looked briefly at the sheet and said: ‘Action this day would appear to
be their motto. This, I understand, is their statement in full and a
fairly arrogant example of its kind it is, too. This is what the FFF
says:
“‘Next time, perhaps, the responsible citizens in Amsterdam will listen
to what we say, believe what we say and act accordingly. It is because
you did not believe what we said that a misadventure occurred today. For
this misadventure we hold Mr de Jong entirely responsible. He was given
due warning and chose to ignore that warning. We deplore the unnecessary
deaths of the three passengers aboard the Fokker Friendship but disclaim
all responsibility. It was not possible for us to arrest the explosion.
“‘ De Graaf paused and looked at van Effen. ‘Interesting?’
‘Very. So they had an observer. We’ll never find him. He could have been
in the airport but hundreds of people who don’t work here visit here
every day. For all we know, there could have been someone outside the
airport with a pair of binoculars. But that’s not what is interesting.
The four first-aid men who brought in the most seriously injured
passengers did not know at the time whether the three men who were later
pronounced dead were, in fact, dead or alive. Two of them, I understand,
died after admission, but none was officially pronounced dead until the
doctor certified them’as such. How did the FFF know? Neither the doctor
nor the first-aid men could have been responsible for leaking the news
for they would be the obvious suspects and all too easily checked on.
Apart from them, the only people who knew of those deaths arc in this
room.’ Van
20
Effen looked leisurely around the sixteen men and three women seated at the
canteen tables then turned to de Jong.
‘It hardly needs spelling out, does it, sir? We have an infiltrator here,
an informant. The enemy has a spy in our camp.’Again he carried out the
same slow survey of the room. ‘I do wonder who it can be.’
‘In this room?’ De Jong looked both disbelieving and unhappy at the same
time.
‘I don’t have to repeat the obvious, do V
De Jong looked down at his hands which were now tightly clasped on the
table. ‘No. No. Of course not. But, surely, well, we can find out. You can
find out.’
‘The usual rigorous enquiries, is that it? Trace the movements of every
person in this room after the Fokker crashed? Find out if anyone had access
to the phone or, indeed, used a phone? Sure, we can do that, pursue the
rigorous enquiries. We’ll find nothing.’
‘You’ll find nothing?’ De Jong looked his perplexity. ‘How can you be so
sure, so sure in advance?’
‘Because,’ de Graaf said, ‘the Lieutenant has a policeman’s mind. Not a
bunch to be under-estimated, are they, Peter?’
‘They’re clever.’
De Jong looked from de Graaf to van Effen then back to de Graaf. ‘If
someone would kindly explain.
‘Simple, really,’de Graaf said. ‘It hasn’t occurred to you that the FFF
didn’t have to let us know that they knew of the deaths. Gratuitous
information, if you like. They would know that we would know this. They
would know, as the Lieutenant has just pointed out, that we would know that
someone had informed them and that someone would have to be one of us. They
would be certain that we would check on the possibility of someone here
having made a phone call, so they made certain that no one here made a
phone call. He passed the word on to an accomplice who is not in this room:
the accomplice made the call. I’m afraid, Jon, that you have another mole
burrowing away inside here. Maybe even more. You are aware, of course, that
every word of our conversation will be reported back to the FFF, whoever
they may be. We will, naturally, go through the
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motions and make the necessary routine enquiries. As van Effen says, we
will, of course, draw a blank.’
‘But – but it all seems so pointless,’ de Jong said. ‘Why should they be
so devious so as to achieve nothing?’
‘They’re not really devious and they do achieve something. A degree of
demoralization, for one thing. More important, they are saying that they
are a force to be reckoned with, that they can infiltrate and penetrate
security when they so choose. They are giving the message that they are
a highly organized group, one that is capable of carrying out any threats
that it chooses to make and one that is to be ignored at our peril.
‘Speaking of threats and perils, let’s return to the FFF’s latest phone
call. They go on to say: “We are sure that the Dutch people are well
aware that, in the face of an attacker determined to bring it to its
knees, it is the most defenceless nation in the world. The sea is not
your enemy. We are, and the sea is our ally.
“‘You will not need reminding that the Netherlands has about 13oo
kilometres of sea dykes. A certain Cornelius Rijpma, president of the Sea
Polder board in Leeuwarden, in Friesland, is on record as saying some
months ago that the dykes in his area consist of nothing more than layers
of sand and that if a big storm comes they are certain to break. By a
‘big storm’, one would assume that it would have to be a storm of the
order of the one that breached the delta defences in 1953 and took 1,850
lives. Our information, supplied to us by the Rijkswaterstaat, is that
-‘
‘What! Whad’ Van der Kuur, red-faced and almost incoherent with anger,
was on his feet. ‘Are those devils daring to suggest that they got
information from us? Dastardly! ImpossibleP
‘Let me finish, Mr van der Kuur. Can’t you see that they’re using the
same technique again, trying to undermine confidence and demoralize? just
because we know that they have contacts with one or more of Mr de Jong’s
staff is no proof that they have any with your people. Anyway, there’s
worse to come. They go on: “Our information is that a storm of not more
than 70% of the power of the 1953 one would be sufficient to
22
breach the dykes. Mr Rijpma was talking about vulnerable dykes. Of the
Netherlands’ 13oo kilometres of dykes, almost exactly three hundred have
deteriorated to a critical condition. By the best estimates, no repairs will
be carried out to the threatened dykes for another twelve years, that is to
say, 1995. All we propose to do is to accelerate the advent of the inevit-
able.”‘
De Graaf paused and looked around. A chilled hush seemed to have fallen
over the canteen. Only two people were looking at him: the others were
either gazing at the floor or into the far distance; in both cases it was
not difficult to guess that they didn’t like what they saw.
“‘The dykes cannot be repaired because there is no money to repair them.
All the money available, or likely to be available in the future, is being
sunk or will be sunk into the construction of the East Scheldt storm-surge
barrier, the last link in the so-called Delta plan designed to keep the
North Sea at bay. The costs are staggering. Due to gross original
underestimates, cost over-runs and inflation, the likely bill will probably
be in excess of nine billion guilders – and this massive sum for a project
that some crigineering experts say will not work anyway. The project
consists of 63 lock-gates fitted between enormous, i 8,ooo torme,
free-standing concrete pillars. The dissident experts fear that heavy seas
could shift the pillars, jam the locks and render the barrier inoperable.
A shift of two centimetres would be enough. Ask Mr van der Kuur of the
Rijkswaterstaat.'”
De Graaf paused and looked up. Van der Kuur was on his feet again, every
bit as apoplectic as on the previous occasion: the thought was inevitable
that van der Kuur’s normal air of pipe-puffing imperturbability was a very
thin veneer indeed.
‘Lies!’ he shouted. ‘Rubbish! Balderdash! Defamation! Calumny! Lies, I tell
you, lies!’
‘You’re the engineer in charge. You should know. So, really, there’s no
need to get so worked up about it.’ De Graaf’s tone was mild, conciliatory.
‘The dissidents the FFF speak about -they have no hydraulic engineering
qualifications?
‘The dissidents! A handful. Qualifications? Of course. Paper
23
qualifications! Not one of them has any practical experience as far as this
matter is concerned.’
Van Effen said: ‘Does anybody have on this project? Practical experience,
I mean. I understood that the East Scheidt involved completely untested
engineering techniques and that you are, in effect, moving into the realms
of the unknown.’ He raised a hand as van der Kuur was about to rise again.
‘Sorry. This is all really irrelevant. What is relevant is that there is a