SCORPION TRAIL

by

JEFFREY ARCHER


 Jeffrey Archer is the former Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent for ITN's
 award-winning News at Ten television programme. His work as a frontline
 broadcaster has provided him with the deep background for his thrillers -
 the bestselling S4dancer, Shadowhunter and Eagletrap.
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Skydancer
Shadowhunter
Eagletrap
This edition first published in Arrow in 1996

         1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

The right of Jeffrey Archer to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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First published in the United Kingdom in 1995 by
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                                     To Eva, Alison
and James
                                        'My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with
   scorpions.'

              1 Kings Ch. 12, v. 11.
               One

 Sunday 13th March
 Scotland

 The breeze flicked at the collar of his coat. The Highland airstrip was
 little more than a grass field with a windsock. A single-engined Cessna
 stood in front of a club house. Sheep grazed beyond the perimeter fence.
  The foreboding that gripped Alex was irrational and sudden.
  The risks hadn't worried him before. This sport was safe. Statistics
  proved it. So why the sense of panic, the feeling that some thread
  binding his world together had suddenly snapped?
  The club secretary was used to dealing with worried parents. He'd claimed
  that the Sky Trainer 'chutes had been used two million times and never
  failed. Then he'd shown Alex last month's beginners alighting on the
  grass as if they were gulls.
 'You see? Nothing to worry about.'
  However, as the pilot strode towards the little Cessna, followed by the
  instructor and three orange-suited Students, Alex had to fight the urge
  to shout 'stop!'
  Jodie, last to board, turned to wave. Trying to reassure himself, or his
  stepfather?
 Still time to stop him. He could run forward and ...
  Hysteria, that's what they would put it down to. They'd restrain him
  gently, take him to the club house and settle him with a cup of tea so
  the boy could get on with his life.
 Alex tried a grin but couldn't move his muscles. Arms

                I
 like lead,- legs like jelly, tongue puffy and useless. Couldn't speak if he
 tried. just that sense of disaster sweeping in like a squall.

 The boy had wanted to jump since the age of fifteen. Seen it on television,
 the floating figure in bright, flapping nylon. The goggled grin at the
 camera. And the swoop away from the lens as the chute jerked the body,
 jigging and jangling, feet braced for contact with the earth.
  The power, the freedom, the sheer sense ofjoy. God knows, there hadn't been
  too much of that in Jodie's young life.
  His mother was overprotective, but she had her reasons. She'd blanched when
  he'd revealed his ambition.
 'Never, Jodie. Never, neverP she'd begged.
  But 'never' is a word you can't say to a man, and the boy was over eighteen
  now. Nineteen, even. He had asked Alex for the parachuting course as a
  birthday present.
  Kirsty hadn't spoken that morning. just stood by the big picture window
  looking across at the Firth, watching the scurrying clouds and the blurs of
  rain on the water. Not spoken, because the words, if she'd voiced them,
  would have been pleas for a change of heart that had already been rejected.
  Alex knew what she feared. That history would repeat itself That she would
  lose her only child the same way she had lost his father.
 'He'll be fine, Kay. just fine. You'll see.'
  His steady, brown eyes gave her the warm look he used to soothe women's
  worries, his soft voice tinted with the Lowlands inflection he'd adopted
  years ago as a disguise.
 He stood behind her, held her shoulders and brushed

                2
 his lips against her hair. He could feel the tension shooting through his
 fingers. He took away his hands.
  Jodie ha~ to choose, Kay. You can't control his life for ever.'
  He saw her tremble, and a tear mark her cheek like a scar.
 'Okay, Alex?'
  The prompting was from Jodie standing in the doorway, fearfW that his
  escape from the maternal arm lock might yet fail.
 'We'd better get a move on, Alex.'
  Always called him by his first name. Never 'Dad', although Alex was the
  only 'father' Jodie had ever known. Kirsty had wanted it that way, out
  of respect for the dead.
  They drove north over the toll bridge, the morning sun to their right
  struggling through the clouds and silhouetting the trapezoid ironwork of
  the rail link across the Forth.
  Alex had never been to Scotland before events propelled him there in the
  1970s. This was a simpler, more conservative community than he was used
  to, but he'd wanted nothing elst-, so long as it hid him from the men who
  sought to kill him.
  He had grown the beard immediately, a ftill set, but clipped short. The
  simplest of masks. The job at the radar factory, the minders had
  arranged. All part of the back-scratching world of Defence, they'd told
  him. He'd be safe here. No one need ever know his past.
  The hard part was being alone. Not used to it. He had always had women
  in his life, sometimes more than one at a time. Not just for the sex. He
  needed women to blather with, to lean on. Yet how could he share his
  life, when his recent past was so dark a secret?
  Then he met Kirsty and saw the glimmer of a solution to his dilemma.

                3
  It was the firm's Christmas dance. She'd been invited by one of the staff
  to make up numbers at their table.
  'The girl's had a tragic bereavement,' the friend confided. 'We felt it
  time to get her out and about again.'
  Married just three years, her husband had been killed in a blizzard in the
  Cairngorms. Many an experienced climber had died that winter. He'd left her
  a widow with a nine-month-old baby.
  Everything about Dermot, everything about her short marriage to him, Kirsty
  had locked inside her mind pledging never to forget. The memories were like
  a sealed room in an old castle; she denied access to everyone. Never talked
  about Dermot, and couldn't bear others to.
  She was a pretty girl. Soft, wavy hair, scrubbed checks and blue eyes that
  glistened with never-distant tears. Alex's heart went out to her.
  He began a gentle courtship, hinting that he'd also suffered a tragedy too
  painful to talk about. As the months slipped by and they became closer, the
  understanding grew that they both had parts of their lives which must
  remain private.

 'You think she'll cope?'Jodie asked, as they passed the underemployed Rosyth
 dockyard to the left of the bridge. 'Maybe I'm being a bit selfish.'
  'Course she'll cope,' Alex answered, slowing to pass an accident at the
  junction with the motorway. 'She has to get used to you doing your own
  thing. Anyway, when you're away at Aberdeen she has no idea what you're up
  to. It's just a pity she has to know about this particular happening.'
  'You're right there!' Jodie nodded. University had been a merciful escape
  from the over-protection at home.
 'I tell you, when you get back tonight, give her a big

                4
 hug and tell her how great it was. Look, she's terrified because of what
 happened to your dad. It's understandable, for heaven's sake. But it's
 something she's got to get through. This jump today could even help.'
  'Shock therapy for nervous mothers! I don't think so somehow.'
  The rain was holding off. The day before, the instructor had said the
  weather would have to be appalling to stop thejurnp. Alex turned off the
  motor-way and pointed the car towards the Ochil Hills.
 'Are you nervous?' he asked the boy.
 A moment's pause.
 'Shit scared,'Jodie laughed.
 'Think how P11 feel, bloody watching you!'
  He thought of Kirsty, wondering if she was still standing by that window,
  staring at the sky.

 Theirs had been a marriage of convenience, but a good one. She had needed
 a man, to support her and her child. He had needed a woman, to share his
 bed and to help hide him from the predators. Affection and respect was
 what they'd had, rather than passion and love. A formula that had lasted
 nearly eighteen years.
  It hadn't been easy at first, fighting his way past her first husband's
  ghost. It took months of wooing before she could even smile without a
  feeling of gat. Months more before she let him make love to her.
  They'd been out walking in the dunes near North Berwick, just the two of
  them. Jodie was being baby-sat by her mother. A bright, crystal-clear day
  in early summer. They'd rested in a clearing in the woods. No one else
  about. No chance of being surprised. Alex slipped his hand under the soft
  cotton of her tee-shirt, fingertips finding her nipples already hard.
 Then she locked her mouth to his and unleashed the

                5
 hunger that had been building inside her for weeks. She pulled him into her,
 climaxing quickly.
  Afterwards, as they lay on their backs, she had cried. Sobs of grief at her
  final acknowledgement that Dermot was dead.

 As Alex swung the car through the gates onto the small airfield, a Cessna
 pulled away from the flightline, bumping over the grass towards the strip.
 To their right was the club house and hangar and a small square of hard
 standing for cars.
  'There's Claire,' Jodie said. He wound down the window and gave her a
  'thumbs up'. There were as many young women as men on the course.
  'What are all these girls trying to prove?' Alex wondered aloud.
  'You mean they should all be at home, making bables,'Jodle retorted. 'Come
  on, Alex! It's a challenge. A big thrill. There's no difference for men or
  women.'
 'I reckon it's a substitute for sex, myself'
 'Shows how little you know!'
  Claire was walking across to them as Alex switched off the engine. She had
  a pretty smile.
  'You could do okay with her, if you play your cards right,' Alex teased.
  'Piss offl'jodie reckoned he was already well on the way. Chatted her up in
  the pub last night, after the day of theory lessons at the club.
  Next to them was a Range Rover with two large Labradors steaming up the
  windows in the back.
  'So, what areyou going to do, Alex?'Jodie was out of the car. 'It'll be a
  couple of hours before they take us up.'
  'Don't know. May wander off for an hour. I've got the "Sunday's" in the
  car, so I won't be bored.'
 'See you later, then.'

                6
  Jodie strode towards the club hangar. Claire touched him on the arm and
  they went inside together.
  There were more parents there, settling down to make a day of it. Mums
  as well as Dads in most cases. A pity Kirsty hadn't come. Might have done
  her good to see other families coping.
  Another lone father nodded him a greeting, wanting to talk. No, thought
  Alex. One of his golden rules: avoid social contact. He smiled briefly,
  then got purposefully back into the car and re-started the engine.
  He took the main road for a mile, then turned up a narrow lane. Another
  mile and he was on the crest of a ridge with a view over the airfield.
  He parked in a gateway and as soon as the engine cut heard the bleating
  of sheep from the field beyond.
  He wound down the window, pulled a pack of Bensons from the pocket of his
  Barbour and lit up. He didn't smoke much these days; it was banned in the
  office and Kirsty objected at home.
  Golden rules. That's what he'd lived by for twenty years. Had to, so the
  minders had told him. The terrorists had friends everywhere. One
  incautious word and they could be on to him. And we wouldn't want that,
  would we, Mister Crawford?
  Crawford. M15 had chosen that name for him. Jarvis was the one he'd been
  born with. Alexander Jarvis.
  They had given him the framework of a new life. Birth certificate,
  passport, all falsified in the name of Her Majesty. Even a driving
  licence, once he had settled his address.
  Add the rest yourself, they'd said. Keep it simple; make up a new past
  to replace the one that could kill. No mixing of fact and fiction. Invent
  it, fix it in your head until you believe it's true, and stick to it.
  And never ever reveal the truth, even to those you make love with.

                7
  Rules. He'd made some up himself. Told his neighbours he was obsessed by
  tyre pressures - an excuse to check under his car for bombs.
  Some rules he never revealed. Superstitions. Uttle things he had to do if
  the good fairies were to keep him safe. L~ittle things like putting his
  left sock on before the right. There was the daft, childish 'tide' game
  too.
  Every Saturday, unless the weather was atrocious, he would drive to the
  Yellow Craig beach west of North Berwick, for a run on the sands. His
  marketingjob at the radar factory near Edinburgh was tedious; that beach,
  with its huge, wide sky was freedom. Freedom from drudgery, freedom from
  fear. Freedom to imagine what his life might have been like if it hadn't
  been for that balls-up in Belfast.
  He would run near to the water's edge where the sand was firmer, keeping
  close to the creaming froth of the waves, but never, ever letting the water
  touch him. If it did, he told himself, the Belfast gunmen who had his name
  on their 'touts' list, would find him.
  Silly superstitions, but in the part of his mind he had to keep private,
  they mattered.
  From the distant hillside, Alex watched the little plane creep across the
  airfield and lift into the air. Shafts of sunlight bathed the valley in
  patches of green gold. Rain streaked a hill to his right. Sunday traffic
  crawled on the road running south to Stirling. So peaceful. So safe.
 'Christ! It's been twenty bloody years,' he breathed.
  He'd just passed the anniversary of his escape from Ulster strapped into
  the back of a Hercules. You'd have thought they'd have forgotten him by
  now, but not according to the M15 man he phoned once a month. The IRA still
  handed old photos of him to new boys going active on the mainland.
  He slipped on a pair of half-moon reading specs and browsed the newspapers.
  His bushy brows bunched into a frown. Always did when he concentrated.

                8
  Front pages filled with pictures from hell. The blackened corpse of a
  child burned alive in a Bosnian village.
  Massacre of the Innocents - his two papers shared the same stark
  headline.
  The Sunday 7-inzes reported over forty killed in a single village called
  Tulici. Moslems, this time. Bosnians, Croats, Serbs - the divisions were
  confusing. They'd all been Yugoslavs once, in a place people went to for
  holidays. And now they were killing each other.
 It depressed him just to read about it.
  He picked up Scotland on Sunday. On the front page, a local tragedy.
  Pictures of a tear-stained Edinburgh mother. Her thirteen-year-old girl
  had disappeared. Suggestions the child had been seen with prostitutes.
  Sad world, he thought. He folded the papers, tossed them onto the back
  seat and slipped his glasses back into their case. Better take some
  exercise. He opened the door, got out and locked it out of habit.
  He was average height, a little under six foot, with straight, dark brown
  hair and a sportsman's build. Under the thornproof coat, so stiffly waxed
  it was like armour, he wore brown cords and a navy pullover. This was how
  he liked to dress; the business suit he wore on weekdays always felt
  wrong.
  He stuck to the road, striding along the edge of the fields, walking for
  twenty minutes, his mind on Kirsty and the boy.
 Jodie.
 'Christ almighty!'
  He stopped in his tracks. His stepson's face had suddenly appeared in his
  mind, sharp and clear as a flash photo. It was the boy's expression. A
  look in his eyes that wasn'tJodle at all. Terror. Abject terror.
  The image was gone again. He shook his head to try to recall it, but
  couldn't. Most odd. Like a burst of clairvoyance.
 No believer in such phenomena, it unsettled him none

                9
 the less. He stared across at the airfield, then marched to the car and
 headed back.
  The fear he'd seen injodie's eyes spread in him like an infection. His
  heart beat unnaturally fast. He told himself to stop being daft, to
  rationalize this irrational sensation. Nerves - parachuting was risky and
  Jodie was about to do it. That's all it was.
  But that wasn't all. He began to experience more weird sensations, as if
  he wasn't alone in the car. A feeling that Kirsty was there. He glanced
  behind.
 This was getting stupid.
  Back at the airfield, no sign of the boy. He barged into the old bi-plane
  hangar, where used parachutes were being tensioned on the floor for
  re-packing.
  'Experienced jumpers have their favourite packers,' Jodie announced
  suddenly at his side. 'Gives a sort of feel-good factor.'
  'Oh, there you are!' Alex started. The boy grinned at him, clad in an
  orange jump suit. No fear in those eyes.
  'They pay three pounds a time. It's worth learning how to do it. Pack
  five 'chutes and you've earned enough for a jump.'
 'You mean you intend to make a habit of this?'
  'Most people get hooked,' Claire announced, joining them. 'I've only done
  five jumps, and it's like a drug.'
  Alex eyed her. Older than Jodie. Early twenties perhaps. A broad face,
  eyes bright with single-mindedness. Not unattractive.
  They looked so at ease, the pair of them, Alex felt his anxiety lifting.
  'Oh by the way, Alex this is Claire,' Jodie said awkwardly.
 He shook her hand.
  There were half a dozen getting ready for their first jump. Several
  Jodie's age, but two in their thirties. They'd spent the last hour
  revising drills learned the day before. Jodie had driven himself here on
  Saturday.

                10
  'Two days in which to learn how to survive, falling out of a plane,' Alex
  mused. 'It'd take two lifetimes if it were me.'
  'Time you got kitted up.' The instructor tookJodie by the arm and led him
  to the racks of parachute packs.
  'This is when your stomach really gets going,' Claire murmured to Alex.
  'But he'll be okay.'
  'What ... what exactly does he have to do?' Alex wanted reassurance
  again.
  'He'll be on a static line. You always are for the first few. It means
  there's a line attached to the plane, and as you fall away it pulls your
  canopy open. You don't have to do a thing.'
 'Supposing it doesn't open?'
  'Always does. But just in case, you carry a reserve parachute on your
  front.'
 'And does that open by itself too?'
  'You have to pull a handle ... Look, don't worry. Everybody's so safety
  conscious here, you just wouldn't believe it. Haven't had a fatality for
  five years.'
  It was her use of that word 'fatality'. He sensed a hand on his shoulder.
  Kirsty's hand. Not there of course. He shivered.
  Jodie waddled back across the hangar, parachute packs strapped to front
  and back. He pulled a soft leather helmet over his head and eased a pair
  of goggles into place.
 'Cheer up!' he said. 'It's me doing the jump, not youP
  'You look like a phantom rapist, in that gear,' Alex joked, trying to
  disguise his anxiety.
 'Thanks. Found my ndher at last.'
 'How do you feel?'
  It was a stupid question.jodie's face was tense. Nerves, but excitement
  too.
  'They say it's the fear that gives you the buzz. . .' he answered. 'If
  that's true, then I should have a great
 in
 The instructor strolled over.
  just come over here a minute Jodie,' he said, with practised calm. 'We'll
  go through things one last time.'
 He led him onto the field.
  A new emotion now in Alex's chest. jealousy. He'd been father, brother,
  teacher and guardian to the boy. He'd been the one Jodie had trusted. Now
  there was someone else. Some jerk in a jump suit.
 'Are you excited for him?' Claire asked.
 'Of course.' His voice sounded husky.
  As excited as their first time together on the stands at a Murrayfield
  International. As excited as the day he took the twelve-year-old on a
  day-long crawl through the heather to stalk Red Deer on the Monadhliath
  Mountains. Landmarks in a life, all as exciting as this, but none so
  terrifying.
  Alex and Claire crossed to the fence separating the car park from the
  field.
  He pulled Qut his cigarettes again and offered her one. She shook her head.
  'Did your family come and watch first time?' Alex asked, tugging the smoke
  down into his chest.
  Claire shook her head. 'Didn't even tell them I was doing it.'
  Better that way, maybe. Better if neither he nor Kirsty had known.
 Claire asked about. his Job.
  'Marketing. Radar. I'm an electrical engineer by trade.'
  But possibly for not much longer, he omitted to say. The company was being
  taken over and the work ,rationalized'. That meant redundancy, probably.
  Looking for volunteers, and if they didn't get enough, they'd start naming
  people. He'd not told the family yet.
  Maybe that explained his anxiety today. Fear about losing his job, twisted
  by his mind into fear forJodie's life. For a moment or two he almost
  believed it.

                12
  An engine purred high in the sky. The club's other aircraft was up with
  the free-fallers. He squinted at the even greyness above. One. Two. Three
  and then four tiny figures tumbled from the black 'T' shape. Claire
  counted aloud to five.
  'Five seconds delay! That's my next step. I've done three seconds
  already.'
 One by one, the 'chutes had popped open.
  'Great!' Alex croaked. It all looked so easy. Nothing to fear. 'Bloody
  great!'
  They watched the canopies glide and float towards the field, the bodies
  beneath tugging on the steering guides.
  'Ram-air canopies,' Claire explained. 'Like a wing. You can get
  twenty-five knots horizontal speed on them.'
  As they swooped to land gracefully a few feet in front of them, Claire
  detached herself from Alex's side and went to greet one of the
  free-fallers. He only realized it was a girl when she removed her helmet
  and shook free a tress of chestnut hair. Claire grabbed her excitedly by
  the arms.
  Alex lived that moment with them. Faces aglow, the world their oyster.
  Make the most if it, he thought.
  For an instant he was Jodie's age again. In a flash of memory, he
  recalled a noisy pub in Hampstead and a girl called Lorna Donohue.
  Lorna, who'd caught his eye and left him breathless. A golden-haired
  teenager. Someone who really had believed in clairvoyance. They'd been
  lovers for just a few weeks and she'd told him they'd never be parted.
  Then she'd dumped him and disappeared back to college in America.
  Lorna Donohue. Perhaps the only woman he'd ever truly loved. They'd met
  again in Belfast a decade later, quite by chance. Once more the chemistry
  had been instant, so explosive that time it had scarred their lives. The
  result for him -- exile in Scotland. For her? He had no idea.

                13
  The memory faded. All in the past. The past he never dared talk *-about.
  The pilot climbed into the little plane, followed by Jodie and the
  others.
 'Alex!'
 Jodie waved from beside the doorway.
 Alex stared back, unable to speak.
 'Alex?'
 The boy looked strained, wanting a response.
 'Yes!' he managed to shout at last. 'Good luck!'
  He clutched the fence, telling himself to be rational. Of course there
  was a risk. People had died, parachuting. But not beginners, not on a
  static line.
  The engine flicked into life. His last chance to run across and stop them
  ...
 'Don't be so fucking stupid!' he growled to himself
 It was Kirsty's fault. Paranoia must be infectious.
  The aircraft began its take-off run. He waved again, a terrible, empty
  feeling.

 It was a tight squeeze in the back of the plane. No seats. just a bare
 metal floor and a gaping hole to the slipstream. Jodie was to be first out
 and had to kneel, gripping a webbing handle.
  The Cessna banked and climbed to 2,200 feet. The instructor tapped
  Jodie's shoulder, then ran his hand along the strap connecting his
  back-pack to a ring on the floor. All secure, all as it should be. Thumbs
  up.
  'Okay now,' he yelled above the engine and the wind. 'Into the doorway
  and take the bracing position.' He gave a reassuring grin.
  Jodie's heart pounded so hard, he couldn't speak. His mind was blank.
  He'd forgotten everything. Everything he'd been taught in the last two
  days. Gone.
 Think.
 Legs over the edge. Strange how it didn't affect him,

                14
 looking down at the earth two thousand feet below. Couldn't go more than two
 rungs up a ladder normally.
 Left hand on the sill, right on the door frame.
 Good.
  Turn to look at the instructor. The man grins again, gives thumbs up, his
  eyes asking for an acknowledgement. Jodie nods. No going back now.
 Go! The signal.
 Hesitation.
 Go! Go!
  Pushes off from the sill and the frame. Airstream hits like a gloved fist
  at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
 'Aaaah!' The scream choked in his throat by the wind.
  Spread arms. Count. One thousand, two thousand, three thou ...
  Bang. The straps jerk under his groin as the 'chute opens.
 Shit!
  Now what. Check canopy. He strains his head back. That beautiful dome of
  blue and white.
 He feels sick. Doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
 'Hey! This is amazing.
 He laughs.
 Jodie!' A man's voice in his ear. 'Don't forget to steer.'
  The radio. He'd forgotten about it. Another instructor was on the ground,
  watching through binoculars, talking to him on the VHF.

'Is that him?' Alex asked, craning his neck up at the sky. 'Should be,' said
 Glaire. 'He told me he was first out.'
 'God! Isn't that great?' Alex's voice cracked with relief
 'Told you it was foolproof.'

