Heart of Danger

Nine.

There was the same message on each of the boxes, different languages. The boxes were stacked high to the ceiling cross struts. Baby Food (Nutritional) Gift of the People of Germany. Pasta (Shapes various) Gift of the People of Italy. Medicines Antenatal/ Postnatal Gift of the People of Holland. Rice -Gift of the People of the United States of America. Tents (with blankets) Gift of the People of the United Kingdom. The biggest section of boxes was labelled as a mobile operating theatre Gift of the People of Sweden and there were cigarettes in boxes, and alcohol, and soya, and hospital drugs. Penn was walked down the corridor between the boxes that filled the shed. He read each label. He thought of the advertisements he saw in the papers back home, and those on the commercial radio stations. He thought of the kids standing in the High Street where he lived and rattling collection tins, and he thought of the women who knitted warm clothes for refugees, and he thought the business was dirty. He had not been brought to the shed for food, medicines, drugs, nor for cigarettes nor alcohol. The mercenary had brought him to the shed because that was where he could buy a gun. Anything could be bought, that was what Penn had been told. Anything he had the money to pay for he could buy in the shed. Ham had brought him out from the old quarter of Karlovac, out through the modern city, and he had seen the scar marks of the shelling, and they had crossed over the Kupa river and headed into the industrial estate. It was a dead city. No smoke from the chimneys, no lorries carrying away finished products. The city had died because the city sat astride the front line. There had been two 5-series BMWs parked outside the shed, and an Alfa. A giant man had come quickly through the door of the shed and his gaze had been hostile, intimidating, before he had seen Ham. There was an office space at the far end of the corridor between the cardboard and wooden crates. Ham had said he should take a gun. Ham had said that walking into Sector North without a gun was about the same as going in bare-arsed. Ham had said that he should pack a gun before he packed his toothpaste. Three men were in the partitioned office at the end of the shed. They lolled back in easy chairs and there was a haze of cigar smoke, and one listened at a telephone and one was talking local language into a mobile, and each wore designer jeans and a loose-fitting designer leather jacket as if for uniform. They were all under thirty years of age. Penn stood distant in the doorway and each casually shook Ham's hand, but the enthusiasm was the mercenary's, and they seemed to Penn to regard Ham as dog shit on the pavement. What sort of gun did he want? Penn shrugged, like they should tell him what was on offer, and there was a big peal of laughter from the heavy man who was not listening on the telephone. Good English spoken. He could have a T-54 tank (Soviet), he could have a 120mm howitzer (American), he could have an RPG-7 rocket launcher (Soviet), he could have a Stinger ground-to-air (American), if he could pay… The mocking laughter subsided… He could have a Heckler amp; Koch machine pistol, or an Uzi high-fire-rate sub-machine gun, if he could pay… The eyes were locked on him… Ham had said to him, where he was going, every male understood the workings of firearms, their culture, cradle-to-grave stuff. Penn felt like stale piss. He knew how to strip down and clean and reassemble a. 410 shotgun because that was what he had used around the hedges and fields and woods of the farm where his father drove a tractor. Now he felt inadequate. Penn knew how to strip and clean and reassemble a Browning 9mm automatic pistol because that was what he had been shown on the two-day firearms course organized for newcomers into A Branch. It was fourteen years since he had downed a pigeon with the shotgun, and it was seven years since the two-day firearms course. He asked if they had a Browning 9mm automatic pistol. The heavy man swivelled his chair. The telephone was down and the mobile was switched off. They seemed to strip him with their eyes. The heavy man dragged the keys from his pocket that were held to his waist belt by a thin chain, reached forward and unlocked the tall wall safe. He was spilling handguns onto the desk, pistols and revolvers, short-barrelled and long-barrelled, with or without silencer attachment, old and new. When it came, Penn recognized the Browning 9mm automatic pistol, no silencer. It was pushed towards him, like a toy. He lifted it from the table, held it. It felt strange in his hand, unfamiliar, and he tried to hide that. How many rounds of ammunition? He had fired four magazines on the two-day course. He said that he would like to take fifty rounds. Again the mocking. Two hundred US dollars for the Browning 9mm automatic pistol, one hundred US dollars for the magazines and the ammunition. And twenty-five US dollars each for four RG-42 fragmentation grenades that Ham said he should have. And fifteen US dollars for the olive-green backpack that was pulled off the floor, from among the rubbish. And ten US dollars for webbing and for a canteen and for a knife. And five US dollars for the boots. Penn peeled the American dollars off the wad in his wallet. The heavy man said that he liked to offer a discount, and the discount was five dollars. Penn didn't smile. Penn handed him the four hundred and twenty-five dollars. He stood his ground, waited on his receipt. He hitched one strap of the backpack over his blazer shoulder so that it hung loose against him. He stood in the doorway. "Thank you, gentlemen. I hope you'll give me a good price when I bring them back." Penn was halfway down the corridor between the boxes and crates before their laughter subsided. The nice girl, Penny, who showed some respect for him, brought back the backgrounder sheet she had typed for him. Henry Carter looked up, smiled at her the way that he thought young people liked to be smiled at. He thought she was a nice girl because he had worked with her father, a considerably long time ago, but he always made the point of asking after her father's health, just to remind her that he had pedigree. "Still hard at it then, Mr. Carter?" He rested from his writing. "Yes, it's rather an interesting one." "Very interesting, what I've just typed up for you. Will there be more for me to type up?" "Tomorrow…" He grinned, then whispered, "Dragon alert…" He could see over her shoulder, the return from tea break of the supervisor. The nice girl, Penny, scuttled away from him. The file was taking shape now, and he placed her typed work where he thought it relevant, near to the start. Good background, notwithstanding the arguable advantages of hindsight, he thought always useful, and the thin biography. Always useful to improve the understanding of a file. Well, if a future reader of the file did not comprehend the situation on the ground, and the prime player's personality, then it would not be easy to appreciate the quite dreadful hazard into which this young fellow proposed to walk. He read back what he had written.

