Indicted

by Tom Saric

  28

  Robert Braun watched Boško leave the café, escorted by another guard all in black. They turned right and walked past the outdoor market towards an idle BMW on Kralja Zvonimirova Ulica.

  Braun stood up straight and rubbed his chin. His first thought was that Pavić had somehow eluded him again. But a moment later, the tinted glass door swung open, and the Pavić brothers stepped out.

  Braun unclipped the Sig Sauer holstered under his jacket and tried to collect his thoughts. The possibility that Pavić was innocent pulsated in his mind, then he reminded himself that the murdered people in Nisko were the innocents. Even though he wondered if Pavić was wrongly accused, he couldn’t be sure. He had no concrete evidence, and he couldn’t risk losing Pavić again. He had already taken too many risks on this case, and this was the closest he’d come to the fugitive.

  As he stepped forward, he felt a stiff hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and was immediately caught on the chin by a fist. Braun fell backwards, catching himself on his elbow. A wet, metallic taste filled his mouth. He looked up and saw the guard he had knocked out earlier standing over him, his nose crooked and dripping blood.

  The guard kicked him in the side. The air emptied out of his lungs and he heard his ribs crackle. He turned over on his backside, gasping for air. Pain radiated through his chest with each breath. He looked up, and the guard raised his foot, shooting his heel into Braun’s face and knocking his head onto the concrete.

  His vision tunneled and he strained to regain focus. But the foot came down again, this time on his chest.

  Braun realized that the guard wasn’t going to stop. And Pavić was getting away. He reached in his jacket and removed the gun.

  At the sight of the weapon, the guard instantly stepped back and raised his hands. A small crowd had gathered, watching the fight. Braun spit a mouthful of blood onto the ground, then stood up and pushed through the crowd, scanning the street ahead. Cars crawled through the congested intersection, beeping at pedestrians who tried to cross in between the stop-and-go traffic. He spotted the Pavić brothers about two hundred yards away, walking up the hill towards Trpimirova Ulica. Braun broke into a sprint, only to have to stop after a few strides to catch his breath and ease the shooting pain in his ribs.

  He continued walking towards them, wincing as he pushed himself to move through the soreness. Pavić was crossing the intersection, edging between car bumpers. Braun picked up his pace, reaching the intersection as Pavić moved up Trpimirova Ulica.

  A man wearing an overcoat stood in front of a 1980s puke-green Mercedes parked in front of a pharmacy. He waved them over and handed them a set of keys as he talked to them, hands waving, pointing in several directions.

  Traffic was moving past, but Braun only had a few seconds before the Pavićs would get in the car and drive away. He stepped into the intersection, holding his hand out. Tires squealed around him. A yellow Golf skidded to a stop less than an inch from his kneecap. The driver rolled down the window, screaming. Braun kept walking to the second lane, his hand still out. He heard a horn and more rubber screeching against cobblestone.

  He slipped past another car and looked up the street. Nikola was in the car, and Luka was walking to the passenger side. The man who had handed them the keys walked away from the car. Quickly.

  Too quickly.

  The man looked over his shoulder towards the car and then scooted behind a corner.

  A trickle of cold tracked down Braun’s neck. His pulse pounded. Something was wrong with the car. Pavić had the passenger door open, his foot inside. Braun sprinted towards the car, unaware of the pain in his ribs. He pulled the Sig Sauer out of the holster, holding it outstretched, pointed at the car.

  “Step away from the car, Luka!”

  Pavić stopped and stared.

  He was twenty feet away. Nikola waved for Luka to get in.

  “Don’t get in. Nikola, get out.”

  Nikola didn’t stop waving. Luka stood stunned.

  Braun saw Nikola put the key into the ignition. He ran around the car, gun pointed at Luka.

  Nikola turned the key.

  Braun lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into Luka’s midsection. As Luka tried to swivel out of the way, Braun wrapped his arms around his waist and pushed him across the street, where they collapsed on the sidewalk.

