Cannibals and Missionaries (46 page)

He was glad to be taken—though a bit late—into their confidence. He would have been sorry to be left out. In return, he sought to put fresh cheer into them. Their idea was sound. They had only to be patient and wait for the next opportunity, which might come sooner than they guessed. As material encouragement, he offered to contribute a fresh bar of soap and some snuff, to bring on sneezing. And as it happened, luck was with them. The sparkling film of hoarfrost had not yet melted in the morning sun rays when a small helicopter put down in the field.

Welcome as the sight was to him
qua
duly inducted conspirator, he could not help reckoning the cost to his government of these repeated arrivals and departures. He pictured the Tweede Kamer in late session tonight—the billiard-green leather, pew-like benches and the gallery filled to capacity as his friend at Defense rose beside the Speaker to answer questions from the rightist fractions on the “squandering” of oil reserves during the national emergency to “coddle” a handful of impudent terrorists. And the daily siphoning of the precious fluid—the life blood of the “system”—must be gratifying to the
kapers’
pride. A pity, he thought, really, that no means had been found to convert earth gas to high octane fuel.

The new helicopter seemed to have been expected. It brought a case containing Helen’s Vermeer and a small fair man with gold-rimmed glasses, recognizable to Henk at a hundred meters as his countryman. The unexpected was Charles, emerging gleefully from the freight bay and stretching his long legs. “Here I am,” he shrilled, entering the family room with unruffled composure despite the pistol at his back. “Don’t be tiresome, Hussein. I shan’t try to escape.” He looked around him happily. “How nice to be back. I always wanted the experience of being a stowaway.”

Like many of the old man’s boasts, this proved to be somewhat fanciful. To be accurate, he had come as a hitchhiker. “This delightful gentleman, Mr. Van der Kampe—your compatriot, Henk—was kind enough to give me a lift. Yes. We met by good luck at the heliport, when I was feeling frightfully down-at-the-mouth. Scarcely knowing what to do with myself, yet unwilling to turn tail and go home. Mr. Van der Kampe is from your incomparable Rijksmuseum, Henk. We found many friends in common. He explained to me as we chatted that he had been sent for to vouch for Helen’s Vermeer. If I divined correctly, the suggestion came from our friend Jeroen. Indeed, one can fancy it as an imperative. Naturally Mr. Van der Kampe was somewhat apprehensive as to the circumstances he might find here. I was able to allay his anxieties, and we became thick as thieves.”

Henk’s eyes turned to the Rijksmuseum expert, who had remained impassive during this account of himself and his mission. He had set down the briefcase he carried and stood, trim feet together, like a mute exhibit being presented by Charles. Yet surely he understood English—which of the tulip-people didn’t? “But how did the two of you come to meet, really?” cried Sophie, voicing Henk’s own mystification as she looked from one to the other. “Why, my dear, he recognized me!” The small precise-featured Dutchman gave a small nod. “While I was having a cup of chocolate at the little bar they have. He saw me on television, imagine!”

Henk and Sophie exchanged a smile. They had all seen Charles on television last night. On the seven o’clock news program and, as an encore, at eight. He had actually spoken a few quaint words of Dutch. “You were a hit, Charles,” said Jim in his easy tones. “Far outshining the rest. And, yes, I agree, quite memorable. Wouldn’t you say, Lily?” “Oh, by all means. The star. We were proud of you.” “But where
was
this bar?” Aileen asked. “My dear, I can’t tell you exactly. At the military airfield, where we landed.” “And they let you stay all
night
at a military airfield?” “I
hid!”
said Charles. Henk lifted a questioning eyebrow; he was acquainted with that heliport. “In the toilet for a time, if you must know. Then there was a jeep that I had noticed standing outside, which became rather chilly, I must say.” “An
empty
jeep?” “Oh, no. That would have been careless of them, wouldn’t it? There was a young soldier in a greatcoat asleep at the wheel.” “And then?” “And then, my dear, let’s just say that I have a way with me. In the end, the junior officer in command was most accommodating; you Dutch are so helpful to foreigners. Imagine if one had been in France. The only bother was that he was eager to furnish me transportation to Amsterdam. But I managed to stay put, resorting to what they call ‘delaying tactics.’ And the young men coming on duty had seen me on television. Some of them asked for my autograph. I expect they thought I was some figure of the stage or screen. In return, they were most informative. I learned that Helen’s picture had been left behind. It had stood there all day. Anyone could have stolen it.”

