Read THE HEART OF DANGER Online
Authors: Gerald Seymour
Tags: #War Crimes; thriller; mass grave; Library; Kupa; Croatia; Mowatt; Penn; Dorrie;
climb, and the gold would have gone from the great Mother, replaced
by
silver.
The pistol was aimed at her.
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The man was crouched down beside the tree and he held the pistol,
aimed
at her, with his arms extended. The woman stood beside the man and
held the knife against Milan's beard, against his throat. She
stopped,
and she took the weight of the dog and the farm twine tied to the
dog's
collar cut at the palm of her hand. She stopped, and she clutched
the
rusted bayonet.
The pistol was aimed at her across the width of the track that divided
them.
She said it in the man's language, deliberate. "Let him go .. ."
Evica had come fast, closed the last gap, run noisily through the
final
metres, and she had blundered from the cover of a corner of evergreen
holly. They would have heard her come the final metres, but they
would
only have seen her when she broke the cover of the holly. The dog
strained to cross the track.
The aim of the pistol wavered.
"Let him come to me .. ." Penn blinked at her across the track and she
saw the raw tiredness of his eyes that tried to lock along the barrel
length of the pistol. It was as if the birds had gone, fled the place,
because the silence crawled around her. There were scars on his
face.
He was the man who had come into her life, the man who would destroy
them. The weight of the dog cut the farm twine across the palm of
her
hand. If she let go of the twine, if she released the dog, then the
dog, going forward, forty kilos weight, would overwhelm the man,
Penn,
with exhaustion in his eyes ... if she let go of the twine. "Let
him
be free .. ." She looked away from the man, Penn, away from the muzzle of the pistol. The woman's hand did not move. The man, Penn,
whispered to the woman, as if he placed and identified her. The knife
was steady against the hair of Milan's beard, against his throat.
She
saw the chilled certainty in the woman's face, as if tiredness had
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not
washed it clear. The knife was sharp and clean. Evica had seen
before
such chilled certainty, seen it on the faces of the men as they had
gone away across the bridge early on the last day of the battle for
Rosenovici, and she had heard later that day, and not looked from
her
window, the rumble of the bulldozer in the field across the stream,
and
heard the final shots. And she had seen the chilling certainty on
the
faces of the men who had gone to the headquarters to take the
Headmaster from his cell .. . She knew, in her exhaustion, that the
dog
could take the man, Penn, even if he fired, even if he hit. She knew, in the anguish of her mind, that if she loosed the dog then the woman,
determined, cold, would gouge the blade of the sharp clean knife deep
into the throat of Milan, would not hesitate because it was in the
certainty of the woman's face. "Please, you should let him come to me
.. ." There was a wetness on the face of Milan, and she could see
where the tears had run from his eyes and across the dirtied skin
of
his cheeks, and gone to the matt of his beard. And Evica saw the
fear
in Milan's eyes, as if he too knew the certainty of the woman, "I
beg
of you, let me take him home .. ." The man gazed at her, dulled.
She
remembered, a long time ago, many years, when she had gone with the
beaters and the dogs to flush a boar, a long hard run and chase and
they had found the boar against a rock outcrop that it could not climb,
and it had turned to face the leashed dogs and the guns, and she had
seen the dulled eyes of the boar. The man with the pistol did not
have
the cold certainty of the woman who held the knife so steady against
Milan's beard and throat. But it was not the man who spoke. She
had a
clipped voice, controlled. "What was done at Rosenovici was a crime.
What has been done through former Yugoslavia is a crime. At stake
is
the rule of law .. . What we do is small, because we are only small
people, but it is necessary to find a point for a beginning. You
are
the wife of Milan Stankovic, you know what he did. After the flag
of
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surrender, he took the wounded from Rosenovici, and he had a grave
dug,
and he butchered those wounded .. . You are his wife, you know what
he
did, you know the scale of his evil .. . And with the wounded was
a
young woman .. ." The young woman, the girl, coming to the school
at
Evica's invitation, speaking English that Evica might improve her
language, coming in torn jeans and sweaters that were holed at the
elbow, sitting with the fun laughter bubbling in her ... dead and
buried. "The crime of the young woman was that she stayed when others ran. She stayed with those who were wounded. She gave them help
and
love. Your husband made the chain. The chain is from the young
woman
to her mother, to Penn, to your village, to your husband. He made
the
chain when he killed that young woman .. . We do what small people,
Mrs. Stankovic, have always done through history, we make a
beginning.