  A cloud of silver expanded underneath the car’s chassis, turning into orange flames as it spread. Like the swipe of a giant paw, scorching hot air threw Braun against the wall of the bakery a few feet away. The hood shot off the car, fluttering twenty feet into the air. Windows shattered, sending shards sprinkling against the cobblestone street. The explosion settled into flames raging along the jagged edges of the car’s twisted and charred frame. Black smoke billowed out of the roof. The pharmacy’s front window had spiderwebbed, and the smell of melted plastic and bleach filled the air.

  Braun’s ears rang. Car alarms beeped and a woman shrieked. He heard footsteps all around, along with fire sizzling and metal debris crashing on the street. It all sounded muted, distant.

  29

  Braun didn’t look inside the car. He’d seen charred remains before. Images like this sear into memory and never let go. It wasn’t the blackness of the bodies that made them look less human. It was the heat that pulled skin taut, leaving the dead with terror etched on their faces.

  But Luka Pavić was looking at his dead brother. He lay on his back, propped up on his elbows, his eyes wide with fear. His mouth moved but released no sound. He was oblivious to the blood dripping from a gash on his scalp.

  Braun sat up and examined his own body. Aside from grey powder coating his suit, he didn’t see any damage. He ran his hand over his head and neck and checked his palm. No blood.

  A young man wearing an apron approached Pavić and knelt down. He touched him on the shoulder and spoke, but Braun couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears. The young man pointed at Pavić’s head, and it was clear he was trying to see the extent of the damage.

  Pavić looked at the man, expressionless, as though he were speaking a foreign language. Then he slowly turned his head towards Braun and they looked at each other, neither of them moving. Pavić seemed confused. Braun had just saved his life, yet he knew who Luka was and had chased him down with a gun. Braun could almost read Luka’s mind: could he trust him? Braun sat, waiting, hoping that Pavić realized it was over.

  Then Pavić jumped up and broke into a sprint, running uphill on Trpimirova, showing no signs of injury.

  Braun scrambled for his gun, spotting it lying by the curb fifteen feet downhill. He got up, limped down the street, and picked it up.

  Turning, he saw Pavić sprinting at the end of the street. Braun felt a rush of adrenaline kick in, and he pushed forward.

  The people that had crowded around were yelling at him to come back. A few of them were on their mobile phones. They had just witnessed a car bomb, the two men closest to the explosion were running away, and one of them had a gun. No one was going to run after them, but when the police arrived, at least a dozen witnesses would be able to give clear descriptions of them. Braun doubted there was CCTV in the area, but with the number of people around, it wouldn’t be necessary.

  Braun kept running, focused. He was close to Pavić now, and had only seconds before the police arrived, minutes before they caught Pavić. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to talk to Pavić, alone.

  The explosion changed things. Someone wanted Pavić dead, and Braun had to find out why. If he let the police take him, Pavić would clam up; he’d only communicate through a lawyer, and the story would be suppressed. Whoever was behind this was willing to kill indiscriminately to keep Pavić quiet. Even if Pavić was jailed, they could find a way to silence him.

  Sirens approached, and a moment later two police motorcycles whizzed past, blue lights flashing, driving towards the explosion. Braun stopped at the next intersection, which was midway up a hill.

  He looked to his le
ft, where the street steeply ascended the hill. Cars lined both sides and a few people were walking up the street, but someone of Pavić’s size couldn’t easily run up that hill.

  To his right, down the hill, the street was more congested, descending towards The Riva. In the crowd, he glimpsed a figure jogging tiredly downhill before he ducked underneath the red parasols of the outdoor market.

  It was a smart move, Braun thought. In a crowded place with overhead cover, Pavić would be able to get some separation. Once he entered the labyrinth of alleyways inside the old town of Split, he’d be impossible to find.

  Braun sped up, lengthening his stride, and made his way down the hill.

