Dieter Weiss climbed into the black Citroen and sat in the back seat with Heinrich Himmler, who then gave orders to the driver.
“So kind of you to give me a lift,” said Weiss.
“You are welcome as always my Lord,” replied Himmler. After a pause he continued.
“There appears to be something on your mind?”
“These attacks on the Order are, as you know, becoming more frequent. It appears we are an easy target for retaliation against your party; the Jews blame us for stirring up trouble.”
“What would you have me do? There has been much tit for tat going on behind our backs most of which we have sorted out.”
“Well, perhaps you could remove the problem.”
“What have you in mind?”
“The German army has taken Kiev, and it looks as if Moscow will fall soon. You are pushing the Bolsheviks east why not take the German Jews and put them in their place?”
“It’s not as easy as that; although the Red Army is being pushed back, there are vast amounts of Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians living in what is now German occupied territory. We have evicted Jews from their homes in these lands and replaced them with ethnic Germans. So, if we move Reich Jews there what do we do with the locals who are in holding camps?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something Heinrich.”
“Your stop my Lord,” said Himmler, as the car slowed down.
“Yes, thank you.”
“My pleasure and I will look into your suggestion.”
All over Germany, from autumn 1941 to spring 1942, ordinary people were rounded up and put on crowded trains for the east. Families split up; old people thrown out of homes they had lived in all their lives. Children cried for their parents; parents cried for their children; brothers looked for their sisters.
As the trains rattled through Poland locals taunted the prisoners. “They’ll make lampshades with your skin,” they cried.
The overall problem was that the war with Russia was not going as well as expected and there were many Soviet Jews in holding centres. Many of these people were shot in cold blood to create space for the arriving Reich Jews. Other Jews were gassed in hermetically sealed vans adapted for mass murder. Eventually the difference between German and Soviet Jews disappeared, and people were killed arriving from the west.
Poland 1941
Aaron Katz glowered at the Polish countryside from the crowded carriage of the train bound for Treblinka camp. There was a small wooden house set in the middle of a field of crops waving in the wind. The scene reminded him of a boat ploughing its way through a green sea, but did nothing to relieve the dread he felt.
“It looks bad for us my friend,” said Rudi Levy. He was a fellow Berliner who had also been held at a holding centre in southern Poland and then herded onto the Treblinka train.
“Yes, said Aaron, “it’s the children I feel most for–we’re old men.”
“Old or young it’s wrong. And the question has to be why? What have we done?”
“It’s because we're born Jewish my friend,” said Aaron taking his head in his hands.
“But I am still passionate about my religion; nothing, or no one will take that away from me,” he said raising his head.
Rudi stared out of the window. “Last year I was a respectable lawyer with a good practice where I had been for twenty years. Then one day I was fired for negligence… negligence! Never have I been negligent. I tried for employment with other practices, but as soon as they saw my name or my face the door closed.”
“It’s been the same for all of us my friend, the Nazis have turned everyone against us. And now we’re on our way to beg for our lives,” said Aaron as he looked despairingly at a young girl crying.
“I don’t even know if my family are alive, before leaving Berlin we were separated. I won’t see them again and now as you say we will be…” Rudi couldn’t finish the sentence as his emotions overwhelmed him.
The train came to a shuddering halt and people were thrown forward with the resultant force. For a moment, mayhem reigned until the guards fired a few shots. Aaron looked out of the window for an explanation, but all he could see was - the Polish countryside.
The driver had pulled on the brakes and brought the train to a standstill and was standing looking at the track where a section was missing when the captain of the guards came running.
“What’s happened here?”
“I don’t know. The rails are lying over there,” said the driver pointing to some twisted metal in a ditch.
“This looks bad,” said the captain as he turned to watch some of his men running along the side of the train. “Get back into the train!” he barked. But it was too late; a tornado crashed through the fence of a nearby field, and the men were thrown to their deaths.
David de Longford then stood in front of the captain, hair flapping in the wind and eyes blazing red. The train driver crossed himself, then he and his fireman ran.
“These people are going no further.” David said.
“We’ll see about that,” said the captain, levelling his rifle at the demon.
