I checked out of the hotel and found another Internet café, where I left Hilger a message:
If you were hoping to hear from Mr. Blond, you might have to wait for a while. He wasn’t doing well last time I saw him.
You have one chance to live through this. Let Dox go. Now.
I hoped it was the right message. I thought it would engage him the way I wanted, but I couldn’t be sure. It was possible he’d double down: kill Dox, come at me with everything he had, try to finish the game that way.
But I didn’t worry about it. Not really. I was too tired, for one thing. For another, I wasn’t in charge. The iceman was running this show now, and the word worry had never been part of his lexicon. After all, to worry, at a minimum you have to care.
26
HILGER SAT ON THE FLYBRIDGE, flanked by Pancho and Guthrie. They’d made port in Singapore the day before and were docked now in a berth at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club. It was past one in the morning, though still hot and humid, and the other seventy boats berthed around them were all silent, rising and falling on the harbor swells as though breathing in their sleep.
Demeere had called fifteen minutes earlier, just before noon New York time. He’d spotted Rain at the Mott Street apartment. No surprise there; they’d known Rain was in New York from the bulletin board access, just as they’d known he was in California before that and Paris originally. So far, so good.
Accinelli had shown up five minutes later. Demeere told them Rain had followed Accinelli in, and they all knew that meant the man was as good as dead. Demeere was setting out to intercept Rain, and would take him when he left the apartment. He told them he would check in again right after, and then he clicked off.
That had been fifteen minutes ago, a very long fifteen minutes. Hilger imagined the sequence: Demeere had called just as Rain went in. Rain would be inside for, at most, five minutes. Demeere wouldn’t fuck around when he came out, he’d engage him immediately and be done with it. A one-minute walk back to the van, drive off, call from a few blocks away. It was hard to imagine a way for the whole thing to take more than ten minutes.
Another fifteen minutes went by. No one said a word. Hilger thought about calling Demeere, but didn’t want to risk it. Demeere would have purged his mobile phone before going out. If something had happened to him and Hilger called him now, the call would remain in the log. Not likely anyone could do anything with the number, but Hilger wasn’t going to take the risk. Besides, if Demeere were able to call, he would have already.
Hilger turned to Pancho. “Can you access New York City police band through the satellite?”
Pancho nodded. “It’ll take a little doing, but yeah.”
“All right. Let’s see if we can learn anything that way.”
Pancho disappeared. Guthrie and Hilger remained silent.
Ten minutes later, Pancho returned. From the set of his jaw, Hilger knew even before he spoke.
“They’ve got a killing on Mott Street,” Pancho said. “No ID on the body, they’re calling it a John Doe. But the victim is a Caucasian male. Blond Caucasian, about thirty-five.”
Hilger nodded, betraying no emotion. “How?” he asked, and that would be his only concession to a concern for something non-operational.
“Throat cut,” Pancho said.
Guthrie shook his head. “Goddamn,” he said. “Goddamn.”
Hilger sighed. He never got upset in these situations, never. He’d lost men before, and knew by instinct and training not to indulge his grief until later, when the immediate situation had been dealt with and new plans set in motion. His men had always looked to him for leadership, and leadership meant focusing on the problem, not on your own feelings.
“What do you think Rain’s going to do?” Pancho asked.
“Hard to say,” Hilger said. “But he’ll check in. We’ve still got his friend.”
“You think he did Accinelli before he got to Demeere?”
Hilger nodded. “I’d say so. Monitor the police band, and we’ll know soon enough.”
“What kind of vulnerabilities does this create?” Guthrie asked. “I mean, Demeere was operating sterile, right?”
“No doubt about that,” Hilger said. “And even if someone could attach a name to him, it wouldn’t be a real one. And even if the false name could lead to anything…Rain doesn’t have the kind of resources to do anything with it. And if even if he did, we’re moving around too much for him to pinpoint us. We’ll only be in Singapore for another day, and then we’ll move on. Operationally, we’re okay.”
“If Accinelli’s done,” Pancho said, “we don’t need Rain. If we don’t need Rain, we don’t need Dox. Say the word, and I’ll take us out toward the Riau Islands, weight him, and throw him over the side.”
Guthrie shot Pancho a look that Pancho ignored. Hilger had a reasonably good idea of what the exchange meant.
“No,” he said. “Not yet. I want to hear what Rain has to say first.”
“Are you…are you going to call Demeere’s wife?” Guthrie asked.
Among the four of them, Demeere had been the only one who was married. An American woman, JoAnne Kartchner, who lived with Demeere in Brussels. Hilger had met her once. She had lively eyes and he could see the attraction between her and her husband. Demeere’s work kept him away from home a lot, but Hilger had never known him to be unfaithful.
He wouldn’t say anything now, but before Demeere left for New York, he had given Hilger the number where he could reach JoAnne. “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he had said, with a small smile. “This is just in case.” Now Hilger wondered whether the man had sensed something, some premonition.
He wondered for a moment whom he would want called on his own behalf, if the worst should happen. Or whom he would want to call himself, if he knew his own end was imminent. No doubt his sister, Susan. She was married and living in New York, a third kid on the way. He visited her and her family every time he was on the East Coast. After all, with their parents gone and no other siblings, there wans’t much other family to stay in touch with, and her two sons, Hilger’s wonderful nephews, were the whole future of the clan. Yeah. If he knew it was all over, if he had time, it would be a comfort if Susan’s was the last voice he heard.
He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll call his wife.”
Nobody moved. The night’s humidity had grown heavier, a pall of wet heat that pressed down on them from above and all sides.
“Demeere was a good man,” Hilger said. “As good and reliable as any I’ve had the privilege to work with. We’re going to miss him. And we’re going to honor his memory by finishing what we started, and what he cared about enough to be part of.”
Pancho and Guthrie nodded. Hilger looked at them, satisfied they were going to be all right.
My God, but Rain was going to pay. And that fucking Dox, too. Between the two of them, they’d cost Hilger dearly. He was so angry just now that he was tempted to let Pancho do as he’d asked, take the boat out to deeper water and dump Dox over to the sharks. He was angry enough to leave the two of them alone for a while first, knowing how Pancho was likely to use the time.
But the operation had to come first, as always. Demeere had been the point man in Amsterdam, and with him gone, someone else would have to go there for the final steps. He didn’t like the idea of sending Pancho; the man was capable, but his forte was muscle, and he lacked Demeere’s finesse. For one second, Hilger wished he had sent Pancho to New York instead of Demeere. It was Pancho’s aura of dangerousness that had persuaded him not to-Rain would have made him too easily. Demeere, he had thought, would have a better chance at surprise. Well, that hadn’t worked out, but there was nothing to be gained from agonizing over it now.