by Thomas Ryan
The taxi dropped Leka outside the Reiffesen Bank. He crossed the road and in the dim light picked his way down the small flight of steps that led to the entrance of Edi’s Restaurant. He saw that the smoke-filled cafe and bar was full of locals. No one paid him the slightest attention as he walked between the tables and into the now deserted restaurant section. Gashi sat in the corner.
Leka waved the waiter away. All he wanted was for the meeting to be over quickly and to get back to his bed for a decent night’s sleep. He leaned over the table.
‘What’s so urgent, Osman?’
Gashi displayed no sign of being ruffled at the distinct hostility in Leka’s voice. A slow draw of his cigarette. Swirls of smoke aimed at the ceiling. ‘Bradley and the American woman and Sulla Bogdani went through to Macedonia today.’
With a sigh, Leka deposited himself on a chair. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve dragged me out in the middle of the night to tell me the New Zealander took a woman on a sight-seeing trip? Are you an imbecile or something?’
Gashi took a handful of peanuts from the bowl. A deliberate pause. He began dropping them one by one into his mouth. Small bits of shell spat out the side of his mouth like shrapnel from a hand grenade. Some fell down his shirt front. Leka knew what Gashi was doing. This was a reminder that he was not a meek secretary to be browbeaten. He intended on wrenching respect out of Leka any way he could.
‘All right, Osman. Please tell me why I’m here.’ Leka’s hands spread in mock defeat. He could permit Gashi these little victories. As long as the idiot did what he was told and carried out his tasks.
Gashi tapped the ash from his cigarette and rested it on the ashtray. ‘My men have been following the New Zealander as you requested. He and his companions met someone at the Skopje Holiday Inn. A man in a suit. They went with this man to a cafe where they had discussions for nearly an hour. He showed them several documents. My men could not get close enough to overhear the discussion, but Bogdani seemed to be the centre of attention. He got very upset.’
‘Bogdani?’ Leka’s brows lowered over his eyes. ‘Interesting.’
‘When the meeting was over, I had one of my men trail the man they met with. He went to the US Embassy. He flashed some sort of ID in his wallet and they let him through without a word. Whoever this man is, he has authority with the Americans.’
‘CIA.’ It was a whisper more to himself than to Gashi.
Gashi folded his hands on the table. ‘With the New Zealander involved, this has got to be about that man Shala. But why would the CIA be interested in an insignificant Kosovon businessman? The vineyard scam was only . . . what was it you called it? Oh, that’s right. Peanuts.’
A waiter appeared with an enquiring look at Leka.
‘Bring me a cognac.’
Leka’s fingers drummed on the table top. It helped him think. His habit was always to assume the worst. Shala was dead and he doubted the Americans were investigating his death. Were they on to him? It wasn’t a discussion he wanted to get into with Gashi. The hired thug knew nothing of Avni’s terrorist network and the role played in it by his men. As far as Gashi was concerned, the money he smuggled into Greece en route to Europe was simply a matter of laundering. Leka had carefully built terror into a multi-million dollar industry and he was not about to share the profits with Gashi.
The cognac arrived. Leka downed it in one gulp and ordered another. This caused Gashi to raise an eyebrow. But he said nothing. Noticing his reaction, Leka attempted to disguise a flash of indignation. Then he didn’t. Fuck Gashi. Let him think what he liked.
‘That courier you sent to Greece. Did he know enough to give the police a lead back to you?’
Gashi shrugged.
‘Anything is possible, I suppose. Kosovo is a small country. Men gossip like old women. But that would not explain why they would go to Bradley, or what this has to do with Sulla Bogdani.’
‘I guess we’ll have to wait and see.’
‘There’s more.’
Leka groaned and downed the second cognac. ‘Tomi Mema phoned me tonight. When the three got back to Prishtina, Bradley and the American woman went to see him. They said they had been told Tomi knew Shala had been in prison all along.’
‘What did Tomi tell them?’
