Алистер Маклин - Floodgate

‘They’re in a room we’ve hired off the Kalvetstraat.’

‘Would it be presumptuous of me to ask why the radio isn’t with the explosives?’

‘Not at all. I want to trigger off the device in the palace from the Dam Square itself. Perhaps you wonder why?’

‘Wonder or not, I’m not going to ask. The less I know the better all round. I’m a great believer in the need-to-know principle.’

‘So, normally, am I.’ He switched on the car radio. ‘Eight o’clock. Forecast.’ The forecast, which came through almost immediately, was not encouraging. Wind, force seven, north, veering north-north-east, increasing, heavy rains, temperature dropping. Then followed some technical jargon about stationary depressions and a confident, if gloomy, assertion that the weather would continue to deteriorate for the next forty-eight hours.

‘Sounds bad,’ Agnelli said. His expression did not appear to reflect inner concern. ‘Lots of people, especially the middle-aged and older with longer memories, won’t be feeling any too happy – especially with the recent comments about the decayed state of the dykes. Same conditions as caused those dreadful floods back in the fifties – and the dykes are in no better condition now than they were then.’

‘Putting it a bit strongly, isn’t it, Mr Agnelli? Think of the huge storm-surge barriers they’ve built in the delta area in the south-west.’

‘And what guarantee have we that the North Sea is going to be considerate enough to launch its attack against the delta area? Little point in locking your front door if the back door is falling off its hinges.’

Agnelli parked his car in the Voorburgwal, reached into the back seat and produced two large umbrellas.

‘Not that these are going to be much help in this downpour. Just wait a few seconds until I get the radio out of the boot.’

Just over a minute later they were standing outside a door to which Agnelli had his own key. Beyond lay an ill-lit and dingy passageway, its floor covered with cracked linoleum. Agnelli furled his umbrella and gave a coded knock on the first door to the right – three taps, then one, then three. The door was opened by the man calling himself Helmut Paderiwski who made an unsuccessful effort to restrain a scowl when he recognized the person accompanying Agnelli, who appeared not to notice it.

‘Helmut you have met,’ Agnelli said, and led the way into the room. Unlike the corridor, it was brightly lit and was large and furnished in surprising comfort. Leonardo Agnelli gave van Effen a nod and a smile.

Leonardo apart, there were four other people in the room, all young, all pleasant looking and very respectable: two men and two girls, all looking like refugees from some university honours graduate course, the type that would have more than passed muster in any Parisian grand salon: they were also of the type that, in the past decade, had not only been members of, but had organized and controlled so many politically motivated criminal groups in Germany and Italy. They were considerably more formidable than your common-or-garden criminal who was concerned primarily with the accumulation of as much wealth as possible in the shortest time possible but who would rapidly abandon all thought of ill-gotten gains if personal danger threatened, fanatically dedicated people who would stop at nothing to achieve their own cherished Utopias, no matter how bizarre, sick and undesirable those Utopias might appear to the vast majority of their fellow men and women. They could, of course, have been genuine salon intellectuals who sought no more of life than the opportunity to discuss Proust and Stendhal, Hegelian and Kantian philosophies. But seekers after the higher truths did not commonly assemble in such clandestine fashion, especially not in the close vicinity of sixteen-kilo blocks of amatol explosive which van Effen had at once observed neatly stacked in a corner.

Agnelli indicated the two young men. ‘Joop and Joachim. They have other names, of course, but are not using them at the moment.’ Joop and Joachim, oddly alike in that both were tall, slightly stooped and wore horn-rimmed glasses, bowed slightly, smiled but refrained from reciprocal comment when van Effen said he was delighted to meet them. Agnelli turned to a sweet-smiling dark-haired girl. ‘And this is Maria, who has also for the moment forgotten her surname.’

‘My, my,’ van Effen said. ‘Imagine forgetting a name like Agnelli.’

Agnelli smiled. ‘I didn’t think you would be the man to miss much, Mr Danilov. Yes, my sister. And this is Kathleen.’ Kathleen, petite and slender, had blue eyes, dark hair and a slightly humorous, slightly wry expression which in no way detracted from the fact that she was very pretty indeed.

‘Kathleen?’ van Effen said. ‘But that’s an Irish name. And, if I don’t give offence, you’re every man’s concept of what an Irish colleen should look like. You know, the one in the song “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen”?’

She made a mock curtsy. ‘You choose to flatter me, kind sir. No offence. My mother is Irish. I’m quite proud of it, in my own Celtic way.’

Professor Spanraft’s putative ex-student, van Effen knew. And, beyond doubt, the girl who had spoken over the telephone to the sub-editor Morelis and others.

‘It was promised that I would meet your leader tonight,’ van Effen said. ‘He is not here.’

‘He asked me to convey his apologies,’ Agnelli said. ‘An urgent appointment that he couldn’t break.’ If one were in any way courteous, van Effen reflected, one did not break appointments with Ministers of Justice.

‘Those are all your group?’

‘No.’ Agnelli waved a hand. ‘Those are all that are with us tonight.’

‘Pity I won’t be able to further my acquaintance with them,’ van Effen said. ‘They may be with us but I won’t be with them.’ He turned towards the door. ‘I trust they enjoy their trip to the cellars. I’m sorry, Mr Agnelli. Good-night.’

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute!’ Agnelli, no longer smiling, was totally taken aback, his face registering his lack of comprehension.

‘A minute? Not a second. Not in this company.’ Van Effen looked around the other equally startled and puzzled occupants of the room, his eyes and mouth dismissive and more than slightly contemptuous. ‘If you imagined that I was going to move into hostile territory – and no matter how good your inside information may be, the possibility of danger is always there – carrying explosives and with this bunch of amateur rubberneckers traipsing at my heels, you have to be out of your mind.’ He reached for the door-handle. ‘Get yourself another demolition expert. Preferably from a lunatic asylum.’

‘Is that what it is?’ Agnelli smiled in relief. ‘My dear fellow, those people are not coming with us. Do you think I am from a lunatic asylum? Only you, Leonardo and myself.’

‘Then what are all those people doing here? And don’t tell me it’s none of my business. It is. I value my freedom above all things and my freedom is endangered when unnecessary risks are taken. Don’t you know that danger lies in numbers? Don’t you think it’s stupid to have your people holed up so near a place where you intend to carry out an illegal act? Don’t you ever operate on the need-to-know principle?’

‘This is not our base, Mr Danilov. One night only.’ Agnelli was slightly on the defensive, slightly uncomfortable. ‘Those people are here simply as observers.’

‘Observing what?’

‘The effects of the explosion.’

‘Effects? The walls of Jericho come tumbling down? There’ll be nothing to observe.’

‘Psychological effects. Reactions. Guide to our future plans.’

‘Effects on whom? The crowds thronging the Dam Square?’ Van Effen looked at him incredulously. ‘That rain’s torrential. There won’t be a single living soul in the square tonight.’ He looked slowly round the unsmiling faces. ‘Sunday-school kids on a Sunday-school picnic. Cheap thrills? Or the feeling that they’re not making a contribution, not really participating unless they’re on the spot? God help us. Let me see all the gear you have.’ Enough moral ascendancy, van Effen thought, was enough.