mud-covered and slightly battered. It carried an unusual amount of
electronic equipment, two separate sets of radio transceivers and a radar
tracking device, so much, in fact, that, unusually, it was located on the
floor just in front of the right-hand rear seat. The operator sat on the
left-hand rear seat with a large-scale road imp on his knees. The
equipment was, for the moment, covered by a carelessly thrown rug. The
car had been in position since six-thirty that morning in a side road
just north of Gorinchen.
Two other unmarked police cars, similarly equipped, were within a few
miles of them. But it was Druckmann’s car that was to matter that
morning.
The other man to matter was one Gropious, dressed in the uniform of a
corporal in the Dutch army and sitting beside a private at the wheel of
a small Dutch army troop carrier. Two other soldiers sat in the rear.
Nobody would have used a photograph of Gropious on a recruitment poster
for the Dutch army. His uniform was shabby and rather wrinkled and his
long blond locks fell every which way under a hat that was more than
slightly askew: the Dutch, for some reason best known to themselves,
permit their soldiers to grow their hair to a length that would have had
any British soldier confined to barracks for a fortnight. But the blond
locks were not his own.
The uniform, like the wig, was a fake. Gropious was undeniably a soldier
but no corporal: Lieutenant-Colonel Gropious, of the Dutch army
commandos, was a particularly tough specimen of a particularly tough and
dlite corps.
284
The 7 a.m. broadcast that morning – the first breakfast-time broadcast in
Dutch TV history – had been at once gloomy and slightly reassuring. Hundreds
of square miles of the Flevolands had been inundated but to no great depth.
As far as was known, no lives had been lost: the loss in livestock could not
be estimated until later in the day. Hundreds of engineers were already
pouring even more hundreds of tons of boulders and quick-setting concrete
between hastily erected and, it was admitted, inadequately secured vertical
steel plates. At best, it was also admitted, this could do no more than
slightly reduce the effects of the next high tide and operations would have
to cease at least three hours before that.
In the living-room of the windmill, where some dozen people were having
breakfast, Samuelson was in high good humour.
‘Exactly as predicted, ladies and gentlemen, exactly as predicted.’ He
looked in turn at van Effen, George and Vasco. ‘I keep my word, do I not,
gentlemen? Maximum psychological impact, yet not a life lost. Things are
going our way.’He paused and listened to the thunderous drumming of the
rain on the verandah, gradually lost his expression of good humour, drummed
his fingers on the table, looked at Daniken and said: ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t like it much,’ Daniken said. He rose and walked out to the
verandah, closing the door behind him. He was back inside ten seconds.
‘The wind’s about the same,’ he said. ‘That is, gale force. I could fly in
that. But the rain is the heaviest I’ve ever seen, even worse than the
onset of the monsoon in India. Visibility is zero. I can’t fly in that and
keep our flight plan as it is.’
‘You mean you won’t By?’ Samuelson said. ‘You refuse to fly?’ Samuelson
didn’t seem unduly perturbed.
‘Not even if you ordered me. I will not be the person who Will be
responsible for the end of all you wish for. I am the pilot and refuse to
be responsible for the deaths of twenty-two people. Which I will be if we
stick to our ffight plans. Mass suicide is not for me.’
Van Effen cleared his throat delicately. ‘I am normally, as you know, the
most incurious of persons, but I don’t like this
285
talk of mass suicide, not least because it involves me. Is the need to leave
on time a matter of complete urgency?’
‘Not really.’ It was Romero Agnelli who answered. ‘Mr Samuelson does the
honour of leaving all the organization to me.’
‘And exceptionally good you are at it, too.’
‘Thank you.’Agnelli smiled almost apologetically. ‘I’m just a stickler for
timetables.’
‘I don’t think you need to worry too much about timetables,’ van Eften
said. ‘I know this country, you people don’t. I’m sure George and the
Lieutenant will confirm that downpours of this extraordinary order rarely
last more than an hour or so, never as long as two. As I am in this
unusually questioning mood, what’s all this about flight praths or flight
plans or whatever?’
