“It sounds exciting.”
“Then what do you say?”
She looked at him for a long moment. “If that’s what you want,” Tracy said softly.
He hugged her and began laughing. “I wonder if we should send a formal announcement to the police?”
Tracy joined in his laughter.
The churches were older than any Cooper had ever known before. Some dated back to the pagan days, and at times he was not certain whether he was praying to the devil or to God. He sat with bowed head in the ancient Beguine Court Church and in St. Bavokerk and Pieterskerk and the Nieuwekerk at Delft, and each time his prayer was the same: Let me make her suffer as I suffer.
The telephone call from Gunther Hartog came the next day, while Jeff was out.
“How are you feeling?” Gunther asked.
“I feel wonderful,” Tracy assured him.
Gunther had telephoned every day after he had heard what had happened to her. Tracy decided not to tell him the news about Jeff and herself, not yet. She wanted to hug it to herself for a while, take it out and examine it, cherish it.
“Are you and Jeff getting along all right together?”
She smiled. “We’re getting along splendidly.”
“Would you consider working together again?”
Now she had to tell him. “Gunther…we’re…quitting.”
There was a momentary silence. “I don’t understand.”
“Jeff and I are—as they used to say in the old James Cag-ney movies—going straight.”
“What? But…why?”
“It was Jeff’s idea, and I agreed to it. No more risks.”
“Supposing I told you that the job I have in mind is worth two million dollars to you and there are no risks?”
“I’d laugh a lot, Gunther.”
“I’m serious, my dear. You would travel to Amsterdam, which is only an hour from where you are now, and—”
“You’ll have to find someone else.”
He sighed. “I’m afraid there is no one else who could handle this. Will you at least discuss the possibility with Jeff?”
“All right, but it won’t do any good.”
“I will call back this evening.”
When Jeff returned, Tracy reported the conversation.
“Didn’t you tell him we’ve become law-abiding citizens?
“Of course, darling, I told him to find someone else.”
“But he doesn’t want to,” Jeff guessed.
“He insisted he needed us. He said there’s no risk and that we could pick up two million dollars for a little bit of effort.”
“Which means that whatever he has in mind must be guarded like Fort Knox.”
“Or the Prado,” Tracy said mischievously.
Jeff grinned. “That was really a neat plan, sweetheart. You know, I think that’s when I started to fall in love with you.”
“I think when you stole my Goya is when I began to hate you.”
“Be fair,” Jeff admonished. “You started to hate me before that.”
“True. What do we tell Gunther?”
“You’ve already told him. We’re not in that line of work anymore.”
“Shouldn’t we at least find out what he’s thinking?”
“Tracy, we agreed that—”
“We’re going to Amsterdam anyway, aren’t we?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, while we’re there, darling, why don’t we just listen to what he has to say?”
Jeff studied her suspiciously. “You want to do it, don’t you?”
“Certainly not! But it can’t hurt to hear what he has to say…”
They drove to Amsterdam the following day and checked into the Amstel Hotel. Gunther Hartog flew in from London to meet them.
They managed to sit together, as casual tourists, on a Plas Motor launch cruising the Amstel River.
“I’m delighted that you two are getting married,” Gunther said. “My warmest congratulations.”
“Thank you, Gunther.” Tracy knew that he was sincere.
“I respect your wishes about retiring, but I have come across a situation so unique that I felt I had to call it to your attention. It could be a very rewarding swan song.”
“We’re listening,” Tracy said.
Gunther leaned forward and began talking, his voice low. When he had finished, he said, “Two million dollars if you can pull it off.”
“It’s impossible,” Jeff declared flatly. “Tracy—”
But Tracy was not listening. She was busily figuring out how it could be done.
Amsterdam’s police headquarters, at the corner of Marnix Straat and Elandsgracht, is a gracious old five-story, brown-brick building with a long white-stucco corridor on the ground floor and a marble staircase leading to the upper floors. In a meeting room upstairs, the Gemeentepolitie were in conference. There were six Dutch detectives in the room. The lone foreigner was Daniel Cooper.