'Quite,' de Gier said. 'Don't get caught. That's the easy way and also the least pleasant. Why don't you go the clever way? Take your boat and sail for the mainland. Go to the airbase. Climb the fence. Go straight to the commander's office, knock on the door, and present yourself.'
'You think I'm retarded?'
'Not at all,' de Gier said. 'You're tough and you're intelligent. Explain to the commander that you don't want to be in the Air Force anymore.'
'They'll put handcuffs on me.'
'Never,' de Gier said. 'You'll be sent home.'
'Why?'
'Because you don't want to join them. They don't like that. Most military people are group-oriented. The individual frightens them.'
'They think I'm crazy.'
'You are,' de Gier said. 'One of the happy few. Tm crazy, but I'm very discreet. You should be discreet too. Tell them their life doesn't suit you, that you can't figure out why. Say you're sorry. Then go back to your island, finish your boat, and sail for Fiji.'
The deserter thought. 'You sure you're crazy too?'
'Ssh. Don't tell.'
'You want to go to Fiji too?'
'I'm bound for Papua New Guinea,' de Gier said. 'That's about as far as you're going. I've been taking my time. My urge grew slowly. You're lucky. It's better to go when you're young.'
The deserter grinned.
'Now tell me,' de Gier said, 'about the copper.'
'You're after me for that?'
'I'm not after you at all,' de Gier said. 'Please put that out of your head. An intelligent man shouldn't have to repeat himself. Go on, what about this copper? Is that why you were in Dingjum? That time you escaped again?'
'Yes,' the deserter said. 'But I didn't sell it to the fence. I'll bring it all back if you like. It seemed like a good thing, in the middle of the night, three shacks filled with expensive copper, gathered by those silly soldiers, but once I had it the fun was gone.'
'You planned to sell it to Douwe Scherjoen?'
'Nasty little man,' the deserter said. 'He thought he had me. The copper was just the beginning. He had other plans and I didn't like them at all.'
De Gier sipped his soda.
'You know what he was up to?' the deserter asked.
De Gier rolled a cigarette.
'I don't go for that sort of thing,' the deserter said.
'But you don't mind stealing copper?'
'That was fun.' The deserter laughed. 'And part of Scher- joen's plan was fitn too. Meet some rusty tramp under the eyes of all the patrol boats and pick up some cargo. You've no idea what snoops around here. Water Police, Military Police, Navy, Water Inspection…'
'I've been told.'
'But I didn't like the cargo.'
'You refused?'
'Of course,' the deserter said. 'They give that stuff to schoolkids for free, and once they're hooked, they make them wallow in the filth of Amsterdam. Why should I have anything to do with that? Not me, never.'
'What did Scherjoen say the cargo would be?'
'He didn't.'
'What sort of vessel will bring it in?'
The deserter shrugged.
'When is the tramp due?'
'Soon, but I refused straight off. Wouldn't have anything more to do with Scherjoen. I never gave him the copper. I'll take it back to the shacks if you like.'
'That's a good idea,' de Gier said.
They rode off together. De Gier returned the dirt bike to the police station. 'You'd never catch him,' the officer in charge said. 'He knows the island inside out. Did you get to see him?'
'I heard him,' de Gier said. 'Never got close. Well, I tried.'
The skipper telephoned. It wasn't that he was in a hurry, but it was getting late and he thought he might be going back to the mainland.
'Been catching any eels lately?' Private Sudema asked.
The subordinate officer brought two fat eels and wrapped them separately. 'We smoked them for you, too.'
Sudema and de Gier thanked their hosts.
The Military Police vessel was ready to leave to make space for the State Police patrol boat. The Navy ship was expected any moment too. Two helicopters roared across the jetty.
'CIA,' the harbormaster said, 'cooperating with our Security Service. There's an East German fishing boat offshore, loaded with electronics, to snoop on the NATO exercises that are going on again. The helicopters will be Army, I guess, but they could be Navy too. Air Force pilots, probably.'
'And what will they do to the spy ship?'
'Maybe fly around it?' the harbormaster asked.
'Should be our job,' Private Sudema said, 'but we haven't got the right ship. The Kraut will be in shallow water, outside the channel.'
Jet fighters drew cloudy lines in the sky.
'And what would they be doing?' de Gier asked.
'Making hours,' Sudema said. 'The Air Force is always making hours. They have a different system from ours.'
The soldiers brought folding chairs, and de Gier and Sudema settled on the after deck. Sudema lit a pipe. The soldiers brought tea and a dish of fresh-baked cookies on a tray. Seals frolicked in the vessel's wake.
'Seals have the good life,' Sudema said. 'Nothing to do but enjoy themselves. Makes a man envy dumb animals. Just look at them.'
De Gier thought he saw the biggest seal wink.
'You're too right,' de Gier said. 'All we ever do is work.'
\\ 15 /////
The Commissaris's Citroen slid past the veranda of Scherjoen's last known address. The Land Rover that had been leading the way parked, and the sergeant and his mate got out. The commissaris shook their hands. 'They sort of smirked,' the commissaris said, climbing the steps. 'Did you notice? I don't really like that. Guides who pretend to know everything better, and this is my own land.'
'How old were you when you left Joure?' Cardozo asked.
'I remember subconsciously,' the commissaris said, 'but I do remember. The landscape, the atmosphere, the way in which the locals think, even the language sounds familiar.'
'I went to Israel last year,' Cardozo said.
'Did you remember, too?'
'No,' Cardozo said. He rang the bell. 'Only the street market in Jerusalem, perhaps, but that was Arabic. I'm not an Arab. Even so, the stall owners reminded me of my Uncle Ezra.'
They waited.
'Like in a dream,' the commissaris said. 'Last night I had a significant dream. I was a little boy and running