‘No reason why you shouldn’t know,’ Samuelson said. He was obviously
relieved by van Effen’s statement and was in an expansive mood. ‘Daniken
has radio-filed a flight plan to Valkenburg, near Maastricht, and this has
been accepted. We are, today, filming a scene in hilly countryside and the
only hilly countryside in the Netherlands is in the province of Limburg
where Valkenburg lies. Romero has even had the foresight to book us hotel
accommodation there.’
‘Where, of course, you have no intention of going.’Van Effen nodded his
head twice. ‘Neat, very neat. You take off for Limburg, which lies in a
roughly south-south-easterly direction, then Mr Daniken descends and alters
course. The Netherlands is a very flat country so one has to fly very low
to keep beneath the radar screen. As a pilot myself, I know that altimeters
are notoriously inaccurate at very low altitudes. It wouldn’t do us a great
deal of good if a sudden d6wndraught were to bring us into contact with a
block of high-rise flats or even one of those massive TV antennaes which
are such a feature of this country. Mr Danikcn has to see where he is going
and I have to say that I am in one hundred per cent agreement with Mr
Daniken.’
‘Mr Danilov has put it even better than I could,’ Daniken said. ‘I am in
one hundred per cent agreement with him.’
‘And I agree with you both,’ Samuelson said. ‘Leonardo, be
286
so kind as to tell Ylvisaker to delay his departure with the truck until
further notice. I do not wish him to arrive at our destination before we
do.’
Ylvisaker, resplendent in his lieutenant-colonel’s uniform, and his two
companions, dressed in the uniforms of a sergeant and private of the Dutch
army, departed at 8.45 a.m. The wind had not eased but the rain, as van
Effen had predicted, had lessened to no more than a heavy drizzle.
At 8.46 a.m., Cornelius, the policeman in the rear of Sergeant Druckmann’s
car, said: ‘They are moving out, sergeant.’ Druckmann picked up his
microphone.
‘Sergeant Druckmann here. Target Zero has just moved out. Will A, B, C,
D, E, please ackn ledg
ow ,e.’
The five army patrol vehicles acknowledged in alphabetical order.
Druckmann said: ‘Two minutes, three at the most and we should be able to
know what route Target Zero is taking. After that, we shall report at
minute intervals.’
At 8.47 a.m., twenty-two people filed aboard the giant helicopter. All,
except the four girls, van Effen and George, were dressed in Dutch army
uniforms. Samuelson said goodbye to four umbrella-carrying staff who had
come to see them off, assuring them that they would be back the following
evening. All the soldiers, with the one exception, were armed with
machine-pistols: the exception, Willi the feckless guard, was burdened
only by a pair of handcuffs.
At 8.49 a.m., Daniken lifted off and headed towards the south-south-east.
Also at 8.49 a.m., Sergeant Druckmann reported: ‘Tracking Target Zero at
two kilometres. Target Zero is now one kilornetre north of Gorinchen. From
there the three main exit routes are east, south and west. Two minutes and
we should be able to let you know which direction he is heading.’
287
Van Effen turned to Romero Agnelli, who was sitting beside him, cupped his
hand to his ear and said: ‘Two things intrigue =2
Agnelli smiled and lifted his eyebrows.
‘I was led to believe that the armament on this gunship had been
dismantled and replaced by dummies. Those guns arc for real.’
‘The armament was dismantled and replaced by dummies. Then we replaced-
the dummies. These things aren’t hard to come by if you know where to
look. What was the other thing?’
‘Why isn’t Daniken climbing? We’re still under a hundred metres.’
‘Look to your left and you’ll see why.’
Van Effen looked. Less than fifty metres away another, much smaller
helicopter, was flying alongside them. Even as van Effen looked the pilot
slid back his window and waved an arm. Van Effen looked forward. Daniken
was waving in return. The pilot of the small helicopter closed his window
and began to climb. Daniken gently eased the gunship around until it was
heading due south.
‘Neat,’ van Effen said. ‘Very, very neat. In weather like this there will