CONFLICT DIAMONDS: THE START OF THE BEGINNING

by Verner Jones

  The truck turned left at the end of the row of huts into the centre of the parade ground, an insignificant vehicle amongst all that heavy armour, and headed for the double wire gates and the red and white striped barrier. As they drew close the barrier lifted and the two guards swung open the gates to let them out. “See you same time tomorrow.” Shouted one of the guards. Stipe took the last draw on his cigarette and flicked the stub into the dirt. “That you will,” he shouted back, as the wagon sped past the guard on route to its rendezvous in a quiet country road where a car was waiting to unload their black market contraband and deliver it to the list of clients that Stipe had built up.

  3

  Toni Popovic

  Sergeant Zoran Jovanovich was a nasty man and everybody knew it. He didn’t take shit from no one, and there was no way he was going to carry out his commanding officers orders; not after the revelation of his last patrol. He was supposed to take ten men and deal with a couple of heavy guns that were firing at them from high on a hill. Instead he rounded up one of his corporals and gave him and a handful of soldiers the task, swearing he would personally put a bullet in the corporals head if he reported back to their superior first before coming to him. The corporal believed him and shook. No. He was going back to the big house that he had discovered the previous evening, just him and a small unit of his men.

  Toni Popovic, a twenty-three year old computer programmer with acne and a deflated chest, who since the war, was now more used to punching bullets at an unseen foe than keys on his computer terminal, was the last person the corporal picked to be part of his squad. When sergeant Zoran saw Popovic standing behind the corporal, he called over to him.

  “Popovic! Get the fuck over here. You’re with me.” Zoran looked at the corporal. “Pick someone else,” he said. The corporal said a quick ‘yes sir’ and scurried off to find a replacement. Zoran didn’t particularly like Popovic, but then again he didn’t particularly dislike him either. He was like a stick insect at mating time. The fields were full of them. Indiscernible by look or sound, except he would be the one who didn’t have a partner. And besides he was with him and the three other soldiers when they first came across the house. Zoran needed Popovic to be with him. Safety in numbers, and there was no point in bringing anyone else who didn’t know about the house’s existence into their group. The least that knew the better. Anyway, stick insects were easily crushed if they became a nuisance.

  Popovic walked briskly to Sergeant Jovanovich’s side fumbling with his glasses and standing to attention all in one uncoordinated movement.

  “Did you want me, sir?”

  “Of course I wanted you, Popovic. I wouldn’t have damn well called you over would I?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Get your things together. We’ve got a small job to do. Report back here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.” Popovic turned and left the sergeant who had ignored his last words and had started addressing the two men who were with him the night before. After a brief conversation one soldier left the unit to be followed a few moments later by the other. Zoran waited for them to return and fingered the key that was in his pocket, confident that by the morning he would be out of the war for good.

  Within fifteen minutes all the men had returned, each having brought with them the supplies the sergeant had ordered them to collect. They climbed into an army jeep and Zoran ordered the driver to take the road east towards Zvornik. An hour along the road brought them to a turning, where in the distance in the centre of nowhere, they could make out a large house, the only building for miles around. They drove towards it. Zoran armed his AKM70 in readiness for anything unexpected. The others followed suit. The place looked deserted, but Zoran wasn’t taking any chances. They stopped the vehicle short of the house by a hundred and fifty meters and jumped from the vehicle. Zoran spoke.

  “You two work your way around to the left side of the house and come in through the rear. Popovic, you come with me. We go in the front. Kill anyone you find in the house, no questions.” Everyone except Toni nodded their agreement as if they were all tuned into the same radio station and he was still fumbling with the dials. Toni unsure what was happening, nodded his head also, not wanting to be the odd one out.

  “Right. Move.” They moved out as Zoran ordered, advancing cautiously towards the house. Popovic stayed close to the sergeant. He felt safe behind such a colossus, but curious as to their objective. They reached the front of the house without any incident. Popovic felt relieved. The façade of the house had many windows and a pair of solid mahogany doors. It was the house of a wealthy man only now the windows bore the scars of an heavy bombardment, the doors were peppered with bullet holes, and a large section of the wall was missing, Toni knew was from a mortar attack during the previous fighting. It looked the same as he had seen it the previous day.

  They both took a look through one of the shattered windows. Nothing moved. There was only the stillness of the two dead bodies of the owners, lying untouched, as they had found them yesterday. They went inside and looked around the large, open reception area. The staircase wound upwards in front of them leading to a dozen or so different rooms. They probed the stillness for any movement. It felt desolate, eerily quiet, dead like its occupants.

  The other two soldiers joined them from the rear of the house. They were both early twenties, streetwise, with rugged faces and perpetually grubby hands - junkyard workers or Gypsies Toni thought - not the kind that Toni usually associated with. Computers and brawn didn’t mix, except apparently, in the army.

  “There’s nobody here, sir, just the two dead kids in the kitchen,” said the lead soldier.

