Pieter knew that just behind the lead vehicle came four huge Spartan APCs, two armoured ambulances, and finally a long Command and Video Observation truck, the mobile command centre, with Huijbers onboard.
As the road veered through the outskirts of Hoorn and curved east, making towards the tip of the Ijsselmeer Peninsular, Dyatlov, who was sitting up front next to the driver, turned and called out.
“Minus five! Weapons check!”
In the back, the assault squad snapped on ammo magazines and cocked and readied their weapons, and slowly the general chatter and banter fell away as the members of the team put on their game faces.
Pieter shared their sudden tension. His chest felt tight and his heart seemed like a slow and sluggish lump of flesh, and when he tried to swallow his spit he found his mouth to be too dry.
Another quick glance through the front windows and he saw the large blue control tower marking the ramp up onto the dam just ahead, and a long line of wind turbines stretched away to the south across the water.
“Operation Clawhammer! Blowtorch!” Dyatlov said into his communication gear. This was the signal to launch the assault.
Pieter felt the BearCat thunder up onto the ramp, its huge tyres singing on the frozen surface of the road, and he desperately held on to his seat as the cabin vibrated violently from side to side.
If the road across had now been cleared of all other traffic, and if they maintained their current speed, then by Pieter’s quick estimation it would take both teams around seven or eight minutes to converge and join at the centre of the dam.
But just as he was thinking this, the driver suddenly swerved hard to the left and swore loudly, drawing Pieter’s attention to the front once more.
“How the fuck did they get here?” Dyatlov shouted, pointing ahead at something beyond the windscreen.
Pieter craned his neck to see what the problem was and then saw to his dismay the pair of TV news crews parked up alongside the road’s outer rail, and the realization of what this meant struck him like a blow to the solar plexus.
The media had been alerted to the raid, which meant all element of surprise was gone.
He knew in an instant who had made the call, who wanted the whole world to witness his moment of glory as he personally made the arrest of Europe’s most wanted criminal.
“Huijbers, that dumb fuck!” Dyatlov snarled, as he too reached the same conclusion.
He struck the dashboard in fury.
“Go around, go around!” he ordered the driver. “Push them off the fucking dam if you have to!”
They veered around the obstacle and then lurched back to the centre of the roadway without hardly dropping their speed, and the driver straightened his course. Snapping a quick look out of the rear windows Pieter saw the vehicles behind form up two-abreast so that the convoy of police vehicles were now in a wedge-shaped formation, the BearCat at the front. With their lights flashing, and the helicopters keeping pace above them, it must have made an awesome sight as they charged over the dam.
They passed underneath a footbridge that spanned the dam, and then the road divided in two for a short stretch with a barrier down the middle, and the convoy of vehicles smoothly separated before merging back together again. The top of the dam flattened out and was much broader from this part onwards, with a sandy beach running alongside on the left and a series of sand dunes on the right. Beyond was the frozen water.
Pieter looked at his wristwatch and found himself counting down the minutes to when they would reach Trintelhaven. There was nothing much for the occupants to say to each other, as each of the passengers knew their precise role and had trained hard for just such situations. Instead, they listened to the low rumble of the engine and the occasional messages coming over the radio. Pieter tried to listen in, but the military-style jargon soon became too confusing to follow. But from what he could hear, the second strike-team was making good progress on the far side. The people holed up at the centre-point of the dam may well be aware that the police were coming, but it was too late to turn back now.
Several minutes later and Dyatlov called back over his shoulder: “Vries, check the top-side.”
Pieter watched as one of the heavily-armoured men jumped to his feet. Reaching up, he grabbed hold of a short ladder that was folded up beneath the truck’s roof and pulled it down, locking the bottom into place in two holes in the floor. Going up two rungs, he flipped open one of the hatches. A blast of cold air blew in and the roaring sound of the engine assaulted Pieter’s ears, and the smell of diesel filled the interior. The heavy-set cop climbed the rest of the way up the ladder and poked his head and shoulders through the opening.
A moment later and he called down: “All clear. Coming up to the turning on the left.”
His words, nearly lost in the maelstrom of sound, were relayed forward by one of his colleagues.
“What do you see ahead? Talk to me!” Dyatlov shouted.
“I have eyes on the other strike-team! Approx. one kilometre and approaching fast!” Vries replied.
On some unspoken signal, every man in the back of the truck suddenly seemed to stiffen with even more apprehension. Weapons were grasped ever tighter, helmets were straightened, and those wearing infra-red goggles lowered them into position - still turned off but poised to be flicked into life once needed. Someone could be heard whispering a quiet litany.
Vries remained upright in the roof hatch. Pieter could just about see him with his hand on the controls of the truck’s smoke-grenade launcher, waiting for the instructions to start lobbing the small tin can-shaped canisters to spread a blanket of thick, cloying smoke all around.
Then he felt the truck swerve
