by Tom Wood
‘The Varangian Guard were mercenaries,’ Victor said. ‘They were only loyal because that loyalty was bought with gold.’
‘They were mercenaries, yes,’ Rados agreed. ‘And loyalty, like any other commodity, comes with a price tag. But my own Varangians are loyal to me not just because I pay them, but out of love. They love me and believe I love them in return. They want wealth, which I provide, but they need love, as all do. And where else could they find that which they need? Because who could ever truly love a monster, but another monster?’
Victor said nothing for a moment, then, ‘You’re putting a lot of faith in me.’
Rados shook his head. ‘I don’t deal with faith, I deal with the odds, like you do. And with you at the exchange I stack the odds in my favour. You can help ensure everything goes well and I walk out of there in one piece.’
Not if I can help it, Victor thought.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Something was going on, she realised. She had been woken by lots of noise – voices, movement – but she knew to stay in her room and not to investigate. Surviving meant not being noticed, not causing trouble.
Yet somehow she had to get information. She had to find out anything that could be of use to the man who would help her get out of this place. She had to find out something pertinent about Rados – where he was, where he would be, or who would know.
It was difficult when she only had the other captive women to talk to, most of whom seemed to know less than she did. Rados’ men just ordered her around – do this, go there, get ready, clean up – and nothing more. But she listened whenever she could, paying attention to every word exchanged between them. They assumed she only knew a few words of Serbian. They underestimated what she knew and what she was prepared to do.
When the noise quietened, she showered in the communal bathroom and dressed. None of the other girls were in sight when she emerged, but in the kitchen she found the awkward young man with acne.
He was more of a caretaker than a guard, doing menial tasks like changing light bulbs, cooking and cleaning. He didn’t talk much, even to Zoca and the other men, doing whatever they told him without argument or complaint. He didn’t speak to her or the other women unless he had to. He never tried to make conversation.
He avoided eye contact when she entered. She saw that he was different to the other men, not yet as cruel as them. She still disliked him as she did the others, because even if he was not as bad as they were, he aspired to be. For now, though, he had some semblance of decency, he was still weak and immature. And that could help her.
She had an idea.
She set about making herself instant coffee, filling a kettle with water and setting it on the stove. She waited for it to boil and its whistle to sound, then poured some into the waiting mug and then splashed some on her hand.
‘Ow,’ she cried out.
She cursed and grimaced and rubbed at her hand, examining the patch of skin that stood out bright red and scalded.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘No, I burnt myself.’
‘Run it under the cold tap.’
She hurried to the sink and held her hand under the stream of water, icy and soothing.
‘Better?’ he asked.
‘Not really.’
‘I’ll get the first aid kit,’ he said.
Pleased, albeit in pain, she sat on one of the uncomfortable sofas while he fumbled with the first aid kit and applied some balm to her hand, before applying a strip of bandage. Unnecessary, but she let him. His hands were shaking.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘No problem.’
She glanced around. ‘Where is everyone today? It’s so quiet.’
He shrugged again. ‘I don’t know.’
‘They don’t tell you?’
She made sure there was a hint of condescension in her tone, mingled with surprise. She wanted him defensive, but not angry.
‘They do tell me stuff,’ he replied, indignant.
‘Like what?’
He hesitated.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘They don’t tell me anything either.’
This made him think, she saw, and doubt himself. He didn’t want to be on the same level as she was – at the bottom – when he aspired to be one of the gangsters.
After a pause, he said, ‘There’s a deal happening. It’s important.’
She made sure to look impressed, but only so it would have more effect when she added, ‘They didn’t take you?’
He said nothing.
She asked, ‘Has the new guy gone to the deal?’
He was about to say something but nodded instead, eyes cast meekly downward.
‘Why did they take him but not you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled.
She saw this lack of knowledge made him all too aware of his status at the bottom of the pack hierarchy. His shoulders slumped because she had built him up only to bring him back down again.
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘they need you to stay here and run the place.’
He glanced up at her, buoyed by this inescapable logic and the compliment it bestowed. ‘That’s right.’
‘It’s an important job.’
He nodded. ‘It is. Very important. More important than helping move the new girls, anyway.’
‘They must trust you a lot to be in charge.’
He showed a shy smile. She had him almost where she wanted him. ‘They’ve taken all the new girls to the deal? Apart from me, I mean.’
He shook his head. ‘Only three.’
She thought. There had been seven at the scrap yard including her. One had been killed and one had her nose broken, meaning she couldn’t be sold on, but that left one girl unaccounted for.
‘Where’s the last girl then?’
He shrugged. He didn’t want to say. She didn’t know why.
She changed the subject to keep him on her side: ‘What do you think of the new guy?’
‘I haven’t really spoken to him. He’s a Hungarian.’
‘What do the others think of him?’
His eyes glimmered again and his back straightened, because he realised or remembered something that elevated him. ‘They only took him because they don’t trust him.’
‘How do you know that?’
