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“But why? It's fantastic.”

“His patron — the captain in the painting — didn't like the attention Rembrandt paid to the other figures.” Jeff turned to the guard. “I hope this is well protected.”

“Ja, mijnheer. Anyone who tries to steal anything from this museum would have to get by electronic beams, security cameras, and, at night, two guards with patrol dogs.”

Jeff smiled easily. “I guess this painting is going to stay here forever.”

Late that afternoon the exchange was reported to Van Duren. “The Night Watch!” he exclaimed. “Alstublieft, impossible!”

Daniel Cooper merely blinked at him with his wild, myopic eyes.

At the Amsterdam Convention Center, there was a meeting of philatelists, and Tracy and Jeff were among the first to arrive. The hall was heavily guarded, for many of the stamps were priceless. Cooper and a Dutch detective watched as the two visitors wandered through the rare-stamp collection. Tracy and Jeff paused in front of the British Guiana, an unattractive magenta, six-sided stamp.

“What an ugly stamp,” Tracy observed.

“Don't knock it, darling. It's the only stamp of its kind in the world.”

“What's it worth?”

“One million dollars.”

The attendant nodded. “That is correct, sir. Most people would have no idea, just looking at it. But I see that you, sir, love these stamps, as I do. The history of the world is in them.”

Tracy and Jeff moved on to the next case and looked at an Inverted Jenny stamp that portrayed an airplane flying upside down.

“That's an interesting one,” Tracy said.

The attendant guarding the stamp case said, “It's worth —”

“Seventy-five thousand dollars,” Jeff remarked.

“Yes, sir. Exactly.”

They moved on to a Hawaiian Missionary two-cent blue.

“That's worth a quarter of a million dollars,” Jeff told Tracy.

Cooper was following closely behind them now, mingling with the crowd.

Jeff pointed to another stamp. “Here's a rare one. The one-pence Mauritius post office. Instead of 'postpaid,' some daydreaming engraver printed 'post office.' It's worth a lot of pence today.”

“They all seem so small and vulnerable,” Tracy said, “and so easy to walk away with.”

The guard at the counter smiled. “A thief wouldn't get very far, miss. The cases are all electronically wired, and armed guards patrol the convention center day and night.”

“That's a great relief,” Jeff said earnestly. “One can't be too careful these days, can one?”

That afternoon Daniel Cooper and Inspector Joop van Duren called on Chief Commissioner Willems together. Van Duren placed the surveillance reports on the commissioner's desk and waited.

“There's nothing definite here,” the chief commissioner finally said, “but I'll admit that your suspects seem to be sniffing around some very lucrative targets. All right, Inspector. Go ahead. You have official permission to place listening devices in their hotel rooms.”

Daniel Cooper was elated. There would be no more privacy for Tracy Whitney. From this point on, he would know everything she was thinking, saying, and doing. He thought about Tracy and Jeff together in bed, and remembered the feel of Tracy's underwear against his cheek. So soft, so sweet-smelling.

That afternoon he went to church.

When Tracy and Jeff left the hotel for dinner that evening, a team of police technicians went to work, planting tiny wireless transmitters in Tracy's and Jeff's suites, concealing them behind pictures, in lamps, and under bedside tables.

Inspector Joop van Duren had commandeered the suite on the floor directly above, and there a technician installed a radio receiver with an antenna and plugged in a recorder.

“It's voice activated,” the technician explained. “No one has to be here to monitor it. When someone speaks, it wi automatically begin to record.”

But Daniel Cooper wanted to be there. He had to be then It was God's will.

Chapter 33

Early the following morning Daniel Cooper, Inspector Joop van Duren, and his young assistant, Detective Constable Witkamp, were in the upstairs suite listening to the conversation below.

“More coffee?” Jeff's voice.

“No, thank you, darling.” Tracy's voice. “Try this cheese that room service sent up. It's really wonderful.”

A short silence. “Mmmm. Delicious. What would you like to do today, Tracy? We could take a drive to Rotterdam.”

“Why don't we just stay in and relax?”

“Sounds good.”

Daniel Cooper knew what they meant by “relax,” and his mouth tightened.

“The queen is dedicating a new home for orphans.”

“Nice. I think the Dutch are the most hospitable, generous people in the world. They're iconoclasts. They hate rules and regulations.”

A laugh. “Of course. That's why we both like them so much.”

