off the road. Then a figure, its face concealed by a ski mask, rapped a gun
barrel against my window, and since the only choice offered me was whether I
wanted to take my medicine with the window broken or unbroken I released
the door lock. The door was pulled open, the gun was jammed into the side of
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my head. A hand, a slender boyish hand, reached across me to switch off the
VW’s lights and to remove the ignition key.
Anneke must have been sound asleep through it all. Now she stirred and
said with bewilderment, “What’s happening?” and I said to her, “Gevaar.
Beweeg je niet. Don’t speak. Don’t move.”
We sat like that as someone emerged from the big car and went to work
on the front end of the VW. The lid of the luggage compartment went up, a
searchlight beam probed around, and at last — though it couldn’t have been
more than a few minutes — the painful pressure of that gun barrel against my
head was gone, the big car was gone, and I was left sitting there with the
thought that since one careless move might have had my brains spattered all
over Anneke things could be worse.
On the other hand, they could not be much worse.
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Lieve God, “said Anneke irritably. “The
lunatics. All that just to steal some second-hand clothing.”
I dug out my searchlight, and with Anneke for company, went around to
the luggage compartment. It was still packed tight with our belongings, but the
false lid was lying on the roadside. On it were the gasket and the car keys.
Polite hijackers, at least
Anneke was looking through the stuff in the compartment. “I don’t think
they took anything at all,” she said with surprise.
I left her to it while I dug out a screwdriver from my tool kit, trusting to
luck she’d let it go at that, but I was out of luck this night. She had to wield the
searchlight while I, my hands made awkward by the cold, fitted the false lid
back into place and screwed the supporting gasket under it.
“So that’s it,” she said. “A place to hide something in. And now that I
know this much, Mijnheer van Zee, you will please tell me the rest.”
“All right,” I said, “it was currency. Those business trips we make now
and then are to pick it up and deliver it.”
“A lot of currency? It must be, the way they’re paying you.”
“It is. In this case, it was worth a million dollars American.”
“A million?” Anneke said, stunned. “And those hoodlums took it all?”
“You don’t see any of it left, do you? But those weren’t ordinary
hoodlums. This had to be an inside job, and the ones at the Zurich end are the
only ones who could have pulled it off. That was a big mistake on their part.
The man behind this operation, this money transport business —”
”That one with the bad karma?”
“That one. Well, he knows who his Zurich people are. So the faster I get
to Luxembourg and pass the word along, the faster he can track them down.”
“Then,” said the logical Anneke, “why are we standing out here in the
cold just talking about it?”
It took twenty minutes to reach the city, the clock on the tower over the
railroad station marking one A.M. when I pulled into the Place de la Gare. I
parked before the least prepossessing hotel in sight, and Anneke said, “Not the
youth hostel?” The hostel — l'Auberge de Jeunesse among the hills and
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valleys of the north side of town — had always served as our abode on
previous visits.
“No. I’ll need a phone handy for personal calls, and the hostel’s too
public for that. And the garage where I have to leave the car isn’t far from
here. Transportation is dead this late at night, but I can walk back here from
the garage easily.”
The lobby of the Hotel Rhea looked distinctly second class, our room
one flight up overlooking the square was shabbily third class, but, as the notice
on the bedroom door stated, the place was rated first class, at least by
Luxembourg standards. Anyhow, the only first-class feature I required was the
phone on the night table, the private bath with scalding water jetting from its
faucet being Iagniappe that Anneke willingly seized on. I left her to her bath
while I drove the car a few blocks north and across the bridge over the
railroad tracks to the garage on the rue des Trevires.
In line with company policy, the boy who opened its door in response to
my banging on it was no one I recognized. He had a fire going in a steel barrel
that did nothing to temper the bitter cold of the garage but did provide enough
smoke to make my eyes water as soon as I pulled the car into place.
“De motor klopt,” I said according to ritual
“Maar zet hem af, alstublieft.” Local talent as usual. The harsh way he
pronounced it, it sounded more Luxembourgesch than Dutch.
I got out of the car. “The man in charge,” I said. “When will he be
here?”
“I don’t know.”
“But he must have told you when.”
Now he looked alarmed. “Come back tomorrow night. The car will be
fixed then. That is all.”
I walked back to the hotel, on edge with the thought that every minute’s
delay meant another mile’s head start for the hijackers. Anneke was still in the
tub. “De première classe, n’est-ce pas?” she greeted me. “Did you see the
man? What will he do about getting the money back?”
“I didn’t see him. I’ll try him by phone. I should have done that the first
thing.”