He shrugged like it was nothing, like he knew everything. ‘Zoca told me.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘The Hungarian is being watched.’
‘What does that mean?’
He felt powerful now with his privileged information, and was happy to share it to prove that power, not stopping to think about why she was asking.
‘He’s being followed, to find out more about him. If there is anything about him that isn’t right, then they’ll kill him.’
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Zoca doesn’t like him,’ the kid was in a hurry to add, to maintain his power trip. ‘He hopes there is something untrustworthy about the Hungarian. He told me that —’
He stopped, catching himself in what he was doing: revealing information about his superiors to a prisoner. He didn’t look pleased with himself now, but nervous.
She made a show of examining her bandaged hand, acting as though she hadn’t been paying attention to him. ‘Thank you for helping me. It feels much better now.’
‘That’s okay.’ He chewed his lip. ‘Don’t tell anyone what I told you.’
‘What do you mean? What have you told me?’
‘About the Hungarian. About Zoca.’
She smiled, feigning innocence. ‘You can trust me.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
They left at dawn in a motorcade of three vehicles: two Range Rovers and a minivan. Victor rode in the front Range Rover, again in the passenger seat, with Rados and two of his men in the back and another driving. He wasn’t sure if this was a trust thing or because he was new – maybe to Rados and his crew sitting in the front was not an honour, it was not t
o be coveted. In the minivan were the shipment of women, driven by Zoca, demoted and ignored by Rados. Which seemed a dangerous miscalculation to Victor. He had known men like Zoca in the past – men whose pride remained scarred long after their physical wounds had healed. Men who let nothing go. Men who would wait and plot and keep their anger hot and ready to erupt long after their tormenters believed them dormant.
Rados was taking a show of force. In the second Range Rover were another four of his most experienced men – his Varangian Guard. They were focused, as good soldiers should be on a mission, but they were also pumped up and excited. This was proper work with a frisson of danger, a thrill impossible to replicate, pure and strong.
They drove out of the city and deep into the forests of northern Serbia. No one spoke. The radio stayed silent. The sun had risen high by the time the motorcade pulled over on a dirt track surrounded by endless trees.
The Range Rovers came to a stop and the Varangians jumped down on to the track. Victor did the same while Rados sat alone on the back seat.
The seven Varangians assembled at the back of the lead vehicle to be handed weapons from large canvas bags – AKs and Skorpion sub-machine guns – by the driver, who clearly doubled as Rados’ quartermaster. No one asked for a specific gun or complained or swapped the one they were given. Ammunition was handed out next and they stuffed magazines into pockets and waistbands.
The quartermaster turned to Victor and handed him a .45 calibre Colt handgun and a spare magazine.
‘I feel left out,’ he said.
The quartermaster didn’t react.
Victor checked the weapon. It was marked and scratched from a long life of use, but the action was good and strong. He unloaded the weapon and peered into the chamber and along the barrel. It hadn’t been cleaned in a while but he didn’t expect problems from the weapon. Colts were simple and effective. Accuracy, effective range, recoil, rate of fire and stopping power were all important, of course, but reliability was the trait Victor valued most. In the field, it wasn’t always possible to regularly clean a weapon.
Both magazines were preloaded. Victor always preferred to do such things himself. There was something soothing about loading magazines. The repetitive nature of snapping ammunition into place, one bullet after the next, was a reminder of cause and effect and the value of proper preparation. A gun might malfunction or the shot might miss its target, but without bullets in the magazine the weapon was useless.
It was more than purely soothing though because any issue would likely come from the magazine. The first one was a little dusty – both the outside of the magazine and the top bullet were coated with a thin layer of dust, suggesting it had been stored loaded. That could be a problem. The constant tension on the spring weakened it and could lead to a malfunction when it failed to push new rounds up far enough into the chamber.
The spare magazine was the same. The quartermaster saw him examining it and a frown appeared.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing.’
The Varangians hadn’t examined their weapons and magazines as Victor had. At most they’d made do with a cursory inspection. That was part laziness, part lack of training, but mostly because the Kalashnikov was among the most reliable automatic weapons ever made. It was a marvel of mechanical engineering even if it shouldn’t be. By some standards it was thrown together. Constructed with a lack of precision, its accuracy and effective range were poor by the standard of its contemporaries, but that same lack of precision meant its parts still worked caked in grease or mud or sand or sand or snow and even underwater. Some weapons went an entire war without being cleaned and still worked as they should by the end of it.
He watched Zoca approach to collect a weapon from the quartermaster. Some of the swelling had gone down, but his eyes were black with bruising, hidden from a casual glance by sunglasses – but Victor’s scrutiny, though fleeting, wasn’t casual.
From behind those sunglasses, Zoca’s gaze evaluated him. ‘You look nervous.’
‘We think we’re good at reading each other,’ Victor replied. ‘But more often than not we are in fact projecting our own feelings and mistaking self-awareness for perception.’
Zoca frowned. ‘What?’
Victor said, ‘Exactly.’
