The farmhouse was typical: a wooden structure, a tiled roof with, apparently, half a tree growing out of the side elevation. Nearby, the ashy remains of a fire. The place looked derelict. On closer examination, he could see evidence of life. The scrub of bush and brambles leading to the building looked fractured by new growth, the underside of leaves clearly on display where they had been caught and hastily pushed aside. Added to this, a scrap of cloth bleached by a summer sun adhered to a thicket of thorns. He wondered where the Alliance two-man team were holed up, probably in a basic observation post near the far line of trees. He sensed them watching him. Or, at least, someone watching.
Taking a deep breath, he shrugged off his jacket. He took the weapon he was issued from the holster and laid it on the ground. There were several life-saving rules when infiltrating the enemy: never allow yourself to be seen; avoid open spaces; move fast; be ready for anything. Given the situation, only the last applied.
He braced himself, pushed his way through the undergrowth, making as much noise as possible. He wanted to be heard. He wanted to be seen. He needed Dario to know that it was not the security services come to arrest him. With each step he feared he would be shot. Dario might panic, or the Americans might get trigger-happy. Either way, Tallis knew he could get caught in the crossfire.
Nearing the doorway, he called Dario’s name, softly, the girls and their raped bodies and burning flesh extinguished from his mind. There was no response. To be expected, he thought, eyes raking the dirty windows with their spiders’ webs for a hint of a shadow or silhouette.
He spoke again. ‘Dario, it’s Paul. Paul Tallis,’ he repeated. ‘Sanja’s boy.’
He pushed the door open, half expecting a flash and bang, the clear certainty of ending it one way rather than another. In that moment of realisation, he knew then that part of him was already dead inside, that he had nothing left to fear.
It was dark in the room, a mirror image of Jana’s home without the furniture. There was a strong smell of earth and leaf mould and the rancid odour of a man on the run. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Tallis made out a human silhouette.
‘Good of you to come, Paul.’
Tallis narrowed his vision. Garich was sitting down, a hunting rifle across his lap, his right hand and index finger resting lightly on the trigger, safety off. His head was shaved, the knots and tendons visible beneath the skin. He wore an old camouflage jacket and trousers, lace-up boots. He looked every inch a soldier, a throwback to another time.
Tallis immediately crossed the floor, his arms outstretched, a forced smile on his face. To his amazement, Garich put the rifle down and stood up, clasping him like a long-lost brother. Tallis closed his eyes tight, willing the ghosts of the broken dead away. Even on the run, Dario felt solid and substantial, Tallis thought, blindly hugging him.
Pushing him away lightly, holding him at arm’s length, Garich had a haunted unfathomable expression in his eyes. ‘It is good to see a friendly face,’ he murmured. ‘But how did you find me, Paul? Did Jana send you?’
Tallis shook his head. Without warning, Garich took a step back, scooped up the rifle, eyes snapping from Tallis to the door.
‘Don’t worry,’ Tallis said. ‘You’re safe with me.’
‘Safe?’ Garich tossed his head back and laughed. The noise, sucked up from deep in his belly, bounced off the walls.
‘Dario, I know what you did.’
Garich stopped abruptly. His full lips dragged back in a snarl. His eyes, the colour of night, burnt with rage. Tendons in his skull protruding like whorls in tree bark, he was barely recognisable. The gun wasn’t aimed at Tallis. Not yet.
‘I fought for our people,’ Garich growled. ‘You have no idea what it was like.’
‘That’s true,’ Tallis said, coldly calm. And thank God for that.
‘We had the Serb pigs on one side and the Muslim dogs on the other. Both wanted our destruction.’
Tallis nodded. He didn’t doubt that the same arguments could be heard in nationalist Serb and Muslim circles.
‘You should have seen the offensive carried out by the Muslims around Travnik and Vitez,’ Garich railed, his eyes popping and wide.
‘Is that why you took revenge there?’ Tallis spoke as evenly as he could. He wasn’t sure of the history, whether the Muslims struck first or the other way round. What the hell did it matter, in any case?
‘Revenge?’ Garich scoffed.
