THE HEART OF DANGER (28 page)

something bad. They had cleared the homes leading into the square.

They cleared the church and the store and the home that had been used

as the HQ. They put the dog into the cellar of Franjo and Ivana's

farmhouse, and while the dog was down in the cellar he had stood on

the

stone flags of the kitchen. Most times that he came to the farmhouse,

Branko had been given a slash of brandy in the kitchen while they

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opened the letters from Franjo's nephew who was in Australia or

Ivana's

aunt who was on the West Coast in America. No concern to him, the

brandy, because Franjo and Ivana were the same as the others, goddamn

Ustase. If it was no concern to him then he did not understand why

it

concerned Milan. They cleared the school. They shouted their

progress

across the village, across the fields, up to the tree line on the

hill

where Milan controlled the cordon. Branko watched the dog. It

would

have been the first time that the dog had been taken back to Rosenovici

since its family had gone, left it, let it run beside the wheels until

it could run no more. The first time that the dog had been back since Milan had gone to the edge of the village and called the dog and

brought it home to his son. And the goddamn Ustase dog was

remembering. The dog whined at a heap of collapsed rubble. The dog whimpered beside the wall section with the green flowers on a yellow

base of interior wallpaper. The dog curved its tail over its

privates,

sniffed, crawled on its belly over the wall section with the

wallpaper.

The postman was not concerned that the old American had come with

the

UNCIVPOL and dug for the bodies .. . They could dig where they goddamn

wanted, they could cart the bodies, stinking, back to Zagreb, and

then

they could do goddamn nothing .. . And he did not understand why Milan

had such morose misery. What could they goddamn do, nothing? He

shouted for the dog and it came back to his side. They were going

up

the lane.

A small shed. A stone shed with a roof of rusted corrugated iron.

Precious dynamite would have been wasted on the shed, fire would have

had little to burn. In the shed the dog found a plastic bag. The

bag

was white, and inside the bag were dried crumbs of bread. The shed

was

forty paces short of what had been the home of the Dubelj pair, goddamn

Ustase. Between the shed and the home of the Dubelj couple was a

small

paddock, thick with weeds. A cow had been kept in the paddock and

a

goat and two pigs. Stevo had the cow, and Milo had the pigs. The

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postman had taken the goat, but had killed and eaten it. He had felt

strong until they reached the house of Katica Dubelj.

The door hung open, held only by the lower hinge. It was dark inside.

The dog held back. The postman kicked the dog through the door. The carpenter was behind him and there were the raw scratch scars on the

cheeks of his face, he was not hurrying to push past him. He went

inside, into the goddamn smell and the darkness. He held tight to

his

gun. He had to stand, very still, and wait for his eyes to work for

him. The dog was in the corner. The image cleared. The dog

scratched

in a heap of rags, maybe sacks, in the corner. He saw the hurricane

lamp that had died and the bow saw and the jemmy and the lump hammer

dropped on the old linoleum. There was another bag, white, and he

lifted the bag and crumbs of bread crust fell from it. The dog had

come from the corner and sniffed at a chewed apple core.

The dog held a scent down the lane from the house and through the

entrance to the field where the bulldozer had crushed the wooden

gate.

The dog followed a scent that skirted the low wall of grey black mud

around the pit, went over the tyre marks of the jeeps. There had

been

heavy rain in the night and Branko slipped and fell in the field as

he

tried to keep pace with the dog. He could see Milan above him, close

to the tree line. The dog went past the grave.

The dog reached the small ditch that came down the field and, at the

ditch, the dog lost the scent.

They tried the dog up the ditch, right side and left side, but the

dog

had lost it.

The postman trudged up the field, sliding, cursing, until he reached

Milan. He showed Milan the plastic bags in which they had found the

crumbs, and the chewed apple core. He told Milan that someone had

been

there, recently, had eaten there, slept there, the scar scratches

on

the carpenter's face proved it. He asked Milan to come down into

Rosenovici so that he could see for himself where they had found the

plastic bags and the apple core. Milan refused him.

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Milan was the postman's leader, he would never criticize him. He

watched Milan walk away. He had taught Milan, boy and man,

everything

he knew of the game of basketball and he had been superb. Milan

walked

away along the edge of the tree line, took the long route so that

he

would not have to cross the village. He could remember when Milan,

in

attack, brilliant in the dribble, fantastic jumping for the net, had

led Glina Municipality to victory against Karlovac Municipality,

taken

the cup, a player without doubts. Milan was going the long way round

the village towards the bridge.

The postman did not understand the goddamn problem.

Ham had slung a white T-shirt, filthy as if it had been used to clean

the plugs of a car engine, across a low bush of thorn. They sat a

dozen paces back from where the T-shirt was draped and Ham talked

Penn

through the maintenance and cleaning of the Browning 9mm automatic

pistol, and then made Penn do it, and then tied a handkerchief round

the front of Penn's face and made him do it again, and he made Penn

load a magazine with the blindfold still in place. It was seven years

since the two-day firearms course and it was more forgotten than he

had

realized.

Later Ham would show him what he had also damn near forgotten: how

to

crouch, lock his legs, extend his arms, find the target, aim and hold

it, how to fire the pistol. Ham talked low and keen, as if firing

the

pistol was of importance.

