m not too worried about it,’ I said. ‘I have the hard drive. And I have friends who will know what to do with it.’

  My ‘friends’ the FBI. Life has a sense of humor.

  SEVENTEEN

  One day out. One day.

  ‘I’m less concerned with vibration than with the light, that’s the bigger issue.’

  ‘Ah, is that so?’ Ian nodded as if he understood, but he didn’t. Fortunately he was much better than I with hand tools.

  We were in Ian’s rental apartment, cross-legged on the floor and surrounded by saw, drill, drill-bit set, hammer, mallet, sanding blocks, tubes of glue, black felt, sawdust and a video camera. A large plastic storage bin with a tight-fitting top was the easy part. Then we had to cut a platform or base that would fit snugly within the bin. The stand locking the camera in place was a nightmare but we (Ian) had figured it out. Then, recognizing that the camera and the small lights to either side might well not last a full twenty-four hours, we (Ian) had added batteries and wires and applied a soldering iron which only burned Ian twice.

  Finally we had to place the print. I could not hope to replicate the look of the frame, so we were working on presenting the print in such a way that it looked less like paper and more like canvas that had been cut from a frame. In the end we went with simple thumbtacks and attached the print to a piece of plywood we took the better part of an hour just cutting to size.

  Easily six hours of work all told, just for what I was calling ‘the package’.

  ‘This is why I don’t own a home,’ Ian muttered. ‘All the mending and the fixing and plumbing and whatnot.’

  ‘That, plus no one in his right mind would ever give you a mortgage.’

  He laughed. ‘True enough, Jimmy, true enough.’

  In the end we had a camera fixed on a length of wood and pointed at a pinned-up print.

  ‘Let’s try it out.’

  I opened my laptop and went through the inevitable hassle of getting technical objects to obey me, and then, finally, an image appeared on my laptop. Worked on my phone, too. Ian leaned over my shoulder.

  ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘But let’s lower the resolution a notch on the camera. Fucking HD is too good.’

  We adjusted and tried it again.

  The image showed the print I’d made of Vermeer’s Jewess at the Loom. We had a bit of an issue with the lights reflecting too much, despite the fact that I’d ordered a matte print.

  ‘I have a trick that might work,’ Ian said. He scrounged in his suitcase and came out with a pair of well-worn underpants. He cut small circles out of the thin seat then used rubber bands to cover the lights. We tried again.

  ‘Huh. Well done, Ian.’ The diffused light not only hid the shine, it had the unexpected effect of adding a sense of distance between camera and print. ‘Shake it a little.’

  Ian shook the plastic bin. On my laptop I saw slight vibration, but the focus held and more importantly so did the framing.

  The metadata had been turned off so that observers wouldn’t be able to figure out helpful things like the camera setting – we didn’t want clever techies noticing that we’d lowered the resolution. Behind the camera and out of view were the batteries and the Wi-Fi signal booster. Everything was screwed or epoxied or soldered down.

  ‘Well, that’s done,’ Ian announced. ‘Time for a drink?’

  I nodded. ‘Definitely.’

  He poured, which meant we were drinking Irish whiskey. I sipped and went over the latest, revised blow-by-blow again.

  The smoke bomb

  The speakers

  The drone

  The portfolio(s)

  The flash mob

  The hand-off

  The boat(s)

  The route

  The panel

  The first broadcast

  The stream(s)

  The accounts

  It was hellishly complicated and there were numerous failure points. There were many ways for the forces of law enforcement to try at least to penetrate the con. That was one reason I had set a twelve-hour run time. It’d take hours at the very least to get the intel agencies interested, and even that was probably giving the law too much credit. But once a video went up online ten thousand Reddit users would be all over it, and they, the amateurs, were the greater threat.

  I would steal the painting at five in the afternoon. By six we’d have the initial broadcast. At that time I intended to be in the green room at the Amsterdam Waterstones doing my humble author act for store personnel and getting ready to do some panel.

  ‘OK, let’s do another practice run with the drone,’ I said.

  ‘Let me get that vase down off the mantel first, eh?’ Ian said. I’d so far flown the drone into a wall, the ceiling and the TV. I was getting better, but I wasn’t there yet.

  ‘Planning, preparation and practice, Ian. The three Ps. There’s a reason I have zero convictions and never did anything more than two weeks in jail.’

  Ian frowned. ‘Is that true, Jimmy?’

  ‘The only time I was ever behind bars for more than a few hours was an early bust. The fucking judge set the bail so high I couldn’t get out. But other than that? Zero prosecutions, zero convictions, zero time.’

  I could see Ian was impressed. ‘All right then, Jimmy, let’s go over it again.’

  We did. We practiced and we repeated mnemonics, all strangely reminiscent of scenes from The Dirty Dozen. And we drank a bit, and it was probably that latter fact, combined with having successfully neutralized Hangwoman that led me to say, ‘OK, but just an hour,’ when Ian suggested that as a manly man he needed some time in the Red Light District. I would babysit him from whatever bar was conveniently nearby, and I made clear I was allowing for some hurried sex, not granting permission for a bender.

