Of Wheels and Angels 11

Posted on April 29, 2013 by ehurst

Sweating from the burdened hike, this was hardly what Preston was expecting.
Their hostess opened the door for them. Patiently waiting until they unburdened themselves, she turned one of the chairs around from the table and faced where they sat in the two easy chairs.
“Heerlen is one of the best places to hide. You can disappear so easily in such a busy town. When we got an offer of a computer, the same person mentioned they would love to have a house sitter.”
Angie and Preston glanced at each other, eyebrows raised.
“First, you can never meet this person. It’s best you never look into the details; this protects everyone, as you know. On one of the central walking promenades in Heerlen, there is a top floor apartment above one of the shops. You access it from either the front or from an alleyway in the back. There is a crazy legal status I can’t explain, but this person cannot use the property for business nor rent it out, yet are required to keep it up. It’s quite valuable so they want someone to occupy it for security reasons. They estimate it’s at least two years before anything changes.”
She crossed her legs and smiled. “You can move in tomorrow morning. They left you a nice Mac system there. I was told you should simply rely on wifi, and I’m sure you can work that out. It’s not that we are eager to see you go, but this is so much better for you two.”
Preston thought for a moment. “I rather like the idea it reduces your risks, too.”
She smiled, but said nothing.
Angie stood and walked over to the older lady. Bending a bit, she gave her a hug. “We kunnen niet genoeg bedanken.” We can’t thank you enough.
The woman returned her warmth. “You two have opened many doors for us. It would all be worth it simply for what you’ve already done.”
As she got up to leave, Preston stood and hugged her, too.
“We’ve asked a friend to bring up a small truck to help you move. He’ll be here mid-morning, so you should have plenty of time to get ready.” She gently closed their door behind her. They never saw her again.
Next morning, the small truck pulled up in the courtyard around nine. You would have thought with so few worldly possessions, they could have easily been ready. Somehow, it didn’t quite work out that way. They were still packing the last few items as the truck arrived.
The ride into Heerlen was mercifully short in the cramped front seat of the little van. Their baggage and three bikes easily fit into the back. Only during the early morning hours could he have driven on any part of the walking plazas, so he had to park a ways off at the train station. However, he had a dolly and was able to help them with the baggage. They wheeled their bikes to the back of the building. There was a small steel rolling door with the obvious purpose of bicycle storage. The man spoke nary a word, simply pointing and smiling. He handed Preston a key for this door, then another key to Angie. The old fellow waited at the bottom of the stairs while they located the apartment. It took only a few trips and he disappeared when they last bag left his dolly.
Something in the layout screamed at Preston that one small room had to be their office. Sure enough, in a corner under a small, simple table sat some boxes. He pulled the two aging but serviceable rolling office chairs back from the table and slid the boxes out across the hardwood floor.
Inside was a complete Mac workstation of recent vintage with a large monitor. While Angie unpacked their clothing and other stuff, he fetched his computer tools and took a look inside the case. There was nothing suspicious, but he wanted to double check. He fired up his laptop. Sure enough, there were dozens of wifi nodes in the area. He picked at random one of the unsecured ones and looked up a site that offered complete tear-down instructions for Macs. He checked everything, including the cables.
By matching the images, he decided there was nothing amiss and reassembled the case. That didn’t mean things were perfect. Among the parts in the box was a wifi router. After getting the system up and running, but before connecting the router, he pulled a disk from his collection and inserted it. Mac is Unix with a pretty face, and he had some scripts that took advantage of this to make it more secure. It included a very smart firewall and some other measures to lock down the system against unsafe changes.
Angie walked in asking about how he wanted some of his clothing put away and stopped when she saw the system running. It was embarrassingly opulent. He quickly plugged in the wifi as she watched him get her online. Rolling back in his chair, he pointed to the system with his open hands. “There you go, Baby. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
She was clearly impressed. She sat down and began playing with it. He left it to her and went to the bedroom so she could work without worrying about his stuff.
With restaurants, cafes, snack-bars and grocery shops aplenty in easy walking distance, food was never an issue. The apartment was fully furnished, aside from linen. Again, shops within walking distance covered every need. Everything in the apartment was obviously well-used, but certainly better than nothing. As they were working away on their photographs that evening, Preston looked over at Angie and said aloud, “I didn’t notice dying, so how did I get to heaven? The only thing missing are the wings on your back.”
She turned with a big smile, leaned over and kissed him. “Don’t be silly. We still have a lot of work to do. I’m betting our bicycles will not rest much in that lock-up downstairs.”
Preston grinned. “Well then, we’ll have to play angels on wheels while the real angels guarding us will never get much rest for their wings.”
(End of Part 2; Part 3 follows.)

