New that morning was the name of Milan Pravic of Bosnian or Croat nationality, wanted for questioning on suspicion of having committed crimes against humanity.
The cream Mercedes with the Berlin plates slowed to a halt. Two passports were held out for inspection. Two passports were returned, and the car accelerated away again.
With his fair hair, Pravic passed easily as a Pole. His photograph had been inserted expertly into Marek Gruszka’s passport, stolen in Berlin.
They’d left Zagreb in the early afternoon, the journey broken by a brief diversion to a forest, where Konrad burned the contaminated tissues he’d brought from the Hotel Martinova. Then he’d dug a small, deep hole and buried the spray equipment. The jar containing the remains of the lethal, brown liquid stayed in his blue sports bag in the boot of the car.
Konrad wasn’t sure why he had kept the anthrax bacilli, but something in the back of his mind was telling him the stuff might be of further use to him before long.
It was getting late and he had done enough driving for one day. Anyway, he was hungry. He saw a sign for a motel and swung the Mercedes off the Autobahn.
Pravic had slept for long stretches of the drive north. It had helped him avoid conversation with the German. Dunkel was not a man he’d ever liked or trusted.
The motel was a shabby, single-storey construction, but it would do. It was on the edge of a small town where there would be places to eat.
Konrad parked out of sight of the lobby. He sent Pravic to check in first, so they’d not be seen together. The rooms they were allocated were next to each other, however.
Pravic threw his bag on the bed and, out of habit, switched on the television. A few minutes later Konrad tapped at his door.
‘I’m going to find somewhere to eat,’ he announced. ‘You want to come?’
Pravic avoided his eyes and shook his head.
‘Not hungry.’ He’d seen a machine that dispensed sandwiches and beers in reception.
Konrad shrugged and drove off, glad his invitation had been declined.
The Bosnian lay on the bed and jabbed at the remote control. He flicked through a dozen cable channels but nothing held his attention. Eventually he left it tuned to the leather-clad dancers on MTV.
What he was looking for was news. Any channel that might tell him whether the world cared enough about the Tulici massacre to come looking for him.
He knew there’d been questions asked by the UN in Vitez. He knew the politicians of America and Europe kept mouthing off about war crimes. He knew too that one Muslim girl had survived the attack and could probably identify him. What he didn’t know was whether legal wheels were turning, whether there were people out there who were planning to send him to prison.
His stomach rumbled. Time for some food. He locked the door behind him and walked round to the lobby. The receptionist changed his note for coins.
He selected a Schinkenbrot and three bottles of Pilsner. He also bought a newspaper which listed the television programmes.
The ham was good and smoky, and the beer nicely chilled. Some things they did well in Germany.
He took off his shoes and trousers and stretched out on the bed, his back propped against pillows. He flipped through the TV listings. There was News at Nine on a German satellite channel; he checked his watch. Half an hour to go. He flicked to a game show.
They made him smile, these stupid programmes. Greed so coyly concealed. Reminded him of the nervous punters who paid Gisela 300 DMs an hour to whip and humiliate them.
He became engrossed and remained so for the next half-hour, switching over too late to see the start of the news. He swore at himself for missing the headlines. The first items bored him – German politics. News about Bosnia came ten minutes into the programme. He moved to the edge of the bed to see the screen more clearly.
The Serbs were shelling the mostly Muslim enclave of Gorazde.
It was a part of Bosnia that didn’t interest him. No Croats there. But the fact that it was Muslims getting pounded gave him some pleasure. The pictures showed Serb guns, Serb tanks thumping their ordnance into the houses spread out in the valley below. His main interest was to see what weapons they were using.
He felt in his bag for the pullover in which he’d wrapped his Crvena Zastrava M70 9mm pistol. He extracted it, unclipped the eight round magazine, slid back the slider and checked the barrel was clear.
