Blood Price (Dark Places Of The Earth 1)

by Evans, Jon

  The journey to Sarajevo seemed to take several anxious days, but eventually the lights of civilization began to glimmer around us. I was worried that Dragan might have us followed from the bus station, so I had Talena convince the driver to let us out a few blocks away.

  It was a relief to be back in Sarajevo’s busy streets, out of Mostar, with Saskia, all of us still in one piece. But I knew that this initial escape had been the easy part. Getting Saskia out of the country would be harder. But with Hallam’s help, we just might pull it off, maybe even, if we were very lucky, in the next three days, before our nonrefundable flights from Zagreb expired.

  Our problem was not that Saskia couldn’t leave Bosnia. Our problem was that no other country would allow her to enter. The obvious solution, once I rid myself of my instinctive desire to follow the law, was to bring her in illegally. And we could hardly be in a better place for that. If refugee smuggling was an Olympic event, Balkan countries would be regular medallists. Bosnia’s human traffic went to Western Europe, not the USA, but that was fine. If we could pay smugglers to get Saskia into Germany, where she spoke the language, or England, where my friends lived, she would be safe. It wasn’t exactly an airtight plan, granted, more like a vague notion, but it sure beat no plan at all.

  Talena led Saskia to the Pansione while I checked email at the Internet café around the corner on Dalmatinska Street.

  From: niclam@freeserve.co.uk

  To: balthazarwood@yahoo.com

  Subject: Re: Urgent request for help – not a joke

  Date: 5 May 2003 14:03 GMT

  Paul mate,

  I have a number of contacts still on duty in Bosnia. The most useful will you to will be Major William Botham. You’ll find him at NATO headquarters in Sarajevo. I’ve already called him and told him to expect you. He will be willing to bend the rules for you. The rest are enlisted men. I’m not sure how to get in contact with them immediately but I’ve started tracking them down. Let me know right away if you need their help.

  You have our mobile number. Call us any time, day or night, reverse charges.

  Take care of yourself and for God’s sake don’t do anything stupid unless you absolutely have to. I suppose Bosnia is better than it was when I served there – it could hardly be any worse – but I expect it’s still a very bad place to be in any kind of trouble.

  Hallam

  From: lcarlin@rbs.co.uk

  To: balthazarwood@yahoo.com

  Subject: Your poor decisionmaking skills

  Date: 5 May 2003 16:48 GMT

  So you’re kidnapping Bosnian women now. Are you sure that’s wise? I know a harem sounds like a good idea on paper, but just imagine what happens when they all get simultaneous PMS. They might start acting like Bosnian men.

  The many-tentacled corporate-banking monstrosity that signs my paycheques does business in Sarajevo, and has an office there. If you need money sent there quickly, let me know. I’ll divert it from Steve’s account, he’ll never notice.

  If you need any other kind of help, needless to say I’ll do whatever I can. As you know I normally charge five hundred pounds a day for acts of derring-do. Please note that my Balkans rate is twice that.

  How’s the beer there?

  Lawrence

  From: greasysteve@hotmail.com

  To: balthazarwood@yahoo.com

  Subject: Re: Urgent request for help – not a joke

  Date: 5 May 2003 17:33 GMT

  Gday mate. Sounds like a spot of trouble. Want me to come help sort it out? Cheers.

  Just opening up my inbox and seeing the three unread emails, Lawrence’s with his usual snarky Subject: line, cheered me up. Talena and I were not in this alone. Hallam’s email, in particular, was good news. I’d thought he might still have friends in the military here, but I hadn’t dared hope for anyone as high-ranking as a major.

  I sent a quick update back to the three of them and went back to the Pansione. I walked on the shadowy side of the street, looked for people who might be looking for me. Nobody obvious. En route I stopped in at the same convenience store where I had bought cigarettes. We had abandoned our packs in Mostar, we had nothing at all. I bought soap, toothpaste, and Snickers bars. That would have to do for tonight. Tomorrow, Talena and Saskia could go shopping while I tried to arrange for Saskia’s escape. A vaguely sexist division of labour, but Talena had the credit card that was not on the verge of disintegration. Though in Bosnia, even in Sarajevo, point-of-sale credit-card authorization machines were not common; a foreigner like me could probably go a long way with a maxed-out card and a confident smile.

  Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work at a bank, and last I checked refugee smugglers did not take MasterCard. It would be cash only once we found a gang willing to spirit Saskia out of the country. If we found such a gang. But it couldn’t be that hard. I had already stumbled onto one by accident.

  * * *

  “This is crazy,” Talena said, lying next to me in bed, finishing off her Snickers bar.

  “You don’t say.”

  “I keep sort of forgetting what we’re doing. I was going to take a shower when I remembered we have no towels and even if we did I have no clothes to change into. And then I was like, oh, that’s right, we all but kidnapped Saskia and we’re running for our lives and tomorrow we’re going to try to find some criminals to help us get her out of the country. It doesn’t seem real.”

  “I know.” I shook my head. “I’m worried about the shopping. Maybe I should do that too. You two should stay here. The more we’re outside, the more chance they’ll have of seeing one of us.”