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He Needs To; She Better

Posted on April 28, 2013 by ehurst

One of the major flaws of Western Civilization is the false dichotomy of manhood versus womanhood. Western Civ as we now know it is essentially Aristotle with a fat layer of Germanic mythology. That’s what the Enlightenment was all about, marrying the two and striving to wipe away the Hebrew God by making no place for biblical culture.
The tribal Germanic male is not a nice man, and quite far from God’s ideal of manhood. There is some overlap, of course, but most Western Christians read this false manhood back into Scripture and get the wrong picture of what God intended. To be a real man in the Western traditions is not at all in accordance with God’s Justice, which means Creation itself will fight him. The Western version of reality and morality is all wrong. He’s either a wimp or a complete jerk.
So it’s no surprise Western women rise up against this false image. Against his “she better please me” is her instinctive “he needs to learn” whatever it is she demands of him. Because the baseline is utterly false, so is her reaction. We call it feminism.
Hebrew tradition clings to what God says we are made of in our fallen state. A real Hebraic man would guard that truth against lies. It’s not simply a matter of his own best interest, but an imperative from God. To live in this world requires embracing God’s revelation and doing things His way. The Law Covenants exemplify what His ways are for us after the Fall. It’s as good as it gets, and it brings God glory when we live by it.
So let’s say a modern man takes the Red Pill; he embraces the truth and wakes up. He’s a Hebraic man; he takes the initiative to walk in the truth. It’s his job. He acts according to God’s revelation because he can’t do any better. If the whole world clings to deception, he drives ahead in truth. In so doing, any number of women will be drawn to him, even when they insists it’s all wrong. A woman’s mind may be confused by feminist heresies, but her nature is not deceived. It knows the real deal and will drag her conscious mind kicking and screaming to his side. She won’t stay, but she can’t stay away, either. Maybe, in God’s mercy, she gets the Red Pill, too.
Either way, a real man of God will celebrate what a women is and does. A woman living in the blessings of Abraham will celebrate her man being and doing what men do. They aren’t confused about the reality of things. Within the fallen world and our burned-in imperfections, there is still a thread of moral truth with the power to call Creation to cooperate. They are on the same team, and not enemies fighting over something false in the first place. Indeed, they encourage and work with each other in maximizing their respective potential as fallen men and women who cling to God’s truth.

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Of Wheels and Angels 10

Posted on April 28, 2013 by ehurst

The message came in their email the next morning.

Bingo; good eye. We believe someone tried to follow you. Here’s hoping you succeeded in losing them. Rescued about half the bus kids; another setback for them. Send more ordinary shots for our general collection.