‘He denied it of course. Tried to blame it on a mix-up. But Bradley’s not going back to New Zealand. He’s demanded Tomi get the family’s vineyard back. I told him Bradley should be told to go screw himself.’
Gashi grinned at his personal brashness. Leka refused to join the game. He signalled for yet another cognac.
‘Of course you did. You’re a tough man.’
Gashi let the snide remark wash over him. ‘You know what I think? I think this is all a load of bullshit. I think this so-called CIA agent is more interested in Bogdani than Bradley. It has nothing to do with the vineyard scam. And the truth is there is no connection through Bogdani back to either of us.’
Leka considered enlightening Gashi regarding this miscalculation but decided against it.
‘So it doesn’t matter if Bradley knows about Tomi,’ Gashi continued, ‘because now that Shala is dead there is no longer a trail to follow. Eventually it will die away. This New Zealander will grow tired of finding nothing and go home.’
Though Leka nodded in agreement, inwardly he regretted ever having got mixed up with this dumb ox of a man.
33.
Barry sighted Sulla sheltering from the rain in the hotel entrance. He sounded his horn and pulled over. Jumping over puddles Sulla crossed the drive and opened the passenger door.
‘How ya doing, mate? Hop in. It’s gonna be a shitty day with this rain. The traffic will be bloody awful.’
Sulla remained standing outside, hand on the door. ‘It’s still not too late to change your mind.’
‘Come on, Sulla. Get in out of the rain and close the bloody door. And let’s get the hell out of here, eh?’
Sulla did as Barry urged. Barry grimaced at the water dripping from Sulla’s hair onto the upholstery. He reached under his seat, pulled out a towel and tossed it across, then reversed into the street.
It proved difficult for Barry to contain his excitement at the adventure he found himself embarked upon. He wanted to talk, but Sulla wouldn’t cooperate. Several times he tried engaging him in amiable chatter. But Sulla hardly spoke. In the end Barry gave up and concentrated on the road. The rain had reduced to a drizzle, but the potholes had filled, leaving them largely invisible to the eye. Breaking an axle before they made it out of the city loomed as a real possibility. To add to the already difficult driving, great fingers of brownish gunk splashed up onto the windscreen from passing vehicles, which the wiper blades, set to intermittent, struggled to sluice away.
Barry cast another look at Sulla’s face. Then at the distant skyline. ‘Bloody weather. Rain properly, for God’s sake.’
Avni Leka stood beside his desk double-checking the documents his secretary had prepared the day before. In ten minutes he needed to be in the courtroom. It was a simple case that would only bring a pittance compared with the huge sums of illegal money that passed through his hands from his criminal activities. But he approached modest cases such as this in the same pedantic manner he would a major trial. This kind of devotion to detail had given him the reputation for professionalism that had advanced him from a lowly backwoods lawyer to the city’s chief prosecutor. The position allowed him to run his clandestine empire with relative impunity.
When he’d returned to the apartment the previous evening, he saw through the bedroom door that Fatmire was fast asleep. He crept into the spare room and slept in the single bed. If the Americans were coming after him, he needed to be rested and on his toes. Even so, the stimulating mix of coffee, cognac and anxiety decreed he never got the good night’s sleep he craved.
Every small detail Gashi had given him turned over and
over in his head. And he kept coming up with the same answer. It had to be the damned explosives. He could think of nothing else the Americans would have wanted to discuss with Bogdani. He’d paid well to hide the switch that had implicated Bogdani. Bribes at that level of bureaucracy were always more costly than those to the usually penurious local Kosovon judges and defence solicitors. But it was money well spent. It was vital his clients could supply the bombers with the best quality materials and only leave behind paper trails leading to impenetrable brick walls.
Had the Americans somehow linked the property fraud to the explosives? Damn that stupid Gashi and his petty confidence tricks. Sure, the big man knew nothing of his European operations. But any investigation back from Bogdani might not stop where it should, at Gashi. His stupidity could well allow the trail to carry further. For the first time, Leka considered the desirability of removing Gashi from the equation.
