The Heaven Trilogy (109 page)

And what if she’s gone, Jan?

His pulse quickened at the thought. No. We are beyond that. And where would she go?
Father, please, I beg you for her safety. I beg you, don’t allow harm to come to her.

It occurred to him that he was sweating despite the cool breeze. He spun from the window and rushed from the flat. He would go to the market and find her.

Jan entered the open-air market three minutes later, quelling memories that brought a mutter to his lips. He strode quickly through the street, craning for a view of her. Of her unmistakable blond hair.
Please, God, let me see her.

But he did not see her.

He approached Darko’s vegetable kiosk, where the big man was busy filling boxes with squashes for the night.

“Darko, have you seen Helen?”

The man looked up. “No. Not tonight.”

“Earlier, then? At dusk?”

He shook his head. “Not today.”

“You are sure?”

“Not today, Janjic.”

Jan nodded and glanced around. “She was home three hours ago.”

“Don’t worry, my friend. She will return. She is a beautiful woman. Beautiful women always seem to find distractions in Sarajevo, yes? But, don’t worry, she is lost without you. I have seen it in her eyes.”

A distant voice snickered in Jan’s mind.
And if she is beautiful, keep her away from him.
It was Molosov, and he was suddenly laughing. Heat washed down Jan’s back. He fought off a surge of panic. He spun to Darko, whose grin softened under his glare.

“You know Molosov?” he demanded.

“Molosov? It’s a common name.”

“A big man,” Jan said impatiently. “Brown hair. From the east side of Novi Grad. He was here yesterday. He said he had a friend in the market.”

“No.”

Jan slammed his palm on the merchant’s table and grunted. Darko looked at him with surprise. Jan dipped his head apologetically and ran from the kiosk.
Please, Father. Not again, please! I cannot take it.

He stopped at the next kiosk and questioned vigorously of Helen and Molosov to no avail. But that small voice in his head kept snickering. He ran through the market, fighting to retain control of his reason, desperate now to find either Helen or Molosov. Of course it was just a hunch, he kept telling himself. But the hunch burrowed like a tick in his skull.

If anyone knew Molosov, they weren’t talking easily. Until he spoke to the beggar at the west side of the market.

“You know Molosov? A big man with dark hair from the east end of—”

“Yes, yes. Of course I know Molosov.” A smile came to his ratty face.

“Tell me where to find him.”

“I can’t—”

“You think I’m playing? Tell me, man!”

The beggar pushed Jan’s hand aside. “Perhaps a little money will loosen my memory.”

Jan shoved his hand into his pocket and snatched a fistful of bills. He held them in front of the beggar’s growing eyes. “Take me to him and this will be yours.”

Twenty minutes later, Jan stood before Molosov in a small tin shack with a dozen men betting on a game of cards. A bare bulb burned above them. At first mention of Karadzic’s name, Molosov ushered Jan outside by the arm. “You’re trying to have me killed?” he demanded.

“I have to know where he is! You know—you must tell me!”

“Lower your voice! What’s this about?”

Jan told him, but Molosov wasn’t forthcoming. Karadzic’s place was not common knowledge. He tried repeatedly to dismiss Jan’s fears, but the quick shifting of his eyes told of his own fears. In the end, it took the thousand dollars Jan had pocketed for the car to persuade the big soldier. Jan withdrew the wad and offered it to the man. “Take it. It will buy your passage to America. Tell me where he is.”

Molosov looked at the money and glanced around nervously again. “And what if she’s not there?”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Hurry, man!”

Molosov took the bills and told him, swearing him to tell no one.

Jan turned then and ran into the night, east toward the Rajlovac.

And what if Molosov is right? What if Helen isn’t there? What then, Jan?

Then I will weep for joy.

But dread pounded through his chest. He didn’t expect to be weeping for joy. Weeping, perhaps, but not for joy.

THE DEAD-END street Molosov had directed Jan to was pitch black when he swung into it thirty minutes later. He pulled up and flattened his palms on his chest as if by gripping it he could ease the burning of his lungs. His breathing sounded like bellows echoing from the concrete walls.

