The Hidden Target

by Helen Macinnes

  “It’s called Türk Express in that part of the world.” And if they were reaching Turkey only in September, they’d never be back in London by Christmas; not at that rate of travel.

  They had come to the end of the long narrow street, but not long enough for the questions he’d like to ask. Although, Renwick reminded himself, this was really none of his business. The girls were healthy and happy, confident and determined, foot loose and ready to go. He knew that feeling well. “Here is where I turn you over to your friends. Are they visible?” One helluva place to choose for a rendezvous, he thought, looking at Spui, broad and busy with traffic as it met crowded Rokin.

  Nina’s eyes searched the other side of Rokin. “They should be near the bridge, just across the street. Yes, there’s James.” She raised an arm to wave, let it drop. “He’s too busy listening to Tony.”

  Renwick glanced over at the two men. The one who seemed to be doing all the talking was tall and thin, dark-haired. The listener was of medium height, medium build, brown-haired. Blue jeans, checked shirts. From this distance, that was all that could be seen. Tony finished his speech. James clapped him on the shoulder. Good friends, Renwick judged by the way they laughed. Then they consulted their watches, looked across the street, caught sight of Nina and Madge. They started over, misjudged the traffic, were halted by its sudden swoop.

  “Goodbye,” Nina was saying. “This was wonderful, Bob.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “See you in London?” And then, as if surprised by her question, her cheeks coloured and she averted her eyes.

  “I’ll see you,” he promised. He shook hands with Madge, and turned away. Somehow, he didn’t feel like meeting the young men now ploughing through a stream of pedestrians.

  Nina said softly, “He was the first man I ever loved.”

  Most of the old Geneva story had been told to Madge, but this was something new. “And how did he feel about that?”

  “If I had been three years older, I might have learned.”

  “He still likes you a lot. At least, he was worried about you.”

  “Why should he? I was surprised he even remembered me.” But he had.

  “He must be your type. Didn’t you notice that James looks something like him?” Except for the smile and the thoughtful eyes.

  Nina was startled for a moment, and then recovered enough to say, “Nonsense.” She became absorbed in the decorated barrel organ now being wheeled past them. It halted and blocked James and Tony as they were about to reach the sidewalk. Now why is Tony so mad? she wondered. It can’t be us: we weren’t late. “He’s cursing out the barrel organ,” she told Madge, and they both laughed.

  5

  Yes, Shawfield had cursed the barrel organ, something to vent his anger on as they had to change course and found they were now blocked by a car. Kiley said, “Ease off, Tony. Hold it down.” (The names Erik and Marco had been laid aside; so was their knowledge of German, even when they spoke in private: a precaution against a slip in security.) For the last five minutes, as they waited near the bridge, Tony’s worry had spilled out in a stream of angry advice: ditch the two girls now, and to hell with Theo: tell him they’re unpredictable, dangerous—no discipline at all. Our first and only concern is to make contacts with revolutionary elements, judge their possibilities. “I know, I know,” Kiley had said, “but O’Connell is of more importance than you think.” Then he had added, “It could be worse than having them along. We could have had someone like Ilsa Schlott.” That had raised a reluctant laugh, and he had clapped Tony’s shoulder.

  But as they started to cross Rokin, Tony’s mood sharpened again. He stared at the stranger on the opposite sidewalk. “Who’s that? She kissed him. Did you see?” A sudden rush of bicycles, forced them back to wait some more. Yes, Kiley had seen.

  “Well, well,” he said as they reached the girls at last, “you collect friends everywhere, Nina.”

  “Oh—just a friend of Father’s,”

  “Does he live here?”

  “No.” She seemed more interested in the barrel organ with a string of paper flowers draped around it. “Hideous colours. But should he be parking it right up on the sidewalk?” For the organ-grinder, small and lithe but obviously well muscled, had eased its wheels over the kerb and then brought it to rest in front of a store’s busy entrance.

  “He knows where he can draw a crowd,” Madge observed.

