Heroine: The Husband's Cologne (15 page)

“No you weren't,” Norman countered.  “I know the old man well enough.  He's a master at subtle manipulation.  It was his idea; he just let you voice it.  But I'll get him, and he'll make sure you get your money, because I know his weakness:  He's just as camera shy as you are.  And the least he can do now is keep Horst and Igor away from you.” I didn't know exactly what Norman intended to do, but I was glad not to have to worry about it.

The doorbell rang downstairs.  I recoiled in panic.  Norman sprang to his feet, stalked over to a chest of drawers and began rummaging through them.  As he turned to face me, he was holding a gun.  I covered my mouth with my hand, staring at him in shock.  Norman raised his finger to his lips, implying I should not make a sound.  I
nodded, my eyes wide open.  Three floors down we heard voices in the entrance hall.  His landlady had opened the front door.  Norman opened his door and went out onto the landing. 

“Mrs. Heidenreich, I'm expecting someone, is that for me?” 
he bellowed down the steps.  From below came the voice of the old woman, barely audible. 

“No, those were two policemen.  They came to the wrong door.  They were asking if a Miss
Juliane lives here.  They want her as a witness.  I sent them away.  Or was that the lady you were expecting?”

“No, I'm expecting a friend from the university.  Thanks Mrs. Heidenreich.”

“Oh, before I forget, they also wanted to know whose Golf that was out front with the Dutch plates.  It’s probably because it's parked in a spot that's for residents only.  I told them it was yours and that there's no need to tow it away.”

Norman thanked her again, shut the door to his flat behind him and gave me a rueful look.

“I forgot to move my car out of sight.  It's them, they must have seen it parked there and tried the nearest door.  My landlady just gave me away.  Goddammit it, they are relentless.  If only I knew why.”  He looked me in the eyes. 

“They must have had another event planned for you, and now they're losing out on an even bigger deal.”

And suddenly I was losing my composure again.  Who were they to treat me like a piece of merchandise!  I fell onto the sofa, in tears and wailing, slamming my fists into the pillow, until Norman got hold of me and took me in his arms.  This time it took a while for me to settle down.  I must have looked dreadful by now with my tear-streaked face.

“You are feeling better?” Norman inquired after a time.  I nodded and squelched my last sobs. 

“Then have something to drink and wait here for a few minutes.  I'm going to check out the situation.”

Until he got back, which seemed like ages, I sat shivering and curled up into a ball on the sofa.  When finally the door opened, it startled me. 

“We have another problem.  They're staking my place out.  Two guys are in a van.  My car is too conspicuous, that's why they spotted it.  In this neighborhood anyone gets suspicious.  There must be a lot of money at stake here, if they're going to these lengths.  I need you to pull yourself together; we have to think this through and we can't do that if you're constantly flipping out.  We're going to fight this, you and I together.  You hear me?  YOU AND I.  You can do this, I know you can.  You're tough and you're a smart girl,” he said, as he saw my face go white.

I tried to remind myself that I wasn't constrained to Igor and any of his plans and it was a bracing thought.  It helped.  For God's sake, I could still do something about this, and if I managed to keep myself under control, Norman and I could work together to get these people off our backs.  I nodded and clenched my teeth. 

“What do I have to do?”

“Take a deep breath, plant your feet on the floor and start thinking.”  The first two steps I could just about manage.  It was the thinking that gave me problems; there were too many racing thoughts in my head, not to mention my hair, which must have looked like hell by now.  And hell is precisely what I wished on these two pimps on our tail, cursing loudly as I did so. 

“Now you're talking,” Norman said with a smile.  “Let's make some fresh tea.  We have to stay awake awhile longer.”

Ten minutes later he was back, bustling about with cups
and a teapot.  His tea was actually strong enough to wake the dead.  If the Dutch constantly drank this stuff, I doubt they ever had to sleep, even when they are dead, and said as much to Norman.  He laughed at my attempt at a joke. 

“Waking the dead, now that would be something,” he mumbled into his three-day beard.  “That's it!  That could work.  It's risky, but before we throw in the towel, we might just be able to call in the cavalry for help.”

