The Final Pontiff

by Neil Howarth

  In the winter the pass would probably be blocked with snow, but at this time of year with spring rapidly approaching it should be clear. The track ahead was the fastest way forward, but with the mountain bikes out there looking for her she needed to get off the main trail and make life difficult for them.

  She veered off to the left, deeper into the trees. This first part was almost impassable, but she soon found a narrow route, hardly more than a space between the trees, but it headed in the general direction she wanted. She forged her way forward, holding up an arm against the tree branches that whipped and clawed at her face. The trail widened slightly, and she was able to get into a steady trot.

  She could hear the revving of the bike engines, closer now, but she reckoned they were still down on the main track. She pushed ahead. The trail dropped steeply and wound round into a small clearing. A fast flowing stream cut through the center on its way down to the valley. To the left, the cliff climbed steeply, and a narrow waterfall cascaded out in a rainbow of colors and dropped into a small pool, cut naturally into the rock, from which the stream flowed out. Frankie jogged over and knelt down upon the bank. She splashed the refreshing ice cold water on her face. It felt so good. She had the urge to strip off and jump in, but she knew she did not have the time or the luxury. She cupped water in her hands and slurped it greedily, then filled the water bottle from her backpack.

  She sat on a fallen log and looked out across the clearing to where the land dropped rapidly away. From here she could see all the way down into the valley. Joseph was down there somewhere. He had to be safe. She could not even contemplate what the alternative to that could be. She had to focus on now, here. She needed to go in the opposite direction. That was her only way back to him.

  She looked up at the snow-topped mountain. The pass was up there, and it was still some hours away. She had hoped she could reach it before nightfall and at the very latest cross first thing in the morning.

  She listened to the revving of the bikes. They seemed a little more distant. She was reluctant to move from this tiny oasis, but she knew she still had a long way to go.

  Something disturbed her, she was not sure what it was at first. She looked up. The sound was more distinct now, a high pitched buzz. She scanned the blue sky looking for the source. Then she caught it. Just a dot at first, it was probably at about two thousand feet, moving at a steady pace across the sky. She knew what it was. A UAV, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, commonly known as a drone.

  It was not one of the big birds like the MQ-9 Reaper, the hunter-killer the American’s used. It could fly at 40,000 feet, piloted by someone thousands of miles away, with its high powered infrared cameras able to look down and see the earth in all its fine detail, and deliver its deadly payload. This one was much smaller, and cheaper with far less range, but they could be very effective in targeted areas. They had cameras, even infra-red heat seeking ones that could identify body heat from a height of a couple of thousand feet. They were readily available in any decent electronics shop, though from what she had seen of the Colonel’s men so far, they did not look as though they had enough IQ between them to fly one of these things. She got the uneasy feeling that someone had just upped the ante.

  She studied the drone, it was still a dot in the distance, not coming any closer. It seemed to circle around covering the same area. A chill gripped at her heart as she realized why. She rechecked the bearing and then checked again. She was sure. There were probably others up there, working in a search pattern, looking to seek her out. But that one had a specific job to do. The realization put a cold hard stone in her gut. It was monitoring the pass through the mountains. There was no way through that way. Even at night. If it had infrared cameras, and she was willing to bet money that it did, it could pick her out like a firefly flitting through the darkness. She had to find another way.

  She sat on the tree trunk, her plan in tatters. Could she go back? Retrace her steps all the way back to the monastery. Maybe she could even get back to the car. That is if they had left no one behind, and if she could make it past the mountain bikes, and the foot patrols that were sweeping the woods between her and her destination.

  A new sound brought her out of her contemplation. This one was not a drone or a high powered mountain bike, this was a sound that reminded her of her childhood. For a while they had lived on the Camargue, down in the Rhone delta, in southern France. On her way home from school she would hear the same sound. Then it would appear, like a mirage on the horizon, rushing out of the wetlands towards her. The sound came again, distant, somewhere down in the valley. The low haunting whistle of a train.

  She searched the valley down below her. Then she saw it. Cut into the hillside, a narrow railway track, snaking its way across the folds of the landscape. It ran out from the direction she had come and then disappeared into the trees out to her left, running on towards the mountain where the drone sat with its watchful eye over the mountain pass. Except the train did not travel over the pass. She suddenly remembered the detail from Walter’s map. The train did not go over the mountain at all.

  It went under it.

  46

  Hills, Outside Bretsnia.

  Armena served up a lamb stew with boiled potatoes in a surprisingly quick time. She gave him a guilty smile and revealed she had cooked it a couple of days before, and kept it in the refrigerator. She told him she came once a week and would cook enough to feed her uncle until her next visit.

  Her Uncle Omar sat at the end of the table and ate in silence. He finished his food, then disappeared out the door without a word. Fagan caught the sharp aroma of pipe tobacco. He wished he could speak with him. He was sure that a man of his age had to have many memories of the bad times here in these hills. He might have something that could unlock the secrets that he was searching for.

  Fagan sat by the fire, trying to hold back the multitude of thoughts pushing away at the back of his mind, and failing.

