THE HEART OF DANGER (59 page)

take

her place as the village's queen. They would turn back when they

reached the perimeter line of their vicious and ignorant world ..

. And

her village would become an armed camp, isolated, guarded close.

The dog had the scent and moved easily ahead of her, loping on the

trail on which her man had been taken.

Marty was told it by an Austrian of UNCIVPOL, told that the balloon

was

up in Sector North. He was a good friend of the Austrian policeman

because they had shared a house, when the snow had fallen in January

on

Bosnia, away down east in Srebrenica, and it had been goddamn cold

because the house had only half a roof, a place where men became good

friends. The Austrian policeman had been coming off duty, he had

a new

posting at the UNCIVPOL desk in the operations room, and he had told

Marty that all hell was loose across in Sector North, and that the

crossing points were closed at Turanj and at Sisak, that a bigshot

guy

from a village in Glina Municipality had been kidnapped, that it was

some crazy stuff about a war crimes investigator, and more crazy that

there was the German woman from the UNHCR Transit Centre at Karlovac

in

tow. The Austrian policeman had told him all of this and his eyes

had

been going past where Marty stood in the doorway of the converted

freight container, hooked on the shining steel ring set in the floor

of

the container, and the chain that was padlocked to it, and the

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collapsible bed that was made up in the far corner behind Marty with

the sleeping bag laid on it and the folded blanket and the handcuffs.

And Marty had told him, dead serious, that because he was homesick

he'd

gotten a big brute of a bear, a proper grizzly, being crated in from

Anchorage, and he had gotten rid of the Austrian policeman as fast

as

was half decent. He drove into central Zagreb.

Marty thought of the photographs on the walls of the freight

container,

pictures of the weak and the outnumbered and the defenceless who had

been caught behind the lines.

He parked among the new black BMWs in their sleek rows, the wheels

of

the fat cat bastards who were doing fine.

He went up to her room.

Marty Jones told Mary Braddock that Penn was coming with his prisoner

towards the river ... he looked for her excitement .. . that Penn

had

taken Milan Stankovic away from the village of Salika ... he watched

for her triumph .. . that a huge manhunt was in progress in Sector

North between the village of Salika and the Kupa river ... he expected

to see her flinch .. . that the whole of the goddamn place beyond

the

cease-fire line was alive, roused ... he expected to see her wilt.

"I want to look into his face. I want him to know that he murdered my

daughter. I want to be there when he's brought across."

"That's positive thinking, ma'am, and positive thinking is always

good.

Could just be premature thinking. Do you have any appreciation of

the

odds against .. . ?"

"Penn'll bring him across the river, I don't doubt it."

He felt almost an anger. She was sitting in an armchair and her legs,

narrow and fine, were crossed in elegance, and Ulrike Schmidt, the

best

woman he'd known, was hacking through a bucket of hell with Penn and

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the prisoner, and the jaws of the goddamn trap were closing tight,

as

they had closed on those who were photographed on the walls of his

converted freight container. One thing to goddamn talk about it,

one

thing to make the great goddamn plan, quite another to ... "Ma'am,

it's

not a picnic."

"He didn't have to go ... He never met my daughter, of course not,

but

he talked some unpleasant rubbish about loving her. I find that

repulsive. I don't need lectures in motherhood. But I have the

right

to demand the punishment of my daughter's killer ... He took our

money."

It was like a dismissal. He said he would go ring the mercenary down

in Karlovac.

It was a recklessness that pushed Penn forward. Thought through,

well

considered, he would have made the decision to lie up through that

long

day, and then after the fall of dusk complete the last charge for

the

river bank. He did not ask her for her opinion, and she did not

challenge his decision. He was drawn towards the river bank, goaded

towards it. So tired, and wanting only to be there, where he could

gaze out across the slow depth of the water, he was driven towards

it,

towards the danger of the last barrier .. . The sun was up above them

and slanted down diffused by the upper branches .. . The danger would

be at the last obstacle and that was where they would set their men,

where they would run their tripwires, where they would make their

ambushes ... He had now used the gag cloth, wedged it between Milan

Stankovic's teeth and knotted the ends tight against the shaggy

long-grown hair at the back of his neck. Milan Stankovic accepted

the

gag, and at the last stop of two minutes Penn had thought he had seen

the first slipping of his arrogance, the first breaking of the

conceit,

as if fear had begun to gnaw at the man, and Penn heard the breaking

of

a branch behind him. They were away from the path. They were far

into

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the cover of the trees, and Ulrike had heard what he had heard and

swung on her hips to look into his face. They were frozen. The

movement of the forest woodland was around them, and both were

straining to hear the sound again of the breaking of a branch, and

Penn

held the knife hard against Milan Stankovic's throat. She broke the

moment of stillness. She moved on. He went after her, pushing the

man

forward, and he did not know if they were followed ... He would not

tell her that it was all ahead of them, that the worst was in front

of

them. The day supervisor scowled down at him. "Oh, you're so kind, thank you so much .. . and another thing, I'd be very grateful if

you

could get me a few guidebooks, former Yugoslavia .. ." God, what

a

miserable woman. '.. . Yes, I'm very nearly through .. . Those

books

that get to the second-hand shops, full of photographs, I'd

appreciate

it so much." Henry Carter smiled his sweetest. She walked stiffly away, and he regretted that he had insufficient courage to call after

her and request a beaker of coffee .. . If she brought him coffee

she

would probably accompany the visit with a further dose of that

obnoxious sickly air freshener .. . As a major favour, she had brought

him a set of photocopied newspaper clippings. He was, indeed, nearly

through. Perhaps he was nit-picking, perhaps he was far beyond his

brief, but he did not care. A job worth doing, that sort of thing.

