Amsterdam Noir

by René Appel

  “I, ah . . .”

  He needed time to process this new information. The medical conference didn’t begin until tomorrow. A few hours in Paris. He had never been to the City of Light. Obviously he’d take the hotel room. With any luck, he’d have time to explore the place a bit, perhaps visit a museum, find something good to eat, and . . .

  Do you have plans for today?

  The question perched on the tip of his tongue.

  He swallowed it.

  “Thank you, miss,” he said.

  * * *

  The rumor has been going around the red building for days. Saydnaya is overcrowded, and fifty prisoners are being moved to some other facility. One of the two affected cells is mine. Can it be true?

  “Line up!”

  Shortly before midnight, Thur and a platoon of guards haul us out of our cell.

  “Faster,” Thur orders, complacently stroking his mustache.

  They herd us through the corridor, down the stairs to the cellar. The occupants of the other cell are already there. They stand in a circle, and their guards are beating them with whips, sticks, batons, anything capable of inflicting pain. It is an orgy of violence. Then the kicking begins. In the face, the stomach, the back.

  And we stand there, watching.

  “Second group!”

  With the first kick, it feels as if my spleen has ruptured. The second is worse. Please, kick me unconscious. But Thur and his goons know exactly how far they can go. They take turns. Kicking, punching, spitting, pulling my hair. It goes on for an hour, maybe two. I lose all sense of time and place.

  Finally, they force us to our feet and drive us outside. It’s the middle of the night. The Big Dipper is bright in the sky. If I’m seeing properly, that is, for one of my eyes is swollen shut and the other is bleeding. I breathe in the cool desert air and am surprised to be alive.

  We’re shoved toward a large structure.

  “The white building,” one of my cellmates whispers.

  I’ve never seen it before, but I know the stories. The white building is where they keep the officers and enlisted men who have refused to support the Assad regime. The tortures to which they are subjected are far worse than what we’ve experienced.

  “Let’s go, move it!”

  Down in the cellar, we find ourselves in a huge space that looks like an underground parking garage. Dozens of nooses hang from the stone ceiling. Some of the prisoners begin to weep, others pray.

  I feel more relief than anything else. In the name of Allah, let it be over quickly.

  Chairs are brought out and set beneath the nooses. Fifty chairs for fifty hangings. Before they order us up, they roughly pull a burlap sack over each of our heads.

  Someone helps me onto a chair.

  I can barely stand.

  Yes, I think, it’s about time.

  A noose tightens around my throat.

  * * *

  Dared gazed out the window. It was hard to get comfortable; he was squeezed between two big-boned women, but even that failed to dampen his good mood. The flight to Amsterdam would be a short one. He looked forward to the city, to the conference.

  His interlude in Paris had been a success: a visit to the Louvre, a delicious meal, a stroll along the Seine. He’d even had time for a brief nap in the hotel room they’d given him—and, for the first time in years, he had slept soundly, undisturbed by nightmares and panic attacks. This trip, the interruption of his normal routine, was doing him good. For the last few years, he had worked like a madman, taking better care of his patients and colleagues than he took of himself. But he couldn’t go on like that forever. He had to think of himself too. He had to live the life he had been given.

  He glanced at his watch. KL 1244 had been scheduled to take off at 6:40 p.m., but the plane was still parked at the gate. From his vantage point, it looked like the entire cabin was occupied, with the sole exception of the window seat three rows in front of him. Low voices came from the front of the plane. It sounded as if someone was being welcomed. A delayed passenger?

  Then a man walked through the curtain separating the first-class and economy cabins.

  Dared felt as if a knife had been plunged into his heart.

  * * *

  It’s the morning after the mass execution. I’m sitting in an office far from the cells and the torture chambers. The treatment to which I’ve been subjected has shattered me. I can barely sit or stand, but my mind is clear. Through the window, for the first time in months, I see the sun.

  “Sign it,” grins Thur, “and you’ll be rid of us forever.”

