Scorpion Trail

by Archer, Jeffrey

  'Lorna, listen. Listen to everything I say. Then make your judgement.'

  'Don't lie to me again, Alex,' she warned, folding her arms. Her suspicions deepened.

  Truth. It had to be.

  'I'm not a spy,' he insisted. 'Not a "spook" as you put it. But ... I am trying to help the UN find some evidence against Milan Pravic so they can put him on trial for the Tulici massacre.'

  'You're telling me you work for the UN? Where's your blue beret?'

  'Yes. No, not exactly. Look, ten (lays ago, the UN war crimes people in The Hague sent a message to the British intelligence services, asking if they had somebody out here who could help them trace the man who led the Tulici killings. Well, they didn't have anyone. The only Brits in Bosnia were soldiers or aid workers. Anyway ... the intelligence people wanted to help the UN if they could. So they had to find someone at short notice ... and picked me, because they happened to hear I was coming out here as an aid worker.'

  She stiffened. 'My did they hear that?'

  'Because for twenty years I've been on the run. If it weren't for the security people I'd be dead. The IRA would have put a bullet in my brain.

  You know why. Everywhere I went, I had to tell the M15 minders so they could watch my back.'

  He paused for breath. Her jaw was set, the corners of her mouth tugged down. It wasn't working.

  'Anyway Lorna, all they've asked me to do out here is keep my eyes and cars open,' he added desperately. 'That's all.'

  'But you do still work for them!' She bit her lip. 'So you lied to me yesterday!'

  'I've helped them three times in thirty years for God's sake! Nothing since Belfast, I promise. Until now. And I don't work for them. They've never paid me. I've just given them information when it was right to do so.'

  Lorna's face erupted with anger.

  'When you've felt it's right, huh? Like in Belfast when you decided it was right three boys should be shot down like dogs! Who d'you think you are?Jesus Christ?'

  He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Everything about Belfast had been a disaster. He should have told Chadwick to piss off, and he hadn't.

  Should've said to Catherine McNulty, the IRA man's wife, that he loved Lorna, not her, but he couldn't do it.

  'Look. The rights and wrongs of what happened in Belfast we can argue all round the houses. But this is hardly the time . . .'

  'No? Why the hell not?'

  Nothing could stop her now. The dam had broken.

  'You lied to me in Belfast, Alex! You said such beautiful, loving words in my ears. Then as soon as I left your bed...' Her face screwed up in disgust. 'You cheated on me! You did the same things, said the same words ... with an IRA man's wife. And not just any. .

  Her voice caught in her throat.

  Alex looked at her, begging for understanding. This wasn't the day to go into all this.

  'I didn't want to, for God's sake!' he moaned. 'You remember what Catherine was like. I'd been seeing her for months before you turned up. She wouldn't let go. I tried to tell her I was ending it but she said she'd kill herself if I did.'

  'And you were so naive as to believe her? Oh come on! You reckoned you were man enough to decide three kids should be shot, but didn't have the guts to tell a loopy lady to get lost?'

  He'd lost control of things. He turned his head away.

  'Look, let's get it straight what happened in Belfast.

  M15 blackmailed me into betraying you. The message was that unless I got you to tell me what you knew about the jailbreak, they'd make sure you found out about Catherine, and Catherine's husband found out about me.

  I'd have lost you, and probably have got a kneecapping as well. And don't forget, Lorna ... those guys who were to be sprung from Long Kesh, they were convicted killers. It was right they should stay inside.'

  Lorna's hand clamped over her mouth in disbelief.

  'Stay inside, I said,' he stressed, defensively. 'I ... I never thought they'd kill them. Naive perhaps, but I just thought they'd put them back behind the Wire.'

  Lorna turned on her heel and stood by the window staring out. Josip was leaning against the Land Cruiser, twitching with impatience.

  So that was the excuse she'd waited twenty years to hear. Blackmail. Did she believe him? Did it make any difference?

  She shuddered, remembering the cataclysmic night in Belfast when Alex's double-dealing had been exposed. McNulty was the Provos' Belfast quartermaster, and her IRA contact. She'd been friendly with both him and Catherine. Over a drink at their home one evening, bubbly and excited with her love for Alex, she'd told them his name ...

