By Sheer Accident

By Jos Arkes and Gerard Fidom

Two friends, Jens and Gary, both Dutch, travel in 1992 to California for a sports training camp and are involved in a devastating plane crash. They barely survive; out of the twenty-two people on board sixteen are killed, including two of their Dutch team mates.
A young Dutch woman, who unknowingly belongs to a subculture guided by underground powers, is indirectly involved in the accident. Back home she tries to find the Dutch survivors.
Jens and Gary experience the most difficult period of their life; having to deal with the grief of losing their friends and recovering from severe injuries. In the period after the accident, their lives start changing. They are caught up in events they never thought possible. Jens and Gary meet occasionally. In intense discussions they discover that not all is what it seems.
Twelve years after the accident, several striking signs draw Jens attention. Too many to be just coincidental, he decides. Is someone trying to tell me something? Does Gary have a point after all?, he wonders.
In 2012, a remembrance day is organized at the crash site. Back in California Jens meets a presumed lost friend. This event explains to him why things have happened, and why certain people have played a part in his life. He is shocked by what he hears about mysterious tribes and clans who guide and influence us earthly inhabitants. It all unfolds in a thrilling vision on the origin of mankind, the society and our greatest threat.
BY SHEER ACCIDENT is based on many true events experienced by the writers themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477238943

Jos Arkes

Jos Arkes (1964) Husband, father of a son and two daughters, Experienced Business Executive, Skydiver, Entrepreneur, Trainer, Sailor, Mental Coach, Unorthodox Thinker, Ideator and Storyteller. Gerard Fidom (1962), father of two daughters, Business Consultant, Sportsman, former Skydiver (2,500 jumps) and Pilot, Windsurf- and Skydive Instructor, Coach, Entrepreneur, Green Politician, Spirituality Adventurer and Rebel with a Cause.

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© 2012 Jos Arkes. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/24/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3893-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3892-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3894-3 (e)

Cover photo courtesy of’The Californian’.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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CONTENTS

The Girl Two Rows Behind

Ugly Tracksuits

Andre’s Birthday

Exploring

Flight KL 601

The Accident

Time to Think

Recovery

Tomscat Trophy

Nadine Back Home

Exploring II

Back to Texel

Gary Back in the Air

Saxen Weimarlaan, Amsterdam

The Party

Back in the Air II

Living in Switzerland

Risky Business

Guardian Angel

Troubles in Tokyo

The Arithmetic

Living in Sweden

Nordic Myths

Inspired Friends

Towards the Remembrance

Spirits

A Long Story

Dreams Come True

End Notes

For Geoffrey Anderson, Jackie Downs, Dave Clarke, Larry Fatino, John Mitchell, James Layne, Christophe Ribet, Scott Border, John Henderson, Rolando DaJay, Anthony Cabrera, Dwight Sanders, Chris Harrel, Rowland Guilford and our dear friends Sjaak Strating and Remy Herder.

We hope this book will often make people think back of them and that it will help many to consider how they want to live life.

Special thanks to the work and writings of Richard Bach, Graham Hancock, Zecharia Sitchin and to Wikipedia at www.wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Thanks to Bibi Vermaesen (style), Patty Aalbersberg (translation), Ruben Hamberg (photography), and all that inspired us and helped put our thoughts in writing. Your support is greatly appreciated.

The Press-Enterprise and The Californian granted permission to use their pictures on the book cover.

www.bysheeraccident.com

Science has made us believe for decades that the universe entails some seventy sextillion (one sextillion is one billion times trillion!) stars. Since 2009, scientists assume there are even more; 210 sextillion stars.

We may conclude that the smartest people in the world make the largest computational errors. Their previous assumption was 140 sextillion off the most recent truth…

A zillion stars have already burned up, and many end during our lifetime, the rest of them later, much later, but surely they all will eventually burn out.

The umpteen-billionth star in the universe burned hits last fuel and disappeared forever after an unimaginable explosion 350,000 years ago.

In our minds we are sometimes bigger than the universe.