  “Let’s move,” Tony said impatiently. “We haven’t all day to hang around barrel organs.” They were part of Amsterdam’s street music, like the carillons from the churches. For a city that had been run by socialists and communists for so many years, it had too many bloody churches, he thought; a fine bunch of Marxists, they were.

  Kiley said, “Why didn’t you ask your friend to spend the rest of the day with us? He probably was counting on having lunch with you when he arranged to meet you.”

  “We met by accident—just ran into him on Kalverstraat. Is that enough information for you?” Nina noticed the sudden flush on his cheeks, and relented. “I knew him years ago. He taught me how to volley and play a good net game. That’s all.”

  The four of them began to walk towards the corner, but slowly in spite of Tony’s urging. Madge looked back at the barrel organ. “No music? He won’t make much money that way. And I think he did choose the wrong place.” Two policemen, young and tall, long hair jutting out from the back of their caps, were making a leisurely approach, half curious, half amused. “He probably doesn’t know the regulations. He certainly isn’t Dutch by the look of him.”

  “Come on!” Tony said, catching Madge by the wrist. He glared back at the policemen, saw the little man dart off, one officer starting to give chase, the other still standing at the barrel organ. Tony’s spine stiffened. As the explosion burst out, he was already dropping flat on his face with Madge pulled down beside him. In the same split second, Kiley acted, shoving Nina on to the ground, falling partly over her with a protecting arm around the back of her head.

  There were screams, shouts, traffic screeching to a halt, children crying, a woman moaning near them. The two men picked themselves up, helped Nina and Madge to their feet. “Okay?” Kiley asked.

  Nina nodded. Apart from the sudden fall, jarring every bone in her body, and street dust clinging to her shirt and jeans, she was all right. Breathless and dazed, but all right. So was Madge.

  But it had been close. Near her, two women were bleeding, a man was covering his wounded eye, children had been knocked to the ground; and over by the twisted remains of the barrel organ, the policeman lay still.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Kiley said. Soon there would be more police, and ambulances, and possibly a TV news camera.

  “I agree.” Tony was shaking his head. “To think,” he added in a low voice, “you and I might have been put in a hospital for six months by some home-grown terrorists. Imbeciles! What did they accomplish?”

  A splinter group working on a small scale, thought Kiley: a half-baked operation, ludicrous. “Not German, at any rate,” he said thankfully. That would have brought West German Intelligence on to the Amsterdam scene. The sooner we get out of here, the better.

  “Indonesians?” Tony suggested. He couldn’t repress a laugh. South Moluccans putting him and Kiley out of business, the bloody fools.

  “Don’t think so.” So far the Moluccans’ protest against Indonesia had limited itself to occupying a train and holding its passengers as hostages, or secreting arms in their housing developments, or talking, talking, talking.

  Madge was still staring around her in horror. But Nina had recovered a little. She had heard that last interchange. “Indonesians?” she repeated. “Why should they do this?”

  “Let’s move,” Kiley said. He slipped an arm through Nina’s, steadying her. He set a slow pace. Both girls were obviously shaken.

  “They’ve been independent for thirty years,” Nina said. Shock was giving way to indignation and anger.

  “Some Indonesians wan
t to be free from Indonesia,” Tony snapped.

  “Then why don’t they bomb Indonesia?”

  “Because,” said Kiley patiently, “they now live in Holland.”

  “Refugees? And so they take it out on the Dutch?” She shook off Kiley’s guiding arm. Her voice was more decisive than it had ever been. “Terrorist logic,” she said scathingly. “Cowards, too. All of them! They leave a bomb and run. Oh, no, they don’t get killed or mutilated. They’ll telephone the newspapers later, claiming they were responsible. How very brave—how noble!” She laughed unsteadily. Tears were approaching. “Don’t terrorists ever think of people?”

  “They are fighting for the people,” Kiley suggested, his tone mild.

  “So they kill them?”

  “We can get a drink in here,” Kiley said, and led the way.

  Nina said, “We ought to have stayed and helped,” but she followed him inside the restaurant. She suddenly noticed his arm had been bleeding.

  “Nothing,” he told her. It wasn’t much, actually—a glancing blow from a splinter of wood: it could have been a shard of glass from the store’s window. But the small wound was effective. Both girls became silent.

