AFTER FINISHING WITH the customs agents who’ve come on board, I deplane. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. It’s a beautiful day in Amsterdam. Sunglasses on, I descend the stairs leading from the G550, my left hand holding my briefcase handle. Fifty feet away there’s a Mercedes AMG S65 waiting for me. A chauffeur is standing next to the rear door, which is open.
“Zuidas,” I say once we’re both in place and the car is moving.
Zuidas means South Axis in Dutch. The South Axis is the most important business district in Amsterdam, where the most prominent contemporary commercial real estate properties stand. De Bont Beleggings—Cobus’ firm—has numerous holdings there. Including the Vinoly Tower. Where the company is headquartered.
Where I used to go to work every day.
“Vinoly Tower,” I continue.
I look at the Perregaux World Time. 8:39 a.m. The distance from Schiphol to Zuidas is a little over fifteen kilometers, or about ten miles. It’s rush hour. Which means, from past experience, a trip that should take eleven or twelve minutes will take between twenty and twenty-two.
We leave the airport grounds, and head east on the A4. My eyes pass over the lush green fields dotted with billboards, and the smallish buildings here and there lining the landscape, but I see none of it. My mind is filled with all kinds of memories, while my heart is filled with all kinds of mixed emotions. Eight years of my life were spent in this country. Eight years on the run, rebuilding my life with a new identity, with two objectives in mind. Clearing my name. And returning Perry and Max home safely. In the two years since I’ve been back in New York City, I never thought I’d see Amsterdam again.
I hoped I’d never see Amsterdam again.
At 9:01 a.m., the buildings of the Zuidas come into sight. On my right I pass the postmodern Meyer and van Schooten designed ING House, world headquarters of ING Group. Nicknamed de kruimeldief, or the dustbuster in English, the iconic structure built like a table on angled steel legs looks more like a spaceship than an office building. Soon up ahead I see the glass, patchwork-looking façade of WTC H—the twenty-five story tower of the country’s World Trade Center site. I see the contemporary, Pi de Bruijn-designed Symphony Office Tower—home to high-profile tenants such as the Holland Financial Centre, Arcadis, and Prologis. Symphony—the third tallest building in all of Amsterdam—is one of the most distinctive looking in the Zuidas due to its fusion of different brick types mixed with arresting colors and terraced facades. Off to the left, across the highway, is the glass Akzo Nobel Tower completed in 2011. I think of home when I see the Erick van Egeraat-designed, twenty-four-story office tower called The Rock. Its expressive design looks like it would be right at home on the downtown portion of Manhattan’s West Side highway.
I have the chauffeur stop about a hundred feet from the building. He opens the door. I get out. The door is closed behind me, but I don’t move. I spend a few moments just staring up at the structure. And going over the plan in my mind.
Vinoly Tower looks like a giant glass and steel ‘L’, the top of said L appearing to have a couple giant cracks running down the exterior of the building that are actually staircases. Having left my briefcase in the car, I start toward the target, blending right in with everyone taking part in the morning rush. I move into the plaza with the herd, past the row of parked bicycles and motorcycles, toward the main entrance. But I don’t enter. I keep walking. In my favor is the fact I know every single thing there is to know about this property. Something I’m counting on.
Once I’m out of the field of view of the main entrance security cameras, I stop, turn, cross my arms, and look up at the building. But I don’t just look up. I act as if I’m studying the façade. Why? In case someone—anyone—has noticed the soul that has strayed from the pack and appears headed for the side of the building. To anyone looking at me now, I look like I must in some capacity work for, or with, the landlord.
After about thirty seconds I start walking again, my arms still folded and my head down as I walk, an appearance of being deep in thought. Fifty more feet, further yet from the masses, I stop and do it again. Thirty seconds later, again I’m on the move. I finally round the corner that takes me to the back of the building.
Immediately I head toward the service area of the structure. As I walk past the loading bays, concerned that even though I’ve been gone a couple years someone may recognize me, I pretend to be speaking on my cell. This, in conjunction with a slight turn of my face away from those moving about, helps me shield myself.
Past the commotion, and the last truck being unloaded in the fourth bay, there’s a ramp up along the wall that leads into the building. I head right for it. I literally hear my father’s voice in my head.
“Anyone can belong anywhere, at anytime. Just play the part.”
As I near the top of the ramp and approach the door, I see my potential obstacle. I tuck my cell away. Next to the door, face high, there’s a small panel with both a keypad and a small camera—a facial recognition access system I helped integrate into the de Bont Beleggings portfolio a year or so prior to my exiting the firm. Hoping I was never removed from the system I subtly look around, then position my face in front of the camera as I feel I’m clear. A simultaneous beep and green blink of a light on the panel lets me know I’m a go.
Once inside, very familiar with my surroundings, I head straight for the service elevator that will take me to the basement. I hit the down button; the doors open immediately as it is idling on the ground floor. I step inside, hit “B,” and begin to descend.
The elevator stops. Quietly, carefully, I step out of the cab, my head still straight, my eyes still forward. Immediately I’m surprised by what feels like the cold steel tip of a gun against my left temple. I stop in my tracks.
“Kan ik u helpen?” a deep voice asks.
“Can I help you?” in Dutch.
