The Birthday Girl (4 page)

The man in the passenger seat twisted around and looked at Freeman over the top of his glasses. 'I can't stress enough what a bad idea this is, Mr Freeman,' he said. His name was Connors and he was with the State Department. He was the man who'd THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 23 taken Katherine to the hospital and who'd had him transferred to a United Nations medical facility where they'd saved his left leg from turning gangrenous.

'I have to do it,' he said quietly. 'I'm not leaving until I know that she's all right.'

Connors shook his head and turned back to stare out of the window. A shrill whine was followed by an ear-numbing thud as a mortar shell exploded some distance behind them, and the driver ducked in his seat, an involuntary reaction that would have done nothing to save him if the shell had hit the car. Freeman noticed that Connors was totally unfazed by the explosion.

The car swerved to avoid a massive hole filled with dirty water and accelerated around a corner. The motion of the car smashed Katherine's head against the window and she yelped. 'Hey, take it easy!' Freeman shouted at the driver, a bulky Serb who hadn't spoken a word since he'd picked them up at the UN medical centre. Connors spoke to the driver in the man's own language, and the driver nodded and grunted, but made no attempt to slow down.

'We'll be there soon,' Connors said over his shoulder. He was as good as his word; five minutes later the car came to an abrupt halt in front of a football stadium. The driver continued to rev the engine as if he wanted to make a quick getaway until Connors spoke to him sharply. Connors got out of the car and walked around to the rear. The air that blew in through the open door smelled foul and Katherine put her hand over her mouth and nose. 'What on earth is that?' she said.

'People,' Freeman said. 'A lot of people.'

Connors appeared at the rear passenger door and opened it. He jammed it open with his knee as he assembled the portable wheelchair. The smell was much stronger, and for the first time Freeman became aware of the noise: a distant rumble, like thunder.

Connors and Katherine helped Freeman slide along the car seat and half lifted, half pushed him into the chair. The UN doctor, a thirty-year-old Pakistani, had assured him that eventually he'd be able to run a marathon but for the next few 24 STEPHEN LEATHER weeks or so he'd have to use the chair. Freeman was just grateful that the pain had gone.

When Freeman was seated in the chair, Connors stood in front of him, his arms folded across his chest. He was a big man with the shoulders of a heavyweight boxer, but deceptively light on his feet. Freeman wondered if he really was a representative of the State Department as he'd claimed. He suspected that he was with the CIA. 'Mr Freeman, I want to take one last shot at persuading you not to go through with this. There's a plane leaving for Rome this evening. You can be back in the States by tomorrow morning. This is no place for you just now. Or for your wife.' The crack of a rifle in the distance served to emphasise his plea.

Freeman shook his head. 'You're wasting your time,' he said. 'I can't leave without knowing that she's okay.'

Connors shook his head in bewilderment. 'She's a terrorist. She'd have killed you without a second thought.'

'She's thirteen years old,' Freeman said. 'They killed her family, did God knows what to her parents, and they would've blown her away if I hadn't stopped them. I want to make sure they haven't murdered her.'

'This is a war, Mr Freeman, and she's a soldier. There's something else you should know.'

Freeman narrowed his eyes. 'What?'

'The rescue operation. Your company funded it.'

'They what?' Freeman looked at Katherine. 'Is that true?'

Katherine shrugged. 'Maury said he'd handle it. He arranged to have the ransom and the equipment delivered to a middleman in Sarajevo and the man disappeared with it. He called in a security firm. They said that once the equipment had been delivered they'd probably have killed you anyway and that the only thing to do was to bring you out ourselves. They put Maury in touch with some people. Mercenaries.'

'So you see, Mr Freeman, it's your company that's responsible for what happened in the basement. If anyone's to blame . ..'

Freeman pushed at the wheels of the chair and rolled forward.

'Mrs Freeman, can't you ...?' Connors began, but Katherine THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 25 grabbed the handles at the back of the wheelchair and helped push her husband.

