The Hidden Target (7 page)

“What
will
you do, Bob?” Nina insisted, reaching for her bag, leading quickly to the door. There, she turned in the wrong direction.

He caught her arm, steered her to the left. She winced sharply. Behind them, Madge said, “We don’t need to go all the way to the university—just towards it. We’re meeting the others near there, where Rokin Street meets something called Spui.”

“That saves us three minutes.” He slackened his pace slightly, caught Madge’s hand and pulled her alongside. She winced, too.

“Can’t you talk about your new job?” Nina asked.

“Well, I’m undecided. Which would you choose—an oil company in Amsterdam or an import-export firm in London?”

“Oil would bring money,” Madge said reflectively.

“But the other job offers more travel. I think I’ll settle for London.”

“I’ll be back in London by Christmas,” Nina said. “I’ll miss the first term of the year at the Slade, but they don’t seem to mind. Actually, I’ll learn more about decorative art on our travels than I’d get from any old lectures.”

“And where will Madge be at Christmas? In London, too?”

Madge shook her head. “Scranton, probably. I’ll be dropped off in America. The first to leave,” she added slowly.

“What if you want to leave before then? Either of you.”

The two girls looked at each other, then laughed.

“I’m serious. You could get, bored—a camper is a pretty confined space for that length of travel. Or fall ill.”

“We won’t get bored,” Nina said. “We’ll be lapping up enough memories to last us a lifetime. And we won’t catch smallpox, typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, or anything. We’ve come prepared. We’ve even had booster tetanus shots.”

Shots? So that was why they had winced. “You’ve had a busy morning. I hope the doctor was—”

“No, no,” Nina said. “We didn’t get them here. We had the inoculations in London before we left.”

Something didn’t quite match. They had only decided to go on this trip around the world yesterday. “And you thought you needed a cholera shot for Amsterdam,” he said. He looked around at the healthy Dutch faces filing past and shook his head.

“Ilsa advised it. So many refugees and foreign labourers from faraway places. They are a time bomb, she says, medically speaking.”

“Ilsa?” That helpful Swedish friend again.

“Ilsa Schlott. She’s a doctor, you know. Tropical diseases. She’s taking a course on them at University College.”

“She could be useful on your world tour.”

“She doesn’t know about that,” Madge said. She turned to Nina. “Won’t she be astounded when we send her a postcard of the Blue Mosque?”

“She’ll start worrying that you didn’t get yellow fever shots, too,” Renwick predicted.

“Oh, she did tell us to get them. But I don’t think it’s necessary,” Nina said. “Or is it?”

“If I knew what places you were visiting—”

“Don’t worry. James will make sure we get these shots if we must have them. I hope we don’t need them, though. They sound ghastly.”

“Is he in charge of you?” Then I hope he is as sensible as Nina said.

“He’s taking care of the details. Visas and that kind of stuff. That’s why we’re meeting him—to have a lot of pictures taken, regulation size. Isn’t it an awful fuss? James knows a photographer who is guaranteed
not
to make us look like scared rabbits.”

“Then after that,” Madge said, “we’ll pack into the camper— it’s in the garage, right next door to the camera place—and we’ll have a little test drive out to Haarlem for lunch.” She giggled. “Or, as Tony says, he will take us for a spin.”

Nina had a small fit of amusement, too. “One good laugh a day,” she agreed. Then her smile was directed at Renwick. “And you thought we might get bored,” she chided him gently.

He took it with good grace, just wished that with all this merriment and general jollity he wasn’t nagged by his own private doubts. Am I really getting old? he wondered. “Well, in case you break a leg or get run over by a camel, just remember there’s always an American embassy or consulate. They’ll cable your father, and he’ll have you whisked back to Washington in no time. By the way, when I see him, shall I drop a tactful hint where he can send your next allowance?”

Nina considered. “Why not? We’ll be in Istanbul by the beginning of September. Ask him to send it to American Express.”

“It’s called Türk Express in that part of the world.” And if they were reaching Turkey only in September, they’d never be back in London by Christmas; not at that rate of travel.

