  Eleven

Zagreb, Croatia

Irena Pravic tucked the soft pink sheet under the cot mattress. Only the
head of the baby was visible, sucking rhythmically at her dummy. Maga was
fourteen months old and slept through most nights, without disturbing Irena
and the man she lived with.
Irena halfturned at the click of the front door closing. Too early for
Goran. A rough coughing told her Milan was back again. Her brother had
descended on them last night without warning, smelling of' smoke, sweat and
slivovitz, and saying he'd be staying for a few days.
Goran, with whom she'd lived for three years, was all for throwing him out.
But blood was thicker than water. Even bad blood.
She caressed her daughter's head, then slipped from the tiny bedroom and
closed the door, leaving Just a crack to hear any crying.
Milan had slumped on the sofa with his shoes dropped beside him on the
beige, shag-pile carpet. Irena picked them up and took them to the hall.
It was a small apartment. One small bedroom, a living room, kitchen and
bathroom, all they could afford. The sofa was where Milan had to sleep.
He'd not explained why he was here. But then he never had explained
anything.
'Irena! Bring me a beer!' She heard the television go on.
He was up to something. Phone calls for him from

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 Germany, then turning up out of the blue. She'd seen the butt of a pistol
 poking from his bag.
  There had been three children in the family, Milan the youngest, she in
  the middle and Tihomir her elder brother. A rough, village upbringing it
  had been, in a house that had always seemed dark. Eventually she had gone
  to college in Sarajevo, Tihomir had entered the priesthood and Milan the
  building trade.
  S he looked in the refrigerator, then closed the door again.
  'There are no beers,' she carped, returning to the living room. 'You've
  drunk them all. Should have bought some while you were out.'
  He ignored her, as always. Couldn't remember a time when he'd looked her
  in the eye. She returned to the kitchen. Had to think of something for
  them to eat.
  She'd met her partner in Sarajevo, studying medicine, while she learned
  English. Golden days then, the city a hub of culture and no cares about
  religion, but as soon as the fighting started they'd fled. Goran had
  finished his studies in Zagreb and was now a hospital intern working more
  hours than there were in the day.
  She crossed to the window and folded her arms. Their sixth floor flat
  overlooked an identical grey block, twinkling with lights. A dreary place
  to live, but they'd been lucky to get it.
  Milan unsettled hcr. Couldn't concentrate with him around. Never knew
  what he was thinking. She drifted back to the living room.
  The Croatian news was on. Pictures of Bosnia. 'Muslims breaching the
  cease-fire', they said. Always the other side at fault. The tragedy was
  people believed this propaganda.
  He'd cut his fair hair short like a convict, having arrived with it long
  and lank. He'd wanted some passport photos. Definitely up to something.
  He'd bought some

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 spectacles too. She'd seen him try them in front of a mirror.
  Milan had been pretty as a child. Almost blonde in those days, with eyes
  she remembered as luminous blue. Their father used to call him a cissy.
  A brute, their father was. Ran a garage and tyre repair station. Used to
  come home drunk on occasions, crashing about the house, shouting
  obscenities. Their mother would barricade the bedroom to keep him out. Then
  in desperation he would snivel into the children's room. Irena would listen
  for him and scurry into Tihomir's bed for protection. Her elder brother had
  the guts to stand up to their father and kept a stick under his pillow to
  clout him when he groped for them in the dark.
  Milan however got no such brotherly protection and it was his bed their
  father would end up in, often as not. Having once been dragged from
  underneath it and beaten black and blue, the boy had stopped trying to
  hide.
  It was a body their father wanted. Any body. Irena used to cover her ears
  to shut out the grunts and whispers. Milan never talked about those nights,
  but his face was always tear-smudged in the mornings.
 'Milan!' she shouted, fed up with him ignoring her.
 He appeared not to notice. The news was still on.
  She'd often wondered if he was backward. Always withdrawn, always sullen,
  but there was cunning there. And cruelty. He'd caught a stray cat once,
  pinned it to the ground with his boot and crushed its head with a crowbar.
 'Milan.'
  He turned his head a quarter of the way, still not looking at her.
  'Milan, do you know how long you'll be staying? Goran's asking. .
 'A few days.'
 'Oh. And then?'

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 'Germany.'
 'Are your friends finding work for you?'
  The calls had been from a woman called Gisela in Berlin.
 'Mmm.,
  He'd worked fiv(,- years in Germany. Then came home two years ago, to
  fight for his country, he'd said. Heard nothing of him until now.
  Secretly she'd hoped he'd been killed. Terrible to wish that of your own
  brother. But something in her heart told her the world would be a safer
  place without him.
  She gave up trying to communicate, and returned to the kitchen. There was
  minced meat in the fridge. She'd make Zevapaci.

 Zenica, Bosnia.

 Lorna had spent the afternoon delivering medical supplies, some to the
 main hospital in Zenica, others to Muslim villages up to thirty minutes
 away. She'd kept some boxes back to give to the Groats. In this country
 where aid workers crossed front lines daily, survival depended on
 even-handedness.
  Now it was evening in the dimly-lit hotel and she was weary. But it was
  still only eight o'clock - too early to retire to the cold darkness of
  her room.
  She and josip sat at a table together alone, the restaurant half full of
  Scandinavians working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She kept
  the conversation with her translator as superficial as possible,
  resisting his efforts to make it personal. Not hard to achieve, because
  her mind was elsewhere.
 Her work was beginning to worry her; not the danger

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 - that she was more or less used to. What concerned her was the motivation
 ofCareNet.
  She had no problems with the Medical Aid side of things, but her
  employer's increasing interest in arranging child adoptions disturbed
  her.
  CareNet's intention was simple, and laudable enough - to give war orphans
  a better life. But there was an evangelism at the heart of the
  organization which brooked little argument over how to achieve that.
  Their assumption that the children would always be better off in America
  was not, in Lorna's view, a safe one to make.
  The first step in CareNet's adoption business had been taken on her last
  visit. She'd been instructed by her Boston HQ to check out the 'supply
  situation'. Her boss, a born-again Christian who'd made a fortune from
  computer software, was using information technology to organize 'the
  market' for adoption.
  On this trip he had given her a notebook computer and a satellite phone,
  so she could send details of the Tulici girl and any others she might
  find to a bulletin board he'd set up on the Internet.
  But children, Lorna felt, should not be a 'business'. Her anxiety had
  deepened that morning at seeing Monika's nervousness about the adoption
  issue.
  Josip had been heavily into slivovitz that afternoon. Everywhere they'd
  delivered their medical supplies, the bottles had been brought out in
  gratitude. Lorna hadn't touched the stuff; just the smell of it made her
  want to throw up. ButJosip had drunk all that was offered, 'so as not to
  offend'.
  This evening he'd persuaded the waiter to produce one of the hotel's few
  remaining bottles of good Croatian wine. It had cost him twenty Deutsche
  Marks in bribes, but he'd told himself if it helped unfreeze Lorna, it
  would be worth it.
  After half an hour of his meandering suggestiveness, Lorna felt her fuse
  shortening. Her instinct was to unman

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 him with some cutting remark, but she feared he might walk out on her.
 Without a translator in Bosnia she simply couldn't work. So she stone-walled
 wearily.
 Suddenly her lack of response got through to him.
  'Why you don't want me to make love to you?' he blurted out, mouth turned
  down like a child denied sweets.
  'Oh, God,' she thought. 'This I can do without.' She'd never imagined he
  would come straight out with it.
 JosipP She feigned surprise. 'I had no idea. . .'
  Had to be careful. She looked at his sad, moist eyes, his cheeks flushed
  with alcohol and frustration. He wasn't bad looking. A little gaunt. Too
  Balkan, maybe. But he was fifteen years younger than her and there'd be
  plenty of women over forty-five who would grab at the chance.
  'Hey, I'm so flattered. I mean Josip, you could have any woman ...
  'You have no husband now,' he blurted out. 'Last time here, you told me you
  were separate from him.' He shrugged, as if the lack of a man was
  justification enough for her to sleep with him.
  'Sure. But that doesn't mean ... Look, what is this, Josip? You and I we
  work together. Office rules - you don't have a relationship with someone
  you work with. .
  She saw his eyes light up. Josip had taken it as encouragement. Rules,
  after all, were there to be broken.
  'Anyway, maybe I don't like sex. . .' she flustered, fiddling with Rees's
  white gold wedding ring which she still wore.
 He shot his arm across the table and grabbed her arm.
  'That is Joke. You love sex! I always know if a woman will be cold or warm.
  Your eyes, the way you move...'
 He pulled her fingers to his lips.
  'Your body, Lorna - it would be like violin in my hands . . .'
 'Oh, for Ghrist's sake!' She whipped her hand free.

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 'And I suppose you'd play Brahms' Concerto on my tits!' Diplomacy was
 getting her nowhere.
  josip's face crumpled like a paper bag. He made as if to stand up.
  Oh dear. The wound had been deeper than she'd meant. Men were like kids.
  She prayed she hadn't blown it.
  ,Look, if it makes you feel better, I do have a guy. That's the reason. .
  .' she said hurriedly. 'And I don't cheat on him. . .'
 He sat down suspiciously.
  'It's someone I've known a long time,' she continued, realizing the story
  needed a little embeflishment.
 'How long?' he demanded.
  'What? Oh, most of my life.' She spoke without thinking. Had to say
  something.
 'So, you knew this man before your husband?'
 'Well, yuh.'
 'He was your lover then?'
 'Mmmm.'What was she say1q.?
  'And now you ... you are separate from your husband, and he is your lover
  again?'
 josip's face was a picture of disbelief
 'Yuh ... sure. But look I don't want to talk about. .
  'Why noff he pressed, drawn by her defensiveness. 'You love him. I want to
  know what kind of man that is.'
 What kind indeed. Fiction or fact?
  'I guess ... I guess you could say we're sort of soul mates,' she heard
  herself say.
  What was this crap? What thread from her past was josip unwittingly
  loosening?
 'Soul mate? That means like a brother?'
  No. Closer than that, she thought. Like an integral part of you. So that
  when you're wrenched away from him you think you're going to die.
  'Sure. Like a brother. Sort of incestuous . . .' she teased. Time to make
  a joke of it.

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 'But you didn't marry your soul mate?'
  No. She married Rees, because she needed someone to be a father to her
  child ...
  'Yup, well, you know how it is. Things got in the way. Things ... like the
  Atlantic Ocean.'
 She'd said enough. This had to stop.
 'What his name?'Josip pressed.
 'Uh?'
 'He has a name, this soul mate?'
  Yes. But a name she'd not spoken lovingly of for twenty years.
  'Dan. Dan Samson,' Lorna lied, crossing her arms. 'And that's it, now. You
  keep your nose out of my personal life.'
  Her tone snuffed out the last flicker of light in his dream. JosIp
  shrugged. His cause was lost. Game over.
 Suddenly he felt unpleasantly sober.
 'Maybe I have some brandy.
 Lorna pushed back her chair.
 'Not for me. I'm going to bed. Alone!'
 Josip looked round for the waiter, ignoring the rebuke. 'Goodnight, Josip.,
 'Sure,' he replied dismissively.

 She closed the door to her room and slipped the chain. After a couple of
 brandiesJosip might yet try again.
  She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled off her boots, then fell back onto
  the rough blanket that smelled of smoke. How the hell had she let herself
  get into that? Inventing a lover to put him off was one thing, but all that
  soul mate stuff?
 just slipped out, your honour.
  And just because 'soul mates' was the way she and Alex Jarvis used to think
  of each other, it wasn't necessarily him she'd meant. Who said she still
  thought about him?

               133
 V say. That's who.'
  Her voice..echoed flatly in the cold, half-lit box, with its seedy
  wallpaper and plasticky furniture. A bedroom that smelled of strangers.
  Why, though? Why could she still think of him with love as well as with
  hate?
  Belfast 1973. A long, long time ago, but still sharp in her memory.
  On a scale of I to 10, what Alex had done to her there was I I+ for
  shittiness. A monstrous betrayal after his beautiful words and after the
  love-making that was so much more than just sex.
  All that stuff about her being the 'spark that had been missing from his
  life'. Sure, she'd said those things about him too. The difference was she
  had meant them.
  She had fled home from Belfast and then discovered the hard Irishmen in
  Boston wanted her dead for 'touting' the secret of the jailbreak. They'd
  planned a little 'accident'for her, but her father was tipped the wink and
  bought them off. Being one of the richest IrishAmericans in New England had
  its advantages.
  Then, and this was the worst part for her, Lorna had found herself back in
  her father's pocket, saddled again with the burden of filial obligation it
  had taken her years to shake off.
  She and her sister knew it as 'The Gratitude Trap' -never being able to say
  or do anything to contradict their father in case it was seen as lack of
  appreciation.
  A sense offailure and guilt had been purnmelled into their brains since
  birth through paternal rebukes at any flaw in their performance and
  ridicule at their juvenile opinions.
  Lorna shivered. She'd crossed into adulthood devoid of self-esteem,
  conditioned to believe her only value was as her father's vassal.
  Then she'd met Alex who'd told her she was Just wonderful the way she was.
  He'd called her a star -
  
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 clever, witty, beautiful. She! Lorna! No wonder she'd loved him so much.
  She'd felt a star, too, whizzing around Hampstead on the back of Alex's
  BSA. A rebel, with Alex as James Dean. A little rough in his voice and
  manner, he would not have won Papa's approval, which had served to
  heighten the thrill. The first challenge to her father she'd ever made.
  Her parents had been separated by then. Her mother, born in Britain, had
  brought her to London for a taste of English education and culture.
  Alex. He'd given her the strength to stand up to the old man - then
  thrust her back into his debt by betraying her.
  Alex. She remembered his smell when they first met. Almost feral.
  Something to do with the leather jacket he wore. But it was his eyes
  she'd fallen for, dark and tempting as chocolate. And the feel of his
  body. She'd nicknamed him Samson.
  Samson! Dan Samson! That was the stupid name she'd givenjosip for her
  fictitious lover.
 Shit! Shit! Shit! She leaped from the bed.
  Had to wash all this stuff from her head. She tried the bathroom tap.
  Water. A miracle. Warm too.
  She turned on the shower, tossed her clothes at a chair, then climbed
  over the rim of the tub. The water smelled funny, but beggars couldn't
  be choosers.
  She shampooed her hair then spread the foam down her soft skin; the water
  threatened to lose its heat. She rinsed herself quickly in case the flow
  died altogether, then huddled under the spray to savour the last of its
  warmth. Crossing her arms over her breasts, her fingers felt the nipples
  grow and harden.
  It was a while since she'd been with a man. Only once since leaving Rees,
  a divorcee she'd met at a party. Not a night to remember. He'd had the
  hands of a butcher.
 Mex's hands had been something else.

               135
  Damn! She hated the guy, remember? He'd screwed up her life. She recited
  the litany in her mind.
  After buying off the IRA, her father had forced her into hiding, to take a
  job with a law firm he knew in an out-of-the-way New England artists'
  colony.
 All because you betrayed me, Alex!
  There, after years of frustration at her exile, she'd bedded some careless
  pot-thrower she didn't even like, who had gotten her pregnant. Her contract
  with the law firm precluded motherhood for seven years, so she'd had to
  leave her job.
 Your fault, Alex.
  Two choices had faced her. To become a single parent and depend on her
  father for an income, or find someone to marry.
 No choice, Alex.
  The potter was out of the question, but there was someone else. A partner
  in the firm called Rees Sorenson. So keen was he to make her Mrs Sorensen,
  that this deeply Christian man overlooked the fact she was already
  pregnant.
  After what you'd put me through, Alex, maybe I deserved such a saint.
 The baby was born. They'd called herjulie.
  After a few months they'd realized something was wrong. Autism, the doctors
  called it. The child couldn't communicate.
  For twelve years Lorna had cared forJulie, battling to break through to
  her, but when the girl reached puberty thinLys had gotten out of control.
  Rees put Julie in a home for the mentally disturbed, Lorna had a breakdown,
  and their marriage disintegrated.
 All your fault, Alex! Every little part of it!
 Suddenly the bathroom went black.
 'Oh, hell!' she screamed. 'Damn! Damn!'
 She groped to turn off the taps, then felt for the rim of

               136
 the tub. Where was the frigging towel? She banged her toe on the
 door-frame and cursed again.
  Somewhere she had a flashlight. She felt her way into the pitch-dark
  room. The power failure was total; no light spilled in from the window.
  She stooped forward and felt the edge of the bed, her heart pounding.
  Suppose josip had gotten in while she was in the shower ...
  She held her breath. All she could hear was the pumping of her own blood.
  What if he was there, holding his breath too?
  Silently she felt along the bed. Please, God, let the flashlight be on
  the bedside table.
 It was. She fumbled with the switch.
  'Thank you Lord,' she breathed, waving the pale, orange beam round the
  room. It needed new batteries.
  Back in the bathroom, she rested the torch on the shelf so she could dry
  herself quickly before it died altogether.
  A quick teeth brushing before the water gave out, then her nightdress on
  and into bed.
  She bit her lip. What the hell was she doing in this crazy place?
 'I hate you Alex! I hate you,' she moaned.

 137
             Twelve

 Monday 28th March, 9.15 a.m. Vitez

 The roadway between Dragana's house and the UN camp opposite was lined with
 heavy vehicles, engines rumbling like ruminating beasts. Exhausts steamed
 like cattle-breath in the crisp morning air.
  A convoy of empty supply trucks was forming for the long drive to Split and
  a pair of Warriors twisted on their tracks, to bracket three white,
  armoured Land Rovers with 'TV marked on their sides in black tape. The
  journalists were being taken on patrol along the ceasefire lines. In public
  they expressed hope that peace would last, but privately they knew that
  only fresh violence would guarantee them a place on the evening news.
  Alex coaxed the Bedford out of the drive and turned left onto the road. He
  was glad of his boots and Barbour and had pulled on a tweed cap to keep his
  head warm.
  This was the first Jull day of his mission. With a little luck by the end
  of it fie would have picked up the trail of at least one of the people he
  was looking for.
  As they headed northwest he looked across flat meadows glinting silver in
  the watery sunlight. Beyond, rose a snow-capped mountain range, a
  ski-centre in happier times. It reminded him of frosty mornings in the
  Highlands, out on the moors before dawn, waiting for the deer to leave
  their valley feeding grounds for the safety of the hills.
 'It's beautiful here!' he murmured.
 'Yes. Took me by surprise,' McFee concurred. 'You

               138
 don't expect it somehow, after all the butchery you see on TV. You think
 the place'll be one big shit heap.'
  The road wound through hamlets, scarred by the occasional burned-out shop
  or house.
 'And then you see that sort of thing,'Alex commented.
 'Beauty and the beast ... eh?'
  Grey-faced young men, wearing the drab camouflage of the HVO, ambled
  wearily home, eyeing the truck for a lift.
  Swerving to avoid a mortar crater, they reached a road juntion and a
  chicane made of rusting tank-traps and a burned-out bus. To the left the
  UN's Route Triangle led to the mountains and the coast. Straight on was
  to Travnik.
  'It's eerie,'Alex breathed. 'Not a soul in sight. You feel you're being
  watched.'
  'Aye. We've just crossed the front line. There's probably a dozen rifle
  sights looking at us, so keep smiling.'
  'Bit dodgy on our own, isn't it?' Alex snapped, not wanting a repeat of
  yesterday's nightmare. 'Shouldn't we have a UN escort?'
 McFee bristled.
  'Look, when I left you at P.Info last night I dropped into the officers'
  mess,' he blustered expansively. 'They said Travnik's wide open. No
  probs.'
  Officers' Mess? Sounded like bullshit. But McFee had been out sonzewhere
  last night. Hadn't got back to the house until after Alex was asleep.
  And another thing, he thought. They had no translator. How the hell was
  he going to ask questions about Milan Pravic if he couldn't communicate.
  'Wouldn't it be handy to have a local with us,' he needled, 'someone who
  speaks the language?'
 McFee pursed his lips.
 'Which local, that's the problem. A Croat couldn't

               139
 come in here with us. And a Muslim couldn't come back with us to Vitez.'
 'How do the UN manage?'
  'Och, well, they pay them good wages, stick 'em in a uniform and give 'ern
  a nice wee plastic UN pass. But Bosnia Emergency hasn't t ' he money.'
 He ruminated for a moment.
  'But it's something to work on. If we found a volunteer, maybe the UN could
  get her a pass.' The thought that it could be a woman set McFee brooding.
  An ancient hilltop castle towered over the approach to Travnik. Beyond were
  minarets. Old shell cases littered the roadway.
  'This place has taken a pasting,' McFee remarked, guiding Alex through the
  shrapnel-scarred streets of the old Muslim town. At a small park, dug up
  for fresh graves, women laid flowers. The road was full of men in uniform.
  'The bearded ones are Mujahedin,'McFee mentioned under his breath.
  'Iranians, Palestinians, you name it.' He shot a glance at Alex. 'With that
  fungus on your own face, you'd better watch out they don't recruit ye!'
  Alex manoeuvred the truck over a narrow river bridge and into a school
  yard, then swung down onto the tarmac. From behind barred windows faces
  peered, most of them blank with despair. Parked closer to the school
  entrance, its rear towards the door, was another whitepainted truck.
  'Looks like Feed the Children have beaten us to it,' Alex remarked,
  spotting the line of refugees passing aid boxes into the building.
 'Oh, hello, there.'
  It was the Englishman who'd shared their table in the cookhouse last night.
  'They've plenty of supplies here just now. But have a word with the
  direcior. She knows some other places.'
 'Thanks.'

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  Inside, class-rooms were stuffed with beds, mats and the meagre belongings
  of families. Weaving through the crush, Alex bit his lip. It was the first
  time he'd touched and smelled the human tragedy of Bosnia.
  They entered an office. Desks stacked with paperwork, half a dozen women
  struggling to make sense of it. Clucking about them like a mother hen was
  a matron in fawn cardigan and what looked like a Hermes scarf.
  She smiled and affected to recognize McFee when he introduced himself
  Tull. No more room,' she explained, brown eyes wide with astonishment.
  'Enough food for a week, maybe.'
  'You know somewhere else we could take our stuff?' McFee asked.
  'Yes, yes!' Her eyes lit up. 'Some people came last week but no space. They
  go to village near Guca Gora.'
  'Maybe you could send someone with us as a guide,' Alex chipped in.
  'Someone who speaks English.'
  'Maybe. Perhaps.. .' She looked at her watch. 'Moment.'
  She bustled from the room shouting a name. Two minutes later she returned,
  leading a fair-haired youth with eyes of bright blue.
  'This is Ivan. He is refugee. He learn English at school. You bring him
  back?'
 'Of course,' Alex assured her.
  They walked out to the truck, Ivan shooing away children unpicking the
  tailgate tarpaulin.
  They drove slowly through the town using the same road they'd come in on.
  'How old are you, Ivan?' Alex asked. Squeezed between him and McFee, the
  boy's diffidence reminded him so painfWly ofjodie.
  'Seventeen. But if someone ask, I am sixteen, okay?' There was fear in his
  eyes.
 'Okay,' Alex frowned. 'But why?'

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  'Huh. If seventeen, they put me in army! Then I dead like my father.'
 He drew a finger across his own throat.
  Back past the castle and out onto the Vitez road again, Ivan directed him
  up a lane that climbed through bare woods of birch and chestnut. They
  reached a muddy village, slowing for a pony-cart piled with silage.
  Then, round a bend, the Bosnian Army flag drooped above a caf6. Bearded
  soldiers lounging on chairs followed the truck's passing with suspicious,
  unwavering eyes.
 'No stop! No stop!' Ivan gibbered. 'Mujahedin. .
  Alex put his foot down. Out of the village, the ground fell away steeply to
  the right.
  'I thought the Mujahedin were on your side,' he checked. The boy was pale
  with fear.
 'Crazy peoples. Arabs. Not Bosnians. .
  A little later, Alex asked how much further it was. Ivan counted on his
  fingers.
 'Three more village, I think.'
  It took twenty minutes to reach the scruffy hamlet of Duba. Ivan leaned
  from the window and asked an old man directions.
 'He say the refugees are in the school. I show you.'
  Always the schools, Alex thought. War had wrecked so many aspects of life
  here. Outside a dismal pre-fab a crowd milled, elderly men in caps and
  women in shawls, but young families too, some decanting from a mudspattered
  bus, hugging the few belongings they'd seized in their moment of flight.
  As the Bedford pulled up, faces turned as one, and the mob descended on
  them like gulls on a rubbish tip.
 'Christ!' Alex yelled. 'They'll take the truck apartP
  'Ivan!' McFee growled. 'Find the person who's in charge of this place.'
 Alex switched offthe engine and pocketed the key.