 'Christ,' thoughtJodle. 'Where am V
 The field was nowhere to be seen. He pulled a line to

               15
 close a vent on the back of the canopy and began to swing.
  'Pull hard on your left.' The metallic radio voice again.
 He did and swung the other way.
 'Now let go the guides. Straight ahead now.'
  At last he saw the hangar and the windsock, and then the orange cross on
  the grass which was his notional landing point. Miles away, and he was
  dropping fast. He looked straight down.
  Oh, no! That bloody clump of trees they were warned about.
  He willed the canopy towards the field. Eight miles an hour forward speed,
  that's what he should have in still air. But looking at that bloody
  windsock, the wind was gusting too strongly. Wasn't moving forward at all.
 Ground coming up fast.
  'If you go in the trees, remember legs together and cover your face. No
  problem.'
  So reassuring, the voice in his ear. All right for him. Done it a thousand
  times.
 O..oh! Here we go.

 From across the field, the man who'd spoken on the radio watched from his
 van asJodie's legs pierced the dome of green-black branches. Soon obscured
 by the pine foliage, all he could see was the blue and white canopy snagged
 and deflated above, and the vaguest hint of an orange suit close to the
 ground.
  'Remember. Don't do anything now. just wait for someone to come and help
  you down. Repeat. Don't do anything.'
  He picked up the other handset and told the control room what had happened,
  just in case they hadn't already seen.

                16
 The radio in Jodie's ears died when he hit the trees. Twigs snagged the
 wires. One foot twisted against a branch and he banged a knee. Then
 suddenly he stopped, a metre from the ground.
 Tuck!'
  Heart pounding, he jigged in his harness, trying to shake himself free.
 'Hah!' he shouted.
 He was stuck but ALIVE! Elation hit him.
 'I've bloody done it!'
  He looked up through the trees. The plane droned into position for its
  next drop.
  'Hah! Ha, HaP He laughed out loud. He'd just come down from there! jumped
  from that same little plane. From that little dot in the sky.
  Ten feet tall, that's what he felt. A few more jumps and he'd be onto the
  square canopies, the ones that zipped around like autumn leaves.
  He looked down again. So close, yet so far. Except he wasn't far. Three
  feet at the most. Easy. For heaven's sake, he'd just jumped from two
  thousand feet all by himself Couldn't let the last few inches defeat him.
  He reached down to his groin and began to unbuckle the harness.

 'Shit! He's in the trees!' Alex had taken an involuntary step forward
 asJodie disappeared from view.
  'That's bad luck. On your first jurnp,' Claire answered calmly.
 'Isn't it dangerous?' he asked, turning to her.
  'Should be okay. They tell us it's the softest landing you can get. . .'
 'If you don't get stabbed by a branch.'
 'See that van down the far end of the field?'
 He looked where Claire was pointing.
 'They've got ladders and stuff. If he's caught in the

               17
 trees, they'll get him down in a wee while. He'll just stay dangling until
 they come. That's what they teach us.'
 Alex stared harder at the van. Motionless as a rock.
 'Why don't they get a move on?' he growled.
  'They have to wait until the others are down. The guy in there is talking
  to them on the radio as they drop.'
  That terrible sense of dread was back. He began to walk.
  'They won't want you on the field,' Claire called after him.
  Alex heard, but didn't hear. The relief at seeingJoclie's ,chute open had
  evaporated. Something was wrong; something desperately wrong. He knew it,
  if no one else did.
  There was a little gate into the field. An instructor grabbed him as he ran
  through it.
  'Hang on, mister. You canna go through here. There's students jumping.'
 Jodie ... P Alex panted, pointing. 'He's in the trees.'
  'We know. We know. He'll be a'right. They'll get to him in a couple of
  minutes.'
 'Now! You've got to get him now!'
 The jump-instructer saw the panic in his eyes.
  'Okay. Okay. We'll go together. But if I tell you to do something - you do
  it fast. No questions asked, okay?'
 Alex nodded.
  'Come on then.'They began to run towards the copse. 'It's your son, is iff
  Alex felt a chill descend. Kirsty's son, but his too in all but blood.
 'Yep. My boy.'
  The jump-instructor kept a hand on his arm and checked the sky as they ran.
  The last of the novices was on the way down. But they were well clear. No
  problem.
  They neared the trees. There was a smudge of orange between the trunks.
  Jodie's jump suit. Feet almost touching the ground, but not quite.

                18
  In the scrub at the edge of the wood the instructor faltered. There was
  something not quite right. Something about the head ...
  JodieP Alex yelled, fighting his way through the saplings. 'Oh, God.. .'
 Nothing. No response. No movement.
  They heard an engine revving. The van with the ladders was coming across.
  Jodie?' Alex croaked, the branches slashing his face. The instructor joined
  him as he broke through to where Jodie dangled.
  The boy's body hung twisted in the straps, the harness half on, half off.
  In the struggle to free himself, a strap had slipped round his neck bending
  it to an angle that no neck should ever be.
  'Oh my Christ.. .' murmured the instructor. 'He's tried to get himself
  down. You mustn't do that - we tell them.'
  Alex stood transfixed by Jodie's startled, indignant eyes, the nightmare
  image that had come to him on his walk.
 'Quick! 'rake his weight,' the instructor ordered.
  Alex gripped the lifeless thighs and lifted. The instructor reached
  forjodie's wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none.
  'His neck's broken,' he said, but Alex didn't hear him, deaf to the
  instructor's words, and to those others who rushed to help. Jodie was dead.
  He'd seen it, and done nothing.

 19
               Two

 Thursday 17th March

 Kirsty's brother helped her from the first of the Dairrilers. She wore a
 navy blue coat over a long, black skirt, her face wraithlike beneath a
 veil.
  Alex emerged from the second limousine and paused on the cobbled ground,
  watching his wife's alabaster visage turn towards the tower of the kirk.
  He saw her legs threaten to buckle and her brother grip her more tightly.
  Eighteen years before, she'd made the same journey here to bury another
  part of her life.
  They stood to one side while the coffin was slid from the hearse. The
  distance between Alex and Kirsty was just a few metres on the stones, but
  emotionally a canyon now gaped between them.

 On Sunday, when Alex had returned to the house overlooking the Forth,
 Kirsty had known already, her sixth sense confirmed by seeing a stranger
 driving their car, with Alex in the passenger seat and a Range Rover
 pulling up behind.
  'You've killed him!' she'd whispered as he opened the door.
  Ashen faced, he couldn't meet her look. He'd thanked the people who'd
  helped him home and bade them leave. Then the dam of Kirsty's feelings
  had broken.
  Her accusations had found their mark. He could have prevented Jodie's
  death. He'd had the premonition after all.
  Why hadn't he acted on it? Because he hadn't believed in premonitions,
  that's why. And anyway, it had been _7odie's choice to jump, his
  decision. The boy was nineteen, not nine.
  Kirsty had railed at him, her charges growing wilder, beating him with
  her fists. She kept throwing out Dermot's name. Accused Alex of trying
  to erase him from her memory. Said Dermot was angry at being forgotten,
  angry at the way Alex had taken his place as Jodie's father. She'd even
  claimed Dermot had returned from the dead to take back his son.
  Nonsense. Madness. She'd needed help, of a sort he couldn't give. He'd
  telephoned for the doctor to come, then called her brother to break the
  tragic news to the family.
  Her sobs had cut deep, the pain of her grief compounding his own. They'd
  been punished, she'd said. Punished for forgetting the past. It was Alex
  she blamed. No one else. He had brought this on them. Nothing would shake
  her from that belief.
  As the hours passed, her anger had subsided, but she'd not let Alex touch
  her. Their marriage was over, she'd said. It had died with Jodie.
  She'd left the house that same afternoon and gone to stay with her
  brother.
  'She doesn't want to see you again,' he'd reported two days later. 'I
  suppose you know that.' He was visibly distressed. They'd got on well,
  he and Alex.
  'She's talking about moving to a retreat. . .' He'd shaken his head.
  'Almost twenty years since Dermot passed away, and she's never come to
  terms with it. Should have had treatment long ago ... I'm really sorry.
  None of us is blaming you, you know that.'
 Alex had thanked him.

 In the small, grey, stone church, Alex sat across the aisle

                21
 from Kirsty, her eyes fixed on the coffin below the chancel steps. Most of
 the mourners knew she'd left the house at Longniddry. Most wished it weren't
 so, but feared nothing could change the way she thought. The doctor had
 called it a 'kind of breakdown', but she was refusing further medical help.
  She looked to be in a trance. Paper-white face, lifeless eyes. Behind her
  sat her parents, ramrod-straight Presbyterians, faces as impassive as they
  had always been, emotions locked away. Kirsty was so much their child. All
  her pain, all her scars hidden from view.
  Outside in the hillside churchyard, they lowered the simple pine box into
  a newly-dug hole beside the grave of the fatherjodie had never known.
 Alex bit his lip and swallowed back tears.
  Such a waste, he thought. A person, a character that he had helped mould,
  wiped out just as he'd begun to grab what life could give him.
  'He's yours at last, Dermot,' Alex reflected. 'But if it weu you who took
  him, don't expect the boy to be grateful.'
  By the churchyard gate, the family stood in line to receive the condolences
  of the mourners. There was a set of faces Alex didn't recognize until
  Claire took his hands and squeezed them. Several others from the parachute
  club had come with her.
  A camera flashed; the tragedy had interested the local press. Alex
  flinched; he was shy of photographers. Made it a rule to keep his face out
  of the papers.
 He turned away.
  The ghastly process over, Alex heard the parachute group talk of heading
  for a bar. He might have joined them, if only their youthfulness weren't
  too painful a reminder of what he'd lost.
  Kirsty was driven off in the Daimler. Suddenly Alex realized he might never
  see her again.
 'Mr Crawford?' The chauffeur of the second car held

               22
 the door for him. Kirsty's parents were already inside. A reception was to
 be held at the brother's house, but he couldn't face it.
  'No,' he answered after a moment. 'No. I want to walk.'
  He leaned in, made his excuses, then waved the vehicle away.
  The car park emptied. With Jodie in the earth and Kirsty gone from him,
  seeing the last vehicle rumble down the hill was like watching twenty years
  of his life drain away.
  Earlier that morning, there'd been another blow. As if to twist the knife,
  a letter had arrived from the radar factory saying he'd been made
  redundant.
  He set off towards the sea, raising the collar of his dark grey overcoat.
  Four miles of coastal path lay between him and home.
  The cemetery was on a hillside. Beyond was a golfcourse where many of his
  neighbours spent their leisure time. Small, bright figures strolled between
  the greens.
  He had never taken up the sport. Golf clubs spelled danger. Too much chat.
  Too many people asking about his pastjogging was his exercise. Lonelier but
  safer.
  He seldom met anybody when he ran on the beach. just one regular, a stocky
  man walking a Red Setter. They'd exchanged names once. Somebody McFee. An
  executive with Edinburgh Life. Hadn't seen him recently.
  As he cut down through slopes of dead bracken towards the coast, it felt as
  if the corner stones of his life had been stolen away and he'd been
  presented with a blank sheet of paper in exchange.
  He realized there was little to keep him in Scotland now, other than the
  place itself. The gentle Lothian hills, the clean coastline and views of
  the Forth speckled with white sails in the summer had been a kindly hole to
  hide

                23
 in, but having isolated himself for his owm safety, he had few friends'
 here.
  His life had been different before the disaster in Belfast, first as an
  engineer with Marconi's, and later when he'd worked with the television
  news. He'd had plenty of friends to drink with then, to chat to and to make
  love with.
  Surely it would be safe to return to some of that life, he thought, despite
  what the minders said. Not to have to hide any more, that would be
  something ...
  The tide was ebbing and the Gullane sands stretched far out, their dull
  flatness broken by strips of sky reflected in pools left by the receding
  sea.
  He saw Jodie everywhere he looked, the beaches so much part of his
  childhood. Emptiness gnawed at his stomach. There was no way he could
  remain here. Not when every whiff ofseaweed, every caw of the Arctic terns
  was a reminder of the boy.
  Not easy to start again, approaching fifty. Unless he could salvage
  something from the past.
  He thought suddenly of Lorna. Always did when things weren't right in his
  life. She was his 'if only' girl, the one he would have married if events
  hadn't got in the way.
  They'd met in the sixties. Pop and protest, Ban the Bomb.
  Lorna was a believer in fate. A sacred thread linked their karmas, she'd
  told him. That's why they'd fallen in love. When they met again ten years
  later, it had confirmed her belief
  'There's someone up there making the breaks for us,' - that was the way she
  always put it.
  The trouble was he'd not seen or heard of her for the twenty years since
  then. And when they'd parted, she'd hated him enough to want him dead.
  Where then was he to begin his new life? Have to talk to the men at M15, if
  he wanted their continued

               24
 protection. He could go back to London where he had his roots. Parents
 were both dead, but he had a sister in Wimbledon. They'd been close once,
 until she married some detestable stockbroker.
  The stones of the coastal path jabbed through the thin leather soles of
  his black shoes. By the time he reached Longniddry his feet were~ pinched
  and sore.
  He stood in the porch fumbling with his keys. There was no light inside.
  As he opened the door the emptiness engulfed him.
  A newspaper lay on the mat. He picked it up. It was the local one. The
  headline caught his eye. They'd found the body of that girl - the
  thirteen-year-old he'd read about on Sunday.
 Poor kid. Poor mother.
  He tossed the paper onto the hall table and fumbled in his pocket for a
  cigarette. He flicked the lighter, then stopped. Not in this house. In
  his mind the place was still Kirsty's.
  The message light winked on the answerphone. He left it. There were
  people still ringing for Jodie, not knowing he was dead. Or else it would
  be for Kirsty, and he'd have to explain she was no longer there.
  He wandered into the kitchen. It had been his wife's domain. Kirsty's
  wish as well as his; she'd been oldfashioned that way. He filled the
  kettle and plugged it in.
  The message machine niggled him. It m~aht be for him. He brewed his tea
  then returned to the living-room and pressed the replay button.
  'Ah, hello . . .' A man's voice, but not one he recognized. 'It's Moray
  McFee here. just ringing you Alex to offer my condolences. Er ...
  terrible business. I was very sorry to hear about it. Er ... I haven't
  been around much in recent weeks, which is why you haven't seen me up at
  Yellow Craig in a while.'
  It clicked at last. The man on the beach. The man with the Red Setter.

               25
  'I'm down in London, as it happens. Something new I'm involved in. Errm .
  . .'
  There was a pause of a few seconds. Alex could hear the muffled rumble of
  traffic in the background.
  'I ... I wonder if you would give me a ring here. I'd like to talk to you.
  There's something I think you might be interested in knowing about. I'm
  staying in a wee bed and breakfast place. Just ask for me, Moray McFee, and
  if I'm not here, then leave a message and I'll call you back. The number
  ... oh, hang on. Ah yes. Here it is. ..3
 Alex wrote it down.
  Odd. Why should a man he hardly knew take the trouble to find his number
  and call him?
  He hesitated. It was twenty-past five. Perhaps he'd ring him this evening.
  Or now. Get it over with.
  He picked up the phone and dialled. It rang for a while, then a woman
  answered, her voice heavy with some foreign accent.
  She laid the receiver down, and he heard footsteps in a corridor. Then a
  few moments later, a heavier footfall returning.
 'Hello? McFee here.'
  'Ah. It's Alex Crawford here. You left a message on my machine.'
  'Alex! That's good! I wasn't so sure you would ring. Very presumptuous of
  me I'm sure, but er ... I heard about the terrible accident and then ...
  then your wife taking it bad. Sorry to be so direct and so on, but em ...
  I understand it was in the local papers about Jodie, and then em ... I was
  talking to someone else who ... who knew the family...'
  There'd been no shortage of gossip in the area, Alex was well aware of
  that.
 'I wanted to offer my condolences. .
 'That's good of you. It's been a bad time, as you can

               26
 imagine. Pretty bloody really. I'm just back from the funeral.'
  'Oh, I'm sorry. My timing was not of the best, perhaps. . .'
  'That's all right. You said there was something you wanted to tell me.'
  'That's right. Look, um ... I won't go into all the details on the phone,
  but for various reasons, I've resigned myjob in Edinburgh, and ... well
  the fact is my wife and I are having a break from one another as well.
  So, my life is going through a bit of an upheaval, shall we say.
  'I'm sorry to hear that.' Alex began to regret he'd made the call. Had
  enough troubles of his own.
  'But that's not the point. That's just for background. The reason ... the
  reason I rang you was to tell you what I've got involved in down here,
  because ... well I happen to think you might be in a similar position and
  might be interested in hearing about it.'
 'Go on.'
  'You'll have seen on the TY all the dreadful things that are happening
  in Bosma?'
 'Of course.' Alex frowned.
  'Well, I've just been out there as a volunteer to help get emergency food
  and clothing to children. There's thousands and thousands of them who've
  been burned out of their homes, and they've got nothing. Nothing at all.
  And the winter's still biting.
  'There's a small charity called Bosnia Emergency that's been set up by
  an ex-major in the army. They collect stuff here and take it direct to
  the villages where it's needed. I'm going out with another van-load in
  a week's time, and they're looking for one more volunteer. I told them
  I knew someone who might be interested, but I need to give them an answer
  tornorrow.'
 Alex did a double-take. It wasn't something that had

               27
 remotely crossed his mind. Bosnia had always been someone else's problem.'
 'You mean me?'
  Aye ...
 'But why? Why did you think of me?'
  'Look, I've been away from Scotland for a good few weeks now, but I keep
  in touch with what's going on up there. Em . . , I won't mince words
  Alex, I know your company's in trouble and they're making half the staff
  redundant. . .'
 'Is it half the stafP God, I didn't even know that.'
  'And I guessed, just a guess mind, that you might have been sent a letter
  through the post. The money's good, I'm told. And that's important.
  Because you wouldna get paid for this Bosnia business. just living
  expenses.'
  'I see.' Alex felt distinctly uncomfortable that a stranger should know
  so much about him. 'You seem remarkably well informed.. .'
  'Years of listening at keyholes, that's all! Well. Are you interested or
  not?'
  'I don't know. . .'He was thinking hard. It was bound to be interesting.
  Worthwhile too. Might be the break he was looking for. 'I'll need to
  think about it. . .'
  'Aye, well, as I said, there's not a lot of time. I have to tell them
  tomorrow one way or the other. But from my point of view it'd be grand.
  I'd much rather work with someone I know than a complete stranger.'
 'Well, yes I can see that. . .'
  Alex glanced round the living-room. A stack of Kirsty's Good Housekeeping
  magazines on the coffee table. A pile ofJodie's CDs on the audio system.
  The silence that echoed.
 Someone up there making the breaks for him ... ?
 'Well, thanks Moray. Yes, I'll do it.'

                28
              Three

 Thursday 17th March
 The Hague

 Three men and a woman sat at the light oak conference table flicking through
 the thin file which had been presented to them by the Data and Records
 Section. The words it contained were clinical, but they described a calibre
 of human savagery most Europeans believed had died out with the end of the
 Third Reich.
  The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal was open for business but it was early
  days. No prosecutions were yet in prospect, and many of those who paid
  lip-service to the need for a tribunal suspected there would never be any.
  Politics, they thought, would get in the way.
  The office smelled of new paint. There was a hammering in the background.
  Carpenters putting up shelves.
  All four round the table were from different countries: a Dutch police
  inspector, a lawyer from Senegal, a French investigating magistrate, and
  Caroline Zander, a legal officer from the British Home Office.
  Communication between them alternated between French and English.
 'It's thin,' Ms Zander complained, tapping at the
 paper.
  She was in her mid-thirties, a career woman with short, brown hair and a
  look in the eye that warned others not to waste her time.
 'Plenty on the crime, but not much on the criminals.'
  The War Crimes Tribunal had been set up the previous summer by the UN
  Security Council. Seen

               29
 politically as 'the right thing to do', the UN had found its member na*tions
 reluctant to finance it, however. The Tribunal's rented space in a former
 insurance office in the Hague was short of equipment and staff.
  The woman from the Home Office turned back to the cover page of the file.
 '7-he Tulici Killings - March llth,'she read again.
 IFwtim Total: 44.
 Women: 18
 'Children under sixteen: 21
 'Men (elderly): 5.'
 The first inside page gave the background:
 'ne village of Tulici cons' of twelve habitable dwellin
               isted        gs and
 a small mosque. Afirther two houses had been rendered uninhabit
 able recently, their occupants, Catholic Bosizims, referred to as
 'Croats'. were expelled firom the village during the widespread
 "ethnic cleansing" perpetrated by all sides in recent months.
  'Tulicz is on the northern slopes of the Li~va Valley in central Bosnia,
  where the communi~y has been of mixed rel~gionsjor many years. The battle
  lines between the BiH (Bosnian) army (mostly Muslim) and the Bosnian-Croat
  Hrvatsko V#eie Obrane - HVO (Catholic) are constantly changin~ according to
  UN observers. At the time of these murders Tulicz was at the edge of the
  area under BW (mostyl Mitalim) control, but was not believed to be
  ofstrategic importance to the other side. It had been left undefended,
  apartfirom the presence of a few elderly men armed with hunting rifles and
  shotguns. All theyounger men of the village had been Wlis~d in the Bosnian
  army and were manning defences elsewhere.'
  Caroline Zander picked up a pen and gently chewed its end.
  'At approximate~ 14.15 hrs, an unknown number ofassailants (the UN
  Protection Force UNPROFOR estimates twelve) approached the villagefrom the
  south. An unmade roadpasses eastwest through Tulici. Sniperpositions appear
  to have been established at each end of the hamlet. Six of the women and
  nine of the children killed were shot at the eastern end as thg tried
  toflee.
 'At 14.55 hrs, an armouredpatrolfrom the UAPROFOR base

                30
 at Idez saw smokeftom the village and went to investigate. Before reaching
 Tulicl, thg came under attack from a mortar and withdrew. One hour later
 thg returned and succeeded in entering the village.
  'In an orchard at the western end thg found the bodies offive men,
  described as elderly. All had been shot several times. UAPROFOR believes
  the men had been rounded up in the village and brought to the orchard to
  be murdered.
  'Along the road through the hamlet the bodies ofseven women and six
  children werefound. All had multiple gunshot wounds, Two of the children
  also had their throats slit.
  'Eve?y house in the village had been set on fire, apparently to ensure
  that anyone hiding in them would also die. Some had been attacked with
  grenades. The charred bodies offour women and six children were
  recoveredfrom cellars by UNPROFOR soldiers and the menfrom the village
  who had arrived back at the same time.
  'The last victim was discovered in a cow shed behind one of the houses,
  ayoung woman, said by herfather to be nineteen. She had been shot in the
  head and chest, and stabbed several times. The clothing had been
  strippedftom her lower body. An UNPROFOR medical officer was present; he
  reported that b lood smears in the area of her vagina and anus suggested
  she had been subjected to multiple rape. ~
  Caroline Zander smacked the pen down onto the table and chewed her lip.
  She'd seen many reports like this in the past three months, but it didn't
  make them any easier to read. She pressed on.
  'The bodies of the victims were burz~d the next day in afield next to the
  mosque. No autopsies were carried out. 77tere are no known survivors of
  the attack, and no one zivitnessed it at close enough quarters to provide
  any description of the assailants. It is assumed however that thg were
  affiliated in some way to the HVO.
  'The UAPROFOR Colonel in Fiztez lodged a strong protest
 with the HVO commander and demanded that he cany out an
 i . nves4ation. 7-he latter reported back that after intmriewi . ng all
 his
 subordinate officers, he couldfind no one who had any knowledge of

               31
 the incident. The UNPROFOR Colonel has described the HVO chief as a
 '~alhological liar".
  'Inquiries by a representatz . ve of the UN Centre fir Human
 Rights, based in Zenica, produced "hearsay" evidence only. The
 men of Tulicz who had been absent at thefront, are convinced that
 the attackers werefrom a neighbouring Bosnian-Croat (Catholic)
 vi . llage. In particular thg have named one man whose ownfamitv
 had been made refiigees by the war with the Muslims. The man is
 called Milan P~avic, aged about thiny. He is known to have worked
 i . n Germanyfir severalyears, but had returned to Bosnia to support
 the HVO. He has acquired a reputationfir being a tough, ruthless
 fighter and is said to have a deep haired of Muslims.
  'All efforts to trace Pravic through the HVO havejailed. 7-hg claim that on
  the day of the massacre Pravic wasfighting on another front.
  'Without some direct evidence ofhis culpabiliy, we have at this
 stage no case against Mr Prauic. The Bosnianfirces however are
 convinced that he was in overall command ofthe attackers. Any extra
 resources the Tribunal is able to provide in tgzng to secure an
 i . nteiview un . th Mr Havic would be most valuable.'
  Ms Zander smiled wryly. Extra resources? The money the UN had budgeted
  would scarcely cover the rent and the wages of the smidl staff until the
  end of the year.
  At times she despaired of the work she was doing. Yes, the politicians
  mouthed support for the Tribunal every time the television showed new
  horror pictures. But more money? Oh no.
  'I'm not sure we can get far with this one,' she confided. 'What do you all
  think?'
  'We have a name. That is a beginning,' the Dutch policeman insisted. 'We
  can alert EU countries to watch for him at their borders.'
  'I agree, but so far there's no evidence against him,' the French
  magistrate pointed out. 'Unless we can find him and persuade him to
  confess.'
 The Englishwoman'snorted with laughter.
 'Fat chance.'

