Low Flight of Angels in the Benelux Read online

  Pulling alongside, he pointed at the water. “Look at that. It’s clean enough to swim in. There aren’t many places I’ve seen in Belgium where the water is that clear and unpolluted. Fall into the Maas and the first thing they do is detox before they even treat your injuries.”

  Just a short time later they ran into the Venn Bahn again, paved at that point. Preston directed Angie to turn left and follow it. Once again, the smooth wandering route carried them through the odd mixture of dilapidated properties and roads mixed with breathtaking beauty in the countryside. In Faymonville they picked up the La Warch again, just a small brook this far upstream. A short time later the Bahn split. The main path went on toward Malmedy.

  “Maybe we can make that on a future ride,” Preston said with a hint of regret. He stood staring for a bit, and then turned toward the left where the path ended abruptly. However, it was clear by the heavily worn track in the grass where they had to go. It took them to a very nice bus station built as an oval off the street. Directly across was a gate that probably hadn’t moved in decades. The signs of unfinished construction didn’t keep them from seeing the route continued through there. A good bit farther on, the route ran through a traffic circle. While visually puzzling, the map book showed it picked up again just a few meters down the road. The view was blocked by a small hill covered thickly with trees.

  For another hour or so they rolled across mostly open land. Here there were small streams, patches of woodland and tiny clusters of building. They crossed back and forth over the main highway several times. Just outside of Saint Vith they passed on their right a large, tightly packed cluster of tiny trailer houses. Preston always found it funny how people would pay premium rates to leave their camp trailers in a place like that only to visit for a week or two out of the year.

  Once inside the town, Preston handed Angie the map again and let her wander the streets as she wished. It meant some fairly sturdy climbing, since the town was centered on top of a high hill. There really wasn’t that much to the place, though it had a surprising number of new buildings and opulent pavement work for pedestrians and bikes. Toward the older center of town, the streets were very narrow. Shops lined the streets at ground level, while most of the buildings had living quarters in two or three upper floors.

  Preston insisted on stopping at a bakery on the main central street. He saw through the window small tart pies with strawberries and white creamy topping. He knew from experience to ask for the ones with a chocolate lining in the shell. They enjoyed this snack sitting on one of the few benches they spotted in front of one building.

  They both admitted to being tired, so after rolling a little farther down the street, they stopped at a sidewalk cafe for tea.

  Chapter 16

  Preston swallowed a sip of tea and put his cup down. “So, Baby. Here’s Saint Vith. Was it what you expected?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s beautiful. It’s one of the showcases of Belgian government subsidies and historical preservation. I still think it’s odd how often we run across ugly sights within meters of so much beauty. It’s part of what makes Belgium what it is.”

  Preston cocked one eyebrow. “I’ve already shared some of my thoughts. Tell me what your experiences have taught you about the Belgians.”

  Angie sipped her tea and thought for a moment. “You know if I say someone is Dutch, you generally know what to expect. If I say Belgian, you have no idea what that means. In a sense, there is no such thing as a Belgian. When you have a government-recognized lobbying group called the Catholic Goat Herders Society, you get a feel for how fragmented they are. And the moment you identify with any of their various interest groups, you become the enemy of everyone who belongs to another. If you tell a Walloon you speak Flemish, you get a dirty look. If you say Dutch, which is almost word for word the same language, they’ll do their best to stumble along in Flemish and treat you as a friend.”

  Preston said, “I remember reading about the Benelux Treaty. It seems the Dutch are all progressives, dragging the Belgians into that and the EU and UN kicking and screaming the whole way. Placing NATO headquarters here seemed almost a means of keeping an eye on them. Meanwhile, the Luxembourgs actually get much the work done behind the scenes, providing tons of lawyers and banking expertise.”

  Nodding, she added, “Do you know the TV tax scheme here in Europe?” Preston nodded once. “Yes, we have vans and cars rolling through the streets picking up on the signals to see who has a TV or radio and charging a small tax accordingly because there are almost no private broadcasters. So in the Netherlands, we have maybe a couple hundred drivers and vehicles with an office staff of maybe forty. In Belgium, they have maybe forty or fifty drivers but it takes over a hundred office staff to process. That’s not efficient.”

  Preston chuckled.

  She went on. “The perfect example of Belgian inconsistency: Ronquières. That inclined slope for the canal. You have seen it? Two giant rolling bathtubs that slide up and down the slope carrying barges from one part of the canal to the other. It replaces over a dozen locks from old times. You see this marvel of engineering, look down at your feet, and a smelly open sewer runs by.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Then Preston said, “The map shows a nice camping ground down the hill from here. I was hoping we might get farther down toward the Luxembourg border on the Our River, but I think we’d better stay here tonight.”

  Angie nodded her agreement.

  “Besides which, I have a feeling we need to check our mail again.” With that, Preston reached into his backpack and pulled out the laptop. There were several good signals, but all were locked. He finally snagged a rather weak signal from an open node that was good enough.

