by Gordon Kent
Now, they sat in the jeep and waited. The rain was a constant, heavy drumming on the plastic roof, and Dukas felt his headache as a jab between his eyes and along the sides of his head. Cigarettes he had bummed from Pigoreau had left a terrible taste in his mouth; the answer to that was to smoke another.
“This is it?” he said.
Pigoreau said something to the man in the front passenger seat. He replied, only a couple of syllables. “This is it, yes. No farther.”
Dukas spat out a piece of tobacco. “Old Yugo Air Force emergency field. Yes?”
“I suppose.”
Dukas looked down the runway. It seemed endless, vanishing into the rain.
Pigoreau had told him that Zulu was in the air; it didn’t take a genius to persuade him that they were at an airfield because that’s where Zulu was going to land.
“Do we take him?” Dukas said.
“We wait and see, Michael.”
There were several French trucks parked way down the runway, with portable radar gear off in the grass. This was the French zone; the evidence was everywhere, even if Dukas couldn’t have guessed from the direction and the distance they’d come. He thought the signs weren’t good—too much French muscle, nothing of his own; Pigoreau was a friend, but—a French friend.
After they had been sitting there for a few minutes, he heard vehicles behind them, and he craned around the rear window and saw two military trucks and an armored car pulling in behind them, and then two civilian cars, one of them extremely handsome and flying French flags. Diplomatic, he thought.
The armored car pulled up behind them and sat there.
The trucks moved around them to the end of the runway and then went slowly up the runway itself. The officer in the passenger seat said something, and the driver started the jeep and they moved off after the trucks, the two civilian cars pulling in behind them, like a funeral procession. Six hundred meters along, they pulled to their right into a taxiway, then again parallel to the runway, then again to their right, and, after a quick turn, came to a stop facing the runway, a hundred feet from the trucks. Three squads of French soldiers were already out of the trucks, lining up, checking equipment. Dukas caught their shoulder flashes, thought, Foreign Legion. Serious mothers.
The two civilian cars went on past the trucks and then turned in on the far side of them. That left the jeep all by itself.
“You believe in body language?” he said to Pigoreau. Pigoreau raised his eyebrows in question. Dukas threw the cigarette out the window. “I think we’re being ignored. Big-time.”
“They know we’re here.”
“Oh, yeah, I know they know we’re here—they couldn’t make that plainer if they gave out cards marked ‘We don’t see you.’ What the hell is this, the famous French politesse?” The man in the front seat seemed to find that a little amusing.
Then they heard the plane.
It took it several minutes to circle to the north, unseen, come around again, lower and louder but still up there in the cloud, then fade again to the north. The rain had eased off into a kind of soaking drizzle, and if anything the visibility was worse than before. Dukas thought the aircraft had given it up, but then there was a bustle among the French troops, and they were again lining up in front of their vehicles. To his surprise, an officer went along their lines, tugging now and then at a strap or a button, and Dukas thought, Jesus, like a parade.
Minutes after he expected to see it, the 737 ghosted down out of the clouds. It was hardly more than a speck between them and the low hills, and it seemed to hover there forever, neither growing larger nor dropping. Then suddenly it was an aircraft and it was descending at the far end of the runway, touching down, and he could hear the roar as the engines reversed. Spray rose from its wheels like bow waves as it tore over the puddled, cracked concrete, and, half-visible in the mist above it, two combat jets sailed overhead, their flaps dragging air to keep them slow.
Pigoreau cleared his throat. “The 737 was forced to land. Or, at least the pilot did what we asked. The passengers were told that Belgrade is closed.”
A voice shouted a harsh command. The French soldiers came to attention. The diplomatic car with the flags opened and a small man with silver hair got out. He looked around, tugging at his suitcoat and shrugging his shoulders, then looked up into the drizzle and wiped his hand over his hair.
The airliner swung into the taxiway, still rolling fast, and came down the same way they had, swinging again toward them and seeming to threaten to rip right through them. In the front seat of the jeep, the officer looked back at Pigoreau and jerked his head and then got out. Pigoreau pulled at Dukas’s sleeve. “Come on.”