'I've told him what I think,' she said. Connors followed Katherine and Freeman along the broken pavement towards the entrance to the stadium. The closer they got to the entrance the more noticeable the smell became. It was the smell of sweat, urine and faeces, the smell of a thousand people gathered together without adequate sewage or washing facilities. The metal gates that barred their way were three times the height of a man and looked as if they were a recent addition. A smaller doorway was set into one of the gates and it opened as the three of them approached. A young soldier stepped out and spoke to Connors. The soldier nodded and stepped aside to allow Connors inside. Freeman realised that his wheelchair wouldn't go through the doorway. He looked up at the soldier and shrugged. The soldier looked back at him with unfeeling eyes and sneered. He shouted something to two more soldiers behind the gates and they all laughed. The gates grated back and Katherine pushed Freeman inside.

'My God,' Katherine said. 'What is this place?'

'It's a holding facility,' Connors responded.

'It's a concentration camp,' Freeman said, his voice little more than a whisper.

The prisoners were confined to the area that had once been the football pitch; the white markings could still just about be seen in places through the mud. There were hundreds of them, dressed in rags and with their heads shaved. Many of the men were bare-chested; some of them were little more than skeletons with deep-set eyes and slack mouths. A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire ran around the perimeter of the playing area and machine-gun emplacements looked down on the encampment from the stands. Inside the fence were a few makeshift huts surrounded by tents, but most of the prisoners stood or sat out in the open, talking in huddled groups or staring vacantly out at their guards.

Connors seemed oblivious to the suffering and misery. He stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the camp. A soldier with a bushy beard came over and spoke to him, and they both 26 STEPHEN LEATHER looked over at Freeman and his wife who were staring at the prisoners with looks of horror on their faces. Connors and the soldier laughed and the soldier slapped Connors on the back.

Katherine looked down at Freeman. 'You wanted to do business with these people?' she asked.

'I had no idea,' he said, shaking his head. 'I didn't know.'

'They wouldn't keep her here, surely? They're all adults.'

Freeman stared at the human scarecrows behind the wire and shuddered. Connors walked back and loomed over Freeman. 'She's not here, is she?' Freeman asked.

'Uh-huh,' Connors grunted. 'She fought like a soldier so that's how she's being treated. They're going to find her now.'

A guttural amplified voice boomed across the stadium from loudspeakers that had once announced nothing more sinister than the half-time score. A skeletal figure stood scratching its chin and stared at Freeman with blank eyes. Freeman shuddered. There was no way of telling if it was a man or a woman. The electronic voice barked again, and as it did the crowds parted. Freeman shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand. 'Can you see her?' Katherine asked.

Freeman shook his head, then he stiffened as a small figure walked towards the wire fence. He looked up at Katherine but before he could speak she began to push his wheelchair forward. 'My God, what have they done to her?' he whispered. Her head had been shaved and they'd taken away her clothes and given her a threadbare cotton jacket and trousers and she was wearing shoes that were several sizes too big for her so that she had to shuffle her feet. She reached the wire and gripped it with one hand as she waved to a guard.

'Is that her?' Katherine asked, horrified.

Freeman nodded, unable to speak. His eyes filled with tears and he reached down to push the wheels of his chair, trying to move faster. Freeman and Katherine got to the fence before the guard. Freeman put out his hand slowly and stroked the back of Mersiha's hand. She looked back at him blankly. Her face was stained with dirt and one eye was almost closed amid an egg-shaped greenish-yellow bruise.

'Mersiha?' he said softly.

She didn't reply, but a tear ran down her left cheek. Freeman looked up at Katherine. 'We're not leaving her here,' he said. Katherine nodded. 'I know,' she said.

