The Small Boat of Great Sorrows

by Dan Fesperman

  The trip seemed longer to Vlado than it had the day before, but with Pine driving he was able to watch the view ahead. They got their first glimpse of the house about fifteen minutes after the turnoff. Benny pulled out a small pair of binoculars.

  “Here. Somebody else take a look. Seems quiet to me, but I’ve never been there.”

  Vlado focused on the big upstairs window in the back, looking down the mountain from Matek’s bedroom. Below was his office. The curtains were drawn on both.

  “He’s either not expecting us or doesn’t care,” Vlado said, not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. The place looked dead. Not even the goats were out.

  Nosing around the final curve, they slowed to a crawl as they approached the guardhouse. A door was open on the side. The bar across the driveway was raised, and a dust-covered BMW was parked on the shoulder. Inside the guardhouse someone stood, as if he’d been hunched over looking for something. Benny pulled the Beretta from a shoulder holster.

  “Know him?” he asked.

  Vlado saw sunlight glinting off glasses. The man didn’t seem to be armed. “Yes. It’s Azudin. His assistant.”

  Azudin stepped outside, squinting into the pale sunlight. He looked helpless, out of place. He wasn’t even wearing an overcoat.

  “It’s okay,” Vlado said. “This one doesn’t bite.”

  “They all bite,” Benny said.

  “And something’s wrong if he’s on guard duty. The others must have gone.”

  Azudin strolled uncertainly toward the car as Vlado rolled down a window.

  “He’s gone,” Azudin said in the plaintive bleat of a lost lamb.

  Vlado translated for Pine, who shut off the engine. The three of them climbed from the car while Azudin stood at the edge of the lane barely paying attention, as if pondering what to do next.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Vlado asked.

  “I paid them for the month and sent them home.”

  “What about Matek?”

  “He left last night. He sent me home around five, so it could have been anytime after that. When I got here this morning he’d cleared out. The overnight sentry must have been asleep, because he didn’t see a thing.”

  “Is that his car?” Vlado pointed to the BMW.

  Azudin shook his head. “Mine. His is gone. So are his guns, and most of his money. He left this.”

  Azudin held out a scrap of paper. Stepping closer, Vlado saw that Azudin was pale and drawn, clearly shaken. Vlado gently took the note from his hand.

  “What’s he saying?” Pine asked.

  “Matek took off last night. I’m translating the note he left.” Vlado squinted at the cramped handwriting of a man used to bashing a keyboard. Once he had the gist, he read aloud the English version to Pine and Benny. “ ‘Edin, there was always a possibility this day would come, and now I must go. All of the keys are in my upper desk drawer. The combination to the safe follows. I have signed the necessary documents, which you will also find on the desk. Sendic will notarize them in town. My businesses now belong to you. My bank accounts do not. There is enough cash in this envelope to pay the staff for a month. The rest is up to you. You will not be able to reach me, so do not try. When the son of Enver Petric comes calling, give him and his American friend from The Hague my best. They should be able to answer the rest of your questions. Good luck. Pero.’ ”

  “Sounds like he knew all about you guys,” Benny said quietly, rubbing his hands to stay warm. He’d holstered the Beretta.

  Vlado and Pine were silent. The mountain suddenly seemed a vast and empty place.

  “This safe,” Pine asked. “Has he opened it yet?”

  Vlado translated. “He says no,” he reported to Pine. “He’s hardly touched a thing.”

  “Tell him we’d like a look around, if he doesn’t mind. And we’d like to use his phone.”

  Surprisingly, all that seemed okay with the stunned Azudin, but as he turned to lead them up the lane it finally seemed to dawn on him to ask for an explanation. He stopped, turning robotically. “Why are you after him?”

  “Matek is a suspected war criminal.”

  Azudin frowned, more confused than ever. “But he was here throughout the war. He did nothing, except make a little money. I know, I was with him.”

  “Not this war. The last one. Your boss was an Ustasha officer. At Jasenovac.”

  Azudin was unimpressed. “And because of this he is running? Because of something fifty years ago?” He shook his head, more baffled than angry. “I thought the world wanted us to forget all that. Come this way.” He continued their tour with the air of a funeral director.

  “Christ,” Benny muttered. “You’d think he’d lost his father.”

