THE HEART OF DANGER (43 page)

word that was coward. He searched the faces, and none met his, and

the

minutes on his watch were frittering away.

Evica was beside him, carrying in a linen cloth the food she had

brought for the evening.

"Do you have him?"

The excitement of the chase, of being the king who gave the orders,

slipped in him. "No."

Evica said, simply, "I could not help myself, when he looked at me, when he asked who had met her. He was so ... so bold.

I could not help myself when he faced me ... What does it mean, the

man

coming to make a report .. . ?" There was a shout. He did not answer her. Milan ran across the road. At the side fence in Petar's garden he was shown the plastic box. There was a single bread roll in the

box, with squashed tomato and pressed cheese in the cut in the roll

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and

half a bar of chocolate. He felt his nerves squirm in his belly.

Another shout. The torches showed him the way. He climbed the fence

between Petar's plot and Dragon's garden. Milan saw the broken glass

pane on the roof of Dragon's greenhouse, and more torches shone inside

the greenhouse. On the trays of spring lettuces was the fire

extinguisher amongst the plants and the shards ... It had been gone,

it

had been buried, and some nights he could even forget it, and the

bastard had come to bring back for him the face of the young woman

...

He was shouting. Who saw the lorry? Was it just one lorry? What

colour were the lorries? Which way did the lorries go, towards Glina

or towards Vrginmost? The minutes slipping on his watch. Were the

white lorries from a convoy of the United Nations? Milan Stankovic

ran. He ran like the athlete he had once been. He ran for his life,

and for the bastard's life. Hoarse, chest heaving, Milan scrambled

into the office area of the headquarters. The minutes slipping.

'..

. They all bad-mouthed her back in England. She was just a horrid

young woman. There seemed to be a story about her for every year of

her

life, the stories seemed to queue up to foul-mouth her. Her mum told

the stories worst, like it was something she had to get release from.

The way of the release was to find out what happened to her. There

was

no release until her mother knew what happened to her, who killed

her.

They were throwing money at it because they'd cash coming out of their

ears. "Just go there, Mr. Penn, and write a bloody report, and then we

can forget little Miss Dorrie who was an awkward bitch", it was

something like that .. ." Benny listened. Sometimes the voice

behind

him stopped, when the radio came on, when the convoy manager had some

crap to tell them from up front. He drove carefully, and the whole

of

the convoy was going fast. '.. . And I came here, and it was all

lies

that had been said about her. Perhaps, at home, she had just been

a

bloody nuisance, perhaps she was just a bloody cuckoo child in a

second

marriage, perhaps she just got in the way, perhaps she didn't start

to

live until she was at Rosenovici... I came here to pocket the money

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and

write a report, good bromide stuff, a few names and a few quotes,

good

money. You know how it is, Mr. Stein, when you're sucked into

something, it's like you're being pulled towards a cliff. Why did

this

one killing in one village matter? Can't answer it ... Best I can

do,

it's something about that young woman. I learned about her, each

time

I was told about her then I was pushed closer to that bloody cliff

..

." Grabbing for the telephone, whirring the handle of the field set that linked to the Glina military, hearing the deathly response of

silence .. . Milan pushed it aside so that it fell useless to the

concrete floor. He turned to the radio set that was the back-up,

that

sometimes functioned. When they had powered out of that God-awful

village then the cab radios had gone ape shit Each driver, and the

convoy manager, wanting to know what the fuck was going on, what was

the shooting. Benny hadn't given them a laugh, hadn't given them

anything until right at the end of the exchanges. He'd waited to

the

end, then pressed his 'speak' switch, and he just said he'd seen

nothing, because they'd have kicked him half to death if they'd known.

Benny listened. '.. . She was just brilliant. I don't think I'm

just

some mooning bloody sheep. She was incredible. It wasn't just that she stayed with the wounded because she loved one boy. You see, Mr.

Stein, Dorrie could have carried out one boy. She was a tough little

thing, made of barbed wire. She could have put one boy on her

shoulder

and she would have stood a good to middle chance of hiking him into

the

woods and finding a hole in their lines, but that would have been

walking out on the other boys. She was just brilliant because she

gave

all of them her courage. I was dragged to that cliff, dragged over

that cliff ... I looked him in the face, I looked into the face of

the

man who used a knife on her, the man who shot her. It was like she'd

given me the courage, like she was with me, to look into his face

and

not be afraid ... I don't suppose that makes much sense, Mr. Stein."

Benny said, "I was going to chuck you out." "Because the shit's in the

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fan, because they'll be waiting at the crossing point .. . ?"

"Because

I'm not supposed to get involved." "I reckon if I laid up for a couple of days, rested, then I reckon I could swim the river .. ." "Like hell

you could," Benny snapped, short. "There's a rendezvous tomorrow night, where there's going to be a boat, but I'm off line for the

pick-up, I don't have a map for the location, but I reckon I could

swim

the river .. ." He hadn't used his pencil torch from the dashboard, not since right at the beginning. From what Benny had seen, when

he'd

used the torch, the guy wouldn't make it to halfway, not against the

current of the Kupa river. The rest of the drivers would kill him

if

they knew. "You won't be swimming. You'll be staying bloody put ..

.

we'll see what's there, at the crossing point .. ." It was so slow for

Milan to make the radio link with Glina militia. The man who knew

the

radio was away back at the greenhouse in Dragon's garden, and the

procedure for transmission was written up in scrawl on the wall above

the set. And an imbecile at the other end when he had made the

contact. '.. . And it's a spy you lost? In Salika village, you

lost

a spy? What would a spy want with Salika village? A foreign spy

.. .

