He closed his laptop. The woman in the raincoat was gone from the security feed. But his phone buzzed one last time.
“Mr. de Vries. Your little fleet of ghost candidates is about to run aground. I’m not from the CBR. I’m from the people Van der Heijden’s trucks are carrying. The ones not listed on any manifest. Turn off your mic. Let him fail. And we forget this conversation happened.” Vaarbewijs4all
The rain hadn’t stopped for three days. Not the gentle coastal drizzle the locals joked about, but a hard, slanting downpour that turned the IJsselmeer into a slab of hammered lead. Inside the cramped office of Vaarbewijs4all, the world had shrunk to the glow of two monitors and the ticking of a radiator that hadn't worked since the '90s. He closed his laptop
And it sounded like a second chance.
“Someone who knows that a man who cheats for a living still has a conscience. Prove me right, captain. Or prove me wrong—but I promise, your son’s school fees won’t be your biggest problem tomorrow.” I’m not from the CBR