The Black Mountain (14 page)

And on Sunday, April fourth, you came here to explain to these men that you had been unable to carry out our operation because you had been sent abroad on a mission. You found a woman here, drinking vodka with them, which was a surprise to you, but a greater surprise was to find that they already knew where you had been and what your mission was. Mistakes were made, I admit it, I only learned of them when I returned to Tirana yesterday from Moscow. They told you that they knew about your mission, and that alarmed you and you fled, and not only that,

after you left they told the woman about you. They blame the vodka, but they will learn that it is not a function of vodka to drown a duty. Later they corrected their blunder by disposing of the woman - that is in their favor - but they will have to be taught a lesson. His tone sharpened. That can wait, but you can’t. Up with him, Bua. Peter Zov sputtered something, but Bua ignored it.

He had it on Peter in bulk, so when he pulled the chain not only Peter’s arms went up but also the rest of him. When the feet were well off the floor Bua hooked the chain on the peg and picked up the end of the rope and was ready to resume. So was his colleague.

Of course, the man in the chair said, you had to come when you got my message yesterday, since you knew what to expect if you didn’t, so that’s no credit to you. You can get credit only by earning it. First, once more, how many boats patrol out of Dubrovnik, and what are their schedules'

Damn it, I don’t know! Peter was choky again.

Bah. My patience can’t last forever. Split him.

As the men tightened the ropes Wolfe lowered himself to a squat, pulling at my sleeve, and I went down to him. He had the long knife in his right hand. I had been so intent with my eye at the hole that I hadn’t seen him take it from his belt. His left hand was fumbling at a pocket. He whispered in my ear, We’re going in when he screams. You open the door, and I go first. Gun in one hand and capsule in the other.

I whispered back, Me first. No argument. Rescue him'

He nodded. As we straightened up he was still fumbling in his pocket, and I was reaching to the holster for the Marley. It didn’t carry the punch of the Colt,

but I knew it better. I admit I felt in my pocket to touch the capsule, but I didn’t take it out, wanting the hand free. The door should be no problem. On our side was a hasp with a padlock hanging on a chain. He started to scream. A glance showed me that Wolfe’s left hand had left his pocket, and he nodded at me. As I pushed the door open and stepped through, what was at the front of my mind was light. Its source hadn’t been visible through the hole. If it was a lamp, as it must be, and if one of them killed it, knives would have it on guns.

The only insurance against it would be to plug the three of them in the first three seconds. I didn’t do that, I don’t know why - probably because I had never shot a man unless there was nothing else left. The scream drowned the sound of our entry, but Bua saw us and dropped the rope and goggled, and then the other one, and the man in the chair jumped up and whirled to face us. He was closest,

and I put the Marley on him. Wolfe, beside me, with the hand that held the knife at his belt level, started to say something but was interrupted. The closest man’s hand went for his hip. Either he was a damn fool or a hero, or because I didn’t say anything he thought I wasn’t serious. I didn’t try anything fancy like going for his arm or shoulder, but took him smack in the chest at nine feet. As I moved the gun back to level, the hand of the man on the right darted back and then forward, and how I knew a knife was coming and jerked myself sidewise the Lord only knows. It went by, but he was coming too, pulling something from his belt, and I pressed the trigger and stopped him. I wheeled left and saw a sight. Bua was at the wall with his knife raised, holding it by the tip, and Wolfe, with his knife still at belt level, was advancing on him step by step, leaning forward in a crouch. When I asked him later why Bua hadn’t let fly, he explained elementary knife tactics, saying that you never throw a knife against another knife at less than five meters, because if you don’t drop your man in his tracks, which is unlikely if he’s in a crouch, you’ll be at his mercy. If I had known that I might have tried for Bua’s shoulder, but I didn’t,

and all I wanted was to get a bullet to him before his knife started for Wolfe.

I fired, and he leaned against the wall, with his hand still raised. I fired again, and he went down. This was funny, or call it dumb. Before Bua even hit the floor I turned around to look for the light. I had entered the room with the light on top of my mind, and apparently it had stayed there and I had to get it off. It was a letdown to see that it came from three spots: two lanterns on a shelf to the right of the door, and one on the floor at the left. I had worried about nothing. Wolfe walked past me to the chair, sat, and said,

Better look at them.

Peter Zov, still hanging, croaked something. Wolfe said, He wants down. Look at them first. One of them may be shamming.