“What the hell?”
“Come on, Michael.”
He climbed out on his side and went around behind the jeep. There was water everywhere; he stepped in over his loafer-tops, felt the chill of the water, almost pleasant. Going behind the jeep, he touched his revolver, made sure he could get at it.
Somebody in ear protectors was standing in front of the aircraft, waving it forward with two light batons. She backed toward the troops, waving the batons back toward her shoulders—back, forward, back—until the aircraft was close, and then she shot both arms to their left and the plane turned and stopped. Dukas could see that all the window shades were drawn—SOP when landing anywhere in this part of the world because of snipers.
The engines kept running.
The diplomat started forward, and at the same time the cabin door opened, like a lower jaw making a yawn. A stair started down. The diplomat was on it as it touched the ground, going up with the nimbleness of quite a young man. He seemed in a hurry. He shot inside, then was back in only seconds. He hesitated in the doorway, then stood aside.
“He tells Zulu he is from Lascelles. Then we hope Zulu—” Pigoreau stopped.
Zulu was standing at the top of the stair. Dukas recognized him without question—the stance, the head, the powerful body, and that brutalized nose.
Another civilian moved toward the aircraft. He was smiling. He looked pleased with himself—good-looking, smooth. Pulling down the bottom of his suit-jacket so he would look his best.
Dukas looked around and saw that the French soldiers had deployed out of their line and were moving, half of them around the tail of the aircraft, some behind him and the jeep. They were all facing away from the aircraft. Guarding—whom? Zulu? From what—the Bosnians?
Zulu seemed to be wearing a white mitten—a bandaged hand and arm. After all this, that’s what he had—a bandage on one hand. Dukas felt intense disgust, then hatred, and his own hand moved toward the .357.
“No, Michael.” It was only a whisper, but Pigoreau had locked his fingers around Dukas’s right wrist. They stood there, arms together like lovers.
The diplomat said something. Bobbed his head. Smiled. Zulu looked around—the low hills, the soldiers. Not seeming to take in Dukas and Pigoreau or not caring about two civilians who didn’t have diplomatic flags on their vehicle.
He started down the steps.
The man at the bottom came forward, freeing his right hand for shaking hands.
Zulu came down.
The man at the bottom took one more step forward, his hand out, and Zulu took the hand and bent a little forward, as if he thought the Frenchman would probably kiss at this point. The man’s other hand, his left, was on the side turned to Dukas, and Dukas saw it when it came out of his pocket with a pistol and came up smoothly and put the barrel against Zulu’s throat, and at the same time the “diplomat” on the steps above him drew a semi-automatic and put it at Zulu’s back, and Zulu’s face turned angry.
Urged by the weapon behind him, Zulu started slowly across the wet concrete. Behind him, the steps of the aircraft swung upward and the clamshell jaw began to close; Zulu turned his head, despite the pistols, the soldiers, and watched the door close, that hope of home.
They marched him slowly to Dukas and Pigoreau. The soldiers stood with their ba
cks turned; the aircraft sat on the taxiway. When the three men were a few meters from Dukas, they stopped. The one behind, the “diplomat,” murmured something to Zulu, and his eyebrows went up and he stared at Dukas.
“I thought I killed you,” Zulu said in English. He sounded like an American.
Dukas held up his International War Crimes Tribunal badge. “I arrest you for war crimes against—”
“Fuck you! You got no jurisdiction; this is bullshit! What is this, entrapment, I spit on this shit—!”
Dukas controlled his rage. Even Pigoreau must have felt that control; his grip on Dukas eased. “Zoltan Panic, deserter, US Marine Corps, war criminal, murderer of two African presidents. Pack it in, Panic.”
But Zulu didn’t move. He wasn’t frightened; he was enraged. He was sure there was a way out, and he was going to take it. There was a sound behind him, and, astonishingly, the door of the aircraft opened again and the steps began to descend.
Zulu looked around. He was a brave man, and a desperate one; perhaps, too, he was disoriented—the soldiers, who did not have their guns trained on him, the “diplomat” who was supposed to be from Lascelles. Zulu muttered something to the man, and the two conferred, as if there was a decision to be made, options to be considered. To Dukas, there were no options. What was Zulu trying to do?