They spent the day relaxing and organizing their work. Angie turned out to be quite good at it, and he insisted she needed a bigger system to work with here at home. Then he got up and stood behind her, pulling apart the braids as she worked. He brushed her hair out thoroughly, and then began rubbing her shoulders and back. She groaned and nearly collapsed face down on the little table. She slept hard that night. The next morning, she returned the favor, and then some.
As they lay clinging to each other, Preston observed, “We broke the rules.”
She raised her head up, “What rules?”
“You climbed the rocks and were away from me. I could see you, but we weren’t physically close,” he explained.
“You encouraged me.”
“Yes, I did. Sometimes the rules don’t apply. Still, we have to be careful.” He kissed her forehead. “I’d hate to have someone steal you from me now.”
She giggled, that enchanting girlish sound.
After breakfast, he asked their hostess how he should go about getting Angie a good workstation. She thought for a moment. Suddenly she said, “Leftovers.”
“Leftovers?” He was puzzled, but game to follow the idea.
“Every business buys that stuff. Some buy lots of it. Let me check amongst our associates. You may need to pay something but that should still be less than retail or even wholesale. Then I want you to check it thoroughly for anything that’s out of place, because we never really trust anyone.” She turned and started for the door. “Give me a day or so and I’ll let you know.”
He turned to Angie. “Meanwhile, I think we need to go back to where we started.”
“Wablieft?” She was puzzled.
Preston grinned. “Geographically. I still have some stuff I left in my room at Harry’s place, and I need it. Electronic gadgets, tools, software, so forth.”
“Oh. Then maybe I can take a formal letter of departure to the school. I don’t have anything there I need, but they will want me to take my stuff away.” She went to find some paper and a pen.
They hiked cross country into Wijlre and caught the train. While waiting, Preston decided to test his new cellphone, sending a text message he hoped Harry would read before they arrived. Angie composed her letter as they rode. A couple of train changes and they got off around noon at Hazerswoude, just a few kilometers from Hoogmade. It was their good fortune to find the fish wagon in one of the parking lots near the river. It was essentially a motor home converted into a sea food shop on wheels. Such vehicles typically kept a regular route through villages too small for any kind of full service locally. There was a similar thing with grocery wagons. The fish wagon also had frying vats behind the counter, so lunch was quick and easy, eating fried breaded cod wrapped in paper as they walked.
There was no direct route, but taking a narrow lane along the polders required only an hour to reach the marina. Naturally, Harry hadn’t seen the message. He wasn’t even around the place. Preston gathered his small collection and stuffed it into a couple of travel bags. He didn’t relish lugging the baggage, but it had to be. They caught the bus and worked their way to Haarlem. It was only a few hundred meters to the school from where they got off.
Angie had warned him he couldn’t come inside the place. Much as he didn’t like losing sight of her, he agreed to wait in a small open area nearby with a couple of benches. He poked around his conscious mind a bit and decided the uncomfortable feeling was just a feeling. It was nonetheless an unpleasant wait. His pocket beeped a notice of incoming text message. Had she reactivated her old phone?
No, it was Harry. He was sorry he missed his friend and insisted they not lose touch. Preston knew Harry couldn’t sit still for ten minutes unless he was sailing. During the few weeks he had stayed at Harry’s place, Preston spent less than two hours total time with him. They would keep in touch by email and the forums, but Preston’s life was on a totally different track right now.
The distraction did him good, because he was surprised to see Angie walking back toward him with a large nylon duffle bag, and her small backpack was now bulging. She sat down next to him and they kissed. “I didn’t realize how much it would bother me,” she said.
“What bother?”
“Being away from you, silly boy. If it is addiction, I don’t want a cure.” Then she added, “Oh, and they seemed almost happy to see me go.”
She insisted on a detour to a shop front near the center of the old city. It was a charity clothing place, and she left the larger bag. Preston wished he had known she was going to do that, but didn’t want to rifle through his belongings now to separate out what he could keep.
It was a long ride and several train changes back to Wijlre. They had eaten dinner from the snack cart on the train, and it was still light out as the train pulled up to the platform. They decided to grab the bus which took them to Scheulder up on the ridge and much closer to the orchard. Angie pestered him until he gave her the smaller bag, but it was still work and they stopped twice on the way to rest.
They were a bit surprised to encounter their hostess outside their door as they came into the courtyard. “Good news! Don’t unpack,” she announced.

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Of Wheels and Angels 9

Posted on April 27, 2013 by ehurst

There were a couple of layovers and train swaps, but each time the bikes were not much of a problem. The special cars were marked with a bike symbol.
It was nearly dark when they arrived at Herzogenrath. Preston decided it was safe to ride the train on into Heerlen, but they had to change trains for it. While they were waiting, the station was nearly empty.
Angie glanced around, then asked, “Can you tell me what’s the hurry?”
“Maybe I’m just stupid, but my instincts said someone else was onto us there. Not the kid we were looking for, but maybe someone else watching him. Whether it was his friends or not, it just seemed it wasn’t friendly with us. I don’t get spooked that often, so I went with it.”
She stretch up and kissed his cheek. “That’s good enough for me.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Then he added, “My hunch also was that they weren’t easily able to follow bicycles. In the direction we went, we could have gone almost anywhere. That same route could allow us to circle back around where the Mosel swallows the Sûre just south a ways from Echternach. I’m willing to bet our boss came from that direction, because the main highway goes over to Luxembourg city from there.”
A moment later, he continued, “I didn’t want whoever it was to think anything at all, really, just that we were gone. One of the nice things about traveling by bicycle is nobody pays much attention to you. Unless they can actually follow us somehow, they aren’t likely to get random witnesses to say whether they even remembered us.”
Finally their train pulled into the station. Once aboard, they decided to ride all the way to Schin op Geul. From there, it was only a short ride, but a steep uphill climb right at first.
They were never so glad to see the red door of their apartment again.

