A/N: Forget things like visums and stuff that they should have arranged. Let's assume I just didn't write it down but it did happen, okay? Oh, and I'm sorry for some of the foul words I used. Some of it is just part of the daily vocabulary of some people, so…

The Dutch Connection: Act III

The airport was no different of any other airport in the world. Grey tiled floors, white walls, customs, security – the whole chabang. While passing customs and walking through some orange-y colored slide doors, Horatio checked carefully if Marieke was still okay. He felt really sorry for this poor girl.

All that was left of the fifteen-year-old was this girl sitting in the room that was normally used for interrogations. The officer in charge of taking care of her told Horatio that she had completely cracked down. Relief, Horatio hoped, because otherwise this girl would have a trauma for the rest of her life. He quietly opened the door to the room and sat down next to Marieke.
"Hey" he said softly. Marieke looked up.
"Hey" she whispered.
"Wanna tell me what's up?" Horatio asked. Marieke buried her face in her arms.
"I feel so awful. How could Antonio do that to me? Why? Why? And why, for god's sake, why did they take me all the way to here?"
"Sssh. It's okay. You're safe now."
"I know I'm safe!" Marieke snapped. Then she softened again. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's just – I feel so betrayed! He was a friend of my dad, a friend of mine, and he did such thing. It's so hard… and now I'm supposed to go back but I don't know how because I'm not allowed to fly by myself yet, because I'm not yet sixteen… And I'm told that my dad's okay but I don't know that for sure and what if they do something to him now?"
Horatio grabbed the girl's hand. "The police are protecting him."
A short and snappy, rather disapproving laugh came from Marieke's mouth. "The police. Do you have any idea of the incompetence of the Dutch police? I mean, they suck. Really suck. All they can do is write parking tickets all day long."
Horatio's cell phone rang. Horatio looked at Marieke and quickly said 'excuse me' before walking out of the room.
Marieke looked at the Lieutenant. He was trying to help her, but didn't he see that that was impossible? Was it really that hard to see that there was hardly any way out? With her finger she drew small figures on the glass surface of the table. These figures only existed for half a second before they evaporated. How come that everything she worked so hard for, school, friends, her hobbies, all seemed so meaningless now?
Horatio re-entered the room and looked at the girl. "Marieke? I'll fly you home."

The mass of people waiting for relatives, friends or god knows what didn't pay any attention to the red-haired lieutenant and the fifteen-year-old. Only a small group of people did – a tall man with grey streaks in his brownish hair, to whom Marieke immediately ran and three others. One of the others was a man who identified himself as 'Detective Johan Verkerk, Police Rotterdam-Rijnmond'. Horatio shook the detective's hands and then nodded at Marieke and her father.
"What do I have to know?"
The detective shooed the two other men, security guards, away and looked at Horatio.
"Mr. Caine" – Horatio didn't have any jurisdiction here – "First we want to get the De Vries family safe at home and then I could really use your help with this. If you'd like to."
Horatio nodded. "I'd like to."

Detective Verkerk belonged to a special police unit that was here called 'Eenheid Geoorganiseerde Misdaad' – The Organized Crime Unit. He told Horatio that there were hardly people who knew that the Calabrese mafia – 'Ndrangheta – was active in the port of Rotterdam. Actually, only those who walked around with their eyes open while working in some of the companies in the port could guess. But that it also actually took only someone with half a brain to figure out that something was wrong there. After all, it was commonly known that the 'Ndrangheta imported 30 of it's cocaine into Europe via Rotterdam. And if this many shipments of cocaine were intercepted per year, the 'Ndragheta must surely have some people hanging around there. Amsterdam was a well-known city for it's mafia-influence, but the port of Rotterdam? That was the very last place to pop into people's minds when thinking about organized crime in the Netherlands.

Horatio listened carefully to Verkerk's words. The weren't many things he truly, sincerely hated, but one of the things he hated sincerely was drugs. He lost his brother because of it. He had seen so many people destroy themselves with it. And by every word of Verkerk, Horatio became more and more determined to catch some of the people involved.

