by Fritz Galt
“To an extent.”
Ed waited for an explanation.
“I submitted the guy’s features to memory. And I certainly wouldn’t forget the woman he was with.” Mick remembered the young man in the gabardine suit and exactly how the half-dressed woman walked up the gangplank.
“Then I want to pursue this all the way,” Ed said.
“Don’t you think we’ve taken this thing far enough?”
“I want to link the guy with the marks to the oil.”
“That’ll take time.”
“We haven’t come this far only to stop now. I’m ordering you.” Then he let out a smile. “I sure wish I could work the streets like you guys.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Ed shook his head and tugged at an over-sized ear lobe. “Good work tonight. Now get some sleep. Tomorrow I want to hear your plan.”
“Ed, we’re living on borrowed time.”
“And so is your brother. Finish the operation, or I’ll send you home before you can track him down.”
Mick stared at his shoes. “Harry and I will work up a plan.”
Ed rubbed at his 2 a.m. shadow. “And I’ll visit Tyrone before I leave.”
“Go easy on him. He did good tonight.”
Chapter 8
Dragana gave herself an uncompromising appraisal in the casino’s tarnished mirror.
She looked wearier than a person should on a national holiday during summer vacation.
The purple miniskirt nicely defined the curves of her figure, but it was the only evening garb she owned. Her bare arms were toned, but her once-stately shoulders sagged. Her wild black hair was full, but gray had begun to invade. Her complexion was translucent only because she had no time to tan. And no matter how often and quickly she flashed her heart-melting smile, slight worry lines etched the corners of her eyes.
Fighting in the Balkans had taken its toll on her.
Zoran swaggered around his casino’s roulette table and ordered drinks for a small, lively group. He hadn’t fought a war in over a year, and he looked bored.
He offered a toast of good luck to the gamblers, then grabbed Dragana by the arm and guided her onto the terrace.
The casino’s glitzy illusion was broken by smoggy sunshine, a trace of chlorine and noise from the public swimming pool below. Beyond the pool, she watched a horse pull a metal collector’s cart home at the end of the day. Thirsty dandelions and wild poppies drooped alongside the road on the outskirts of Belgrade.
Traditional kolo music drifted across the grassy valley. She listened to peals of laughter with a frown. People splashed in the pool unaware that their troops were poised to launch another war.
“I know you’re worried,” Zoran told her. “But you’ll get your homeland back. I promise.”
She wriggled out of his grasp and tossed back her drink. “Serbia will never invade.”
Zoran laughed. “Don’t you think the Greeks are worried?” The dailies were full of reports of Greece amassing a force on Macedonia’s southern border. “The Greeks are already waiting at Lake Ohrid to stop us. They could overrun Macedonia in a day.”
“Lake Ohrid,” she snorted. The largest body of water in the Balkans bordered Greece, Macedonia and Albania. “The Greeks are there to keep Albanians out of Greece.”
“It’s the only pass low enough for Greece to move troops into Macedonia.”
“Who’s going to believe that one? Invading an entire country down a single pass?” She turned away. “Nobody will rush to our defense.”
He jerked her around to face him. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. And I’ll lead you into Macedonia and make you their queen.” He had said this repeatedly during the past month as they became reacquainted after many years apart.
She allowed a faint smile. But it didn’t arise from gratitude. It was the irony that amused her.
Her mother was a Macedonian mountain woman. Her father was a Macedonian actor. She was no Serb, but how would the handsome young Serbian ultra-nationalist ever know?
Zoran seemed as assured of her Serbian blood as he was of his own. He took her by the hand and led her to a better view of the valley. Every fiber of her body indicated a vibrant, young Slavic woman. Although Dragana’s clipped dialect had a clear Macedonian ring, many Serbs had their roots in that southern land.