  A black look from Pine and Vlado made him realize it was a poor choice of words, but he was the only one who didn’t understand why.

  “Relax, guys,” Benny said. “The hard part’s over. Just your Ichabod Crane here and a bunch of file drawers. Tell him we’ll be out of his hair in a few hours.”

  Vlado wondered vaguely who Ichabod Crane was. It did seem that the worst of the danger had vanished along with Matek and his thugs, but he couldn’t escape the sense that they were overlooking something in their blithe stroll toward the house. Jasmina’s words of warning flitted through his head, and he tensed as they entered the front door, half expecting Matek to lunge at them from the darkened hallway, Kalashnikov in hand. But all was quiet save the humming of a computer from a room down the hall.

  When they reached the office, Pine picked up the phone.

  “Might as well get the dirty work over with.”

  “Hope you don’t mind if I listen in,” Vlado said, heading to Azudin’s phone in the adjoining room before Pine could say no. There was no way they were keeping him in the dark on any further operational details.

  Spratt deflated like a punctured tire when he heard the news, emitting a long, despairing sigh that even the static couldn’t disguise. It was clear he was still in anguish over the Andric fiasco. “What the hell’s going on?” he said tiredly. “First two moves we make in months and it all goes to shit.”

  “We’re searching his place,” Pine said. “I guess we should notify the borders, the airports, and the rail stations. As if that will do any good.”

  “Leave that to the field offices. I’ll make some calls. You see what you can come up with. Then we’ll plan our next move, if we’ve even got one.”

  “Still no sign of Andric?”

  “It’s like he never existed. The idiots searching his bunker didn’t find the trapdoor for four hours. Four bloody hours! Can you believe that?”

  “Trapdoor?”

  “Under a pile of clothes in a closet. Down an air shaft to some old tunnel that led through the hillside to some woods.”

  “Tito,” Vlado said without thinking, startling Spratt, who hadn’t even known he was on the line.

  “What do you mean, ‘Tito’?”

  “One of his old escape bunkers. So he and his officers could get away when the Russians came. All of them had tunnels.”

  “Well, hell, that’s what we get for not consulting locals enough. We finally got some dogs in to trace a scent. They spent an hour leading us to an abandoned farm. Fresh tire tracks, probably a truck. It’s beginning to look like he’d planned it pretty well. Now the question is whether he knew we were coming or if he was always this prepared and just got lucky.”

  “What do we do next?” Pine asked.

  “I’ll have to phone LeBlanc and Harkness,” Spratt said. “They’re both waiting in Sarajevo for you and the suspect. We’d promised them a private debriefing with Matek. Now they may want to debrief you.”

  “And we’d allow that?” Pine said.

  “You’ll also need to speak to Janet,” Spratt said, ignoring the question.

  “Why?”

  “She’ll tell you. Sit tight until you’ve heard from her. Where are you, anyway?”

  “Matek’s office. Up i
n the hills.”

  “Give me the number. I’ve just been summoned upstairs. Third time today, and this time I’ve got more bad news to deliver. Stay there until you’ve heard from Janet.”

  “No problem. We’ll be searching the place. His little assistant’s been pretty cooperative.”

  Pine turned to Benny after hanging up. “Sorry, but it looks like we might be stuck here awhile. You game for helping us look around?”

  “Got nothing else to do. Where you want me to start?”

  “Well, you’re guest of honor. Why don’t you take the safe. Matek wrote the combination on the note, as long as our host doesn’t mind.” Vlado looked around for Azudin, but the man had apparently wandered off in a daze, so he handed the note to Benny. “I’ll take the file drawers in the back room. Vlado, why don’t you check the rooms upstairs.”

  They nodded, glum but resigned to the slow hours ahead. So much for their three-man commando action, or any hope of catching Matek on his way out the back door. The old man had been cagier than they’d thought.

  Vlado was curious to see what Matek’s living quarters would look like, especially in comparison with the set-piece décor of the downstairs. But as he reached the top of the stairs, a movement out the window caught his eye.

  It was Azudin, walking briskly across the barren grounds, no longer looking either lost or confused. A small bag was in his right hand, and he glanced furtively over his shoulder toward the house, quickening his pace toward the front gate. In stride and demeanor he was nothing at all like the meek man who had seemed on the verge of tears just a moment ago, and Vlado’s nagging worries converged into full-blown fear. A rambling and incautious search suddenly struck him as a very bad idea, and he spun to head back downstairs, taking the steps two at a time and lifting his voice to shout a warning.