I looked at him blankly.  There was venom in his eyes. 

“Would you mind enlightening me?”  I said.

“You're already pretty enlightened.  Sexually that is, as I had the pleasure of finding out.”  He grinned shamelessly and I blushed.

  “But I can enlighten you on my plan, sure.  Let me just make a few calls, then I'll tell you what we'll do.”  He suddenly seemed in good spirits and brimming with energy.

Again, he went over and rooted through the drawers from which he had gotten the gun earlier.  He withdrew a black leather bound notebook, then took a plastic card out of his wallet and laid it down next to the book.  He lifted the receiver from the old phone on the wall and dialed a number, which he read off the book.  After a pause he recited a long number in English into the receiver, his finger alternating between the plastic card and the black book.  It was eerie watching him.  I didn't recognize him like this.  Then I heard a voice on the other end that sounded clipped and military.  Speaking again in English he said something like “Green Horse.”  Had he lost his mind?

A few English sentences followed in rapid succession,
where I thought I heard the naming of military ranks such as lieutenant and major.  Then he suddenly switched to Dutch.  His tone changed instantly and he sounded cheerful and friendly, as though he were addressing an old friend.  After a few minutes his manner shifted again and he became matter-of-fact.  He proceeded to read more numbers from the book.  The conversation ended with a hearty farewell in his native tongue.  That was the only thing I understood.  He turned to me, beaming. 

“You're in for a treat.  In about half an hour two cavalry divisions will be here and are going to give our little pimps a taste of their own medicine.  You can go ahead and prepare a couple of stakes because we're going to burn these two.”

“Are you insane?”  I blurted, glaring at him.  “Where do you think we are, in a Western?  There are two goons waiting for us out there and if we're lucky, a couple of horses might make them laugh themselves to death.  We might as well go out there now and give them a few tickles to get started,” I snapped.  This guy could really unnerve me sometimes, especially now as he burst out laughing.

“You might be right,” he said, composing himself.  “Let me explain:  Before my studies I lived a different life.  I was with the Dutch police.  My last post was with NATO in
Mönchengladbach, where I was in a unit with the secret service.  I'll tell you more about it later, but I don't want to miss what's about to happen outside.  Suffice it to say:  I still have a lot of friends over there, with whom I use to work closely.  One of them is on duty tonight.  They are guarding the airport against terror attacks and the like.  I told him our situation, and embellished a little.  My buddy is going to pass on the information directly to the Secret Service.  The van you see outside is going straight on the American terror suspect list.  Unlike other countries, the Americans strike first and ask questions later.  And rightly so, I might add.  They've been attacked out of the blue too many times and have little trust in our institutions.  Igor's people are going to spend at least a couple of weeks in a military prison, once they're out of the country, which is where I assume they came from.  C'mon, let's go out on the landing and see what happens.”

Between the first and second floor there was a small window giving out onto the street, and we both stood and peered through the narrow opening. Outside everything was quiet.  I saw the two guys in their garish van, bearing a foreign license plate with a red and white flag.  For more than an hour or even a longer time nothing happened.  I had already given up hope and my fear was beginning to resurface.  Had Norman overestimated himself?  Just then two figures darted past us on the pavement, barely visible.  They were carrying rifles. Without warning, Norman pulled me back from the windowsill and pushed my head down.  A tremendous flash of light blocked my sight momentarily. 

“C'mon, get up, it's happening,” Norman said, rousing me with his keen voice.  We sat on the ledge and watched through the narrow crack of the bottom hung window.  The street was set alight.  Several cars directed bright spotlights on the van in front of the house.  The men whom we'd seen dashing past us below now stood before the van, their rifles trained on the men within.  They wore black uniforms, their faces were covered with what looked like ski masks and their eyes were hidden behind strange looking goggles. It was spooky.  At that instant they looked more menacing than Horst and his cohort.

