Read THE HEART OF DANGER Online
Authors: Gerald Seymour
Tags: #War Crimes; thriller; mass grave; Library; Kupa; Croatia; Mowatt; Penn; Dorrie;
waist of one of the wounded fighters, and she had the arm of another
of
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the fighters around her shoulder to give him support. It was near
enough for me to see. Not easily, but I saw ... I saw her hit. He
was
a big man, and he had a beard, long, dark. I saw that man hit her
and
she could not protect herself because she had the wounded fighters
to
help .. ." There was the noise of the Transit Centre around Penn.
Crying voices and the clattering of metal pots, the beating of
hammers,
and the wail of radios. The name of the woman was Alija. Her eyes
watered, but he had the feeling it was from medical drops and not
tears. He thought she was a flotsam of war, that she would be far
down
any list of patients requiring a cataract operation. She held a
ragged
handkerchief in her hands and pulled and tugged at the edges. He
heard
the hoarseness of his voice, as if his throat was blocked. "What
happened to her, what happened to Dorrie Mowat?" She shrugged. She looked away. She murmured. She shrugged again. Jovic said, "She
has
told you all she knows. The women who had been in the church, they
were taken away. She does not know anything more." Penn stood. It was a reflex, done without thinking. He bent forward and he took
the
head of the woman in his hands and he kissed her forehead. The hands
that had held the handkerchief were dug now into the material of his
blazer. She was gabbling at him. There was the foulness of her breath
close to his nose, and the smell of her clothes. He thought he might
vomit and he dragged her fingers clear. "The women who were with
me,
they said she was so brave. The women said she was an angel ... It
was
what they said .. ." He was away from his chair. He reeled, as if drunk, from the room with the damp peeled plaster. He was out in
the
corridor. He leaned against the wall of the corridor. There was the
grin, sardonic, cold, from Jovic. It had been Jovic's style to hire
a
car and have him drive, without explanation, down the wide road from
Zagreb to Karlovac, and to direct him to the Transit Centre where
the
Muslim refugees waited for onward passage to the safe havens and the
new lives in 'civilized' Europe. Jovic, he thought, played him like
a
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marionette. Jovic said, "Good stuff, yes? Good stuff for your
report,
yes?" Penn snarled, "Just shut your bloody mouth." Doubt crawled in
Penn. He thought himself so insignificant. Once, two and a half
years
back, maybe three, he had been shuffled for a morning to a ministry
to
do a positive vetting on an architect who would be working on R.A.F
station bunkers, and the architect had been in a wheelchair and so
damned cheerful. The architect had said that the best thing about
spending time in Stoke Mandeville spinal unit was getting to know
that
however bad his situation was there was always someone, in the next
bed, who had it worse .. . Penn was the little bureaucrat, the little
man whining about a job and a mortgage and a marriage. He thought
of
the scale where his problems stacked against those of the woman, Alija
.. . Penn thought of what Dorrie had done, and how she had achieved
love. The feeling of insignificance, it hurt. The German woman was in
the doorway of the room. She smiled, friendly, at him. She was
slightly built and her face was washed clean and there were sharp
lines
of tiredness at her eyes. The German woman had led him and Jovic
to
the room where they had found Alija. "Right, Mr. Penn, now I will show you around the Transit Centre He was like all the others who
came
from abroad. He was like the men from the national delegations of
the
Red Cross and like the television crews. She was sure the place
frightened him, the place that was her kingdom. They were all the
same, the ignorant, they wanted to be gone before it was decent to
leave. There was a wedding ring on his finger. He would have a wife at home, probably a child. He would live in a home that was small,
safe, protected, just as were the homes in Munich. She did not think
it right to make it easy for them. '.. . Show you round the Transit Centre so that you can see our work here." "So sorry, but I don't think I've the time." "Always best to find time, Mr. Penn. Too easy
to ignore if we don't find the time."
"I should be away .. ." She thought that he looked a decent man.
She
said briskly, "Won't take all day, Mr. Penn. There are 2,400 people 118
here, Mr. Penn, and they have nothing, not even hope. It is
important
that I take visitors around the Transit Centre so that they are seen.
Every visitor who is seen tells the people here that someone from
outside has bothered to make the journey to visit them. It is a very
little thing for you, Mr. Penn, an hour of your time, but it shows
these people that you have an interest in them. If you lived here,
Mr.
Penn, you would be pleased to know that people from abroad showed
an
interest."
"Thank you, yes, I'd like to."
She thought he was a decent man because she thought he was ashamed
that
he had tried to run away ... It was her regular tour, the same as
for
the delegations and the television crews. She showed him what she
was
proud of, the kindergarten for the small children, the little
hairdresser's room, the scrubbed clean kitchens. She told him what
it
had been when she had started up the Transit Centre. She could not
be
sure what his level of interest was. She told him that in the last
winter, when they had no fuel, no glass in the windows, it had been
body heat that had sustained them. She told him of the drinking and
the smoking and the drug abuse, and of the women whose menstrual cycle
was blocked by stress, and of the children who ran wild, and of the
men
who had lost the reason to live. She thought she held his interest
when he asked her how it was possible for her to cope, and she
answered, as she always answered, that she could cope with the
aloneness, but that the loneliness still hurt her.
It was at the end of the hour. She opened the door. The American
was
playing back a tape on the video.
