The Serbian Dane (5 page)

There were a couple of women in the place, but this was primarily a male preserve. Johannes Jørgensen sat at a table for two at the very back, from which he could keep an eye on the door and the two steps down to the basement restaurant. He saw the journalist come in and look about him. He was a tall, middle-aged man, thinning on top. His shirt was a bit crumpled and his tie askew. The top button of his shirt was undone. There were beads of sweat on his brow. A band of low pressure had moved in across the North Sea, bringing some cooler air, but it was still very close, as if the Almighty had spread a duvet over Denmark.

Johannes Jørgensen waved to Torsten Hansen, who waved back. He dumped his bag on the floor next to the table and shook Jørgensen’s hand. They ordered
smørbrød
: one apiece with herring, one with smoked eel and one with cheese, along with beer and a shot of aquavit. They chatted first about the political situation and about the Danish troops who would be joining the NATO forces in the former Yugoslavia. Jørgensen assured Hansen that there was a broad political consensus on this question. And he could quote him as saying that parliament would not be summoned back from summer recess. The government’s decision was backed by a good solid majority.

Torsten Hansen made a note and ate his
smørbrød
. It was very warm in the restaurant, and all the men had taken off their jackets. The cigarette smoke
stung the eyes. Hansen didn’t smoke and often longed for the USA’s restrictive smoking regulations. It might have rendered it difficult for the smoking minority to enjoy a cig, but it made offices and restaurants pure heaven for the non-smoker. In Denmark, however, he was wise enough not to say anything. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

Johannes Jørgensen laid down his knife and fork and knocked back the last of his aquavit.

‘This here is off the record, Torsten,’ he said, leaning across the table.

‘I’m all ears!’ Hansen said, demonstratively laying down his pen.

‘You know that writer who’s been sentenced to death, Sara Santanda?’

Torsten Hansen nodded and took a swig of his beer.

‘She’s coming to Denmark.’

‘But she’s in hiding somewhere in London, isn’t she?’

‘Right. But now it’s to be our turn. It beats me why Denmark, of all places, should be used for the making of such an empty gesture.’

Torsten Hansen cut a slice of his cheese. He knew there was a great story here and was experienced enough to keep quiet and let Jørgensen do the talking. The latter had given him a good tip-off before, and even though it had been off the record it had been solid enough. Jørgensen was a reliable source: a somewhat frustrated politician who did have a degree of influence certainly but who also felt that he had been passed over by Bang in the last cabinet reshuffle. Such people were the lifeblood of a newspaper, which relied on there always being someone with something they wanted made public. Torsten guessed that this must have come up at yesterday’s meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee, but Jørgensen wasn’t going to come right out and say that. He would expect Torsten to work that out for himself and realize, therefore, that the information was rock solid.

Johannes Jørgensen took another sip of his beer before continuing in a hushed voice:

‘I don’t think it’s wise. Trade figures aren’t as healthy as they have been. Why go upsetting a foreign country that has been a good trading partner and has the potential to become an even better one? And all because of some foreigner who has written a book of, from what I hear, somewhat dubious literary merit. A book which, by the way, nobody seems to have read!’

‘When is she expected?’

‘Quite soon. I don’t know exactly. It’s
Politiken
who’s invited her. But it’s the taxpayers who’ll have to foot the bill for the security arrangements, of course. It’s always the same. But everyone involved is trying to keep it a secret. And in a democratic society that, in itself, is all wrong. Which is why I’m telling you all this.’

Johannes Jørgensen sat back in his chair.

‘And then there’s the question of the feta cheese exports, isn’t there?’ Hansen said. ‘Isn’t there some dairy in your constituency which is totally dependent on them?’

Jørgensen leaned forward again and said without lowering his voice: ‘All religions must be respected. Including the Muslim religion. And Muslims have the right to defend themselves against blasphemy. Just as we Christians have. But obviously I condemn this death sentence. That goes without saying. Would you like some more cheese? Another beer?’

Torsten Hansen shook his head.

‘How about an official comment? On camera?’

It was Jørgensen’s turn to shake his head.

‘Not today. I’m giving you the story today. If you can have it confirmed, then I’ll make myself available…but…’

‘But then everyone else gets it too?’

‘Right.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Naturally, as a member of the Foreign Policy Committee, I will have something to say on this matter, if you should wish to pursue it.’

