Floodgate

‘Because we don’t know that they were in a position to see anything and, even if they were, they were almost certainly unable to do anything about it. Had the explosives been activated by a radio-controlled device, sure, they could have stopped it. But, as I told you, I’m pretty certain it was an electrical timer and to de-activate that they would have had to assemble a boat, scuba gear and diver—and all in broad daylight—in a matter of minutes. In the time available, that would have been impossible.’

There was a faint but unmistakable sheen of sweat on de Jong’s forehead. ‘They could have phoned a warning.’

Van Effen looked at de Jong for a long moment, then said: ‘How much attention did you pay to the previous warning this morning?’

De Jong made no reply.

‘And you’ve just said that the saboteurs have achieved nothing, absolutely nothing, by their action. I know you’re upset, sir, and it seems unfair to press the point, but can you really be so naive as to believe that? They’ve already made a considerable achievement. They have achieved the beginnings of a climate of fear and uncertainty, a climate that can only worsen with the passing of the hours. If they’ve struck once, apparently without a blind bit of motivation, are the chances not high that they will strike again? If they do, when? If they do, where? And, above all, there’s the why. What overpowering reason do they have to behave as they do?’ He looked at de Graaf. ‘Soften up the victim but keep him in suspense as to your purpose in behaving in this fashion. It’s a novel form of blackmail and I see no reason why it shouldn’t work. I have the strong feeling that we are going to hear from the FFF in the very near future. Not to state the reasons for acting as they do, certainly not to make any specific demands. Dear me, no. Not that. That’s not the way you conduct psychological warfare. One turns the wheel that stretches the rack very, very slowly over a calculated period of time. Gives the victim time to ponder more deeply about the hopelessness of his situation while his morale sinks lower and lower. At least that’s how I believe they operated in the Middle Ages—when using the actual instrument, of course.’

De Jong said sourly: ‘You seem to know a lot about the workings of the criminal mind.’

‘A little.’ Van Effen smiled agreeably. ‘I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to run an airport.’

‘And what am I to understand from that?’

‘Mr van Effen just means that a cobbler should stick to his last.’ De Graaf made a placatory gesture with his hand. ‘He’s the author of the now established text-book on the psychology of the criminal mind. Never read it myself. So, Peter. You seem sure the FFF will contact us very soon, but not to tell us about themselves or their objectives. Tell us what? The where and the when? Their next—ah—demonstration?’

‘What else?’

A profound and rather gloomy silence was ended by the entrance of a waiter who approached de Jong. ‘Telephone, sir. Is there a Lieutenant van Effen here?’

‘Me.’ Van Effen followed the waiter from the canteen and returned within a minute and addressed himself to de Graaf.

‘Duty sergeant. Apparently two men reported their boats missing some hours ago. Pleasure boat owners. The sergeant who took their complaint didn’t think it necessary to notify our department. Quite right, of course. The boats have now been recovered. One, it would seem, was taken by force. The boats are in our hands. I told them to take a couple of finger-print men aboard, return the boats to the owners but not to allow the owners aboard. If you can spare the time, sir, we can interview the two owners after we leave here: they live less than a kilometre from here.’

‘A promising lead, yes?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t think so either. However, no stone unturned. We may as well go now and—’

He broke off as the same waiter reappeared and approached him. ‘Phone again. For you this time, Colonel.’

De Graaf returned in a matter of seconds. ‘Jon, have you such a thing as a shorthand typist?’

‘Of course. Jan?’

‘Sir?’ A blond youngster was on his feet.

‘You heard the Colonel?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He looked at de Graaf. ‘What shall I say?’

‘Ask her to take that phone call and type it out for me. Peter, you have clairvoyance, the second sight.’

‘The FFF?’

‘Indeed. The press, I need hardly say. The FFF have their publicity priorities right. Usual anonymous phone call. The sub-editor who took the call was smart enough to tape-record it but I’d be surprised if that is of the slightest help. A fairly lengthy statement, I understand. Shorthand is not my forte. Let us possess our souls in patience.’

