Whistle Blower (18 page)

"DELFT 1:00 P.M., DOMENICA."

Jan, with the small slip of paper on the front passenger seat, parked in the same place in Delft as last time. It was only 12:30, overcast with a light rain keeping the road and walkways damp, but the car park was full and the city busy with bicycles, families, shoppers, day trippers and sightseers. Normality was all around him. He sat in the car until 12:45 and then walked towards the canal, past the Cafe de Oude Hans—this time with posies of damp looking carnations on the wet tables—left into the narrow cobbled street to the bakery and the gift shop and stood outside the glossy, black painted door. He checked the brass plate of shiny buttons, pressed number 2 and waited. Nothing happened.

He pressed it again and stood with his ear to the grid in case he had missed hearing something, Still there was nothing.

In light-colored chinos, a blue shirt and navy blue jacket and, wondering what to do, Jan stood in front of the cluttered window of the gift shop next door and, barely without thinking, looked at his own reflection. But what he also saw, standing close behind him, was a familiar shape—that of a small, squat man in a white shirt and dark suit. But before he could turn, he was prodded in the middle of his back with something hard and sharp.

Jan turned. Guido was standing there, smiling broadly, his pale, moon-like face looking up at him with a flowery umbrella, its shiny stiletto tip now pointing straight at Jan's forehead.

"Mr. Kerkman. We meet again. A cool and rainy day, but I've brought some flowers with me," he said, indicating the umbrella covered in giant red poppies that sparkled with a scattering of rain drops. He folded the umbrella, shook off drips of water and then pointed it straight at Jan's head again. "You have come to Guido's special Sunday School for innocent children. Did you remember to bring your bible? Your hymn book? Your coloring book? Your box of crayons?"

Jan tried smiling and held out his hand but Guido merely pushed the spike of the umbrella at it. "Let us go in. The lesson is already prepared."

Jan followed as Guido went up the stairs—sideways, as before, like a crab. At the door of Flat 2, he stopped, unlocked it, pushed it open and beckoned for Jan to enter ahead of him. "Go in, go in."

Jan stepped into the room and then heard the door shut behind him. Guido was on the outside. Already nervous, Jan found himself in the same room as before but it had been transformed by a wide TV screen that filled half of the wall next to vertical blinds that covered the window. An open laptop computer sat on the small coffee table, but, immediately, the wide, wall screen lit up and Guido's round, smiling face appeared.

"Mr. Kerkman. Do not look so nervous," the high-pitched, boyish voice said. "Please take a seat so that you can use the keyboard of the computer on the table. Your training course will now begin."

Guido's face, with the beady eyes looking directly at him, stayed on the big screen. "Press enter."

Jan sat down, pressed 'Enter' and waited. In front of him and also on the wall screen was the first page that Jan saw every morning on the computer in his office—with one notable exception. It was the page he saw after he'd keyed in his password.

"Does it look familiar?" The boyish voice asked from somewhere. Jan was unsure whether to speak or not, after all it was an empty room. "I said, is it familiar? Have you lost your tongue?"

"Yes," said Jan.

"Go into the file covering the recent award of 12,480,000 Euros to Romania for its regional development program. The internal reference number is EDPEU 36A.”

Jan knew the file well. It took him less than ten seconds.

"Now, go into the section concerning payments. And, please, Mr. Kerkman, at each command from me just say 'yes' or 'no,’ will you? For one thing, it helps me to know whether you are still alive in there."

"Yes," said Jan.

"Now," Guido chirped, "as you know, because it is your job to know, this section gives details of where payments are to be made once funding is approved…Yes?"

"Yes," said Jan.

"
Graci
. Now, find the bank details of the Romanian consultancy company that submitted the bid."

Jan was puzzled. "Ah, it is not shown. We never show it."

"Well done, Mr. Kerkman. I was just testing you. Instead, go into the section showing who will receive the funding once it is approved and where the funding is to be sent."

"Yes."

"Now. This is the clever part, Mr. Kerkman. Listen carefully. Click on where it shows the name of the bank."

"Yes."

"What do you see?"

"The request for the code. But I do not have the code. It is confidential.

"And why is it confidential?"

"Because… because it can only be done by a special instruction to the bank from the Treasury. It is all encrypted—security checks before transfers of funds are finally authorized."

"Correct. But you see, it is not secure because we have created a special authorization code, Mr. Kerkman. Listen to me very carefully. Key into the laptop exactly what will now appear on the big screen."

Looking up, Jan saw @ (j k) 2112 $ kerkman in large font size on the big screen. He keyed it in on the laptop. But what the hell was going on. Why was his name shown?

"Have you done that? Not a single dot missed?"

"Yes."

"Press enter and now what do you see?"

"My private bank account details—everything—name, bank code, account number."