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Of Wheels and Angels 8

Posted on April 26, 2013 by ehurst

The biggest shock was inside the wrapper of the camera.
There were two passports from some small Caribbean nation in their fake names and matching Eurail passes. “That should smooth things out a bit, eh Daphne?”
Angie chuckled. “I’ll try to get used to that name. Angie I like, but Daphne feels rather pretentious for me.”
Preston checked and all the proper border stamps were there. Then he noticed the images were current. “Wonder how they did that?”
“I would guess it was that information booth in Rotterdam. It would be easy to hide a camera in all that stuff,” Angie suggested. “I seem to recall there as a blank wall directly behind us.” She pointed to the background in the passport photos.
“Oh well, the less we know, the better it is for everyone.” He stuffed his US passport inside a utility bag inside his backpack, along with his monthly Dutch train pass.
Angie copied his actions with her EU ID card. She looked at her Dutch rail pass and sighed. “It will expire next month any way.”
They spent the evening in their tent examining the two new pieces of equipment. Preston discovered that the camera could upload live video feeds via a long cable to the cellphone. He could keep the phone out of sight in a pocket while uploading. The contacts list included one marked “upload.” He showed it to Angie. “Better than bluetooth, because wireless can be intercepted. Our boss really splashed out some serious moolah.”
Angie was frankly excited. She was enthusiastic about tomorrow, too. She had only heard of Little Switzerland and was itching to try some of the easier climbs.
So the next morning, they pushed their bikes inside the tent and locked them together. Then they hiked across the bridge for breakfast. There were so very many different cafes and restaurants that they just picked one at random and had a fine breakfast of sausages and eggs.
The hike up the valley was just a kilometer or so before it offered access to the wooded trails. They followed it back around the promontory overlooking their campground. Preston experimented with the camera a bit, as always, looking for the most unusual angle. Then he handed the camera to Angie and she tested a few ideas. He told her, “I’m very proud to say, my sweet apprentice, you are just about ready to work without supervision.”
She grabbed him around the neck and they almost slipped off the trail ledge together. They had a good laugh and continued up and down the trails. The place was dotted with stairs cut into the rock face. The early morning rush of climbers was already under way.
Angie started shooting some of the action while Preston watched. She managed a couple of easy free climbs and took a few shots from the top.
The whole time he was trying to think what sort of thing a younger person might do that would give away an American upbringing. With so many of them spouting lines from American films and other popular English phrases, it was clear that wasn’t any kind of clue.
So they spent two days this way, hiking in the mornings around the area with the camera, taking extensive footage. They’d grab lunch on the way back and try to examine all the footage as privately as possible. On the second day, Preston saw something that caught his eye. Angie was at the controls.
“Back up one. Yeah. Now zoom in on that one.” He pointed to one of the faces. The young fellow had his thumb up and pointed back over his shoulder. “Do Dutch or Belgian kids do that?”
“What? The raised thumb? It’s a rude gesture, which means most kids do it.”
“It’s not just the raised thumb, but pointing with it,” he explained.
They began checking other footage and saw him twice more. They also noticed not a single one of the other kids used that gesture in quite that way. “Let’s hope he’s still around tomorrow and doesn’t notice us.”
There really were no other good candidates, so the next day they hunted around the climbing areas where they had caught him every time so far. He wasn’t there. After a long wait, they decided to hike around a bit. No luck. They decided to have lunch at the friture out front of the campground up in Berdorf.
Preston spotted their quarry. He was sitting next to one of the tents, packing up his gear. As carefully as possible, Preston opened the camera, then nudged it around until the young fellow was in the frame and started recording video. The fellow sat chattering more than working on packing his gear. Preston watched as several times the fellow used his thumb to point. Apparently his friends were used to it, though they didn’t copy the action.
Angie and Preston made an effort to avoid any further behavior that wasn’t casual. They took their time, and when the food was gone, they slowly got up chattering in Dutch. Then they took the shortest route back down to the campsite near the bridge. Preston felt a strange sense of needing to hurry. Not because it was the last day they had planned to stay, but something he couldn’t quite identify. He advised Angie to start some of the packing. Even this late in the day, they probably needed to be somewhere else soon.
The open wifi nodes were strong and plentiful down by the river. He processed the video footage into a single file, then added a few still shots from the other shooting. These were bundled and encrypted, then uploaded to the drop box. He added a quick message on the mail server:

High probability in the dropbox. Feel like getting out of Dodge.

