Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) (42 page)

We walk to the lock to see when they plan to open it and notice a sign with small red print—the lock is in use on Saturdays and Sundays only in July and August.  If we had moved her to the city center as we had planned, we would be stuck there until Monday, sitting ducks for inspectors. 

Jean-Luc asks around and finds out that the town center is only a quarter of a mile away.  The provisions Marta packed for us are diminished, so, with some trepidation, Kazan and I decide to head off to Saturday market. 

“Couldn't we bring the children?” asks Kazan.  “I feel terrible for them, couped up all day.  We can pretend to be a little family.”

I feel bad about it, too.  It's risky, but so is sitting in the boat.  I ask their mother if she would like to bring them to market.  She looks frightened, but eager, and the children think they've died and gone to heaven.  She puts on her burka, and off we go.

We leave
Allegro
alongside the Nieuwe Gouwe canal at the lock's waiting pier.  Jean-Luc is in charge.

The official Gouda cheese market is on Thursdays for commercial buyers, but Saturday is market day for the locals.  We join in in the festive atmosphere, wandering the booths piled high with vegetables, fruit, and baked goods.  Tables spill over with reels of Gouda cheese in six categories depending on age.  We buy a small wheel of
oude kaas
, which has aged ten to twelve months.  The children skip around, toss bread to the pigeons, and eat almond pastries, flouring their clothes with confectioner's sugar.

A black Toyota pickup truck chugs slowly around the plaza.  Sitting in back, a handful of stern-faced young men in red turbans and long ratty beards.  The
Bloed van God. 
I didn't know they operated outside of Amsterdam and Rotterdam.  Evidently expanding their territory.  One of them, a dark-skinned man in his early twenties, taps a whip in his palm.  His roaming eyes fall on me, and hold my gaze.  I feel naked despite my burka, but refuse to look away.  He glances at Kazan.  He doesn't quite have the courage to confront a woman in front of her husband.  He spits, then taps the hood of the truck, which continues around the plaza, looking for someone to harass.  

“That wasn't particularly wise,” comments Kazan.

“I'm so tired of scooting around like a cockroach, waiting to be stepped on.”

He whispers in my ear.  “Imagine if he saw you dancing naked on the mudflats.  He'd probably combust.”

I chuckle.  “I wouldn't mind seeing that.”  I turn to the little girl.  “Don't ever do what I just did.  Keep your eyes on your feet when the
Bloed van God
appear.”  She nods, understanding.

We circle the entire market, filling our bags with herring, fruit, bread, and milk for the children.  I even treat myself to a bunch of orange tulips, marked with flames of red and yellow.  We walk back through the plaza, cheered and content.  The sun warms the shimmering sandstone of the Town Hall, it's multiple turrets giving it a perpetually startled look. 

More and more people crowd into the center of the market, shoulders pressing in around us, spiraling in, faces excited, bodies tense.  Instinctively Kazan and I push the children between us; the mother clings to my arm.  

Then we see the source of the congestion: a public whipping is taking place in front of the Town Hall.  A young man is kneeling on the pavement, naked to the waist.  Two
mutaween
stand above him, one holding a whip and a Quran under his arm.  The young man's back is red and raw, oozing red stripes criss-crossing his back.  Every time he is whipped, he cries out.  Bile rises to my throat.  We turn the children's heads, and try to push back, but the curious throng tightens around us.  I use my shoulder as a battle ram, stepping on toes, elbowing our way out.

Finally we're out, back among the pigeons.  I am shaking all over, and stagger to the curb and vomit.  The children seem fine.  I don't know if they saw the beating or not.  “We'd better get back to the boat,” I say. 

Kazan looks long and hard at me, as if he didn't expect I would be so affected by the flogging.  Well, we all have our breaking points.

I calm down a little as we walk back, but I can't stop thinking about the young man who was being whipped.  He'd probably done nothing more than flirt with a flower vendor, or cut in front of a
mutawa.

When we get back to the pier, we see Jean-Luc talking with an official on the deck of our boat.  Christ!  What now?

“Hold on,” says Kazan.  “Let's walk past.”  We pass along on the boardwalk, then sit on a bench.  The children are confused.

