The Templar Succession

by Mario Reading

  She put them to her eyes and stared at her father. She spent a long time perusing him. ‘He has a scar on his face, same as you. He looks like Charles Bronson in Once Upon A Time in the West.’

  Hart nearly choked on the can of Coca-Cola he had been sipping from to cleanse his throat. ‘Jesus Christ, Biljana. This isn’t one of your movies. This is real life. And this man is no hero like Bronson. He’s the Henry Fonda figure in the movie. Remember? The one who kills an innocent young boy seconds after he’s massacred the child’s entire family. And I don’t remember him having any scar. That must have come after my time.’

  ‘He’s missing a finger on his left hand too. Did you notice that?’

  ‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. I wish it was me that shot it off.’

  Biljana put down the binoculars and stared at Hart. ‘Are you sure he’s done all those things you told me about?’

  Hart’s could sense the girl’s pain. The urgency of her need for good news after a lifetime of disappointments. He wished that he could lie. Tell her that everything was all right. That it had all been some bizarre misunderstanding. That her father was a fine man. A good man. That he had been waiting all this time for her to find him so that he could enfold her in his arms and squeeze her so tight that all her ills would be cured.

  ‘More than what I’ve told you, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘He’s done more. I’ve held back on most of what your mother told me that he boasted to her about doing. And what he told me himself while I held him prisoner. What’s the point in gilding the lily? The man is a monster and there’s an end to it. He’s not worth the effort of debating.’

  Hart knew that he was playing the whole thing wrong. That he risked alienating Biljana with his prescriptiveness. But he couldn’t help himself. The sight of the Captain after all those years – the sight of the man who had tried to kill both him and Lumnije – was proving massively unsettling. Hart could feel the kernel of fear he had harboured back then reigniting in his belly. He suspected – no, he was certain – that the Captain would kill him without hesitation if he became aware of his presence. And the bastard would probably laugh while he was doing it.

  ‘Have you seen enough? Our bus is about to leave.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve seen enough.’

  Hart tried to ignore the condemnation in Biljana’s voice. ‘Do you still want to meet that man one-to-one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh God, Biljana. Can’t you just leave well enough alone?’

  ‘Would you?’ Biljana was crying now. ‘Would you leave well enough alone? If you suddenly found, after fifteen years, that you had a father? Would you not at least want to meet him? To hear him speak? To give him the chance to defend himself?’

  ‘What can I say? What can I tell you? You’ve spent the last fifteen years longing for a daddy. And suddenly one pops out of the woodwork. Trouble is, though, that he isn’t quite the knight in shining armour you might once have craved. Those sorts of illusions are hard won. And even harder to discard. So whichever answer I pick you won’t believe me. You’ve already made up your mind, and you simply want me to double-stamp it.’

  Biljana raised her chin pugnaciously. ‘To triple-stamp it. Yes.’

  Hart threw the tail of his keffiyeh around his head and strode back to the bus. For a moment there, he had found himself thinking that he didn’t much give a damn whether Biljana saw her father or not. What was it to him? The girl wasn’t his daughter.

  Then he remembered their time together in Paris, and he despaired.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  In his dream the Captain is back at Srebrenica/Potocˇari again. During the Bosnian War, 12–13 July 1995. With the Scorpions. The date is categorical. Deeply imprinted in his unconscious mind. The heat is overwhelming. Just as it was back then. The sort of heat that drives you to do something. Anything. Just to keep moving.

  This kind of recurring dream is plaguing him more and more recently. Disturbing his sleep. The dream always takes the same linear form, mimicking what really happened. Retelling the historical truth.

  First the gang rape of the young Bosniak girl alongside the three other Scorpions, none of whom he knows or will ever meet again. The holding up and spreading of her legs. The gagging of the girl with a rag. One man helping the other. Comrades.