She looked into his eyes. Both fanciful and confident, they were rimmed by dark circles. Raised by a small-time hood, Zoran had used his amiable nature and ruthless ambition to claw his way to the top of the mafia ladder. His defining moment and crowning glory had been to lead a private militia through Bosnia. They had invaded towns quickly behind bursts of gunfire. Like a horde of locusts, they left nothing and nobody in their wake.
She turned away from him. The swimming complex teemed with families. Compact cars spilled out of the parking lot and onto the grass. People of all ages, their faces pale and drawn, carried rolled up towels and plodded down the sidewalk. Buses dropped off even more bands of youths to enjoy an evening dip in the pool.
“My family can’t survive much longer,” she said at last.
“All Serbs in Macedonia will be liberated. You’ll see.”
Two teenage girls in string bikinis and flip-flops padded up to a refreshment stand under the terrace. Colorful towels and near-naked bodies covered every millimeter of grass. The heavy aroma and smoke of grilled sausage drifted lazily over the Olympic-sized pool and through trees that lined a meandering wading pool.
“Join me for dinner tonight,” Zoran said. “You’ll meet Bane Djukanovic.”
She sucked in her breath. Bane was the president’s right-hand man. What an opportunity to gain access to the president’s inner circle. There was only one problem. Bane was head of the dreaded and distrustful Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“No,” she said. “I’m on stage in an hour.”
“Come by the penthouse afterward.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to sleep with you.”
He smiled at her candor and pulled her to his side. She rested her head against his shoulder.
A sepia glow illuminated the distant downtown and glinted off the river. Dragana could barely discern where the Danube, descending from Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary, converged with Yugoslavia’s beloved Sava River and turned eastward toward Romania, Bulgaria and the Black Sea.
A Turkish-built castle sat poised on the edge of the Balkan Peninsula protecting Belgrade and surveying the Hungarian plain to the north. South of the castle, the hilly, fractious Balkans lay tense and ravaged by conflict.
“How will the world help us take Macedonia?” she asked softly.
“On Wednesday, the Greek patriarch will visit Ravanica Monastery. I’ll deliver the Karta to Alec then, and he’ll redraw the map of Serbia.”
She gasped. So that was his plan? Zoran wanted to desecrate Serbia’s national icon, a map that depicted ancient borders of the Serbian Kingdom, in order to create a pretense for invading Macedonia? She would inform her contact, Professor Cercic, at once.
Zoran laughed at her reaction. “Don’t look so skeptical. I know what I’m doing.”
“How will an old map sway world opinion?”
“We will rewrite history.”
Rewrite history? That might be ample justification to claim Macedonia in the eyes of Serbs, but the rest of the world wouldn’t appreciate it as rationale for war. Suddenly she began to have second thoughts about Zoran’s capacity to lead. His personal manipulation skills were top notch, but he was naive about world politics.
A bodyguard in sunglasses appeared on the swimming pool terrace. He led a short, overweight visitor up to Dragana and Zoran.
Zoran gave the stout visitor a bear hug that blew new light into the man’s smoldering cigarette.
“Meet Bane Djukanovic, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.”
She nodded. Her feelings for him were as cold as the bodies of her compatriots, plowed under by Ban
e’s brutal reign of terror.
Bane’s dry lips opened a crack and emitted smoke.
“Care for a drink?” Zoran offered.
Bane waved it off. “They’re butchering Serbs in Macedonia right now,” he said, his voice raspy from a lifetime of smoking. “Eight more in Kumanovo last night. As you suggested, I’ve stopped Radio TV Belgrade from covering the story, so no other papers or stations will try to carry it. But that’s exactly the kind of publicity we need.” Dragana was surprised to hear him discuss state secrets so publicly.
“We don’t need to be the top news story yet,” Zoran said forcefully.
“We must protect our brothers.”
“Let them die as heroes. Think of them as sacrificial lambs,” Zoran said. “We will get our revenge in time.”
“I can’t wait much longer. I have several generals begging for me to order an invasion.”
