by Fritz Galt
“People are a little smarter these days. They don’t react to radical actions anymore. This isn’t 1914.”
She chewed her lower lip reflectively. “For a brief moment, I thought I was shooting Archduke Ferdinand.”
“Ah, the glory of it all.” He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t give a damn about small fry. I want to catch the big one. If you keep disobeying Zoran, he’ll cut us both off. Then we’re back to square one.”
“Zoran won’t cut me off. In fact, he won’t leave me alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think he loves me.”
She said it simply and it stung. Love was not a term he used with her. He liked her, he enjoyed her, he cherished her, he wouldn’t want harm to befall her, but the big word had never entered even their most intimate conversations.
“Did you come on to him?” he asked.
“Not that I know.”
“Crap.” He stood up and looked at the brick wall out his window. She wasn’t aware of the effect she had on others. “He’s doing this all for you.”
“No matter,” she chirped on, “I can’t let Zoran down now. We’re getting so close.”
“I can see that.”
“You can’t let him down either, Sasha.”
“Why not?”
“You’re my main contact. My hired gun. You can’t fail me now.”
“No.” He rubbed his unshaven jaw and stared outside. “I suppose I can’t.”
By that evening, the temperature had dropped significantly, and Mick turned off the bedroom air conditioner.
Chilly winds swept out of Russia. Sand from the construction site beside their house blew under their doors and windows.
“I won’t get much sleep tonight,” Natalie informed him.
“Is it the demonstrations or the wind?”
“I’m just getting the creeps. I don’t want you at the big demonstration tomorrow.”
“I’ll try to stay away.”
The largest opposition party had announced a protest march at noon the next day. Their cause was government inaction to attacks on Serbs in the region. In addition to the massacre of a handful of Serbs in Macedonia, there was trouble brewing in Croatia. UN-monitored voting had just ousted the minority Serbs from power in Eastern Slavonia, the eastern sliver of Croatia. Voters decided not to split off from Croatia, and Croat troops had surrounded JNA barracks there.
Curiously enough, the Serbian government did not take advantage of the provocations as a means of expanding their reach. Instead, they had denounced the demonstrators, proclaimed their intended march illegal and warned that people might get hurt.
Spotting an opportunity to win the people’s hearts, the opposition party had responded with a zealous announcement in the main newspaper, Politika, that it would hold its demonstration anyway.
The stage was set for what Mick feared would be more than a minor inconvenience to downtown shoppers.
He doused the lights, but Natalie remained propped up in bed. Lace curtains floated up from the windows in the blue glow of their security lights.
One strong gust hurled against the house, and a bedroom window sprang open. Wind howled inside and scattered papers across the bedroom.
Mick rushed to shut the window. He pressed his fist into the lock to ensure that it would remain closed.
“Just another message from Siberia,” he said.
Chapter 14
“What’s your proposal?” Ed Carrigan grunted.
It was early morning in the embassy’s secure, windowless conference room.
Mick sipped his coffee and looked at Harry. “You explain.” He had effectively lost interest in Harry’s operation. It was too small in scope to effectively enforce sanctions.
However, the operation could serve Mick’s larger purpose. To ensure that Dr. John Moore hadn’t died in vain, he might be able to use the action to gain information on Zoran and Macedonia, and perhaps uncover Alec.
“We have a follow-up operation in mind,” Harry said. He covered the details of following the young man who gave him the stained German marks on Gypsy Island, and tying him to one of the sham Belgrade banks. That would confirm that the source in Germany was deliberately breaking UN sanctions by sending marks to those banks, thus aiding and abetting the Yugoslav government. Mick leaned back in the conference chair. He listened to the rushing sound of the room’s independent air conditioner and rubbed his arms to stay warm.
“Sure, we can trace the money to a bank in Belgrade,” Ed pointed out. “But that doesn’t implicate the government.”
“The bank is as good as the government,” Harry said. “That’s how the government buys its oil.”
“But we can’t prove it in an international court of law.”
“The connection between the government and gangsters is well known to everyone,” Harry said. “For example, Yugoslavia forces Romania to let oil and heating fuel barges through the Iron Gates Dam.”
“The local tugboat captains staged a wage strike,” Ed countered. “Completely legal. They effectively held all German, Austrian and Hungarian barge traffic hostage on the Danube.”
Harry fidgeted with a pencil. “They truck gasoline over the border from Bulgaria. Our Econ section has documented that.”
“Belgrade lets mobsters run the gas stations,” Ed reminded him. “That’s a crime, but not an international crime. Yugoslav customs officers grant the fuel trucks legal transit papers. It’s not the government’s fault that the trucks get hijacked by every gas station along the Autoput.”
Harry jabbed a piece of paper with his pencil. “International criminals are sitting in Parliament, for God’s sake. The government lets them spout their ultra-nationalist agendas on government-run TV.”
“They were all elected by popular vote,” Ed said. “Look, we can say that the government encourages raping and pillaging. They have elevated warlords in the electronic media, in the papers and on the street to the status of national heroes. But there isn’t a single damn charge we can indict them on, and even if we could successfully prosecute them, we can’t enforce it.”
