Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) (15 page)

“Tomorrow the Landweer
will be crawling all over this neighborhood,” says the woman, her annoyance showing.  “That is what you have accomplished.  Until tonight, this area has been pretty much ignored
. 
We will have to move the barge, which means we have to let everyone in our group know.  Both of these things put us at risk for exposure.  Do you understand?”

“I'm sorry.  I couldn't think of anything else to do.”

“You are sorry,” the woman repeats, disgusted.  She glances over at the three men, who pretend to be completely absorbed in their food, whispering about something else.  “How would you like to work with us?”

“Who
are
you?”

“Just a minute,” interrupts the thin dark man.  “How can you know we can trust her?”

The woman looks at the other two, who shrug, mouths full.

“My name is—”

“No,” barks the woman, her palm in Salima's face.  “We only use false names here.  Your name is Lina.  You do not need to know our names yet.  Here, take these and pass them out.  Stuff them into mailboxes and under doors.”  The woman hands her a stack of fliers.  At first glance they look like pages from
Al Jazeera—
the font is the same, the paper the same weight and texture.
“The real news,” says the woman, “not as Islamic propagandists would like you to believe.  Good luck and be careful.  Do not ever talk about what you are doing, including to your own family.  Do not get caught.” 

The man who mugged her in the alley leads her off the boat.  He shows her a small piece of paper in the corner of the window with a little pig's tail on it.  “If you see that, you'll know the barge is one of ours.  My name is Pim.”

Under the streetlamp, she sees the young man clearly for the first time, his mop of flaxen hair, red face, rough facial features of a Van Gogh peasant, but with pale blue eyes and a gap between his two front teeth.  He looks a little older than she, nineteen or twenty, his body filled out like a boy who has done a man's work from a young age—farming or fishing or fighting.  “Does your group have a name?  Or is that secret, too?”

“Sure, it's secret.  But you can know it.”  He checks over his shoulder.  “We call ourselves the
Watergeuzen
.  Every group has a name.  We gotta have a little fun.”

He gives her a gap-toothed smile.  He looks like the goat god Pan, she decides.  He is a little shorter than she, but powerfully strong.  She likes him.  His strong squarish hands seem so—she looks for the right word—so honest, so competent.  For a moment, s
he wonders what it would be like to be kissed by him.
  “How do I find you again?” she asks.

“Don't wory, Lina,” he says.  “We'll find you.”

Courier

“Haven't you figured it out by now, Salima?”  Uncle Sander claps his hands over his considerable girth, and roars.  “You are such a bright girl.  Haven't you ever looked inside the brown paper bags?  Haven't you wondered why I insist you burn the delivery list every day?  I guess you didn't think your uncle was capable of such mischief, eh?” 

Salima feels dumb.  As soon as the giant woman gave her fliers to pass out, she realized she had the perfect cover for delivering them.  But she couldn't do it without her uncle's knowledge.  It was too dangerous.  Tentatively, she feels him out, asking if he'd ever heard of anyone getting a flier that spoke against the Islamic State.  He strings her along, getting more and more amused, until he finally hands her a brown paper bag.

“Open it.”

Salima opens it and pulls out several pieces of fruit, each carefully wrapped in a copy of the same flier she passed around the night before.  She opens a second bag and finds ID papers, a travel permit, and a passport.  “I was passing these out and didn't even know about it?” 

“Not the documents.  I usually have someone deliver these in the morning.  But he is needed for other things.  That's why I wanted you to ask Jana if you could work in the mornings.”

“She knows what you do?”

“Of course.  Who do you think prints up this stuff?  If she said yes, I was going to put you to work this very morning.”

“Why didn't she tell me?”

“There is much for you to learn, Salima.  For now, only ask questions in the courtyard by the fountain.  Understood?  Now get on your bike and make deliveries.  The bags on the bottom are very important.  Burn your list when you are done.”

“What about Jana?  I didn't ask her yet.”

“I'll speak with her.  Don't worry.  Now get going.” 

#

Salima learns the city like the back of her hand.  Every alley, every block, every bridge, every canal.  She knows of alleys that lead to courtyards, that lead to basement tunnels.  As soon as she sees sign of
mutaween
or IRH soldiers, she sprints into the maze.  She doesn't wait to see if they are following.  She knows a million places to hide her bike.  Where to stash her parcels when she's in a hurry.  She wears a big black poncho when it rains, but always in her s
halwar kameez
and niqab, covered head-to-toe in black.

She learns to be invisible.

Not all of her tasks are clandestine and frightening.  She and Pim travel to small towns around Holland to establish safe houses, posing as a young married couple.  They get a wink and a nod from many of the landlords, most who assume they are an unmarried couple who want a cheap place to have sex.  A few give them long slow looks before renting to them.  These are the ones who guess they are part of the Resistance.  They hesitate getting involved, but Salima and Pim agree to whatever outrageous price they are demanding.  Few say no to cash, despite their misgivings.

Salima enjoys these trips and Pim's company.  She enjoys pretending to be married, taking liberties like holding Pim's hand on the train.  Or laying her head on his shoulder to nap. 

It feels completely natural.

She learns how to spot others in the Resistance, and is amazed at how many are involved.  Those tracking movements.  Collecting intelligence.  Watching.  Passing on information.  Hiding and moving people.  And how many people, not in the movement, who are willing to lend a car or a gallon of gas.  Or hide a refugee for a night or two. 

Bit by bit she learns all about the structure of the underground.  It reminds her of a film she once saw in science class about ants, where the scientists poured resin into the top of an ant hill, and later dug up a gigantic candelabra of tunnels and branches.  That's the Resistance.  A colony of hardworking ants.

