Fundamental Error - A Katla KillFile (Amsterdam Assassin Series) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Fundamental Error copyright page

  Pitch

  Dedication

  Also Available

  PRESENT DAY I

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER I

  PRESENT DAY II

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER II

  PRESENT DAY III

  ONE WEEK EARLIER

  PRESENT DAY IV

  THREE DAYS EARLIER

  PRESENT DAY V

  TWO DAYS EARLIER

  PRESENT DAY VI

  PRESENT DAY VII

  Note to the Reader

  The Amsterdam Assassin Series

  About the Author

  Contact Martyn

  Reviews

  Special Thanks to

  Disclaimer

  AMSTERDAM ASSASSIN SERIES

  Fundamental Error

  [A Katla KillFile]

  By

  Martyn V. Halm

  Pushdagger Publishing Limited

  Fundamental Error - A Katla KillFile (Amsterdam Assassin Series)

  ISBN: 978-94-91623-04-2 (ePub)

  ASIN: B00ECJNEAI (mobi)

  Copyright: Martyn V. Halm

  Published: August 5th, 2013

  Publisher: Pushdagger Publishing Limited

  Cover design: Farah Evers

  The right to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by Martyn V. Halm in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher.

  Please do not circulate this book in any format without express consent.

  Assassin Katla is hired by a client whose brother is planning a terrorist attack…

  The Fundamental Error KillFile (9,800 words) follows freelance assassin Katla Sieltjes on her most dangerous assignment yet. When Peter Brandt watches his brother Roel convert to Islam and turn into a domestic terrorist, Katla needs to enter into the mind of a fanatic suicide bomber in order to thwart a mass-murder attack in the shopping mecca of Amsterdam.

  The Katla KillFile short stories chronologically precede the novels in the Amsterdam Assassin Series.

  Each KillFile features Katla Sieltjes, expert in disguising homicide, executing one of her contracts. While not mandatory reading, each KillFile provides insight both in Katla’s work methods and skill, and additional background information in her character and personal history. The KillFiles can be read out of order, as the contracts are random samples from Katla’s past.

  For Maaike, the love and light of my life.

  And to Tycho Thelonious and Nica Hilke, thankfully still too young to read my work.

  Also available from this author:

  AMSTERDAM ASSASSIN SERIES:

  Novels:

  Reprobate

  Peccadillo

  Rogue

  Ghosting

  KillFiles:

  Locked Room

  Microchip Murder

  Fundamental Error

  Aconite Attack

  Sign up for the Amsterdam Assassin Series mailing list!

  Click this link and fill out your email address to stay up-to-date.

  PRESENT DAY I

  Right behind the Royal Palace, at the intersection of Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and Raadhuisstraat, you can find one of the most elegant buildings in Amsterdam. Built to serve as the main post office in 1899 by esteemed architect Cornelis Hendrik Peters in Neo-Gothic style—a mixture of Gothic and Romantic elements similar to the Parliament buildings in London—this beautiful building was added in 1992 to the list of Amsterdam’s ten most valuable monuments. That same year, four renowned architects were invited to submit a renovation plan to transform the building into the first covered shopping and lifestyle centre in the heart of the city. With the new destination came a new name: Magna Plaza.

  None of the shoppers or security staff paid much attention to the well-dressed Caucasian man strolling inside and standing silently next to the grand piano in the middle of the hall, gazing upward at the glass dome that covered the roof but let in the sunlight. Roel Brandt—known as Muhammad by the brotherhood—was well aware of Magna Plaza’s history. In fact, the venerable building’s glorious past was one of the main reasons for Magna Plaza becoming the target of the brotherhood’s first public display.

  Muhammad turned on his heel, looking down the marble ramp of the main entrance.

  After nearly a century of serving as the main post office, the building started its second life in 1992 with only minor additions or changes, the most significant to the façades undoubtedly concerned the main entrance. The almost inaccessible entrance of the central post office would’ve made public use of the building as a shopping centre difficult. After numerous studies trying to balance the accessibility with the integrity of the building’s design, the decision was made to bridge the connection between street level and the 1.5 meter higher main level as smoothly as possible inside the building. The new porch above the main entrance reinforced the improved access above the three new entrances.

  Muhammad turned back to the interior. Originally, public access to the huge building was restricted to part of the black-and-white tiled lobby, leaving visitors able to just gaze up at the upper floors where only postal workers were allowed to tread. He studied the interior through the viewfinder of the Olympus camera around his neck, careful not to touch the button designed to operate the shutter. The interior parts of the camera had been removed to house the remote detonator, leaving only the lenses and viewfinder intact.