  He scanned the market. The crowd was thinning; people were likely worried about further blasts, but others were still buying vegetables out of crates or picking flower bouquets as though nothing had happened. The market had four main exit points. The first was where Braun was standing. The second was along Zagrebacka Ulica, which was near the blast site. Pavić wouldn’t go there, it was likely crawling with police by now. Which left an exit at the back of the market leading to a quiet street, but that would leave Pavić exposed. Last was the entrance to Diocletian’s Palace in old town, where he could only be pursued on foot.

  Braun headed for the stone entrance. He holstered his weapon, unable to risk drawing more attention to himself. Entering Diocletian’s Palace would leave them trapped if the police cordoned off the exits, but that required the police recognizing that he and Luka had actually entered. They were likely still preoccupied with the blast.

  As he walked beside the stone wall to the entrance, he saw a streak of red smeared on the white brick. Braun lightly touched it and looked at his finger. It was wet.

  Inside the walls of old town Split, dozens of buildings were crowded together, creating a network of alleyways. Pavić could have gone in any one of a dozen directions.

  But Pavić had gone straight ahead. Braun saw him laboring through the recessed square, surrounded by stairs where young men and women sat smoking. Pavić turned, walking between an archway made by two tall columns into what was the centerpiece of Split, the Cathedral of Saint Duje. It was the worst place Pavić could have chosen to hide. Only two entrances, and silent inside.

  Braun walked up a set of marble stairs and through an iron gate to the cathedral’s entrance. A sign hung on the door requesting no flash photography in six languages. No one was manning the entrance, and the door was open.

  Although he’d been in Split over a dozen times, Braun had never been inside the cathedral. The click of his heels echoed off the walls. He heard a muffled scratching and cocked his head to the side, realizing that the sound wasn’t a scratch but a whisper.

  Braun tiptoed closer to the sound, stopping and listening every couple of steps, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The pews on either side were empty. Tea lights flickered on the altar. A hallway to the right of the altar led to a set of stairs.

  He turned around, then spotted the source of the sound. A cube-shaped chestnut structure stood in the corner behind the pulpits, crosses carved into the wood. A screen divided the box in two, and there were two entrances, each with a mauve curtain. The curtain was drawn on one side, and he saw shoes sticking out of the bottom.

  Luka Pavić was giving confession.

  Braun felt relieved that he’d found Pavić. He’d won the cat-and-mouse game. At this point, he would normally draw his gun, sweep the curtain back, and tell the suspect to interlace his fingers behind his head. His voice would have a steady, even, disconnected tone.

  But this time, he took a different route, one that made his fingers tremble and his mouth parched. He stepped towards the other side of the screen, pulled back the curtain, and sat down on the bench.

  The inside was dark, with only a small amount of sunlight shining down from the windows above the confessional. Pavić’s features were obscured in shadow, but through the screen, Braun saw the outline of his head resting against his interlaced fingers as he hypnotically recited the Hail Mary.

  When he wanted a confession from a suspect, Braun would force it out. He would make them sit and he would wait, paying attention to their body position, their eye contact, and their choice of words, and when their unconscious mind betrayed their lies, he would pounce. But he let Pavić sit, listening as the words flowed out. To a Catholic, the confessional was the safest place in the world. The notion that lived in Pavić’s mind that all wrongdoing could be wiped clean by being honest inside a wooden box was now Braun’s greatest weapon.

  Pavić hadn’t seemed to notice him slip inside, so Braun cleared his throat.

  Pavić stopped praying and looked up at him through the screen. Aware that Pavić might recognize that he wasn’t a priest, Braun immediately put his head down, trying to appear pensive.

  “Father, is that you?”

  “Yes.” Braun racked his brain, trying to remember what priests said in confessionals; the last time he had given confession, he’d been six. “My son, what brings you here?”

  He heard Pavić exhale hard through his nose. “I am here to confess.”

  “You have sinned, my son?”

