Free The Natanz Directive by Wayne Simmons Page B

his radio and tapping an area-wide emergency number. We were closing in on the pier. I gestured at the helmsman’s jacket and hat. “Mind if I borrow those?”
    â€œWhat?”
    My Dutch sucked. I switched to English. “Your hat and jacket.”
    I realized the Walther was still dangling from my hand, and I stuffed it into my shoulder holster. I fished a roll of euros from my pocket and gave him half. I stripped off my coat. He did the same. It was a poor disguise even with his baseball cap, but the police would be looking for brown suede, not sailor blue, so it was better than nothing.
    The helmsman cut the power and turned the nose toward the pier. “Ten seconds,” he said.
    â€œSorry about your boat,” I said. What else could I say? I half expected him to say, Screw you, but he didn’t. In fact, as I was jumping from the bridge to the main deck, he said, “Good luck.”
    He swung the stern within two feet of the pier. I jumped. I looked back long enough to raise a hand, but by then he was busying steering his shattered boat back into the middle of the canal, his world changed forever.
    In the distance, I saw the spires of an ancient church illuminated by a gibbous moon. When in need of a hiding place, look for a house of worship . Mr. Elliot must have said that to me a dozen times, but I’d always thought he was kidding. Maybe not.
    I walked. Running might have felt like the right thing to do, but running had one very negative side effect: people took notice. I also thought people might take notice of the helmsman’s jacket—not exactly my style—so I shed it as I walked along a cobbled walk lined with gift shops and street-side cafés. I saw an empty table on the patio of a coffee shop and took a seat facing the walk. I hung the jacket on the back of the chair. I powered up my iPhone. I entered Roger Anderson’s phone number and typed a short text: Trouble. Change of plans. Nieuwe Kerk. One hour?
    I waited, allowing my eyes to drift from one end of the block to the other. By now the police would have my description. By now the guys in the delivery truck would have called in reinforcements. But they’d had their opportunity and blown it. You only get so many chances at the perfect ambush. They’d played it poorly. Too much drama. I’d learned one thing a long time ago: guys with guns love making a big show of things, but the best kills were the ones no one sees coming.
    My phone vibrated. Two words: Roger that.
    I got up, left the coat, and tugged at the brim of my newly acquired hat. The Nieuwe Kerk was only a thousand yards or so from where I was standing as the crow flies, but I took the back streets. I hadn’t spent much time in Amsterdam, and when I had, it had always been work related. I never really had the chance to appreciate the ancient melding of wood, brick, and stone that carried from building to building or the houses fronting the maze of tree-lined canals. I could see the romance that drew couples here. Oh, yeah. And of course, everyone knew that Amsterdam’s red-light district had few rivals, and their lax drug laws were the stuff of legend, so maybe there was an appeal to the college kid on holiday or someone looking for an uninhibited place to drown his sorrows. Me, I’d take a quiet stroll on a New Jersey beach any day.
    I crossed under the viaduct and into a residential district populated with multistory apartment buildings with latticed windows and graceful gables. Here, the bottom floors were crowded with the offices of lawyers and dentists. A trio of muscle heads, vapor steaming from their thick necks and sweat-soaked jerseys, ambled out of a gym. To the north stood the Montelbaanstoren clock tower with its white-columned top and matching spire. Lumbering on my right was the itinerant water of the Oude Schans canal.
    I stopped in the shadows of a magnificent elm and sent Moradi a text. He replied that he was okay