  “Okay. Relax a minute.” Zoran surveyed his surroundings. Everything was as they had left it when they had been recalled back to their unit and forced to leave the house. The rooms had been ransacked, but whatever the looters were looking for he knew they hadn’t found it. He knew because after deciding that there was nothing he could do about the death of the family that lived there, and with all the soldiers gone, there was no need for them to stay around. He was about to give the order to return to his unit when he saw it. Just the loop where a key fob would be attached, protruding out from under the dead man’s palm with the words, ‘Withy Grove Ltd, engraved around its perimeter. The words made him stop in his tracks as the insignia filled the space of his peripheral vision. He stared at it for a moment. They were words he had come to know as a small boy when working in his father’s locksmiths shop. Withy Grove was a maker of the finest and strongest safes of their day, and underneath the dead man’s hand was a key to one of them.

  Zoran fingered the key that he had removed yesterday from the locked palm. He knew from the size of the key that it was a large safe, probably with a double lock. Now they had all the time they needed to find the other key, if there was one, and the safe and discover what was inside. Zoran took the key out of his pocket, held it up in the air like a magic wand, and addressed the group. “This is what we are looking for comrades, a key exactly like this one and a safe, which this key will fit, and we are going to rip this house apart until we find it. This is a key to a quality safe, so it is my guess there is a lot of money and valuables in it. We find the safe and split everything four ways. Is that a deal?” The two streetwise soldiers readily agreed. Toni had no choice in the matter; they would shoot him if he dissented. Besides the promise of a share of the loot sounded an attractive proposition even though he had a sneaking mistrust about Zoran.

  “Where do we start looking, sir?” Toni made his voice sound as relaxed and as eager as he could. Zoran’s lips creased.

  “That’s the spirit. Popovic. You two take the down stairs and be thorough in every room you go in. Popovic, we will sweep the upstairs rooms. Let’s go.” There was a fresh keenness in everyone’s step as the search for the safe and the second key began. Toni and Zoran raced up the stairs.

  “You take that room, Popovic. I’ll be next door.”

  �
��Okay.” Toni entered the room to find clothes strewn across the floor. It was a child’s bedroom, probably the dead girls in the kitchen from the size of them. The image of her lying on the floor with half her head missing flashed into his mind. He shuddered and forced himself to concentrate on his task. On the left wall was a rack of wardrobes that went from top to bottom of the room. Half the doors were opened with toys and schoolbooks balancing precariously on the shelves. Toni worked his way through every draw, in all the shoeboxes, his fingers searching every crevice. Nothing. He scoured under the bed, lifted everything that had been thrown across the room and searched any furniture that was still intact. Still nothing. He left the room and started for the next one. Zoran came out of a bedroom at the same time.

  “Anything, Popovic?” With the common cause that they now had, Toni felt at ease to address the sergeant by his first name.

  “Nothing yet, Zoran.”

  “Take this next room. They have to be here somewhere.” Toni entered what were a very ornate styled bathroom with gold lustre taps and fittings and an open sided, round-top bath with eagle’s claw and ball legs. He had never seen anything like it before. It was a room straight out of a home design magazine, and probably because nobody expected to find anything of any value in there, it had been left untouched. He searched in the towelling cupboard, in the toilet cistern, under the bath, behind the sink, everywhere. Nothing again. Toni slumped down on the side of the bath to take a breather. What if Zoran was wrong and there was no second key or safe to be found. Maybe the key he had found opened a large door somewhere and had nothing to do with safes. Toni let his thoughts ponder the subject a little longer, and prepared himself to leave the bathroom and continue the search. He placed his palms on the top of the bath and pushed himself forward. As he stood up his fingers caught an object fastened under the rim of the bath. He bent down to take a closer inspection. There fixed on two large magnets was a key exactly the same as the one Zoran had.

  Toni’s heart quickened and his mouth went dry. He prized the key away from its anchorage and ran out to tell Zoran. He would be pleased with Toni when he knew that he had found the key.

  “Zoran, Zoran! Here, I have found the key.” Zoran charged from the room he was in towards Toni.

  “Give it to me, quickly. Let me see it.” There was desperation on the edge of his voice. Toni gave him the key saying nothing. He held the key up. The same insignia of Withy Grove Ltd greeted him. He had it.

  “Let’s find the safe. Tell the others we have the key, Popovic.”

  “Will do, Zoran.” Then ignoring Toni’s reply, he went back into the room and continued searching.

  Toni watched his back disappear into the room feeling rejected that Zoran hadn’t even said ‘well done’ to him and again he felt uneasy about Zoran. The thought of the key changed his mood. Soon they would find the safe and he would be a quarter shareholder in its riches.

  The search lasted another thirty-five minutes. Zoran was standing behind a desk in a bedroom that had been converted into an office. The desk was positioned squarely on a woven patterned rug. Zoran was on the rug and he could feel a lump under his boot. He bent down and inspected the depression with his fingers. He stood up and with both hands under the desk flipped the thing onto its side. He took the edge of the carpet and dragged it back revealing a ring-pull and a pair of hinges. He lifted the trap door and stared down at the two keyholes in the door of the Withy Grove safe. Now there was only six inches of steel that separated him from his ticket out of the army. He could feel all that money calling to him to be picked up and be cradled in his arms.

