Read THE HEART OF DANGER Online
Authors: Gerald Seymour
Tags: #War Crimes; thriller; mass grave; Library; Kupa; Croatia; Mowatt; Penn; Dorrie;
be cleared through the Transit Centre inside four weeks because there
were promises of resettlement from the governments of Europe. She
dealt each day with hunger strikes, protests, trauma, because the
governments lied.
Ulrike drained the beaker of coffee.
When the convoy came through then she would know, forget the sweet
talk, that there was no alert up the broken road from Turanj, up beyond
the machine-gun post, up behind the lines.
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Silent prayer was not sweet talk.
He was the king, it was the court of Milan Stankovic.
He was back from the liaison meeting, back from the cell block at
the
headquarters of the TDF unit of his village. He had survived Evica's
carped complaint. In his home, coming sullen to his kitchen, and
facing the barb of Evica. Would he get himself together, because
now
he was shit .. . Would he hike himself up, because now he was pathetic
.. . Listened to Evica. Heard her call him shit, rubbish, pathetic.
Held out his arms for her and she had come to him, closed his arms
on
her and their little Marko had clung to his legs and the dog had
bounded happily against his back. He was the king, the chief man,
and
he had held the warmth of Evica against him and felt the warmth of
his
little Marko against his thigh and his hip ... It was the Canadian
policeman who was shit, and the Political Officer, and the liaison
man
from Karlovac.
He was amongst his own and was loved.
He could not be touched. He had kissed the eyes and ears and mouth
of
Evica, and the head of his little Marko. He was beyond their reach,
those who were shit, pathetic, rubbish. The king danced. The music was heat around him. The chief man drank. The shouts were about
him.
It had been the strength of his Evica that had liberated him, and
the
spit of her tongue.
He danced and he drank as if the death shroud was taken from him.
The king danced with the queen. Space was made for them in the centre
of the hall of the school. There were shrill shouting faces around
them, and the clapping of a hundred hands about them. She was so
lovely, his queen, and dancing wild with him and her full skirt
sweeping high on her thighs as he led her. The loveliest girl in
the
village, now the loveliest woman in Salika. As he danced, wild, the
folk dance of the Serb people, so the hands of the men who acknowledged
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him as king reached out with glasses of brandy. As he danced, he
drank. He felt he had found freedom. He was the power of his people,
the glory of his village. Spinning with the dance, the skirt of Evica
climbing, the music faster, the clapping louder, the brandy spilling
from his lips, Milan knew he was the king. Coming to the climax of
the
music and his feet were stamping and Evica's feet were gliding, and
the
clapping hammering in him. He was free .. . and when the music had
climaxed, and when he had drunk again, then he would sing. He was
the
king .. . They came through the door of the hall. They were dragging
the man. They brought the man to him, through the parted crowd around
him that had gone to silence. And the music died. Milan stared down at the man who lay prone on the floor. He saw a man who was trussed
at
the wrists and ankles. The man was dressed in filthy wet fatigues,
mud-smeared. The man gazed back up at him. The face of the man was blood-spattered. Branko was dropping onto the floor, noisy clatter,
a
heavy pistol and then four grenades, rolling loud. Milo was shaking
out onto the boards of the floor a backpack, socks and underpants
and a
thick sweater and spare magazines for the pistol, and old bread, and
an
envelope of brown paper. Stevo threw the passport down onto the
floor.
The postman and the carpenter and the gravedigger smiled their pride.
Around him were the people of the village, all watching him. He bent
down. He looked at the passport. The passport was British, United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He reached for the
envelope. He stood and took a sheaf of photographs from the
envelope.
The man with the blood on his face gazed up at him. Evica was beside
him .. . Like a blow hitting him, Milan saw the face. The face that
he
had known, and the knife wound.
The gasp of Evica beside him.
The face swollen in putrefaction, but with the bludgeon wound on the
forehead.
The face that he recognized, and the bullet wound above the ear.
And they were all watching him because he was their king, and the
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fear
twisted in him and could not be shown. The freedom was gone, the
liberty was lost, and the brandy was beating in him. Trying to focus
on the face on the floor and the face in the photographs. The face
of
the man on the floor gazing back at him, and the face of the woman
in
the photograph, and blood on the faces that merged. He unhooked the
clasp knife from his belt, threw it to the carpenter. The twine at
the
ankles and at the wrists was cut .. . she had not been bound. Evica
held the photographs and shivered. It was what was expected of the
king. Branko and Stevo lifted the man up, and he stood in front of
Milan and swayed. Milan should not show fear, not in front of those
who admired and worshipped the king, and she had not shown fear ..
.
A short arm blow, as hard as he could punch, he hit the stomach of
the
man.
The man staggered, went down, was on his knees.
The man stood again. Milan did not see the fear, and she had not
shown
fear .. .
He threw the man into the crowd around him, for their pleasure.
They were crawling into the village.
Benny reckoned they were going slowly because they had missed the
turn.
He reckoned they should have taken the left turn before they were
into
the village. He knew it was a Serb village because the roofs were
on
the houses and the church had a tower and what looked like the school
wasn't a burned shell.
The convoy manager, Benny reckoned, had screwed up and was crawling
because he knew it, and it was long odds against tiptoeing away when
they had to turn round and back up, a Land-Rover and fifteen Seddon
Atkinson lorries.
