by David Hewson
‘Frank,’ he said before De Groot could speak. ‘I thought we were keeping this quiet.’
‘Not any more,’ the commissaris told him. ‘They think they’ve found Khaled. I want you there. Get yourself a car.’
Bakker and Van der Berg came in behind the AIVD team. Down a long corridor into a room turning violent and noisy. Henk Kuyper stood up and got out of their way the moment they arrived.
There was a man opposite them. Big. Misshapen somehow. Fat but all the bulk was around his waist. He sat at a desk, arms folded, waiting for them, cigarette in his heavy right hand.
Looked up, furious, when he saw the force he faced.
Got to his feet, arms flying, scattering some papers from the desk.
‘What is this?’ he yapped. ‘I told Kuyper. I’ll talk to you people. I can be your friend.’
Fransen stopped in front of him, told the lead officer with her, the tall one with the craggy face and the black suit, to cuff him.
The briefest of struggles, one Khaled wasn’t going to win. The cigarette fell to the floor. He was shouting a lot, in foul-mouthed Dutch.
Hands behind his back, held by the AIVD man, still yelling.
‘You can let him go now,’ Fransen ordered.
‘He’s offering to cooperate,’ Kuyper said, arms folded, back against the wall. ‘I think he’s a middleman. A fixer. That’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ Khaled laughed.
The rest of the AIVD team started to hunt around the office, opening filing cabinets, poking at things.
Fransen walked up to him and said, ‘Give me Barbone and I’ll put you on a plane anywhere you like. Money in your pocket. A new passport.’
‘Natalya Bublik too,’ Bakker added, getting a filthy look from Fransen for her pains.
Khaled shrugged off the man behind him. Gave a good impression of outrage.
‘Who is this woman? I told you, Kuyper. I deal with your boss. Not some bitch with a mouth on her . . .’
She didn’t like that. Marched straight up. Face in his. The two of them between the chair and the desk he’d used.
Bakker watched intently. Trying to understand this. Something wasn’t right.
‘I am his boss, you moron,’ Fransen barked at him. ‘Head of AIVD in Amsterdam. I report straight to The Hague. If you want a deal I can cut it. There’s no one else.’
A pause to let him understand this.
‘Then take these stupid handcuffs off me,’ Khaled said.
‘They stay on until you give me something.’ She got even closer. Almost touched him and he didn’t like that. ‘An address. Some names. A reason to believe.’
Something in his face. Doubt. Fear even.
‘Do that,’ she added, ‘and I’ll be grateful. Do that . . .’
His hands shook behind his back. Bakker thought she spotted something odd beneath the heavy cardigan.
Khaled cast his eyes around the room as if calculating something. How many people there.
‘This is wrong . . .’ Bakker started to say.
But by then Khaled was moving. He bent forward, pushed his big frame into Mirjam Fransen. Launched himself at her, taking the two of them down onto the desk. Pumping with his chest, banging Fransen against the stained wooden surface, pressing her down constantly.
Looking for a button, Bakker thought straight away.
‘He’s got something on!’ Bakker yelled. ‘Dirk . . .’
The detective was moving too. So were most of the AIVD officers, racing out of the little office, down the corridor. Henk Kuyper among them.
Khaled fought to press himself down once more to force the explosive vest hard into the woman beneath him.
The best target he had.
The force of his movement ripped the cardigan back. The trap was obvious then, set and loaded. Wires. Canisters. And somewhere, Bakker knew, a trigger.
The house was in a narrow residential street called Joop IJisbergstraat not far from Sloterdijk station where her mother had sat, anxious and depressed, an hour earlier. They carried the girl inside still in the bag. Then unzipped the thing. Told her to get out and stand.
The man with the dreadlocks left. So did another she didn’t recognize. Now there was a burly, thuggish-looking individual with a tattoo just peering out from a T-shirt over his bicep. And two men. Odd men. They might have been brothers. Even identical twins.
They wore dark pinstriped suits and reminded her of a couple of characters from a comic book she’d read at school. Tintin.