But he looked in amazement as the tip of the rifle’s barrel curled. Then David waved his arm, and the soldier flew off to his death beside his men.
David walked slowly along one side of the train as rifles were pushed through opened windows and trained on him. The triggers were pulled, but no shots fired. Soldiers who held rifles crashed through the windows and fell to the ground with broken necks.
The passengers inside the train cheered as they gathered round the windows and doors.
“You can come out now,” shouted David, “You’re free to go. I don’t know where you’ll go, or how you’ll get there. But these are difficult and dangerous times for all.”
At first only a trickle of people stepped down from the carriages, but this soon turned into a torrent. Some looked for their saviour. Not being able to find him they went over to where the Nazi soldiers lay and spat on them, then drifted off in the direction the train had come.
When the former captives had left, the engine, still steaming, broke free from the carriages and rose into the air a few metres. The locomotive swiveled around ninety degrees then fell down on to
the track, toppled over amid plumes of steam and acrid smoke while emitting a manic hiss.
Two hours later another train puffed along the track bound for Treblinka. The driver slowed the engine down and pulled his whistle as horror grabbed him when he saw the engine lying across the track. He then saw an image out of the corner of his eye and turned around to see David de Longford standing behind him.
“Oh fuck!” shouted his young fireman, at the sight of the demon.
“Leave now, and I will spare your lives,” said David, in his deep rasping voice.
The train came to a very definite halt-crashing into the back of the stationary carriages - as the two men leapt from the plate and ran off across the fields.
David flew onto the top of the first carriage and walked toward the rear of the train.
“Come out Nazis,” he commanded. “You’re going no further.”
After a while he heard shots. Anger grabbed him, and he emitted an eardrum piercing screech as the roof of the carriage peeled back. He then descended into the hell of guards shooting their prisoners.
“If you want someone to shoot, then shoot me,” he screamed.
The three guards levelled their rifles at him, but before they could pull their triggers, the butts flew up with great force and smashed into their jaws, knocking them down. Then the captives leapt onto the unconscious guards and kicked them to death as David left the carriage.
Outside, the people from the three other carriages were standing at the trackside cheering–the other guards having ran off after witnessing what had happened-as the others joined them. The train then groaned as it pushed further into the engine and the carriages in front until the two trains became a massive zigzag.
A teenage Jewish boy stared at David. “Why are you helping us?”
“Because I know the man who instigated the suffering your people are going through at present.”
“Adolf Hitler?”
“No, he’s worse; he’s driven not by political ideology, but by evil intent. He cares for no human being; they are his playthings until he gets what he wants.”
“Is he like you?” the boy asked, “I mean with the power you have.”
“Yes,” said David. “The power of the damned; now enough, you must catch up with your people-and take care.”
The next day another train appeared out of the early morning mist. Steam and smoke were being puffed out in great white clouds lined with dark grey, and dotted with red sparks. The engine sped on toward the block on the line and came to a halt centimetres from the back carriage of the previous train. Then silence reigned save for the hiss of steam.
David peered through the grimy glass of the carriages.
“Are you looking to save more of these pathetic creatures,” growled a soulless voice.
Matthew and Jane entered the Abn Ambro Bank on Dam Square as the bells of the Royal Palace announced that it was ten in the morning. They walked over to the personal banking service desk and asked the receptionist for Mr. Engelbrecht-as instructed by David de Longford.
After a moment a tall fair-haired man with pale, blue eyes appeared from behind a partition.
“You’ll be Mr. Wilson and Miss Cargill?”
“Yes,” answered Matthew.
“I’m Rolf Engelbrecht,” the man said shaking both their hands. “I’ll need to see ID before we go ahead.”
They gave him their passports.
“Yes, that’s fine,” the banker said after studying both of them. “Mr. de Longford said you’d be here at ten prompt,” he continued.
He took them along a corridor with ornate columns spaced along each wall until they came to a secure door with a keypad next to the handle. After punching in a four-digit code he opened the door and invited them through.
As they descended a clean, modern well-lit staircase the banker turned his head to the side.
“We're now going down to a secure vault.”
