Blood Price (Dark Places Of The Earth 1) (9 page)

fuck
where did that truck come from? I hope he can’t swim –”
   “–are you kidding,” I said, “pollution in this country, he probably dissolved, or now he’s Blinky the Three-Eyed Gangster –”
   “– I can’t believe you actually pulled a gun, I thought you were Canadian –”
   “– I can’t believe I was actually going to shoot it –”
   “– Jesus, if I knew you might actually use it, I would never have given you bullets –”
   Both of us burst into slightly hysterical laughter that went on for over a minute. Then we grabbed each other and kissed for a long time, heedless of passersby, before we were interrupted by my warbling phone. Major Botham, whose men had arrived too late, wanted to know if we were still alive. I told him we were. He didn’t seem surprised by my giddy voice. I guess he’d heard it many times before.
* * *
   “God,” Talena whispered. “Maybe it’s worth it being so scared.”
   In the middle of the night we had both woken from bad dreams and all but attacked one another. The most frenzied sex we’d had for years, maybe ever. We lay drained in each other’s sweat-slippery arms, a tangled curtain of her dark hair draped across my chest.
   “It was like this during the seige, sometimes,” she said. “After Zlatan got shot sometimes it was with a total stranger. You’d meet at some party or, I don’t know, on the street, and we’d find some filthy blanket in some corner and try to just fuck our way into amnesia. I don’t mean, it’s not like it happened all the time. But some days I just needed it.”
   She paused, but I didn’t say anything. Talena almost never talked about the seige. I didn’t want to interrupt.
   “The week after my parents’ funeral, I did it twice in one day with men whose names I didn’t know. Without a condom with one of them. Condoms were like gold. With Zlatan we washed them out and reused them, but with strangers, I don’t know, it seemed like too much to ask. Is this shocking you?”
   “A little,” I admitted.
   “Don’t think about it too much. I’m not that girl anymore. She was so scared, and so fucked up, and so not willing to admit it. Coming back here, and being scared again…it’s weird. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s like she’s following me around, whispering in my ear.” She grinned, lightening the mood considerably. “Maybe I’m just going crazy. I sure hope so. That’ll probably make things a lot easier to deal with.”
   “Maybe you were always crazy,” I teased.
   “I’m with you, aren’t I?”
   “Very funny.”
   “If it wasn’t for her I would never have made it,” Talena said, nodding towards Saskia’s room. “She was the strong one. And she was friends with all the gangsters and the black marketers. They were like heros, you know. If it wasn’t for the criminals, Caco and Juka and the others, there would have been no seige, they would have rolled right over Sarajevo in the first month, probably sent half of us to concentration camps. Saskia was in tight with them. She fought on the front line a few times, can you believe that? With a sniper rifle. She killed two Serbs. She was a lot braver than me. I never went near the front line unless I had to. She kept me going. Whenever me or my friends were really in trouble, out of food or something, or the one time I had this crazy boyfriend for like one week who decided both of us should kill ourselves in some highly photogenic way to get world attention, or, shit, whenever I just couldn’t take it anymore and I felt like I was just minutes away from going completely crazy forever, whatever it was, I went to her and she took care of me. She could always make me laugh. You know how amazing that was? We were living in what was like the deepest pit of hell, always hungry and cold and tired and scared and angry and desperate and just sick of being alive, and she could always make me laugh. After Mom and Dad died, when the building I was in got taken over by all these refugees, they pushed me out, and I stayed with her for the rest of the war. My big sister. Half-sister, whatever. I fucking hero-worshipped her.”
   I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem possible that Talena could be describing the same woman who was now the fragile timid creature in the room across the hall.
   “I bought the map,” Talena said.
   “What map?”
   “The survival map. At the bookstore. I want to show you.”
   She climbed halfway over me to turn on the light and dig something out from under the bed. A poster tube. She opened it, dug out a poster, and unrolled it.
   “I don’t know why I hid it under the bed,” she said sheepishly. “I just didn’t want you asking about it until…I don’t know. Here. This was where I grew up.”
   The Sarajevo Survival Map was the visual equivalent of a kick in the gut. A hand-drawn aerial perspective of downtown Sarajevo during the seige. A thick red line depicted the front line that surrounded the city, a tight red noose around and often through the city which ran right down to the Miljacka in places. Thick spiky rows of menacing tanks and artillery pieces were arrayed just outside the line. The overall visual effect was like looking at a picture of a boot about to stomp on a woman’s face.
   Talena had lived here from ages eighteen to twenty-one, with Serb artillery and snipers firing into the city from all directions, at any time, for three years. Her parents had been killed. Her boyfriend had been killed. Many of her other friends had been wounded. She had lost more than most, which was part of why she had been selected for the American scholarship. But everyone in the city had lost someone. Ten percent of the population had been killed or wounded.