The meeting took place in a windowless office with no name on the door and a sterile air about it, as if it was used only for emergencies, or for business that was supposed to remain secret. Connors was there, but he said nothing. He stood by the door with his arms folded across his barrel chest like an executioner awaiting his orders. Freeman sat in his wheelchair, his hands lying loosely on the tops of the wheels. The two other men had arrived separately. One was American, a State Department official called Elliott who had a clammy handshake and an over-earnest stare and who clearly outranked the now-taciturn Connors. The final member of the group was a Serb, a small thick-set man with a square chin and eyes that never seemed to blink. He made no move to introduce himself and the Americans didn't tell Freeman who he was or why he was there, but it was soon apparent that it was the Serb who was going to have the final say. It was, when all was said and done, his country.

Elliott was shaking his head. 'Out of the question,' he said.

'She has no relatives,' Freeman said. 'No family members to take care of her.'

'She is a prisoner of war,' the Serb said.

'She's a child!' Freeman protested. 'A small, frightened child.'

'Mr Freeman, I can assure you that once hostilities are over, she will be released. This war will not go on for ever.'

Freeman thought he saw the beginnings of a smile flit across Elliott's face, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. 'And what then? How's a thirteen-year-old girl going to survive on her own?'

The Serb made a small shrugging movement. His eyes were hard and unreadable. Freeman couldn't see what he had to gain by refusing to allow him to take Mersiha out of the country.

'I can take care of her. I can give her a home.' Freeman leant forward in his chair. 'I'm the only friend she has.'

'She tried to kill you,' said the Serb.

'No,' Freeman said quietly. 'Your people tried to kill her.'

The Serb looked across at Elliott. 'Mr Freeman,' the American said, 'have you really thought this through? This girl knows nothing of America, she has no connections with the country, and she is a Muslim. What religion are you, Mr Freeman?'

Freeman was an irregular church-goer at best but he had no wish to be drawn into a religious argument. 'I'll be responsible for her religious upbringing. I'll make sure she has a tutor who teaches her about her religion, and her culture.'

Elliott had a file under one arm, but he made no move to open it. Freeman doubted that the State Department would have a file on a thirteen-year-old girl, and he wondered what was in the folder.

'The girl is a terrorist, and she will be treated as such,' the Serb said.

Freeman's eyes flashed fire. 'The girl has a name,' he retorted. 'Mersiha. Her name is Mersiha. She was with her brother, because you killed her parents. There was nowhere else for her to go. She's an orphan. Now you've killed her brother, she has no one. Where's it going to end? When they're all dead? When you've cleansed the whole fucking country?' His hands were snaking with rage and he had to struggle to keep himself from shouting.

'Mr Freeman, there's no need to be offensive,' Elliott said.

Freeman glared at him. 'Listen to what he's saying, will you? First of all he says she's a prisoner of war and that she'll be as right as rain once the war's over. Now he says she's a terrorist. She's a thirteen-year-old girl, for God's sake. She needs help. She needs a family.'

Elliott nodded as if he understood, but it was clear from the look on his face that he didn't care one bit how Freeman felt. He took a slow, deep breath. 'You had a son, didn't you, Mr Freeman?' The 'Mr Freeman' came almost as an afterthought, as if Elliott was nearing the end of his patience. Freeman didn't reply. The room seemed suddenly cold. He held Elliott's stare THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 29 and gripped the wheels of his chair. 'Are you sure you want to do this for the best of motives?' Elliott continued. Still Freeman didn't reply. He knew that the State Department official was trying to provoke him, to prove that he was unstable, and that if Freeman did lose his temper they'd never let him take Mersiha.

'There are also problems with adoption, Mr Freeman,' Elliott said. 'The authorities here aren't keen to allow their children to be taken away. They feel that their needs are best served among their own people.'

'In concentration camps?'

'You might also find it difficult to get the adoption approved back in the United States.'

Freeman kept his eyes on Elliott. He had only one card left to play, one threat to use against the hard-faced State Department official and his file. 'If you insist on leaving her in that camp, I'll have no choice but to go public,' he said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. 'I'll speak to every newspaper and TV correspondent I can find. I'll go to London and hold a press conference there, and then I'll do the same all across the United States.' He slapped the side of his wheelchair. 'I'll sit in this chair and I'll tell the world how a mercenary with blue eyes and a Virginia accent tried to blow away a little girl, and I'll tell them that the State Department wanted her to be kept in a concentration camp because they didn't want the world to know the truth.'