Harry closed his eyes. “Okay, it’s frustrating for all of us. I’ve looked at this problem from every angle, and there’s only one tiny, baby step we can take at this point. We’ve got to connect the marks with a specific Belgrade bank.”
“I agree with Harry,” Mick said. “Ignore the fact that this may not result in a UN indictment. At least we can identify the bank. Knowing that, we’ll have enough proof to nail the German for breaking sanctions.”
“Okay. But no Marines this time. That was my mistake.”
“This one’s for the doc,” Harry said.
“If we find Doc Moore’s killers, I’d approve of some extreme prejudice,” Ed said. “But remember the goal is to identify the bank in order to go after the source of funding. We don’t want Doc Moore to have died for nothing.”
Harry and Mick nodded.
“Keep a low profile,” Ed advised. “We don’t know what the doc ended up telling them.”
After Ed left the room, Mick and Harry remained to discuss details of the operation. Mick set the date for Sunday evening at Gypsy Island in hopes that the guy would reappear at the boat restaurant.
“We’ll try again each night until he shows up,” Harry said.
“Right. But first, Natalie and I want to invite you over for dinner this Saturday evening. We’re having Tammy and the kids over, too. I thought you’d like to help out.”
“What a great idea. I’d like to know them better. Remind me why they’re still at post?”
“They’re a casualty of the sanctions. State won’t repatriate his remains under the current flight ban.”
“…and Tammy doesn’t want to leave him behind. I don’t blame her.”
“Furthermore, where would she go? The Foreign Service was her life. She owns no property. She has lived abroad for the last fifteen years.”
“Actually, that’s my department.”
“You work-at-home husbands,” Harry said. “I’ll never get used to the idea.”
When the meeting adjourned, Mick walked through the windblown litter in the embassy’s courtyard to his wife’s office. The halls and offices of the first two floors were dark.
The past two days had seen a bloodbath at the embassy. Her office had laid off every single Yugoslav employee, unceremoniously escorting each one from their desk straight out of the building under Marine guard.
He found a desk light burning in Natalie’s office. Her eyes were fixed on a television screen.
“We have just instructed all local Americans to stay home,” she said. “Violence has erupted.”
Mick turned to the TV. Instead of one of the typical pastoral documentaries that the government aired when such events took place, Studio B was covering the demonstration in progress.
“Good for Ivan.” Mick drew up a chair.
At first, the only footage was a live camera pointed out the window of the high-rise that housed Studio B. The main crossroads of Terazije and Kneza Milosa was a beehive of activity with people swarming down to Trg Republike in the distance.
The camera angle didn’t allow for coverage of that area.
“I’ve got to see what happens,” Mick said.
Natalie gave him a doleful look. “Don’t expect me to come charging through that zoo to scrape you off the pavement.”
“I’ll keep my distance.”
Chapter 15
Alec’s window shade floated away from the glass. Wind whistled in and out of leaks in the frame and created a mournful dirge. He traced the lines of Dragana’s graceful form in the bluish dusk.
She was already dressed in matching black slacks and blouse, ready to go off to another of her rehearsals. What sort of drama was she really involved in?
He recognized the outfit from the time they had met. It had been a fine evening several summers ago. He had been listening to a local band at a coffeehouse when suddenly there she was.
The Belgrade city government hadn’t officially sanctioned the coffeehouse that attracted youths from across the city. Youths, in the Eastern European socialist context, could mean anyone between the ages of eighteen and thirty-nine who still hung their hats at their parents’ flat.
That had been Alec’s first and only visit to the coffeehouse. After two years in Bosnia, he had arrived in Belgrade through the wilds of Kosovo and southern Serbia. He was considering how to work his contacts and wheedle his way into the good graces of the Serbian government. All he needed was to be invited to the right party, have a moment alone with the president, and it would be all over.
The music venue was a well-known secret in the city. But it had taken an overheard remark and an investigative mind to find the place. Vague directions had led him down the steps to a pedestrian underpass under the main road into town. Noise from an imitation British band reverberated along concrete walls and led him to the dark, cacophonous hole in the wall.
He remembered having spotted Dragana first and actively pursuing her. He had moved closer to her table and engaged her theater friends in conversation. Since that fateful evening, he never again encountered or sought out those friends.
He had caught her tossing a curious look his way. From that moment on, the screaming electric guitar, manic drums, groaning synthesizer and the eye-smarting waves of cigarette smoke ceased to exist.
Of course, it was her beauty that had attracted him first. She was wearing her long hair simply over one shoulder. She had smoked and laughed with the rest, but she wore no make-up and her wrists were not cluttered with bracelets. She had stood out as unusual, like the only character worth watching in an otherwise dreary play. Then he noticed that her dark eyes could see straight through him.
Her eyelids now fluttered open as she lay on the pillow beside him. “Macedonia is such a pretty country,” she said, half-asleep as if continuing a conversation that they were having. “People moved there because it attracted them. There was no bustling city like here. Life is simple there.”