Ordinary morning conversation between lovers. They're so free and easy with each other, Cooper thought. But how she would pay!

“Speaking of generous” — Jeff's voice — “guess who's staying at this hotel? The elusive Maximilian Pierpont. I missed him on the QE Two.”

“And I missed him on the Orient Express.”

“He's probably here to rape another company. Now that we've found him again, Tracy, we really should do something about him. I mean, as long as he's in the neighborhood…”

Tracy's laughter. “I couldn't agree more, darling.”

“I understand our friend is in the habit of carrying priceless artifacts with him. I have an idea that —”

Another voice, female. “Dag, mijnheer, dag, mevrouw. Would you care for your room to be made up now?”

Van Duren turned to Detective Constable Witkamp. “I want a surveillance team on Maximilian Pierpont. The moment Whitney or Stevens makes any kind of contact with him, I want to know it.”

Inspector van Duren was reporting to Chief Commissioner Toon Willems.

“They could be after any number of targets, Chief Commissioner. They're showing a great deal of interest in a wealthy American here named Maximilian Pierpont, they attended the philatelist convention, they visited the Lucullan diamond at the Nederlands Diamond-Cutting Factory, and spent two hours at The Night Watch —”

“Een diefstal van de Nachtwacht? Nee! Impossible!”

The chief commissioner sat back in his chair and wondered whether he was recklessly wasting valuable time and manpower. There was too much speculation and not enough facts. “So at the moment you have no idea what their target is.”

“No, Chief Commissioner. I'm not certain they themselves have decided. But the moment they do, they will inform us.”

Willems frowned. “Inform you?”

“The bugs,” Van Duren explained. “They have no idea they are being bugged.”

The breakthrough for the police came at 9:00 A.M. the following morning. Tracy and Jeff were finishing breakfast in Tracy's suite. At the listening post upstairs were Daniel Cooper, Inspector Joop van Duren, and Detective Constable Witkamp. They heard the sound of coffee being poured.

“Here's an interesting item, Tracy. Our friend was right. Listen to this: 'Amro Bank is shipping five million dollars in gold bullion to the Dutch West Indies.' ”

In the suite on the floor above, Detective Constable Witkamp said, “There's no way —”

“Shh!”

They listened.

“I wonder how much five million dollars in gold would weigh?” Tracy's voice.

“I can tell you exactly, my darling. One thousand six hundred seventy-two pounds, about sixty-seven gold bars. The wonderful thing about gold is that it's so beautifully anonymous. You melt it down and it could belong to anybody. Of course, it wouldn't be easy to get those bars out of Holland.”

“Even if we could, how would we get hold of them in the first place? Just walk into the bank and pick them up?”

“Something like that.”

“You're joking.”

“I never joke about that kind of money. Why don't we just stroll by the Amro Bank, Tracy, and have a little look?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I'll tell you all about it on the way.”

There was the sound of a door closing, and the voices ended.

Inspector van Duren was fiercely twisting his mustache. “Nee! There is no way they could get their hands on that gold. I, myself, approved those security arrangements.”

Daniel Cooper announced flatly, “If there's a flaw in the bank's security system, Tracy Whitney will find it.”

It was all Inspector van Duren could do to control his hair-trigger temper. The odd-looking American had been an abomination ever since his arrival. It was his God-given sense of superiority that was so difficult to tolerate. But Inspector van Duren was a policeman first and last; and he had been ordered to cooperate with the weird little man.

The inspector turned to Witkamp. “I want you to increase the surveillance unit. Immediately. I want every contact photographed and questioned. Clear?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“And very discreetly, mind you. They must not know they are being watched.”

“Yes, Inspector.”

Van Duren looked at Cooper. “There. Does that make you feel better?”

Cooper did not bother to reply.

During the next five days Tracy and Jeff kept Inspector van Duren's men busy, and Daniel Cooper carefully examined all the daily reports. At night, when the other detectives left the listening post, Cooper lingered. He listened for the sounds of lovemaking that he knew was going on below. He could hear nothing, but in his mind Tracy was moaning, “Oh, yes, darling, yes, yes. Oh, God, I can't stand it… it's so wonderful…. Now, oh, now..”

Then the long, shuddering sigh and the soft, velvety silence. And it was all for him.

Soon you'll belong to me, Cooper thought. No one else will have you.

