May 23, 2013

Outside the window on the second story of the Navy Officer’s Mess, a tree with dark branches and new foliage was moving in the wind.

I sat with my back to the room, and listened to the sounds of the lunch crowd behind me and in the rooms below.

Johan and I had made our introductions: yesterday on the phone when we agreed on the time and place, and now, shaking hands, commenting on the weather, and finding a quiet corner to talk.

He was a big man with broad, expansive movements and an equally expressive apple shaped face. I still wasn’t certain how much I would tell him. How much can you convey in a single meeting? Also, I’d grown accustomed to secrecy, and it was difficult to parse out the quanta of truth.

“We received your message,” he told me. “Thank you for sending it. Please forgive my English. I do not use it very often.”

“Het is geen probleem,” I replied. The words were thick on my tongue. “Omdat Ik niet goede Nederlands spreekt. Your English is better than my Dutch.”

His eyes widened slightly in surprise. Every child in the Netherlands is taught English so there is rarely a need for foreigners to learn the vocabulary of this small European nation. It was a private language, therefore, and I’d noticed a peculiar exclusivity when I used it. Hand stamp to a special club. My knowledge of Dutch was not good, but the pronunciation was passable. Johan got the message: I spoke the language; I was an invited guest on their military base. I was an insider.

He looked nothing like the sort of person I would have expected for this. More sympathetic bartender than military investigator, his belly tugged at the buttons of his uniform. He needed a shave. My instinct was to like him but I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was the cover. Whose side was he on?

Johan had a loose leaf notebook, and he shuffled through the pages with their blotchy notes.

“You said that your privacy was violated by two of our officers,” he continued. “We were very surprised to receive this. Can you tell me more?”

 I have always been uncomfortable discussing personal matters with people. I can scan the emotions and identify the motivations of others, but find my own emotions deeply private and difficult to express. I can rarely meet someone’s eyes when I talk of personal matters.

I began with the most sterile facts.

“I’m a civilian researcher for the U.S. Navy,” I said. “I work on an international mission called Africa Partnership Station - APS. Your Navy is also involved in this mission. I’ve been working with your military. I just made a presentation at your planning conference for African Winds. This is why I’m here on your base now – and why I was late to meet you. I was giving a presentation to a group of African and American and British and Dutch navy and marine corps officers.”

I described the mission. This was comfortable territory for me. I’d been involved in Africa since 2009 when the U.S. sent a 500-person ship down the west coast of Africa, stopping off in Senegal, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Gabon. Since then, I’d assessed and supported the mission. My involvement and expertise had become attractive to the European participants and, by invitation, I traveled to different naval bases to bring these European navies up to speed. As part of my job, I’d supported the Italian and Royal Danish navies, and the Royal Netherlands Navy.

“The privacy violation was not related to my job,” I said. “But my job meant that I was working on the U.S. Naval base in Naples Italy. That was where I met covert agents from your military intelligence service, MIVD.  I should tell you that I consider these events to be personal, and not work related. There were considerable personal implications for me.”

It was so sanitized this way. Clean. I was pleased that I had tidied it up neatly.

“Can you describe what happened?” he asked.

I paused for a moment, weighing my words. My mind kept returning to a single thought: Sjors in the cold entrance of the red brick train station last night, dark blue scarf at his neck, his head bare, and the wind blowing an icy rain outside behind him. I thought of what he told me:  “You never gave my name. You never gave them anything to use against me.”

There was a strange curiosity in his dark demeanor when he spoke these words as though he could not understand why I would still protect him after everything that had passed between us. What Sjors did not know, what this investigator would not know, was that I protected him because I still loved Sjors more than my own soul. I could not bear to let them harm him. I would give them Mac. I would give Johan what he needed to investigate. But I would not give him Sjors. Even if it continued to cost me.

“It started in October 2010,” I told Johan.