The Amsterdam Connection
by
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'I'm Tom Matthews,' he said when he reached the dark counter. 'You have a call from Tampa, Mr. Matthews,' she smiled up at him. 'You can take it here.' She nodded at a counter phone. 'Or I can transfer it to a booth.' 'I'll take it here.' He picked up the phone and announced, 'Tom Matthews.' 'Maria, Tom.' Shock was pervading his Hispanic secretary's usually tranquil voice. 'Jim just got through from somewhere north of Rome, a place called Cerelinni. Alexander's bus spun out of control and turned over.' 'My God! Are their casualties?' 'Several were killed. Others are hospitalized.' 'Did Jim leave a phone number?' 'The hospital's at Cerelinni.' She read it off to him. His hand was shaking and the numbers were barely legible. 'He's waiting for your call.' 'Keep your line free, Maria. I'll get back to you as soon as Jim fills me in.' He hung up and stared blankly at the phone. He finally turned back to the operator. 'Please get me the overseas operator,' he muttered hollowly. 'Connect me from the booth. It'll be a credit card call.' She nodded. It was almost noon when Jim was on the line. 'The bus went out of control on a perfectly good stretch of mountain highway on the way to Perugia, just outside of Cerelinni,' Jim said, his voice filled with the anguish he felt. 'No wet or broken pavement. Nothing to precipitate it. The police are checking for evidence of tampering.' 'Who are the casualties?' 'The driver. He was killed. So was Alexander.' He was the middle-aged Floridian who organized tours in exchange for free trips for himself and his wife. 'His wife's cut up and has broken bones, but she'll survive. Three others are dead, at least five are critical, and the rest are suffering from a variety of lacerations, broken bones, bruises, shock. God, Tom, it's one holy mess. The bus sheared a utility pole and rolled over on its side before skidding more than a hundred yards. The driver must have been letting her roll on the slope.' 'And they suspect tampering?' 'The bus was brand new.' Jim hesitated just long enough to catch his breath. 'Tom, this is one too many in this string of crises plaguing us. I've been doing some thinking - just to keep my sanity in this war zone! - and, well, frankly, there has to be a connection.' 'What kind of a connection?' Tom asked blankly. 'I don't know. But we're being hit too hard, too fast, too often for coincidence. First N.E., then Rolanzi, now this. All within five days. Any ideas?' 'I . . . I . . .'Matthews ground to a confused halt. The possibility of an organized attack was staggering. 'Damn, Jim, you've caught me short. I need time to think. Maybe I'll come up with something on the flight over.' 'I've got the agency covered.' 'But it's my tour. Those people and their families deserve better than me sitting on my ass in Tampa.' 'Understood.' 'See about getting an English speaking priest up there, an American or British minister too. A rabbi if one's available. Some must be vacationing in Rome.' 'Will do. Meanwhile, I'm holing up at the Hotel Cerelinni, such as it is. When will you get out?' 'Today. Cable a list of the dead and injured to the office. I'll get Nan and Maria onto notifying families.' Tom worked at hammerlocking his rampaging thoughts into line. Although his decision to go to Italy had been reflexive, it made sense. Those people needed to see him, know he was concerned. The minute he had taken their money, planned their vacations, he had become responsible. Appearing at Cerelinni made a helluva lot of sense. Good P.R. too since the press would pick up everything fast. And yet . . . and yet, dealing with clients in their agonies was beyond him. Give him a passenger stranded anywhere in the world and he would know exactly who to contact, how to soothe the ruffled temper. Dealing with tragedy was something else. It demanded resources he had never developed. He abruptly asked the operator to dial his home phone. 'Lori!' he burst into her ear. 'Alexander's tour had a bus accident in Italy.' He told her what Farrow had reported. 'My heavens,' she breathed. 'John Alexander dead? And Nora ...?' Images of the assorted faces so recently entertained in their home swept through her mind. As with all tours originating through their office, the group had been wined and dined prior to departure. A small expense for a lot of goodwill and Lori's one remaining involvement with the agency. 'Lori,' Tom pressed, 'come with me to Cerelinni. I've got to get over there and see what can be done.' 'Can't Jim see to everything?' she asked, unable to break loose from her initial horror. 'Sure he can, but this group is mine. Ours,' he added to make a point. 'I can't sit around in Tampa. It's our group, Lori. Yours and mine.' He paused, hoping to add to his plea. 'I need you with me.' 'But Tom, I can't leave the kids. I told you 'Grandma' Jones is tied up for the weekend. Besides, I've committed myself as chairman of that big Fourth jamboree fund-raiser for the hospital. I can't just skip out.' 'Not even for a tragedy?' Tom asked acidly. 'Seems a hospital could understand that.' 'Only if I could justify it, Tom. I can't with Jim there.' 'Get my green two-suiter from the closet,' he grumbled, convinced a female presence would be needed. 'It's all packed. I'll have Maria pick it up.' 'Will do, Tom.' His next call was to the office and Maria. He explained about the suitcase. When he finally hesitated, it was only for a moment. 'Maria,' he said, more as a plea than an implied order, 'will you come along? I can't handle such misery, particularly not with children and women.' 'Of course, Tom,' Maria responded instantly. 'Then bring my suitcase to New York,' he said with relief. 'Get my passport from the safe, ten thousand dollars in travelers checques and space on any overseas flight with a couple of empty seats. Hang the routing.' 'Will do. Want me to call back on the arrangements?' 'No. I'm on my way to New York. See you in Kennedy's main concourse.'