  While he is waiting his turn for the rape, the Captain keeps a wary eye on the Dutch UNPROFOR troops to see how they will react. But the Dutchbat forces don’t react at all. They leave the White House, and everyone in it, strictly alone. It’s as if they are mole-blind. Small, sniffling creatures with blunted teeth. Irrelevant.

  Then comes the killing of the Bosniak kid and the cutting off of his nose, ears and lips by the bearded Scorpion. Why does the guy do it? The Captain cannot say. But it makes a crazy sort of sense.

  The Captain is only a second lieutenant at this stage of his military career. Twenty years old. But the sudden realization that a man can do anything he wants if only he does it forcefully enough is a liberation. Like the loss of one’s virginity. You realize that no one really cares what you do any more. That no one minds so long as you don’t parade it beneath their noses. There is a craziness in the air. No one will protect these people. No one will fight back on their behalf. It is the gifting of total power. Something the wet-behind-the-ears kid that is the Captain has never experienced before.

  The dream then follows its usual trajectory. An honest trajectory, which reflects what really happened during those two empowering days.

  All through the night and into the next day the Captain rapes and kills with impunity. Each detail is clearly etched into his unconscious. Each movement is pre-programmed – endlessly repeated. As always the Dutch soldiers stand by and watch, like the captive audience at a cinema. The Captain and his people kill the Bosniaks on an industrial scale. They illuminate the killing fields with their arc lights. Cart the bodies away in their trucks and their bulldozers. Bury them in mass graves like cattle suffering from mad cow disease. Rape any available women when they fancy a break from the killing and have got their sexual energy back. Sometimes in front of their fathers and mothers. In front of their children. A rape break, thinks the Captain, crippled with laughter. Not a coffee break. A rape break.

  Some of the victims they bury alive just to see what will happen. Nothing counts but what is occurring in that precise moment. The Dutch soldiers have their Walkmans on. These guys are listening to music while the raping and the killing and the mutilation go on. How does one account for that?

  The Captain is half crazy by this time. Out of control. He and his unit have gone too far to ever stop now. It is here, at this point in his dream, that the Captain remembers the suicide stories. Of the people in the refugee camp killing themselves rather than waiting for the Scorpions to come and claim them. Hanging themselves from the chainlink fence surrounding the White House. Like pheasants displayed outside a butcher’s shop.

  Yes, thinks the Captain to himself. This is total power. This is total war. Action. Pure and simple. No holding back. You act as you see fit. When and how you see fit. You are God. Because there is no God. How can there be? How can any God let this happen? Or is it that He doesn’t care? The Captain remembers the Serbian Orthodox priest blessing his unit before they started in on the killing. How can anyone take God seriously after that? When even the priests reckon God must be on your side while you murder people?

  The Captain wakes, just as he always does, with his face slick with sweat and his T-shirt dripping. Some of the officers in the dormitory are complaining about him crying out and disturbing their sleep. Trying to get him moved to a single room. This happens regularly now. But the Captain doesn’t care. Most of his contemporaries in the Legion have never seen combat – nor are they likely to. They have never killed in the heat of battle. They don’t know what real rage is like. Or the damage done in its aftermath. And they are scared of him.<
br />
  Look at the Kraut major sitting over there on his bed. The man is a wet flannel. Thinks his men actually care that he stays back with them over Christmas rather than going home to visit his family in Germany. It makes the Captain sick to his stomach. Sick to his soul. That’s not leadership. That’s moral cowardice.

  He calls out to the corporal to fetch his shaving water. The corporal fought alongside him all the way through Kosovo. They signed up together with the Legion when things finally became too hot to handle back home. The stupid bastard even made it as far as lieutenant once, but the Legion cashiered him when he tried to go AWOL and sneak back to Serbia to see his family. Broke him back to brigadier. Bloody fool. The man was a cipher during the war, and he is a cipher now. Cipherdom suits the bastard. But it is good to talk Serb nonetheless. To reminisce about the old country from time to time. The corporal is useful for that much, at least, if he is good for nothing else.