It was strange, Benny thought, that they could pitch up in this lost
241
forgotten corner of pretend civilization and not have half a hundred
people coming out the woodwork to know their business. Peculiar ..
.
The convoy manager, up ahead, had started the turn and back-up routine
... It looked, dark quiet, a hell of a bad place to be lost, a hell
of
a good place to be shot of. The lorries were manoeuvring, like
leviathans, and at present no bugger with an AK's safety off and armed
coming out of the houses to ask their business.
Benny waited his turn to manoeuvre.
Penn heard, just, the shout. The shout was an order.
The last of the kicks went into him, into the small of his back, and
the last of the women's nails clawed at his face, and the last of
the
punches went to his unprotected stomach.
The pain ran rivers in his body. The shout was a command. He tried, hard, to keep his eyes open because that seemed important. He lay
on
the floor and the boards were wet with his blood and his spittle and
his urine. Six would have done courses on Resistance to
Interrogation,
Five didn't.. . any rate, not for his level of A Branch non-graduate.
In a circle around him were the heavy laced shoes of the men and the
light slide-on shoes of the women and on some of the shoes were dulled
stains .. . not a course for his level of A Branch non-graduate, but
maybe for the top grade, super fucking experts who went to Belfast.
It
was a hallucination for Penn, kicked, clawed, punched, to be thinking
of courses for Resistance to Interrogation for top-graders who went
to
Belfast, but the hallucination swamped him .. . There was a woman
in
Gower Street and he'd been down a queue for the coffee machines when
she'd been at the head, she'd been pointed to and he'd been told that
the Proves had trapped her in some God-awful pub, no back-up present,
and she'd fought her way out, just a slip of a woman with rusted gold
hair and a flat chest and rounded shoulders, who had taken her coffee
and walked slowly back to her office like she was a bored woman, not
a
top-grader .. .
The big man, the voice of command, the one who had swayed when he
242
had
seen the photograph, the one who had hit him first,
broke the cordon circle. The big man came towering towards him.
Penn blinked up and tried to retain the focus of his vision .. .
couldn't break the hallucination. There were two women in his mind.
Both top-graders .. . The woman with the rust-gold hair, bored in
London, in the coffee queue, who had the courage to fight clear of
a
killer enemy .. . and the woman with the cropped hair, the mischief
smile in her photograph, who had the courage to bury her fear when
the
killer enemy closed. He was so wanting to be brave. Bravery might
just be survival, or it might just be dignity, or it might just make
the fucking knife and the fucking bludgeon and the fucking pistol
shot
fucking easier .. . The hallucination rode him. Talking in the
open-plan office area of A Branch, chattering idly about the hostages
in Lebanon, and the big mouth, graduate 2.2 Reading, claiming that
he
would have gone for escape; and the simpering mouth, graduate 2.1
Warwick, whining that she would have gone for a runner; and Penn,
non-graduate, trying to contribute quietly that an escape attempt
took
more courage than anything, and being ignored .. . and just the idle
chatter of a hallucination in a quiet hour of a London office because
fucking escape was not on the reality agenda .. . The big man pulled
him up.
The big man had a loose beard grown free across his face, not trimmed.
Between the matt of the beard growth, the tongue of the big man wiped
his full lips. Above the growth of the beard were the eyes, evasive.
The face, the eyes and the mouth, as Penn saw it, were empty of
passion.
The woman beside the big man held the photographs outside the
envelope,
as if she did not wish again to look at them. She wore a bright full
skirt, flower-patterned, and an ironed white blouse that was simple,
and there were sweat streaks in her hair at her forehead.
Penn stood and hoped that he would find the courage.
The question was put to him. The woman interpreted the question.
243
"Who are you?"
Trying to speak strongly. "I am William Penn. I am a British
citizen."
The answer was repeated by the woman to the big man. A second
question. "Are you a mercenary from the Ustase scum?"
Trying to stare into those evasive eyes ... "I have no connection
with
the Croatian army."
"A lie. You wear the uniform of the Ustase scum."
"I bought the camouflage uniform on the black market in Karlovac."
The big man made the question. The woman interpreted the question.
She
spoke formal taught English. "What was the mission?"
Penn heard it, the revving of heavy engines behind him. No one moved
around him. They hung silently on the questions put by the big man
and
the answers given by the woman beside him. Could not know where it
would lead him, where it would take him, but knew the importance of
bold talk .. .
"The village of Rosenovici, across the stream, was taken in December of
1991. There were wounded men in the village who were sheltered in
a
cellar during the final attack on the village .. ."
"What has that to do with a mercenary?"
'.. . The wounded men were taken from the cellar after the fall of
the
village. They were taken to a field, they were sat in the field,
laid
out in the field, while a bulldozer dug .. ."
The interruption. The woman had translated in a quiet voice while
he
talked, and the circle craned for her words.
"What has that to do with .. . ?"
244
'.. . While a bulldozer dug a grave pit. The wounded men were then killed with knives, and were bludgeoned, and were shot, and they were
buried .. ."
"What has that ... ?"
'.. . They were buried in a mass grave in the corner of the field
..
."
"What .. . ?"
'.. . Buried in the mass grave in the corner of the field was a young woman. The young woman was not wounded in the battle for the village.
She had chosen to stay with the wounded. She had chosen to be with
them at the end. She was not a fighter, she had no guilt. She was