THE HEART OF DANGER (38 page)

darling,

but it's all negative. Did I tell you, can't remember if I did ..

. ?

I pushed the problem of that odious detective to Frankfurt. They've

a

satellite office in Munich. Their people in Munich have called up

Vienna. Vienna have links into Zagreb. I got a few faxes to fly ..

.

Someone from the associate office in Zagreb actually went to the

hotel,

this morning ... I don't know what it means, but the bastard hasn't

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been in the hotel for four nights. He hasn't checked out, his

account's still ticking up, but he hasn't used the hotel for four

nights .. . They don't know where he is .. . I'm sorry, darling, but

I

did tell you what I thought of Mr. Penn .. ."

Mary held the phone, swayed.

"Are you still there .. . ?"

Small voice. "Yes."

"I'll burn his bloody arse when I get to meet him, when I get his

bloody bill .. . Darling, dinner tomorrow, can we manage two more?

Push

the chairs up a bit, can we? A quite hideously boring couple of guys

from Utrecht, but it's an EC contract, and fat. Don't know how

they'll

mix with our crowd, but it shows willing. "Course you can cope,

darling .. . Why don't you run out to Guildford, get something nice,

new? See you this evening .. ."

She went back slowly up the stairs and tidied the file on Dome's bed.

They were a rather more cheerful crowd for him to be with than the

day

shift, and they did not seem to regard him as a hostile antibody

inserted into Library.

And the memories seeped again over the pages, typed and handwritten,

and the photographs and the worn maps. Shaken the hand of that lovely

young man, Johnny Donoghue, and watched him go tired away to the

entrance tunnel of the Underground train at the end of the arrivals

concourse, and gone to look for the car that would run the old desk

warrior back to Century House. Walked down his corridor on the

eleventh floor. "Hello, Henry, have a good trip?" "Well, I wouldn't

say .. ." Carrying the duty free towards his corner of the office.

"Just one of those things, I hope you're not thinking it'll be your head on the block?" "Well, we did all we could .. ." Settling down into his chair. "Always a problem when you use an amateur, don't

you

think?" "Well, you win some and you lose some .. ." Brought a beaker of coffee, and sipped it, and opened his briefcase, and started out

on

the damned report for the file of a young man's journey through the

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lines, a used young man.

It was long after he would normally have cleared the desk and trudged

away to the station, but the night shift's supervisor had wandered,

friendly, to his desk with a mug of coffee for him. A good young

fellow, and chatty, and they talked desultorily about the new world

that was dangerous, and nostalgically about the old world that was

comfortable. The usual son of garbage .. . He waited his moment,

then

asked.

Henry Carter requested the trawl. Didn't know what they would find

if

they trawled for him, didn't know if they would find anything.

He had the clearance.

He wouldn't have called the supervisor a chum, but there had been

times

back in the old Century House that he had shared a lunch table with

him

in the canteen.

The trawl had left in the net what he regarded as a prize catch.

A short memorandum at the top of a light pile of flimsies, and

worthwhile him staying late because it was a catch that the day shift

supervisor would never have searched for .. .

From: George Simpson, Security Service (Liaison), Rm C/3/47. To:

Desk

Head Yugoslavia (former), Rm E/2/12. Ref: GS/1/PENN.

Following regular weekly liaison meeting, I took lunch with Arnold

Browne, Sec Serv, ranked senior executive officer. In confidence

AB

spoke of Sec Serv involvement in former Yug, using a reject

freelancer.

Involvement follows death in Dec 91 of Dorothy Mowat, Brit citizen,

in

Croatian village overrun by Serb irregulars in area now designated

by

UNPROFOR as Sector North. Following recovery of Mowat's body (April

93), AB recommended to deceased's family that PENN (William),

formerly

with Sec Serv and now private detective (exclaimer), should travel

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to

Croatia to investigate circumstances of death. AB drops that PENN,

'dogged' and 'end of road man', will hopefully produce war crimes

evidence for use in pressuring Belgrade towards peace talks

negotiation

which Sec Serv can on pass to FCO .. . Sounds like empire building,

sounds like interference outside Sec Serv remit. Are we happy query.

Signed: Simpson, George.

He knew Simpson, old Georgie. Simpson, old Georgie, was the sort

of

man that he used to meet in the corridor, never seemed to be in a

hurry, never seemed to have anything pressing, could always give him

the latest cricket score. He could see Simpson, old Georgie,

under-achieving and passed over and frightened witless of

redundancy,

wrestling not too hard on a matter told in confidence. Carter

thought

that so much now fell into place .. . A trust betrayed? .. . Well,

Simpson's, old Georgie's, dilemma about betraying a trust hadn't gone

the distance, hadn't stopped him snitching.

It was an old maxim, but true, that confidences didn't count for too

much in the trade .. .

The Intelligence Officer fronting as Liaison had known that the

opportunity would not come until the end of the meeting. At the

break-up there would be coffee provided, and biscuits and juice, and

the opportunity.

There was a working relationship now that civilized the meetings.

Stiff, formal, but a relationship .. . The meetings were always in

the

police station at Tusilovic that was twelve kilometres into the

occupied territory from the crossing point at Turanj. The

relationship

had prospered sufficiently for there to be a hot line from his office

in Karlovac to the police station at Tusilovic, and a monthly meeting

across a table. They never came to Karlovac .. . And it was usual,

also, for the Intelligence Officer to meet Milan Stankovic at

Tusilovic

.. .