“Begging for your orders?” Zoran said.
Bane’s dusky face dismissed the gibe. “One hundred thousand Serbs arrived from the Krajina this year alone. Our military bases are packed with refugees from Bosnia. Hordes of families from Croatia are walking the streets of Belgrade looking for food, work and shelter. Serbia is crammed to capacity, and people are ready to explode in frustration. The president is leaning on me to provide the release.”
Zoran’s thick eyebrows pinched together. He turned his back on his guests and leaned his elbows on the railing. Below him, a ticket seller sweated in a glass booth. Another man glanced up nervously while he took tokens and allowed people through a revolving gate. Zoran owned fifty percent of the operation. “Naturally, my boys will pave the way.”
“Of course. As usual. But when do the fireworks begin?”
“As soon as we redraw the Karta and expand Serbia’s borders southward.”
Dragana sucked in her breath. Her hands slipped down the sides of her skirt to her black stockings. He was out of touch. The world wouldn’t buy the historical justification.
Zoran had allowed her career as an actress to continue, unlike his prostitutes. The difference between her and the prostitutes must have been a subtle one, because she felt like a hooker all the same. She watched his adolescent maneuvers with distaste, yet she had to tolerate it.
She studied the swimmers. The pool had become far more crowded that year. The oversized, socialist dream of a swimming complex had become her only vacation destination.
Yugoslavs had spent entire summers lazing on private beaches in Croatia or partying in sprawling hotel complexes elsewhere along the Adriatic coast. Now the only friendly coast for the outcast Serbs was a crowded stretch of Montenegro between the bombed Croatian port of Dubrovnik and the Albanian frontier.
As their swimming holes decreased and grew overcrowded, Serbs felt the international community closing in on them. They closed ranks and began to worship their sameness.
“Timing is the key,” Bane said. “We can’t dismember Macedonia until the Macedonians provoke us. And we can’t act unless the world is behind us.”
“Don’t confuse yourself with the moral issues,” Zoran said. “I’ll give the press plenty of reason for an invasion, and Wednesday in Ravanica, I’ll give the Greeks a piece of Macedonia they can’t refuse. My only concern is that the president reacts correctly.”
“I talked with him earlier today,” Bane said. “He’ll strike a deal with the Greeks and carve up Macedonia when the time is right. But it has to be soon.”
“You’ll know when the time is right,” Zoran said. “Believe me, the world will encourage us to invade.”
Dragana examined her partly chewed fingernails and frowned. Then she passed the men and paused by the steps to leave.
Zoran came over and clutched both her arms. Her biceps went taut as he barely grazed her lips with a kiss. But he didn’t let go of her.
He spoke to Bane with a harshness that seemed directed at her. “I still don’t trust the Americans. We expelled one of them, then Dragana’s American friend failed to kill his brother. They’re up to something. I know it.”
“You sound like the president.”
“I want them to wake up every day too scared to get out of bed.”
“I could arrange an accident,” Bane suggested.
Zoran’s eyes burned through Dragana as he spoke to Bane. “Do whatever it takes.”
He kissed her again. This time, his lips felt warm and passionate and the kiss lasted long enough for her to remember it.
At last he stepped back. “Keep your hands off the American,” he whispered.
“Alec is just a friend.”
He gave her a pat on the rear, and she headed down the stairs.
She took orders from nobody. She would report the missing map to Professor Cercic.
She passed boys vigorously playing soccer on a field without a net.
In the schoolyard, Zoran had played like that. In his youth, he had shown a willingness to win at all costs and absolutely no interest in her.
Then she stumbled upon two teenagers embracing in the woods.
As she stared at them, a chilling thought came to mind. This time the irony no longer amused her. Zoran had many female companions, but was he in love with her? Was she the reason he wanted Macedonia?
“I’ll escort you to your car,” the blond Yugoslav guard told Dr. John Moore, who stood before him signing his name in the security registry. The guard slid off his seat and another man stepped behind the desk to take his place.
