straight blonde hair and bright, anxious eyes.
There was red tape round her mouth, rope round her slender wrists, drawing them together on her lap. The pink jacket looked grubby and stained.
Hanna was snatching at the phone again, screaming like a banshee.
‘Hurt her and I will kill you. I swear . . .’
A sudden move on the screen. A hand grabbed the little girl, dragged her to the camera, ripped the tape from her mouth.
When she cried it seemed more with fury than pain. Tough kid. Tough mother. But the woman was silent now.
‘Name!’ the Black Pete bellowed.
Nothing.
‘Name!’
‘Natalya Bublik,’ the girl said in a firm, defiant voice.
Vos was looking at the walls. The timber planking. Not her. Trying to imagine where this place might be. Not far away. There wasn’t time for that.
Black Pete stripped fresh tape around her mouth, pushed her back into the corner. Cushions there. Perhaps a makeshift bed.
‘She’s an innocent kid,’ Vos pleaded. ‘Let her go.’
‘There were innocent children in Srebrenica. In Iraq. Afghanistan. Somalia. Men and women too. Do you beg for them, policeman?’
‘What . . . do . . . you . . . want?’
‘I want my brother Ismail freed and flown to a country that won’t kill him.’ A shrug. A glance in the corner. ‘And some money too. I’d have preferred to hold your murderer Kuyper’s offspring to ransom for his freedom. But a child’s a child.’
The dark face peered into the camera and smiled.
‘I’ll keep this girl instead.’ He laughed. ‘Why test the mettle of a bastard like Kuyper? When I can try the conscience of you good and ordinary people?’
‘Let her go now,’ Vos begged. ‘There’s no justice in kidnapping a child . . .’
‘Justice is what we make it. This kid will do. Tomorrow I return with instructions. This phone. No other.’
Gone then. Hanna Bublik cursed. The Kuyper girl held on to her mother’s legs and closed her eyes.
The ducks and coots were returning to the water, bickering as if nothing had happened. Vos looked at Laura Bakker and Dirk Van der Berg.
‘She’s on a boat,’ he said.
Four hours later in Marnixstraat Mirjam Fransen briefed them on Ismail Alamy, the Moroccan whose fate was now linked to that of Natalya Bublik. Fifty-one years old, an active recruiting agent for terrorist causes over the Internet. Resident in the Netherlands for six years. Suspected by AIVD of connections with a number of outlawed groups in the Horn of Africa, Al-Shabaab among them. Trained in Afghanistan, wanted in three Middle Eastern countries to face criminal charges for conspiracy, bomb plots and attempted murder.
Alamy was one of the few recognized members of an elusive terrorist cell led by a figure known as Il Barbone. Saudi by birth, but based in Italy for years. The nickname came from there, and the rumour he had a heavy beard. Fransen didn’t want to talk about that much. Classified, she said. All they needed to know was that Barbone was behind something quite unlike the standard Islamist terrorist grouping: noisy, visible, relatively easy to track. Instead it was a well-organized operational unit dedicated to planning and funding, one that worked silently, often through conventional channels, to move money, people and intelligence around western Europe. Terrorism as a business process, everyday, difficult to detect.
For the last twenty-four months Alamy had been fighting a protracted battle against extradition. At that moment he was in a solitary secure cell in the detention centre at Schiphol airport awaiting one final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The moment that was lost – days away – Fransen predicted he’d be placed on a military plane and shipped out of the country to face trial in a friendly Middle Eastern nation.
‘You can’t do that until we’ve found the girl,’ Vos said.
Bakker had joined them in De Groot’s office. Fransen brought along her deputy, a taciturn, hefty man called Thom
There was red tape round her mouth, rope round her slender wrists, drawing them together on her lap. The pink jacket looked grubby and stained.
Hanna was snatching at the phone again, screaming like a banshee.
‘Hurt her and I will kill you. I swear . . .’
A sudden move on the screen. A hand grabbed the little girl, dragged her to the camera, ripped the tape from her mouth.
When she cried it seemed more with fury than pain. Tough kid. Tough mother. But the woman was silent now.
‘Name!’ the Black Pete bellowed.
Nothing.
‘Name!’
‘Natalya Bublik,’ the girl said in a firm, defiant voice.
Vos was looking at the walls. The timber planking. Not her. Trying to imagine where this place might be. Not far away. There wasn’t time for that.
Black Pete stripped fresh tape around her mouth, pushed her back into the corner. Cushions there. Perhaps a makeshift bed.
‘She’s an innocent kid,’ Vos pleaded. ‘Let her go.’
‘There were innocent children in Srebrenica. In Iraq. Afghanistan. Somalia. Men and women too. Do you beg for them, policeman?’
‘What . . . do . . . you . . . want?’
‘I want my brother Ismail freed and flown to a country that won’t kill him.’ A shrug. A glance in the corner. ‘And some money too. I’d have preferred to hold your murderer Kuyper’s offspring to ransom for his freedom. But a child’s a child.’
The dark face peered into the camera and smiled.
‘I’ll keep this girl instead.’ He laughed. ‘Why test the mettle of a bastard like Kuyper? When I can try the conscience of you good and ordinary people?’
‘Let her go now,’ Vos begged. ‘There’s no justice in kidnapping a child . . .’
‘Justice is what we make it. This kid will do. Tomorrow I return with instructions. This phone. No other.’
Gone then. Hanna Bublik cursed. The Kuyper girl held on to her mother’s legs and closed her eyes.
The ducks and coots were returning to the water, bickering as if nothing had happened. Vos looked at Laura Bakker and Dirk Van der Berg.
‘She’s on a boat,’ he said.
Four hours later in Marnixstraat Mirjam Fransen briefed them on Ismail Alamy, the Moroccan whose fate was now linked to that of Natalya Bublik. Fifty-one years old, an active recruiting agent for terrorist causes over the Internet. Resident in the Netherlands for six years. Suspected by AIVD of connections with a number of outlawed groups in the Horn of Africa, Al-Shabaab among them. Trained in Afghanistan, wanted in three Middle Eastern countries to face criminal charges for conspiracy, bomb plots and attempted murder.
Alamy was one of the few recognized members of an elusive terrorist cell led by a figure known as Il Barbone. Saudi by birth, but based in Italy for years. The nickname came from there, and the rumour he had a heavy beard. Fransen didn’t want to talk about that much. Classified, she said. All they needed to know was that Barbone was behind something quite unlike the standard Islamist terrorist grouping: noisy, visible, relatively easy to track. Instead it was a well-organized operational unit dedicated to planning and funding, one that worked silently, often through conventional channels, to move money, people and intelligence around western Europe. Terrorism as a business process, everyday, difficult to detect.
For the last twenty-four months Alamy had been fighting a protracted battle against extradition. At that moment he was in a solitary secure cell in the detention centre at Schiphol airport awaiting one final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The moment that was lost – days away – Fransen predicted he’d be placed on a military plane and shipped out of the country to face trial in a friendly Middle Eastern nation.
‘You can’t do that until we’ve found the girl,’ Vos said.
Bakker had joined them in De Groot’s office. Fransen brought along her deputy, a taciturn, hefty man called Thom
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