They had come to the end of the long narrow street, but not long enough for the questions he’d like to ask. Although, Renwick reminded himself, this was really none of his business. The girls were healthy and happy, confident and determined, foot loose and ready to go. He knew that feeling well. “Here is where I turn you over to your friends. Are they visible?” One helluva place to choose for a rendezvous, he thought, looking at Spui, broad and busy with traffic as it met crowded Rokin.

Nina’s eyes searched the other side of Rokin. “They should be near the bridge, just across the street. Yes, there’s James.” She raised an arm to wave, let it drop. “He’s too busy listening to Tony.”

Renwick glanced over at the two men. The one who seemed to be doing all the talking was tall and thin, dark-haired. The listener was of medium height, medium build, brown-haired. Blue jeans, checked shirts. From this distance, that was all that could be seen. Tony finished his speech. James clapped him on the shoulder. Good friends, Renwick judged by the way they laughed. Then they consulted their watches, looked across the street, caught sight of Nina and Madge. They started over, misjudged the traffic, were halted by its sudden swoop.

“Goodbye,” Nina was saying. “This was wonderful, Bob.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “See you in London?” And then, as if surprised by her question, her cheeks coloured and she averted her eyes.

“I’ll see you,” he promised. He shook hands with Madge, and turned away. Somehow, he didn’t feel like meeting the young men now ploughing through a stream of pedestrians.

Nina said softly, “He was the first man I ever loved.”

Most of the old Geneva story had been told to Madge, but this was something new. “And how did he feel about that?”

“If I had been three years older, I might have learned.”

“He still likes you a lot. At least, he was worried about you.”

“Why should he? I was surprised he even remembered me.” But he had.

“He must be your type. Didn’t you notice that James looks something like him?” Except for the smile and the thoughtful eyes.

Nina was startled for a moment, and then recovered enough to say, “Nonsense.” She became absorbed in the decorated barrel organ now being wheeled past them. It halted and blocked James and Tony as they were about to reach the sidewalk. Now why is Tony so mad? she wondered. It can’t be us: we weren’t late. “He’s cursing out the barrel organ,” she told Madge, and they both laughed.

Yes, Shawfield had cursed the barrel organ, something to vent his anger on as they had to change course and found they were now blocked by a car. Kiley said, “Ease off, Tony. Hold it down.” (The names Erik and Marco had been laid aside; so was their knowledge of German, even when they spoke in private: a precaution against a slip in security.) For the last five minutes, as they waited near the bridge, Tony’s worry had spilled out in a stream of angry advice: ditch the two girls now, and to hell with Theo: tell him they’re unpredictable, dangerous—no discipline at all. Our first and only concern is to make contacts with revolutionary elements, judge their possibilities. “I know, I know,” Kiley had said, “but O’Connell is of more importance than you think.” Then he had added, “It could be worse than having them along. We could have had someone like Ilsa Schlott.” That had raised a reluctant laugh, and he had clapped Tony’s shoulder.

But as they started to cross Rokin, Tony’s mood sharpened again. He stared at the stranger on the opposite sidewalk. “Who’s that? She kissed him. Did you see?” A sudden rush of bicycles, forced them back to wait some more. Yes, Kiley had seen.

“Well, well,” he said as they reached the girls at last, “you collect friends everywhere, Nina.”

“Oh—just a friend of Father’s,”

“Does he live here?”

“No.” She seemed more interested in the barrel organ with a string of paper flowers draped around it. “Hideous colours. But should he be parking it right up on the sidewalk?” For the organ-grinder, small and lithe but obviously well muscled, had eased its wheels over the kerb and then brought it to rest in front of a store’s busy entrance.

“He knows where he can draw a crowd,” Madge observed.

“Let’s move,” Tony said impatiently. “We haven’t all day to hang around barrel organs.” They were part of Amsterdam’s street music, like the carillons from the churches. For a city that had been run by socialists and communists for so many years, it had too many bloody churches, he thought; a fine bunch of Marxists, they were.

Kiley said, “Why didn’t you ask your friend to spend the rest of the day with us? He probably was counting on having lunch with you when he arranged to meet you.”

“We met by accident—just ran into him on Kalverstraat. Is that enough information for you?” Nina noticed the sudden flush on his cheeks, and relented. “I knew him years ago. He taught me how to volley and play a good net game. That’s all.”