He broke off and eyed Van der Kampe, who was examining the Titian with the aid of a loupe. At Charles’s prompting (“Do have a look at the splendid Ward they have in the next room”), he moved on into the
beste kamer.
Charles waited. “Well,” he continued, lowering his voice, “I was not quite so guileless as I led
him
to believe. Hussein, would you mind shutting that door? At my age, one must be careful of drafts. Thank you. To go on with my story: I was forearmed, you see, by my young informants. Being assured that the picture was there emboldened me to hang on. When Mr. Van der Kampe appeared, one of my young acquaintances, guessing my interest, nipped into the toilet, where I was taking evasive action, to tell me that orders were for that gentleman to embark with the painting. Not being familiar with art matters, he could not say why. But I intuited it and I posted myself at the bar, trusting that a conversation between us would open. When it did, I offered myself as his guide. We agreed that he would pass me off, should the deception be necessary, as a fellow-authority. From our Fine Arts Museum—between ourselves, shockingly weak in Dutch seventeenth century, but who would know that here?”

Sounds from the shed announced that the Vermeer’s case was being opened. At a sign from Jim, Henk, drawing Sophie with him, joined Van der Kampe in the parlor. He had no great yearning to fraternize in Dutch with this
landgenoot,
but it was important to Jim to know how long, roughly, the authentication was going to take. In short, how soon he would be returning to Amsterdam. Victor needed to be ready.

Though content to be enlisted in the rescue operation, Henk, on reflection, did not share Jim’s sense of Victor’s peril, which was based, he thought, on a misreading of the
kapers’
mentality. He doubted that CIA agents in the present circumstances were an endangered species needing protection. Almost the contrary. As the
kapers
would view it, if he read them right, he and Jim, even Sophie, were key imperialist agents operating under the cloak of liberalism and more deserving of execution by a people’s firing squad than a rank-and-filer like Victor, were he to be exposed. In the scale of things, Victor would be judged to be a mere tool exploited by the bosses for his language skills and his Middle East credentials, and he had only to confess to be given a second chance. Redemption would be easy, as often happened with informers. To an observer, that seemed obvious. Yet the wretch, being fearful, was unwilling to take the chance. He preferred to be saved by his Great White Father, the Senator.

In any case, Henk was happy to do his share. It would be their first act of subversion. Like a schoolboy, he was almost offended when his snuff was refused. He had agreed, of course, to say nothing to Sophie, and Jim, he noticed, was keeping his distance from Lily this morning. Wisely, Henk considered, for that observant lady was likely to detect his suppressed excitement and remark on it wonderingly in public. One of the conditions of the game of skill they were playing was that anyone not in the secret had to be looked on as a potential enemy.

Entrusted with the vital mission of sounding out Van der Kampe, Henk felt honored and slightly apprehensive. He was a scout, obliged to step carefully lest an over-heavy footfall or the crackling of a twig give his purpose away. On entering the room with Sophie, he had experienced a kind of stage fright; he swallowed to moisten his dry throat. Danger was an exhilarant. He had lost all sense of proportion, he told himself, for the slight risk they were running was as nothing in comparison with the permanent danger that surrounded them, whose effect was mainly depressing. He supposed the difference was that this danger was of their own choosing—they were courting it, you might say, like a woman.

Van der Kampe would not say how long it would take him to pronounce on the Vermeer. He seemed irritated by the question. An irritable fussy little man, the worst type of Netherlander, and made nervous, evidently, by the guns—he did not appear to have noticed the highly visible wiring—and by the mixed company he found himself in. He was a snob,
natuurlijk,
and the apparition of Charles in full traveling regalia at the heliport must have led him to expect better things. “Of the old school, that one,” he said to Henk in Dutch with a pale purse-lipped smile. The rest he found harder to catalogue. Mrs. Potter, he understood, would be traveling back with him in the event that he could certify her painting. Her husband was standing by in a hotel in Amsterdam—in the bar, Henk imagined, and not with a cup of hot chocolate. He saw that the uneasy fellow was taking Margaret, who retained some semblance of grandeur, for the owner of the Vermeer. “One of the great old fortunes, my ‘guide’ let me know.” Henk redirected the authority’s deferential gaze. “Not
that
lady!” Van der Kampe exclaimed, shocked. “We’re prisoners,” Henk reminded him. He felt embarrassed in front of this stranger for the state of Helen’s dress, as if she were an aunt or an even nearer relation.