“You’re romanticizing.”
She rolled over, yanked on a bed lamp with one habitual motion and lit a cigarette. “Perhaps I romanticize. I like movies with happy endings.”
“Skopje is your happy ending.”
“I was thinking it might be ours.”
He let the suggestion pass without a response. “You were raised in Belgrade.”
She rose to a sitting position and patiently explained. “My parents only live in Belgrade by chance. Believe it or not, Belgrade was once the cultural center of the Balkans.”
She smiled at the thought. Then she stepped out of bed and straightened her blouse.
“Before that, when Belgrade was just a Turkish prison camp, Budapest attracted the intellectuals and artists. But the more pride that people took in their heritage, the more Belgrade came to symbolize the ultimate Balkan town.”
She swirled the cigarette around in the air as she talked.
“My father was in the theater, and Belgrade had the best reputation, so we moved here. Now I want no part of it.”
“Belgrade still rules the region.”
“It won’t if I can help it.” She picked up the pack of smokes and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Would your parents move back there?”
She leaned against the doorframe. “They could sell their flat in Belgrade.” Her voice was full of hope and her eyes brimmed with optimism. “They could buy a place in Macedonia, perhaps a small house, with Yugoslav dinars. That would be no problem.”
Although Macedonia used a new currency, for people living there, the Yugoslav dinar meant hard currency.
“Just keep thinking about your happy endings.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
She paused to crush out her cigarette and blow him a kiss, but he turned away. Then she went out into the city.
Mick had two missions. He had to shop for the next evening’s party, and he hoped to glimpse the demonstration along the way.
He turned the Jeep out of the embassy garage and headed up Sarajevska to Zeleni Venac, the large “Green Market.” Soon he was in sight of the Turkish-style roofs and open air stands. Parking was normally a problem, but, with a demonstration in the air, many people chose to avoid work and shopping downtown, and those who lived there didn’t want their cars in harm’s way. He found many available spaces on the sidewalk.
He pulled several plastic bags out of the rear of the Jeep.
Late summer in Serbia was a vegetable-lover’s paradise, despite the sanctions and lack of fuel to harvest and deliver produce.
Peasants who worked for cooperatives stood behind piles of glowing red paprika, bundles of carrots, and radishes as large and bright as apples. River fish drifted in green tanks. Plucked chickens and sides of pork swung in the wind.
He perused the bib lettuce, spring onions, cucumbers and kale that overflowed from one metal stall.
The young woman splashed a wet toilet brush over the display to freshen it up.
Mick moved on.
A fruit stall caught his eye.
A woman shoveled a kitty litter spatula into her raspberries, strawberries and blueberries.
He did not stop.
More women in dairy aprons and white scarves dug kaimak cheese out of large plastic buckets. They piled the crumbling cheese into neat stacks. Mick had craved kaimak and spicy ivar for the past two years. He couldn’t resist it and bought a bag of cheese and a jar of the paprika mix.
He was heading toward another row of vegetable stalls when sirens pierced the air.
He watched as vehicles rushed up the street. They were blue trucks: police vans, personnel carriers and water trucks.
He threw a fistful of dinars on the vegetable stand, slipped some produce into a plastic bag and sprinted for the st
reet.
He threw the bags in the back of the car and jogged up the cobblestone street after the trucks.
Just as he had suspected, the trucks were meant for crowd dispersal. He reached the top of the hill in time to witness a ferocious burst of water blast across the square and deck the first line of demonstrators.
A sudden wind caught the spray and the water cannon turned into a mere hose that misted the crowd.
Behind their nationalist banners and Serbian flag, the crowd of students, refugees and young unemployed surged toward the police.
Mick stepped onto a sidewalk and watched from a safe corner behind the trucks.
A male chorus rose like that at a soccer match. Behind helmets, faceguards, plastic shields and flailing nightsticks, riot police ran madly into the crowd.
Beside him, a police team set up a small grenade launcher. He covered his ears. That barely muffled the crack of the launcher as a tear gas canister flew into the fray. Several seconds later, a white cloud erupted. Fumes quickly spread through the throng.
After the tear gas, a row of policemen lifted their rifles and shot several volleys into the air.
Crying and choking, the demonstrators tried to escape the harmful chemical.
Mick stayed well away from the wind-blown smoke and followed the crowd as it stampeded down wide Kneza Milosa Street.
He watched young people turn a police car over in protest. Men tried to break windows of an armored personnel carrier that pursued them, trying to divide up the crowd.
He passed a man clutching bullet shells that were fired by the police.
On the other side of the park-like square, demonstrators tore cobblestones up with a crowbar. They hurled the stones at windows as fast as they could dig. A woman yelled at the advancing police to think about their children.
The pavement was wet.
He watched bloodied people carried away in taxis. He was witnessing Serb turn on Serb. Things had clearly changed since he had left.
He followed a makeshift ambulance as it tried to carve a path through the crowd. Demonstrators forced everybody in a new direction.