“Ik geloof dat je kan,” I respond, calmly, my Dutch still intact as if I’d spoken it five minutes ago. “U ziet—”
I feel it happening.
I feel myself going to that place few can go.
A place I’ve been.
A place I need.
Mid-sentence, like a flash of lightning as my assailant is processing my words, my left hand shoots up and grabs the wrist holding the gun like a magnet to metal. In the same motion, my right hand comes across in front of me and grabs my new friend’s balls like a bear trap. There is no need for an increase in pressure. I’m squeezing as hard as I can on impact.
“Aaahhh!”
“Laat de knop los,” I snarl. “Nu.”
“Drop it. Now.”
Grip still on his balls like a vice, I pull back showing him I will separate his testicles from his body. The gun falls away, clattering on the concrete floor. I drop my forehead into his nose, shattering the bridge. He falls back into the wall, his hands cupped over his face. A spider web of blood starts streaming through his fingers, down, around, into his mouth, and down his neck as if a faucet has been turned on.
How did he know I was coming?
Was he watching, and waiting?
Was someone else?
I pick up the gun. Glock 42. Serious piece. I put the tip between his eyes. This is a commercial building, so tenants have the ability to access their basement storage space at their leisure without guns being put to their heads.
“How did you know I was coming?” I go on.
Blood streaming steadily, he says nothing. I jam the tip of the Glock into the skin between his eyes so hard it pins his head against the wall. I keep pushing.
“Aaahhh!” he groans again, the blood in and around his mouth bubbling as the air comes through his lips.
“How?” I press.
Through squinted eyes he summons the strength to stare me down like a man. Then, for a split second, he can’t help from keeping his eyes from looking up over my shoulder at the ceiling. Knowing the property as well as I do, there’s no need to inquire as to the object of his interest. It’s a security camera.
Is someone on the way?
Is he just hoping someone is?
I can’t chance anything. I’m guessing I have minimal time. I can stay and question a man whom I’m seemingly going to have to break to get answers from, or I can have a quick look around. Choosing the latter I step back to my new friend. Then crack him across the side of the head with the Glock, knocking him to the ground.
“Get what you need,” Pop always said. “Clean up the mess later.”
Writhing on the ground, smearing blood on the clean, smooth, polished gray painted floor, still cupping his nose, he turns onto his back. When he does, I kick him square across the face, laying him out cold.
I move forward into the basement. I can tell immediately the configuration is different, something I imagine has been done since I’ve last been here in order to accommodate whatever it is Cobus has going on. I can go right or left, but choose to go down the corridor running straight from the elevator, as if dividing the basement into two sides. Immediately I notice it used to be longer. I come to a wall about a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet closer than I did in the past. Again, I can go right or left. Knowing the footprint of the building it is clear to me this has been done to create a more efficient use of potential useable square footage. Or, in simpler terms, create more space.
About forty feet down each hallway, facing one another, I see two doors. I decide to go left. Walking briskly, Glock in my right hand held up in front of my chest, my soles against the painted concrete create a series of small rapid-fire echoes. When I reach the doors, I first look at the one on my left. It’s a brushed steel door with a simple knob with a keyhole in the center. There’s a small signage plate next to it that says “Devinshire Technologies”—a tenant who’s been in the property, and has had storage space in the basement, about seven years. I look at the door on my right, directly across the hall. The door is exactly the same. Only this one, along with the simple knob, has two additional locks that clearly use very different keys. And there’s no tenant signage plate.
Knowing it’s a long shot I still reach for the knob, which is locked as suspected. Not a second later, back where I came from, I hear the elevator doors open. Immediately I hear footsteps coming. And while I can’t be sure how many people there are, what I am sure of is that it’s definitely more than one.
There are stairwells leading up and out in all four corners of the basement. But because of the reconfiguration, I can’t be sure they are still accessed as I remember. My best bet is definitely heading back to the elevator and going from there, but that’s out. From my calculations, heading back that way would have me running square into whoever this is at the moment I turned right, and they turned left.
Knowing there’s no way of keeping my footsteps quiet, I take off, away from them, continuing down the hallway. Immediately I hear their pace pick up to match mine. I reach the end, and can only go right. I turn, but before sprinting on, I look back. Just as I do, two guys, dressed in dark suits like the original dude I dropped at the elevator, come around the corner where I’d made my first decision to go left. They, too, have guns. And they know where I am, as there was no slowing down for a directional decision.
They’re coming.
I take off. Even in my haste, I notice the intermittent brushed steel doors lining both sides of the hallway. Just as I can hear my pursuers approaching the turn behind me, I come to yet another right or left decision. No time. My sense of direction telling me to go right leads me back into the belly of the beast. And that to go left keeps me moving toward daylight.
As I push off my right heel, they turn the corner behind me. Each fires their gun, missing me, as I disappear. Finally, up ahead, I see an “Exit” sign. I blast through the door underneath it, barely breaking stride, and bound up the two flights of stairs three steps at a time. I come to the ground-floor landing, holster the gun in the rear waist portion of my pants under my suit jacket, and exit the property.
Within seconds I realize I’m at one of the front corners of the building. Immediately I blend into those walking through the plaza in front of the structure. Moving fast enough to create distance from my new friends, but not too fast as to draw attention to myself, I never look back. Soon, I’m back in the car, and we’re heading out of the Zuidas.