Read THE HEART OF DANGER Online
Authors: Gerald Seymour
Tags: #War Crimes; thriller; mass grave; Library; Kupa; Croatia; Mowatt; Penn; Dorrie;
when he had sat on it, straight-backed, she had hit him the first
time.
"You can be a very sensible man, Ham, or you can be a silly man ..
.
Where, when, is the rendezvous?" She punched straight into the
fullness of his mouth, and the wide dulled gold of her wedding ring
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clipped the cap of his front tooth and broke it. He reckoned the
interrogator was a pretty woman, but 'fanny' always looked good in
uniform, always looked best with a webbing belt and a holster. She
had
no cosmetics and there was a great weariness at her bagged eyes, and
her breasts were heavy in their fall into the fatigue tunic when she
stretched her back after each blow, like they'd suckled children.
He
couldn't see the First Secretary because the bastard was behind him,
and he couldn't see the Intelligence Officer because he was away to
the
right of him, and his right eye was already closing from the
interrogator's blows. He could read her face, and her face was iced
calm. From what he read in her face, the fanny was bloody tired,
but
she would go on hitting him until she dropped, and she wouldn't care
if
she rasped her fists, and she wouldn't care if she hurt him. He
thought she was without mercy. He knew that sort of fanny, in the
Defence Force, all the fucking same. All the same because they'd had
a
man killed somewhere on the fucking line, some time in the war, and
they'd parked the kiddies with their mothers, and they'd put on the
uniform, and they hated. There was no mercy from the fucking women.
The women were the fucking worst. He had his hands up, tried to cover
his face.
"You don't leave here, Ham, before I have the time and the place of the
rendezvous. When, where .. . ?"
Because he tried to protect his face, he did not see the short swing
of
the interrogator's boot. She kicked him hard, boot into his shin,
toecap onto the bone of his leg. He cried out.
He didn't doubt her. He seemed to see himself bloodstained and
screaming and cringing. He seemed to see the guys who had been behind
in the open field amongst the trees. He seemed to see her with the
knife bent over the guys who had been wounded and could not save
themselves. All the goddamn same, fucking Serb bastards and fucking
Croat bastards. He did not know how long it had been, whether he
had
been in the chair in the Intelligence Officer's room for half an hour
or an hour. A goddamn awful pain in his leg. And Penn was nothing
to
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him, goddamn nothing. He should come first, second, tenth, he should
come ahead of goddamn Penn every fucking time. He owed Penn nothing.
"Come on, Ham, what's the time and what's the place?"
She had hold of his head. The interrogator's fingers and sharp nails
seemed to be able to take a grip on the folds of the skin over his
scalp, and she shook his head until he thought his mind would
explode.
Dumb and stupid enough to let himself get hacked around, kicked
around.
He owed Penn nothing .. .
Ham told where he was to be waiting to take the inflatable across
the
Kupa river to collect Penn and the German woman and the eyewitness,
and
the prisoner.
The First Secretary said, "That's a good boy."
Ham told when he was to be beside the Kupa river to pick up Penn and
the German woman and the eyewitness, and the prisoner.
The First Secretary said relieved, "That's a sensible boy."
"Will you, please, close your mouth."
But she didn't. He thought it was excitement, adrenaline, whatever
unnamed chemicals were screwing about in her bloodstream, that made
her
need to talk. He supposed she was a town person and had to
communicate, and he knew that he was a country person able to subsist
on his own company. He didn't bloody well need to talk, she did ..
.
They had been on the move for ten hours before he had signalled the
long halt. They had gone slow through the darkness and faster in
the
dawn light, and quickest when the sun had started to stream down
through the thickening foliage above them. The sun was up now,
throwing down gold shards, picking out and spotlighting the mulch
floor
of the forest.
"If we don't talk then you don't know why. It should be important
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to
you, why. You must wish to know why I have come .. ."
"What I know is that sound carries in the forest. You think you are quiet, you are like a rhino .. ."
"What is a rhino?"
"God, a rhino moves like a double-decker .. ."
"What is a double-decker?"
"A rhinoceros is a very big, very fat, noisy animal. A double-decker is a two-floor, very big, very heavy, noisy bus .. ."
"I know what is a rhinoceros and what is a bus. How can you say I
am
like a rhinoceros and a bus?"
"God, Ulrike .. . will you say what you have to say, and then, please, be quiet."
"Don't you need to know why?"
They were off the track. He thought they might be an hour going fast,
probably more than an hour, from the place where there were the bones
and the cases and the bags. He felt so tired. He lay on his back
and
his head was crooked up against the backpack and she sat cross-legged
beside him. His eyes were opening, closing, opening again, and he
could see the excitement in her face, the adrenaline and the
chemicals,
and he thought that if he slept and she stayed awake then he would
have
lost control of her. He was frightened to lose control of her in
case
a dog came, in case a patrol came, in case a group of loggers came,
in
case .. . He had not told her about the skeletons of the refugees
and
their bags and their cases, and he did not know if he could bypass
the
place so that she would not see them. "It is not required for me
to
know why. I have told you that I am grateful that you have come.
It
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does not help me to know. But you insist .. . So, tell me why, then
be
quiet." So serious: "You have to know why." Tell me." "It is about a
future." Brutal, he said, "Not our future. We have no future."
