Henry Carter requested the trawl. Didn't know what they would find if they trawled for him, didn't know if they would find anything.
He had the clearance.
He wouldn't have called the supervisor a chum, but there had been times back in the old Century House that he had shared a lunch table with him in the canteen.
The trawl had left in the net what he regarded as a prize catch.
A short memorandum at the top of a light pile of flimsies, and worthwhile him staying late because it was a catch that the day shift supervisor would never have searched for .. .
From: George Simpson, Security Service (Liaison), Rm C/3/47. To: Desk Head Yugoslavia (former), Rm E/2/12. Ref: GS/1/PENN.
Following regular weekly liaison meeting, I took lunch with Arnold Browne, Sec Serv, ranked senior executive officer. In confidence AB spoke of Sec Serv involvement in former Yug, using a reject freelancer. Involvement follows death in Dec 91 of Dorothy Mowat, Brit citizen, in Croatian village overrun by Serb irregulars in area now designated by UNPROFOR as Sector North. Following recovery of Mowat's body (April 93), AB recommended to deceased's family that PENN (William), formerly with Sec Serv and now private detective (exclaimer), should travel to Croatia to investigate circumstances of death. AB drops that PENN, 'dogged' and 'end of road man', will hopefully produce war crimes evidence for use in pressuring Belgrade towards peace talks negotiation which Sec Serv can on pass to FCO .. . Sounds like empire building, sounds like interference outside Sec Serv remit. Are we happy query.
Signed: Simpson, George.
He knew Simpson, old Georgie. Simpson, old Georgie, was the sort of man that he used to meet in the corridor, never seemed to be in a hurry, never seemed to have anything pressing, could always give him the latest cricket score. He could see Simpson, old Georgie, under-achieving and passed over and frightened witless of redundancy, wrestling not too hard on a matter told in confidence. Carter thought that so much now fell into place .. . A trust betrayed? .. . Well, Simpson's, old Georgie's, dilemma about betraying a trust hadn't gone the distance, hadn't stopped him snitching.
It was an old maxim, but true, that confidences didn't count for too much in the trade .. .
The Intelligence Officer fronting as Liaison had known that the opportunity would not come until the end of the meeting. At the break-up there would be coffee provided, and biscuits and juice, and the opportunity.
There was a working relationship now that civilized the meetings. Stiff, formal, but a relationship .. . The meetings were always in the police station at Tusilovic that was twelve kilometres into the occupied territory from the crossing point at Turanj. The relationship had prospered sufficiently for there to be a hot line from his office in Karlovac to the police station at Tusilovic, and a monthly meeting across a table. They never came to Karlovac .. . And it was usual, also, for the Intelligence Officer to meet Milan Stankovic at Tusilovic .. .
The Intelligence Officer, before permanent secondment to the military, had been chief salesman (export) for the timber factory at Karlovac. He was trained to read body language. The Serb was sullen, there had to be room for sport there.
More on the agenda concerning the electricity supply across the cease-fire line: deadlock. The sort of agenda item on which Stankovic would usually have shouted his opposition, hammered the table. The matter of the woman, Croatian-American, who had travelled from Chicago for her mother's funeral at Topusko, and been kept waiting three days in Zagreb with no permission for entry into Sector North granted, until after the burial and no explanation. The sort of matter on which Stankovic would usually have sneered contempt.
The Intelligence Officer anticipated sport.
They had been through the litany of cease-fire violations. A sentry, frozen and lone, looses off a single shot. A section, bored, responds with a mortar round. A platoon, angry, replies with an artillery piece. A company, furious, loads up an Organj multiple rocket launcher .. . The sort of litany on which Stankovic would usually shoot his mouth off.
There had to be good sport because Stankovic was sullen, head hanging.
The Intelligence Officer came round the table and he held the coffee cup in his hand. He eased himself onto the table, sitting casual, beside the big bowed shoulders of Milan Stankovic.
"Hello, Milan .. . Bit quiet today .. . How's Evica? My wife always tells me to ask after her .. . Managing, is she? I heard her school was short of books, but then you're short of everything .. . Must have been shit, through the winter, without the power .. ."
He watched the hands fidgeting and the body hunched, and the Serb's eyes avoided his own.
'.. . We're quite well on with the new co-operative building, out on the Ilovac road, good position and close to the Zagreb highway .. . Your farmers happy? You built a new co-operative? No? Well, maybe next year, maybe some time .. ."
