Absinthe

by Guido Eekhaut

  The train slowed down. Eekhaut looked at his watch. A little after ten. He had spent three hours on the train. Better than three hours in a car. Nevertheless, it had been a senseless waste of time. Passengers got up, gathering their bags and other items. The students were already on their way to the end of the carriage. Eekhaut grabbed his bag from the luggage rack and put the book away. He hoped his clothes and other possessions had been delivered to his apartment.

  The train came to a halt and the doors opened. Everyone got out. Air, different from that of Brussels, greeted him. The station was crowded. People were hurrying toward their trains in the underground passageway that led him to the station’s exit. Outside, the sun was shining, although the air remained pleasantly cool.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder, searched his jacket pocket, and found a folded sheet of paper. Addresses: his apartment, the office of the AIVD, and a name. Dewaal. His contact with AIVD. The night before, he had studied the map of Amsterdam with the tram routes and a colorful, tourist-oriented guide to the city. His apartment was situated in Utrechtsestraat, right by Frederiksplein, on Tramline 4. Wouldn’t be difficult to find.

  He looked around. The station building was scaffolded to a perilous degree. Noisy work was in progress, railings and metal frames all around him. They meant serious business here, he thought. Then, to his left, he saw the tram stop.

  2

  “IT’S GONE?” HENDRIKA VAN Tillo said, hands on her hips, glaring at the somewhat less than imposing Kees Vanheul, her long-suffering secretary. He was much more to her than just a secretary, especially on an organizational and ideological level, if the press were to be believed—or at least that part of the press that had no sympathy for Van Tillo, her party, or her world view. The communist press, as she referred to it without much deference to historical accuracy. So different from the tabloids, with which she tried to remain on good terms because many people read them—the people Van Tillo counted as among her supporters, potential or otherwise.

  “What happened, Kees?” she repeated. “It isn’t here anymore. The list. What are you going to do about that?”

  “I’ll just print a new one,” Vanheul said. “Takes only a moment—I can do it myself. The file is on my computer.”

  “Kees, that’s not the point.” Van Tillo pushed her much too large and unwieldy dark brown leather desk chair out of the way, much as she would deal with a political opponent. She had wanted a bigger office, but no larger room had been available on the premises except the two meeting rooms on the ground floor. And Van Tillo wasn’t going to have her office on the ground floor! “The point is that yesterday my list, the one on paper, was in that drawer and now it’s gone. That means someone took the list. And that’s not acceptable.”

  “No,” he said, “that’s not acceptable at all.”

  “Because the list is missing, Kees,” Van Tillo continued mercilessly, “and that could mean it’s in the hands of someone who’s going to use it for his own purposes. Misuse it, as in, you know, mis-use. Against the people whose names and many more details are on it and in plain damn sight for anyone. Damn it, it even has amounts on it. This is a disaster, in every respect. How are we going to explain this?”

  “Come now, Hendrika,” he soothed, “I’m sure things will straighten themselves out. It’s probably just some misunderstanding. Not worth the fuss. Maybe you put it somewhere else. Where could it have gone? No one ever comes here, not in this office. Besides, don’t you usually lock your drawers?”

  “Why would I lock my drawers, in this office? Can’t I trust the people I work with anymore? Is trust in our fellow Dutchmen not one of the cornerstones of our Party?” Every time she said it, it sounded capitalized: Party. The capital letter was only fitting, too. Because they were the only party worthy of that name. A real party of the people. The rest was an assemblage of political opportunists.

  “I think we can trust every single person who works here, Hendrika. Though a lot of new people joined us recently. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of them. We never had anything like a screening process. Perhaps we should.”

  “They’re all Dutch, Kees. Every one of them.” Meaning—and he knew very well what she meant—that they were all white-skinned Dutch, all of them of true indigenous stock. Homegrown people of native character. People of pure blood. Dutch blood. Otherwise, you did not get into the Party.

  “I’m sure the list isn’t gone,” he said.

  But she wouldn’t be soothed. “Yes, it is. And if it’s gone, we have a major problem on our hands. Suppose the press gets hold of it? What do you suppose would happen?”

  “We can deal with that. We’ll go to court and threaten everyone who intends to publish the list … or any part thereof. We’ve used that tactic before. It works every time.”

  Van Tillo stubbornly shook her head. “By then it’s too late. We can only sue when the information is actually published. Then it’s all out in the open. We’ll get in a lot of trouble with a lot of important people if that happens. You know how discreet we are when raising funds from the business community. We would lose a large number of backers, and even that would be the least of our worries.”

  Kees was well aware of the implications of such a leak. His main responsibility was fund-raising. He maintained contacts with the business community, notably with the segment that was only too happy to cough up money for the party because they wanted their social and economic agenda implemented by politicians. These people wanted to remain discreet while doing so, for obvious reasons. They wouldn’t appreciate finding their names in the papers connected intimately with Van Tillo’s Party. Capital P or not.

