Go to hell, Tallis thought. Under the weight of such condemnation, allegiances, family or otherwise, disappeared. ‘No.’
‘So?’
‘So nothing. I work alone. I’m not into the team spirit thing.’ Not even if the British government thought otherwise.
Jon cast him a cold look and nodded to one of his gum-chewing friends, who produced a mobile phone. The man punched in a string of numbers and handed it to Tallis.
‘There’s someone who’d like to talk to you,’ Jon said.
Tallis gave a sigh of resignation, put the phone to his ear and heard a familiar voice. ‘Hello, Asim,’ he said, staring at the brick wall ahead of him. ‘How lovely to hear from you.’
I was in the camp for almost two and a half years. Winter was worst; the cold clawed at me. There was never enough to eat and not enough to do. It was like being under siege. As the months passed, starvation was a real possibility. I was bored and lonely and chilled with despair. There were rumours of concentration camps, of mass rapes, beatings and killing. We heard that Chetniks were going from house to house, taking out young men and boys and shooting them.
Endless days merged into endless nights with only nightmares for company.
In the summer of 1995, our numbers suddenly swelled. Busloads of women and young children poured in, their faces scored with misery. Only one word was on their lips: Srebrenica.
Declared a safe haven by the United Nations and guarded by Dutch peacekeepers, Srebrenica was overflowing with Muslim refugees who’d fled from the surrounding area to escape the fighting. Then the Bosnian Serbs rolled in; it was neither safe, nor a haven.
That July, in front of Dutch peacekeepers, Serbs separated boys from their mothers and men from their wives. At gunpoint, thousands were ordered into the backs of trucks and driven away. They killed those who tried to flee. Some young women were raped. Sabina was one of them. When I saw her crouched alone in our camp, a perilous look in her eyes, I knew then that I had discovered someone like me. I’d found my soulmate.
She wore a blue blouse with flowers on it and a dirty woollen waistcoat. Her floral skirt was smeared with her own blood. Her arms were crossed and she rocked to and fro. She was talking to herself, but I could not hear her words.
I went straight to her, squatted down, and gently touched her face. I traced a line of tears as yet unshed. I whispered my name. I told her that I would look after her. I promised that I would be her friend for ever. She turned her large soulful eyes to me and said, ‘I want to hang myself.’
I took her by the hand. I fed and washed her. I held her while she slept. I listened and kept her close. Slowly, I pieced together the fragments of her shattered world. Her father was a teacher in Sarajevo, her mother a nurse. She had two brothers, younger than her. The family enjoyed a good life. They had a nice apartment overlooking the river. She spoke of the city built into a valley where women wore lipstick and nail varnish and walked in high heels. Early on, and before Sarajevo was engulfed in a siege that would almost chOKe the life out of it, the family escaped to the country where they had relatives. They thought they were safe.
They were wrong.
A sniper killed Sabina’s mother as they fled the fighting in Bratunac. Her brothers and father were taken at Srebrenica. We later learnt that over seven thousand men and boys simply disappeared. Of those who fled over the mountains, most were hunted down and murdered. Others killed themselves rather than be taken. Sabina wept and asked me why the peacekeepers hadn’t stopped the offensive. I had no answers. She vowed that she would never trust the UN and their peacekeepers again. But she did, and so did I.
And that was their next betrayal.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tallis closed the phone and looked at Jon. ‘Seems that our essential relationship is about to be put to the test.’ The damage inflicted following the leaking of American intelligence regarding torture, coupled with the strong belief, held by many Americans, that Britain with its tolerant laws nurtured Islamic extremism, belonged to a previous era. The new President, it seemed, was keen to kiss and make up and re-map the rules of engagement.
Jon flashed a hundred-megawatt smile and suggested that they go somewhere more comfortable. Keen to leave the customised interrogation centre, Tallis followed him upstairs to a simply furnished sitting room. A brief glance out of the window informed Tallis that he was in a house on a busy street in a suburb close to the airport.
