Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) (36 page)

We are all in a wild and festive mood, slapping each other's backs, telling each other how brilliant we were.  “I was sure it was going to work!” says Kaart, half soused after a few sips of beer.  “We're geniuses!”  The barge nearly rocks in our joyousness.  “Janz, you scared the piss out of me,” says Garret, upending a tankard.  “I almost believed you were Landweer myself.  Where'd you get that voice?  It's like a bloody bullhorn.”

“Used to coach soccer.”

“There you go.  Here's to past lives!”

“Let's drink to our success!”

Pim has brought cheese, wine, and prosciutto, and we dig in, starved.  He won't tell anyone where he finds prosciutto.  His big secret.  He sits next to me, holding my hand.  By now, everyone knows how we feel about each other.  At times like these, we can't help but show our affection.  No one judges us.  

“I feel sorry for the doctor,” Hansen says.  “He tried so hard to defend his patients.”

“He told me he hoped you'd rot in hell.”  I pelt Hansen with a heel of bread.

“Sander looked like he was going to have a cow.  I was afraid he'd forgotten.”

“Voddenman was so rattled he couldn't find his underwear.” 

“Maybe he doesn't wear any.”

We all howl, holding our sides.  The idea of our prim little financier not wearing underwear tickles us far beyond what it merits.  We are giddy.

“Maybe he sent it out to get ironed,” suggests Janz.

“Maybe his drawers are silk and he traded them for food coupons.”

“In the hospital?”

“The black market is everywhere.  Even in prison.  I should know.”  Garret rubs his face, chasing away bad memories.

We come up with a dozen possibilities to where Voddenman's drawers disappeared.  Trying to out do one another
,
until we are nearly dizzy with laughter.

“Hey, keep it down out there!”  Gerda opens the door, and steps out.  “They can hear you all the way to Raqqa.”  Raqqa, Syria is the capitol of the United Nations of Islam.

Chuckles simmer to a low rumble, chastened.  We yearn for carefree moments.  But we know better.  Gerda is right to admonish us.  Any Landweer
passing the barge could surely hear us.

She leans against the doorway, taking weight off her left hip.  I don't know how she can stand it. 

“I'd like you to meet Reynard.  You've all heard stories about him.  Even I have never met him until now, and didn't know his cover.  He'd like to thank you for all you've done.”

We clap wildly.  A tall, dark-haired man limps out, with a wide white smile.  And amber eyes.

Fuck me! 
What in hell is
HE
doing here?  I am utterly thrown by the sight of him.  I realize in a flash I never got a good look at the forth patient, Rudd van Gelder, his butt perpetually wagging in the air.  When we made the “arrest,” I was preoccupied with the doctor, then followed everyone out.  He left in Kaart's car.

He looks at me, his gaze unwavering and intense.  A ghost of a smile forms on his lips, his eyes alight with humor, as if he’s enjoying some private joke.

I jerk my hand out of Pim's.  Sensing my alarm, Pim's back goes up, ready to defend me.  A few silent breaths, glancing between us, then he figures it out.  His face crumbles.

Fury and confusion engulf me; I don't know if he's undercover
Speciale Operaties,
or a Resistant, as Gerda so proudly claims.  All I want to do is run.

“Reynard is Lina's husband, Kazan Basturk,” interjects Gerda.

Gasps all around.  Pim looks at me with blind fury, thinking, I'm sure, that I knew all along.

Kazan holds up his hands.  “I am very grateful to all of you for risking your lives to get me out of the hospital.  If interrogated, someone in the Landweer
would surely have recognized me.  Unfortunately, I look a good deal like my father.  They would've tortured every ounce of information out of me.  It would've been a terrible blow to the Resistance.”

Kazan turns to me.  “I'm sorry, Lina . . . Salima.  It speaks volumes to your dedication that I never suspected my own wife was a Resistant.  I guess it is a warning—we get so involved in our work, we assume enemies are everywhere.  Even where they are not.”

Everyone looks flabbergasted, glancing back and forth between us.  Pim is steaming.  Gerda looks smug—she's never been comfortable with selling me off to the son of an Islamist
,
and now she looks like all's well that ends well. 

We'll see about that.

“All of you must get out of Amsterdam for a bit,” says Gerda, leaning on the table.  “Hospital security cameras may have gotten your faces.  I asked our inside people to try to dump the video.  We'll see if they manage it in time.  The
Landweer
will not take this slap in the face very well.”

“She's right,” Kazan says, showing his authority.  “They will be outraged that anyone dared impersonate them.  The Dutch civil police won't like it much either.  You got by their guards, and the Landweer
will be breathing down their necks.  They'll be doing searches, making a big fuss.  I wouldn't be surprised if the hospital gets a shake down.”

“How long do we have to disappear?” Garret asks.

“It'll blow over in two weeks,” Gerda answers.  “There will be something else for them to get all worked up about.”  She glances at me and Kazan.  “You two should take a belated honeymoon.  No one has seen your face Lina, but it is possible you were followed, and someone puts it together.  They will be looking for Rudd van Gelder.”

“Don't they have your pictures?” asks Janz.

“Only our fake IDs,” Kazan answers.

“What if they run them on television?”

“They won't want to advertise that Resistants disguised themselves as Landweer
and freed prisoners.”

The meeting breaks up.  Pim is no longer angry.  He looks sad.  I reach out to say I'm sorry, that I didn't know, but he jerks away, standing abruptly. 

“I didn't even know your real name,” he says.  Bitterness grates in his voice.

“It's not my real name,” I say lamely, but he is gone.  He never really knew me, he means.  That's not entirely true.  He knows me better than anyone.  What is true is none of us is who we say we are, and it's tearing us apart.  We lie for survival.  After it is all over, how will we live with ourselves?

