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‘Fifty euros for good time,’ she said. ‘Fifty euros.’
He gestured with his hand to dismiss her – though it wasn’t as if she was going anywhere – and moved on.
A hundred metres further along the pavement Pallesson turned down a narrow side street. An observant tourist would have noticed that all of the windows in the alley either had a whip hanging inside the window, or a small card proclaiming S&M. Pallesson checked his watch. He had forty-five minutes.
The curtains of the first two windows were shut. He wasn’t bothered. He’d used them both over the last few months. He wanted to try the last girl on the left. He’d noticed her before. She was large, strong-looking and, with any luck, German.
He was nearly shaking with excitement as he approached her window. The curtain was open. She was sitting on a high stool, talking to someone on her mobile phone. He caught her eye, expectantly. Unlike the other girls, she didn’t rush to open her door or beckon to him. She just carried on with her conversation and made him stand in the narrow alley like a prick. He felt demeaned. He was now desperate to have her.
She knew what she was doing. This little jerk wasn’t going anywhere. And she could see by the way he was dressed that she could up her charges. In her own time she opened the door and gestured with her head for him to enter. He stepped into her narrow window without saying a word. She drew the curtains behind him.
He left half an hour later, but without the shifty look that most of the punters had when they stepped quickly back on to the street and walked one way or the other, trying to blend into the general crowd. He liked being in control, not skulking about.
He checked his watch again. He had ten minutes to get to the jetty in the Oude Turfmarkt. He walked briskly along the canal past the magnificent houses that border the red-light district, making a mental note of the one he would like to live in. He then cut through the university campus, which brought him out opposite the Hotel de l’Europe. As he walked down the street he could hear the clock tower across the canal by the flower market chiming noon. He was bang on time. As he always was.
The old merchant’s boat waiting to pick him up was tied to the jetty used by the tourist boats.
‘Good morning,’ he said to one of the thickset lumps of muscle standing on the jetty.
The man barely registered his presence.
‘Let’s go,’ Pallesson said, unfazed.
The small boat had one cabin with a long narrow table and bench seats either side. One of the thugs shut the double doors behind him without so much as a word. He was now trapped in his own glass-sided cell, looking out on to the canal as the boat pulled away from the jetty.
Wevers van Ossen was the proprietor of the old merchant’s boat. He was also a vicious psychopath. And leader of the Kalverstraat gang, which was notorious for its brutality. For over a decade he’d been running a ruthless protection racket in Amsterdam.
His authority, however, was now being challenged by Eastern European gangs who were prepared to stand their ground. And one Dutchman – Jorgan Stam. The level of violence employed by Stam’s men was escalating fast. The balance of power was being tested.
So van Ossen had made a strategic decision. He was diversifying into drugs. It was simple for him. There were any number of desperate ‘mules’ prepared to take the risk of bringing heroin to Amsterdam by boat or land. All he had to do was warehouse and redistribute it. At no risk, given his position in Amsterdam. He’d ‘protected’ the docks for years. And Pallesson was the conduit and fixer for his first deal into England.
The two minders on van Ossen’s boat could have been twins, with their shaven heads and wide noses. Both were reckless killers. They’d left behind their birth names when they walked out the back door of the garrison at Doorn, Utrecht, and assumed the new identities that van Ossen had created for them: Fransen and Piek.
As members of the Dutch Maritime Special Operations Forces (MARSOF), they had come through the most brutal of training regimes in every extreme terrain possible; and thrived on it.
During their tour of duty at Camp Smitty near As Samawah in Southern Iraq, they had fought in conjunction with AH-64 attack helicopters, clearing out subversives. They had put their lives on the line for the Coalition forces and their British commander. And they had bailed out wounded British troops, pinned down by sniper fire. Their heroics had gone well beyond the call of duty, and because of this the British had covered up for them.
Fransen and Piek had gone off-piste while on patrol in a village called al-Khidr. They had told their Dutch compatriots to turn a blind eye and cover their backs while they cleared up a small matter.
The small matter was a meeting of six civilians in a house on the edge of the village. Six civilians who, their informants had told them, were collaborating with those still loyal to the Republican Guard.
Fransen and Piek wanted to send a message to the other villagers. A message that reminded them they should work with the Coalition forces, not the insurgents, if they valued their lives.
The six men, who were all unarmed, didn’t have time to react. They were shot dead with the Glock 17 sidearms that the Dutchmen were carrying. But that in itself would not have been a strong enough deterrent to the other villagers, desensitized as they were by the ravages of war. So Fransen and Piek cut off their victims’ heads and lined them up outside the house.
There was no concrete evidence that the two Dutchmen were the perpetrators of this crime. The British commander had two options: either to bust them and put them through the military’s disciplinary system, or to lose them fast. He chose the latter option. Within twenty-four hours the pair of them had been secreted back to Doorn garrison. It was their good fortune that the al-Khidr atrocity would be wiped from the record. As indeed would they.