He watched Rados climb out of the lead Range Rover and gesture for him to come over. Victor, gun in hand, approached his target, reminding himself the whole time about the former paramilitaries with automatic weapons behind him.
Rados said, ‘The forests here are lush and green. The trees are tall and strong. Their leaves are very bright. Do you know why?’
Victor shook his head.
‘It’s the soil,’ Rados explained. ‘It’s very rich and nutritious. It feeds the forest, letting it grow strong. This has happened in recent times. Why do you think the soil has so many nutrients? Where did they come from?’
Playing ignorant now would be akin to pretending to be stupid. Either Rados would believe it, which was unlikely, else he would see through the deception. Since neither result would help Victor’s objective, he said, ‘The bodies buried in the soil. That’s why the trees have become so strong. They’ve been feeding on decomposed corpses.’
Rados smiled. ‘Exactly, like fertiliser. The trees have grown stronger because of the war. Death is good for life. It’s always been this way.’
Victor remained silent. Rados was not just psychopathic. He was maniacal. Which made the job more difficult by an exponential degree. Victor was adept at predicting the actions of the intelligent and sane. It was a different story if the individual didn’t think like a regular person. Predicting Rados’ actions would therefore involve a significant element of guesswork. The Serb was intelligent and human, so to an extent he ought to be predictable. But his psychosis was an unquantifiable problem. Victor couldn’t think like him, so he couldn’t imagine what Rados would do in any given circumstance. Luring him into an orchestrated situation might work, or might fail for some inexplicable reason. Victor would have to revise his strategy accordingly. He would have to be prepared to improvise and perhaps act in an opportunistic, unplanned, manner. He had never liked doing so, even when there was no choice. Against a well-defended target like Rados, it was a daunting prospect.
He reminded himself that Rados’ unpredictable behaviour might create a situation that he could not have imagined, and that could be a benefit as well as a hindrance. For now, there was no time pressure. He had figured it would be necessary to devote a week or two at least to building up an exploitable relationship. That was still in progress.
Rados called to Zoca, ‘Bring the women.’
A minute later Zoca did. Victor recognised three of the women he had seen taken from the truck at the scrap yard and locked in containers.
‘Come,’ Rados said, and Zoca and the women followed him, as did Victor and one of the Varangians. The others stayed by the vehicles.
As they moved off, Victor had a clear line of sight on his target. It was tempting, but his hand was stayed by the fact he was armed with a pistol with only fourteen rounds maximum – assuming both magazines made it through without misfiring.
‘You look pensive,’ Rados noted, once more demonstrating his uncanny ability to read Victor.
He nodded – he didn’t want to risk being trapped in a lie when his whole reason for being here was a lie – and held up the Colt. ‘I feel like I’m bringing a knife to a gunfight.’
Rados smiled. ‘Then turn it into a knife fight.’
They continued deeper into the forest, following another track that veered off from the main one. Within a few minutes they were out of sight of the vehicles and the odds improved, but Victor still had two men with assault rifles behind him. He could take them by surprise, probably, then kill Rados, but that left the well-armed Varangians who’d come running at the sound of gunfire.
Not yet, Victor told himself.
He saw Rados watching him, again as if he could read his thou
ghts, so Victor said, ‘You told me before that if someone was going to rip you off, they would wait until the third deal.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘You have a huge crew at your bidding.’
‘Huge would be a relative term in this instance, but for the sake of argument I’ll say yes.’
‘Then why is it us four?’
‘That’s how we do business. The Slovaks bring three men. I bring three men. We agreed this at the first deal. We honoured it too for the second exchange.’
‘But this is the third.’
Rados nodded. ‘If they show up with more than three men, we turn around and go home. The same is true if I break the arrangement. They’re not stupid and neither am I. Ah, you have but to whisper of the devil and he appears…’
Ahead, figures emerged through the mist.
THIRTY-NINE
The air was heavy with moisture. The wet trees and leaves and undergrowth mashed together to create a strong, natural scent. The forest was shrouded with mist. It seemed infinite. Through gaps in the canopy the grey mist blended with a grey sky.
Victor counted four men, but could not pick two who looked like brothers. When Rados walked forward alone, only one of the Slovakians followed his lead. The man who did so was thin, narrow from the shoulders through to the hips. There was at least an inch between his neck and his shirt collar. His wrists hung from cuffs so excessive he seemed a child wearing an adult’s clothes. The skin of his face was pulled tight across the skull. He had prominent cheekbones and sunken cheeks, dark in the shadow. His bulbous eyes protruded from the sockets, and never stopped moving, back and forth between Victor and Rados. The Slovak’s hair had unnatural thickness and texture, some kind of toupee or weave that fooled no one. He looked to be the same age as Rados, but where Rados looked strong and healthy, the Slovak seemed frail and ill.
They greeted one another like old friends, smiling and shaking hands and touching arms, despite Rados’ comment about touching no one but his wife and mistresses. He played the part he needed to play. They stopped short of hugs, but their affection, had Victor not known otherwise, appeared real.