Battling Brexit

by Andrew Anzur Clement

  “Indeed,” al-Qadir mutters.

  I hear the door behind us creak open and then a shocked gasp. I glance behind me to see Emilija standing there, shaking. Apparently she came after us. I feel sorry for her, having to find out that all this time her father really was guilty and was using her on top of it all.

  Stanić sighs, seeing her. What I think might actually be genuine sorrow comes over his face. “Oh dear, Emilija. I trusted you to defend me. You weren’t supposed to come with them and see all this. You’ve left me in quite the bind, you know.”

  Her voice shakes. “Why? Why do this? Why get into an alliance with Muslim terrorists?”

  “To get justice for your mother, of course,” Stanić replies as if it’s just that obvious.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Mom was killed by a Muslim fundamentalist brigade. How does helping extremists who are even worse do anything but insult her memory?”

  He tilts his head forward as anger, hate and resentment creep into his voice. “Because, she was killed while the European observers stood by and did nothing. While our entire country was ripped apart, the EU did nothing but sit around dithering with their latest peace plan and wringing their hands. It’s no small, disgusting irony that now all of the former Yugoslavia wants to get into the same organization that destroyed it—that allowed your mother to die. It is even more of a farce that Maršal Tito’s legacy has been instructed to support that. I, on the other hand, have made it my mission to destroy the EU, the way Yugoslavia was destroyed.”

  Al-Qadir nods as if he is about to impart some greater wisdom. “Once I became aware of his grudge, I approached your father. Our interests align nicely for the time being.”

  There is a moment of silence. Finally, Afrim turns to Stanić. “You’re crazy, aren’t you?”

  “Crazy?” Stanić preens. “Not at all. I am merely using the means at my disposal to get justice for my wife and my fellow Serbs who lost their lives during the war.”

  Emilija’s voice keeps shaking. “What about the integrated Serb-Muslim factories you run in Bosnia? All your talk about reconciliation?”

  “Come now, Emilija. I raised you to be smarter than that. You mean you haven’t guessed by now? That was the beauty of it. They were a smoke screen, so no one would suspect my real goals.”

  Emilija wipes a tear from her eye. “You really are the one who fried my servers, aren’t you?”

  His features turn darker at her tone, as if he is speaking to a small misbehaving child. “I was trying to protect you from all the things I had to do for justice. You weren’t supposed to know. You were supposed to be untouched by all of this.” He sighs, seeming to collect himself. “Oh well, now is as good a time as any to break the news to you. I want you to join us—to help get justice for your mother.”

  Emilija stands there in silence. Something occurs to me, even as I take all of this in: Why is he having it out with his daughter now?

  “Why tell us all of this? Now we can divulge it to the authorities,” I blurt at him.

  “Oh, I’m afraid that will be quite impossible,” Stanić keeps preening. “We were indeed expecting you, minus Emilija, of course.” Stanić claps his hands twice and the warehouse’s doors open all of the way. He walks out to stand behind what I realize is a firing squad, just waiting in the wings.

  “You are not going to leave this place alive, Elena,” Stanić explains. “As for Emilija, the time has come for my daughter to join my real cause.”

  He gestures to Emilija with his hand. “Come on, Emilija, stand behind me. My men will keep you safe.”

  She takes a step toward him. Then another. In a moment of shock, I think she is going to listen.

  Emilija nears a pile of weapons. She reaches down and picks up one of the rifles. She takes the safety off and then points the muzzle to the bottom of her chin.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.” Tears run down her face. “You start shooting at them and I will be the first to die.”

  I take a step toward her and growl, “Emilija, don’t. We’ll find another…”

  Before I can do anything else, I hear a feral shriek, so primal that at first I don’t recognize the voice.

  “No! Not again!”

  Something leaps past me. It’s Drago and he’s gone totally berserk.

  Afrim

  Hi, I know I don’t talk very often. But this is one of the times when I kind of feel like I have to because, Elena, she doesn’t know, and Drago, well, he has…issues sometimes.

  The second Emilija raised the gun to her chin, I knew it was like it was happening again right before my older brother’s eyes. The girl he loves, about to die, throwing herself on her sword because of him. He doesn’t care if there is a firing squad right in front of us. He’s not about to let it happen again. The worst part is I have to make him let it happen. It’s our only way out of here alive.

  The second he leaps for Emilija, I tackle him, flopping on him like I’m a plank.

  I hear al-Qadir’s voice. “Drill the lot of them.”

  “No!” Drago screams again, either at me or al-Qadir or both. My heart sinks. I struggle with Drago. No bullets come. I put my knees on Drago’s legs and hold his hands behind him. I look up to see that Mr. Stanić has raised his hand to stop the firing squad.

  “No! Let me up!” Drago screams again. “Damn you! I’ve got to stop her this time!”

  “We have to let Emilija put herself on the line. It’s our only way out of this,” I whisper to him.

  Al-Qadir turns to Mr. Stanić. “Well? What are you waiting for? Your daughter has made her choice. She has betrayed you. Let the men fire on them.”

  Mr. Stanić hesitates. Then, quietly, he says, “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” al-Qadir snaps at him. “Give the order or you will die along with them.”