                32
  The Senegalese lawyer began to stir. His command of English was poor and it
  had taken him longer than the others to read the report.
  'The place ... where they kill . . .' His voice was laboured and slow. 'The
  UN soldiers ... they are British?'
 Ms Zander nodded.
  'Then maybe the British . . . they can do something? Ask the questions ...
  ? Maybe British military police ... can find this Pravic.'
 'It's not in UNPROFOR's mandate...' she explained.
 'I know, I know. But unofficially...'
 'Undercover, you mean? I'm not sure about that.'
 For a moment there was silence round the table.
  'Mind you, we could make something of the fact that this man's a Bosnian
  Croat,' she conceded.
 The others frowned. She wasn't making herself clear.
  'As you know, some politicians think putting Bosnian war criminals on trial
  will undermine the peace process,' she explained. 'Because most of those
  we've identified so far are Serbs ... They're scared Milosevic will accuse
  the world of bias and pull out of the talks.'
  'But most of the criminals are Serbs . . .' the Frenchman insisted.
  'I know, I know ... But if we can persuade our government that prosecuting
  Mr Pravic, a Croat, would balance the books, it nzz~ht encourage them to
  give us the help we would need to dig up enough evidence against him. I
  mean, my Foreign Secretary has called the Tulici massacre a stain on the
  conscience of hunzani~y. . .'
  'Ooph, such strong words . . .'the Dutchman mocked. 'Caroline is right. It
  could work.'
  'But Bosnia is a sovereign state,' the Frenchman objected. 'We have no
  right to go and investigate there unless the Bosnians give us permission.
  This is not like Nurnberg.'

                33
  'Pennission...' the Englishwoman pondered. 'Of course that's not something
  the intelligence services worry much about, is it? And I can't imagine
  Britain has two thousand soldiers out there without a few spies watching
  their backs.'
 She stood up and grabbed her copy of the Tulici file.
  'Let me talk to my friends in London and see if I can pull a trick or two,
  gentlemen.'

 Berlin

 Lufthansa flight 3227 from Moscow was late. Due at ten to three on this
 wintry afternoon, it was after five when the 737's tyres kissed the tarmac.
  Kommissar Ganther Linz of the Bundeskriminalamt, BKA, had been assured the
  two men were on the flight. Germany's secret service had a man on board
  who'd radioed through. What they didn't know was the precise nature of the
  stuff in the men's bags, nor how dangerous it was.
  This was a public place. Innocent people everywhere. Couldn't afford to
  slip up with the snatch. No chances being taken - sharpshooters on the
  balcony and, just seconds away, a medical team from the Bundeswehr's
  nuclear protection unit.
  A tall man, with salt-and-pepper hair and close-set, hazel eyes, Linz wore
  a dark green raincoat and carried a Duty Free plastic bag. He was uneasy -
  always was when the security people set up a 'sting'. If the two men he was
  about to arrest were committing an offence, it was because the intelligence
  services had put them up to it.
  The blue tail of the jet lined up with the gate. Linz began to sweat.

               34
  As airports went, Berlin-Tegel was one of the best for arrests. Baggage
  collection, immigration, customs - all at the gate itself, and just a few
  metres beyond the barrier a door to an access road where police vans
  could wait.
  The first passengers emerged from the pier and lined up for the passport
  check. Linz watched his four BKA detectives mingle by the carousel.
  The two Italians stood apart, one in a business suit, the other in
  leather jacket and brown trousers.
  They're good, Linz thought. Not a hint they're together. Not a sign of
  concern. Natural gamblers. The contents of their cases could make them
  rich, or put them behind bars.
  A buzzer. The carousel about to move. Linz watched the plain-clothes men
  close in on the couriers. Near enough to move fast, but not so close as
  to be noticed.
  The Italians watched the bags emerge. Linz guessed they planned to travel
  separately to the hotel where their ,customer' was waiting.
  Leather jacket grabbed a Samsonite then aimed his trolley for the exit.
  The Suit checked customs didn't stop him, then took his own bag from the
  carousel.
  Two broad-shouldered BKA officers followed the first man out, and two
  more took position behind the second.
  Leather jacket passed through the automatic doors. The Suit began to
  follow.
  Linz scratched his chin. The customs officer acknowledged the signal and
  stopped an African laden with boxes. The Suit found his way suddenly
  blocked. Linz saw fear flicker at this untimely delay.
  Outside in the concourse strong hands wrenched Leather jacket's arms from
  the bar of the trolley and pinioned them behind his back.
 'Che cosafai ... ?'
  A tobacco-stained hand clamped his mouth. He saw his trolley and
  Samsonite disappear through the doors.

                35
 Then his feet lifted from the floor and he hurtled after them.
  In Linz's earplece, a whispered voice. All was well. A scratch at his
  cheek this time - the customs man waved the African through.
  In the concourse, the Suit looked round for his companion, but for less
  than a second. Then he too felt metal cuffs, and his dream of wealth
  vanished like steam from a kettle.

 Across the airfield a small hangar had been cleared for operation Black
 Gold - SchwarZes Gold. Black-clad snipers from the anti-terror unit
 watched, while the two Italians sat in separate vans seething.
  On trestle tables in the centre of the hangar, stood the two suitcases.
  X-Rays had shown they might be boobytrapped.
  Linz watched from a distance, while the bomb experts did their stuff. He
  puffed at a small cigar. Then a technician beckoned him over. They'd cut
  through the sides of the bags, to by-pass the locks.
  'They live well, these Italians,' he quipped, holding a large tin of
  Russian caviar.
 Linz pulled on plastic evidence gloves.
  'Let me see.' He spoke in a low mumble. He took the can, which felt too
  heavy for caviar.
  'Plutonium probably,' the technician suggested. 'Twenty times as heavy
  as water. Permission to open it, Herr Linz?'
  The Kommissar handed back the tin and glanced at the truck-load of
  sophisticated gear they'd brought from headquarters.
 'But do we have a can-opener?' he asked laconically.
  Heads shook. There was a ripple of embarrassed laughter. Linz sent
  someone to find the kitchens, then wandered onto the apron again to
  relight his cigar. He
 limped slightly, the result of an old gunshot wound when he'd been on the
 Drug Squad. He was joined by a man shorter than himself, whose shiny
 baldness looked premature.
  'Hardly worth opening the cans,' Linz scowled. 'I suppose you know what's
  in them already.'
  'Of course we don't. We only baited the hook. You never know what kind of
  fish you catch until you reel in the line.'
  The smaller man was from the internal security service BfV. This was their
  sting.
  'Where did you find these two types, anyway?' Linz needled.
  'If you know the right bars, they'll come to you,' he replied. 'One of my
  colleagues looks like an Arab. Said he had a rich friend who would pay a
  fortune for enough of the right stuff. And, what do you know? Up jumped the
  Mafia.'
  'And when they get before the judges, they'll claim enticement. .
 'But, Herr Linz, does that matter?'
  Couldn't see the bigger picture, policemen, the BfV man thought. Too
  focused on detail.
  'It matters to me!' Linz growled. 'Catching criminals and locking them away
  is what I'm paid for.'
  'Na sch&n! But what we need at this moment is inforrnation about the
  plutonium trade. And if you want to learn if there are poachers out there,
  you must wave a rabbit.'
 Behind them someone cleared his throat.
 'We have the can-opener, Herr Linz!'
  The policeman and the intelligence agent walked back to the hangar. Linz
  squeezed the glowing end from his cigar and put the rest in his pocket.
  They began to open the caviar, snapped by a police photographer.

                37
  'What do all these things do?' Linz asked, pointing to
 devices set u . p around the can.
  'They detect neutron radiation. Plutonium 239 is what people want for
  bombs, but it's contaminated with 240, which gives off neutrons,' explained
  the technician crisply.
  'So what will these toys tell you?' Linz pressed, still confused.
  'Whether it's dangerous to handle, and whether this stuff is weapons
  grade.'
 Linz grunted and let them get on with it.
  Gingerly they removed the cleanly cut lid. Inside, was layer upon layer of
  polythene sheeting, cut into discs to fit the can. A technician tore off a
  strip of Scotch tape, crumpled it then used it as a sticky handle to lift
  them out.
 'Polythene absorbs iieutrons,'the technician explained.
  As the last of the plastic was removed, he pointed the neutron detector
  into the can. There was a rise in the whine emitted by the machine.
  'That's okay. The levels are safe. This stuff is high grade.'
 Black powder beneath the plastic.
  'Everything suggests weapons-grade plutonium,' Linz was told. 'We'll know
  more tomorrow after we've analysed it fully.'
  'Morning, I hope?' the BfV man queried, adding as an aside to Linz, 'the
  press conference is planned for three in the afternoon.'
  The press conference had been scheduled since yesterday. That's what Linz
  hated about this whole affair. Little to do with crime. Just politicians
  wanting Brownie points.
 'About midday,' the technician confirmed.
  The second can of 'caviar' revealed the same contents as the first.

                38
  'Tell me something,' Linz said, grabbing the whitecoated technician by his
  sleeve. 'Someone could make an atom bomb with this stuff?'
  JawohL' He held out the can so Linz could see more clearly. 'But you must
  convert the powder to metal and machine it to the right shape.'
 just this much? What we have here?'
  'No, this is a sample. You'd need eight kilos for one bomb.'
  Linz let them pack away their equipment. just a sample. But in the wrong
  hands one that could lead to death and misery for millions.
  He looked at the vans where the Italians were being held. Small fish.
  Couriers. Might not even know who was pulling their strings.
  'Come on then,' he said, taking the BfV officer by the arm. 'Let's see what
  your two jokers have to say for themselves.'

 39
               Four

 Friday 18th March
 Scotland

 Sleep, in the empty, ghost-filled house at Longniddry, was almost
 impossible. Alex's mind raced like a toy train on a loop line. Even though
 he knewJodie's death was an accident, he couldn't forget that the boy would
 still be alive if he'd acted dilrerently.
  His decision to join the relief effort in Bosnia had lifted his spirits a
  little. Helping people who'd suffered more than himself had to he a good
  thing to do. Yet he knew too that to some extent he was running away,
  avoiding decisions he couldn't face. Like whether to try again to reconcile
  things with Kirsty or to accept the defeat of letting it end this way.
  He tossed and turned, unable to shake off the feeling that he was
  responsible for Kirsty - and for Jodie, even though he had been old enough
  to vote.
  Funny thing responsibility. Get it wrong and it stays with you for ever.
  Like the time he'd taken Jodie deer stalking and the boy had been
  traumatized by the bloody gralloching of the carcase. Hadn't realized how
  sensitive a twelve-year-old could be. The worry that he might have
  harmedJodie's mind never left him.
  Alex had loved watching the deer, and accepted the need to hunt them for
  the cull. He'd identified with the way the beasts used cover to avoid
  detection, but had been chastened by how often they rewarded the stalkers'
  patience with a fatal mistake. A warning not to drop his guard against
  those who were hunting him.

                40
  It was after three a.m. when he finally nodded off. Then at six-thirty the
  alarm went. He staggered from the bed to make himself a mug of tea. There
  was much to do still.
  He'd telephoned Kirsty's brother last night to say he'd be away for a few
  weeks. Told him about the redundancy, but not about Bosnia. just said he
  was going to London to look up old friends. Better to keep it vague. Old
  habits - born out of twenty years in hiding.
  There was a train at twelve-thirty that would get him into London at five
  p.m.. Had to get everything sorted by then.
  He opened the refrigerator. Kirsty kept it well stocked. Eggs and bacon
  should get him going. Hadn't often cooked his own breakfast. She'd seen it
  as herjob.
  After he'd eaten, he showered, dressed and packed a couple of holdalls with
  the few things he thought he'd need. Warm clothes, his walking boots and a
  strong torch. Moray had said to bring a sleeping bag. The only one in the
  house had been jodie's. Couldn't bear the thought of using that, so he
  resolved to buy a new one in London.
  He phoned the local taxi company and booked a car for eleven-thirty. Then
  he sat at the kitchen table with a notepad and pen. His first letter was to
  the firm where he'd worked for twenty years, accepting their terms and
  telling them he'd not be back. Citing personal reasons for his sudden
  departure, he asked to send best wishes to his colleagues and for the
  redundancy cheque to be paid into his bank.
 Then he took another sheet.
 Dear Kz-rs_o ...
  He sat for ten minutes, unable to write. What should he tell her? That he
  loved her? True enough, even if he'd never been in love with her. That he
  wanted her back? That was the hard part. He wasn't sure it could work
  again.

                41
 He screwed up the page and threw it in the basket.
  He wrote cheques lior the handfiil of outstanding bills, found some stamps
  for the envelopes and took the letters to the box a short distance down the
  street. On the way back, a neighbour who'd been Kirsty's closest friend
  popped her head out to ask how things were. He told her he'd be away for a
  few weeks, asked her to keep an eye on the house, and said she should help
  herself to the contents of the 'fridge.
  The car came five minutes early, but he was ready. With a lump in his
  throat, he didn't look back as they headed west along the coast towards
  Edinburgh.
 I At Waverley Station, police were putting up posters of the
 thirteen-year-old girl who'd been murdered nearby. A woman sergeant with a
 clipboard asked Alex if he'd been in the area the previous week. He shook
 his head.
  He bought a one-way ticket to London Kings Cross, a newspaper and some
  sandwiches. Having breakfasted so early, he was hungry again.
  Then, one important call from a pay phone to an address he'd never known,
  where M15's 'C' Branch ran the minders who kept an eye on his back. He'd
  put off ringing them until now, knowing they'd urge him to stay where he
  was and not break cover.
  'Don't think it's a good idea, this, Mr Crawford,' the voice at the other
  end told him. 'Understand your predicament, but you'll be on your own. We
  can't keep an eye on you if you're moving around all the time. Haven't got
  the staff.'
  'You think the risk's that great any more?' Alex queried.
  'File says you're still current. Tell you what, give me another ring from
  London before you leave the country would you?'
  Then he found a window-seat in the smoking section and settled down for the
  journey.
 The train pulled out five minutes late. He stared out of

                42
 the window watching the Lothian landscape that had concealed him so
 hospitably for twenty years, slip past with increasing speed.
  His eyes moistened, his heart ached with a deep sadness. If only he could
  wind back the clock ...
  Beyond the border, he slept, his overstressed brain lulled by the rhythm of
  the wheels.

 He'd not been to the capital for twenty years. He'd expected change, but the
 crush of traffic and the sullenness of the packed Underground came as a
 shock.
  Born and brought up in London, his roots were there, although the Security
  Service had done its best to cut them off. They'd stopped him attending his
  father's funeral ten years ago. The IRA U411 be watching ...
  Died just a few months into retirement, after life in a smoke-filled
  broker's office selling insurance. Consoling his mother had been left to a
  secret meeting in Birmingham two weeks later. Then last year she had died.
  Didn't hear about it until after the funeral ...
  He found his way to the Bed and Breakfast in Acton where Moray McFev was
  staying, a house that smelled of dead air and bacon fat.
  McFee was waiting for him in the TV lounge, a short, stocky man in his
  mid-fiftles with crinkly auburn hair, thinning on top.
  'Welcome, welcome,' he said. 'Can't tell you how delighted I am.'
  He hardly knew the man, but it felt like being greeted by an old friend. A
  friend in need ... Botl~ '12n that category, he suspected.
 'It was good of you to remember me,' Alex replied.
  After settling his bags in his room and washing off the grime of the
  journey, McFee took him to a pub. Alex had a thirst and went foi bitter;
  McFee drank whisky.
 'Let me fill you in about Bosnia Emergency,' he began,

                43
 pulling out a pipe and thumbing St Bruno into the bowl. They'd settled at
 a corner table. 'It was set up by a guy called Major Mike Allison who'd
 served with the UN in Bosnia and then got made redundant under the defence
 cuts. He used his gratuity to get the charity running.
  'An old army contact found him a disused warehouse in Surrey. Then he
  recruited volunteers, many ex-military, or army wives. They collected old
  clothing and stuff. He's also got drug companies to give him medicines
  nearing their sell-by dates, that sort of thing. And with money raised
  through appeals on local radio he bought baby food and disposable nappies
  at cost price.
  'Then he got reaIly lucky. Inherited a couple of old bread vans from one
  of the big bakeries. just needed a few new parts, and they were fine.
  What happens is the volunteers at Farnham stuff one of them with goods,
  then we drive it down to Italy next week and over the ferry to Split in
  Croatia. Then, because the vans can't make it on Bosnia's roads, we
  transfer the gear to an old Bedford four-tonner for the drive up to
  central Bosnia. Mike supplies body armour and life insurance. I've
  checked it by the way and it's good. He pays for food, drink and
  accommodation, but that's it. The rest of your reward's in heaven!'
  Body an-nour? Insurance? The realities of what he was in for suddenly
  sank in.
  'You make it sound a bit like a scouts' outing, Moray,' Alex joked,
  awkwardly. 'But it looks terrifying on TV. How dodgy is it?'
  'Not for the faint-hearted, d'ye ken!' McFee answered. 'But you'll be
  fine. It's dangerous, but just keep reminding yourself that there are
  hundreds, thousands of aid workers, UN people, even journalists going in
  and out all the time, and most of them survive okay.'
 'Did you get shot at?'
 'There's shooting going on all over the place, but it's

                44
 not often at you. I'll tell you something though; it's what they call a
 "sharp learning curve" out there. I've just made the one trip - with Mike
 Allison, but by the time I got back here again, I felt like I'd done an
 assault course.'
 'And passed, I take it.'
  'Aye,' he laughed. 'Hope so. You'll find out in a few days' timeP
  Alex told McFee he had to take a leak. The pub had filled up. He had to
  elbow his way through to reach the toilet.
  When he returned he saw McFee talking with a young woman. He thought he
  recognized her as one of two tarty creatures who'd been sitting at a
  table near them. As he approached, the girl saw him and moved towards the
  door.
 'Who's your friend?' Alex asked.
  'Oh, er ... just a local lass,' McFee answered, avoiding his eye.
  'There's a few of them collecting clothes for Bosnia Emergency. I was
  chatting them up the other evening, regaling them with tales of my
  exploits out there, and they've got pretty keen. You know, if you tell
  people about the suffering in Bosnia they usually want to help.'
  'Good for you,' Alex answered. For some reason he sensed McFee was lying.
  Later, back at the boarding house, they watched the evening news - fresh
  fighting between Bosnia's Croats and Muslims in the town of Gorni Vakuf,
  houses ablaze, women and children running for cover, and UN soldiers
  battened down impotently.
  'We drive through that place on the way up to Vitez,' McFee commented.
  The pictures were scaring, but Alex felt excitement too. He was about to
  return to the thick of things after two decades in a backwater. His veins
  buzzed, just as they had on the troubled streets of Belfast in the
  nineteen-seventies.

                45
  He turned from the screen to find McFee staring coldly at him. Suddenly he
  sensed he was being used, although he didn't know how.
 'No problem,' McFee muttered, flashing a grin. "Nana problema" as they say
 out there.'
 The bulletin ended and they decided to call it a day.
  In the unfamiliar bed, sleep still proved elusive, his mind haunted
  byJodie's face dangling at that impossible angle in the trees.
  He heard every train which ran nearby. Then around one in the morning they
  stopped. He was on the verge of sleep when he heard the click of the lock
  on McFee's doorjust along the landing. A loose board creaked as the
  Scotsman made his way downstairs, then another click as the front door
  opened and closed.
  Odd man, Alex thought. He must have dozed off after that, because he didn't
  hear him return.

