They worked feverishly but with precision. Toward dawn they were nearly finished, having posted the camera files and a written summary. It bothered Preston they didn’t catch any images of what was in the vans. Still, all three vans in one night making a trip to the hidden horse barn and back out was obviously not part of their military routine. If it were, the K-Mar would know.
It occurred to Preston that this might interest his friend in the K-Mar. First, he needed to confer with his boss. Waiting until dawn, he took the initiative to make a voice call to Gary. To his surprise, the phone was answered immediately.
“Great stuff!” Gary sounded wide-awake.
Preston decided not to ask why, but got right to the point. “We don’t have direct evidence of the cargo. Would it be against policy to contact someone in the K-Mar with our evidence? If we are on target here, that horse barn is full of young guests who would much rather be enjoying the children’s park right next door.”
“Yes, do that. Tell them you’d like to watch from a distance and see if you can get footage of that, too. I can verify your press credentials if necessary.”
“I’m going to text him right now, so stand by and I’ll let you know.” Preston tapped the disconnect and did what he said.
Interested in catching some child traffickers? I think I’ve found a nest.
While it was quite early, and he only waited an hour or so, it seemed to take forever. Preston’s cellphone rang with a voice call.
The sergeant said with just a trace of humor, “I rather expected you were up to something. Please explain.”
Preston summarized some of what he knew, pretending to be an investigative reporter.
The sergeant responded, “We knew it was around here, but never could catch any movements because we didn’t expect such a carrier. I’ll pick you up in a quarter hour.”
Preston didn’t get a chance to explain that he wouldn’t leave Angie out of it. When the K-Mar van showed up, it took only a little arguing to force the issue. He promised Angie would do only what he told her to, and insisted on keeping her close for her own safety. The sergeant yielded that point and they squeezed into the back seat with a couple of other officers.
On the way, the sergeant spoke into the police radio once or twice, but it was abbreviated jargon Preston couldn’t follow. They rolled to a stop, and then turned onto the bike path just short of their intended target. Everyone dismounted and the sergeant barked a few commands. They had Preston walk them through the woods in the general direction of the place. The three officers spread out a bit as each tested his radio quietly against the vehicle radio where the sergeant remained. It was only a couple hundred meters into the woods. The thick thorny hedge went all the way around. A bit of poking showed there was an old horse fence inside it. The officer got some scratches on the arm for his trouble.
It was quite some ways around the perimeter of this thing. Preston raised his camera overhead a few times to catch images of what was inside the hedge. It was just a standard horse barn with stall openings on both sides. There was a large square barn on one end, but no other buildings. The officer with Preston and Angie said something in his handset neither of them understood. A couple of brief responses came back, then the sergeant’s voice last of all. In the distance, the van’s engine started again and could be heard approaching on the road. In the daylight, they had seen there was a swinging gate set into the hedge on the side facing the road. The driveway zigzagged a bit so that the trees and underbrush hid even the gate from direct view from the road.
The van pulled up to the gate and the horn sounded quite loud in the morning stillness. Preston had moved around to the front, estimating the same location as the night before. He held his camera up just high enough to aim over the hedge, and then had Angie stand behind him to view the display panel as best she could. Someone eventually came out to the gate, but apparently refused to open it. Preston thought he heard the Dutch word for warrant – huiszoekingsbevel – in the discussion. The sergeant shrugged, stepped back to his vehicle and chatted on the radio a bit.
This time Preston understood the gist of the conversation audible over the handset of the officer nearest him. In essence, someone on the other end had gotten a warrant already. It required the presence of some local official to execute the search, so the sergeant simply waited with his officers scattered around the perimeter for about another fifteen minutes. Then Preston could hear the approach of more than one vehicle. It turned out there were two vans loaded with K-Mar and the official. With the official standing at his side, the sergeant shouted through the gate at the building, then produced a pair of bolt cutters and cut the chain. He swung the gate open.
It was almost anti-climactic. Preston re-positioned himself with Angie to record the whole thing. The vans rolled into the parking area in front; the sergeant knocked on the door. No response. Four officers pulled a heavy metal ram from the back of their vehicle. There was one more shout from the sergeant through the door, and then he stepped back.
It took only a few whacks and door gave. Everyone drew their weapons and entered the building. While inside, a bus pulled up on the road out front and blocked the drive. It was escorted by a Rijkspolitie van. These blocked the road and kept back the gathering crowd of onlookers from the campground and passing cyclists and hikers.
The K-Mar escorted out four men and two women, cuffed and placed inside various vans. Next came a line of kids of both sexes and varying ages, seemingly starting around eight years, followed by the local official. It was no real excitement for Angie and Preston, just the tapering end to a long tale. Or rather, it was one of the few good endings to an ongoing horror.
Chapter 32
Preston noticed a local news car showed up just in time to video the departure of everyone but the sergeant and his original crew.