The four of them began to walk towards the corner, but slowly in spite of Tony’s urging. Madge looked back at the barrel organ. “No music? He won’t make much money that way. And I think he did choose the wrong place.” Two policemen, young and tall, long hair jutting out from the back of their caps, were making a leisurely approach, half curious, half amused. “He probably doesn’t know the regulations. He certainly isn’t Dutch by the look of him.”

“Come on!” Tony said, catching Madge by the wrist. He glared back at the policemen, saw the little man dart off, one officer starting to give chase, the other still standing at the barrel organ. Tony’s spine stiffened. As the explosion burst out, he was already dropping flat on his face with Madge pulled down beside him. In the same split second, Kiley acted, shoving Nina on to the ground, falling partly over her with a protecting arm around the back of her head.

There were screams, shouts, traffic screeching to a halt, children crying, a woman moaning near them. The two men picked themselves up, helped Nina and Madge to their feet. “Okay?” Kiley asked.

Nina nodded. Apart from the sudden fall, jarring every bone in her body, and street dust clinging to her shirt and jeans, she was all right. Breathless and dazed, but all right. So was Madge.

But it had been close. Near her, two women were bleeding, a man was covering his wounded eye, children had been knocked to the ground; and over by the twisted remains of the barrel organ, the policeman lay still.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kiley said. Soon there would be more police, and ambulances, and possibly a TV news camera.

“I agree.” Tony was shaking his head. “To think,” he added in a low voice, “you and I might have been put in a hospital for six months by some home-grown terrorists. Imbeciles! What did they accomplish?”

A splinter group working on a small scale, thought Kiley: a half-baked operation, ludicrous. “Not German, at any rate,” he said thankfully. That would have brought West German Intelligence on to the Amsterdam scene. The sooner we get out of here, the better.

“Indonesians?” Tony suggested. He couldn’t repress a laugh. South Moluccans putting him and Kiley out of business, the bloody fools.

“Don’t think so.” So far the Moluccans’ protest against Indonesia had limited itself to occupying a train and holding its passengers as hostages, or secreting arms in their housing developments, or talking, talking, talking.

Madge was still staring around her in horror. But Nina had recovered a little. She had heard that last interchange. “Indonesians?” she repeated. “Why should they do this?”

“Let’s move,” Kiley said. He slipped an arm through Nina’s, steadying her. He set a slow pace. Both girls were obviously shaken.

“They’ve been independent for thirty years,” Nina said. Shock was giving way to indignation and anger.

“Some Indonesians want to be free from Indonesia,” Tony snapped.

“Then why don’t they bomb Indonesia?”

“Because,” said Kiley patiently, “they now live in Holland.”

“Refugees? And so they take it out on the Dutch?” She shook off Kiley’s guiding arm. Her voice was more decisive than it had ever been. “Terrorist logic,” she said scathingly. “Cowards, too. All of them! They leave a bomb and run. Oh, no, they don’t get killed or mutilated. They’ll telephone the newspapers later, claiming they were responsible. How very brave—how noble!” She laughed unsteadily. Tears were approaching. “Don’t terrorists ever think of people?”

“They are fighting for the people,” Kiley suggested, his tone mild.

“So they kill them?”

“We can get a drink in here,” Kiley said, and led the way.

Nina said, “We ought to have stayed and helped,” but she followed him inside the restaurant. She suddenly noticed his arm had been bleeding.

“Nothing,” he told her. It wasn’t much, actually—a glancing blow from a splinter of wood: it could have been a shard of glass from the store’s window. But the small wound was effective. Both girls became silent.

Then, “Thank you,” Nina said to James Kiley; and Madge looked at Tony Shawfield, smiled shyly, and thanked him, too.

“You were so
quick,”
Madge told him. “If I had been alone, I would have been caught standing up. Like that woman with the blood pouring over her face... Oh, God!” She saw Tony frown. In sympathy, she guessed.

But what worried him was the thought that some trained eye might have seen the way he and Kiley had dropped to the ground just as the bomb was about to explode.

Kiley ordered scotch for everyone. No expense spared: it was the quickest restorer, raising them all back to normal again. “We’ll lunch here before we get the photographs taken. We’ll cut out the jaunt to Haarlem. Instead, we’ll leave this afternoon. How’s that? You don’t want to stay much longer in Amsterdam, do you?”