The desk phone rang. Leka checked his watch. Five minutes until court. He hesitated and stared at the phone as it continued to ring. With a ‘dammit’ under his breath, he plucked up the hand piece. ‘Avni Leka.’
‘It’s me, Gashi.’
‘What is it now? Give me some good news for a change.’
‘Maybe I can. Bogdani is in a UN vehicle heading west. My men followed. They did not turn off to the airport. They kept straight on.’
‘He’s going to Peje.’
‘So it seems.’
Leka took a moment to think. Why on earth would Sulla risk going back to Peje? Could his father have taken ill? Leka thought it the likeliest reason. It didn’t really matter. A heaven-sent opportunity had been presented to him. It was too good to pass up.
‘All right, Gashi. It’s time to declare open season on Sulla Bogdani. We need to let the KLA know he’s on his way.’
Gashi’s grunt indicated no enthusiasm. ‘I think it better if this information doesn’t come directly from me. I have my own problems with the KLA.’
Leka rolled his eyes. But the statement hadn’t surprised him. Gashi had a habit of creating enemies.
‘Use a second party then. Someone they trust.’ An inspiration arrived. ‘Tomi Mema. He has kept enough of them out of jail. Assure him that if something happens to Bogdani, the New Zealander will lose his nerve and go home. That should prove motivation enough.’
It was with a minor sense of triumph that Leka rang off. Something might be going his way at last.
Blerim Basholli lay back and stared heavenwards. Shadows from the branches of the trees outside his window made improbable shapes across the painted ceiling tiles. He imagined them as demon arms from the netherworld beckoning the souls of the dead. Such thoughts always disturbed him, especially when he knew that after his own death he would face a reckoning. Catholics had it easier. For them a few Hail Marys and all was forgiven. For a Muslim like him things were believed to be considerably less promising.
The digital bedside clock read 9.01 a.m. He had an hour. The phone call from Tomi Mema had taken him by surprise. And the reason for his call left him with a queasy knot in his stomach. He had not spoken to Mema in over a year. But out of the blue he delivers him certain news. Why? What was in it for the lawyer? Mema never did anything for nothing.
Basholli’s hand felt for the prone body of his wife. Through the bedclothes she radiated soft warmth. She stirred but did not wake. He smiled. She could sleep through anything. He scratched his crotch. His morning erection had lost its strength. It could receive no more encouragement from him. He had work to do. Sulla Bogdani was on his way to Peje. In doing so, he was breaking a long understanding between them: as long as Sulla stayed clear of Peje, Basholli would let matters lie.
Legs slid from beneath the blankets. His wife mumbled a half-protest and rolled over. Basholli’s eyes went to her for a moment. But hers stayed closed. He stole away from the bed and found the clothes he had tossed over the back of the chair the previous evening and dressed. Kneeling, he pulled out the bottom drawer of the dresser. Reaching through to the back he withdrew a brown paper package. He took it into the bathroom.
The mirror reflected back at him the hardened face of a man who’d seen much in his life. Had his best friend from the days before the war worn as well? Or as badly? They’d been closer than brothers.
‘Sulla, Sulla, Sulla. Why are you doing this to me?’
His attention turned to the package on the edge of the basin. He unwrapped a pistol and two ammunition clips. He slipped the clips into the inside pocket of his jacket and pushed the loaded pistol into his belt. Another glance at the mirror. A hand across an unruly head of hair. He was ready.
Stepping back into the bedroom he paused a moment and looked down once more at the sleeping form of Sulla’s sister. He hoped that one day she might forgive him for what he was about to do. He never left the house without kissing her awake. Today he would leave her sleeping.
34.
Captain Agim Morina hurried into his office, closed the door and leaned against it. When he was certain no one would disturb him, a pair of fists punched the air like a triumphant boxer. He opened the thick manila envelope and spilled the stack of surveillance photographs onto the desk – photos his men had taken of Gashi’s comings and goings. Useless as straw, most of them, but in their midst was a shiny needle of gold.