They had possessed their souls for not more than four minutes when a girl entered and handed a type-written sheet to de Graaf. He thanked her, looked briefly at the sheet and said: ‘Action this day would appear to be their motto. This, I understand, is their statement in full and a fairly arrogant example of its kind it is, too. This is what the FFF says:

‘“Next time, perhaps, the responsible citizens in Amsterdam will listen to what we say, believe what we say and act accordingly. It is because you did not believe what we said that a misadventure occurred today. For this misadventure we hold Mr de Jong entirely responsible. He was given due warning and chose to ignore that warning. We deplore the unnecessary deaths of the three passengers aboard the Fokker Friendship but disclaim all responsibility. It was not possible for us to arrest the explosion.”’ De Graaf paused and looked at van Effen. ‘Interesting?’

‘Very. So they had an observer. We’ll never find him. He could have been in the airport but hundreds of people who don’t work here visit here every day. For all we know, there could have been someone outside the airport with a pair of binoculars. But that’s not what is interesting. The four first-aid men who brought in the most seriously injured passengers did not know at the time whether the three men who were later pronounced dead were, in fact, dead or alive. Two of them, I understand, died after admission, but none was officially pronounced dead until the doctor certified them as such. How did the FFF know? Neither the doctor nor the first-aid men could have been responsible for leaking the news for they would be the obvious suspects and all too easily checked on. Apart from them, the only people who knew of those deaths are in this room.’ Van Effen looked leisurely around the sixteen men and three women seated at the canteen tables then turned to de Jong.

‘It hardly needs spelling out, does it, sir? We have an infiltrator here, an informant. The enemy has a spy in our camp.’ Again he carried out the same slow survey of the room. ‘I do wonder who it can be.’

‘In this room?’ De Jong looked both disbelieving and unhappy at the same time.

‘I don’t have to repeat the obvious, do I?’

De Jong looked down at his hands which were now tightly clasped on the table. ‘No. No. Of course not. But, surely, well, we can find out. You can find out.’

‘The usual rigorous enquiries, is that it? Trace the movements of every person in this room after the Fokker crashed? Find out if anyone had access to the phone or, indeed, used a phone? Sure, we can do that, pursue the rigorous enquiries. We’ll find nothing.’

‘You’ll find nothing?’ De Jong looked perplexed. ‘How can you be so sure, so sure in advance?’

‘Because,’ de Graaf said, ‘the Lieutenant has a policeman’s mind. Not a bunch to be underestimated, are they, Peter?’

‘They’re clever.’

De Jong looked from de Graaf to van Effen then back to de Graaf. ‘If someone would kindly explain…’

‘Simple, really,’ de Graaf said. ‘It hasn’t occurred to you that the FFF didn’t have to let us know that they knew of the deaths. Gratuitous information, if you like. They would know that we would know this. They would know, as the Lieutenant has just pointed out, that we would know that someone had informed them and that someone would have to be one of us. They would be certain that we would check on the possibility of someone here having made a phone call, so they made certain that no one here made a phone call. He passed the word on to an accomplice who is not in this room: the accomplice made the call. I’m afraid, Jon, that you have another mole burrowing away inside here. Maybe even more. You are aware, of course, that every word of our conversation will be reported back to the FFF, whoever they may be. We will, naturally, go through the motions and make the necessary routine enquiries. As van Effen says, we will, of course, draw a blank.’

‘But—but it all seems so pointless,’ de Jong said. ‘Why should they be so devious so as to achieve nothing?’

‘They’re not really devious and they do achieve something. A degree of demoralization, for one thing. More important, they are saying that they are a force to be reckoned with, that they can infiltrate and penetrate security when they so choose. They are giving the message that they are a highly organized group, one that is capable of carrying out any threats that it chooses to make and one that is to be ignored at our peril.

‘Speaking of threats and perils, let’s return to the FFF’s latest phone call. They go on to say: “We are sure that the Dutch people are well aware that, in the face of an attacker determined to bring it to its knees, it is the most defenceless nation in the world. The sea is not your enemy. We are, and the sea is our ally.

