‘Save it,’ said Vidor, cutting him off. ‘We don’t have the time – and I don’t have the patience – for you to tell me what you think of me for betraying ICTY and helping free Gazi. Nothing is as you think it is.’
‘How is it, then?’
‘You’ll find out before we part. I promise you that.’
‘All I need from you, Stevan, is Gazi’s location. I’m not interested in anything else. That includes the workings of your conscience – if you have one.’
‘Very well. After listening to Dobson, you can’t doubt Ingrid has plans to supply her father with several comfortable hideaways.’
‘What of it? Tell me where he is and her plans go up in smoke.’
‘Did you wonder why I hired Dobson?’
Hammond had wondered. Researching Gazi’s activities in Chile and Argentina several decades back seemed to him entirely beside the point. ‘Gazi’s a monster, Stevan. OK? Always was. Always will be. I understand that. It’s a pity you didn’t understand it before taking his money to help spring him from jail.’
‘But I did. I understood very well.’
‘Then why did you do it?’
‘Means to an end, Edward. There was no other way.’
‘No other way to get rich quick. Is that what you mean? Is that it?’
‘No.’ Vidor turned to look at him, his face a mask of shadows. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘Where is he? Just tell me. Then you and I can go our separate ways.’
‘You make it sound easy. Tracking him down actually involved a lot of hard work. It also cost several people their lives.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They deserved to die. I don’t regret what I did.’
The temperature in the car seemed suddenly to have plunged about ten degrees. ‘Hold on. Did you … kill Furgler?’
‘You mean Mittag? Yes, I did. He would have told his bosses who was after Gazi if I’d let him live. I had no alternative.’
‘And there were … others?’
‘There were.’
‘You … killed them all?’
‘As many as I needed to.’
‘They said Furgler – Mittag – was tortured before he died.’
‘He had information I needed. He didn’t give it up easily.’
Until a few moments before, Hammond had supposed Vidor was motivated by a grudge at being underpaid or in some other way cheated by the gang responsible for Gazi’s escape. Now the chilling realization was creeping over him that this was about something else – something else altogether. ‘Are you going to tell me where Gazi is?’
‘Yes. But there are a few other things I have to tell you first. You see, I’ve been looking for him for a long time. Nine years in all.’
‘What?’
‘It was only after Gazi went into hiding in 2000 and the whole Milošević regime collapsed that anyone was willing to tell me the truth about how my brother Marinko died and why, later, the rest of my family was slaughtered. I learnt Gazi was to blame. He gave the orders. First Marinko was executed. Then my sister, my other brothers and my parents were taken out. They’d got together to celebrate my father’s seventieth birthday. Gazi’s men broke into the apartment and shot them all. I wasn’t there, of course. I never was. I was the one who got away and planned to stay away. But I couldn’t stay away after that. I could forget my country, but not my family.’
‘If you hate Gazi so much, why—’
‘It’ll be clear to you soon enough. Just listen. I resolved to hunt him down and kill him. But no one knew where he was – no one who’d talk, anyway. That’s why I went to work for the UN. Because I thought they’d give me the resources I needed to find him. But it was the Montenegrin police who arrested him in the end, so I never had the chance to get at him before he was safely locked up at Scheveningen. Well, you’ve been there. You know the kind of place it is. Het Oranje Hotel gets it right. It’s more of a hotel than a prison. Nothing for sure like Goli Otok, the labour camp where my father spent a few years as his punishment for being overheard questioning Tito’s infallibility in front of his students. He was a teacher who thought teaching involved speaking freely. What a fool he was. A fool I loved, of course. A fool Gazi murdered on his seventieth birthday.