   “We lived in Ilidza, over there,” she said, pointing out the map. “But it wasn’t safe and we had to move. So we moved here, by the cemetery. There’s the hospital, Kosova hospital. There’s the market where my parents were killed. They went out to buy bread. Zlatan’s apartment was here. He died here, running across this square. These pink dots, they show sniper areas. He was trying to pick up a little girl who had been shot and carry her to the hospital and the sniper got him too. I was screaming at him not to try it. Screaming. This is where I was interviewed by the BBC once. I was hung over and I guess I looked enough like hell that they thought I was pitiful. And because I could speak English because of my mother.” Her mother had taught English at the university. “And here we are, right here, the Pansione. This area was pretty safe because the buildings were tall, so the snipers couldn’t see the streets.”
   “God,” I said, inadequately.
   “You know something?” Talena said. “California’s never really felt like my home. I’ve been there eight years, and I love it, but…you know? It just never felt like my place. I was afraid that maybe Sarajevo would feel like home, even after all this time. But it doesn’t. Not at all. It feels like…” She shook her head. “It feels like visiting a cemetery.”

Sinisa called at eleven AM sharp.
   “I will send a car for you,” he said. “How many are you?”
   “Three.”
   “The car will arrive in fifteen minutes. The three of you will turn over any weapons you are carrying to my men. They will escort you to our meeting place.”
   I opened my mouth to acquiesce but he had already hung up. Obviously his cell phone provider charged by the second.
   The car was a familiar white Mitsubishi pickup driven by two familiar men I had not expected to ever see again. Sensitive Reasonable Gangster and Mini-Hulk, from that abandoned furniture factory to which I had tracked the Tamil family.
   “Hey, California man,” SRG greeted me. “How you going? Everything phallic?”
   “Very,” I said.
   “You have no guns, yes?” he asked, looking past me at Talena and Saskia as they unloaded their bags in the bed of the pickup.
   “Actually, we do,” Talena said. She passede our three revolvers over to Mini-Hulk. SRG widened his eyes and raised his hands in mock fear. Talena said something curt to him, and he shrugged and returned to a normal stance.
   “Let’s go,” he said to me. “Sinisa no like if we are late.”
   We sat in the back of the pickup atop the Adidas bags that contained all our possessions. The Mitsubishi’s suspension was creaky and we bounced and swayed as the pickup rattled along Sarajevo’s often-rough streets. I thought of the Tamil family who had sat here in this same vehicle. Now, less than a week later, I sat in their place.
   I expected to return to that factory or some equally farflung location, but we only travelled about half a mile, through Bascarsija, across the river, and up steep house-lined streets, until we came unexpectedly into a huge graveyard that occupied a steep promontory above the Miljacka.
   The pickup found a dirt trail leading into the heart of the cemetery. It was a Muslim cemetery, I could tell by the tall and narrow obelisks used instead of Western-style gravestones, and by the names, Nasir, Ahmet, Camila. Some of the gravestones were made of carved marble, some of them monuments sculpted with beautiful patterns, but many were marked only by whitewashed wooden panels, now cracked and peeling. Those were the ones dated between 1992 and 1995, during the seige.
   A Land Rover stood parked on an empty plot near the summit of the cemetery ridge. Sinisa stood next to it, dressed in a dark suit, wearing mirrored sunglasses. He was accompanied, I noted uneasily, by the red-haired woman and craggy uber-thug man who had been in the factory. Their electric presence, the air of potentially imminent violence, was undimmed by daylight. Also present was a short man who resembled some kind of overgrown rodent, with long greasy hair and a ski-jump nose, carrying a laptop case.
   “Mr. Wood,” Sinisa said. “We meet again.” Sinisa and I shook hands.
   “This is Talena, my girlfriend, she’s American,” I said. Sinisa kissed her cheek twice as if he was French. “And this is Saskia, who needs to emigrate.”
   “You have met Zoltan,” he said, indicating the uber-thug, “and Zorana,” the redhead.
   I smiled at them. They did not smile back. Both of them were even scarier in daylight. Zoltan was all craggy muscle, with a zigzag much-broken nose, and despite his bulldog build he moved with athletic grace. Zorana was stunningly alpha-female beautiful, long lean muscled body, perfect features, fiery red hair. Both of them openly carried guns on their belts.
   A slightly awkward silence ensued. I realized Sinisa was waiting for me to talk. Maybe the criminal conversational protocol was that the customer spoke first.
   “Should we talk about money now?” I asked hesitantly. “Or work out the details first?”
   I had no idea what the details were. Were we actually willing to turn Saskia over to Sinisa? What would happen to her? How could we be sure she would be safe? How much would we have to pay, and when?
   “I do not want money from you,” Sinisa said.
   “Excuse me?” I didn’t know much, but I knew smugglers didn’t work
pro bono
.