‘“You will not need reminding that the Netherlands has about 1300 kilometres of sea dykes. A certain Cornelius Rijpma, president of the Sea Polder board in Leeuwarden, in Friesland, is on record as saying some months ago that the dykes in his area consist of nothing more than layers of sand and that if a big storm comes they are certain to break. By a ‘big storm’, one would assume that it would have to be a storm of the order of the one that breached the delta defences in 1953 and took 1,850 lives. Our information, supplied to us by the Rijkswaterstaat, is that—’”

‘What! What!’ Van der Kuur, red-faced and almost incoherent with anger, was on his feet. ‘Are those devils daring to suggest that they got information from us? Dastardly! Impossible!’

‘Let me finish, Mr van der Kuur. Can’t you see that they’re using the same technique again, trying to undermine confidence and demoralize? Just because we know that they have contacts with one or more of Mr de Jong’s staff is no proof that they have any with your people. Anyway, there’s worse to come. They go on: “Our information is that a storm of not more than 70% of the power of the 1953 one would be sufficient to breach the dykes. Mr Rijpma was talking about vulnerable dykes. Of the Netherlands’ 1300 kilometres of dykes, almost exactly three hundred have deteriorated to a critical condition. By the best estimates, no repairs will be carried out to the threatened dykes for another twelve years, that is to say, 1995. All we propose to do is to accelerate the advent of the inevitable.”’

De Graaf paused and looked around. A chilled hush seemed to have fallen over the canteen. Only two people were looking at him: the others were either gazing at the floor or into the far distance; in both cases it was not difficult to guess that they didn’t like what they saw.

‘“The dykes cannot be repaired because there is no money to repair them. All the money available, or likely to be available in the future, is being sunk or will be sunk into the construction of the East Scheldt storm-surge barrier, the last link in the so-called Delta plan designed to keep the North Sea at bay. The costs are staggering. Due to gross original underestimates, cost over-runs and inflation, the likely bill will probably be in excess of nine billion guilders—and this massive sum for a project that some engineering experts say will not work anyway. The project consists of 63 lock-gates fitted between enormous, 18,000 tonne, free-standing concrete pillars. The dissident experts fear that heavy seas could shift the pillars, jam the locks and render the barrier inoperable. A shift of two centimetres would be enough. Ask Mr van der Kuur of the Rijkswaterstaat.”’

De Graaf paused and looked up. Van der Kuur was on his feet again, every bit as apoplectic as on the previous occasion: the thought was inevitable that van der Kuur’s normal air of pipe-puffing imperturbability was a very thin veneer indeed.

‘Lies!’ he shouted. ‘Rubbish! Balderdash! Defamation! Calumny! Lies, I tell you, lies!’

‘You’re the engineer in charge. You should know. So, really, there’s no need to get so worked up about it.’ De Graaf’s tone was mild, conciliatory. ‘The dissidents the FFF speak about—they have no hydraulic engineering qualifications?’

‘The dissidents! A handful. Qualifications? Of course. Paper qualifications! Not one of them has any practical experience as far as this matter is concerned.’

Van Effen said: ‘Does anybody have on this project? Practical experience, I mean. I understood that the East Scheldt involved completely untested engineering techniques and that you are, in effect, moving into the realms of the unknown.’ He raised a hand as van der Kuur was about to rise again. ‘Sorry. This is all really irrelevant. What is relevant is that there is a mind or minds among the FFF that is not only highly intelligent but has a clear understanding about the application of practical psychology. First, they introduce the elements of doubt, dismay, dissension and the erosion of confidence into Schiphol. Then they apply the same techniques to the Rijkswaterstaat. And now, through the medium of every paper in the land, this evening or tomorrow morning, and doubtless, through television and radio, they will introduce those same elements into the nation at large. If you ask me, they have—or will have—achieved a very great deal in a very short space of time. A remarkable feat. They are to be respected as strategists if not as human beings. I trust that the traitor in our midst will report that back to them.’

‘Indeed,’ de Graaf said. ‘And I trust the same traitor will understand if we don’t discuss the steps we plan to undertake to combat this menace. Well, ladies and gentlemen, to the final paragraph of their message and incidentally, no doubt, to introduce some more of what the Lieutenant referred to as doubt, dismay, dissension, erosion of confidence or whatever. They go on to say: “In order to demonstrate your helplessness and our ability to strike at will wherever and whenever we choose, we would advise you that a breach will be made in the Texel sea dyke at 4.30 p.m. this afternoon.”’

‘What!’ The word came simultaneously from at least half a dozen people.