At the bottom of the stairs two armed guards stood before two large, round, secure doors. On the wall, in between the doors, was what initially looked like an automatic teller machine. But as Rolf bent down to gaze into the small screen, Matthew and Jane together said, “a retinal scan!”
The red light above the screen changed to green and one of the guards spun the handle of the right-hand side vault. The door opened with a hiss. The pair then followed the official into the vault which contained secure drawers of various sizes, one on top of the other up each wall to a height of ten metres. The place stretched back half a kilometre and smelled musty, not old building musty more factory musty.
“It's hermetically sealed and kept at a constant temperature. If only people knew what was under Dam Square,” said Rolf with a smile.
He pulled the mobile metal staircase a few metres along the left-hand wall of drawers and then applied the brake.
“Well, here you are, number five hundred and seventeen,” said Rolf, handing Matthew the key.
Matthew and Jane climbed the steps as Rolf went off to chat with the guards outside the vault.
“Oh God here we go then,” said Matthew, as he pushed the key into the slot and turned.
The lock clicked, and the drawer slid out towards them. Inside there was a package of white cloth with brown tape wrapped around it. Matthew lifted it out, and with shaking hands removed the tape; then opened the cloth to reveal the Key.
“Heavens!” Jane said, “it’s so… ordinary.
“What did you expect, some sort of flashing green neon thing?” said Matthew.
“No, to be honest I didn’t know what to expect.”
The Key was fifteen centimetres long and made of dull, brown bronze, which had an even green patina; the action part of the piece was set at a right angle-common to many ancient keys. The handle section measured ten centimetres by three centimetres, ended in a ring and engraved with symbols similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Matthew stared at the symbols and felt something start to stir deep down in his soul, something very old; something very sinister. As he gazed at the Key, the thing from his past came thundering into his consciousness and tried to grab control of his mind.
“No!” he cried, as he wrapped the Key back in its cloth.
“What’s up with you?” Jane asked.
“Nothing. Let’s get out of here,” said Matthew, as he placed the package back in the drawer and locked it.
Rolf Engelbrecht ran up to the metal staircase. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, we’re fine,” said Matthew, as he descended the stairs.
“Mr. de Longford said you would take the content of the drawer with you.”
“Another time.” Matthew confirmed.
Outside, in the fresh air both Jane and Matthew felt better after the stuffy confines of the underground vault. They strolled across the ever-bustling Dam Square deep in thought.
Eventually Matthew said: “Let’s take a tram uptown.”
“Okay.” Jane said as she took hold of his hand.
The tram rattled its way through the crowded streets toward the Van Gogh Museum–its destination. The pair alighted a few stops short of the museum and strolled along a narrow street, then sat down on a bench facing a cemetery. After a while Matthew said: “That cemetery reminds me of the Western in Arbroath with its tall trees and stream that runs down one side. I used to think that if the souls of the recently buried people were good they would flow up through the roots of the trees. Then up the trunks and out along the branches to be waved free from the leaves in the wind -
then ascend to heaven. But if they were bad, then they would seep into the stream, then into a river and flow out to sea and descend to hell.”
“What happened when there was a high tide?”
Silence descended over them for a while, broken by the caw of a raven that had landed on the cemetery wall.
Matthew put his head in his hands. “God, Jane what am I to do?”
“Well, first of all let’s move away from looking at that cemetery.”
They wandered along streets filled with a mixture of clothes and book shops, until they turned a corner, and the large Vondel Park lay in front of them. The Sycamores and Horse Chestnuts behind the gates although still dazzling in their autumnal colours were losing their leaves.
Matthew and Jane walked past an empty playground with only ghost children on the wind driven swings. The wooden ponies on springs appeared to be racing one another to see who could find a real child first.
As they sat on a bench facing a large pond two tired looking joggers passed them by
“It’s peaceful here,” said Jane.
Matthew, gazed at the reflections of the trees in the water. “An oasis in the heart of the city.”
A mist descended over the pond and drifted toward them. As it got closer, it became denser and darker until it turned into a black swirling mass a few metres from the water’s edge.
Matthew froze when he saw hooded figures form from the mist – hooded figures with red eyes.
“Matthew,” they hissed, “we can’t touch you, but it’s who we can lead to you, now we’ve found you.”
