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 woman 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.
‘All right, David, I’ll go through this again. No one at the Bureau knows who you are. I made it clear that I had to do this alone.’ She’d probably have stopped there but she saw a savage look in my eyes, sighed and went on. ‘Once here I reached out for some contract help. Guys who’d worked for us in the past, freelancers.’
‘Jesus Christ. Contractors, there’s a weasel word if I ever heard one. Contractors. And hey, Delia, who else did the contractors work for?’
She swallowed nervously. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The CIA? Delia, do these contractors of yours ever work for the fucking Agency?’
Long pause. ‘It’s possible. These kinds of people are usually ex-military or ex-intelligence, retired or moved on. You know.’
‘Yeah, I know. Thing is, I had a look at Willy Pete’s driver’s license and credit cards. They track back to a place that sure looks like an Agency safe house or letter drop in McLean, Virginia.’
‘How did you …’ She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Never mind.’
‘The question is, how didn’t you? You ran a background on Willy Pete, how come you didn’t have him in McLean?’
Now it was Delia’s turn to stand up and pace. ‘We don’t poke our noses into Agency business or the reverse.’
‘Great. Great. Fucking brilliant. Contractors work for money not loyalty, and who has more cash to throw around, Delia, the FBI or the fucking CIA?’
I drank some more but when I closed my eyes I still saw a shiny blade going too slowly into bare flesh.
‘I am so tired, Delia, just fucking tired.’
She sat beside me and put a hand on mine. ‘I know, David.’
Now I really wanted to cry.
‘Here’s where we are,’ I said after a while. ‘The Ontario Crew and probably the CIA by extension know why you’re here. They have figured out – not too hard to do – that I am your operative. They can’t kill you, even the CIA doesn’t kill FBI legats, but they can sure as hell kill me. The only question left is whether the Agency has already blown a big hole in my real identity.’
Delia didn’t argue. There was nothing to argue about.
‘Why would the Agency tolerate let alone support Daniel Isaac stealing art?’ I asked, not expecting an answer.
Delia shrugged. I’d never seen her so on the defensive. ‘Arms deals and the Agency go hand in hand. Over the years Isaa— US Person One – will have done favors. You know, like, we need to get some shoulder-fired missiles to this group in that country which we can’t officially support. The weapons are delivered and the Agency owes US Person One a favor. Multiply that over decades. A lot of favors, a lot of investment in that relationship.’
‘Not to mention what Isaac knows and could tell a Congressional committee or the Washington Post,’ I interjected.
‘Yes. That, too.’
‘So the Agency did the math differently from you. They decided it was best to let the crazy old man have his painting if he’d go quietly to the grave soon thereafter.’
There followed a period of silence, both of us in our own heads running scenarios. From the length of the silence it was clear neither of us had any brilliant ideas.
After a while Delia said, ‘I can go to the embassy and talk to the resident … the local CIA chief. Maybe—’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t trouble our friendly, neighborhood spooks. That’s not going to be helpful with your career.’
‘David, this is not about my career.’
‘The hell it’s not. I’m invested in your career, Delia. You know? As much as I’m not a fan of you showing up at random times to get me in trouble, you’re the only Feeb I know. You are the only person on earth who I could call as a character witness if I’m ever popped. Not that I would, it’s just … I don’t know, D. Maybe I just need there to be one person who knows that …’ I couldn’t complete that sentence. It was too needy and vulnerable and all those things big, tough, macho guys like me don’t do. Especially when we are already millimeters away from weeping.
Her expression was somewhere between gratified and worried.
Delia’s brief physical contact was all that was allowed within the bounds of our relationship, so I didn’t grab her and look deep into her eyes, but I did stand up and move close to her because I wanted to tell her something I needed to say that transcended whatever our official roles were within this odd quasi-friendship.
‘Listen to me, FBI lady. I know what I am, and what you are, and we both know there’s no good reason for you to trust me. But I trust you. And I am telling you, without anything to back it up, that in this, this one thing, you can trust me: I will always protect you. If I go down, if I get caught, I will not take you down with me.’
We had a lovely, unguarded moment, just the law enforcer and the lawbreaker, and I could have sworn there were tears in her eyes, but that must have been a trick of the lighting. I’m pretty sure the Bureau doesn’t issue tear ducts to its agents.
And anyway, enough emotion. Enough self-pity. I wasn’t going to be scared off by some piece of shit like Willy Pete. Fuck him, fuck Isaac, fuck the CIA, fuck Sarip and Hangwoman and anyone else who wanted to hurt me. I was going to pull off a heist right under their noses.
But I had less than a full day now.
Tick-tock.
And the guy who was going to help me was dead in an alley.
I left Delia’s hotel staying well clear of alleys, pulled out my phone and texted Milan and Madalena.
Hey M&M. Do either of you know how to operate a small boat?