Floodgate (3 page)

"'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, i 8,000 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 Scheidt 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. AU 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 beat 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 bad there was no way I could shout for help, was there? Not with God knows bow 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 and 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?'
'He was tall, very tall.' He tried his first half-smile of the afternoon. 'You don't have to be tall to be taller than I am but I didn't even reach up to his shoulders. Ten, maybe twelve centimetres taller than you are. And thin, very very thin: he was wearing a long rain-coat, blue it was, that came way below his knees and it fell from his shoulders like a coat hanging from a coat-hanger.'