In the grip on the back seat of the Cherokee jeep were seven video

tapes, nine hours of audio recording, thirty-seven pages of

handwritten

notes.

Marty drove along the wide highway, back to Zagreb.

They were good 'snapshots', the video and the audio and the notes

from

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the stories of the latest refugees from the village outside the

Bosnian

town of Prijedor. He drove steadily, did not exceed the speed limit,

although the road ahead was empty. EWT 19, traumatized but coherent,

had said that he had seen seven pairs of fathers forced to have oral

sex with their sons, before the fathers and sons were shot evidence.

EWT 12, thirteen years old but with a visage going on sixty, had said

that he had seen prisoners ordered to castrate fellow prisoners with

their teeth evidence. And plenty more .. . eyewitnesses telling his

microphone of rape and beating and killing, telling it like it was

evidence. The evidence would go from his notes onto disk. The disks

and the video tapes and the audio would go on the courier flight back

to the second-floor office in Geneva. But it was just damned

ridiculous ... It had hurt him that he had not seen the German lady

when he had pulled out from the Transit Centre. He had wanted to

see

her, wanted to be with her, had checked her office, actually gone

up

the staircase and through each of the third- and the second-floor

rooms, and the dispensary, and the kindergarten and the kitchens,

been

told she wasn't there, anywhere, and kept looking for her. It had

been

a long time since he had last gone looking for a woman, and wanted

to

be with that woman ... It was just damned ridiculous that his work,

work of this importance, should be dumped off in a damned converted

container.

He was coming into Zagreb, picking up the traffic.

Had he looked at himself, which he did not, Marty Jones might not

have

liked what he saw. His mind did not acknowledge the ravages of

stress.

The videos that he filmed were of rape, the audios he recorded were

of

torture, the notes that he wrote were of foul cruelty. The woman

he

reported to in Geneva, three weeks back when she was down in Zagreb,

had said to him, "Don't you get sick of it, Marty? Why don't they

just

kill each other? What does it do to you, Marty? Why do they have

to

cut out eyes, cut off noses, cut off heads why can't they just kill

each other. How do you stay sane, Marty?" He had not known how to 162

answer her.

But he never looked in the mirror. He had a dream, and the dream

was a

prepared case ... It was just damned ridiculous that he had to make

the

dream in a converted freight container.

He drove into Ilica barracks. The parking lot available to him was

up

by the A block, where the big shots were. There were workmen carrying

prefabricated partitioning and timbers in through the main doors.

The

big shots were extending their office space, reaching into the roof

area. The big shots had space, and he had the damned converted

freight

container.

For the rest of the day he would get his notes onto disk, and get

the

package off, and then he might just raise some damned noise.

He unlocked the door of his container, pulled it open, and the wall

of

heat hit him.

The crows above them had scattered with the first shot. The quiet

came

again to the woodland of birches. The magazine was exhausted. Four hits on the T-shirt, two hits for every three misses. Ham didn't

criticize. Back on the training course the instructor had given him

hell with three hits for every five misses. Penn guessed that Ham

didn't criticize because it was too late to rubbish him. Quite

relaxed

he had been on the training course, but time was not running then

.. .

When he had cleaned the pistol, he sat with Ham and they went over

the

maps. They had a tourist map that Ham had bought in Karlovac, and

they

had the sketch map that Ham had drawn. The sketch map would take

him

to within six miles of Rosenovici. There were minefields marked on

Ham's hand-drawn map, and strong points and villages where there

would

be patrols and roadblocks. And all the time Ham seemed to watch him,

163

in a manner open but sly. Ham watched him as if he were meat hanging

from the hook in a butcher's window, evaluated his quality. Penn

thought Ham was making a reckoning on whether he would get himself

back

to go for the hunting of Karen and Dawn, and he thought also that

Ham

judged him capable of bringing back intelligence bullshit that the

mercenary would present to his officers ... He was a rotten little

man

but he had taken the one chance and perhaps would be remembered.

Dorrie

was a horrid young woman but she had taken the one chance and was

loved. Jovic was a prickly bastard who learned to paint with his

left

hand, and might succeed ... It was about winning his own respect,

about

walking his own path, taking the one chance .. . And the afternoon

was

slipping.

"Of course we'll have another .. . Well, how's the self-inflicted

wound? .. . It'll have to be a cheaper one."

Georgie Simpson had his arm raised for the attention of the wine

waiter. The food wasn't good. The monkfish didn't taste as if it

had

been swimming too recently. Best to kill another bottle. Arnold

Browne didn't believe he cared too much about the freshness of the

fish; he wiped his mouth with the napkin.

"Not a lot moving on that front."

Which was economical with the truth. The truth, and it rankled, was

that he had been summoned, the last evening, to the snug at the bottom

of the neighbour's garden at about the time he was looking to his

bed

and his book. Given a token whisky, not generous, and berated.

Hammered. Penn did not respond to telephone messages. Penn had

been

away nearly a week and not a squeak from him. Penn was on the gravy

train. Penn was a bloody waste of money .. . No shortage of money,

Arnold wouldn't have thought it was small change to Charles bloody

Braddock .. . Penn was the wrong man.

"What sort of chap?"

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"I beg your pardon .. ."

"The private detective you told me last week you'd arranged for a

private detective to travel."