  In her mind now, she could still see Catherine's face, beetroot with fury and pain. Then the earth had opened ...

  She looked at her watch. Had to get to Travnik to warn them to have Vildana ready first thing.

  'I have to go,' she said flatly.

  Alex stood up. She turned round, avoiding his eye.

  'Look, forget the past for the moment,' he pleaded. 'What we're involved in now ... it's much more important. We're both after the same thing, don't you see? You want to save a girl's life. So do I. Your way is to get her out of here to a place she'll be safe. My way is to nail the man who wants to kill her. We're in this together, right? This was meant to happen -- you said it yourself, yesterday.'

  She crossed her arms tightly, as if trying to hold herself together.

  'I have to get a move on,' she said.

  Seventeen

  Wednesday 30th March

  Vitez, Bosnia

  Alex stuffed the last of McFee's possessions into the battered, soft-sided suitcase. He'd picked gingerly through his belongings, half expecting to find bizarre sexual aids, or used condoms.

  He'd packed his own bags last night, after taking the Bedford to the garage to tank up with diesel.

  He downed the remains of a mug of tea then went into the hall to pull on his boots and coat. It was six o'clock. Lorna would be arriving any minute and he still had to prepare the hide in the back of the truck.

  Last night in the junk-filled garage where they'd stored their aid boxes, he'd found a homemade workbench, a sturdy table one-and-a-half metres long with legs made of 'two by four'. Using sign language he'd indicated to Andrei that he wanted to borrow it.

  Outside, the temperature had turned milder overnight. It was overcast and raining, water dripping rhythmically onto the stone path from a broken gutter. If the weather was like this over the mountains, the drive south would be messy.

  He unlocked the doors of the driver's cab, then walked to the back of the truck, undid the tailboard hasps, and released the flaps of the tarpaulin.

  The truck was empty apart from four spare jerry-cans of diesel strapped to rings on the floor.

  He hoisted himself into the back and shone his torch around to find fixings for the table that was to be Vildana's house for the coming day. Stout string should do it. There was a roll of it in McFee's tool bag.

  He heard the purr of an engine, and looked out to see the Land Gruiser pulling up, raindrops glinting in its headlamp beams. Lorna got out, her face tense, her blonde hair bristling like a hedge. He doubted if she'd slept much last night.

  Josip still looked sullen. Did the man ever smile?

  Alex jumped down from the tailboard looking for some sign as to how things stood between them that morning. He saw none.

  'Okay?' he asked.

  'Sure. You ready?' she answered, brisk and businesslike.

  'I need a hand with something. Josip? Gould you help me please?'

  He led him to the garage and between them they carried the heavy workbench out to the truck and hoisted it into the back. They placed it against the end nearest the driver's cab and Alex secured the legs firmly.

  'She can sit under that,' he explained. 'Need some cushions or bedding, and some cardboard or a tarpaulin to cover the sides.'

  'Maybe they'll have a spare blanket at the refugee centre,' Lorna suggested.

  'Good though
t. Shall we get moving?'

  Six-fifteen. Pretty much on schedule.

  Lorna led the way into Travnik, the streets of the old Muslim quarter almost deserted at this hour. They drove into the play ground of the school and parked out of sight , behind it. The easterly sky was fringed with the soft, grey glow of dawn.

  'Monika stayed the night here with the kid,' Lorna explained under her breath as they went inside. Now the moment was upon her, she seemed nervous about the responsibility she was taking on. Josip will have to help me play Mom, unless Vildana learns English real fast.'

  'So that's why he's looking so sour,' Alex commented. 'One of the reasons...' she replied enigmatically.

  There was a clinking from the kitchen as the early risers prepared tea and coffee.

  'I told her to be ready for us,' Lorna fretted. 'But where the hell is she?'

  'Let's try the kitchen.'

  The two of them were sitting there, pale and drawn, beside one of the wide cookers, Vildana's short, dark hair freshly washed, her fearful brown eyes like pebbles dropped in snow. Monika had her arm round her shoulder and held her close.

