by Ted Dekker
A spike drove down Jan’s spine at the words. His feet felt suddenly rooted to the concrete. “Karadzic?”
The man’s smile faded. “You two were not so close. Forgive me—it’s been a long time.”
“Karadzic is . . . he’s in Sarajevo?”
“He’s always been in Sarajevo.”
Of course, Jan already knew that if the man were still alive, he would live somewhere near Sarajevo. But hearing it now sent a buzz through his skull. “And what’s Karadzic up to these days?”
“The same. I worked for him, you know. For three years, until I couldn’t stomach his nonsense. Karadzic was born to kill. He doesn’t do well without a war, so he makes his own.”
“And how does he do that?”
“In the underground, of course. He’s Sarajevo’s prince of darkness.” The man laughed and drew on his cigarette.
“So Bosnia has its own Mob, is that it?”
“Mob? Ah, the American gangsters. Yes, but here it’s all done with threads of nationalism. It legitimizes the business, you see.”
“But his business is illegitimate?”
“Are you joking?” He looked around to be certain they weren’t overheard. “Karadzic doesn’t have a legitimate bone in his body. If you’re looking for drugs in Bosnia, his dirty fingers will have touched them somewhere along the line, no question.”
The heat started at the crown of Jan’s head and washed over his face. Drugs! His mind flashed to Helen. It was the association alone, he knew, but still he was suddenly thrust to the verge of panic, standing there on the sidewalk beside Molosov. Dear God, help us! A dreadful sense of foreboding washed through him.
And Helen.
“Just stay out of his way. Or better, go back to America; this place isn’t safe for people like you and me.” He jabbed Janjic playfully with the hand holding his cigarette. “At the very least, if your wife is as beautiful as you say, keep her out of his sight. He makes pretty women ugly very quickly.” The man chuckled again.
But Jan didn’t find any humor in his words. None at all. He was barely hiding his terror. Or perhaps he wasn’t.
“I . . . I have to go now,” Jan said and began to turn.
Molosov’s voice lost its humor. “Hold on. You weren’t easy to find. We have a lot to discuss. I’m very serious, Janjic. I am planning on going to America.”
“I live in the flats on the west side of the market. Top floor, 532.” Jan suddenly thought better of giving out the address, and he turned to his old comrade. “But keep this to yourself.”
Molosov grinned again. “I will. Good to see you. I live on the east end of the Novi Grad. Welcome back home.”
Jan turned back and took the man’s extended hand. “Yes, good. Good to be home.”
He left then, striding evenly for half a block. And then seeing Molosov disappear around the corner, he broke into a jog.
She has been acting strangely, Janjic. Helen has not been herself.
Nonsense! He was just piecing together impossible strings of coincidence.
She didn’t come on this walk with you, Janjic. She did not want to.
Shut up! You’re being a child!
Still he had to get back to see her. If anything happened to Helen now he would die. He would throw himself from their window and let the street take him home.
Jan reached their building and swung into the atrium. He took the stairs two at a time and had to pause after five flights to catch his breath. By the time he reached the tenth-floor flat his chest burned. He crashed into the apartment.
She was not in sight!
“Helen!”
His black typewriter sat alone at the table. “Helen!” he screamed.
“Hello, Jan.” He spun toward the bedroom. She walked out, wide-eyed. “What’s wrong?”
Jan doubled over to his knees and panted. Thank you, Father! “Nothing. Nothing.”
“Then why were you screaming like that?”
He straightened, smiling wide. “Nothing. It was nothing. I ran up the stairs. You should try it sometime; excellent exercise.”
She grinned. “You scared me. Don’t smash in here screaming the next time you decide to exercise, if you don’t mind.”
