“So let’s leave it for now,” Sam suggested in a whisper.
“No, we can’t. We need the information,” Paddy protested. “What I can do is pretend the neighbors called the cops and while I have them occupied, you plant the devices in his office.”
Where is Purdue when I need him to rig communication devices? Sam thought, but then he remembered where he put Purdue in the first place. “Paddy, I’m not sure I know how to—”
“Okay, listen. We have to get in somehow, so we will have to resort to embarrassing measures,” Paddy sighed. As the two of them sat propped with their backs to the external wall of Jaap Roodt’s office, they discussed the plan.
Inside the office the landline phone rang. Jaap picked up a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, his shirt torn where his young wife ripped it holding onto him not to fall after he pushed her. His gray chest hair stood wild under the shirt where two buttons were missing, and he poured a glass of whisky to down while the phone rang relentlessly, driving him crazy. This time of night, phone calls on landlines could only mean emergencies. He knew he had to take it this time, purely on the latter assumption.
The front doorbell rang. Jaap abandoned the phone for the door, pulling a sweater on as he walked through the lobby to cover the scratch marks on his chest and shoulder. He opened the door without even checking first if it was safe. In the door stood Sam Cleave with Paddy’s dark blue sweater over his shoulders with the sleeves tied over his chest, his shades on his head, and his shirt tucked in to show off his relatively tight-fitting jeans. He used his camera bag as a sling bag. As he did many times before he put on the cheesiest American accent he could muster and pushed out his left hip, pulling off the most homosexual persona he could. It would be easy with Sam’s good looks, but he hoped that his C-type celebrity as a journalist and writer of late would not have traveled to the Netherlands.
But thanks to the influence of a double Jackie D and the late hour, Jaap did not recognize him.
Chapter 10
With Jaap’s attention secured, Paddy slipped past the wife beater’s unconscious spouse. She had wept herself to sleep with her veins full of heroin and alcohol, but he did not have time to feel sorry for the damnation of a beautiful woman who chose her own fate. He had work to do — quick work. In the back of his mind it still worried him that walking into the property was so easy. Agent Patrick Smith knew full well what to look for when it came to security, yet he saw nothing of the sort, not even the well-concealed types like lamp cams or motion detectors with silent alerts.
He could hear poor Sam trying to keep Jaap’s attention with his tourist act a few walls from the home office where he was planting bugs. Sam played his role very well, although his horrendous accent was something between Welsh and New Jersey. Paddy was in such a hurry that he could not even spare a moment to laugh at it.
From his small toolbox, he selected the smallest screwdriver to unhinge the tower of the computer, while he removed the phone’s earpiece to keep it from ringing and luring the homeowner back to the office while Paddy was busy. Outside in the yard, Jaap’s wife woke up in a drunken delirium and started whining about all kinds of things. Paddy stopped to listen. She was on her way into the house.
His fingertips were sweating profusely, but he held his pose and finished with the modem. Peeking over the desk he saw only the open door and vacant corridor that turned to the right. Quickly he tapped the phone and replaced the cap on the speaker. He could hear Jaap giving Sam directions to Kiefhoek and where he could buy the best bourbon in the Netherlands.
I’m impressed, Paddy thought, with your aptitude for talking shite so that people want to join in, Sam.
He had to hurry. The bitching wife came closer to the home office, thinking Jaap would be in there. Paddy had two things done, but he still had to mount the CCTV camera in the pelmet of the office doorway. Standing on a small corner table, he clipped the gadget onto the top edge of the rail, where it could not be discovered unless someone decided to do spring cleaning. His foot nudged the potted plant off the table by accident and it crashed to the floor. Paddy froze.
Jaap’s wife staggered toward the office, blabbering about her plants and his clumsiness at the top of her lungs. She was furious.
She came into the office and switched on the light, looking for her spiteful husband who always enjoyed destroying her flowers and plants when she upset him. But the office was vacant. Sam’s voice grew louder as he spoke to avert attention from his accomplice when Jaap turned his head to ascertain the nature of the sound he thought he heard.
“Excuse me just a moment,” he told Sam, and headed for the office.
Sam panicked. He had no idea how to stop Jaap from going, so he followed him instead, should Paddy need to overwhelm him. When they entered the office, Jaap expelled a string of cuss words at the sight. His drunk wife’s limp frame was on the floor with half of the things from his desk pulled down with her, including the phone that was off the hook.
“Oh, dear,” Sam sympathized. “Let me help her up.”
“Apologies for this disturbance,” Jaap said, as he gathered his desk calendar, his phone, and some files he hoped Sam did not notice. But Sam did notice, and it unnerved him thoroughly to know who he had been asked to spy on. His heart raced at the insignia on some of the documents, a symbol as hated as the swastika itself, among those who knew.
Paddy had tucked himself into the guest bathroom between the open patio doors and the office where Sam was busy placing Jaap’s wife on the leather couch. The phone rang as soon as Jaap replaced it.
“I’ll just go,” Sam excused himself with a smile and a handshake. “You take your call. Thanks so much for the directions and I’ll try that distillery in town you talked about in Hoofdstraat.”
Jaap answered the phone, waving goodbye to Sam. As briskly as he could leave without exhibiting the sheer panic he was in, Sam made for the front door. Paddy heard Jaap put the phone on speaker while he cleaned up the mess on the floor.
“Kees Maas was found murdered in his house, Mr. Roodt. The council will reconvene tonight at 11:00pm at Kraftwerke to discuss further measures. Please be present at the meeting,” a male voice informed Jaap.
“Thank you, Jan. Hail the fathers,” Jaap said sorrowfully.
“Hail the fathers,” the voice repeated and hung up.
Paddy thought to escape while Jaap was busy collecting his thoughts and dealing with the annoying lush he had married destroying his office. He stalked out the back and moved along the wall of the house until he met Sam at the other end, waiting for him with a furious scowl.
“Let’s get out of here!” Paddy urged in a loud whisper. Like two shadows they traversed the flower garden and reached the street. Sam stopped in his tracks.
“What?” Paddy asked.
“Do you know who this lad is, Patrick?” Sam asked, panting irately. “Because if you knew and you dragged me on this with you, you are a right prick.”
Sam never called Paddy by his real name unless there was trouble between them — schoolyard, locker-room trouble.
“Sam, I don’t have time for this now. There is a meeting tonight that we have to report on. We have to—”
“Did you know what he is part of before you asked me?” Sam boldly interrupted.
Patrick Smith knew if he came clean he would not only lose Sam’s assistance, but his friendship. For good. And that could not happen.
“I had no idea.”
Chapter 11
Nina and Gretchen paged through the peculiar book that resonated the life and philosophies of Adolf Hitler. It gave Nina chills, how accurately the pages mirrored that of the chapters printed to the world, but she kept paging. Gretchen stood by her side, now almost totally sober, biting her thumbnail as she perused the messy slanted text with her friend.