Even before she gets to the conference room she can feel the buzz.
Tanya checks her phone one last time. It seems she’s been checking it every minute or so, but there’s still nothing from the hospital. She keeps feeling it vibrate in her pocket but when she pulls it out there’s no call or message. Reluctantly she puts it away again and steps into the room.
It’s on the fifth floor of a building overlooking a particularly industrial part of the Rotterdam ports. Out the window she can see numerous piers jutting off a central spine, each loaded with an ever-changing array of shipping containers; today for some reason they’re all Maersk. The room has been refurbished in the last six months. Tanya doesn’t know what it was like before, but now it’s all glass, stainless steel and white paint. There’s even wood-effect flooring, only given away by the fact you can see the pattern repeating, and the way it gives slightly underfoot.
It’s standing room only. Tanya squeezes past several cops she doesn’t know and leans against the wall at the back. There isn’t just excitement in the air, there’s a heavy, woody aftershave, like someone’s bathed in the stuff. It’s so strong Tanya finds her eyes watering.
At the far end of the room there’s a large map of Rotterdam and she looks at it, tracing her morning route in. Her place on Peppelweg looks out onto Meidoornweide Park, a flat area usually full of people jogging in the mistaken belief that strenuous, monotonous exercise is actually good for them. She’s sat on her balcony a few nights and watched them go round and round. But she’s enjoyed it, being up high on the third floor.
Not that that’s really high, but back in Amsterdam she lives with Jaap on his houseboat, which has a permanent mooring on one of the city’s prettiest canals. And Amsterdam, at least the centre, is pretty. All those old houses nestled close, the sinuous whale-back bridges and the lime trees dappling the canal waters with shadow. The glories of the Golden Age, museums, small cafés and brick-lined streets … the whole place is almost too chocolate box.
Rotterdam on the other hand is a city which commissioned a massive bronze statue of Santa Claus holding aloft an enormous butt plug, and what’s more is actually proud to display the thing in public.
Which, thinks Tanya, tells you all you need to know.
But she’s got used to it, and has grown slightly fond of the place. Rotterdam has no pretensions, and she admires that.
A few more stragglers make their apologetic way in, and a man stands up.
He’s Station Chief Derek Huisman, and he’s big. That’s to say he’s big physically – the Dutch hammer back so much dairy that they’re now officially the Tallest Nation in the World, not bad for a race which only a few generations back were, by all accounts, rather small swamp dwellers – and big in terms of reputation. Back in the day, Huisman was military, serving in Kosovo, and had come back after a lengthy tour to receive the Bronzen Leeuw medal. Unfortunately for him, the day it was presented was the same day that Dutch troops in Srebrenica looked the other way as Ratko Mladić started up his massacre, and for some reason the two news stories got entangled, one tabloid in particular holding him personally responsible. He’d got his lawyers to issue a statement, but then decided that suing for damages wasn’t fitting and retired from the military. Six months later he turned up in Rotterdam, and had been at the helm every since.
He doesn’t look ex-military to Tanya. For one he has cheekbones a wannabe supermodel would claw someone’s eyes out for, but which on him look odd. His limbs don’t have that military pump either, but then he probably doesn’t see the need to work out these days. He is liked by his staff though, something which Tanya’s own boss, Henk Smit, mostly isn’t.
‘OK,’ he says once the room’s excitement has come down to a simmer. ‘Operation Leda.’
This is the reason Tanya’s down in Rotterdam. When she’d been assigned she’d looked up what Leda meant and was surprised to find she was a Greek who’d been raped by a swan who then turned out to be Zeus. She’d no idea what that was supposed to mean, other than possibly that Greek civilization had pre-empted the Netherlands’ stance on drugs by many hundreds of years. Or it’s simply some sick wish-fulfilment of whoever came up with the story in the first place.
‘As most of you know, Borst and his team have been working on this for months and today we’ve got a bit of interesting news. Harry?’
Harry, who’d been sitting close, takes over.
Tanya’s been reporting directly to him, which has made her uncomfortable. She has to admit, she finds him attractive. What makes it worse is that she’s pretty sure Harry feels the same. As in, he finds her attractive, not himself. Though there is a touch of arrogance about him, so he probably does find himself just a teeny bit attractive as well.
Harry pulls out a large photo and pins it up on the wall behind him.
‘Most of you know this man,’ he says, eyes roving the room. ‘Van der Pol, probably the biggest piece of shit in the country. For anyone who’s been living in a cave, Van der Pol controls a massive operation which goes from drugs, extortion, right up to the sex trade and more. Basically, if it’s illegal and nasty, he’s in it. He’s also got to be one of the most careful criminals we’ve ever dealt with, we’ve never had anything concrete enough on him to even bring him in for questioning. But all that’s about to change.’
He does the whole dramatic-pause thing, stretching it out as much as he can.
‘Because three hours ago an informant gave us the time and place of a major transaction. If the info is correct then we’re talking the biggest drugs haul in the Netherlands’ history. And it’s all going down tomorrow night. Whatever plans you had are now cancelled. Parents’ evening, your flower-arranging class or your Monday-night bondage club …’ He pauses to make sure he’s got their attention. ‘It’s cancelled.’
He walks to the map.
‘The whole thing is due to take place here—’ He points to a spot north-east of the city, necks crane to see ‘—and we think we’ve got a tactical advantage. So over the next twenty-four hours we’re going to be planning this out in detail. We’ll meet back here first thing tomorrow, but I’ll probably be speaking to many of you individually today as the plans progress. Questions?’
Tanya’s starting to find the aftershave suffocating. The few questions raised are dealt with quickly, and Huisman takes over for a final word.
He stands tall, sweeps his eyes around, and says: ‘Go get the fucker.’
It’s a kind of ritual. At first Tanya had thought it silly, but it clearly works as Huisman runs a great station and Smit doesn’t. Smit would never think of having a running joke with anyone.
‘And for God’s sake,’ he adds, ‘whoever drowned themselves in aftershave needs to go clean themselves up.’
Laughter breaks the meeting up, the energy high, everyone excited but trying to appear professional and jaded at the same time. Most of them don’t manage it.
Tanya knows this will be big. If they pull it off. A few careers could get a major boost. She suspects there’ll be a fair amount of jockeying for position, everyone’s going to want to be on the ground crew tomorrow night.
But for her the news is exciting for another reason: if this case gets done then she’ll be free to head back to Amsterdam.
She checks her phone, only to see she has a voicemail.
Her fingers tremble slightly as she hits play and holds the phone to her ear.
A voice bursts into life.
‘Our records indicate you may be due compensation for your accident. Please call us now—’