14
Nervous and restless from waiting for the American, Colonel Georgievich’s spirits rose at seeing the small black dot of a car coming along the road beside the curving stretch of stagnant canal that was only one of Haarlem-en-Leyden’s many. Tinged a bleak yellow, from a weak morning sun scratching its way through heavy cloud, the canal’s poor light reflected how it had dimmed from being once part of a shining network of waterways ‘bulging’ with barges serving the city’s commercial needs. Having served its days, it was now truly a backwater – long forgotten.
The Colonel’s spirits dropped, as the car drew nearer, when he saw that it was a large black V-8 Volga sedan. Not quite what he had expected the American to be driving. And definitely not so, with that hammer and sickle emblem flapp