  “Popovic. Get in here. I’ve found the safe. Call the others.” Popovic put his head around the door.

  “I’ll get them now, Zoran.” Toni went to the banister and shouted the news to the two other soldiers, and then he raced into the room and joined Zoran. Zoran had the keys inserted into the locks and was turning them when Toni came along side him. Zoran grasped the handle and pulled the door open, letting it crash back onto the floor.

  They both stared at the contents with open mouths. Inside there were three rows of neatly stacked deutschmarks, several draws, a jewellery box and on the top shelf, a bundle of loosely tied papers.

  “Let’s get it out, Popovic and see exactly what we’ve got.” The other two soldiers joined them.

  “Stand the desk on its feet,” Zoran ordered the new arrivals. “We’ve hit Tito’s fucking private stash,” then he dropped to his knees and started passing the loot up to Toni. They emptied the safe and placed all the contents on the table, complimenting each other on their good fortune and making plans on how they were going to spend their share of the goods. Zoran stood up with the last box in his hand.

  “You two count the money. We’ll open these and see what else our comrade has left for us.

  The jewellery box contained a diamond necklace, bracelet and ladies watch, a matching set. Each piece had three rubies as its centrepiece. Zoran held the necklace up to the light. It shouted gemstones not paste. Zoran's teeth saw daylight for the second time that day. Toni emptied the other draws. In the first one were a bundle of photographs. A man in an army uniform with a group of buddies; black and white snap shots of time long gone. Toni disregarded them quickly. The next draw revealed a Zastava 9mm handgun, army issue. No use to them with all the weapons they had. Toni instinctively checked if it was loaded. It had a full magazine. He replaced the clip and discarded the gun to one side. The last box was locked. He looked in the safe for another key. There was nothing in there except the bundle of papers. Toni thought a moment then turned the box upside down. The key was set into a hollowed out compartment behind a wooden flap. Toni prided himself for figuring out the owner’s character. This was a man whose trait was to hide things underneath something. Toni removed the key and opened the lid. Inside was a black velvet pouch. He removed the pouch and spread the contents over the table. A handful of sparkling diamonds made everyone stop what they were doing and stare at them, commanding everyone’s attention with a hush.

  The few seconds of quiet that passed fused their thoughts. When Zoran broke the silence by putting the necklace down and rattling the stones around the desk top with his finger, each man had planned how he was going to spend them. One of the soldiers let out a loud “Whoopee!” And the rest of them joined in with their own shouts of jubilation.

  After the initial excitement died down Zoran resumed his authorative position.

  “How much money is there?”

  “There’s about a hundred thousand marks altogether.” Zoran looked disappointed. There looked more when he had first seen it. Still a good sum though. Together with the diamonds and jewellery he would have enough to escape the country and set himself up handsomely in a new business, a new life. He would be just another soldier who couldn’t be accounted for, officially listed as missing presumed dead. But not if he had to share everything four ways. He looked at his comrades. A fresh plan forming in his head. All of them were unarmed, having relinquished their rifles in the search for the safe. The only gun close by was the CZ 9mm. Zoran said to the soldier on his left,

  “Go in the main bedroom, out that door on the right. There must be some cases or bags in there. Bring a couple and we can divide this and get going. We're all rich now my friends, but if we are going to stay that way, not one of us can utter a word about this to anyone. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” They all said simultaneously.

  “Get the bags then. Popovic. Go and bring the jeep up to the front entrance. Well start dividing this into four piles.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can. Zoran.”

  “Good man, and collect all our rifles and put them in the back as well.” Popovic feeling elated ran to the door, stopped then turned to answer his newfound hero.

  “Anything you say, Commander Zoran,” then continued his journey to the jeep. Now there were just the two of them in the room.

  Zoran and the other soldier started to divide the mo
ney into four piles. The soldier looking for the bags found two sports hold-alls scattered on the floor. They will do to start with, there’s bound to be some more in the othe…. At that point the soldier had his thoughts shattered by the sound of two shots being fired from the other room. He momentarily froze. There must be someone hiding in the room, watching them, and waiting for the right moment to strike. Cautiously he edged to the door and looked out. Zoran staggered out of the room clutching his gut and bent over double; blood all over his uniform.

  “Help me quick. I’m bleeding to death.” The soldier started towards Zoran. A few paces and he was out in the open, exposed. Zoran stood bolt upright and fired two bullets into his chest and watched him fall to the floor a look of disbelief racked across his face. Zoran wiped the blood of the first soldier he had shot off of his hands and waited for Popovic.

  Toni was out of the jeep crossing the drive when he heard two gunshots. His mind flew into confusion, wondering who the hell was firing at them. Maybe they had missed someone hiding in the house. Toni went to turn back to get his rifle when two more shots were fired. He ran to the back of the jeep and picked up is assault rifle, flicked off the safety catch and headed back to the house. A few paces from the entrance he heard Zoran’s voice.

  “Popovic. Get in here. It’s okay. I’ve got the bastards.” Toni relaxed his guard. Who ever it was who had attacked his comrades, the sergeant had dealt with them. He was safe again. He ran into the hall and looked up. Zoran was standing at the top of the balcony.