Then he finished packing up the rest of the stuff. Angie asked rather quietly, “Where to?”
Preston had been holding something in his mouth while using his hands to fold it. Upon extracting the item, he quietly said, “Trier.”
Keeping to the German side of the river, they pedaled a few kilometers downriver to Ralingen. Just outside the village, Preston steered onto a wood path on the left side. Checking now and then to make sure Angie was keeping up, he geared down and began following a switch back climb up the ridge. It was hard and slow, at times requiring they dismount, but they got over the top and coasted a short way along a paved road into the village of Kersch. From there it was mostly crooked back roads. The route took them down into a valley and over the next ridge, then another valley and ridge. The windmill farm would have been more interesting had they the time to look. As they dropped off the next slope, their lane ran into a major road, past a very large industrial park, and it was almost all downhill into Trier.
At times they rode the brakes pretty hard on switch backs, but eventually got down into the city. It was such a beautiful place, very ancient, perched on the banks of the Mosel. Again, Preston had little time to look around until they crossed the busy downtown section to the train station.
He had Angie negotiate passage for the bikes. They were in luck, because they could ride in the car with them. He consulted the schedule and a map displayed nearby. After a couple of times back and forth, he whispered to Angie, “I think Herzogenrath is a good target. If it feels comfortable, we’ll go on to Heerlen. From there I could find my way home in the dark.”
Once they were on the train, he encouraged her to nap if she could, but she had too many questions in her mind. He closed his eyes, but sleep was far away.

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Of Wheels and Angels 7

Posted on April 25, 2013 by ehurst

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 Perston 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, 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 switch backs 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 amount 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 island. The ridge jutted northward from the surrounding land, around which the river made this tight loop. Meanwhile, the water course was quite a bit wider, almost a narrow lake. Then they saw the damn which 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 were 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 which stuck closer to the river bank. 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 which 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 camp ground 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.
The must have dozed off because someone was asking for them by their alternative names. Preston vaguely remembered only using any names at all with the camp registry. When he opened his eyes, it was a fellow in rather expensive cycling gear, standing back a bit holding his even more expensive racing bike upright against his hip. They sat up and Preston said, “Hello.” The man leaned his bike against the wall nearby, then sat next to them, removing his helmet and gloves. Anyone would have thought him a dashing manly fellow, rather handsome and tall.
“I’m so glad you made it. No one had any idea if you could ride that far, but I was told you two were rather fit, so it seemed a good bet.” He held out his hand and shook each in turn. “You can call me Gary.”
He turned and glanced at their bikes. “I believe you two made good choices for the kind of riding you do. Money well spent.” He turned and regarded them with a benign smile.
“We liked your paper, Gary,” Angie offered.
“Good, good. Can we take a stroll?” He pointed under the old bridge.
They rose and began walking slowly alongside. Gary clasped his hands behind his back. “I did contribute to that paper, and I’m hoping to get translations made soon. I was told one of you could handle French, and apparently it is so. I take it you’re on board with this?”
Preston spoke up, “If I understand things correctly, it would be hard to imagine work we would enjoy more. We guessed it is something rather like investigative photographers plus a little more.”
“Good way of putting it,” Gary said. They were under the bridge, in the shadow and out of earshot from any other people, so Gary stopped and faced them. “I work in an international law firm, and part of my responsibilities include banking law, treaties and publishing. We are private partners sharing the management of several businesses. On paper, you are contracted to the publishing house.” He pulled out a business card with his name, the company name and yet another address in Luxembourg City.
It was then Preston first noticed the man wore rather large a fanny pack. He had slipped it around to one side where he could reach it easily. He pulled out another object in a dark plastic wrapper. “This is a lawyer’s type of cellphone that we use. Some numbers are pre-programmed. In the bag are two extra SIM cards. I’m sure you are be able to figure out when to use them. When it’s off, it’s really off. The encryption is very powerful. No one can track you without special permission. You’ll use it to call us more than us calling you.”
He reached into the bag again and produced yet another darkly wrapped bundle somewhat larger. “This should take care of your camera problems. It’s got a fat hard drive and can hold two extra memory cards. The battery is pretty long life and you’ll have more extensive controls, better lens and better zoom. The lights can be turned off and the screen muted to the point only someone right next to you can see it, yet it can obtain fairly sharp images in the very lowest light conditions. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
He glanced around a bit, and then touched his finger to his lips. “The man you sprayed was partly involved in this awful trade in human flesh. The dead body on the barge was going to blow the whistle. You already know they play for keeps. Had the whistle blower called us first, she might still be alive to talk. Your assailant’s death puts some of their business on hold. Meanwhile, the children are still being brought into the area and sold off to pimps. The bus you saw was a load of them. They clone the names of real travel agencies, but with a slightly different spelling. Thanks to your sharp eye, we know where to look for the latest distribution point.”
Gary paused a moment. “We work though all sorts of various agencies; that’s not your concern. Just get us the info and things will happen. Try to avoid contact with anyone but our people. Fighting for your life is fine, but we have no heroes.”
Preston nodded, “Amen to that.”
Gary chuckled. “One more thing. I need to you spend a day or two hanging out with the climbers in Berdorf. Among them is an American who pretends to be Belgian. He is a new recruit for the bad guys and we need a picture if you can identify him.”
Gary glanced at his watch. Then he grabbed them each by the hand, shaking in the same manner as Mr. Venkman. “Thank you so much. Your hosts back in Valkenburg will cashier your pay.” He abruptly turned and nearly ran back to his bike. In seconds he had his riding gear back on and was walking his bike up to the pavement.
Preston looked at the two packages. “Wow. This is more work than I ever thought I could do.”