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  'Come on, Moray,' he barked. 'Let's see if we can hold them off.'
 The truck was surrounded.
  Alex squeezed to the ground, pressed to the side of the vehicle by the
  throng. Some youths had already undone the tarpaulin at the back.
  'Now, hang on a minute, chapsP McFee's bellow rose up from the midst of the
  crowd. 'Oootl'
 Hell! Someone's thumped him, Alex thought.
  He elbowed his way to the tail-gate. McFee leaned against the rear
  wheel-arch nursing his chin. A scuffle had broken out. Whoever had hit
  McFee was being restrained, and punched in return.
  Boxes poured out of the back of the truck. Some in the crowd ripped them
  open where they stood. Others clutched them in their arms like trophies and
  elbowed their way back to the school.
  Suddenly a shot rang out. Alex dropped to the ground. Then came the
  rattling crack of automatic fire. Women screamed. The crowd melted away at
  a crouch.
  A middle-aged man in Armija uniform strutted towards the truck, blasting
  Kalashnikov rounds into the sky. Close behind were two other soldiers, and
  Ivan.
  'Good Jad,' Alex breathed, clutching the boy by the arm.
 'Your friend. He is hurt?'
 'You all right, Moray?' Alex asked.
 'Oh, aye.'
  The middle-aged soldier helped McFee to his feet and dusted him down. He
  babbled away in Serbo-Croat.
  'He says "sorry for what happened",' Ivan translated. 'These people have no
  food for three days.'
  'Tell him we understand,' Alex soothed. 'I'd have done the same.'
  'He say the people of this village not want refugees,' Ivan continued.
  'They tell them "go away". Give nothing to eat. Only for themselves.'

               143
  'Well, tell them they're welcome to all the stuff we've brought,' Alex
  replied. 'There's food and warm clothing. But ask him to make sure it's
  shared out fairly.'
 Ivan turned to the officer to translate.
  'Da. Da.' He nodded, gesticulating at his juniors. They scurried off to
  muster a gang of box-handlers.
  Alex began collecting the broken boxes into a sack, vaguely aware that
  another vehicle, a white jeep of some sort had pulled up outside the
  school.
  'I'll gi' ye a hand in a minute, Alex,' McFee called. just get my breath
  back.'
  From some of the boxes the contents had already been looted. Alex bent
  to gather up the torn cardboard.
  Suddenly in front of him he saw a pair of green Goretex boots. Small feet
  - belonging to a woman ...
 Slowly, very slowly, he straightened himself up.
 Lorna Donohue.
  The passage of time had scored lines in her face, but to him it still
  radiated magic.
 Her mouth dropped open.
 'Alex?' she gasped.
 His chest feft a's if it was about to explode.
 'Lorna,' he gulped. 'It's you.'
  'And it U' youP Her voice rose an octave. She pointed at his face. 'The
  beard. I didn't ... I don't believe this . . .'
  She felt she was going into shock. He reached an arm out to her, but it
  didn't quite connect.
  'I thought I saw you the other day,' Alex spluttered. 'Coming off the
  ferry at Split. But this is amazing!'
  He wanted to grab her, hug her, kiss her. But he didn't dare.
  'Twenty goddarn years!' she mouthed, her face a mask. There was no
  invitation there.
  Didn't dare show him her feelings. Didn't even know what they were. She
  spun away from him and ran her hands through her hair.

               144
 'My God!' she munnured. 'This isn't happening.'
  'It's amazing,' Alex repeated, his hands flapping. He felt like a kid on
  his first date, weak at the knees with wondering what to say.
 He became conscious of McFee watching them.
 'This is Loma,' he gestured. 'The one on the ferry. .
 McFee leered, as if to say, 'not bad'.
  Unsmiling, Lorna turned to face the man who'd once meant everything to
  her. She felt sandbagged. Had to play for time.
  'What are you doing here, for heaven's sake?' she asked, looking at him
  opaquely.
 He waved his hand towards the Bedford.
 'Endeavouring to be useful, I suppose. You too?'
  She nodded, eyes hard, trying to show that whatever she felt about
  meeting him again, it wasn't necessarily pleasure.
 He told himself to get a grip and moved a little closer.
  'You look fantastic, Lorna. Haven't changed at all. Astonishing. . .'
  'Older,' she replied. 'And wiser. . .' She raised one eyebrow.
  'Aren't we all.' He could see she intended to give him a hard time. 'We
  ... we've got a lot to talk about, I guess.' He reached out to touch her,
  but she backed off.
  'We certainly do.' He saw the hurt in her eyes. She let out a long, deep
  breath. 'We sure do, Alex!'
  She felt she was clinging on by her finger tips. Time for a smile, she
  thought. Mustn't let him see she was floundering.
  'Well! Well, well ... So this is your truck? What have you got there,
  food and clothes?'
  'Yep. Bosnia Emergency is the name of the charity. Oh, and this is Moray
  McFee. Moray? This is Lorna ... Donohue?' he checked.
 'Donohue will do. Nice to meet you, Moray.'
 'This chap Crawford tells me you go back thirty

               145
 years. . .' McFee ventured. Lorna darted Alex a suspiclous glance - his name
 had been Janis when she'd last seen him. Her name change had a simple reason
 - but his?
  'Thirty years! You'd have been in nappies when you met, surely?' McFee
  grinned.
  'If only,' she laughed, thawing a little. 'But thanks for the compliment.'
 McFee spotted the Nikon on a strap round her neck.
  'Here, gi' me that camera! It's a moment of history, this.'
 She faltered but handed it over.
  'Stand together, now. Alex, put your arm around her for God's sake!'
  McFee's request brooked no refusal. For a moment Lorna leant uneasily
  against Alex.
  She forced a thin smile. McFee snapped off a couple of pictures, before
  handing back the camera. Lorna was grateful to break off the unsettling
  contact.
  'I'll leave you to reminisce for a mornent,' he offered, backing away.
  'Don't worry, Alex. I'll do the boxes.'
  'So ... What's all this Crawford stuff?' she snapped, businesslike again,
  as McFee went over to the Bedford.
 He took her arm and led her out of earshot.
  'I've been using the name since Belfast. I've had to hide. The Provos
  wanted to kill me, you know.'
  'You and me both, kiddo.' She pulled her arm from his grip. Why was he
  standing here like this, bold as brass? He should be on his knees begging
  for forgiveness.
  'Look, I got work to do,' she said brusquely. 'I guess this isn't the place
  to talk. Where are you staying?'
 'Vitez. You?'
 'Zenica. The International Hotel.'
  She wasn't going to suggest they should meet. Leave that to him.
  'And who doyou work for?' he asked, unnerved by her coolness.

               146
 'Have you heard of CareNet of New England?'
 'Nope.'
  'It's a disaster agency that helps kids. We hand out medical supplies, and
  find homes for war orphans.'
 'People to adopt them?' he frowned.
 'Sure. You don't approve?'
 'It is rather controversial . .
 'And that is an old-fashioned, English understatement.'
  Her blue-grey eyes softened. She wasn't altogether disagreeing with him.
  Alex glanced towards the truck. The remaining boxes were being unloaded in
  an orderly relay. Better to steer clear of the past for now. Keep talking
  about the present.
  'And what are you in thu* village for? Medicines, or orphans?' he asked.
  Questions, questions, the biggest one inside her own mind. Why was he
  really here? But he'd just asked her something ...
  'This one's special. There's a kid here in real danger. You've heard of..
  .'
  She stopped in mid-flow. Hell, she thought. I'm doing it again. Telling him
  things. It's those soft brown eyes, and the way he listens as if he cares.
  She slipped her mask back in place and looked at him out of the corner of
  her eye.
  'Last time we met.. .' she began, 'you were a spook. M15 wasn't iff
 He began to sweat.
  'We've got to talk about that, Lorna. Let's work out when we can meet.. .'
  'Do you still do thaff she interrupted. 'Are you still a spy? Out here?'
 'Give me a break, Lorna.'
  'Gimme a break! You watch too many soaps. Is that why you're here?' she
  demanded.
 'No, it's not.'

               147
  It's happening again, he thought. Lying to her because the truth's too
  complicated.
  J told you, I came here to help ... and to get away. I had problems at
  home. You know what I mean?' he added, appealing for sympathy. He saw
  pain in her eyes.
 'Sure,' she nodded. 'I know what you mean.'
  A couple approached, the man in a leather jacket. He had dark, greasy
  hair and jealous eyes.
  'Loma . . .' Josip snapped, irritated by her intimacy with this stranger.
  'Monika - she say we must hurry.'
 'Okay~ okay!' Loma replied. just give me a minute.'
  This time she took Alex by the arm and led him a few metres away.
  'He's my translator,' she explained. 'I've got to go. There's a kid here
  who lost all her family in a massacre.'
  Mauacre. He had an eerie sensation of a window opening.
  'All right, but let's meet up somewhere. I'm staying opposite the UN camp
  in Vitez. Any chance you could get there?'
 'I don't know. I've got a lot to fix. .
  'That massacre,' he asked, ignoring her prevarication, 'was it Tulici?'
  'LJhuh,' she acknowledged warily. 'Were you here then?'
  'No. It's just that the way I'd heard it, there weren't any survivors.'
  'Mmm. That's what most people think. It's safer that way-)
 'What do you mean?'
  Loma swallowed hard. Nobody was supposed to know Vildana was in this
  village.
  'Because if there's a survivor, she might be able to identify the guy who
  did the killings. And if he knew there was a witness, he'd want to kill
  her too.'
 She'd said enough.
 'I've got to go.'

               148
  'Hang on!' Alex gripped her arm. 'If this girl can identify the killers .
  . .'
 'I didn't say that,' Lorna protested.
  'But if she can identify them, then the UN must be told. They want to put
  the Tulici killers on trial. Did you know thaff
  'Not my problem! All I'm concerned about is the safety and future happiness
  of a twelve-year-old.'
 'She's here in this village, you say?'
 Questions. Questions. Just like Belfast.
  'I must go.' Yet she couldn't. Not without fixing to meet him again.
 'Can I come with you?' he pleaded. 'To see the girl?'
  'You have to be kidding,' she protested. 'Do you know what it took to
  persuade Monika to bring me here? No way.,
 'How long will you be? I'll wait.'
 Loma shrugged, exasperated. 'I don't know.'
 'I'll wait.'
  She hurried after the others. Monika led them briskly up the street to a
  half-built house less than fifty metres away.
  Suddenly Alex looked over to the truck. Children riffling the cab for
  anything consumable.
  'Hey, get out of there!' he yelled, sprinting across. He grabbed at the
  squirming bodies and yanked them out.
 Ivan appeared and shouted in Serbo-Croat.
  Alex climbed onto the driving seat. A couple of packs of Marlboros that
  he'd left on the dashboard were gone.
 'They have nothing. . .'Ivan explained in mitigation.
 'They have now.'
  He looked over to the school. The last of the boxes was being carried
  inside. McFee started weaving through the crowd towards them.
  'Lots of happy faces in there, now,' he beamed, when he reached them.
  'Where's your lady-friend?'
 'Up the road somewhere.'

               149
  He cocked his head on one side and studied Alex's face.
  'So how was your big reunion? Cut your dick off, did she?'
 Alex smiled. 'Not quite.'
  'Okay. We'd better get a move on. Young Ivan here needs to get back to his
  folks.'
 'We can't go yet.'
 'What d'you mean?'
  'I have to talk to Loma again, when she's finished doing whatever she's
  doing.'
 'Oh, great! And how long's that going to be?'
 'I don't know, but not too long.'
 McFee didn't disguise his annoyance.
  'Couldn't you have arranged to meet up this evening or something? A little
  t&e A t~te in the Vitez cookhouse, maybe.'
  'No.' He wasn't going to explain. 'I'll keep a lookout for her, now you're
  back to guard the truck.'
  He gave him the keys, pushed open the door and dropped to the ground.

 Monika hustled Lorna down a path of broken bricks at the side of a house.
 The building was made of unrendered breeze-blocks and a concrete frame. The
 tiled roof was intact, but the windows were polythene.
  Inside, a young couple wearing pullovers and tracksuit trousers stood
  awkwardly beside a small kitchen table and two plain, wooden chairs. It was
  the only furniture in the room, which had a bare concrete floor and rough,
  plastered walls.
  Lorna's head spun in disbelief at what had just happened. Suddenly she
  feared it had been some extraordinary fantasy and wanted to run back into
  the road to check he was still there.
 Then she saw the fear on the faces of the Bosnian
 couple and jerked back to reality. Monika introduced them with names she
 didn't catch.
  'This man is cousin of friend of Vildana family,'Josip translated. 'Friend
  who live in Tulici ... Also dead.'
  The woman of the couple began talking volubly, all the while dabbing her
  eyes with a handkerchief.
  'She say Vildana very ... well, shocked, I should say,' Josip explained in
  a whisper. 'She eat and sleep little. Every time she hear gun, she cry and
  looking somewhere to hide, like animal.'
  'Poor little thing,' Lorna breathed. A child that traumatized might be hard
  to place.
  The woman put a hand to her mouth and spoke lower.
  'Vildana has something on mouth,'Josip whispered. 'Some mark ... Boys threw
  stones because of this. She always running away. That's why she alive the
  woman say. She know all the place to hide.'
  Lorna sensed an abyss opening up. This was no normal child.
  'Monika, we need to talk to the kid,' she pressed, gently. Josip relayed
  her words.
  The woman dried her eyes and blew her nose. Then she opened the door into
  the next room. A double mattress and a smaller single one lay on the bare
  floor. Blankets and bedding were scrunched up at the end of each.
  At first Lorna thought no one was in the room. Then she realized that what
  she'd taken for a pile of clothes in a corner was in fact a child. In
  bright red pullover and yellow trousers, a multi-coloured scarf draped over
  her head, and hands covering her face, this was Vildana.
  'Vildana?' the woman coaxed. She walked across and knelt before the
  cowering girl.
  A tang of salt burned the back of Lorna's throat as she swallowed her
  welling tears.

               151
  The small hands slid cautiously down the face, exposing dark-brown,
  frightened eyes. Vildana kept her mouth covered, however.
 The woman talked to her softly in a sing-song voice.
  'She explain who we are,'Josip whispered, resting a hand on Lorna's
  shoulder and putting his face close to her ear.
  She flinched as the stubble of his chin brushed her cheek and she caught
  the smell of his hangover breath.
  'Ask Monika if Vildana knows that we're planning to get her out of the
  country,' she told him brusquely.
  Josip obliged. Monika bobbed her head from side to side as if to say 'yes,
  but. . .'
  How much of anything did Vildana understand, Lorna began to wonder.
  She crossed the room and kneeled on the rough concrete a few feet in front
  of the child. Twelve years old. About the same age as Julie was when she'd
  had to give up caring for her.
 'Hi, Vildana. I'm Loma,' she said, forcing a smile.
  The dark eyes wouldn't look at her. The grubby hands still covered her
  mouth. Twelve years old and still so much a child. Julie had developed a
  woman's ways by this age.
 'Vildana? I want to help you if I can. If you'll let me.'
 She beckonedJosip over to translate.
 'Do you want me to help you?'
 josip let the translation slip sofdy from his tongue.
  The girl's eyes looked up for guidance. The woman who'd been caring for her
  nodded.
  'Will you tell me?' Lorna pleaded. 'I want to be your friend, Vildana.'
  Slowly Vildana pulled her hands away from her mouth, eyes watching for the
  look of distaste which, experience had told her, would flit across the
  visitor's face.
 A strawberry birthmark. A big one. Poor kid, Loma

               152
 thought. Such a pretty face otherwise. Maybe the surgeons could fix it.
  Fighting for self-control, Lorna let nothing show. Just smile, she told
  herself. She'd done it forjulie, she could do it for this girl.
 She reached out. Vildana's cheek felt hot and moist.
 'Do you know where America is?' Lorna coaxed.
 josip relayed the question. Vildana nodded.
 'Would you like to go live there?'
  She shook her head and the eyes began to fill with tears.
  The woman looked desperate. She hugged the child, then whispered something
  tojosip.
  'She say they cannot look after her much longer. They only marry few
  months, and Vildana not their family.'
 'And there's no one else? No uncles, aunts, cousins?'
  'She say no. Vildana father killed months ago, and the rest of her family
  die at Tulici.'
  Monika beckoned Lorna andjosip to the other side of the room.
  'Well, she say there is nothing for this girl in Bosnia,' he explained.
  They both glanced at the damaged creature in the corner. The problem was
  how to get her out of the country. Apart from anything else she'd need a
  passport.
  Lorna turned to the girl again, an idea forming in her head.
  'Vildana, can I see how tall you are?' She held out her hands and beckoned
  the girl over. Hesitantly Vildana obliged.
  She can walk at least, Lorna thought. Looks more normal standing up. She
  held her lightly by the shoulders.
  'Monika, can you explain to Vildana that we'll try to find her a nice
  family to live with, in a place where there's no shooting?'
 Lorna watched the girl's face as Monika talked to her.

               153
  'Tell her she'd have her own room, lots of nice clothes and things."
  She was determined to find something that might bring hope to those tragic
  eyes.
 No response.
  Hell! This was like walking a minefield, but she'd give it a shot.
  Josip,' she whispered in an aside, 'tell Monika to say to Vildana there'd
  be doctors in America who'd make her mouth better. She could look as
  beaufful as a moviestar and have all the boys begging for her to smile at
  them.'
 Josip coughed.
 'You're sure you want me translate?'
  'Whisper it to Monika. See if she thinks it's a good idea.'
  He did so. Monika's tired eyes seemed to grow in their sockets. She looked
  across at Lorna as if to say 'how could you?'
 Then the girl's eyes darted from one face to another.
 'She heard you,' Loma whispered.
 Vildana's voice when it came was a husky squeak.
 'She ask if it true,'Josip confirmed.
  'Then we're getting somewhere. Josip, bring Monika next door, would you?'
  Loma walked back into the room with the kitchen table. The other two joined
  her a moment later.
  'Maybe Vildana will be happy to go with me,' Lorna began. 'But the first
  problem is how to get her out of here. Would I be able to take her through
  the checkpoints on the road to Split, without any papers?'
 Josip make a'tchk' sound.
  'Impossible. Armija could shoot you for steal child, and HVO shoot her
  because she Muslim.'
  'So how do we do it? Ask Monika what's happened in the past.'
 Josip conferred.

               154
  'She say sometimes UN fly children from Sarajevo, but only when television
  makes big story. Anyway, it impossible to take Viddana to Sarajevo. No.
  Monika say the only way is to hide her in a white truck. There are many go
  to Split empty.'
 'Hmm.'
 Alex! He had a truck.
  It was as if spring had arrived. Maybe this was the reason they were
  suddenly meeting again. Somebody up there making the breaks - like they'd
  done before.
 She grabbedJosip's arm.
  'Hang on here Josip. Get Monika to keep up the persuasion. I got to go see
  sorneone.'
  She ran back down the path of broken bricks into the road. Two bearded men
  in fatigues watched her with cool curiosity, rifles slung lazily across
  their backs.
  The truck was still there, just beyond her own Land Cruiser. Alex lounged
  against it. He spotted her and came her way. She slowed to a walk,
  hurriedly composing her thoughts.
  'The girl's okay?' he asked, seeing the concentration on her face.
  She stopped a few feet away, hands behind her back and chin thrust forward
  in that intense way she had when there was something important to say. Her
  blonde hair stuck out spikily as if electrified by the energy inside her
  head.
 'Are you taking that truck back down to Spliff
 He read her mind.
  'Well, yes, in a day or two. When we've handed out all the supplies we
  brought up.'
  She nodded, her whole body rocking with the motion of it. Dare she trust
  him again?
  The salt and pepper grizzle on his chin might have changed his appearance,
  but his eyes had the same directness she'd fallen for in that Hampstead
  pub.
 Oh hell! She had to trust him. No alternative.

               155
  'When you and I ... all those years ago . . .'she began hesitantly. She
  held out her right hand, fingers cupped as if holding something precious.
 'Ye-es,' he answered, worried about what was coming.
 'We ... we shared something, didn't we?'
 She saw his frown and nearly gave up.
  'This sounds crazy, but I'm talking about fate Alex. You rernernber,' she
  floundered, unable to look him in the eye. 'Things that are meant to be?
  We were believers, weren't we? God, I must be mad standing in the middle
  of all this shit and talking such stuff. .
 'Go on. I'm listening.'
  'Well, you've got to admit it's one hell of a coincidence, that we both
  end up here, doing the same sort of job?'
 'It certainly is,' he nodded, his mind racing.
  'Okay. Here it is. In that house up the road, there's one totally
  traumatized twelve-year-old child called Vildana. She needs psychiatric
  treatment, she needs surgery, and she needs to be gotten away from this
  place where there are people who want to kill her.'
 'I see,' he nodded, listening intently.
  'But for a Muslim girl with no papers, there's only one way you can get
  out from Central Bosnia.' She pointed at the Bedford. 'Hidden in the back
  of an aid truck.'
 'Ahh . . .' He'd guessed right.
  His pulse quickened. Maybe he would start believing in fate. This
  twelve-year-old girl could be the catalyst to bring him and Lorna
  together again. And she might lead him to Milan Pravic.
  ,I'll have to talk it through with Moray,' he answered cautiously.
 'Can you do it now?'
 'It'd be better tonight. Over a drink.'
  'Okay, okay. I've got a lot of things to fix, anyhow. Now, look. How do
  we meet up tomorrow? Where do I find you?'

               156
  'Come to Vitez in the afternoon. We're in a house opposite the UN
  camp. Ask for Bosnia Emergency in the P.Info, that's the press office.
  They'll show you where.'
  Behind him the Bedford coughed into life. McFee was making his point.
 'Okay. I'll get there.'
  They stoodjust inches apart, unable to bridge the gap, staring at each
  other awkwardly.
 'Tomorrow, then.'
 'Bye.'
  He turned on his heel and pulled himself into the cab through the door
  that Ivan held open.

 157
             Thirteen

 Central Bosnia

 McFee simmered silently for most of the drive down from the village. Then,
 after they had dropped Ivan at the Travnik refugee centre, he let fly.
  'Look chum, there's rules in this place. And thanks to you we just broke
  a whole set back there!'
  'What d'you mean?' Alex snapped, angry at McFee's high-handedness.
  'That village was dead dodgy. Muj all over the place. The rule is get in,
  get the stuff off, and get outJast. It's not the time to hang about so's
  you can chat up old girlfriends!'
  'Christ, Moray! If you'd met someone you hadn't seen for twenty years,
  what would you have done?'
  Alex bit his tongue. Not a good time to pick a fight with McFee.
  McFee weaved past the junction with Route Triangle. Ten more minutes and
  they'd be at the house. It was late afternoon.
  'I suppose the lassie will be warming your bed for ye, tonight,' he
  needled sourly, hunched over the wheel, grubby and frayed.
  Alex guessed they both looked like that by now. 'I should be so lucky.
  . .' he snorted.
 They jolted on.
  'Women, eh?' McFee mused bitterly. 'Nothing but trouble. . .'
 'Yeh ... Don't know why we bother...'
 McFee seemed to want to get something off his chest.

