Of Images and Angels 2

It was her again.
The first time Preston ran across her was in Katwijk. He had been trying to capture the ancient cathedral near the beach with some sails in the background. At one point he was lying on the sidewalk with his camera resting on a loose brick he found nearby. Out of the corner of his eye a figure rode by and he waited for her to clear his frame.
The gal was striking. Not in the sense of grand beauty, but she was possessed of a very incongruous set of features. Diminutive, she was riding one of the smaller framed bikes typically used by older children. However, she was not petite, but rather muscular like an athlete. Her middling shade of brown skin was common enough among the cosmopolitan Dutch, but it was matched with entirely Caucasian facial features and beautiful flowing red hair. For a moment he wondered if it could possibly be her natural color, but then turned back to his photo composition.
Apparently her image lingered in his mind, because he could have sworn he saw her again in Wassenaar when he was out at the Duinrell campground taking pictures of some of the unusual characters occupying the old horse track during a celebration. He saw here up near the rental office. The next week he was near Voorschoten photographing the shooter’s festival — men firing low powered .22 calibre rifles at tiny round blobs on a frame mounted at the top of a very long pole. The festivities included some deliciously creative military styled uniforms copying elements of just about every uniform men had worn in Western military history since firearms were introduced. He spotted her in the crowd just a few meters from where he stood.
He almost went up and spoke to her, but decided against it. Instead, he decided to test the limits of coincidence. Waiting until after dinner time one evening, he skipped the bike and grabbed a seat on a bus headed to Alphen, and from there took the train south to Gouda. It was a short hike to the old city center. He sat at a table in the triangular old market plaza, which was dominated by a baroque looking city hall he had seen too many times in photographs already. He waited and watched as the traffic nearly disappeared and some of the night spots closed. Paying his tab he walked along the northern edge of the market plaza and threaded his way through the ancient streets to the Rotterdamsweg traffic circle, and then south across the river.
Taking the southerly route, he hiked out across the bridge to the Kattendijk and followed it south out of town along the IJssel River. By now it was dark and the moon was setting early. In its first quarter, he was hoping to catch it against the roof of an ancient farm house across the river from him. There was still time to find a good angle which placed him along a fairly straight stretch in the channel. He sat hunched down in some tall grass along the road. It was very quiet and nearing midnight.
As the moon began to approach the ideal angle above the horizon, he heard a canal barge approaching from the right. There were a few old boat pilots around who knew the channels well enough to run them at night, but never without lights. This one was unlighted and he could barely make it out. Suddenly the motor sputtered and died and the barge slowed visibly as a dark mass in the water below him. He was curious. Since his camera was capable of capturing images in low light conditions without a flash, he steadied it on his knee and aimed the lens at the boat. His finger found and pressed the compose button, one click down. After a couple of seconds, the scene became just visible to him. Someone stepped out of the pilot booth and onto the deck behind it, which was the roof of the cabin.
Something in Preston’s instincts twitched his finger to press the button down to the second click, which recorded in video mode.
The figure reached down and began dragging a heavy load of some kind. Preston could just make out a long duffel bag, almost as big as the man dragging it. Stopping at the rear of the deck, he looked down at his load, then squatted to change his grip. He wrapped loose fabric from the bag in each hand across the middle. Hoisting it, he turned around completely. Then, keeping the load behind him, he took two very quick steps, twisted his body and heaved the load over the side. One end struck the gunwale on the way down, flipped and sank into the water. The figure watched as only bubbles rose to the surface; the boat drifted downstream away from the spot.
Then the figure turned back toward the wheelhouse and stepped inside. The engine coughed and came to life, driving the barge with fresh momentum down river again. As it reached the next bend, the lights came on and there was no sign anything had happened. That is, except for the video footage of the incident in Preston’s camera, which ended as the barge passed before him and he captured the name painted in bold letters across the stern.
He sat staring in the grass waving in the breeze directly in front of him. What did he just see? He had the laptop with him this time, but he suddenly felt the urge to get as far as possible from this spot.
It was at the moment his muscles tensed to drive him upright that he heard the female voice. “Heeft hij motorpech hebben?”
While his brain translated reflexively, he was too surprised to answer in kind. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he said as he rose to his feet. He turned to see the short sturdy redhead on her bicycle. He continued, “The pilot shut the motor off on purpose, then tossed a heavy bag into the river, just about the size of a human body.”
She gasped and put her hand on her mouth. While she stared downriver where the barge had disappeared, Preston briskly walked back the way he had come. She caught up with him and rode quietly alongside in the darkness.
Without slowing, he turned his head to face her and demanded, “Why are you stalking me?”
She sputtered for a moment in Dutch, then tried again in English. “I meant no harm. I was told you were a professional photographer and I wanted to see if I could learn from you.”
They continued along the Kattendijk a bit, while she made an obvious struggle to find words. “I was going to introduce myself when you got to Gouda but my cellphone died and I thought I had lost you. I rode around town a bit and almost gave up when I spotted you again coming out this way.”
With a bit of stammering, she offered, “I’m sorry, Sir.”
After a bit of tense silence, Preston asked, “What does your cellphone have to do with it?”
“Please stop, Sir, and I’ll show you,” she begged.
He stopped and turned to face her. She pulled her bicycle almost behind him and reached out to his backpack. From someplace on the bag she pulled at something that made an audible click when it let go. She held out her hand to show him a tiny gadget no bigger than a zipper pull.
“It’s all the latest rage with wealthy families,” she explained. “The government has been experimenting with tracking stations around this area under a private contract — train stations, some shops, popular hangouts. Parents can place this on anything their child is likely to carry and they won’t notice. Every time the child passes a tracking point, it registers with a central website and parents can see in realtime where their child is going.”
He stared at her hard for a moment. She added, “There is a cellphone app that connects to the website and updates with onscreen alerts.”
His face betrayed nothing. He breathed deeply, than asked mildly, “So when did you tag me?”
She seemed a bit relieved. “The day you were lying on the ground in Katwijk. I was riding through there and saw you, and became fascinated. An old man standing nearby said you were yet another professional photographer using the old church as so many others do. Except, I could see you were getting a totally unique frame of the image. You left your bag where I could get to it and not disturb you.”
She shifted on her bicycle seat, then spoke some more. “I may lose my job and I was hoping you’d be willing to apprentice me.”