The presenter reappeared in vision, saying parliamentarians were complaining about the cost to German taxpayers of supporting so many Bosnian refugees. There’d been a debate in the Bundestag. A picture of the chamber appeared behind her.
Then the background changed. A photomontage of a girl, her hands covering her mouth – and a computer screen.
‘The American CNN TV reports that the computer network “Internet” is now being used to find homes for Bosnian war orphans.’
The screen switched to CNN’s video report, dubbed with a commentary in German.
‘This girl is called Vildana. She’s being cared for by American aid worker Loma Sorensen and is the sole survivor of the horrific massacre at Tulici three weeks ago in which forty-four Muslim women and children died.’
Pravic caught his breath. He cocked the empty pistol.
‘Vildana witnessed her own family being murdered, but miraculously managed to conceal herself from the killers. The United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague plans to use her evidence to convict the men responsible – if they can find them.
‘Loma Sorensen used the latest computer technology to link up direct from Bosnia to a child adoption service run by the American CareNet agency on the Internet communications highway. As a result, within just a couple of days Vildana has been found a new home in Germany. The identity and location of her foster family are being kept secret, for her own safety.
‘Now football. . . .’
Milan Pravic stared motionless at the screen. Then a low growl shook the bottom of his chest and percolated upwards until it erupted from his lips. He pointed the empty pistol at the screen and pressed the trigger.
One little girl! One miserable child standing between him and freedom. And she was here in Germany.
He tossed the weapon on the bed, leapt to his feet and paced the room, angry and afraid.
Half an hour later, Konrad returned from the restaurant, went straight to his room and began to undress. He was in his underwear when Pravic knocked at his door.
‘Who is it?’ he shouted.
‘Milan.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Left something in the car. I need the keys.’
Konrad hesitated, suspecting for a second that Pravic might drive off in it. He contemplated getting dressed again to go out to the car with him. What the hell. He opened the door a crack and passed out the keys.
Pravic walked out to the car. In his left hand he held two screw-top bottles of fruit juice he’d bought from the machine in reception. He put them on the ground and opened the trunk of the Mercedes. Tucked at the back, wedged in place by a tool box to stop it falling on its side was Dunkel’s blue sports bag. He undid the zip, reached in his hand and pulled out the jar of lethal brown liquid.
He emptied one of the fruit-juice bottles onto the ground, then, covering his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, he unscrewed the top of Dunkel’s jar and decanted its contents into his bottle. Finally he filled the jar with juice from the other container, screwed the cap back on and replaced it in the bag.
Saturday 2nd April, 1.35 a.m.
Pfefferheim near Frankfurt
Nancy roche had made fresh cinnamon bread, thinking that something warm and sweet to eat and drink would be a good way to welcome Vildana to her new home. The CareNet woman had rung again to say they’d be arriving after one o’clock.
All afternoon she’d been re-organizing the house – the twins were having to share again for the time being. She’d set up a cot for Ms Sorensen in Nataša’s room and another in the living room for her
translator. They’d asked to stay until Vildana had settled in.
For the past twenty minutes they’d been sitting around the kitchen table fidgeting, the twins refusing to go to bed. Then they saw headlights outside.
They opened the front door and gathered excitedly round the Land Cruiser, their eager stares answered by three, blank, exhausted faces.
Lorna twisted her mouth into a smile and got out of the car.
‘Hi, I’m Lorna,’ she said wearily. ‘And this is Vildana.’ She helped the girl from the back seat and stood with her arm round her.
‘Hi, Vildana. Welcome to our family,’ said Colonel Roche, shaking her hand. ‘Does she speak any English at all?’ he asked, turning to Lorna.
‘Well no, but . . . Vildana? D’you remember?’
The girl could hardly keep her eyes open. Josip prompted her gently.
‘I am vair ‘appy . . .’ she whispered.
‘Hey! That’s great!’ Nancy declared, giving her a hug.
‘I taught her that on the way here,’ Lorna confided. ‘Boy, that was a drive and a half!