               158
 Alex decided it might pay dividends if he were to play along.
 The Scotsman whistled tunelessly for a second or two.
  'All that hassle for a few moments of pleasure. . .' he sighed.
 Alex sensed the imminence of a torrent of misogyny.
  'It's a matter of luck,' he answered vaguely. 'Some you win, some you
  lose.'
  'Me? I lost.. .' McFee continued, bitterly. 'Picked a woman who was no
  use to any man, and waited too long before doing anything about it.'
 'How long were you married?'
  'Sixteen years. Didn't get hitched until I was nearly forty.'
 'No kids, you said?' Alex checked.
  'She lost a couple. Miscarried. Then refused to try any more. Pity. I
  really love kids. And after that, she didna want to know about sex...'
 'But you stayed with her sixteen years?'
  'Aye!' McFee shook his head in disbelief. 'Must want in' head examined.'
 'But now you've split up for good?'
  'Oh aye!' he chuckled. 'She'd take a carving knife to me now, if she
  could...'
  'Why, what did you do to her?' he asked, then wished he hadn't.
 McFee laughed awkwardly.
  'Well if a chap doesn't get his oats at home, he has to go somewhere
  else.'
 'Ali. A girlfriend, eh? Nothing so dreadful in that.'
  McFee didn't answer. He looked as if he wanted to open up but there was
  something stopping him. They reached the outskirts of Vitez.
  'Quite a lot of "somewhere elses", that was the trouble,' he mumbled
  eventually. 'Ladies o' the n~ght.' There was a glint in his eye, almost
  like pride.
 'Sounds expensive,' Alex remarked lamely.

               159
  'Not at all,' McFee answered. 'It costs plenty if you take a lassieto a
  nice restaurant because you want to fuck her after. And she may not even
  oblige. My way costs the same, but removes the doubt. . .'
  A grubby argument for self-interest that sounded well rehearsed.
  'And since you're paying, you call the shots. Don't have to worry about
  whether the earth moves for them.. .' he added, his mouth twisting.
  So, Moray was into hookers, Alex thought. Not often you met someone who'd
  admit to that. He couldn't help a sense of disgust.
  He began to remember things. The girls McFee had chatted up in the London
  pub the evening he came down from Edinburgh. Must have gone with one of
  them when he slipped out of the boarding house in the middle of the night.
  'And as you said last night, I suppose out here the tarts come pretty
  cheap,' Alex prodded, thinking of the woman from the camp kitchens with the
  gipsy eyes.
  McFee bristled. 'What I said's between you and me, okay?' He reversed the
  truck into the driveway to their house. 'I don't go telling everyone. Some
  people can take against you.'
  The Scotsman looked flushed, as if fearful he'd said too much already.
 'Fine.' Alex had heard enough.
  Inside the house, McFee put the kettle onto the heat. Alex decided it was
  time to talk business.
  'So what's the plan for the next few days, Moray?' he asked, trying to
  sound casual.
  'It's the Croats tomorrow. We'll find a home for the other half of our
  supplies. Then we might head for Split the day after. There should be
  another bread van out from England soon. I'll check at P.Info to see if
  there's been a fax for us.'

               160
  The landlady came in with fresh bread and homemade curd cheese.
 'Dobar dan, Dragana,' McFee greeted her.
 'Dobar dan, Dobar daal'
 They brewed the tea and ate the food.
  Alex noticed McFee looked preoccupied, as if the man regretted letting even
  a small amount of daylight shine on the dark secrets of his sex-life.
  He cleared his throat. The issue of Lorna's orphan could wait no longer.
  'If we join a convoy on the way south,' Alex began innocently, 'do we get
  much hassle? Road blocks, searches and so on?'
 McFee seemed not to hear. Then he began to focus.
  'Er ... well I've only done the trip once,' he reminded him. 'Had a clear
  run that time. Why?'
 No point 'in prevaricating.
  'So if there was a good reason to smuggle someone out of here through the
  front lines, in the empty truck, it should be possible. . .'
 Too blunt, Alex thought. Damn!
 McFee raised an eyebrow, startled.
  'Oh aye! And if you wanted to smuggle grenades in with the supplies on the
  way up, that should be possible too. Only you'd never do it. Because if you
  got caught you'd be dead. And every aid organization in Bosnia would become
  suspect. You'd screw it for everybody.'
  'There could be exceptions though, like a child who would die if she didn't
  get medical treatment?'
 McFee looked at him suspiciously.
  'What are you on about? It's yon lassie, isn't it? Yon Lorna.'
  'Well, yes, actually. She's got a big problem on her hands and needs our
  help.'
  'God almighty! You only spent a few minutes with the woman and already
  she's got you jumpin' through hoops ... What's this all abouff

               161
 This wasn't going the way he'd intended.
  He told McFee about the girl Vildana. The Scotsman's eyes seemed to fill
  with mist.
  'And all of this came out when you bumped into Lorna this afternoon?'
 Alex nodded.
  'I wonder! You sure you didn't fix all this up before? I'm beginning to
  think I'm being set up by you twose.'
 'Come off it, Moray!'
  'Well, whatever ... The answer's no. Major Mike would go through the roof.
  It's just not on, chum.'
  'There's no reason Mike should ever know about it.. .'Alex pressed.
  'Don't even think about it! It's too bloody dangerous. For us, for the kid
  and for Bosnia Emergency. You'll have to tell the lassie to try it on in
  her own car.'
  'There's not a lot of room to hide in a Land Cruiser,' Alex responded.
  McFee was adamant. 'There's no way, Alex. No way.' His scowl warned not to
  press the point any further.
  He sat hunched on the sofa, the troubled look back in his eyes. He jiggled
  his foot nervously. Suddenly he stood UP-
  'I'm just off out for a minute,' he said. 'I'll see if there's any messages
  and find out where's the best place to take the stuff for the Croats
  tomorrow. See you later.'
  Alex raised a hand. He watched McFee amble to the door, seeing him in a new
  light now. For some reason it was hard to respect a man who had to pay for
  sex.
  There was a roundness to McFee's shoulders, a bit of a stoop. He had the
  look of someone living amongst shadows.
  Alex pulled out a cigarette, tapped it on the arm of the sofa, then lit up.
  He felt angry with himself. Should have handled things better. Smuggling
  the girl out was something he had to do. It wasn't just her future that
  depended on it.

               162
  But McFee had the power to block him. He was the boss out here. Unless
  Alex could think of a way to change that ...

 163
            Fourteen

 The Same day - Monday 28th March The Barit en Desert, Iran

 Dr Hamid Akhavi sat in the back of the Nissan as it turned out of the
 security gates and headed for Yazd down the service road built by engineers
 from the Revolutionary Guards. He removed his black-framed spectacles and
 polished the lenses.
  Dasht-e-Lut is the name given to the expanse of sandblown hills and plains
  in the heart of Iran, a place of lingering death for any life caught under
  the blast of the summer sun. An isolated, lonely place, six hundred
  kilometres from the nearest neighbouring state, as far from an enemy attack
  as it is possible to get - the reason it had been chosen as the site for a
  nuclear bomb factory.
  Everything around him was the colour of sand - the long, concrete-capped
  laboratories with their deep, underground workshops; the accommodation
  block where he lived with his wife and child; even this car taking him to
  the airport.
  just sand - that's what they hoped the spy satellites would see, and the
  pilots of the Israeli planes if they ever braved such an expanse of hostile
  airspace to attack the plant.
 The bomb meant 'power'.
  To the east, possession of it had made equals of Pakistan and India. To the
  west, thejews believed it guaranteed their survival, and fear of its
  acquisition by the madman in Baghdad had struck terror into the hearts of
  the Americans and the fat sheikhs in the Gulf

               164
  The nights were cold here at this time of year. Icy even. It was late
  afternoon and the sun had warmed the air to a comfortable twenty degrees.
  Hamid's wife hated life in the desert compound; nothing to do but talk
  to other mothers and watch television. She'd asked to be given work at
  the site even if it were only typing, but the guards who controlled
  everything had refused. Security grounds, they'd said.
  Hamid looked out of the car window at the hostile, grey-brown landscape.
  He'd resolved one day to live somewhere green, with water and flowers
  always in sight. But not yet. Not until the regime released him from the
  burden they'd placed on his shoulders.
  Thirty-three years old now, with black hair and a thin moustache, he'd
  been just eighteen when the mullahs overthrew the Shah. On television,
  the world had watched the mob choke Tehran's streets to welcome Khomeini
  back. He'd been in that crowd, a passionate believer in change from the
  corrupt old ways.
  Later, at university, his brilliance had shone. The Islamic leaders
  decided he had a talent they could not afford to lose. They had inherited
  a nuclear programme from the time of the Shah - reactors at Bushehr, only
  half built. Publicly they'd stopped the programme, proclaiming it
  'unislamic'. but privately Hamid and a cadre of others were coached in
  the art of the atom, ready for the day when the priests recognized where
  power truly lay.
  He'd been sent to Russia to learn to handle and machine nuclear
  materials, an isolated, often lonely life in Gorky, but one which had
  relieved him of his obligation to fight on the bloodstained frontier with
  Iraq.
  To get the bomb before Iraq - that's what sustained him through these
  difficult days in the desert. Soon all his years of study, A his
  assiduous contact-building would pay off. Hamid was on the threshold of
  a deal that could give his nation that bomb withmi two years.
 His elation was tempered with fear, however. Fear

               165
 that the mullahs would still be in power when his bomb became a reality.
 Like most of the educated in Iran, Hamid had long since ceased to believe
 that power was safe in clerical hands.
  That Iran should become a nuclear power - he was a believer. So long as the
  bombs were used for power-play and not to kill. But whether the mullahs
  would embrace such constraints - that was the question he couldn't answer.
  He slipped off the jacket of his clerical-grey suit, hung it on the
  door-handle hook, then loosened the collar of his white shirt. Over an
  hour's drive to the airport at Yazd, another hour for the flight to Tehran.
  There'd be a day or two to wait in the capital before the military jet took
  him out of the country. They'd not told him the date he would travel.
  Security again.
  He was excited by his mission, but afraid too. The authorities had placed
  absolute trust in him, but if he failed, their revenge would be
  uncompromising.
  A month ago he'd confided his worries in his sister in Tehran, breaking all
  the rules of security. He'd told her about his work, and about the Russians
  with plutonium for sale. Told her so that if he disappeared one day,
  someone could tell the outside world why.
  Unfortunately for Hamid, in a careless moment she already had.

 Sheremetyevo Airport, Moscow

         I

 It wouldn't be cheap making the Iran deal work. Colonel Pavel Kulikov
 already had six people on his payroll at the weapon dismantling site near
 Sverdlovsk, and the

               166
 advance payment he'd squeezed out of the Iranians would soon be exhausted.
  In his late forties, with hair the colour of brushed aluminium, he strode
  purposefully across the departure concourse in his smart, grey biznu*n=
  suit, looking up at the indicator board for word on the flight to Zagreb.
  His baggage trolley bore a suitcase whose contents could get him
  court-martialled.
  He had no qualms about what he was doing. The nuclear genie escaped the
  bottle long ago. Nothing could stop its spread. Thanks to him it might
  happen faster, that was all.
  In his world, it was every man for himself now, loyalty to the State a
  thing ofthe past. Loyalty to oneself was all a Russian could afford these
  days.
  He knew of many, hungry scientists tempted to do the same as him, many
  who craved the dollars that would transform their lives. Some had
  resorted to the Mafia to find a market for their nuclear materials, but
  ended up being cheated.
  Kulikov had no need of intermediaries. He had access to the tons of
  plutonium removed from dismantled missiles, access to the
  American-financed plants where the cores were sliced to prevent
  reassembly. And, above all, he had the means and the skills to run his
  own sales operation.
  Most of his military career had been spent securing special weapons -
  nuclear and biological - protecting the sites where warheads were stored
  and where they were made.
  He'd befriended the young Iranian while assigned to the All-Union
  Research Institute for Experimental Physics near Gorky. Communism was
  meeting its nemesis at the time. The two men had debated revolutions and
  political corruption, topics they understood well.
 After Hamid returned home to Iran, they'd remained

               167
 in touch, each thinking the other might be useful one day, even if at the
 time they didn't know how.
  Kulikov lifted his heavy suitcase from the trolley and presented it to the
  check-in counter. Heavy because it contained a segment of plutonium the
  size of a thin wedge of cheese.
  Sweat chilled his upper lip. The next few minutes were dangerous. If the
  case was opened and examined he'd be in deep trouble.
  The clerk took his ticket and passport and tapped at the computer. The
  travel papers stated Kulikov was on an official visit to UNPROFOR
  headquarters in Zagreb. They'd cost him five hundred dollars.
  Full of angst, he watched the suitcase disappear. Would the idiots send it
  to the same place as him? Disastrous if they didn't. Disastrous!
  He'd weighed the risks carefully, though. Putting the sample in his hand
  baggage would have meant greater danger. The X-rays at every airport, the
  searches. Holdbaggage would be safer; it was seldom checked.
  Unsmiling, the clerk thrust him the boarding pass. Kulikov joined the queue
  for passport control.

 Berlin

 Parking near Oranienburgerstrasse was hard in the early evening. A rash of
 arty caf6s and restaurants had opened in the oldJewish quarter of east
 Berlin since unification. Dieter Konrad, alias Herr Dunkel, left the
 Mercedes half a kilometre away, and walked to the brothel.
  He nodded at the policeman guarding the synagogue. Neo-nazis had threatened
  bomb attacks. The papers that

               168
 morning had reported gravestones defaced in a Jewish cemetery.
  At the junction where the road forked, the first whores were out. Early
  birds, dressed like fantasy creatures. Huge blonde wigs, thigh-length,
  black leather boots, flesh-coloured tights, topped by crotch-hugging
  briefs and lurid bomber jackets. They stood in the road, offering
  themselves to passing cars.
  'Guten abend rw*n Herr! one of them called to Konrad, her voice like a
  caress. 'M&hten Sie ein sc&nes Geschdft mit mir machen?
  So open, so blatant, the offer to 'do business'. He ignored her. In
  communist times they'd have been J ailed for this. Prostitution had had
  to lurk underground in those days, in the backstreets nearby. A small,
  criminal community open to exploitation. Particularly by people Re him.
  He looked the part for this area - a man on his own, in a raincoat. Not
  very tall, a little overweight and a face with withdrawn, watchful eyes,
  hiding behind spectacles. An average punter. Even the stick-on moustache
  would draw little attention here. The whores were used to men with hair
  that wasn't their own.
  He turned left off the main street, past a couple of caf6s and then right
  to where the small neon sign winked above a doorway. He pressed a bell
  and the door clicked open automatically.
  It was an ordinary apartment building, this entrance and staircase
  serving four floors. Two flats on each of the upper floors, two rooms per
  flat, twelve girls altogether, he reckoned.
  The 'madame' whose name Gisela had given him emerged from a ground floor
  doorway and welcomed him with a handshake. Heavily coated with cosmetics,
  she looked in her sixties. Too old for work, she'd moved into management.
 'Herr Dunkel! You're back again, so soon.'

               169
  She led him into her plush living room, all soft sofas and walls adorned
  with pornographic paintings.
  'You want Karina I suppose?' she asked. 'She's a little busy just now.
  You'll waiff
 'There's somewhere private?'
  Last time he'd been shown to a lounge where customers sat, avoiding each
  other's gaze until the girl of their choice came free. To be avoided at
  all cost. He wanted as few witnesses as possible.
  'You can wait here if you like, until . . .'The sound of the door-buzzer
  stopped her. 'Perhaps not. Come.'
  She led him along a short passageway to a bedroom that smelled of Chanel.
  'This is my own room. You won't be disturbed,' she smiled, touching him
  softly on the lapel.
 'Thank you. I'm a shy man.'
 She nodded understandingly.
  'I hope that Karina is ... everything you expected? I think her talents
  were what you were looking for.'
  'First impressions were good,' Konrad nodded. 'For the rest ... we'll
  see.'
  'She won't be long. I'll let her know someone's waiting. There's a little
  green light in her room which I can switch on from down here.'
 She waddled back along the corridor.
  Konrad's pulse raced. The girl upstairs had better not let him down. Time
  was running out.
  Ten minutes passed, broken occasionally by the sound of the door, and by
  footsteps on the stairs. Then suddenly a petite, pale face with straight
  black hair like a doll's poked round the bedroom door.
  'So, it's you.' She didn't smile. 'I thought it would be. Come with me.'
  Karina led the way up the main staircase. A low-cut, white Lycra slip
  clung to her torso, stretched taut by the nipples of her big, firm
  breasts. Her disproportionately narrow hips were sheathed in an absurdly
  small skirt

               170
 made of shiny red plastic. Konrad was mesmerized by the outline of her
 cherry-like buttocks as she minced in front of him.
  The room was small and the air stale. A large fourposter bed took up most
  of the space. There was a dressing table with a flat-backed hairbrush,
  and a curtained opening led to a bathroom.
  Karina closed the door and spun round to face him. Her painted lips
  smiled, but her eyes didn't. Communism might be dead, but she had a
  lingering fear of the Horch und Guck - the 'listen and look', as the
  Stasi were known.
 'So,' Konrad began. 'Do you have it?'
 The girl wa s so young, the bed so blatant, he wasn't
 here for sex but felt a tightening in his trousers none the
 less.
  ,7azvoh1l But it wasn't easy. And it will cost you more, darling.' Her
  voice had the huskiness of a heavy smoker.
  'We agreed a pri(-,e,' he snapped. 'One thousand marks.'
  'It's not enough, rwn Lieber! It took time. I lost business here, finding
  the right type for you.'
  Her nut-brown eyes were as hard as pebbles, but he could see she was
  scared of him.
  Konrad seethod. They always did this, these creatures from the gutter.
  Cheating was a habit.
 'Let me see it.'
 'Let me see your money first. Two thousand marks!'
  'No way, you bitch! No way I'll pay you that much. One thousand, or I'll
  go elsewhere!'
  She could see he was bluffing, see too from his mushy eyes that he wanted
  more from her than he'd said.
 'Fifteen hundred then, and I'll suck you for free.'
 He flinched at her crudeness.
  'Ach, show it to me and stop wasting my time,' he growled.
 'Money on the table . . .' she insisted.

               171
  Petulantly he took an envelope from his coat pocket and slapped it onto the
  bed.
 'There's a thousand in there. We'll see about the rest.'
  Karina fixed him with her eye. She'd decided beforehand to make him sweat
  if she could. Slowly she undid the zipper on her skirt, while humming 'the
  Stripper'. Konrad swallowed.
  With the waistband of her skirt loosened, she slipped her fingers down the
  front of her black panties, retrieved the slim booklet she'd concealed
  there and held it out to him.
 Konrad took the passport. It felt warm.
  Rzeczpospofita PoUa was marked in gold on the grubby, blue cover. It was
  creased as if its owner had kept it in a back trouser pocket.
  Konrad opened it. Marek Gruszka was the name next to the photograph inside.
  Born 1962 in Wroclaw. It looked perfect but he wasn't going to let her know
  that. He frowned.
  'It's good, yes?' she asked anxiously. 'It's what you wanted. What you told
  me.'
  Konrad fingered the document, held it up to the light and ran a finger-nail
  round the edge of the plastic covered photograph.
  'The man was here in this room when you took it?' he asked disparagingly.
  'Course not. I don't nick stuff here. I'd be out on my ear. Anyway, the
  punters would know where to find me. I'd get my pretty face slashed.'
  She moved close to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
 'And you wouldn't want that, would you darling?'
  She pressed her naked midriff against him. She could tell he was almost
  hard. Konrad pushed her away.
 'Where then? Where did you get it?'
 Scowling, she pulled up her zip again.
 'What's it to you? I got what you wanted, didn't V

               172
 He grabbed her wrist.
 just tell me!'
 She winced at the harshness of his grip.
  'The Tiergarten, of course. That's where the Poles go. They park up
  between the Grosser Stem and the Brandenburg. Some like to do it in the
  bushes. This one had a bed in the cab of his truck. Two nights I hung
  around there. Scheiss kalt! I was about to give up and find somewhere
  wann, when this trailer truck pulled in. The bloke wound down the window,
  sitting in his bloody shirt sleeves with the heater turned full up. I was
  so cold I'd have paid him to get in.
  'In his shirt sleeves, with his jacket hung up next to him. And that
  little sweetheart poking out of a pocket.'
  She pointed at the passport, then screwed up her face with distaste.
  'Dirty bastard. Stank like a butcher's shop. And thirty marks was all he
  was going to pay. I said he could have hand relief or nothing.'
 Her small mouth widened into a smile again.
  'But I made it a bit special! Took my knickers off and laid them on his
  face while I tossed him off. So when I grabbed his passport, he couldn't
  see!'
  Her description of the act shrivelled Konrad's tumescence.
  'All right. I'll give you another two hundred,' he snapped, eager to be
  away from this place. He stuffed the passport in an inside pocket.
  'No way! I missed two nights in this cosy hole to get it. That's worth
  a thousand at least. And don't you try and sneak off.' She darted to the
  bedside and held her finger over a bell-push. 'There's a bloke as big as
  a wardrobe who will be waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs.'
 'Arschloch!' he snarled.
  Konrad was beaten. He extracted his wallet and counted out five hundred
  marks. The girl took it and

               173
 then checked the contents of the envelope on the bed. All correct.
  'A pleasure doing business with you,' she said, moving close to him again.
  'Sure there's nothing else you want?'
 She fingered his genitals.
  Her flesh seemed to emanate warmth; her perfume tantalized his senses. Then
  Konrad thought of her in that truck on the Tiergarten.
 'Aufiviedersehen, Frdulein Karim.'
  He shook her hand. An automatic gesture, but one he instantly regretted. As
  he descended the stairs he wiped his palm on his coat.

 174
              Fifteen

 Zenica, Bosnia

 The power was on ,it the International Hotel in Zenica. Lorna hurried to gct
 things done before it blacked out again. Since returning from the village of
 Duba, she'd hardly stopped shaking.
  Her bedroom window faced southwest, as she'd requested. She opened the
  glass and positioned a bedside table under the ledge. No obstructions. A
  clear view to the Atlantic sky.
  The evening air made her shiver and she put her anorak back on.
  She placed the digital satphone on the table, unfolded the flat antenna and
  adjusted it for elevation and azimuth. Luckily there were no tower blocks
  in the way.
  She powered up the equipment, fine-tuned it for signal strength, then
  connected the modem lead from her portable computer and switched on.
  'This is where I start praying. . .' she muttered, not too hot on
  technology.
  Laurence Machin, the computer-wizard who'd founded CareNet had coached her
  in how to use the equipment, but would she remember it right?
  The screen of the portable flickered and flashed as the software loaded,
  then settled on the 'Cityscape' navigator software. She clicked on the
  'dial' button with the mouse.
 'If this works it'll be a miracle,' she whispered.
  The modem purred and bleeped, then the screen prompted her for her log-in
  name and password.

               175
  'Wow. I sure am getting the breaks today. . .' she grinned.
  From the Internet menu she picked <Usenet>, then <alt.childadopt. agency>.
  Another menu appeared. She chose the item <children available>.
  She was now connected to the electronic bulletin board used by Machin as a
  'hyperspace' adoption agency.
  She typed 'ADD', then the screen cleared for her message.

 Urgently seekingfoster home, 12jear-old Vildanafrom central
 Bosnia. This child must be evacuatedfor her own safety. Badly scarred
 mentally, after seeing herfamiyl murdered, and with a mild physical
 handicap, she will need extensive pjychuitric therapy and medical
 attention.
 This one's a real 'toughie',- thegirl is in bad need ofan 'angel' * ff
 there's one out there, please reply to this as soon as possible.
 For legal reasons, adoption cannot be entered into i . mmediateyl,
 but it can be a lo?W-term intention.

  Next she switched to e-mail and sent a longer, more detailed message to
  Machin himself, explaining how she was planning to get the girl out of
  Bosnia.
  There were no messages in her own box, so she logged off.
  That was it. Thirty million people could now read her words, people in what
  Machin termed 'the grade one market' of academics and businessmen who used
  the Internet. just the sort of people who had the drive and the financial
  resources to make the adoption of problem children viable. In theory.
  Lorna powered down the equipment. So impersonal this idea of computerized
  child adoption. What she'd fired into the ether wasn't key-strokes. It was
  a life.

               176
 She folded the antenna and closed the window.
  God, it was cold! She removed her boots and lay on the bed, her legs
  under the blankets, shoulders propped against a pillow. She'd keep the
  anorak on until the room warmed up again.
  Across the room on the dressing table sat her Nikon. Inside it was Alex
  - a picture of him at least. With his arm round her. Just like old times.
  She still found it hard to believe. The beard had thrown her. She'd never
  liked facial hair. Soon get him to sha ...
 Hell! Slow down!
  She'd been vilifying the man for two decades, how could she even consider
  a new relationship with him? Didn't know anything about him any more.
  He'd said he'd been hiding. Where? Married? Kids?
  She closed her eyes, trying to visualize him in that house near Vitez.
  Half-a-dozen in his team, she guessed. Drivers, organizers, a mechanic
  and a translator. Probably with their own generators and satcoms. You'd
  need that sort of set-up to function long-term in Bosnia.
  The translator could be a girl. Maybe he desired her. Maybe they were
  lovers even ...
  She opened her eyes wide to stop the racetrack of her mind. Fate had
  brought Alex back to her for one purpose and one purpose only - to get
  Vildana out of Bosnia.