   “I want to employ your skills. If they are relevant.”
   I was too surprised to speak.
   Talena stepped in. “You
what?
”
   “I need a skilled computer programmer, and quickly,” he said. “You need this woman taken to safety, and quickly. I propose an exchange.”
   “I…” I traded an astounded glance with Talena. “Thanks, but I think we’d rather just pay you. We just need you to get her to Germany or England. How much will that cost?”
   “That is not on offer. I am not interested in your money.”
   “This is crazy,” Talena said. “If you want to hire someone, put up an ad on HotJobs. We’re here to do business with you.”
   “No. You are here because you have had the good fortune to approach me at a time when I require the services of a computer programmer. Otherwise I would never have agreed to this meeting.”
   I shook my head, bemused. “A programmer for what?”
   “Arwin.”
   For a moment I thought it was a code name, or some Tolkien reference, neither would have surprised me much at that stage. Then the little weaselly man with the laptop came forward and I realized that it was his name.
   “We talked on the phone,” he said to me. His voice was shrill and nasal in person, and his accent was not from the Balkans. “Synchronized, remember?”
   “Right.”
   “We need a guy with strong Java, web, and database skills. Also someone familiar with security, and cryptology, and who can read C.”
   “Well…I’m your guy, but…” My voice trailed off.
   “You got a CV?”
   “What?”
   “A CV. A resume. You don’t have one?”
   “Not on me. Um, I have one online.”
   “Come show me.” He turned and walked towards the Land Rover.
   I looked back at Talena and Saskia.
   “The interview will not take long,” Sinisa said.
   My interview. This was a job interview. Possibly the strangest job interview in the history of computer science. I followed Arwin to the Land Rover, head spinning. He already had the laptop out of its case and a web browser open. I supposed it had a cellular modem.
   “What is the address?” he asked, fingers poised over the keys.
   “I’ll drive,” I said.
   He reluctantly stepped aside. “Do you recognize the browser and the environment?”
   “Sure. Mozilla. KDE. Linux.”
   He nodded, satisfied, and watched as I pointed the browser towards the computer in San Francisco that contained, among other things, a copy of my resume. My usual job-interview nervousness and sense of unworthiness flooded into me despite the surreal context. I was glad that I had kept my resume semi-fraudulently updated by listing open-source projects I had dabbled with over the last eighteen months as if they were ongoing activities. It covered up my lengthy period of unemployment, and if Arwin was ignorant of these projects, which was quite possible, he might interpret them as jobs.
   “Java work, database work, lots of web sites,” he summarized after a quick pass through my resume. “You sound perfect.”
   I shrugged. “Maybe I am.”
   He fired off a half-dozen more Java questions at me, all of them easy. Then he asked me questions about design patterns and recursive algorithms and object modelling and database denormalization, all of them integral to my long-dormant professional life, basic enough that the answers came easily despite my year and a half away. It only took five minutes. It rarely takes more than that for a true techie to identify another, and both Arwin and I, despite my rust, and Arwin’s many later-discovered flaws, were hardcore coders.
   “He’ll do,” Arwin announced as we returned to the others.
   Talena looked worried.
   “Excellent,” Sinisa said, awarding me a proprietary smile. “Then it is time to discuss the logistical details.”
   “We haven’t agreed to anything yet,” I said. I didn’t like his certainty. “You’re not the only game in town.”
   “No. But I am the only game that will take your friend all the way to America.”
   “America?” Talena asked.
   “America.”
   “How?”
   “You do not really expect me to reveal my trade secrets. But I assure you, if you agree to our arrangement, and if Paul performs the tasks I require, Saskia will be in California six weeks from today.”
   “How do we know she’ll be safe?” I asked.
   “Because you will be with her.”
   “I – what?”
   “You do not expect me to let you work from home, do you? I know America has its New Economy, but here we still live in the old world. You two, and you as well if you like,” to Talena, “will come with me to my operational headquarters. You will work for me there, with Arwin.”
   I exchanged a dazed look with Talena.
   “You are very fortunate that I need someone like you,” Sinisa said. “Otherwise I would not take your friend to America regardless of how much you offered. This is the deal of a lifetime, Mr. Wood.”
   “Yeah? How long a lifetime?”
   He chuckled. “I am glad to see you have a sense of humour, but I assure you, if you hold up your end of the agreement, you have nothing to fear from me.”
   “Nothing to fear except you making sure I don’t walk out with your trade secrets.”
   “An understandable concern. But if you have done your research with your NATO friends, you know that I am not a man who does such things. I have never reneged on an agreement, Mr. Wood. But obviously it is impossible to prove a negative. It is up to you. My offer is on the table. You have ten minutes to decide.”
   “Wait. One question. Why me? There’s plenty of coders around here, aren’t there?”