It was in English. They were English too. Thomson and Thompson. These two didn’t have heavy moustaches. But they were bald. Almost identical. Old. Podgy. Now they sat on a sofa staring at her, one of them tut-tutting, the other smiling, making noises that sounded as if they were supposed to be nice.
They held delicate teacups and dipped little biscuits in them as they scrutinized her.
‘Take that thing off her mouth, Dmitri,’ the one on the left – Thomson she decided – said.
Dmitri did and told her to keep quiet or else.
‘Name,’ said the other one.
‘What does a name matter?’ the man with the tattoo asked. Natalya recognized that accent from back in Georgia. Russian, she thought. Her mother always recoiled when she heard it.
‘Matters if we’re caught taking her back to Belgium,’ Thompson pointed out. ‘You’ve some papers I presume?’
The Russian threw three things on the table.
‘Take your pick,’ he said. ‘We got them run up last night. Dutch ID. Luxembourg. Georgian.’
‘Pretty girl,’ Thomson said.
He leaned forward and looked at her. Held out one of his biscuits. Hungry, Natalya reached out for it. He snatched the thing back and laughed.
‘Greedy too. There’s extra cost. What’s your name?’ he asked again.
‘Mary,’ she said.
The Russian grumbled something then glared at her.
‘It’s Natalya. Fucking Georgians. They couldn’t tell the truth if you paid them.’
Thompson tut-tutted once more. Then the other one joined in.
‘Little girls who lie,’ Thompson said.
‘What can you do with them?’ the second asked.
‘Be firm,’ the first added. ‘Always. Be wise and careful and never let the little minxes out of your sight.’
The second looked at the Russian and asked, ‘How much?’
‘Forty thousand.’
The two of them got up in concert and brushed imaginary crumbs from their suit trousers.
‘No wonder you never mentioned the price on the phone. To think we drove all the way from Ghent. For this?’
He cast an eye over her again.
‘She’s pretty. But not so much. Looks like trouble too. It’s no fun dealing with that.’
He went to the window and pulled back the long, thick curtains. They seemed to be in the front room of a house. The place was bare and had an odd smell about it. Something medicinal. Or like a gym.
‘That damned thing eats diesel too,’ Thompson said.
She stretched up and could just see outside. In the narrow road stood a long, shiny black car.
It took a moment for Natalya to realize what it was. A hearse. In the back, as shiny as the paintwork, a plain coffin.
‘You’re going to drive all the way home with that thing empty?’ the Russian asked. ‘Let me get you some more tea.’
The curtain closed. The pair looked at each other and said nothing.
‘We can talk about this,’ Dmitri added, a little desperately.
There was one door to the living room. It was ajar. She could see the front door through it. Just an ordinary lock. The kind you could undo from the inside. One quick dash. A bit of luck. Out into a street she didn’t know in a part of the city she couldn’t even guess at.
‘The spunky little cow’s thinking of running,’ Thomson said, amused. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Dmitri mumbled something under his breath and stared at her.<
br />
‘Best hobble the child,’ Thompson added. ‘Saves so much trouble down the line.’
‘Hobble?’ the Russian asked. ‘You mean . . .’
He swung an imaginary hammer through the air.
‘Good God,’ Thompson remarked with a sigh. ‘Do you think we could sell her like that?’
He came over and told her to sit on one of the chairs at the dining table.
It was so high her legs dangled off the floor. The other one opened the curtains for a moment and looked up and down the deserted street. She could see the hearse clearly.
Something like a scarlet silk sash came out of his pocket. He bound it round her ankles.
‘There,’ he said and slapped her lightly on the calf. ‘That’s better.’
He fingered the pink jacket. Stained with earth and mould.
‘God this thing stinks,’ he said, wincing. ‘That’s more expense. We’d have to clean this one up good and proper.’
‘Tea,’ Dmitri said. He’d been in the kitchen and got some more. ‘I’ve got some nice smoked salmon. Some eel too. If you’re hungry. Wine . . .’
‘Oh we’re always hungry!’ Thomson announced with a grin. ‘When there’s something worth eating. No wine, though. Driving.’
