He stands. “Maršal Marković, this is a very important meeting meant for British nationals only; it is improper for you to be here.”
“Turnabout is fair play. You crashed my meeting in the Commission, I crash yours. I know you and Farage are behind this.”
“Behind what? I am afraid that you are going to have to be a mite more specific.”
“I already told you about the connections between UKIP and Daesh. Now the latter is threatening to attack the traditional student parade in the old town. UKIP has got to be behind it. Farage himself told me that his strategy was to use the threat of terrorism to make the rest of Europe seem unsafe. What better place to strike than Europe’s capital?”
“As you have been told, we can find no evidence to support your accusations regarding Mr. Farage. He has a perfect alibi. If IS is planning to attack the protests, I don’t know anything about it. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Admit it. You’re one of the people who are really behind it, too, aren’t you? You’ve got to call them off.”
“Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth, Elena Marković? There isn’t anything I can do. Now, if you will excuse me, you are keeping us from figuring out how many more opt-outs we might be able to demand for the UK regarding immigration controls for EU citizens from its eastern enlargement members.” He turns and grouses to the other people sitting around the table, almost as if he finds something laughable, “With the incoming president of the European Council being that Polish fellow, Lord knows, we’d better ask for them now.”
“But, Sir…” I begin.
“I do not have any more time for you and your friends’ little parade. Good day, Elena.”
I turn and walk out of the Permanent Representation before security can make me leave, hoping that Drago and Lucija are having better luck with the capital region’s Cabinet of Ministers. It might be just a hunch, but now I’m more certain than ever that Sir Dirtbag is part of some kind of conspiracy.
Drago
The car takes us from the Gare Maritime. We cross the canal toward the city center, near the gardens of the Mont Des Arts, the part of the city that never really felt like it was ours. Now it’s up to me and Lucija to address Brussels’ entire Cabinet of Ministers. The car stops in front of its building and goes on to take Elena to the UK’s Permanent Representation. I can’t hold out hope that we will accomplish anything, like with her whole mission, but part of me does admire her for trying, in spite of myself.
Lucija walks inside the building next to me. We show our IDs and are ushered up the stairs into an ornate room, with a U-shaped desk and eight seats clustered around it. Lucija, who is younger than I am, walks up to the man seated in the bottom of the U like she owns the place. I gawk around at it. She shakes his hand, introducing herself. “Lucija Kovačević Bektashi, Croatian counterterrorism liaison to the EU’s Intelligence and Situation Center.”
The other man gives his own really long title. “Rudi Vervoort, Minister-President of the Cabinet of Ministers of Brussels-Capital Region. I remember seeing your name, regarding that botched intelligence incident back at Tour et Taxis a month or so back.” He mentions the intelligence operation that Lucija made up to get us out of prison and save our room in the Gare Maritime. I am none too pleased that news of it has gotten to the Cabinet of Ministers and I doubt that Lucija is either.
“Yes, well, that all got sorted out,” she covers. “I assume you have convened this meeting of the Cabinet to decide whether the student parade marking the founding of the ULB and the VUB should go ahead as planned?”
“You are correct. We are currently leaning toward canceling it, in light of the security threats that have been made against the parade. We are not able to assess their credibility; it is best that we take the threat seriously.”
I step forward. “You can’t do that. It’s more than just a parade, it’s a tradition that goes back decades. More than that, this year’s theme is about protesting wars around the world. I had to fight in a war growing up, so this year it has special meaning for me and for my brother. Canceling it wouldn’t just show a lack of resolve, it would show that the same organization as the one helping to cause the war down in Syria and Iraq has succeeded right here in the center of Europe.”
Lucija purses her lips as I talk. Then she goes on, backing me up, even though I’m sure she hates me, Afrim and the parade. “While I personally find the parade obnoxious and disgusting, I agree with Mr. Student Guild over here. Giving in would be capitulating to terrorists.” She pauses for a second and her features set. “And what the hell do you mean that you have no way of assessing the threat? Who in your Cabinet is in charge of this sort of thing?”
“Well, no one, really. You see, each of our six police forces has its own…”
She rolls her head toward the sky. “Well then, maybe you should add threat assessment to somebody’s job description. In the meantime let me give you my common sense advice: if you guard the festivities enough, you should be able to protect the participants. Just call the heads of whatever police districts the festivities are going to be in and tell them to put some added muscle on it.”
“How sure are you that this can be safely done, young woman?” Vervoort asks. “What about coordination between the forces?”
She goes out on a limb that defends my position, even though I am not sure that doing so is a good idea.
“The evidence we uncovered during our undercover operation in Tour et Taxis indicates that Daesh is not yet a credible threat, at least here in Brussels. I’d stake my position on it.”
“Very well,” Vervoort says, “Based on your recommendation, I recommend that we do not cancel the parade despite the bomb threat against it, assuming that the Federal State Security Service agrees. All in favor?”
The other seven ministers raise their hands.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” I thank them.
We walk out of the room and back down to the waiting car.