"Yes, you see it is a very clever system, Mr. Kerkman. But now it becomes even more clever. You can now enter your private bank account, which, as we can see, is with ABN AMRO in Utrecht. Do this by clicking on the box that says 'transfer to this account,’ Mr. Kerkman. There is no need for numbers and codes and suchlike because this is Guido's express service. OK click now…click now…very good…Now you will see another little box on the right. Do you see it?"

"Yes."

"What does it say?"

"Amount."

"Correct. Now key in the amount of 12,480 Euros. That is good. Well done…" There was a slight pause.

"Aha," Guido giggled. "You see? My little friend 'Puff The Magic Dragon' has performed a magic trick again. Congratulations. It has worked. You, Mr. Kerkman, are now richer to the sum of 12,480 Euros. You have just earned yourself an exact but small percentage of the Romanian Regional Development Fund. It is so simple. Yes? Soon you will be even richer. It is a good system, yes? The important thing is to remember your key code: @ ( j k ) 2112 $ kerkman. Are you there, Mr. Kerkman?"

"Yes," said Jan, thankful he was not expected to say anything more. He was speechless. Instead, he continued to stare at the screen as it automatically flicked through some unrecognizable pages until…suddenly, he found himself looking at his ABN AMRO online account page as if he had just logged on in the normal, secure way from home. But he had not. He had just bypassed everything and, what was more, he could see that his account balance had just increased by 12,480 Euros.   

The big screen suddenly went blank but Guido's voice came from somewhere inside it.

"Mr. Kerkman. Guido's Special Sunday School is now finished—nearly. Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Now listen very carefully to me. This is our new system—I call it 'Puff' because it is magic and it makes money disappear like a puff of smoke.

"But we have another system called 'Slush' that replaces what has been taken out electronically. It makes things look as if nothing has happened. It is not your job to understand the workings of 'Puff' or 'Slush' so I will not bore you with the technical wizardry. Neither will I explain to you how the accounts finally get cooked to avoid having to explain mysterious losses and discrepancies which, even under normal circumstances, can amount to many millions of Dollars or Euros. These are often picked up by the auditors as we know but the auditors are, of course, ignored by our leaders because everything is too embarrassing for them to have to explain.

"Your job, Mr. Kerkman, is to make friends with Puff. But do not think you can type in your key code and transfer more money to your account every time you are short of cash. We can turn Puff on and we can turn Puff off—on and off—just as we wish. If someone logs on without permission then…woosh…what is it the English say? A ton of bricks will fall on their head. Your job is to use Puff to transfer money to whoever and wherever Guido says. Understand? New versions of Puff and Slush have just been re-launched but without a fanfare of trumpets of the sort that Mr. Gates used to use."

Jan had felt cold and damp on arrival. He was now feeling hot, sticky and very nervous. He was being spoken to by a screen and yet the man himself was probably sat outside somewhere, presumably with his own computer. But the deeply troubling scenario was the fraud he had just perpetrated by pressing a few keys on the laptop. The other concern was the scale of what was possible and what he was involved with. Just as Jim had suggested, it was technology that was making this possible. But he was also sure that at any minute, Guido would start the threats and blackmail. He was right.

"Now, Mr. Kerkman. Like any good bank Puff needs security when it hands out money. Your 12,480 Euros is not a free gift, Mr. Kerkman. If necessary—but only if it becomes necessary—documents will be drawn up to show you have only borrowed this money from a Zurich finance company and are due to repay it at the normal bank lending rates plus seventeen percent. By tomorrow you will owe Puff in Zurich 250 Euros in setting up charges alone. But you do not need to worry about paying this at present.

"You will pay it off by cooperating with Guido and our other Members and adding to your credit score. Oh, it is such good fun once you become used to it, but it is easy to become addicted. To be addicted is not good. And it is also very difficult to explain to anyone how it works. But no one will because we are all beneficiaries. And, anyway, our Members have influence. Some of them have great power as well as influence, Mr. Kerkman.

"But provided you are a very good boy and do not tell tales or do anything that contravenes the conditions I warned about the last time you were here, Puff will, one day, remove all traces of a loan—in a puff, so to say—and you will retain your accumulated credit. Do you follow me? Some people are now very wealthy, Mr. Kerkman. One or two are multi-millionaires…Now, do you understand all that I have told you?…I'm waiting."

"Yes." 

"Good. Now, let us put the financial conditions to one side for the moment and discuss private matters. It is quite obvious that you must not talk about this to anyone. Not even Mr. Eischmann, do you understand? Mr. Eischmann is a very senior Member of the club. He has no wish to know details of what you do or what you will be told to do. He is a busy man and does not have time to concern himself with day-to-day officialdom. But he will call on you sometimes with his own code that is similar to yours. You will then do as you are told—won't you? Won't you?"