  “No,” Mr. Stanić says evenly. “You will not kill me and you will not kill my daughter. Whatever our common goals may be, I never intended to drag her into this. You may have people willing to fight and die for you and your god. But I have something you don’t, and not even your god has: money and the know-how to carry out our plans. You need me.” He turns away from al-Qadir, who stands there frustrated and fuming. I’d enjoy the sight if these were different circumstances.

  Mr. Stanić sighs. He looks at Emilija. “I must say, I am disappointed in you. That you would stand with them, instead of your own family and people.” He stands there for another minute, seemingly lost in thought. We don’t move, not even Drago. Emilija keeps the gun to her chin. Mr. Stanić sighs again. “As much as I know it is the smartest thing to do, I’m afraid I can’t bring myself to give the order. I just hope you know, Emilija, that because of what you did, your own father is now a fugitive. You and your friends can go. It doesn’t really matter, you see. Even if you tell everyone, there won’t be enough time to stop what we’ve already planned anyway.”

  Slowly, without turning our backs, I stand and allow Drago to do the same. He tries to rush Emilija again, but I grab a firm hold of his arm. He looks back at me, angry and desperate. I shake my head. His arm goes slack in my hand. We back away, through the rear door, then over to the cut that we made in the fence. Emilija takes the rifle down from her chin. Drago relaxes. We get into the car. Lucija takes the wheel. Drago practically collapses into the back seat with Emilija next to him. They hug, and after a few more minutes I can hear them both sobbing; I can guess who Drago is really crying for.

  He speaks, his voice heavy with accusation. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  Emilija whispers, as if she didn’t hear him. “I can’t believe that my dad was behind it the whole time.” It looks like he tries to hug her tighter. I guess she did hear him, because she says, “Don’t say that. I had to risk it, for you, for all of us.”

  Drago pushes her away, as if she tried to stab him. He tries to dry the suddenly angry tears from his eyes. “Don’t say that to me. Don’t ever say that to me. You don’t have the right. Yo
u shouldn’t have done that to me.”

  Emilija looks like he just smacked her across the face. She stares out the window and breaks down completely. Drago stares straight ahead, glowering.

  I would be Captain Obvious if I said that Drago’s reaction hurt her. But I wonder how she would feel if she knew that in trying to save Drago and the rest of us by putting her own life on the line, she had hurt him where it hurt the most. Because this isn’t the first time something like this happened to my brother—with al-Qadir standing right there and everything. Except the first time, his girlfriend—another Serb refugee who wasn’t quite so lucky—didn’t walk away.

  ***

  Lucija brings her phone down by her hip. “I just heard back from the Kosovo Police Service. They say that they went out there and found the illicit factory and the weapons. No sign of Stanić or al-Qadir. It looks like they went into hiding with the radical Muslim goons that Stanić claims to hate. Interpol has already seen to it that all his foreign assets are frozen and the Kosovar and Serbian authorities have already frozen his secret assets in Kosovo.”

  I try to look Drago in the eye. I need to draw him out of his funk, if nothing else than for Emilija’s sake. She looks like she’s about to break down again. Drago looks away from me. It looks like I’m the one who’s going to have to be practical, as usual. So while I think about what to say to him, I also think about how it looks like Emilija’s apartment is no longer a housing option for me and my brother; her dad was paying for it, like he did with everything her entire life. All of a sudden, Emilija is the one with nothing and we have to help her, at least for the time being. I walk over to Elena. “I hope your offer to stay at the residence still stands.”

  “Of course it does.” Elena pats me on the shoulder. Even she looks rattled. “Emilija can even come, too.” She goes on, both of us trying to pick up the pieces. “It’s probably for the best. Daesh will be after us now; the security is better at the residence. Now we just have to stop whatever Emilija’s dad, al-Qadir, UKIP and maybe Sir Jonathan are plotting together; we still don’t have any concrete proof that the UKIP connection even exists.”

  “I know,” says Lucija as we stand in line to board our flight back to Ljubljana and then on to Brussels. Drago stands as far away from Emilija as he can. She stares forlornly out over the tarmac. Lucija goes on, talking to Elena. “Don’t worry. They’ll tip their hand at some point. We’ll find a way to stop them.”

  I admire Lucija’s confidence for a few seconds. Then I try to look Drago in the eye again. He keeps looking away. I walk over to him and grab him by the arm. He shrugs it off, and then finally looks right at me. “Why did you stop me?” he whispers.

  “She was our only way out of there alive. On some level, I think that you knew that.”

  He sighs. His voice takes on a desperate, wondering vibe. “How could she do that to me?”

  “I think you know why, in both cases. It’s the same reason.”

  He shakes his head. “Did she love me or hate me enough to do it?”

  The second he asks the question, I know that I was right. Who my brother sees in Emilija isn’t Emilija.

  “I don’t know. Before, maybe it was both love and hate, I can’t be certain. But what I do know is Emilija is still alive and she’s just gone through a major shock. She just found out her father is a criminal and she is alone except for us. It will be the worst thing for her if you push her away now. She needs you, Drago.”