  Angie scooted around to see, and Preston angled it just a bit her way. Then he had her take control and run through the passwords. First was the email account. The third message:

  Lucky find; not a regular tour charter. Camping reservation for you in Echternach, German side on the river, under the name Forttensie. Meet you there tomorrow. Need you to read our position on something in the dropbox.

  She looked over at Preston. “Let me guess: That bus has something to do with our new assignment. And maybe that barge thing, too.”

  Preston shrugged. She turned to log into the dropbox. The script pulled up a PDF and asked if it should be saved. She pressed Y and let it delete everything else. Preston talked her through the PDF displayer.

  “Oh, joy,” he said sarcastically. “It’s in French. That’s your department, Babe.”

  Angie looked at the title, and then read the first paragraph, which looked to Preston like an executive summary. She looked up and said, “Not here. I’ll translate it for you where we won’t be overheard.”

  They loaded up and mounted their bikes. The main route out of Saint Vith ran southeasterly. It was mostly downhill. A short time later they spotted the campground in the valley on the left. They took a narrow lane down to the entrance. The reception office told them there should be space, and pointed out a lane that ran across the creek and out the backside of the campground to another area with an open field. After riding around to see, they realized it was perfect. The field was virtually empty, and they walked through the grass to a far corner.

  After setting up the tent and securing things, Preston suggested Angie read the document while he went to do laundry and scout for dinner. After getting their clothes washed and wrung out, he placed them in a plastic bag. Their tent was close to the fence, which would make a good clothesline. He found someone selling small baskets of local fruit and decided it would be a good supplement to the canned food they had packed just in case. He refilled all their empty water bottles.

  When he got back, Angie was standing along the fence, staring out across the open fields. He started hanging the laundry to dry in the breeze.

  Chapter 17

  Eventually Angie came back to herself and helped him clip the last few items of clothing to the fence.

  “Must
be powerful stuff in that document,” he said sitting down on the edge of the ground cover.

  Angie joined him. She stared down at the ground for a few moments, and then turned to face him. Was that just a hint of tears in her eyes? “I thought I had a pretty rough childhood, but right under my nose was something I only suspected back in Haarlem.”

  She turned her body around and slid herself partway into the tent, leaving her head and shoulders sticking out, and then lay down on her back. From this position she could easily look up into Preston’s face.

  She went on, “In America, you had the Franklin Scandal. Children being prostituted to very powerful people, used sometimes as blackmail, but mostly as some sort of demonic initiation into the power circle. We had the same thing here in Belgium with the Dutroux Affair. There were other cases that got less news coverage, but people who pay attention to such things can always find the stories. Those children were local. Now the big scandal, according to that paper, is children trafficked in from Eastern Europe and Asian countries. While there is large market for them in the general population, many of them are selected for use in the same political stuff as were previously the local children.”

  Preston added, “So far as I know, it’s still pretty much local children in the US. Aside from orphans there are a surprising number of people putting their own kids into the business.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That was the heart of the Dutroux Affair. Some of the important figures were the parents or other relatives of the girls involved. But Europeans have an oddly different attitude about the whole thing. Aside from a select group of middle class, we don’t panic at the idea. Even I don’t as a former victim. No one I knew in the orphanage system was traumatized by the sex. But we weren’t used that heavily. Kids who are forced to work prostitution are really torn down by it. We see the difference most Americans don’t see. I don’t like our Dutch casual attitude about sex, but I also don’t like the crazy ... schizophrenic way Americans handle it.”

  Preston nodded in agreement. “I noticed that the first time I was here in Europe. For the most part, Americans are more corrupt but refuse to admit to themselves. So when they’re bad, their hideous and extreme. Meanwhile, everyone tends to think in simplistic absolutes of black and white.”

  “Exactly,” Angie said. “I hated the abuse, but it didn’t make me crazy. I’m not bitter. I’m angry with the abusers individually, perhaps, but not the whole world – certainly not the system. This paper points out this whole problem of sexual abuse of children is fully part of a much bigger picture of sexual stupidity in general. Pulling it out of that context destroys the one hope we have for helping the victims. It said this is something found in all cultures, but seems far worse in the West. That we make such a big noise of stopping it in absolute terms reflects the very weakness in our culture that makes it happen so much.”

  “So, why do you suppose our boss wanted us to read it?”

  She rolled over onto her side to face him, propping her head up on one elbow. “Apparently he is involved in this research, and may even have written the paper. It was presented at a conference for lawyers, though it sounds more like social research. The paper hints he would like to offer a better private setting for victim recovery, but no European government will give any room. He suggests that is primarily because major figures in all government are involved in the trade, benefit from it in one way or another. The paper mentions various scandals where the cases are bungled in such a way neither the perpetrators nor the investigators get into any real trouble.”

  Preston asked, “So what does he propose to do about it?”

  “Well, you know demand for this trafficking is only going to grow. The ordinary people drawn into this are the ones who get caught and prosecuted. The powerful people will seldom really get prosecuted. So the only way this business shuts down, or even slows, is through independent publication. With the Internet, there are more ways than ever to expose these people. What usually happens at the very least is the victims get to escape as much as they are going to. Whether anyone will demand changes is another matter, but the very best anyone can do really is simply exposing the situation.”