  Even after the conversion from post office to shopping mecca, the central hall remained the building’s main feature. New arches were added to the already present gallery bridges to merge the central part of the building into one large open space surrounded by shops. To the rear of the building opposite the main entrance new elevators were installed, as well as escalators that allowed shoppers to rise slowly and feast their eyes on this Valhalla of greed. The basement—cleared of any unimportant partition walls—was adapted structurally where necessary, currently featuring an exhibition of paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn. As a result of these changes, the spaces of the central part connected to form an open triptych, though the new spaces and arcades required structural additions—steel girders masked by prefab concrete covers that fitted in with the existing elements, painstakingly designed to continue the pattern of the existing structure. The new columns and arches—barely recognisable to the average unsuspecting shopper—were glaringly obvious to the man now quietly observing the graceful interior that would soon be turned into rubble and screams.

  Muhammad lowered his fake camera, his face a polite mask hiding his disgust. Like the Bijenkorf and Kalvertoren department stores, Magna Plaza was a bastion of capitalism, crowded with people who filled their spiritual void with vapid consumerism. Popular brands like Emporio Armani, Swarovski, Mango, America Today, and Gsus Industries flanked smaller boutiques like Velvet and Sarah Pacini, the enormous shiny plate glass windows displaying their clothes, trinkets, ointments, and multimedia to lure the materialistic morons.

  He knew why the brotherhood had chosen him for his current task of bringing down this shining symbol of the perverted Western civilisation. While Roel Brandt had disavowed his name and materialist upbringing—and shown in the camp to be fully prepared to be a martyr for the cause—the blond hair and blue eyes granted by his Dutch heritage allowed him to move effortlessly and
without suspicion where his brothers of the faith would be instantly noted. His appearance alone made him valuable beyond the mere possibility of martyrdom through self-sacrifice, not to mention his technical prowess.

  So Muhammad had been chosen for a more difficult task.

  Despite spiritual guidance and mental cleansing, those who sacrificed themselves for the cause might have doubts before they embraced their martyrdom. Even the strongest believer was still human, still fallible. Any martyr, no matter how well prepared, might have difficulty following the true path and bringing their mission to a satisfactory conclusion. Standing before their God, they might entertain second thoughts, and their flagging determination might need a gentle nudge.

  A nudge Muhammad could provide with the remote detonator in his camera.

  The phone in his pocket vibrated to signal the imminent arrival of the martyr, so Muhammad went to the escalator, ascending to the first level. Going up another level required walking down the arcade to the next escalator. A deliberate set-up to force customers to pass at least half the shops on a floor to ascend to another level. Probably wouldn’t bother most customers, but Muhammad was disgusted by the manipulative efforts of the capitalist architecture. He looked away from the window displays at the empty space above the lobby as he made his way to the next ascending escalator.

  As Muhammad rose another level to the top floor, a pale young man entered with a plastic strider in the shape of a pink poodle under his arm, peering around him for the complementary toddler. The sweat on his brow and the anxiety in his gaze could be easily explained away by the missing toddler, so the martyr drew no suspicion, not even from the uniformed security guards patrolling the arcades. The belly of the bright pink plastic toy with the idiotic bulging eyes had been carefully opened along the original seam to fill the cavity with Semtex explosives and nails that would shred everything in their path.

  Until recently martyrs used to wear bulky vests under their clothes, but the media had exposed that method both in documentaries and films like The Hurt Locker until the image was burned into so many eyes that the brotherhood needed to come up with a different means to carry a bomb into a targeted area. Bags, cases, and satchels were routinely checked, but nobody expected a toy ride to transform into a lethal piñata.

  There was only one problem. While suicide bombers couldn’t take off their tamper-proof bomb vests without detonating them, the poodle with the bomb inside could be thrown away or the martyr could run away from the toy, thereby ruining his martyrdom.

  Muhammad solved that issue by installing not one but two pressure switches. The first switch was connected to the poodle’s wheel axles, detonating the explosive charges if the toy was set down on its wheels. Since that would still allow the martyr to throw the bomb away, a second switch with a two-meter radius was connected to a tiny transmitter in the martyr’s shoes. With a blast radius of almost fifty meters, the martyr would instantly be vaporised if he so much as lifted the toy over his head. And if the martyr froze or deviated from his mission, the remote detonator in Muhammad’s camera would override his treacherous doubts and protect his salvation.

  As he reached the top floor, Muhammad watched the martyr with the havoc-wreaking pink plastic poodle under his arm step onto the escalator to the first floor. The plan was that the martyr would go to the balcony near the luncheonette where tired shoppers could rest their weary feet and nibble pastries while surveying their warehouse of splendiferous baubles and trinkets. The martyr would place the toy on the banister to vaporise everything within a radius of three meters, the shrapnel would kill or maim everyone inside a ten meter radius on the same level as well as the higher and lower floors. The carnage from the dismembered bodies would rain down on the maimed survivors.