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Of Wheels and Angels 6

Posted on April 24, 2013 by ehurst

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, 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.”
“Hm,” 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 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, 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.

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Of Wheels and Angels 5

Posted on April 23, 2013 by ehurst

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 an 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 progressive, 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, 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.

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Mythology of Modern Assassination

Posted on April 22, 2013 by ehurst

In the Bible, assassination as a tool of politics is not a sin.
It’s hard to say what brings someone into the limelight as a leader. We all recognize charisma when we see it, but efforts to define and quantify it always come up short. We tend to think we know how to create a false charisma effect in politics, but there hasn’t been too many JFKs. Isn’t it odd how his brother Robert seemed to have somewhat less of it, and Teddy almost none of it? Never mind what any of them actually accomplished or whether you like their politics. Reagan had some charisma and Clinton squandered his. If not in marital terms, almost every political figure of any consequence we’ve had in the last century was involved in some kind of secret sin. Charisma can cover a multitude of sins. Obama is an example of working night and day to manufacture charisma artificially. At some point, it comes apart.
Reagan was fluke. He was shot, and there’s nothing at all to indicate it was anything more than a lone nut inspired by a silly movie. The weapon of choice could have been deadly, but not the way Hinckley used it. He really needed a bigger caliber for the job. He was deluded in many ways. Yet, the really memorable assassinations were not the work of lone nuts, despite all the propaganda to the contrary. The difference is the results; the conspiracies came off very effectively.
Rothbard points out how the establishment thugs are never shot. I tend to disagree with the idea that the establishment is center-right. It’s more subtle than that; at least it is now. It’s more like a fascist left. Fascism is built on top of socialism, not capitalism. The Nazi Party was socialist — “National Socialist Party” is the proper English translation. Here in America, peel back the lying rhetoric and you’ll see Big Business has always been socialist because it’s easier to profit from government contracts for mandated social programs than it is to compete in the open market.
The fascist oligarchs are not completely amorphous, but it works out that way in practice. You and I don’t get to see their internal rivalries; what we see are their fingerprints. They only go after those who challenge their power and profit. JFK had some real power with the people; his peccadilloes didn’t get him in trouble. We know he proposed some things that challenged the fascists. His brother supported his policies and met the same end.
Other people had the power, but didn’t quite get the chance to take any office, whether government or otherwise. Thus, MLK was shot, but nobody is threatened by Jesse Jackson — he works with the oligarchs and simply takes his cut as the price for keeping MLK dead, as it were. What you and I may believe is good politics has nothing to do with it. Almost everything that has been a point of major popular contention has been fake, a red herring. It won’t matter what flavor your challenge is; if you threaten the oligarchs, they’ll kill you.
If we really did have lone nuts assassinating people, a lot more big shots would get shot. Think about all the public figures who have been so utterly hostile to the public interest, open dismissive of what so obviously is the will of the people. Nobody has shot many of them because they belong to the oligarchs. Lone nuts are exceedingly rare, and virtually never do anything that changes the political outcome.

