‘Maybe we do, but belief doesn’t work here. You got to see this as a vacuum. Since the communists fell, every goddam religion and ideology has been trying to fill it. That’s why there’re Christian evangelists in the mountains with a Bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other, and why every kind of shady Muslim charity came here and started building mosques. But these people don’t give a shit about either of them.’ He drank the whisky, eyes patrolling the tables on the terrace. Then he clutched his belt. There was a faint buzz. ‘Hey, that’s my phone going. I better make the call.’
‘That’s fine. I have a couple of calls to make, too.’
‘Don’t you get lost,’ he said, and vanished into the gardens in a conspicuously clandestine manner.
Herrick dialled Harland’s mobile.
‘Who’s that with you?’ he asked.
‘Where are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Who is he?
‘The guy from the US Embassy.’
‘There are some developments,’ he said. ‘One, you can’t use the phone in the hotel, but I imagine you already knew that. Two, my charge has gone missing. Probably nothing to worry about, but I need to find him. He said the consignment you inspected this afternoon is much more important than anyone imagined. In a conference call to head office from the Embassy he blurted this out and now the MD is really interested. They’re getting back to me. Meantime, you’re to find out everything you can. Any movement of the consignment from the warehouse and they want to know about it.’
‘Just like that?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘I’ll do my best, which in the circumstances won’t be much. How’s the back?’
‘Comes and goes. Your man’s returning to the table. I’d better hang up.’
Out of the corner of her eye, in the darkened part of the terrace, she saw Harland get up from a table and walk to the dining room door, which she knew could be used to bypass the terrace. He was no longer bent double, but he was moving stiffly.
Gibbons flopped down beside her again. ‘Hell, I thought I had more whisky than that. Isis, you been sneaking my booze?’ He ordered another. ‘So where were we?’
‘What’s going to happen to Khan?’ she asked.
‘That’s all you ever ask.’
‘Well, we would like to talk to him in slightly less threatening circumstances. Maybe he would tell us more. ’
‘He’ll tell us.’
‘Then what will happen to him? Where will he be tried?’
‘Who the hell cares?’ He drank some more and looked at her with sudden sharp focus. ‘Forget about Khan. We just had word from London. I guess they told Milo Franc that you were a royal pain in the arse. They sent you here to get you out of the way. He talked to Collins, then a guy named Vigo, and he said you had no authority whatsoever. The way you threw your weight around has made Franc awful pissed. He said to tell you that you should write your report and get the hell out of Tirana. He doesn’t want to see you again.’ He laughed. ‘Hey, have another drink for chrissake, you’re making me feel awkward.’
‘Vigo spoke to Franc?’
‘Yeh, Vigo, he knows a lot of our guys at Langley.’
‘I’ll take that drink,’ she said, brightening. ‘It’s a relief not to have to go to that place. I don’t know how you stand it.’
‘Goes with the territory,’ said Gibbons in a manly, stoic way.
They drank while Herrick listened to Gibbons’ theories about the lack of car mechanics in Albania and the fact - according to him - that no one was able to read a map because the communists had banned them for forty years. She was amenable, smiled a lot, and was certainly guilty of implying that things might develop further that evening. But just past nine o’clock he leapt up and said. ‘Got to leave you, Isis. Date at the Valleys of Fire.’ He said it as if it was a film title.
‘What’s that?’
He looked down at her without a trace of humour. ‘A place where questions are asked and answers are given. I’ll check in tomorrow. Hey, why don’t we do dinner at Juvenilja?’
He navigated a pretty straight course through the tables of Tirana’s underworld and hopeful reformers, which she thought was due more to momentum than any residual balance.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Herrick left the terrace and went upstairs, trying Harland several times on the way, but his phone was either switched off or out of range. Once in her room she spread the contents of the plastic bag on the bed, and after trying various combinations, opted for jeans, red T-shirt and knitted shawl around her shoulders. She tied her hair back, put on some lipstick and blueish eyeshadow, then slipped along the corridor to the fire exit. Outside in the boulevard she merged with the
volta,
which was still in full flood, but quickly dumped the shawl behind a bush because she suddenly felt it made her look like a street walker. She was glad she’d chosen to wear her trainers instead of the fringed boots.