- j Elliott studied Freeman, his forehead creased as if he were {v* contemplating a mathematical problem. 'No one will care,' he said. 'Besides, the mercenaries, if indeed they were mercenaries, were acting on your behalf.'

'They'll care,' Freeman replied. 'And you know as well as I do that once it gets into the media, you'll have no choice but to let her into the States. And I don't think it'll be too difficult to prove that they were assisted by the State Department. I'm sure the New York Times would love to know what you and Connors are doing here.' He paused for breath. 'Look, this isn't a poker game. I've no reason to bluff. You allow my wife and me to adopt Mersiha, or I go public. One or the other. Your choice. And don't worry about the adoption. I'll 30 STEPHEN LEATHER go to the best lawyers in the States, I'll pay whatever it takes. Whatever.'

Elliott looked across at the Serb. Freeman kept his eyes on Elliott, as if he could get the answer he wanted by sheer force of will. He didn't see how the Serb had reacted, but he heard Connors shift position behind the wheelchair.

'You take her,' Elliott said. 'You take her today. I'll arrange the paperwork at this end, you'll be responsible for all costs.'

Freeman nodded. 'Agreed.'

'I haven't finished,' Elliott said smoothly. 'You are never to come back to this country, Mr Freeman. Neither is the girl. If the girl leaves, she is never to return. And you, Mr Freeman, are never to speak of this again. To anyone.'

Freeman nodded. He couldn't stop himself smiling. He'd won. He'd played his last card and it had been a trump.

'I hope you understand what I'm saying, Mr Freeman,' Elliott said, his voice suddenly hardening. 'You will not talk to anyone about what happened. In the cellar. At the camp. Or within these four walls. It never happened.'

Elliott stared at him, and Freeman knew that there was more that the State Department official wanted to say. He wanted to tell him what would happen if he broke the agreement, and Freeman knew that it would involve a man like Connors, or maybe a man with blue eyes and a Virginia accent, and he was suddenly scared. Before Elliott could continue, Freeman nodded, almost too eagerly. 'I understand,' he said. 'Mersiha's all I want. Nothing else matters.'

Elliott continued to stare at Freeman, and for a moment Freeman feared that he was about to change his mind. 'Thank you,' he said. He looked across at the Serb. 'Thank you,' he repeated. The Serb and Elliott exchanged glances, then left the room without a word. Freeman turned his chair around to find Connors leaning against the wall with a sly smile on his face, slowly shaking his head. 'You're a lucky man, Freeman,' he said enigmatically.

Freeman opened the refrigerator door and peered inside. He pulled out a carton of orange juice and took it over to the sink. As he poured himself a glassful he looked through the window and across the lawn to the line of trees that separated his property from that of his neighbour. Mersiha was playing with Buffy, throwing a blue frisbee for the dog and laughing each time she ,* brought it back. It was a game Buffy would happily play for hours "&' at a time without getting bored. Mersiha's laughter carried into the kitchen and Freeman smiled. The teenager who was running across the lawn was a far cry from the frightened girl he'd taken from the camp in Serbia almost three years earlier. She was a great deal taller, almofffa* young woman, and her jet-black hair was thick and shiny.

'Go get it, Buffy!' she shouted. There was hardly any trace of a Bosnian accent any more. The all-American girl. Freeman drank his orange juice. Mersiha saw him and ran to the back door. She burst into the kitchen with all the energy of a SWAT team.

'Hiya, Dad,' she said, hugging him around the waist.

'Hiya, pumpkin. Do you want a ride to school?'

'No, thanks. Katherine will take me later.'

Freeman put his glass in the sink and untangled himself from Mersiha's hug. She picked his briefcase up and handed it to him. 'What time are you coming home?' she asked.