  He stands there in front of the gate for another moment. Then he says. “You’re right. Thanks, Afrim.”

  I hunch my shoulders. “Thanks, I try.”

  Drago walks over to her. He hugs her and she lets him. It might be a bit rude of me but I can overhear their conversation. You get good at doing that when people talk past you all the time.

  “Look, I’m sorry for how I treated you in the car. I was just shocked at the thought that I was going to lose you.”

  After a moment she says, “It was so hard for me to believe that all this time my father was a criminal. Part of me still can’t believe it. But we uncovered his plot. I have that, at least.”

  “You have me, too.”

  The flight finally starts boarding. The line starts moving. We walk down the jetway. Emilija takes her window seat and stares out at the runway, like it might provide her with answers to questions she’s never had to ask before. Elena checks her ticket and then looks over at Drago.

  “You take my seat,” she says. “Afrim is right, she’s going to need your support.”

  Elena sits down in the aisle seat next to where I’m sitting in the window seat. The plane takes off, which is still really cool to me because this is only the fourth plane trip I’ve ever taken.

  Drago puts his arm around Emilija. Her head falls against his neck. They stay like that, being there for each other, even though Emilija has no idea what Drago has already been through and that our real enemy now—al-Qadir—was the same as our old one all along.

  Sixteen:

  An Attack and a Kidnapping

  Elena

  The elevator takes me up from the ground floor to our apartment in the residence. I stand next to Drago and Afrim. Emilija is in the back of the crowded compartment, staring at her shoes. The doors open and I step into the entry hall. I make a gesture of welcome for the others to walk in ahead of me. “After you.”

  Emilija glances up at me. “Thanks for letting us stay here while I try to get my dad’s assets transferred to my name.”

  “Don’t mention it. We’re happy to put you up, even if things are going to get a bit crowded for a while.”

  We walk into the living room. Lucija waves a bored hand from where she’s sitting on the couch. Erika jumps up and down.

  “Mom, Dad, they’re here!” she yelps.

  Lara and Hristijan walk over from the kitchen. “I can see that, Erika.” Hristijan turns to us. “As Elena said, we are glad to help you out while Mr. Stanić’s finances and the security situation with Daesh get sorted out. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but the four of you have made more progress than the rest of Brussels in combating the threat Daesh poses and determining who the culprit actually is.”

  “My father,” Emilija mumbles.

  “And al-Qadir,” Drago grates.

  I hunch my shoulders. “And UKIP.”

  Rada runs up to Emilija, who pets her lightly on the back.

  Hristijan motions to Drago and Afrim, “Come on, we have you two staying in Erika’s room for the time being.”

  “I’m staying with Lucija,” Erika boasts. “I like it that you’re here. I finally am going to get to spend more time with my older sister, like I used to before she started working at the counterterrorism whatever.”

  Lucija rolls her eyes. “Which means, in other words, that I’ve given up peace and quiet for the foreseeable future.”

  “Come on, this is going to be fun.” Erika grabs Emilija by the hand and tugs on it. “I’ll show you where you’ll be staying. You’re going to share a room with Elena. It’s right next to Lucija’s and mine, if you need anything. Mom and Dad’s room is at the end of the hall, next to the bathroom. It’s going to be interesting having you in the house. Aren’t you the daughter of that refugee businessman terrorist?”

  Emilija sighs. “Yes, that would be me.”

  “So you are the girl who Drago likes instead of Elena. You know Elena likes Drago, too, right?”

  I feel like I’m about to hit the ceiling. Fortunately we reach the room that the two of us are going to be sharing, closest to the living room. I grab Emilija by an arm and pull her in. I shut the door in Erika’s face.

  “Hey!” Erika’s voice filters through the other side.

  “Go play with Rada, Erika,” I yell through the door. “Well, sorry. I guess the cat is out of the bag. That wasn’t awkward at all.” I expect Emilija to look scandalized, and even angry. She just smirks.

  I go on. “I hope you’re not mad. I should probably let you kn
ow that he turned me down a while ago. You won’t have any problems from me.”

  “Honestly, I’m just grateful that you and Hristijan agreed to let me stay here.”

  “How could I not? Getting all your assets frozen because your dad secretly turns out to be a terrorist mastermind can be a tough pill to swallow.” I point to the extra mattress on the floor. “I’m sorry; this probably isn’t the standard you’re used to.”

  She hefts the briefcase in her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I was a refugee child once, you know. Home is wherever I hang my computer bag. For what it’s worth, even though we’ve spent most of our time at odds recently, I consider you a friend.”

  “Thanks. So do I.”

  There’s another knock on the door.

  “Erika, I know you’re excited, but if you can’t contain yourself for five seconds, I swear…”

  The door opens. It’s Hristijan.

  “Oh sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

  “I could hear that. We have a problem. Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, was speaking in the European Parliament. He was accusing Donald Tusk, the new president of the European Council, of being another Polish economic migrant. Then he started attacking the security situation in Europe, claiming that Sir Jonathan had uncovered evidence of a plot by Daesh to attack Brussels. He did not give any specifics.”

  I sigh. “Farage and Watson know because they’re probably in on it with Stanić and al-Qadir.”