?" A bored man, sitting the night watch on the radio in the Glina

barracks, nursing a bottle, and at last there was amusement for him.

"A foreign spy has come to Salika village, that centre of military

secrecy? Should they know in Belgrade that a foreign spy chose to

visit Salika village .. . ?"

Losing the minutes. Could not tell a bored man sitting the night

watch

on the radio at Glina barracks about a grave, about an investigator

with evidence, about a young woman who had not shown fear.

Milan shouted, "If the crossing point is not closed, if the convoy

is

not searched, I will come for you, my friend, and I will flay the

skin

off your face .. ."

When the alarm clamoured for the Close Support platoon, Ham was on

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his

bed in the dormitory quarters, and reading his best magazine. His

mother sent it him, not often because most times the old cow forgot.

Nagorno Karabakh, wherever the fuck it was, seemed the right place,

and

there were guys already there, but then there was also an article

with

photographs of guys who had made it down to Tbilisi, wherever the

fuck

that was .. . The alarm shifted him.

He was snatching webbing kit, going for the Dragunov marksman's rifle

that was his personal weapon when Close Support platoon was on

'immediate', buttoning the flies on his camouflage trousers, running

for the stairs of the old police station.

And no fucker in the lit yard taking the trouble to explain to him

why

the alarm had gone. He heard, among the bloody yelling, there was

heavy radio traffic on the other side, there was a guy running on

the

other side, there was some sort of flap at the crossing point,

something about a bloody convoy ... It was all to do with their radio

traffic, on the other side.

He was in the lead jeep going down sharp to Turanj. He thought about

Penn, crazy guy.

They were slowing.

The convoy manager was saying, distorted, in the cab, "I'm hooked

into

their radio. There's a problem, but I can't make sense of what it

is,

probably just that we're so delayed .. . They're saying they need

to

search the lorries. You know the form, guys, that we are not supposed

to allow UN vehicles to be searched .. ."

He lay behind Benny Stein's seat and the passenger seat. He had a

rug

that covered some of his body. He heard the sharp whistle of Benny

Stein's breath and heard him mutter an obscenity. Going down through

the gears, crawling. The voice was saying, "What I'm thinking, guys, is that the laws of the game might just get bent a bit. If the choice is between bending or sitting here for the rest of the night high

255

on

principle, and since we've not any loose women from Knin on board

.. .

OK, guys?" Penn said, "I'll do a runner, which door?" The answer was

very quiet, so calm. "What I'm seeing on my side is a big jerk with an

ugly machine gun. And on the other side, three jerks with rifles,

and

what I'm seeing further up front doesn't get better." Penn said,

"I'm

sorry, I mean that." "Bit late, my old cocker .. . They've stopped ahead. We're all closing up." So helpless. It had all been for

nothing. For nothing he had found the Headmaster praying in a grave.

They were inching forward. For nothing he had found Katica Dubelj,

eyewitness. He waited for the grinding of the brakes. For nothing

he

had found Milan Stankovic, war criminal. "What are you going to do?"

"They're opening up the cabs ahead, my top cat's letting them in.

You

know what Oscar Wilde said? He said, "In matters of grave

importance,

style, not sincerity, is the vital thing." Give it a go." Penn was looking into Benny Stein's face, and it was calm as if he was taking

the kids out for a Sunday afternoon ride. Going very slow, and

swinging the big wheel so that the lorry went out of the line that

was

pulling up, then straightening the wheel. Penn saw the hands go to

the

gear lever, then to the ignition, and the engine slurped to quiet.

A

silence around Penn, and the gentle rocking of the cab going forward.

The pace of the lorry quickened. Benny Stein was winding down his

door

window. "Time to see if old Oscar had it right .. ." They were rolling faster. Penn heard the first yell, and Benny Stein had his

head out of his door window and was howling it into the night. The

brakes .. . The brakes gone .. . No control because the goddamn brakes

had gone. Going down the incline through Turanj. Penn saw the white

sides of the freight lorries slipping by, quicker. All the time

Benny

Stein was yelling that his brakes had gone, and waving every miserable

mother out of the road. Going by the Land-Rover, and Benny Stein

was

turning, side of his mouth, muttering about "Shit or bust', saying

they'd shoot or they'd laugh. They hit the checkpoint. The cab of

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the

lorry clipped the corner of the sandbag wall. He had his head down

and

he had his hands over his head, and he would have said, and reckoned

he'd not lied, that Benny Stein had twisted the wheel the necessary

fraction to take out the corner of the sandbags. The cab lurched,

and

Penn bounced, and he thought there was a popping of tyres, as if there

had been a chain with spikes on the road. They were waiting for the

shooting, or the laughing. They went clean through the UN barrier,

broke the pole across the road. And the cab pitched worse, and he

felt

the tyres shredding, and all the time Benny Stein was yelling himself

hoarse that the brakes had gone. The lorry jerked and he saw the

wall

loom against the cab's passenger side window, and that slowed it,

and

Penn saw Benny Stein's hand furtively slip to the brake handle, and

he

saw his foot pump the brake pedal, but gently so that the ripped tyres

did not scream. They came to rest. Penn croaked, "That, Mr.

Stein,

was style .. ." "Get out. You told a good story." "I said that I was