There would be coffee at the office. As bad as in any office, he assumed. Brussels had been the low point in coffee quality. Only the diehards drank the office brew. The others passed by a café first.
The sun heated his bedroom quickly now, which he liked. It would be wonderful waking each morning, even in midwinter, covered by that gentle warmth. He inspected the walls and the window frames and wondered if he shouldn’t get some paint to freshen up his apartment. And perhaps buy a small bookcase in the process. With so many bookshops in this part of Amsterdam, he’d probably buy too many books for the currently available and actually nonexistent shelf space.
He had a look in the mirror. Summer trousers, pale blue shirt, dark blue jacket. Couldn’t go wrong. He slid sunglasses in the breast pocket of his jacket, felt for his wallet, and realized something was missing. A holster and a gun. He would be handed a gun today.
He closed the apartment and descended the stairs. The shop was closed. It was half past eight. He was on time and even a bit too early. He preferred to start the day by being too early, although nobody would ask him to clock in.
The short walk from his apartment to the anonymous offices of the AIVD took him partly through Kerkstraat, which broadened, magically, into a sort of square with a church, and benches and primitive football goals constructed out of steel tubes. The local kids and the elderly seemed to be spending their time here, perhaps on quiet afternoons and on Sundays.
The AIVD building was a little farther down the street, cold, shuttered, official without looking official. He wondered if Alexandra—he still thought of her as Alexandra and not as Chief Dewaal—stayed here every evening, sleeping in a steel casket, to be awakened only when she was needed the next morning.
The Sleeping Beauty. Another fantasy he allowed himself privately. At least he had an attractive chief for once.
The entrance to the building consisted of a marble-floored hall with neutrally colored walls. The doorframes seemed made of steel and the doors of thick glass. Cameras were in the corners close to the ceiling. Behind a desk was a uniformed man who carried a gun in a very professional holster. Eekhaut presented his identification, attesting he was a Belgian police officer.
“Mmm, Mr. Eekhaut,” the guard said, seemingly uninterested. “You have an appointment. Yes, you even have an office in this building. Just a moment. I’ll provide you with a personalized access card.”
The card was a red plastic affair with small black digits printed on it and a chip. “Hold it against the card reader next to the doors, and you can go anywhere you like. You have clearance for the whole building,” the uniformed man said.
Clearance, Eekhaut thought. The man had used the English term.
Let’s get this show on the road, he thought.
“Office zero one thirty-two, sir. One up. Elevator to your left.”
The elevator was made of steel, no mirrors inside, as if claustrophobically inclined people were discouraged from using this building—or at least the elevators. He stepped into a wide corridor on the second floor. A fine stucco ceiling made it clear that at least part of the original interior had survived modernization. The detectors at the doors and the cameras on the ceiling spoke of Big Brother. The doors weren’t original to the building and looked as if they could withstand a battering ram and even explosives.
Office zero one thirty-two happened to be not his own but that of the chief, who was already present behind a large but almost empty desk. Expecting him. Of course, she was expecting him. She gestured, and he assumed he could take a seat opposite her, in one of those modern steel frame chairs that didn’t look capable of supporting human weight.
“This is officially your first day with us, Chief Inspector,” she said. “We’ll issue you a badge and a weapon in a moment.” She didn’t ask if the place had been easy to find and all the usual nonsense, or if he had slept well. There would be no time for idle chitchat between them, not today.
“And then we’ll look at some of the dossiers. But before that, I’d like to go over some of our rules, the details of our collaboration. We don’t have to be too stiff and formal about it, but we should at least have the parameters understood between us, right? The things that are expected of us. Well, from you, in this case.”
He couldn’t agree more, he indicated, while he quickly scanned the office. It seemed a bit grim, which was a letdown. The same neutral color on the walls as in the corridors, a framed van Gogh, a framed diploma, furniture in a combination of polished steel and black leather. Reminded him a bit of the shop downstairs from his apartment. No interior architect or designer had been allowed near these premises.
She, however, was a different story altogether. She looked as if she came out of a box, cleaned and pressed. Almost the same official-looking suit as the day before. No nonsense. He had expected something less formal today. Maybe he’d gotten her completely wrong.
“Let’s fill out these forms first,” she said. She pushed a cardboard folder in his direction. It contained about a dozen documents. Nasty white paper and fine print. A lot of fine print.
“There you are,” she said.
“Right now?”
“Your office is next to this one,” she said. “Shall we work on a first-name basis? That’s easier.”
“No problem.”
“Good.”
He left her office and entered his. It was somewhat smaller than hers but in every other respect almost a copy. Which he regretted. It was nothing more than an almost-bare cell with only a few pieces of furniture. He sat down on the multi-adjustable leather desk chair and opened the folder. He took his pen from his pocket and started reading.
It took him the better part of an hour to read and fill in all the documents. Had he been in one of the following countries (list of countries, some of which he’d never even heard of, probably all illegal for a Belgian or Dutch citizen to enter), how often had he drawn/discharged his handgun, did he have any ties to political organizations (which one, what sort of ties). And so on.