‘Ethnic cleansing,’ Tallis said, stubborn.
‘Cleansing is no more than a military tactic. As an ex-army man, you should know that.’
Tallis looked deeply into Garich’s eyes. All he saw was bleak, empty darkness. ‘Like teaching someone a lesson,’ he muttered.
‘Exactly.’ Garich flashed a smile. ‘You make an example and you are feared. Anyway -’ he waved a hand in a dismissive gesture, the cultivated, moderate tone of his voice masking the evil of his argument ‘- it was a long time ago.’
Tallis felt his jaw grind. He was of the opinion that Garich should not be excluded from justice even if he was pushing around a zimmer frame.
‘This was war, Paul, not a fight in a school playground. Alliances are forged and broken. Enemies become friends. Friends become enemies.’
Tallis fancied he could hear the sound of his own blood rushing through his veins. The Americans would be wondering what the hell was going on. If he didn’t get on with it he was in no doubt they’d take things into their own hands.
‘Dario,’ he began softly, but Dario recoiled.
‘Are you my friend, Paul, or my enemy?’
‘I’m the best chance you have of survival. The place is surrounded.’
Garich’s sharp eyes glanced at the door. He readjusted his aim. The muzzle of the gun now pointed at Tallis’s gut. ‘I never took you for a Judas.’
‘I never took you for a rapist and murderer,’ Tallis said, trying to blot out the thought of his own guts spilled on the floor, the possibility of excruciating pain. ‘If you come quietly, you’ll receive a fair hearing.’
Garich spat on the ground and tightened his grip on the gun. Shit, Tallis thought, bracing his body, he’s going to fire.
There was a sound, high-pitched, like wind speeding through a broken blade of grass. Garich’s black eyes immediately lit up. ‘Surrounded, huh?’ Garich sneered.
Tallis blinked. He didn’t doubt that Garich had heard some kind of recognition signal. What the hell was going on? Surely the Americans wouldn’t allow reinforcements through.
‘It’s Goran,’ Garich said, his voice swollen with pride as he moved towards the naked window.
No, Tallis thought with alarm. This is a bluff, a way to force their man out into the open. So much for taking him alive. ‘Get down, Dario,’ he yelled.
At once, a shot rang out, followed by two more. Garich let out a scream of pure anger. ‘Bastards,’ he spat and swung round, Tallis diving for cover as another shot felled Garich, his head exploding from his body.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Tallis cursed.
Keeping low, scuttling forward past Garich’s still-smoking corpse, Tallis threw open the door. Another shot rang out, this time missing him by inches. Retreating, he scooped up the hunting rifle, then made another approach, hunkering down, staying low. From the relative safety of the doorway, he took in the unfolding carnage. Goran’s body lay sprawled in the long grass, the earth surrounding him suffused with blood. No trace of the Americans.
Tallis called out, his voice gliding on a random breeze, then lost. Suspicious, he straightened up. There was no sign of anyone or anything. He crossed the doorway, drawing fire. Nothing happened. He had the definite sensation that he was alone, but experience told him to be on the alert. Baffled and furious by the sudden disastrous turn of events, he ran in a half crouch to where he’d dropped his kitbag. Taking out his binoculars, eyes raking the landscape, he spotted two flattened areas further back, near the long line of trees. He walked towards them, each step like a death k
nell, the tension almost overpowering, so that when his worst fears were confirmed it was almost like an anticlimax. First, the outline of a body slumped against the trunk of a tree. Closer inspection revealed it to be Pete. Another man, presumably Steve and part of the Alliance team, was lying prone, half his head blown away. Explained the gunfire prior to Garich’s murder, Tallis registered, glancing up, scanning the forest for signs of a sniper.
Fear rose inside him, not the fear of being next, but the greater fear of being set up, cast aside and alone.
Calculating the trajectory of the bullets, he tracked back through the forest, scouring the ground for flattened areas, anything that would give away the gunman’s lair. Weather conditions, he noted, were good: still, with very little wind. Targets were stationary, making them easy prey. Allied to this, plenty of cover for the sniper.