"Yes."

"And one other thing…" Guido's boyish voice from the blank screen paused. "This is very important but I hate discussing matters of a sexual nature. I find the subject quite distasteful. It is not human to do things like that. It is much more suited to pigs and dogs, don't you think. But rumor has it that you have had, what shall we say, an intimate relationship with another member of staff. This is very bad practice particularly as the lady concerned is so highly thought of. Katrine is a very nice lady and very innocent. She does not belong to the club but we want her to stay in her position for as long as possible, so do not upset her, Mr. Kerkman. Leave her alone, OK? She must not leave. She must not know anything. If she does, then…well, accidents happen to all of us. Puff has very long arms, much longer than mine."

What followed was a short but chilling giggle. And then: "You can leave now, Mr. Kerkman. Look on this as an exciting, once in a lifetime opportunity and wait for more instructions."

Jan, sweating and bewildered by what was happening continued to sit. All he had said throughout was "yes," but there were a hundred questions and he really had no wish to be involved. He took a deep breath. "I have some questions. Who should I ask?"

"Meee," came the shrill answer. "You ask meee. But not now. I am too busy."

"So how, when?"

"The same way you received the notice to attend your training course."

Jan thought for a moment. "It was a man with a dog."

"Yes, the man with the dog is a local celebrity near where you work, Mr. Kerkman. You are not the only one who has met him, you know. You have been given a very special and important job but there are others who receive just small tokens of appreciation now and again. Ibrahim is a refugee from Somalia. He is blind and so we supplied him with his dog as his eyes. That is our charitable nature but, also, he cannot see who he is meeting. But have pity on Ibrahim, Mr. Kerkman. Everyone needs to earn their daily bread in different ways. Ibrahim is a messenger. He gives and he takes. Trust him. Now, I must depart. I have important things to attend to. The door is open. Switch off the lights before you leave, please."

"WELL, DO YOU look at that—the first time I’ve seen you in a vertical position."

Jim's clean, blue pajamas contrasted starkly with the brown, stick-like arms protruding from the short sleeves. He was sitting in a chair next to his bed when Tom Hanrahan arrived the following afternoon but pushed himself up, walked the two steps to take the outstretched hand and tried to smile. "Good afternoon. The doctor said I should stay for another day. Unless I have another experience similar to the one at Lek's cafe then there is no reason to detain me, but I need to take some medication daily."

Jim returned to his chair and Tom sat on the other side of the bed in a white tee shirt with ‘O'Sullivan's’ emblazoned in green across the front. "I brought you this," he said handing over a paper bag. "But don't tell the doctor."

Jim looked inside and pulled out a bottle of Irish whiskey. "Thank you."

"From the airport and to remind myself of my local back home."

"And where, precisely, is home?" Jim asked.

What followed was Tom's family history, where he lived, three grown-up children living away and the death a year ago of his wife, Maeve. It ended with a phrase Jim decided he would always remember. "Life can be a bloody depressing way to spend your time…you know what I mean, Jim?"

Jim had nodded. "Life is not supposed to be easy. You only get one go at it, it's not a rehearsal, there's no script and circumstances play odd tricks."

A nurse brought iced lemon tea and the conversation edged forward until Tom asked: "So what will you do when you get out of here, Jim?"

"More to the point, what will you do? Write your story?"

"There is no story. I found you. Nothing more to be said."

"Hmm. That's utter nonsense. I suspect your dismissal had nothing to do with a refusal to obey instructions or striking a fellow reporter, Tom Hanrahan. You were probably dismissed for total incompetence. Of course there's a story. There's always a story for a good reporter. You could even invent one—others would. A few quotes, a few misquotes, a nice description of my swarthy looks, say you found me so drunk somewhere that I admitted who I was and that I was running a brothel in Bangkok. Use your imagination for goodness sake. Photograph me and do a nice Photoshop retouch showing me in the clutches of a Thai bar girl. You can't lose. You could do it. You've got a decent way with the spoken word if not the written one."

"That's just it, Jim. I can't. I need to report truth—no frills, no opinions, just facts. I started out wanting to do investigative reporting but never got the chance."

"Then start now. There's one hell of a story I can give you. What's more it's unfolding as we speak—which reminds me to check my emails—urgently. I should have been doing that two days ago at Lek's cafe but some blighter had taken my corner table and I wasn't feeling quite myself that morning."

Tom raised his gray to auburn eyebrows and saw something in Jim's eyes—alertness, hardness, intensity, seriousness. Jim Smith was on to something. The bit was still gripped firmly between his teeth, held fast by the same utter determination that had always characterized him. So what was he up to? Appearances apart, he hadn't changed much. He watched Jim's lean form get up and walk slowly across the room in the blue pajamas. At the window he looked out onto the hospital grounds.