  The German major sidles over in that way he has and tells him about this new chess prodigy they’ve discovered in town. A young girl. Sixteen maybe. At the chess club. A mind like a computer they say. The Captain, in the major’s opinion, won’t stand a chance against her.

  ‘What do you mean “won’t stand a chance”? I am top marker. I am the best player in the whole of Djibouti.’

  ‘Not any more you aren’t.’

  ‘This girl. She is Arab?’ The Captain puts a sneer in his voice, as if an Arab would find it impossible to compete on a similar level to himself.

  ‘I don’t know. I only hear what I hear.’

  The Captain brushes away the corporal with his shaving water. ‘I play her. Will she play me?’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ says the German major. ‘I can arrange it if you like. At the club. Do you want an audience?’

  The Captain shakes his head. ‘No. No one else there.’

  ‘In case you lose?’ crows the major.

  ‘I will not lose. No girl will ever beat me. It’s an impossibility.’

  The major smiles. ‘So? I’ll arrange it then? For this Sunday? Shall we say ten o’clock in the morning?’

  FIFTY-SIX

  ‘The dossier has come through on the Captain,’ said Amira. ‘Why don’t we give it to your tame major now and have done with it?’

  She was facing Hart across the table at their rented apartment. She had caught the sun during the past few days because she refused to wear any head covering when she didn’t need to. Djibouti, though a Muslim country, valued its female foreigners and their currency far too much to be prescriptive on that subject.

  ‘Because we said we wouldn’t,’ said Hart. ‘Do you generally go around telling people one thing and doing another, Amira?’

  ‘I’m a journalist. So yes. I do.’ Amira manufactured a grin. ‘I suppose you don’t, Mister Whiter Than White?’

  Hart made a pah sound. He got up and walked over to the window.

  ‘Are you sure this German major of yours is kosher?’ she continued. ‘I mean, can we trust him not to purposely lose the Captain’s dossier and then wave the bastard off to Abu Dhabi where we’ll have hell’s own chance of ever running him to ground again?’

  ‘We can trust him. Yes. I’d stake my life on it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s got a personal interest in the thing. He hates the Captain. The pair have what amounts to a vendetta going on between them. The Captain undermines the major at every opportunity. Chisels away at his authority. I suspect it’s why the major drinks. He knows the Captain wants into his shoes. He’ll be only too pleased to see the man go down. Believe me.’

  ‘So what do we do? Let Biljana talk to her father, and then turn him straight in?’

  ‘No,’ said Hart. ‘We let her call it, as we promised. She’ll need some time to think. To decide how she feels.’

  ‘What if she says no? What if she falls in love with Daddykins and wants to continue the relationship? I may be a dyed-in-the-wool feminist, but I don’t have any illusions about women. I see us realistically. And one of our major flaws is that we really believe that we can change people. Look at me, John. I thought that being loved by me would transform you from the gormless idiot that you were into Prince Charming. How wrong can a girl be.’

  Rider guffawed.

  Hart rolled his eyes. He studied the street with even more attention than before.

  ‘Where is she at the moment?’ said Amira.

  ‘In the Souk. She’s promised to be at the chess club by ten.’

  ‘What do you want us to do in the interim?’

  Hart shrugged his shoulders. He was still smarting from Amira’s barbed comments. ‘How do I know? Hang around outside maybe. Identify the Captain’s car. Be available. One thing I know. Something like this is going to play itself out in a completely different way than we anticipate. The Captain is arriving at the club assuming he is going to play chess. When Biljana tells him who she really is, he is going to imagine he’s walked into a trap. God knows how he’ll react. Our only advantage is that Biljana is fifteen years old, and hardly threatening. When he gets over his initial bout of the wobblies, he’ll probably calm down and listen to what she has to say. That’s if he hasn’t already frightened her the hell away.’

  ‘Where will you be while all this happens?’

  ‘In the men’s lavatory, listening. The major has described the place in detail to me. The layout is straightforward. The toilet is situated directly off the main clubroom. I can leave the door cracked.’