  His first words were swallowed by a heaving blast that lifted him in the air, as if a gust of pressure had bolted up the stairs. The next thing he knew he was sitting at the bottom landing, head hurting and ears ringing, his left knee feeling wrenched half from its socket. A fine white dust drifted from the ceiling like mist, already coating the hairs on his arms. The house was dreadfully still.

  “You all right?” It was Pine, in a croaking call from the back room. “Benny? Vlado?”

  “I’m at the steps,” Vlado shouted, finding his voice, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He stood, quivering like a fawn. “I think I’m okay.”

  “Benny?” Pine said, again without reply. Then, louder, more frantic. “Benny?”

  Vlado limped into the ruin of Matek’s office. Benny’s legs protruded from beneath splintered varnished wood and a jumble of paper and plaster. They weren’t moving. The ceiling above him was cratered. The door of the small safe in the wall above was open, but the gray metal was scored and blackened, radiating arms of blackness as if a small meteorite had struck. The computer screen was shattered, and the big desk was splintered, the top heaved up like the deck of an icebound frigate. But the worst sight was the red spatter across every wall, some of the heavier markings just beginning to drip and ooze across pockmarked fields of white plaster.

  “Jesus!” It was Pine, who’d just staggered to the rear door, covered head to toe in white dust that made him look like the walking dead. From the way he flinched, Vlado must have looked the same. But it was the silent Benny who drew their attention now, and they converged on the still-motionless legs, no longer calling his name. They crouched and began pulling away pieces of the desk and chunks of the ceiling, working gingerly, worried they’d do him further damage.

  But it was soon clear that matters could get no worse for Benny. They pulled back a chunk of the desk to see that from the waist up he was a shredded welter of cloth, pulp, and flesh. Ragged shards of bone poked through in one or two places. He was facedown, his black hair matted and splayed. It was all Vlado could do to keep from gagging, and neither of them had the nerve to turn him over.

  “My God,” Pine gasped. “Oh my God.”

  He stood, stumbling backward and nearly falling on a bloodied pile of debris. Vlado had seen bodies in this sort of shape during the war, and the culprit had always been the same: an antipersonnel mine that sent hundreds of pieces of metal flying into the victim. This was no homemade explosive of nails and fuel oil. This was military-grade hardware, the same sort Matek had been hoping to acquire more of with a demining contract.

  Vlado remembered the odd fleeting expression of wariness that had crossed Azudin’s face as Vlado left the office to listen in on Pine’s call. Azudin, having carried out his last set of instructions for his boss, had obviously wanted all three of them to be nearby when the safe was opened. That thought made Vlado want to hurry toward the door in pursuit, but Pine shouted, “Don’t move!”

  When Vlado took another step Pine shouted again. “Don’t move, damn it! For all we know there are more, and we don’t even know what that one looked like, or what triggered it. Look for any wires. Any kind of metal box. Hell, it could be anything.”

  Pine looked around, glaring like a cornered street fighter, a sight made surreal by the coating of dust. Vlado wanted to sit but didn’t dare, not with all the rubble around him that might conceal something.

  “Where’s Azudin?” Pine asked, the volume down a notch.

  “I saw him out the window, leaving in a hurry. I started to shout something, but that’s when the mine went off.”

  “Weaselly bastard. Probably halfway down the mountain in his BMW, counting his inheritance. For all we know he wired the front door behind him. We may have to crawl out a window.”

  “Or maybe he’s sending the bodyguards back up the mountain to finish us off.”

  “Yeah, there’s that, too.”

  They paused, as if listening for intruders or the approach of a truck. But the only sound was a car engine cranking to life, then a purr as the gears engaged, followed by the crunch of gravel. Azudin was leaving now, and from the sound of it he was in no hurry, having heard the blast. The quiet little man had fooled them all, and so had Matek.

  Pine gingerly reached down beside Benny, poking around in the bloody rubble. “I’d look for the gun, but—”

  “Don’t bother. I’ve seen what these things do. It’ll be destroyed. Besides . . .”