‘Shook me a bit, too,’ de Graaf said. ‘That’s what they say. I don’t for a moment doubt them. Brinkman’—this to a uniformed young police officer—‘contact the office. No urgency, probably, but check that people on the island know what’s coming to them. Mr van der Kuur, I’m sure I can leave it to you to have the necessary men and equipment to stand by.’ He consulted the sheet again. ‘Not a big operation, they say. “We are sure that damage will be minimal but it might behove the citizens of Oosterend and De Waal to stand by their boats or take to their attics shortly after 4.30. Very shortly.” Damned arrogance. They end up by saying: “We know that those names will give you a fairly accurate idea as to where the charges have been placed. We defy you to find them.”’

‘And that’s all?’ van der Kuur said.

‘That’s all.’

‘No reasons, no explanations for those damned outrages? No demands? Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I still say we’re up against a bunch of raving maniacs.’

‘And I say that we’re up against clever and very calculating criminals who are more than content to let us stew in our own juice for the time being. I wouldn’t worry about the demands, if I were you. These will come in due time—their time. Well, nothing more we can achieve here—not, on reflection, that we have achieved anything. I bid you good day, Mr de Jong, and hope that you’ll be back in operational services some time tomorrow. It’ll take days, I suppose, to replace the machinery ruined in your basements.’

On their way out, van Effen made a gesture to de Graaf to hold back. He looked casually around to make sure that no one was within earshot and said: ‘I’d like to put tails on a couple of gentlemen who were in that room.’

‘Well, you don’t waste time, I will say. You have, of course, your reasons.’

‘I was watching them when you broke the news of the proposed Texel breach. It hit them. Most of them just stared away into space and those who didn’t were studying the floor. All of them, I assume, were considering the awful implications. Two did neither. They just kept on looking at you. Maybe they didn’t react because it didn’t come as any news to them.’

‘Straws. You’re just clutching at straws.’

‘Isn’t that what a drowning man is supposed to do?’

‘With all the water that’s around, present and promised, you might have picked a less painful metaphor. Who?’

‘Alfred van Rees.’

‘Ah. The Rijkswaterstaat’s Locks, Weirs and Sluices man. Preposterous. Friend of mine. Honest as the day’s long.’

‘Maybe the Mr Hyde in him doesn’t come out until after sunset. And Fred Klassen.’

‘Klassen! Schiphol’s security chief. Preposterous.’

‘That’s twice. Or is he a friend of yours, too?’

‘Impossible. Twenty years’ unblemished service. The security chief?’

‘If you were a criminal and were given the choice of subverting any one man in a big organization, who would you go for?’

De Graaf looked at him for a long moment, then walked on in silence.

TWO

Bakkeren and Dekker were the names of the two boat-owners who had been involuntarily deprived of their vessels during the previous night. As it turned out, they were brothers-in-law. Bakkeren was phlegmatic about the borrowing of his boat and not particularly concerned by the fact that he had not yet been allowed to examine his boat to see what damage, if any, had been done to it. Dekker, by contrast and understandably, was seething with rage: he had, as he had informed de Graaf and van Effen within twenty seconds of their arrival at his suburban home, been rather roughly handled during the previous evening.

‘Is no man safe in this godforsaken city?’ He didn’t speak the words, he shouted them, but it was reasonable to assume that this was not his normal conversational custom. ‘Police, you say you are, police! Ha! Police! A fine job you do of guarding the honest citizens of Amsterdam. There I was, sitting in my own boat and minding my own business when those four gangsters—’

‘Moment,’ van Effen said. ‘Were they wearing gloves?’

‘Gloves!’ Dekker, a small dark, intense man, stared at him in outraged disbelief. ‘Gloves! Here am I, the victim of a savage assault, and all you can think of—’

‘Gloves.’

Something in van Effen’s tone had reached through the man’s anger, one could almost see his blood pressure easing a few points. ‘Gloves, eh? Funny, that. Yes, they were. All of them.’

Van Effen turned to a uniformed sergeant. ‘Bernhard.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll tell the finger-print men to go home.’

‘Sorry, Mr Dekker. Tell it your way. If there was anything that struck you as unusual or odd, let us know.’

