Deep Black (41 page)

I lifted a glass of orange juice to my mouth and took a sip. Time to up the ante. ‘I’m confused about something, too. Why were all the girls kept behind after everyone else had left? And why were a few of those kept by Mladic after you yourself had gone? Did you know about that?’

‘Of course I did.’ He seemed angry, but with what or whom I couldn’t work out. ‘The argument with Mladic was because he wanted me to pay the agreed price for the young women, yet keep some back for his men. We were arguing about cost, not lives. He is an animal. And yet he was allowed to live.’

‘You bought the girls off Mladic?’

‘The attack on you last night was not about ideology, just money. The Serbs are competitors in the market we both service.’

‘Those girls were business?’

‘I make no apology for that. What you saw wasn’t just about buying those young women, it was also about saving the others. Their mothers, their brothers. That had always been part of every deal. The high prices I paid the Serbs reflected that. Does that disgust you?’

’Surprises me.’

‘Some find what will soon be my past a little . . . unsavoury. But I have saved many lives, including the very ones you could have saved. Mladic and his aggressors murdered many thousands. Five thousand at Srebrenica alone. Now, that disgusts me, Nick.

‘And yet the West chose not to kill Mladic that day. They still seem happy for him to be at large. Why would that be, I wonder? I have told them where he is. He’s in a monastery in Montenegro. But where are the bombs? Where are your special forces?’

I wanted to deflect his anger. We needed to stay best mates if Jerry and I were going to walk out of here. ‘Jerry, you tell him.’

Jerry lowered the camera and explained about the international court. ‘Simple as that. Looks like they decided to preserve a few big names to stick in the dock after the war.’ He ripped the cellophane off camera two and waited for its flash to get up to speed.

Nuhanovic looked ready to explode. ‘The criminals like Mladic and Karadic are still out there, yet I, not a murderer, am the target of so much hostility from the West . . . so much that I now have to move country to continue my work.’

Jerry took a chance and pressed the shutter release. The flash made Nuhanovic blink again. When he opened his eyes I could see the oil lamps reflected in their angry gaze.

‘I, too, saw the horror on their faces as I left them to that terrible fate. But God will understand. I have Him on my side. What you have heard from Benzil, and no doubt elsewhere, is true. I can, and will, bring Islam together.

‘The West and even Islam itself will try to stop me, but I have faith and commitment, the very qualities that make a mother become a suicide bomber, or a husband fly a 747 into a building. They also know that sometimes their own brothers and sisters have to die for greater things to come. It’s a faith you will never understand.

‘You look surprised again, Nick. You shouldn’t be. Today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s statesman. If Ariel Sharon and Nelson Mandela can be accepted as leaders, then why not Hasan Nuhanovic, a man whose motives are essentially pure? God understands what I have had to do in order to continue and finance His will. I have done more for my Muslim brothers and sisters against the tyrannies and imperialism of the West than any terrorist bomb will achieve – and my work has only just begun.’

Jerry moved the lamps about again, trying to catch his subject’s changing mood.

Nuhanovic nodded up at him. ‘Jerry, if my face is to appear on a billion Muslim T-shirts, I suggest you just keep shooting. They will be the last photographs for quite a while. I am going to accept Benzil’s offer of sanctuary and continue my work from his country.

‘I thank God that Benzil is alive. His commitment, and the fact that God has chosen to spare him, has confirmed to me that taking up his offer is the right thing to do.’

‘When are you going to Uzbekistan?’

‘Soon, once Benzil and I have talked. The last few days have been very fraught – as I know I don’t have to tell you.’

The door opened and the two AKs appeared. One stayed where he was; the other went over to Nuhanovic and spoke quietly in his ear.

Nuhanovic looked at the two of us, his brow creased. He nodded at the AK boy and waved him back to his mate, then got up with an expression of regret, and went over to the bowl to wash his hands.