 Frankfurt, Geirn any

 Martin Sanders ambled down the long, anonymous concourse of Frankfurt
 Airport, looking forward to the prospect of a couple of days in Germany.
 Many of his formative years had been spent in the cat-and-mouse world of
 Berlin, and he'd had a spell as liaison man for the Secret Intelligence
 Service at the British Embassy in Bonn.
  His flight from London had arrived on time. Carrying just hand-baggage he
  joined the line filtering through passport control, then headed for the
  exit. Sanders was fifty-two, fair-haired and wore a grey business suit. He
  had the broken nose of a rugby player. Instinctively he

                46
 mingled with other, similarly dressed travellers and walked at their pace.
 Years of good SIS fieldcraft.
  At the car hire desk he told the girl he wanted to upgrade from the VW
  Golf that he'd booked, to a Renault Espace. She seemed rather tickled by
  his story that his wife and young children were joining him on the trip
  at the last minute. Englishmen, in her experience, usually came to
  Frankfurt to escape their families and visit the sex-shops.
  'They're on the next flight,' he explained when she looked past him for
  some sign of them.
  'Second family,' he shrugged as her eyes suggested he was rather old to
  have small children.
  Driving out of the airport, he turned onto the Autobahn A3 in the
  direction of Wurzburg.
  Martin Sanders had no family. He was a bachelor. But he was attending a
  meeting of the Ramblers, a select, highly secret international gathering.
  just four intelligence men in attendance, one of them had the task of
  renting an Espace or a Previa. This time it was his turn. Doing a last
  minute upgrade reduced the risk of anyone doctoring it beforehand.
  It was Rudiger Katzfuss who'd made the hotel arrangements this time.
  Every six months when the four met, they took turns to play host in their
  own country. The last time in Germany had been two years ago; Sanders
  remembered how their French colleague had complained about the sweetness
  of the Rhine wine. This time Rudiger had chosen the Franken region
  because the wines were dry.
  Like many a businessman whose work is deadly serious, when away from home
  the Ramblers felt they had the right to 'play' a little. Modestly - these
  were cautious men - but a glass or three and good food somewhere pleasant
  helped create the bond which would be vital in a crisis. Even if their
  governments fell

                47
 out over foreign policy, it was important that the four intelligence
 gervices kept contacts sweet.
  Autobahn driving was the one part of the process Sanders didn't like.
  Narrow lanes of traffic moving excessively fast. Rudiger had faxed a map
  showing the way to Sommerhausen.
  There was a newcomer to the group this time, Jack Kapinsky of the CIA,
  who'd taken up the job of Director of the European Division. Sanders had
  met him three times before. A dry character who drank cold tea. A man eager
  to make his mark.
  Taking the Wurzburg exit and heading south, the ground rose sharply to the
  left, hillsides combed with neat lines of vines still just visible in the
  early evening gloom.
  'One of Germany's best-kept secrets' is how Katzfuss had described the
  region. Sanders was surprised Germany had any secrets left after the Cold
  War penetration by moles from the East.
  The signpost to Sommerhausen led him into a pretty, red-roofed wine village
  of grey, yellow and half-timbered houses. Along the narrow main street,
  locals carried home shopping and tourists strolled, glancing at menus in
  the Weinstube windows which glittered in the dusk. Third turning on the
  right, Katzfuss's note had said. Sanders eased the Espace down a narrow
  lane.
  T he Gdstehaus zurn M6nchen had been chosen for its inconspicuousness. A
  modern building, but in traditional Bavarian style, with a dozen small
  bedrooms, it was cheap and simple - a room with breakfast. The couple who
  ran it expected to see little of their guests.
  Rudiger Katzfuss was waiting in the tiny reception area, a big man with a
  face so deeply lined it looked crumpled. Katzftiss was Director for Europe
  with the BND, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany's secret service.
 'Mein heber Marte he purred, grasping Sanders' hand.

                48
 'Always first to arrive. You're so efficient. I think perhaps you are
 secretly a German.. .' Then he roared with laughter.
  'I've been many things, Rudi, but not that. Not yet,' Sanders chuckled.
  The Ramblers' cover story was that the four men were partners in
  international marketing, each managing an office in his own country. They
  only met twice a year, so used the occasion to relax, taste wine and
  explore new countryside.
  Sanders filled out a registration form with the usual false address. They
  would pay cash for all their bills.
  He took his key from the manageress and declined her offer to show him
  upstairs.
  The room was clean and plain, walls papered in featureless beige, a pine
  wardrobe and matching bed covered in a plump, white linen Federbett.
  Sanders hung a pair of trousers in the wardrobe, had a quick wash, then
  heard a tap at his door. He let Katzfuss in.
  'You have everything you need?' Katzfuss asked. 'Small, but ffinctional
  - are those the words, I think?'
  'Your grasp of English idioms is faultless, Rudi,' Sanders answered. 'But
  if you're offering extras, what about a popsie!'
  Katzfuss raised an eyebrow. The word had beaten him.
  'Never mind.. . ' Sanders smirked. 'What's the plan this evening?'
  'Well, I think that when the others are here, there is a weg nice
  Weinstube where we can start. And then dinner. I have booked us for eight
  o'clock.'
  Marcel Vaillon of the Direction G6n&rale de la S6curit6 Ext6rieure turned
  up next, a stocky man, going bald; then Jack Kapinsky, tall, thin and
  bespectacled, minutes later. By the time everyone was settled, it was
  after seven.
 They left the hotel together, glad of their coats. The

               49
 air nipped. The village smelled of wood smoke and cooking, the place busy
 with weekenders from the cities.
  In the Weinstube Kapinsky removed his glasses to polish them. They'd
  steamed up, coming in from the cold.
  'I'll take a coffee, thanks,' he replied, when asked what he wanted to
  drink.
  'That can be bad for the liver, you know,' Vaillon remarked.
  'I'll risk it,' the American replied. 'Now, Rudi, what've you got fixed for
  us? Is this the hottest spot in town?'
  'Almost! I told them we would eat here this evening, but tomorrow we can be
  somewhere other, if you like.' Katzfuss spoke English with only a slight
  accent. 'In this part of Germany the food is supposed to be good.'
  A look of disbelief creased the round face of the man from the DGSE.
  There was no official language for these gatherings, but with two
  English-speakers always present, theirs was the tongue that dominated.
  Relations between their four agencies were rooted in suspicion, but since
  the end of the Cold War, they'd discovered a new common cause - a wish to
  preserve the ability to act quickly and independently when the need arose,
  free from the clithering of politicians.
  They believed a myth had arisen in the minds of the general public that the
  end of the Cold War meant the end of the threat to the West. Governments
  were using it, they felt, as an excuse to cut budgets and curb their powers
  with demands for greater accountability.
  So the Ramblers had been formed as a bypass to the political process. A
  group that could take action in the interests of' their joint national
  security, without the politicians being told anything about it. Direct
  action -such as assassination.
  Secrecy was all. Their meetings were never minuted. The existence of the
  group was known only to the chiefs

                50
 of each nation's intelligence service and the four representatives
 themselves.
  Jack Kapinsky fiddled apprehensively with his cup of unpleasantly bitter
  coffee, his glance flitting between the faces of his more relaxed
  colleagues. He barely knew these people yet his brief was to trust them
  and agree a plan that could get himjailed if its details were ever made
  public.
  This at a time when some Congressmen were demanding the CIA be disbanded
  for incompetence ... Not the wisest moment to get involved in dirty
  tricks, he'd suggested. His Director had countered with a quote from
  Edmund Burke - the only infallible critefion of wisdom is success.
  Rudi Katzfuss had left little to chance in the process of ice-breaking
  which this first evening was intended to accomplish. The Gasthof was
  renowmed for its cooking and its Gemitlichkeit. He ordered two flat-sided
  bottles of Frankenwcin so their tasting could begin.
  'They call these BocWeutel,' he explained. 'They say the monks who made
  the wine found this shape easy to hide under their cloaks. You must try
  the Muller-Thurgau and the Sylvaner. The earth here is Muschelkalk. You
  know what is that?'
 He was met by frowns.
  'From the mussel. Millions of years ago this land was under the sea.'
  'Instead of prattling on, Rudi, why don't you pour the bloody stuff. .
  .' Sanders remarked. 'I don't care how pretty the bottles are, wines are
  for d7inking. . .'
  Katzfuss peered at the labels and chose the one nearest.
 'First the Maller-Thurgau, I think..
 He filled the four glasses.
 'Tastesgreat,' Kapinsky announced.
  'Aimable, but I prefer Chardonnay,' the Frenchman commented.

               51
  The waitress brought menus and the food followed swiftly. Even Vaillon was
  satisfied. Soon the conversation veered to politics.
  'You know, I can't understand why our system allows so many dough-heads
  into the White House,' Kapinsky exploded. 'For a sophisticated democracy
  we've had some pretty ignorant presidents. And the one we've got now. .
  .'He shook his head in despair. 'He couldn't even find Bosnia on the map..
  .'
 'Nor can most people,' Sanders remarked curtly.
  'Okay. But this creep is on a learning curve so steep it's almost vertical.
  European history is not his strong point. We keep showing him the mess you
  guys have got in over Bosnia and tell him America won't do any better. So,
  what does he do? Gets involved -- then backs off.just one more indecision
  for the New York Times to write about.'
  'We call that "learning on the job". That's the British way of doing
  things,' Sanders offered.
  'But he was strong on war crimes,' Katzftiss added. 'He backed the UN
  tribunal in the Hague.'
  'Waste of time,' Sanders snapped. 'Might get a few tiddlers, but the big
  fish'Il end up running the place.'
  'It's the feel-good factor,' Kapinsky continued. 'Makes the politicians
  look as if they're doing something. Kids the voters.'
  'I'll tell you something about the Hague,' Sanders added. 'They're haidly
  up and running there and already getting cheeky. We got a request from them
  yesterday. Do we have someone we could send to Bosnia to do a bit of
  detective work? I ask you.'
 'Tulici?' Vaillon checked. Sanders nodded.
 'Pictures on the television ... ' Vaillon shrugged.
  They knew what he meant. Europe's policies on Bosnia had been driven by
  public reaction to TV news broadcasts.
 The conversation drifted dangerously towards the sort

               52
 of gossip that shouldn't be overheard. The place was too public.
  'Shall we call it a day,' Sanders suggested. 'Make an early start in the
  morning?'
  Those with brandies drained their glasses. They settled their bill with
  cash, then the four headed back to the hotel. On the way Kapinsky stopped
  at a phone box to ring Washington. Not to discuss Bosnia - hardly a
  serious matter for intelligence agencies - but for an update on the real
  nightmare preoccupying the Agency.
 Iran - poised to acquire an atomic bomb.

 The morning dawned bright and dry, although rain was forecast.
  At the breakfast table, Katzf'uss ostentatiously spread out a walker's
  map of the neighbourhood.
  'There is a path that will give us good views and take us to a fine
  Kileipe for lunch.'
  They were all dressed for the part in hiking boots, thick socks and warin
  clothes. The overnight frost had been heavy.
  Sanders went outside to warm up the Espace. It was a ten-minute drive to
  the start of the 'ramble'.
 The CIA man was last to climb into the vehicle.
  They didn't talk as Katzfuss navigated. Mist clung to the valley of the
  River Main which looped round the hills and the vineyards. A pale sun
  struggled to burn it off.
  Soon they were at a small Schloss reputed to produce the best local wine.
  'rhere was a car park for visitors.
  'If there is time later, we can uisit here,' Katzfuss gestured.
  The path began as a farm track leading diagonally up a southwest facing
  slope, terraced with vines. The winter pruning had been done and the
  plants looked stunted and dead.
 They walked for five minutes. Then the path levelled

               53
 out and began a gentle descent, the sun, where it pierced the mist, glinting
 on the river below.
  'Okay, gentlemen. I guess we should start our business.' The CIA man was
  tense, finding it hard to reconcile the informality of the setting with the
  seriousness of their purpose.
  Katzfuss glanced round. No one else about, crazy enough to be walking this
  early.
  'You know the agenda,' Rudi began. 'As chairman, I think best I report you
  first about Schwarzes Gold'
 'Thursday's arrests in Berlin?' Sanders checked.
  ja. Exactly. Two Italians caught with four hundred grams of Plutonium 239,
  which was eighty-five per cent pure.
  'As you know, this was a trap by a BfV agent pretending to be from the
  Middle East. The Italians had Mafia connections in Russia.
  'The aim was to learn if such material is possible to buy.. . We know now
  the answer is yes. And that it came from a Russian laboratory,
  Chelyabinsk-70. The scientists there have not been paid since last year.
  'We don't know how much can be bought, or if it is enough for a weapon. And
  the BfV don't know who wants to buy it - apart from themselves,' he added
  wryly.
  'Yesterday the Kiirninalpolizei made a press conference, and the German
  government asks Russia to have stronger control over these materials.'
  'Sounds like your boys have been having a bit of fun,' Sanders told him.
  'If M15 pulled a stunt like that, there would be howls of protest in
  parliament.'
  'I think that same noise is just beginning here . . Katzfuss confessed.
  Jack Kapinsky held out his arm for them to stop.
 Walking                         9
    g and talkin was not his scene.
  'Look, let's discuss this in the van. I've had enough scenery. And there's
  something big we've got to decide on.

               54
 They turned and walked back the way they'd come.
  'And I'll tell you something,' Kapinsky continued, 'when the Russians trade
  seriously in this stuff, they won't do it through Germany, particularly
  after all this high-profile police activity.'
  Back at the Espace, Sanders wrestled with the floor clips and spun the two
  front seats round to face the rear two. Then he unfolded a small table.
  Their conference room was ready.
  'Now look ... we have something new on this nuclear business,' Kapinsky
  explained.
 He had their Ul attention.
  'First, let me say that in Washington we don't believe those labs like
  Chelyabinsk will leak enough material to feed a bomb programme. We don't
  believe either that there's a terrorist organization out there able to make
  a bomb from the sort of stuff your guys picked up in Berlin, Rudi.'
  They had one of the windows open for ventilation. Far away they heard a
  tractor start up, and to their right a flock of pigeons took to the air
  startled at the sound.
  'The people chasing Russian plutonium are the same ones who've been trying
  to produce their own stuff for years,' Kapinsky continued. 'Iran, Iraq,
  Libya, to name but three. And what they've got their eyes on is all those
  warheads being taken apart under the disarmament agreements. There are two
  thousand a year being dismantled, and all that plutonium's just being put
  on the shelf. You can't destroy the stuff. At Nizhnaya-Tura and Svatusk and
  Penza there's enough for thousands of bombs.'
  'That of course we all know,' Katzfuss chipped in defensively. 'And in
  principle that must be the greatest danger. But in the BND we believe the
  risk of that material getting on the market is . . .'
  'It's minimal,' Sanders agreed. Jack, you know that too. The 12th Main
  Directorate has those places stitched

               55
 as tight as a duck's arse. For plutonium to leak from there you would% have
 to have a total breakdown of military authority in Russia. I mean, they've
 plenty of problems, but we're not seeing anything like that yet.'
 'A few days ago, we would have agreed with you..
 Kapinsky's words floated before them like a mine.
  'We've just learned that the Iranians think they've cracked the problem.'
  'Cest incrovablef Vaillon spluttered. 'What source do you 'ave?'
  'I don't know that. Humint of some sort. But it's grade one.'
 'What exactly do you know?' Sanders asked.
  'The Iranians believe they're in contact with a group of middle-ranking
  Russian officers who control security at one of the storage sites. They say
  they can supply twenty kilos of ninety-three per cent Plutonium 239.'
 Jesus wept!' Sanders breathed.
  'I am not the technologue,' Vaillon ventured. 'What does that mean?'
  'Sufficient for maybe four bombs . . .' Katzfuss explained.
 'And what is the price?' Sanders asked.
 'One hundred million dollars.'
 'The Iranians will never pay that much!'
  'Maybe not. But that's how much the Russians are asking. Foreign bank
  accounts, the lot.'
  'How do they plan to do it? Twenty kilos? That's a hell of a lot to
  handle.'
  'We don't know the plan,' Kapirisky explained. 'Only that the Iranian who
  is running the show is due to meet the Russian go-between pretty soon. The
  Russian has to show a sample to prove it is from a warhead stockpile.'
 'Where's the meeting to be?' asked the Frenchman.
  'That's the trouble. We don't know that. Not yet. We think maybe somewhere
  in the Balkans. Bulgaria, Romania, who knows.'

               56
  The mist had cleared but the sun retreated behind a cloud. Across the
  valley they could see the first streaks of rain.
  'Have you talked to the Russians about this?' Vaillon asked, uncertain how
  much co-operation they could expect.
  'We're doing it now,' Kapinksy answered. 'I know what they'll say; that
  their security measures are as tight as they can be and such a leak of
  materials is impossible.'
  The tractor they'd heard earlier appeared on the brow of the hill behind
  them and approached rapidly.
  Katzfuss opened an attach& case and handed them each a small schnapps
  glass. As the tractor slowed to pass their van, they raised the glasses in
  a toast to the driver. He mouthed the word Prost!
  When the tractor was gone, the four bunched together again.
  'The Iranians have been flirting with nuclear power for thirty years,'
  Kapinsky continued. 'When the Shah had control he launched a thirty billion
  dollar civil programme that would give him plutonium as a spin off. That
  idea died when the Mullahs came in. The two plants being built at Bushehr
  were abandoned, and then in 1987 the Iraqis bombed the shit out of them
  just to make sure.
  'But in eighty-nine, Rafsanjani said Iran couldn't ignore the reality of
  nuclear power. He meant military power. Since then they've set up a cadre
  of technicians at the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Research Centre at Isfahan. And
  they've built a secret weapons development centre near the Caspian Sea at
  Moallem Kelaich and another in the desert near Yazd.
  'Our source is very close to the top. The man who's made the breakthrough
  with the Russians is a Dr Akhavi. Speaks Russian and did a year in Gorky in
  nineteenninety.
 'Akhavi's connections are entirely personal. The guys

               57
 in the Russian military who claim to be willing to supply, know him and no
 one else in the Iranian hierarchy. He's the only one they trust.
  'Our proposal is this - remove Akhavi from the equation, and the whole deal
  should collapse.'
  Sanders stroked his chin. He knew what was coming next.
  'My people in Washington believe that if some way can be found to stop this
  trade, we should take it,' Kapinsky declared. 'My chief wants us to agree
  a plan. A plan to eliminate the problem.'
 They all knew what that meant.
 Murder.
  Something they hadn't involved themselves in since the Iraqi Supergun
  affair.
  'We'll need a lot more information,' Sanders stated blandly. 'What are you
  proposing, Jack?'
  'We don't have a proposal. I guess that's for the four of us to work out.
  But it seems to me if we eliminate Akhavi and the Russian go-between, we've
  won.'
  'For this time,' Katzfuss commented. 'As long as there is a market, there
  will be others.'
  'Oh, sure. The long-term solution lies with the Russian military keeping
  the stuff locked up. We're just in the business of crisis-management on
  this one. But the immediate crisis is that Iran looks dangerously close to
  a deal.'
  They sat in silence for a while, staring out of the windows.
  'You trust your source a hundred per cent?' Sanders asked.
 'I guess.'
 'But you've got nothing from the Russian side?'
 'Nope. You neither?'
 The three Europeans shook their heads.
  'You think you'll get notice of when and where this meeting is to take
  place?' Sanders queried.

               58
  'If we don't, then we can't even start anything. . Kapinsky shrugged.
 'Quite.'
  'Our hope is that we would get maybe two or three days' warning. What we
  have to do is set someone up who can move fast. A freelance. Someone
  who'll do it without asking why, or who's paying.'
  'Always remembering the Ramblers' eleventh commandment. . .' Katzfuss
  warned.
 Kapinsky frowned, not understanding.
 'Thou shalt not get caught. . .' Sanders explained.

 59
               Five

 Monday 21st March
 London

 The breakfast news on the television at the Acton boarding house reported
 more fighting in Bosnia and the death of a French photographer, killed when
 his Land Rover was hit by an anti-tank rocket.
  Alex expressed some concern but McFee assured him it wasn't as bad out
  there as it looked.
  They were leaving early the following morning. McFee was to drive them to
  Farnham, and leave his car at the warehouse. Then they'd collect the van
  filled with supplies and be on their way to Dover, the Continent and
  Bosnia.
  Alex had been introduced to Major Allison on Saturday. The Surrey epicentre
  of Bosnia Emergency's activities had been chaotic, but impressive. Stacks
  of old clothes, tinned food and basic medical supplies being sorted into
  boxes by a handful of volunteers. The place throbbed with goodwill. Allison
  had shown Alex photographs of the villages and villagers they'd helped.
  The warehouse wits on an industrial estate, deserted at weekends. Alex had
  never driven anything as large as the former bread van he and McFee were to
  take to Split.
  McFee, who for some unexplained reason had acquired a Heavy-Goods Vehicle
  licence when he was younger, showed Alex the ropes.
  'By the time we reach Ancona, you'll be an old hand,' he'd declared.
 'What about a licence?'

                60
 'Ach ... tell them it's in the post.'
  Less than twenty-four hours to go, and Alex felt far from prepared. He
  still had to buy that sleeping bag. But first there was a phone call to
  make.
 The voice at 'C' Branch answered at the second ring.
  'Ali! So pleased that you called,' the man wheedled. 'There's someone
  upstairs who's very keen to talk to you. Says he's an old friend.'
 Alex's heart sank.
  Roger Chadwick. It couldn't be anyone else. It was thanks to Chadwick
  that he'd spent the last twenty years in hiding. They'd gone to the same
  school and the man had used that flimsy connection to suck him into his
  world of betrayal.
  Tin not so sure I want to talk to him,' Alex growled. Chadwick spelt
  trouble.
  After a slight acquaintance at school, they'd met again on a nuclear
  disarmament demo in the sixties, quite by chance. Alex had been marching
  with Lorna Donohue. Chadwick was a new boy in M15 then, trying to make
  a name for himself by spotting the anarchists in CND.
  'He's booked a table at the Monteverdi Restaurant in Church Street Ken
  J'Or one o'clock today,' the voice said. 'Is that all right?'
 'Oh, I suppose so,' Alex sighed, suspiciously.
  'He says it really is essential you meet. Says he owes you a lot and has
  something for you.'
 'Like whaff
  'Sorry. There's nothing more. Monteverdi at one. I'll tell him you're
  on?'

 The outside of the restaurant needed a lick of paint. A window box filled
 with bone-dry earth held the remains of some pelargoniums, cause of death
 unknown.
  He checked the name sign again, then pushed open the door.