Roughly eight hundred metres away he found what he was looking for. Squatting down, he examined the ground with his fingers, marking out the valleys and pressure points where a body had clearly lain in wait. A dip to the left and slightly forward pointed up the position of an elbow in the ground, suggesting that the sniper was right-handed. Two ridges at the other end indicated the location of a pair of boots, more specifically toe marks. By roughly measuring the length of the elbow line to the boot line, he estimated that the gunman was short in stature, possibly no more than five foot four or five. He couldn’t tell what type of weapon was used.
Turning on his heel, he traced his way back and headed for the emergency rendezvous. By now the sun had all but slipped from view, the light fading fast. He wondered what the hell he was going to say to Jon, to Asim, dear God, to Jana and his mother. He was starting to take the view that wherever he went death was not far behind. Whoever he came into contact with had bad luck visited on them. You’re talking bollocks, he thought with a forced grin. Merely an occupational hazard of his line of work, what the Americans would call collateral damage. As for his flaky mental state, it was nothing more complicated than the result of three challenging jobs in quick succession with little break in between.
The secondary point was a small pretty wooden cottage set back from the road. It made a change from the expected, Tallis thought. But, of course, these weren’t battle conditions, he reminded himself as he approached. Just felt like them.
At the sight of Tallis alone, the colour drained from Jon’s face.
‘Garich is dead,’ Tallis explained, recounting in detail the fatal turn of events.
‘What are you saying?’ Jon snarled. ‘That Pete took out Garich and his brother before he was killed?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t stop to find out.’ Tallis didn’t care for the mutinous look in Jon’s eye. ‘It’s possible that the same person who killed Pete and Steve also killed Garich and Goran. However you view it, it’s a fiasco.’
‘Fiasco? It’s a fucking disaster, man.’
And Tallis had a rough idea who was going to be blamed. Time to set the record straight. ‘You said yourself you already had a leak.’ This wasn’t the first time the Alliance had tried to spring Garich.
‘From another organisation, sure.’
‘Perhaps the leak is closer to home. Maybe you have a mole.’
Jon struck the wall with his fist. Plaster and dust flew in all directions. One of the men sitting down got to his feet, squared up to Tallis. Tallis remained implacable. ‘Look, Jon, I know you’re sore at losing your friends but, by your own admission, you said you’re a highly secret organisation. Frankly, secrecy encourages betrayal.’
Jon cursed, his face stone. ‘You know jackshit how we operate.’
Tallis ignored the jibe and made to leave. ‘I’m going to call my contact. I suggest one of you gets out there and checks the crime scene if for no other reason than you have four stiffs littering the Balkan countryside. And another thing,’ he said, briefly turning back. ‘The sniper.’
‘What about him?’ Jon glared.
‘That’s my point. It’s not a him, but a her.’
CHAPTER SIX
Isolde Chatelle, the secretary general of the United Nations, viewed her deputy, Ingmar Seastrom, with warm regard. It was well known that she consulted widely, but final decisions were always made with Seastrom, usually within the four walls of her opulent office on the thirty-eighth floor.
Currently the world was in its usual state of turmoil. Usual suspects: war, famine and natural disasters. More recently, and as a late entry, economic meltdown had joined the party. Chatelle ran through an up-to-the-minute mental checklist. Appeals were ongoing for aid to help victims of a cyclone that had hit India. Under the auspices of UNESCO, education programmes were under way in a number of countries deemed previously unreachable, and policies were being formed on the spread of HIV and AIDS in Asia and Africa. More specifically on the subject of aid, supplies had been sent via the World Food Programme to Somalia. Sudden sharp lines of anger furrowed Chatelle’s brow. Two planeloads of food destined for Mogadishu were sitting on tarmac at an airport in Kenya because Islamic extremist insurgents with strong links to Al Qaeda had blocked their distribution even though the people were starving. Their visceral hatred of the West meant that the rebels had condemned distribution as interference in domestic affairs. Chatelle let out a sigh. That one neat example highlighted and summed up the moral and ethical contradiction that was the United Nations.