As she made her way across the broken pavement in badly lit side-streets, she realised that a woman equipped herself with one of two attitudes on the street in Tirana - a kind of brassy hauteur, or beaten-down, famished servitude. The former implied that you had protection, which was everything in a town full of northern immigrants who had brought with them the ancient clan code
Kanun of Lek Dukagjin
which she had been reading about that morning. The dishonouring of a woman associated with a powerful man - the very smallest slight - could result in death and endless vendetta. So she strutted her stuff until she reached the SHISK compound, where she became more discreet and circled the place, noting the infra-red camera and the number of cars parked in the street leading to the headquarters. In the back of her mind was her father’s advice about getting to know somewhere before attempting any kind of surveillance, and she had to admit she was woefully unprepared. If Khan was suddenly moved, she would have no way of following. The area was several degrees more sinister at night. There was no street lighting and the little light that came from the headquarters and the bar directly across the road only served to hint at what lay in the shadows. She was aware of people watching her from the darker recesses where they’d put up for the night. When one of the city’s regular blackouts came, casting the neighbourhood into total darkness, she fumbled in the canvas bag for her mobile and called Bashkin, knowing that he would still be loitering hopefully outside the main entrance of the Byron. He agreed to meet her outside a newly renovated Catholic church a couple of streets away and flash his lights twice. She hung up and was about to switch off her phone when it vibrated in her hand.
‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly.
‘It’s Dolph - Andy Dolph!’
‘Can’t talk now, Dolph. I’m really busy.’
‘Okay. Quickly then, you’ve got a message from Beirut. Your friend has news for you. She said you’d need to know straight away.’
For a moment Herrick couldn’t think what he was talking about. ‘Oh yes. Where are you?’
‘At your old desk to fill in for you. I’m sitting next to sweetie Lyne. You didn’t tell me about him, Isis.’
‘But he
is
sharp.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s good, but re-lent-less.’
‘Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll speak soon. And, Dolph - thanks for ringing.’
‘Be safe.’
About ten minutes later, just as the lights came back on, a pair of identical white Landcruisers with US diplomatic plates appeared in the street, crashed over the potholes and pulled up to wait for the compound gates to open. Herrick turned on her phone and dialled Harland. This time he answered.
‘There seems to be some movement and Gibbons mentioned he was going to the Valley of Fires, wherever that is. The people from the US Embassy are here. Two cars. Maybe something is happening.’
Harland thought for a moment. ‘Have you got transport?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know how reliable he’s going to be.’ She gave him Bashkin’s mobile number because her battery was low, then hung up and made her way to the Mercedes where Bashkin was sunk down in the driving seat, smoking. She tapped on the window and he let her in. ‘What we do now?’ he asked.
‘We wait,’ she said. ‘We wait, Mr Bashkin.’ To pass the time she told him about her father coming to Albania in the war and fighting with the partisans.
Inside the SHISK headquarters, Karim Khan heard the sound of several men walking along the corridor between the cells. One of the prisoners had suffered some kind of convulsion earlier and despite cries of help from the other men no one had come until it was too late. At least, that is what Khan concluded from the wailing in a language he could not understand. He wondered wretchedly what they would do with the body and whether the man’s relations would be told.
For a few moments the lights were thrown on and there was the sound of men moving something. But instead of the footsteps dying, they approached his cell and keys were turned in the lock. Two men came in and dragged him from the iron bed. Another pulled his arms roughly behind his back and bound them with a plastic restraint. He was marched along the cell block, fearful eyes watching him from the cages nearest the door, and taken outside into the night where he was hooded and rolled into the back of a vehicle. Now he’d better make his peace with God, he said to himself. There had been many nights before now when he’d known he would never see daylight, but the dawn had always come and Karim Khan had somehow survived. But tonight he was certain that his life would end, and the knowledge brought him an odd solace. For him the struggle was over.