 The cookhouse was crowded. Alex and McFee squeezed in amongst
 shaven-headed French soldiers who'd stopped for an evening meal on their
 way to Sarajevo.
  Alex hadn't mentioned Vildana again. He planned to wait until later when
  the Scotsman had a few whiskies inside him. McFee looked tense and
  thoughtful, his mind elsewhere. He kept glancing over his shoulder.
  'Bloody great this apple dappy,' Alex remarked, spooning in the sticky
  pudding.

               177
  'Oh aye. But it makes you droop, that stuff,' McFee joked absently. He had
  eaten little that evening.
  'Tell you what,' he went on. 'I've an idea. Why don't you go to the P.Info
  briefing on your own? I'll wander round the camp a bit and see if I can
  pick up a bit o' goss'p. Always useful.'
  'Sure. Why not?' It wasn't gossip McFee planned to pick up, Alex reckoned.
 They took their trays to the bin.
  'See you later, then, eh?' McFee said, out in the darkened Warrior park,
  expecting Alex to head straight for the Press Office.
 'I'm going to take a leak first.'
  His feet crunched across the hardcore to the white portakabins which
  accommodated the soldiers. The floor of the toilet was mud-stained and wet.
  He headed back into the darkness, annoyed at having left his torch at the
  house. He paused to let his eyes adjust. To his right, pans clattered in
  the cookhouse, to his left, a diesel Land Rover rattled past.
  He set off again, once his eyes could make out the boards that would get
  him safely through the mud on the camp perimeter. Had to hurry or he'd be
  late. The planks passed between rows of containers. From somewhere amongst
  them he heard hushed voices arguing. A woman, then McFee.
  The man's a sex junkie, Alex thought. He squelched into deep mud.
 'Shit!
  His boots were caked. Reaching the tarmac at last, he stamped and scraped
  until his feet felt lighter again. At the door to P.Info he paused to wipe
  off the remains of the slime. On the way in a corporal was inspecting the
  journalists' feet.
 'You're a house-proud lot,' Alex remarked.
  'So would you be if you lived in this 'ouse,' the soldier replied.

               178
  Major Clarke-Hartley had little to say that evening, other than that the
  Bosnian Army third Corps was having trouble getting its MuJahedin
  elements to obey the cease-fire.
  'How many of them are there?' asked a man from the BBC.
  'Don't know for sure. A couple of hundred, maybe. But they're a
  determined bunch, as many of you know.'
  There was a murmur of assent. The MuJ hated journalists and they'd all
  had brushes with them.
  The briefing over, the Major nobbled Alex as he was about to leave.
  'Hi. Tell me, how's old Mike Allison?' he asked amiably. 'He was in my
  regiment, you know. Splendid chap.'
  'Really? Well I've only met him once. Seemed pretty switched on.'
  'He certainly is.'The Major seemed eager to chat. 'So ... where've you
  been today then?'
 Alex struggled to remember the name of the village.
 'Place called Duba?'
  'Oh, ye-es. Lots of MuJ up there. We did a patrol through the area first
  thing this morning.'
  'And tomorrow we're going to Busovaca,'Alex continued. 'There's some
  village near there with a lot of Croat refugees, apparently.'
  'Balancing the books, eh? Well if there's anything I can do, do tell me.'
  The man from the BBC had returned and hustled the Major away.
  Alex wandered back outside. Heading for Dragana's house he suddenly
  noticed two armed men watching from the darkness on the far side of the
  road. Their eyes followed him as he turned into the drive, making the
  skin crawl on the back of his neck.
  He opened the door to the house and called out. No reply. just the
  crackle of logs in the stove. McFee must

               179
 still be doing his business. Could the man really get a thrill by paying
 some slag to serve him behind a container filled with ballast?
  In the living room, a single candle flickered. Alex lit another to brighten
  the place up, opened a can of beer and pulled out his cigarettes.
  Sod it! How was he going to persuade McFee to smuggle the girl out? He took
  in a lungful of smoke.
  Blackmail? Tell him he'd reveal his sordid sex life to the world? Hardly..
  .
  He closed his eyes and thought of Lorna, remembering how good it had felt
  to be near her even if only for a moment when McFee had taken the
  photograph. Sounded stupid, but it had made him feel complete again. He'd
  never had that sort of closeness with Kirsty. He wondered how she was.
  There'd been no news when he'd telephoned from Split.
  He felt cosily comfortable with the gentle popping of wood on the fire, and
  the candle flames still as a painting. His eyelids drooped.
  After a while the sound of footsteps on the gravel stirred him from his
  doze. McFee returning?
  Two pairs of feet. Wouldn't bring the whore back here, surely? He glanced
  at his watch.just after ten. Late for visitors.
  A firm knock on the door. Alex took a candle to answer it.
  'Good evening, sir!'A voice like a rasp. More announcement than greeting.
  Two UN soldiers with armbands.
 'Good evening. What can I do for you?'
 'Would you be Mister Moray McFee?'
 'No. He's not here at the moment.'
 The soldiers glanced at one another.
 'Would it be okay if we came in and waited for him?'
 J suppose so. . .'

               180
  As he let them in, he saw the initials M.P. on their arms in big, red
  letters.
 'Can I ask whoyou are, sir?,
  'Alex Crawford. Moray and I work together. What's this all about?'
  He gestured towards the velour sofa and they sat down, looking stiff and
  awkward. They laid their SA80 rifles on the carpet beside them.
 'A personal matter, sir. Can't discuss it.'
  The one who'd done the talking had a sergeant's stripes. His companion
  was a corporal.
 'I see. Well, would you like a beer?'
 Again, the policemen eyed each other.
  'That'd be grand.' The accent sounded northern. Probably Liverpool.
  Alex retrieved the last two cans from the box in the corner.
  'Running low. I suppose I can get some more at the camp?'
  'No problem. Talk to my mate round the back of the NAAFI shop. He'll see
  you right. Cheers.'
  They nattered for a while about beers, about the food at the camp and
  about the craziness of the Bosnian war. Then the sergeant looked at his
  watch.
  'D'you know when Mister McFee will be back?' he asked.
 'No, I don't. Don't even know where he is.'
  Alex felt the sergeant's eyes boring into his head. Disbelief was written
  on the soldiers' faces.
  'What's the outfit you work for? Bosnia Emergency, is it?'
 'That's right.'
 just the two of you here?'
 Alex nodded.
  'And you don't know where your mate is at half-past ten at night?'
 'Sorry. No I don't.' It wasn't his business to tell them

               181
 McFee was with a whore. 'He told me he was going to hang around the camp
 and pick up some gossip. Are you sure I can't help?'
  'Not unless your name's McFee and you come from Edinburgh,' the sergeant
  scowled.
  'Edinburgh? Something to do with his wife?' Maybe she'd had an accident.
  The corporal snorted. 'She weren't old enough to be anybody's wife. . .'
  Alex felt a chill descend on him. These soldiers were policemen.
 'What d'you mean?'
  McFee's uneasiness that evening ... the hunted look. The feeling that the
  man had said more than he'd meant to ...
 'There's just some questions we want to ask him. .
  Alex recalled the headlines in the Edinburgh paper on the day he left
  home. The police with clipboards investigating the death of a girl ...
  The appeal for witnesses.
  'You've not come to arrest him?' Alex asked incredulously.
  They shook their heads in unison. The sergeant's eyes were like bullets.
  just some questions. On behalf of Edinburgh constabulary.'
 Stony faces that suspected he knew something.
  'Something to do with a girl?' A nod. 'Not the one found dead in
  Edinburgh ten days ago?'
  'What was that then, sir?' The well-practised look of surprise.
  'We're both from E dinburgh. That's where we met. It was in the papers
  when I left, about the girl. A thirteenyear-old found dead. Some
  suspicion she'd been caught up in prostitution?'
 The sergeant nodded slowly.
 'Ever talk about it, you and him?'

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 'Never. But . . . is that why you're here?'
 The sideways glances again.
 "Sright, sir.'
 'But surely you don't think Moray ... ?' he gasped.
 They stared blankly, letting him flounder.
  'Anything you want to tell me, Mr Crawford?' The voice was softer,
  cajoling.
  'I can't believe ... I mean, I hardly know the bloke,' Alex stammered. 'Met
  him a couple of times on the Lothian coast, that's all. I used to go
  running on the beach there, and he walked his dog.'
 'Yellow Craig, was it?'
  The words jabbed at his guts. The dunes ... No one went there at night. Not
  at this time of year. He knew what was coming. He nodded.
  'That's where they found the girl, sir. She'd been strangled.'
  Alex shook his head. McFee's words in his head - since you're payingfor it,
  you call the shots...
  'She'd been a virgin, until that night. . .' the corporal added.
  Silence.just the fire crackling. Then a short burst from an automatic some
  distance away.
 'Cleaning the barrels. . .' the corporal muttered.
 'Appens most nights. They can't seem to kick the habit round here.'
 The sergeant nudged him to be quiet.
  'Moray McFee killed a child?' Alex gasped. He needed them to spell it out.
  'That's right. At least, that's what the boys in Edinburgh say.'
  Jesus ... ! But what evidence have they got that it's him?'
  'Don't know, sir, but they sounded pretty certain. Must be if they're
  involving us. Are you sure there's nothing you can tell me?' the sergeant
  pressed. 'You must have some idea where he is.'

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  Alex clamped his hands on his head. His brain felt as if it were aboiit to
  explode.
  'The last time I saw him was in the camp, after supper,' he whispered.
  'Round where those containers arc. With a woman from the kitchens.'
 'What, Illie?'
 J think that's the name, yes.'
 'Tch! She's the camp, bike,' said the corporal.
  'Well ... if what you're saying is right, maybe ... maybe she's in some
  sort of danger. . .' Alex spluttcred. 'I mean, Moray must be a nutter...'
  His mind raced. Why had McFee rung him on that day of the Funeral? Why had
  he picked him to come out with him? As an unsuspecting smokescreen? Or
  because he'd been wanting to talk all along, and thought for some reason
  Alex would listen? He was good at listening. People always told him as
  much. Jodie, Kirsty - Lorna.
 'Shouldn't you go and search the camp?' he suggested.
  'Done thatiust now. We know all the places. We'lliust wait.' They sat in
  silence, Alex staring at the floor and the soldiers staring at hint.
  Maybe McFee had been on the point of confessing ... Maybe that's why he'd
  begun talking about his 'somewhere elses'.
  'Don't mind us if you want to turn in,' the sergeant said before long.
  Alex looked at his watch again. After eleven. He stood up and moved to the
  window, the neighbouring houses of the village dark and silent in the grey
  moonlight. McFee was out there somewhere. A hostage of the night.
  'All right with you if we sit it out 'til he gets back?' the sergeant
  asked.
  'Mmm? Yes of course.' He turned back to face them. 'I think I will head for
  the sack.'
  'Just before you do, sir, can I have a quick shufti round?'

               184
  The sergeant propelled himself to his feet and flicked on a pocket torch.
 'Always like to see how the other half lives . .
  Alex bristled at the implication he was hiding McFee, but followed him to
  the bathroom then the bedroom.
 'Satisfied?'
  'Not a bad little place, sir. Got the landlady upstairs, have you?'
 Alex nodded. He wanted to be on his own now.
  'No more beer, I'm afraid,' he said, heading for his room. 'But help
  yourself to tea and coffee. If I'm asleep when he comes back, you'd better
  wake me.'
 'Certainly, sir. 'Night.'
  Alone, Alex sat on the divan with his head in his hands. For over a week
  he'd been cheek by jowl with a man who'd raped a child, then stolen her
  life - and he'd known nothing about it. He couldn't believe it.
  The MPs would have to arrest Moray. Ship him back to Scotland so the
  Edinburgh CID could get to work on him.
  He sat motionless for a stretch, stunned and incredulous. The man had
  seemed so normal most of the time. 'I love children', he'd said. God
  Almighty! How could McFee live with himself? And he'd talked so gloatingly
  of his ladies o' the night ... The man was sick.
  After a while Alex suppressed his feelings. Had to think about what it
  meant for him - the practical problem of carrying on the job without McFee.
  There was the delivery to the Croats in the morning. And there'd have to be
  a phone call to Mike Allison in Farnham.
  Then the journey through the mountains back to Split, driving the Bedford
  all the way by himself...
 It hit him.
  Without McFee, there would be no one to stop him smuggling Lorna's orphan
  out in the back of the truck. . .

               185
              Sixteen

 Tuesday 29th March
 Vitez

 Alex was woken by the sound of tank tracks outside. He held his wrist away
 from his face, trying to make out the figures on his watch.
  Five past seven. Jesus! He'd slept, despite everything. Was McFee back? He
  had no idea.
  He tugged down the zip of his sleeping bag and extracted his feet, still
  wearing yesterday's socks. It was icy cold in the room. He pulled on his
  long johns, jeans and a pullover.
  Gruff voices as he stumbled into the sitting room, and rifles on the floor.
  The soldiers who'd come for McFee last night were still here.
  'Morning,' he mumbled, startled. 'Where's Moray? Didn't he come back?'
  The sergeant raised himself from the sofa and rubbed his eyes.
  'Nope. Can't have done.' He looked at his watch. 'We both 'ad a nap. Took
  it in turns . . .'
 They stood up and shook the stiffiness from their legs.
  'Where the hell is he, then?' demanded Alex. 'Something must have
  happened.'
 'Yeh. Must've. We'd better put the word out.'
  'You're going to search for him?' Alex pressed, anxiously.
  'We'll look round the camp anyway. There's a limit though. We're not the
  law around here.'
 'Shall I come with you?'

               186
  'No, ta. Better you hang on here in case he turns up. Can I trust you to
  let us know?'
 'Don't you worry. . .'
  The soldiers picked up their rifles, straightened their berets, and left.
  Alex stared out of the window trying to get his sleepbefuddled brain
  thinking again. He turned to the stove, swung the kettle to check there was
  water in it, then placed it over the heat. A mug of tea was what he needed.
  Last night when the soldiers told him what McFee was accused of, he'd felt
  revulsion for the man. Now in the light of day, he was worried for his
  safety.
  With the tea inside him, he began to think straighter. Perhaps there was a
  simple explanation for his disappearance. Moray could have spent the night
  in Illie's bed, wherever that was. Maybe he would turn up for breakfast in
  the cookhouse.
  He pulled on his walking boots, left foot first, still ruled by the silly
  superstition he'd cultivated during his Scottish exile.
  There had been a dusting of snow overnight. He hurried down the road to the
  UN camp, took his breakfast tray to an empty table, and scanned the faces
  around him. McFee's was not amongst them.
  As he was finishing, he spotted Major Clarke-Hartley emerging from the
  partitioned-off section for officers. He hurried over to catch him.
 'Morning Alan!'
 'Alex. Good day to you.'
  They stepped into the fresh air, a crisp astringent after the cookhouse
  fug.
 'I've got a problem on my hands,' Alex began.
 'Yes. You bloody well have.'
 'You've heard?'
  "Fraid so. The MPs dropped in when they left your house this morning.
  What's your chum been up to?'

               187
  'Nothing good. But we've got to find him. Could he have been taken hostage
  d'you think?'
  'Anything's possible in this place. We'll send someone to badger the HVO
  this morning.'
  'Thanks. In the meantime I've got boxes to deliver to the Croats. Don't
  even know how to find the place.'
  'We'll send a recce patrol with you. And we'll lend a pair of hands to get
  the boxes into the truck.'
 'Terrific, Alan. I'm most grateful.'
  'Look, when you talk to Mike Allison today, as I'm sure you will, do make
  the point that you're a bit thin on the ground. You need a full-time
  liaison bod and an interpreter. I know it's to do with money, but tell him
  all the same. And say it came from me.'
 'I will,' Alex muttered. 'Couldn't agree more.'
  The call to Farnham would wait until later. McFee might have turned up by
  then.
  After half-an-hour, Clarke-Hartley sent round a corporal to help Alex load
  up. Then a pair of Scimitar light tanks scurried up the road from the camp.
  The lieutenant in command checked the grid reference of the village they
  were bound for on his hundred thousand scale map.
 'Right,' he called from his turret. 'All seff
  'Yes, but not too fast. I'm still a bit green with the driving.'
  The truck seemed bigger with just himself in the cab, but with one white
  tank in front and another behind, at least he felt safe.
  The road crossed the battle zone along what was now a cease-fire line. Huge
  water-filled craters, bullet-spattered houses, and a mosque minaret broken
  like a spear bore witness to the intensity of the fight of recent weeks.
  Somewhere in the hills to his left was Tulici, Alex remembered.
 The route followed the line of the LaAva river, a pretty

               188
 torrent under a pale blue sky, spoiled here and there by the detritus of
 war.
  Thirty minutes later they reached the Croat village up a muddy track just
  wide enough for the Scimitars. Children in anoraks and bobble hats ran to
  greet them.
  An HVO soldier waved the vehicles towards a barn. The ground sloped. Alex
  pulled on the handbrake, cut the engine, but left it in gear.
  No crowds surging forward like yesterday.just dozens of watchful faces
  emerging from houses, alerted by the noise of the engines. And, striding
  towards the Bedford, a priest in a black cassock.
 'Dobroj'utro.'
 'Good morning,' Alex replied, jumping to the ground.
 'English?'
 'Yes.'
  'I can speak. Welcome. I am Father Pravic. I am priest here.'
 Pravic, Alex gulped.
  'I'm Alex Crawford. My organization's called Bosnia Emergency.'
 Did he say Pravw*?
 'You bring food, or medicines?'
  'Tinned food and clothing. Mostly for children. You can use it?'
 'Of course. Everything needed here. Come. I show.'
 The crucial question hovered on Alex's lips.
  The priest led him into the barn. The cows had been chained at one end to
  make space for humans. Dozens and dozens of them.
  'One hundred twenty refugees came when their village was attacked,' the
  priest explained. 'Ten people killed.'
  Tired, defeated faces. Same as yesterday, just Catholic, instead of Muslim.
  'I have some boys ready to help,' said the priest, directing him outside
  again.

               189
 'Good. Let's get started.'
  'You speak excellent English, Father. . .' Alex remarked as they walked to
  the truck. 'But I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.'
 Travic. Tihomir Pravic.'
 Alex's heart missed a bleat. just coincidence?
  11 live one year in America,' the priest explained. He spread his arms. 'We
  need many things here. Food, blankets, cookers, pots. Plates and cups ...
  Everything.'
  Four uniformed teenagers clambered onto the open tailboard.
 'Do you have medicines?' the priest asked forlornly.
  'Not this time. Maybe the next truck that comes from England,' Alex
  answcred distractedly, his mind on the priest's name.
  'It's not for here, but at my church, which has become hospital. Doctors
  need much things.' The priest turned his pudgy face towards him - small,
  tired eyes behind rimless spectacles. 'You want to see? Come.'
  He strode off across the grass, deeper into the village, Alex at his side.
  'Excuse me asking Father, but your name ... Is it a common one around
  here?'
  The priest stopped and looked at him with suspicion, wondering why this
  Englishman should react to his name if he were merely the aid worker he
  claimed to be. 'Why you ask?'
  'It's just that I thought I heard the same name the other day. Someone
  involved with the HVO?'From the priest's expression, Alex knew he was on to
  something.
  'It is possible,' the priest sighed. The same questions. Always the same.
  He marched on.
 'Milan Pravic? Not your brother, perhaps?'
  The priest looked away in irritation. He was Milan's brother, yes, but not
  his keeper.
 'UN soldiers already ask,' he snapped. 'A major from

               190
 Vitez come here. I tell him I not see my brother for many years.. .'
  'But he is your brother?' Alex spluttered. 'The man they say was
  responsible for the massacre at Tulicl?'
  The priest sighed again. The village and its name had come to haunt him.
  'I have brother called Milan, yes. But I do not know where he is, or what
  he has done.'
  The church was modern, in concrete and steel. A huge Red Cross banner
  hung above the main entrance.
  The priest pushed open the door. The smell hit them instantly,
  disinfectant mingling with sweat and vomit.
  To their right there was still an altar, covered in an emerald green
  cloth and topped by candlesticks, but the church itself had become a
  casualty ward with pews as beds. On them lay the injured and the sick,
  some prone and still, others propped on elbows, watching and waiting.
  Father Pravic beckoned Alex through swing doors into a small seminary.
  A vestry served as an operating theatre.
  'I ask doctors for list of things they need,' he said, indicating Alex
  should wait. He disappeared behind a door, re-emerging moments later with
  a thin-faced medic in a stained, white coat.
  'The doctor has only few minutes,' the priest explained. 'But he tell you
  what he need. Maybe you can help.'
 'I'll try, but I can't promise anything,' Alex cautioned.
  The doctor looked as if he'd had his fill of wellmeaning foreigners who
  didn't deliver.
 'You have a cigarette?' he asked in guttural English.
 Alex pulled a pack from his pocket.
 'Keep them if you want,' he said. 'I have more.'
 just one, thank you.'
 Alex lit it for him. The doctor had a notepad and pen.
  'I write what we need. But it's all, all. You have brought something?
  Dressings?'

               191
 'I'm sorry,' Alex repeated. 'Next time, maybe.'
  The doctor drew at the cigarette and began to write, shaking his head.
  'I was specialist in micro-surgery at Sarajevo.' He scribbled away, his
  list getting ever longer. 'We have excellent medicine before war. Now it is
  prim~zf, like one hundred years ago...' He blew smoke through pursed lips,
  then held out his list.
  'I'll try, but as I say, I can't promise,' Alex reiterated, folding the
  list and putting it in a pocket.
  The doctor gave him a weary look and retreated behind the door.
  Then Father Pravic led Alex into a small sitting room, half a dozen plain
  armchairs ranged in a semi-circle.
  'Sit, please. You like drink something?' he asked. These foreigners who
  came to Bosnia were an enigma to him. They had the power to stop the
  killing, yet all they did was watch.
  'No. No thank you,' Alex smiled. He knew this priest held the key to
  finding Milan Pravic, but would he be given it?
  'Father, I find your country very confusing,' he began, fumbling for a way
  through his defences. 'I've only been here a few days and I simply don't
  understand what's going on.'
  The priest's face remained sphinx-like. He knew he was being played with.
  'I mean, why are people killing each other, like this?' His question was
  deliberately nalve.
  'It is our history,' the priest shrugged. 'You must know that.'
  'Yes, but your brother Milan for example ... did he really slaughter those
  women and children?'
  The priest pursed his lips and tapped his finger nails on the wooden arm of
  the chair.
 'I tell you, I do not know about Milan. The UN come.