Over coffee, he learnt that Jon and his buddies were part of ‘the Alliance’ a highly secret force set up by the Americans in response to the world’s trickier situations. Originally a crack snatch team specialising in hostage retrieval and pooled from the Central Intelligence Agency and the military, the Alliance’s main sphere of expertise was directed at tracking down terrorists. Jon explained that, in return for building up a network of intelligence, the Alliance had assisted numerous regimes, including the Serbian government in their hunt for Ratko Mladic.
‘Because of the covert nature of our work, we allow others to take credit for operations that we’ve planned, engineered and carried out. Secrecy is the name of the game,’ he said.
‘How much power do you actually have?’ Tallis believed it to be extraordinary.
Jon glanced at the others. ‘We step in when other agencies’ resources are unavailable or inappropriate.’
A little like my own line of work, Tallis thought. ‘Doesn’t quite answer my question.’ He
smiled.
A guy, who’d introduced himself as Pete, spoke. ‘We’re a black unit and we’re not afraid of breaking rules.’ The tone was surly. Like Jon, Pete was stocky. The impressive physique straining at the shoulders of his shirt suggested a serious obsession with weights.
‘Assassination?’ Tallis addressed his question to Jon.
‘What we get up to makes the average defence department guys scream.’
Interesting, Tallis thought, helping himself to more coffee.
‘We’d already got a line on Garich, or so we believed, but by the time we moved in he’d already left.’
‘Reckon he was tipped off?’
Jon nodded. ‘Initially we thought it was the French. They have a habit of spoiling operations. Then you turn up on the scene…’
‘And I’m the obvious candidate,’ Tallis said.
‘Think you can exploit the family connection?’
Asim had made the same suggestion. It was a line of enquiry that Tallis felt was already exhausted. Goran wasn’t going to breathe a word and neither was Jana. He declared it a dead end.
‘We could lean on them,’ Pete said, a determined set to his jaw.
Tallis flicked a smile. ‘I favour a more moderate and productive approach.’
‘Since when did Garich favour a moderate approach towards his victims?’ There was real heat in Pete’s expression, an ugly slant to his lips. The others shuffled their feet. Tallis decided to ignore the remark. Jon did the same. He turned to Tallis.
‘We could offer money as an incentive, maybe to the wife.’
Tallis thought of Jana and Dario’s humble dwelling. A large injection of loot would not go amiss. But he knew better than most that it was impossible to put a price on nationalism, let alone buy it. Although repelled, he was convinced that Dario and, quite possibly Jana, believed themselves to be patriots. He told Jon this.
‘So what’s your thinking?’ Jon said.
Tallis thought and said, ‘Garich is a popular man. Someone is willing to harbour him.’
‘He’s here in Croatia?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was an honest answer. ‘He might have taken a train to Budapest and skipped the country.’ The Croatian police regularly carried out rigorous checks that often resulted in delayed services. However, Garich would not necessarily be classed in the same category as a common criminal. Given the right inducement, a police officer could easily have been persuaded to turn a blind eye.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Pete exploded. Tallis felt a pulse in
his cheek twitch. Allied to his general surliness, the man’s lack of temperateness was annoying the hell out of him.
‘Easy, Pete,’ Jon said, brokering a temporary ceasefire. ‘The guy’s here to help.’ He looked at Tallis. ‘What’s your plan, Paul? We can’t afford another screw-up.’
‘I go back to Garich’s wife, let her think I’m off the trail. She buys it. She might even let down her guard and contact Dario. Is the place bugged?’
Jon nodded.
‘Meanwhile, I go to Bosnia and check out the scene of crime.’
‘Why?’ Jon sounded doubtful.
‘It’s the one place you wouldn’t think of looking for him.’ Tallis also wanted to get a feel for what had taken place there. He wanted to ask around. Sometimes even the dead talked.
‘This is horseshit,’ Pete said, eyes two slits of resentment. Judging by the expression on the other men’s faces, they agreed. Only Jon seemed resigned to let him have his way, mainly because he didn’t have any better ideas, Tallis suspected.