  Lorna took Josip's arm. 'Earn your money, Josip,' she whispered.

  'Hi, Vildana!'Lorna grinned, crouching in front of the child.Josip also dropped on his haunches.

  There was a minute or two of words in SerboCroat, with Monika chipping in.

  'Well,' Josip translated, 'I explain her she stay hide in the truck, until I say she come out. I tell her we look after her, and she will be ... safe.' He shrugged.

  'And she's ready?'

  'I think.'

  'Just one thing,' Alex added. 'We need to finish off that Wendy House of hers. There must be loads of empty cardboard boxes here. If we stack a pile round the workbench, it'll disguise it beautifully.'

  'Good. Maybe Monika knows where they keep them?'

  Twenty minutes later the job was done. Vildana's determination not to cry collapsed when Monika gave her a final hug. Then, with a bed made from blankets and Alex's sleeping bag, she took up residence in the hide, clutching a bag of bread and fruit and a bottle of water.

  Lorna led the way back to Vitez, this time driving the Land Cruiser on her own. Josip sat in the Bedford cab with Alex.

  Past the junction with Route Triangle, they crossed the invisible line separating Muslim-led forces from Croat. HVO soldiers dawdled with their Kalashnikovs, more relaxed now the ceasefire was taking a grip. Alex wondered what they'd do if they knew the truck carried a Muslim child, the only witness to the Tulici massacre.

  Nerves made his gut churn. He breathed deeply to steady them.

  The pole was down across the entrance to Vitez camp. A squaddie checked their UN passes, lifted the barrier and waved them in.

  Seven-twenty-five. Going like clockwork. The truck clunked in the potholes which had been ground out of the hard core by Warrior tracks.

  'Hope the kid's hanging on tight,' Alex said.

  'I think it is nothing to what will come on the mountain road,' Josip answered gloomily.

  Alex stopped the Bedford by the medical centre and dropped to the ground.

  He told Josip to stay with the truck.

  Inside the portakabin, a couple of bored corporals were playing cards, one dark-haired, the other ginger.

  'About bloody time,' the dark one growled. 'We've been up all night waiting for you.'

  'Wha-at?' said Alex. 'The major told me seven-thirty.'

  The ginger soldier stood up with a grin. 'Take no notice of 'im. Winds everyone up. It is Mr McFee yer after, is it?'

  'That's right.'

  Ginger switched on an expression of concern. "E was your oppo, was 'e sir?

  Your mate?'

  'We worked together,' Alex replied tensely. 'Are you ready? I've got the truck outside.'

  'Yessir.'

  They stepped into a back room and emerged a few seconds later struggling under the weight of a dark green body bag.

  At the sight of it, Alex felt a moment's queasiness, knowing the messy remains that lay inside.

  'Good strong bag this, sir. Keeps the pong in,' the dark-haired soldier remarked.

  Josip had the Bedford's tailboard down and was standing on it protectively.

  'We'll need two of us at each end to get 'im up there,' said the ginger corporal.

  Alex hoisted himself onto the tailboard and with Josip took hold of the foot of the bag, leaving the soldiers to bear most of the load. They heaved it into the centre of the cargo plafform and set it down between two sets of attachment rings.

  'Got enough straps and that, to tie it down?' asked Ginger.

  'Yes. We're okay.'

  'Then, we'll leave him with you, sir.'

  'Fine. Thanks for your help.'

  He set to work with string, tying the handles of the bag to the rings on the floor. Josip crawled forward to the hide and whispered words of reassurance to Vildana.

  'I tell her it is some equipment,' lie explained.

  'Good. She okay?'

  Josip nodded.

  Poor kid, Alex mused. She'd got a hellish day ahead of her. He stood back and checked his work. All secure.

  Both men jumped to the ground and re-secured the tailboard and tarpaulin.

  While Josip climbed back into the cab, Alex sprinted to the cookhouse to pick up ration packs for the journey. Then he drove the truck out of the camp to where the rest of the white vehicle convoy was lining up, and the crews were donning their body armour.

  It was ten minutes to eight.