For the universe we do not matter.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.-Galileo Galilei-

Since the early fifties of the twentieth century, diplomats from all over the world showed interest, for a variety of reasons, in taking care of orphans and foster programs.

Andre, born on 04/22/1972 (according the documents at nine minutes past eleven at night) in Moscow, was an orphan, selected for a special Dutch adoption process, set up and executed by diplomats.

1

The Girl Two Rows Behind

Finally, I’m underway with no delay. Nadine practices her English language skills in silence, grinning because of the childish rhyme in the short sentence.

Nadine is Dutch, and has a very good reason to practise her language skills now; she’s off to California! She dreaded the long travel, especially the flying part, but she looks forward to seeing her stepbrother Andre*H, who prefers to be called Andy, in about half a day. She can’t wait to hold him in her arms.

It is a special experience for Nadine, travelling so far. She’d had an extraordinary and particularly difficult childhood, one you normally only see in books or movies. She’d never made a far journey in her youth, at least not literally. In fact, she’d never made a trip longer than a week or farther than two hundred miles from home!

It had already been more than nine months since Erwin suddenly broke off their relationship. She had believed for a while that perhaps they could build a life together, but that idea was shattered when he called her last July 14 and had asked if it was okay to drop by.

Of course he can drop by, he could always come over, couldn’t he? Nadine had wondered out loud.

When she saw Erwin’s face she instantly knew that something was wrong.

Is it because it is July 14, exactly sixteen years since my mom and dad passed away? crossed her mind at first.

It turned out, however, to be completely unrelated to that. The specific date had not even crossed Erwin’s mind. He kissed her in the doorway and hesitated before entering the premises. While standing in the narrow corridor, he clumsily said: I’ve come to break up…

Nadine did not really register the message at first. Her brief infatuations with previous boyfriends had always faded, without a clear break up moment. When she realized what he’d just said, her small world collapsed completely. It was the same feeling she’d had in the months after the loss of her dear mother and father. Helplessness. Irreversibility.

Nadine’s childhood had been full of serious obstacles, from a very early stage. It had started during the summer holiday of 1975, on a Monday and in broad daylight, when Nadine was four years and twenty days old. Her parents had slipped off the road, in their old Simca 1501, and collided with a tree. The car flipped over and then landed upside down in a ditch. Cars in those days didn’t have anti-lock breaks, electronic stability programs or airbags. Her father was killed instantly, her mother lived for a while but died a few minutes after arrival at the hospital.

Luckily, and by sheer coincidence, Nadine and her little brother had not been in the car. Her parents had left the campsite to go back home to be able to do the laundry. The laundry machines at the campsite had not been functioning for days and the family had been running out of clean clothes. Initially, they’d planned that the whole family would spend the night at home and then return to the campsite on Tuesday.

However, their campsite neighbours, the young and childless Tom and Olga Ousema, had offered to take care of the children, their daughter Nadine and their adopted son, three-year-old Andre. The Ousemas had been their campsite neighbours for the past ten days and they had already had five dinners together in one of their tents. Leaving their kids with their new friends would allow Bernhard and Dorien Kosse to do the laundry at home before half past eight and return to the campsite that same evening. Because of the excellent weather, the drying of the laundry could just be done outdoor, the next day at the campsite.

Nadine could recall the faces of her parents only by remembering the photographs she had seen so often during the years after their death. And when Nadine listens to The Moody Blues’s ‘Nights of White Satin’, she always see blurred moving images of her parents, dancing and shuffling against each other in the old living room. Every time her father turns her mother around him in a soft sultry move, she sees the happiest smile on her mom’s face.

There was nothing more after that. Always the same turn and then the sweet smiling face of her mom appearing from behind her father. Over the years, the fragment had become shorter and clouded. After her parents’ funeral, she and her brother were immediately taken to a children’s home. Less than two years later, on her sixth birthday, she was housed and fostered with the Van Doorns, who were introduced to her as the family Mr Hein and Mrs Anna Van Doorn. Hein and Anna Van Doorn were a young couple, probably quite a bit younger than her biological parents would have been. Nadine felt comfortable at the Van Doorn’s place; it soon felt like her true home. They had a terraced house in a nice street in Amersfoort, a mid size town in the center of the Netherlands, and they gave her a very nice room for herself.

