breaking the law.’
‘Of course not,’ George said.
At precisely seven forty-five, no other than Romero Agnelli himself came to
collect van Effen from the Trianon.
150
C,
OIX
As far as one could tell, Romero Agnelli was in high good humour: but, then,
as far as one could tell, Romero Agnelli was always in high good humour.
Even the torrential rainfall drumming on the roof of the car had no effect
on his spirits. The car was Agnelli’s, a large and, van Effen had been glad
to note, fairly conspicuous green Volvo.
‘Dreadful night,’ Agnelli said. ‘Quite dreadful. And worse still to come,
I’m sure. Bad time of the year, this. Always a bad time. Gales, spring
tides, north wind – must listen in to the eight o’clock forecast.’ Agnelli,
van Effen thought, was uncommonly interested in the weather conditions.
‘Busy day, Mr Danilov?’
‘If you call sleeping being busy, yes, then I’ve had a busy day. Late in
bed last night – late this morning, actually – and I didn’t know what hour
you’d keep me up to tonight. You have not, Mr Agnelli, been too free with
information about your plans.’
‘Would you have been in my situation? Don’t worry, we won’t keep you late.
That data I sent round – it proved useful?’
‘Everything I required.’ Van Effen pulled out the yellow envelope from
under his coat. ‘Returned with thanks. I don’t want to be found with that
in my possession. Where’s the radio?’
‘In the boot. In perfect condition, I assure you.’
‘I don’t doubt it. Nevertheless, I shall want to see it. I trust the
amatol, primers and the rest are not in the boot?’
Agnelli looked at him in amusement. ‘They’re not. Why?’
‘I’m thinking of the detonator. Usually made of some fulminating powder,
commonly a mercury derivative. Delicate. Doesn’t like being jounced around.
And I don’t like being around when it’s jounced around.’
.’They’re in a room we’ve hired off the Kalvetstraat.’
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‘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 U 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 middleaged 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 failing 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
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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 arnatol
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
hom-rimmed glasses, bowed slightly, smiled but refrained from reciprocal
comment when van Effen said he was delighted to meet them. Agnelli turned
to a
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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
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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 rubber-neckers 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