To be honest, Torsten Hansen thought this was fair enough. He had an exclusive for this evening, as a pure news item, and he could contact the various parties concerned tomorrow, when he was on the early shift anyway. If he started making calls now, the other reporters would soon get wind of it. Better to run it as a pure news item on the six-thirty broadcast and then see if he could turn it into a bigger feature with a couple of comments for the nine o’clock news. It was a good story, at any rate. Santanda had never appeared in public before. Reuter’s and CNN would be on it like a shot. But he would be first with it. And no matter how long he had been in the business, an exclusive like this always gave him a nice warm feeling inside.

In just a few hours, the world would learn that Sara Santanda had chosen Denmark as the place where she would defy the mad mullahs and their barbaric death sentence. If the disclosure of this fact meant that she had to go somewhere else instead, then he could live with that. He was well aware that this was what Jørgensen was angling for. But he hadn’t become a journalist in order to keep things secret. It was a good story, and it was all his.

V
uk sat alone at a table on the hilltop overlooking Pale. Four plastic chairs were set around the maroon laminated table. The door of the small café hung loose on its hinges. A grimy curtain graced the one window that still had glass in it. The other had been smashed by a stray bullet on a day long ago by a couple of drunken militiamen with a petty score to settle. They had been fighting over a woman. Their anger had been greater than their marksmanship. Vuk was drinking slivovitz. It was a bad habit. There had been a time when he hadn’t needed alcohol to get through the days, but now it did him good sometimes. He never got drunk, but it had a wonderfully soothing, numbing effect. It blanked out the images that were prone to come into his mind without warning. He had survived longer than most, and statistics said his number should be flashing up on the board any time now. He had a feeling too that the past was about to catch up on them. Those acts that, in the euphoria of victory had, in some bizarre way, seemed perfectly natural, were now turning into horrific memories that presented themselves when least expected.

He drained his glass in one gulp. He could see the proprietor sitting inside behind the curtain. He was watching football on some German channel. The satellite dish fixed to his tumbledown premises still worked perfectly. But it looked out of place against the white concrete walls and the grey roof. Possibly it had been installed back in the days when there was still some hope that the odd tourist might wander all the way to the top of the hill. But the last tourist had left for home long ago. Vuk filled his glass again. The sun hung low over the green mountain slopes, and the air was heavy with the scents of high summer. Scents that always made him think of his father and little Katarina, but he didn’t want to do that. Pale, and beyond it Sarajevo, lay shrouded in mist. All was quiet
down there. The war was drawing towards an end, and it was not a good end. He knew that many of the others would not accept it, but they had lost. The first round, at any rate. Now they would have to wait and see what happened once another winter had gone by. It would not be long before the cool air, and after it the cold, breathed its white breath over those same slopes which now lay drenched in a golden light that danced with insects.

Vuk heard the car before he saw it. His hand slid down to the Kalashnikov at his feet, then curled once more around his glass. It was the Commandant’s old Mercedes. He recognized the laboured growl of the engine and the snarl of the rear axle.

The Commandant was not alone. With him was a middle-aged man dressed in a dark, well-cut suit, white shirt, dark tie and black shoes. As usual, the Commandant was wearing his green uniform, with his gun at his belt. Vuk had always thought he looked like a younger version of Fidel Castro.
El jefe
. Yes, that was him. Vuk was well aware that the Commandant was a father substitute, but it didn’t matter. The Commandant had taught him all he knew at the best military academy in the world: the Yugoslavian Federal Army’s Special Forces school, where the toughest young men were schooled in sabotage, infiltration techniques, sniping, communi-cation, self-defence, swimming underwater and survival in the field. It had been Tito’s own idea: to train up a force capable of operating as guerrillas should the bloody Russians try to invade the country, as the Germans had done. Instead the Commandant had had to employ his expensive education and his best pupils against traitorous Muslims and Croatian fascists. Tito had probably never thought it would come to that.

‘Another two glasses,’ Vuk said.

The owner of the café looked up, and Vuk raised two fingers. The man brought out two glasses and placed them on the table without a word. Then he returned to his football match.