                61
  'For one, signor?' asked a weary waiter, eyeing his casual clothes and
  marking him down as a tourist.
 'No. I'm meeting someone.'
 'Name?'
  'Dear boy!' The shout came from the back of the restaurant. A large,
  dark-suited figure arose from the gloom, flapping a hand at him.
  Chadwick had put on weight. A good two or three stones heavier than when
  they'd last met in Belfast.
 'Alex! What can I say ... ?'
 He reached out with both hands.
  'Roger. . .! It's been a long time. And you don't look a day older,' Alex
  lied.
  Chadwick's laugh boomed out. He examined Alex up and down.
 'Sorry if I'm a bit scrufly,' Alex apologized.
  'Not at all. But I'mglad you're having trouble with the waistline too,' he
  chortled, patting his gut. 'The beard suits you, by the way. Gives you the
  wiry look of a Border terrier. Pulls the birds, does it?'
 Chadwick gestured to the chairs.
  'Only the nesting kind,' Alex retorted. 'Had to cramp my style, Roger, as
  you well know..
 He stroked his chin.
  'Anyway, I think I'll shave it off. Too many grey bits showing through.'
  'Keep it. Particularly if you're intending to "come out", as they say.'
  Chadwick grinned, then switched quickly to an expression of sympathy.
 'So sorry about your son.'
 'Stepson, actually.'
 'Of course. But I know how you felt about him.'
  Did he know? Had he been watching him that closely all these years, with
  those small, conspiratorial eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles?
 Alex told him about Kirsty's breakdown and then

               62
 stumbled into talking about the accident itself, and the sense of guilt that
 still followed him like a cloud. Hadn't meant to open up like that. Not
 always a safe thing to do with Chadwick. But he felt better when he'd
 finished, realizing he'd needed to tell someone.
  'It was an accident, my friend. That's all. Not your fault in any way,'
  Chadwick assured him.
  'I know, I know. Anyway, you didn't invite me here to talk about that.'
 Chadwick pursed his lips.
  'Not entirely ... You know me too well. I do have some business in mind.
  But later. Later. Let's have a drink and pick something from this
  magnificent menu!'
  It was pizzas and pastas. The restaurant had been chosen not for its
  cuisine but for the wide gaps between the tables and the muzak which would
  prevent their voices being overheard.
  The waiter delivered bottles of Corvo and San Pelegrino.
  'Never cold enough,' Chadwick complained, feeling the wine. 'Never mind. If
  we drink it quickly we won't notice!'
 He filled their glasses.
 'Cheers! A toast to ... to putting the past behind us?'
  His eyes seemed to be pleading. Alex guessed this was the closest Chadwick
  would ever get to saying sorry for the pain he'd inadvertently caused him.
 'To the future,' he replied, simply.
 They drank.
  'So, what are you up to these days,'Alex asked. 'Still in "I"' Branch,
  chasing subversives?'
  'What a memory! No. I'm up in the rafters now. Director of something or
  other. Paper-clips, I think. But I've always kept an interest . . .'
 Alex's eyebrows bushed into a frown.
 'An interest in your well-being, Alex, that's what 1

               63
 mean,' he growled. 'You did us ... did your country ... a great service
 twenty years ago, you know.'
  Alex doubted that. 'I helped you kill three IRA men. It didn't exactly
  stop the war, did it?'
  'They were three top-drawer murderers, Alex and don't you forget it. If
  their jail break had succeeded, there'd be even more police and army
  widows now crying in their pillows. You paid a heavy price, that's what's
  unfortunate about it. And that's why I insisted "C" branch took such good
  care of you for the past twenty years. It was personal for me, Alex,' he
  added, overtly sincere. 'That's why I knew aboutJodie, you see. Anything
  new, anything bad, "C" Branch had orders to tell me.'
  Too smooth, too much oil, Alex said to himself Chadwick was after
  something. Better keep his wits about him, and play for time. He asked
  Chadwick about his own family.
  'Children both at University now. Amazing how time passes. And my wife's
  quite remarkable. Hardly a cross word in twenty-five years! Amazes me how
  she puts up with my life.. .'he added, patronizingly.
  The first course came and went and they were into the second before
  Chadwick finally turned to the purpose of their reunion.
  'So, you're off to Bosnia, then. To do good deeds,' he began. 'Nasty
  place. D'you know where you'll end up precisely?'
  'Vitez.' McFee had shown him the map at the weekend. 'Where the British
  troops are based. It's the safest place to be, I'm told.'
  'Exactly, Exactly,' Chadwick mused. 'Sounds all terribly worthwhile and
  rewarding. And very brave.'
 'Don't know about that...'
  'You always did have a lot of guts, Alex. No false modesty, now. ..'
 He could feel Chadwick slipping the ring through his

               64
 nose, just as he had when he'd persuaded him to identify troublemakers on
 the CND rallies. just as he had too, a decade later in Belfast.
 'Okay, Roger,' Alex sighed, 'what is it you want?'
 Chadwick poured the last of the wine.
 'Does the word Tulicz mean anything to you?'
 Alex scratched his beard.
 'That's the village ... ?'
  'Exactly. Forty people massacred there, ten days ago. All Muslims. Mostly
  women and children. No known witnesses, but the word is that a man called
  Milan Pravic led the gang of killers. Spelt "Vic", but pronounced (1vitz",
  I'm told. He's a Bosnian Croat, vanished without trace, of course. Well ...
  the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague want him found and delivered to
  them for trial.'
  'I'm not surprised. Shouldn't be too hard, should it? The place is crawling
  with UN personnel.'
  'They have no police powers, Alex. The UN can't go round investigating, or
  arresting people. They're there to get the food through. The Bri't
  commander in Vitez has done his best. Tulicl is on his patch. In fact he
  reached the village when it was still burning.
  'The local Muslims say Pravic is a well-known psychopath. They're convinced
  he did it, but the evidence is only hearsay. Not enough for a prosecution.
  'So there are two problems, my dear Alex. No accused, and no evidence! And
  that's whereyou come in.'
 'Surprise, surprisc! What are you getting aff
  'The Hague Tribunal's asked Britain to help. And when we learned thatyou
  were heading there, we thought you might be prepared to do your bit to help
  the nation again. .
 Alex frowned and narrowed his eyes.
  'From your beetled brow I can see you think I'm going to land you in it
  again,' Chadwick continued, looking a little pained. 'But all you'll have
  to do is keep your ears

               65
 open and ask a few questions. That charity of yours takes food parcels all
 over the place - Muslim villages, Croat villages. They'll have interpreters.
 People everywhere are talking about the slaughter at Tulici.'
  'You amaze me, Roger,' Alex declared wearily. 'The last time I helped the
  nation as you put it, I had to spend the next twenty years in hiding.'
  Chadwick narrowed his eyes. 'That was just bad luck. . .'
  'Which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't spied for you,' he retorted. 'No.
  After what I've been through, I can't think of any good reason for helping
  you out again.'
  'Well, I can think of two, actually,' Chadwick retorted. 'One - gratitude
  for the very considerable resources devoted by your countrymen to keeping
  you alive for the past two decades.'
 'Whaff
 'And two - because you like the excitement.'
 'I don't believe this,' Alex breathed.
  'Come on, Alex! You are by nature a chancer, you know that. Taking risks -
  you love it. Let's cast our minds back to Belfast for a moment.'
 Alex flinched.
  'Nineteen-seventy-three. There you were, an electrical engineer with a good
  degree and several years of success in industry behind you, and you'd
  chucked it all up to become a sound recordist with a television news team.1
  Why? Because the idea of running round Ulster dodging bricks, bottles and
  bullets gave you a big stiffy.'
 'Now hang on...'
  'And that wasn't the only thing that got your willy all hard, was it?
  Remember the lovely Catherine?' One of Chadwick's eyebrows arched
  alarmingly. 'Now, she wasn't one of those old Belfast bangers the TV crews
  used to pick up to nuzzle between riots. No. Tou had to choose someone
  really special, didn't you? Someone so dangerous that every time you bonked
  her you risked a

                66
 knee-capping! Catherine McNulty, the bored wife of one of the IRA's most
 powerful godfathers. . .'
  'Okay, okay. But I didn't know that, did I? Not at the start . . .'
 Alex felt the ground shifting beneath his feet.
  'And then, when your old flame Lorna Donohue turns up, instead of
  ditching Catherine, you were screwing them both on alternate nights! Talk
  about walking a bloody tightrope!'
 'Oh, shut up!'
  He had been pretty wild in those days, but he didn't need reminding of
  it.
 Chadwick raised his hands in a truce.
  'Sorry. I didn't mean to rake all that up. Come on, I'm not getting at
  you. I'm not putting the squeeze on. Not on an old friend. I mean, sod
  it Alex, we were at school together . . .'
 He pulled an avuncular grin,
  Chadwick had be(-n senior to him and they'd hardly known each other as
  pupils. By the time Alex left school, Chadwick had already graduated from
  Cambridge and joined M15.
  Excitement? He couldn't deny it was why he'd gone along with Chadwick at
  first. Any impressionable eighteen-year-old, asked to help his country
  flush out hotheads bent on destroying democracy would have got a thrill
  from it.
  just thought you'd be interested in helping to get a mass murderer locked
  up,' Chadwick continued, pithily. 'The last twenty years have been bloody
  hard for you. Particularly the boredom.'
  'It hasn't been boriiig,' Alex protested. However much Chadwick had kept
  an eye on him, he could have no idea how full his life had been.
  'But that's all over,' Chadwick went on. 'The Scottish chapter is closed.
  Tragic circumstances of course ... but

                67
 you're ready to put a bit of a thrill back into your life, no?'
 Alex was startled at his bluntness.
  'I mean, no one goes to Bosnia for a quiet life. . .' he added in
  exasperation.
  'No. Okay,' Alex answered defensively. 'But I'm going because I want to do
  something useful, to help those poor sods out there.'
  He regretted the words as he spoke them, knowing they'd propelled him into
  Chadwick's trap.
  For a moment Chadwick's gaze focused above Alex's head, as if searching for
  a halo.
  'Doing something to help, Alex? Don't you see, that's exactly what I'm
  proposing? Look. Delivering parcels for Bosnia Emergency may stop people
  dying from cold and hunger. But by delivering up Milan Pravic to justice
  you'll help stop the revenge killings that are fuelling the whole war. If
  you do this little thing for us you could be helping millions of people,
  not just a few hundred.'
 This was the way it had always been.
  Give us the names oJ'the anarch U*ts oryou'll speed the death of democracy.
  Betray Loma's secreb or have the deaths of more soldiers onyour conscience.
  And now -- help usfind a mass killer oryou'll beprolonging the bloodshed in
  Bosnia.
 Chadwick smiled confidently. He knew he'd won.
  'But I'm way out of my depth,'Alex protested. 'I don't know the language,
  the country, the people, the issues. . . nothing.'
  'Don't need to. Have a natter with the Colonel when you get there. We'll
  let him know that you're more than just an aid worker. And then chat to
  people as you do your rounds. See what comes up. Keep in touch with us.
  I'll give you some numbers to ring here. You can use the army's
  communications, I'll arrange that.'
 Alex had been suckered again, and he knew it. There

                68
 was always something addictive about Chadwick's offers. The chance to
 be at the heart of things.
  Chadwick beckoned and the waiter appeared at the table.
  'Large espresso and a Grappa, suit you?' Chadwick asked.
 Alex shrugged. He pulled out his cigarettes.
 'Why not?'
  It was a double answer. To that question and the unspoken one.
  Chadwick had tickled him like a trout.
               Six

 Thursday 24th March, 06.35 hrs Leipzig, Geizz any

 The security guard on night duty rubbed his eyes and stepped out of his
 warm, smoke-fugged office for a last tour of the Faculty for Veterinary
 Medicine before handing over to the (lay shift. A light dusting of snow
 had fallen; he hoped it wouldn't settle because the weekend was coming and
 he had his in-laws to visit two hours' drive away.
  Most of Leipzig's University had seen better days. This faculty of drab,
  turn-of-the-century laboratory blocks and ramshackle animal shelters had
  the look of a rundown farm.
  Rounding a corner by the Department of Hygiene, the guard stopped in his
  tracks.
 'Scheisse!'
  Lights, in the Infcctious Diseases Laboratory. Could have sworn he'd
  switched them off. Certain of it.
  He reached the door and tried the handle. Locked. He fumbled with the
  huge ring attached to his belt, screwing up his eyes to identify the key
  he needed. He'd left his reading glasses in the office.
 He opened up and crept along the corridor.
  'Aahh,' he sighed, reaching the lab's glass-panelled door. 'Should've
  guessed.'
  Chief Technician Kernmer. Not yet seven a.m. and the man was there, in
  his white coat, busy as a rat in a treadmill. The guard shook his head
  and stomped back along the corridor to the exit.

                70
  Poor old Kemmer! Turned up here at all hours, even weekends. They said
  his wife had died the day before German unification and he'd hardly known
  what to do with himselfever since.

 Siegfried Kemmer's world consisted of pipettes, glass flasks and gas
 burners, the equipment of a microbiological kitchen. In it, the art of
 brewing lethal substances had become, to the initiated like him, a matter
 of routine.
  Kernmer opened the incubator and peeked through the inner glass panel at
  a single Petri dish a few centimetres across. Hands sheathed in surgical
  gloves, nose and mouth masked, he eased open the panel, extracted the
  dish and carried it to a safety cabinet, Setting it down beside five
  flasks of yellow liquid, he closed the cover and switched on the internal
  fans that kept the bacteria from escaping.
  Then he froze. Footsteps in the corridor. His head craned round.
  The wheeze of a dry spring and the bang as the front door closed. He
  turned to the window, terrified someone else had come in early.
  He saw the guard walk into view. The man waved. Kernmer acknowledged him,
  then sat on a stool to let his heart recover.
  Siegfried Kernmer had been at Leipzig University for as long as anyone
  could remember. A pale, bespectacled man, hair the colour of wet sand,
  his closest colleagues would have I'Ound it hard to describe him, if
  asked.
  None of the students or lecturers lie served was sure of his age. Few
  cared. Ifthey had, they'd have discovered he was approaching his pension.
  The unification of Germany in 1990 had brought him little joy. His wife
  was dying and so were all the tenets he'd been taught to believe in.
 In 1945, when Hitler shot himself', Kemmer had been

                71
 a ffightened ten-year-old, his mind etched with memories of the suffering
 Fascism had brought upon Germany. Easy meat for the conquerors from the East
 who told the vanquished that socialism was their salvation.
  He'd accepted its deficiencies and its corruption as the price for living
  in peace. Until the day the Wall tumbled in 1989, the day that became known
  as die Wende - the change. Then, all the people he'd once respected as
  knowing what was what, had stood up one after another and announced that
  the world he'd been taught to believe in was a chimera.
  Sweat trickled down Kernmer's forehead. He pushed the spectacles back up
  his nose. His hands shook.
  Setting the chair in front of the safety cabinet, he slipped his hands inio
  the rubber gloves which projected inside like dead men's arms.
  He picked up the Petri dish, removed its lid and tilted it towards him.
  Colonies of the bacillus that had developed overnight stood out as brown
  blobs against the jelly ofagar and sheep's blood on which they'd fed.
  Dangerous pathogens were strictly controlled here, but as Chief Technician,
  Kernmer had unfettered access to the refrigerators where infected blood and
  tissue were stored. It was his job to provide the students with samples for
  their diagnosis experiments and to monitor safety.
  And the dangers were terrifying. The Institute was in a residential area
  next to Leipzig's International Trade Fair. A release of anthrax, borne on
  the wind, could kill thousands.
  Siegfried Kernmer was a man in whom the University's elders had put their
  trust.
 A trust which he was now in the process of breaking.
  One millilitre of infected cow's blood was all he'd taken. Too small a
  measure to be registered as missing. He'd done it last night, after the
  last student had left. Mixed the droplets with the agar and let them
  incubate overnight at blood heat.

                72
  Two nights ago, the plodding predictability of Kemmer's life had been
  shattered. A man who called himself 'Herr Dunkel' had arrived unannounced
  and unbidden at his lonely apartment in Leipzig-Lindenau.
  Dunkel was a man from the past. A cold warrior who'd worked for the
  former communist nation's Ministry for State Security. An officer in the
  Stasi, whom Kernmer had expected and hoped never to see again.
  During those post-war years of national isolation, Kernmer had believed
  the Party's lies about the 'threat from the West'. Believed the
  capitalists were out to take away his guaranteed home, his guaranteed job
  and his free health care. So, when Herr Dunkel had first approached him
  a decade ago, wanting lethal potions to use against the enemies of the
  State, he'd obliged.
  His loyalty and support had been quietly recognized. The fourteen year
  wait for a new Trabant had been slashed miraculously to months.
  But then the world had changed. His countrymen smashed the chains of
  communism, Kernmer's own daughter joining the thousands cramming Saint
  Nikolai's Church for the Monday prayers for liberty. She'd been there too
  on the Leipzig Ring Road, clutching a candle in the procession that had
  brought down the regime in 1989. She'd wanted her father to join her, but
  he'd used the excuse of his wife's illness to stay at home. It was fear
  that kept him there, however. Fear of what would happen in the future to
  people like him who had supported the lies ofthe past.

 Hands steady in the thick gloves, he picked a bacterial cluster from the
 gel with a fine wire loop, then lowered it into the first of the flasks.
 He twizzled the wire to disperse the anthrax bacteria in the yellow
 liquid, then repeated the process until the growth medium in each bottle
 had

                73
 been inoculated. Then he capped each flask with a loose lid of foil.
  He pulled his sweating hands from the cabinet-gloves and wiped them on his
  white lab-coat.
 Five flasks. Five flasks of death.
  Kernmer choked back a sob. How could he be doing this evil thing?
  He crossed the floor and lifted the lid on the shakerheater. Then one by
  one he took the flasks and placed them on the vibrator platform. He closed
  the lid and switched on.
 He removed his glasses and dabbed his eyes.
  Not too late to stop this monstrous process. Maybe Dunkel's threats had
  been bluff. Things were supposed to be different now.
  Not for Dunkel, though. He was still working, still murdering for 'someone
  up there'. Wouldn't say who. But no bullshit about 'ideology' this time.
  Blackmail had become his only weapon of persuasion.
  Kernmer had said 'no' at first. Refused the outrageous request. Then Dunkcl
  had picked up the silver photoframe from the coffee-table, a picture of
  Kernmer's wife and daughter in happier days.
 'I saw Erika, yesterday. . .'
 The words had dribbled from his mouth.
  'A fine woman, your daughter. Fine baby too. Grandson is it?'
  'Erika?' he'd gasped. A chill finger had run up his spine. She'd moved West
  when the border opened in '89. Married an engineer in Heidelberg.
  'So vulnerable, babies of that age.' Dunkel's voice like slime. 'Accidents
  happen so easily. . .'
  Kernmer's resolve had crumbled. So little left in his life. just his
  daughter, his grandchild - nothing must be allowed to happen to them.
  Dunkel had promised it would be the last time he would trouble him.

                74
  That, Kernmer had resolved, was a promise that one way or another
  Dunkel would be forced to keep.

 75
              Seven

 Friday 25th March
 Italy

 Moray McFee was in the driving seat as they drove Bosnia Emergency's old
 bread van into the Italian port of Ancona. He pulled confidently at the
 wheel, hunched forward like a gorilla.
  Alex's trepidation at what lay ahead had eased during the journey, his mind
  distracted by the business of learning to be a truck-driver - nowhere near
  as simple as McFee had said. Now however, the Adriatic Sea stretched in
  front of him and the knowledge that war was being waged on the other side
  set his pulse racing.
  The port police waved them through onto the long, broad quay.
  'How's that for timing, eh?' McFee purred. 'Ferry leaves in a couple of
  hours.'
  Behind the docks the grey-pink walls of the medieval city rose up, glowing
  softly in the dying sunlight. To their left lay the terminals, two ferries
  and a container ship.
 They'd been driving for four days.
 'I'm bloody knackered,' Alex wheezed.
  'Wait 'til you see the road facing you on the other side,' McFee cautioned.
  He swung the wheel hard left and pulled into a space in front of the main
  terminal.
  'I'll just away in there and get the tickets. Will you keep a good eye on
  this lot? You know what Italians are like.'
 While McFee went inside, Alex climbed down from

                76
 the cab to stretch his legs and smoke a cigarette, not straying far from
 their load of survival boxes.
  The journey south had been painfully slow. They'd ceased to be strangers,
  but Alex had come no closer to understanding what made his companion tick.
  McFee had talked a little about his life in Edinburgh, saying he'd reached
  fifty-five that summer, and taken early retirement. At the same time, he'd
  split from his wife. Their marriage had been a formality for years, he'd
  said.
  He'd joked about. the similarity of their situations, threatening to paint
  a sign on the side of the truck saying - Dangerl Mid-1fie Chsis Inside.
  Alex had begun to suspect there was a perfectly simple reason why he'd been
  asked along. McFee's life was a mess and having a companion in a similar
  state made hiin feel better. The Scotsman, however, made Alex feel uneasy.
  Something contrived about him. Not a man to confide in.
  'All hunky-dory!' McFee announced, clutching the tickets. 'We can drive
  straight on and start getting the beers down!'
 'Sounds good to me,' Alex concurred.
  McFee backed the van awav from the terminal and drove it over some railway
  tra~ks to where the stern of the ferry Gloria loomed.
  A cursory check of the paperwork by the Italian customs - and they were
  waved on board. The first vehicle to do so, the), drove the full length of
  the garage deck and parked by the bow doors. Then they climbed to the
  passenger decks and were allocated a two-berth cabin.
  'I hope you don't have any curious nocturnal habits . . .' Alex muttered as
  they walked down the corridor to deposit their bags. He'd never liked
  sharing rooms with other men.
 'Should have thought of that earlier. .
 A few minutes later they located the deserted bar. A

                77
 harassed steward washing up glasses told them they'd have to wait another
 half-hour.
  Out on deck the air was pleasantly mild, compared with the icy March winds
  that had buffeted them in the English Channel. Alex hardly needed the
  thick, green pullover he'd put on.
  Behind them to the west, the memory of a sunset lingered on the horizon;
  ahead, the cathedral on its hill above the harbour floated like a floodlit
  phantom.
  Alex began worrying about Kirsty again. There was something about a sea
  crossing, about gazing back at the shore that made him think about what
  he'd left behind.
  Still that sense of guilt at leaving her, despite the certainty there was
  nothing he could have done to get her back. He resolved to phone her
  brother to see how things were. Maybe there'd be time on the other side.
  He shivered. The 'other side' was an unknown quantity.
  Diesel fumes rose from the quay as trucks bustled to board. Customs men
  glanced at their watches. Departure hour was near. 'rime for them to go
  home to their dinners.
  'A lot of heavy stuff down there,' McFee remarked. 'Some of it's aid, some
  just commercial. Thing is, life's pretty normal over in Split, as you'll
  see. Croatia's fine. It's only when you drive up into Bosnia that it gets
  shitty.'
  A bus pulled up on the quay and disgorged a stream of fair-haired men in
  mud-green uniforms.
  'Swedes probably. Or Danes. With the UN. They come over here for a bit of
  R and R,' McFee explained.
 'Does all the aid for Bosnia come through here?'
  'Oh no. Not at all. A lot of the NGOs drive down through Austria. And the
  UN brings stuff in by ship.'
  'NGOs?' Alex queried, still struggling with the terminology.
  'Non-governmental organizations. Like us. Charities and so on. You'll soon
  get used to it.'