  Talena paused and then levered herself up on one elbow, facing me sternly, blue eyes flashing. “Are you seriously suggesting that Saskia and I stay in here like we’re in jail while you go out and have all the fun?”

  “Fun?”

  “I’m trying to think of it as an adventure,” she said.

  “Adventure. Noun. Long periods of tedium interspersed with brief moments of terror.”

  “No, that’s being beseiged by the Serbian Army for three years. In an adventure you’re the one going out and doing something. Makes a colossal difference, believe me.”

  I forgot sometimes that Talena was a war veteran too.

  “I’ve made my mental shopping list for tomorrow,” she said. “Top of the list: Towels. Underwear. Guns.”

  “Guns?”

  “Guns.”

  She was serious. “Uh…Talena…I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  “I don’t seem to remember asking you.”

  Which sounded bitchy but was said good-naturedly. Now that we had embarked on this insane venture, the frost between us had thawed a little. For one thing we were both scared. The couple that prays to be spared together, stays together. For another thing, she was right, this was an adventure. Now that we lived in constant danger the world was enormously more vivid. Every breath was an event, every moment pungently intense. It was scary and painfully stressful, yes, but it was also exciting, and it made our last year of unhappiness and drudgery and petty sniping seem small and tawdry and irrelevant.

  I wondered if Saskia, across the hall in a room even smaller than ours, was at all excited. I didn’t think so. I thought she was probably nothing but frightened, and would be until we got her out of Bosnia. Saskia knew what happened when this kind of adventure turned sour. You were beaten with fists and boots and an iron bar until you heard your own bones breaking, your face was so thick with blood that you couldn’t see, and finally your baby died inside you and you were reduced to a huddled, broken heap, whimpering for mercy.

  For a moment I involuntarily imagined Talena, captured by Dragan and the Tigers, helpless and alone with them in a cold concrete cell. I imagined what might happen to her. It made my stomach clench violently with fear. The part of me that enjoyed this adventure was suddenly nowhere to be found.

  “I don’t think you should go outside,” I said again, my voice a little hoarse. “Especiall
y not alone.”

  Talena opened her mouth to say something intemperate, then studied my face for a second. “You’re worried about me, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s nice of you. But you should really be worried about yourself. You’re not from here. You don’t know the streets. You don’t know the language. People notice you. If they find us, they’ll definitely find you first.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t thought of it like that.

  “Maybe you should stay hidden in here while I take care of things.”

  “There’s no fucking way I’m –” I began, then stopped halfway to outrage. “OK. Fine. Point made.”

  “We’re in this together, understand?” she asked. “Partners in crime. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Now turn the light out and come here.”

  They say power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, but believe me, it’s got nothing on danger.

  * * *

  The next morning, hoping to track down Sinisa the refugee smuggler, I rented a diesel-fuelled stick-shift Citroen. I hadn’t driven a stick for years and it quickly became apparent that the most terrifyingly dangerous parts of my adventure might take place on the road. I nearly died three times on the road out of Sarajevo.

  It took me an hour to locate the right gravel road. I knew that the expedition would be fruitless when I found that the pedestrian gate on the dirt-road offshoot was locked, but I had to see for myself. I tore my jeans climbing over the fence.

  The abandoned factory where I had returned the Tamil boy to his family was utterly deserted. There were no cars and the loading-dock door was locked. I got in through a broken window, dug out my Maglite and found my way through rusted machinery and along a conveyor belt to the room where the refugees had huddled. There was nothing and nobody there. Aside from scuffed sawdust the room might have been empty for a decade.

  So much for Plan A. I wondered uneasily if finding someone willing to take Saskia out of the country would turn out to be a very difficult process. Criminals don’t exactly advertise in the Yellow Pages, and none of Talena’s friends seemed the type to hang out in shady bars with suspicious characters. If Major Botham couldn’t help us, we would be in trouble.

  HQ SFOR – milspeak for the headquarters of NATO’s Stabilization Force – was a compound called Camp Butmir, near the airport, smack on the border between the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzogivinia. There’s symbolism for you; NATO standing between the combatants like a boxing referee. The main gate stood amid a forest of rippling flags, one for each of NATO’s members.

  Major Botham was a short, wiry man in his mid-forties with so much restless energy that his office felt a little like a cage. He greeted me with a short handshake and invited me to sit. I did. He remained standing.

  Through the window behind him I could see Sarajevo’s airport. During the seige, the UN had controlled the airport proper, the Serbs had controlled either end of the runway, and the Bosnians had controlled either side. The east side of the runway was beseiged Sarajevo, and the west was relatively free Bosnian territory. The usual bewildering Bosnian-war insanity which was hard to believe even now. There had been a tunnel under that runway, the one route other than the ongoing UN airlift through which people and goods could move in and out of the city in relative safety. That was just what I needed now. A tunnel to the West.