There was clearly a personal burden there for the Intelligence Officer to scratch at. He probed, and sipped his coffee.
'.. . You know what people ask me, friends who know I come to the meetings, the ones who used to know you? What they ask is this. That Milan Stankovic, the clerk once but the big man now, what does he think his future is? I've an idea of the future, long-term, because nothing will be forgotten. What I tell my friends, the people who ask me, it may not happen in my lifetime nor in yours, the vengeance, but my son will come for your son because it will never be erased .. ."
He wondered if it was shame that he saw, or whether it was fear. He imagined his quiet voice as a knife between the blades of Milan Stankovic's shoulders.
'.. . I nearly forgot to say. I'd have kicked myself if I'd forgotten to say it. There are questions being asked about you, your name is mentioned. I suppose if you hadn't been in Belgrade then you would have been able to prevent it, but you were in Belgrade when they dug for the bodies of our wounded that were killed after Rosenovici fell. That was a mistake, you being away in Belgrade. I'm told they're filling a file on you, Milan .. . There was a bigger mistake .. ."
The Intelligence Officer was bent over Milan Stankovic. Good sport. He whispered the words into the ear of Milan Stankovic.
"Time I was getting on, time I was back in Karlovac. Not too bad there because we've got power. Please tell Evica that my wife wanted to be remembered to her .. . They're asking questions, filling a file. Killing the English girl, Milan, that was a serious mistake .. ."
They talked quietly in the guardroom. They sat away from the scratched steel door of the cell.
Branko, passing his cigarettes: "It was the same bag in the police jeep .. . the same bag, white plastic, as was in the Dubelj hag's home. The goddamn bastards brought more food."
Milo, stubbing his own cigarette, taking another: "It wasn't that fucker's hands. You saw his nails, I saw his nails. Wasn't his bastard nails, was a woman's."
Stevo, striking the match: "We go back tonight, skip the music shit, we go back tonight until we find her, until she comes back down into that pig place .. ."
They smoked, they flicked their hands of playing cards on the table, they ignored the man behind the steel door of the cell, they waited for the return of Milan Stankovic.
She had come back to the crossing point at Turanj.
She had again left the Transit Centre and driven to the crossing point and parked her car, and waited. The convoy of the aid lorries, returning empty, should have been through an hour before. If the convoy had left Knin promptly and made good time, then it might have been through an hour and a half before. She stared up the road from where the Croat militia stood, and the light had started to dip. She looked up the hill, up beyond the small san gar of whitewashed sandbags where the troops of the Nigerian battalion had their machine gun, up towards the defence positions of the Serb militia, where their flag flew, and on the hill, greying in the low light, would be their trenches and their strong points and their mortars and artillery. Each time she glanced down at her watch and realized the convoy was delayed, then the fear tripped in her. If th
e convoy was late then it would be because of a security alert... if there was a security alert it would be because of a discovered infiltration ... if there was a discovered infiltration it would be because Penn was hunted .. . Each time she looked at her watch the ratchet of her fear turned. If nobody did anything, if everybody just wrung their hands, if nobody acted, if everybody said that action was impossible, then the camps of the Neuengamme Ring could be built again, then the wickedness could come again. She saw the car come slowly to the far checkpoint and stop ... If the big men of the chancelleries and ministries did nothing, then only the little men could try to halt the wickedness .. . The car came on from the far checkpoint and stopped again at the NigBatt san gar .. . Penn was the little man and was alone, and behind the lines, and trying .. . The car came forward, going faster, between the rubble of the fought-over village of Turanj.
She was apart from the militia checkpoint, and when the car reached them the militia men pointed to her, and there were smiles on their faces and she imagined they called her the 'silly bitch' or the 'daft whore'.
The door of the car opened. She knew the Liaison Officer. He was often at the meetings she attended at the Karlovac Municipality.
He came to her. Perhaps it was something in her face, but the smirk was wiped off him.
"You have a problem, what is the problem?"
"Why is the British convoy late?"
"A difficulty down the road .. ."
Said breathily, "What difficulty?"
"A route interference, they have had to divert. Why do you ask?"
"What is the interference?"
"Some kids, mines, near to Slunj .. . Why do you ask?"
"No difficulty in the Glina area, nor near to Vrginmost?"
"It is the usual interference, and the Glina area is quieter than the grave .. ."
