ON MARCH 3, A SPECIAL COMMISSION WILL DECIDE WHETHER WIM WILL have to remain in the ESP.
Leading up to that day, I become more and more convinced that his transfer to a less secure prison will reduce our chances of living. Under a regular regime, prisoners have free contact with one another. Wealthy detainees—always the worst criminals—enjoy special privileges with corrupt personnel: telephones in their cells, computers, and so on. They live in relative luxury, and that’s how they get to have unimpeded contact with the outside world. Under those circumstances and with his natural dominance and charisma, he’ll have no trouble finding someone he can use as a gunman—as our killer. I knew that his incarceration at the ESP wouldn’t last forever, but I had hoped it would last as long as possible.
I’m sitting on the couch next to Sonja when John van den Heuvel, the crime journalist, calls. He says he heard that Wim’s health is failing and that he has to have surgery again.
Sonja immediately replies it’s one of his old tricks and that he’d done exactly the same to get out after his last transfer to the ESP.
What Sonja says is true. He himself had agreed to a medical and psychiatric evaluation, but he always remained in control. The ESP regime was not good for his heart. He stated that he was afraid to die in the ESP and therefore wanted to spend as much time as possible with his family, with us.
Our statements and recordings, in which—without ambiguity—he extorts Sonja and threatens to kill her, show that his story doesn’t make sense. But he’s had a lot of success with it, and he’s using his medical condition again to take control of the situation. If he succeeds in getting out of ESP, the next step will be to organize our deaths.
I feel resistance to a possible change—to my disadvantage—boiling up in me.
It’s too ridiculous for words. He would get more freedom, and I would be robbed of mine: having to avoid public places, stay alert constantly, looking over my shoulder at every step. It would restrict my life even more than it already has, and why? Why should I be in my own version of ESP so he can get out? Why should he receive privileges he will only abuse to get rid of us?
I call Piet, head of our security team, and ask him if Wim really is sick. I also warn him that this is a repetition of past history and that they should get a second medical opinion. Wim knows for a fact that a doctor cannot compromise his or her medical ethics by speaking about his condition, so he can tell the Justice Department whatever he likes.
It’s the day the commission rules on the extension of his ESP detention, and I passionately hope that they will not have the wool pulled over their eyes. We are kept in suspense for hours.
We expect the result at four p.m., but it is not until four thirty that we get the liberating message: he’ll remain in the ESP for the next six months.
What a relief.