He

was sifting the clippings, believing they had a place in the file

even

though they were dated months after the events that consumed him.

The

Secretary General of the United Nations, should know what he was

talking about, guaranteeing his organization's support for the

international war crimes tribunal: We will put on trial those who

have

contributed to civilian suffering and it will not be forgiven .. .

will

deal not only with the people accused of committing the crimes, but

also those who inspired the human rights violations .. . We have to

denounce it ... civilians are being bombed, starved and mistreated

and

children are targeted by killers in the shadows. Good solid stuff,

and

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a pity that no one had bothered to tell the bureaucrats in their

offices above Library, and not told the Foreign and Commonwealth

Office, and not told UNPROFOR. Worth entering in the file because

Penn, that ordinary and decent man, and maybe a bit of a clairvoyant

and most certainly blessed with common sense, would not have believed

a

word of it. He grasped at another clipping and wrote a brief summary

to go into the file with the clipping, and hoped quite fervently that,

one fine day, the file would be examined by a mandarin or an

apparatchik with enough honesty to feel humility .. . some chance.

FRITS KALSHOVEN: Dutch academic, had been appointed to job of Chief

Prosecutor, but resigned. Cited 'refusal of Great Britain and

France

and Germany and Italy to co-operate'. Noted positive attitude of

United States of America, Canada and Norway. Also blamed

'obstruction'

of sister UN agencies.

Ah, getting better .. . Gratifying to read it. Another clipping,

another digest. Henry Carter squirmed, but it was necessary for the

full picture to be drawn if it were ever to be understood why Penn

had

made that desperate and poorly considered expedition behind the

lines,

into the heart of danger. Leave it to those bastards to sort out

and a

man may as well wait for his Bath chair .. . More brave talk.

A new PROSECUTOR named: Ramon Escovar-Salom (Venezuelan

attorney-general). Total budget of $30 million. Eleven judges

appointed (nice work if you can get it!), at salary of $150,000 per

annum, payable regardless of whether charges are brought.

The voice was cold behind him.

"I have your guidebooks, Mr. Carter. I have also to tell you that I

will be complaining, most forcibly, to In-House Management about the

demands you have placed upon us, and your quite disgusting lack of

personal hygiene."

Henry Carter breezed, "Not much longer, nearly finished."

Nineteen.

The man was snivelling. Penn reckoned Milan Stankovic to be in bad

355

shape and there were low grunting sounds in his throat that were

muffled by the gag. Maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the

tightness of the fine rope binding his wrists. They were going

slower.

They were close now to the inner line of the forward zone. He

reckoned

the forward zone would be five miles, a mile either way, deep, and

in

the forward zone would be the maximum concentration of strong points

and minefields and tripwires and patrols, and the forward zone could

not be avoided, could not be skirted. He had shown her the way they

should move: weigh each footfall, stop and listen and go, and he

thought she had learned well. He had the knife so hard against Milan

Stankovic's beard that the man no longer seemed to doubt him, and

took

as great a care with each stride as they did. She would go forward,

she would stop, she would listen, she would flick her fingers for

him

to come with the prisoner. They would both listen for a moment, and

then she would move forward again. It was when the tears were coming

faster on Milan Stankovic's cheeks that she began, again, to

interpret

what the man said through the gag. "He is telling you about his

grandparents. His grandparents were taken out of Salika village ..

.

There was a cordon round the village, made at first light by the

Germans and by the Ustase fascists .. . Before the German troops and

the fascists moved into the village his grandparents were able to

hide

his father in the barn where they kept two cows and their cart. His

father was eleven years old .. ." Going forward again, stopping,

listening. "When the German troops and the fascists came into the

village they took all the men and women they could find, and then

the

German troops stood back .. . Many of the Ustase fascists were from

Rosenovici village, and the German troops allowed them to take charge

of the villagers from Salika. They were walked, his grandparents and

many others, to Glina town. It was said to them when they reached

Glina, without food or water, that the Serb villages provided help

and

support for the Partizans who were hidden in the Petrova Gora forest

which is near .. . They were put into the church at Glina, his

grandparents and the other people from the village and from other

villages .. . He says that many of the Ustase fascists were from

Rosenovici, and many would have known his grandparents and the other

people .. . The church was set on fire by the Ustase fascists .. ."

356

Going forward, stopping again, listening. "He says the German

troops

were from a regiment of Wurtem-berg, and they were country boys and

they would have no part of it.. He says the fascists, and there were

many from Rosenovici, had blocked the doors of the burning church

and

they fired their rifles at the windows so that there was no escape

from

the fire ... He says it is the first story that his father told him

..

." Going forward, stopping, listening again. "He says the story of