by Fritz Galt
Large windows overlooked a courtyard. There was a small patio with tables and a sandy play area. Surrounding the courtyard was a solid phalanx of living quarters, offices and an eight-foot-high cement wall separating off a trade union building, followed by the Albanian Embassy.
Natalie pushed a plate of musaka his way. “It’s all they had left.”
He poked at the boiled cabbage leaves, but had yet to regain his normal appetite.
“I just saw Cercic.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “Has he seen Alec?”
Mick looked around the deserted room and shrugged. The place was sure to be bugged.
“Forget the microphones,” she said, her voice carrying throughout the room. “Has he seen Alec?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t ask?” she repeated, incredulous. “You come all the way to Yugoslavia hunting for your brother, you meet with his advisor and you don’t ask?”
“We had other things on our minds.”
“What could be more important? We move our whole lives back here for one reason and one reason only. To find Alec. I won’t stay here another day if you aren’t looking for him.”
Mick cringed when he heard his brother’s name mentioned aloud.
“What? Are you worried I said his name? Alec? Alec Pierce?” She half-rose out of her seat threatening to leave, but his glare kept her in place.
“Let’s go on a picnic,” he suggested.
“Hold everything. You’re inviting me on a date? Oh, that’ll solve everything.”
“No,” Mick said slowly. “Just a simple picnic. A trip to a monastery tomorrow.”
“You know we’re restricted from leaving the city.”
“Just a short trip.”
“There’ll be checkpoints and roadblocks.”
“It’s worth the risk for a little getaway. Can you clear it with Security?”
“Hold the phone. What are you really suggesting? If you want to play hide-and-seek with police cars, I’m staying right here. Are they after you?”
“Not at all. I just have to get there.”
“Ah-ha! So this is not a picnic.”
“Listen, someone stole an important map.”
“And they took it to a monastery?”
He knew it sounded crazy. “The Church might be involved.”
“Mick, we’re out of here in two weeks,” she said. “In two weeks we’ll be sucking down oysters in Georgetown. We’ll have left this nightmare behind.”
He set down his fork and looked out the window.
Sunlight beat down on the scrawny bushes of the courtyard. It was hard to face the fact that they could be leaving forever. Just four years before, they had traveled extensively and happily across the Balkans. He knew all the small towns in the long, green Bosnian valleys along the way to the coast.
He knew how the Adriatic scoured the deep trenches off Albania and welled up refreshing and clean alongside Dubrovnik. Further north there was the Makarska coast, the islands and the untouched fields of Istria.
The thought of Dubrovnik nearly brought him to tears. She was a walled city that he could once adore and smell and touch. Now she was reachable only through memories. Even if her ramparts remained after all the bombing, he was sure her life was gone, the music and the intense interest of tourists, guides and historians.
Yugoslavia’s horizons had diminished in four tempestuous years. The once grand vision of unity had been replaced by fear of one’s neighbors. The country had eaten its soul. If he could reclaim it, he would.
“I don’t care if we leave,” Mick said. “I just don’t want it to disappear.”
Natalie swished the coffee in the bottom of her cup. “Tonight we have a party at the Diplomatic Club.” She had a small smile. “Maybe you can find out all you need about churches and maps there.”
He needed more than that.
“And I suppose we could use a little picnic.”
He fell in love with her all over again.
Diplomatic receptions normally weren’t Mick’s thing.
He dreaded facing the utter banality of the diplomat’s mind. They could talk endlessly about politics, economics and war. But what did they ever do about it? Then, if they wanted to raise their consciousness, they could complain about the quality of lettuce.
That evening, a sullen Bulgarian Ambassador shuffled about, his back bent as if he were carrying a tremendous burden. For some reason, Ambassador Popov chose Natalie as his target. Mick leaned close to his radiant wife, inhaled her light perfume, watched the chandelier light twinkle in her dangling earrings and listened in.
“Several forces are at work.” Popov raised his white eyebrows and looked up at her. “New places to operate.”
“Aren’t there enough places right now?” Natalie asked, apparently trying to draw him out.
“I share your frustration, young lady. But there’s more to come. Many forces. We have no control.”
“How do your people feel?” Natalie probed.
“They’re divided, like everybody else. But this is beyond the realm of politics.”
Mick would like nothing more than to shake the message out of the man. But this was diplo-speak. The man would take his time, testing his listeners. Mick slipped away for more wine.
When he came back, his wife looked exasperated and took a glug from his glass. The ambassador had drawn a young Frenchman into his nearly metaphysical conversation.
It was better to keep the topic an American thing. So Mick interceded gently and drew the Frenchman away.
“Gerard, I can’t make the tournament tomorrow.”
They briefly discussed tennis and agreed to play the next week. Gerard Vaillant was a great guy and Mick looked forward to the game. He had yet to overcome the younger man’s crushing serve.
They shared a drink, then he drifted back to Popov.
“There’s a new force and an old force,” the ambassador was saying. “I’m afraid that we can’t stay uninvolved.”
Natalie looked to Mick for help.
He decided to intervene. “What can one do in that case?”