Right from the start, Nadine got on well with their daughter Babs van Doorn. They shared everything. Nadine often believed Babs was both her twin sister as well as a true daughter of Hein and Anna, which of course she herself was not, unfortunately. Nadine trusted Babs in everything. Talking to Babs was an important outlet for Nadine and it provided some sort of certainty to never have to feel alone. At school the classmates didn’t know Nadine was adopted and Babs and Nadine did everything to keep it that way. During this period Nadine was convinced there was more between heaven and earth than could be seen. She practised mind reading with Babs. She made Anna and Hein aware of this, Nadine explained it to them by saying she and Babs could ‘talk with each other without making sounds’.

And then all of a sudden, on the first day of the summer holidays, four years and a bit after she joined the Van Doorns, Babs wasn’t there anymore. Hein and Anna told Nadine about an imaginary friend. They told her that she, Nadine, had become too big now and that Babs had left, never to come back again. She didn’t understand it, and was sadder than ever.

Due to circumstances, as they called it, Nadine was, just before the end of the holiday, at the age of just ten years, again placed in a children’s home. These so called circumstances were often explained to her but she could never understand them and they were therefore difficult for her to remember.

For weeks she cried at night, not understanding the reasons why she had to leave, yet she was never angry with the Van Doorns. She dreamt that Babs had gone to live there again and found that mean and almost indecent, especially now she herself was alone again.

In the child shelter, she kept a distance between her and the supervisors. There was something she didn’t fully trust. The staff members at the shelter were either very distant and uninterested, or overly intrusive, too helpful. Soon Nadine felt that the need to facilitate others is so important to a number of these coaches that they no longer have the child’s need as their orientation but much more their own need to provide assistance to anyone who does, or does not, want help.

Mrs Kooistra, a trainee-inspector who visits the child shelter each week is different. She is still very young. She has small dark eyes and her legs seem a bit too short in relation to her body. She is kind and never intrudes, leaving it up to Nadine whether she wants attention or help. Each week Nadine meets her, sometimes briefly, sometimes for hours. Sometimes Mrs Kooistra brings a book of puzzles for her. Often Mrs Kooistra has already resolved half of the puzzles and Nadine can do the remaining ones. Occasionally Nadine hopes that Mrs Kooistra would get to work full time in the shelter. Every now and then she wishes she is allowed to sit on Mrs Kooistra’s lap, as she had done with Anna van Doorn and as she saw other children do on television.

And although she is actually a bit too old to sit on somebody’s lap, she would for sure do it if Mrs Kooistra invites her to. She can’t remember whether she had ever sat on her first father’s and mother’s lap, but with Mama Anna she had done it, she knows for sure. Dad Hein had every now and then carried her on his shoulders, usually when they visited the zoo in Amersfoort. Nadine had liked that so much; seeing almost everything and even most of the animals looked up at her.

Nadine has always remembered two sayings of Mrs Kooistra. The first: Live your life, dream your dreams, live and dream with a smile. This always gave her energy and made her smile. If she thinks of this saying she can always see the sweet face and bright eyes of Mrs Kooistra very clearly in her imagination. Then she hopes that one day her own face will look just as sweet. Sometimes, in front of the mirror, she tries to imitate this look.

The second thing Mrs Kooistra always said was: Those who exchange their freedom for life think well, your life on earth may turn worse than in hell.

Mrs Kooistra was always whispering the words ‘for life’, as if these two words were not to be taken too literally. Her face always turned very serious when she shared this saying, as if she wanted Nadine to never forget this one.

Nadine saw this second expression as covert permission to walk away if she felt too trapped in the children’s home, or if something happened that was absolutely unacceptable. And simply having that permission made it more bearable to stay in the home despite the staff.