“I won’t,” he said. He pulled her to his chest and stroked her hair. “I promise I will not.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE DAY seemed to keep time to the clacking of Jan’s typewriter, but it all came to a silent halt late that afternoon, when Jan clapped his hands with satisfaction, stood from the table, and proudly announced that he was leaving. His uncle Ermin had a car he wanted to sell them. An old bucket of bolts, Jan said, but the old man had fixed it up—given it a new coat of blue paint and tweaked the carburetor so that it actually ran. Perhaps having a car wouldn’t be such a bad idea. They could drive out into the country and see the real Bosnia. Even Ivena had access to a car.
He said he would be gone for a couple of hours. Helen’s heart was pounding already.
He kissed her on the nose, then again on the cheek, and after a short pause, again on the head. Then he slipped out the door with a wink, leaving her alone in the kitchen staring after him. The old wooden wall-clock with painted ivy leaves read five o’clock.
Horns honked through the open window to her right. She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to shake the voice that suddenly whispered through her mind. And then it wasn’t whispering—it was buzzing, like an annoying fly that refused to go away.
Helen leaned back on the kitchen counter. You know that if you pull that card out you won’t stop. You know you’ll go.
Of course, I won’t go! Going would be suicide! Her heart thumped in her chest. How could she possibly be having these thoughts after a month of freedom? That’s what her time in Jan’s strange country had been: freedom. No Glenn, no drugs, no chains. And now a stranger who called himself Anton had walked out of the shadows and offered her chains once again. What a fool the man was to think he could just waltz into her life and expect her to follow.
Helen ground her teeth. What a fool she was to think she would not follow!
“God, please . . .”
She ditched the feeble attempt at prayer and let her mind play with the card. If I leave now I could see this place in the Rajlovac district and be back before Jan returns. I would just walk there and then walk back. Is it a sin to walk?
But you won’t just walk.
Don’t be stupid, of course I’ll just walk! That’s all I’ll do. A rush of desire flooded her veins, and she pushed off the counter toward the bedroom.
You want the chains, Helen?
She pulled the black card from beneath her mattress and straightened the covers quickly. Her hand trembled before her eyes. “Rajlovac,” it read.
Don’t be a fool.
But suddenly the impulse to at least walk toward the place hammered through her mind. She walked straight for the front door and eased into the staircase, thinking that she was being a fool. But her spine tingled at the thought of flying. And she was already hating herself for having come this far. Why would she even dare to think about any of this?!
Her feet padded quickly down the stairs. She cracked the door to the street and slipped into the dying light. She would walk east. Just walk.
Voices of caution whispered through Helen’s mind, casting their inevitable arguments as her feet carried her east. But within ten minutes, she’d shoved the debate aside, preoccupied instead with the eyes that seemed to watch her progress. They were just strangers, of course, watching the Western woman—was it that obvious?—walk briskly with her head down. But to Helen it seemed as though every eye was focused on her. She picked up her pace.
The streets ran narrow, bordered by square tan buildings. Rajlovac—she’d heard that there was money in the Rajlovac. A short boxy car snorted past, spewing gray smoke that smelled strangely comforting. The structures were thinning. She was headed away from home and every step she took would have to be retraced, in the dark.
She should be home, peeling the potatoes for tonight’s meal, listening to music, reading a novel. Being loved by Janjic. Helen grunted and watched her feet shuffle over the ground. No, she did not want to do this, but she was doing this and she did want to do this.
She pulled the black card out a dozen times and glanced at the sketched map on the fly. It wasn’t until she had entered the Rajlovac district that she began thinking that coming here had been a terrible mistake. The sun sat on the western horizon, casting long shadows where the buildings did not block it all together. If there was money in Rajlovac, it wasn’t wasted on the buildings, she thought. At least not in this industrial section where the card had led her. Here the old gray structures appeared vacant and unattended. The occasional blown-out window gaped square and black to the darkness within. A newspaper floated by, whipped by the wind. Its cover picture of a man shouting angrily had been all but washed out by the weather. Three men stood across the street, arms folded against the cool, wool caps on their heads. They watched her pass with mild interest.
You should be back with Jan, Helen. How long have you been gone? Less than an hour. If you turn back now he’ll never know.