The “diplomat” smiled, and Zulu actually chuckled. What was it? Dukas felt he had lost control, if he had ever had control, and he made a half-step, and suddenly both the French pistols were pointed at him, and Zulu was grinning; Pigoreau clamped his hand on Dukas’s wrist again, and the “diplomat” said, “Allez!” and Zulu swung around and began to run toward the aircraft. Dukas tried to shake Pigoreau off, but Pigoreau held on, only the one hand, but the second French gunman got between Dukas and the running man, and Dukas was blocked.
And then the “diplomat” turned, raising his semiautomatic like somebody target-shooting, one-handed, and he fired, fired again, and Zulu staggered. He fired again. Zulu put his arms out for balance, still trying to push himself toward the aircraft, and the “diplomat” fired again, and Zulu turned slowly, arms out, and fell backward on the rain-soaked, cracked paving.
The man with the pistol trotted forward, looked down, and shot Zulu in the head. Then he turned and looked straight at Dukas and Pigoreau and gave what could only have been a military salute and ran for his car.
“Tué pendant l’évasion,” the other one said, stepping out of Dukas’s way. He, too, gave a kind of salute and ran for his car. The aircraft’s steps began to close upward and the plane began to roll.
Orders were being shouted. Soldiers were running for the trucks. The aircraft was taxiing out toward the runway, making the turn to the taxiway too fast. The truck engines were roaring to life. Soldiers started piling in. The aircraft roared out to the runway, spun, and without a pause began to roll away, its engines rising to a scream.
The diplomatic car was gone. The second civilian car ran out to the taxiway and began to accelerate, throwing spray, and the trucks rolled forward, engines loud, coughing, banging, their bodies rolling from side to side as they went straight through the scruffy grass and the mud and followed the cars.
Two minutes after Zulu had been shot, they were alone. Far down the runway, the portable radar was coming down. The armored car was trundling slowly toward them. Pigoreau’s grip on Dukas’s arm relaxed; the hand fell away.
Dukas walked to the body. It was sprawled on its back, the face washed clean of blood by the rain, but for a little pool under the left ear, from which a thin, watery red trickle was running away down a crack in the pavement. A .380, Dukas was thinking. Europeans like these little guns.
He knew what he was supposed to do. He knelt and felt in Zulu’s throat for a pulse.
Dukas had not seen very many people killed. He wasn’t a homicide cop. The smell of new blood sickened him. So did the sight. He decided he wouldn’t be sick there, nonetheless, although it was an effort not to be sick on the dead man.
A French officer and a soldier were standing over him. The soldier had a body bag, already unzipped. “We take the body,” the officer said in accented English. “It is the French Zone. A full report will be made.” The soldier started to kneel with the bag, and Dukas waved him off. He felt in his pockets and found a sheet of paper that was clean on one side, and, using the blood behind Zulu’s head instead of ink, he carefully rolled a print of each of Zulu’s fingers and thumbs on the page.
The French officer, sounding offended, said something to Pigoreau, who answered, “Taisez-vous. Il est flic formidable.”
Dukas stood. Pigoreau and the other two backed away, as if they were giving him room for something private, some grief. Dukas walked a few feet toward the jeep, looked back at Zulu. His clothes were soaking up water, turning black. Dukas shivered. He started to feel sorry for Zulu, and then he thought of Mrs Obren. The soldier and the officer began to get the body into the bag.
“They didn’t mean for me to take him, did they,” Dukas said. It wasn’t really a question, and Pigoreau only gave him a kind of wincing frown.
“Because he knew too much?” Dukas said.
Pigoreau shrugged. He took a step toward Dukas. “Michael, I didn’t know about—the end of it. I thought they would—truly—”
“Yeah.” Dukas sighed. “All three of us got fucked. What’d you say to the officer just now?”
“I told him to shut up.”
“What else?”
“I said you were a real cop.”