After two years, Nadine was placed with Herman and his-originally Czech-wife Rola van Leeuwen. At first, they showered her with attention and gifts. But soon Herman no longer interfered with her. Rola tried to teach her many Czech and Russian words, but Nadine had just turned twelve, puberty had started and she didn’t get on too well with Rola. Too many chats between her and Rola ended in quarrels and there was often a tense atmosphere in the house. To Nadine it was a surprise it wasn’t always fun in a family home with parents. Once Nadine realized this could end up to being a structural problem the situation became slowly but surely futureless.

When tensions between Rola and Nadine rose too high, Nadine ran off, exactly nine years after her biological parents’ fatal accident. She bought a train ticket and within half an hour she was in Amersfoort. On the railway station’s platform, she asked several people whether they knew the Van Doorn family in Amersfoort.

Another half hour later she was at the police station. Nadine pressured the investigating officer to promise her that she could go back to the orphanage and would not have to go back to the Van

Leeuwen family. It turned out she would never see the Van Leeuwens again.

During her adolescence, whenever Nadine felt that things were turning against her, she would play ‘Nights in White Satin’ on her record player until it made her nauseated. There was a time when she could no longer bear to hear the melody and she wanted to destroy and discard the record. She discussed this plan with Mrs Kooistra, who took the record from her and saved it for her, knowing that one day Nadine would want it back again.

When Nadine was fourteen she got, by coincidence, the opportunity to leave the shelter and join the foster family Kruisdoorn. Her friend Nicolette from the shelter, by then they had known each other for a year, was up for adoption by the Kruisdoorn family and she had stipulated she only wanted to join them if Nadine could also come over and live together with her in the very same house. Nicolette was also an orphan and her father’s sister had received the permission to adopt the daughter of her brother after more than two years of litigation.

Nadine was happy to take the chance.

Twice a year, Nadine met her brother Andre-on her birthday and on his. This had happened for twelve years in a row. The Ousema family, who had been the neighbors at the campsite, adopted Andre six months after the accident. The Ousemas had done everything they could to get Nadine assigned to them as well, but that hope had been shattered because Andre and Nadine were not biologically related and therefore the system refused to accommodate the request.

Andre can’t remember his biological parents, nor Bernhard and Dorien Kosse, Nadine’s father and mother and his first adoptive parents. He has only vague images of the orphanage where the Ousemas visited him regularly and the day of his definite adoption was the best day of his life. He had been too young to understand that Nadine, his older sister, would also have been very happy to join the Ousemas and that the successful adoption procedure of the Van Doorns had made that definitively impossible.

Tom Ousema had made several career jumps at a leading technology firm in one decade. He had started there as a young technician and turned out to be quite talented at developing equipment and software in the field of measurement and control. When Tom developed products that were able to read out devices remotely and wirelessly, his career accelerated further and eventually his employer Tom offered him a job at the company’s international headquarters in Ontario, California. The family moved to the USA on Andre’s birthday in 1987. Nadine understood that she would see Andre even less. It made her sad.

When Nadine turns sixteen, she exchanges her last foster family, at her own request and due to the impossible situation with Nicolette, for a little apartment in a shelter for single young adults. Here she goes through an array of boyfriends with flair and panache, boys often slightly older than herself, with only one goal in mind-to lose herself in love.

She feels very mature, very self-supporting when she shares the night with a boyfriend. She enjoys the excitement ahead of the final game, but the intercourse itself is actually always a bit unsatisfying. She understands, mainly because she reads about it in girl-magazines, that sex should be more than the ‘straight on target’-behavior of her knights in shining armor. Often when her new lover is gone or asleep Nadine fantasizes about what she had read; of foreplay, prolonged arousal, orgasms and sleeping in together, until noon. She knows she will meet someone with whom she will enjoy these things, probably in a steady relationship, probably once they live together permanently. And maybe she will just ask for it one day, which she doesn’t dare yet. She thinks it’s a bit strange to ask for such physical indulgence and fears it could scare off her boyfriend.