                78
  Patronizing sod, Alex thought. The man had only been here once before,
  yet he made himself out to be the world's greatest expert.
  The last of the trucks was aboard and the loaders began to lift the ramp.
  Suddenly headlights appeared from behind the terminal, bobbing rapidly
  towards them. The deck crew didn't notice, until alerted by the frantic
  blaring of a horn.
  A white-painted Toyota Land Cruiser skidded to a halt at the edge of the
  ramp, the driver leaning from the window waving her papers.
  'Typical bloody woman! Late as usual,' McFee sneered. There was venom in
  his voice.
  'Who d'you think she works for? The UN?' Alex asked.
  The Toyota driver was a blonde. Alex caught his breath, reminded suddenly
  of Lorna Donohue. Couldn't say why. Too dark to see her clearly.
  Something to do with the toss of the head. The woman seemed to be
  apologizing.
  'Probably not UN,' McFee guessed. 'Might be Red Cross, anything. You'll
  find those dinky little motors all over the place. There's a "designer
  set" in Bosnia, who drive round in the trendiest off-roaders, wearing
  immaculate white jump-suits, and are sod-all use to anybody.'
  'Hmm. Well, they're letting her on,' Alex murmured. There was definitely
  something about the woman ...
 'Shall we try that bar again,' he heard himself suggest.
  As they headed below, the sea boiled at the stern and the ship shuddered
  with the rumble of the diesels.
 'Oh hell! Look at this lot,' McFee moaned.
  The young UN soldiers had got to the saloon first, scrabbling at the bar
  and coming away with fistfuls of beer cans.
  'Told ye they were Swedes! Ali, well, faint heart ne'er won fair lady.
  ..'
 McFee torpedoed the throng of giants. Alex spotted

                79
 two unoccupied chairs at a table and made a grab for them. %
  He studied the faces of the soldiers. Jodie's age, most of them. Some
  scrubbed and innocent, farm boys perhaps, out of their depth. Others
  noisy, leery, brought up in a harder school. None drunk yet, but the
  night was young.
  Acro5s the saloon two Italians in business suits pressed themselves
  against the window, hammering words into their portable phones before the
  ship got too far from land.
  Alex kept a curious eye on the door in case the blonde woman came in.
 McFee returned with two cans each.
  'They don't run to glasses. Not with this load of hooligans.'
  They peeled back the rings and raised the lagers in a toast.
 'Here's to a safe trip,' McFee declared.
 'And to a useful one.'
 'Aye, indeed.'
  Alex peeled open a new pack of Marlboros and lit one. McFee fiddled with
  his pipe.
  One more look, that's all he wanted. just to be sure that in the glare
  of the lights the blonde did not resemble Lorna. That his mind, fazed by
  the uncertainties ahead, had simply been triggered by a hand movement
  into seeking comfort from the past.
  The sound of reedy singing cut through the growl of the bar. The music
  ol'hymns and prayers, coming from the passageway outside.
  'Sounds ominous,' Alex remarked. 'Do people know something about this
  ship that we don't?'
 'Sit tight a minute . . .'
  McFee weaved through the crush and disappeared. He returned a minute
  later, grinning.
  'Italians. They're sitting in a little circle out there bloody praying!'

               80
 'Christ! What are thg going to Bosnia for?'
  'To pray for peace, I suppose. Worth trying. Nothing else works.'
  The ship's public address system began to buzz. A bilingual announcement
  that the restaurant was open.
  'Come on,' McFee ordered. 'Grab your tins and follow me. Last time I was at
  the back of the queue and missed out.'
  In the dining room they took their plates of steak, chips and salad to a
  window table. The pin-pricks of the shore lights were disappearing fast.
  Alex half turned, checking faces. The pilgrims or whatever they were had
  secured an alcove to themselves. Most had brought their own food. Bread was
  broken and blessed. Men and women with ugly, pious visages.
  Then he saw her. In the alcove next to the pilgrims. Sitting with a man.
  The tilt of her head, the half smile. The cascade of blonde hair.
 The shock that it zva~ her thumped through his body.
  No doubt, even after twenty years. Hair a bit shorter now, but the same
  magical eyes he'd twice fallen for. The same earnest hunching of the
  shoulders as she made a
 point.
 Lorna Donohue.
  He twisted away from her, blanching with panic. She mustn't see him. Not
  yet. He'd waited twenty years, but now the moment had come he wasn't ready.
  'Hey, what's up?' McFee demanded. 'You've gone grey, man. Are you sick or
  something?'
 Alex waved dismissively.
 'Is it the ship? Canna be. It's like a mirror out there.'
 'No.' Alex pushed the tray away and shielded his face.
 ,There's someone over there, someone I know.'
 McFee peered past him.
 'Ghost from the past, eh? Which one is iff
  'The woman in the alcove beyond the pilgrims. But please don't . . .'

               81
  'Aha. Blonde hair? Not bad. Want me to bring her over?' he needled.
 Alex waved a finger of caution and glared at him.
  'I think that means no ... More of a skeleton than a ghost, eh?'
  'We were both eighteen when we first met,' Alex explained reluctantly.
 'Oh, a lovely age, a lovely age.
  'Don't ... don't let her see you looking. . .' Alex fussed. 'I don't want
  her to recognize me.'
  'My! What did she do to you all those years ago?' McFee asked, eyes
  burning with curiosity.
  'It wasn't then. It was ten years later,' he added, embarrassed. 'We met
  again and ... and it's what I did to her that's the problem.'
 McFee whistled softly, intrigued.
 'Naughty boy, were you?'
  Alex's mind Jumped back to the last day in Belfast. Lorna, eyes smeared
  with tears, pounding his chest with her fists after she'd found out he'd
  been two-timing her.
  Sure, he'd been naughty, but there were reasons. And if she'd given him
  halfa chance he would have explained them to her. Could have explained
  the second betrayal too, the one she hadn't known about then. The
  betrayal that had put a price on his head and must've set Lorna baying
  for his blood.
  At the time, Lorna had been a courier for the IRA's American bankers and
  had brought cash to Belfast to fund a jail break. He and she had
  literally bumped into each other at a funeral. Loma had been walking with
  the Republican mourners, he with a TV crew filming it.
  When they'd met that second time, they already had a ~past', a teenage
  romance in which they'd pricked their fingers and bonded their lives in
  blood. To meet again like that could not be coincidence, Lorna had
  insisted. It was the 'guy up above, making the breaks for them'.
 She'd given him everything after that. Her body, her

               82
 soul - and her secrets. She'd told him of the jail break plan.
  Then Chadwick had turned up to put the squeeze on him and he'd betrayed
  her to M15. Never had the chance to tell her why.
  Now, she was sitting just metres away and he hadn't the words or the
  nerve.
  'She's standing up,' McFee whispered. 'Coming this way, with the bloke.
  No sign she's seen ye.'
 Alex felt his neck burn as she passed behind him.
  'All clear. I should have one of those sirens they blow when the bombers
  have gone,' McFee chuckled.
 Memories. Painful memories flooding back.
  The fractured ribs after McNulty's men had slipped into his hotel room
  and beaten him senseless for sleeping with the IRA man's wife.
  The escape on an RAF Hercules, with Chadwick watching over his stretcher.
  The news a day later, that three IRA escapees had been shot dead by the
  police. Three men killed because of him.
  'How's about a wee nightcap?' McFee offered, snapping fingers to wake
  Alex from his dream. 'Look as if you could do with a dram.'
 Alex's mind returned to the present.
 'Moray, you're dead right.'
 Then he hesitated.
  'I suppose you want me to go ahead and check she's not in there?' McFee
  growled.
  Alex grinned sheepishly. McFee shook his head in mock censure.
  'Some people I know will pull any old trick to avoid their round!' He
  stood up. 'If I'm not back in one minute, it's all clear, okay?'
 'You're a paW
 Alex let out a gust of a sigh.
 'God, what's happening,' he croaked.

               83
  .Jodie dead, Kirsty gone, and now Lorna. What game were the gods playing?
  Was this Lorna's beloved Fate at work, or just some perverse, bloody
  coincidence?
  In the saloon some of the Swedish soldiers were worse for wear, ready to
  make a night of it. All the tables were taken. Alex and McFee leaned on the
  bar with their whiskies.
  'So, what about this lassie of yours then?' McFee pressed, unable to
  restrain his curiosity. Over his checked shirt he wore a fawn jerkin with
  pockets. His pipe stem protruded from one of them. He hooked a thumb into
  another. 'What would she be doing here?'
  'Don't know. She was driving that Toyota. The one that nearly missed the
  ferry.'
  'Thought as much. The chances are she's heading for the same place as us,
  then!' His eyes twinkled.
  'You think so?' Alex caught McFee's look. 'You're enjoying this aren't you,
  you bastard!'
 McFee's face split into a grin.
  'Well, there's not a lot to laugh about where we're going. And you
  should've seen your face in there . .
 'You're an evil sod!'
 'Och, come on! You'd do the same in my shoes.'
  'Probably.'Alex burned his throat with the remains of the spirit. 'That's
  it. I'm turning in.'
  'What? Are ye no going to talk to her? You'll have to, some time or other.'
  Maybe McFee was right. No time like the present. For a moment Alex
  considered taking a stroll round the ship. Bumping into her casually might
  be the simplest way to break the ice. But she'd probably gone to her cabin
  with that man she was with. Tomorrow would be better.
  'Not tonight,' be announced. 'Need to get my act together . . .'
  Away from the hubbub of the bar, the long, beige passageway to the cabins
  was silent but for the hiss of the ventilation.

               84
  McFee let them in with the key and closed the door behind them. Alex took
  off his trainers and jeans and climbed onto the upper bunk.
  'I suppose you'll be lying awake all night thinking about her. . .' McFee
  joshed.
  'That would not surprise me.. .' Alex sighed, knowing sleep would be
  almost impossible.
 'Waste of time, if you ask me. Still, it's your life.'
 'Yes ... That's just the trouble,' Alex muttered.
 'Good night!'
  McFee turned out the light and within minutes was snoring softly.
  The cabin was on an outside deck, with a window. A soft, grey luminance
  filtered through the thin curtain. Nearly a full moon. He could hear the
  swish of the wake. In the ceiling above him an air vent rattled. He
  reached to adjust it and the noise stopped.
  Lorna. Marriage to Kirsty had pushed her to the back of his mind, but
  she'd always been there.
  Ghadwick's minders had warned him contact with Lorna could be contact
  with death. And now she was here, maybe just centimetres away. He touched
  the partition, imagining for a second she was just the other side,
  breathing, sleeping - making love even.
  He'd been transfixed the first time he saw her, back in 1962. It had been
  celebration night in a Hampstead pub, a crowd of eighteen-year-olds just
  finished with school, the wider world beckoning. His attention had been
  caught by the snick of a billiard ball and there she'd stood, resting her
  cue, blonde curls tumbling about her face like water over pebbles,
  blue-grey eyes cocky with confidence.
 For Alex it had been like honey to a bear.
  He'd soon discovered they were from different worlds. In Lorna's, money
  was taken for granted. In his own, every penny had to be counted. She was
  from the sort of

               85
 old, American stock that had shaped the New World. Alex's ancestors had
 slipped through life unnoticed.
  Living then with her English mother, Lorna had mixed with the Hampstead
  smart-set of socialist lawyers and academics who rode the nuclear
  disarmament bandwagon. Alex's circle had been on a different plane where
  talk was of motorbikes, football and beer.
  Lorna had dressed like Ch6 Guevara, navy beret over her blonde curls, and
  taken Alex on protest marches. She had also introduced him to some 'angry'
  friends -anarchists and Trotskyites who favoured revolution through
  violence. It was their names Roger Chadwick had been after. He'd filled
  Alex's ears with stories about 'people in high places' fearing British
  democracy could be destroyed by these thugs.
  Nearby on the ferry the sound of shouts and doors banging pierced the
  ventilator hiss. Alex lifted his head from the pillow, straining to hear.
 Italian voices. Not hers. He lay back again.
  From the lower bunk, McFee's snores turned to grunts, followed by a Jabber
  of gibberish as he talked in his sleep. Sounded like 'chirrup' repeated
  over and over again. The noise subsided into a mumble and a moan, then
  suddenly erupted in words that were sharply clear.
 'Shuddup! Shuddup will ye!'
 Then a sob.
  McFee snorted. H(-'d woken himself up. There was the rustle ofbedding being
  rearranged, then silence. A shutter had opened on some torment in his soul,
  then closed again before Alex could guess what ghosts had frightened the
  man.
 He returned to the spirits of his own past.
  Betrayal, he thought to himself That's how it had been each time with
  Lorna. Never a betrayal of her though, just of her friends. And there'd
  been good reasons each time.
 Those anarchists were nothing to do with CND.

               86
 They'd just wanted to throw petrol bombs at the police. And in Belfast,
 the men he'd helped get killed - they'd been killers themselves. No reason
 to be ashamed of what he'd done.
  The trouble was, Lorna's hunger to follow the action kept leading her out
  of her depth. She'd hate to hear him say that, but it was true.
  He was remembering so much now. When they'd first kissed, her body was
  taut as a violin, electric with intensity. He'd had other girls before,
  but it was Lorna who taught him to love, taught him there was an art to
  touching a woman.
  Her breasts had been firm and small, hardly filling the palms of his
  hands. One night on the sofa at her home, her mother safely in bed, Lorna
  had taken his fingers and guided them to the moist, warm pip between her
  thighs that unlocked her ecstasy. He'd come in his pants.
 He was becoming aroused at the memory of it.
  Bloody stupid to be lying here like this. Should've spoken to her in the
  restaurant. Should be putting the bad bits of the past behind them and
  reliving the good Ones.
  So long ago, yet still so close, so vivid. The perfume of her creamy
  skin. The half moan, half cry of pleasure, her cheek against his, sticky
  with sweat, as she came and came under his humping in the Belfast hotel
  room.
  Damn Lorna! For thirty years she had lodged in his soul. She'd warned him
  she would. Told him she knew their lives would always be linked.That one
  day even, he would weep by her grave.
  Load of rubbish. The fantasy of a fanciful mind. Yet, it hadn't been
  rubbish ... She was still with him.
  What would it be when they came face to face again? There was so much to
  forgive. Too much to forget. Would it be war, or peace?
 He turned on his side. Had to get some sleep. McFee's

                87
 snoring had subsided to a murmur. The ship was rolling a little. The wind
 must have got up.
  Had to think what to do, what to say. Above all, he had to decide what he
  wanted to happen.
 That wasn't hard. He wanted to turn back the clock.

 88
              Eight

 Saturday 26th March
 Split, Croatia

 The Glon'a berthed at Split at seven a.m. No breakfast offered, just a
 bleary-eyed scramble down to the chilly vehicle deck. For Alex, making
 contact with Lorna now assumed top priority. Pulling on his brown thornproof
 for warmth, he peered back through the tightly-parked cars in the half-lit
 hold. Then the ramp crashed down and McFee started the engine. No time to
 look for her on board.
  They were first off, first to the barrier, but the Croatian customs
  officials were not to be hurried. Alex drummed his fingers, anxiously
  watching the other vehicles drive from the ship. On the quayside, trucks
  were being separated from cars.
  Suddenly there it was, the clean, white Toyota scooting towards a
  free-flowing exit.
  'I'll be right back. . .' Alex gulped, pushing open his door and jumping to
  the ground. He propelled himself towards the fast-receding Land Cruiser.
  Then a rough, official hand grabbed his arm. Alex spun round to protest,
  but the policeman reached for a pistol with his other hand.
  'There's someone I've got to talk to. . .' Alex protested, pointing with
  his free arm. The policeman shook his head and hustled him back to the
  truck.
 'Shit!'
 He closed the cab door. McFee sucked his teeth

               89
 noisily. He was slumped low in the seat as if trying to avoid being seen.
  'I don't think they appreciate impetuous behaviour here,' he drawled. Tend
  to shoot first ... And telling them you're in love won't help, either.'
 'Fuck off, Moray!'
  He saw an arm in a green anorak reach out from the Land Cruiser and take
  back the passports after their inspection. Lorna's arm.
  Shit! Shit! Shit! How stupid not to speak to her last night. Twice in a
  matter of days he had failed to act when he should have done. The Toyota
  disappeared.
  McFee was anxious. He hadn't done these formalities on his own before.
  'Let's hope their wives did the business with them last night. . .' he
  muttered sourly, as the customs men returned with their documents. 'If
  they're frustrated they'll insist we open every sodding box.'
 They were waved through within minutes.
  'This could be our lucky day,' McFee chortled. 'Now all I have to do is
  remember the way out of town. . .'
  At the end of the road from the dock, market traders folded back striped
  rain-covers from their stalls. To the left a palm-lined promenade edged
  with caf6s and restaurants faced the harbour, golden in the morning sun.
  Beyond, a marina with its fretwork of rigging.
  Split wasn't quite what Alex had expected. No sign that a war raged nearby.
  'Pretty, don't you think?' McFee remarked. 'Used to be packed with
  tourists. Now the hotels are stuffed with reftigees.'
  They headed out of town, along a wide dual-carriageway lined with
  slab-sided apartment blocks. Signposts pointed to the airport.
  'All we do today,' McFee reminded him, 'is get everything out of this truck
  and into the Bedford which is parked at a UN depot near the airport. Need
  to get you

               90
 some accreditation too. And some fuel and food. By the time we're done
 it'll be too late to start the drive to Vitez. Carina risk getting stuck
 on the mountain in the dark. There's a Ladajeep out at the depot, which
 we can use as a runabout, and rooms booked in a hotel for us tonight.'
  Alex listened silently, miserable at his own ineptitude, his own
  inability to get life back under control.

 Lorna Sorensen had no reason to linger in the Adriatic port. She took the
 road that climbed from the surreal blue of the Dalmatian coast towards the
 tortured hills of Bosnia. Her Land Cruiser was stacked with boxes
 -vaccines and antibiotics mostly.
  Lorna shifted confidently through the gears. She'd driven the
  four-wheel-drive into Bosnia three times for CareNet. Beside her
  satjosip, a Croat from Zagreb with a surname she'd never learned to
  pronounce. He didn't offer to drive; his efforts the first time she'd
  hired him as translator had resulted in two scrapes within minutes of
  each other.
  To Rescue Children Rrom Darkness - that was the mission statement of
  CareNet of New England, an organization backed by Evangelical Christians,
  and directed by a computer freak. Their original intention had been
  simply to supply aid where it was needed, but the 'statement' was now
  being interpreted literally. Lorna's mission was to find an orphaned
  child and smuggle her to America. Under Bosnian law that was an illegal
  act.
  For the first three hours the road north was tarmac, the only hold-up a
  pause for fifteen minutes at the Croatia/Bosnia border.
  Ever since Belfast, uniforms had made Lorna shudder. But if she was
  scared now as the sour-faced official fingered her American passport, it
  would be on the way out of the country that she'd be truly quivering.
 Uniforms. Down the years they'd been the signposts to

               91
 the causes she'd embraced. The London police breaking up anti-nuclear
 protests; the American military committing war crimes in Vietnam; the
 British soldiers crushing Irish freedom. She'd challenged all those
 uniforms, but the fear of them was as strong as ever.
  Her therapist had told her it was all because she'd had a tyrant for a
  father ...
  The border guards waved them through. A country at war, Bosnia looked no
  different at first. Then, the first sighting of a blackened house and
  further on a couple more.
  At Tomislavgrad, a Bosnian Croat bastion much shelled by Serb artillery,
  huge baulks of timber shielded windows and doors from shrapnel. Men in
  drab uniforms of green and brown gathered on street corners, faces
  sallow, eyes that smouldered. She drove past a home-made troop carrier,
  a slab-sided, steel armadillo, smeared with camouflage.
  Lorna turned east to the mountains, their wooded slopes blanketed with
  snow. Dark, swirling clouds hid the peaks through which they would have
  to thread their way. Small UN signposts marked this the only route into
  central Bosnia that was safe from Serb guns, a potholed lane at first
  that sliced through yellow-green meadows half-flooded with melt water.
 Lorna grimaced at the threatening sky.
  'We're going to need those snow chains, Josip,' she declared.
  The Croat grunted. He supposed she'd expect hirn to fit them.
  Lorna shivered. Not with cold but with fear. They were driving into a
  wilderness where the veneer of civilization that curbed man's nastier
  instincts elsewhere had long since crumbled.
  A squat, gun-toting man in grubby, olive-brown fatigues stepped into
  their path and held up a rough hand.

               92
 josip cranked down his window.
 'Dobrojutro . . .'
  The Croat HVO militiaman pushed him aside to look in the back of the
  vehicle.
 'Medicine . . .' Lorna announced.
  He pulled his head back to eye her. She showed her UNPROFOR pass and
  tried to smile pleasantly. Not easy. The man and his Kalashnikov looked
  inseparable, his stare was bloodshot and lustful.
  He made a coarse remark to josip, who laughed throatily. They were waved
  on.
 'Asshole!' Lorna hissed, imagining the innuendo.
  A convoy of trucks lumbered down from the mountain towards them, their
  tarpaulin covers crusted with snow.
  'Shit! Look at thaW Lorna said. 'Chainsjosip. Here, I'll help you.'
  They pulled to the roadside and grappled with the heavy steel links in
  the cold mud. Between them it was done quickly. Lorna shivered again -
  the wind this time. She zipped up her dark green parka and wished she'd
  remembered to put on long johns under her jeans.
  She knew it was inad to keep throwing herself back into Bosnia. 'A
  misplaced devotion to the underdog', one friend had called it. 'An
  obsession with good causes', her sister had said. 'Might be afatal
  obsession one day. .
 Thanks Annie!
  But she'd had no choice. Not when the appeal for help had been so direct;
  not when a child risked being murdered if she refused.
  Route Triangle. That's what the UN called this lifeline into central
  Bosnia. Formerly a narrow logging track, now made useable in all weathers
  by the muscle and machinery of the British Army's Royal Engineers. The
  way had been widened with dynamite and diggers, its surface toughened
  with stones and hardcore.
  The Land Cruiser jolted and rattled up the fierce gradients. Controlling
  the slithering machine took grit

               93
 and concentration. Lorna enjoyed the driving. It took her mind off the
 terrors she suspected were to come.
  The track climbed through dark forests, their pine branches burdened with
  ever-thicker layers of snow. A blizzard swirled, forcing the Land Cruiser
  to a crawl. Soon they were halted by a line of trucks, stationary in the
  white and brown slush.
 'Hell! This is all we need,' Lorna snapped.
  'In this weather there will be many stops,' josip assured her gloomily.
 'I hope you're wrong, josip.'
 Melancholy bastard.
 'I'm gonna go take a look.'
  Her green Goretex boots sank into the icy gunge. She tucked her hair into
  the hood of her parka and leaned into the driving snow, glad of the thick
  roflneck she had on under the coat. Diesel fumes from the idling truck
  engines polluted the wind. Small flags painted on the doors told her the
  convoy was Danish. Young soldiers in their warm driving seats, plump and
  squat in bodyarmour and blue helmets, looked down at the slight,
 in'ddle                1
 I-aged woman with amused curiosity.
  She reached the rim of the rise where the track curved sharply to the left
  and down an incline.
 'Oh, God!'she breathed.
  A dark green bus had slewed sideways across the track. Standing around it
  were dozens of militiamen, stamping and shivering. A UN tractor had hooked
  to the front and was trying to pull it straight.
 'Shouldn't bloody be on this road in these conditions!'
  The voice beside her was Yorkshire. She could still recognize the accent,
  despite not having lived in England since the age of eighteen.
  Under his blue beret the engineer's face was pale apart from the red tip of
  his nose.
 'Who are those guys?' she asked.