She
hissed, peeved, "There is more than our future. There is the future of
the principle." His eyes closed again, he forced them open. "I know nothing of principles." "Rubbish. You are not here without
principles. You are a man of principle .. ." "Principles get people killed. That's not for me." "Silly, stupid man. Without principle you
would have been on the aircraft, you would have been at your home.
You
sell yourself too cheap. You have principle, and you have anger ..
."
"The anger is because you won't shut your mouth." "You have anger and
principle, and they ride together, that is why I came." "Brilliant, thank you, good night. Lights out and silence, please .. ." And
he
could not push open his eyes. Eyes closed and the tiredness clinging
in him. Typical of a bloody woman that there must be a bloody
discussion .. . Just like at Five, just like the women graduates in
General Intelligence Group. Why must the mountain be climbed?
Analysis
and thought and team discussion as to why the mountain must be
climbed.
Best to have a paper written on Aims and Objects for Climbing the
Mountain, then have a subcommittee report on the paper to the full
team. Penn was climbing the mountain because the bloody mountain
was
there. Penn was going up the bloody mountain because Mrs. Mary
bloody
Braddock was holding a bayonet, sharp as hell, against his backside
for
him to impale himself on if he should bloody well stop climbing the
bloody mountain. Penn was crawling up the bloody scree slope of the
mountain because she was there, Dorrie was at the top with the wind
in
her hair and the rain on her face and the mist about her, bloody
laughing and mocking him .. . Ulrike was close to him. He sensed
her
bent over him. There was a garlic taste on her breath. Her fingers were smoothing the hair from his forehead .. . Because the bloody
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mountain was there, with Dorrie astride it. She said into his ear,
"I
understand that there is no future, and the future for us is not
important, but the future of the principle is everything. If nobody
speaks, if nobody calls out, if there is only silence, then there
is a
new dark age of barbarity .. ." He murmured, "Principles are not important. What is important, if we take Milan Stankovic, when we
run
with Milan Stankovic, then the wasps' nest is well stirred. It's
shit-frightened running then, and when you're running it's not bloody
principles that'll help you along. And if we try to take the
eyewitness, she's old, slow, needing to be carried .. ." Maybe it
was
just the movement of her lips speaking into his ear, maybe she kissed
his ear, but they had no future. The future was Jane, was Tom. It
was
not important whether he wanted it, or what he wanted. There was
no
future with Ulrike. "It is the difference between us and them, we
have
principle and they have only barbarism .. ." "Christ, Ulrike, principles don't stop bullets, can't blunt knives." Tenn '...?"
"Yes." So tired, and slipping, and her lips breathing the words to his
ear. Tenn, if you had him, if you have taken him, but you are blocked,
and you cannot bring him out, would you kill him?" "I don't know."
"You have to make an answer. Would you kill him as justice? Would you
kill him as revenge, for what he did to the wounded?" "I don't know."
"Kill him for what he did to Dorrie?" "I don't know." "You will remember what I told you .. . if he is begging you for his life, you
will have to be cruel. Do you have it inside you, good and ordinary
and decent man, to be cruel .. . ?"
"Please, don't talk, please."
"I want to know what he is like. I want to see his face, hear his
speech, watch him move. I want to know how he is different. He is
married, he has a child, he is a leader of his people. I understand
all of those things. I do not understand how he could have beaten
the
wounded and knifed them and shot them. I do not understand how he
could have looked into the face of your Dorrie and beaten her and
knifed her and shot her. I have to believe that I will find something
of him that is different. If he is not different then we are all
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lost.
I see only victims. I do not know those who make the victims. I
see
the results of their violence but I am not able to see the source
of
the violence. Penn, surely you don't believe that I came here only
because I was afraid for you. Penn, I despise sentiment .. . There
are
2,400 souls in the Transit Centre, and they do not even own hope,
and
their number is minimal in comparison with the greater number who
have
suffered. They deserve some, however small, act of retribution ..
.
Half a century ago it was my own country that bred the evil, and the
evil was made by men and women that you would have passed in the street
and thought no different from yourself. The evil must be isolated,
stopped .. . If he is a good and ordinary and decent man then there
is
no hope for any of us, none, then it is indeed the beginning of that
dark age. I have to pray that he is different .. ."
Penn slept.
"You will give me the wit to believe that you are not joking with
me?"
"No, sir, I am most serious; would that it were a joke."
It was a part of the First Secretary's upbringing that he would
address
a more senior man with respect. And a lesson of his teenage years
at
Marlborough School, well learned, that evasion of a problem came back
to haunt. He sat stiffly in the chair while the Director of Civilian
Affairs paced, heaving on his cigar.
"He got himself out, and now he has gone back in?"
"That's what I am saying."
The smoke of the cigar spat from the Director's mouth. "You
appreciate
the implications of what you tell me?"
"It is because I appreciate them that I have come to you."
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"I am not a highly educated man, just a fucking Paddy, I have a bad degree out of Dublin, Business Management crap, maybe I don't have
the
intellect for this job. Maybe a man with a greater intellect could
do
this job without having to spend fifteen, seventeen, hours a day stuck
at this desk or sitting in on meetings with the most God-awful people
Christ ever invented, maybe. I spend those hours every day trying
to
stamp out the nastiest brush fire Europe has seen in half a century.
I
hate this place, I hate its bestiality and its barbarity, its love
of