  Braun didn’t look up immediately, as he expected Pavić to say something. A long moment passed, and he finally glanced up. Pavić was looking through the screen. His eyes lacked the sharp, engulfing quality he had seen in the eyes of guilty men. There was no shadow of defiance or pride. There was no weakness to protect. But his stare wasn’t soft either. It was open, naked, as though he had slipped off an invisible mask and sat unprotected and unafraid.

  Braun had not seen this look before, and it sent a chill sweeping down his neck like a cold draft. Even though Pavić looked exposed, Braun was the one who felt unsettled. Tension filled the little cubicle, which became tight and suffocating. He felt sure Pavić was going to confess to a crime, shed some light on what had happened. But he didn’t.

  “I have not,” Pavić said.

  Braun looked at him, puzzled. “But you have come for confession.”

  “I’m not here to confess to a sin I’ve committed. I’m here to confess to a murder I’m going to commit.”

  Braun slid his hand under his coat and rested it on the cool plastic butt of his gun.

  “Who are you going to kill?” Braun said, cringing as he realized how un-priestly he sounded.

  “A man who betrayed me and killed my brother.” He sounded disconnected, emotionless. “I am going to find him, torture him for information, and then kill him.”

  “How has he betrayed you?”

  “He said he was going to help me, and then he set a trap. I escaped, but my brother didn’t.” Pavić’s head slumped forward as though he’d been hit from behind. His shoulders shook as he sobbed.

  “I am sorry,” Braun said, softening. “Why did the man want to kill you?”

  Pavić gathered himself with several deep breaths, then sat up, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know, Father. I must know something that I’m not aware of.”

  “They want to silence you?”

  “I believe so.”

  Braun felt a closeness with Pavić, an intimacy. Pavić felt safe. Whatever he asked, Pavić would answer.

  “Have you killed before?”

  “A few days ago, I killed a man.”

  “You feel guilty about it.”

  “No,” Pavić said abruptly. “Father, it was in self-defense. The man had come to kill me and my family. I had to kill him.”

  “Were there other murders?” Braun asked, his voice soft, understanding, gently peeling back the layers.

  “I’m not sure I can be forgiven.”

  Braun sensed the truth was close, his fingertips brushing against it. He felt an impending sense of triumph. He managed to lie: “All can be forgiven.”

  “I’ve been lying to everyone: my wife, my friends, my child. No one knows who I am. I even started believing some of the lies. But the truth always seemed to pop up, and I couldn’t push
it away.”

  “You felt like you had to lie?”

  “I had to, but I know that can be forgiven.”

  “Then what troubles you?”

  “I think I caused a little girl to die.”

  “You murdered her?”

  Pavić nodded, then glanced at Braun and nodded again. “Not by my hand. But I could have stopped it. I could have saved her.”

  “How so, my son?”

  “During the war, I entered a house before a battle to make sure the people were cleared out, and found dead bodies inside. While I was there, I found a young girl hiding in a bathroom under a sink. She was scared. So scared she was stiff, not shaking at all. I held her, I told her she would be okay.” He began to cry, then gathered himself. “Then someone attacked us, threw grenades into the house. She ran away.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “She disappeared.”

  “Did she die?”

  “I hope not.”

  “So you didn’t kill her.”

  “Not by my hand.”

  “But you feel responsible?”

  Luka then told him things that weren’t in the file, things that couldn’t be captured by pen and paper. He talked about the dreams of the girl, Natalia, that came every night. He spoke about visits to Nisko, searching for clues to her disappearance.

  Braun listened for a while, realizing that Pavić needed to unburden himself. Before him sat a man who had suffered true pain. Before him sat an innocent man.

  That realization dropped like a weight onto his back. He felt like he was on a seesaw—Nicole and The Hague on one side, himself and Pavić on the other. Even with Pavić’s confession, the case was flimsy. Evidence was the currency of the courts. And if Braun was being honest with himself, a healthy portion of political pressure factored into rulings as well. If Pavić was an innocent man, the true enemy was free.

  “The other people: who killed them?”

  “If you ask the international community, I did.”