  We went out into the night, both desperate for fresh air and movement after breathing epoxy fumes and sitting cross-legged on the floor. Two men of roughly the same height and weight, both white, both more or less the same age. The essential difference for any observer was Ian’s longer hair, but we were both wearing knit caps against the chill and the damp, and because I was getting nervous as we rapidly approached D-Day and H-Hour and M-Minute, or however that goes, and didn’t want to risk a chance recognition.

  But I spotted no one who looked like a tail. No Willy, no Hangwoman, not even any rent-a-tail who might be working for Delia. I did spot a woman on a bike who reminded me of Sergeant DeKuyper, but I doubted the good sergeant would be following me around in the rain with a basket full of groceries.

  I walked with Ian for a while as he browsed the offerin
gs, always taking a moment to nod appreciatively or even make a small bow to the ladies who beckoned from their red-lit shop front windows. Irish charm, I suppose.

  Eventually Ian found what he was looking for down an alley so narrow a Hemsworth’s shoulders would have scraped both sides. And a hundred yards away and just around a corner was a bar where I could sit and sip beer in a slow stand-down from whisky levels of tipsiness.

  I had located and co-opted M&M, Madalena and Milan. I had neutralized Hangwoman. I had the golden Hitler still, though I was baffled as to what to do with it. And the most worrying parts of my preparation for the Rijks job – the DIY – had worked out better than I’d feared. Sarip and DeKuyper were still out there, somewhere, and that remained a concern, but not a great concern. The beauty of the law is that it stops cops beating confessions out of you, and short of catching me in the act – a very unlikely possibility – the cops didn’t worry me.

  The big worry was Willy Pete and the Ontario Crew. They didn’t quite know what role I was playing, but they knew enough to be concerned. But I was pretty familiar with Willy now and I didn’t spot him.

  Half an hour in Ian texted to say he’d done the nasty and was ready to go find a congenial bar. I didn’t want that, obviously, so I left my current congenial bar and turned down the alley just as he was emerging from his tryst, bashful grin and all.

  He was fifty feet away. I saw him and he saw me and I saw a well-dressed businessman seem to materialize out of the brick wall itself, and move with swift ease behind Ian as Ian opened his mouth to speak and the businessman wrapped one hand over Ian’s forehead and pulled back.

  Ian yelled, ‘What the bloody—’

  And a stiletto was at his throat.

  I yelled, ‘No!’

  The hand holding the knife moved, pushing it point first exactly where a well-trained Special Forces soldier would know to stab it, right through the carotid. He pushed it in to the hilt. Then he shoved Ian’s head forward, causing the blade tip to sink even deeper. A six-inch blade, I thought, six inches from the carotid to …

  Ian’s mouth opened in a noiseless scream and I saw a flash of the metal blade inside his mouth. The blade that went through Ian’s carotid artery, through the soft palette of his mouth, and into his brain.

  The killer heard me. Saw me for the first time.

  Time froze. I stared at the ‘businessman’ and he stared at me. I saw the shock and chagrin on his face. He had the wrong guy.

  The stiletto was meant for me.

  He had not withdrawn the blade, not yet, so the full gusher of blood was delayed, but only delayed. Blood poured from Ian’s mouth and drained down his throat.

  Ian’s jaw worked like a landed trout but no sound emerged. He looked at me, right at me, and I could not look away as I saw the baffled panic grow in his eyes. Ian raised one trembling hand and touched his neck, then held his hands in front of his eyes and saw his own death painted red on his fingers.

  Jesus Hippie, aka Turtleneck and now the businessman, but always Willy Pete, had made a mistake. And now he hesitated fractionally, knowing no doubt that once he withdrew the blade Ian’s carotid would pump his life away in seconds.

  Ian’s eyes pleaded with me, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing. Death had come for Ian. He was hemorrhaging in his brain and once Willy Pete pulled the plug it would be over very quickly.

  What clever bon mot do you toss off to a man dying for the crime of wearing a similar stocking cap?

  With a look of what might be regret, Willy Pete drew the blade out and Ian’s carotid gurgled a quarter of a cup of blood per beat of his heart.

  Beat … beat … beat … beat. One cup.

  The average person has a gallon and a half of blood, that’s twenty-four cups. It would take a minute and a half to empty Ian, but of course it wouldn’t get to that point. Hearts stop pumping when you’re dead.

  Ian crumpled to the ground, his body going into spasm, the last dance as neurons fired in panic sending garbled messages to limbs able to do no more than jerk and kick. One foot hit an empty bottle and sent it rattling away.

  Willy Pete, bloody knife in hand, measured the distance to me, wondering if he could still …

  But this was face-to-face, not a sneak attack from the rear and he had no way of knowing just how bad I was at hand-to-hand combat. Then a woman’s scream came bouncing off the narrow alley walls from behind me, a scream that would draw witnesses and police, and that was not in Willy’s plan.

