by Tom Saric
At 04:37 a.m., following six hours of no contact with Luka Pavić, the Winnipeg Regional Police tactical team decided, after much deliberation, that the only remaining option was to forcibly enter the home.
Braun stood next to a cruiser behind the five-member tactical team, looking over their shoulders as the team lead, Constable George, reviewed the plan. Braun agreed with the decision. He had convinced the team to allow him to call the home three times to try to work out a deal. The phone rang and rang as he paced the sidewalk in front of the home. Each unanswered ring increased the chance that Pavić realized he was in a dead end and they’d find him hanging from an exposed beam when they entered the house.
That wouldn’t be justice.
He looked at his mobile phone. Nicole Allegri had left three messages asking if they had Pavić in custody yet. She didn’t ask whether his daughter was safe.
Braun looked at Kostick, wondering if he’d be less nervous if he thought Kostick was wrong. But he couldn’t convince himself of that. The comfortable bubble of simple explanations was punctured, and couldn’t be repaired. Jurica had been sent to kill Pavić. Someone had then come to kill Jurica. A professional job, to the extent that doctors had no idea how his condition had deteriorated so quickly. But they weren’t buying Kostick’s “second killer” hypothesis yet. They needed the autopsy results.
“We need him alive,” Braun said to the tactical team. “Don’t fire unless you’re sure he won’t leave peacefully.”
None of the men in the tactical team looked in his direction; it was their operation now. He didn’t push it. He knew he didn’t have jurisdiction over the operation and that any cooperation on the part of the team was goodwill.
Four team members broke off into pairs. One pair stood at the front door, the other positioned themselves at the back. Their black military helmets and ballistic vests made them look like shadows cast against the stucco house. Each was armed with a Colt CAR-15 assault rifle and a semiautomatic Glock. They were ready for a firefight, if necessary. Constable George stayed by the cruiser, headset on, to communicate with the team.
Thump, thump, thump, thump
The battering ram hit the front door. The lock gave way, and the team slipped into the house.
Those next minutes dragged.
He listened. Nothing. Through the window shades he saw flashlight beams searching in the darkness. Faint static could be heard from Constable George’s earpiece, but Braun couldn’t make out what was being said. George’s face was stricken. He glanced at Braun, as if he didn’t believe what he had heard and needed a second set of ears to verify that he wasn’t losing his mind.
“Repeat,” he said into his mouthpiece. “R-repeat that, Officer.”
Braun looked at his watch. Three minutes had passed. He stepped up next to Constable George and put his ear inches from the earpiece.
A weight fell in his gut as he heard the team inside speak.
“Am I hearing you correctly?” George pressed the earpiece into his ear.
Static. “Yes, you are. All clear.”
A short pause. Braun leaned forward to look at the front door, holding his breath and waiting for more clarification. A member of the tactical team came out, gun lowered, shaking his head. Through the earpiece: “There’s nobody inside. Place is empty.”
Braun ran towards the allegedly empty house, brushing past the tactical team member as he stepped inside. His own eyes were sharper, surer, more discriminating. They had overlooked a room, a closet, a secret alcove. Something.
It was dark. A sliver of streetlight came through the space between the drawn window curtain and the frame. He asked the officer for a flashlight, then snapped on latex gloves.
He dragged the light across the living room, past the indentations in the carpet where the sofa once stood, over crocheted cushions tossed on the floor, across the tube television and the plastic crate of Barbie dolls and Lego blocks on a shelf. An artisan painting of the Zadar harbor hung on the wall. Braun had walked along that harbor three months ago to arrest a former Serbian commander wanted in association with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
Satisfied the living room was clear, he moved through the hallway and checked the bathroom, sweeping aside the drawn bathtub curtain to find a dry, empty tub. The window was closed and the lock was snapped tight.
Braun pulled a digital camera out of his jacket pocket and took a picture of the bathroom. He was beginning to believe that Pavić had escaped, slipping past a well-staffed perimeter of police officers. He had no idea how. But regardless, now was the time for damage control. The photos could be used to recreate the scene.
He shined the flashlight at the sink. Black specks dotted the white porcelain. He pressed the foot pedal on the trash bin. Empty except for a small pile of ash. He took a picture.
In the master bedroom was a perfectly made bed with a flower-printed comforter and matching fluffed pillows. The tactical team hadn’t checked underneath. Braun lifted the corner in a smooth motion. Nothing. He checked the window and swung the closet door open. Empty.
Back to the hallway and through the kitchen to a set of stairs that led to the basement, where Braun heard the tactical team opening and closing cupboards. The stairs spilled out into a large rec room. A sixties’-era bar occupied the corner. Half-empty liquor bottles sat on glass shelves.
He turned to the furnace room, which was apparently Luka Pavić’s workshop. Screwdrivers, pliers, and ratchets hung off hooks on pegboards that covered the walls. Rusty alternators rested on a long table in the middle of the room. On the far side, Braun saw an unlocked gun cabinet holding four rifles. He grabbed a footstool, stood on it, and shined the flashlight into the muzzle of each rifle. Three were clean. One still had some copper fouling on the edge. The gun used to shoot Jurica, Braun assumed.