But her feet kept their pace, shuffling forward as if pulled by habit. Right into the falling darkness, ignoring the fear that now snaked down her spine. This was not right. A large building suddenly rose at the end of the dead-end street she’d entered, ominous against the charcoal sky.
Helen stopped. This was it. She stood alone on the asphalt and faced the ten-story blackened building. Gray cement towered on either side, chipped and pocked by years of abuse and war. The sound of water trickled faintly along the curb, sewer water by the musty smell. She took a hesitant step forward and then stopped again.
Thirty meters ahead a flag waved above a large door; a dirtied white flag with a black object on either side, but she couldn’t make out the shapes at this distance. She took a breath to still a tremor that ran through her bones, and she walked forward.
You have to turn around, Helen. You’ve had your walk. It’s time to go home and prepare the evening meal. Go and let Jan hold you. He’ll do that, you know. He will hold you and he will love you.
Her feet ignored the plea and stepped forward.
If night had not fallen over the rest of Sarajevo yet, it had come here first. She wondered absently if this was how it felt to walk into your own grave. Other than the trickle of sewer water the night lay still. Perhaps she’d gotten it wrong.
A chill suddenly streaked down her spine. The markings on the flag were skulls, she saw. Black skulls waving in the breeze. A human form clothed in dark wool lay in the gutter to her right, evidently dead to the world. Helen stopped for the third time, blinking against the warning bells that rang in her head. Another body was propped in the far corner, barely visible.
Helen stood before the metal door and stared at the brown paint, peeling like scabs from a rusted surface. A throbbing beat came from deep within the building, barely audible, but somehow comforting.
You aren’t walking any longer, Helen. Now you’re going in. That wasn’t the deal.
She reached a trembling hand forward and pushed gently on the door.
Do you want to fly, baby?
The door swung in quickly, startling her. But it had not given on its own—a man stood in the shadows looking at her with dark eyes. At first he said nothing, and then, “Who invited you?”
“A . . . Anton,” Helen said.
A faint smile crossed the man’s face. “Yes, of course. Who else would find such a beautiful woman. You know what we do here?”
Helen’s heart skipped a beat. Do you want to fly? Or do you want to die? We do both here. “Yes,” she said, but her voice held a tremor.
“Then follow me.” The man turned and walked into the building. Helen crossed the threshold, her mind screaming foul. But still her legs seemed to control her movements, as if they possessed a mind of their own. That was foolishness, of course; she was telling her legs to move because she wanted desperately to move forward. Into this dungeon.
The hall was very dim, dressed in the same peeling paint that covered the outer door. They passed several limp bodies, strung out on the floor. He led her into a stairwell where he stepped aside and pointed down a flight of steps. Helen glanced up the stairs that ascended to her right, but he stabbed his index finger into the darkness below.
“Down,” he said.
She swallowed and began her descent. The door banged behind her and she turned to see that the man had left her. She was alone, surrounded by silence. A dull consistent thump came from the walls—the sound of heavy pulsating music. Or the sound of her heart.
She lowered her foot to the next step, and then the next, until the steps ended in a landing before another door. She knew at a glance that the heart of the building lay here. Anton was here, beyond this fortified entry, sealed into thick concrete. A small window on the door grated open, exposed a pair of bloodshot eyes for a couple of seconds, and then snapped shut. The door swung in.
This is it, Helen. If you enter now you won’t be able to make it back in time to peel the potatoes.
She stepped inside and stopped.
Helen stood in a tunnel roughly hewn from the rock beyond the building. Red and amber bulbs strung along the ceiling not three feet over her head cast an eerie light down the passage. Wet concrete ran underfoot, curving to the right twenty feet ahead. The dusty odor of mildew mixed with the smell of burning hair filled her nose. Her senses tingled with anticipation.
“Hello, Helen.”
