wooden-framed and double-glazed. I couldn’t see lights or movement behind any of them.
I spotted two keyholes: Union cylinders, probably with night latches. They wouldn’t normally be a problem to defeat; I could just buy a couple of other Unions and doctor the keys. But the road was constantly busy, and I didn’t fancy fucking around with them in front of an audience: people were having a beer and a pizza just a couple of metres away. With any luck they’d have the same kit on the back door as well.
The entry point into the square was about a hundred metres up Noordermarkt. The street was much narrower, with houses and shops on both sides. Most of them seemed to be selling candles, linen and anything else that was white. The good burghers’ coaches would have been rolling in and out of here pretty much all the time back in the eighteenth century, but these days they were a bit more reluctant to welcome uninvited visitors. A pair of wrought-iron gates now stood guard a few metres in. They were surrounded by vines and flowers, but weren’t just there for decoration.
To the left of the archway, within arm’s reach of a driver, was a bank of buttons on a steel box and a numbered keypad. To the right of the main gates was a smaller one for pedestrians, with its own digital entry box mounted on a steel panel on the latticework frame. There are ten thousand possible combinations to a four-figure code. I’d be here all week trying to find the right one; that was the whole point of them. I needed a simpler solution: I needed to find out how the guys on the inside of the square - and their welcome guests - managed to get out.
I pulled the map out of my pocket and gave my head a bit of a scratch as I pretended to get my bearings. The main exit would be triggered from the inside by a detector as a car approached the gate. But how did they open the pedestrian gate from the inside? It wouldn’t need a code: they’d have a simple push-button arrangement of some sort. Was the button on the back of the electric lock? Was it set back, on the wall? I couldn’t see much in the shadows. I gave the steel panel behind the entry keypad another look. It had to be there for a reason. It had to be there to stop anyone on my side of the fence getting access to the exit button.
I couldn’t risk going any further in - I might just as well be wearing a striped T-shirt and a stocking over my head. I wandered back onto Noordermarkt and took the first left. I wanted to do a complete 360 of the square. There might be a less secure route in. I hung another left and was soon back on Westerstraat. I’d found nothing.
I crossed the road and carried on back towards the target, keeping my eyes open for a newly parked Passat or any change on-target. Was an extractor flue knocking out steam perhaps, because somebody had come home and jumped in the shower?
Nothing.
It was only two o’clock and another three or four hours until last light.
I carried on towards the canal, following signs that showed a little man walking towards Anne Frank’s house. Not that I was going to see it - not yet, anyway. I was heading for the centre, the area of town I knew well, the bit that was full of bars and whorehouses, backpackers and tourists. That was where I’d blend in best, and where I could buy what I needed to get this bit of business done without anyone remembering me.
I crossed the canal and stopped at an ATM. I drew out three hundred euros on Nick Smith’s MasterCard, as you would do if you were bumbling about the city centre, planning a bit of souvenir shopping and maybe a mooch around the red-light district.
I carried on to Damrak, the main drag from the central train station. It was a blur of trams and cars. Bells jangled. Cyclists wove between pedestrians. The place was packed, mainly with drug-dealers whispering, ‘Weed? Cocaine?’ to anyone who came within reach.
There were a couple of camping shops. A lot of the visitors here were backpackers. I went into the biggest, and therefore with luck the least friendly, and bought myself a black fifty-five-litre Bergen. Into it went a hard plastic knife-fork-spoon set any Scout would have been proud of and a Russian-doll type assortment of cheap aluminium cooking pans of the kind he’d make rehydrated stews in that nobody wanted to eat.
I also bought a twenty-litre plastic water container, the sort that concertinas down to save space, and a roll of silver gaffer tape big enough to stick the world back together. The last bit of kit I bought from this place was a portable stove in a plastic briefcase, fuelled by aerosol cans rather than Camping Gaz canisters.
At the checkout I paid with cash and picked up a novelty mosque-shaped dual-zone digital alarm clock that was on special offer. I only needed Dutch time, not Mecca’s, but it had a big speaker at the back of the green plastic casing. That meant it would have a decent battery pack to power it.
I shouldered my Bergen and headed deeper into the city centre. I still had a lot of shopping to do. I needed two tool sets, rubber gloves, three thick 500ml drinks glasses, small halogen light bulbs, a couple of metres of tubing and a shedload of aspirin. I needed some bits and pieces from a hardware store too, and a roll of freezer bags - not the zip-tight ones, which still let in air, but ones I could twist shut and seal with a wire twist. They were the only kind that would stop air getting in and causing an explosion before I wanted one.
21
By the time I got back to Westerstraat my Bergen was filled with nearly everything I was going to need. It wasn’t dark enough yet for me to infiltrate the square and do my stuff. I might as well sit, look and listen. I made my way down to the cafe and took a table under the striped canopy. From here I could keep eyes on the target door. When the waitress arrived I ordered a pizza and a big bottle of water.
There was still no sign of life on-target. No light, no movement. There was plenty happening outside it, though. Little kids skipped past, hand in hand with their parents. Some stopped at the cafe for juices and ice creams and all sorts of other stuff that had to be cleaned off their faces with a pressure washer. Then there were shop deliveries, people like me just mincing about, and others engrossed in phone conversations. I sat back and watched, taking in some more of this real-life shit while I waited for my Margherita to make an appearance.
I glanced down at the Bergen. The business end of a red plastic G-clamp poked out of the side pocket. I’d bought it, along with a basket load of other stuff, in Amsterdam’s equivalent of a pound shop. I pulled the flap back over it - nothing to do with being covert; everything to do with neatness. Having things sticking out of a Bergen was a big no-no in the army. They could catch or get pulled out, and make all sorts of noise. ‘That’s what fucking flaps are for,’ our instructor had yelled at us zit-covered boy soldiers. ‘So fucking flap the fucking flaps over.’
This was the second or third time recently that I’d found myself thinking about all the strange and funny stuff from way back. ‘What’s in the past belongs in the past’ had always been my mantra. What was happening to me? Was this part of the process when you knew you were about to die? Was I going to spend the next two months digging all this stuff up and reap-praising what I’d done and said? Or was the thing in my head growing and pressing the access buttons on Memory Central?
I dug a hand into my jeans and dragged out four Union keys. I’d thrown away the locks themselves, in four separate bins. They weren’t the first four I’d picked up. I’d had to hunt for ones that didn’t have exaggerated variations in their peaks and valleys. These were as even along the teeth as I could find. I wanted to spend as little time as possible filing them down.
The pizza arrived. I ripped off the crust and rolled up the rest. I’d never seen the point of cutting it up with a knife and fork or one of those little wheels that flick tomato sauce all over your shirt. This method was much more efficient.
As it got darker, I pulled the plastic G-clamp from its pouch and unscrewed the adjuster until it came off completely. I was left with something more like a C than a G. I chucked the bit I didn’t need back into the Bergen.
One last check of the target front door and windows. Still no lights. I paid my sixteen-euro bill with a twenty and slung the Bergen over one shoulder. I wandered around the corner, not looking too purposeful, and up between the candle and stationery shops on Noordermarkt.
With the clamp in my hand, I pulled the second Bergen strap over my free shoulder and turned under the arch. This time I went straight up to the gate. You can’t hesitate. You have to look like you do this most days; you have a reason to be there, and it’s not just to make off with the good burghers’ flat-screen TVs. I stood in front of the lock so my body and the Bergen masked my activity, as you would if you were about to insert a key or tap in a few numbers you didn’t want anyone else to see.