               192
 They ask the same question. My brother, how you say... ? He is chalk, I
 am cheese?'
  'But you know what sort of person your brother is,' Alex insisted,
  frustrated by the priest's prevarication. 'You must know if he could
  commit such a crime. And anyway, it's too easy to blame it all on
  histog.'
  Pravic stopped tapping. Time to play the Englishman at his own game.
 'Why have you come here?'
 'Sorry?'
 'Why you come to Bosnia? I askyou question.'
  'Well, because I wanted to help. Because of all the suffering we've seen
  on the news.'
  'No.' The priest shook his head. 'Why you come to Bosnia? Other reasons.'
  Alex's brain raced. Did the cleric think he was some sort of spy?
  'Well, since you ask, I did have some personal reasons too . . .' he
  floundered. 'There was an accident, you see. My son was killed. And then
  my wife left me...'
  'You see?' the priest beamed. The response had been as rewarding as a
  confession. He tilted his head sympathetically. 'I'm sorry. But you see,
  there is never one reason for anything. You come to Bosnia to help us,
  yes, but to helpyou too. To make you feel better.'
  'Oh, I wouldn't say...' Alex didn't complete the sentence. The priest was
  right.
  'So, you ask why there are massacres here.' His lips puckered as if he
  were sucking on a straw. 'There are also many reasons.'
 He held up a finger.
  'Muslims attack Croats here in La9va valley. So, we fight for our
  villages, our homes, our lives. That a priest can say is righteous.'
 He held up a second finger.
 'Then, people want revenge for what has been done to

               193
 them, just now and in history. That the church can understand, but not
 support.'
 The third finger.
  'Then there is what you call "personal reasons". A man - his sister is
  raped, his wife her throat cut, or. . .'A long pause. Whether to
  continue... ? 'Or it is done ... for pleasure,' he added finally. 'By a man
  who has black heart . . .'
  He flattened his hand on the arm of the chair and looked down at his bitten
  nails.
 'You mean your brother?' Alex asked quietly.
  The priest thought of how he'd always hated his sullen, animal-like
  sibling. How he'd refused to protect him from their father's abuse in the
  way he'd looked after his sister. And how, once he'd realized what a
  monster his brother had become, his own soul had been gnawed by guilt at
  having abandoned him.
  'We all make mistakes. Even God. His was to allow my brother into this
  world.'
 Alex gaped at the admission.
  'You're saying your brother kills because he likes it? He's a psychopath?'
 The priest nodded. There was no point in disguising it.
  'Haven't you tried to stop him? I mean, you're a priest as well as his
  brother.'
  Father Pravic bristled. Why didn't these people understand?
  'I told you, I do not meet Milan,' he said, his voice raised, smacking the
  arm of the chair. 'Not for long time. And how I can stop him? I have no
  power. God has no power. Only a ... a bullet has power.'
 The priest's words hammered home.
  'That's pretty strong. . .' Alex breathed. 'You're saying you think your
  own brother should be executed.?'
 Pravic pursed his lips again, saying nothing.
  'What about the HNIO?' Alex asked. 'What do they think?'

               194
  The priest shrugged. 'In war, armies make good use of men who like to
  kill...'
  'But if the UN could do something to stop him, could put him on trial,
  get him locked away, you'd support that?'
 Pravic smiled at his innocence.
  'The UN are like you. Here to make thenuelves feel better. But yes. If
  I knew where Milan was, then I would tell the LJN.'
 'But you've no idea?'
  None that he was prepared to impart. He shook his head.
  'You see, my brother knows well how to hide. When he was little, he was
  weak. Others in our village make fun of him. Then he grew stronger and
  other children they became afraid. They keep away. And there is a name
  they gave him ... I do not know in English. A creature that stings, with
  its tail above its head . . .' He curled a finger.
 'A scorpion, you mean?'
  'Scorpion, yes. They call him Scorpion. Because they would not see him,
  then suddenly he would be there and make them cry. . .'
  A man with a lethal sting, with Bosnia for a playground, Alex thought.
  Anywhere else and the police would be out in droves trying to catch such
  a creature.
 'Where would he hide now, Father? Here in Bosnia?'
  'Who knows? Maybe here. Maybe he go back to Germany. He live some years
  in Berlin. But perhaps he don't go there, because UN will ask German
  police to look for him.'
 Alex saw that the priest was getting restless.
  'Do you have a picture, a photograph of him?' he asked quickly.
 'No. I have no reason to have one. .
 'What does he look like, then?'
 Father Pravic shrugged.

               195
  'He is not tall, not short. He has light hair, blue eyes, like many in
  Bosnia. But there is something. His eyes . . .' He screwed up his face.
  'They never look at you, unless ... unless he is going to hurt you.'
  Alex shuddered. The priest stood up. He'd said enough.
 J think they finish with your boxes now.'
 'Yes. Yes of course.'
  Back in front of the barn, the tailboard of the Bedford had been closed,
  the Scimitar commander looked impatient to be off.
  The priest shook his hand. 'Thank you for help,' he said coolly.
  'I'll try to get medicines for you,' Alex assured him, though he had no
  idea how. 'One other thing. Your brother ... what do you think he might be
  doing now?'
  The priest hesitated, his expression hard to divine. Fear? Guilt even?
  'To kill will be like drug for him. He cannot stop. Any person can be his
  victim. Here, it is Muslim peoples. But it could be you or me. There will
  be more. Many more. Give him the power ... and the weapon ... then what he
  did at Tulici will seem like nothing.'
  He turned and walked away, his words rooting Alex to the spot.
  Then came a shout. His UN escort was eager to move. Alex waved and climbed
  into the cab of the Bedford.

 On the road back to Vitez, the priest's words churned round in his head.
  A killer called the Scorpion, with dozens of deaths to his credit, dozens
  more in prospect, and no serious attempt being made to stop him. The
  situation was mad.
  Back at the house he was startled to see two TV teams filming him as he
  reversed the Bedford into the drive.

               196
  McFee. Something had happened. Something terrible.
  As he climbed from the cab, the camera crews were held at bay by the two
  MPs who'd spent last night on his sofa.
  'Gl' the bloke a chance. He don't know about it yet,' he heard one of the
  soldiers say.
 The sergeant took Alex by the arm.
  'Can I suggest we step inside a minute, sir. There's some news, and it's
  not good.'
  They hurried through to the living room without speaking. The stove had
  gone out and the room was cold.
  'What's he done?' Alex snapped, ready to condemn the man. 'Tell me.'
 'I'm afraid your mate's been found dead, sir.'
 The soldier's emotionless words sandbavLed him.
 'Oh my God...'
 He felt the blood drain from his face.
  'Where.. .' he heard himself croak. 'What happened?'
  'It was in a derelict house about half a mile from here.' The MP's look
  warned him to expect the worst. 'Someone shot 'im. .
 'Christ!'
  'And I'm afraid I must ask you to identify the body. We collected it this
  morning. The HVO tipped us off.'
  'But ... but why was he shot?' he stammered, fearing the answer. 'What
  had he done?'
 The soldiers glanced at each other.
  'It's a right mess, sir, I warn you ... You know that business in
  Edinburgh - well, we think he was up to the same tricks. The HVO say
  someone caught him doin' it to a young girl. He'd paid her fifty Deutsche
  marks, which is a small fortune round 'ere.'
  'God! I can't believe it. . .'He sank onto the sofa. 'The evil bastard!'

               197
  He remembered the two armed men whose eyes had f'ollowed him back into
  the house last night - the locals must've been on to McFee already.
 'Who shot him, the HVO?'
  'They're not admitting it. Claim they don't know who did it. But whoever
  it was killed a woman last night too ... Illie.'
 'Oh, no...' Alex groaned.
  'They found another fifty Deutsche Marks in her pocket. The suggestion
  is that your chum paid her to procure the little girl for him.
  Alex felt sickened. To come to Bosnia on the pretext of helping people,
  and then do that ...
 'It's ... it's unspeakable . . .'
  'Course, we can only go on what the HVO tell us. It could be a pack o'
  Iles. But bearing in mind what we was told by the Edinburgh police, it's
  more 'an likely true. They think the dead girl up in Scotland was new to
  the game and didn't like what was happening to her. Someone heard
  screaming. They think he strangled her to shut her up.'
  It came back to him suddenly - the night on the ferry from Ancona - McFee
  shouting 'shuddup' in his sleep.
  'It's unbelievable .'He shook his head. The man was a monster and he'd
  had no clue . . . 'And the TV people know everything I suppose? It'll be
  all over the bulletins back home tonight.'
  'And on Sky which can be picked up here. The camera crews were around
  when we brought the body back in. They'd got the gory details from the
  HVO.'
  'Well, they'll get nothing out of ine. . .' Alex snapped, thinking of the
  pain McFee's widow must be going through. Then the sergeant's words
  caught up with him.
 'What gory details?'
 Again that annoying glance between the two soldiers.
  'The press know about it, so it'd be better if you did too,' the sergeant
  began. 'They er ... they mutilated the

               198
 body of your friend, I'm afraid. Hacked his knob off and stuffed it in his
 mouth.'
 'And then they shot him. the corporal added.

 Alex voided the contents of his stomach when they showed him McFee's
 yellowing, blood-smeared corpse. The Scotsman's eyes had been open when he
 died; they still were, in rigor mortis - the eyes of a man who'd seen the
 flames of hell.
  The MPs drove Alex back to P.Info, where they gave him tea with whisky in
  it, while he tried to get through to Farnham on the satellite phone. It
  took an hour; Mike Allison had already learned of McFee's death from the
  lunchtime news. He was horrified, fearing the goodwill Bosnia Emergency had
  built up in its short existence would be wiped out by the scandal. He told
  Alex to get himself and the Bedford back down to Split as soon as he could,
  and to ask for army protection.
  'Peel the logo off the side of the truck,' he'd suggested. just in case
  some nutter thinks you're all perverts.'
  Back in the house, Alex sat forlornly on the sofa watching Dragana make up
  the fire and dab at her eyes with a handkerchief'. He felt numb, unable to
  think straight.
  The TV teams had hounded him on his way up to the house. What was McFee
  like? You must've had suspicions? How do you feel? - all the standard,
  stupid questions he remembered from when he himself had been on the other
  side of the cameras.
  He'd said nothing and had tried to shield his face from the prying lenses.
  Twenty years of concealment from the IRA blown out of the window. just the
  beard and the different surname still yielding some patina of protection.
  'Hello? Alex?' A shout from the hall. The voice of Major Clarke-Hartley.
 'In here.' Alex levered himself to his feet.

               199
 Dragana scuttled away, handkerchief to her mouth.
  'Brought you a friendly face,' the Major told him. 'Tells me she's known
  you for yonks.'
  Lorna walked in. He'd totally forgotten she was coming.
  'Hi, Alex. I'm so sorry.', Her voice cracked. 'Alan's just told me this
  stuff about Moray. It's too awful. I can't believe id'
  He felt tearful suddenly and embraced her with more intensity than he'd
  intended. She resisted for a moment, then moulded to the shape of his body.
  'I, er ... I'll get out of your hair,' the Major stammered. ' ust wanted a
  word about tomorrow, Alex. J
 Mike's called me personally to ask us to protect you on the way down to
 Split. What I suggest you do is join our regular logistics convoy heading
 south at eight in the morning. There'll be a relay of Warriors to get you
 from here to Gorm, then after that there should be no problem. You'll be
 well beyond the range of any of the local hoods.'
  'Sounds good,' Alex replied, recovering. 'Thanks. Eight o'clock you say?'
  'Yes. And I've had another thought. . .' Clarke-Hartley flinched at what
  lie was about to suggest. 'Would you mind ... I mean, d'you think you could
  possibly take the body bag with you?'
  Alex caught the alarm in Lorna's eye. It was a living passenger they'd
  planned to put in the back.
  'It's just that there's an RAF Herc leaving Split on Thursday that could
  take it back to the UK,' the major explained.
  'Well, I. . .'Alex faltered. Then Lorna nodded imperceptibly. 'I suppose
  that makes sense. Where ... where and when would we collect it ... him. The
  body bag?'
  'I don't know. Should we say half-past-seven in the camp? You can drive the
  truck to the medical centre, and

               200
 then form up afterwards with the rest of the convoy on the road outside.'
 'All right. We'll do that, then.'
  'Good. I'll alert everybody to expect you. Well, I'll leave you to er ...
  to talk about happier times. See you later.'
 "Bye.'
  Alex stared at his disappearing back and watched the front door close.
  Then he turned to Lorna. Her face was taut with concentration.
  '0 ... h,' he murmured, 'I can't tell you how glad I am to see you.' He
  hugged her like a life raft.
  'Poor Alex,' she whispered, 'it must have been the most awful shock.'
  'I can't take it in. I've been with him all the time for the last ten
  days and I never had a clue . . .'
  At that moment she felt a strong urge to sit him beside her, put his big,
  square head in her lap and run her fingers through his hair. But there
  wasn't time and anyway she'd determined not to give in tofeelings again.
  'He seemed a normal, likeable guy. ..' she murmured.
 'That's just it. He was, quite.'
  'So what does it all mean?' she checked, easing herself from his embrace,
  'You can take Vildana tornorrow?'
 'I suppose so.'
 'Then we have to move fast.'
 'Is tomorrow too soon for you?'
  'No, No! It'll be okay. Josip and I have just been up to the village
  again. The girl - she's real ready. Wants to go to America, now. They've
  filled her head with promises of non-stop Disney and Coke.' Her face
  twisted into a look of disapproval.
  'Monika's moving her to the refugee centre in Travnik tonight. We'll have
  to fetch her from there early tomorrow morning. Like six-thirty? So we
  can get her hidden

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 in the truck before you go into the camp to load the body.'
  She was on overdrive, rattling off the plan as it evolved in her head.
  'Lorna, hang on a minute. Can we really put her through that? A traumatized
  child huddling in the back of a truck for eight hours next to a corpse?'
  'I know,' she winced. 'It's dreadful, but we don't have any alternative.
  This is her only chance. And anyway, she'll never know the body bag's
  there. We'll make a little house for her in the truck and hide her in it
  before you drive into the camp.'
 She saw the alarm and disquiet on his face.
  'I know it's a long time for her to stay boxed up, but believe me this is
  a kid who's spent much of her life hiding .... I
 'And what then? What happens to her in Split?'
  'I don't know yet. Maybe we have to hang around a few days until we find
  the right home for her. All that's being taken care of over in the States.'
  She crossed her fingers behind her back. She had no idea if there'd been a
  response yet to her appeal on the Internet last night.
  'And if there's a problem with that, we'll Just start praying. . .'
 Praying. Alex remembered the priest.
  'Hey, I've got to tell you,' he said. 'Something else happened this
  morning.'
 She was only half listening.
  'I met the brother of the killer who led the Tulici massacre!'
 'You what?'
 'A priest, would you believe..
 He explained.
  'He wants him stopped. Killed if necessary. Said he'd help if he could. You
  see what this means? With the priest as a witness, telling what he knows of
  Pravic's

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 psychopathic past, and your Vildana telling the court what she saw in
 Tulici, we've got him! We can get him locked up for lifeP
  'We?' Her jaw dropped. 'What do you mean we, Alex?'
 He frowned, unsure what she was getting at.
  'What are you doing here, Alex?' she demanded, eyes like darts. 'Who do you
  work for?'
 'I told you. Bosnia Emergency.'
  'Which nobody's ever heard of. . .' she retorted. 'Leastways, nobody I've
  spoken to.'
  'It's only been going a few months, that's why.' Her venom puzzled him.
 She spread her arms in disbelief
  'And this is it? This is your organization? An old army truck and two guys,
  one of whom's a murdering paedophile and the other's a spook? Shi-it!'
  'What are you saying? I don't understand. . .' But he was beginning to.
  'Oh yes you do. You haven't changed. Still the guy with two faces. .
  He saw pain and disappointment in her eyes. Belfast was biting back, like
  a knee-capping, never to be forgotten. She'd winded him.
 'Lorna, you're wrong,' he pleaded.
  The speed of her mood switch made his head spin. Her mask of sympathy over
  McFee's death had split to reveal the anger which had smouldered in her for
  decades.
  It was the moment he'd dreaded from the instant he'd spotted her on the
  ferry from Ancona, but the crisis had come out of the blue. Its outcome
  would decide whether their extraordinary crossing and re-crossing of paths
  would end well or in bitterness.
  He faced a critical choice. He could try to bluff his way out of a corner
  like before, or admit everything this time in the hope of stopping history
  repeating itself.

               203
  Whether she accepted his explanation would depend on one key question. Did
  she still want him as much as he wanted her?
  'Lorna, listen. Listen to everything I say. Then make your judgement.'
  'Don't lie to me again, Alex,' she warned, folding her arms. Her suspicions
  deepened.
 Truth. It had to be.
  'I'm not a spy,' he insisted. 'Not a "spook" as you put it. But ... I am
  trying to help the UN find some evidence against Milan Pravic so they can
  put him on trial for the Tulici massacre.'
  'You're telling me you work for the UN? Where's your blue beret?'
  'Yes. No, not exactly. Look, ten (lays ago, the UN war crimes people in The
  Hague sent a message to the British intelligence services, asking if they
  had somebody out here who could help them trace the man who led the Tulici
  killings. Well, they didn't have anyone. The only Brits in Bosnia were
  soldiers or aid workers. Anyway ... the intelligence people wanted to help
  the UN if they could. So they had to find someone at short notice ... and
  picked me, because they happened to hear I was coming out here as an aid
  worker.'
 She stiffened. 'My did they hear that?'
  'Because for twenty years I've been on the run. If it weren't for the
  security people I'd be dead. The IRA would have put a bullet in my brain.
  You know why. Everywhere I went, I had to tell the M15 minders so they
  could watch my back.'
  He paused for breath. Her jaw was set, the corners of her mouth tugged
  down. It wasn't working.
  'Anyway Lorna, all they've asked me to do out here is keep my eyes and cars
  open,' he added desperately. 'That's all.'
  'But you do still work for them!' She bit her lip. 'So you lied to me
  yesterday!'

               204
  'I've helped them three times in thirty years for God's sake! Nothing since
  Belfast, I promise. Until now. And I don't work for them. They've never
  paid me. I've just given them information when it was right to do so.'
 Lorna's face erupted with anger.
  'When you've felt it's right, huh? Like in Belfast when you decided it was
  right three boys should be shot down like dogs! Who d'you think you
  are?Jesus Christ?'
  He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Everything about Belfast had
  been a disaster. He should have told Chadwick to piss off, and he hadn't.
  Should've said to Catherine McNulty, the IRA man's wife, that he loved
  Lorna, not her, but he couldn't do it.
  'Look. The rights and wrongs of what happened in Belfast we can argue all
  round the houses. But this is hardly the time . . .'
 'No? Why the hell not?'
 Nothing could stop her now. The dam had broken.
  'You lied to me in Belfast, Alex! You said such beautiful, loving words in
  my ears. Then as soon as I left your bed...' Her face screwed up in
  disgust. 'You cheated on me! You did the same things, said the same words
  ... with an IRA man's wife. And not just any. .
 Her voice caught in her throat.
  .eldex looked at hcr, begging for understanding. This wasn't the day to go
  into all this.
  'I didn't want to, for God's sakeP he moaned. 'You remember what Catherine
  was like. I'd been seeing her for months before you turned up. She wouldn't
  let go. I tried to tell her I Aas ending it but she said she'd kill herself
  if I did.'
  'And you were so naive as to believe her? Oh corne on! You reckoned you
  were man enough to decide three kids should be shot, but didn't have the
  guts to tell a loopy lady to get lost?'
 He'd lost control of things. He turned his head away.
 'Look, let's get it straight what happened in Belfast.

               205
 M15 blackmailed me into betraying you. The message was that unless I got
 you to tell me what you knew about the jailbreak, they'd make sureyou
 found out about Catherine, and Catherine's husband found out about rne.
 I'd have lost you, and probably have got a kneecapping as well. And don't
 forget, Lorna ... those guys who were to be sprung from Long Kesh, they
 were convicted killers. It was right they should stay inside.'
 Lorna's hand clamped over her mouth in disbelief.
  'Stay inside, I said,' he stressed, defensively. 'I ... I never thought
  they'd kill them. Naive perhaps, but I just thought they'd put them back
  behind the Wire.'
  Lorna turned on her heel and stood by the window staring out. Josip was
  leaning against the Land Cruiser, twitching with impatience.
  So that was the excuse she'd waited twenty years to hear. Blackmail. Did
  she believe him? Did it make any difference?
  She shuddered, remembering the cataclysmic night in Belfast when Alex's
  double-dealing had been exposed. McNulty was the Provos' Belfast
  quartermaster, and her IRA contact. She'd been friendly with both him and
  Catherine. Over a drink at their home one evening, bubbly and excited
  with her love for Alex, she'd told them his name ...
  In her mind now, she could still see Catherine's face, beetroot with fury
  and pain. Then the earth had opened ...
  She looked at her watch. Had to get to Travnik to warn them to have
  Vildana ready first thing.
 'I have to go,' she said flatly.
 Alex stood up. She turned round, avoiding his eye.
  'Look, forget the past for the moment,' he pleaded. 'What we're involved
  in now ... it's much more important. We're both after the same thing,
  don't you see? You want to save a girl's life. So do 1. Your way is to
  get her out of here to a place she'll be safe. My way is to

               206
 nail the man who wants to kill her. We're in this together, right? This
 was meant to happen -- you said it yourself, yesterday.'
  She crossed her arms tightly, as if trying to hold herself together.
 'I have to get a move on,' she said.

 207
            Seventeen

 Wednesday 30th March
 Vitez, Bosnia

 Alex stuffed the last of McFee's possessions into the battered, soft-sided
 suitcase. He'd picked gingerly through his belongings, half expecting to
 find bizarre sexual aids, or used condoms.
  He'd packed his own bags last night, after taking the Bedford to the REME
  garage to tank up with diesel.
  He downed the remains of a mug of tea then went into the hall to pull on
  his boots and coat. It was six o'clock. Lorna would be arriving any minute
  and he still had to prepare the hide in the back of the truck.
  Last night in the junk-filled garage where they'd stored their aid boxes,
  he'd found a home-made workbench, a sturdy table one-and-a-half metres long
  with legs made of 'two by four'. Using sign language he'd indicated to
  Andrei that he wanted to borrow it.
  Outside, the temperature had turned milder overnight. It was overcast and
  raining, water dripping rhythmically onto the stone path from a broken
  gutter. If the weathei was like this over the mountains, the drive south
  would be messy.
  He unlocked the doors of the driver's cab, then walked to the back ofthe
  truck, undid the tailboard hasps, and released the flaps of the tarpaulin.
  The truck was empty apart from four sparejerrycans of diesel strapped to
  rings on the floor.
  He hoisted himself into the back and shone his torch around to find fixings
  for the table that was to be

               208
 Vildana's house for the coming day. Stout string should do it. There was a
 roll of it in McFee's tool bag.
  He heard the purr of an engine, and looked out to see the Land Gruiser
  pulling up, raindrops glinting in its headlamp beams. Lorna got out, her
  face tense, her blonde hair bristling like a hedge. He doubted if she'd
  slept much last night.
 Josip still looked sullen. Did the man ever smile?
  Alex jumped down from the tailboard looking for some sign as to how things
  stood between them that morning. He saw none.
 'Okay?' he asked.
  'Sure. You ready?' she answered, brisk and businesslike.
  'I need a hand with something. Josip? Gould you help me please?'
  He led him to the garage and between them they carried the heavy workbench
  out to the truck and hoisted it into the back. They placed it against the
  end nearest the driver's cab and Alex secured the legs firmly.
  'She can sit under that,' he explained. 'Need some cushions or bedding, and
  some cardboard or a tarpaulin to cover the sides.'
  'Maybe they'll have a spare blanket at the refugee centre,' Lorna
  suggested.
 'Good thought. Shall we get moving?'
 Six-fifteen. Pretty much on schedule.
  Lorna led the way into Travnik, the streets of the old Muslim quarter
  almost deserted at this hour. They drove into the play ound of the school
  and parked out of sight
      , gr behind it. The easterly sky was fringed with the soft, grey glow
      of dawn.
  'Monika stayed the night here with the kid,' Lorna explained under her
  breath as they went inside. Now the moment was upon her, she seemed nervous
  about the responsibility she was taking on. Josip will have to help me play
  Mom, unless Vildana learns English real fast.'

               209
 'So that's why he's looking so sour,' Alex commented. 'One of the reasons.
 . .' she replied enigmatically.
  There was a clinking from the kitchen as the early risers prepared tea and
  coffee.
  'I told her to be ready for us,' Lorna fretted. 'But where the hell is
  she?'
 'Let's try the kitchen.'
  The two of them were sitting there, pale and drawn, beside one of the wide
  cookers, Vildana's short, dark hair freshly washed, her fearful brown eyes
  like pebbles dropped in snow. Monika had her arm round her shoulder and
  held her close.
  Lorna tookjosip's arm. 'Earn your money,josip,' she whispered.
  'Hi, Vildana!'Lorna grinned, crouching in front of the child.josip also
  dropped on his haunches.
  There was a minute or two of words in Serbo-Croat, with Monika chipping in.
  'Well,'Josip translated, 'I explain her she stay hide in the truck, until
  I say she come out. I tell her we look after her, and she will be ...
  safe.' He shrugged.
 'And she's ready?'
 'I think.'
  just one thing,'Alex added. 'We need to finish off that Wendy House of
  hers. There must be loads of empty cardboard boxes here. If we stack a pile
  round the workbench, it'll disguise it beautifully.'
 'Good. Maybe Monika knows where they keep thern?'