   “You’d be surprised,” Arwin piped up. “Anyone with real skillz,” the last consonant was stressed, hacker-speak rather than an accent, ”got the hell out of this country a long time ago. He brought me in from Russia.”
   “You speak pretty good English for a Russian,” Talena pointed out.
   “Lived in Brooklyn for three years. Illegally. Fuckin’ INS deported me. Sinisa’s my ticket back too. Just like he can be for your little friend.”
   “Nine minutes,” Sinisa said.
   “I can tell you’re not going to be one of my favourite bosses ever if I do accept,” I said sarcastically. “We’re going to talk it over for a bit.”
   Talena, Saskia, and I retreated back into a huddle.
   “This is so messed up,” I said.
   “Do you think he’s serious?” Talena asked.
   “That or he’s got one sick sense of humour. But Arwin’s the real deal, I’m sure of that.”
   Saskia said something.
   “She says she wants to go to America,” Talena said, “but not if it puts you in danger.”
   “Yeah? Tell her it’s a little fucking late.”
   “We could always go to the other guy.”
   “Yeah,” I said. “But maybe Sinisa’s right. Maybe this is good luck.”
   Talena shook her head. “I don’t like it. I’d rather just pay him. We just happen to show up at his door when he needs a programmer? No way. There’s something else going on.”
   “Maybe so. But this way I’ll be able to keep an eye on her, make sure she’s safe.”
   “What if he doesn’t want to let you go?”
   “He knows I’ve got friends in NATO,” I said. “That helps. And he let me go before, remember? That’s something.”
   “I don’t trust him. He’s too smooth. And he’s a Serb. I know that sounds crazy but it makes a difference around here, it really does, he’s a Serb and Saskia and I are Croats, it makes a difference. I don’t trust him.”
   “Me neither. But I trust the alternatives even less.”
   We looked at each other for a moment.
   “Besides,” I said, “you know, I need a job.”
   She quirked a smile but her expression turned serious in a hurry. “He’s a criminal, Paul.”
   “You remember some of the dot-coms I worked for? This dude can’t be any worse.”
   “I’m serious. Never mind how slick and charming and Western he is, never mind his nice suit. He’s a monster too. Probably no better than Dragan.”
   “Yes. I agree. He’s probably a monster. And I’d be helping him. And I’d have to trust him to let me go after. But if he’s telling the truth I’d also be getting Saskia not just out of here but into America. And I think he is telling the truth.”
   “There’s a whole lot he’s not telling. Why would he need someone like you so badly?”
   “Kind of curious about that myself,” I admitted. “But he’s not exactly in the world’s most transparent business. He’s given us a pretty good offer. Maybe we’re dealing with the devil, but you know, why the fuck did we let him give us a ride out here in the first place, right? So he’s a monster. Maybe he can be our monster for a little while.”
   “You want to accept.”
   “Yes.”
   “All right,” Talena said, nodding. She passed the decision on to Saskia, who closed her eyes and smiled with relief, and turned back to me. “Then we’re all staying here.”
   “Absolutely not,” I said quickly. “You’d lose your job. You have to go back.”
   “Never mind my job, Paul, this guy is dangerous, you could lose your fucking life.”
   “An even better reason for you not to come with me. So you can orchestrate help from outside if we need it. If he does fuck us over then you won’t be able to do much good if you’re sitting helpless in his clutches too.”
   “Paul, there is no way I’m going to fly back to California and leave you and Saskia all alone with this Serb smuggler with nothing but his word protecting you. End of discussion.”
   “What if he does turn on us?” I asked. “What good will you be here?”
   She didn’t have any answer to that.
   “One of us has to stay away from him,” I said. “It can’t be me, it can’t be Saskia, so it has to be you. I’m sorry. I know you want to stay here. But if you do, you endanger both of us.”
   Try as she might, and she tried, she couldn’t think of a counterargument to that.
   “Don’t worry,” I said. “It probably sounds more scary than it is. I bet it’ll just be another boring programming job. I’ll be craving danger after three days but all I’ll get is bug hunts.”
   She didn’t seem convinced.
   “So it’s settled,” I said, barrelling on before she could think of some other reason to protest. “We accept the offer,” I paused as a brainwave hit, “well, sort of, and then Saskia and I stay here, I work on a job that will never ever make it onto my resume, you go home, and we meet up in six weeks. Piece of cake.”
   “What do you mean, sort of?”
   “Come on. I’ll show you.”
   I led Saskia and Talena back to Sinisa.
   “One condition,” I said.
   His expression darkened. “I do not like conditions.”
   “Twenty thousand US dollars deposited into my American bank account. Half today, half when the job is done.”
   He looked at me, appalled and insulted, though I suspected both were negotiating ploys. “Absolutely not. I am already being far too generous with you, Mr. Wood. Do you know how much passage to America would cost if I were to allow you to simply buy it? Fifty thousand dollars!”