‘Snacks then,’ the Russian said and went out again.
Thomson and Thompson went back to the sofa. The one on the left put his hand to his chin. Then the other did the same.
‘Germany,’ the first said. ‘Hamburg. They’d like her there.’
The other shook his head.
‘We’d get more if we moved her further afield. Out of Europe altogether. The Gulf. Africa.’ He smiled. ‘Little blonde girls. Everyone loves them, don’t they?’
The smile left him.
‘Except they don’t stay that way. Not unless you dye them. You don’t think . . .’ He came over and fingered her hair. ‘No. That’s real enough.’
They were quiet for a moment. A radio was playing in the kitchen. There was the sound of cutlery on plates.
‘Always the same,’ Thomson said with a sigh. ‘How does one balance the risk against the reward?’
His finger slipped up his cheek. Their beady eyes never left her.
‘We start at three,’ he said in a low, firm voice. ‘We go to eight. Ten no more.’
‘Too generous as always,’ Thompson said. ‘You leave this to me.’
Dmitri came back carrying food like a waiter. There was the smell of smoked fish.
Natalya looked at him and said, ‘They say you’re a fool, Russian. They’ll pay you nothing. If . . .’
He banged the plates on a table, stormed across the room, fist raised.
Thomson and Thompson were laughing. So hard there were tears in their eyes.
The tattooed man stood over her, ready to strike. She held her head up. Looked him in the face.
‘Friend,’ Thomson said, coming over, taking his arm. ‘Dmitri. No.’
The Russian calmed down a little, said something in his odd and guttural tongue.
‘Damaged goods are no use to us,’ the man in the pinstriped suit told him.
Natalya glared at all three of them. Unbowed. Defiant.
‘Unless it’s ours to damage,’ the second noted then reached for some delicate eel on brown bread.
Van der Berg was burly, scarcely fit, but he wasn’t slow. He got there first. Dragging Khaled back by the collar, tearing at the brown cardigan.
The one remaining AIVD man, the big officer who’d argued with Fransen, joined him.
Bakker saw the obvious. His hands were cuffed so he couldn’t reach whatever mechanism was set on the vest. Forcing himself against Fransen was his only way to trigger that.
If they could keep hold of him . . .
Khaled kept screeching obscene abuse, Dutch, English. Anything he could think of. Then Van der Berg got his neck in the crook of his arm, jerked hard, choked his windpipe. Fransen slid out from underneath.
Bakker kept a multi-tool knife inside her jacket, next to the gun. She opened up the sharp blade, slashed at the grey wool. Ripped open the front.
Line upon line of small round tubes. More wires. The AIVD man couldn’t take his eyes off it and she knew what his expression meant: enough here to take out the building.
‘Just hold him,’ Bakker said and they did.
Ignoring his kicking, desperate feet, she got in, cut through the strap on each shoulder, then the one around his waist. Lifted the vest away from him. Stood back with it in her hands.
Mirjam Fransen had fled to the corner of the room. She was crouched in a heap, terrified, gasping for breath.
The AIVD man wrestled Khaled to the floor, pulled out a gun, held it in his face. Said something about wanting an excuse. Any.
Then, when things calmed a little, introduced himself: Blok.
‘Why didn’t it go off?’ Bakker asked, turning the vest in her fingers, curious as always.
Blok pointed to a small square by the waist.
‘Pressure pad. You have to depress it for a couple of seconds before it cuts in. If it didn’t have a delay you could set it off accidentally.’
‘Makes sense I suppose . . .’
She held it up, peered at the little square. Looked ready to start investigating it.
‘Careful,’ Van der Berg warned.
The thing slipped from her grip, started to fall to the floor.
Blok swore, caught it. Glared at the two of them then barked at one of his men to come and take the vest away.
‘That was clumsy,’ Bakker said with a quick smile. ‘We are still looking for the girl by the way. You owe us now.’
He shook his head.
‘You think there’s much here? These people are clearing out of town. That’s why they killed Smits.’ He nodded at Khaled, surly, despondent at his feet. ‘Why they left this idiot as a present. So he could take as many of us with him as he could. I’m sorry—’
‘We’re not giving up yet,’ Bakker cut in.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I rather gathered that.’