  The work he did was necessary. It needed to be done. Politics depended on money. Parties had unavoidable expenses and almost no income. Getting Party members—Hendrika in particular—elected was an expensive business. And people could be persuaded to contribute only if they perceived future benefits for themselves and their companies. To them, it wasn’t a bad idea to have a direct line to an elected politician when, for instance, export licenses were needed. Or when a company came under fire for producing too much dangerous waste—that sort of thing. A few simple problems could disappear when a high-ranking member of the political elite took a closer look at them.

  Kees knew all too well that ideology must yield to such pragmatic interests. Politics couldn’t depend solely on slogans and philosophy. There were bills to pay.

  Politics was an expensive business, with no room for amateurs. He was not an amateur. He had succeeded in getting Hendrika selected as minister of justice, but that had been some years ago, in another administration—and with another party altogether. She had subsequently left that party to found her own and had taken Kees with her.

  He’d been grateful to her for doing so. He also knew that without his political savvy and honed diplomatic skills, she wouldn’t have gotten where she was now. She knew that, too.

  And now there seemed to be a problem with that list.

  “You’re quite sure … ?” he tried again.

  But Hendrika was sure. List. Gone.

  “Have someone look into whether anyone was here in the office last night, Kees. Can someone do that? Discreetly?”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t much to check. All we have is two cameras, and neither is installed in this room. But I’ll have a look at the recordings to see if they registered anything interesting.”

  “We have cameras?”

  “We do, but few people know about them. They’re not in use during the day, but they are at night. Just two of them. I’ll have a look.”

  “Who authorized that, Kees? Those cameras? I wasn’t even aware—”

  “I handled it myself, Hendrika,” Kees said. As if I need your permission for everything.

  She grunted and left it at that. “Just figure it out. I want that list back where it belongs.”

  He got up and walked down the hall to a small office at the rear of the building that held the two servers
that managed the Party’s electronic traffic. Every so often, someone on staff came by to maintain the website and install new applications. Hendrika didn’t understand the first thing about computers, and she considered anyone who dealt with them a “freak”—though she never used that word in public or within the Party. She had all her emails printed out. She had a secretarial department that scoured the internet for comments about herself and the Party. She voiced her concern about “the big picture” and couldn’t be bothered with details, which fit better better with her “feminine intuition,” again by her own account.

  In the beginning, when he started working for her, Kees had been put off by her attitude. Gradually, he had stopped getting worked up about it, as he considered it a waste of energy. Nobody was going to change Hendrika. She would never have an electronic device as an accessory.

  Behind every strong politician, an even stronger team guarded the gates, occupied the towers, provided weapons and ammunition. He was the main player on that team. He saw himself as the perfect party secretary, one who kept an eye on every day-to-day problem and took care of all situations. Who knew everything that was happening. And who now would have to deal with that stupid list. Why wouldn’t she simply lock her drawer?

  The servers in the small office at the back operated the security cameras and stored the recordings. The cameras were installed in the third-floor hallway and along the facade of the building. The cameras took a picture every three seconds and saved them.

  He sat down and opened some files. A few moments later, he was looking at the images of the previous night. His guess was that Hendrika was mistaken. That she had simply misplaced the list herself. Very few people knew about the list and where to find it. The electronic version was encrypted. But Hendrika, with her aversion to anything computer-related, always wanted an up-to-date paper copy.

  And she was careless with it.

  On the screen in front of Kees, a figure moved along the facade toward the gate.

  Opened the gate and stepped into the alley bordering the building where Kees sat now.

  A few moments later, that same figure walked down the hallway one floor up, entered Hendrika’s office, and immediately stepped out again. He had been in the office no longer than half a minute. Whatever he had done, it had taken him very little time. He knew what he was looking for and where to find it.

  He?

  Kees replayed the sequence of captured images.

  It was a man. No doubt.

  Kees enlarged a couple of the images. It was not just any man. Kees knew right away who it was. The tall, skinny build and the long hair—Kees had seen him before. He worked here, in the building, for the Party. Kees would remember his name in a minute.

  He printed two of the images and closed the files. He hurried to Hendrika’s office. She looked up, frowning. “Someone was here last night,” he said. “In this office.” He showed her the printouts.

  She squinted at the prints. “And do you know who this is?”

  “Some guy working here,” Kees said. “Has been for some time. I think he writes copy for our press office and for the website.”

  “Get him in here!”

  “Shall I call the police too?”

  “Are you out of your mind? The police? Why not alert the press, while we’re at it, and reveal that an important document has been stolen from our offices, a document that has all the potential of harming us? I just want my list back! Get his ass in here. I’ll have a strong word with him.”

  As if, Kees thought, that would be all she would do. He picked up the phone and punched in two digits. He got Jurgen, who ran the Party’s communications department.

  “Oh, that young man,” Jurgen said. “The skinny youth.”

  “That’s him,” Kees said.

  “Van Boer.”

  “Whatever his name is. I want to speak to him right now. Bring him down yourself. Don’t tell him anything yet.”

  “He’s not here,” Jurgen said.

  “What you mean, he’s not there?”

  “He didn’t show up this morning, Kees. Sick, I guess. Not a word so far, no phone call, nothing. Can’t even be bothered to—”

  Kees put down the receiver.