  “Hallam informed me that you needed some extracurricular assistance,” he said. His accent was South African.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” I said. I paused. I didn’t know how to phrase what I wanted to say. Now that I was here, actually talking to a NATO major, my plan seemed like the stupidest, most ridiculous notion ever conceived. Was I actually going to open my mouth and ask him to help me break the law?

  Apparently, yes. “Look,” I said. “I’m not going to try to sugarcoat this. I need help to get a woman out of Bosnia. I don’t think I can do it legally, but I have to do it as soon as I can, and I have to it before her psycho husband and his psycho friends catch up with us. It’s not like it sounds, I’m not involved with her. She’s my girlfriend’s sister.”

  Major Botham looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, “Details, please.”

  I told him the whole story. When I was finished the major stood with his arms folded, staring into space, for some time. Eventually he nodded.

  “Yours is a difficult situation, Mr. Wood,” Major Botham said. “And it will be difficult for me to assist you in any meaningful way.”

  “I know.”

  “Hallam said you saved his wife’s life once.”

  I blinked. “Not really. I just kind of stalled things long enough for him to show up.”

  “He saved my life twice, during the war. I asked him to come back when I was posted back here, but he wasn’t interested. Can’t say I blame him. This place is a snakepit.”

  I nodded vigorously.

  “I can’t help you get her out legally. I expect you knew that already.”

  “I did.”

  “I’m afraid I can hardly do anything for you at all. What I can do is provide you with some phone numbers. My mobile number, for one. If her husband shows up and seems to be a tangible threat, give me a call, and I can get a patrol to you within ten minutes. We’re a lot more reliable than the Sarajevo police, I assure you. Do you have a mobile phone here?”

  I shook my head.

  “I have a spare,” he said, digging into his desk and unearthing an antique Nokia and a charger cable adorned with a two-circular-prong Balkans adapter. “It still works. Take it. Try not to make too many trunk calls to Tokyo. NATO pays the bill.”

  “Thanks,” I said inadequately. A phone with which I could call my very own military backup. That was one heck of a start.

  “And I can make some enquiries, try to find an organization which, shall we say, provides the relevant assistance to people like your friend Saskia. I should be able to get some answers by, say, ten hundred tomorrow.”

  “Wow. Thanks.”

  “Don’t look so surprised. This is the least I can do for a friend of Hallam’s.”

  “You…Not to be blunt, but I’m surprised you’re helping me break the law.”

  “Am I?” he asked. “Whose law?”

  “Well…”

  I stopped and thought about it. What I planned was illegal, wasn’t it?

  “It remains legal to try to leave the country,” Major Botham said. “Legal and, if you ask me, in Bosnia generally a good idea. It may become illegal when she actually reaches the border, but even then she will be violating the laws of the receiving country, not this one. If you call this a country at all. It’s possible that Bosnia’s so-called government may have signed laws which attempt to prevent human trafficking. But even if they have, it doesn’t concern me. We may occasionally turn unstable elements over to the local police, as you nearly witnessed in Mostar, but SFOR is a military presence, not a police force. Our mission does call for us to respect local law, but we are also explicitly outside the jurisdiction of that law, and respecting it is very much secondary to maintaining a safe and secure environment.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “In short, we run this godforsaken hellhole, and we can do whatever we want here.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said sincerely.

  “I’ll call you on that phone by ten hundred hours with any information I can garner.”

  Our conversation was obviously over. “Thank you, Major. Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome. Where are you staying?”

  “The Pansione Konack.”

  “I know it. Centrally located, that’s good, but there’s only one entrance. If you need to escape you’ll have to go out a window.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Keep that phone charged,” he said as he walked me to the door. “And be careful. I can get men to you in ten minutes, but that’s plenty of time to die in.”

&n
bsp; That was apparently his version of goodbye. He closed the door behind me. I looked at the phone in my hand. I felt better. I was confident that with Major William Botham on our side, one way or another, shit was going to happen.

  I got back at midafternoon. Talena and Saskia had bought three polyester Adidas shoulder bags, one black, one blue, one red, and filled them with new clothes. They looked disturbingly like the bags that the Middle Eastern refugees in the abandoned furniture factory had carried.

  “Here,” Talena said after I had told her my story. “Keep this with you.”

  She dug into the black bag and offered me a small snub-nosed revolver. I took two steps back, eyed the gun like I might a live rattlesnake, and made no move to take it.

  “I bought three,” she said impatiently. “It’s not loaded yet. Take it.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A guy I used to know.”

  I wanted to know more but didn’t want to push our rediscovered camaraderie too far. “Where…where do I put it?”

  “Put this shiny new windbreaker on and tuck it into your belt. You’ve fired a gun, right?”

  “Once.” At a firing range in Australia, years ago. I took it from her like it was made of nitroglycerine. It was lighter than I expected. “I don’t…I don’t know how to load it, or…Jesus, Talena. What the fuck?”

  “How very Canadian of you,” she said fondly. “But listen, Toto, we’re not in Moose Jaw anymore. Time for Firearms 101.”

  She taught me how to load it and how to arm and disarm the safety. Saskia didn’t pay attention. I supposed she had learned during the war.