They weren’t. I took my time and made sure. I suspected Bua when I put a piece of fuzz from my jacket on his nostrils, holding his lips shut, and it floated off, but two more tries showed that it had been only a current in the air. No shamming, I reported. It was close quarters. If you wanted any -

This is what I wanted. Let him down. I went and took the chain off the peg and eased it up. I suppose I should have been more careful, but my nerves were a little ragged, and when I saw his feet were on the floor I loosened my grip, and his weight jerked the chain out of my hands as he collapsed on the stone. I went to him and got out my pocket knife to cut the cord from his wrists, but Wolfe spoke.

Wait a minute. Is he alive'

I inspected him. Sure he’s alive. He just passed out, and I don’t blame him.

Will he die'

Of what'Did you bring smelling salts'

By heaven, he blurted with sudden ferocity, you’ll clown at your funeral! Tie his ankles and we’ll go upstairs. I doubt if the shots could have been heard outside even if there were anyone to hear them, but I want to get out of here.

I obeyed. There was a choice of ropes to tie his ankles with, and it didn’t take long. When I finished, Wolfe was at the door with a lantern in his hand, and I got one from the shelf and followed him out and up the fifteen steps. We went up faster than we had come down. He said we had better make sure there was no one else in the fort, and I agreed. He knew his way around as well as if he had built it himself, and we covered it all. He even had me climb the ladder to the tower, while he stood at the foot with my Colt in his hand, talking Albanian - I suppose warning anyone in the tower that if I were attacked he would pump them.

When I rejoined him intact we went back to ground level and on outdoors, and he sat down on a flat rock at the corner nearest the trail. On its surface beside him was a big dark blotch.

That’s where Pasic killed the dog, I remarked.

Yes. Sit down. As you know, I look at people when I talk to them, and I don’t like to stretch my neck. I sat on the blotch.

Oh, you want to talk'

I don’t want to, I have to. Peter Zov is the man who murdered Marko. I stared at him. What is this, a hunch'

No. A certainty.

How come'He told me what the man in the chair had said.

I sat for a minute and chewed on it, squinting at the sun.

If you had told me before we walked in, I said, it would have taken just one more bullet.

Pfui. Could you have shot him hanging there'

No.

Then don’t try to saddle me with it.

I chewed on it some more. It’s cockeyed. He killed Marko. I killed the birds that killed Carla.

In a fight. You had no choice. With him we have.

Name it. You go down and knife him. Or I go and shoot him. Or one of us challenges him to a duel. Or we shove him off a cliff. Or we leave him there to starve. I had an idea. You wouldn’t buy any of those, and neither would I, but what’s wrong with this'We turn him over to Danilo and his pals and tell them what you heard. That ought to do it.

No.

Okay, it’s your turn. We may not have all day because company may come.

We must take him back to New York.

I guess I gaped. And you scold me for clowning.

I’m not clowning. I said with him we have a choice, but we haven’t. We are constrained.

By what'

By the obligation that brought us here. What Danilo’s wife told him was cogent but not strictly accurate. If personal vengeance were the only factor I could,

as you suggested, go and stick a knife in him and finish it, but that would be accepting the intolerable doctrine that man’s sole responsibility is to his ego.

That was the doctrine of Hitler, as it is now of Malenkov and Tito and Franco and Senator McCarthy, masquerading as a basis of freedom, it is the oldest and toughest of the enemies of freedom. I reject it and condemn it. You look skeptical. I suppose you’re thinking that I have sometimes been high-handed in dealing with the hired protectors of freedom in my adopted land - the officers of the law.

Not more than a thousand times, I protested.

You exaggerate. But I have never flouted their rightful authority or tried to usurp their lawful powers, and being temporarily in the domain of dictatorial barbarians gives me no warrant to embrace their doctrines and use their methods.

Marko was murdered in New York. His murderer is accountable to the People of the State of New York, not to me. Our part is to get him there.

Hooray for us. The only way to get him there legally is to have him extradited.

That isn’t true. You’re careless with your terms. Extradition is the only way to get him there by action of law, but that’s quite different and of course impossible. The point is to get him under the jurisdiction of civilized law without violating it ourselves.

I see the point all right. How'

That’s it. Can he walk'

I should think so. I heard no bones crack. Shall I go and find out'

