They Disappeared

38

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Aleena Visser was lying to herself.

With her passport and ticket clamped in her straight white teeth she locked the door to her apartment.

She adjusted her shoulder bag, hoisted her small wheeled suitcase, with its vibrant zebra pattern, and hurried down the stairs to the street in time to board the tram as it lumbered through the bohemian district of de Pijp.

She tried to deflect the worry that was nagging her.

Looking out the window at the long, narrow streets, she was glad she’d moved from the crowded, expensive insanity of Jordaan. In de Pijp she was more at home with artists and students. She had a grand apartment. She could breathe here and it was better for her work as a travel writer for an online magazine.

That’s what I am, she kept assuring herself, a travel writer and nothing else. Sometimes I help Joost, that’s all I do.

Earlier in the day, Joost Smit, her editor, had summoned her into his glass-walled office.

“I have an urgent assignment and you’re just the person to do it for us.” He printed off a sheet, gave it to her and looked up over his bifocals. “We’ve landed major advertising for an American hotel and restaurant chain and we need a special edition on New York. We’re bumping up the deadline, so you leave today for a week in Manhattan.”

“Today?” Aleena’s bracelets jingled as she swept back her blond hair.

“We’ve booked you on a flight from London that gets into Newark in the morning, New York time. Here’s your ticket and a cash advance. Use the company card for other expenses.”

“What do you need for the edition?”

“A feature on Central Park, the status of Ground Zero and whatever else you like. And-” Joost reached into his valise and put a small wooden box on his desk “-would you please deliver this for me in Manhattan?”

It was a ballerina music box.

“Who’s it for?”

“My niece. It was handmade in Zurich and belonged to my great-grandmother. I don’t want to risk shipping it because it has tremendous sentimental value.” Joost removed his glasses, then lowered his voice. “It’s very important that it be handled with the utmost care and is delivered successfully. You are the only person I can trust to do this, Aleena. Will you do it?”

She shifted her attention from him, glanced around the office, then shifted it back and in a near-whisper said, “No.”

“Aleena, it is imperative this be delivered. We’ll triple the payment.”

“I don’t care, I can’t do this anymore.”

“Last one, I promise.”

“That’s what you said the last time.”

Joost let the warmth in his face melt as he squinted through the glass toward Aleena’s desk and the framed photo of her with her family.

“Tell me, how are your mother, your sister and her sweet children?”

“Don’t do this.”

“If there were another option, I would use it but we don’t have time.”

Aleena swallowed her tears and nodded.

“Good,” Joost said. “I’ll call you with instructions later.”

That’s how it went with Joost: an assignment somewhere around the globe and a delivery.

Aleena left the tram and got on the subway. It whisked her to Schiphol Airport where she checked in and passed through security screening smoothly. She bought an herbal tea, settled in at preboarding, then texted Joost.

Seconds later, he called.

“Do not write any of this down. You are to make no record of what I am going to tell you, and memorize your emergency contact number, is that understood?”

“I know how it works.”

Not long after Joost gave Aleena details on delivery of the music box in New York, she boarded. And as her jet climbed over the North Sea, she resumed trying to convince herself she was a travel writer doing a small favor for a friend, the last favor.

The first leg of her trip took her to London where she needed to change planes at Gatwick for a direct flight to Newark, New Jersey.

As Aleena’s bags rolled along the conveyor and into the X-ray scanner a stern-faced female security agent requested her passport and boarding pass. The agent, who had the shape of a male bodybuilder, eyed her with a coolness that bordered contempt.

At twenty-seven, Aleena was beautiful. With her blond hair, ice-blue eyes, some tattoos and a pierced left nostril with a diamond, she embodied a free spirit.

Satisfied that Aleena matched her passport photo and everything was in order, the agent returned the documents and Aleena passed through security. As people located their seats on the jet, Aleena assured herself she was not doing anything wrong by helping Joost.

Just believe what he told you.

As the 747 lifted off and greater London unfurled below, Aleena’s stomach knotted. She pressed her head back into her seat, blinked at the ceiling.

I can’t keep doing this.

Aleena wrestled with all of her rationalizations until her conscience forced her to admit the truth. She was not a travel writer. Not really. That life ended long ago.

Aleena Visser was a professional smuggler.

I admit it.

I am an international criminal.

How did this happen to me?

She’d met Joost Smit at a conference for journalists in Madrid, oh, so many years ago. He was a seasoned reporter who’d worked for Le Monde, Reuters, Interfax and AFP. He was retiring to launch a travel magazine and offered Aleena a position that paid her double what she was earning as a general assignment newspaper reporter in Rotterdam.

Joost had huge financial backing and incredible contacts around the world. In a few short years, Aleena had set foot in most every country on earth, writing wonderful travel features and loving her life.

While on assignment it was common for her to deliver an item or two to one of Joost’s ex-news pals, an ex-cop, diplomat, professor or some all-around shadowy figure. If the contact failed to show, she called the emergency number she’d memorized. Aleena was impressed by how many people Joost knew in exotic places from his journalist days. Joost paid her well for the favors. Of course, she’d heard the nasty rumors and jokes in the office about Joost’s mysterious past-that he was connected to the underworld. It gave rise to her own suspicions in the wake of some of her deliveries, but she’d always dismissed them. She was seeing the world, writing about it, making incredible money and having fun.

Until a recent trip to Turkey.

She was writing about Istanbul where she delivered a watch to Yuri, a former reporter with Interfax, the Russian wire service.

“And how is Joost, my old spy friend?”

After reading the shock on Aleena’s face, Yuri, who had obviously been drinking but was not that drunk, took her to a quiet cafe and, while hitting on her, confidentially told her, “reporter to reporter,” that Joost had once worked for Russian intelligence. All of Joost’s spy world friends knew that his magazine was a front for several global smuggling networks, specializing in small, critical items.

“For all you know-” Yuri tapped the watch Aleena had given him before laughing “-you may have just delivered the key to unleashing a biological weapon, or nuclear device.”

Yuri’s laughter haunted Aleena.

Later, when she confronted Joost, he let a long disturbing silence pass.

“Yuri’s weakness will get him killed one day,” Joost said before he confirmed everything: he was a smuggler. Then, very pleasantly, he asked about Aleena’s mother, her father, her older sister and her three little nephews, stating specific addresses and personal information that chilled Aleena.

Joost then subtly suggested how Aleena was implicated and it would be better for her to keep secret things secret. He knew about her bank account in Luxembourg, where she’d been hiding the large payments he’d given her for making deliveries.

The truth was sickening, overwhelming.

She wanted to get out of this business, get away from Joost.

But how?

Now, somewhere over the Irish Sea, Aleena confronted her guilt.

All those items I delivered…what were they? Who was at the other end of the emergency contact numbers? Did anyone ever die because of me? I can’t keep doing this…I just can’t….

She took the ballerina music box from her bag, looked at it. There was nothing unusual about it. What could it be? She opened it and played the most beautiful version of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

Tears streamed down Aleena’s face.

Will I have blood on my hands?