He and Angie did their best to hide from the reporters and their camera. The sergeant seemed to understand and allowed them to get back into the van. They sat in the back and watched until another crew came and relieved him to take them back to their campsite. When the other officers appeared to be staying, Angie and Preston moved to the middle seats for the ride back.
The sergeant said, “We saved this group of children for now. Maybe they will do well. But you know the same madmen who wanted their bodies will simply find more.”
Preston and Angie were silent. Eventually Preston asked, “I don’t suppose you know who the customers are.”
The sergeant smirked. “You don’t want to know.”
“I know the Israelis are in on this, with the possible complicity of the CIA and other national spying agencies,” Preston offered.
The sergeant turned to glance at Preston sitting behind him. “You know too much.” He drove in silence a moment. “Okay, so maybe you could guess for yourself, but most of the trade ends up serving in places where NATO, the UN and EU government bodies meet and their branch offices. Most of these kids would end up near The Hague, but working for different pimps scattered around the area. My understanding is the pimps all work together in a loose confederation. This is a very loose but very large organization. You can guess the rest.”
Again, it was anti-climactic.
As they drew in sight of the Albert Heijn shopping center, the sergeant said as if to no one in particular. “You know, Roermond is a rough city. You have friends here, but your enemies are quite dangerous. It’s probably very wise to pack and ride out away from here right away. Catch the train. Maybe ride it north to Venlo and back over to Eindhoven or something.”
The sergeant had avoided the highway, taking the secondary main routes instead. So driving north of the shopping center, he crossed under the autobahn and kept heading in a northerly direction. A bit short of Swalmen he turned and drove back down into Boukoul. He said something about not even trusting his own fellow officers too awfully much, and then pulled up on a side street where a narrow graveled lane dropped south into the woods. “It’s just a short distance from
here that way.” He pointed down the bike path.
Angie and Preston already knew it came out just a few meters from where they were staying. They understood. This was the nature of their business.
They had already half packed before leaving, so getting things loaded on the bikes took less than an hour. Using it as a hint, they followed the same route back up into Swalmen. A train heading north came along shortly. At Venlo they had to change trains, but almost at random decided to head off into the German side, ending up with one change in Mönchengladbach. With only a short wait, they caught another train south to Herzogenrath. It was a bit longer there, and the ride into Heerlen was actually shorter than the layover.
Preston stayed awake while Angie dozed curled up against him. He couldn’t have slept if he wanted. They were back at Heerlen Central shortly before dinner. Exhausted, they eventually fell into bed rather early and slept late.
While Angie went about making breakfast, Preston passed everything on to his boss. Over the next few days, they processed the footage and photos for cataloging. Eventually Gary sent an email.
One real MP, two impostors, working out of Rheindahlen. Cargo picked up at differing beaches in Düsseldorf parks, moved from the barges by skiff as you suggested. Vans decommissioned now. Final destination you were told is confirmed. Now you know why this is so hard.
Angie and Preston went to the Prancratius Church the next morning for Sunday worship.
Chapter 33
As they were moving out with the line of worshipers when the service ended, a young priest beckoned to them. They turned and followed him to one side of the entryway. He turned to face them with a gentle smile.
Preston was mildly surprised the man chose to address them in a very precise Dutch-flavored English. “Victory is not in what we win, but in our willingness to continue the battle until we die. Please don’t stop what you are doing. You brighten the light this world needs to see.”
With tears in her eyes, Angie stepped forward and took the priest by the hand and kissed it, and then hugged him. Preston settled for a warm handshake. Somehow, it seemed proper to copy the way Hendrik and Gary had done, using both hands.
As they turned to leave, the priest added, “Don’t be strangers. Our angels are all friends, so we should be, as well.”
Indeed, there were angels everywhere, it seemed.
Part 3 – Of Truth and Angels
Chapter 34
Things had slowed down a bit for Preston and Angie.
They were ready for that. It was good for them to have a period of adjustment without crises to force the sudden definition and redefinition of priorities in life. It was time to think about things.
It was also time to consider a regular fitness program. Both of them had been operating on the strength of previous fitness efforts, but as part of their overall search for a norm, a baseline from which to operate, they felt the need to regain some control. But the private gyms were didn’t feel right. Angie was not used to creating her own guided program, having simply taken advantage of whatever training was included in the various sports in which she had participated. So it fell to Preston to come up with something for them until a better idea came along.
In their explorations and photography forays, they had stumbled across several playgrounds with substantial equipment. They concentrated on those closest to the vast Brunssumerheide, creating workout routines on them. While recent years had seen a lot industrial scraping in parts of it of the heath, there was still plenty of greenery left over and Preston’s memory from twenty years earlier served well. He and Angie established a pattern of mixing upper body exercises on the playgrounds with running in the sandy hills of the heath.
The ride out from Heerlen served as a good warm-up, and it was a decent cool down in the ride back. True to his promise, Preston began adding training in Taekwando. Not that he was really up to par himself, but he used what he could remember. Angie picked up on it quickly, despite her misgivings about the idea of violence. They had several weeks to settle into this routine.