And the law, Mrs. Stankovic, belongs to small people, and I am small
and Penn is small, and the law belongs to us. We cannot give him
back
to you and to your child because the rule of law, without which we
all
fall, demands that your husband be brought to account .. ." Evica
thought the woman was without mercy. The fingers that clasped the
knife against Milan's beard had no gold wedding ring. She could see
the tight waist of the woman behind her opened coat and there was
not
the slackness at her stomach of childbirth. Evica thought the woman
was without love. "That night, when he came back from Rosenovici,
did
he tell you what he had done? Did you hold him, and tell him that
it
did not matter? Did you cuddle him, and tell him he was without guilt
.. . ? Or did you feel shame, Mrs. Stankovic, did you feel that
when
he lay beside you he dirtied you. You should go home, you should
go
home to your son and tell the child that his father is a murderer,
and
you should tell the child that the rule of law demands his father's
punishment .. ." She looked into her husband's face. She
remembered
371
the night. She remembered how she had lain awake, how she had pushed
him away from her, how he had slept and she had not, how he had cried
out twice but not woken, how he had once thrashed with his arms as
if
to beat away a nightmare, and how in the first light of the morning
she
had stood at the window of their bedroom and looked across the fields,
across the stream, and seen the smoke rising from the buildings and
seen the grey-black scar in the corner of the field. Penn said, "He has nothing to fear from me. It will not be as it was for Dorrie
Mowat
.. ." She let the bayonet fall from her hand. '.. . I protect my
prisoner with my life." She turned away. Evica pulled the dog,
reluctant, after her. She twisted her back on her husband. The dusk
was falling on the woodland. She could not answer the argument of
the
woman. She could not fault the promise of the man. She heard them
moving, first loud and then fainter. Evica never looked back, never
turned to see her husband taken as a prisoner towards the Kupa river.
He turned the pages. Perhaps it had been stupid of him to ask for
the
books. He leafed through photographs in expensive colour that
showed
children in national costume, and wedding dances, and the archaeology
of the national heritage, and Roman amphitheatres, and the beauty
of
polyptych work from churches. Henry Carter thought it an obscenity
that a nation of such age-old talent should have stooped to such
far-down barbarity .. . God, and since when had he been qualified
to
criticize? He leafed the pages, searched patiently. There was an
aerial view, across two pages, of the old quarter of Karlovac, and
he
could make out clearly the former barracks built by Napoleon's
marshal
where the German woman had administered the Transit Centre.
The searching ended .. . It was a dreadful photograph, quite
unsuitable
for his purpose, but it was what he must make do with. The photograph
showed in foreground the tables and chairs laid out on the patio of
that city's principal hotel, in bright summer, with lolling and
burned
holiday-makers under gaudy sunshades. Beyond the patio, glared by
the
sun, was a pedestrian road and then there was the bank of the river.
372
It
was what he had sought to find, a view of the Kupa river. The river
of
the photograph was low against high banks, wide but seemingly
harmless.
It could give him an idea, only a frail impression, of how the Kupa
river would be, at night, swollen by the winter, guarded by strong
points and minefields and patrols, approached by the German woman
and
the prisoner and Penn.
His eyes misted over.
Twenty.
They stood so still. His heart hammered and his chest heaved, and
he
tried to breathe through his nose because he thought that would be
more
quiet, and she had the bulk of Milan Stankovic pressed against him,
and
he hoped that she had the knife so hard against the man's throat,
that
the man would not dare to shout. The two shadow shapes were on the
track that ran above the farm with the outhouses. The shadow shapes
moved with care. They came within five stretched paces of where Penn
and Ulrike Schmidt and Milan Stankovic stood, so still. The moon
was
high enough, full enough, to throw fierce light onto the openness
of
the track they used. Penn could see that the shadow shape leading
wore
metal rank pips on his shoulder epaulettes, and the shadow shape who
followed was carrying, tensed and readied, an assault rifle. It was
where it could end, and the worst had not yet begun .. . Milan
Stankovic might not believe him, but would believe Ulrike. Milan
Stankovic knew from her cold certainty that if he made a sound, the
smallest sound, then the knife would be driven into the softness of
his
throat .. . She could try to make him cruel enough and she would not
succeed .. . The shadow shapes moved away. He reached back with his
hand, and his fingers found hers. He did not twist his neck so that
he
could see her, because he feared that the material of his camouflage
tunic would rustle or grate. His fingers found her body. They held a
373
pinch of flesh at the flatness of her waist, and he squeezed the pinch
with his fingers, hard so that he would hurt her, so that he would
make
her concentrate, and the moment before he took the first step he
pulled
at the pinch as the signal that she should follow him. They went
onto
the path, onto the fallen leaves and the wetness of the mud. They
followed the shadow shapes that were ahead of them.
There was a low whistle. The whistle was like the warning cry of
a
young owl, from his childhood when he had gone at night to the
twenty-acre plantation. There was an answering call from the mature
owl that located its position. They followed the shadow shapes that
led them towards the Kupa river. He attempted all the time to keep
the
shadow shapes at the edge of his vision as they meandered along the
track. It was a bastard .. . The whistle, the answering night call,
and when he strained to hear in the close quiet of the forest there
were softly spoken voices, murmurs in the trees, it was the
identification of an ambush position .. . Penn understood ... an
officer and his escort moving to inspect the ambush positions that
he
had designated. Penn understood that it was necessary for the
officer
to whistle ahead so that the troops, lying up and cold and with their
nerves stretched, would call back, would not blast at the shadow
shapes
approaching them.
It was their chance, he saw it.
He led Ulrike and Milan Stankovic wide of the track each time that
the
officer whistled, the owl's sound, and each time the call was
returned,
and each time that there was the brief whisper murmur of the voices.
It was the opportunity, he must take it.
The shadow shapes of the officer and his escort took them through
the
network of the ambush positions. Four times they heard the whistle,
the response call and the short whisper of voices, four times they
were