Doorn’s sergeant major had long been van Ossen’s recruitment officer. The arrangement suited the military as much as it did van Ossen. He took embarrassing situations off their hands, and in return got the hardest recruits on the block. Van Ossen would be a hard man to usurp as long as this was the case. A fact that was not wasted on Pallesson.
Pallesson watched a large tourist boat passing them in the opposite direction. It was packed full of stereotypical sightseers. Some of them gawped at him as they glided past. He ignored them.
They passed the big, ugly Stadhuis-Muziektheater, built on the old Jewish quarter, then turned left by the Hermitage museum. Pallesson had no idea where they were going. Finally, they doubled back into a smaller canal and pulled over by some houseboats.
Van Ossen stepped aboard one of them, aided by another sour-looking bodyguard, and climbed down into the glass-sided cabin.
‘Good to see you again, Mr Pallesson. I hope you don’t mind a little ride on the canal. Do you like my boat? It was originally owned by a merchant, who used it to entertain his clients. Sadly, we had a little disagreement and he forfeited the boat. We don’t have time for entertainment right now. Maybe one day.’
‘That would be nice.’
‘So, are you still in? You have the painting for me?’ van Ossen asked bluntly.
‘Everything is in order, I can assure you.’ Pallesson was ruffled, but he kept his voice even. ‘I’ll have the painting next week. As agreed.’
‘I want to bring the deal forward. End of this week.’
Pallesson had dealt with van Ossen’s kind before. They liked to push people around. Partly to show they could, but also to protect themselves by changing locations, times. The only option was to stand up to them.
‘That isn’t possible,’ Pallesson said calmly. ‘Barry Nuttall won’t have the money by then. And I personally guaranteed that The Peasants in Winter would be our bond. It can’t be extracted until next week – I can’t hand it over until then – that was our agreement.’
‘So how do I know you’re good for the deal?’
Van Ossen was irritated. And reluctant to sit on the drugs a day longer than he had to.
‘Our deal is agreed. Barry Nuttall will bring over two million euros in used notes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ve done five deals as his partner – Russia and Turkey – never a problem. He’s a pro.’
Van Ossen was renowned for his explosive temper. He was not someone you wanted to cross, a fact that many unfortunate associates had reflected upon as they were sinking to the bottom of a pitch-black canal. In spite of the cashmere overcoat and dark-blue suit, it was obvious which side of the tracks van Ossen came from.
‘He better be,’ van Ossen said with as much malice as he could muster.
Most people would have been unnerved by an irritated van Ossen. Not Pallesson. Faced with danger and threat, he had learnt to draw strength from the dark forces that he believed watched over him.
So a drug-running Dutchman didn’t bother him. He was quickly back on the front foot.
‘You know who I’ve dealt with in the past. Never a problem. And I think you’ll find I’ll be useful across several areas of your supply chain. Especially with the UK borders tightening up,’ Pallesson said, holding his composure. ‘We’ll be ready next week. And then the beautiful Brueghel will be yours to treasure for a few days.’
The Hague
Max breezed straight off the plane from Nice and strolled into the British Embassy in The Hague as if he owned the place. It was a surprisingly drab set-up. Three months earlier, when he’d first arrived from Moscow, Max had been expecting something much grander.
The semi-open-plan layout emphasized the seniority of some of its occupants. The ambassador had a large glass-fronted office with a secluded back room. Anyone else who merited private space got their own square glass box, which offered a degree of seclusion. Unfortunately, when Max had arrived, no ‘executive’ office had been available. So he’d had to muck in with the foot soldiers and take a desk in the open-plan area. This suited Max, as it gave him the chance to interact with the staff. It also secretly pleased Pallesson, underlining the chasm of importance that he believed had opened up between the two of them.
Max always paused at the front desk to talk to Arthur, who’d worked at the embassy for over twenty years. Max knew Arthur liked to have a chat. It broke up the routine of sorting the mail and making sure the office ran smoothly. He was a fanatical Queens Park Rangers fan, which gave Max the opportunity to take the piss out of him most weeks during the football season.
‘See the game on Saturday? You lot were terrible.’ Max had never watched so much as one kick of a QPR game, but Arthur seemed oblivious to the fact.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Arthur would always reply, shaking his head.
Arthur had a son he was very proud of. Young Arthur was currently on manoeuvres in Germany. Max never forgot to ask after him.
Max had a very distinct view on office life. It wasn’t about the number of hours that you spent rubbing your brow and sending emails. It was about solving whatever was put in front of you as efficiently as possible – and then having a bit of fun.
The open-plan office afforded Max the perfect opportunity to work on Pallesson’s attitude towards him. It suited Max perfectly that Pallesson should think of him as ineffective and a bit of a joke. And there was no better way to act the fool than playing office cricket.
Max had enlisted the aid of an unlikely recruit to perpetuate this sham. His immediate boss, Graham Smith, had played cricket for Chelmsford in his youth. Smith liked to be different. He liked to feel he was ‘on it’ and outside the box; young for his age, trendy and a bit of a rebel against the normal order. So he could be persuaded to bowl at Max as long as he was confident that the ambassador was nowhere near the building. He got used to Max’s challenges arriving via email.
