THE HEART OF DANGER (27 page)

the hedges and fields and woods of the farm where his father drove

a

tractor. Now he felt inadequate. Penn knew how to strip and clean

and

reassemble a Browning 9mm automatic pistol because that was what he

had

been shown on the two-day firearms course organized for newcomers

into

A Branch. It was fourteen years since he had downed a pigeon with

the

shotgun, and it was seven years since the two-day firearms course.

He

asked if they had a Browning 9mm automatic pistol. The heavy man

swivelled his chair. The telephone was down and the mobile was

switched off. They seemed to strip him with their eyes. The heavy

man

dragged the keys from his pocket that were held to his waist belt

by a

thin chain, reached forward and unlocked the tall wall safe. He was

spilling handguns onto the desk, pistols and revolvers,

short-barrelled

and long-barrelled, with or without silencer attachment, old and new.

When it came, Penn recognized the Browning 9mm automatic pistol, no

silencer. It was pushed towards him, like a toy. He lifted it from the table, held it. It felt strange in his hand, unfamiliar, and

he

tried to hide that. How many rounds of ammunition? He had fired

four

magazines on the two-day course. He said that he would like to take

fifty rounds. Again the mocking. Two hundred US dollars for the

Browning 9mm automatic pistol, one hundred US dollars for the

magazines

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and the ammunition. And twenty-five US dollars each for four RG-42

fragmentation grenades that Ham said he should have. And fifteen

US

dollars for the olive-green backpack that was pulled off the floor,

from among the rubbish. And ten US dollars for webbing and for a

canteen and for a knife. And five US dollars for the boots. Penn

peeled the American dollars off the wad in his wallet. The heavy man

said that he liked to offer a discount, and the discount was five

dollars. Penn didn't smile. Penn handed him the four hundred and

twenty-five dollars. He stood his ground, waited on his receipt.

He

hitched one strap of the backpack over his blazer shoulder so that

it

hung loose against him. He stood in the doorway. "Thank you,

gentlemen. I hope you'll give me a good price when I bring them

back."

Penn was halfway down the corridor between the boxes and crates before

their laughter subsided. The nice girl, Penny, who showed some

respect

for him, brought back the backgrounder sheet she had typed for him.

Henry Carter looked up, smiled at her the way that he thought young

people liked to be smiled at. He thought she was a nice girl because

he had worked with her father, a considerably long time ago, but he

always made the point of asking after her father's health, just to

remind her that he had pedigree. "Still hard at it then, Mr.

Carter?"

He rested from his writing. "Yes, it's rather an interesting one."

"Very interesting, what I've just typed up for you. Will there be

more

for me to type up?" "Tomorrow .. ." He grinned, then whispered,

"Dragon alert .. ." He could see over her shoulder, the return from tea break of the supervisor. The nice girl, Penny, scuttled away

from

him. The file was taking shape now, and he placed her typed work

where

he thought it relevant, near to the start. Good background,

notwithstanding the arguable advantages of hindsight, he thought

always

useful, and the thin biography. Always useful to improve the

understanding of a file. Well, if a future reader of the file did

not

comprehend the situation on the ground, and the prime player's

personality, then it would not be easy to appreciate the quite

dreadful

hazard into which this young fellow proposed to walk. He read back

what he had written.

154

SECTOR NORTH

(Situation as of April/ May 1993.) Sources: Newspapers, Field Station

(Zagreb), Field Station (Belgrade), United Nations Monitors (SIS

personnel), FCO digest. Sector North represents that area closest

to

Zagreb, administered by local paramilitary Serb forces. An armed

camp.

All aspects of civilian life are governed by Territorial Defence

Force

(TDF). No central government, power rests with local warlords.

Local

warlords exercise power of life and death over few remaining Croat

civilians (elderly), and over their own people. Male population has

been mobilized into TDF. Patrols and roadblocks manned at night.

Large

areas of afforestation have been mined. High state of alert amongst

all sections of population fed by local radio (Petrinja and Knin),

constant reports of vigilance required against Croat spies and

saboteurs. Croat S-F (Special Forces) efforts at penetration for

intelligence gathering have most generally ended in failure, even

when

utilizing personnel formerly familiar with topography. Use of high

ground with visibility for defence positions and strong points In

addition to TDF forces there is a major commitment by former JNA

(Yugoslav National Army) on the ground. Under forest cover there

are

sufficient armoured vehicles to punch through to Zagreb, also

substantive artillery and missile positions. Location of JNA and

TDF

forces made next to impossible by restrictions on UNPROFOR movement

inside Sector North. Both paranoid that UNPROFOR provides

intelligence

to Croats, hence severe curtailment on movement. That movement

restricted to a few main roads; all access to front line area is

denied. Security Council tasking cannot be fulfilled by UNPROFOR

units.

UNPROFOR HQ logistics officer (Canadian): "Our operations in Sector North have virtually ceased to have any meaning. No respect now

exists

for the blue flag. It is impossible to function." TDF personnel

frequently drunk, always hostile. No dissent in Sector North to

authority of warlords. To complain is to be beaten, killed,

expelled.

Local population characterized by extreme brutality and hardness,

155

a

historical legacy. Were buffer population implanted by Hapsburg

empire

to block Ottoman expansion succeeded. Topography is rolling hills,

heavily wooded, small villages surrounded by farms, few roads.