Another two men took a pry bar to the passenger door, while others did the same to the driver's side.  Two more masked men emerged from behind the van and gave a thumbs-up sign.  Not a word was exchanged; everything proceeded in almost complete silence.  No shouts or commands like in the movies depicting Special Forces.  And then, before I could even finish my thought, the doors were open.  The two brawny passengers seemed to stagger out of the van rather than step out of it, and were instantly pinned to the ground.  Black hoods were thrown over their heads, their hands and feet were tied up, and each of them was lifted up by four men and thrown into a large vehicle, which appeared out of nowhere and cleared out within seconds.

A truck then drew up in front of the house and hoisted the van onto its bed with a crane.  The spotlights were then shut off, after which the other cars cleared out as well.  And finally, we saw a cluster of men, also in black, also wearing those strange goggles, running to and fro, jumping over fences, shining flashlights into parked cars, and vanishing as quickly as they had arrived.  Then it was suddenly quiet, nothing to be seen or heard; nothing, in fact, had changed, except that the van was no longer there.  And it all took place in less than five minutes.  Had I dreamed it all? 

  
Back in Norman's flat, I saw my cell phone's display light up; Daniel must have called just a few moments earlier, but I was still reeling from what had just happened and didn't feel in the right frame of mind to talk to my husband.  Norman followed me into the apartment and let out a long sigh. 

“Thank god we left the cell phone here.  I had totally forgotten about it.  Imagine it had rung during the raid!  I don't even want to think what might have happened; we'd probably be sitting in prison with the others.  Jesus, I'm starting to get old and paranoid,” he joked.  Judging from his expression, he was in high spirits, almost euphoric.

I looked at him pensively: what was really behind these schoolboy features?  He has a gun in the apartment; he’s been an ex-cop, and with the Secret Service.  What else?

“Anyway, I wanted to touch on a few things with you,” he said, winking.  I deduced from this that he wanted to touch on more than he let on.  I gave him a mock growl and bared my teeth, but the thought of lying in his arms while we talked was sounding enticing to me. 

“But we've got to call Daniel first,” he announced.  “He must be on pins and needles right now.  Give me the phone; I'll take care of this.”  I felt a little irked by his commanding tone, but handed him the phone anyway, pulling a face as I did so.

“Hey pal,” he bellowed into the phone as my husband answered.  “Everything's fine here...What happened?  Well, we got a visit from a couple of cops who wanted to know what's going on...Right, because of
Juliane's neighbor...No, everything's under control, they went over there and arrested him.  At least for a couple of days there won't be a problem...No, I'm not taking her back there... Listen, if he gets some asshole lawyer to bail him out, he's going to be at her front door by tomorrow morning and... OK, I will.  So, what about you, did you get the flight?  Alright, then she can stay here until you figure it out... Here she is.”

“Hi baby,” I said in a soothing voice.  “Did you manage to arrange the flight?”

“Yes, my love,” he responded, his voice equally as calm.  He had managed to settle down.

“I just couldn't get it as soon as I'd hoped.  The earliest I could find was next Monday.  A Lufthansa flight to Los Angeles; San Francisco was booked up.  I already bought the ticket and you can pick it up in Cologne.  Your passport is up-to-date, right?  Or do you have to get it renewed?”

I had to check on that.  Did I even have a passport?  Oh Lord, how was I going to get one that fast?  He gave me some further details and told me to bring as little clothing as possible.  First, because it was always hot over there, second because they had plenty of designer stuff at great prices.  I liked the sound of that. 

“Put Norman back on, please,” he said, and I passed the phone over. They talked awhile longer and Norman listened intently.

“No problem, pal, just like old times.” Norman finally said, concluding.  “No, don't worry; I'm not going to arrest you again.  Unless you get drunk enough to flatten traffic signs with a tank, like last time... Oh, you're saying that wasn't a tank?  Oh, it was an armored vehicle-launched bridge?  How do
you
know, you were so wasted we had to pull you out of that thing...alright, let's talk tomorrow.”

“What were you guys talking about?  Is there something I should know?” I asked, slightly peeved.  Norman winked at me.

“That was a long time ago.  I met your husband for the first time when I was in training with the police.  I remember having to put him in a sobering-up cell one time.  But he should tell you about that one day.  For now let's figure out our plan for the next few days.   Your flight is on Monday afternoon from Frankfurt.  You can stay with me till then.  Or should I take you to your parents' place?”