From: Max Ward
To: Graham Smith
Subject: Centenary Test, Lords 1980
DK Lillee bowling to DI Gower. Desperate run chase for England, but Gower still up for having a go at Lillee, who is throwing everything at it.
Play resumes at 5 p.m. sharp.
Smith knew Max would be standing at the end of the passage, bat in hand, at precisely five o’clock. He had to knock over the waste-paper basket behind Max with his tennis ball, or get tonked around the office.
His first ball that afternoon was short and Max pulled it to square leg. The tennis ball flew through Pallesson’s open door and crashed into some photographs on his windowsill. It startled the hell out of him.
‘Did that carry?’ Max asked Pallesson as he retrieved the ball.
Pallesson could barely mask his contempt.
‘For God’s sake, can’t you grow up?’ Pallesson spat. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? You think everything’s a bloody game. You’re not the school hero any more, Ward. Maybe you should think about that. Maybe you should think about why you’re going bloody nowhere.’
‘So I can put that down as a six then?’ Max replied nonchalantly as he wandered back to his crease. He resisted the temptation to throw a ‘It’s not going to kill anyone, you know’ line, at the murdering little creep. If he was going to play Pallesson, he had to be smarter and more disciplined than his quarry. And he had to play to win.
The thought of Pallesson relentlessly climbing the diplomatic ladder terrified Max. The higher he got, the more disastrous the consequences would be. Max knew that Pallesson’s loyalties lay with himself. He would betray his country in a heartbeat. He had to be stopped.
Gower’s innings came to an abrupt end when the ambassador made an unscheduled entrance. Smith managed to lose the tennis ball and look industrious, but Max was still tapping down the carpet with his bat when they came face to face.
‘Oh, you’re in today, are you?’ the ambassador asked. He had an air of superiority about him and enjoyed being a hard arse. Most of the staff were intimidated by him, but Max thought he was a pompous, pen-pushing prick.
‘Ah, Ambassador. Good to see you.’ Max smiled.
The ambassador didn’t smile back. He was on the verge of asking Max why he was holding a cricket bat, but he knew he’d be on the receiving end of something flippant.
‘How’s Mrs Ambassador? All well? You must both come to dinner one night,’ Max suggested. He didn’t get a reply.
When Max got back to his desk, a harassed-looking Data Dave was waiting for him holding a USB key. Everyone called him Data Dave; indeed Human Resources were probably the only ones who knew his surname.
‘We need this translated yesterday. It’s the last twenty minutes of an arms deal. Sadly, that’s all the tech boys could recover. There’s Belgian, Dutch and Afrikaans in there. Should be a doddle for you, Ward.’
Max shook his head with mock resignation.
‘And if you can work out where the arms are coming from, then that would be great too. There’s nothing flashing on any of their standard routes.’
Max took the key and waved goodbye to the next two hours of his life.
Max was about to head off for the evening when a text message arrived on his phone. He wasn’t going to look at it right away, but something told him it might be in his interest.
U fancy a drink tonight? it said anonymously. That’s a bit strange, Max thought. But he was intrigued.
Well, give me a clue, he replied.
Arthur gave me your number. I’m sucking my pen, was the instant reply.
Max smiled as he looked up from his phone and glanced around the office. In the far corner, a very pretty, if slightly overweight, brunette was sucking her pen.
Well? she texted as Max hesitated.
Where did you have in mind? Max replied, even though he wasn’t sure this was a particularly good idea.
Anywhere with a cold bottle of champagne.
Max and Louise ended up drinking two bottles of champagne in the bar of the Hotel de l’Europe. There had been a frisson of expectancy about their conversation.
Finally, Louise said, ‘Shall we go now?’
‘Where did you have in mind?’ Max replied noncommittally.
‘Your bed, of course,’ Louise said, dropping her hand on to Max’s thigh.
Max drained his champagne glass to buy time.
‘Louise, that would be very nice, but I’m very unreliable. Here today, gone tomorrow. Very unreliable.’
Louise gave him a broad smile. ‘Don’t panic, Max. I don’t want to go out with you. I have a perfectly nice boyfriend in England, as a matter of fact. So don’t take this personally. Ever heard of a one-night stand?’
Max suddenly admired Louise. Direct, uncomplicated and thoroughly honest. And no games. He’d been up front with her, and she with him. Perfect.
‘Louise,’ Max said seriously, looking into her eyes, ‘why aren’t there more women like you?’
By happy coincidence, Louise had the next day off. Max made her a cup of tea, but she showed no interest in leaping out of bed.
‘I have to get to the airport. London today. What’s your plan?’
‘My plan is to lie in your bed until I can think of something else I’d rather be doing. Why don’t you get back in for ten minutes?’ she suggested, pulling at his arm.
‘Can’t think of anything nicer, but I’ll get shot if I’m late. So to speak.’
‘Max,’ Louise said, ‘can we do that again?’
Max kissed her on the bridge of her nose.