‘Our meeting has come to end. It appears it is not only you two who are helping accelerate my schedule. There has been a lot of activity after the incident at the cave and Lord Ashdown seems to think that SFOR are closing in on Karadic or Mladic. I think he would be more delighted to discover I am in fact his target.’

The AK boys were making a show of checking their watches. Nuhanovic held out a clean hand. ‘All I now ask is that you escort Jerry back to safety and make sure he gets his photographs developed. And publish my story. Tell your Western friends, whoever they are, that I know they let Mladic go free. They have blood on their hands.’

We shook. He turned to do the same with Jerry.

There was still one more question.

‘Our bags, when do we get them?’

‘In Sarajevo.’

The AK boys were looking even more agitated. Time for us to go.

95

Four clouds of breath hung in the cold, still air. The AK boys lit an oil lamp each, then we followed them across the courtyard to the passageway. The sky was still completely clear, the frost now hard underfoot.

Jerry had pulled up the hood on his parka, but I kept mine down. I wanted to take in as much information as I could. A vehicle was ticking over somewhere on the other side of the visitors’ building.

Guided by the oil lamps, we went back along the passageway towards the guest courtyard. As we neared the door, Jerry quickened his pace to get level with me. His eyes stared out from inside the hood, shouting a silent question: ‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’

The AK boys held the door open and motioned us through. The engine was the other side of the wall. ‘Speak English?’

One nodded.

‘Our bags? We came with bags. Will we get them back?’

‘Of course. No problem.’

‘When?’

‘Later.’

We crossed the courtyard towards the archway. The vehicle the other side of the double doors wasn’t chugging. It wasn’t the VW.

They were pulled open and we were blinded by headlights. The wagon was buried in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

It appeared the AK boys weren’t coming with us. They stayed where they were and gestured for us to climb in. We stepped into the cloud and discovered a Suzuki Vitara hardtop. The choke was doing overtime to fight the cold.

It was two up, both in front. I opened the back door and let Jerry get in first. I got in behind the driver. The cloud of cigarette smoke was as dense as the exhaust fumes outside.

There was no interior light but I could see the driver in the glow from the dash. Short back and sides, moustache, maybe in his forties. The passenger was the long-haired one. Between his legs, its muzzle resting dangerously against his chest, was a G3. I looked down. The plastic butt was the full-size, not foldaway, version. Much more important was what lay next to it in the footwell: our bumbags.

These guys had changed into black-leather jackets and jeans for the trip. Maybe we really were going back to Sarajevo.

The wagon lurched from side to side as we drove down to the chicane, then the six hundred metres beyond it, before turning right on to the forest track. Neither of them said a word. The driver leaned across and flicked the radio on. It was local phone-in stuff.

We worked our way through the trees. Jerry had dropped his hood, but his eyes were still quizzing me.

I ignored him. I needed time to think. I stared down at the pistol grip of the G3. The safety catch was on the left. First click down was single-shot, fully down was automatic, the opposite of the AK. The cocking piece was also on the left, just over half-way up the stock and, like the MP5 and all the Heckler & Kochs of that era, had to be worked with the left hand. The mag was straight, not curved, and held twenty rounds.

There was no way of telling if it was made ready. I had to assume it wasn’t.

Hairy lit two cigarettes and passed one to the driver before offering us one from the packet. I leaned forward a little between their seats.

‘Bags?’ I pointed into the footwell. ‘Can we have our bags now?’

Hairy waved his hand testily towards the windscreen. ‘Sarajevo, Sarajevo.’

The driver muttered something and worked the wheel. We bounced on to the frost-covered road and turned left, back towards the barns and the city. A press statement by Paddy Ashdown kicked off over the speakers: something to do with law and order, bringing evil men to justice, all the normal bluster, before the interpreter faded in over him.

The forestry block glided past on our left. I was going to have to do something soon. I leaned forward again and tapped Hairy on the shoulder. ‘My friend needs a piss.’

