“I can’t show you these but I can tell you the parts that will interest you. But I shall need a request from Washington.”
“I’ll get CIA Langley to speak to you immediately.” Van Rijk shook his head slowly.
“It would have to be a request from the State Department to Foreign Affairs in the Hague.”
MacKay squinted sideways at van Rijk.
“I guess I’ll have to pass, Inspector. It would take days and I haven’t got days.”
He knew from the look on van Rijk’s face that the Dutchman didn’t believe his story. The Inspector sat there silently, waiting for him to continue. When he saw that the CIA man had nothing to add, van Rijk said, “Of course I could show you Kleppe’s file. He’s an American national.”
MacKay waited silently as the policeman opened the thick file and leafed through the pages. Van Rijk turned down the corners of several sheets and then looked up at him.
“It’s in Dutch so I’ll read it out for you. OK?”
“Fine.”
“Kleppe comes over here twice a year. He books in for two days at the Hilton. Pays the bill but he doesn’t stay there. He shacks up with a girl, Marijke van Aker. Very pretty, about twenty-eight, paints pot-boilers to be sold in Düsseldorf and Essen. He stays a week, usually. The first full day he buys a few stones at a number of merchant houses. Totals about ten thousand dollars. The second or sometimes the third day the girl goes to the Hague to a house on Groot Hertoginnelelaan.”
Van Rijk looked up smiling.
“You’ve heard of it?”
“No.”
“It’s the best whore-house in the Hague. Embassy people, politicians and film-stars. And very expensive. You don’t come out for less than a hundred and sixty guilders.”
MacKay tried to work it out in dollars but stopped calculating because he knew he would never remember the street. And van Rijk was going on.
“The girl goes to one of the private rooms and is visited by a man from the Soviet Embassy. Generally the same man. I can give you his name. He’s known KGB. He stays for an hour usually and he hands over a package which she brings back to Kleppe in Amsterdam.”
Van Rijk stopped. His eyebrows raised in query.
“So ask me.”
“Does he screw her?”
Van Rijk laughed. “Americans. Yes, he screws her, but that wasn’t the question I had in mind. I thought you might wonder how we know about the handover.”
“I’d guess you filmed it.”
“Right. Back to our mutual friend Kleppe. He exchanges the Russian stones for South Africans and Venezuelans. Van Elst filters the Russian stones through the market to other dealers and some as direct house-sales. Wholesale value of average purchase by Kleppe each trip about half a million dollars. Retail value about double, unmade-up. Five times that value as jewellery. Four months ago Kleppe made an extra trip. Using an Egyptian passport under the name Ali Sharaf he left Schipol on the Aeroflot flight to Moscow. He came back eight days later. Came back here to Amsterdam and took a flight the following day to New York via London. He neither bought nor sold diamonds.” He pursed his lips. “That’s about it, my friend.”
“Thanks. Can you give me the departure and return dates of the trip to Moscow and the flight numbers?”
“Sure.”
Van Rijk picked up a ball-point and, checking the file, wrote out the details on his pad, tore off the page and slid it across his desk to MacKay, who folded it twice and put it in his pocket.
“Can I invite you to a meal, Inspector?”
“Afraid not. We’ve got the English here tonight playing Ajax and I’ve got a ticket. Maybe next time, eh?”
They had fixed him an office-bedroom at the Consulate, and he sat down at the small desk and wrote out his report to Nolan. He ate while it was being encoded and transmitted, and then checked out the girl’s address in the telephone book.
It was an hour later when Nolan came through on the telephone.
“This report, Jimmy. Would your contact make a notarized statement?”
“They’d want a request from State.”
“Why isn’t Langley enough?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s their rules and regulations.”
“Right. You’re staying at the Consulate?”
“Yes.”
“Get them to transmit me photostats of those passenger lists. Both outward and return flights. OK?”
“OK.”
In Washington, the Netherlands ambassador was at the British embassy, so was Morton Harper. And medals were being worn to celebrate the anniversary of the declaration of independence by some part of the former empire. Harper and His Excellency van Laan had been allowed to retreat to the privacy of a spare bedroom. They sat like uneasy children on the spring beds, Harper with his hands in his pockets, and the ambassador with his head on one side expectantly.
“You remember, Your Excellency, that your people approached me a few months ago regarding one of your nationals in Lansing. It was thought that he might be concerned with a drug line?”
“Let’s not be too formal, Morton. I remember very well you gave me some unlikely story about needing the permission of the Secretary of State.”
Harper barely smiled. “I need some information most urgently from your police in Amsterdam. Can we trade?”
“What’s the information about?”
“A United States citizen named Kleppe who deals in diamonds. We think he’s been ‘laundering’ stones for the Russians.”
“I’ll be flying to the Hague at the week-end. I’ll bring anything we have back for you.”
Harper shifted his huge bulk uneasily.
“I need it in hours. There’s more to it than it sounds.”
Van Laan’s tongue explored a hollow tooth as he looked at Harper.
“I’ll go back to the embassy now. Just let me say my farewells to H.E.”
“The Dutchman in Lansing is working