  “Well?” Hendrika asked.

  “He’s not in.”

  “He’s not?”

  “Hasn’t shown up today. I think we have a serious problem. We can assume he stole the list and will probably take it to the press. This is not some random action. This was well prepared. We’re probably in deep shit.”

  “Goddamn it, Kees. We bring someone in here to do a job and he ends up stealing our information. How did he get in, in the first place? What kind of operation are we running here if people just—?”

  “I’m afraid,” Kees said, “we need to have a serious talk with Monet.”

  Hendrika folded her hands as if she intended to pray to the Elder Gods of her private ideology. It meant, Kees knew, that she was considering the situation very thoroughly. This was not the usual Hendrika Van Tillo, who often acted out of impulse and counted on Kees to slow her down and make her think about the problem first. But when the name Monet came up, there was every reason to stop acting and think first.

  The name Monet meant big problems ahead. Probably unavoidable problems.

  “Does it have to come to that?” she asked, looking up.

  “Suppose that list …” Kees said.

  “Why can’t we find the fucking sneak and have him … I don’t know. Have someone convince him that he won’t get very far with whatever he intends to do with that list?”

  “We don’t do that sort of thing, Hendrika. Not what you have in mind. And we don’t have people to do it either.”

  “A pity,” Hendrika said.

  “There may be other people who can do this for us. The problem may be solvable, just not right away. Contacts need to be established first. And in the meantime, we run the risk that this sneak will take action against us.”

  Van Tillo shrugged. “What is his name? This unfortunate industrious young man?”

  “Er … Van Boer.”

  “And meanwhile, we run the risk that Van Boer takes the list to, let’s say, Vrij Nederland or any of those liberal newspapers, where they’ll be all too glad to disclose in their next issue who supports us financially and by how much. Kees, you know—”

  “I know.”

  “You know we’re always cast in a bad light there. Because when I was minister, I had a couple of those liberal journalists prosecuted for—”

  “That’s hardly relevant now, Hendrika. The point is, the list must be intercepted. Which means we have to tell Monet at once. Then he won’t be able to reproach us later for having kept the bad news to ourselves.”

  Van Tillo got up again. “Right. You call him, Kees. At once.”

  “Me again. The dirty work.”

  “Yes. You again. You’re the man who handles communications with the bankers. Remember? You maintain the list. So it’s your call to make.”

  He could point out to her that she was the one who had lost the list in the first place, but that wouldn’t stick. So he was going to make the call to Monet. Who was not exactly famous for his patience or indulgence.

  He looked at his watch. It was still early. For a man like Monet, it was still early. Too bad. Kees didn’t like to bother someone like Monet this early in the day, certainly not with bad news, but he had no choice.

  He retreated to his own office, which was almost as large as Van Tillo’s. But his was sparsely furnished. No leather sofa. No framed van Gogh prints on the walls. No Party posters either. Behind his back, colleagues referred to his office as a monk’s cell. He knew what they thought about him. He didn’t care.

  He got Monet’s secretary on the line. “Mr. Monet is at breakfast with some gentlemen from finance,” the young man said. He sounded vaguely effeminate. Vaguely. Kees knew about Monet’s personal predilections. But you did business with anyone who wanted to share money and po
wer.

  Monet had both.

  “This is extremely important,” he said. “Mr. Monet will appreciate hearing from me right away.”

  Or not, he thought. Mr. Monet wouldn’t appreciate learning from Kees Vanheul that the names of a number of prominent Dutchmen and the amounts of their contribution to Van Tillo’s party would soon appear in the press. Maybe even that same day.

  He would find that deeply disagreeable.

  But, Kees knew, he’d better learn it from him rather than read it in the newspaper or see it on his Twitter stream.

  “Yes?” came an irritated, gruff voice on the other end.

  “Mr. Monet,” Vanheul said. “Kees Vanheul. I’m afraid I have some unpleasant news. It might not be a real problem yet and things may work out fine, but someone unauthorized has taken the list of contributors, and we fear it could end up in the wrong hands.”

  Vanheul had prepared himself for a flood of abuse.

  But the other and of the line remained quiet.

  3

  EEKHAUT WAITED AT THE tram stop for a carriage with the magical number 4. The place was more crowded than he cared for. All sorts of people, inhabitants of this highly cosmopolitan city, were coming and going. The whole neighborhood was a vast construction site for the extension of the subway. He hadn’t known that Amsterdam had a subway.

  He was annoyed by the fact that he had to take the tram. Why couldn’t one of his future colleagues show up and give him a lift? He was working right now, wasn’t he? Did they assume he’d come here as a tourist? Why didn’t AIVD simply send a car around? Efficiency was the main concern of the Dutch, so why weren’t they showing him any? He had been standing here for a quarter of an hour, waiting for a tram that didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He hadn’t seen any trams at all. It was the middle of a working day and not a tram in sight.

  Was there a strike going on?

  Not in Holland. Brussels was plagued by the all too frequent strikes, but surely not this efficient country.