John climbed down the spiral staircase to street level. Strange, a guard had never escorted him to his car before.
They stepped outside onto the dark sidewalk. The steep side street was cluttered with parked cars, but quiet. Then it occurred to him that it must be well past midnight. He had spent half the night at the Medical Unit watching Tyrone for signs of danger. The young Marine’s uric acid was still abnormally high and his eyes were yellow. John had left Dr. Andjelic behind to watch for sign of infection.
They walked downhill to Sarajevska Street, where a couple of cars sped briskly into town. John’s station wagon was jutting halfway onto the sidewalk, just the way he had left it.
“Thanks,” John told the guard. “I can make it from here.”
When he pulled the keys out of his pocket, the guard took them from him.
“No, that’s okay.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I can pull out.”
Then he saw men already sitting in his car. A rear door opened. The guard pushed John through the doorframe and scooted in beside him. John felt himself squeezed up against another man.
The keys were passed to the driver, and the car jumped to life. They jolted in reverse onto the street, and a taxi had to swerve to avoid hitting them.
“That was close,” John thought.
The driver left the embassy far behind and took them uphill into town. The man beside him didn’t speak, nor could John recognize him in the dark.
“Are you varying my route home?” he asked the young guard.
The man was sullen and looked out his window.
The car turned onto Kneza Milosa Street and stopped.
“What is this? Are you switching cars?” It occurred to him that while confined to the Medical Unit, the security situation in the city might have deteriorated without him knowing it. He looked down the boulevard for signs of a demonstration. Maybe people were marching against the American Embassy.
Through the rear window, a car flashed its headlights. The front door opened and a large man with a cigarette plopped down beside the driver. The station wagon lurched into gear and gunned down the deserted street. The other car stayed close behind. Buildings disappeared as they veered down an overgrown hill. This was unfamiliar territory. He got his bearings again when he smelled mud. They were near the river.
He was wondering if the men needed a doctor’s assistance when they pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. They were alone.
The man dragged him out of the back seat and marched him across the mud flat.
He tried to laugh disarmingly, skip away and gain some distance from them.
Two men wrestled him to the soft, gooey mud.
“Who are you guys?” he demanded to know.
Wordlessly, they dragged him into some underbrush.
The heavy black figure that had jumped in from the other car leaned a knee on his chest and pinned him in place.
“Tell me what they want, Doctor,” the man said in heavily accented English.
When John didn’t answer immediately, a hand ripped his shirt open, exposing his chest.
A cigarette glowed bright yellow, then smoldered to red as the man lowered it to John’s left pectoral muscle.
John clenched his teeth and tightened his abdomen. The burn left the smell of charred flesh in the air.
He glanced sideways at his station wagon across the field. The blond guard passed before the dome light and waved the occasional car or truck past.
John squirmed to sit up. In the darkness and weeds, nobody could see him.
“You will not talk?” The man laughed, and took another puff. “What are the Americans trying to do?”
“You’ve got the wrong man.”
“You operated on the Marine. Why was he on Gypsy Island?”
“Getting drunk, I’m sure.”
“Marines don’t go to Gypsy Island anymore.” He flipped John over and yanked his arm high up his back.
John closed his eyes and arched his back from the upward pressure on his shoulder.
As the heavy man went to work on his other arm, John found his face buried in the mud.
“Who set up the operation?” the man prompted.
With every tear of his cartilage and tendons, his resistance slipped a notch.
“Who is behind this?”
They wanted names. He freed his mouth from the mud. “Mick. Mick Pierce.” The words slipped out in his delirium.
“Remember that?” the man shouted over his shoulder. “I told you Pierce was behind it.”
Out of the night, the guard’s voice responded, “That’s what I told you.”
The man flipped John over again and sat on his chest. Two fingers held John’s eye open. An orange ember rushed in large and searing hot.