The time it took to rouse the hotel’s switchboard operator didn’t do my
nerves any good. Finally I gave her the London number and heard the
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connection being made. Up to now on those calls I made the first of each
month all I had gotten from the other end was either dead silence, the signal to
hang up and take another month’s leave, or a toneless mechanical voice
informing me that the number was out of service, the signal to report for duty.
Now for the first time I heard a living, unrecorded voice. “Yes?”
“Trouble,” I said.
“What sort of trouble?” Uninflected English in a muffled tone. Probably
Leewarden.
“A hijacking,” I said. “Twenty minutes out of Luxembourg city. The
whole load was cleaned out.”
“Damn!” It was pretty surely Leewarden. “Will you be able to take a
phone call within the hour?”
“Yes.”
“Your number?”
I gave him the number, and that was it. One hour, I surmised, would be
the time needed to get the executive heads together and chart a course of
action. An hour did the trick. The phone rang, and when I picked it up the same
voice said, “Where are you now9"
“In Luxembourg city.”
“The address?”
“Never mind that.” With the address, whoever was supposed to unload
the VW over on the rue des Trevires could drop in on me here without
warning, and I wanted no such company while Anneke was on the premises.
The man at the other end took his time digesting my rebuff. “Very well.
; But where is the car now?”
“In the garage.”
“Then be at the garage tomorrow noon. Precisely twelve. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Meanwhile stand by the phone for any change of plan. Stay close to it at
all times. If there is no call, just be at the garage at noon.” Click.
After that, sleep was hard to come by and then hold on to. We were up
early, had our breakfast — tasteless rolls, pallid coffee, and plastic-packed
blobs of chemically manufactured jelly — served in the room, and then sat at
the window watching unlovely downtown Luxembourg come to life in the
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Place de Ia Gare while I waited out the time until noon or until the phone rang,
whichever came first.
A few minutes after ten, there was a knock on our door. “The maid,
monsieur-’dame. For your breakfast tray, please.”
I opened the door.
It was indeed the maid, and, behind her, looking absolutely delighted to
see their old friend van Zee, were the foreman of the works and the general
manager.
Jago and Kees Baar.
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The maid left with the breakfast tray,
and Jago shut the door behind her. The room, not large to start with, shrank to
telephone booth dimensions with Goliath standing there, his back against the
closed door.
Kees gave my cheek a friendly pat as if to rouse me from my stupor.
“Oh, come,” he said, “you didn’t really think it’s that hard to locate an address
once you have the phone number for it, did you?”
I said, “You could have saved yourself the trouble. I would have been at
the garage on schedule.”
“Of course.” He took in Anneke and said to her, “Juffrouw Anneke,
right? Three years ago in Amsterdam. That gaudily decorated houseboat. You
were the young lady tending the infants there.” He shrugged deprecatingly.
“One of my small vanities. I never forget a name or a face.”
I said to him, “The young lady has no part in our business, Kees. So if
you don’t mind —”
”No.” He shook his head at her. “The young lady will remain seated
where she is.” Then he turned to me, his face now stony. “Wat is er
misgegaan?”
“What went wrong? Ask your Zurich people.”
“My Zurich people?”
I said, “I was followed from the garage in Zurich by a team who knew
what the merchandise was and where it was hidden. The way it happened —”
”Yes. Exactly what did happen?”
I explained in detail, but with a growing feeling that my inquisitor was
not impressed by the explanation. “Interesting,” he remarked, “that you should
have entered Luxembourg so far north. A great waste of time, wasn’t it? To
what purpose?”
“To stay clear of the French customs men.”
“Their manners displease you? But of course, when one has such
delicate nerves —”
”Don’t give me that, Kees. I just happened to know how much money I
was carrying this time out.”
“Yes,” Kees said drily, “you did, didn’t you?”
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“Look,” Anneke said, “he’s telling the truth. I was there. I saw it.”
“So.” Kees leered at her. “And here we have an eyewitness. How
fortunate for our Jan.”
“That’s enough, Kees,” I said. “You’re being a fool about this. If I took
that money, would I drive straight into town here and arrange to meet with
you?”
“A good question. Run and try to hide — but how long would one enjoy
the use of the money then? — or boldly present himself to his associates and
say, ‘You see? The fact that I stand before you proves that I couldn’t have
doublecrossed you.’ A very clever device. All one needs is sufficient nerve to
test it.”
“You do me too much credit,” I said.
“I doubt it. So now you will seat yourself next to the lady, both of you
keeping in mind that you are under Mijnheer Jago’s personal supervision,
while I take inventory.”
He did an expert job of taking inventory, combing the room inch by inch.