Elena is inside. “No dice at the UK Representation. Watson just kept denying everything. But he’s hiding something, I’m sure of it.”
“Not surprising, but we have some good news,” I report. “We got the Cabinet of Ministers to agree that the parade will continue as planned.”
As we head back to Tour et Taxis, Elena leans forward to where I’m sitting in the front seat. “What did you say to win them over?”
“It was more your cousin than me. I was just a poster child. Though, I’m not so sure that what Lucija told them was a good idea,” I tell Elena.
In the rear-view mirror, I see Elena look over at Lucija.
“I told them that the cover I used to get your friends out of jail resulted in the discovery of evidence that the threat wasn’t credible.”
“So you lied?” Elena asks.
“What of it?” I see Lucija shrug in the mirror. “This city is such a complex power-sharing mess that it was the only way I could see to get anything done. Besides, it seemed to me the solution was clear: protect the event more, rather than just running up the white flag at the first sign of danger. Now it’s the Brussels police forces’ problem.”
I turn my head back to Lucija. “Why would you go to such lengths, if you hate the parade and my brother and me?”
“Simple,” she tells me. “I’m a cop, not a bureaucrat. I’m sick of playing by rules I don’t understand. So I didn’t. This is about what’s right.”
Elena
The music coming from the speakers in the trucks’ beds is so loud it hurts my ears. All of the float-trucks are lined up ready to move down the Grand Sablon to the former stock market building. Drago walks up to me. “Thanks to your little stunt last night, we have a problem. Afrim is too hungover to drive this truck.”
“No problem,” I tell him. “I’ll volunteer. I don’t have a license, but I do have diplomatic immunity. This way, he can have some hair of the dog.”
Honestly, I’m hoping I can get into the cabin, where
the music will be quieter. It was fun at first, but all of the partying with the guilds is starting to get old; maybe it was never really my thing. It seemed like fun before I started to understand how stuff works.
Afrim walks over after a few minutes with a beer in his hand. He gives me the keys and then climbs up to sit inside the cabin, next to the driver’s seat.
“Are you doing okay?” I ask as I get behind the wheel.
“Yeah, I’ll be all right. Like you said, nothing a little hair of the dog won’t fix.”
“I’m not talking about just that. I’d never been asked out before. I didn’t realize what you were doing. I didn’t understand that what I was doing was pretty out of line. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
He hunches his shoulders. “I’m over it. I can see how you’d have those problems, growing up the way you did. At least we had a good time.”
“Yeah, we did.” I hesitate for a second. “Friends?”
He grabs me on the shoulder. “Friends.”
The truck in front of us moves. I let ours crawl forward. There are people all around us. If we get up to five kilometers per hour, that’s fast. We spend most of the time stopped. I can see one of the students in the rear-view mirror yelling loud slogans over the music from a bullhorn. Drago helps dispense beer to the people all around the truck, along with Emilija. It would be hard to inch the truck forward at all, if it weren’t for a few other guild members who try to shepherd people out of the way, whenever the truck ahead of us manages to move.
We make it to an underpass. I notice that beyond where the disorderly parade is taking place there is a noticeable police presence. I reassure myself that Daesh—and who I know to probably be the leaders of UKIP—can’t make good on their threat.
We get to the far side of the underpass. I look into the rear-view mirror and watch a group of people observing it from above with bemusement. I recognize them from around the institute. I crack the window slightly so I can hear them. One of them, who has light, longish hair and a mustache, asks the guy who looks by far the youngest in their group, younger than Afrim, if he would like to come down here.
“I think I’m happy to observe this ‘from the veranda,’” he replies, though I can barely hear him over the music. Behind them, Lucija watches over everything with an expression of annoyed concern. I roll the window back up and I sympathize with what the guy on the overpass said. Honestly, now that I’ve seen the parade and been to a few parties, I’m glad I’m up here in the truck.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that a random guy goes and pees on a building off in the corner. A cop is looking right at him, but he doesn’t do anything.
I glance over at Afrim. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that has got to be illegal.”
He laughs, which I take to mean that he really isn’t holding a grudge. “Come on, the most famous symbol of this city is literally a peeing boy. How do you think pressing charges would look?”
I laugh too and slowly inch the truck forward. The party culture of the guilds may have been a bit much to take, once it lost its newness, but it gave me one thing that I’d rely on through the rest of my adventures—good and caring friends who would stick with me through anything, even when the disaster was of my own creation.
Drago
The truck gets going back toward the Solbosch campus. I put my arm around Emilija. We’re both half-drunk even though we were the ones dispensing the beer.
“So, how was it?” I ask her.
“It was pretty fun, thanks. It looks like Daesh chickened out and things went off without a hitch.”
“Yeah, I knew letting it go ahead was the right decision.” I flip my medal from the parade over to her. “Here. I want you to have this, as a souvenir.”
“Thanks, but isn’t this supposed to go on your cap or your smock?”
I shrug as we hang our legs over the side of the truck. “Don’t worry about that.”