"You are sure .. . ?"
"I am returning, Miss Schmidt, from the liaison meeting with the people from Glina Municipality. There is no difficulty in that area, the difficulty is at Slunj. May I repeat, please, my question .. . Why do you ask?"
"It's not important."
It was only the first beating.
Starting with a slap, then punches, then kicks.
But he had not been burned.
It was the fire that the Headmaster dreaded. The flame would be the worst.
He had known Milan Stankovic through all of the young man's life, known his mother and his father before they had gone to live in Belgrade.
The Headmaster had once liked Milan, when the boy was the basketball star of the village school, when the young man had been the hero performer of the Glina Municipality team. He had always had time for Milan Stankovic before the war .. .
All through that day he had lain in his cell and waited for Milan Stankovic's return from the liaison meeting, and he had thought of the fire against his body ... It had been just slapping and punching and kicking so far, and he had held the secret tight in his mind.
Only staccato questions, not an interrogation.
When the interrogation came, then there would be the fire against his skin .. . But he did not understand why Milan Stankovic had shown no appetite for hurting him, and he had seen between the slaps and punches and kicks the confusion of the expressions of the postman and the carpenter and the grave-digger, as if they also had not understood.
It was important to the Headmaster to keep his secret as long as it was possible for him to survive the pain.
The music from the hall in his school beat at the meshed grille high in the door of the cell.
' After the music, after they were drunk, they might come back to the cell with the fire ... He did not know how long he could protect his secret, but by the night, by the time they were drunk, surely the young man would have turned away from the evil that was Rosenovici. It was his hope. "Run hard, young man," he murmured to the walls of the cell. "Run hard so that I do not betray you .. ." She had offered him berries from her store that was under the rags of her bed, while they waited. The berries were bullet-hard, dried through, and he estimated they had been picked the last autumn from the dog rose brambles in the wood, and from the branches of thorn trees. They had waited an hour in the cave, as the shadows had fallen into darkness, for the Headmaster. It was all in gestures because they had no language. He showed her the palms of his hands, rejecting the berries, then declining the root section that she offered. The Headmaster had said he would come, and they had waited. And he knew as certainty that she did not have the strength to come, across country, with him to the cease-fire line, and he did not have the language to persuade her, nor to tell her that the Headmaster must record her statement. Penn would have bet, high stakes, that the Headmaster would return. After the first trumpet call of the big owl from a high tree down towards the valley, she wrapped her shawl tighter around her face, she knotted the string more closely around her overcoat, and she replaced the berries and the root in her food store under the rags, and she stood. Penn smiled at her, to reassure her, and did not know whether she saw his smile in the cave's gloom. He had the pistol in the pocket of his coat and a spare magazine, and he checked that the pistol was armed and on 'safety'. He felt a skein of worry, that the Headmaster had not come. It was Katica Dubelj's decision that they should wait no longer for the Headmaster. She took his hand, as if she could reassure him. He was trained by A Branch of the Security Service, he carried a Browning 9mm automatic pistol, there were four hand grenades in his backpack, and the shrivelled-up woman, eighty plus years of life lived, reckoned he needed her reassurance .. . Christ. She babbled words at him, and the only word that he caught was the name of "Dorrie'. Going back to Dome's place, Dome's death .. . and he knew her only by the words of others who held the love, and by the photograph, and nothing before in his life had mattered so much as the truth of Dorrie Mowat's village, Dorrie Mowat's killing. He would go from Rosenovici. He would not return to the cave. It was the best time for him to say his thanks to her. He had his hands on her light shoulders and he kissed the old woman softly, on her forehead, below the line of the stinking tight shawl, and she pecked at his cheek, stretching up, with her dried mouth that had no teeth. The humility dug into him. He hoped that he would never again feel the arrogance that was the trademark of a watcher of A Branch. He hoped that he would never again swagger in conceit .. . She laughed, guttural, and dragged him out of the cave. They went fast down the narrowed track from the cave. All the time she held his hand. He scrambled to keep up with her skipping short stride. They came nearer to the high tree where the big owl shouted. Gaps in the tree trunks, and Penn saw the small pin lights of the village across the stream. The wind was coming into the trees, and Penn heard the murmur of music from the village across the stream. She went quickly and pulled him clumsily after