“Fuck!” Jane shouted.
“Let’s get away from here!” Matthew screamed, grabbing her hand.
They ran back along the empty path, past the playground glancing over their shoulders. The swirling mist was moving along the path. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, they ran through the park gates with the mist upon them. A black Audi screeched to a halt beside them and the back near-side door was flung open.
“Get in!” David de Longford shouted.
When they were in he gunned the engine, and the car sped away from the park.
“I take it these are the ghosts you saw back home in Arbroath?” Jane asked Matthew.
“Yep,” he replied.
“Have you got the Key? David asked, while pulling up at a crossing.
“No, I couldn’t take it–I didn’t feel like it was mine to take and…”
“You felt the dark creep up on you,” interrupted David.
“Yeah, said Matthew, looking at David knowingly in the rear mirror, “I need more time to think,”
he continued.
“You don’t have more time. Matthew, you have to get the Key and destroy it.”
“How do I do that–throw it into Mount Doom?”
“Take it to one of the many steelworks around the town and throw it into the molten metal.”
They pulled up at the New Amstel Bookshop and entered the store. Matthew and Jane followed
David through to the back and into his office.
“We’d better get ready to move, it’s not safe here anymore. The truth is I don’t think I’ll be able to control Saucier anymore, he’s become too powerful.”
David’s eyes turned a deeper shade of red as he stared, trance like, up at the ceiling. After a few moments he went over to his computer and brought up a screen which split in four. On one of the sections there was a man standing in a street. When David maximized the scene, Matthew and Jane recognised the street outside the shop. The man was dressed in a dark, grey suit with a light-coloured overcoat. He had black hair and, most worryingly, crimson eyes.
“It’s him!” Matthew shouted, “oh God! He’s here!”
“And look there’s the two thugs that tried to board the train at Arbroath Station,” said Jane, pointing at the two figures who had entered the screen.
Russia 1941
Operation Typhoon—the German plan to take Moscow—began again after a three week break for the winter rains, which had made roads impassable. It appeared as if Moscow was going to fall, but two reasons were to prevent this: Stalin, the Russian leader, stayed in the city thus providing a psychological bolster to the troops; and the weather.
The rigours of a Russian winter caught the German Sixth Army out. They had to defend themselves from Soviet counterattack in sub-zero temperatures. Frostbite at night meant that sleep was nigh impossible, which if achieved was accomplished lying in the open or when the snows came, lying in a dug out.
Why were the troops not prepared for the cold? Because Hitler had listened to the Occult Bureau set up by Himmler, which had predicted a mild winter that would lead to a great German victory.
Poland 1941
David de Longford turned to see his mother, Mari, descend to earth.
“Mother!”
“You were expecting Anatole Saucier or Dieter Weiss as he’s known in this time period?”
“Well, yes. What are you doing here?”
She brushed her long, blond hair out of her eyes and over her scalp. “I came to see my son.”
“Don’t patronize me; you don’t care about anyone else but yourself. Where is Saucier or whatever he’s called?”
He looked into her eyes. He felt the urge to hug her and have a tearful reunion, but he knew what he saw wasn’t real. “Why did you come in his place?”
“Anatole told me something supernatural was happening here, and we knew it was of your doing, so I told him I’d deal with it.” She turned and gazed at the jumbled trains. “Why are you doing this David? Why do you defy Anatole and me? Come and help us retrieve the Key and usher in a new world.”
“This is wrong; these people are being killed through no fault of their own. Although, this time, Saucier is not doing the killing, he played a part in instigating it.” He looked across the fields at nothing in particular. “I could have nothing to do with any new world where there is no compassion.”
“Compassion! Why bother about compassion when limitless power is about to be ours? I care not for any compassion,” she said.
“I know that only too well—the way you abandoned me. I have much to thank humans for—not least for showing me love and caring.”
“Why couldn’t you be more like Anatole? He searches for dark souls for the new world.”
David focused on his mother. “You haven’t been listening, have you? I will have nothing to do with you or your kind!”
Mari’s features changed to those of the demon Hel. She grew in height and emitted an evil stench. “You are my kind—you are demon!”