‘You must be wrecked. Let’s get you and your stuff inside,’ Roche said. ‘Scott and Ella can give a hand.’
Nancy settled Vildana on a stool at the kitchen breakfast bar and confronted her with a plateful of food. Vildana latched onto Nataša as soon as she discovered she was from Bosnia.
Lorna carried her laptop into the house.
‘If you want to go on line, I’ve got everything you need in my den,’ Roche told her.
She thought for a moment. She should e-mail that they’d arrived safely, and pick up her messages . . . Too tired, though. Leave it until the morning.
She stood in the kitchen doorway and watched Vildana slowly warming to the attention she was getting. It brought a lump to her throat. In the past few days the girl had begun to feel like a daughter. Now she was handing her over to someone else . . .
Still, she thought, at least she’ll be safe here.
Twenty-two
Saturday 2nd April, late afternoon
Berlin
ALTHOUGH GISELA POCKLEWICZ earned her living by inflicting pain on others, she knew it was she who was the real victim. The child of a prostitute, there had never been any equality of the sexes in her world. Experience showed women were born so they could be used by men. No point in fighting it.
Her personal relationships had done nothing to change that outlook. She saw them as barter deals – she gave sex, the man gave protection.
Milan Pravic had been generous with the security side of things during the two years they’d lived together and he had demanded little in return. The relationship with him was the closest she’d ever come to loving a man. A strange, damaged creature who seldom looked her in the eye, she’d caught glimpses of the fire that burned inside him. It had drawn her, but she suspected that if she tried to discover what fuelled it, she could be fatally burned.
Excitement at the thought of his return to Berlin had switched to anxiety in the last few days. He had told her he was coming here to hide, but had refused to say why.
She had her suspicions, knowing the hatred that smouldered in his soul and the violence he was capable of. She’d watched the TV pictures of Bosnian atrocities, fearing he could be involved. In the jungle she inhabited, men killing each other was fair enough, but if Milan had murdered women and children . . .
She had missed the small, inside-page paragraphs of the newspapers reporting that the UN War Crimes Tribunal wanted to question him about the massacre at Tulici.
It would be evening soon, and this being Saturday, she would be busy. The apartment where the clients came was two blocks away from the one where she lived. Paying two rent bills was hard, but it preserved her sanity. The fee Dunkel had given her would ease things for a while.
Konrad dropped Milan Pravic at Alexanderplatz in the centre of Berlin. His contract with the Bosnian now complete, he headed with relief to the apartment in Lichtenberg where his wife would prepare him dinner.
Pravic found a phone that took coins and rang Gisela.
‘Schätzchen!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re in Berlin? Why not here? I was expecting you. Are you coming?’
‘Have the police been?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Police? No. Why?’ Her suspicions and her fears deepened.
‘Never mind. Meet me in the Café Luxembourg in fifteen minutes.’
‘But . . .’
‘Just do it!’ He banged the receiver down. She wouldn’t defy him.
He ducked from under the hood of the booth. It was still daylight in the huge, bleak square where winds, deflected by the tall 1960s slabs, eddied round small groups of refugees wrapped against the unseasonable cold.
He plunged into the dank warmth of the U-Bahn station. It was two stops to Rosenthaler Platz, the train crowded with the last of the afternoon shoppers.
Strange to be back. Such orderliness after the devastation of Bosnia.
He heard his own language. There were tens of thousands of Bosnians in Berlin. Muslims mostly. Odd to think that in the Lašva valley he’d have shot them full of holes.
Gisela was at the bar, waiting, dressed in black as always. Short skirt, pullover and a little jacket. Cropped black hair, black eyelashes caked with mascara.
Gisela was frightened by now. She’d planned to greet him with a kiss and a hug but when he walked through the door, she changed her mind. The expressionless look, the close-clipped hair and glasses, the cold eyes nervously checking every face in view – this wasn’t the man she remembered. There’d been a sea change in him.