  “I know.” Pine was now transfixed by Benny. “My God. Of all the people. We go the whole goddamn war without a scratch. Then some old man, not even from the right war. Some fucking profiteer.” Pine then glared toward Vlado, as if he, too, were somehow implicit. Vlado thought he knew why, because even he felt a bit of the same emotion. His father’s old pal had done this, the bloodlines running straight to him. His country and his people, in a cycle that never stopped. But what was there to say or do, other than nod slightly, as if he understood completely?

  Then Vlado shook his head in the manner of a wet dog, trying to clear his mind. Tears were snaking through the dust on his cheeks. He sagged into a crouch, still not daring to test his weight on any of this mess but feeling as weary as he had in years. He glanced back at Benny’s legs. The great and glib blusterer, a generous man, so zealous about his work. Vlado had barely met him but had liked him right away, and now he was gone. Just like that. Jasmina had been right to worry. So much for their “foolproof operation,” as Spratt had so cavalierly described it while rattling the ice in his cocktail. The evening of suits and chandeliers at The Hague now seemed a year in the past, and it was certainly a world removed from here.

  “Okay,” Pine said, calming. “Let’s think this through. Let’s start moving, just be careful where you step. Don’t open any drawers, cabinets, doors, or anything. Maybe one of the phones still works in another room. We need to get a UN demining team up here before we even try leaving the building. Otherwise it’s Russian roulette.” He paused. “Then I’ll have to call Spratt. This will change everything. Jesus, Benny. Jesus.” He shook his head. “I guess we better get an ambulance up here, too. To take the body away.”

&n
bsp; The phone rang in Azudin’s office. For a moment Vlado and Pine just stared in that direction, as if Matek himself were calling to taunt them into another fatal blunder. On the fourth ring Pine collected himself and began hopping carefully through the mess like a man negotiating an ice floe, looking for safe places to step.

  “Maybe it’s Janet,” he muttered hoarsely. Even then he hesitated before lifting the receiver. Now every object seemed poisoned, a potential booby trap. “Hello?”

  Vlado made his way to the phone, and without any prompting Pine angled the earpiece outward so he could listen in. The awkwardness and secrecy that had held them at arm’s length was gone. For better or worse, they’d become a team, united for the moment by their grief and their edgy suspicion of everyone and everything.

  “Well,” Janet Ecker said breezily. “All hell has broken loose here.”

  “Benny’s dead,” Pine answered bluntly, putting a stop to everything. “He was with us, and he’s been killed by a mine explosion. It was a booby trap. Matek had mined his office.”

  For a moment Janet said nothing. You could hear the creak of her chair, office sounds in the background. The connection was startlingly clear. Vlado looked through the doorway and could see Benny’s black shoes, covered in dust.

  Pine filled her in on the morning’s details and their plans on what to do next. “We were searching the place,” he said. “But I think it’s best now if we don’t touch a thing.”

  “Is Vlado all right?” Janet asked.

  “I’m fine,” he answered.

  “Your wife called this morning. She was worried. I told her you were alive and well. Glad I don’t have to call her back for a correction. My Lord. I can’t believe it’s Benny. What the hell were you doing calling him in, anyway?”

  “Let’s sort out the blame and the screwups later, okay? Right now we’ve got a body and no mission. We’re a little out of it, as you might guess. Some sense of direction from whoever’s in charge these days might be welcome.”

  “I’ll call back. Stay put.”

  “Believe me, we’re not moving.”

  Pine then phoned the UN’s local demining office, an irony lost on neither of them. The blast had served several purposes for Matek. His Rolodex, if he’d had one, was gone. The file drawers in the back—Pine had only had time to open one—now seemed likely to be wired for destruction. Vlado headed back upstairs, watching carefully for trip wires, if only to take a quick look and to give himself something to do. His suspicions about the décor proved to be correct. Upstairs was all chrome and leather. Cool marble floors with bright throw rugs in modern geometric designs. Just as tasteless as the downstairs in its way, but with a more Mediterranean flavor. Matek had deemed his own culture beneath him and gone in for a garish imitation of Italian. And why not? If Vlado had spent an entire war trying to wipe out a major part of that culture, then he, too, might have sought some way to figuratively shed his skin. But if that was so, then what had his father been up to for all those years, returning home simply to resume the life of a Balkan peasant, acting as if he were still a naïve and innocent toolmaker hovering reluctantly at the fringes of the twentieth century?