She learns there are nine different Resistance organizations in Holland, many with overlapping responsibilities, each with dozens of cells. 

The National Relief Organization, the
Nationale Hulporganisatie
finances many of the other organizations, giving financial assistance to citizens who are hiding people, providing food coupons, funding sabotage and arms for resistance fighters.

The
Onderduikers Redding
, an organization revived from WWII, runs the underground railroad and administers the illegal social services, which pays a dole to people in hiding.

Another group takes care of communications with Copenhagen through radio transmissions and couriers, who ride bicycles throughout Holland.

One group has a network of saboteurs in the newspapers.  They're the ones who deliver vital information hidden in crossword puzzles or in advice columns.  They also print and distribute several illegal newspapers, including
Vrijheid
(Freedom), and
Realiteit
(Reality).  Once they invaded the offices of
Al Jazeera,
and replaced the next day's entire printed edition with an edition of the
Vrijheid.
  The altered paper included articles about the real state of the country, the poverty, the political prisoners, the cruelty of sharia law, other Islamic atrocities, and the truth about the victories of the Coalition Forces.  Nobody suspected a thing, and
Al Jazeera
was delivered as usual. 

More than a few cups of coffee were spilled that morning.

Another group trains and networks decoders in Copenhagen, who parachute out of airplanes all over Holland.  They bring radio transmitters with them.  Two such men live on the third floor above Pim.  Couriers, mostly women in burkas
,
stop by during their shopping and disseminate the information.

She learns the names of the people she met that first night on the barge.  Gerda is the Amazon. Garret, the nervous Moroccan.  Hansen, the tall square-faced blond, who  never speaks.  She has never seen Gerda without him. 

Pebbles

Every day Salima bikes past Joury's house on the way to work.  If no one is around, she throws pebbles at the plywood over her window.  If Joury is still inside and hasn't yet gone mad, she'll know it's her.  She'll know that someone is thinking about her.  Someone cares. 

She asks Uncle Sander if there isn't some way they can get her out.

“We have to pick our fights, Salima.”

“But she's my best friend.”

He looks at her silently for a long moment, then goes back to stacking Honey Crisp apples.  “Go do your job.”

Two weeks later, Salima passes Joury's house and sees the plywood is gone.  Terrified they have killed her, she bikes recklessly to Freyja Natuur Winkel.  She begs Sander to find out what happened.  He tells her to come out into the courtyard by the fountain, and to sit.

“I had someone start a rumor at the local mosque that Joury's father was starving his daughter to death.  Sharia law allows her father to kill her, or keep her locked up until she dies.  But he may not starve or torture her.  The local imam sent over two women to make sure she was healthy.  Of course her father was furious, but he couldn't deny them entry.  The women determined Joury was severely malnourished and dehydrated.”

“Is it true?”

“To an extent.  Joury was always skinny.  The women insisted she go to the hospital to get checked out.  Her father could not refuse without disobeying the imam.”

“The women . . . they're with us?”

“Of course.”

“Where is she now?”

“In Medisch Centrum Jan van Goyen.”

Salima knows where that is, just south of Vondelpark.  “Do we have people there?” 

“Yes.  Her father first took her to DC Klinieken.  Fortunately we have a nurse there who said they were full, and sent him on to the Medisch Centrum.  We have much better contacts there.”

“Can we get her out?”  

Sander smiles.  “
Her father has her under armed guard.  We have several nurses and a doctor on our side.  A nurse will call her father and tell him that Joury's vital signs are very weak, and if he wants to see her before she dies, he must come in.  Honor demands that he visit her.  Just before he enters her room, the nurse will give her a dose of propranolol in her IV drip, which will drop her heart rate to less than ten times a minute.  He'll see that on the EKG monitor.  While he is still there, the nurse will covertly disconnect the EKG and it will flatline.  An alarm will go off.  Nurses and doctors will rush in and push him out of the room.  After a few moments, the doctor will tell him she is dead.”

Salima gasps.

Sander smiles, and continues.  “Because she is disgraced, her father will not give her a proper burial.  He will leave her for the hospital to cremate.  He will not linger.  As soon as he leaves, the nurse will give her epinephrine, and bring her back.  When the guards leave, we will take her to the
Onderduikers Redding.”

“Can I see her before?”

“Her father won't allow visitors, but I think we can manage something.  Do you know how to change a bed pan?”

“I'll learn.”

“I think it is important she sees you.  She's probably half crazy with fear.  She needs a face she can trust to tell her not to panic and that we plan to get her out.”

Salima does her part, dressing as a nurse's aide.  The two guards are bored, mildly entertained by the fact that in an all women's ward the nurses are allowed to go without the veil.  A particularly pretty nurse talks to them while Salima pushes by a cart with a bedpan.

She can hardly believe how awful Joury looks, twig-like arms wrapped around her pillow, sunken cheeks, eyes dull and despondent.  Even her hair looks listless.  Salima picks up her wrist as if checking vital signs.  “Joury.  It's me.  Don't react.  Just blink if you know who I am.”

Joury slowly turns her head to look at her.  Her eyes blank, not recognizing her.  Then her irises seem to darken, and her breath hitches.  Her skin suddenly goes from pasty white to something resembling normal skin.  She blinks slowly. 

“We are getting you out in the next few days.  You don't have to do anything.  Just be ready.  Your father will come to visit.  He will think you are dying.  Blink if you understand.”

Joury blinks, her eyes shifting to the guards at the door, who are preoccupied with the pretty nurse.

Salima takes off her silver sailboat necklace, carefully lifts Joury's head, and loops it round her neck, hiding the pendant under her clothes.  “We'll be back.”  She squeezes her hand.