 Twenty minutes later the job was done. Vildana's determination not to cry
 collapsed when Monika gave her a final hug. Then, with a bed made from
 blankets and Alex's sleeping bag, she took up residence in the hide,
 clutching a bag of bread and fruit and a bottle of water.
 Lorna led the way back to Vitez, this time driving the

               210
 Land Cruiser on her own. Josip sat in the Bedford cab with Alex.
  Past the junction with Route Triangle, they crossed the invisible line
  separating Muslim-led forces from Croat. HVO soldiers dawdled with their
  Kalashnikovs, more relaxed now the cease-fire was taking a grip. Alex
  wondered what they'd do if they knew the truck carried a Muslim child, the
  only witness to the Tulici massacre.
  Nerves made his gut churn. He breathed deeply to steady them.
  The pole was down across the entrance to Vitez camp. A squaddie checked
  their UN passes, lifted the barrier and waved them in.
  Seven-twenty-five. Going like clockwork. The truck clunked in the potholes
  which had been ground out of the hard core by Warrior tracks.
 'Hope the kid's hanging on tight,' Alex said.
  'I think it is nothing to what will come on the mountain road,'Josip
  answered gloomily.
  Alex stopped the Bedford by the medical centre and dropped to the ground.
  He toldJosip to stay with the truck.
  Inside the portakabin, a couple of bored corporals were playing cards, one
  dark-haired, the other ginger.
  'About bloody time,' the dark one growled. 'We've been up all night waiting
  for you.'
 'Wha-aff said Alex. 'The major told me seven-thirty.'
  The ginger soldier stood up with a grin. 'Take no notice of 'im. Winds
  everyone up. It is Mr McFee yer after, is it?'
 'That's right.'
  Ginger switched on an expression of concern. "E was your oppo, was 'e sir?
  Your mate?'
  'We worked together,' Alex replied tensely. 'Are you ready? I've got the
  truck outside.'
 'Yessir.'
 They stepped into a back room and emerged a few

               211
 seconds later struggling under the weight of a dark green body bag.
  At the sight of it, Alex felt a moment's queasiness, knowing the messy
  remains that lay inside.
  'Good strong bag this, sir. Keeps the pong in,' the dark-haired soldier
  remarked.
  Josip had the Bedford's tailboard down and was standing on it protectively.
  'We'll need two of us at each end to get 'im up there,' said the ginger
  corporal.
  Alex hoisted himself onto the tailboard and withjosip took hold of the foot
  of the bag, leaving the soldiers to bear most of the load. They heaved it
  into the centre of the cargo plafform and set it down between two sets of
  attachment rings.
  'Got enough straps and that, to tie it down?' asked Ginger.
 'Yes. We're okay.'
 'Then, we'll leave him with you, sir.'
 'Fine. Thanks for your help.'
  He set to work with string, tying the handles of the bag to the rings on
  the floor. Josip crawled forward to the hide and whispered words of
  reassurance to Vildana.
 'I tell her it is some equipment,' lie explained.
 'Good. She okay?'
 Josip nodded.
  Poor kid, Alex mused. She'd got a hellish day ahead of her. He stood back
  and checked his work. All secure.
  Both men jumped to the ground and re-secured the tailboard and tarpaulin.
  While Jqsip climbed back into the cab, Alex sprinted to the cookhouse to
  pick up ration packs for the journey. Then he drove the truck out of the
  camp to where the rest of the white vehicle convoy was lining up, and the
  crews were donning their body armour.
 It was ten minutes to eight.

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 The convoy snaked up Route Triangle, one Warrior at the front and another at
 the rear, the Land Cruiser and the Bedford tucked in amongst the empty
 container trucks that had shuttled supplies up from the coast to keep the
 British contingent of UNPROFOR fed and watered.
  He'd had no opportunity to talk to Lorna alone that morning. No chance to
  find out if she'd accepted what he'd said about Belfast. No occasion to
  discover if she was for him or against him.
  They crossed from one militia's territory to another and back again, with
  sentries watching their progress from makeshift bunkers, sheltering from
  the rain which purnmelled the roofs of the vehicles. The massive bulk of
  the Warrior at the front deterred any thoughts they might have of stopping
  the convoy to check it.
  'You've worked many times with Lorna?' Alex asked, casually, deciding he'd
  try to get to know the translator better if they were to spend the next
  eight hours together.
  'Three times before in Bosnia. Always they pay me to fly to Frankfurt to
  meet her. Then we drive to Split.'
 'Frankfurt? Why Frankfurff
  'I think because GareNet medicines come from America on Air Force planes.
  They have big military base at Frankfurt.'
  'Really? Didn't know the US Air Force was involved.' Maybe Lorna was
  planning to get Vildana to America by Air Force jet.
  'And you?'Josip said. 'You are old friend with Lorna, she tell me.'
 'That's right. Known her most of my life, on and off.'
 'You are perhaps like soul mates?'
  Odd words to come fromjosip, Alex pondered. More like Lorna's words. How
  much had she told him?
 'I don't know about that. . .'
  The convoy slowed for a hairpin bend in the midst of a village. Children
  streamed from the houses, defying the

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 rain in the hope the drivers would throw sweets to them. Blonde
 eight;,year-olds ran perilously close to the wheels of the Bedford.
  Minutes later the convoy slowed to a halt on the crest of a wooded ridge.
  The Warriors that had brought them this far were handing over to another
  pair that had come UP to meet them from the next base at Gorni Vakuf
  Ahead, the unmade road dropped into the canyon where three days before
  Alex's mission had so nearly come to a premature end. He shuddered at the
  recollection of that squat automatic pressed against his face.
 'Hullo again!'
  A breezy, female voice at the window of the cab. Alex looked down. It was
  the same lieutenant who'd escorted them on the way up, rain dripping from
  the rim of her blue helmet.
  'Well, hello! Fancy seeing you,' he said. 'Not going to leave us in the
  lurch again I hope.'
 She gurgled with laughter.
  'No fear! You're on my orders this time. Got to keep a close eye on you.'
  She smiled toothily. 'Sorry you had a bit of trouble on the way up. But you
  were just hangerson then. Different today. I say, I'm terribly sorry about
  your companion...'
  'Yup . . .'Alex pointed over his shoulder to the back of the truck.
  'I know. . .'she said. 'Look, we'rejust going to bat on down the road.
  There shouldn't be any hold-ups -there's no fighting anywhere, so they tell
  me. Could be a delay on the mountain road, of course. Can't predict that.
  But the only time we do stop officially is at the border with Croatia. Have
  to, legally. They usually wave us on p.d.q., but it's possible they'll want
  to look inside. just so you're prepared for that.'
 'Okay. Thanks for the warning.'
  'Oh, and watch the road. It'll be a mud slide up the top.'

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  She gave a loose salute and strode back to her Land Rover at the front
  of the convoy.
  They set off down the canyon track, windscreen wipers struggling against
  the brown spray kicked up by the trucks in front, every pothole a tureen
  of mud.
  Gorni Vakuf looked more desolate than ever in the foul weather, its
  streets deserted, apart from an old man picking through the rubble.
  Beyond the town the escorting Warriors waved the convoy past. They'd
  cleared the conflict zone. It was Bosnian Groat territory all the way to
  the border.
 Josip glanced through the rear window.
  'D'you think she's all right?'Alex asked. He thought of Vildana clinging
  on as the truck bounced and jolted.
 'I hope. It is pity we cannot speak with her.'
  There was a gap between the rear of the cab and the cargo space. No way
  of even tapping messages through.
  'Perhaps I should have sat with her in the back,'Josip wondered.
  'There's no seat. You'd have been knocked all over the place,' Alex
  assured him. 'We'll try and stop somewhere and check she's okay.'

 Lorna shifted into third gear as the convoy weaved through the HVO
 checkpoint on the MakJlen Ridge, dodging the land mines that reminded her
 of upturned dinner plates. The Bedford was a few metres in front.
  Every sighting of the Groat militia made her shiver. She knew they
  suspected convoys like this one secretly ferried men and arms to their
  Muslim-led enemies. Two vehicles without UN logos, hers and the Bedford,
  would not go unnoticed.
  Supposing one checkpoint got awkward? Supposing they searched and found
  Vildana? Would the girl lieutenant and her three soldiers protect them?
  No way.

               215
 Have to pray for the 'slivovitz factor'; that the men on the checkpoints
 were too boozed-up to care.
  The back of the Bedford jolted and swayed. Poor kid, she thought. Hope
  to God she's not been sick.
  She pictured Alex wrestling with the wheel. Last night she'd lain awake
  thinking about what he'd told her, smarting that he had lied about still
  working for the intelligence services. Eventually she had cooled on that,
  however, convinced he had been honest in the end.
  By the time she'd dropped off to sleep in the small hours, Alex's
  rationale for sabotaging the breakout from Long Kesh in 1973 had begun
  to seem more acceptable. Her own support for the Provisionals,
  unquestioning then, had been undermined not long after by their Boston
  backers' uncharitable wish to end her life.
  What she could not yet accept or forgive was Alex's duplicity over
  Catherine. For twenty years, deep down, she had longed to make things
  good with him again, a longing she had never admitted to, even to her
  sister Annie. But that desire had been balanced by an even stronger
  yearning - that he should suffer for what he'd done - suffer like she
  had.
  Eventually they would be reunited, she was certain of that. The dream
  she'd had when they'd first met had been too vivid to be anything other
  than a premonition. The dream of her oAni face in an open coffin and Alex
  weeping by the grave.

 The long, steep hill wound down into Prozor, an evil place from where the
 Muslims had long since been ethnically cleansed. An HVO garrison town,
 from where camouflaged buses packed with soldiers shuttled to and from the
 trenches up on the ridge.
  The UN convoy slowed to a snail's pace to negotiate the narrow street.
  Then they were through, climbing past a string of villages towards the
  IJubuga mountains.

               216
 The tarmac ended by a lake, its chalky waters grey and choppy. The
 vehicles in front pulled in to the right.
  'We're taking a break, by the look of it,' Alex remarked. 'Gives us a
  chance to see how Vildana is. And for a pee.'
 'I think, I go look in the back,'Josip agreed.
 'Don't let anyone see her.'
  The translator looked at him coldly. He didn't need to be told that.
  'Hi. How're you doing?' The lieutenant had stopped by the cab.
 'Fine. How long are we stopping for?'
  'Could be ten minutes. There's a Canadian convoy coming down off the
  mountain. No point in moving until that's out of the way.'
 'Good. Time for a leak, then.'
  'Huh! All right for you boys! I just have to keep my legs crossed.'
  She moved on to talk to Lorna in the Toyota. Alex climbed down and
  scuttled off to the right, where a line of drivers were already relieving
  themselves against a rock face.
  When he'd finished, he found the tailboard down and Josip already up on
  the cargo platform. Lorna got out of the Land Cruiser and came across.
  'How is she?' she asked, looking round to see no one was close enough to
  hear.
  Alex lifted the tarpaulin flap. The body bag was still secure. Beyond it
  Josip crouched by the camouflaged hide, talking and listening.
 'Seems all right,' Alex replied.
 Josip loped back to the tailboard.
  'She say she feel sick,' he announced. 'I tell her to eat some bread.'
 'Poor kid. Has she thrown up?' Lorna asked.
  'No.justfeels sick. She okay, I think.' He jumped down and re-secured the
  tarpaulin.

               217
 Alex strolled with Lorna towards the lake.
  'Are you all right?' An all-purpose question that could cover as much or
  as little as she wanted.
 'Sure. I like driving.'
  Giving nothing away, a hand's breadth shorter than Alex, Lorna cocked her
  head on one side, looking at him pensively.
  Extraordinary, she thought. The man had been such a part of her life, yet
  she had only spent a few weeks with him in the flesh. Never had the
  chance to find out who he reallv was ...
  'What I was saying yesterday,' Alex began, fumblingly, 'Belfast and all
  that. . .'
  'I heard what you said. . .' Her tone was flat and she turned back
  towards the convoy, showing this wasn't the time to pursue the issue.
  'The lieutenant said they may search the trucks at the border,' Alex went
  on, sticking to safer ground.
  'Oh? I'd hoped that with the UN we'd drive straight through,' she said,
  alarmed.
  'Maybe we'll be lucky. Anyway, what's your plan once we're in Split? I
  have to get Moray's body to the airport.'
  'Let's stop somewhere when we're safely across the border and there's
  nobody about. We'll get Vildana out of the truck and into the Land
  Cruiser. We're going to stay at the Hotel Split tonight.'
  He looked at her, wondering for a moment if it was an invitation.
  'I'll see you there then,' he smiled. The words slipped out.
 Her eyes chilled. 'Don't get any ideas, Alex.'
 She took a pace back from him.
  'It's not the same this time,'she warned, walking away, a touch of pink
  suffusing her concave cheeks.
  Alex smarted at the rebuff. He'd make a fool of himself if he didn't
  watch out.
 Down the hill towards them came a long line of huge,

               218
 articulated trucks. The Canadian UN convoy was on its way through. The
 drivers of the British vehicles climbed back into their cabs and Alex
 hurried to the Bedford.
  With puffs of blue smoke, the diesels revved and the convoy bounced back
  onto the rutted track. There'd be a good three hours of this. Three hours
  to cover fifty kilometres of one of the worst truck highways in the world.
  It was only ten-thirty, yet it felt like lunchtime. He reached into his
  ration bag and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in cling film.
 'Undo this ffir me, would you, josip?'
 'Sure.'
  He peeled off the film and passed it back. Alex bit into it hungrily.
 'Where's home,josip?' he asked.
 The translator wobbled his head.
  'Many place. My father live Zagreb, my mother in Split. I have lived
  Sweden, Gennany, Paris, Belgrade, Zagreb.'
  'You don't have an apartment somewhere? Not married?'
 'I have many girlfriend. I stay in their apartment.'
  Alex nodded. He didn't believe him, but it wasn't worth pressing.
 Tine.'
 'You? You're married?'Josip asked.
 Hard to answer. He didn't know any more.
 'Yes. Married, but not, if you know what I mean.'
  The answer seemed to set josip thinking. He sat in silence for a minute or
  two.
 'You fuck with Lorna?' he asked suddenly.
  Alex coughed. Stupid conversation. His fault for starting it.
  'No,' he answered. 'What on earth makes you think that?'
 The road wound higher and higher, hugging the red

               219
 sandstone of the mountain. On one of the tighter bends a trailer truck lay
 in the trees below, a victim of the winter ice. After an hour the surface
 began to improve, where the British army engineers had widened and strength-
 ened it. Every few kilometres huge earth-movers shovelled hard core into the
 potholes.
  They passed checkpoints manned by HVO but attracted little interest. Away
  from the front line, tension had eased. On right-hand bends Alex checked in
  the door mirror to see that Lorna was still behind.
  At the highest point, snow lingered on the branches, but on the roadway it
  had melted into a slush that clogged the wipers.
  Eventually, after long pauses to let convoys pass in the opposite
  direction, the road dipped steeply down through the trees towards the
  plains of Hercegovina.
  'I fear we've got a very sick child in the back by now,' Alex remarked.
 Josip grunted agreement.
  They rattled and bounced a few more kilometres, then the tyres hummed on
  tarmac.
  'Thank God for a proper surface,' Alex breathed, stretching one arm at a
  time to shake the fatigue from his shoulders.
  They cut through the outskirts of Tomislavgrad, then picked up the main
  road for Split.
 'How far to the border, Josip?'
 'Maybe forty minutes, I think.'
  As they sped on down the road, Alex's eyelids began to droop. All that
  driving after a night of little sleep had taken its toll. He kept shaking
  his head to keep awake.
  Suddenly there was a roadside sign. The border was just five hundred metres
  ahead. Alex tensed up. He had no idea what to do if the Croat guards found
  Vildana. Have to bluff their way through.
 'Fingers crossed, Josip.'
 The road border between Bosnia-Hercegovina and

               220
 Croatia amounted to a string of prefab huts manned by a handful of
 officials in dark blue uniforms.
  The convoy halted and the lieutenant strode to an office clutching the
  passports of the UN personnel. The rain had stopped and a chill wind
  broke up the cloud layer.
 'I guess we just sit tight,' Alex muttered.
  The border guards idly scanned the line of trucks. Then a couple wandered
  wearily towards them. One was a woman with curly hair and red lipstick.
  They made first for the Toyota.
  In the door mirror Alex watched Lorna hand out her passport and UNPROFOR
  card. The woman took them to the office. The male officer walked round
  the Land Cruiser, looking through the windows.
  Suddenly he turned to the Bedford, and stared at the back, low down where
  the number plate was.
  He strolled round the side and appeared at the window, eyes full of
  suspicion.
 'Pa~ol! he said gruffly.
  'He want passport,'Josip translated, unnecessarily. He passed his own
  across too. Seeing he was Croatian, the official fired questions at him.
  'He says we do not have UN plates on this truck. He asks who we are.'
  'Well, tell him. Say we're a British aid agency called Bosnia Emergency.'
 Josip translated.
  The official's dark eyes were deeply suspicious. He jerked a thumb
  towards the back of the truck.
 'He wants to see inside,'Josip gulped.
  Alex climbed down from the cab and walked calnily back, Josip shadowing
  him on the other side.
  'Explain to the officer that we have a body in the back, Josip. Tell him
  it's of an Englishman who was shot dead by accident.'

               221
  As Josip translated, he could see the official believed none of it. ',
  Alex unpinned the hasps and lowered the board on its chains. He lifted
  a corner of the tarpaulin flap to reveal the body-bag. The official
  peered in and then turned on them, shouting.
 'He say where are papers for the dead man.'
 Papers? McFee's passport? Hadn't thought of that.
 'Tell him I'll get them.'
  Alex pulled himself up onto the tailboard. McFee's suitcase was strapped
  to the floor next to the boxes that concealed Vildana's hide. He clicked
  open the bag and searched through the dead man's clothing with his
  fingers.
  A vile smell pervaded this end of the truck. A smell of vomit. Suddenly
  he heard laboured breathing and a stifled whimper.
  Not now, Vildana!Just a few more minutes, for God's sake!
  His fingers touched and he plucked the passport from the case.
  'Here it is,' he called, thumping his feet on the steel floor. Noise,
  that's what they needed. Lots of it to drown any sounds Vildana might
  make. He crouched on the tailboard, clearing his throat as loudly as he
  could.
  'You know, it never occurred to me a dead man would need a passport,
  Josip,' he said loudly. 'Did it you? I mean a corpse is just another
  piece of cargo really, isn't it?'
 Josip understood what he was up to.
  'Yes. I did not think so either that a passport is needed.'
  'But I guess they have to know who the dead person is,' he continued.
  The official interrupted, swiping his hand to indicate a zip opening.
 'He say he want to see face,'Josip explained, darkly.

               222
  'Tell him it's not a pretty sight,' Alex replied, standing up again.
  The official hoisted himself into the cargo space. Alex andjosip banged
  about on the steel floor. The fat end of the body bag was towards the
  middle of the truck. Alex pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket
  and pressed it over his nose.
  'I'd advise our friend here to do the same,' he suggested.
  The official's attention had been caught by the pile of boxes at the far
  end of the truck.
 Alex grabbed at the heavy zip on the body bag.
  'Here,' he said. 'Take a quick look, I don't want this open for long.'
  The zip incorporated a rubber seal and took a sharp tug to get it to
  move.
  McFee's face was pinched and yellow, hardly recognizable. The sour smell
  from the bag penetrated his mask, and made him gag.
  The official positioned himself beside the corpse, then held out the
  passport to compare the photo of the living with the face of death. He
  screwed up his face in disgust, then nodded that the bag should be closed
  again.
  The official's attention returned to the boxes. Alex followed his gaze.
  A black smear of water was trickling from under the cardboard along the
  grooves in the floor.
  Jesus! The kid's wet herself and the bastard's going over to look!
  Alex dropped to his knees, retching violently. It wasn't hard to simulate
  with the ever-growing stench.
  He'd fallen deliberately between the official and the hide.josip fussed
  around him, adding to the distraction. The gut-heaving noise and the
  smell had their effect; the official stumbled to the back of the truck
  and climbed out, sucking in great gulps of air.
 Josip and Alex followed quickly, closing up the

               223
 tailboard. Alex leaned against the side of the Bedford, panting.
  The official pulled josip to one side and began berating him. josip
  shrugged and shook his head.
  Alex glanced at Lorna who'd remained in the Toyota, pretending she was
  nothing to do with them. She studiously avoided his gaze.
  'O-hh,'Josip sighed, 'this man, he says we must have paper to bring body
  into Croatia. Special paper.'
  'What sort of paper, for Christ's sake? Tell him the body's going to be
  flown back to England tomorrow by the Royal Air Force. Tell him it'll
  only be in Croatia for a matter of hours.'
  josip tried again. This time it was the official who shrugged and shook
  his head.
  Alex saw the Logistics Corps lieutenant watching from fifty inetres away.
  He made a face at her as if to say 'can you help', but she turned away.
  They may have been awarded a UN escort, but they weren't UN business.
  josip grabbed his arm and led him back to the driver's cab.
 'You have some Deutsche marks?' he demanded.
 'Some. Why? You're going to bribe this guy?'
  J think it is best. Maybe two hundred will do. Give me three hundred, if
  you have.'
  Alex pulled his wallet from his thornproof and placed it on the driving
  seat, shielding it from view with his back.
  'Here you are.' He folded the notes and slipped them into josip's hand.
  'For God's sake handle this right.'
  josip walked the official away from the truck and the hut where the
  red-lipped woman was waiting. There were smiles and pats on the shoulder,
  then the almost imperceptible passing of the money.
 There was an art to bribery. A Balkan art.
  Josip returned with the passports. The officials waved and the convoy
  moved on.
 'Fucking brilliantJosip! Well done.'

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 The translator chuckled.

 Ten minutes down the road, the convoy halted again, pulling off onto what
 had been a restaurant car park in the days when Yugoslavia had a tourist
 trade.
 'Okay, now?'The lieutenant was at the window again.
 Tine.'
  just thought I'd say goodbye. We don't go into Split itself, so I expect
  you'll want to drop out of the convoy here.'
  She reached up and gave a surprisingly feminine handshake.
 'Bye. Thanks for your help.'
  She paused briefly by the Toyota, then strode back to her Land Rover, and
  the army vehicles moved on.
  On their own at lastjosip and Alex banged down the tailboard.
 'What was all that about at the border?' Lorna asked.
 'I'll tell you later. Let's get Vildana out,' Alex replied.
  All three climbed into the truck. Alex clawed at the tape holding the boxes
  in place, while josip spoke soothing words in Serbo-Croat.
 'Oh, my God,' Lorna gasped. 'The smell! Poor baby.'
  The boxes fell away. Vildana lay across the sodden sleeping bag that had
  been her bed. Her face was grey, her eyes sunken, and her cheeks caked with
  vomit.
  'Oh, you poor, poor sweetheart,' Lorna whispered, dropping to her knees and
  lifting the girl's head. josip took her legs, and between them they carried
  her to the rear of the truck, shielding her face so she wouldn't see the
  body-bag.
  Lorna sat on the tailboard, dangling her legs over the edge and placed
  Vildana beside her. She hugged the girl gently and stroked her face. So
  helpless, she thought. So likejulie.
 'All over now. All over,'she murmured.

               225
 Alex jumped to the ground.
 'I'll get some water so we can clean her face,' he said.
 Lorna's blue-grey eyes sparkled with tears.

 Two and a half hours later Alex drove the Bedford into the UN depot next
 to Split airport. It was just after five. A lowering sky and the first
 spots of rain spattered the windscreen as another front moved in. It would
 be dark soon.
  He'd been expected and was guided to the corner of a huge vehicle garage.
  'The Herc goes at ten in the morning, sir,' a Logistics Corps sergeant
  told him.
  Four soldiers lifted down the body bag, while the sergeant saluted. A
  corner of the floor had been marked off with tape. They laid the bag next
  to a small vase of flowers.
  'Hope you approve, sir,' the sergeant breathed, snapping his hand to his
  side.
  'Oh yes. Thank you.' Standard procedure for corpses, he guessed, whatever
  their history.
  Alex stood for a moment, hands clasped in front of him, suddenly sad. He
  wanted to believe that McFee hadn't been a total monster, that his other
  motive for coming out here had been to help.
  'There's a message from Major Allison, sir,' the sergeant whispered.
  'From Farnham. Said he's arriving on a plane getting in at eight this
  evening, and could you meet him. You've rooms booked in the Park Hotel.'
 'Mike Allison? I didn't know he was coming out.'
  'Said something about needing to sort out the mess, sir.'
  'Mmm.' Sounded like head-teacher was on his way down with the cane.
 'You'll be leaving the truck here sir, as usual?'
 'Yes. Yes, I suppose so.'
 'Need any transport into Split?'