'About six,' Freeman said. Mersiha was always asking him where he was going, and when he'd be back. Bearing in mind her background, he wasn't surprised by her insecurity. In some ways it was reassuring. He had many friends who'd love to have the same degree of concern from their adolescent children.

Buffy stood outside the kitchen door, barking at Mersiha to return to their game, but she ignored her. She looked at Freeman and frowned, deep lines creasing her forehead. 'Is everything okay?' she said.

'Of course. Why?' Freeman was already late but he put his I briefcase back on the table.

Mersiha shrugged. 'You look worried. Like the world was =', �?� about to end and only you know.'

f Freeman smiled. 'Everything's fine. I have everything I've 32 STEPHEN LEATHER ever wanted. A home. A family.' Buffy barked, louder and more insistent. 'And a dog. What more could any man want?'

Mersiha looked at him for a few seconds before she smiled. 'A million dollars?' she said.

'Ah, the American Dream,' Freeman sighed.

'America is truly a wonderful country,' Mersiha said, putting on a thick European accent and then collapsing in a fit of giggles. She picked up his briefcase and carried it out to the car for him. 'Don't forget your seat belt,' she said before he could even reach over his shoulder for it.

'Do I ever?' he asked, buckling himself in. A sudden wave of sadness washed over him and he shivered. He caught himself just in time and managed to keep smiling.

Mersiha saw the change in his face and immediately realised what was going through his mind. She flushed. 'I didn't mean .. .'

'I know, I know,' he said.

'I just meant I wanted you to drive safely, that's all.'

'Mersiha, there's no need to explain, I know what you meant.'

'Yeah, but I don't want you to think that I...'

Freeman took her hand and squeezed it. 'Shhhh,' he said. 'I promise to drive carefully. Now go and play with your dog.'

He waved goodbye to Mersiha and backed the Chevrolet Lumina out of the driveway into the road. In the driving mirror Freeman saw her stand and watch him drive away. It had been more than five years since Luke had died in the car crash, but the memory of it still brought tears to Freeman's eyes and he blinked several times. He and Katherine had explained to Mersiha what had happened and why they had no children of their own, and it pained Freeman to see how carefully she tried to avoid the subject. He knew she was trying to protect his feelings, and that made it all the worse. If anything it was he who should be trying to help her. He could only imagine what a tangled mess her emotions must be. There were times, usually when she didn't know that he was watching her, when he saw a look of such sadness cross her face that his heart would melt. He knew that she must be thinking about her real mother and father.

Both Freeman's parents were alive and reasonably well, living in a bungalow in Bishopbriggs, a suburb of Glasgow, and whereas he saw them only once or twice a year, he knew how much he'd miss them when they eventually passed away. And not a day went by when he didn't think of Luke. God only knew how Mersiha had dealt with the loss of her parents and her brother, especially considering the circumstances in which they'd died, circumstances that she had yet to really talk about.

Mersiha was seeing a psychiatrist on a regular basis, but he wasn't making much progress with her. It wasn't that she was uncommunicative or withdrawn, quite the opposite in fact. She was bright, she was outgoing and she was as cute as a button, but she simply refused to tell anyone what had happened to her in the months before Freeman had met her. The psychiatrist, Dr Brown, had said that it was just a matter of time and that eventually she would open up. It would probably happen once she felt totally safe in her new home, Dr Brown had said, and he'd stressed that it was up to Katherine and Tony to demonstrate that she had a loving, supportive family that would always be there for her. That wasn't a problem; they were more than happy to have her. More than happy. She went some way towards filling the void that Luke's death had left, but it was more than that - they couldn't have loved her more if she had been their own child.

Freeman was still thinking about Mersiha when he pulled into the parking lot of CRW Electronics and drove over the painted letters that spelled out his name and title: chairman. Maury Anderson's white Corvette was already in its space and Freeman found him sitting in his plush office reading a computer printout and drinking a cup of black coffee.