SECTOR NORTH

(Situation as of April/ May 1993.) Sources: Newspapers, Field Station (Zagreb), Field Station (Belgrade), United Nations Monitors (SIS personnel), FCO digest. Sector North represents that area closest to Zagreb, administered by local paramilitary Serb forces. An armed camp. All aspects of civilian life are governed by Territorial Defence Force (TDF). No central government, power rests with local warlords. Local warlords exercise power of life and death over few remaining Croat civilians (elderly), and over their own people. Male population has been mobilized into TDF. Patrols and roadblocks manned at night. Large areas of afforestation have been mined. High state of alert amongst all sections of population fed by local radio (Petrinja and Knin), constant reports of vigilance required against Croat spies and saboteurs. Croat S-F (Special Forces) efforts at penetration for intelligence gathering have most generally ended in failure, even when utilizing personnel formerly familiar with topography. Use of high ground with visibility for defence positions and strong points In addition to TDF forces there is a major commitment by former JNA (Yugoslav National Army) on the ground. Under forest cover there are sufficient armoured vehicles to punch through to Zagreb, also substantive artillery and missile positions. Location of JNA and TDF forces made next to impossible by restrictions on UNPROFOR movement inside Sector North. Both paranoid that UNPROFOR provides intelligence to Croats, hence severe curtailment on movement. That movement restricted to a few main roads; all access to front line area is denied. Security Council tasking cannot be fulfilled by UNPROFOR units. UNPROFOR HQ logistics officer (Canadian): "Our operations in Sector North have virtually ceased to have any meaning. No respect now exists for the blue flag. It is impossible to function." TDF personnel frequently drunk, always hostile. No dissent in Sector North to authority of warlords. To complain is to be beaten, killed, expelled. Local population characterized by extreme brutality and hardness, a historical legacy. Were buffer population implanted by Hapsburg empire to block Ottoman expansion succeeded. Topography is rolling hills, heavily wooded, small villages surrounded by farms, few roads. Offers potential for incursion by trained S-F, but difficulties as listed above mitigate severely against non-skilled personnel. Summary: A man trap for the uninitiated. Area of extreme danger. He had the words of the file, and the photographs, and in the morning he would have the large-scale map. The light was slackening outside. He understood. He would not have claimed any particular credit for his understanding, but he felt the events were within his experience. Been there, done it, seen it, hadn't he? No, not to this squalid little corner, not to this exact place, but he had been to other armed and fortified front lines, and he had pushed young men, with quite a firm shove, into such man traps of suspicion and hostility. It was because he understood that the memories seeped back. So many yean before… He did not think these young men, dull and ordinary and boring, went because they were brave. He thought they went because of their fear of personal failure… Old men such as Henry Carter, senior men, experienced men, men who had never done it themselves, went to these front lines that were armed and fortified and gave a young chap a pretty firm shove, then went back to a hotel or a safe house villa to hang around, stooge around, wait to see if they made it out of Iraq or East Germany or Czechoslovakia or Iran… An awfully long time ago. But they were all sharp in his mind, all the young men. All of them dragged to the cliff edge. Extraordinary, but they all seemed to go willingly. He stood, stretched. He took the fax message that he had written earlier to the supervisor. He asked for it to be sent, and he believed that his smile was gracious. The memories came close. Too often the memories that would be carried to the grave hustled into the mind of the old desk warrior. Standing on the safe side of the fence with the minefields and the tripwires and the self-firing guns, and hearing the explosions and the shrill German shouts, seeing Johnny Donoghue leave the young woman who was living and her father who was dead, watching Johnny climb the bucking bloody wire. The memories, standing and seeing and watching, were not erased. Sharpest of the memories, neatly condensed for an addendum to his file, was the late supper of cold cuts of meat and spiced cheese and gassy beer, served by an impatient landlord in the Helmstedt hotel. Johnny, lovely young man, bottling his emotion in silence. Such dignity… and he had been on the safe side and did not know how to communicate with Johnny, and the two of them toying with the food… he felt so humble. In the morning they had caught the flight from Hanover back to Heathrow, parted with a limp handshake. Before the next Christmas he had sent a card to Johnny, but it was not replied to. He had never again seen Johnny, lovely young man. He had used him, and the