An hour. Twelve, no, thirteen documents. All of them attempting to ensnare him, to catch him in a contradiction, an outright lie. Forms he couldn’t possibly fill out without at least two or three small untruths. He worked his way through the forms and gave free rein to his sense of whimsy, without really committing a serious lie to paper.
He finished, put his pen down, rose, slid the documents back in the folder, and carried the whole package back to Dewaal’s office.
“Thank you,” she said. “Take a seat again. We’ll discuss your tasks.”
“And these forms?”
“Oh, they go into the archives. Don’t worry.”
He said nothing. He’d committed half of his life to these forms. But they were going right away into the archives. Nobody was going to read them.
Dewaal said, “You’re here, as you know, because we’re investigating Adam Keretsky and the way his many companies operate. More specifically, his involvement with Fabna Bank. We talked about that yesterday. But that’s just a part of your involvement with us. You’re supposed to coordinate all information concerning international extremist and criminal organizations connected with Dutch and Belgian companies. That’s quite a lot of work, actually, but it’s what this Bureau does. We’re part of AIVD. Here, however, in this building, we’re our own boss. It’s just us here, and our technical support teams. You’ll spend time writing and editing reports, but you’ll be active in the field as well. You’re an experienced detective, and I want to use you as such.”
“In the field.”
“Exactly. Surveillance, analysis, intelligence gathering. That sort of thing. Real detective stuff, too. A lot happens in the field. We keep track of some five hundred organizations. That’s a lot. We have a small team, about twenty-four people, no more, and that’s hardly sufficient. But we get a lot of intelligence from the local police, customs, military intelligence, and others.”
“A lot of information,” he said. Twenty-four people
covering five hundred organizations. It wasn’t as if they were going to get one review each annually, these organizations.
“Our weak spot, exactly,” she said. “And we’re not even familiar with the Belgian situation, so we hardly work cross-border. Then there are the other adjacent countries to consider. You are fluent in both English and French, and that’s interesting for us, when we deal with specific European countries. Like Ireland and France.”
“Adjacent countries,” Eekhaut said.
“Well, not really, but at least they’re countries belonging to the European Union. With no additional borders between them. You know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” he said. “I’d be interested to see how this all pans out in practice.”
“We’ve all heard about your methods,” she said. “We’re not going to use them, as we’re not too keen on, well, the way you handle suspects, for instance.”
“Methods?”
“I’d call them intimidating, these methods of yours I’ve heard about,” Dewaal said. She used the word as if it concerned some nasty dental procedure.
“I see.”
“I hope you do. We work by the book. That should be clear from the start. Rules. Suspects have rights. Everyone has rights.”
“Those that are innocent and those that we think are guilty. They all have rights.”
“Exactly,” she said. “We’re very careful with rights.”
“We’ll see how this works out,” he said.
She looked rather unhappy. “I hope, Chief Inspector Eekhaut, that I made our commitment clear? Concerning your attitude?”
“Perfectly clear, Chief Superintendent. I understand I’ll be first and foremost handling the Keretsky affair.”
“Excellent. Now, I’ll introduce you to the team …”
13
AFTER SHE HAD INTRODUCED Eekhaut and left him with the team, Dewaal retreated to her office and called Prinsen and asked him to join her. He came at once, assuming something was wrong. And something was wrong. “Where is the recording?” she asked. He was certain she already knew the answer. She was going to chew him out, or worse. She was going to make him regret there was a family connection between them. And make sure he understood there would be no favors from her.
Forget the family connection. He would have no reprieve. Until he really had earned her respect, on his own account. Till then he was going to have to prove to her he was better than the other detectives.
He tried to recall how she treated him when he was a child. But he couldn’t. No memories came. As if his mind was blocked, the past stowed away, carefully hidden. He had heard stories about her from members of his family, in which she was—well, nearly—the Devil himself, or at least an apostate. But when he finally met her, as a kid still, she looked like any normal person. Or at least as normal as anyone in the village. In fact, more normal.
He had met her again a few times before he came to Amsterdam. She kept to herself, mostly, which was in itself suspect to the members of his large, fundamentally religious, reactionary family. She was a free woman, which was a greater sin still. His mother’s younger sister, the problem child, the outcast. Didn’t believe in church or God. Prinsen’s mother loathed her, if only for that.
“The memory stick with the recording was delivered to the prosecutor’s office on his demand,” he said. That was what the report also said, the one he had filed earlier.
“And who ordered this?”
“Breukeling called the prosecutor in person on his phone.”
“That’s not an answer, Prinsen. I’ll be clear, so there is no misunderstanding between us. Who ordered the recording to be delivered to the prosecutor and who asked that the original recording on the hard drive of the computer be wiped?”
“The prosecutor himself,” Prinsen said. But more softly now, as if he was no longer certain who had done what and why. He had heard Breukeling discussing the matter with the prosecutor. Or had he not?