“Go, you foul beast! I am my father’s son!”
“I was wrong to come and try to reason with you; you’re as pitiful as these wretches you rescue.”
With that she left David shaken and disturbed. He walked along the track past the mass of metal that was the trains with his mind full of images of his mother. Maybe he should have done what she wanted and taken side with them, he thought. After all, he’d repaid humans for their help; maybe now was time to take his rightful place as a demon and help them bring about this new world.
He walked for hours then sat down at the track side and watched the setting sun turn the western sky to gold. But he couldn’t stand by and watch humans being slaughtered.
Throughout the night David walked with his mind in torment not caring about where he was going. The stars gave way to the first rays of the rising sun as he passed a darkened village which showed no signs of life. He kept walking, and after a few kilometres the track passed through a dense wood. In the distance he could make out the shape of a station in a clearing. David realised he had reached Treblinka.
The crunch of boot on gravel made him turn. A group of people were making their way along the track. He left the railway and stood in the wood. As they neared, he saw four armed guards marching thirty prisoners toward the station. They must bring them in by truck to the village then along the track, he thought.
After they passed by where he stood David followed them, under the cover of the wood. When the group reached the station, the guards marched the prisoners onto the platform and then out of the station.
From the station he watched the tired people ordered through the opening gates of the camp.
They were under the gaze of a guard behind a machine gun on top of a wooden tower.
He was amazed at how small the place actually was. Then a shocking thought hit him: space wasn’t required if mass murder was on the agenda and not captivity.
David moved closer to the barbed wire fence of the camp and watched the prisoners split into two groups: males and females. As the women were getting their hair shaved off the men were marched over to a corner of the field then ordered to dig a six-metre-long trench. Anger rose in him as the men were forced to stand before the trench and gaze at their grave as the guards opened fire and killed them all.
As the males slumped into the trench, the women cried hysterically; some ran toward the fence and a machine gun from the tower shot them. After this the rest of them stood in front of the trench and looked down upon the slaughtered men.
David could stand no more—he flew over the fence and landed behind the guards who were levelling their guns on the women. A wave of his arm sent the guards flying over the prisoners to land in the trench—their necks broken.
The air filled with the sound of machine gun fire.
“Get in the trench!” David shouted to the women.
David gazed at the tower which shook, then toppled over and crashed to the ground amid a cloud of splinter filled dust. The commotion brought guards running out from their quarters with their rifles. As they raised their guns to take aim at David, the ground fractured and a large gash appeared and swallowed them up then resealed.
The commandant of the camp rushed onto the veranda of his office and ordered his dog–a vicious Alsatian, which ripped men’s genitals from their bodies—to attack David. But as the animal ran slavering toward the demon its head ripped from the body, which ran on for another second before keeling over into a bloody heap.
The commandant ran toward the gates, but got no further than a couple of steps before he flew into the air and turned upside down. Then David strolled up and stared into the man’s eyes. At the sight of the red eyes and the sallow skin excrement erupted out of the seat of the Nazi’s trousers and ran down his back.
“How does it feel?” David growled. “Instead of dealing death you’re now staring death in the eyes–for this is the last day you’ll be drawing breath,” he continued, as he circled the commandant.
The women pulled themselves from the trench and spat on the dead Nazis, who lay on top of their men.
“You’re free now. Get away from this place,” shouted David. He then turned back to the commandant. “What were you before this lot gave you license to kill these people—a pathetic little man who dreamed of power?”
The Nazi then flew at blinding speed and smashed into one of the fence posts and then hung motionless, trapped in the barbed wire.
David then walked out of the camp convinced he was on the right side. The human race didn’t need demons from hell–they’d always been here in human form, he thought, walking past the body of the commandant hanging on the fence.
Russia 1942
The Germans attacked all along the southern front and pushed the Red Army, whose moral was low, back. The Russians suffered a crippling defeat at the Ukrainian city of Kharkov where they had been surrounded. Blitzkrieg tactics, quick motorized attack, used to great effect by the Nazis had begun to tell on the Soviets.