her. It was the movement of a scavenging vixen fox. When they were out of the wood, she used the overgrown hedge at the side of the field, scurried close to the spread hazel and the thorn. Stopping and scenting and seeming to sniff for danger, and going on. No shadows now. The gold from the sun gone grey behind the trees above Rosenovici. She never lost her grip of him .. . He grinned to himself. First she had felt the need to reassure him, now she did not trust him to move silently in darkness. They went by the corner of the field, not stopping. A sharp thought .. . where was the Headmaster, why was the Headmaster not with them? .. . Sharp, because she hurried him past the black pit of the dug grave. She stopped, suddenly, and he cannoned into her back, and she turned, only a slight outline in the darkness, and her finger jabbed at him, as if she criticized the child she led, as if bloody Penn knew nothing of covert movement. She waited, the vixen fox, at the broken gate at the end of the lane, and listened to the night. He heard only the bleating music and the grind of a swinging door and the creaking movement of fallen rafters. Penn was led to her house. He was taken into the house, through the open and hanging door. She was miming what she had seen. She stood at the window at the front of her house, and she pushed her head against the sh
ards of the broken glass, identified what had been her viewpoint. Penn was not yet accustomed to the dark of the interior before he was pulled again and his feet crunched the glass and he cursed, and she hissed her complaint. She took him back out into the lane. Now she loosed his hand. He stood in front of Katica Dubelj's house and he watched, squinting to see, the mime act of the eyewitness. She was the guards, and she seemed to kick some forward, and to beat others as with the stock of a rifle. She was the walking wounded, and she seemed to carry some, and she seemed to drag others. She spoke the name, she was Dorrie Mowat, and she seemed to support two heavy men, and her arms were out, and she seemed to buckle under the weight of the men, and she seemed to turn once and aim a kick back behind her. She took his hand again. She walked Penn back through the fallen gate and into the field. They slithered together on the wet of the grass and the weeds, and across the tyre ruts left by the jeeps. Penn was led to the edge of the pit. She made the mime again. She was the guards, and she moved to take their places in a half circle facing the pit, and she seemed to aim down towards the ground. She was the wounded, sitting. She was the wounded, lying. She said the name, and she was Dorrie Mowat, and she seemed to crouch down on one knee and her arms were outstretched as if she held the shoulders of two men against her small body, and her mouth moved as if she shouted a defiance. She was the bulldozer and she growled and she jerked up her arms as she walked the length of the pit, and she seemed to throw back the pit's earth. He watched, and he would forget nothing. He would not forget that Dorrie and the wounded men had watched the bulldozer gouge out their grave. She scrambled across the earth wall and down into the pit. He could barely see her, the black-grey shadow shape against the black-grey earth of the pit. The music, across the stream, was a frenzy. She lay in the mud at the bottom of the pit. She was the wounded and waiting. She stood. She made the knife thrust and she made the chopping blow of a hammer .. . She moved, a pace. She seemed to stand above the next of the wounded, waiting, and she thrust with the knife and chopped with the hammer .. . another pace .. another.. . Penn forced himself to watch. Dorrie had been the last in the line, Dorrie and the boy that she loved. He had to watch Katica Dubelj, because it was what he had come for. She was a guard, she was a man from the village where the music played across the stream. She seemed to try to pull them apart, Dorrie and her boy, and she recoiled back and held her eyes as if extended fingers had been punched into them. She spoke the name. The whisper. "Milan Stankovic." She went crab fast to the near end of the pit, and her hand was first at her face to show the length of the beard. "Milan Stankovic." She was Milan Stankovic, and she seemed to hold a pistol in her hand. Stopping, aiming, the pistol hand kicking, a pace .. . stopping, aiming, the pistol hand kicking, a pace .. . This was hard for Penn to watch, Milan Stankovic working methodically down the line and fetching the last life from the wounded who had been stabbed and bludgeoned .. . Stopping, aiming, the pistol hand kicking, a pace .. . She did not hurry herself, she made each movement as she had seen it, she was the eyewitness .. . Stopping, aiming, the pistol hand kicking, a pace .. . Going closer to Dorrie Mowat and her boy. She seemed to stand above them, then reach down as if to break the hold, and then she seemed to double away and clutch her hands at her groin as if that was where the kick had gone. She was reeling back. She was reaching for the knife and slashing. She was reaching for the hammer and crashing it down. She was aiming the pistol. The pistol hand kicked twice. She whispered the name, "Milan Stankovic."
Heart of Danger Page 24