That was largely because their hopes for kayaking in Dinant were squelched by an extended summer drought. There were a number of volksmarches that Preston felt were worth the effort simply to see the countryside. It gave them a chance to see places like Malmedy, Namur and Bastogne. Until further notice, they continued avoiding Liege and Masstricht as advised earlier that summer. But in general, while they were culturally more comfortable among the Flemish, it was the accident of history and geography that placed the most beautiful hiking areas in the hands of the Walloons.
During one of their hikes, Angie decided it was a good time to broach a question that had been tumbling around in the back of her mind. “This work we do is personal for me. At the same time, I’m highly motivated to work with you whatever it is you are doing. What drives you in this work?”
Before he could answer, she went on. “I know you just sort of stumbled into it. I was there. But you seemed to have a mission in your soul already, just waiting for a chance to do something like this.”
Preston grinned. “We don’t often talk philosophy and religion because our instincts are the same on most things.”
He slowed a moment to pet a friendly dog someone was leading on the trail. They moved on as the dog decided to stop for a nature call.
“I went to one kind of church or another for most of my life. Even while I was stationed here, I went to chapel pretty regularly. Back when it was called AFCENT Chapel, the staff would organize an annual retreat at Rolduc Abbey down in Kerkrade. One year we had a speaker who was an Iraqi pastor. Hardly anti-American, he was trying to get the message out that Christians in Iraq were badly hurt by American military activities. There was a lot of political posturing about having him speak to American troops so soon after Desert Storm. They wouldn’t let him come to the chapel, so we had to go outside the system to see him, but something told me to ignore all that crap and go.”
He was silent for a few minutes while they took an arduous climb up a hill. At the top, when he caught his breath, Preston continued.
“There weren’t very many of us there at that retreat, so it was very informal and much more interesting. The man spent a lot of time talking about seeing the world from a non-Western viewpoint. One of the first things he said was, ‘Christianity began as an Eastern religion.’ Then he went on to make the point that you can’t really understand the Bible unless you understand that Eastern point of view. Not like Hindu or Shinto Eastern, but Middle Eastern before Islam. So I did some reading. Most of it I didn’t really understand, but some of it must have leaked into my head, because it changed everything.”
They stopped to admire the view from a cliff overlooking a small river valley.
“American religion in particular is deeply afraid of anything outside the tight control of the conscious mind. Almost the entire field of evangelical religion is too cerebral, and that isn’t what we see in the New Testament. That has its place, but it should serve, not lead.”
Angie reminded him, “The Catholic Church has a wide range of different traditions feeding into it. In the positions I held it was easy to see a lot of infighting behind the scenes, but somehow things manage to keep going. Still, there is more than one grand tradition of mysticism. We have eastern churches I heard about only a little, so I can’t pin it down between east and west. Some of it was like psychobabble, but some of it seemed quite powerful.”
Preston nodded. “If you rely too much on emotion, you’re just an animal. If you rely too much on intellect, you’re just a smart animal. If you learn to listen to something higher, you at least have a chance to get involved in what’s really worthwhile. People who deny that there is anything higher can’t even be called Christian in my book. Even after those papers we read and the work we’ve already done, I don’t pretend to understand this business all that well. But inside of me is a very quiet, very hot fire, and it won’t let me ignore this problem. We already know we aren’t saving
more than maybe ten percent of the kids caught in this mess, but there’s something in how we do this, something about simply exposing it, that seems to answer that fiery demand on my soul.”
They agreed it was something strong enough to keep them focused until the next episode.
Chapter 35
In Belgium generally, and Walloon areas in particular, there were numerous little shrines, field crosses, chapels and so forth.
Some were quite artistic. A few were frankly disappointing, consisting of little more than a cheap plastic bottle from which the holy water of places like Banneaux had been already drained. The bottle was molded in the shape of any number of famous statues of Mary. Other shrines were dedicated to various saints. Preston’s interest was measured. The artwork was pretty and he took seriously the strong feelings people attached to such things.
However, it was plain to Angie that Preston shared little of those feelings. She remarked, “Most non-Catholics aren’t really into it, I know. Besides, it’s not all that popular in the Netherlands. Maybe you know we have a large rebel Catholic community based in Utrecht called Old Catholic Church. They don’t venerate Mary or the Pope so much.”
They were walking past a collection of icons planted permanently alongside a narrow lane, representing the Stations of the Cross. Angie had stopped at each, was quiet for a moment, and then moved on. Their conversation came and went between the stations.
Preston noted, “I remember seeing some posters and signs about that in Utrecht. For me, there’s more to it than that. Obviously, Americans have little of the history available here in Europe. Half of these shrines are older than the United States. You’ve still got Roman Roads in places where we’ve marched. On top of that, we have a cultural revulsion to anything that smacks of feudalism and privilege. But in my own case, it’s no longer a simple matter of reflex. I’m not hostile to the veneration of Mary, but I can’t go there because of very strong convictions based on what I’ve learned about spiritual matters.”