As the German Army pushed further south east, confident victory would be theirs, Hitler split them in to two after consulting the Grand Master of the Thule Society. He advised him that to capture Stalingrad from the inferior Soviets only half an army would be required. The other half, Group A, he advised, be sent to neutralize the southern oilfields thus stopping the vital flow of oil for the Russian war effort.
Group B, which comprised the mighty Sixth Army and the Fourth Panzer Division met stiffer Soviet resistance the closer they got to Stalingrad. Then in August they attacked the city which lay upon the west bank of the Volga River. The ensuing battle was tougher and took longer than the Germans expected. The street fighting was different to the battle field tactics to which they were accustomed. Also, they were suffering from poorly trained Hungarian and Romanian troops. The Axis Allies–used in the place of Germans were now on their way with Group A to the south.
After months of fighting the Russian winter was setting in with the first snows and sub-zero temperatures. The Russians, pushed back through the city, were surrounded on a strip of land next to the river which contained their headquarters. They, however, kept a grip of this piece of soil despite attack after attack from the Germans.
Stalin pulled off a master stroke to save the city and win the battle. He assembled infantry and tanks, brought in by rail from Moscow, sixty kilometres away. The operation was to encircle the sixth army concentrating on the axis allies on the flanks—the weakest points.
The offensive worked well; the Germans were caught off guard by the initial artillery barrage from behind them. Then after a few days of fighting, units of the Red Army linked up to enclose the Nazis.
The tightening of ‘the noose’ along with the worsening weather finally paid off for the Russians with the eventual surrender of the Germans. Hitler was livid and demanded the commander of the Sixth Army, General Paulus, commit suicide. But his Christian morals forbade him the right to take his own life.
While his troops were sent to frozen labour camps where most died Paulus went by heated train to a general’s camp in Moscow. Only five per cent of the ninety thousand strong Sixth Army had survived.
After Stalingrad the Germans suffered defeat after defeat, and by 1944 were retreating out of Russia, forced back to German soil by a vengeful Red Army.
At the same time the allies forced the Germans back on the Western Front. The allies had successfully invaded France.
David turned off his computer then turned to Matthew and Jane. “Follow me we must retrieve the Key.”
They went through a doorway, along a passageway that ended in a white, reinforced door which David unlocked then led them into a small backyard.
“Can you drive?” David asked Matthew.
“Yes.”
“You two take the Audi; I’ll take the motorbike.” David said as he unlocked the backdoor to his garage.
Inside, he pulled on his crash helmet then threw a set of keys to Matthew. He then pushed a few buttons on a keypad on the wall, and the aluminium double garage doors rose.
“Get to the bank on Dam Square–park as close as you can. Don’t worry about a parking ticket. If I’m not there just contact the guy you saw this morning and get the Key—I’ll be in touch.” With that he fired up his Harley Davidson and streaked out of the garage.
Matthew unlocked the black Audi and shouted: "Quick Jane let’s get out of here!”
He started the car, revved the two-litre engine then eased out onto Singel at the back of the shop.
He never noticed a dark, blue Peugeot pull out and follow him.
David pulled up across from his bookshop as Didier Grondin was about to enter. He sounded the bikes horn then waved a gloved hand.
“De Longford!” Grondin growled, as his mobile phone rang.
“You were right the two kids are leaving in a black Audi,” said Lagrange.
“You two follow them, I’ve someone to take care of,” he said turning toward David, who revved his engine before he sped along the street.
Matthew turned right and drove along Paleisstraat he then crossed over a canal bridge then, hitting heavy traffic, he turned into Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. He then parked the car not far from the Magna Plaza Shopping Centre.
The pair ran across the busy road dodging trams and cyclists, who rang their bells, then entered Mozes En Aaronstraat which led to Dam Square.
As they entered the bank Matthew looked around then glanced at the sky as if expecting an aerial attack.
“Could we see Mr. Engelbrecht? Its Matthew Wilson and Jane Cargill,” said Matthew.
“We saw him this morning,” added Jane.
“I’m sorry he’s busy with a client,” said the receptionist.
A worried look spread across Matthew’s face. “Could you tell him its urgent business for Mr.de Longford?”
The receptionist lifted her phone and dialed a number. After a moment Rolf Engelbrecht came forward to the desk.