A flag, Molosov had said. With skulls. Jan could see nothing but foreboding black. He stumbled forward and then stopped when the dim outline of the banner materialized over a door, thirty yards ahead. Three bundled bodies lay on the sidewalk, he saw. Another in the gutter, either dead or wasted.

A picture of Karadzic filled his mind, square and ferocious, screaming at Father Micheal. He had fought that image for twenty years now. The notion that Helen was in there with the beast suddenly struck him as preposterous.

Jan walked forward.
And if he is inhuman, what is Helen?

He grunted and rushed forward. Lights flashed in his peripheral vision; the war was coming to his mind again and he blinked against it. Jan shoved the door open and stepped into a dark hall. The faint beat of music carried through the walls. He stood and willed his eyes to adjust; his breathing to slow.

At the end of the hall stairs rose to his right and descended to his left. Down. With Karadzic it would be down. He crept down the steps and ran into another entry. The music sounded louder, keeping beat with his heart. He tried the door. It was locked.

A small window suddenly grated open, casting a shaft of yellow light over his chest. Jan stepped back. The door swung open.

You don’t belong here, Janjic
.

No one appeared. Ahead a tunnel had been carved from the rock, lit by colored lights. Whoever had opened the door probably stood behind it, waiting. Jan stepped through. The music thudded now.

You really have no sense in coming here, Janjic
.

The door slammed behind him and he whirled around. He could see no one. Another door led into the wall behind the entrance and he tried it quickly. It was locked.

“Lover boy has come for his woman?”

The voice echoed in the chamber and Jan spun around.
Father, please! Give me strength
.

“Janjic. After so long the savior has returned home. And to save another poor soul, no less.”

This time he could not mistake the familiar rumbling voice; it was tattooed on his memory. Karadzic!
Steady, Jan. Hold yourself
. He took a deliberate breath and let it out slowly. He stood and gripped his hands into fists.

Feet crunched faintly and then stopped directly in front of him. He took a step backward in the darkness. Pale yellow light suddenly flooded the tunnel.

The figure stood before him, an apparition from a lost nightmare. He was tall and boxy, balanced on long legs and dressed in black, with a wicked grin splitting a square jaw. It was Karadzic.

Two distinct urges collided in Jan’s mind. The first was to launch himself at the larger man; to kill him if possible. The second urge was to flee. He had faced Karadzic once and lived to tell the story. This time he might not be so lucky.

Jan moved his foot a few inches and then stood rooted to the earth, tensed like a bowstring.

“So good to see you again, my friend,” Karadzic said softly. “And you have come so quickly. I had expected to force your hand, but now you have jumped into my lap.”

Jan couldn’t speak. He could only stare at this incarnation of terror. The man had lured him here. He’d used Helen against her will to bring him in, he thought.

Jan spoke quietly. “You always had your way with women. You prey on the weak because you yourself are only half a man.”

“And you still have a tongue, do you?” Karadzic said. “I did not bring your woman here, you poor fool. She came to me, perhaps in search of a man. I can see why she left you.”

“You lie! She did not come on her own.”

“No? Actually I had planned on luring her with the old woman, but it wasn’t necessary.”

The old woman?

An arm suddenly clamped over Jan’s mouth and yanked his head back. He swung his elbow back and was rewarded with a grunt. A hand punched his kidneys and he relaxed to the pain.

“Perhaps you would like to see your Helen?”

The arms from behind jerked his hands behind him and lashed his wrists together with rope. They shoved a rag in his mouth and ran a wide strip of tape over it. Karadzic walked slowly up to him. His old commander breathed heavily, his lips parted and wet. Sweat glistened on his forehead. Without warning his arm lashed out and he struck Jan on his ear. He gasped in pain.

“You would do well to remember who’s in charge,” Karadzic said quietly. “You always were confused about the power of command, weren’t you?” He thrust his face up to Jan’s, his smile now gone. The man’s breath smelled sweet of liquor. “This time you’ll wish you were already dead.”

Jan winced. Karadzic struck again, on Jan’s cheek.

The man spun and marched down the tunnel. “Bring him,” he said.