No. He got to his feet with only a couple of grunts during the operation. I must speak with that man - Stan Kosor. I don’t want to leave you here alone,

because if someone should come you couldn’t talk except with the gun, so I’ll try this first. He faced the direction of Montenegro and beckoned, using the whole length of his arm, again and again. I booked it as a one-to-ten shot,

because first, Kosor might not be up in the niche at all, and second, if he was there I doubted if he trusted Wolfe enough to cross the border to him. I lost the bet. I don’t know how the man got down from the crag so quickly unless he just let go and slid, but I hadn’t even begun to look for him in earnest when my eye was attracted by movement, and there he was on the bend in the trail where it emerged from a defile. He strode along until he reached the spot where the trail began to widen for the space in front of the fort, stopped abruptly, and called something. By then I had seen that it wasn’t Kosor but Danilo Vukcic. We had been honored. Wolfe answered him, and he came on. They jabbered. Danilo sounded and looked as if he didn’t believe what he heard, got persuaded apparently, and looked at me with a different expression from any he had had for me before. Deducing that I was being admired for my prowess with small arms, I yawned to show that it was nothing out of the ordinary. Then they got into a hot argument. After that was settled, Wolfe did most of the talking, and there was no more arguing. Evidently everything was rosy, for they shook hands as if they meant it, and Danilo offered me a hand and I took it. He was absolutely cordial.

When he went he turned twice, once at the far edge of the wide space and once just before he disappeared into the defile, to wave at us.

He’s a different man, I told Wolfe. Report, please'

There isn’t time. I must talk with that man, and we must get away. I told Danilo what happened. He insisted on going down to look at them, but I said no.

If he had gone alone he might have come back with a collection of fingers,

including Zov’s, and if we had gone along and Zov had been conscious he would have seen us together on friendly terms, which wouldn’t do. We’re going to take Zov out the way we came, and Danilo is going to try to stop us and fail.

I’m not going to shoot Danilo.

You won’t have to, if he does as agreed, and he will. I would prefer not to go back down there. Will you go'If he can move, bring him here.

Leave his wrists tied'

No. Free him.

I entered the fort by the door, crossed to the entrance to a narrow passage, and after a couple of turns was in the long corridor. At the top of the fifteen steps I turned on my flashlight. Why I got a gun in my hand as I approached the door of the room I don’t exactly know, but I did. The lantern on the shelf was still burning. I made the rounds of the three casualties, checked that they still weren’t shamming, and then went to Zov. He was stretched out, in a different position from when we left him, with his eyes shut, motionless. I took my knife and cut the rope on his ankles, and then the cord on his wrists, which were red and bruised and swollen, and when I let go of them he tried to let them fall dead to the floor but botched it. I stood and looked down at him, thinking how much I could simplify matters if I forgot doctrines for just two seconds.

Another thought followed it. Was it possible that Wolfe had had that in mind when he sent me down alone, on the chance that I would come back up and report that Zov had kicked off'Let Archie do it'I decided no. I had known him to pull some raw ones, but no.

Nuts, I told Zov. Open your eyes. No sign. I kicked his shoulder, just gently, but the shoulder had had a hard day, and he winced. I stooped and grabbed an ear and started to lift him by it, and his eyes opened and focused on me. I let the ear go, hooked my fingers in his armpits from behind, raised his torso, and hauled him on up. He clutched at my sleeve and said something, and I took hold of his belt in the rear and started him for the door, and he did fine.

I was afraid I might have to carry him up the steps, but he made it on his own,

though I kept a good hold on the belt for fear he might tumble and break his neck and Wolfe would think I had pushed him. After that there was nothing to it.

Halfway down the corridor I shifted from his belt to his elbow, and when we got to the door, in sight of Wolfe, I broke contact. I had some vague feeling that I preferred to have him go on to Wolfe without my touching him. He went to the rock and sat down, and Wolfe moved over a little.

Well, Mr. Zov, Wolfe said, I’m glad you can walk.

Comrade Zov, he said.

If you like, certainly. Comrade Zov. We’d better be moving. Someone might come,

and my son has done enough for one day. Zov looked at his wrists. It was just as well he didn’t have a mirror to look at his face. The flat nose and slanting forehead would never have been a treat, but with the sun on them, and still twitching from spasms, they were something special. He looked at Wolfe.

You were in Titograd yesterday afternoon. How did you get here'

Surely that can wait. We must get away.

I want to know.

You heard me mention the Spirit of the Black Mountain. I had been told that one of its leaders could be found here near the border, and we came to find him. We did so, and talked with him, and we were disappointed. We decided to cross into Albania, and saw this fort, and were about to enter, when we heard a scream. We went in to investigate, and you know what we found. We interfered because we disapprove of torture. Violence is often unavoidable, as it was on your mission to New York, but not torture. If that’s how -

How do you know of my mission to New York'

We heard that Russian talking to you. If that’s how the Russians do things, we are not their friends. We intend to return to Titograd and see Gospo Stritar. He impressed us. Wolfe stood up without grunting. Let’s go. But did they take anything from you'Weren’t you armed'

We can’t go through the mountains in the daytime. We’ll have to hole up - I know a place - until dark.

No. We’re going now.

That’s crazy. We’ll never reach the valley alive. It’s risky enough at night.