memories, damn them, did not mist. Back at his desk, he thought of the place, Sector North, as a man trap They were in a wood. It was the middle of the day and the sun dappled down through the early leaves on the birches. Ham had quit the bullshit. Penn asked questions about his Karen and his Dawn. There was a softness in Ham's voice and he'd lost the obscenities and the swagger. It was later that Ham had gotten round to talking about the rudiments, what could be told in a couple of hours, of survival movement behind enemy lines. There was a cordon around the village, as tight a line as the men from Salika could draw. Eighteen of them made the line, covering with their guns the open fields around the village. It was like a rabbit shoot. Eighteen men to watch the fields between Rosenovici and the stream and the road and the woods on the higher ground. They had whistles, and each man in the cordon line, when he was in the position given him, blasted his arrival. Some had the new AK47 assault rifles and some had the hunting rifles with the long accuracy barrels that had been handed down from their fathers, and some had shotguns. Branko, the postman, waited on the road that led to Rosenovici from the bridge for all the whistle blasts. With him were his constant companions: the gravedigger, Stevo, and the carpenter, Milo. They were the dogs that would go in and flush the rabbit, and the postman chuckled, some goddamn rabbit, some goddamn claws on that rabbit, and he looked slyly across at the carpenter and the raw lines on the carpenter's cheeks. It was a bright morning, good for sport. He heard Milan's shout. Milan was on the high ground above the village. They went forward, three of them, with the dog bounding ahead. He could see Milan, past the tower of the church that was broken, and Branko waved his handkerchief to show that he had heard, that they were moving. Milan should have been with them. It had been the postman's idea to ask Milan to bring the dog. He'd thought the idea clever, because he had reckoned that if Milan brought the dog then Milan would be with them among the ruins of Rosenovici. Something had to shake the man out of his morose misery. And the dog would know where to look, the postman reckoned. Milan had said that they could take the dog, that he would control the cordon line. The dog led them into each building. They watched each house, put the dog in, then followed the dog, always the dog went first. They searched each building. It was necessary to be careful because the fire and the dynamite had weakened the floor boards and brought down the rafter beams. He had known those who had lived in each house because he had come there each day, way back, with the letters from the kids who were away at the colleges in Belgrade and Zagreb, and the letters with the stamps of Australia and America. The postman felt nothing bad, because they had been, all of them, goddamn Ustase. They were the people who would have come into Salika at night, with knives, and with fire, no doubting. They would have done what their grandparents, the original goddamn Ustase, had done, killed and burned. He felt nothing bad, and did not understand why Milan, the best, felt something bad. They had cleared the homes leading into the square. They cleared the church and the store and the home that had been used as the HQ. They put the dog into the cellar of Franjo and Ivana's farmhouse, and while the dog was down in the cellar he had stood on the stone flags of the kitchen. Most times that he came to the farmhouse, Branko had been given a slash of brandy in the kitchen while they opened the letters from Franjo's nephew who was in Australia or Ivana's aunt who was on the West Coast in America. No concern to him, the brandy, because Franjo and Ivana were the same as the others, goddamn Ustase. If it was no concern to him then he did not understand why it concerned Milan. They cleared the school. They shouted their progress across the village, across the fields, up to the tree line on the hill where Milan controlled the cordon. Branko watched the dog. It would have been the first time that the dog had been taken back to Rosenovici since its family had gone, left it, let it run beside the wheels until it could run no more. The first time that the dog had been back since Milan had gone to the edge of the village and called the dog and brought it home to his son. And the goddamn Ustase dog was remembering. The dog whined at a heap of collapsed rubble. The dog whimpered beside the wall section with the green flowers on a yellow base of interior wallpaper. The dog curved its tail over its privates, sniffed, crawled on its belly over the wall section with the wallpaper. The postman was not concerned that the old American had come with the UNCIVPOL and dug for the bodies… They could dig where they goddamn wanted, they could cart the bodies, stinking, back to Zagreb, and then they could do goddamn nothing… And he did not understand why Milan had such morose misery. What could they goddamn do, nothing? He shouted for the dog and it came back to his side. They were going up the lane.

