SUMMARY

This reality thriller introduces a colorful parade of top criminals, famous detectives, generals, businessmen, lawyers, journalists, politicians and activists from The Netherlands, Europe and The United States in numerous high-profile affairs that occurred between September 1986 and September 1987.

In the late eighties, leftwing terrorists of the Irish IRA, German RAF, Italian Red Brigades, Dutch Red Youth and RaRa, Belgian Gang of Nijvels and CCC (Cellules Combatants Communistes), French Action Direct dominate the news in The Low Countries. In connection with these organizations are the Iran Contra Affair, the placement of American nuclear missiles in the Dutch town of Woensdrecht, the Dutch submarine crisis with communist China, the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme and the U.S. bombing of Libya. The kidnapping and murder of multi millionaire Gerrit Jan Heijn, brother of Ahold top man Albert Heijn, by Ferdi Elzas is apparently independent of such political affairs, but Mitric sheds a quite different light on this.

These cases are preceded in the seventies by the Moluccan train hijacking and hostage-taking, the foiled kidnapping of Queen Juliana, the abduction of multi-millionaire Maup Caransa, the Lockheed kickback affair with Prince Bernhard and the Urenco Affair with the Pakistani atomic spy Dr. Khan, which are all presented in the book.

Since the eighties and nineties there is moreover within international organized crime an increasing entanglement of the upper and underworld, in The Netherlands represented by (a.o.) the so-called IRT Affair with large controlled drug shipments by detectives. Mega criminal cases with criminal crown witnesses revealed the existence of crime syndicates such as Delta and Octopus closely knit with the upperworld. This was followed by a wave of unresolved disappearances and assassinations of double-dealing drug dealers, corrupt lawyers and blackmailed real-estate agents.

The end of the Cold War also brought to light the underground NATO network Gladio with secret arms depots in all European countries, and a nuclear proliferation ring (Pakistan, Libya, Iran and North Korea) led by Dutch-educated Pakistani engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan and involving the CIA and the Dutch Secret Service. Journalists and writers have brought these unsettling developments – often by risking their own lives – in the course of years to the surface.

Some key protagonists in this novel operate under their own name (President Reagan, Chief of Staff Donald Regan, CIA Director William Casey, businessman Hans Teengs Gerritsen, Soldier of Orange Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, lawyer Cees Korvinus, crime author Luke van Splunteren), others under their nickname (master swindler Ari Olivier, drugs boss Klaas Bruinsma, Dutch arms dealer Paul Wilking, engineer Ferdi Elzas, ex Police Commissioner Gerard Toorenaar, Prince Bernhard), sometimes only by their initials (crime reporter Peter de Vries, Police Commissioner Kees Sietsma).

Central to the story is Dr. Troublemaker – the writer – who also operates under the pseudonyms 0008+, Dr. Frank Waterfort and Zoran Svenson. He is European Director of the relatively unknown Reserve Police International (RPI) founded under the leadership of retired CIA Director General Raymond Healey in 1982 in Tucson, Arizona as an alternative to Europol. Behind this police organization operates the hitherto completely unknown organization WACE (World Atomic Counter Espionage). Both are well informed about the world wide, criminal double cross of secret agents of the CIA, DEA, MI6, MID (Dutch Military Intelligence), CID (Dutch Criminal Intelligence Service) CRI (Dutch Central Research Information) in the guise of businessmen, mafia bosses, leftist activists and detectives.

His extensive network of informers warns Mitric already in the eighties for international drug shipments, large scale counterfeiting, theft of plutonium and uranium, liquidations in the criminal world and attacks on aircrafts. The matrix in this double cross of secret agents turns out to be a Dutch mafia group called Titans. In this autobiographical espionage thriller, Dr. Troublemaker is the tragic hero, who foils several attempts on his life. Only through his humor and his undying love for artist Iris de Vries does he stay on his feet in his selfless fight against corruption and injustice.