  The other men in the room—the general, the lawyer, the guards—all laugh.

  Before me on the table lies a statement that begins with the words: I, Dared al-Saeed . . .

  Once I sign it, I’ll be a free man.

  I read through the statement. During my incarceration at Saydnaya, it says, I have been treated well, never tortured, never insulted. I have received all the necessary medical care. That’s what it says.

  Bullshit.

  As is the reason given for my release: General amnesty.

  What a joke.

  The truth is, they are letting me go because my father, who maintains a close connection with the Assad clan, has paid them a very large sum of money. Should I be grateful? My father and I have never agreed about politics. Now I’ll have to thank him for his intervention. The prospect is unwelcome. In my fourteen months at Saydnaya, I have lost everything I lived for, everything I believed in: my pride, my faith in humanity.

  Worst of all, I have betrayed my brother Mustafa. I am deeply ashamed.

  One stroke of the pen and I will be free.

  Thur and the other men sniff impatiently.

  My hand trembling, I pick up the pen. Every muscle in my body hurts.

  I sign the statement.

  * * *

  The few seconds Dared was able to see him were sufficient. The limp, the expression, the hooked nose, the way he stroked his mustache before asking the passengers in the aisle and middle seats to let him by. Dared was absolutely certain: in the window seat three rows before him sat Karim al-Zaliq, alias Thur, the Bull.

  Dared broke out in a cold sweat, and his mind raced with the images that had tormented him ever since his release: the torture, the humiliation, the dehumanization. There were no words to describe what had been done to him in Saydnaya.

  As the plane lifted off the ground, he could feel an unstoppable rage course through him. What the fuck is Thur doing here? Had he retired and left Syria behind? How could such a bastard have escaped punishment for his crimes?

  To ask the question was to answer it. All the bastards remained free men, up to and including President Assad himself. Dared remembered the interview he’d given two years before to an investigator from Amnesty International. His testimony—along with that of some eighty other victims—had been incorporated into a report with conclusions that had been impossible to deny. In Saydnaya, thousands of innocents had been systematically tortured and murdered. Students, lawyers, human-rights activists, soldiers, officers. Since the failure of the Arab Spring, somewhere between five thousand and thirteen thousand of the regime’s opponents had been executed. Three hundred deaths per month, often many more than that, and the torture and murder had continued to this day.

  The most loathsome fact of all was that the guilty parties would never be held to account for their crimes. Russia still supported Assad, while the rest of the world declined to choose sides and simply waited for the conflict to bleed itself out. Now that the dictator had the upper hand, he was once again the only authority the West could engage with. That thought was unbearable, and Dared struggled with it daily. Was there nothing he could do?

  * * *

  Thur returned from the bathroom at the front of the economy cabin. He’d been there twice already. A weak bladder, Dared suspected. Or airsickness. He had considered following Thur into the narrow space and killing him. But how? Thur was bigger and,
despite the difference in their ages, undoubtedly stronger. And how could Dared hope to leave the scene of such an act without being noticed?

  An absurd idea.

  A daydream.

  Thur deserved to die, but Dared wasn’t prepared to risk his hard-won freedom to achieve that end.

  He watched as his enemy stood, waiting for the passengers in his row to make room for him, absently stroking his bushy mustache. For the briefest moment, Thur looked right at him, and his eagle eyes glittered. Had he recognized Dared? It was hard to believe that could be possible. Thur had personally tortured, humiliated, and murdered hundreds, if not thousands, of men. Merciless, a killing machine. And the bastard probably never lost a second of sleep over his deeds.

  Dared balled his fists and saw his knuckles whiten. The women on either side of him inched away. He tried to force himself to smile, but failed.

  The seat-belt sign illuminated. “This is your captain speaking . . .” The voice on the PA system announced that the plane would be landing at Amsterdam’s airport in a quarter of an hour. The temperature on the ground was 41°F, visibility was good, and there was no wind.