A small shed. A stone shed with a roof of rusted corrugated iron. Precious dynamite would have been wasted on the shed, fire would have had little to burn. In the shed the dog found a plastic bag. The bag was white, and inside the bag were dried crumbs of bread. The shed was forty paces short of what had been the home of the Dubelj pair, goddamn Ustase. Between the shed and the home of the Dubelj couple was a small paddock, thick with weeds. A cow had been kept in the paddock and a goat and two pigs. Stevo had the cow, and Milo had the pigs. The postman had taken the goat, but had killed and eaten it. He had felt strong until they reached the house of Katica Dubelj.

The door hung open, held only by the lower hinge. It was dark inside. The dog held back. The postman kicked the dog through the door. The carpenter was behind him and there were the raw scratch scars on the cheeks of his face, he was not hurrying to push past him. He went inside, into the goddamn smell and the darkness. He held tight to his gun. He had to stand, very still, and wait for his eyes to work for him. The dog was in the corner. The image cleared. The dog scratched in a heap of rags, maybe sacks, in the corner. He saw the hurricane lamp that had died and the bow saw and the jemmy and the lump hammer dropped on the old linoleum. There was another bag, white, and he lifted the bag and crumbs of bread crust fell from it. The dog had come from the corner and sniffed at a chewed apple core.

The dog held a scent down the lane from the house and through the entrance to the field where the bulldozer had crushed the wooden gate.

The dog followed a scent that skirted the low wall of grey black mud around the pit, went over the tyre marks of the jeeps. There had been heavy rain in the night and Branko slipped and fell in the field as he tried to keep pace with the dog. He could see Milan above him, close to the tree line. The dog went past the grave.

The dog reached the small ditch that came down the field and, at the ditch, the dog lost the scent.

They tried the dog up the ditch, right side and left side, but the dog had lost it.

The postman trudged up the field, sliding, cursing, until he reached Milan. He showed Milan the plastic bags in which they had found the crumbs, and the chewed apple core. He told Milan that someone had been there, recently, had eaten there, slept there, the scar scratches on the carpenter's face proved it. He asked Milan to come down into Rosenovici so that he could see for himself where they had found the plastic bags and the apple core. Milan refused him.