He finished with the bathroom, from which came sounds of further probing,
and then rejoined us. He slapped away dust from the knees of his trousers.
“They don’t take their housekeeping here very seriously, do they?”
“I suppose not,” I said.
“Well.” It was the old Kees back again, all amiability and smiles. “So it
seems that you’re still one move ahead in the game, Jan.”
“Godallemachtig, Kees, you’ve seen for yourself —”
”I have. So now let’s get down to business. The money in question
amounts to almost a million American dollars. Really a marvelous coup. False
checks drafted by computer against the treasury of the city of Los Angeles in
America, paid over to a nonexistent company that banks in Switzerland. But
since several people were involved in the coup and lay claim to a share of the
profits, I cannot afford to be profligate. What I offer you for the return of the
money is five percent of it. Fifty thousand dollars. How does that strike you?”
“It would strike me fine,” I said, “if I had the money. I don’t.” Making it
as casual as I could, I started to get to my feet, measuring the distance between
Jago and me. The next instant there was a small automatic in Kees’s hand, no
less mean-looking for its size. It was aimed squarely at Anneke’s head. I was
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briefly suspended there, halfway between sitting and standing, and then I sat
down again.
The gun remained on target as Kees addressed me. “You mean that five
percent is not enough. A little bargaining is in order. However, my partners,
who are gathered at the garage, insist that five percent is their limit. What we
will now do is adjourn to the garage to continue negotiations. Of course, en
route, for the Juffrouw’s sake, you will not attempt anything foolish.”
No one was in attendance at the garage when Jago pulled the car into it
and parked alongside my VW. In. the storeroom upstairs, two men stood close
to an electric heater, trying to extract what warmth they could from its orangecolored
glow. One was Simon Leewarden. The other, as sour-faced as I last
remembered him, was Yves Rouart-Rochelle. In trim black overcoat, black
homburg, and white silk scarf, he might have just left the Bourse for this
gathering.
He looked at Kees, who gave him a negative shake of the head.
“Comprend-il ce n’est pas de la rigolade?” Yves demanded in tough
Parisian. Then, taking notice that Leewarden looked blank at this, he shifted to
English. “I asked if this fool understands the seriousness of what he is trying to
do,” he told Leewarden. Then to me, “Do you?”
“What I’m trying to do,” I said, “is have you all understand that I’m as
much a victim of some unidentified hijacker as anyone here. The young lady
even more so. And since she’s several months enceinte and in no condition for
all this fuss, I think she should be allowed to leave the proceedings.”
Yves’s lip curled. “The way I view it, the presence of this vulnerable
young lady should impel you to come to terms at once. Consider that she may
have to suffer the punishment for your madness.”
I said desperately, “Yves, I was followed from Zurich to outside
Luxembourg city. I was forced off the road there by two people wearing ski
masks. One of them, from the look of his skinny hand, might have been the
juvenile delinquent I dealt with in Zurich. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Not quite. Where did you hide the money?”
I could see what was coming, and I poised for a move. And suddenly
there was that gun in Kees’s hand again. And again aimed, not at me, but at
Anneke’s head, six inches away. “Dat mag je geen ogenblik denken,” Kees
warned me.
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Anneke screamed as Jago pulled off my jacket and shirt. That earned her
a length of cord around wrists and ankles and a dirty cloth as gag. Then Jago
lashed my hands behind me and tied them to a bracket in the wall. He took his
time relighting the stump of dead cheroot in his mouth and in removing his
coat. Then he went to work on me, always aiming at the body. When I finally
doubled over he grabbed my hair to straighten me up again. He was, from his
expression, enjoying the exercise thoroughly.
“Wait,” Kees told him at last. “The girl must be chilled to the bone.
How about warming her up a little?”
Jago moved toward Anneke. As she cowered away from his upraised
hand I managed to find my voice. “Stop it! I’ll tell you where the money is.”
They all came to attention. “Indeed?” said Kees. “Or could it be you’re
playing for time, my friend?”
“No. I had a room ready near the garage in Zurich. After I drove away
from the garage and before I picked up Anneke, I planted the stuff there.”
“And the address? The room number?”
“Not yet. First let the girl go. Then I’ll take you there.”
Leewarden said, “Well, we could settle for that,” but Yves shook his
head. “I don’t trust him.” He jerked his thumb at Anneke. “She’s what
loosened his tongue this much. Let her go, and he can forget how to use it
again.”
“All right,” Kees said, “then the logical move is to return to Zurich and
verify our friend’s story. That’s easily done.”
Yves gnawed his lip, considering this. “But we travel together. All of
us.”
“All of us,” said Kees. “After dark. No use making the cortege too
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