Van der Kampe excused himself. He had forgotten their state of duress. And now he understood (he said) why Henk had been anxious to learn when he would be returning to Amsterdam. “You will be wanting to send messages to your wife and children. By all means. Lose no time, please, in penning them. I shall be more than glad to deliver them to your home.” Henk felt Sophie stiffen beside him at the words
“vrouw”
and
“kinderen.”
But Van der Kampe’s field of vision, on the whole perhaps fortunately, did not seem to include Sophie. If Henk were to mention that the feminine shape opposite him bore an uncanny resemblance to the Empress Theodora in the Ravenna mosaic, Van der Kampe, he supposed, would explain that that was not his “field.” “Your address, please, and may I offer you pen and paper?” Henk reflected. “You
must
write,” said Sophie. For a moment, Henk could think of no message to send that would not be heavily humorous (“Greetings from Flevoland”) or a lie (“I miss you and think of you constantly”). In the end, he wrote “I am well. I amuse myself and I send you my love. Greet Elisabeth.” “Who is Elisabeth?” said Sophie. “The wife of Den Uyl.” To shake off the thought of his family, he moved to the window, where he had a good view of the helicopter. There should be room, he estimated, for another passenger. Mrs. Potter was a small woman, and Van der Kampe was not much bigger. With the Vermeer out of the way, one of them and Victor, supine, ought to fit quite easily into the cargo bay.

Van der Kampe begged pardon. He had to answer a pressing call of nature. Unaware of the privilege, he was shown to the toilet. Leaving Sophie behind, Henk strolled into the family room. He made an affirmative sign to Jim. The expert, he had concluded, would make short work of his expertise; he was in a state of terror that now seemed to be gripping even his bowels. Henk suddenly realized that the man must believe that it had been an act of great bravery to come here. And in his vanity he perhaps still suspected that he had been brought here on a ruse and was going to be held hostage.

Carey was tackling Denise. “Come here,
chérie.
Mr. Lenz had a bad night. He looks damn sick this morning.”
“J’ai vu,”
she agreed. In truth Victor looked terrible. He lay huddled in a chair with red spots on his high cheekbones and his forehead the color of a young Leidsekaas with cumin. “Should we take his temperature?” Aileen proposed. It was wonderful how valuable at times an interfering woman could be. Denise’s thermometer read 39.5.° “What’s that in Fahrenheit?” someone asked. Sophie answered from the doorway. “103.1.” Henk was pleased to think of a computer with flashing lights swiftly adding, subtracting, multiplying, inside that noble head. “I
knew
those boils were unhealthy,” Aileen observed. “Shouldn’t you give him aspirin, Denise? At least he’ll feel more comfortable. Temporarily, they’ll bring the fever down. Oh, poor Victor.”

Jim held up a hand. “Whoa there, Bossie. Not till Greet has a look at him. What do you think, Henk?” Before he could answer, Aileen had reversed herself. “No, Denise. Better not. It could be something serious, and the aspirin would mask it. We might have
known
something like this would happen. Could we ask to have a doctor flown in? When I think of the darling Bishop…He might be alive today.
You
ask, Henk. Jeroen listens to you.” “It might be more to the point,” Jim commented, “to fly old Victor out.” “But would they ever agree to that?” Lily asked. “Why not?” said Henk. “They could put him on the helicopter with Van der Kampe.” “Now
there’s
a thought,” cried the Reverend.
“Chapeau,
Henk,” said Aileen. “Actually they’d be criminals not to.” “They
are
criminals,” said Lily. “Still, perhaps one
should
remind them of Gus.” “I wouldn’t advise it,” said Jim. “You don’t want to put their backs up. Let them decide for themselves what’s to be done. The main thing is for Greet to look at him. And let’s not get too worked up, Aileen. He may just have some little bug, a touch of flu.” “With 103.1?” Aileen retorted. “Why, we could all catch it!” Ahmed felt Victor’s forehead.
“Très malade,”
he decided. “Well, go tell your boss-lady,” said Beryl.