The hands behind shoved Jan and he stumbled forward. They propelled him quickly down the dim passage, to a steel door beyond which Karadzic had stopped. Then the door opened and Jan was pushed roughly into the room. He scanned the interior, breathing shallow, fearing what he might see here.

A dozen sets of eyes stared at him, blank in their state of stupor. Candles flickered amber through the white haze. The music seemed to resonate with the black rock walls, as if they were its source.

Then Jan saw the body moving slowly on the floor not ten feet from where he stood and he knew immediately that it was Helen.

Helen!

Oh, dear God! What have you done?

He screamed despite the rags in his mouth, but the weak sound was lost to the music’s dull thump. He threw himself forward against the hands that held him, struggling frantically to free himself.
Oh, dear Helen, what have you done? What have they done to you?
His vision blurred with tears and in a sudden fury he flailed back and forth. She needed help, couldn’t they see that? She was lying on the ground moving like a maimed animal. What kind of demon would do this to his wife?

Angry shouts sounded behind him and a rope flopped around Jan’s neck. They dragged him back, straining against the rope. The door crashed shut and he was shoved down the corridor. Jan tripped and sprawled to his knees.
She was smiling, Janjic. Writhing in ecstasy and smiling with the pleasure of it.

They pulled him to his feet and kicked him forward.
Helen, dear Helen! What have they done to you?

They’ve done to her what she deserves, you pathetic fool. They have given her what she has wanted all along.

He was forced down a long tunnel, and then another that branched to the right. The passage ended in a cell hewn out of solid black rock. By the light of torches they strapped his arms to a twelve-inch-wide horizontal beam bolted to the wall. Two men restrained him while Karadzic looked on. But the fight had left Jan and he let them jerk his limbs about as they pleased.

His mind was on Helen. She had fallen again. He’d brought her two thousand miles to escape the horrors of Glenn Lutz, and now she had found worse. A death sentence for both of them. And why? Because he hadn’t loved her dearly enough? Or because she herself was possessed with evil?

Ivena’s words came back to him. “Helen’s not so different from every man,” she’d said. But Jan could not picture
any
man, much less
every
man doing this. And if Ivena was right and this was a play motivated by God himself, then perhaps God had lost his sense of humor.

They suddenly ripped the tape from Jan’s mouth and pulled the rag free. His lips felt on fire.

“You really shouldn’t have tried to stop me twenty years ago,” Karadzic said. “See what it’s cost you? All for an old priest and a gaggle of old ladies.”

“I’ve paid for my insubordination,” Jan said. “You took five years from me.”

“Five years? Now you’ll pay with your life.”

“My life. And what do you hope to gain by taking my life? It wasn’t enough to kill an innocent priest? Blowing the head from a small child’s shoulders didn’t satisfy your blood thirst?”

“Shut up!” Even in the dim light he could see Karadzic’s face bulged red. “You’ve never understood power.”

“The real war is against evil, Karadzic. And it seems you don’t recognize evil, even when it crawls up inside of you. Perhaps it’s you who don’t understand power.”

Karadzic didn’t answer, at least not with words. His eyes flashed angrily.

“You don’t have the courage to take your anger out on me, face to face,” Jan said. “You hide behind a woman!”

The commander looked at Jan for a moment and then placed his hands on his hips and smiled. “So. Our valiant soldier will fight for his lover’s life. He realizes that I’m going to kill her, and now he’ll use whatever means at his disposal to persuade me otherwise.” Karadzic leaned forward. “Let me tell you, I don’t bow to humiliation so easily, Janjic.”

“No? But the priest humiliated you, didn’t he? You marched into the village intent on sowing some horror and instead you received laughter. You’ve never lived it down, have you? The whole world looks at you as a coward!”

“Nonsense!”

“Then prove yourself. Let the woman free.”

“And now the soldier attempts manipulation. I told you, your woman’s here of her own choosing. Your
mother
, Ivena, I took by force. But not dear Helen.”

“Ivena? You have Ivena? What could you possibly want with an innocent woman?” Nausea swept through Jan’s gut.

“She was to lure your lover, my friend. But now she’ll serve another purpose.”

“You have me. Release them, I beg you. Release Ivena; release Helen.”

Karadzic grinned. “Your Helen is far too valuable to release, Preacher.”