“BEWEGEN. NU,” I bark to the driver from the back of the Mercedes. “Sneller!”
“Move. Now. Faster!”
I’ll stick with the English translations going forward.
We take off down the street. I turn around and look out the rearview mirror. Once outside, it seems my two new friends barely chased me. I turn back around and face forward. Within sixty seconds we’re going west—the opposite direction we came in—on the A4.
What the fuck just happened?
How could they have known I was coming?
Was the security guard in the basement waiting for me? For Ivan?
For Jonah?
Did he come at me simply because I wasn’t recognized as a tenant?
The plan for the morning was to take a quick tour of Cobus’ properties—more specifically, the basements in Cobus’ properties—in Amsterdam. But the plan had apparently just changed. Without question there would now be a portfolio-wide alert put out about me, if there wasn’t already. Which meant forget another basement—I’d be lucky to get within a hundred feet of another building.
Is it Cobus himself who alerted them?
If yes—how?
The email to Carolyn—is he monitoring my email?
The conversations with Perry.
Is he listening in on my cell?
Is he listening to my office?
Breathe. Slow down. Think. The plan now changes—because it has to.
“Central Station,” I say to the driver.
The city of Amsterdam proper, often referred to as the “Venice of the North,” is actually ninety or so small islands connected by approximately twelve hundred bridges. The chest cavity of the city is a series of half-moon shaped canals that tighten as you get closer to the heart—Dam Square and the city’s main train station, Central Station. I see the driver nod to me in his rearview mirror. He takes the next exit off the highway. We need to change course and go north. No doubt he’s looking for the s108.
Leaving Europe without an understanding about what Cobus is up to—has us up to—is not an option. So if I can’t see his buildings in Amsterdam, I’ll hit another city in the de Bont Beleggings portfolio. The Mercedes makes its way deeper and deeper into the city. The sprawl of the contemporary Zuidas and highways gives way to a more intimate, old-world cornerstone of European history. I swallow as a wall of memories crashes over me like a wave in the ocean. The streets lined with different color and height canal houses; the canals lined with different shaped and styled houseboats. I lower the rear windows to smell, and feel, the flowery air flow through the car, through me. We pass what seems like an endless collection of seventeenth-century footbridges for traversing the canals. With each that slides by I wonder when the last time was my own feet walked over it. And I remember other bridges not within eyeshot but close by—like the Magere Brug with its stone façade painted an unusual white, or the barred windows under the Torensluis Bridge that reminds passersby it was part of what was once a prison—I had crossed with Perry, and Max.
Soon we’re headed north on Oudezijds Voorburg, one of the valves going straight into Amsterdam’s heart. The car stops in traffic directly in front of the red bricks of one of Amsterdam’s finest hotels—Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam. I take out my iPhone to call Carolyn. After pausing, I power it off and put it back in my jacket pocket.
“Does your mobile have international access?” I ask the driver.
“It does.”
“May I borrow it?”
He hands me his Vodafone-powered Samsung Galaxy S5 Gold. I hand him five hundred Euro in cash.
“I need twenty-four hours before you replace it. Can you do that?”
“You got it, Mr. Gray.”
I jump out of the car, briefcase in hand, and continue north to the corner. I come to Damstraat and make a left. The narrow street through the old city is jammed. Tourists, mostly, on the cobblestone sidewalks stream in and out of all different types of restaurants from the casual dining of the Carne Argentina to the fast-foody New York Pizza.
Heading west now I text Carolyn’s cell phone: Calling you in 30 secs from int’l cell. Please pick up. I continue at a brisk pace down Damstraat. Thirty seconds later I call.
“Jonah. What is this number?”
“Doesn’t matter, Carolyn. I’m sorry to wake you in the middle of the night, but there’s been an urgent change of plans. I’m about to take a train to Rotterdam, so I need you to have the jet meet me there as soon as possible, as I may need to leave in a hurry. And I need you to handle this via your cell phone only—no email, no landline. Got it?”
“Understood, Jonah. Where will you be going from Rotterdam?”
“Hamburg.”
“Hamburg it is. Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. Until I return, you can get me on this number. If Perry or Jake asks anything, be sure to explain my whereabouts only if no one else is around, verbally, and quietly. No discussing any of this with them on their cells or email. All correspondence via our usual avenues is to remain strictly business.”
“Got it, Jonah. I’ll have the Gulfstream move to Rotterdam immediately where it will be ready and waiting to be wheels up at a moment’s notice. All I need from you is a simple text once you’re on your way to the airport.”
“You’re the best. Till later.”
I hang up just as I come to Dam Square at the end of Damstraat. One of the three busiest and most well-known squares in all of Amsterdam, today is no exception. People are coming and going on foot and bikes in every direction. There are children, elderly, people from near and far. On the circular, plateaued steps encircling the white travertine National Monument, people are sitting and chatting with coffee and breakfast while others quietly read a book or newspaper.