More figures at the door. De Groot in a long winter overcoat. Vos in his donkey jacket, asking questions straight away.
Then Hanna Bublik. New coat. New haircut. Same old anger.
One look at her face and Laura Bakker knew how well her day had gone. Vos’s too.
A short exchange and Vos established what had happened.
He pointed at Mirjam Fransen.
‘Take her into custody.’
Blok’s mouth opened. But he didn’t speak.
‘Kuyper too,’ Van der Berg said. ‘We want him as well.’
Fransen was on her feet. Back to her old self. All bluster and threats.
‘You can’t arrest anyone! We were on an operation.’
‘Not now,’ Vos said.
‘Christ!’ She grabbed hold of De Groot’s coat, dragged him round to face her. ‘You don’t honestly think you can do this to serving AIVD officers, do you? One phone call . . .’
De Groot rolled his eyes.
‘You can’t throw me in a cell,’ Fransen yelled. ‘I won’t have it.’
The commissaris scowled, turned to the uniforms.
‘Make it a comfy one if you can. If not . . . what the hell? Pieter?’
He was kneeling down, trying to talk to the man on the floor. About someone called Dmitri Volkov. Getting nowhere.
‘Pieter,’ De Groot repeated. ‘Where do we go now?’
‘I’m one soldier among many,’ the Arab bellowed then spat full in Vos’s face.
‘Boss,’ Van der Berg said.
Vos got up. Wiped the mess from his face with the back of his hand. The detective was standing by the desk. In his hand was a Saudi Arabian passport. A photo of the man in front of them and a name: Hakim Fakhoury.
‘He probably isn’t even Khaled, is he?’ Van der Berg threw the passport on the desk. ‘We’re nowhere.’
‘Two thousand,’ Thompson said. ‘Cash. It’s sitting in an enve
lope in the hearse. You can have it now.’
Dmitri Volkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, put his hands together as if in prayer.
‘Please, Lord. I asked you to send me serious men. Not comedians.’
The Belgians didn’t look amused.
‘We’re taking a liability off your hands,’ Thomson told him.
‘A big liability,’ Thompson observed, staring at Natalya Bublik silent on the chair, a scarlet tie around her ankles. ‘She looks trouble. You don’t want her here.’
Dmitri gestured at the plates, eyes wide, pleading.
‘Two thousand and you get free fish?’
‘The eel was good,’ Thomson agreed. ‘The salmon not so much. Let’s say two and a half.’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Dmitri gestured at the door. ‘Be gone from here. You think you’re the only ones I’ve got for this merchandise?’
They didn’t move.
Thompson said, ‘If you had a local buyer you wouldn’t be calling us.’
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ the Russian objected.
Thomson pulled a big phone out of his jacket and turned it on. Natalya could just about see. There was a story there. A headline about her. A kidnap. A photo of her in the pink jacket, back on one of the boats.
‘We have news in Belgium too, Dmitri. A friend would have mentioned these . . . complications. The police know this child. They’ll be looking for her.’
‘They know nothing!’ Dmitri cried. ‘They think she’s with some crazy terrorists . . .’
Thomson and Thompson folded their pinstriped arms and stayed silent.
‘Fifteen thousand,’ Dmitri begged. ‘I give you a thousand discount off the next one.’
‘Three,’ Thompson told him.
‘I’ve got a bottom line from my boss. I can’t go below it.’
‘Make it up from your own pocket then,’ the Belgian suggested. He smiled. ‘You’ve got your sidelines. Let’s not pretend otherwise.’
‘Eight.’
‘Three and a half.’
Dmitri picked up a piece of eel, dangled it over his mouth, let it fall.
‘Four and a half,’ Thompson said. ‘Paid here and now. That’s as far as we go.’
‘Fine,’ the Russian agreed. ‘But you take her with you. I don’t want the little bitch sitting round here staring at me like that.’
Natalya cocked her head to one side, was about to say something then thought better of it.