Wolfe tapped him on the shoulder. It’s your nerves. Comrade Zov, and no wonder.

But I’m in charge momentarily, and I insist. You have seen my son in action, and you may rely on him to get us through, as I do. I will not undertake that trail again at night, and I refuse to leave you here in your present condition. Were you armed'

Yes.

With a gun'

A gun and a knife. They put them in a table drawer. He put his hands on the rock to push himself up. I’ll go get them.

Wolfe halted him with a hand on his shoulder. You have no energy to waste. My son will go. Alex, a gun and a knife they took from Comrade Zov are in a drawer in a table. Bring them.

What kind of gun'He asked him and didn’t have to relay it. The word Luger is neither SerboCroat nor Albanian, and I had heard it before. After entering the fort, I went to the first room on the right, which seemed the most likely because I had seen a big table there, and hit it at the first try. At the front of the drawer, with a Luger and a big clasp knife, were a stainless steel wristwatch and a leather fold containing papers, one of them with a red seal and a picture of Peter Zov. He was not photogenic. I went back out with them.

As I approached, Wolfe spoke. Keep the gun. Give him the knife.

There’s a watch and a fold with papers.

Give him those. He turned to Zov. My son will keep the gun for the time being. If an attempt is made to stop us you might be overhasty with it after what you’ve just gone through. Zov took the other things and said, I want the gun.

You’ll get it. Is it an old friend'

Yes. I took it from a dead German in the war.

No wonder you value it. I suppose you had it on your mission to New York.

I did, and other missions. I want it.

Later. I assume the responsibility for our safe passage through the mountains,

and I don’t know you well, though I hope to. You’re about my son’s age, and it’s a pity you can’t communicate. Do you know any English at all'

I know a few words, like ‘okay’ and ‘dollar’ and ‘cigarette’.

I’m sorry I didn’t teach him SerboCroat. We’ve been here long enough. I’ll lead, and my son will bring up the rear. Come on.

If Zov had had his gun he might have balked, and we would have had either to go on without him or find a place to spend the day. He did try to argue, but Wolfe got emphatic, and I had the gun, so he came. We went to the brook for a drink and then hit the trail, with Zov in between us. His gait was more of a shuffle than a walk, but he didn’t seem to be in any great pain. It could have been as much from lack of enthusiasm as from the condition of his legs. When we had passed through the defile and topped a rise, and Wolfe stopped for breath, I asked him, Where will the charade be'You didn’t tell me.

It isn’t necessary. We’ll keep colloquy at a minimum. Statements about linguistic proficiency may be equivocal. I’ll tell you when to draw a gun.

You might tell me now about the colloquy you just had. He did so, and then turned and proceeded. As I padded along behind I was thinking that we certainly had the bacon - not only the murderer but the weapon, and I knew the rest of the evidence was on file because I had seen the assistant medical examiner getting it from Marko’s corpse. I remembered the first sentences of a book I had read on criminology. In criminal investigations, it said, the investigator must always have in mind the simple basic requirements. Once he gains possession of the person of the criminal and of evidence adequate for conviction, the job is done.

It is, like hell, I thought. If I had that book here, and the author, I’d make him eat it. I was supposed to forget about being stopped and leave it to Wolfe,

but as we approached the point where one left the trail if one was ass enough to want to walk the ledge to the cave, I kept close behind Zov and had my eyes peeled. We went on by without sight or sound of anyone. If you wonder why Wolfe didn’t let me know, which he could have done in ten words, I can tell you. I would have had to put on an act for Zov’s benefit until I reached the spot that had been agreed on, and he thought I might overdo it or underdo it, I don’t know which. He thought that, not knowing, I would just act natural. You may also wonder why I didn’t resent it. I did. I had been resenting it for years, but that was my first crack at resenting it in the mountains of Montenegro. With the sun nearly straight above us, blazing down, I wouldn’t have recognized the trail as the one we had climbed the night before with Danilo. We went down rock faces on our rumps, skirted the edges of cliffs, slithered down stretches of loose shale, and at one place crossed a crevice ten feet wide, on a narrow plank bridge with no rails, which I didn’t remember at all. My watch said ten minutes past one when we stopped at a brook for a drink and a meal of chocolate. Comrade Zov ate as much chocolate as Wolfe and me together. Half an hour later the trail suddenly spilled us out at the edge of a wide level space, and there was the house Wolfe had been born in. I stopped for a look. Apparently its back wall was the side of a cliff. It had two stories, with a roof that sloped four ways from the center, and eight windows on the side I was looking at, four below and four above. The glass in three windows was broken. The door was wooden. I was just starting to turn to tell Wolfe I was going to step inside for a glance around when his voice snapped at my back,