Offers

potential for incursion by trained S-F, but difficulties as listed

above mitigate severely against non-skilled personnel. Summary: A

man

trap for the uninitiated. Area of extreme danger. He had the words of

the file, and the photographs, and in the morning he would have the

large-scale map. The light was slackening outside. He understood.

He

would not have claimed any particular credit for his understanding,

but

he felt the events were within his experience. Been there, done it,

seen it, hadn't he? No, not to this squalid little corner, not to

this

exact place, but he had been to other armed and fortified front lines,

and he had pushed young men, with quite a firm shove, into such man

traps of suspicion and hostility. It was because he understood that

the memories seeped back. So many yean before .. . He did not think

these young men, dull and ordinary and boring, went because they were

brave. He thought they went because of their fear of personal failure

.. . Old men such as Henry Carter, senior men, experienced men, men

who

had never done it themselves, went to these front lines that were

armed

and fortified and gave a young chap a pretty firm shove, then went

back

to a hotel or a safe house villa to hang around, stooge around, wait

to

see if they made it out of Iraq or East Germany or Czechoslovakia

or

Iran ... An awfully long time ago. But they were all sharp in his

mind, all the young men. All of them dragged to the cliff edge.

Extraordinary, but they all seemed to go willingly. He stood,

stretched. He took the fax message that he had written earlier to

the

supervisor. He asked for it to be sent, and he believed that his

smile

was gracious. The memories came close. Too often the memories that would be carried to the grave hustled into the mind of the old desk

warrior. Standing on the safe side of the fence with the minefields

and the tripwires and the self-firing guns, and hearing the

156

explosions

and the shrill German shouts, seeing Johnny Donoghue leave the young

woman who was living and her father who was dead, watching Johnny

climb

the bucking bloody wire. The memories, standing and seeing and

watching, were not erased. Sharpest of the memories, neatly

condensed

for an addendum to his file, was the late supper of cold cuts of meat

and spiced cheese and gassy beer, served by an impatient landlord

in

the Helmstedt hotel. Johnny, lovely young man, bottling his emotion

in

silence. Such dignity .. . and he had been on the safe side and did

not know how to communicate with Johnny, and the two of them toying

with the food .. . he felt so humble. In the morning they had caught

the flight from Hanover back to Heathrow, parted with a limp

handshake.

Before the next Christmas he had sent a card to Johnny, but it was

not

replied to. He had never again seen Johnny, lovely young man. He

had

used him, and the memories, damn them, did not mist. Back at his

desk,

he thought of the place, Sector North, as a man trap They were in

a

wood. It was the middle of the day and the sun dappled down through

the early leaves on the birches. Ham had quit the bullshit. Penn

asked questions about his Karen and his Dawn. There was a softness

in

Ham's voice and he'd lost the obscenities and the swagger. It was

later that Ham had gotten round to talking about the rudiments, what

could be told in a couple of hours, of survival movement behind enemy

lines. There was a cordon around the village, as tight a line as

the

men from Salika could draw. Eighteen of them made the line, covering

with their guns the open fields around the village. It was like a

rabbit shoot. Eighteen men to watch the fields between Rosenovici

and

the stream and the road and the woods on the higher ground. They

had

whistles, and each man in the cordon line, when he was in the position

given him, blasted his arrival. Some had the new AK47 assault rifles

and some had the hunting rifles with the long accuracy barrels that

had

been handed down from their fathers, and some had shotguns. Branko,

the postman, waited on the road that led to Rosenovici from the bridge

157

for all the whistle blasts. With him were his constant companions:

the

gravedigger, Stevo, and the carpenter, Milo. They were the dogs that

would go in and flush the rabbit, and the postman chuckled, some

goddamn rabbit, some goddamn claws on that rabbit, and he looked slyly

across at the carpenter and the raw lines on the carpenter's cheeks.

It

was a bright morning, good for sport. He heard Milan's shout. Milan

was on the high ground above the village. They went forward, three

of

them, with the dog bounding ahead. He could see Milan, past the tower

of the church that was broken, and Branko waved his handkerchief to

show that he had heard, that they were moving. Milan should have

been

with them. It had been the postman's idea to ask Milan to bring the

dog. He'd thought the idea clever, because he had reckoned that if

Milan brought the dog then Milan would be with them among the ruins

of

Rosenovici. Something had to shake the man out of his morose misery.

And the dog would know where to look, the postman reckoned. Milan

had

said that they could take the dog, that he would control the cordon

line. The dog led them into each building. They watched each house,

put the dog in, then followed the dog, always the dog went first.

They

searched each building. It was necessary to be careful because the

fire and the dynamite had weakened the floor boards and brought down

the rafter beams. He had known those who had lived in each house

because he had come there each day, way back, with the letters from

the

kids who were away at the colleges in Belgrade and Zagreb, and the

letters with the stamps of Australia and America. The postman felt

nothing bad, because they had been, all of them, goddamn Ustase.

They

were the people who would have come into Salika at night, with knives,

and with fire, no doubting. They would have done what their

grandparents, the original goddamn Ustase, had done, killed and

burned.

He felt nothing bad, and did not understand why Milan, the best, felt