The Commandant and the man in the suit were standing talking next to the dirty black Mercedes, which was parked at the foot of the low hill. A flight of steps, several of them crumbling away, led up to the café. Vuk saw Radovan get out and light a cigarette. He waved to Vuk, who waved back at him. Radovan acted as both driver and bodyguard for the Commandant, although
they were safe enough here. It had taken Vuk two days to reach this spot after crossing the river late that night. As so often before, after a mission, he had stayed an extra day with Emma. Made love to her in the morning, slept most of the day, made love to her again in the evening and then crossed the river at night in his little collapsible raft. The journey had been totally without incident. He had heard gunfire to the east and south of him, but it had come from
small-calibre
weapons and been so far away that he hadn’t taken cover, just walked on alone through the night.

The Commandant and the man in the suit climbed the steps towards Vuk. Radovan stayed where he was. He drove the car and guarded the Commandant’s life, but it was his belief that the less he knew about whatever deals were struck the better. The day of reckoning would come eventually, and when it did you wanted to have seen, heard and done as little as possible.

The man in the suit was compact and muscular, although starting to put on a bit of weight around the waist. The sweat was running off him, but he kept on his jacket. Vuk was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt. His brown leather jacket was draped over the back of his chair. Vuk could tell that the man in the suit was a Russian. He could spot them easily. Americans likewise. They could change their dress, try to alter their appearance, but it made no difference. It had to do with the way they walked, the way they held their heads, their whole body language. The same went for the Danes. Vuk knew a fair bit about disguise. He also knew that it was their way of walking, of holding themselves, their mannerisms that gave people away, and he kept his eye in by always studying others closely.

The Russian might be wearing a smart western suit, but he was either an old soldier or an ex-KGB man, it stood out a mile; possibly one who was now making use of his talents to smuggle weapons to the various warring factions in the Yugoslavian civil war. He had broad Slavic features and dark eyes. His short black hair was thick and neatly parted. In fact he reeked to high heaven of the Mafia.

Vuk got to his feet and waited expectantly. The Commandant strode forward and put out his hand to Vuk. When Vuk took it, the Commandant pulled the younger man to him and gave him a quick hug, and they thumped one another on the back.

‘Another job well done. I’m proud of you, my lad,’ the Commandant said in Serbo-Croatian, in a voice roughened by black Balkan tobacco.

‘It was nothing,’ Vuk said, stepping back a pace.

‘You like killing, Vuk,’ the Commandant said.

‘That’s what you always say.’

‘But don’t you?’

‘No,’ Vuk said.

‘You’re good at it.’

‘Who’s he?’ Vuk asked.

The Commandant turned to the Russian and said in English, although both he and Vuk knew enough Russian to carry on a conversation in the language:

‘This is my boy. The one I think might be able to help you. The Serbian Dane. Vuk.’

His English was heavily accented, but it had an American twang to it. He had attended a number of courses run by the Green Berets in Texas, all strictly hush-hush. That was during the Cold War, when Yugoslavia, for all that it was neutral, feared the Russian Bear more than the imperialists in Washington. The Americans had taken great pleasure in training anyone who could, however temporarily, be regarded as an ally. Be it an Iraqi officer opposed to Iran, or a Serbian soldier who hated the Soviet Union. The Yanks had no sense of history and no talent for strategic thinking, the Commandant had told him. The Commandant was proud of his American English and loved to show it off.

The Russian offered his hand, and Vuk shook it. The Russian had a firm handshake, and he looked you straight in the eye.

‘Pleased to meet you, Vuk,’ he said in beautiful English. Had to be an old KGB agent who had worked undercover as a diplomat in London and possibly other European cities. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you. And all good.’

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Kravtjov.’

‘Sit down, Mr Kravtjov. Have a drink.’

Kravtjov pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and carefully wiped the dusty, scuffed plastic slats before sitting down. Vuk filled the three small glasses and raised his own:

‘A toast?’

‘To mutual understanding,’ the Russian said.

‘To victory,’ said Vuk.

Kravtjov glanced at the Commandant and drained his glass in one long swallow.

‘Shit!’ he said. ‘That’s good, very good, but it’s not a civilized drink without pickled gherkins.’

The Commandant laughed:

‘I’ll have to remember that for next time.’

‘What does Mr Kravtjov want with us?’ Vuk asked.

He refilled their glasses. He could both see and sense that Kravtjov and the Commandant had been discussing something. He had the impression that some sort of business deal had already been struck. Something that involved him and his unique gifts. That went without saying. But it irked him that the Commandant took him so much for granted. There was a time when he could have done so, but not now, or not in quite the same way.