The Intelligence Officer, before permanent secondment to the

military,

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had been chief salesman (export) for the timber factory at Karlovac.

He

was trained to read body language. The Serb was sullen, there had

to

be room for sport there.

More on the agenda concerning the electricity supply across the

cease-fire line: deadlock. The sort of agenda item on which

Stankovic

would usually have shouted his opposition, hammered the table. The

matter of the woman, Croatian-American, who had travelled from

Chicago

for her mother's funeral at Topusko, and been kept waiting three days

in Zagreb with no permission for entry into Sector North granted,

until

after the burial and no explanation. The sort of matter on which

Stankovic would usually have sneered contempt.

The Intelligence Officer anticipated sport.

They had been through the litany of cease-fire violations. A sentry,

frozen and lone, looses off a single shot. A section, bored,

responds

with a mortar round. A platoon, angry, replies with an artillery

piece. A company, furious, loads up an Organj multiple rocket

launcher

.. . The sort of litany on which Stankovic would usually shoot his

mouth off.

There had to be good sport because Stankovic was sullen, head

hanging.

The Intelligence Officer came round the table and he held the coffee

cup in his hand. He eased himself onto the table, sitting casual,

beside the big bowed shoulders of Milan Stankovic.

"Hello, Milan .. . Bit quiet today .. . How's Evica? My wife always tells me to ask after her .. . Managing, is she? I heard her school

was short of books, but then you're short of everything .. . Must

have

been shit, through the winter, without the power .. ."

He watched the hands fidgeting and the body hunched, and the Serb's

eyes avoided his own.

'.. . We're quite well on with the new co-operative building, out

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on

the Ilovac road, good position and close to the Zagreb highway ..

.

Your farmers happy? You built a new co-operative? No? Well, maybe

next year, maybe some time .. ."

There was clearly a personal burden there for the Intelligence

Officer

to scratch at. He probed, and sipped his coffee.

'.. . You know what people ask me, friends who know I come to the

meetings, the ones who used to know you? What they ask is this. That

Milan Stankovic, the clerk once but the big man now, what does he

think

his future is? I've an idea of the future, long-term, because

nothing

will be forgotten. What I tell my friends, the people who ask me,

it

may not happen in my lifetime nor in yours, the vengeance, but my

son

will come for your son because it will never be erased .. ."

He wondered if it was shame that he saw, or whether it was fear. He

imagined his quiet voice as a knife between the blades of Milan

Stankovic's shoulders.

'.. . I nearly forgot to say. I'd have kicked myself if I'd

forgotten

to say it. There are questions being asked about you, your name is

mentioned. I suppose if you hadn't been in Belgrade then you would

have been able to prevent it, but you were in Belgrade when they dug

for the bodies of our wounded that were killed after Rosenovici fell.

That was a mistake, you being away in Belgrade. I'm told they're

filling a file on you, Milan .. . There was a bigger mistake .. ."

The Intelligence Officer was bent over Milan Stankovic. Good sport.

He

whispered the words into the ear of Milan Stankovic.

"Time I was getting on, time I was back in Karlovac. Not too bad

there

because we've got power. Please tell Evica that my wife wanted to

be

remembered to her .. . They're asking questions, filling a file.

Killing the English girl, Milan, that was a serious mistake .. ."

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They talked quietly in the guardroom. They sat away from the

scratched

steel door of the cell.

Branko, passing his cigarettes: "It was the same bag in the police

jeep

.. . the same bag, white plastic, as was in the Dubelj hag's home.

The

goddamn bastards brought more food."

Milo, stubbing his own cigarette, taking another: "It wasn't that

fucker's hands. You saw his nails, I saw his nails. Wasn't his

bastard nails, was a woman's."

Stevo, striking the match: "We go back tonight, skip the music shit, we

go back tonight until we find her, until she comes back down into

that

pig place .. ."

They smoked, they flicked their hands of playing cards on the table,

they ignored the man behind the steel door of the cell, they waited

for

the return of Milan Stankovic.

She had come back to the crossing point at Turanj.

She had again left the Transit Centre and driven to the crossing point

and parked her car, and waited. The convoy of the aid lorries,

returning empty, should have been through an hour before. If the

convoy had left Knin promptly and made good time, then it might have

been through an hour and a half before. She stared up the road from

where the Croat militia stood, and the light had started to dip. She

looked up the hill, up beyond the small san gar of whitewashed

sandbags

where the troops of the Nigerian battalion had their machine gun,

up

towards the defence positions of the Serb militia, where their flag

flew, and on the hill, greying in the low light, would be their

trenches and their strong points and their mortars and artillery.

Each

time she glanced down at her watch and realized the convoy was

delayed,

then the fear tripped in her. If the convoy was late then it would

be

because of a security alert... if there was a security alert it would

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be because of a discovered infiltration ... if there was a discovered

infiltration it would be because Penn was hunted .. . Each time she

looked at her watch the ratchet of her fear turned. If nobody did

anything, if everybody just wrung their hands, if nobody acted, if

everybody said that action was impossible, then the camps of the

Neuengamme Ring could be built again, then the wickedness could come

again. She saw the car come slowly to the far checkpoint and stop

...

If the big men of the chancelleries and ministries did nothing, then

only the little men could try to halt the wickedness .. . The car

came

on from the far checkpoint and stopped again at the NigBatt san gar

..

. Penn was the little man and was alone, and behind the lines, and