Without a word, he gripped her elbow and hustled her to a table in a dark corner.
‘What’s up? What’s the matter?’ she protested.
‘I want a beer.’
Gisela gestured to the waitress. When the order was taken and the girl moved away, she slipped her hand over Milan’s.
‘Aren’t you even going to say hullo to me?’
Pravic ignored her, pulled away his hand and downed half the glass.
Once or twice before she’d known him like this, caged by some obsession, unable to relate to her or to anyone.
‘Why did you ask if the police had been round?’ She was desperate to know.
His scowl convinced her it had been a mistake to ask. For two full minutes he said nothing.
‘You know someone who has computer?’ he asked suddenly, eyes boring into her.
‘Why? You want to buy one?’
‘No. I need someone who use computer to read messages.’
‘What for?’ she asked.
He grabbed her hand and crushed it until her eyes watered.
‘Don’t ask things . . .’ he growled. ‘Just tell me! You know someone?’
She kneaded her knuckles. She’d never known him this manic, this dangerous.
‘I don’t know,’ she sniffed. ‘I’ll have to ask around in some of the other places. Not this bar. Don’t know anybody who comes in here.’
She guessed Milan had chosen Café Luxembourg so that no one would recognize them.
‘You must find person tonight. Someone who can do Internet,’ he demanded.
‘Internet? What’s that? Anyway I can’t do anything tonight, love, I’m working,’ she protested, heedlessly.
He leaned forward, gripping her hand again. Gisela saw the flames; knew they’d consume her if she wasn’t very, very careful.
‘Tonight, you work for me,’ he breathed. ‘You want . . . I pay.’ He pulled a wad of notes from his trouser pocket.
‘You don’t need that, Milanchen,’ she soothed, trying to calm him. ‘I’ll sort something out. Somehow.’
She’d got clients booked, but there’d be gaps when she could slip out to the bars and look around. There were people who did computer stuff. Con-men and fraudsters. Just a question of finding them.
‘You coming home with me?’ she queried, eager to get on with it. ‘You can watch the television and I’ll ring you there whe
n I’ve found someone.’
He shook his head and tapped the table.
‘No. You come here when you find.’ He looked at his watch. It was still early, Berlin’s nightlife only just starting. ‘At eleven I come back to Café Luxembourg and wait.’
‘Aren’t you staying with me tonight, then?’ she pouted, feigning unhappiness. Privately she didn’t want him in his present state.
‘No.’
‘Where, then? Where will you sleep?’
Another woman? Not likely. Milan had shown little interest in sex in the two years they’d been together.
‘I find some place. Then I come here and wait. But, Gisie . . . you must find me someone with computer Internet. Understand must?’
She understood. She left her drink half-finished.
8.25 p.m. Frankfurt
Alex climbed the stairs to his second-floor room in the dingy hotel, feeling he’d wasted a day.
The previous evening he’d taken the S-Bahn from the airport to the Central Station, found a cheap bed, then got drunk in one of the smoky, apple wine taverns in Sachsenhausen.
This morning he’d spent nursing his head. Hadn’t had a hangover that bad for years.
With the transatlantic time difference, there’d been no point in phoning Boston again until mid-afternoon, but the wait had been like watching paint dry.
He’d phoned at three-thirty, not knowing if the CareNet office would be manned on a Saturday. Bella had answered again. Sorry, she’d said. No e-mail from Lorna yet.
He’d called again at half-past-eight. Still nothing, but Bella offered to message Lorna with his hotel phone number. She sounded sorry for him, which made him suspect he was making a fool of himself after all.
He’d bought some German newspapers, then sat in a Macdonald’s picking at the text with his school German and a pocket dictionary. In the Frankurte Allgemeine a headline had caught his eye. Selbstmord in Leipzig – Suicide in Leipzig.
Scorpion Trail Page 25