‘It was all bloody odd,’ Dekker said morosely. He had been, as he had said, minding his own business in his little cabin, when he had been hailed from the bank. He’d gone on deck and a tall man—it was almost dark and his features had been indistinguishable—had asked him if he could hire the boat for the night. He said he was from a film company and wanted to shoot some night scenes and offered a thousand guilders. Dekker had thought it extremely odd that an offer of that nature should have been made at such short notice and with night falling: he had refused. Next thing he knew, three other men had appeared on the scene, he’d been dragged from the boat, bundled into a car and driven to his home.

Van Effen said: ‘Did you direct them?’

‘Are you mad?’ Looking at the fiery little man it was impossible to believe that he would volunteer information to anyone.

‘So they’ve been watching your movements for some time. You weren’t aware that you were under surveillance at any time?’

‘Under what?’

‘Being watched, followed, seeing the same stranger an unusual number of times?’

‘Who’d watch and follow a fishmonger? Well, who would think they would? So they hauled me into the house—’

‘Didn’t you try to escape at any time?’

‘Would you listen to the man?’ Dekker was justifiably bitter. ‘How far would you get with your wrists handcuffed behind your back?’

‘Handcuffs?’

‘I suppose you thought that only police used those things. So they dragged me into the bathroom, tied my feet with a clothes line and taped my mouth with Elastoplast. Then they locked the door from the outside.’

‘You were completely helpless?’

‘Completely.’ The little man’s face darkened at the recollection. ‘I managed to get to my feet and a hell of a lot of good that did me. There’s no window in the bathroom. If there had been I don’t know of any way I could have broken it and even if I had there was no way I could shout for help, was there? Not with God knows how many strips of plaster over my mouth.

‘Three or four hours later—I’m not sure how long it was—they came back and freed me. The tall man told me they’d left fifteen hundred guilders on the kitchen table—a thousand for the hire of the boat and five hundred for incidental expenses.’

‘What expenses?’

‘How should I know?’ Dekker sounded weary. ‘They didn’t explain. They just left.’

‘Did you see them go? Type of car, number, anything like that?’

‘I did not see them go. I did not see their car, far less its number.’ Dekker spoke with the air of a man who is exercising massive restraint. ‘When I say they freed me, I meant that they had unlocked and removed the handcuffs. Took me a couple of minutes to remove the strips of Elastoplast and damnably painful it was, too. Took quite a bit of skin amd my moustache with it too. Then I hopped through to the kitchen and got the bread knife to the ropes round my ankles. The money was there, all right and I’d be glad if you’d put it in your police fund because I won’t touch their filthy money. Almost certainly stolen anyway. They and their car, of course, were to hell and gone by that time.’

Van Effen was diplomatically sympathetic. ‘Considering what you’ve been through, Mr Dekker, I think you’re being very calm and restrained. Could you describe them?’

‘Ordinary clothes. Rain-coats. That’s all.’

‘Their faces?’

‘It was dark on the canal bank, dark in the car and by the time we reached here they were all wearing hoods. Well, three of them. One stayed on the boat.’

‘Slits in the hoods, of course.’ Van Effen wasn’t disappointed, he’d expected nothing else.

‘Round holes, more like.’

‘Did they talk among themselves?’

‘Not a word. Only the leader spoke.’

‘How do you know he was the leader?’

‘Leaders give orders, don’t they?’

‘I suppose. Would you recognize the voice again?’

Dekker hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Well, yes, I think I would.’

‘Ah. Something unusual about his voice?’

‘Yes. Well. He talked funny Dutch.’

‘Funny?’

‘It wasn’t—what shall I say—Dutch Dutch.’

‘Poor Dutch, is that it?’

‘No. The other way around. It was very good. Too good. Like the news-readers on TV and radio.’

‘Too precise, yes? Book Dutch. A foreigner, perhaps?’

‘That’s what I would guess.’

‘Would you have any idea where he might have come from?’

‘There you have me, Lieutenant. I’ve never been out of the country. I hear often enough that many people in the city speak English or German or both. Not me. I speak neither. Foreign tourists don’t come to a fishmonger’s shop. I sell my fish in Dutch.’

‘Thanks, anyway. Could be a help. Anything else about this leader—if that’s what he was?’