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About the Book
When Bernie Villario, son of a Mafia family based in Connecticut and New York, decides to re-enter the U.S. narcotics market despite the fact that all Mafia families except two have been out of drugs for years, he needs an adequate supply of heroin. This requires convincing a Union Corse family with heroin processing labs in southern France to work with him. Villario selects a highly respected U.C. family and uses a dangerous ploy which threatens to explode into a war between the families.
At the same time Villario starts pressuring feisty Tom Matthews and his Tampa-based travel agency. The agency's success is the second piece to Villario's elaborate plan. However, although Matthews refuses to bend even in the face of vicious attacks on his agency and its European tours, he finally realizes that fighting a foe who appears only through a polished intermediary is futile. Frustrated and desperate, Matthews turns to the FBI and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
Throughout Villario's attacks, Tom leans more and more on his knowledgeable Hispanic secretary, Maria Escobar, and as the battle moves from Tampa through Europe to the Middle East and back, Maria and he are drawn into an intense, intimate love affair which drives him into decisions he never anticipated. The fast-paced conclusion which involves Matthews, the feds, the Villarios, and the Union Corse is headed toward a disaster of magnificent proportions, especially when Matthews and the feds unknowingly work at cross-purposes.
About the Author
Dale Soderberg had an artistic mother and a determined father. The result was a creative personality which has led him from organizing and leading his own band while in high school and working as a radio announcer to majoring in English at Gettysburg College and in Systematic Theology at Gettysburg Seminary. While in college he was inspired to begin creative writing by professors who saw the glimmer of talent which was developed by writing sermons, short stories, and novels over a ten year stint in the Lutheran ministry. However, it all came to fruition when he became a high school English teacher who specialized in teaching Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James A. Michener, Nevil Shute and other modern authors. His first novel, published in 1980, was an adventure/thriller built around the 1967 Israeli/Arab war. Since then writing has been a daily discipline. Among other creative pursuits, he originated, organized, and directed tours to Europe, the Middle East, and Lutheran mission fields in Guyana, Liberia, Tanzania, and India, many lands that have provided settings for his writing. An avid photographer, he succeeded in taking a picture of the Taj Mahal which was chosen by Holiday magazine in 1960 as the ‘Picture of the Month’. Early in his teaching career he decided that if one was to teach Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, it was imperative that he know something about the Feria of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. Although he has never run with the bulls, he has watched the running during seven fiestas and become an American aficionado of the bullfight aided by his friendship with many English aficionados who know exactly what a proper bullfight should be. Once retired he and his wife, Marjorie, were able to expand their activities to include working in Yellowstone National Park in 1993 and serving as volunteer missionaries in Papua New Guinea where he taught at the University’s Teachers College at Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province. Before and after they had the opportunity to travel extensively in New Zealand, Australia, and Southeast Asia. The consequence of his many creative activities over the years has brought him inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who in the East, American Education, the World, and America. He has also been honored in Dictionary of International Biography published in Cambridge, England. He and Marjorie continue to live in Hamilton, NY where the two have close ties with Colgate University. Marjorie worked in the University library and Dale advised graduate student teachers of English at Hamilton Central School.