Popov faced him directly and narrowed his gaze. “We’ve lost our borders. We’ve lost the map.”
“You lost your map?”
He became irritable. “No, but it’s our security.” Mick knew the type of rage that turned on everyone in sight.
“Then you should find it.”
“Perhaps it is too late,” Popov said, now with resignation. “Perhaps it’s too late for all of us.”
“Is Serbia involved?”
“There are many, many forces. Sir, do you know of Patriarch Savic’s intentions?”
Hearing the church leader’s name momentarily arrested Mick, given that he was headed to the monastery the next day. “He’s a shrewd man, but relatively powerless.”
“He’s the president’s man,” the Bulgarian contradicted.
“In this day and age that makes him shrewd,” Natalie said.
Popov returned to her at last. “And yet, he isn’t the president’s man.”
“How can that be?” Mick said.
“We of the Balkans have developed a keen sense of balance. Our acrobats are renowned in America, are they not?”
“They are,” Natalie said, ever the diplomat.
“There are many forces to balance,” the ambassador repeated broadly and took a drink. Their conversation had ended. He had said all that he had come to say.
Chapter 11
The Autoput was a wide ribbon of concrete flowing out of the city into the undulating hills. Mick and Natalie’s southbound lanes were empty. On the northbound lanes, clusters of ox carts piled high with people’s belongings plodded toward the city.
That morning before they were granted a security waiver for the trip, the embassy had given them a warning. Classified cables from the embassy in Macedonia reported credible stories of a massacre of Serbs that week. That had prompted a mass exodus of Serb refuge
es northward.
Mick glanced up at his rearview mirror.
An unwashed white Lada trailed him just on the horizon. The boxy car hung on every curve as if the Jeep were pulling it by an invisible thread.
Mick and Natalie had left the gloomy apartment buildings of Belgrade behind. Two police cars had waved him past when they saw his black diplomatic license plates.
Unfortunately, the plates no longer assured their safety once they left the city.
The highway headed toward the large city of Nis. They passed through rolling hills with forests and subsistence farming and the occasional corporate farm. The countryside looked poor with horse- and ox-drawn wagons, women in black shawls with bundles of food or seeds on their backs, and men and their sons sitting in wagons presiding over the work.
For Mick, the timing couldn’t have been worse. They might be heading straight into a trap. The old Bulgar was one of the last ambassadors in town. Why had he remained? Popov was a career diplomat, perhaps unaffected by the democratic elections in his country, probably anti-Turk and anti-Muslim, and in all likelihood still maintaining the old Communist alliances with the Serbian government.
Yet the man hadn’t specifically uttered the word “Ravanica.”
That had come exclusively from Professor Cercic.
Two armored personnel carriers with dusty red stars jutted into the traffic lanes ahead. Recent carnage from restaurant bombings had renewed Belgrade’s jitters.
The army and police had set up checkpoints on all roads leading in and out of Belgrade. They looked for cars carrying heavy weapons and explosives into the city, and sought out men trying to leave and avoid the army mobilization.
Iron anti-tank barriers blocking the shoulders around the trucks reminded Mick of the game of jacks, only on a larger scale.
He steered up to an army captain. Behind him, raw-faced, bony young soldiers watched with assault rifles slung jauntily over their shoulders. Little badges were sewn onto their sleeves to indicate how many of “them” they had killed.
Mick rolled his window down.
“Identity papers,” the captain said.
Mick pulled his green diplomatic booklet out of his wallet.
The captain glanced curiously from the diplomatic document to the dirty white Lada pulled up short of the roadblock. He thumbed his soldiers into position to block the Jeep, and strode toward the Lada.
Mick sat back and heaved a bored sigh. “At least the MUP goons give us credibility.”
“Not a comforting thought,” Natalie said.
He watched what transpired next with amusement. The captain bent down to speak with the driver.
From what little Mick knew, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or MUP, and the Yugoslav National Army were deeply suspicious of one another.
Communications between the two ministries had broken down completely after the UN War Crimes Tribunal had tried to subpoena MUP files for evidence of the army’s complicity in war crimes. The MUP had dirt on everybody.
Looking dissatisfied, the captain kicked the ground and returned to the Jeep.
“Turn around.” He pointed his rifle back up the road.
“Why?” Mick knew what was happening, but played for time.
The captain smiled grimly.
Mick strung him along. “Who are those thugs?”
“You know who they are.”
“I don’t care if they follow me.”
“You can’t go any further.”
“I won’t go too far.”
“Where were you headed?”
“Manasija,” Mick lied. Manasija was another monastery along the route.
The captain seemed pleased that he had dragged the information out of him. “Stay here.” He walked back to the agents in the Lada.
Mick could imagine what they discussed.
The captain waved at his men to let Mick and Natalie go. The troops sauntered out of the way, their fingers toying with their triggers, their eyes admiring the Jeep.
“Cripes,” Natalie said when they were back on the road. “You played that one right.”
“That was an official checkpoint. The next one will demand money.”
The Lada pulled onto the road behind them.