  Willy Pete tried out his tough-guy look on me, like I needed to know he was a bad guy, like I might not understand the threat. Or maybe like I was going to try and play movie-star action hero. But I wasn’t being brave standing there, unmoving, I was paralyzed by shock. Paralyzed as well by the sickening knowledge that Ian was dying for my sins.

  I should have said something dramatic. I’ll kill you for that, or its equivalent. But I didn’t. For once in my verbose life, I had no words. I just stood there and watched a red puddle grow beneath Ian’s slowly quieting body.

  Then Willy Pete and I each took a step back. And another step. And another. And then, as if on cue we both turned and fled into the night.

  EIGHTEEN

  I walked fast, threading my way through the Red Light District crowd, Fugitive Vision turned up to maximum but despite that not really seeing anything but blurs. I was no longer dealing with some ludicrous Frau Goebbels wannabe, Willy Pete was a hardcore criminal with excellent training in the killing of humans.

  I texted Delia.

  Me: Meet me.

  Delia: It’s late, see you in the morning.

  Me: No. Now. And watch your back.

  The Ontario Crew had decided I was a threat. And like a fucking idiot I hadn’t even considered that they might attack. I’d been so distracted by Hangwoman and Madalena and my own glorious plans that I had missed the threat. And now Ian was dead. Because of me, because of my lousy tradecraft, because of my failures of operational security. All my cocksure arrogance, my ever-so-superior understanding of all things criminal … I’d watched a man die knowing that it was supposed to be me gasping and falling and shitting my pants as my blood formed a shallow lake beneath me.

  I was shaking. Trembling, I suppose is the more apt word. I was scared. You can act tough all you like but unless you’re a psychopath murder rocks you. More so when you were the intended victim.

  ‘Goddammit, Ian,’ I said to the air. Should I apologize? Apologize to the spirit of the dead man? Hey, ghost of Ian, sorry about that: my bad.

  This was two, two innocent people who had died because of me. The asshole in Cyprus who I’d banged with the lid of a toilet cistern, that was self-defense. It doesn’t count if you kill a guy who’s trying to kill you. For years I’d tried to convince myself that it also didn’t count if some cuckold blew his brains out in a Bugatti. I hadn’t pulled the trigger. I hadn’t told him to do it. I’d slept with the man’s wife and stolen some money that he could easily afford to lose, and he killed himself.

  I had really tried not to put that on myself, I had deployed all my writer’s imagination to mitigate the guilt, but trembling my way down an Amsterdam street, I was right back there at the moment when I’d heard about the suicide. I had confabulated, I had rationalized, and by God no one’s better at bullshit, but lies are for other people, you tell yourself the truth. I had known the truth.

  There wasn’t even a way to spin this murder. Ian was in Amsterdam because of me. He’d been working for me. And he’d been stabbed to death, while I watched, because of me.

  But even as all of that boiled within me, a far-off part of my mind, the eternally chilly part of me, my inner psychopath, was calculating the damage done to the Plan, the sacred Plan.

  Could I still do it without Ian?

  Delia was just stepping out of the elevator as I plowed may way into the empty lobby of her hotel. I don’t think I did a very good job of hiding my feelings because she took one look at me and went from irritated woma
n to FBI Special Agent in a heartbeat.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Guy just got killed. Willy Pete. I mean, he was the killer.’

  There was no one nearby but a bored desk clerk to overhear, but I was being too loud and too careless and Delia at least still had her wits about her. She grabbed my arm and led me like a recalcitrant toddler into the elevator. We didn’t speak. I looked at the floor and tried to assemble my scattered wits.

  In Delia’s room with the door locked I told her about bringing Ian in to help with some (unspecified) preparations. And told her about the killing. She had nothing to drink in her room and no mini-bar, which was not helpful, so I took it upon myself to call down to room service and order a bottle of Glenlivet – the best they had – and charge it to Delia, which was to say, the FBI and the American taxpayer.

  ‘Did anyone see you?’

  ‘Not well enough to make an ID. But there could have been CCTV.’ The whisky came. I poured myself the better part of a tumbler full and drank it down.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Delia let that outburst pass. ‘The locals will make this their number one priority. Amsterdam isn’t Chicago. They’ll—’

  She was talking, but not looking at me, probably hoping if she kept talking I wouldn’t ask my next question, which was: ‘Who have you got watching me?’ She decided not to answer, but I wasn’t having it. ‘Goddam it, Delia, someone followed Hangwoman onto the train after Chante saw her boarding. Someone followed her home and told you, and someone managed to track me and … my guy. So can we drop the bullshit?’ I was yelling. I didn’t care. ‘My guy just got murdered, Delia. Murdered, working for me as I was working for you, so honest to God, Delia, you fucking tell me the goddam truth, because if you had eyes on me, they had eyes on him, and I want to know where the piece of shit is!’

  Delia and I had been standing. She quite still, me jumpy, pacing, using movement to burn off the adrenalin. Now she motioned to the one chair.

  ‘Sit. You’re driving me crazy.’

  I sat. She sat on the edge of the bed. I refilled my glass. I wanted to cry. I just wanted to hang my stupid head and cry.