“It looks to me as if they're just chatting.”

“Knowing Jean-Luc, we could be here all morning.”

“We can't go on board until he leaves.  We have no idea what story Jean-Luc has spun.”

“Here, pass out some apples.  We'll look like a family picnicking by the docks.”

When the official finally leaves, we hurry onto the boat.  My eyes bore into Jean-Luc.  He doesn't look even remotely sorry.

“What were you thinking?” I hiss.  “Your whole family is in there.”

“He seemed lonely.  Like he wanted someone to talk to who didn't hate him.  Turns out we grew up in the same town.  Sometimes the oppressors need a little compassion, too.”

“This isn't the time to get all Christian.”

“Maybe it
is
the time.”

I am too rattled to argue.  Who knows, maybe Jean-Luc's empathy saved us.

We pull up our bumpers, haul in the dock lines, and head down the canal.

De Bevers

The wind is picking up, and I'm worried. 

Julianasluis lock immediately appears after Gouda.  Going through locks when it is windy is a bitch.  If it gets worse, I'll have to risk asking some of the other men to come up out of hiding.  The locks, of course, are the worst place for them to be seen.

We manage, largely because there are so few boats with us.  After getting through the lock, we are back in tidal water, continuing south on the IJsseldijk Noord.  A westerly wind and the tug of the tide gives us a nice speed.  Jean-Luc throws out a few fishing lines, hoping to catch us lunch.  It doesn't take long for him to land a pike and a few perch, which he fillets and drops on ice faster than you can say
pijnboompittensaus,
the pine nut sauce he whips up later to go over the fish.

The journey from Gouda to Rotterdam is only thirteen nautical miles.  When we get to the Nieuwe Maas River, we turn east upriver against the tide, instead of heading west to Rotterdam. 

Suddenly we're in the middle of very busy ship traffic.  Rotterdam's port is the biggest in Europe and ships are going up and down in a continuous stream.  The
Allegro
feels so small in the middle of cargo ships.  The wind is blowing 7 knots against a 3 knot river current, plus the tide.  We're not going very fast, and the waves quickly rise to five feet and are extremely steep. 

Kazan's first taste of rough seas.  He is stalwart, although a bit green, doing everything I ask of him.  Jean-Luc is a pro.  I'll have to ask him about his sailing background sometime when the wind isn't roaring in my ears.

We tack south on Kinderdijk, and immediately meet calmer waters.  Destination Dordrecht. 

A Resistance stronghold, Dordrecht sits on several tributaries and channels, which, during the 16
th
century made it a strategic trading town.  It is also close to De Biesbosch, a 35-square mile freshwater tidal wetlands, with hundreds of interconnecting rivers, islands, and creeks.  A European Everglades, with lots of places to hide.  During WWII, the Resistance used it to hide refugees and smuggle in medicines.  The maze of willow trees and waterways confuse the Islamists as much as it confused the Germans. 

I'm incredibly relieved to motor into the old canals of Dordrecht.  It reminds me a little of Venice, with its narrow canals and tall 16
th
century houses rising straight up from the canal walls.  I know where to moor, a slip in Winjhaven Marina, reserved for friends of the Resistance.

As soon as we secure the boat and settle the dockage fees, Kazan and I set out to hunt down a cell that calls themselves
De Bevers—
The Beavers, after the beavers of the Biesbosch, who build their own systems of dikes and canals among the willows.  We take Boomstraat bridge over the Wijnhaven canal and turn left on Winjnstraat, through the narrow streets of lopsided houses.  Near Gravenstraat, we duck into an alley, barely five feet wide.  Halfway down is a small green door, which looks as if it opens to a tool shed—probably an old wine warehouse from the time that Dordrecht was Holland's wine-trading center.  I tap the code.  The door opens a crack.  I drop my veil, utter the password, and the door opens.

Inside is dark.  Clumps of people huddle around tables and at the bar, looking at us, hands resting lightly on their weapons.  While my eyes adjust to the light I try to make out faces.  Out of the shadows, Draak steps up as if to hug me, then veers to my right, and shakes Kazan's hand.  “Reynard.  We've been expecting you.”