  Where was Frankie right now? Had she made it over the mountain? Was she already safe? He would not allow himself to contemplate the flip side of that. He wanted to call Walter, but his friend had warned him not to call on the public phone network.

  Connect via a WiFi network, he had said. I can do things with the IP address and make it look like your calling from Mongolia.

  Little chance of that out here.

  Armena appeared with a large mug of steaming coffee. “I made it American style. I thought you would like it that way.”

  “Thank you.” Fagan welcomed the distraction.

  He took the mug, and Armena settled down in the chair opposite. She had tied her hair back in a bun, and it seemed to give some life back to her face.

  “I did not thank you for saving me today. Those men, I know they would have killed me.”

  Fagan gave a casual shrug. “That’s okay.”

  “Are they the ones who killed Tarik?”

  “Them, or men like them. They work for a man called Ratko Vladij.”

  “It does not surprise me. He is the Colonel’s brother. I told Tarik not to do it. I told him what would happen, but he never listened. These men always get what they want.” She stared into the fire then looked up. “I am not sure how long we can stay hidden. These men know this area, they will be asking questions and making their threats. It is only a matter of time before they find us.”

  “Not necessarily. In the morning we can get away from this place. We can go somewhere safe.”

  “But what about Marko. I can’t leave without him.”

  “We can get a message to him. You could meet him later.”

  Fagan sipped at his coffee, not sure how to ask her what he wanted.

  “I told you back at the cemetery, those men back there, they are also looking for someone very special to me. I need you to help me so I can stop them.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I’m not sure. I just hope when I see it, I will know. These men, they work for this man you call the Colonel, Dragon
ov Vladij, or at least for his brother, Ratko Vladij. Tarik was killed because he was going to testify at a war crimes trial of the Colonel. Your brother had evidence about a massacre that occurred in these hills, more than twenty-five years ago. Somehow that seems to be tied up in what my friend and I were pursuing, but I’m not sure how.”

  She was staring into the fire again. He wasn’t sure if she had heard him.

  “I’m sorry I realize this is painful, but Tarik is gone, their witness is gone. So why are they still chasing me and my friend?”

  The girl remained silent. Fagan didn’t push her. He could see she was struggling as she searched for something in the depths of the burning ashes.

  Eventually, she spoke. “Tarik is gone, but what the Colonel did still remains.”

  Fagan sipped at his coffee and let her speak.

  “Everyone told him to forget it, to put it behind him and move on. They told him that holding on to knowledge like that would only get him killed. Of course, they were right. But Tarik would not let it go. He could not. It was as if it burned him up inside. You have to understand about Bretsnia. I have lived here all my life, and my family have been in this area for generations. Half the town were Muslims half were Orthodox Christians, we had some Catholics and even a Jewish family. There was a time when none of that mattered. We were neighbors, we helped each other like good neighbors do, and we lived in peace together. But the war changed all that.”

  She continued staring into the fire as if she was playing the pictures in her head.

  “There had been rumors, every day new stories, atrocities, massacres. But we had seen none of it. I remember waking in the middle of the night.” She spoke in a low whisper as if trying to keep the knowledge between just the two of them. “My father stood at the front door talking to a man. He was a neighbor. They stood whispering together. I could see behind him out on the street, other families, loaded up with their belongings, heading for the center of the town. He said we all had to go. My mother and father gathered us all together. I asked my father what was going on. He said we were being moved. It was for our own safety because the war was coming. So my parents, myself, my younger brother, Tarik and my older brother, Anan, we took just the essential things we needed, and left our house.” She had to stop for a moment at the mention of them and compose herself.

  “We never went back.

  “When we arrived in the town square they were all lined up. The men and teenage boys were segregated from the women and children. Others stood around the outside looking on. I knew their faces. Many my father had called his friends. But there were other faces too, men I had never seen before. They were armed and seemed to be controlling it all.

  “They separated out myself and Tariq and my mother, but my Father and Anan were forced to line up in the square with the other men. I remember looking at Anan, he was very frightened, but my father put a reassuring arm around him. Armed men marched them off. Tarik was shouting after them. I tried to hold on to him, but he ran off. I followed him down one of the side streets, but he turned and followed the direction that our father and Anan had gone.

  “By the time I caught up with him, we could see the line of them walking up the road out of the town. They turned in through a gate at the top of the hill. Tarik ran after them. He wormed his way through a hedge. I followed him, and we lay there in the dirt looking out across the field. It was newly plowed, but there was something else that was new. They had dug a huge pit using one of those mechanical diggers. The earth was piled up beside it. They had forced all the men and boys to kneel at the edge. It was not until that moment, as they were all lined up on their knees that I realized they were all Muslims.

  “He stood there giving the orders — Colonel Vladij.” She almost spit out the name. She had to pause to take a breath. “He gave the order, then it happened. One by one, they were shot in the back of the head and fell forward into the pit.