"Not finished, Mr. Jones?"
He flushed. Never could help himself when she spoke to him. It was the warmth and the boldness in her voice that brought the blood flush
to his face.
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"Just another two or three, someone's gone to find them," Marty said.
There was a man behind Ulrike. He saw the man in the blazer and the
white shirt and the tie, and he saw the creases in the man's slacks.
Never could know whether she laughed at him and there was always the
tinkling brightness in her voice. He was told the name and the
business of the man, and he grimaced as if he was indifferent. "What I'm dealing with here is mass crime. I'm not talking about little
incidents. Anywhere you hit a golf ball round here it'll get to land
on a clandestine grave. I'm talking about major league. If I got
sidetracked into graves where there were a dozen people, I'd just
be
wasting everyone's time. No offence, Mr. Penn." It was
instinctive,
his dislike of the Englishman with Ulrike. He stood too close to
her,
and it was like he had her confidence. He had put down the Englishman
and Marty thought he saw, just for the moment, impatience flash in
her
eyes, at her mouth. Just for the moment, and Ulrike was telling him
that the Englishman had been interviewing a Muslim woman, and named
her. He knew of the woman, hadn't bothered to get round to
interviewing her, finding whether she had a 'snapshot' of an
atrocity.
"Was she raped?" The Englishman, Penn, seemed to frown. "I didn't ask
her." "You always ask a woman here if she was raped. A statement on
rape, sexual violation, a statement with audio or video, and the
perpetrator's name, that can be evidence .. ." "I didn't ask her."
The frown deepened. "Wouldn't have thought so, seemed old .. ."
"Common mistake, mistake people make when they're not familiar with the
ground here. They don't rape for sexual gratification, they rape
to
demean their enemy. Stick around and you'll get to know .. ." The Englishman said, "It's not relevant for me to know." He could have told him to go jerk himself. If Ulrike had not been there, he would
have. His father, back in Anchorage and writing most months and
working in the Brother Francis shelter for destitutes, didn't think
Marty's work, far from home, relevant. And the grizzled old
prospector, his friend Rudi, gold hunting seven hours' drive down
the
Pacific coast from Anchorage who wrote some months, he didn't
understand what was relevant. And his tutor from the Law Faculty,
University of California at Santa Barbara, in his last letter, hadn't
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connected as to how a favourite former student found it relevant to
ferret for mass crime. Marty had told them all in his return letters
that in a new world order it was critical for the international rule
of
law to be established. Had written them all in his return letters
that
ends didn't matter, catching and trying and hanging didn't matter,
but
means mattered, the process of law mattered. "Don't let me keep
you,"
Marty said. "If you can turn your back, and you can feel good, then you're a lucky guy." He thought the Englishman soft shit and if
Ulrike
had not been there, in the doorway, he would have told him. "I've
just
a report to write, then I'm gone. Nice to have met you, Mr. Jones."
He was late coming to his school because of the difficulty in shaving
his bruised face. It was a slow walk to the school because the road
from his house to the school was rutted, and the young men of Salika
were too busy in their uniforms and with their guns to use their
muscles to repair the road. A slow walk because he had no spectacles.
His body hurt. Each place that he had been kicked and punched meant
pain when he walked to the school. His wife had told him that he should
not go. His wife had said their life in the village was finished.
The
village was his home, he had refused her. He had taken a new text
that
morning when he had started the walk from his home to his school.
A
Croat text, but that was not important to the Headmaster. The text,
mouthed as he walked, was the command given, 326 years earlier, to
Nikolica Bunic by the rulers of Dubrovnik when the man, the martyr,
was
sent to treat with the Pasha of Bosnia. He knew, by heart, the text.
"To violence you will reply by renunciation and sacrifice. Promise nothing, offer nothing, suffer everything. There you will meet a
glorious death, here the land will be free. In case of difficulty,
delay. Be united, reply that we are free men, that this tyranny and
God will judge them." Just to whisper the text to himself was
hardship. The carpenter, Milo, watched him walk from the door of
his
home. The postman, Branko, watched him past the militia camp. The
gravedigger, Stevo, leaned on his spade at the back of the church
and
could see him as he passed. Milan Stankovic went by him in his car,
forced him to stumble to the side of the road where the weeds grew.
121
The Headmaster went to his school.
He was late for the start of the day at his school. The children
were
gathered in the hall. He heard the singing, he knew the song. The
children sang of the decision of Prince Lazar to commit the Serb army
against the Turk, and fight at Kosovo .. .
There flew a falcon a grey bird, From the holy city, from Jerusalem
And
carried in its beak a swallow. 28 June 1389, and the lie of Serbian
nobility. The anthem would not have been sung at school assembly
if he
had been present. The day, 28 June 1389, was captured by the
extremists, the barbarians of the new order, by the killers and the
murderers. The day, the nobility of defeat, was taken by the new
order
in Belgrade as an excuse for cruelty, for violence. There was glass
in
the upper part of the swing doors into the hall of his school. He
could see her. She stood where he should have stood. He felt the
betrayal .. .
But that was not a grey falcon, That was the holy man, Elijah: And
he
does not carry a swallow, He saw that Evica Stankovic stood in his
place. Her arms were raised, swung to lead the heaven of his
children's voices.
But a letter from the Mother of God .. .
"Stop."
The Headmaster stood in the open doorway, sticking plaster across