She stays in touch with Mariek Kooistra, with whom she is now on first name terms. Once she tries to discuss with Mariek her desire for a steady relationship and passionate sex. But the response from Mariek is that she is convinced that all of that would be due and then she switched to small talk, as if it’s taken for granted that everyone will automatically have such a relationship one day.

And then there was Erwin. Erwin was twenty-three years old when she met him, and she was eighteen. The courtship lasts almost a year and they have lots of fun together. All that Nadine had dreamed of comes true with Erwin.

With him, things happen naturally from the first instant. It was love at first sight and they have many exciting erotic moments. Nadine tries to remember as accurately as possible how they make love and then tries to recall it when she is home alone and starts daydreaming. She shares her new secrets with Mariek Kooistra. Mariek teases her by calling her a ‘naughty little tramp’, and gives her a wink. Then there is a moment of silence. Nadine does not yet draw a single conclusion from the fact she never heard Mariek Kooistra talk about a man in her life.

By now, the relationship with Erwin is already over for nine months, but the heartache is still there. Nadine makes the resolution with herself to not think about Erwin for the whole trip and her stay at Andre’s place.

She is now for the first time in her life on her way towards the States, a journey that she had yearned for, for so long. Since Andre had left the Netherlands-it had felt extra painful for Nadine since that was on his fifteenth birthday-she had seen him only once. That was on her seventeenth birthday, now almost four years ago, when Andre was back in the Netherlands with his parents for a family visit. After that Andre, who had quickly made friends in the States, preferred to stay home when his parents visited the Netherlands. Andre had learned to fly ultralight aircraft and gliders and liked nothing more than flying from airstrip to airstrip.

Nadine was not fond of flying. Actually, she found herself always becoming quite nervous at the thought of Andre being the pilot of an airplane. She often wondered whether it would all be safe and end without accidents. Her senses told her that flying was not quite right and she had to take care. She didn’t fully comprehend this feeling; she wasn’t sure whether it was because she had to make this long-haul flight or because she was concerned about Andre’s risky passion. Anyway, it didn’t feel too good.

2

Ugly Tracksuits

For a moment it had seemed that the flight would be delayed. A number of people were almost too late at the gate, but Nadine had not panicked.

I have made it in time and nothing will stop this flight, she thought, almost aloud.

Oh, that must be them, thinks Nadine, as she sees four men in tracksuits, looking excited as walk down the aisle of the KLM Boeing 747.

Okay, there’s another one of them. He must belong to the same group as the other four men, but the store must have run out of ugly tracksuits, she chuckles. The men take their seats, two rows in front of Nadine. Two of them turn their heads and try to make the most innocent look as if they want to say: Sorry to delay the flight. It was by accident.

Nadine is relieved and a little excited that the plane has taken off. She has the aisle seat and the chair next to her is free. At first it makes her a bit uncertain.

Is it okay to have nobody next to you? she wonders. Is somebody missing?

A little later Nadine starts to enjoy the empty space and starts to think about it as a luxury.

This is fantastic, pops up in her mind.

She considers herself a lucky bird and tries to relax.

"If I can doze a little, this emotional journey will go quicker-or at

least seem to", is her reasoning.

The stewardess offers something to drink. At first, out of some sort of humility, Nadine almost rejects the offer. She is just in time to correct herself pretending to be a frequent flyer, and a moment later she enjoys a Coke with ice.

In four days it’s Andre’s birthday. He turns twenty already. She has not seen him for a long time and wonders if he has changed much. He is obviously quite cool with flying airplanes… And then she begins to worry: What if he is just like those guys that I was hanging around with… before I met Erwin? Oh my god! Really?… Although… He also knows we are actually not brother and sister… disgusting!

For a second Nadine doubts whether it is a good idea that she goes to Andre, and immediately after she’s ashamed of her own thoughts. What a silly idea Nadine, she corrects herself, "it is just really nice with Andre, Tom