He dragged the light along the ceiling panels. Nothing out of the ordinary. He sighed. He’d tracked dozens of war criminals over the past five years. Some of them came peacefully, relieved that the years of hiding and looking over their shoulders were finally over. Some put up a fight, forcing Braun to navigate through booby-trapped houses. A former Muslim commander hid in a tree while Braun searched his house for eight hours.
But no one had ever vanished.
The lights flickered on. Power was reconnected.
A cold draft on his skin caught his attention. It was coming from somewhere in the workshop. The gun cabinet. He moved closer. It looked as though its hangers were coming loose from the wall. He ran his hands along the edge. Frigid gusts of wind blew through the gap between the cabinet and the concrete wall.
“He just plain vanished,” a voice behind him said. Kostick stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“People don’t vanish. Come here and help me with this.”
Kostick grabbed an end of the cabinet. They counted to three and lifted the cabinet off its hooks, but it was still attached to the wall. They grunted from holding the weight of the metal cabinet and four rifles. Braun felt blindly around the bottom. His fingers found a metal anchor connecting the back panel to the wall. Another count to three and they yanked the cabinet free, the momentum tipping it over. It clattered onto the floor.
But neither of them noticed.
Instead, they stared at the two-by-two tunnel behind the cabinet, cut through the foundation. Braun poked his head inside and turned the flashlight on. Timbers secured the ceiling every three feet. He couldn’t see the end.
“He dug this thing out in twelve hours?” Kostick said.
Braun shook his head. The floor was clean, with nothing but a thin film of dust coating the workshop. Blue pipes ran along the tunnel’s edges, diverting moisture away from the house. The tunnel had been made methodically.
But where did it lead?
Braun took his coat off and folded it over the table. He put the flashlight in his teeth and reached into the tunnel, grabbing the first square of timbers and pulling himself inside. The frozen soil on the tunnel floor melted un
derneath the warmth of Braun’s torso, soaking his shirt.
A clump of soil collapsed onto his back with a thud that stunned him. Braun sped up, dragging himself along the rough gravel-and-ice floor. Another chunk of soil fell in front of him, and he desperately pawed it to the sides. He pulled himself forward again with fingers that had lost all sensation from the cold until he found a hard cylinder. A hole was chipped through the concrete slab.
Gripping the edges of the hole, he pulled himself through, tipping over and falling down several feet. He crashed face-first into the wet concrete floor.
He sat down, wiped dirt from his eyes, and rubbed his glasses clean with his shirt. He felt the rounded walls, then found his flashlight in a puddle of water. He was inside a concrete tube.
A storm sewer.
He removed his glasses and rubbed his face. He thought of Nicole, and the phone call he’d have to make. He could feel her disappointment. She’d see him as weak, ineffective. And she’d be right.
Luka Pavić had escaped.
Part 2
The Hunt
15
Zagreb, Croatia
By the time the jet began descending into Zagreb International Airport, Luka had already dampened his anxiety with three vodkas and a Karlovačko beer. He gazed out the window, past the overweight German businessman who fumbled to clip his seatbelt. Through streaks of clouds, he saw the rolling green hills of the Zagorje region of Croatia. He felt surprisingly little; the sight of his homeland didn’t stir his emotions the way he often fantasized it would. Could he even call it home anymore?
The plane taxied to the gate, and the passengers deplaned. Luka took a duffel bag from the overhead compartment, stuffed with two pairs of slacks, three shirts, and a pair of jeans. Two additional passports were tucked into the lining. He brushed the sleeves of his suit. He needed to look respectable, like an honest man on an urgent trip back home.
He flashed a smile at the flight attendants as he walked past them and out the plane door. Stopping at the top of the stairs, he took in a deep breath. The air was warm and thick. Grey clouds heavy with rain gathered overhead.
He grabbed the railing and took the first step down towards the tarmac before stopping. Two border control officers, pistols holstered on their belts, stood in front of the stairs, each holding a printout. They glanced at each passenger.
He held his breath and walked down the stairs, conscious to maintain a steady pace. Too fast and they might think he was trying to run, too slow and they would get a good look at him. Assuming they were holding his picture.
Luka hoped he had at least an eight-hour head start on the police. But that was wishful thinking. The Winnipeg Police could have barged in only minutes after he escaped. The one reassurance he had was the news report he saw while waiting for his flight in London, which made no mention of his escape. What transpired while he flew over Europe, he didn’t know.
The officers didn’t react as he approached. They seemed to be glancing more at his carry-on than his face, likely on the lookout for drugs. Luka gave them a courteous nod as he walked by.
He stood in the line marked “Croatian Passports” and waited for the customs officer to wave him over. The man watched Luka approach. If an alert had been sent to all major border crossings about a fugitive war criminal, then it was over. Everything depended on when the police in Winnipeg decided to enter the house and the lag it took for a warning to be sent out.