"Good" Verkerk concluded eventually. "Mr. Caine… I'd like you to meet my colleague, Jantine Ras. She has been tracking down shipments for over five years now and she has discovered quite an impressive pattern. You see, the cocaine is manufactured in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela." Verkerk pointed at a large computer monitor hanging on a wall, which displayed a map of the world with lots and lots of red lines in it. "Then this coke is sometimes shipped to Florida for some of the coke dealers there and most of the times, the coke is being repacked and then it's off to Europe. Spain, mainly, Italy, for a bit, France, Belgium, and of course the port of Rotterdam. 'Ndrangheta often sends someone to go on these ships to those South-American countries and to Florida to make sure everything goes all right. And there's the thing – we're thinking that 'Ndrangheta is very much involved in the shipping companies here. We have witnesses telling us that some things run too smooth there or that the rituals are strange, but it's pretty hard to arrest someone on weird habits, isn't it?"
Horatio could only nod and agree. He then looked at Jantine. "Miss Ras, the shipment that involved Marieke de Vries's abduction, what was the route?"
Jantine smiled and after a few taps on the keyboard, one of the lines to Florida turned green.
"This one. Marieke was taken by someone we only know as Antonio. He seems to work for the same company as the girl's father, but there's no track of him there. No record." Jantine said in a soft and sweet voice that one wouldn't expect from someone working for an Organized Crime Unit.
Horatio nodded.
"Let's go, I want to show you something else" Verkerk said. Horatio quietly followed Johan Verkerk to a huge archive that contained thousands and thousands of files, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, cassette tapes, everything. Verkerk grabbed a cassette tape and walked over to a small taperecorder. A noise filled the archives and Horatio listened closely to hear what was on the tape. After a minute, the noise disappeared almost entirely and a clear voice was audible.

"Tony, it's me"
"Sfortunato, Seppe, why are you calling me?"
"Listen, I need you to guide to our land of palms and swamps. I got a few boxes of good vino for you."
"Shut up. I don't guide no vino and I certainly don't want your vino. You can shove it up your ass."
"Tony, it's really good vino. My manager liked it himself."

More noise. Verkerk pressed 'stop' and looked at Horatio.
"You understand what they're talking about, don't you?"
Horatio nodded. "Cocaine and the shipment."
Verkerk nodded as well and pressed 'play' again.

"Me"
"Tony, you fool! You son of a bitch, why did you beat him at that golf game? I told you to play nice!"
"Hey, he asked for it! And by the way, I only beat him by two points."
"Still, I hope for your sakes he doesn't take it too hard. Otherwise your manager should really contact his friend in the AVR."
"I already put the garbage outside, so there's no need for the AVR."
"'Course there is. There's always need for the AVR. They gotta dispose the garbage, don't they?"
"This garbage is put outside and there's no need of disposing it."

Horatio looked at Verkerk.
"What's the AVR?"
"Afval Verwerking Rijnmond. Waste management"
Horatio nodded as to gesture that he understood.
"Did they talk about what I think they talked about?"
Verkerk smiled a little. "Depends on what you think"
"I think" Horatio paused. "that they talked about the murder Marieke told me about, and that Antonio took care of the witness – Marieke."
Verkerk nodded. "That can very well be. Listen to this one. It's the very last. AIVD didn't send it to us until this morning, right after I was off to the airport. I haven't even heard it myself."

"What?"
"You already back home? That's quick. What went wrong?"
"There was a small detour. We were guided back to where we left in the first place."
"So no vino?"
"No vino."
"Right. Tony, what's on your planning for tonight?"
"Nothing. Why?"
"I'd like to take you and your family to the opera"
"When?"
"I'll pick you up after dinner"

Verkerk looked at Horatio. "That's… some amazing information on this tape."
"How come?"
"There is no opera in Rotterdam. They're meeting tonight. All of 'em."
Horatio just looked at Verkerk.
"This is huge" Verkerk went on. "This is – after tonight, organized crime will have another meaning for the people of Rotterdam."

THE END.