‘ICTY works on the principle that depriving mass murderers of their liberty for the rest of their lives is a just and adequate penalty. First Scheveningen, then some soft Scandinavian prison where they can write their memoirs and enjoy a more comfortable old age than any of the lonely women back in Bosnia and Kosovo they casually widowed. It’s not enough, by a long way. That’s why I took the bribe I was offered to help plan Gazi’s escape. Not for the money, but for the chance his renewed freedom would give me to finish the job I started nine years ago: to hunt him, to corner him and to make him pay what I judged would be an adequate penalty for his crimes. The gang behind his escape did more than just free him, you see. They also arranged safe havens where he could stay free. That meant there was a trail I could follow, starting with Mittag, that would lead me eventually to where he was hiding. I found him four days ago, in Panama.’ Vidor paused then, as if savouring the memory.
‘Is that where he is now?’ Hammond ventured.
‘No. Not now. I … removed him.’
‘You mean you killed him?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Whether you did or not, you’ve made it obvious you don’t mean him to be handed back to ICTY. So, why bring me here?’ It was the question that had to be asked. What was Vidor planning – and where did Hammond figure in that plan? He had been lured to Buenos Aires for a reason. And he needed to know what it was.
‘This isn’t just about Gazi, Edward. It’s also about you and me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why do you suppose he had my brother killed and the rest of my family wiped out?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Marinko fought with the Wolves in Bosnia, you know. He was loyal to the cause of Greater Serbia. He was loyal to Gazi. Then, one day during the post-Dayton truce, he hanged himself. At least, so my parents were told. But my sister Tanja never believed it. She always was a terrier. She convinced my brothers there was something highly suspicious about his death. They started asking questions. And they went on asking them. Until Gazi decided the questions had to stop. There’s something you need to understand about Marinko, you see. He was one pure kind of guy. He didn’t smoke. He hardly drank. He wasn’t into drugs or prostitutes. Gazi knew that. And he’d have got his blood group from his medical records, of course. But still he went to the trouble of persuading him to be tested for hepatitis and HIV. He needed to be sure.’
‘Sure of what?’
‘My parents weren’t told Marinko was dead until three days after he supposedly hanged himself. The excuse was that there were problems identifying him. But Tanja learnt from staff at the hospital where he was taken that his CO in the Wolves had said he had no recorded next of kin. That was bullshit. He’d have recorded next-of-kin details when he went on active service. And nobody seemed to know who’d found him. He lived alone in New Belgrade. If he was going to kill himself, he’d have done a quick, efficient job of it, with a bullet. The soldier’s way. Hanging? Forget it. But hanging doesn’t involve blood loss, of course, or damage to internal organs, as long as the victim’s not actually brain dead when he’s cut down. And apparently Marinko wasn’t. Get the picture?’
Integrity of internal organs; screening for infective agents; no next of kin to consult: a picture was indeed forming in Hammond’s mind. And a terrible one it was.
‘I changed my name to Vidor so no one would connect me with Marinko and guess what I was up to. My father used to talk about King Vidor as an example of what you could accomplish if you got out of Eastern Europe: you could wind up directing Audrey Hepburn for a living, with a home in the Hollywood hills. Lazović is an alias as well. The name I was born with was Zarić: Stevan Zarić. My brother was
Marinko Zarić. Mean anything to you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Hammond replied hoarsely.
‘No? Well, maybe Miljanović never gave you the donor’s name. Or maybe you forgot it because it didn’t seem important. Maybe you always try to forget about the donor in these cases. But the fact is, Doctor Hammond, it was my brother Marinko’s liver you put in Gazi thirteen years ago.’
Hammond heard the click of the revolver being cocked an instant before he saw the pale light fall on its snubbed barrel. It was pointing straight at him.
‘Get out of the truck,’ Vidor said quietly.
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘I knew nothing about any of this,’ said Hammond. He stood trembling in the half-light of the garage, struggling to find the right words to persuade Vidor that he should not kill him. ‘You must believe me, Stevan. I would never have turned a blind eye to the murder of an organ donor. It violates every medical ethic I’ve ever worked by.’