  Inside Dared’s head, however, a storm raged. Anger, frustration—especially the latter. Sitting so close to the man who had destroyed his life and had been responsible for the death of his brother, yet he was unable to do anything about it. He craved revenge, but understood that his options were extremely limited. Perhaps he could turn Thur over to the police upon their arrival at the airport. This man is a war criminal. Arrest him!

  They would laugh at him.

  Meanwhile, Thur had visited the bathroom yet again. Visibly perspiring, he limped back to his seat. Was he ill? Dared hoped so. Typhoid fever, cancer. He would be happy if the villain dropped dead right there and then. Aisle Seat and Middle Seat stood once more to make room for him, and Thur dropped clumsily back into his place by the window.

  The airplane descended through the clouds. Far below lay The Netherlands, a sea of lights. Streets, highways, homes. A network of orderly straight lines.

  With a gentle bump, the Boeing touched down and taxied toward the terminal. The moment it came to a stop, the passengers jumped up and pulled their carry-ons from the overhead racks. The aircraft’s door opened, and the seats and aisles gradually emptied.

  Thur remained in his seat, his head resting against the window, as if he’d fallen asleep.

  Dared also stayed where he was, no idea what his next move might be.

  “You all right, sir?”

  With a concerned expression on her face, the flight attendant bent over Thur, who mumbled something inaudible, got to his feet, took a small case from the bin, and, supporting himself by holding onto the seat backs, struggled up the aisle to the exit door.

  Dared slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and followed.

  “Have a nice stay in Amsterdam, sir.”

  As he nodded his thanks to the crew member at the door, Dared watched Thur stagger up the jet bridge like a drunkard. The man was definitely sick. Dared stayed close behind him.

  They reached the far end of the jetway. The terminal was visible on the other side of a glass wall. There was still some distance to go before they would arrive at passport control. A sign on a pole apologized for the moving walkway being out of service. Thur made an annoyed gesture and stumbled slowly on, Dared keeping thirty feet behind him.

  The Bull reached the restrooms, then leaned against the wall between them, as if unsure which was the right one. Then he pushed the men’s room door open and went inside.

  Dared hesitated. Should he follow the Bull into the bathroom? And, if so, then what?

  He looked around. No travelers, no airport personnel, no crew. The corridor was deserted.

  He pushed open the bathroom door and examined the interior. Three urinals and two sinks to the right, four stalls to the left. The handicapped stall’s door stood open a crack.

  As Dared listened for evidence of anyone else’s presence, he saw Thur sitting on the floor of the handicapped stall, leaning against the side wall, his eyes closed, his face white and dripping with sweat, his jacket unbuttoned. His suitcase lay at his feet.

  Dared pushed the stall door open.

  “Hello?”

  There was no response.

  “Are you all right?”

  He said the words in English, and there was no sign that the Bull was aware of him standing there. He set his messenger bag down on the floor and leaned over Thur.

  “Can you hear me?”

  No reaction.

  “Do you need help?” he asked, this time in Arabic.

  Thur opened his eyes and peered up at him in surprise.

  “Are you sick?”

  Thur nodded as if it was a foolish question and stammered something unintelligible.

  “What’s that you say?” said Dared, swinging the stall door closed behind him.

  “Hypodermic,” the Bull gasped.

  Dared recognized the symptoms: the pale face, the perspiration, the irritation. Karim al-Zaliq was diabetic, and his blood sugar was dangerously low.

  “Dextrose,” the man managed to say, and he motioned to his case, which he had apparently been unable to open.

  Dared undid the clasps. Inside one of the compartments, he found a vial of dextrose tablets and four insulin pens and needles.

  “Dextrose,” Thur said impatiently.

  “I can’t find your tablets,” Dared replied, turning the case so Thur couldn’t see the vial.

  The Bull muttered angrily.