Dukas looked at the body bag, and three more men coming from the armored car, the only vehicle left besides their jeep. He looked at his hands, still red with Zulu’s blood.
“You, too, Pig. You tried.” He shivered. An icy wind flung little pellets of freezing rain at their faces. “Winter,” he said, and they headed for the jeep.
Part Four
Weapons Free
36
December 9
At sea—aboard the Jackson.
Sneesen had written another letter to the chaplain, and nothing had happened, and he was about at the end of his tether, really ready to explode, frantic, and then Commander Rafehausen called him into the squadron office and sent everybody else away, and Sneesen knew that at last everything was going to be okay and his prayers had been answered.
Commander Rafehausen sat behind the desk and didn’t smile or anything when Sneesen came in, and he didn’t ask Sneesen to sit down. He had a manila file open in front of him, and right on top was Sneesen’s letter. That was okay. That meant the chaplain was on their side.
Commander Rafehausen put his hands together on the desk and looked down, reading the letter. Outside, everybody was coming and going, and there was noise in the p’way.
Commander Rafehausen looked up. “Sneesen,” he said, “what the hell has happened to you?”
The question confused him. This didn’t have anything to do with him, really. This was about Commander Rafehausen and the mud-bitch and the Jew. “Sir?” he said, hating it because his voice squeaked like a kid’s.
“Sneesen, what’s happened to you? You were doing great there, you were a worker, you saved our lives—and now, this.” He put his hand on the file. This? “Did you write this letter?”
“I—” He started to say no, because something was wrong, and he knew the tone, knew when he ought to lie. But Borne had said you have to stand up for Truth, so he said, “Yes, sir, Commander Rafehausen, see, nobody was—”
“Sneesen, Jesus H. Christ! What the hell are you thinking of? My God! Sneesen—” Commander Rafehausen waved a hand, as if he was all of a sudden old or helpless. “Sneesen, is something going on at home? Is it your mom, or have you got worries—got a letter from your girl, anything—?”
Sneesen didn’t have a girl. His mother wrote once a week. What did that have to do with anything? “I pray for you,” Sneesen said. “I been praying for you all the time.”
Commander Rafehausen rubbed his eyes and shoo
k his head. He was burned out, everybody said so. Sneesen felt a lump swell in his throat, compassion for Commander Rafehausen bubbling up there.
“Sneesen, I don’t get it. When you came aboard, you were one of the best new guys I’ve ever had. You got along. The squadron thought you were okay. Now—” He made the gesture again. “Half the guys in the squadron say you’re weird. What’s going on?”
Weird? That’s what they’d say, of course. Sneesen started to tell Commander Rafehausen about the Jew and mud-people and Satan’s Plan, going too fast because it excited him, and he could feel his face was hot and his underarms were sweating, but it was the Truth, and he was babbling it all out, okay, maybe some of it out of order but—
Commander Rafehausen stood up, taller than Sneesen by inches, and he closed the file and shut Sneesen up with a gesture. “I want you to see the doctor, and he’ll put you on a phone hookup with a psychologist on the beach. I’ll try to keep this from going to a mast, but Sneesen, this is a real serious thing. You can’t spread lies like this about people. You can’t call people these names. Look, we’re going into a really tight time now. I can’t get everything done right now, but I want you to go to the doctor and talk about this. I’m relieving you from duty until—I dunno. Let’s see what he says. But Jesus, Sneesen, get a grip, will you?”
When he heard “psychologist,” Sneesen knew it was over. He couldn’t face another one of them. They were too sneaky; they had drugs; they’d make him say things, and all the old stuff he’d lied about to join the Navy would come out. And then the rest—a captain’s mast, for what? For telling the truth? And relieved, how could they relieve him? He was the best electronics man in the squadron, maybe on the whole boat!
Sneesen started to cry. Not because of the psychologist or the mast or being relieved; those made him sick and they frightened him, but it wasn’t those things. It was Rafehausen. He was crying for Rafehausen, because he had been trying to save him, and now he saw that Rafehausen was just like the rest. He was one of them. They already had him, and Sneesen was too late. He was crying because his heart was broken.