The Commandant fiddled with his glass and lit a cigarette. Kravtjov did likewise. The Russian held out his pack of Marlboros to Vuk, who took one.

The Commandant excused himself to Kravtjov and switched to
Serbo-Croat.
But the Russian probably understood a good bit of it, Vuk thought to himself, as he listened without interrupting.

‘Vuk. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kravtjov worked for the KGB. He still has friends in high places. He can get us the information we need. He can also provide us with arms.’

Vuk said nothing, but he gazed intently at the Russian. The Commandant went on:

‘He will pay us four million American dollars for a hit.’

Vuk said in English:

‘I don’t kill for money.’

Kravtjov leaned forward and said in the same language:

‘That’s a lot of fucking money, Vuk!’

‘I don’t kill for money.’

‘It’s not for you. It’s not for me. It’s for the cause,’ the Commandant said.

‘I don’t kill for money,’ Vuk repeated.

Still with his arms folded on the table, Kravtjov said softly:

‘I understand how you feel, Vuk. Believe me, I do understand. But think about it. The war will soon be over. Your lot haven’t exactly won the first round. You need money. You’re pariahs. You need money to buy arms. To safeguard your future.’

‘Listen to what he has to offer,’ the Commandant said.

Vuk made no reply, simply waited. Again Kravtjov exchanged a glance with the Commandant before going on.

‘I can’t go into detail until I know whether you’re in. You do see that, don’t you? You know how these things work, right? But I am acting as middle-man for a nation which is willing to pay four million dollars for the liquidation of a target who has trod on rather too many toes.’

‘Why me?’ Vuk asked.

‘The target will be making an appearance in Denmark. You’re the perfect man for the job,’ the Commandant said.

Vuk emptied his glass.

‘The perfect man,’ said Kravtjov.

‘The target is not an enemy as such,’ the Commandant said. ‘But innocent civilians lose their lives in every war. You know that better than anyone, Vuk. Kravtjov has a plan, a good one. We pin the blame on someone else, a Muslim. One of our enemies. We’ll get the money. They’ll get the blame.’

Vuk stood up and walked away from the table. The Commandant kept his eyes on him.

‘What’s all this about?’ Vuk said.

The Commandant dropped his cigarette and ground it under the sole of his American army boot.

‘At the end of the day, a ticket out of here,’ he said wryly.

‘I thought as much.’

‘We’re done for, Vuk. Soon NATO and the Americans will be charging all over the place. They mean it this time. And this time it won’t be blue-capped Mamma’s boys from the UN with light arms. This time they’ll have tanks and heavy artillery, and the right and the will to use them. They might start digging. In the wrong places, Vuk. Think about that. Think hard.’

But that was the one thing Vuk did not want to think about. The murky, grey spring afternoon in that Muslim village when all sense of humanity had evaporated, and the air was heavy with the sickly smell of blood. When not even the earth that was shovelled over them afterwards, or the smoke from the burning houses, could expunge that smell. It would be there in his nostrils for the rest of his life. They had been seized by bloodlust and behaved like the berserkers he had learned about in school in another country.

‘I don’t trust the Russian,’ Vuk said.

‘Do you trust me?’

Vuk regarded him.

‘You’re all I’ve got. You and Emma, maybe, but I’m not sure,’ Vuk said.

‘Vuk! Listen to me. Milosovic is selling us down the river. As sure as a whore spreads her legs. He wants to have the embargo lifted and stay in power. He’s selling out the Bosnian Serbs. We’ll be allowed to stay with him, but the Muslims will get our old land. We’re done for. Slobodan has sold us for thirty pieces of silver. And he’ll turn us in too, if the Americans insist. Vuk! I know the Americans. They don’t appreciate the nuances of the situation, they don’t know the first thing about politics, they don’t know the first thing about the Balkans, but they know all about making deals.’

‘So it’s you and me?’

‘That’s the essence of it, yes,’ the Commandant said. He rummaged around for his cigarettes. It was the first time Vuk had ever seen him look ruffled – no, panic-stricken almost. Beneath the uniform and those impassive features was a frightened man.

‘The essence?’

‘Of whom you and I can trust.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Vuk said, although in fact he did.

‘The Russian’s money will give us freedom. We can stay here. Carry on the fight. We could move to Serbia. Or South America. Start a new life. This is our chance. You can be the one to take that chance for your comrades.’

‘For you,’ Vuk said.

‘For you and me. And perhaps for Emma.’