  Dared took the four needles from their sterile packaging, pressed each onto a separate insulin pen, rotating them clockwise to engage their locking threads, then set each pen to the maximum dosage. When he flicked the top end of each barrel with a fingernail, he saw Thur’s eyes widen in fear.

  “What are you—?”

  Before the man could move, Dared jabbed two of the needles into his stomach.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Repaying you for all the deaths you have on your conscience,” Dared spat out, pressing the plungers.

  Thur’s mouth gaped wide. “Were you in—?”

  “I was,” said Dared, reaching for the two remaining pens. “I was in Saydnaya.” He injected the third dose of insulin. “This one is for my brother. And this one”—he drove the fourth needle home—“this one is for me.”

  Thur’s eyes closed, and he slumped to the floor. Dared checked his wrist for a pulse, and found only the slightest flutter. Unless the man was given sugar, he would be dead in fifteen minutes, possibly less.

  Dared carefully wiped the pens clean with his handkerchief, then pressed each of their barrels against the fingertips of the Bull’s right hand. He picked up his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder, slipped out of the stall, closed the door behind him, and left the bathroom without looking back.

  * * *

  Following the exit signs, Dared found himself again surrounded by other travelers: men, women, children, from all directions on the compass. For the first time in years, the sight of so many people around him did not bring on a panic attack. He joined one of the passport control lines, patiently shuffling forward as he waited his turn.

  The officer had short hair and wore a light-blue shirt with dark-blue epaulets. Dared handed over his passport. The officer examined it, looking back and forth between the document and the man who had presented it—checking the photo, Dared supposed.

  He had just killed a man.

  Anyone else would be flushed, shaking in his boots.

  But Dared was completely calm. No regrets, no remorse. The only thing he felt was an incredible lightness, the burden he had borne for years at last lifted from his shoulders.

  Smiling, the officer returned his passport. “Have a nice stay, sir,” he said.

  Dared moved on toward baggage claim. When he found the correct carousel, the conveyor belt had just begun to spit up its load of luggage. The passengers from his flight
jostled for position, anxious to collect their possessions and be on their way. Dared ignored the pushing and shoving. It was as if he was wearing protective armor. As he worked his way closer to the belt, he glanced around. Somewhere among that sea of suitcases and garment bags and shrink-wrapped cardboard cartons must be a bag belonging to the Bull. How long would it be before someone found him in the bathroom? Was anyone waiting for him? Would anyone miss him? Dared couldn’t imagine the man had friends or family.

  He claimed his suitcase and headed for the green Nothing to Declare sign. A customs agent nodded him through. He walked on.

  The arrivals hall was mobbed. Children with balloons, mothers and fathers, a young man with a bouquet of red roses, all searching eagerly for their loved ones.

  Dared wondered if someone from the conference would come to fetch him. He’d e-mailed the organizers this morning from Paris to inform them that he’d be on the evening flight, but he’d had no response. He scanned his surroundings. There was a shop selling blue Delft plates and other souvenirs. On the walls, huge posters showed windmills and fields of red and yellow tulips and canal houses and Rembrandt’s Night Watch.

  This time, Dared decided, he would go to the Rijksmuseum and see the famous painting for himself.

  He was about to give up hope of being met when he saw her. A pretty young woman with long blond hair and green eyes. She was holding a sign with his name printed on it in large capital letters.

  Waving, he approached her. “Hello,” he said, “I’m Dared.”

  “Hi, Dared.” She had a lovely smile. “I’m Saskia. Welcome to Amsterdam.”

  SPUI 13

  by Anneloes Timmerije

  Centrum

  April 2016

  Ella disappeared on the day I began to live alone in the heart of the city after thirty years of marriage. The day I returned to where I came from, to the person I used to be.

  I knew something was up when she didn’t drop by as we’d agreed, but I drew the wrong conclusion from her absence. Ella is always on time, unless a major story breaks. Then she vanishes, and no one can reach her. That’s the way it goes in her line of work.