Vidor walked slowly round the bonnet of the truck, keeping the gun trained on Hammond. When they were only a few feet apart, he stopped. His face was in shadow, as it had been inside the car. There was no way to read his expression. ‘What are the ethics of giving a mass murderer who’s terminally ill another couple of decades to go on killing?’ he asked, as if genuinely curious about what the answer might be.
‘I didn’t know he was a mass murderer then.’
‘No? Maybe you thought he was in line for the Nobel Peace Prize. Come on, Edward. Admit it. You didn’t want to know what Gazi had done in Bosnia – or where the donor had come from. You just wanted the money.’
‘The fee was attractive, of course. I don’t deny it. But—’
‘How much did Gazi pay you?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I’d like you to tell me.’
It occurred to Hammond that he might already know. A lie at this stage could be fatal. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’
‘And Miljanović? How much did he get?’
‘I don’t know. That was between him and Gazi.’
‘But less than you?’
‘Yes. Less than me.’
‘So that makes you the person primarily responsible for the operation.’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Yet you knew nothing about how Gazi’s new liver had been obtained.’
‘I had no reason to enquire into the matter. A surgeon always tries to avoid contact with a donor’s family to guard against any suggestion of coercion.’
‘But Marinko’s family didn’t know he was a donor.’
‘There must have been collusion somewhere along the line. That’s clear. Probably at the first hospital your brother was admitted to. The Voćnjak Clinic would only have been told there was a patient on life support who might be suitable for a liver transplant.’
‘Meaning you’re not to blame?’
‘For your brother’s death? No. I’m not. And I don’t believe you really think I am either.’
‘What about for saving Gazi’s life?’
‘I’m a doctor, Stevan. I tend the sick.’
‘Especially the ones who pay well.’
‘If I’d known as much about Gazi then as I know now, I’d have refused to treat him. But someone else would have taken my place. It wouldn’t have changed anything. Surely you—’
There was a squeal of rubber on concrete from the direction of the access ramp. Headlamp beams slid round the bays as a vehicle descended into the garage. ‘Get behind the truck,’ Vidor snapped. ‘Quickly.’
Hammond turned and walked unsteadily to the rear of the truck. There was clearance of about six feet between it and the wall. As he stepped into the space, he felt the hard prod of the gun in his back.
‘Don’t try to attract any attention, Edward,’ Vidor rasped in his ear. ‘It would be a big mistake.’
A large dark saloon car came to a halt most of the width of the garage away from them. The engine died. A man got out and slammed the door. While the echo of that was still rumbling around them, a second door slammed. A woman had also got out. There was a beep from a key-remote. Then she and the man made their way over to the lift, chatting in Spanish as they went. They never even glanced towards Hammond and Vidor.
The lift arrived. The doors opened and closed. The voices were cut off. They were alone again.
‘Open the tailgate,’ said Vidor quietly.
Hammond wanted to ask why, but did not dare. He found the handle, turned it and pulled the door up. It rose under its own power until it was level with the roof, then stopped.
‘The lower half as well. There are bolts either side.’
Vidor stepped back a pace to give Hammond room for manoeuvre. He slipped the bolts and lowered the gate. The rear of the truck was now fully open. The interior was crammed with boxes and what looked like piles of fabric.
‘There’s a lamp bracketed to the roof on the right-hand side. Switch it on.’
Hammond saw the projecting lamp. He fumbled around it until he found the switch and pressed it. The interior of the truck was suddenly brightly lit. The piles of fabric were actually vividly patterned rugs of various shapes and sizes, lying on a waist-level shelf, with cardboard boxes and wooden crates crammed in below.
‘For customs purposes, I’m a carpet dealer. There are a lot of borders between here and Panama.’
‘You drove all the way?’ Hammond asked, glancing round at Vidor, who had taken care to stand just clear of the glare of the lamp.
‘It was the only option, considering my cargo. Though none of the policemen I met were much interested in what I was carrying once I’d pressed a wad of US dollars into their sweaty hands. But you’ll be interested, Edward. You’ll be very interested. There’s a sliding tray at floor level. Pull it out.’