               226
  'Umm.' He thought for a moment. 'No. I've remembered there's a Lada
  Nivajeep here somewhere. Belongs to Bosnia Emergency. Moray and I used it
  last weekend, when we were loading up.'
 'Got the keys in my office, sir.'
  After driving the four-tonner, the Niva felt like a toy. Forty minutes it
  would take to get into town, then a quick shower and he'd find Lorna.
  Lurking at the back of his mind was a sneaking fear she might just
  disappear now she'd got what she wanted from him.

 Lorna kneeled on her bed in the Hotel Split, rubbing Vildana's damp hair
 with a towel. She sang soffly.
  The girl had locked her out of the bathroom when taking her shower, the
  click of the bolt a painful reminder of her own daughter's indifference to
  love and affection.
  Josip was in the room next door. She'd get him to take Vildana to a
  restaurant for a meal once they were both clean and dressed.
  'Mmmm, you smell so good, sweetie,' she said. She hugged her, rocking from
  side to side, then kissed her on the cheekjust beside the livid strawberry
  mark.
 'You're going to be okay, Vildana. That's a promise.'
  The girl had understood none of what she'd said, but decided it would be
  Wise to smile.
 Lorna bit her lip.
  In the bag Vildana had brought from the refugee centre, there was a clean
  pair of jeans and another pullover.
  'Tomorrow, sweetheart, we're going to get you some new clothes. Something
  real pretty.'
  Vildana pulled the towel wrap tighter and took the clothes back into the
  privacy of the bathroom to put
 stream rinse the tension from her neck and shoulders. Then she Washed
 quickly and reached for a towel.

 Half-an-hour later, Alex drove over from the Park Hotel and walked into the
 reception area.
 'Lorna Donohue?' he ~~ked at reception.
  The middle-aged woman behind the desk frowned. 'Not here. No one that
  narne.'
  'An American woman. May have had a young girl with her.'
  'Ah, yes.' The receptionist riffled through a stack of passports.
  'Mrs Sorensen. And her daughter calledjulie Sorensen.
 'Daughter?'
  'Yes.' The receptionist held up a second American passport.
 'Oh. I see. And their room number?'
 'Two-three-seven.'
 'Thank you.'
  Daughter! So that's how she planned to get Vildana out of Croatia. On her
  own child's passport. And she was married. Or had been.
  He waited for the lift, but when it gave no sign of life, took to the
  stairs, passing signs for the UN and the EC Monitoring Mission which used
  the hotel as a base.
  Two-three-seven. On the right. The door was closed. He tapped.
 Nothing. He tapped again.
 'Who is it?' Lorna's voice, tetchy and distant.
 'Alex.'
 Silence.
 'Hang on a minute.'
  Two minutes later the sound of feet scuffing carpet. She pulled open the
  door.
 'I'm on line to the States. . .' She darted back to the

               228
 writing-table and the glowing screen of her laptop computer.
 'I'm impressed,'Alex said.
 just got to download my e-mail,' she explained.
  He stood right behind her and watched. She smelled of shampoo. Her hair
  was soft and fluffy, her shoulders round and bony under the clean
  tee-shirt. He badly wanted to caress the soft curve of her neck, but
  dared not touch.
 'Sit down. You're making me nervous,' she told him.
 He perched on the edge of the bed.
  She typed 'EXIT', the computer screen flickered and cleared. Then she
  thumbed the roller-ball to enter a new Windows file.
  Just got to read this stuff again . . .' she murmured. 'But it seems like
  it's all fixed.'
  She grabbed a notebook, then scribbled down names and phone numbers read
  from the screen.
  At last she logged off and powered down the computer.
  'It's Germany,' she told him, n8ringing round in her chair. Her eyes
  burned excitedly. 'They've found a family in Germany. An Air Force
  colonel and his wife, two kids of their own, and would you believe, a
  Yugoslav child nurse. Isn't that amazing?'
 'An American colonel?'
  'Sure, sure. His tour of duty finishes in a year and then they go back
  to Milwaukee. Vildana will go with them, if it all works out.'
  'And you got all that out of your computer?' Alex asked, astonished.
  'On-line, through the phone, to the Internet. CareNet runs a bulletin
  board for families who want to adopt. I posted a notice there two days
  ago, and it's all happened lickety-split.'
 'Sort of shopping by computer? Kids off the peg.'
 She looked wounded.

               229
  'I know it sounds like that. But believe me every subscriber gets checked
  out real good.'
 'In just two days?' he asked incredulously.
  'Look. Larry Machin, the guy who runs CareNet, he's got a million
  contacts. He knows loads of people in the Air Force, the church, in
  politics. He wouldn't have said this family's okay if he had any doubts.'
  But she wasn't that certain. He could see it in her eyes. She turned
  away. You just had to trust people sometimes. And she trusted Machin.
  Alex glimpsed at his watch. It was an old Swiss windup Lorna had given
  him in Belfast. Twenty-past-seven.
  'Christ I'm meant to be at the airport. The guy who runs my organization
  is arriving at eight.'
 He took hold of her hands.
 'Lorna, we've got to talk some more,' he said.
  'Sure. But not now,' she answered, giving his hands a light squeeze, then
  pulling hers free. 'There's too much still to fix, and anyway you've got
  to be going.'
 'I'll come back later, okay?'
 'I'm not sure. . .'
 'When are you going to Germany?'
  'Tomorrow if there's a ferry to Ancona. I've got to check.'
 'With Vildana travelling on your daughter's passport?'
  She froze and stared at him. How did he know that? Then she remembered
  the receptionist had their documents.
  'Sure. OnJulie's passport. She has dark hair too, and I can cover
  Vildana's birthmark with make-up,' she declared defiantly.
 Alex thought for a moment. He could see a problem.
 'But Julie's passport doesn't have an entry stamp. .
 Lorna looked unsettled. She hadn't thought of that.
 'You think it matters?' she whispered.
 'If your passport has the stamp and hers doesn't, they

               230
 may ask questions. And when they find your "daughter" only speaks
 Serbo-Croat. . .'
 'Maybe josip, can bribe someone, like he did today.'
  'Risky ... I may know a better way. I'll ring you later, when I've
  sorted things out.'
  'No. Vildana's going to be sleeping in here. I don't want her woken
  up. I'll callyou about eleven.'
 He gave her his room number at the Park Hotel.
 'Got to go.'
 He held her by the shoulders. She felt frail.
  He kissed her dry lips. She pushed him away, looking at him from the
  corner of her eyes, as if to say don't tg it.

 231
            Eighteen

 Thursday 31st March, 10.25 a.m. Zagreb

 It was a grey, wintry morning in the Croatian capital. A damp mist of
 pollution contaminated the streets. On people's faces there was weariness,
 and a lurking fear that the day could not be far away when war would
 return to their part of what used to be Yugoslavia.
  Milan Pravic slipped out of his sister's apartment in Novi Zagreb without
  a word. Living there was getting on his nerves. He would strangle that
  baby soon if it woke him with its crying any more. Only a few days to go
  and he would be gone, thank God.
  He pressed the lift button. No green light. Stuck again. Some stupid
  bastards had left a door open probably.
  He took to the stairs. Going down six floors was fine, coming up wasn't
  so funny.
  On the way he passed pale women dragging toddlers up with them. Everyone
  looked pale living here in these tall damp towers.
  'Broken down again,' one of them complained, as if he was responsible.
  'Four times in a month. It's too much.'
 He ignored them. Wasn't his fault the lift didn't work.
  The message from Dieter Konrad said to meet him in the bar of Hotel
  Dubrovnik on what he still called Republic Square, despite the name
  change after Croatian independence.
  The tram that would take him there stopped five minutes' walk away.
  Plenty of time.
 He still didn't know what Konrad wanted. A 'job' in

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 Zagreb was all Gisela had said. The reward - ten thousand Deutsche marks, a
 false passport to get him safely over the border, and a ride back to Berlin
 in Konrad's car.
  Germany was his second home. He'd lived there five years before the war
  summoned him back to Bosnia. He'd worked building offices and hotels,
  installing airconditioning.
  And Gisela? She was 'home' too. She'd said she'd be glad to have him live
  with her again. Had another 'protector' these days, but the man was gay,
  and wouldn't get in the way.
  Gisela. She was the only woman he'd ever felt tenderness for. The only one
  he hadn't needed to hurt.
  The blue number 6 tram took him from the monotonous towers of Novi Zagreb,
  across the River Sava into the classical mid-European splendour of the
  Lower Town. He got off in Republic Square. The sun was breaking through,
  the warmth of spring in the air.
  The Dubrovnik Hotel was part Austro-Hungarian, part modern, a confusing
  place where guests had been known to get lost. Pravic walked through the
  lobby and into the small bar. He didn't notice Konrad at first. Looking
  older than when he'd last seen him a few years back, he hugged a corner
  like a shadow. The raising of an eyebrow finally caught Pravic's attention.
  Konrad got up and walked towards the door, ignoring him. Pravic followed a
  dozen paces behind. They crossed separately to the other side of the
  square. A pedestrian zone with trams the only traffic, a fountain splashed
  at one end. Konrad headed for a bench encircling the base of an ornate lamp
  standard.
  'Good thing you sent me those passport photos,' he declared when Pravic
  joined him. 'Wouldn't have recognized you with short hair and glasses.
  Gisela sends her love.'
 Tourists were rare in Zagreb since Yugoslavia became

               233
 synonymous with war. One or two climbed the steps to the old town from
 this square, taking pictures on the way. Most were couples, but there was
 one man on his own, with a British Airways bag over his shoulder, and the
 broken nose of a rugby player.
  The lone tourist wandered across the square, looking as if he was trying
  to get his bearings. Then he took the cap off his camera lens and
  adjusted the zoom to its maximum focal length.
  The two men on the bench almost filled the frame. The younger,
  short-haired one seemed a little startled at something he was being told.

 11.10 am.
 Split, Croatia

 'We've got file footage of Tulici,' the American reporter told Lorna. 'And
 we'll take shots of you three driving down the road together.'
  'Uh-oh. That's not too clever,' Lorna cautioned her. journalists always
  assumed too much, particularly the female ones. 'You draw attention to
  us like that, and somebody might say - hey guys, what's going on here?
  It's going to be tough enough as it is, getting Vildana out of the
  country.'
  'We'll be sneaky. Nobody'll see us. Don't you worry about it.'
  The camera team from CNN were packing up. Vildana stood on the balcony
  overlooking the sea and stared back into the room, bewildered, excited
  and frightened by the attention she'd been getting that morning.
 It hadn't been Lorna's idea to tell the world that she

               234
 was smuggling the only eye-witness of the Tulici massacre out of the
 country. She'd been instructed to do it in an e-mail message from Larry
 Machin in Boston. He'd already told CNN headquarters in Atlanta they could
 have the story exclusively if they undertook not to broadcast it until
 Vildana was safe.
  'Tell them it's because CareNet uses state-of-the-art computer technology
  that we've been able to place the kid so fast.' That was the message he
  wanted her to put across. 'Publicity like this could bring in millions
  in donations.'
  The camera team had taped Loma tapping away at her notebook computer,
  with Vildana watching uncomprehendingly while covering her birthmark with
  a hand. The woman had asked about the threat to Vildana's life, but Lorna
  had reffised to say how she'd brought the girl to Split, and rejected a
  request for an interview with Vildana herself
  Loma hated the publicity machine, but Larry Machin was not a man to be
  crossed.
  'This is the number of the Atlanta newsdesk.' The CNN correspondent
  handed her a card.
  'Call them collect as soon as you're safe, so they can transmit the
  piece. Okay?'
 'Okay.'
 'And you've not talked to any other media, right?'
 'Right.'
  'Great. Well thank you Lorna. And thanks Vildana. Good luck!'
  She shook hands all round. The cameraman and recordist clattered out of
  the room with their equipment. The correspondent followed, then turned
  in the doorway.
  'Oh, I meant to tell you I'm flying back home to the States tomorrow,'
  she said. 'Anything you want me to take for you? Letters maybe?'
 Lorna thought fior a moment.

               235
 'Oh my God, yes! The camera! Larry wants pictures.'
  Her Nikon was on the bed and she'd forgotten to use it.
  ,Can you give me a few minutes to take some shots? No. I've a better idea.
  Your office is here in the hotel, right?'
 'Sure. One floor up. Room three-two-eight.'
  'Give me ten minutes and I'll bring you an envelope with a film in it.
  Okay?'
  'No problem. I'll be editing for the next couple of hours, anyway.'
  Lorna plugged in the flash and showedjosip how to use it. Then she put her
  arm round Vildana and they posed at the table with the computer.
  josip took two shots, but then couldn't wind on any further.
 'It is finish,' he suggested, passing her the camera.
 'Fine. We've got enough. Thanks.'
  She took back the Nikon, rewound the film and removed the cassette. Then
  she closed her fingers round it, remembering it contained shots of Alex
  taken in the Bosnian village where they'd met.
  She despatchedJosip to ask at reception for envelopes, then scrawled a note
  to Machin, telling him what was on the film, and asking him to post the
  pictures that weren't of Vildana to her sister in Boston. Then she wrote
  another note.

 Dearest Annie,
 You will NE VER guess who the guy zVith the beard is, standing
 next to me in a couple of these photos!
 His name begins zvith the letter
 Seeyou soon. Loma.

 josip returned, successful. Lorna addressed the enve-
               236
 lopes, put the one for her sister inside the one to Machin containing the
 film and hurried down the corridor to the stairway.
 She nearly collided with Alex coming out of the lift.
  'I'll be back in a minute,' she said hurriedly, walking briskly down the
  corridor.
  As arranged, she had telephoned him last night. He'd told her about his
  gloomy meeting with Mike Allison, who reckoned Bosnia Emergency had been
  all but crippled by the publicity surrounding McFee. He had also said
  that he knew of a way to put a stamp in her daughter's passport.
 Alex found the door to her room open.
  'Morningjosip. Hello Vildana.' He smiled at the girl and gave her a hug.
  Vildana almost looked excited and had colour back in her cheeks.
 Lorna returned breathless.
  'Okay,' she panted. 'What's next? I've got so much to do before the ferry
  tonight, Vildana has to have some clothes.'
  The girl looked nervous again, not understanding what was on offer but
  sensing tension.
  'As I said on the phone, I think I can fix that passport for you, Lorna,'
  Alex reminded her. 'But there are some things I need to buy. Can I borrow
  josip for half an hour? And your Land Cruiser? My boss has nicked my
  Lada.'
  'Sure.' She gave him the keys. 'See you in a while. Not too long, huh?'

 josip knew the towm well. They toured dry-cleaning establishments until
 they found one prepared to sell them di-ethylene glycol. Translating the
 chemical name proved beyondjosip's powers, but asking for ball-point pen
 ink remover produced the desired result.

               237
  They were back in the hotel within the hour, after stopping ata toy shop to
  buy a child's paintbrush.
  Alex took the two American passports into josip's room. He'd never done
  this before and didn't want people watching. He'd been told the technique
  by a minder at the safe house where M15 had hidden him after the pull-out
  from Belfast.
  First he opened the passport of Lorna's daughter. No stamps. Looked totally
  unused.
 Julie Maria Sorensen - born 181b,7uyl 1980.
  Nearly fourteen now, but the photo was younger. Pretty kid. Dark hair, Re
  Lorna had said. Not much else that resembled Vildana. Hope immigration
  don't look too closely, he thought. Curiously vacant expression. The girl
  hadn't been looking at the camera.
  He spread open Lorna's passport. Her photo had been taken in a studio, hair
  immaculate, soft lighting, Just the hint of a smile. Not her, the style.
  Done to please her husband probably. He wondered if he was still around.
  He flicked through the pages until he found last Saturday's entry stamp to
  Croatia. He checked his materials. Bottle of fluid, brush, writing paper,
  tissues.
  He dipped the fine-pointed brush in the liquid and dabbed off the excess.
  Steadying his hand, he painted the Glycol in a thin coat over the black ink
  outline of the entry stamp. Then, replenishing the brush, he traced the
  letters of the word 'Split' and the date.
 He observed his work. Every bit of ink covered.
  'Here goes,' he murmured, pressing the sheet of writing paper firmly onto
  the moistened page. He lifted it off again. A perfect negative image left
  by the Glycolsoftened ink.
  He opened the second visa section injulie's passport and laid the writing
  paper face down. Then he used his thumb to press the image onto the page.
  He lifted off the paper. The image was faint, but readable. A perfect
  replica of an entry stamp.

               238
  just one problem. The Glycol had left a stain on both passports. He
  dabbed with the tissue, but the stain remained.
  He took them back next door and showed them to Lorna.
  'That's amazing. Where'd you learn to do thaff she asked suspiciously.
  'Never mind. Do you have a hair-drier? See if those stains will come out.
  If they don't, your best bet may be to drop the whole passport in the
  bath. It'll be such a mess by the time you dry it out, nobody'll know
  what's what.'
  She looked irritated, as if he'd created more problems than he'd solved.
  'Okay, josip, let's go shopping now,' she announced. 'Vildana needs a
  warm coat, a nightdress and a toothbrush. And anything else she sees that
  she wants. I'm going to try to put a smile on that little face.'
  She hustled them all out of the bedroom and locked the door. They took
  the stairs to the ground floor. Alex followed uneasily. Lorna was being
  deliberately distant.
  Downstairs she handed her key to the receptionist then headed for the big
  glass exit doors. In the middle of the large lobby she turned to Alex.
  'Well,' she said with a switched-on smile. 'I guess this is goodbye
  again.'
  Her eyes were like glass, free of any decipherable expression.
 'What d'you mean?' he asked, stunned.
  'I imagine you're going back up to Vitez in a day or so,' she went on.
  He knew his distress was plain for her to see - and she was savouring it,
  he realized suddenly.
  'I really can't thank you enough for what you did getting Vildana down
  here. Made upfor a lot,' she added pointedly.

               239
  'But I'm not sure that I am going back to Vitez . . .' he mouthed,
  desperately. She was casting off, leaving him behind.
 'Fate did us all a good turn this time, huh?'
 7his time.
  'If we hadn't met up like that, Vildana probably wouldn't be here,' she
  continued, slipping an arm round the girl's shoulders.
  'But hang on a minute. ..' Alex said, wishing they were out of earshot of
  the others.
  'Alex, I don't have a minute,' she replied fractiously. 'I've got to get
  that kid sorted out - that's all I'm interested in right now.'
 'Yes, but we can see each other later then . .
  'Later, I'm going to Frankfurt, and then home to the States.'
 He felt as if she'd just kneed him in the groin.
  'Lorna, I ... I really do want to see you again,' he said lamely. He was
  conscious ofJosip watching them.
 'Oh, you do? I'm not sure that's such a good. .
 Then she appeared to relent.
  'I tell you what. I'll give you the number of CareNet in Boston. They can
  pass a message. Maybe you'll come to the States one day.'
  She pulled a calling card from her pocket and handed it to him.
 'Bye,' she said, walking away. 'And good luck.'
 She hung on to Vildana using the girl as a shield.
  Dumbfounded, Alex watched as they climbed into the Land Cruiser and drove
  up the ramp towards the town.

 Lorna shook like a leaf, terrified she'd overdone it. She responded
 tojosip's street directions on autopilot.
  She had worked it all out in her head last night, while lying awake
  listening to Vildana's snuffly breathing.

               240
  Yes, she ached to have him back, but no, it wouldn't work until they
  were quits. Until she had made him feel something of the pain that she
  had felt all those years ago.

 241
            Nineteen

 Alex stalked back to the Park Hotel, seething. Angry at Lorna, and at
 himself for standing there like an idiot, letting her go off that way.
 That's what came of being too considerate with women, he thought. Should
 have Just grabbed her and told her what's what. Instead he'd let her dump
 him like some pickup at a disco.
  Mike Allison was waiting for him at a table beneath the palm trees on the
  sun-speckled terrace.
  'Ali, there you are,' he said, pointedly not getting to his feet. 'Wondered
  where you'd got to.'
  Alex pulled out a white-painted, metal chair and sat down without
  responding. Allison was a good five years younger than him, the type of
  ex-soldier who couldn't forget he was officer class.
 'Thought we'd have a bite here. They do sandwiches.'
 Tine.'
 Allison twisted round to look for the waiter.
  'Never there when you want them. If you see him come out, give him a wave.'
  'Sure.' Alex's chair faced the French windows that led to the kitchens.
  'I've been talking to Vitez this morning,' the Major continued. 'I saw
  Moray's body off on the G 130, then went to UNPROFOR and called Alan
  Clarke-Hartley on the army "comms".'
 'Oh yes?'
  'I can tell you we're in deep doo-doo up there. The HVO are claiming we've
  been using our truck to smuggle the "Muf in and out. Usual crap. But the
  bottom line

               242
 is I've got a lot of work to do patching things up with the locals. And
 I think it best if you aren't around when I do it.'
 ,I see.'
  The waiter approached and they ordered club sandwiches and beers.
  'Yes. The trouble is people will link you with Moray. They probably think
  you were both perverts. It's all rumour control up there. Truth only
  makes up ten per cent of what people believe. If that.'
  Alex nodded. If he was being given his cards, it was no more than he'd
  expected.
  'So, this is what I've decided,' Allison continued. 'Tomorrow morning
  there's another of my trucks arriving from England. You can give us a
  hand stuffing the boxes into the Bedford and then push off back to
  England if you like. The chap who drives the bread van out from Farnham
  can come up to Vitez with me. He's bringing a camera. We'll get some new
  pictures of our aid being distributed and hope it co7interacts the lousy
  press we got over McFee.'
  'And ... how do I travel to Englancl?' Alex asked flatly.
  'You can have the return half of my air ticket, if you like. I'll get it
  transferred into your name.'
 The sandwiches arrived.

 Alex lay on the bed in his room staring at the ceiling. In the hours that
 had passed since Lorna drove away at the Hotel Split, he'd reached a firm
 conclusion. However resistant she might be, he needed her and he was going
 to have her again.
  It wasn't a pretty sight, looking back on his life. There seemed to be
  a trail of human suffering lying in his wake that resembled the work of
  a joy-rider in a parking lot.

               243
 There was still time however, to create something good, something litsting
 from it.
  The problem was how to get Lorna back. He'd ruled out returning to the
  hotel to tell her what he felt. Nothing would be accomplished while she
  still had Vildana to hide behind.
  In the meantime there was also the question of Milan Pravic. A
  mass-murderer on the loose who had to be stopped from killing again.
  He checked his watch. Four o'clock - three p.m. in London. It was time he
  let Roger Chadwick know what he'd found out.
  He dialled the number he'd been given. A voice he'd never heard before
  answered and took a message. He replaced the receiver and waited for the
  call back.
  Ten minutes was all it took before Chadwick's sonorous tones boomed down
  the line.
 'Nice to hear your voice,' Alex volunteered.
 'Oh, dear. Things must be bad,' Chadwick quipped.
 'You know what's happened... ?'
  'Of course. It's been all over the papers and the TV. You have my sympathy,
  dear boy.'
  'Thanks. Well the result is I've just been fired. My days as a charity
  worker out here are over, I'm afraid.'
  'Oh dear. That's a pity, but I have to say I'm not surprised. Did you learn
  anything useful?'
  Alex told him about Father Pravic. He also mentioned the existence of
  Vildana, but without revealing his own involvement in her escape from
  Bosnia.
  'A witness! You have done well. The UN will be delighted if they ever catch
  the blighter. Where's the girl now?'
  'Don't want to say any more at the moment,' Alex stalled. The last thing he
  wanted was to tell Chadwick about Lorna. He'd never hear the last of it.
  'I'll call you again on a secure line in a few days' time.'