She spun to her right where another smaller tunnel gaped in the shadows. The man who called himself Anton stepped from the dark, smiling with a square jaw. He wore a black robe over the white shirt now, like some kind of vampire. The orange light glinted off his round eyes.
“I did not expect you to come so quickly.” He reached a hand out to her. Behind him, tiny feet scurried along the tunnel. Rats. The tinkle of water was louder here too, she noted. That sewer water was making its way down somehow.
Helen hesitated and then took his hand.
He chuckled and the sound of his voice carried down the hall. “I promise you that I will not disappoint you, my dear.” Anton kissed her hand with thick red lips. “Come.”
She walked forward on soles tingling numb. The sound of her own heart thumped with the faint music. He led her along the dimly lit passage to a door made of wood with heavy cross members. He gripped the wooden latch, winked at her, and shoved the door open. “After you, my dear.”
Helen stepped past the large man into a smoke-filled room. The sweet smell of hashish wafted through her nostrils. Here the yellow lights peered through a haze of the stuff, casting a soft glow about the room. The ceiling hung low, seemingly hewn from sheer rock and supported by a half dozen pillars. Bright red-and-yellow rugs covered the stone floor, nearly wall to wall. Thick white candles blazed on old wooden end tables. Tall earthen pots filled with purple and green feathers stood by each of the pillars; brass and silver plates adorned the walls, reflecting the myriad of flickering flames. It was a gothic kind of psychedelia.
A dozen bodies reclined on stuffed pillows and chairs, unmoving to fuzzy throbbing music, but fixated on her. Helen gazed at them and immediately felt a kinship—their eyes swam with a language she knew well.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she twisted her head to meet Anton’s black stare. He smiled thinly but did not speak. His eyes lowered to her arm and he traced it lightly with a thick finger. Something about the way those eyes sparkled sent a shiver down her spine and she shifted her gaze from him.
One of the figures—a man—rose and walked slowly toward her, grinning dumbly.
“What’s your price?” Helen asked.
Anton chuckled softly. But he didn’t answer.
The other man walked up to her and lifted a hand to her cheek. His finger felt hot. You’re in this now, Helen. You’re home. Whether you like it or n
ot, you are home.
“You want to know what the price is?” the man said. A large scar ran across his right cheek and it bunched up in a knot when he smiled. “I am Kuzup. I am your price, princess.” He bit the tip of his tongue.
Anton seemed to find humor in the man’s statement. “This one’s beyond you, Kuzup. She’s too rich for your blood.”
Helen smiled with them, but her skin tingled with fear. “And even if you could afford me, I’m not for sale,” she said.
They both laughed. “Down here we’re all for sale,” Kuzup said.
A small prick flashed up Helen’s arm and she jerked. Anton’s big hand closed over her mouth from behind. “Shhhhh. Let it go, princess.”
He’d put a needle into her arm. His hand was not rough, only coaxing, and she let herself go.
“Shhh.” His hot breath washed over her ear. It smelled like medicine. “Do you feel it?”
The warmth ran through her body in comforting waves. “Yes,” she whispered. She didn’t know what Anton had given her, but the drug quickened her pulse. This was good. She was into this. I’m flying now, baby.
He released her and the room swam. Kuzup was giggling. Anton held a small syringe, which he tossed into a pot to his right.
Helen sauntered out onto the floor and eased herself onto a thick cushion. The music worked its way through her body like a massage. An obscure thought occurred to her, the thought that Jan would like this. Not seeing her with strangers like this, but feeling the euphoria that drifted through her bones now.
“How much?” she heard Kuzup asking.
“Are you made of gold? Because you’ll need a mountain of it to match what I’ve been offered for this one.”
“Bah!”
Helen lost interest in their babbling. To her right, a woman lay on her back, staring wide at the ceiling. Mucus ran from her nose and for some reason Helen found some humor in the sight. The woman was beautiful, with golden hair and brown eyes, but she’d been reduced to a stiff board, gawking at the low-hung black stone. Did she know how absurd she looked, sweating on the floor?