‘We’ll arrange a flight to Sarajevo and transport the other end,’ Jon said, handing Tallis back his mobile phone.
‘Appreciate it,’ Tallis said, standing up. ‘Perhaps one of you guys -’ he smiled coldly at Pete
‘- would be kind enough to drive me back to Samobor.’
‘What happened to you?’ Jana gasped.
Tallis hadn’t realised how badly Jon and co. had slapped him around. He glanced over Jana’s head and saw his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. His left eye was bruised and swollen and there was a nasty weal on his right cheek. Deciding to exploit it, he fixed her with a doleful expression and said, ‘I asked one or two questions in the wrong places. Looks like Dario’s annoyed certain individuals in the cigarette trade.’
Consternation and guilt sparked in her eyes, followed by clear relief that the truth about her man remained hidden. And yet hadn’t the truth, or its concealment, exacted its toll? Tallis thought. Setting aside the natural laws of ageing, Jana was a very different individual from the fun-loving woman of yesteryear. He wondered for how long Jana had known about Dario’s wartime activities, whether she’d known from the get-go and simply blotted the potential consequences from her mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to blurt out.
He shrugged his shoulders, giving the impression that he’d rather forget about it. ‘Think I’ll turn in, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all. Is there anything you want? Something to eat?’ She looked a picture of sympathy and guilt.
‘I’m fine.’ He thanked her. He’d already eaten with his new partners in crime. Jon had insisted on it. Tallis thought it would take more than a hamburger and fries to cement a new accord, but he appreciated the effort. ‘And Jana,’ he said, pausing by the stairs, ‘I’m catching an early flight tomorrow.’
Her expression neutral, she could hardly contain the smile of relief in her voice. ‘Thank you for coming and I’m so sorry for your trouble.’
No trouble at all, Tallis thought, grimly climbing the stairs.
The next morning Tallis took a forty-five-minute flight from Zagreb to Sarajevo. He arrived in a blaze of warm summer sunshine made all the more extraordinary by the sight of sloping mountains surrounding the capital. The topography, he could see, had been a gift to snipers who’d had a field day during the siege of Sarajevo. Back then, Serb gun positions had littered the innocent-looking hills. According to the homework he’d carried out the previous afternoon, the capital’s population was forced to live without food, water and electricity for a total of one thousand two hundred days, the longest siege in modern European history. Of eleven thousand civilians killed, one thousand five hundred were children. A simple act of queuing for bread could buy you a one-way ticket to eternity. As for the politics, some blamed the Americans for failing to get involved in the early part of the conflict, which they largely perceived as a ‘European’ problem and of no strategic interest. According to Jon, most Americans had never heard of Bosnia at that time. Others blamed the Europeans for their failure of diplomacy. To whichever camp one belonged, the United Nations was universally regarded as weak and pathetic for allowing its troops to be pushed around by hostile forces, Serb and Croat alike. World opinion declared that the UN was partial in its actions when it should have been impartial, the fiercest criticism reserved for the policy-makers within the UN, in particular the then secretary-general and his aides. Of those critics, some said the UN turned a blind eye. Tallis didn’t know if that were the case, but nothing would surprise him. As an off-the-books spook and former soldier, he was hardened to the slimy machinations of politicians and civil servants who kept their hands clean while others did their dirty work. He was familiar with ends justifying means. He was accustomed to those above his pay grade keeping the truth confined.
Tallis passed through Customs and found his way to the car rental unit. No sooner had he supplied his name and documents than a swarm of interested individuals, smiling and laughing, gathered round. Puzzled, Tallis, with his newly acquired entourage in tow, followed an animated young woman out of the building to the car bay, where she handed him a set of keys and pointed.
‘That?’ Tallis gaped, following her gaze.
‘It was driven here last night. We do not normally have such vehicles on our list.’
I’m not surprised, Tallis thought, staring at the pickup, a Dodge Ram Mega Cab in inferno red. Might as well drive around with a megaphone blaring he was on the lookout for war criminals. He strongly suspected this was Pete’s idea of a joke.