  For a moment, Muhammad basked in the sunlight that dropped in through the large glass dome to provide an abundance of natural light that shone down into the open space from the top floor to the central hall. On sunny days, the light would even penetrate deep into the basement. The spatial atmosphere would be ruined when the pressure from the shock wave shattered the dome, raining glass on the marble floor of the lobby.

  From his vantage point, Muhammad would be able to follow the martyr with his lethal package going up to the balcony. He would use the structural integrity of the building to supervise the martyr’s ascendency to heaven, observing him from a corner where the floor and pillars would protect him from the flying shrapnel.

  Although the martyr had been passionate about his upcoming sacrifice, Fahd now seemed distinctly hesitant to embrace his martyrdom, moving so slowly he was almost shuffling.

  Muhammad saw that the security guards didn’t seem to pay the martyr any attention, but he noticed a man in a burgundy windbreaker moving purposely into a strategic position. Eyes hidden by sporty sunglasses, the man kept his face slightly turned away from the shops, clearly observing the martyr with the pink poodle. Worse, on the arcade below him a second man stalked in the direction of the martyr at twice the speed of the crowd. Muhammad shifted his gaze back to the first man with the bluetooth earpiece, lips moving as if he was on the phone. As if commanded, the second man slowed down immediately and turned to check a display for skin care products.

  Both men looked fit and dangerous, with short hair and a muscular physique, moving with purposeful intensity that belied their casual presence.

  Mohammad fingered the Olympus. If either of the men approached the martyr before Fahd reached his destination, Muhammed would have to use his remote. Less damage was preferable to getting caught.

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER I

  Someone tripped the alarm and Katla Sieltjes switched the screen of her MacBook to observe a young man with a slender built and blond hair checking room numbers as he walked down the hotel corridor. The man halted by the door, raised his hand to knock and hesitated.

  “You might as well come in,” Katla called out. “The door is open.”

  She rose from behind the desk, hiding the knife in her left hand behind her back. The slender young man entered and looked around the darkened room until he saw her. He closed the door behind him. By the glow from her MacBook screen—the only light in the room—he made his way to the desk to shake her hand. Her detector didn’t pick up any microphones. She shook his hand over the desk and motioned for him to sit in the only other chair in the room.

  “I’m Peter Brandt,” he said. “You’re Loki?”

  “No, I represent Loki Enterprises, vetting new clients.”

  Brandt looked around the darkened room and combed his fingers through his short blond hair. “I understand this is not something Loki usually does, but I ran out of options.”

  He fell silent.

  “Go on,” Katla said.

  Brandt fidgeted, unable to meet her gaze. “I think my brother—”

  “Take your time,” Katla spoke softly. “I know this cannot be easy.”

  Brandt, half-turned in his chair to look around the hotel room. Katla sat with her back to the window that opened out onto the fire escape. Like the corridor, the metal stairs outside the window had been prepped with small detectors that would warn her if someone used the fire escape. The bright sun was unable to penetrate the curtains turning the room dark and cool.

  “Loki Enterprises doesn’t have offices,” Katla said. “We rarely meet clients and never in the same locations.”

  He nodded again. “I understand.”

  “Good. What brings you here, Mr. Brandt?”

  “Perhaps you can tell me what you do?” Brandt asked as he doodled with his finger on the desk between them, drawing invisible figures. “This corporate troubleshooting business?”

  He might be clean, but giving more information than absolutely necessary was never a smart idea.

  “I’m merely a representative. You paid a consulting fee, so you can talk to me and pitch me your problem. If we can help you, Mr. Brandt, I will take your problem to the executive branch who will expedite the matter.”

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sp; “But you mostly troubleshoot for companies, right?”

  “Mostly, yes.”

  When she didn’t continue, the young man met her gaze. “How?”

  “By all means necessary,” Katla said. “I’m sorry if I can’t be more specific, but all our clients are more than satisfied with our results.”

  “This is not corporate,” Brandt said. “My brother has fallen in with a bad crowd.”

  “Criminal?”

  “Worse. Fundamentalist.” He nervously combed his fingers through his hair. “We’re still on good terms, but I know his ‘brotherhood’ is about to do something terrible.”

  “On what scale? You think they’re going to kill someone?”

  He nodded. “More than one person, I think. My brother has meetings at our apartment. I overheard them talking about ‘doing a department store’.”

  “I take it they’re not talking about robberies.”

  “If that was the case, I wouldn’t be worried so much. I heard them compare notes on Harrods and Karfou and something called Jat Jai or something.”

  “Hat Yai.” Katla felt a twinge in her gut. “In Thailand a Carrefour department store and Hat Yai International Airport have been bombed by terrorists, similar to the IRA bombing of Harrods in 1983.”

  The young man grew pale and his voice shook when he said, “I—I think they might be planning something like that.”

  “Why do you bring this to Loki?” She leant back in her seat. “Sounds like something for the AIVD.”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t. I want this to be dealt with quietly and without raising suspicion.”