                94
  'HVO. We build this road so we can feed the victims of their war. 7-hg
  use it to get more guns in. Net result? More victims for us to feed.
  Bloody daft really. If we closed this road the war would stop within
  weeks.'
  'But innocent people would starve,' Lorna reminded him.
 The soldier gave her an old-fashioned look.
 'Innocent' Who's innocent in this place ... ?'
  He stomped across to the tractor, yelling at the driver to watch out that
  the bus didn't topple on its side. The driver ignored him and with a
  fierce tug pulled the vehicle straight. A muted cheer rose from the
  militiamen who piled back inside.
  British soldiers. Strange to hear their voices here. Lorna remembered
  them painfully well from Ireland. Still thought of them as the enemy.
  Couldn't help herself.
 She hurried back to the Land Cruiser.
 'Not long now,' she announced.
  josip had wound down the window to smoke. The man was invaluable to her
  as a translator but nothing else. Like any male, he imagined she had
  bodily needs which she secretly longed for him to satisfy. She'd seen the
  calculating look in his eye.
  Lorna sat back in her seat to wait. It'd be a few minutes yet before the
  road would be clear enough to move.
  She dreaded the stretch beyond the mountains, where they'd need to don
  their body-armour. One shattered town after another. Villages whose
  houses were blackened skeletons. Front lines to be crossed, marked by
  barriers of land mines. And the risk of some madman tanked up on brandy,
  taking a shot at her with his Kalashnikov.
  At the end of thejourney awaited the dead, steel town of Zenica, cold and
  silent, blacked out by power cuts. She knew what it felt like there; like
  being in a trap. And the

                95
 crazy thing was she was spending nine hours battling to get into it. ,
  The HVO bus that had blocked their path emerged slowly over the brow of the
  hill, then crept gingerly past them, the driver grimacing with the effort
  of avoiding a repeat performance in the slush.
  'Okay, guys,' said Lorna, 'let's get this show on the road again.'
  Josip finished his cigarette, threw the butt into the snow and wound up his
  window.

 Inside the bus, thirty-seven men slumped back in their seats, rifles wedged
 between their knees. They'd just come from liell. A fortnight in the icy
 trenches north of the Mak1jen Ridge. Two weeks of pounding from mortars and
 twenty millimetre cannon. Fourteen days and nights preventing the Muslim-led
 Bosnian army seizing their strategic positions.
  Sleep, when it had come in the trenches, had been brief and fitful. Only
  when exhaustion had so blurred their vision they could no longer shoot
  straight had they been taken out and replaced with fresher men. Their
  reward - a respite from the war zone, a few days of R & R.
  One man in that bus however had not been in the Mak1jen trenches. He sat at
  the back, speaking to no one, head resting against the window, the stare in
  his eye as cold as the glass he looked through.
  His journey had already been longer than the others', and it would take him
  further. In his case it wasn't exhaustion that had merited a ticket from
  the battle zone, but an excess of zeal.
  Clean shaven, in his early thirties, with untidy fair hair, he had eyes of
  ice blue and a hawkish nose. Put him in a suit and he could have sold cars
  or insurance. Put him in uniform, however, and he had killed. Killed again

                96
 and again. Killed with such relish and with such disregard for the
 'civilized' rules of war, he'd become an embarrassment to those he fought
 for.
  Getting him this far had not been easy. The Vitez 'pocket'where he'd
  served the Bosnian Croat militia was surrounded by Muslims. Crossing the
  lines had meant hazarding precious assets, but to his superiors getting
  him out of there had been worth the risk.
  He could remember every detail of that day in Tulici. The terror in the
  old men's eyes, the snivelling of the children, and the off-white flesh
  of the young woman whose warin but lifeless orifices he'd filled with his
  seed.
  No remorse. How could there be when the killings had been so long
  overdue? Why pity such creatures after what they'd done to him, his land
  and his people? What else could they expect after opening their doors to
  Islam's foreign savages?
  'You've played your part, Milan. Time for others now' - that's what the
  HVO had told him.
  Others! Some of those he'd led into Tulici couldn't look him in the eye
  afterwards. One man who'd been with him there had cracked up. When Pravic
  had heard the UN were asking for names, he'd had to shoot him dead to
  ensure no one talked.
  He'd left his country once before, along with thousands of others seeking
  an escape from poverty. Most of the burned houses in Bosnia had been
  built with money earned abroad. However, when the war here had started
  in 1992, he'd returned from Germany to fight the Serbs. Then as the
  months passed, the Muslims who'd once been his ricighbours became the new
  enemy in the struggle for land.
  He had a sister living now in the Croatian capital Zagreb. He would stay
  there until things cooled. Maybe he'd go abroad again for a while.
 This war that had started as a scrabble for land

               97
 however, was turning into the endgame of a struggle begun centuries
 before. He'd be back.

 98
               Nine

 Saturday 26th March
 Germany

 Dieter Konrad, a one-time assassin with the Stasi, the former East Germany's
 secret police, was anxious. Time was short. He drove fast up the A2 from
 Leipzig to Berlin, keeping a lookout for police cars. With enough anthrax in
 the boot of his Merc to kill the inhabitants of a small town, the last thing
 he wanted was to be stopped by the law.
  The murder he'd been forced to arrange was Just seven days away, the
  location - Zagreb. There was one man, and one man only who had the skills
  he needed for the killing, and so far he'd not been able to find him.
  Konrad was nearly sixty, a slack-faced, weary man too old for this
  business. It should have ended for him when the Wall came down, but he'd
  been trapped by his past.
  The Mercedes traversed the flatlands south of the Elbe, a landscape of
  cabbage fields and dead industry. It would be dark when he reached Berlin,
  and the traffic heavy, but he could still make the meeting with Fraulein
  Pocklewicz at six.
  Gisela Pocklewicz. A Berlin hooker, she alone knew where to find the
  creature he needed. The man in question had once been her lover and
  protector. Konrad had never probed their relationship, but he knew her
  clients were people who got their pleasure through pain.
  The woman was one of the last of his old underworld contacts still prepared
  to take his money. Dunkel was the name he used with her, as he had with the
  scientist

                99
 Kernmer in Leipzig. It meant darkness. During his Stasi days, the satanic
 quality of the name had appealed to him.
  It had broken Siegfried Kernmer to do him this last service today. Meeting
  in a deserted wood, the biologist had given him the bottle of bacteria in
  a shopping bag, his eyes dead as buttons.
  Konrad had taken no pleasure in threatening violence to Kernmer's
  grandchild in order to secure his cooperation. Ideology and duty had worked
  in the past, but the world had moved on.
  One hundred and thirty-six kilometres to Berlin, it said on a road sign,
  andjust five to Dessau, where he had some shopping to do.
  When the Cold War ended, so had Konrad's privileged life with the Stasi.
  Not everything was lost however. He'd skimmed a profit from the money for
  his missions abroad and bought a house in the Harz mountains. He'd hoped to
  retire there, to fish and hunt boar, but his wife refused to leave her
  friends and the opera in Berlin.
  Next exit Dessau and the huge D-I-Y warehouse he needed. He swung the
  Mercedes into the tight slip road. The car park was half full. He pulled in
  beside a Trabant which wallowed under the stack of goods on its roof-rack.
  Inside, he made for the aisles marked Tools and Safety Equipment, looking
  for protective masks. He prodded through the packaging to reject those that
  were flimsy, choosing a type that covered the full face, made of soft
  rubber. He took two from the rack and headed for the tills.
  Just before the Stasi headquarters were stormed by East Berliners injanuary
  1990, Konrad had tried to find and destroy documents detailing the murders
  he'd carried out for his masters. He'd suspected he'd not been totally
  successful.
  For months he had lived in fear of arrest, hiding out at the house in the
  Harz. One day, walking in the woods, he'd been approached by a tall man
  he'd never seen

               100
 before who had a face like crumpled leather. Schiller was the code name he'd
 used. He'd claimed to work for the BND.
  Schiller had revealed that amongst the Stasi papers uncovered in Berlin,
  they'd found enough evidence against Konrad to get him jailed for life.
  He had offered a deal. Konrad could avoid prosecution on one condition - to
  continue to kill, but for him.
  Konrad had had enough of executions, but prison was no option for a man of
  his age. He'd accepted.
  That had been three years ago. Since then, Schiller had paid him a regular
  retainer but had made no demands - until a week ago.
  The contract was to eliminate an Iranian and a Russian. A poisoning,
  Schiller had said, because death must occur after the victims had returned
  to their own countries. It had to be an untraceable murder - something
  Konrad was skilled at.
  He had demanded half a million marks for expenses, and to his astonishment
  was told he could have it.
  Schiller wouldn't tell him who he was acting for, nor why the men had to
  die. But Konrad read the newspapers. He reckoned lie could smell plutonium.
  On the Berlin ring road the traffic thickened. It was just before four p.m.
  He'd made better time than he'd expected. There was one more purchase he
  needed to make, at a small shop in Kreuzberg. Might just get there before
  it closed.
  He joined the long queues on the Mariendorfer Damm. Berlin had become a
  building site in the rush to reinstate it as the nation's capital. Diggings
  pockmarked every crossroads.
  He squeezed the car into a small space near the Kottbusser Tor, then
  pressed a neatly trimmed, false moustache onto his upper lip, using a
  mirror from the glove locker to ensure it was straight. He slipped on
  heavy-nimmed spectacles then set off on foot.

               101
  This was a quarter for night creatures, the air scented with D6ner.
  kebabs. Bars stayed open here until dawn and between open sites razed for
  redevelopment, tenements were homes for squatters and refugees.
  A little further, and the caf6s were interspersed with galleries and
  craft stores. He pushed on the door of a small shop with easels in the
  window.
 'Guten Abendf
  A thin-faced young man with a diamond stud in his nose emerged from a
  back room.
 'I wanted an air brush,' Konrad began. 'I telephoned.'
 'Of course. Yesterday evening.'
  The young man turned to a shelf, glancing back. Not many of his customers
  wore business suits and overcoats.
  'It's for my nephew,' Konrad explained. 'A birthday present.'
  The assistant turned back to the counter holding two boxes.
 'What does he want to use it with? Inks or acrylics?'
 'Acrylics probably. That's quite a thick paint?'
  'Well, he'll probably have to thin it, whatever he uses. You'd be safest
  to buy a few nozzles of different sizes.'
 'That sounds best. Can you show me how it works?'
  The salesman cut the tape sea] with an obscenely long fingernail.
  'You attach this can of air to the brush with a plastic tube. Then fill
  the jar with paint and plug it into the socket at the front. Then you
  just press the button. Simple as that.'
  Konrad picked up the components. It wasn't really a brush at all, simply
  a precision paint sprayer. But in hu' hands a precision weapon.
 'Fine. I'll buy it.'
  Back at the car, he drove north again, crossing what used to be the Wall
  at Prinzenstrasse. More bui1ding works. ffthere'sagapfilllt- thatseemed
  to be the motto of the developers.

               102
  By the time he'd found another parking space near Rosenthaler Platz it. was
  twenty-past-six. Frdulein Pocklewicz would complain at his lateness.
  The bar Zum Weinberg had fewer than half a dozen customers, and Gisela was
  not one of them. He panicked instantly. He was too old for this game. Even
  the tiniest hitch unsettled him.
  He sat and ordered a Weisse mit grzin - a wheat beer with a dash of
  liqueur. He sipped gently so as not to wet the fabric backing of his
  moustache.
 Twenty minutes passed before the whore appeared.
  'So sorry to be late, Herr DunkelP Always formal with a man twenty years
  her senior whose real name she'd never known.
  Gisela Pocklewicz was short and overweight. She had a round face, dark,
  butch hair and the eyes of a victim.
  She asked the waitress for a Coke, then flashed Konrad a smile.
  'We're in luck, Herr Dunkel! That's why I'm late. It all happened at the
  last minute.'
 'Go on,' Konrad pressed.
  'As you know, I rang Zagreb yesterday, but they had no idea where he was.
  And I phoned again this afternoon. Then this evening, just as I was coming
  here, he called me!'
 'Aaah,' he sighed. 'And?'
  'He asked what it was about of course, but I couldn't tell him. . .' she
  fished.
 'What did he say?'
  'He wants a passport. In another name and another nationality. Says he
  needs to hide up for a while. Here in Germany.'
  She smiled. If this worked out she'd have a reunion with the only man she'd
  ever come close to loving.
  'Did you ask why he has to hide?' Konrad asked, fearing the reason might
  affect his plans.
 'Of course not. Can't trust the 'phone.'

               103
  Konrad took another sip of beer. So he wants a passport. E ' asy enough
  in the old days, he thought. The Stasi's Normannenstrasse building had
  housed some of the world's best forgers. He had to get one from
  somewhere.
 Acid burned in his gut. He dared not fail.
  Traulein PockleAicz, if we are to find a passport in time, I fear it'll
  have to be stolen. Can you put the word out?'
  She looked pained. She had no intention of taking any more risks than she
  had to.
  'I don't know people like that any more,' she lied. 'I'm legit. I pay
  taxes. My clients wouldn't like it if they thought the Kripos had their
  eye on me.'
  Konrad wet his lips. He couldn't get used to people saying no.
  'I'll do one thing,' she added, seeing his discomfort. 'I'll give you an
  address to go to. Talk to the woman who runs the house there. Some of her
  girls are thieves.'
  She tore the top off a cigarette packet, then wrote down a name and a
  street number.
 'It's not far from here. Sorry, but it's the best I can do.'
  'One more thing,' Konrad whispered, leaning forward. 'Tell your friend
  in Zagreb to send some passport photos tomorrow by air courier. Collect
  them and give them to me. Tell him if all goes well I'll bring the
  passport when I join him before the end of the week.'
  'And you willbring him to Berlin after the job's done?' she asked,
  doubtfufly.
 'Oh yes, I'll bring him back from the war for you.'

 104
               Ten

 Sunday 27th March
 Zenica, Central Bosnia

 Sunday dawned with a steady drizzle smearing the window of Lorna's bedroom.
 The cold of the concrete floor penetrated the stained, threadbare car-pet
 that covered it. She tried the bathroom faucet to no avail.
  And she'd forgotten to fill the tub last night when the water had been on.
 'You're a shit-head, Donohue.'
  Still called herself by the name she'd been born with, even though she'd
  been married for fifteen years to Rees Sorenson. Nice guy but a mistake.
  She pulled the soft nightdress up over her head and dropped it on the bed.
  'It's so-o-o cold . she shivered, crossing her arms tightly, hands cupping
  her small breasts. Nipples like bullets, goose-bumps everywhere.
  ,Too skinny, that's what's wrong with you. . .' She mimicked the whine of
  her sister, who was the same height, but at least thirty pounds heavier.
  She caught a look at herself in a wall mirror as she reached into the
  suitcase for underwear. Okay, so what if her ribs did show, at least she
  didn't have stretch marks. Five children Annie had had. Not a pretty sight
  in the buff. She andjoe must do it in the dark nowadays.
  She pulled on some clean cotton panties, tucking her light-brown pubic
  curls under the elastic. Then she reached behind her back to secure the
  straps of the bra.

               105
 Didn't really need one, but with Josip around, the less cause he had to
 misinterpret things the better.
  In the bathroom there was at least electricity this morning. She switched
  on the light, looked in the mirror and pushed at her hair. The good thing
  about being a little frizzy was that it didn't need a wash every morning.
  She moved closer to the glass. They weren't going away, those crow's feet
  beside her eyes and the deeper lines round her mouth. Ought to. be
  flattered that Josip fancied her, she supposed.
  Her thin face and high cheekbones went with the small frame of her body.
  She'd always thought her nose a little too big - wouldn't have minded one
  of those petite, turned-up numbers. But men liked the strength it gave
  her face; she'd never been short of admirers. just a pity most of them
  weren't her type.
  A little warmer in jeans and walking boots, a thick green pullover over
  her white rollneck, she clomped down four flights of stairs to the dining
  room. If anything it was even colder there. Josip sat alone at a table
  drinking coffee, his leather jacket draped over his shoulders. His dark
  hair was greasy and his jaw grey with stubble.
  'Morning,' she said briskly, sitting opposite him. 'Sleep okay?'
  'Mmm . . .'he wobbled his head, gave her a look that was intended to
  smoulder, then smiled. 'Could be better.'
 'Is there anything to eat?'
 'Some bread. The coffee is okay.'
  She glanced round. No sign of a waiter. Warming himself in the kitchen,
  no doubt. Two other tables were occupied. UN people, she guessed.
 Then a girl appeared at her elbow. Lorna ordered tea.

 First call that morning was to be at the office of the Coordinating
 Committee for Refugee Problems, run by

               106
 staff from what was left of Zenica's civil government. It was from there
 the call had come which had brought Lorna scurrying back to Bosnia.
  Not an official message; the bureaucracy would never have condoned it.
  The proposal had come from a woman called Monika, who'd befriended Lorna
  last time she was here. It was Monika they now had to find.
  The Land Cruiser was empty. The hotel had given them a store-room for
  their boxes of medical supplies. Lorna had to find out today where the
  need for them was greatest.
  The town looked like any drab east European city except for the lack of
  cars. What little fuel there was in Bosnia was reserved for the war. The
  only vehicles moving belonged to the BiH Armija - the Bosnian government
  army - or to the UN and the aid agencies.
  The streets were filled with people, wandering in the middle of the road
  as if cars had never been invented. Where did they go, she wondered?
  Nothing to buy in the shops, yet they still went to look. Nothing to
  drink in the caf&s, but they still sat down for a chat.
  No sign of Monika at the office, they were directed instead to a refugee
  centre near the silent steel works that dominated the town with its
  dust-coated mills and furnaces. BiH soldiers guarded the gates to the
  plant. Their 3rd Corps had its headquarters inside.
  Opposite was a school where the refugees lived behind timber
  blast-barriers and windows of polythene sheet. They parked in the former
  playground.
  A man carrying a tray of loaves led them down a dark corridor that
  smelled of boiled vegetables. The power was off again. An old woman
  shuffled past, holding a plastic bowl, her head covered by a black shawl.
  Two small children prodded one another in boredom.
  In the huge gymnasium every square metre of floor was covered by mats or
  rugs, each one occupied. One

               107
 rug, one family. Toothless grandfathers. Widows in black. Mothers,
 fathers, children, babies.
 'Oh, my! This is full!' Lorna exclaimed.
 The air smelled of urine and unwashed bodies.
 'Lomal Loma.1'
  A woman in her thirties with dark, straight hair and eyes that had seen
  too little sleep grabbed her by the hands. She babbled in Serbo-Croat.
 'Monika, hiV Lorna grinned.
  'She says ... well she says she's glad to see you,'Josip translated
  simply.
  Looking uneasy, Monika hustled them from the gym. She had the frenetic
  manner of someone for whom the day was always too short.
  She led them to a part of the building where a shell had blown in the
  front wall, replaced now with polythene which bowed and flexed in the
  wind.
  Monika turned to Lorna and spread her hands in despair.
  'She says sorry about the room,'josip explained, 'but we can be alone
  here.'
  The Bosnian woman began talking at length. The only word Lorna could make
  out was Tulict ... She let her continue for a while before nudging for
  a translation.
  'She say at first they think no survivors at Tulicl,'Josip interpreted.
  'But when Armija search, they find girl, twelve years, called Vildana
  Muminovic. She hiding in a cellar. She say she saw her mother being shot,
  and the soldier who did it was a man she knew. He used to live in next
  village. She say his name is Milan Pravic ... Later, Armija bring girl
  here to Zenica. But then some men come asking about her. Monika think
  they Croats.. .'
  josip raised an eyebrow. He reckoned Bosnians believed what they wanted
  to believe.
  'Monika think HVO want to kill the girl because she can identify this man
  Pravic.'

               108
 Lorna nodded understandingly.
 'Where's Vildana now?'
 josip put the question.
  'She say maybe take you see her tomorrow. She asks, do you understand she
  afraid?'
  'Sure. But she wants me, wants CareNet to get Vildana out of the country
  and find a family to look after her?'
  More Serbo-Croat. Lorna winced. It was understanding the way people said
  things that mattered as much as the words.
 'She asks whether you have plan yeff
 Had to be careful what she said.
  'About getting her out of Bosnia. . ? I still have to talk to some people.
  Finding a family for adoption is no problem however...'
  'Neina adoption. . .' Monika replied, wagging a finger. A flood of words
  followed.
  'She says Bosnian government not allow foreigners adopt orphans, because
  sometimes they do bad things.'
  'Tell her my agency is plugged into a network of Americans who are all top
  grade professionals, all checked out...'
 Rain spattered against the polythene wall.
 josip sighed.
  'She says be careful. If anyone ask, say it is just so the girl can be safe
  until war is over. Then Vildana will return here . . .'
  Lorna hesitated; A temporary arrangement like that could be harder. Most
  couples on her network were desperate for families.
  'No talk of adoption, then, okay? Tell Monika we understand each other,'
  Lorna declared. 'But first I must see the girl and find out what she needs.
  . .'
  Tomorrow then. Monika would come to the hotel and they'd go together.

               109
 For Alex the drive over Route Triangle was a nightmare. Fog obscured most
 ofthe mountain road and a thaw had turned it into a mud slide. Handling
 the Bedford fourtormer in such conditions had taxed McFee's experience.
  Twice the front wheels of the lorry had slipped into a ditch, once
  perilously close to the edge. They'd travelled with a British UN convoy
  A the way up from Split. Without help from an army tow-truck, they'd have
  been stuck on that mountain.
  It was on the long run down from the Makjlen Ridge to the contested toAn
  of Gorni Vakuf that the engine gave up.
  'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' McFee screamed. 'Don't do this to me.
 'What is it?' Alex fretted.
  'It's fucking died, that's what!'McFee yelled, punching the switch for
  the emergency flashers. He pulled onto the verge.
 Tuel?'
 'I don't fucking know.'
  McFee got down to the ground. They'd been at the tail of the convoy;
  behind them just the tow-truck and a Land Rover, both of which halted
  beside them.
  'What's up, mate?' The soldier's chubby face peered down from the truck.
  McFee had the engine hood raised. 'Water in the fuel maybe,' he ventured.
 A young officer walked over from the Land Rover.
 'Can't stop here for long, I'm afraid,' the voice brayed.
  A woman's voice. Alex contained his surprise. Blonde hair up under her
  UN helmet. Horsey but pretty. All of twenty-three, and so bloody
  confident in this spooky place.
  They were near the bottom of a pretty, wooded valley. Could have been
  Austria, if it weren't for the crump, of explosions from somewhere ahead
  of them.