They watched as the gates were shut and then opened again. Herrick had been urging Bashkin to take the handbrake off and allow the Mercedes to creep forward but he insisted on keeping his distance. The SHISK were people you didn’t mess with, he said. The mere fact of watching the headquarters was enough to land him in jail. When they glimpsed the figure being brought outside she leaned forward to the dashboard, wishing she had a pair of binoculars. The build of the man was about right and he was wearing a blue T-shirt, as Khan had been, but she didn’t get a clear view of his face before he disappeared behind the vehicles. Seconds later the cars emerged from the compound and moved off down the street.
‘We have to follow them,’ said Herrick, stabbing at her phone to call Harland.
Bashkin shook his head. ‘It’s no possible.’
‘Of course it’s bloody well possible. How much do you want?’
‘For this?’ He looked extremely doubtful, as if no amount of money would compensate for the risk he was about to take. ‘Two hundred dollars.’
‘Done,’ she said.
Unable to hide his astonishment, Bashkin started the car.
Herrick put the phone to her ear. Harland had already answered. ‘There are two cars,’ she said. ‘I’m ninety per cent certain that they’re moving Khan. I’ll follow them. They’re going towards Skenderbeg Square.’
‘I’ll join you. Keep in touch.’
They followed the cars for about five miles to the western fringes of the city. The evening was still warm and a lot of people were milling on the side of the road, buying water-melons and cold drinks from fridges hooked up to the public power supply. Bashkin slowed down several times, once for a dog-fight that spilled into both lanes of traffic and then for a broken-down truck. As a result, they lost the two Landcruisers, and when they eventually cleared Tirana’s chaotic outskirts and hit the dual carriageway to Durrës she shouted for him to put his foot down. For once Bashkin did as he was told.
They shot past the new Coca-Cola plant and a detergent factory, both incongruously neat and well-lit, like giant pieces of Toytown, then realised they must have missed the Landcruisers on the turning to Krujë a few miles back. They turned round and took a much smaller road. It passed through several villages and began to climb into a forest of low pines. Bashkin explained that this had once been Enver Hoxha’s private hunting ground and was now the place where they made charcoal. There were fires up here that burned night and day, he said. She asked to borrow his mobile, and after haggling over the price for a call, she phoned Harland for the final time and told him she had found the Valleys of Fire. This was where they must have brought Karim Khan, for what purpose she could not say. Harland seemed oddly unimpressed, but said he was on his way.
After rounding several more bends they came to a head-land overlooking a bowl in the landscape. Along the far side were about ten furnaces gouged out of the bedrock. Each one had an opening about the size of a door and a little above this was a hole which let out viscous smoke and muddied light. Herrick climbed out of the car saying she’d pay Bashkin another hundred dollars to wait. She also told him to direct a tall Englishman who was about to arrive down into the valley.
She started down the slope, picking her way through the scrub, all the while glancing ahead of her and up to the road above. As she drew near to the point where the bushes had been cleared, she saw dozens of young men and small, emaciated boys scurrying between the furnaces and heaps of rubber tyres that were responsible for the poisonous air. Their skin and clothes were blackened and the sweat on their bodies gleamed in the light. She crouched down and watched for a few minutes, almost hypnotised by the sight of them rolling tyres up the incline, then heaving them into the furnaces. Occasionally, downdrafts from the mountains caused the fires to blow back without warning and those nearest the furnace doors had to jump for cover. She saw one of these tar-black creatures, no more than four foot six tall, use a long metal poker to vault out of the way with great agility. When he landed he performed a jig like a monkey-demon cavorting in the flames of hell.