We’re driven back down Avenue Louise, toward the university campus. We offload the truck’s decorations into a big pile. The other guilds do the same. We douse the decorations in gasoline and then light them as bonfires. We all sit around them passing beer and some stronger stuff around between us.
The bonfires die down. We get up and head for the university’s disco. I glance behind me for a second at where Elena and Afrim are raucously chatting with some other members of the guild. They get up and follow Emilija and me. We reach the entrance and go inside. A representative from each of the guilds is chosen for the competition where we judge the trucks’ decorations. I hear Emilija next to me. “So how exactly does this competition work?”
I talk into her ear so I can be heard over the music. “Each guild gets one vote and they can’t vote for their own guild. The winner gets half of the pot and the second and third place ones split the other half, two-thirds, one-third.”
I look over at where Tone is sneering confidently in the lineup along with the other representatives. There is a bunch of cheering as each of the representatives yells his or her choice. I count the number of votes off in my mind. I yell mine. People throw their cups of beer in the air as the winner of third place is announced: our Dutch-speaking equivalent of the business school’s guild; I voted for the humanities.
We go through the process again. I hear the name of Tone’s faculty, the Solvay School of Economics and Management, being called out again and again. I decide to add insult to injury and yell it, too, wanting to be one of the people who got Tone’s guild demoted to second place. It works. Second place goes to Tone’s guild. More cups are thrown into the air and I have to wipe some of the booze from my eyes to look over at him as the representatives start to yell the names that will decide the winner.
I vote for the Social Sciences guild of our Dutch-speaking counterpart and then I look over at Tone again. There is no change in his expression. Doubt starts to creep up my spine, even though I keep hearing my guild’s name being called out again and again. They make it to Tone, the final representative. Out of the corner of my eye I see him motion for them to huddle with the others. I try to get into it but they wave me off. Emilija yells from the front of the crowd where Elena and Afrim are standing. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
I narrow my eyes on the huddle. “I don’t know, but I don’t like the looks of it.”
Finally they break up their huddle.
Tone turns to the assembled students. “While the ULB’s Social and Political Sciences Guild’s float did appear to win first place, we have determined that the funding to decorate the truck and indeed the funding to just rent the truck came from a source not available to the other guilds. Therefore it has been decided that their float is disqualified and that first place will be awarded to the ULB’s Solvay school. The remainder of the pot for third place will be distributed among all the participating guilds equally.”
I feel my mouth drop open as the competition medals are passed out to the winners. Without looking at Tone I push my way through the pack of students as loud music comes back on. I hear Tone’s voice yell over it. “Yeah, just walk away, street trash. This is how it’s done.”
I don’t say anything back. I leave. Even outside it’s noisy, mostly because of people who are six sheets to the wind. Relative to the disco, it’s quiet enough that I can hear Emilija behind me, not having to yell anymore. “Drago, it’s all right. Tone is the one who cheated. As far as I’m concerned, we really won fair and square.”
I lean up against a tree. “I can’t believe it. That arrogant jerk stole it from me just because he could, by bribing the other guilds with money that wasn’t even his.”
She hunches her shoulders and hugs me. “Don’t feel bad. He is a business student.”
I hug her back, glad for her understanding. I don’t get long to enjoy it.
The explosion comes from the direction of the university’s disco. Before we really know what is happening, people come pouring out of it, running, limping, away from the blast
. At least half of them are injured.
I look at them in increasing horror as I hear the sound of gunfire from the campus’s main walking street. Two men, both in black face masks, advance down the hill. I recognize them from their builds. My heart sinks.
“What’s going on?” Emilija asks.
“It’s Daesh, the Abdsalam brothers, al-Qadir’s newest minions. They were never planning to attack the parade. That was intentional misdirection. They were planning to attack the festivities afterward.” I bring my hand to my forehead. “Damn it, al-Qadir knew that Afrim and I would be here. All this is because he’s trying to screw with us. I should have seen this coming.”
Emilija and I take cover next to the building that houses the disco. I look behind me. Tone is dragged out of its doors with half of his face a mess. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I’d like to think that he got what was coming to him, but mostly I just feel sorry for everyone, like this is somehow my fault.
Elena, with Afrim on her heels, runs up behind us.
I put a hand on Elena’s shoulder as she crouches next to me. “Are you okay?”
“We’re fine. We were near the back of the disco, about to leave, when the bomb went off,” Elena says.
There is another tap on my shoulder, I jump and turn to see that it’s Lucija.
“You’re still here?” I ask her.
“Of course I’m still here. I decided that I needed to stick around. I just called for backup. God knows when they’ll get here, though.”
On the street, it looks like the two gunners are making their way down the hill, one covering the other while he reloads. I know how they operate; they are headed toward the relative anonymity of the Bois de la Cambre forest. There, they will be able to dispose of their face masks, ditch their weapons and slip back onto the street.
“There is no way reinforcements are going to get here in time,” I tell Lucija. “The Abdsalam brothers are already getting away.”
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