Tallis took the keys, bleeped open the door and slid inside. Roomy, he conceded, and with a powerful turbo-diesel engine, plenty of woof under the bonnet. He was less impressed by the automatic transmission.
The drive from the airport into the centre of Sarajevo was around twelve kilometres. The morning traffic had eased, and Tallis soon found himself in the city, which was smaller than he imagined and full of charm. There were quaint squares, ancient-looking bridges. Old boys sat outside cafés playing chess. Roads looked freshly paved and proved a refreshing change from the potholed variety in the UK. Parking proved a problem, not because of the size of the vehicle but because there were limited spaces. In the end he found a public car park at the rear of the Holiday Inn.
His destination was the old town, the Turkish quarter. He followed Marsala Tita street and into Ferhadija. Everywhere felt clean and restored. An awful lot of reconstruction must have taken place, he thought, remembering the pictures he’d seen of devastated streets and buildings without a single window left unbroken. With its steep roads, plethora of cafés, green parks and diverse population, Tallis imagined he could hear the beating heart of the city, feel its vibrancy. He much admired the perfect blending of old and new, even down to the inventive ways in which young, stylish Muslim women wore their scarves and veils - a modern twist on an ancient religion. Sarajevo felt international and yet it seemed full of old-world values. Strangers were polite and friendly. Everyone smiled and appeared tolerant of one another. There were not many places left on earth, he thought, where one could see four separate and distinct places of worship clustered on the perimeter of the same square.
It was also a city of graves. He had never seen so many.
The restaurant, in a courtyard of cluttered, cobbled streets, was a lesson in warehouse chic: large open spaces, stuff hanging from rafters, rustic and dimly lit. He bowled straight through and went upstairs to the office of Hope International, where, care of a single phone call made on the previous afternoon, Stella Diamond was waiting for him. At the sound of his tread, she stood up, moved around her desk, neatly circumventing a pile of files and books on the floor, and shook his hand.
‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, smiling.
He reckoned she was a well preserved mid to late forties. She had dark brown hair, sallow skin hinting at Mediterranean blood, and wore bright red lipstick. Her eyes were
chocolate-brown and downturned
at the edges. She moved quickly and precisely, and although her dress was somewhat old-fashioned - flowing floral-patterned skirt with a loose blouse and knitted cardigan - he sensed she was a modern, no-nonsense thinker. He liked her on sight.
‘Coffee?’
The standard ice-breaker in the Balkans. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ he said.
‘The advantage of living over a restaurant.’ She flashed an engaging smile. ‘Two ticks.’
She disappeared downstairs and reappeared moments later. ‘Take a seat, or rather the seat.’ She laughed. ‘We’re a bit stuck for space.’
‘I can see.’ Tallis smiled and pressed his lean body into the only available chair.
While they waited for the coffee to arrive they started off with small talk. He quickly elicited that she’d studied modern languages at university, had a Home Counties middle-class background, father a lawyer, mother a teacher, that she had gone into the civil service and worked in international development before becoming disenchanted. She didn’t go into detail, although Tallis suspected that her desire to leave was connected to the personal rather than the professional. Not long after, she had contracted a fixation with the Balkan conflict.
‘I saw a photograph of two little orphans abandoned in a refugee camp in Tuzla.’ She explained. ‘It was like a thunderbolt to the heart. Looking back, I suppose it came at a point in my life when I realised that I was never going to have children of my own,’ she said, candour in her expression. ‘Then I started following the war. Within months, hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Those who survived were often split up from their families, not just for months but years. Contrary to what we were being told, there were no safe havens. I couldn’t believe it. I’d come to Yugoslavia on holiday only a few years before the outbreak of hostilities. It seemed inconceivable that a fully fledged war was taking place right under our noses in Europe.’
She fell silent as a young Bosnian waiter steered a course through the office detritus and deposited a tray of coffee on Diamond’s desk. He was dark-haired, slim-featured, eyes framed by exceptionally long eyelashes. ‘You need a cleaner,’ he said and smiled.
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