Milan was the postman's leader, he would never criticize him. He watched Milan walk away. He had taught Milan, boy and man, everything he knew of the game of basketball and he had been superb. Milan walked away along the edge of the tree line, took the long route so that he would not have to cross the village. He could remember when Milan, in attack, brilliant in the dribble, fantastic jumping for the net, had led Glina Municipality to victory against Karlovac Municipality, taken the cup, a player without doubts. Milan was going the long way round the village towards the bridge.

The postman did not understand the goddamn problem.

Ham had slung a white T-shirt, filthy as if it had been used to clean the plugs of a car engine, across a low bush of thorn. They sat a dozen paces back from where the T-shirt was draped and Ham talked Penn through the maintenance and cleaning of the Browning 9mm automatic pistol, and then made Penn do it, and then tied a handkerchief round the front of Penn's face and made him do it again, and he made Penn load a magazine with the blindfold still in place. It was seven years since the two-day firearms course and it was more forgotten than he had realized.

Later Ham would show him what he had also damn near forgotten: how to crouch, lock his legs, extend his arms, find the target, aim and hold it, how to fire the pistol. Ham talked low and keen, as if firing the pistol was of importance.

In the grip on the back seat of the Cherokee jeep were seven video tapes, nine hours of audio recording, thirty-seven pages of handwritten notes.

Marty drove along the wide highway, back to Zagreb.

They were good 'snapshots', the video and the audio and the notes from the stories of the latest refugees from the village outside the Bosnian town of Prijedor. He drove steadily, did not exceed the speed limit, although the road ahead was empty. EWT 19, traumatized but coherent, had said that he had seen seven pairs of fathers forced to have oral sex with their sons, before the fathers and sons were shot evidence. EWT 12, thirteen years old but with a visage going on sixty, had said that he had seen prisoners ordered to castrate fellow prisoners with their teeth evidence. And plenty more… eyewitnesses telling his microphone of rape and beating and killing, telling it like it was evidence. The evidence would go from his notes onto disk. The disks and the video tapes and the audio would go on the courier flight back to the second-floor office in Geneva. But it was just damned ridiculous… It had hurt him that he had not seen the German lady when he had pulled out from the Transit Centre. He had wanted to see her, wanted to be with her, had checked her office, actually gone up the staircase and through each of the third- and the second-floor rooms, and the dispensary, and the kindergarten and the kitchens, been told she wasn't there, anywhere, and kept looking for her. It had been a long time since he had last gone looking for a woman, and wanted to be with that woman… It was just damned ridiculous that his work, work of this importance, should be dumped off in a damned converted container.

He was coming into Zagreb, picking up the traffic.

Had he looked at himself, which he did not, Marty Jones might not have liked what he saw. His mind did not acknowledge the ravages of stress. The videos that he filmed were of rape, the audios he recorded were of torture, the notes that he wrote were of foul cruelty. The woman he reported to in Geneva, three weeks back when she was down in Zagreb, had said to him, "Don't you get sick of it, Marty? Why don't they just kill each other? What does it do to you, Marty? Why do they have to cut out eyes, cut off noses, cut off heads why can't they just kill each other. How do you stay sane, Marty?" He had not known how to answer her.

But he never looked in the mirror. He had a dream, and the dream was a prepared case… It was just damned ridiculous that he had to make the dream in a converted freight container.

He drove into Ilica barracks. The parking lot available to him was up by the A block, where the big shots were. There were workmen carrying prefabricated partitioning and timbers in through the main doors. The big shots were extending their office space, reaching into the roof area. The big shots had space, and he had the damned converted freight container.

For the rest of the day he would get his notes onto disk, and get the package off, and then he might just raise some damned noise.

He unlocked the door of his container, pulled it open, and the wall of heat hit him.