Guilt flattens me, and I feel like a wobbly piece of aluminum, the kind they use in amateur theater groups to sound like thunder.  I feel just about as authentic.  I've hurt my best friend.  I wouldn't blame him if he never forgives me.

I pull my burka over my head, glad to be hiding my face.  Kazan holds the door for me.  It feels strange to be leaving the barge with someone.  Resistants always split up and go in different directions.  But there is no reason for a husband and wife not to walk together, to take the tram together, to sit together.

Kazan takes my arm and we walk in silence.

Wedding Night #2

Nothing has changed, yet everything is entirely different. 

We stand in the kitchen as on our wedding night, fidgeting, shy and deeply embarrassed.  The relationship we had constructed, one of polite co-workers, has completely evaporated.  My body trembles all over.  I feel incredibly awkward.  I don't know where to sit or stand.  Or what to say.  Or what to feel.

Kazan finally breaks the silence.  “Would you like something to drink?”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

He opens a drawer beside the dishwasher, takes out a false bottom, and pulls out a bottle of red wine.  Another hidden drawer I should have found—my incompetence further revealed.  I hadn't thought to look in the kitchen.

Kazan touches the side of the bottle to his forearm.  “It should be the right temperature.”  He uncorks it, pours two glasses, and hands me one.  “Here's to starting over.”  He taps my glass with his, and sips.

I laugh nervously.  At this rate, we'll be standing and staring at each other for two or three days.

He takes my hand and leads me to the enormous burnt-orange leather couch in the living room.  We have sat on it maybe four times together.  There's not the slightest crack in the new leather.

“Does it hurt to sit?”

“Not too much.  Wilma gave me a shot of something.  Feels like I have Novocaine in my butt.”  His eyes squint in pain.  He pulls up a chair and turns it backwards facing me.  He finds his glass again, and straddles the chair, his butt suspended over the edge.  “Much better.”  He laughs embarrassedly, then sips from his glass.  “So where were we?”

“I have a lot of questions,” I say.

“I would think you might.  You probably deserve some answers, under the circumstances.”

“The circumstances being that we both turned out to be big fat liars.”

He laughs, and takes my hand.  It feels easier to talk when he's touching me.  “More omissions than lies.”

“The basis of every good relationship.”

“There's that sarcasm again.”

“Sorry.”  I don't want to be angry, but it slipped out.  I have no right.  I'm equally guilty.

He opens my hand and strokes my palm with his thumbs.  His fingers are long and slender, so unlike Pim's squarish hands.  I had loved watching them handle tools—building explosives.

“I'll answer your questions, Salima.  And I won't press you to tell me things you don't want to.  But there's one thing I'd ask of you.”

“What's that?”

“Honesty.”

“It'd be a first for us.”

He rolls in his lower lip and bites it.  “There are things I can't tell you for your own protection.  That's probably true for you, too.  But when you do tell me something, tell me the truth.  I'll do the same.  We respect each other . . . I think we have that.  Let's always keep that.  Secrets, if we have to, but no lies.”

I nod my head.  “I agree.  Honesty and respect.  No lies.” 

“So what is it you want to know?  My work?  I'll tell you what I can.”

“I guess my biggest question is about us—why you never slept with me.”  I feel myself blushing to my roots.  “I am just the slightest bit curious.”

  “Ha!”  He lets go of my hands, and takes a long gulp of wine.  “Well . . . I was afraid we might have a child.  Especially a male child.  A Muslim family puts their claws into a male child.  If I died on a mission and we had a son, he would be owned by my family.  You might be able to leave, but they would never let you take him.  You would have no sway over his education, and there is no way you could keep him out of a
madrassah. 
I couldn't bear the thought of my son brainwashed, added to the army of Islamists.  I knew you were confused and hurt, and I am sorry for putting you through that.  I knew my family was pressuring you to get pregnant.  I did find you attractive.  Couldn't you tell?  It took everything I had not to pounce on you.”

“It was more than that,” I say flatly.

“Well . . . yes
.” 
He drops my hand and vigorously scratches his head before continuing.  “I didn't want to care for you.  To worry about you.  I take such risks for the Resistance, but if I cared for you—really cared for you the way I thought I might if I let myself—then I couldn't risk my life the way I had to.  I wouldn't be able to leave you for weeks without talking to you.  I wouldn't be able to concentrate without worrying about you, wanting you, wondering about you.  I wouldn't be able to lie to you.”

“Why in hell did you agree to marry at all?”  Frustration makes my voice petulant.  I drain my glass.

“I couldn't put off the family any longer.  No, that isn't true.  I had a choice.  But my father was very keen on the match, and I figured being the son-in-law to the Police Commissioner was a good cover—if I got arrested, I might have some wiggle room.  Your independence appealed to me.  I didn't think you'd fall apart if I didn't boss you around.  Your humor can be biting, but it shows you are different.”  He takes my hands and kisses them formally, first one, then the other.  “Someone had to step up and keep you out of the work camps.”

“You married me out of charity?  How flattering.”

“It is the Third Pillar of Islam.”

“I guess I should be grateful you're so religious.”

He chuckles, and walks to the kitchen, returning with the bottle of wine.  He fills our glasses again and sits opposite me. 

“I have a biting sense of humor?”

“A little bit.”  He looks down, hiding a smile.

Only now do I realize how good the wine is.  It doesn't surprised me Kazan knows about wines—a new piece of the puzzle.  “You married me as a cover, a good little Muslim girl, getting long in the tooth at nineteen, who wouldn't complain if you weren't home every night for dinner.”

“That's about right.  You did the same—marrying a Turkish prince, son of an Islamist
,
too busy to worry what his wife is up to.”  Kazan busts out in laughter.

“You never suspected me?”

“You did wear a lot of pink.”

I laugh.  “I guess we're both whores.”