“But you’ve got connections?”
“Maybe.”
“I want to know why you help Kleppe.”
“I don’t help him. He just shacks up here when he comes on business to Amsterdam.”
“I mean the trips to the Hague for the diamonds.”
Her mouth opened to speak, the shock all too obvious on her face. She swallowed, and then spoke in a whisper.
“How did you find out?”
“Miss van Aker, I think it would be better if you just answered my questions.”
“And then you arrest me. I should see a lawyer.”
“You won’t be allowed any outside contacts until the inquiry is complete.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why you helped him?”
“Is this to be used in court?”
“If you co-operate fully it’s unlikely to go to court.”
She sighed. “I’ve known Viktor for years. Way back I was a member of the Party. They told me to leave. That I could help more outside. I just passed messages and collected the packages from the Hague.”
“You knew the man who gave you the stuff was KGB?”
“I guessed. They didn’t tell me.”
“You knew that you were committing a serious crime under Dutch law?”
She sighed again. “I suppose so.”
“Did you know Kleppe was KGB?”
It was a shot in the dark and he saw her look towards the window to collect her scattered thoughts. He waited, tense and silent. Her head turned back to look at him.
“You can’t expect me to betray a friend.”
It was answer enough. Enough to let him extend the bluff.
“Where did the messages come from for Kleppe?”
“The embassy in the Hague.”
“What were they about?”
“Just dates for him to come over.”
“How did you pass them on?”
“I phoned him in New York.”
“Who paid you?”
“The Soviet Embassy.”
“How did they pay you. And how much?”
“They bought a painting every month. They paid six hundred guilders each time, in cash.”
“How did you meet Kleppe in the first place?”
“He had an apartment in Paris when I was there. I met him through the Party and eventually I moved into his place.”
“Are you fond of him?”
She shrugged. “I was in those days. I guess it’s just friendship now. He was very important too, in those days. He had a lot of influence.”
“What nationality did you think he was?”
“He had a United States passport.”
“That’s not the same thing, is it?”
“I guess not. I suppose I assumed he was a Russian.”
“Why?”
“The people who came to the apartment were mostly Russians from the embassy in Paris. He always talked Russian with them. At least I assumed it was Russian. And he seemed relaxed with them. They joked and laughed a lot.”
“What did you think his job was?”
“He was a diamond dealer in New York. I think he was very successful.”
“Do you remember when he got Dempsey out of jail?”
“Yes. Andy came back from Le Bourget with Viktor. He was terribly upset. We sat up all night with him, and Viktor calmed him down. He flew back to the States the next morning with Viktor.”
“Have you seen Dempsey since then?”
“No. Never.”
“Has Kleppe talked about him?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Is there anything else you think you should tell me?”
She shook her head. “No. What will happen to me now?”
“I expect Inspector van Rijk will want to talk to you, but I don’t think they will bring any charges provided you will sign a statement.”
She looked relieved.
“I hope this doesn’t mean problems for Viktor.”
“He had the problems already, Miss van Aker.”
MacKay took a taxi to van Rijk’s office and from there he tried to contact Nolan. When he failed he asked for Morton Harper and gave him details of his interview as guardedly as he could. He asked for Langley’s help in expediting his travel to Oslo. The only civilian flight that day had already left. Harper told him to go straight to Schipol and he would be contacted there.
The airport manager was paging him on the Tannoy as he walked with his bag into the main terminal building. A Hawker Siddeley training Harrier had already landed from Brussels.
He walked out with the RAF Squadron Leader to the side-bay far from the civilian airliners. He sat in the rear seat of the cockpit, his head almost touching the canopy, as the pilot listened to the air-controller clearing a Sabena 747. Then they were cleared for the main runway and ten minutes later they were cleared for take off. He heard them cleared through to the military airfield at Stavanger.
The take off and the steep climb left him shocked, and even at 30,000 feet up the clouds had raced below the aggressive wings at a sickening speed. He held his breath as they tore through the sky; and for the first time in his life he realized what modern warfare was all about. He had seen all the NATO orders-of-battle and those of the Warsaw Pact, and those squadrons of supersonic planes and strategic nuclear weapons had just been numbers on computer printouts, but as the plane carved its trembling strength through the clouds the whole nightmare was suddenly real. The things he normally dealt with had their own element of lonely fear but in this plane, knifing its way across the North Sea he knew the difference between fear and terror. He couldn’t imagine this metal dart ever reducing its speed again so that it could land. He felt like an elderly aunt on the Big Dipper.
They screamed in from the sea to the airstrip on the coast at Stavanger. When he scrambled clumsily out of the aircraft there was the stench of hot metal, burnt oil, and burning rubber.
The vice-consul, a fellow Scot, was waiting for him at the airfield and drove him to a small hotel in the centre of the town. When they were alone in MacKay’s simple bedroom the vice-consul handed over the big brown envelope.
“That’s not the original, of course. But the original is held in the Record Office here and can be made available for inspection.”
“Is it possible to get a copy notarized officially?”
“Certainly. The Registrar can do that himself.”
MacKay’s head still rang from the flight.