Hammond looked down and saw the crates and boxes were resting on a tray just clear of the floor of the truck. He found a handle and, beneath it, a lock release. Then he slid the tray out on its rollers.
The largest of the crates was fully six feet long: a solid rectangular timber box, the lid fastened with three thick leather straps.
‘Open it,’ said Vidor.
‘What’s inside?’
‘Open it and find out.’
A strange, cloying dread rose in Hammond as he unbuckled the straps. A widely spaced line of holes had been drilled in the wood, so small he only noticed them as he stretched under the shelf to release the last strap. He stood up then and turned towards Vidor. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
Vidor raised the gun at arm’s length. ‘Open it.’
‘All right.’ Hammond signalled with open palms that he would not resist. ‘All right.’ He turned back, stooped over the box and heaved the lid off. As he did so, Vidor laughed.
A man lay inside the box, dressed in a T-shirt, long underpants and socks. He was also wearing some grotesque kind of nappy, from which rose a stench of excrement and stale urine. His mouth was gagged and his hands were tied behind his back. His ankles were tied with the same length of rope, stretched taut so that he could not straighten his legs. He had dark brown wiry hair and a beard and a waxily smooth face that looked at odds with his wizened neck and sinewy limbs. An uncomprehending instant passed before Hammond realized who he was looking at. Then, in the fearful yet defiant gaze of Dragan Gazi’s icy blue eyes, he knew – and was known.
‘Some expensive nips and tucks from a cosmetic surgeon, a very unmilitary beard and a bottle of hair dye don’t improve him, do they?’ said Vidor.
Hammond propped the lid against the side of the box and stepped back. Gazi followed his every move with his eyes. ‘What in God’s name are you doing, Stevan?’ he asked, looking round at Vidor.
‘Gazi would like to know that too, I’m sure. Every time I close the box, he wonders if I’ll ever open it again. And every time I do, he wonders if I’m going to kill him.’
‘And are you?’
‘Eventually. When the time comes. But there are things to be
done first. Here.’ Vidor removed something from his denim jacket and tossed it to Hammond: a small digital camera. ‘Take his photograph, please. Take several. So it’s clear how he’s being held.’
‘Is this really necessary?’
‘Yes. I took some in Panama before we left. But I think we need some more, showing him in his box. Please. Go ahead.’
Hammond made no effort to vary the angle or range of the pictures. He took six in all and they were more or less identical, with the date and time recorded in one corner of the frame. Then Vidor called a halt.
‘That’ll do. Now put the camera in your pocket.’
‘I don’t want the pictures, Stevan. They’re yours.’
‘But I can’t show them to anyone and you can. In fact, I hope very much you will. To one person in particular. Will you do that for me? As a favour.’
‘Who?’
‘Ingrid. She must be in no doubt I’ve taken her father. I want you to tell her what I’ve done. The pictures will prove it’s true. She’ll have to believe it.’ Vidor lowered the gun. ‘I’m not going to kill you, Edward. I might have, if you’d ignored my message and stayed in Belgrade. Then I might have come for you. As it is, I need you to do this for me. And I think I have the right to ask it of you. Can you honestly disagree?’
Hammond could not. But even so he was revolted by what Vidor had done to Gazi – more so than if he had simply put a bullet through the wretched man’s head.
‘Think what you’re doing, Stevan. Torturing Gazi pulls you down to his level. Let me call the police and have him—’
‘I’m the police here, Edward. I’m the law for the rest of Gazi’s life, however long or short that is. And I’m not torturing him. I’m punishing him, along with his daughter. I have a message for Ingrid. It’s this. She’s never going to know her father’s fate – when he dies, how he dies, where he dies. She’s never going to have his body to bury in a fancy tomb in Recoleta Cemetery. I’m going to do to him what he did to Carlos Rueda. I’m going to “disappear” him.’
‘There has to be—’
Blood Count Page 31