I had nearly forgotten about Kazan's other life.

She then turns to me and hugs me hard.  Her back is solid muscle, her arms like vices.  “Come, sit down,” she says, waving us over to a table covered with food.  Bowls of steaming
snert
(pea soup), cheeses, and
roggebrood
(a dense rye bread), slathered with
katsenspek
(butter made with bacon).

“We're not hungry,” I say, feeling guilty about eating their food.  My earlier nausea has passed, and the warm soup looks inviting.

“Two beers?” 

Kazan and I nod.  I recall Draak has an incredible appetite for someone so tiny.  As if she were feeding the menagerie of wild animals tattooed on her body.

As soon as we sit, she takes my hand.  “I heard about what went down in Amsterdam.  I'm so sorry.”

I jerk my hand back.  “What went down?”

“You don't know?  I thought you were fleeing from there.”

“No, we sailed in from Enkhuisen.”

“Oh.”  She pushes her bowl away, not pleased to have to be the bearer of bad news.  “There was another
razzia.
”  

Draak tells us that while Kazan and I were making goo-goo eyes at each other in the Frisian Islands, the Landweer staked out Anika and Kaart's apartment.  They waited until someone came to their door, then barged in and arrested all three.  They left two Landweer officers in the flat, and arrested anyone else who came to visit.  They got several from
Zwart Masker
and
De Ratten
.

They also followed Berger, who had been released from prison and was heading to a friend's house, which doubled as an occasional safe house.  The Landweer barged in and found names and addresses on a thumb drive.  They followed one of the addresses to Truus, who had 3,000 euros in cash in her bag.  They didn't believe her when she said she'd won the lottery. 

“Nasira failed to turn up for the last two rendezvous I had with her,” Draak adds.  “No one dares look for her.”

I gasp, holding my stomach.  “That's five, possibly six from our group.  I can't believe it.”  I feel so guilty for not being there.  Kazan puts his arm around me, and Draak gives us a look.  She doesn't know about us.

After refilling her soup bowl, she sits back at the table.  “The first sweep brought in nineteen people.  Several had large sums of money on them and false documents, obviously on the verge of going underground.  I think they're just getting started.  The number of Landweer
in Amsterdam has gone from three hundred to over a thousand.  Same thing in Rotterdam.  They want to make sure when the Coalition Forces invade that there are none of us to help them.  They've been making sweeps all over the country, going to one town, then another.”

That explains the human piñatas hanging from the bridges.

“So who's left of the
Watergeuzen
?” I ask.

Draak's eyes drift to the table; when she lifts them again, they are steely gray tunnels.  “Gerda and Hansen are fine.  Most of the men were on assignment elsewhere—Rikhart, Pim, Janz, Gottfried.  Lars and Garret got away.  But the women, especially the underground liaison officers got hit.” 

“What about Pim?”  My voice trembles.

“He was sent to Copenhagen.  You didn't know?”  Draak, like most in our circle, assumed Pim and I were an item.

“No,” I didn't know.  I look at Kazan, and he glances away, which makes me wonder.  I hug myself so hard I can feel my fingers between my ribs.  “I have to go back.”

Draak shakes her head vigorously.  “They are looking for a woman named Lina.  Someone talked.” 

I nod.  Resistants try to hold out for forty-eight hours before they succumb to torture—to give the others a chance to flee—but eventually, everyone talks. 

Draak continues.  “If you'd been in Amsterdam, they may have gotten you.”  

“Do they know my family?  My Muslim identity?”

Draak relaxes a bit, now that the worst is over.  She sips her beer and breaks off a hunk of
roggebrood. 
“I don't think so.  One hundred thirteen Resistants were arrested from all over the Netherlands.  The Landweer is rounding up all adult males Christians and Jews over eighteen, and sending them to work camps at arms manufacturing plants in France—at Thales, Safran, and DCNS—and in Serbia.  They're building weapons for the Islamists to use against the Coalition Forces.  Living in concentration camp conditions.  We have to make sure they get as few people as possible.”