He slid the passport through the metal slot to the officer behind the bulletproof glass. He hadn’t used it in almost a decade. He’d bent the pages back and forth on the flight to give it the appearance of some wear and tear.
The officer flipped through the pages once, furrowed his brow, and then flipped through them a second time, more slowly. He stared at the photo identifying him as Ilija Srna, born October 14, 1972, in Zagreb. This was one of the passports Tomislav had given him in Split.
The officer didn’t look up. “You haven’t traveled much.”
Luka swallowed, trying to wash down the paranoia that was suffocating him. “I’ve been in Canada. Working. Haven’t really had a chance to travel.”
“Do you have a Canadian passport?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re using your Croatian one today because you thought it would be easier.”
“I use my Canadian passport for vacations to America for the same reason,” he lied.
“What brings you back now?” The officer now looked up and stared at Luka. His face didn’t show any flicker of recognition.
“My father is sick with dementia. I wanted to see him before he forgets everything.”
“How long will you be staying?”
“A week, maybe two.”
The officer nodded and rocked the stamp on the inkpad.
“You should get your passport renewed while you’re here. It expires in six months.”
The officer pounded the stamp onto the page.
“Welcome home.”
16
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him,” Goran repeated, waving his finger. “You can never trust a man with no family.”
Sara only shook her head. She didn’t want to remind her father that he and Branko had immediately hit it off the first day they’d met, playing bocce in the backyard and drinking Goran’s homemade wine until neither could stand. Since then, they had played cards three or four times a week over beers, discussing politics and soccer. If her father ever had any suspicions of Branko’s true identity, that would mean he was an expert at deception. But he wasn’t.
It was 7:00 a.m., and they sat on a bench in the downtown police station’s main office. Natalie slept motionless across Goran’s and Sara’s laps, keeping them stuck to the bench, which meant no matter how much her father discussed his theories, she couldn’t get up. A constable had brought her stale coffee in a Styrofoam cup, clumps of creamer floating in it. It was just about the only thing keeping her awake.
The police had cordoned off the house, allowing time for the forensic team to scour it for clues that could lead to Branko. Her plan was to check into a hotel for the night, but the police insisted she come to the station for questioning. Two hours had passed, and the only question she’d been asked was whether she wanted cream and sugar.
Her father put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Sara. I’ll be here to help you with Natalie.”
“She still has a father,” Sara said.
Her father hesitated. “She doesn’t even know his real name.”
Those little waves inside her rose like a tidal wave before crashing down. At first the emotions came out as whimpers, and once the tears started she couldn’t stop. She put her face in her palms and hunched forward.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?”
Sara wiped her eyes and lifted Natalie onto her lap.
“Mommy’s just tired, sweetheart. Do you want to sleep a little more?”
She stretched her arm up high and shook her head. “I’m thirsty.”
Goran jumped up immediately and walked to the vending machine down the hallway.
“Are we going home today?”
“I think so.”
“Is Daddy going to be there too?”
“We’ll see, princess.” Sara smiled at that. Natalie didn’t know his real name, but he was Daddy to her.
“Did you check your email?”
Sara shook her head. “Not today. Why?”
“Oh. Daddy said you should check your email.”
“When did he say this?”
“Today. He said that he wanted you to check your email.”
Sara tightened her grip around Natalie’s waist. “Today? Did he say he wanted me to check my email today?”
Natalie nodded.
Sara looked across the room to four desks with computers, all turned off. Her heart lightened. Had he sent her a message?
She saw an officer spreading peanut butter on toast in a small kitchenette in the far corner and walked over.
“Excuse me, I was wondering if I could use one of the computers for just a minute to check my email?”
The young police officer turned around, flustered. “Um, the computers are only for workers.”
“It will just take a second. I promise.”
He hesitated and then put his toast down. She followed him to the computer and he logged her in. He offered her the chair and stood behind her, watching over her shoulder.
Sara turned around and said in the sweetest tone she could muster, “Thank you.”
He took that as his cue to leave, walking back to the kitchenette and picking up his toast. She needed to check her email before he returned, in case Branko had sent one.
Over the monitor she saw the German officer she had met in the car walk into the kitchenette. He spoke to the junior officer and pointed towards her.
She logged into her email and waited for the page to load.
She looked up at the German. He had changed into new clothes: a sleek grey suit with a light pink tie. She didn’t trust him. Despite his controlled mannerisms, he’d seemed desperate to find Branko. Beneath the surface of his distant “just doing my job, ma’am” attitude, she sensed the cardinal sign of a dangerous man: entitled anger.
The inbox opened and she scrolled through it. Fourteen new messages. Ten were junk, advertising sales at Winners, The Gap, and The Bay. Four were from friends, but she didn’t have time to look through them, although she guessed from their subject lines—Anything I can do to help and I’m so sorry—that they were related to what had happened.
Nothing from Branko.
Movement caught her attention. The German was walking towards her.
She clicked on the junk folder. Nothing from Branko. Why did he want her to check her email?
A “1” was circled next to her drafts folder, and she clicked on it. The email was composed at 14:35 a day ago. In the corner of her eye, she saw the German still making his way towards her.