“You must be joking, I'd sooner stay with Horst,” I said.  Six days together with Norman.  A feeling of well-being came over me.  The prospect was so alluring, that I instantly forgot the reason for it. 

“Those bastards who were stalking you are out of the picture for at least the next two days, if not longer.  Two days, provided they have a German passport, which I highly doubt.  That should serve as a warning to Horst and Igor.  I don't think they want to mess with my friends.  We're safe until Monday at least.  I think it's best if you stay with me in the apartment.  Did you get your passport from your flat or do you have to go back and get it?”

I shifted uneasily.  “Norman, I don't think I even have a passport...”

He gaped at me and was silent a moment.

“Then tomorrow morning we'll go to the state department and request a provisional I.D. card.  You
should be able to get it by Friday, and that'll have to do for now.  I'll send you the proper one later.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.  This wasn't as easy as he and Daniel had made it seem.  But still, we had a plan.

“I'm going to call Erich tomorrow morning and find out what he knows and to what extent he was involved,” Norman said.  “If it turns out he didn't know about this, as you seem to believe, then he can help us.  He's good at pushing along paperwork with the authorities.  Now we should probably get some rest; it's already morning and I'm exhausted.”  I felt the same way and nodded. 

“Where should I sleep, here on the couch?”  I asked prudently.  In fact, I hoped that I would be offered a different arrangement, and I was not disappointed.  Norman stared at me and after a slight pause said:

“It's safer upstairs.  I'd rather have you stayed close to me, and if someone should break in here tonight, we're better protected in the attic.  I'm taking my gun upstairs with me.”

That seemed reasonable enough and I went quickly into the bathroom to freshen up.  Upstairs, things looked pretty much the same as they had on my last visit, except that there weren't any candles burning.  I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not, because my nether regions seemed to warn me that I was still sore.

So we just cuddled a little and I helped Norman with my mouth.

“You seemed to have gone a while without sex.  Have you not been seeing anyone lately?”  I inquired.  He paused.

“No I haven't.  I've been alone for about a few weeks now.  I haven’t really been in the right frame of mind for anything steady.” He looked a little dejected.  It was obvious that his last breakup had hurt him, and that his girlfriend had been the one to leave.  Usually it was the other way around.  I felt a trace of spiteful pleasure in my belly as I heard this, but dismissed it instantly.

“OK, but you've got to tell me what that was all about earlier.  I'm dying of curiosity here.  Are you some kind of James Bond on a covert assignment?”

“Oh that.  Do we have to do that now?  I'm really tired and just feel like sleeping.  Can it wait till tomorrow?” I shook my head vigorously and insisted he tell me all. 

“Alright, I'll start from the beginning.  But
I swear, you'll be bored.  It's a lot less dramatic than it looks.”

And so he began his story, which was effectively more ordinary than I had pictured it in my imagination, but absorbing enough to keep me awake for another hour. 

Norman was actually a lot older than Daniel.  He had grown up in Frisia, which he proudly stated was not really part of The Netherlands.  Frisia was to Holland what Scotland was to England-- or Bavaria to Germany, or Texas to the U.S.  That made sense to me.  You belong to a country, but there's no love lost between you. 

Norman's father was an officer in the Netherlands Marine Corps.  That was the same as the Dutch one.  His older brother was also a navy soldier and his grandfather had fought against the Germans and was even an admiral.  It was a military family through and through and proud to have played a part in resisting the Nazis.  As Norman was growing up, there was no question that he would be anything but a marine himself.  There was no such thing as freedom of choice in a Calvinist home.  Initially he had resigned himself to his fate, but in his last year of high
school it became clear to him that he could never engage in that particular profession.  He had always dreamed of being a teacher, like his mother.  At the same time he didn't want to let his father down. 

There was also something that he had never confessed to anyone, not even to his mother, and I had to swear that I wouldn't breathe a word of it:  He was afraid of the water. 