  “Tarik tried to get up and run to them, but I held him down with my hand over his mouth, suppressing my own scream in my throat. Then it was over, and there was nothing but silence. We lay there in the dark, Tarik was sobbing, and there was nothing I could say to comfort him.

  “Then the engine of the mechanical digger started, and it began plowing the piled up dirt into the pit. They buried the bodies, young and old, covering them over with earth. Just like the potatoes they had planted in that same field the previous spring.”

  She stopped and stared into the fire. Fagan placed a hand on her shoulder and gave a squeeze, but he was unable to say anything. What could he say?

  Finally, she began speaking again.

  “When they had gone we made our way back to the town. We could hear the screams as we approached. What we saw in the town square would stay with us forever. I know it haunted Tarik until the day he died.

  “That night, Hell came to Bretsnia.”

  Fagan remembered that Brother Drago had used the same phrase. Maybe she had told him the same story.

  “You should take a rest.”

  But Armena would not stop, as if she was replaying a newsreel of it all in her head, and needed to tell it.

  “Women were being raped in the streets, many amongst the dead bodies of their own children. The little ones themselves had been shot or bayoneted. After the women had been used, they were also shot, left where they lay, clothes ripped from their bodies. To those women who were the victims, it must have seemed like a lifetime, but in reality, within an hour every single Muslim was dead. Apart from myself and Tarik.

  “We never saw our mother again.”

  Her face seemed to harden.

  “I can see him now, standing out there in the square, the Colonel. He was smiling. He told the people who were left, that what they had done was just. He said that many would not understand, but they had not had to stand back and see their land and heritage stolen by these cancerous scum, who lay before them now. So it had to be a secret, all evidence had to be removed.” The tears were flowing freely down her face, but still, she talked.

  “We turned and ran. I held on to Tarik’s hand, and I would not let him go. We headed up into the forest. Men were searching out there. I’m not sure they were looking for us in particular, but if they had found us, our fate would have been the same as our family.

  “We wandered for hours, hiding in the undergrowth as armed patrols passed us. It was already light when I heard someone moving up the hillside towards us. I was sure we were going to die. I just held Tarik close to me and waited.”

  “It was Brother Drago.”

  Armena looked up at him, her eyes were red, and her cheeks were wet. “How did you know?”

  “Brother Drago told me. He also told me about Father Pat and Sister Eileen. I believe they helped someone up in that mission, a man who was different from all the others. Someone they had to take a big risk to hide.” Fagan knew he was reaching here. “I’m trying to find out who that was.”

  Armena stared into the depths of the fire as if she was seeing something deep in the glowing embers. Suddenly she looked up. Uncle Omar appeared out of the shadows. He spoke to her urgently and disappeared.

  “We must leave,” Armena said quickly. “Fazil, at the bottom of the hill, just called my uncle. Men are coming up the track. We must go now.”

  Omar stood by the door. Fagan saw him push a book into Armena’s hands. He kissed her on the cheek and hugged her. She shoved it into her coat pocket and followed Omar out of the front door.

  Fagan followed on with the Glock held in both hands. He looked down the track, but he could see little in the darkness. He hurried over and climbed into the truck. It was parked on an incline facing down the hill. Omar started the engine but did not switch on the lights. He jammed the stick shift into gear and let out the clutch. The truck jerked forward. Omar swung the wheel and they swept onto a narrow track, barely visible in the dim moonlight.

  Omar glanced across and uttered some words to Armena in his native language, then put his fo
ot on the gas and the truck leaped forward into empty space.

  Omar finally hit the headlights and the track illuminated before them dropping down through the trees.

  “What did your uncle say?” Fagan asked.

  Armena stared out the windshield, watching the headlights cut through the darkness.

  “He said, we can never go back.”

  47

  The hills outside Bretsnia.

  Marko woke with a start. He was not sure what had disturbed him. He blinked his eyes, for a moment unsure where he was. He was still in the armchair. Then the memories of the previous evening filtered back, and the fear rushed in.

  “Armena,” he called out, but he got only silence. He staggered out of the chair and headed upstairs, still calling her name. But the house was empty. She had not returned.

  He had got home a little late the previous evening, expecting dinner to be ready and Armena complaining again. But there had been no sign of her. His phone had a dozen missed calls from her, as usual, but when he had tried calling, a message said her phone was disconnected. When she had not returned an hour later, he was beginning to get worried. She had few friends, but what ones she had, he had called. No one had seen her.

  He had gone out in the car looking for her. The last thing she had told him, was she was going to the cemetery. He had told her not to go, but as usual, she would not listen. In the end, he had driven out there. It was already dark but his headlights had picked out her scooter, parked by the gate. He knew where the grave was, and he had a flashlight in the car. He had called out her name as he had hurried through the gravestones. But no one answered and there was no sign of her. He made his way back to the gate and examined her scooter. It looked fine, but maybe it had broken down. Perhaps someone had given her a lift. But to where?

  He recognized Zoran’s old truck parked further down the road, but no one was about. He had driven to Zoran’s bar but the place was closed up, which was unusual. Zoran normally stayed open until the drunks fell out of the door in the early hours.