The crows above them had scattered with the first shot. The quiet came again to the woodland of birches. The magazine was exhausted. Four hits on the T-shirt, two hits for every three misses. Ham didn't criticize. Back on the training course the instructor had given him hell with three hits for every five misses. Penn guessed that Ham didn't criticize because it was too late to rubbish him. Quite relaxed he had been on the training course, but time was not running then… When he had cleaned the pistol, he sat with Ham and they went over the maps. They had a tourist map that Ham had bought in Karlovac, and they had the sketch map that Ham had drawn. The sketch map would take him to within six miles of Rosenovici. There were minefields marked on Ham's hand-drawn map, and strong points and villages where there would be patrols and roadblocks. And all the time Ham seemed to watch him, in a manner open but sly. Ham watched him as if he were meat hanging from the hook in a butcher's window, evaluated his quality. Penn thought Ham was making a reckoning on whether he would get himself back to go for the hunting of Karen and Dawn, and he thought also that Ham judged him capable of bringing back intelligence bullshit that the mercenary would present to his officers… He was a rotten little man but he had taken the one chance and perhaps would be remembered. Dorrie was a horrid young woman but she had taken the one chance and was loved. Jovic was a prickly bastard who learned to paint with his left hand, and might succeed… It was about winning his own respect, about walking his own path, taking the one chance… And the afternoon was slipping.

"Of course we'll have another… Well, how's the self-inflicted wound?… It'll have to be a cheaper one."

Georgie Simpson had his arm raised for the attention of the wine waiter. The food wasn't good. The monkfish didn't taste as if it had been swimming too recently. Best to kill another bottle. Arnold Browne didn't believe he cared too much about the freshness of the fish; he wiped his mouth with the napkin.

"Not a lot moving on that front."

Which was economical with the truth. The truth, and it rankled, was that he had been summoned, the last evening, to the snug at the bottom of the neighbour's garden at about the time he was looking to his bed and his book. Given a token whisky, not generous, and berated. Hammered. Penn did not respond to telephone messages. Penn had been away nearly a week and not a squeak from him. Penn was on the gravy train. Penn was a bloody waste of money… No shortage of money, Arnold wouldn't have thought it was small change to Charles bloody Braddock… Penn was the wrong man.

"What sort of chap?"

"I beg your pardon…"

"The private detective you told me last week you'd arranged for a private detective to travel."

"I did, yes… He's a good fellow. Not bright, but dogged…" Arnold had hold of his glass and his fingers shook and what was left of the wine spilled onto the crumbs on the cloth.