  Then, “Thank you,” Nina said to James Kiley; and Madge looked at Tony Shawfield, smiled shyly, and thanked him, too.

  “You were so quick,” Madge told him. “If I had been alone, I would have been caught standing up. Like that woman with the blood pouring over her face... Oh, God!” She saw Tony frown. In sympathy, she guessed.

  But what worried him was the thought that some trained eye might have seen the way he and Kiley had dropped to the ground just as the bomb was about to explode.

  Kiley ordered scotch for everyone. No expense spared: it was the quickest restorer, raising them all back to normal again. “We’ll lunch here before we get the photographs taken. We’ll cut out the jaunt to Haarlem. Instead, we’ll leave this afternoon. How’s that? You don’t want to stay much longer in Amsterdam, do you?”

  After what had happened? Nina shook her head. “Just one thing, though. It has been bothering me for some time.”

  He waited, suddenly tense. Tony was sitting very still.

  Nina said, “I just can’t go on calling you James. It’s too— too—” She laughed. “It doesn’t sound natural. Too formal for a real American. What shall it be? Jim or Jimmy?”

  “Jim will do.” So I made a small mistake, he thought: I insisted on James. Too formal for a real American... Real? He looked at her sharply, but she was quite oblivious of the scare she had given him. “So we leave today,” he said. “You are ready, Tony?”

  “Any time you say.”

  Nina was looking at the stains on her shirt. Madge needed a change, too. “Let’s not bother about the photographs. We can have them taken later. We don’t need visas right away, do we?”

  “We’ll keep to the arrangements,” Kiley said. The photographer could be trusted: a loyal comrade, knowing what was needed, following instructions and keeping his mouth shut. “Besides, the others are having their pictures taken at this very moment.” Tony rose. “I’d better get over there and tell them about the change in plans. They have gear to collect and stow on board.” He was already half-way to the door.

  “What about his drink?” Madge asked.

  “I guess he didn’t need it,” Kiley said. Tony’s blood pressure must already be high enough. He’ll have to remember to tolerate all the damn silly thoughts about clothes that women find natural. The more they chatter about nitwit topics, the less they’ll discuss anything serious. As for Nina’s outburst against terrorists, that couldn’t be better cover for Tony and me. Who’d expect Nina’s friends to be anything except political dolts like her?

  “We have our own gear to pick up,” Nina remembered. “The bags are at the Alba. That’s nowhere near the garage. So what do we do? Take a taxi?”

  A taxi? With some sharp-eyed driver linking two blondes, the Alba, and the garage? In spite of his own advice to Tony, Kiley drew a long breath to steady his voice. “No. We can stop and pick up your bags on our way out of Amsterdam. Or have you got to pack?” That wouldn’t do at all. The camper waiting, waiting; Tony’s fury unleashed in some savage though apt phrases.

  “A couple of minutes,” Nina assured him. “Just toothbrushes and soap. That’s all.”

  “There’s the bill—” began Madge.

  “I’ll settle it,” Kiley said.

  “We paid six days in advance. So they owe us for two.”

  God give me strength, he thought, and then realised he had called on the name of a deity in whom he didn’t believe. For Christ’s sake... He took a deep draught of the scotch, newly arrived, and choked with sudden laughter. Very American: God and Christ, and two pretty blondes trying to understand and failing. Real enough, Miss Nina?

  “Let’s eat,” he said. “We haven’t time to waste.” And we’ll be out of Amsterdam before the police search reaches garages and courtyards and workshops near the university area. For that barrel organ couldn’t have been pushed for any great distance—too cumbersome. And that little man hadn’t been running blindly. He was headed for his escape route, must have had a car parked safely out of sight. In our garage? Kiley wondered. Always a possibility, considering its owner’s sympathies. Not that a camper, all prepared for a long trip, couldn’t be satisfactorily explained. Even so, police made notes in little books. “What will you have?” he asked Nina. Whatever she’d choose, Madge would choose.

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Then we’ll order the Koffietafel. It’s always ready to serve.” He finished his drink and signalled to their waitress.