A finger ran across the photo of Avni Leka and Osman Gashi in a late night meeting at Edi’s Restaurant. The two men were drinking together and deep in conversation. His decision to have Gashi tailed had finally paid off. He’d found Gashi’s boss, and now had solid evidence before him that the prominent prosecutor was associating with a known thug and criminal.
In and of itself, the photo was of little importance to him. Certainly his surveillance team expressed no particular interest in it. Criminals and lawyers were much of a muchness in their eyes. Miserable police salaries did little to encourage either curiosity or initiative regarding their occasional connivances.
But for Morina, he finally had in his hands the missing piece of a puzzle.
He pulled out a bottle from the second drawer of his filing cabinet and twirled off the cap. When his coffee mug was half full, he sat on the edge of the desk and relished the bite of cognac down his throat. It was so obvious when he thought about it. Leka as chief prosecutor of the Municipal Court controlled the judges and the courtrooms and made the decisions on whether or not indictments lapsed or proceeded. He raised the mug in a mock salute to the man in the photo.
‘A toast to Prishtina’s pre-eminent officer of the courts.’
Turning back to the sheaf of photos, he singled out the gem and slipped it into his briefcase. He’d start putting together a dossier, gleaning as much information and connecting as many dots as he could. He would stash the evidence somewhere in his apartment. That would be much safer than leaving it in his office at the police station.
He might never need to use it. He certainly had no desire to jeopardise his secondary source of income. For the time being, he and his family would continue to enjoy the good life in Kosovo.
Maybe in the future he could use this new information to advance his prospects in significant new directions.
He gave a salute to the portrait of a younger uniformed Morina hanging on the wall.
35.
Arsehole.’
Momentarily blind, Barry decelerated and banged his fist on the dashboard. Another thump, this time onto a control knob and nozzles squirted window washer across the windshield. The offending container truck that had sent a fountain of mud into their path disappeared in the rear-view mirror. The glare from Barry should have singed its tailboard.
The journey had been slow. Trapped behind a KFOR convoy had cost them an hour. The drizzle had become a deluge as if in response to Barry’s earlier cursing of God and Mother Nature and any other deity he deemed responsible for the miserable conditions he found himself driving in. Sulla conti
nued to ignore the world and, in particular, Barry’s attempts to draw him out.
Finally a gap in the passing lane allowed Barry to accelerate into clear road.
Another ten minutes and the rain eased off and some blue sky began to appear. A rainbow straddled the road ahead, framing the snow-capped peaks of the Albanian Alps in the distance.
The outskirts of Peje drew close.
Sulla came alert. ‘Okay, Barry, this is it.’
‘Sulla, mate. I thought you were still on walkabout.’
A frown crossed Sulla’s face. ‘But I have not left the vehicle.’
‘No. A walkabout is . . . Forget it. You had better cover up or the whole bloody place will know you’re here.’
Sulla leaned against the door, shielding his face with his hand. The huge mountains towering over the town were as picturesque as they were entrapping. The only way out for them now was the way they’d just come in.
‘Flies into the fly trap,’ Barry muttered.
‘What?’
‘Never mind. Nothing you don’t already know, mate.’
Sulla guided Barry through a labyrinth of back streets until they reached the corner of a cul-de-sac. He pointed to a spot in front of a closed butcher’s shop. ‘There. Pull in front of the house with the green iron gate.’
‘Got it.’
The tendrils of a creeper vine with white and pink flowers covered the two-metre-high red-brick wall. Although the peeling gate was wide enough for a vehicle, thick vines had wound round its cast iron hinges and it appeared not to have opened for some time. Entry was through a small door set into the centre. Through the drooping branches of a willow tree on the other side of the wall, Barry could just make out the upper floor of Sulla’s father’s house.
‘What now?’
‘Now we wait and watch.’
‘But no one knows we are here.’