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Of Wheels and Angels 4

Posted on April 22, 2013 by ehurst

Lunch was great and Preston waited around a bit to see if anything changed on either the email or dropbox, but there was nothing. He repacked the laptop and shrugged into the backpack. Through the window he spotted a tourist shop with a rack on the sidewalk in multiple languages: “Bike Routes.”
Once outside he hurried across the street with Angie. He began poking around and pulled out a moderately thick booklet. “Here we go. I wish they had had this at the bike shop. This covers the entire Benelux with graded bike routes and how they are marked. Perfect!”
After paying for it, he handed it to Angie. “Where should we go, my blushing chocolate bride?”
She looked surprised. Opening the book, she looked it over a bit. Suddenly she lowered the book and looked up at him. “What’s wrong with getting back on the Venn Bahn? Doesn’t it go where we are headed?”
“Yes and no,” Preston replied. “The map I’ve been using indicates the nice asphalt we’ve been riding will disappear in just a few kilometers. Our two primary choices are to parallel the Venn Bahn until we get somewhere around Saint Vith, or we can strike out south from Monschau and zigzag across the German countryside until we get to the start of the Our River. Either way, we’ll end up on that river because it takes us down some gorgeous scenery on the eastern border of Luxembourg.”
She shoved the book back at him playfully. “Stop playing with my mind. Let’s go to Saint Vith; I’ve always wanted to see it.”
He grinned and took the map book. They crossed the street and unlocked their bikes from the crowded rack. He directed her to ride south out of town, essentially chasing the Rur River upstream. The well-worn path ran parallel to the river through some woods, winding around the steep hills in that area. Just behind Reichenstein Monastery, they crossed the river on a small bridge and rejoined the Venn Bahn.
A kilometer on, the pavement came to an abrupt end in the middle of a village. A couple of mountain bikes were ahead of them picking their way along down what as now a rugged gravel track.
Preston consulted the new map book. “If we take the official advice, we face a couple of steep climbs on muddy tracks. Not that much better, if you ask me. I think we should go left here and take the main road, since it goes pretty much the same place and will be easier to climb. I recall it’s narrow but the traffic is slow enough they can usually work around us well enough. The first part will be just a bit dreary at times, but once we get past the military base, it should be a lot nicer.”
He ran through a quick reminder about how to anticipate down-shifting for hills. They rolled a few hundred meters to the N669 and began the gentle climb up the Elsenborn Ridge. Almost immediately Preston regretted it. The traffic was heavier than he expected. While it seemed the drivers took it with grace, he was uncomfortable impeding their normal operations. However, things got even a bit hairer when a small group of serious road racing riders passed them, as well.
Over the hump and around out of the woods, they could see the Venn Bahn track on their right, just across the Rur, but it was no more inviting than dealing with heavy traffic. The two routes diverged at a last stand of trees and the Venn Bahn swung east and out of sight. A thin tree line on the left suddenly opened onto the end of the airstrip at the Elsenborn base. They slowed enough to glance back up the strip and at some of the buildings. The terrain rolled up and down a bit now as they passed through more trees, and then they began seeing a large number of military structures.
In the grassy center of the traffic circle stood an armored vehicle. They stopped to admire it for a moment. Angie asked if he knew what kind of tank it was. “Actually,” he said, “it’s an armored cannon. The proper term is ‘self-propelled artillery.’ It has to stop and set up in order to properly fire. My understanding is that this is the prime artillery training ground for Belgian forces. During the Battle of the Bulge, it was the artillery in this area that did so much to prevent the German advance, so artillery has a really strong legacy here.”
They headed south, then dropped off the main highway. The direction signs indicated they were headed to Weywertz. The tall pines gave way to a mixture of broad leaf trees, then opened again onto farm fields. A tiny village served almost as a suburb of Weywertz. The route sloped down to a stream valley. He called out for Angie to stop at the bridge. A small sign indicate it was called La Warche.
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, 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.

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