  “I don’t think—”

  “You’ll eat,” he told her. “Your next meal will be in Belgium.” He lifted Tony’s glass. “To our travels.”

  “To our travels,” Nina echoed.

  “Far and wide,” Madge ended, and smiled happily.

  6

  BRUNA IMPORTS, read the restrained legend above the doorway of one of the restored houses on the Prinsengracht. There were other commercial establishments, too, on this Old Amsterdam street, including expensive restaurants and a luxury hotel, so that the firm of Bruna was not remarkable, tucked away as it was in the middle of a row of ancient gables. Crefeld’s office was on the top floor, reached by a very small private elevator installed years ago for someone’s heart ailment: it could hold two people if they were thin enough and pressed in a tight embrace. Renwick touched an ivory button to signal Crefeld. The elevator door was released, and he could ride up in solitary state, avoiding the staircase that would have taken him through the busy second and third floors, where imports of coffee and pepper were actually marketed. Bruna was authentic, not a false front for mysterious activities. But how Jake Crefeld— Jacobus van Crefeld, to give his full name; Brigadier-General to give him his equivalent rank—had ever managed to secure an office in this building was something that aroused Renwick’s admiration. Knowing Jake’s diplomacy, he wasn’t astounded.

  The corridor was short and narrow. Crefeld’s door, as old and heavy as all the other carved woodwork in this building, had a faded sign, small and difficult to read: J. SCHLEE/RARE BOOKS/BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. The door swung open as Renwick was about to knock, and Crefeld was there with his broad smile and firm handshake to welcome him inside. “Had a peephole installed, Jake?” Renwick asked, studying the carved upper panel of the door as it was closed and bolted behind him. The small cut-out was centred in a wooden rosette, part of the door’s decoration both outside and in, not noticeable except by close scrutiny.

  “And necessary,” Crefeld said. “Such are these times, Bob.” His large round face tried to look sad and failed. He was a big man in every way, in voice and laugh as well as in body and heart. The surprising thing was his light footstep, his quick movement. Nothing heavy or lumbering. Now he was at his desk, pulling a chair in place for Renwick. “I am sorry to bring you all the way from Brussels, but I thought it wise if we weren�
��t seen together, there. Den Haag was also out of the question for the same reason.”

  ***

  “I guessed that. No trouble at all. I enjoyed getting away from the office.” This one was still the same as when Renwick had last visited it: dark panelled walls enclosing a square room, with a large desk, two comfortable chairs, a filing cabinet, and three telephones. There was one powerful lamp for evening work; by day, light beamed through the diamond panes of two windows, narrow and tall, which stood close to the desk. Everything was well in reach of Crefeld’s long arm. Now, he was lifting a large attaché case on to his lap. Renwick waited, wondering if the business that had brought him here necessitated so many documents. Then he smiled: he had forgotten that Jake never let business interfere with regular mealtimes.

  “We’ll lunch first,” Crefeld was saying as he opened the attaché case, “and talk of this and that. I heard a rumour that you were resigning. Are you?” He swept blotting pad and letters aside, and in the cleared space spread out a checked napkin which had covered the food. Next came a plastic box containing cold cuts and cheese, a smaller box with cherries, a sliced loaf, two mugs, two plastic glasses, two paper plates, a Thermos of coffee, and a flask of gin.

  “Negative. Only a rumour.” In fascination, Renwick watched the deft way in which Crefeld’s massive hands arranged the items in logical order. “Just a nice little piece of camouflage.”

  “Because of your new project?” Crefeld poured gin into the two glasses. “That’s wise. No useful purpose in spilling the— What do you Americans spill?” He frowned at the glass he held out to Renwick. He prided himself on his command of colloquial English, acquired over his years of service with NATO.

  “Beans.” Renwick smothered his grin. It was years since he had heard that phrase.

  Crefeld inclined his head in acknowledgement. As usual, a strand of fair hair—now greying and thinning, Renwick noted—fell over his high forehead. He pushed it aside, a temporary victory, and studied his glass. “Glad it was only a rumour. You’ve still got twenty years ahead of you before you reach my age.”