Founded to avert conflict between nations, it was not allowed to interfere in a country’s internal affairs however gross its conduct. To do so would be regarded as a shameful violation of state sovereignty. Unfortunately, the change in nature and structure of world affairs was not foreseen when the UN was created. Rather than nation fighting nation, there had been a proliferation of civil wars, ethnic cleansing and genocide, with hideous regimes seeking to oppress their own people. Because of the intrinsic limitations of the UN, and under the terms of its charter, it was powerless to intervene. For this it received condemnation and blame. Personally Chatelle had always regarded the failure of the United Nations to act during a particularly vicious period of the 1990s as a stain on its history. And, whatever she maintained in public, she very much believed chaos in the Balkans could return, which was why the Security Council was scheduled to meet in the next hour to review the almost invisible but steady rise of ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The very thought was enough to make the short dark hairs on the back of her neck stand up in protest.
Seastrom read her thoughts. ‘While I’m delighted the Serbian government have fully
co-operated in handing over those most culpable,’ he said with delicacy, ‘there are pockets of nationalism that remain stubbornly resistant. We cannot afford a deterioration and repeat of ethnic genocide,’ he said, his intense blue eyes narrowed by anxiety. ‘It’s like a ticking bomb waiting to go off.’
‘Surely, a rather pessimistic viewpoint. What are you saying, Ingmar - that there will never be peace and security there?’
‘May I speak frankly?’ It was an unnecessary question but one constantly posed by her deputy.
Chatelle motioned for Seastrom to continue. ‘We are friends, Ingmar,’ she assured him.
He folded his tall, lanky frame and dropped down into a seat opposite her. As always, he was immaculately dressed. Shoes shined, trouser creases sharp, the cut of his dove-grey jacket impeccable. Intrinsically cautious, Ingmar wore the permanent expression of a man in pain. ‘As long as the Americans continue to call the shots both inside and outside the Security Council, I fear any Western strategy is doomed.’
Chatelle trod a difficult line with Seastrom, almost as fragile as the line walked with the Americans, she thought. The United Nations was still largely at the mercy of the strategic interests of its most powerful and generous member. With China hot on America’s heels, the UN was in danger of becoming nothing more than a talking shop and about as effective. The organisation was also perceived by many to be biased towards its more powerful members rather than remaining neutral. As for
her position, maintaining popularity with US diplomats and political leaders was key to staying in the job. One wrong attitude, openly expressed, and she’d become a victim of a coup. It had happened before and it could happen again.
‘At least our role is recognised by the current American administration,’ she said.
‘Which is more than can be said of the previous one.’
That wouldn’t be difficult, Chatelle thought. She well remembered a previous American ambassador who had put on record that he despised the United Nations, an organisation he largely regarded as an irrelevant irritant. A return to the more traditional, softer approach was, indeed, a welcome change. However, the Americans were still resistant when it came to signing the Rome treaty granting authority to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. With the Balkans threatening to erupt all over again, Ingmar Seastrom had let it be known that he was irritated by what he described as American intransigence.
To deflect further discussion, Chatelle enquired about the explosive situation on the Chad/Sudan border. After a period of comparative peace, or decline in violence, the place had boiled over again. As surely as day followed night, fighting followed famine.
Seastrom’s pale Scandinavian features darkened. ‘Getting worse by the day. The displaced are heading out in hundreds of thousands.’
She nodded wearily and added this to an already lengthening list of issues that needed her urgent attention. Still, there was another matter that they had not yet discussed: the steep and recent rise in hostile acts against UN personnel. Seastrom brought it up now.
‘Sadly, attacks on UN staff come with the job description,’ she countered quite needlessly.
Seastrom was only too aware of the risks. ‘But you can’t deny there’s been a serious increase in activity.’
‘Recent intelligence suggests that the United Nations Headquarters is on most terrorists’ list of top targets.’ For that reason, security at Headquarters in New York had been stepped up. If Chatelle had had her way she would have pushed for a serious UN intelligence capability. For a while in the 1990s it had looked like a firm possibility with the establishment of a Situation, Information and Research Unit, but it had been wound up by the end of the decade. Same old: lack of political will.
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