I had to swallow hard.  This huge and powerful man, who seemed to fear nothing, was afraid of the ocean?  He could not even step onto a river boat, he admitted sheepishly.  So before the time for enlisting came around, he had thought of a way of going into the service – something his father insisted upon – without having to run around on a ship that would make him endlessly jittery.  Namely, it was the police force, which in Holland was a form of military service.  After a few months, his superiors realized that he was technically very gifted.  Because he came from a family of impeccable careers in the marines, he was given greater responsibilities, and after only a year he was part of a small unit charged with carrying out secret assignments.

“So it is something like James Bond,” I interjected excitedly.  My sleepiness had been suddenly dispelled.

“No, it was a lot tamer than that.  We had to decode radio communications and work together with other secret service units in surveillance.  That's also when I worked in harness with the German police, because I got the job with NATO at an outpost in Mönchengladbach,” he said, chuckling. 

“There I worked with the
Secret  Service in anti-terrorism.  I had been there for six years and was already captain of reconnaissance.  We collaborated with people from all over the world, and I was deeply involved in the secret military web. But at the same time I was profoundly unhappy with my job.  The only thing that kept me there were the friendships with the other officers.  Those kinds of relationships are only possible under certain circumstances, in which you're confronted with dangerous situations and have to rely on one another.”

He said he wouldn't go into details now about those perilous activities.  It was straightforward police work.  I was a little disappointed. 

“After a few years, nearly all my friends were married and had kids, and I saw them less and less.  On top of that there was all the bureaucracy to deal with, because the police, especially with NATO, is really just a giant administration, and the higher you climb, the more paperwork there is.  To make a long story short, there came a point where I had had enough.  There had to be more to life.  I resigned and began a degree based on what I knew about radio surveillance.  My father was already disappointed that I hadn't gone into the navy and was in his view “only” a policeman.  The fact that I was hanging up my police uniform as well was too much for him, and we haven't talked since,” he concluded with a despondent look. 

I drew him close to me and kissed him.

“I'm sure you'll work it out in the long run.  When you show up at the door with grandchildren, things will be different,” I said off-handedly.  Norman swallowed.  In his husky voice he went on, without addressing my remark.

“I didn't abandon it completely; I just quit active duty,
which is easily done after a couple of years.  Every year I return to the force for a few weeks, for an operation.  In other words, I become a policeman again.  My buddies in Mönchengladbach, who come from all parts of the world, are always happy to see me because with the studies I'm doing I can help them out with some of the technical issues.  So they benefit, and at the same time I can spare myself the inane bureaucracy.  That's why I'm still close with the guys who are in charge of defense, that is, the ones who are responsible for security.

“Yesterday I got in touch with an old friend who coordinates anti-terrorism operations.  I told him that I was being followed by some odd characters.  What you have to understand is that I once took part in operations against groups of organized crime.  Since then I'm considered a person “at risk” and that's why I can still keep my service weapon.  My friend hyped it up a little and informed an American officer in charge of operations that there was a possible terror suspect after me in an attempt to get classified information.”

“So it is like a Bond movie, after all,” I said in a whisper.

“Well, if you like, yeah.  It’s the one where a group of terrorists kidnap an officer and gouge his eye out and go on to steal a nuclear bomb.  Now I remember. 
Wasn't that ‘Dr. No?’  No, it was ‘For Your Eyes Only.’  Yeah, I guess there are similarities now that I think about it.  In any case, what helped me was that those two guys out there had Belarusian license plates.  That in itself is highly suspect, which means they'll give them a good grilling before they hand them over to the German police.  When it comes to terror suspects, they don't joke around.”

That was something I had witnessed firsthand just a few hours earlier, and I was happy to be standing on the right side of the fence, or rather, to be lying on it.

“So what happens next?  Are Horst and Igor also on the terror suspect list now?” I probed further.

“Not yet. Those two shady guys in the van will probably give their names to the police. And if they don't, I'll have to apply a little more pressure.  I hope it doesn't come to that, though, because I don't want to push my friends too far. Our best option is to go easy and just lie low till the weekend. Then as soon as you're on the plane, you'll be safe, because the Americans watch over the passengers as soon as they punch their boarding pass.”