During the day, Tracy and Jeff went their separate ways, and wherever they went they were followed. Jeff visited a printing shop near Leidseplein, and two detectives watched from the street as he held an earnest conversation with the printer. When Jeff left, one of the detectives followed him. The other went into the shop and showed the printer his plastic-coated police identity card with the official stamp, photograph, and the diagonal red, white, and blue stripes.

“The man who just left here. What did he want?”

“He's run out of business cards. He wants me to print some more for him.”

“Let me see.”

The printer showed him a handwritten form:

Amsterdam Security Services

Cornelius Wilson, Chief Investigator

The following day Constable First-Class Fien Hauer waited outside a pet shop on Leidseplein as Tracy went in. When she emerged fifteen minutes later, Fien Hauer entered the shop and showed her identification.

“That lady who just left, what did she want?”

“She purchased a bowl of goldfish, two lovebirds, a canary, and a pigeon.”

A strange combination. “A pigeon, you said? You mean an ordinary pigeon?”

“Yes, but no pet store stocks them. I told her we would have to locate one for her.”

“Where are you sending these pets?”

“To her hotel, the Amstel.”

On the other side of town, Jeff was speaking to the vice-president of the Amro Bank. They were closeted together for thirty minutes, and when Jeff left the bank, a detective went into the manager's office.

“The man who just walked out. Please tell me why he was here.”

“Mr. Wilson? He's chief investigator for the security company our bank uses. They're revising the security system.”

“Did he ask you to discuss the present security arrangements with him?”

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he did.”

“And you told him?”

“Of course. But naturally I first took the precaution of telephoning to make sure his credentials were in order.”

“Whom did you telephone?”

“The security service — the number was printed on his identification card.”

At 3:00 that afternoon an armored truck pulled up outside the Amro Bank. From across the street, Jeff snapped a picture of the truck, while in a doorway a few yards away a detective photographed Jeff.

At police headquarters at Elandsgracht Inspector van Duren was spreading out the rapidly accumulating evidence on the desk of Chief Commissioner Toon Willems.

“What does all this signify?” the chief commissioner asked in his dry, thin voice.

Daniel Cooper spoke. “I'll tell you what she's planning.” His voice was heavy with conviction. “She's planning to hijack the gold shipment.”

They were all staring at him.

Commissioner Willems said, “And I suppose you know how she intends to accomplish this miracle?”

“Yes.” He knew something they did not know. He knew Tracy Whitney's heart and soul and mind. He had put himself inside her, so that he could think like her, plan like her… and anticipate her every move.

“By using a fake security truck and getting to the bank before the real truck, and driving off with the bullion.”

“That sounds rather farfetched, Mr. Cooper.”

Inspector van Duren broke in. “I don't know what their scheme is, but they are planning something, Chief Commissioner. We have their voices on tape.”

Daniel Cooper remembered the other sounds he had imagined: the night whispers, the cries and moans. She was behaving like a bitch in heat. Well, where he would put her, no man would ever touch her again.

The inspector was saying, “They learned the security routine of the bank. They know what time the armored truck makes its pickup and —”

The chief commissioner was studying the report in front of him. “Lovebirds, a pigeon, goldfish, a canary — do you think any of this nonsense has something to do with the robbery?”

“No,” Van Duren said.

“Yes,” Cooper said.

Constable First-Class Fien Hauer, dressed in an aqua polyester slack suit, trailed Tracy Whitney down Prinsengracht, across the Magere Bridge, and when Tracy reached the other side of the canal, Fien Hauer looked on in frustration as Tracy stepped into a public telephone booth and spoke into the phone for five minutes. The constable would have been just as unenlightened if she could have heard the conversation.

Gunther Hartog, in London, was saying, “We can depend on Margo, but she'll need time — at least two more weeks.” He listened a moment. “I understand. When everything is ready, I will get in touch with you. Be careful. And give my regards to Jeff.”

Tracy replaced the receiver and stepped out of the booth. She gave a friendly nod to the woman in the aqua pantsuit who stood waiting to use the telephone.

At 11:00 the following morning a detective reported to Inspector van Duren, “I'm at the Wolters Truck Rental Company, Inspector. Jeff Stevens has just rented a truck from them.”

“What kind of truck?”

“A service truck, Inspector.”

“Get the dimensions. I'll hold on.”

A few minutes later the detective was back on the phone. “I have them. The truck is —”