“Mr. Wilson, Miss Cargill, what can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but we need the item we inspected this morning,” said Matthew.
“Of course. Please come with me.”
They walked along the ornate columned corridor, and then after the official punched in the security number and opened the secure door, the threesome descended to the vaults.
Matthews’s imagination went into overdrive as they stepped down. He could see Grondin smashing out of the walls like a monster from a superhero magazine.
Engelbrecht looked into the small screen between the vaults and the red light above changed to green. One guard opened the right-hand vault then Matthew and Jane ran to the mobile metal staircase. They pushed it along to where drawer number five- hundred and seventeen was and climbed.
“You’ll need this” said Engelbrecht, dangling the key by its ring.
Matthew climbed the stairway and opened the drawer. He motioned for Jane to climb up beside him. “Could you take the package out Janey? Please don’t undo the wrapping.”
Outside the bank they made their way back to the car, running past bemused tourists who were queuing to enter the Nieuwe Kerk for an exhibition of Chinese Tapestry.
When they reached Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal Jane stopped to catch her breath.
“Jane, we must keep going!” Matthew said, as something caught his eye. “Oh God! Come on Jane—run!”
Bearing down on them were Lagrange and Caron. To escape them Jane and Matthew ran in front of a tram which rang its bell. When they reached the other side of the street Jane headed toward the car. Matthew looked back over the street at the two henchmen dodging cars.
“No time for that; quick follow me.”
The pair ran up the marble steps and into the opulent splendour of the Magna Plaza. A tuxedo was playing jazz on a grand piano on the main concourse as they ran onto the escalator.
Leaving the escalator, they ran along the first-floor glancing over their shoulders.
“In here,” shouted Matthew, as he ran into an American trivia store crowded with browsers.
Jane tapped Matthew on the shoulder as they stood next to people looking at T-shirts. “Mattie look–it’s our friends.”
Lagrange and Caron had entered the shop and were beginning a search.
Matthew and Jane left the shop through another door and dashed onto the escalator to the top floor and stood behind Japanese tourists
Lagrange looked up at the escalator as he left the American shop. “We have them now,” he said with a grin. “You go up after them, and I’ll force my way up the descending escalator,” he said, as he nodded to Caron.
Matthew and Jane cleared the escalator and then ran away from Caron as he was leaving the escalator and striding menacingly toward them along the upper shopping concourse. But the big figure of Lagrange blocked their path.
“Oh, Mattie give them the Key,” said a trembling Jane.
David de Longford was being chased through the streets of Amsterdam by Didier Grondin–both men ignoring any speed limits. David led him out of the city; his purpose was to get Grondin as far away from Matthew and Jane as he could. He knew Matthew could handle the two henchmen. He weaved around the traffic and kept just ahead of the Audi. The bike he rode could easily lose the car, but that would serve no purpose.
After leaving the city and heading for Alkmaar. David found himself stuck behind a wide load truck which was moving slowly along a two-lane road. He tried to pass but, there was a lot of traffic coming in the opposite direction. Grondin took full advantage of the situation and gunned the Audi—overtaking several cars; causing oncoming vehicles to brake. He pulled in behind David and tailgated the bike. Grondin bumped into the mudguard/saddlebag section at the rear of the bike; each successive bump becoming more aggressive. David had to do something, so he swung out, but again the traffic was too heavy for overtaking. The Audi crashed into the back of the bike making David jerk back. After two cars passed, David swung out and looked ahead, there was an articulated lorry coming but it was a good distance off and slow moving. He glanced back–it was now or never as Grondin was mounting another attack and it would probably be the last. David yanked the handlebars out and pulled back on the throttle. The bike raced past the rear section of the lorry.
Grondin cursed as he watched the tail of the bike disappear from view. Then he heard the crash and saw the mangled motorbike under the braking on-coming lorry as he passed. He’s misjudged that, he thought.
After a further few miles Grondin pulled off the main road and then found a lay-by. He switched off the engine as he reached into the glove department and retrieved his mobile phone.
“What’s happening?” he asked Lagrange.
“We’ve got them trapped in the Magna Plaza, and they’ve got the Key.”
“Good, I’m on my way.”