Small buildings sat scattered around the Cuprija exit.
“Help me find a gas station.”
They scouted out the downtown area. It was a large farming town with few apartment buildings and no fashionable stores. They followed a cobblestone road around a verdant town square, the only evidence of town planning.
“There’s one,” Natalie said.
Mick pulled up to the Jugopetrol station and waited behind a tractor. Bizarrely, the white Lada pulled up behind them in line to use the pump.
With strict gas rationing in place, one never passed up the opportunity to add a few more liters.
When it was his turn, Mick pulled forward and stepped out of the car. The station attendant, a stout man in red leather coveralls, waited with the nozzle in hand. As was the custom, Mick unscrewed the gas cap for him and asked for the maximum allowable amount of gas.
Mick took the opportunity to glance past the two men in the front seat of the Lada and looked at the street.
It was full of small Bulgarian and Yugoslav cars with dozens of people huddled around. Just like the gasoline they were purchasing, it was all black market. In the people’s case, it was a swap meet, selling tiny Russian and Bulgarian collectibles.
Mick handed over diplomatic ration coupons for the gas, then jumped into the car and pulled away.
“Are they following us?” Natalie asked.
Mick was checking his rearview mirror. “Nope. They’re buying gas.”
Two roads headed east out of town, one to Manasija and the other to Ravanica.
They sped toward the small brown sign for Ravanica. With luck, the Lada would take the road to Manasija.
Mick and Natalie crossed gently rolling fields of sweet corn and sugar beets. At one time, Ottoman Turkish troops had controlled those fields and supply routes, and Serbs were the hunted. The brutally efficient Turkish army had swept all land clean of dissenters and enslaved those who remained, from the Danube south through Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria to the homeland of the Ottoman Turks.
The Hapsburgs controlled land north of the Danube and along the hills of Croatia to the west of Serbia. They hired the displaced Serbs to defend the borders of their empire. That eventually created pockets of well-armed Serbs throughout Croatia and Hungary. Several subsequent conflicts resulted from the Turkish displacement of Serbs; namely, the First World War and, more recently, the War in Croatia and the Bosnian War.
Serbs who remained in Serbia were humiliated and tortured under the Turks, and they broke their backs producing food for the Ottoman Empire. But they wouldn’t convert to Islam, despite the Turks’ best efforts to deface their churches and sleep with their brides.
From deep in the mountains, Serb resistance leaders mounted costly, large-scale attacks on open fields, only to fall before the professional troops.
In that unpredictable and largely uncharted landscape, in a sudden wooded valley or behind a veil of mountains, Serb priests continued to worship their icons. Years later, they even survived the smothering edicts of atheism imposed by Tito’s communist state.
Mick and Natalie entered a short valley marked by chicken coops and pigsties. After a series of mountains, they rounded a long bend and came upon the monastery.
Ravanica was spectacular. Its red bricks reflected the clay of the surrounding wooded hillsides. The church had a graceful design. Fluted copper domes crowned the many cupolas. Once impregnable fortifications had crumbled in various spots, exposing the church, a well and several small buildings.
But Mick and Natalie weren’t the only visitors that morning.
He sensed men in the trees by the road. “Something is happening.”
They rolled into a gravel parking lot by a whitewashed house, a sort of administrative
building surrounded by a porch. Ten other cars were parked side by side, including a large immaculately preserved 1959 Ford with Belgrade plates, and a gleaming black Rolls Royce with Greek plates.
Several sections of the fortress wall remained beyond the small parking lot. Blockhouses stood isolated in the lawn. Past the crumbling walls, he could see activity in the church through its open front doors.
“Out of the car,” he ordered.
“This is turning into some picnic,” Natalie grumbled, but slipped out of the car.
“Head for the outhouse.” He led her to a lone wooden structure away from the monastery. They were shielded from the parking lot, but not the vapors of the open Turkish toilet.
“We need to talk,” he said, now that they were away from their potentially bugged Jeep.
“That’s right, we need to talk,” she said. “Who killed Dr. Moore?”
“I’d like to know, too.”
She looked less reproachful. “How did it happen?”
“I’m fairly sure it went something like this: I was investigating how Serbs break the oil embargo, and the operation went south. Remember the stain on the front seat of our car? It wasn’t an oil stain like I said. It was Tyrone’s blood before the doctor sewed him up.”
“Why did they single the doctor out?”
“Maybe our op got too close and they wanted to scare us off.”
“Do they know about you?”
He pondered her challenging look. She dared him to attempt a lie. “They’re onto me. Two days ago, a helicopter buzzed our house. Scared the daylights out of me. Alec was in the cockpit with a machine gun. It was meant as a warning to get out.”
“So that explains why we have Zvonko.”
“That’s right.”
“And Zvonko is going to defend us against machine guns and helicopters?”
“Alec shot at me, but I think he missed on purpose.”
“Someone hit the doctor, all right.” She looked dizzy and held the sides of her head. “If they come after us today, we aren’t turning this car around. We’re heading straight out of the country.”
He took in the view of the church. “Something pretty serious is underway,” he said.