               110
  'Party-time in Gorni,' the lieutenant remarked. 'Supposed to be having
  a cease-fire.'
 'Where are we?' Alex asked nervously.
  'Pretty well on the front line. HVO in the woods all around us. BiH in
  the town about a mile down the road.'
  'BiH? That's the Muslims?' Alex queried, still confused by the acronyms.
 'Bosnian government army. Mostly Muslim.'
  She stepped back and peered up the road with binoculars.
  'Pretty vulnerable here. . .' she murmured. 'If you've got helmets to go
  with your body armour, I should put them on. Corp'l Baker? We've got to
  move on.'
 She strode to the front of the Bedford,
 'The convoy's halted down the road, waiting for

  McFee was squeezing the rubber bulb on the fuel line to drain off the
  contaminated diesel.
  'Hey, Alex. Get us ajerrycan off the back o' the truck,' he called over
  his shoulder.
  'Look, I'll tell the company in Gorni to send a Scimitar up to look after
  you,' the lieutenant announced. 'But we've got to get on. Let's go,
  Corl-A Baker.'
 'Sorry mate,' the soldier apologized. 'You okay now?'
 'We'll manage.'
  The towing vehicle growled off down the road, the Land Rover following.
 Soon they were alone.
 'What a place to break down.. .' McFee muttered.
  An eerie silence had descended. Alex strapped his helmet tighter, but it
  gave him little comfort.
 Crack! A rifle shot zinged over their heads.
 'Shit! Get down.'
 They flattened themselves on the wet grit.
  'Where'd that come from?' Alex breathed, his heart pounding.
 'God knows. They're all around us here.'

               III
 Then they heard a distant laugh.
  'Bastards!' McFee swore. 'Fucking playing games wi' us.
 'What the hell do we do now?'
  'I don't bloody know. Suppose it depends if the sods decide to come and
  thieve the stuff out the back o' the lorry.'
  They lay still. All they could hear was their own jerky breathing.
  'Can't stay here all day,' McFee hissed. He stood up and stuck his head
  back into the engine compartment. Alex raised himself to a crouch.
  Two more rifle shots thwacked overhead like a double whiplash.
 'Oh, fuck!'
 Both flat on their bellies again.
  'I think we're in a wee spot o' trouble here,' McFee panted.
  Then from down the road came the growl of a highpowered engine and the slap
  of track pads on tarmac. Alex craned his neck. A small, white tank with a
  long, slim gun on its turret sped up the hill towards them.
  The Scimitar bobbed to a halt, its Jaguar engine burbling unevenly. Its
  commander peered from the top hatch at their prostrate bodies, then jerked
  his head back inside. The turret turned slowly, the gunner scanning the
  woods through his sight. It swung back and stopped. Then the machine inched
  past the Bedford, to get an unobstructed view.
  After a couple of minutes, a soldier climbed out and crouched beside them.
  'They've bogged off,' he told them. 'About six of 'em. Could have been
  nasty. Looked like they intended to 'ave you. You're okay now. They won't
  risk getting an HE round up the recturn.'
 'God ... thanks,'Alex croaked, easing himself upright

               112
 and brushing the dirt off his coat. He swallowed to wet his throat.
 'Problem?'
  'Fuel contamination,' said McFee. 'Another five minutes . . .'
 'Okay. We'll hang about.'
  Alex stood up gingerly. The last time he'd been under fire was twenty years
  ago - Lenadoon Avenue in Belfast. 'Scares me shitless, this place,' he
  said.
 'Aye, me too,'McFee concurred.
  He worked on for a few minutes then told Alex to pour the fresh fuel into
  the tank.
  'Moment of truth,' he muttered, hauling himself up into the cab.
  The engine churned, churned again, then rattled back to life.
  'Good stuff,' the soldier shouted. 'We'll lead you into Gorm and pass you
  on to "C" Squadron at the bottom of the canyon. Okay?'
 Alex gave a 'thumbs up'.
  The Scimitar rotated on its tracks then scooted ahead. McFee slipped the
  clutch and they were on their way again.
  Smoke rose from the centre of town. A shell whistled overhead then exploded
  somewhere unseen.
 'Some bloody cease-fire,' McFee growled.
  They reached a crossroads. The Scimitar stopped, and the soldier waved them
  to the right across a bridge. A muddy river trickled beneath it.
  Two figures ran at a crouch across the road in front of them, clutching
  assault rifles. The truck bumped and jolted over mortar craters.
  'Be out of this madhouse in a minute,' McFee muttered through clenched
  teeth.
  The destruction was unbelievable. House after house blasted to rubble, roof
  timbers shredded to matchwood.
 Another right turn and they were into woodland.
 Ahead, amongst the trees, another UN vehicle. McFee stopped the truck beside
 it and wiped his brow. A soldier came up to the window, encased in a thick
 flakjacket and a blue helmet which almost covered his eyes.
  'Convoy went through just a couple of minutes ago,' he shouted. 'If you're
  quick you can tag on the back of it.'
 'When's the next one due?' McFee asked.
 'Haven't a clue. Hours maybe. They never tell us.'
  'Okay, okay.. .' McFee deliberated whether to wait. The next stretch of
  road was a hangout for bandits.
 'Couple of minutes you said, the convoy up ahead?'
 'Yeh. just now.'
  'Okay. We'll go for it, eh?' He looked across at Alex for confirmation.
  'Up to you. I've never been here before . . .' Alex wished McFee inspired
  more confidence. He had no idea what lay ahead.
  'Aye. That's the trouble ... The thing is you're not supposed to go up the
  canyon on our own.'
 He had a sudden idea.
  'Can you call on your radio and tell 'em to hang on for us?'
 The soldier looked doubfful.
 'Yeh. I'll give it a try. If it's fuckin' workin'.'
  He turned back to his Scimitar, putting a fist up to his ear in a gesture
  to his signaller.
  McFee crashed into gear and they lurched forward. 'Dodgy bit of road, this
  . . .'
  Alex gripped the dashboard as they bounced up the rough track, the band of
  his helmet squeezing his temples. They were entering a gorge, the road
  hugging a limestone rock-face, twisting and turning in company with a
  raging stream.
  'With a bit o' luck we'll catch sight of the convoy round one o' these
  bends,' McFee suggested without conviction.
 Sweat broke out on his brow as he wrestled to keep the

               114
 wheels in the ruts. He was driving dangerously fast. To the left of the
 track was a sheer drop into the river.
 'Is it long this bit of road?' Alex shouted.
  'About twenty minutes ... There's a straighter stretch round the next
  bend, I think. Should get a bit of a view. . .'
 'Whose territory is this? Muslim or Croat?'
  McFee was silent. For the first time he looked seriously frightened.
 'Have ye heard of the fish-head gang?'
  Alex felt a hard lump in his stomach. The lower rim of the body armour
  pressed heavily on his thighs.
 'Didn't they murder some Italian aid workers once?'
 'Aye ...
 'Here?'
 'At the fish farm. A couple of miles further on.'
  The road straightened. Nothing. Not a sign of the convoy.
 'Oh, fuck. ..' McFee breathed.
  There was a brain-jarring crash as the left wheel hit a hole McFee hadn't
  seen.
 He cursed again.
  'Take it easy, Moray,'Alex soothed. McFee was losing his nerve. 'Don't
  wreck the truck.'
  McFee recovered his grip and eased the throttle. The road narrowed, the
  top of the lorry threatening to catch on the limestone overhang.
  The engine roared. Wheels spun in the mud. The canyon seemed endless.
  They lurched round another corner.
 'Sh ... it! Look at that,' McFee screamed.
  Ahead, a blue Volkswagen Golf was slewed across the track. From the far
  side climbed a man in grubby green, the lower half of his face obscured
  by a chequered scarE He steadied his arms on the roof of the car, aiming
  a pistol.
 Alex felt the blood pound in his ears. He tried to shrink

               115
 below the dashboard, but his body armour pinioned him to the seat.
  McFee panicked, swerving wildly. Alex clung on, transfixed by the dull grey
  of the gun. He saw it jerk and flash. Then the bang as the bullet punctured
  the windscreen.
  'Stop! You've got to stop!' Alex screamed. Ears ringing, he put his hand to
  his head, thinking he'd been hit.
  McFee stamped on the brake. The Bedford halted yards from the gunman. Arms
  rigid, hands clamped to the automatic, the man stepped from behind the blue
  car. Above the mask, the face was dirt-smeared. Green eyes darted from Alex
  to McFee, alert, dangerous eyes.
 He hissed something unintelligible.
 'What's he want, what's he want?' McFee gabbled.
  'Don't know,' Alex replied through closed teeth. Stay calm, he told
  himself'. Avoid eye contact. He'd read that somewhere.
  'Mish. . .' the gunman repeated, closing steadily, waving his weapon to his
  left.
  'He's pointing over there,' McFee mumbled. 'A track into the forest. He
  wants us to drive up it.'
  'No way,' Alex snapped. That was the road to certain death. He'd better try
  talking to the bastard.
 'Do you speak English?'
 He opened the door to get out.
  The next shot deafened him. Seemed to explode in his head.
 'Christ!' he heard himself yell.
 'Are ye all right?'
  The bullet had punched a hole in the roof inches above him. The gunman
  pushed the smoking barrel into Alex's face, hot against his mouth. The
  green eyes were ready to kill.
 'Okay, Okay! Do as he says, Moray!'
 Then suddenly the nightmare ended. The bandit

               116
 twisted round and backed away, lowering his weapon like a guilty child. Alex
 didn't understand. Then he looked up. A huge, mud-spattered UN Warrior was
 thundering down the track from the opposite direction.
  The gunman sprinted for his car, the driver gunning the engine. The VW spun
  round and darted up the side track into the trees.
  'Whoo-ay!' McFee bellowed. 'Fifth Cavalry to the fucking rescue!'
  A grin slowly spread across Alex's face, but he couldn't speak.
  Four soldiers burst from the back of the APC, sprinted behind rocks and
  tree trunks and took up firing positions.
  A sergeant ran across to the Bedford, eyeing the bulletcrazed windscreen.
 'Anyone hurt?'
  Alex sucked air into his lungs and wiped a sleeve across his face.
  'No,' he gulped. 'No injuries. just need a change of underpants.'
  Plain luck had brought the Warrior down the track at that moment. No radio
  message from the patrol at the foot of the canyon.
  'Radios are sodding useless in these mountains,' the sergeant explained.
  'Designed for the north German plains. We can escort you to the top of the
  hill, gents. You'll have no problem after that. The cease-fire's pretty
  good everywhere except Gorni.'
  The sergeant looked at their frightened faces and shook his head. He wiped
  the mud from the logo painted on the side of the Bedford. Hadn't come
  across Bosnia Emergency before.
 'First time out here?' he asked wryly.
 'No,' replied McFee defensively.
  'Then you should have bloody known better than coming up the canyon on your
  own!'

               117
  'It was your bloody soldiers down the bottom! They said there was a
  convoyjust a couple of minutes in frond'
  'Couple of minutes?' the sergeant frowned. 'More like thirty! I'll have a
  word with those buggers later. Anyway, let's move on.'
 He yelled at his infantry section to get back in.
  The thirty-four tons of armour gouged new ruts as it turned, then headed up
  the track, the sergeant in the turret glancing back to ensure the Bedford
  was following.
  From the top of the hill they were on their own again, running down through
  lush green valleys and villages, Muslim at first, then Croat, where
  children grinned and waved at them.
  The sudden tranquillity of the landscape enabled Alex to unwind. They'd
  survived their first brush with death. He'd learned a lesson too - not to
  rely on McFee's judgement.
  The drama of the past few hours had wiped Lorna temporarily from his mind.
  Now she was back. Time to work out how to find her.
  An hour later, they rumbled into the outskirts of Vitez. It was the end of
  the day, and UN armour ground in from all directions, packing the old
  school yard which was the main British base in Bosnia.
  The sky had clearcd, just a few streaks of cloud turning pink as the sun
  went down. It was a broad valley, hills on either side bathed green-gold in
  the evening light. Villages studding the distant slopes were pockmarked by
  the burnt shells of homes, 'cleansed' to make each hamlet ethnically pure.
 'This is it,' McFee announced. This is our billet.'
  He stopped the Bedford beside a two-storey house with a chalet roof, set
  back about twenty metres from the road. A pair of low, wrought-iron gates
  closed off access to a gravel drive.
 McFee had been subdued for the last part of their

               118
 journey, still rattled that the decision he'd taken had nearly got them
 killed.
  'There's an old couple live upstairs. We have the ground floor and their
  garage to put our boxes in,' he explained. 'Andrej and Dragana, they're
  called. Don't speak any English. Most nights Andrej has to put his uniform
  on and take his rifle down the trenches.'
 'They're Croats, right?'
  'Aye. They call this the Vitez pocket. Croats surrounded by Muslims. Those
  villages acorss the valley are Muslim. The daft thing is both religions got
  along fine here until two years ago. Ludicrous really, if it weren't so
  bloody tragic.'
  He unlatched the metal gate and led the way down the drive.
  'We'll just say hello, before we drive the truck in. Can't leave it in the
  road; the bastards would have everything out of it by morning.'
 'Dobro vece."
  An elderly woman of indeterminate age called a greeting as she descended an
  outside staircase from the upper floor. A scarf covered her head; the rest
  of her clothing was thick, rough and woollen. The smoke from a wood fire
  blew down from the chimney.
  'Dobro vece! McFee replied. 'Dragana, this is Alex, who's come to help me.'
 The woman's hand felt rough and prickly.
  With no common language, communication was by smiles and gestures. McFee
  pointed to the truck and waved his arms.
 'Da.1 DaT she said.
  'Okay, let's back the truck in. Can you do the gates, Alex?'
  Soon thev had the supplies secured in the garage, and took their ~ags into
  the house. Clean and tidy, rugs covering varnished floorboards, Alex was
  impressed.
 'I think they did B&B before the trouble started,'

               119
 McFee explained. He led the way through the hall. 'There's a bedroom which
 you can have; I'm okay on the sofa in the lounge.'
 'Are you sure?'
  'Oh, aye. Anyway, it's warmer in there, with the stove!'
  He pointed out the bathroom, where the water flowed only in the early
  mornings. He flicked a wall switch.
  'Power's off as usual. I brought a load of candles. Some for us, some for
  Dragana.'
  He looked at his watch. The cookhouse in the army camp a hundred metres
  down the road would be about to serve supper.
 'Let's get some food. I'm starving.'
  As they stepped outside again, the still of the evening was broken by the
  noise of military generators powering the camp and the houses the UN
  rented. The moon had not yet risen. Somewhere out there, Alex thought,
  is Lorna, unaware their tracks were converging. So too perhaps was the
  man Milan Pravic, whom Chadwick had asked him to find.
  'Colonel lives there.' McFee indicated a home two doors down. 'And the
  next house is P. Info. The press office. Their evening briefings aren't
  bad.'
 A spotlight dazzled them at the entrance to the camp.
 ' 'Scuse me sirs, could I see your passes?'
  The voice came fi,om inside a sandbagged, wooden guardhouse, what the
  military call a sanger. The soldier's breath steamed in the evening
  chill. His torch lit up their UNPROFOR cards and then their faces.
 'Okay, sirs. Enjoy your teas.'
  They walked on, picking their way through pools of mud, past rows of
  freight containers filled with stone chippings to protect the base from
  shrapnel.
  'It's unreal . . .' Alex whispered. 'Like a wild-west fortress.'
 The camp had been a school until the war started.

               120
 Now the sports field in front of it had been gritted over to make a
 Portakabin village and parking for trucks, Land Rovers and armoured
 vehicles.
  'Here we go.' McFee pushed through the doorway into the cookhouse. 'Have to
  sign your name on the visitors list, then pay at P. Info.'
  The large, warm dining-room steamed, the windows opaque with condensation.
  The mud-smeared floor glistened. About a hundred men and a few women sat at
  trestle tables. There was a separate, partitioned area for officers.
  Soldiers queued at hatches for steaks, curries and puddings, then took
  their foil trays to any space they could find, stopping to fill paper cups
  from dripping tea urns.
  'Bloody good grub, this,' McFee proclaimed, heading towards some spare
  seats he'd spotted.
  'Who are the people not in uniform?' Alex asked, looking around. 'Other aid
  workers?'
  'And press. There's a couple of TV crews there, look. Never go anywhere
  without their cameras. So they can film themselves being blown to bits!'
  Alex noted the equipment on the ground at their feet and peered at the
  faces. Would he recognize someone? It was a long time since Belfast but one
  never knew. He turned away, glad he'd not shaved off the beard that had
  helped hide him since then.
  McFee had been right about the food. Alex had a passion for
  bread-and-butter pudding with custard. If anyone was starving in Bosnia, it
  wasn't the UN.
 'Evening.'
  They were joined by a man and woman in jeans and anoraks, who introduced
  themselves as working for Feed the Children. McFee picked their brains
  about where to find the neediest refugees.
 Alex was only half listening, preoccupied.
  The couple from Feed the Children stood up again and left.

               121
  'Oh . . , Moray,' Alex began. 'Where would I find the Colonel? I promised
  a mutual friend I'd say hello to him.'
  'Oh aye? You know the right people then!' McFee snorted sarcastically. Then
  he shot a glance sideways. Someone had caught his eye.
 'He-Ho!'
  A young woman with straggly dark hair and the bewitching mouth and eyes of
  a gipsy had paused at the end of their table, smiling.
 ''Ow you, Mac?' she pouted.
  'Well, we.. UP McFee looked mildly flustered. 'Still here then?' he asked
  her.
  Then without looking Alex in the eye, 'See the sort of people I know?'
  The girl was dressed in a baggy pullover, long blue cotton skirt and thick,
  knitted stockings.
  She said something in Serbo-Croat and laughed, exposing teeth that looked
  as if they'd been aligned by a drunk.
  'This is Illie. Hello is about A she knows in English,' McFee explained.
  'Works in the kitchens. Scrubs things. . .'
  'Laku no~. See you. . .'The woman smiled at Alex with her eyes and
  continued her progress towards the door, glancing back just once.
  'Dobra, dobra. See you later, Illie,' McFee waved. 'Lovely lass. Does
  almost anything for a couple of Deutsche Marks.' His eyes darted about, as
  if frightened they'd given something away. 'Not that rd know, of course,'
  he added hastily.
 'Of course not.'
  'Now, where were we?' McFee looked broody. 'The Colonel? He's probably in
  there,' he said, pointing to the partitioned area. 'But if you want to say
  hello, best to fix it through P. Info. Talking of whom, if we get our
  skates on, we'll catch their evening briefing.'

               122
  Alex noted the television crews had already left. He and McFee took their
  fbil trays and stuffed them into a plastic rubbish sack by the door.
  The temperature outside had tumbled since dusk. They walked briskly back
  towards the road and the houses. The still, cold air smelled of wood smoke
  and manure. Above the generator hum came the deeper drone of aero-engines
  high in the sky. NATO planes, Alex guessed, heading for their drop zones,
  parachuting food to Muslim towns cut off by the Serbs.
  Huge resources were being poured into Bosnia, yet with the effect of a
  sticking-plaster. And now he was part of the process.
  There was a smoky fug inside the P.Info house, about a dozen media people
  on benches, lining the walls of a bare-floored room.
  The Major in charge of PR introduced himself as Alan Clarke-Hardey. He
  briefed the journalists on the day's fighting around Gorni Vakuf, and
  mentioned that an aid truck had narrowly escaped being hijacked. No one
  should travel on that road unescorted, he told them.
  Afterwards, as the media dispersed, he singled out Moray McFee.
 'I saw your ears burning, just then,' he quipped.
  'It was all your chaps' fault. . .' McFee growled. 'By the way, this is my
  new partner Alex Crawford.'
 'How d'you do?'
  They shook hands. As they exchanged pleasantries, McFee fiddled with the
  stem of his pipe, then made an excuse about having something to sort out,
  and left them.
  'First time out here?' Clarke-Hartley asked, offering him a can of beer.
  'Thanks. Yes it is. I wanted a word with your Colonel,' Alex replied. 'A
  mutual friend suggested I look him up.'
  'You're out of luck, I'm afraid. He's in Sarajevo for a few days with
  General Rose.'

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  'Oh, that's a pity. . .' It was a setback. He'd been relying on the
  Colonel for advice. 'When's he returning?'
  'Not until the end of the week. But I can fill you in on things. Come
  over here and I'll give you the new boys' tour.'
  He pointed to a wall map and described their area of operations. He
  indicated the canyon where Alex had been ambushed, then moved his finger
  north to the Lava Valley.
  'This is Tulici, where the massacre was two weeks ago . . .'
 'Were you there?'
  'Yes. I went with the Colonel. Bodies all over the place. Appalling
  carnage. Quite bestial. And no survivors that we could see.'
  'Any idea who was responsible?' Alex asked innocently.
  'The Bosnian army, which is mostly Muslim, are blaming a man called Milan
  Pravic as the chief villain. But the whole thing must have had official
  HVO backing. One of our patrols had seen houses in flames earlier on, but
  when they tried to reach the village they got mortared. Heavy weapons,
  mortars. Not the sort of thing carried around by some mad freelance.'
 'Have you tried to trace this Pravic?'
  'Not our job really. We made a few enquiries, but didn't get anywhere.
  Pravic? Pravic? Never heard ofh1m - you know the sort of thing. The
  Colonel went and slagged off the HVO for allowing their animals to go
  around murdering women and children. But they just shrug it off. It's
  another world out here.'
  He pointed up a few more details on the map, then they wandered towards
  the door.
 Outside on the steps, he cupped a hand to his ear.
  'Hear that?' He pointed up into the blackness. An aero-engine again, but
  this time the beat of rotor blades.
 'A UN helicopter?' Alex inquired.

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 'No fear! That's a Croat "Hip". They use it to ferry
 p i eople and ammo in and out of the enclave. Bloody
 risky, flying at night. Shows how desperate they are.'
  'Is that the only way the Croats can get out if they have to?' Alex
  asked, thinking suddenly of Pravic.
  just about. As I showed you on the map, the Muslims control a circle of
  land around here. Beyond that it's Croat again. The chopper is their air
  bridge.'
  Alex was about to bid him goodnight, when he had an afterthought.
  'Oh, by the way,' he asked, trying to sound casual. 'Have you ever come
  across a woman called Lorna out here? Surname could be Donohue. Blonde
  hair. Some sort of aid worker.'
 Clarke-Hartley frowned.
 'Can't say I have. Why?'
  'She's an old friend. Thought I saw her on the road today.'
  'Could have been heading for Sarajevo, or Zenica. That's where a lot of
  the refugees are.'
 'Of course,' Alex acknowledged. 'Goodnight.'
  Crunching down the gravel path, his torch picked out the sparkle of
  frost. In the distance he heard the whine of the helicopter taking off
  again. They don't hang about, he thought.
  Who was it this time? Another killer who'd overstepped the mark?

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