"I intend to return to England," he said with his back to Tom. "At least, for a while. There are things I need to sort out and other matters that are coming to a head. And…" he stopped himself. "Let's walk outside. The garden looks good and it's cooler now."

They walked along a stretch of corridor and through a double glass door leading onto a stone courtyard and then a lawn. For several minutes, Jim sauntered around talking quietly, almost incoherently. Tom followed, trying to hear but increasingly aware that Jim was actually talking to himself. Behind a clump of Manila palms, was an ornamental pond with water lilies. The water shimmered in the low, early evening sun. Jim, barefoot, sat down, crossed his legs and put his hands together in his lap. Tom also sat down, clumsily, his legs, feet and white trainers outstretched before him. The red water lily flowers were closing up.

“I must paint them," Jim nodded.

"You paint, Jim?"

"A little," he frowned and squeezed his eyelids together. Time, he felt, was running out. He wanted his youth back again. Big ambitions were behind him, but he had no wish to stop now just because he was getting older. It was the unfinished business. It was becoming urgent, taking far too long. And he had no wish to take medication every day for the rest of his life. Thoughts of Margaret then. Margaret liked gardens.

Tom watched Jim's moving lips and his closed eyes that flickered from point to point as if he was seeing things in his mind. His hair was a mess—long and straggling. His brown body, clad in the blue pajamas, looked thin, undernourished, like a prisoner from a concentration camp. He had changed—physically if not facially—since Tom had last seen him. But for the long hair and beard, he was almost unrecognizable. But it was definitely the same Jim, and Tom knew why he had come. Somewhere, he had the feeling that the man might appreciate a chance to chat, to talk openly. But there had been no sign of this or even a desire to glance at him when he had walked into the cafe. Jim had deliberately ignored him and possibly even hated him for the intrusion into his space. It was in the cafe that he had first seen Jim's lips moving, talking to himself. He had watched him fidgeting as though he had remembered something urgent he had to do. But then he had suddenly stood up, tottered and collapsed. But, as soon as Jim had fallen he, himself, had rushed over driven not by the feeling that it might lead to some form of rapport or even a good story but by a feeling of respect and compassion.

"Shall we go back now?" Jim broke the silence and stood up. Easily, Tom thought, as he himself struggled to unbend stiff legs.

"Jim," Tom said, holding onto Jim's thin, sinewy arm. "Excuse me for asking but did you never find yourself a new woman out here because I get the feeling you live alone. Sure 'tis a grand place for a romantic soul like yourself."

"Is that what I am? A romantic soul?"

"Sure it is. I see it in your eyes. You see beauty and color and you say you’re an artist. It's a fine talent to have but don’t you feel a need for someone to share it with?"

Jim looked away, conscious that the question struck surprisingly close to what he had just been thinking, but he kept walking. "I left a woman behind in England," he said.

"Sure you could start again."

"Look at me, Tom. What woman in her right mind would even want to be seen talking to, let alone living with, a man like me—wearing blue pajamas as well."

"Some women would appreciate the man inside the pajamas, Jim."

"Mmm. Perhaps the man inside is as much of a mess as the man outside."

"I don't think so. In fact I'm damned sure that's complete and utter nonsense if you don't mind me saying so."

Jim was breathing hard, his chest heaving.

"So when was the last liaison with a woman then, Jim?"

"Are you interviewing me, you Irish rascal?" There was a pause. "During a short-lived but intense relationship with Tiger beer. I woke up one morning and there she was. I was in the middle of sorting out certain, private matters but we were together off and on for four long months. For me it was an intense and highly enlightening time. I learned a lot about life, about living, about myself. I discovered a side to my own character that had been completely hidden. I suppose I learned the basis of pure Buddhism, Buddhism without the painted concrete images and the gaudy temples that sometimes reminds me too much of the Catholic Church. I have always been frugal and money has never meant much to me other than as a measure of commercial acumen. So, having sorted out my main financial commitments back in England I learned how to live from day to day on a shoestring of a budget.

“In fact I bought the house I now live in, and the small plot of surrounding land, to give to her and her young daughter Oy who was just three at the time we met. Noy was thirty-six. I was sixty-something and a lot better looking and fitter than I am now. It seems such a long time ago."

"So what happened, Jim?"

"I saw them off on a bus going to Kanchanaburi to see Noy's parents. I waved them goodbye through the bus window. They both smiled and waved back at me. It was raining heavily. There was a terrible road accident and they were both killed." Jim sniffed. "So there, my Irish friend, you have another long, true, interesting and ultimately heart-rending story that I could elaborate on. Neither would it need any of the fabrication you apparently detest."

Then he walked away, still breathing heavily.