  The convoy snaked up Route Triangle, one Warrior at the front and another at the rear, the Land Cruiser and the Bedford tucked in amongst the empty container trucks that had shuttled supplies up from the coast to keep the British contingent of UNPROFOR fed and watered.

  He'd had no opportunity to talk to Lorna alone that morning. No chance to find out if she'd accepted what he'd said about Belfast. No occasion to discover if she was for him or against him.

  They crossed from one militia's territory to another and back again, with sentries watching their progress from makeshift bunkers, sheltering from the rain which purnmelled the roofs of the vehicles. The massive bulk of the Warrior at the front deterred any thoughts they might have of stopping the convoy to check it.

  'You've worked many times with Lorna?' Alex asked, casually, deciding he'd try to get to know the translator better if they were to spend the next eight hours together.

  'Three times before in Bosnia. Always they pay me to fly to Frankfurt to meet her. Then we drive to Split.'

  'Frankfurt? Why Frankfurt?'

  'I think because CareNet medicines come from America on Air Force planes.

  They have big military base at Frankfurt.'

  'Really? Didn't know the US Air Force was involved.' Maybe Lorna was planning to get Vildana to America by Air Force jet.

  'And you?' Josip said. 'You are old friend with Lorna, she tell me.'

  'That's right. Known her most of my life, on and off.'

  'You are perhaps like soul mates?'

  Odd words to come from Josip, Alex pondered. More like Lorna's words. How much had she told him?

  'I don't know about that. . .'

  The convoy slowed for a hairpin bend in the midst of a village. Children streamed from the houses, defying the rain in the hope the drivers would throw sweets to them. Blonde eight year-olds ran perilously close to the wheels of the Bedford.

  Minutes later the convoy slowed to a halt on the crest of a wooded ridge.

  The Warriors that had brought them this far were handing over to another pair that had come UP to meet them from the next base at Gorni Vakuf Ahead, the unmade road dropped into the canyon where three days before Alex's mission had so nearly come to a premature end. He shuddered at the recollection of that squat automatic pressed against his face.

  'Hullo again!'

  A breezy, female voice at the window of the cab. Alex looked down. It was the same lieutenant who'd escorted them on the way up, rain d
ripping from the rim of her blue helmet.

  'Well, hello! Fancy seeing you,' he said. 'Not going to leave us in the lurch again I hope.'

  She gurgled with laughter.

  'No fear! You're on my orders this time. Got to keep a close eye on you.'

  She smiled toothily. 'Sorry you had a bit of trouble on the way up. But you were just hangerson then. Different today. I say, I'm terribly sorry about your companion...'

  'Yup . . .'Alex pointed over his shoulder to the back of the truck.

  'I know. . .' she said. 'Look, we're just going to bat on down the road.

  There shouldn't be any hold-ups -there's no fighting anywhere, so they tell me. Could be a delay on the mountain road, of course. Can't predict that.

  But the only time we do stop officially is at the border with Croatia. Have to, legally. They usually wave us on p.d.q., but it's possible they'll want to look inside. just so you're prepared for that.'

  'Okay. Thanks for the warning.'

  'Oh, and watch the road. It'll be a mud slide up the top.'

  She gave a loose salute and strode back to her Land Rover at the front of the convoy.

  They set off down the canyon track, windscreen wipers struggling against the brown spray kicked up by the trucks in front, every pothole a tureen of mud.

  Gorni Vakuf looked more desolate than ever in the foul weather, its streets deserted, apart from an old man picking through the rubble.

  Beyond the town the escorting Warriors waved the convoy past. They'd cleared the conflict zone. It was Bosnian Groat territory all the way to the border.

  Josip glanced through the rear window.

  'D'you think she's all right?'Alex asked. He thought of Vildana clinging on as the truck bounced and jolted.

  'I hope. It is pity we cannot speak with her.'

  There was a gap between the rear of the cab and the cargo space. No way of even tapping messages through.

  'Perhaps I should have sat with her in the back,'Josip wondered.

  'There's no seat. You'd have been knocked all over the place,' Alex assured him. 'We'll try and stop somewhere and check she's okay.'

  Lorna shifted into third gear as the convoy weaved through the HVO