  ‘Will Biljana know that you are there?’

  ‘No.’

  Silence.

  Hart hesitated for a moment, then broke it. ‘Do you see a problem with that, either of you?’

  ‘No. I think you’re doing the right thing in the circumstances,’ said Amira. ‘However dangerous it is. Will you be armed?’

  ‘With what? A howitzer?’

  ‘How about a baseball bat?’ said Rider. ‘You could sally out to the rescue waving it around your head like Joe DiMaggio.’

  ‘Thanks, Rider,’ said Hart. ‘Thanks for your input.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Hart gave a final glance at his two companions. ‘Right. I’m about to get moving. I need to be in place well before Biljana gets there.’

  ‘Remember to take a book,’ said Rider. ‘You might get caught short. And waiting can be painful when there’s no place else to sit but on the bog.’

  ‘So can left hooks to the kisser,’ said Hart. ‘And believe me, right now I’m sorely tempted to give you one.’

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  The Captain arrived at the chess club an hour early. To practise his openings, he told himself. In fact he was suspicious of the German major’s unlikely interest in his chess game. He and the major were mortal enemies. They despised each other. The major had understood long ago that the Captain envied him his position in the hierarchy, and would do anything he could to undermine him in the eyes of the men. So what was going on?

  By the time he’d unlocked the front door and finished his rounds of the premises, the Captain had managed to convince himself that all was above board. All the major wanted was to see him publicly humiliated by a girl. And if it didn’t happen in public, the major was sure to noise the Captain’s defeat around at the first available opportunity.

  The place itself was empty as the grave. And public opening wasn’t until three o’clock that afternoon. The Captain definitely had the place to himself. So he sat down and went through the motions. If this girl was as good as they said she was, he would need to protect his king from her from the word go. He began with the Ruy Lopez opening, therefore, and played against himself for five minutes just to see what would come of it. Then he tried the Giuoco Piano with the Evans Gambit variant. The kid was sixteen. How could she possibly know about this?

  Later he tried the Sicilian
Defence. Followed by the Caro-Kann. The Captain enjoyed the challenge of chess. It was one of the few things that allowed his mind to relax and not dwell on the past. That and the brain-dead physical training he was required to do for the FFL. Both methods worked in their separate ways.

  He finished off with the King’s Indian and the English opening, which would have the virtue of surprising the hell out of her if it did nothing else. He sincerely hoped that she would not feel the need to come with a chaperone of some sort. He disliked distractions when he played. The thought of five hours clear, and playing against a worthy opponent, stimulated him beyond measure. The general standard of game he encountered at the club was abysmal. Even the German major – when he deigned to play – was prone to desperate flaws thirty or so minutes in. It was like the Germans during the Second World War. Fantastic opening. Useless end game.

  The Captain made himself a cup of coffee at the machine behind the bar. Perhaps the girl would be pretty, he told himself. That would make a change. Sixteen was a tricky age. Some girls still retained the gawkiness of childhood. He was not interested in these. But others already held the promise of what would come later. This was a different matter entirely. He was tired of the Djibouti brothels and the jaded women he found there. When he thought back to the delights he had experienced during the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, it made him want to weep. How had he come to this? Through cowardice? The fear of being banged up for war crimes he and every other red-blooded Serb had committed simply because they could? Just because he had been a Captain at the time, and nominally in command? The whole damned thing was bitterly unfair.

  By the time the clock hand moved round to ten o’clock, the Captain had managed to make himself very angry indeed. The catalyst for this state of affairs was a mixture of outraged virtue and nostalgia for an impossible-to-replicate past. Things didn’t happen in threes. He knew that he had benefited from a crazy concatenation of events in two religious and ethnically centred wars. Such a thing would not happen again in his lifetime. And he was getting older. His past now felt like an elusive utopia that was rapidly coming to seem as if it had happened to somebody else.