Chapter One
Last Summer
The Gothic shadow of the five hundred year-old cathedral stabbed across the Grote Markt, its spire penetrating the window of the Cafe den Engel where Tyler Oakland sat. It was only his second day in Antwerp, but as he sat there sipping a draught bolleke, he felt like a true local having his daily glass.
Lost in the moment, he watched as dozens of flags rippled from the windows of the Renaissance-era City Hall. They folded back on themselves and snapped sharply in the warm gusts that rushed across the facades of the stepped-gable guild houses lining the market square.
In the center, a bronze Silvius Brabo was taking a running start to hurl the hand of a foe into the Scheldt River, four blocks to the west.
Legend had it that a giant named Druon Antigoon would demand a toll from those who wanted to pass through Antwerp on the river. If anyone refused payment, Druon the Giant would cut off the poor soul’s hand and throw it into the river. Some say that the city’s name came from the Dutch hand werpen, meaning roughly ‘to shed, or throw, a hand.’
Brabo, a Roman soldier, gave the giant a taste of his own medicine. For his efforts in ending the giant’s reign of terror, he was now immortalized by the statue in the market square.
Tyler smirked to himself as he thought of the myth, which he’d read on a Wikipedia site on the flight from London, the third and final leg of his long trip from Tucson.
By way of Dulles.
Virginia.
There was nothing cathartic in releasing the dark irony that washed over him. His own father, a giant in Tyler’s youthful eyes, ruled the waters of the far-away Rappahannock from his piece-of-shit fiberglass Sabre Runabout Classic. Funny, though, Tyler could only remember one time when he saw his father actually in the dark-olive water of the Virginia river. He had figuratively and physically tried to lend his son a hand, but he, too, suffered a legend-ending fate as the result.
Forcing his focus back to the present, Tyler rubbed a hand across his short but thick light-brown hair as he turned to his companion and smiled. He and Bethany Andrews had been dating since high school. Both were about to start their senior year at the University of Arizona. Beth was on track to graduate cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and was already being courted by several companies in the Tucson area.
Tyler, without the grades needed to enter the U of A’s architecture program, would most likely squeak by with about a 2.6 in Art History and no real clue as to his future. Except that it would, as far as he was concerned, be with Bethany.
He did have a gift for languages, and even though his maternal grandmother had been born in America, her parents, having fled the rampaging Bolsheviks in the earlier part of the last century, spoke only Russian with her. She, in turn, passed that gift along to Tyler. He was good, she told him. A natural. And she urged him to take advantage of his talent.
Tyler’s mother’s side of the family owned a jewelry store in Tucson, where he’d worked since junior high. When Bethany applied for a part-time summer job between their sophomore and junior high school years, he’d begged his babushka to hire her. Up to that point, the two teenagers had been little more than Facebook friends. After working together that summer, however, their connection strengthened.
While Bethany certainly wasn’t the tall, thin, A-cup type that Madison Avenue arbitrarily deemed beautiful, to classify her looks as average, would not have done her justice either. Her engaging personality magnified her physical attractiveness. Tyler’s previous experience with the opposite sex had been based purely on attraction, and had never passed a few brief flirtations. He had seen deeper into Bethany that summer, and as a result, they had been together ever since.
The couple were in Belgium primarily on business, and were to meet the family’s supplier over on Hoveniersstraat, in the center of the city’s famed diamond district. Mir Jewelry had a longstanding relationship with Antwerp’s Solomon & Sons, Diamond Merchants, and while most of its purchases were made via email and UPS, this was a chance for Tyler to both meet their supplier in person, and to pick up a small portion of Mir’s latest buy.
“Ready?” Tyler set down his empty glass. Standing, he slipped on a lightweight sweater, picked up a backpack at his feet.
Bethany smiled. “Do we get to shop later?”
Tyler laughed and shook his head. She was goading him.
It was sunny and clear outside, in spite of the wind. Tyler pulled out a sightseeing map. “There’s a street market nearby. We could check that out.” He glanced at his Casio Pathfinder, a high school graduation gift from his grandparents. “We still have a couple of hours.”
“Which way?”
“A couple blocks in that direction.” His answer came with forced nonchalance. He was pointing west. “By the river.”
Bethany slowed. “Can I see?” She pulled her dark-blonde hair back with one hand and held the other out for the map.
“Let’s go this way,” she announced after studying the layout for a moment., She took Tyler’s hand and led him off in the opposite direction.
They walked southeast, through the triangular Handschoenmarkt in front of the cathedral. Then towards yet another square.
Europeans sure loved their city squares and plazas, Tyler thought to himself. So quaint and appealing.
As soon as they hit the café-lined Groenplaats, a familiar aroma hit them.
McDonald’s.
“Hold me back!” Tyler teased.
“Oh, God,” groaned Bethany.
They casually blended in with a large group of American tourists holding take-out bags and waiting for the approaching trolley. Travel all the way over here and eat at Mickey D’s. The world had been shrinking even before the internet.
I’m lovin’ it.
By the time the tour group had packed its way aboard, the trolley was full, so they kept walking.
They strolled through the shadow of the 318-foot Art Deco Boerentoren, Europe’s first skyscraper, and turned onto Meir. Antwerp’s main shopping street.
“I could spend all day here,” Bethany noted after half an hour, only two blocks down the third-of-a-mile-long pedestrian-only passage. Thirty minutes later, but before she had bought anything, Tyler promised they could return. They needed to get to their meeting.