"You all right, Arnold?" "Not bright enough for Five, not bright enough to have been taken into General Intelligence Group, not bright enough to have a future. But dogged." Georgie had the wine waiter, muttered to him. Within his price stricture, anything. "In my slow mind there is the grind of cogs meshing. You recommended a Five reject?" "He's a very good investigator." "Go to the end?" "Do you have something I could smoke, Georgie, a cigarette or a cigar ella Bless you… Yes, he'd go as far as was possible, maybe further." Georgie lit the cigarette for him. Arnold coughed hard. Georgie said, quietly, "Going to the end is where the evidence is." "If there's evidence to be had I'd back him to get it." The bottle was on the table, uncorked. Arnold poured for himself, and his hand still shook. "Are my friends at Five playing funny little games, Arnold?" "Depends on your perspective, whether they're funny…" And he wanted to talk, talk to anyone, talk even to Georgie Simpson, and it was a hanging offence in Gower Street to talk to personnel from Babylon on Thames. "Evidence is leverage, right? Leverage is pressure, right?" "You're a bit ahead of me." "I usually am, Georgie." "So stop pissing on me." "Words of one syllable… What I'm told is that we require the means for pressure. We wish to pressure those moronic hooligans in Belgrade. We wish to pressure the Serbs… Too fast for you, Georgie?… Evidence is pressure in the world of public relations, the spin merchants, the image men. The Serbs, bloodthirsty mob, want to appear virgin clean, but good evidence tends to stain the snow. It's all part of the pressure game to get those morons to the conference table." "You didn't tell me that, last week." "Blame the monkfish." "Congratulations. You have an uptight reject…?" "Yes." Told about a half of the truth…?" "Could be a quarter." "Straightforward sort of chap, not too much intelligence…?" "Fatal to be intelligent." "Who will predictably go to the end of the road for evidence…?" "Something like that." "Arnold, do you have the faintest idea of what the end of the road might be like…?" "Please, don't patronize me." "Was this your idea…?" "We all bend the knee when we have to; of course it was not." "Does it end up with handcuffs and things…?" "God, no. He'll just make a report." "Sorry if I'm slow, haven't you hazarded him…?" "George, get the bill, there's a dear thing. Your Gavin, he went to university in London, didn't he? My Caroline, she went to Hull, Social Sciences. My man, my reject, he wanted rather badly to go to college, it didn't work out, doesn't matter why. You know what I can't abide about Caroline's friends, probably the same with your Gavin? They're so cynical… so scheming… they seem to believe enthusiasm is a vice. It's as if my reject was spared that cynicism. One of those people that are ambitious but don't know how to get themselves promoted, think promotion derives from merit… God, my Caroline could tell him. My Caroline would walk over our throats if the main chance was in view… There's something rather attractive about a man who hasn't cynicism in his backpack, but it tends to leave him so very naked… Sorry, been talking too much, haven't I? Should be getting back to the shop." He pushed himself up from the table. Georgie looked up, staring. He thought Georgie, happy and ponderous and cheerful Georgie, was frightened. "Haven't you hazarded him… ?" "Perhaps He sat on the bed beside her. The sheet of paper was supported by a book. Ulrike was in the doorway behind him and she prompted the translation. The woman, Alija, held the book and the paper high in front of her eyes and drew the road and the square and the lanes of the village, and she would make a mark on the map as it formed, and Ulrike would say that the mark was the school or the church or the store or the farmhouse with the cellar, and each time Penn took from her hands the sheet of paper and the book and wrote the designation word himself. The noise of the sleeping room in the Transit Centre was around them, but shut from his mind. She drew the line for the river, and she marked with a crude circle the second village that was across the stream. Ulrike told her of his thanks. They walked out of the sleeping room and down the stone stairs. Evening was rushing forward. They were at the main doors of the Transit Centre and across in the square Ham had seen him and started up the engine of the car, a small Yugo. He could sense that Ulrike was unusually serious. He thought she understood why he had come back to the Transit Centre to speak with Alija. Would he come to dinner? The smile, sorry but no can do, the shrug. Was he going back to Zagreb? The smile, the shaken head, again the shrug. She knew why he had asked for the map to be drawn. What he thought so fine about her was that there was no interrogation, no questioning, no requirement for lies. She looked into his face. He saw her tiredness and the clean skin and the strength of her chin and the power of her eyes. No questions… Her hand was for a moment on the sleeve of his blazer. He understood what it would be like for her, working from dawn and through the day and past dusk in the Transit Centre, alongside the misery. He thought she recognized that he made a small gesture against a wrong. He felt a marginal pride, and it was a long time since he had stood tall with himself. Her fingers squeezed, for a moment, at his arm as if to transmit comfort… She was gone, and the doors closed behind her. He walked in the dusk to Ham's car. Almost dark outside, he reckoned. Hard to be certain because the windows were on the far side of the Library area, and so thick and tinted. The girls were hurrying for their coats and there was a babble of talk from them, and Penny smiled at him as she loaded her bag, and the one who sat nearest his table scowled at him and she'd have a plenty big enough problem scrubbing chocolate off her blouse. The supervisor challenged him. "Working late, Mr. Carter?" He smiled, sweetly. "Never was one for watching a clock." "You're not supposed to be here with the night shift." "Only once in a while. I doubt I'll attack them…" What was damnable was that he had finished his sandwiches and emptied his thermos dry. "It shouldn't be a habit, Mr. Carter… Oh, this came for you." The supervisor handed him a fax message. "Thank you." It was always the same when the night shift came on. There was hardly a civil word between the day shift and the night shift, capitalism and communism, chalk and cheese, and the whitter nfthe night shift girls was around him, complaining about the state of the desks left for them, the state of the rubbish bins, the state of the carpets. He started to read the fax. Sometimes the bickering criticism amused him. That evening, Henry Cartel- found it distinctly annoying, and a hindrance to his concentration. TO: Carter, Library, Vauxhall Cross. FROM: Ministry of Defence (Personnel).

SUBJECT: HAMILTON, SIDNEY ERNEST. TX: 17.21, 14.3.95.