               244
  'Mmm. All right.'Chadwick sounded impressed by his security-speak.
  'As to Pravic, or the Scorpion as his brother so descriptively calls him
  - it looks as if he's done a bunk. No one knows where to. But Roger, the
  man's really dangerous. He's got to be found. He sounds like a psychopath
  and his brother says he'll definitely kill again.'
  'Well as long as he does it in Bosnia, I don't suppose anyone'll be too
  fussed,' Chadwick mumbled.
 Alex winced.
 'Not fussed? Slaughtering women and children?'
  'We-ell it's not really our problem, is it? We're not the world's
  policemen any more. You've done your best. We've done our best as UK
  Limited. I think I'll pass the baton back to the UN War Crimes people in
  the Hague and let them take up the running.'
  'You wouldn't be so bloody blas6 if the bloke was on the loose in
  Hampshire,'Alex growled.
 'But he's not, is he?'
 'I don't know. He could be anywhere.'
 'Got a description of him?'
 'Fair hair and blue eyes, not very tall. That's all.'
  There was a pause from the other end in which Alex thought he heard a
  sigh.
  'Bloody Bosnia,' Chadwick muttered. 'We'd all love to leave them to it,
  but they won't let us. So what do you suggest - as our man on the spoff
  he added grandly. 'We're still happy to pay your exes if you think
  there's anything more you can do.'
 Alex hesitated.
  'Give me a day or two to think, and I'll get back to you.'
  'Fine. Oh by the way, when you return to England there's some good news
  for you,' Chadwick continued, perkily. 'Might put a smile on your face.
  It looks like the Provos are heading for a cease-fire.'

               245
  Alex replaced the receiver. He'd given hardly a thought to the IRA in the
  last few days. Their threat to his life had almost ceased to be real.
 There was a knock on the bedroom door.
 'Yes?'
  'It's Mike. Time to go down to the Travel Agent and get the ticket done.
  You'll need your passport.'
  Of course. His ticket home. He swung his feet to the floor. Half-past-five.
  The walk to the harbour took twenty minutes. Clustered at one end of the
  palm-lined promenade was a small parade of travel and souvenir shops. It
  didn't take long to re-issue the air ticket in Alex's name.
  Young couples in jeans and T-shirts strolled by the water's edge. With the
  preserved remains of the old medieval town as a backdrop, they could have
  been on the French Riviera if it weren't for the stench of sewage that rose
  from the oily waters of the port.
  'Gorgeous bloody women in this country,' Allison purred. 'Fancy a drink at
  one of those caf6s to take in the view?'
  He was right about the pretty girls. There'd be plenty to look at.
  Suddenly, realizing where he was, Alex had a different idea. He glanced at
  his watch. Nearly half-past-six.
  'No thanks. There's a friend of mine going on the ferry to Ancona tonight.
  Think I'll try to catch her before she gets on board. . . .'
 Allison lifted one eyebrow then set off on his own.
  Alex hurried towards the docks, suspecting he might already be too late.
  The ferry sailed in less than an hour.
  It was further than he'd remembered to the terminal. He began to run. Dock
  workers waiting at a bus stop watched nervously. When people ran here, it
  often meant trouble wasn't far behind.
  A short line of trucks still queued at the customs barrier, but no Land
  Cruisers.

               246
 A quarter to seven. Must have missed her.
  He walked to the police pole. Without a ticket he could go no further. Two
  hundred metres beyond the control point, the lights of the ferry's upper
  deck sparkled in the dusk.
  He saw figures on deck. Dark shapes taking a last look at the floodlit
  ramparts of the old town. He strained to make them out. Two tallish forms
  with a smaller one between them. Might be Lorna. Might not.
  Convincing himself it was, he waved. We'll meet again soon, he decided.
  He hung around until the ship sailed, then made his way back to the
  promenade. The evening was mild, a temperature they'd have called 'summer'
  in Scotland. The crowds on the promenade had grown. Couples flirted at the
  caf6s.
  He ambled through the bustle, relishing its sensuousness. He took a seat at
  a restaurant whose tables spilled onto the pavement. He wasn't particularly
  hungry, but he'd eat something.
  While waiting for service, he pulled the airline ticket from his pocket and
  studied it carefully for the first time. The flight was tomorrow afternoon.
  Split to Zagreb, then Zagreb-Frankfurt, and Frankfurt-London.
 Frankfurt! They'd made it easy for him.

 247
             Twenty

 Zagreb, Croatia
 10.30 p.m. the same night

 The man with the broken nose sat in his rented Golf, parked at Zagreb's
 Pleso airport in a position where he could see the planes landing. At this
 time of night the place was almost deserted. No more scheduled flights were
 due in.
  Martin Sanders was more nervous than he had been for many a year. As a
  department head with the British Secret Intelligence Service, it wasn't
  often he did field work any more. The activities of the Ramblers were so
  secret however, they were compelled to keep the use of subordinates to a
  minimum.
  Parked nearby, Marcel Vaillon from the DGSE was keeping an eye on the
  terminal building. Everything depended on their identification of the
  target. Without that there could be no killing.
  The advance intelligence the CIA had gleaned was skimpy. They had the
  Iranian's name, but their only photograph was a family snap of him as a
  bearded youth, taken at the time of the Islamic Revolution. They knew he'd
  be on this flight, but didn't know where he'd meet his contact.
  Information on the Russian was zero. No name, no data whatsoever. He must,
  they assumed, already be in Zagreb. Waiting somewhere with his lethal
  sample.
  For a jumbo jet to fly from Tehran, the hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism,
  to this the capital of militantly

               248
 Catholic Croatia, was an odd event, but no odder than many that had
 happened in the fon-ner Yugoslavia.
  The flight was arriving in the dark of night and would leave again before
  dawn. Few people would ever know the plane had been here. Official
  sources would deny it.
  Balkan politicians had turned somersaults in the past few days. The
  Bosnian Croats and the mostly Muslim Bosnian government forces, who'd
  fought so bloodily over territory, had cemented their cease-fire by
  signing a confederation agreement. Pooling resources again to kill Serbs,
  instead of each other, had finally made sense to even the most stubborn.
  As a spin-off from that agreement, Croatia had given permission for Iran
  to re-arm the BiH Armija. The guns were being ferried through airfields
  on the coast, to be driven through Croatian territory into Bosnia.
  Tonight's flight to Zagreb was the pay-off to Croatia -a plane-load of
  explosives and ammunition, a gift from the mullahs, which the Croatians
  wanted for the renewal of their own battle with the Serbs.
  On the return flight to Iran, the cargo would be much smaller but
  potentially much more lethal - a sliver of Russian plutonium.
  Sanders had the car windows down, listening. At two minutes to midnight
  lie heard the roar of turbofans as a 747 flared out for landing. Through
  night-vision binoculars he watched the white-painted jumbo taxi to the
  far side of the airfield. No markings on it. No airline logo, no giveaway
  fin-flash. Vehicles clustered round the plane, their tail-lights forming
  a ruby crescent.
  He picked up the rented telephone and dialled the number of Marcel's
  mobile.
 'The guests have arrived,' he said cryptically.
  'I thought so,' the Frenchman answered. 'A car has just arrived at the
  terminal.'
 They disconnected.
 Sanders started the engine, switched on the lights and

               249
 motored slowly to the car park exit. He paid the sleepy attendant with a wad
 of devalued Dinar notes then drove on and stopped just short of the
 terminal. He pretended to be consulting a map.
  The 'car' was a minibus. Might be for the aircrew, but there was no other
  vehicle in sight. No taxis at this time of night. If Akhavi had an
  appointment in town, the bus could well be for him.
  Vaillon was closer. The final identification would have to be his.
  Sanders drummed his fingers on the wheel. Too many uncertainties for his
  liking. Desperately under-resourced the whole operation was. Had to be,
  when officially the Ramblers didn't even exist.
  Three minutes later a lone figure 'in a dark suit emerged from the
  terminal, accompanied by the uniformed driver of the minibus. Too shadowy
  for Sanders to make out, even through the glasses. Maybe Vaillon had more
  luck.
 His phone rang.
 'Yes?'
 'Cannot be certain. But I think,' Vaillon's voice.
 'I'll go for it then?'
 'Yes.'
  The minibus began to move. Sanders slipped the Golf into gear and took
  station about fifty metres behind, heading for Zagreb.
  Vaillon would remain at the airport in case someone else looking like
  Akhavi emerged, or the Russian arrived. If the rendezvous was on the
  airport itself however, they were screwed. No way they could take them out.
  Sanders followed the minibus for fifteen minutes, then called Vaillon
  again.
 'Crossing the Sava by the Freedom Bridge.'
 'Nothing new here,'Vaillon acknowledged.
 The minibus turned left onto Vukovarska then right

               250
 into Miramarska, Sanders letting a taxi slip in between himself and the
 van.
  Left and right past squares and fountains, then the target vehicle pulled
  up at the Martinova Hotel.
  Sanders stopped at the kerb. Parking no problem at this time ofnight.
  Lights out and onto his feet running, keeping in the shadows. He punched
  the buttons of the phone. A different number this time.
  Ja? A German voice answered, the man Sanders knew simply as Dunkel.
 'Hotel Martinova. Zehn Minuten.'
 Jawohk'
  Voices on the phone, that's all they were. They'd never met. Never would.
  Dunkel hadn't even been told who he was working for.
  Sanders pushed through the swing doors into the hotel. The man he'd
  followed from the airport stood at the reception desk holding one of
  those large black leather bags used by pilots.
  Sanders' heart missed a beat, terrified he'd followed the wrong man.
  Iranian? Certainly looked it -- dark hair, dark-framed spectacles, small
  moustache, and wearing one of those collarless shirts under a suit that
  was almost black.
 But was it Akhavi?
  Sanders walked up behind him as casually as he could. He hovered half a
  pace from the desk. There was just a night clerk on duty.
  Hearing him, the Iranian snapped his head round. Fear in his eyes - a
  good sign. Sanders smiled.
 'Good evening,' he purred.
  The Iranian nodded and turned back to the desk. Sanders moved a little
  closer. The clerk had the reservation details already printed and pushed
  forward a form for the Iranian to sign.
  'You pay by credit card?' the clerk asked in heavilyaccented English.

               251
 'Mmm.,
 'I make print?'
  He made a wiping gesture with his hand. The Iranian understood and pulled
  an American Express card from his pocket-book.
  Sanders lurched for-ward, making a grab for a brochure from the display on
  the counter.
 'Sorry,' he murmured, brushing against the Iranian.
  just a quick glance. Enough to see the name Akhavi on the card.
  He backed off a pace and pretended to read the brochure.
  'Room 6 10. Sixth floor,' the clerk said. 'Is a letter for you. Have you
  baggage?'
  'I don't need help,' Akhavi answered, reaching out his hand for the key and
  the envelope.
  'Elevator is over there,' the clerk added, pointing to the left.
  Sanders rested his hand on the counter and watched Akhavi walk away.
 The clerk coughed. 'Can I help you, sir?'
  'Yes. I want to know if a friend of mine has checked in already. A Herr
  Dunkel? From Germany.'
 The clerk shook his head.
 'Could you look again, just to be sure?'
  The clerk wheezed with annoyance, but glanced down at the register. Sanders
  peered past him at the room keys hanging on their hooks. 612 was missing,
  but 614 was there. Close enough.
  'There is no reservation for that narne,' the clerk grunted.
  'Oh dear, oh dear. Must be the traffic. I'm sure he'll turn up. Are you
  sure he hasn't reserved room six one four? Always goes for that number if
  he can. Some stupid superstition.'
 'Is no reservation!'

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  'Okay, okay. I'll leave a note anyway.'He snapped his fingers, irritably.
  'You have some paper?'
 The clerk gave him a sheet and an envelope.
 'Plenty room, if your friend he come. Neina probLema.'
  Sanders sealed his note, scribbled Dunkel's name on the outside and
  pushed it across the counter.
 'Where's the toilet?'
 'Sir?'
  'The toilet. The washroom,' Sanders repeated, rubbing his hands together.
 'Round the corner. Next the bar.'
 The clerk pointed.
 'Thanks.'
  Sanders followed the directions but ignored the Gospoda sign.
  He was in luck. Stairs next to the toilets led up to a mezzanine floor.
  He climbed them, pushed on a door marked 1-Jaz and found the emergency
  stairs.
  He climbed two more floors, then listened. Silence. He took the phone
  from his pocket and called Vaillon again.
  'It's our man. Definite,' he said. 'Hotel Martinova, room six-ten. Our
  boys are on the way. They'll be in six fourteen.'
 Then he rang off.
  Sanders continued up to the sixth floor. Easing open the door to the
  corridor, he slipped past Akhavi's room. No sound from inside. He turned
  back and hid behind the exit door, waiting and watching through a crack.
  Down at the reception desk, Konrad signed the name Dunkel, giving an
  address in Munich. He paid cash in advance for the room and left his
  false passport so the clerk could complete the documentation.
  Konrad and Pravic waited for the lift. The clerk glanced at them
  knowingly. The one who'd registered looked to be nearly sixty, but his
  blonde, blue-eyed companion was younger. Picked him up in a bar shouldn't
  wonder.

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  Konrad led the way along the silent sixth floor corridor. He stopped at
  614, his key slipping into the lock. Pravic crept forward to check the
  other numbers. 6 10 was two doors further on.
  Inside their room, Konrad unzipped his bag and carefully removed the
  equipment. Pravic watched uneasily. Konrad had told him only the bare
  essentials of what this job was about. just enough to know why his
  particular skills were needed.
  Poisoning was not the way Pravic liked to kill. Too remote, too uncertain.
  When he'd murdered a man for Konrad in Berlin six years before, it had been
  with a knife.
  He saw the strain on Konrad's face. He'd refused to say who they were
  working for, but he guessed it was somebody in Zagreb. There'd been two
  phone calls with instructions.
  Pravic placed a chair in the entrance lobby, beside the bathroom. Above his
  head was a wire grill and a humming fan. He found the control for the
  air-conditioning and turned it off. Then he climbed on the chair and lifted
  the grill which was nearly a metre square, turning it diagonally to lower
  it through the aperture.
 :What do you think?' Konrad asked under his breath.
  Maybe okay,' Pravic, whispered, stepping to the floor again. 'Old hotel.
  Plenty space.'
 His German was halting, but adequate.
  From Konrad's tool kit, Pravic took a torch, a screwdriver and a drill.
  'Help me,' he said, locking his hands together in a stirrup to show what he
  meant.
  Konrad stood beside the chair, and gave him a leg up into the ceiling
  space.
  For years Pravic had worked with ventilation systems, but fear of these
  cramped spaces never left him. The gap concealed by the false ceiling was
  just half a metre high, its metal frame and crawling boards built for
  access.

               254
  Pravic shone his torch upwards. An aluminium duct extended in from the
  corridor. From its open end he felt the cool draught of fresh air.
  The fan, when switched on, sucked air from the room, mixed in the fresh
  supply, then blew it back into the bedroom through a vent.
 Every room the same - including 610.
  Pravic wriggled into the roof space. Separating him from the void above
  the corridor was a square access panel, held in place by four screws. He
  removed them and the panel came away easily. Then suddenly it slipped
  from his grip, thudding onto the ceiling below him.
  He froze. Beneath him Konrad swore, then switched on the television to
  drown his noise.

 Two doors down, Dr Harnid Akhavi dialled the room number written on the
 note he'd been given at reception.
 'Pavel?' he asked timidly.
 'Da.'

  'Hamid. In room six hundred ten,' he said in heavilyaccented Russian.
 'I'll come up.'
  Three minutes later they were shaking hands and embracing.
 'I'm very pleased to see you, my friend,' Akhavi said.
 'I too.'
  They embraced again, their first meeting for four years.
 'How much time do you have here?' Kulikov asked.
  Akhavi looked at his watch. Ten minutes past one in the morning.
 'The car comes at four.'
  They sat and Akhavi offered an orange juice from the minibar. The Russian
  would have preferred something stronger.

               255
 'You weren't followed?' Kulikov asked.
  'I don't think so. An Englishman downstairs - I believe he was drunk.' His
  lips pouted with distaste.
  He asked about Kulikov's family. Time was short, but the social courtesies
  his culture had taught him could not be by-passed. Eventually he was ready
  to grasp the nettle.
 'So, you have brought me something?' he asked.

 Sanders had seen the Russian arrive, carrying a large Samsonite briefcase.
 He descended two floors on the emergency stairs, then dialled Dunkel's
 number.
  'Sie sind zusammen,' he announced softly when Dunkel answered.

 Konrad put the phone down. Same mystery voice that had summoned him to this
 hotel. English accent.
 NATO? Was that who his employer was?
  ng are together. The code they'd agreed. The clock was now ticking.
  Konrad grabbed a mask, hooked the strap over his head and settled the soft
  rubber over his nose and mouth. Then he breathed in sharply to test the
  seal.
  He laid out the artists' airbrush, the propellant canister and its
  connecting tube. Beside it, the screw-top jar containing the lethal,
  light-brown fluid.
  Take great care, Kemmer had said. One tiny splash of the liquid could mean
  himself being victim to the same delayed-action death he'd chosen for the
  men in room 610.
  Konrad pulled on surgical gloves and unscrewed the lid of the jar.

 Blood pounded in Pravic's ears as he squeezed between the ducts in the dark
 void above the sixth-floor corridor.

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 With hardly room to move, hardly space to breathe, panic came in waves,
 drenching him in sweat. He cursed Dunkel for making him do this.
  Above his head ran the big square duct feeding air to the rooms. First
  spur to the left for 612, the next for 6 10. just a few metres more ...
  Yet ... the deeper he crawled, the further he got from his escape hatch,
  the more Pravic feared that the demons in his soul would emerge from
  their caves and cripple him.
  He rested for a second, trying to shut out memories of the voices and
  smells, which had always been precursors to the childhood abuse that had
  warped his mind.
  Sometimes darkness triggered these flashbacks - at night he tried to keep
  a light on when he slept. Sometimes confinement did it, like in this
  tunnel where cobwebbed pipe work scraped his back as he inched along the
  boards.
  The fear was so strong now he wanted to retch. Fear of being trapped, of
  his child body being pinned down by a weight so much heavier than its
  own. It was all coming back - the smell of his father's spirit-laden
  breath on the back of his neck, the hoarse panting in his car, the pain
  as his feeble attempts to resist were overpowered, and the humiliation
  as the drunkard's fat prick spurted stickily between his thighs.
  Then they were gone, the images swirling back into their Hadean mists.
  This time the waking nightmare had been over quickly. Sometimes the
  revulsion lingered, destroying his control.
  He waited for his heartbeat to settle, then wiped the sweat from his eyes
  with a shirt sleeve. He had to press on.
  At the next joint in the ducts he followed the pipe to the panel for room
  6 10. Muffled voices growled beyond the plasterboard. He heard the whirr
  of the fan.
 He pushed the twist-drill against the panel and turned

               257
 the handle. Slowly. Quietly. The material was soft. Didn't take much to
 make a neat round hole.
  Then he backed away with his tools, feet first towards room 614.

 Konrad dripped the brown liquid into the reservoir of the paint sprayer.
 A quarter of a litre was all it held. As he stopped the flow, a couple of
 drops spilled onto the tissue he'd laid out to catch them.
  He held his breath. Then, steadying his hands, he screwed the cap back
  on the jar, which was still half full. He wiped the rim with the soiled
  tissue and placed the refuse in a polythene bag. Finally he screwed the
  reservoir onto the stern of the air brush.
 'Psst!'
  Pravic's head hung down from the vent in the lobby. Konrad passed him the
  second face mask and a pair of rubber gloves.
  'Make sure it fits,' he warned. 'Mask must be tight. Understand?'
  Pravic grunted. Then Konrad handed him the air brush and the propellant
  canister in a bag.
  'Don't connect the air until you are ready,' he reminded him.
  Pravic looked irritated. He knew exactly what to do and didn't like old
  fools like Dunkel telling him.

 Two doors down, Dr Hamid Akhavi had also donned rubber gloves. Plutonium's
 toxicity made it foolish to touch it with bare hands.
  The sample was smaller than he'd expected, like a segment of an orange.
  But from its colour and its weight he knew it was the real thing. Twenty
  pieces like this and he could make an atomic bomb.

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  'We still must analyze it,' he said, trying not to show his excitement.
  He packed the plutonium back in its container then went to the bathroom
  to wash his gloved hands. As he dried them on a towel, he looked up
  sharply, hearing a creaking from the ceiling.
  He listened again, but there was nothing more. Must be the ancient
  plumbing, he decided.
  'There is still a problem, Pavel,' he said, returning to the table and
  pulling off his gloves. 'Your price is ... unjust.'
  Kulikov bristled. He hated the bazaar mentality of the Islamic world.
  'Twenty kilos is a lot of plutonium, my friend. It would take you decades
  to produce in your own reactors.'
 Akhavi held up his hands in acknowledgement.
  'Of course. But my country simply cannot pay one hundred million dollars.
  Already the nuclear programme starves our economy. The reactor contracts
  with your government and with the Chinese, they are not cheap. And the
  machinery. . .'
  'You too must understand something, my friend. There are many people I
  must pay. A whole shift of the security personnel. Senior officers who
  will arrange transportation. Border officials ... the list is long. And
  the risk to me is great. If I'm found out it'll be the firing squad.'
  They looked at one another. They both knew there was truth in each
  other's position. They guessed too there was room for manoeuvre. What
  neither could be sure of was how much.
 'What is your offer, my friend?'
 'Twenty million.'
 The Russian exploded with derisive laughter.

 Pravic heard the outburst through the plasterboard, and

               259
 froze, terrified he'd been discovered. An angry Slavic voice boomed through
 the ceding panels.
  A fresh tremor of panic rippled the length of his body. He dug his nails
  into his palms, puncturing the thin rubber gloves.
  Then he heard two voices. Anger directed at one another, not at him.
 He breathed again. Short quivering breaths.
  Do the job, he told himself Then the passport would be his. A passport to
  freedom.
  He pressed the nozzle of the airbrush into the hole he'd drilled. A tight
  fit. Then he connected the propellant can with the tube. He eased the mask
  over his nose and mouth, the rubber slippery on his sweaty skin.
  He held his breath, pressed the button on the spray and held it down. With
  the torch lighting up the reservoir he watched the brown liquid disappear
  into the conditioned air of Room 6 10.

 Outside in the street, Martin Sanders re-parked his car to overlook the
 hotel entrance. He wanted a photo of the Russian if he could get one. He
 guessed the silver-haired smuggler might be on the flight to Moscow at
 eightfifteen in the morning.
  Vadlon also waited nearby, his task to follow the Iranian back to the
  airport.

 Akhavi and Kulikov shook hands, not because they'd agreed a price, but
 because they knew they'd have to eventually. Thirty million was as high as
 the Iranian had been prepared to go.
  They were ready for the next phase - the proving of the sample at the
  desert laboratories. Then they could plan for shipment and delivery.
 Kulikov eased open the door, looked both ways and

               260
 slipped back to his room. In his hand the Samsonite briefcase which had
 held the plutonium sample was now packed with $ 100,000 in used notes.

 Dieter Konrad cleaned the equipment with the bactericide Kernmer had given
 him. Every piece of tissue he'd used, every part of the spray, he placed
 in a plastic bag and sealed it.
  The half-full flask of brown liquid he encased in 'bubble-wrap' plastic
  to protect it, then stuffed it in his bag to be disposed oflater.
  Pravic watched, emotionally drained. The precautions Dunkel was taking
  alarmed him. He didn't even know what it was, this lethal substance he'd
  administered, and he had a lurking fear it could have contaminated him
  too.
  'You go now, Milan,' Konrad announced. He sounded tired and flat. 'I'll
  stay until the morning. It will be less suspicious. Ring me at the
  Dubrovnik at ten. By then I will have decided when we go to Berlin. Maybe
  tomorrow. Maybe the next day.'
 Pravic hesitated. He trusted no one.
 'You have the passport?' he demanded.
 Konrad frowned in irritation.
  'Yes, but not here. I'll give it to you tomorrow at the hotel.'
 He saw the suspicion in Pravic's ice-blue eyes.
 'Don't worry.'
  After Pravic was gone, Konrad lay on the bed and closed his lids. To rest
  and to think, but not to sleep. That was impossible. It always had been
  after sentencing someone to death.

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