  “Hmm,” Preston said, looking up into the sky. He glanced back at Angie. “So in essence we are asked to be investigative reporters. We travel around and take pictures and catch these goons at their work. We probably won’t really stop anything, but we can make it more difficult and offer some limited rescue for the victims. Meanwhile, we rely on our guardian angels to keep us out of trouble until it’s our time to go. Does that sound about right?”

  She laughed and fell over on her back. Gazing up at him, she said, “I suppose that’s it.”

  “Actually, I rather hope it’s not much more than that. I’m really not that interested in physical confrontation. I don’t mind bashing heads when it’s necessary, but it seems to me that I’ve never really had to do that much fighting. We killed two thugs with just a can of tire foam. That’s too close for my comfort as it is.”

  Angie made an unpleasant face. “Me, too. But I can surely get behind something like this, regardless of the risks. I agree there is little more we can do that would actually help. Making bigger changes would mean more blood than I want to imagine.”

  Later that night, as they lay in each other’s arms, Angie asked, “Preston, did you raise children?”

  “Yep; sired my share. Started early and got them up and almost out of the house before their mother went crazy on me.”

  She sighed. “Okay, because when I was young I had my tubes tied to avoid getting pregnant by those horrible men. I was hardly the only one; it was a common thing. The state recommended it for us and the orphanage could not prevent it, despite their teachings. I thought it was the best thing for me. I would have loved any child, but could not bear the idea of getting pregnant while still just a child myself.”

  She was silent for a moment, and then added, “I suppose that is why I continued working with children as an adult. Funny, but it looks like I still am working with them, though perhaps indirectly now.”

  “If our guessing is correct,” Preston added.

  Chapter 18

  The road south out of Saint Vith ran more or less parallel with an autobahn. However, the autobahn was born aloft on very high pylons, while the lesser route Preston and Angie took dropped rapidly down to the valley floor of the Our River.

  Because of the complexity of the route, Angie wanted Preston to lead. He had the measure of her pace and was able to back off just enough for her to keep up. At the bottom of the valley, there was a sharp right onto a gravel version of the Venn Bahn, very well packed and smooth. Preston intended to follow the river as closely as possible. For the first portion of their journey, that meant mostly following similar tracks and trails, winding over nearly level ground on one bank or the other.

  After a few kilometers of lovely quiet travel through mostly wooded trails, they were forced onto the main road for a short bit. The river made a series of hair pin switch backs and there were twin villages straddling this river. Oddly, the one farther west was on the German side while the eastern was Belgian. Preston slowed, turned and pointed out the campground had first hoped they could reach. It was packed, so they agreed things had turned out for the best. A short way farther, the paved road ran out into gravel track, which in turn became a narrow woodland trail. Still, it was firm and they had no trouble. They simply enjoyed the picturesque rapid switchbacks in the water’s course, stopping now and then to use the camera.

  Eventually they ran onto a substantial highway. “That’s the end of the trails,” Preston yelled back. The highway offered a bike lane, which they shared with a surprising number of hikers and other cyclists. As they rolled along, the wide flat valley turned into a steep draw as the land on either side shot up into hills and mountains.

  At about mid-morning they reached a place called Biven where the river nearly bent back on itself. Only a high ridge prevented it forming an is
land. The ridge jutted northward from the surrounding land, around which the river made this tight loop. Meanwhile, the watercourse was quite a bit wider, almost a narrow lake. Then they saw the dam that made it so. A short time later found them stopping to admire Vianden Castle. They took their time rolling slowly through the area, as both the natural and man-made scenery was thrilling to behold. The camera simply could not capture what they saw. Eventually the Our River joined the Sûre tumbling down out of the central Luxembourg highlands.

  Below Vianden, the river valley broadened again in a few places. At one point they crossed back over to the German side and followed a road that stuck closer to the riverbank. Just before lunch, they rolled into the German side of Echternach. Roughly eighty kilometers in less than six hours; it wasn’t so much the workout of cycling, because they were riding a gentle down slope the whole way. It was the saddle soreness of new bike seats that hadn’t yet been worn into the shapes of their bottoms.

  At the front desk of the campground, the old woman pointed to a spot on the map that she said in German was reserved especially for them. It was right up against the old bridge below the pizzeria they passed on the way to the entrance of the campground. The campground was packed, but when they rode back up to the driveway of the pizza house and were able to find a way down and around to the graveled bank. There were no tents there at the time, so they chose a spot close to the retaining wall.

  By the time their tent and other gear was all set up, the smell of fresh pizza was driving them crazy, so it was back up the same way for lunch.

  When they returned, there were three new tents not far from theirs. The occupants were all younger. After an initial greeting, the youngsters chattered excitedly about their plans for rock climbing in Berdorf, a short distance back upriver. This part of Luxembourg is known as Little Switzerland because of the many high rocky crags. When the kids wandered off for their own lunch, Preston and Angie lay back on the grassy slope near their tent.