STATUS: Biography/ Assessment Classified. BORN: Hackney, east London, 12/8/1962. MOTHER: Harriet Maude Hamilton. Father: No name listed. EDUCATION: William Wilberforce Junior, Hackney Comprehensive no qualifications claimed. MARITAL Married Karen (nee Wilkins), from STATUS: Guildford, Surrey, in July 1985. 1 daughter, Dawn Elizabeth, born in January 1987. Separated December 1989. Initial allegation of Battery brought by Karen Hamilton against husband, but withdrawn. EMPLOYMENT: (Prior to military enlistment) Van driving general delivery work.

MILITARY SERVICE:

EMPLOYMENT:

CURRENT:

ASSESSMENT:

Joined Parachute Regiment, March 1982.

Served with 3rd Bn. Northern Ireland tours: 1983, 1986, 1989.

Marksman/ First Class. Promoted Lance Corporal 1985, demoted 1986. Dismissed

8 April 1990.

(Disciplinary problems led to demotion, wrecking of bar in Cullyhanna, South

Armagh, followed by verbal abuse of a commissioned officer. Dismissed from

Regiment after the beating of an Irish sales representative in Aldershot.)

(Post military dismissal) 4 months with

Personal Security Ltd (Bodyguards),

Hornchurch, Essex, in close protection.

Dismissed.

Self-enlisted with HVO (Republic of Croatia

Defence Force). Originally with

"International Brigade'. (NB: Following death of HOWARD, BRIAN JAMES, fellow mercenary, shot dead at OSIJEK, Republic of Croatia, in March 1992, he is wanted for questioning by Strathclyde

Police. Local inquest recorded Open

Verdict.)

Unstable, unreliable. Fortunate to have served so long with Parachute Regiment.

Yes, he was right, usually was, the fear of failure drove those young men across those hideous front lines. He knew, because he had stood on the safe side and waited for them to come back. So, it was the map that mattered, the map supplied by this 'unstable, unreliable' creature…

He breathed hard.

"Don't fuck about on me, squire," Ham whispered. "Get on with it."

He steadied himself, eased his weight forward on the side of the inflatable. The noise of the great Kupa river was an engine idling. Far away, to his right, down river, a single small light shone. The deep, dark water of the river was behind him, but close was the fast sluicing sound as the current broke around the paddle manoeuvred by Ham to hold the craft steady. Penn reached back. His fingers felt down Ham's arm to his hand. The palm of his hand wrapped over Ham's fingers on the paddle. "And when I'm back, then I'll go find them, find them and tell them that you love them." "Just come back with your balls still under your belly." "The bloody map, Ham, it's a good map?" "The only bloody map you'll ever get. On your way, squire." His boots were hung by the laces round his neck, his socks were knotted at his throat. He hesitated. If the map was no good… If the bastard had drawn the map wrong… If he could not follow the map… If the map

… The fist caught him on the shoulder. The fist pushed him off the side of the inflatable. He splashed in the water. His bared toes sunk in the slime mud and the fallen weed. Panic time. He reached back for the side of the inflatable to steady himself, but the paddle was into his ribs. The drive of the paddle propelled Penn towards the bank that was the dark mass ahead of him. The backpack caught his head and landed on the bank above him. He struggled forward, stumbling through the mud. He groped for the bank, and the tree branches were in his face, and he grasped at them and they broke, and then he had a better hold. He dragged himself through the reeds and up the bank. His hands caught at the shoulder straps of the backpack. He sagged. He could see the inflatable moving out towards the main flow of the river, a shadow shape and the quick flash of the paddles breaking water. He watched the inflatable all the time that he could see it, and when he could no longer see it, he searched for it. Penn wiped his feet with the sleeve of the tunic. He drew on the thick wool socks. He laced the boots. He threaded his arms through the straps of the backpack. He was in Dorrie's place. The silence and the black darkness were ahead of him. The silence was good. He was at ease in silence. He could be silent with himself, and Jane would have thought him sulking, had been able to absorb silence from the childhood days when his mother had taken him to the church in the village where she worked the swab cloth on the flagstones and tidied after the ladies had taken down the flower arrangements. Silence was safety and it nestled around him. He had come to Dome's war.

Penn pushed himself up, started forward.