At Meir’s end, they angled right onto Leysstraat and then stopped almost immediately at the wide avenue known as Frankrijklei. Diagonally to the left, the stately Baroque Revival Flemish Opera House sat in the shadow of the twenty-five story Hotel de Keyserlei, where they were staying. Just ahead, down the tree-lined cobblestoned boulevard after which the hotel was named, rose the large dome of the city’s main train station.
“Tyler, look!” Bethany took his hand and pulled him towards the front of the station.
A train of elephants seemed frozen in a trek across Queen Astrid Square towards the city zoo entrance, where several families queued. Each of the pachyderms was made from hundreds of small polished pieces of wood.
“How cute! Let’s take a picture!”
Tyler stood in front of the lead statue while Bethany pulled out her iPhone.
He admired the front of the station. It was a massive mishmash of style that was predominantly Renaissance but clearly had Neoclassical elements, a not-insignificant smattering of Baroque, and a host of other, but less obvious influences. The station was a mixture of too many building styles to define, yet its architectural muttness made it all the more appealing.
Backtracking a bit, Tyler and Bethany headed down Pelikaanstraat. Stone arches supported a three-story carmine steel and glass facade on the west side of the station. It was part of the enclosed platform portion of Antwerpen-Centraal that extended more than six hundred feet south from the main building. Within each arch was a store, nearly every one dealing in diamonds. Even more jewelers lined the opposite side of the street.
They crossed the street and headed up Vestingstraat. More diamond and jewelry stores lined either side. Two lefts, and they were in the epicenter of the worldwide diamond industry. Some 12,000 artisans cut and polished most of the world’s rough diamonds here, and roughly $16 billion in polished stones passed through the district every year.
Their destination was at the southern end of the street.
Tyler and Bethany exchanged warm hugs with the Solomons. After a welcome drink and twenty minutes of friendly chitchat, they spent another hour examining their new product, then bid them adieu.
Heading back up Hoveniersstraat, they retraced their steps back to Antwerp-Central. Tyler wanted to get back to their hotel and lock up the $50,000 worth of diamonds that now sat in the backpack slung across his back. The store had enjoyed a sudden and unexpected rush that nearly depleted their inventory, so Tyler and Bethany were bringing back just enough to keep them supplied until the rest of the $450,000 worth of diamonds they purchased could be shipped to Tucson.
At the corner of Rijfstraat and Vestingstraat, Tyler stopped and pulled out the map. Realizing that their earlier route had been a bit circuitous, he turned left. Neither he nor Bethany saw the disheveled young man in the hooded sweatshirt following them.
Towards the end of the street stood a vacant store. Retractable metal gates covered two broken windows. One at the entryway was partially open. Trash was strewn about the interior.
Just as Tyler and Bethany drew abreast of the abandoned store, the young man caught up with them, pushed a knife against Tyler’s stomach, and forced him inside.
His girlfriend cried out.
“Stay there!” Tyler ordered.
Bethany looked around for help, but saw nothing promising. A second later, hearing sounds of a scuffle, she followed him in.
The store was about twenty feet wide and thirty feet deep. Concrete floor. Most of it in shadow.
Almost immediately, before her eyes could adjust, Bethany tripped over something and fell to the concrete floor. As she stood, she could tell what - or who - it was.
“Tyler!”
Immediately, she dropped to her knees. Tyler’s eyes were closed. His shirt darkened with blood.
“Help! she screamed.
Near one of the windows, the young man pulled a small leather pouch, about the size of a paperback, from Tyler’s backpack. The wallet containing the diamonds.
He unzipped it. Inside, were some two dozen small folded-paper envelopes. Snatching one, he unfolded it and peered greedily inside. It contained a single small diamond.
Bethany screamed for help again.
The young man wiped his scruffy mouth with the back of his hand and quickly stashed the wallet.
Sharp footsteps echoed. Stiletto heels snapped into the dark space.
Bethany looked up. A woman in silhouette. Thin, toned legs ran up under a short skirt. Face featureless. Her right hand and forearm were hidden inside a short lightweight coat.
“Rot op!” The thief said as he took a step forward.
“Tsk, tsk,” she disapproved, then extended her right arm.
A loud cough, a flash, and the young man suddenly stopped. A cloud of brick dust sneezed from the wall behind him. His body teetered for a moment in death until gravity took over and it fell. His head made a sickening crunch against the concrete. Blood streamed from the hole in his forehead and thickened in the dust and dirt on the floor.
“Oh God! Help me, please!”
The woman stepped over to the dead man and retrieved the wallet.
Tyler had a vague sense that something had gone terribly wrong. He thought he heard Bethany cry out, but she seemed so distant. Then he heard a muffled bark. His mind struggled to remain lucid. To fight off the haze that was closing in.
Gunshot. Suppressed.
Something fell against him. He opened his eyes. The crystal on his Casio was cracked. How did that happen?
A sense of panic erupted inside.
Bethany lay next to him.
He tried to speak but nothing came out.
Her eyes bored into him. Unblinking.
The mysterious woman stashed her weapon. A Russian ‘Rook’ 9-millimeter. Then she pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
In the flash of the lighter, Tyler could see her face. Thin. Anchored by a slash of a mouth.
“Tupaya amerikanskaya dura, pomogai sebe sama!”
And with that, Tyler’s world went black.