Dewaal leaned back and inspected him. He knew that look. It didn’t bode well for him. He knew he was in trouble. “How good is Breukeling with computers?” she asked.
He didn’t have any idea where the question would lead. What did it matter if Breukeling was a nerd or not? “About average,” he said. “The usual things. Word, Excel, a few other applications. The utilities we use for—”
“Experts tell me you never really can delete a file from a hard disk. It can always be found. At least, if you act fast. Why would Breukeling follow orders from the prosecutor without consulting me first?”
“He’s only a detective,” Prinsen argued. He would defend his colleagues with logical arguments if needed. “He could hardly ignore an order from the prosecutor, could he?”
“Breukeling has been a detective in this Bureau for a considerable stretch of time. Long enough to know that the prosecutor has no right to interfere with an ongoing investigation of this sort. He didn’t order the investigation in the first place. He isn’t part of the line of command. Breukeling had only me to deal with. Can I get any clearer?”
“I’m sure—”
“But then I’m informed about what happened yesterday. The prosecutor is supposed to have the only recording of that conversation between Keretsky and Fabna Bank. A strange outcome and not something we agreed on. But I’m willing to let the matter slide. So I call the prosecutor this morning. The one Breukeling is supposed to have called yesterday. Because you heard him talking to the prosecutor, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did, yes.”
“You suppose,” she said. “Well, anyway, the prosecutor didn’t know what I was talking about. He was even more surprised when I got worked up. I know we don’t always see eye to eye, and we’ve had our differences of opinion, to say the least. But he knew nothing about this. He didn’t speak to Breukeling. Not at all. He gave no such order. And Prinsen, this one time I’m inclined to believe him.”
“But I assumed—”
“You assumed? Really? What did you assume? You heard Breukeling talking, and he told you he had been speaking to the prosecutor. And then, he did what?”
“He downloaded the recording to the memory stick.”
“And after that?”
“He took the memory stick with him.”
“Right. To give to the prosecutor. And he wiped the original recording, which we may or may not be able to retrieve, hopefully more or less intact. Unless Breukeling does really know his way around computers.”
“Shit!”
“Are things becoming clearer? A memory stick destined for the prosecutor, who knew nothing of the whole business and wouldn’t even care. In other words …”
“Shit,” Prinsen said again.
“Breukeling didn’t show up this morning. The recording is gone. The experts tell me it looks like it was never made. What Breukeling did, my dear Prinsen, was record the conversation directly on the stick, instead of on the hard drive—I’m sure I’ll start to like this jargon—and then absconded with the stick while you were watching.”
“Maybe he did …”
“And now for the really, really messy part of my story,” Dewaal said. “Breukeling had a night out. He arrived at his house early this morning. Probably had been celebrating. Because he’d fooled all of us. We’ll try to find out who he celebrated with, and where. Anyway. His wife was already in bed. Lucky for her, the bedroom is situated at the back of the house. That saved her life. She’ll probably never hear anything again, but she’s still alive.”
Prinsen stared at Dewaal.
“Remember when Jaap van der Heiden was murdered in Alkmaar in, what was it, 1993? Same method. You hang a plastic grocery bag with explosives on your target’s doorknob. His front door. The explosives are wired to a cell phone. From a distance, you keep an eye on the location. You dial the number of the phone in the bag, except for the last digit. When your guy walks toward his front door, wondering who left groceries behind, you punch the last digit. The phone in the bag acts
as detonator. And that’s that. The little that was left of Breukeling was brought to the teaching hospital. And he was not dead, can you imagine? All the more exceptional, since he had lost both his lower arms, and his right leg snapped off when they lifted him out of the tree he’d been flung into. His face was gone. They noticed he was alive because his heart was still functioning along with his brain. Luckily for him, that didn’t last long.”
“Jesus!”
“Jesus had very little to do with all this. And given Breukeling’s past, he’s not going to meet Jesus anytime soon. This is one of the very rare occasions an officer of the AIVD was killed on the job. I want this to be the only occasion, at least on my watch. Another thing I want is for no other officer to have any intention of betraying us. A considerable amount of cash was discovered in what remained of his clothes. Fragments of bank notes, actually, and not from his own savings. Somebody was prepared to pay Breukeling a lot of money so we would not hear the recording of the conversation at the Renaissance between Keretsky and Monet. And if you don’t know who Monet is, you need to dive into your dossiers right away.”
“Who is on this case? The murder, I mean.”
“Internal Affairs has taken matters in hand. I’m pretty sure what will happen next. They’ll discover that Breukeling had a lot of enemies, especially old ones. You know what the rumors say about him and his relation to certain obscure people in Amsterdam. Corruption is a word that might be used in this connection. Internal Affairs wasn’t even surprised when they heard about the murder. They’re analyzing the fragments of whatever was in the bag. As far as you’re concerned, I’ll add you to the group that’s handling the Keretsky file. It seems you’re already involved.”
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