I check my watch. 10:01 a.m., which means 4:01 a.m. at home. I cross the square and come face to façade with the neoclassical Royal Palace, a building that served as city hall from 1655 until 1808 when it was converted to a royal residence. I turn right onto Damrak, a busy thoroughfare, and head north toward Centraal Station. With each step I take, the amount of people coming and going from the city’s hub swells. On my left I pass everything from souvenir stores to a Subway to a small casino to a sex museum.
About seven hundred fifty meters later I see that I’m upon Centraal Station. The scene in front of my destination can be a bit daunting for those not native; it is a serious labyrinth of intersecting streets, trolley rails, crosswalks, and street signs that seem to flow in no particular order whatsoever. People zigzag at a constant clip via foot, automobile, trolley, and bicycle. Being that I spent almost eight years of my life in this city, I barely pause as I step off the curb. I perfectly time my line clear through the chaos, like a mosquito flying between raindrops.
Paranoia has me not even wanting to use a credit or debit card for fear of being tracked. There are vending machines for tickets servicing only those stations in the Netherlands—so people don’t have to wait on the lines with those sorting out more complicated itineraries—but while they accept cards they do not accept cash. Only Euro coins. Hence, the change machines.
I make my change and head straight down the main corridor, passing a HEMA store, a Starbucks, and a Heineken boutique selling not just the beer but all sorts of branded Heineken clothes and trinkets. It isn’t long until I hit a bank of the yellow automatic ticket vendors. The next train for Rotterdam leaves in eighteen minutes. I slide in just shy of twenty-five euro for a first-class ticket, in order to have more space around me, and wait for my little yellow ticket. Once I have it in hand, I head straight for Track Four.
I find the first-class cabin and walk toward the front. There aren’t many people making the trip from Amsterdam to Rotterdam this morning, as I immediately not only take count of five but also size each one up in terms of threat level. Nothing too thought provoking. An older couple trying to make sense of a map they’re holding up, and three kids way more into whatever app it is on the iPad they’re hovering over than my presence. I settle into one of the wide, soft gray chairs facing another just like it. There’s a small table between the two seats jutting out from just below the window.
I place my suit jacket over the opposite chair, put my briefcase down next to the chair I’m sitting in, and take out my iPad. I look at the World Time. Three minutes until we get moving. Knowing the ride should be about an hour and seventeen minutes I calculate my arrival time. My eyes move back to the tablet, and all the photos I have to swipe through—shots I took in my home office of all the marked-up maps I had lined up.
My eyes stop on the map of Rotterdam. In the two years since my time working with Cobus, his holdings in the Netherlands had grown considerably. But while growth in cities like The Hague and Utrecht have been minimal, the bulk of the growth has taken place in Rotterdam.
Why?
What’s so special about Rotterdam?
Or Hamburg, Germany? Where for some reason de Bont Beleggings’ growth has been significantly more robust than the more valuable real estate in Berlin?
I look up as I see movement at the rear of the first class cabin. Someone has joined us. He’s somewhere in his thirties and tall, probably six foot two or three, with an athletic build and dome-bald head. He’s wearing sunglasses. He’s dressed in jeans, a tucked-in white button-down open at the collar, a navy blazer, and nice, brown, tie-up leather shoes. He’s talking on the phone, a De Telegraaf—Amsterdam’s most widely circulated newspaper—under his arm. He never looks my way as he takes a seat.
Subtly, I watch his every move as he gets settled.
Ninety seconds later the train pulls out. I think of the gun in my waist. Acting natural, I return my attention to my iPad. After ten minutes or so more of poring over my maps and notes, I close the iPad and return it to my briefcase.
I glance at Dome-Head. He’s reading his paper. I turn and look out the window at the passing countryside keeping him in my peripheral vision. The green fields gliding by seem endless. They’re dotted with farmhouses adjacent to the parcels being cultivated. Interfering with nature at one long stretch are power lines running adjacent to the rails. Thirty minutes in we pass a turbine farm so vast I can’t see where it ends, harnessing wind for energy.
There it is. I feel it in my gut, in my balls, Dome-Head just glanced at me. How could he possibly be following me? When—literally—I have no idea whose phone I’m even using?
Only Carolyn and those managing the jet know I’m on my way to Rotterdam.
Frederick?
I shake my head, giving myself a “snap the fuck out of it.” There’s no way this guy can possibly be tailing me. As we’re rolling into the stop for The Hague, I decide to play a little game just to give myself piece of mind.
When the doors open, I don’t move. After about twenty seconds I act as if I’m just realizing this is my stop. Hastily I start gathering my things. My stomach almost drops out of my body when Dome-Head casually stands up, folds his paper, and heads to the open door by him.
No.
How is this possible?
At the last second I act again. I pretend I’m confused when I see the platform sign “Den Haag,” as if I made the wrong decision to get off at this stop after all. I make the move back to my seat. I glance in the direction of my fellow passenger. Sensing I’m possibly onto him, he hesitates. Then, gets off.
I watch him. Not twenty feet away from the train, he takes out his phone, dials someone, puts it to his ear, and looks back.