He stared at me blankly.

‘Piss?’ I pointed at Jerry and simulated undoing my fly. ‘He wants to go.’

He just waved his hand towards the windscreen again. ‘Sarajevo.’

Fuck it, we were Nuhanovic’s guests. We could give these guys orders. ‘No, we stop! He wants to piss!’ I poked the driver. ‘Stop!’

While the two of them exchanged a few words, I sat back with Jerry. ‘Get out, go down, stay down.’

I leaned forward. ‘You stopping, or what?’

As the wagon pulled in at the side of the road, Jerry got out, unbuttoning himself as he went round the front, past the headlights, and towards the treeline, too modest to take his piss within view.

They looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

96

Jerry had been listening; he seemed to lose his footing, and fell with a shout.

I tapped Hairy and waved my hands urgently. ‘Go help him! Go help him!’

Jerry wasn’t going to get any Oscars for the moaning, but at least he kept doing it. Hairy muttered a curse or two, but opened his door anyway. As he climbed out, he put the G3 back in the footwell, resting it against the seat.

My eyes focused on the barrel. I wouldn’t get a second chance at this.

I grabbed the muzzle with my right hand, yanked it back between the seats towards me and simultaneously pushed back, opened the door with my left and rolled out on to the tarmac.

I felt the butt bounce across the rear seat, and crash on to my chest as I landed.

My left hand grabbed the plastic stock, my right slid down on to the pistol grip. The road surface was hard against my back as I pushed away from the door.

Ignoring the shouts from the front of the wagon, I concentrated on getting my left hand on to the cocking piece, flicking it so it stuck out at right angles to the barrel, then racking it back. A brass round spun out of the ejection chamber as I let the working parts go forward and pick up another. I knew now that the weapon was made ready. The shouts continued as I got to my feet.

Butt in the shoulder, I aimed at Hairy, both eyes wide, needing to see everything.

Jerry lay stock-still on the grass. ‘Jerry, on your feet – get him down, get him down!’

I kicked the driver’s door and moved back at least three arm widths. ‘Out! Out! Out!’ If he didn’t understand English, he got the drift. He came out of the car at warp speed, hands in the air, then sank to his knees and put them behind his head.

By now Hairy was on the floor too. I leaned into the weapon, safety catch off, first pad of the finger on the trigger. ‘Jerry, get them together in the light.’

Jerry did as he was told and they soon lay together face down on the grass verge. I moved round so I faced the tops of their heads. I could get clear shots into them if they started fucking about. ‘Search them. Make sure they’ve got no radios, no weapons.’

Long shadows were cast by the headlights as Jerry patted them down and rummaged in their pockets. Hairy had nothing on him apart from a wallet and cigarettes.

He moved over to the driver. ‘What we going to do with them, Nick?’

‘They stay here. Soon as you’ve finished, get them crawling into the treeline.’

We both followed as they shuffled to the edge of the canopy, their breath snorting out of them like racehorses’. The first line of trees blocked the Vitara’s headlights, casting weird shadows into the first few metres of forest.

‘Tie them up. Use their belts, shoelaces, whatever you can find.’

I kept them both covered as Jerry got them to sit against a tree. Then he had an idea, ran back to the Vitara and returned with the empty bumbags and a set of jump leads. He tied their hands with the leads, then clipped the bumbags round their necks and a tree. They didn’t resist: they wanted to live.

I rested the G3 on the ground and pulled my boots and socks off. The frost-covered grass was freezing, but it was worth it. Fuck knows who might be within earshot, but I didn’t want them spending the night screaming their heads off.

I put the damp boots back on and jammed a sock into each mouth. Then we shoved as much as possible of the bumbags into their mouths and tightened the straps around the tree-trunks so they were holding their heads and gagging them. If you don’t fill the whole mouth void, sound can be produced and projected. With the void filled with a stinking sock, they’d be more worried about breathing and avoiding gagging than making noise.