Heart of Danger

Nineteen.

The man was snivelling. Penn reckoned Milan Stankovic to be in bad shape and there were low grunting sounds in his throat that were muffled by the gag. Maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the tightness of the fine rope binding his wrists. They were going slower. They were close now to the inner line of the forward zone. He reckoned the forward zone would be five miles, a mile either way, deep, and in the forward zone would be the maximum concentration of strong points and minefields and tripwires and patrols, and the forward zone could not be avoided, could not be skirted. He had shown her the way they should move: weigh each footfall, stop and listen and go, and he thought she had learned well. He had the knife so hard against Milan Stankovic's beard that the man no longer seemed to doubt him, and took as great a care with each stride as they did. She would go forward, she would stop, she would listen, she would flick her fingers for him to come with the prisoner. They would both listen for a moment, and then she would move forward again. It was when the tears were coming faster on Milan Stankovic's cheeks that she began, again, to interpret what the man said through the gag. "He is telling you about his grandparents. His grandparents were taken out of Salika village… There was a cordon round the village, made at first light by the Germans and by the Ustase fascists… Before the German troops and the fascists moved into the village his grandparents were able to hide his father in the barn where they kept two cows and their cart. His father was eleven years old…" Going forward again, stopping, listening. "When the German troops and the fascists came into the village they took all the men and women they could find, and then the German troops stood back… Many of the Ustase fascists were from Rosenovici village, and the German troops allowed them to take charge of the villagers from Salika. They were walked, his grandparents and many others, to Glina town. It was said to them when they reached Glina, without food or water, that the Serb villages provided help and support for the Partizans who were hidden in the Petrova Gora forest which is near… They were put into the church at Glina, his grandparents and the other people from the village and from other villages… He says that many of the Ustase fascists were from Rosenovici, and many would have known his grandparents and the other people… The church was set on fire by the Ustase fascists…" Going forward, stopping again, listening. "He says the German troops were from a regiment of Wurtem-berg, and they were country boys and they would have no part of it.. He says the fascists, and there were many from Rosenovici, had blocked the doors of the burning church and they fired their rifles at the windows so that there was no escape from the fire… He says it is the first story that his father told him…" Going forward, stopping, listening again. "He says the story of what the Ustase fascists did to his grandparents, what the people from Rosenovici did to their neighbours, burning them with fire, is in his bones and his blood and his mind, and has been since he was a small child… He says that you do not understand, and that you cannot understand… He says that you have no quarrel with him, and that he has no quarrel with you… He says now that you should try to understand… He begs you to permit him to return to his people, to his wife and to his son…" Going forward, stopping, listening. He felt the cold in him. Even when they crossed the small clearings where old trees had rotted and fallen, where the sun caught him, he felt cold. She spoke to the man, the whisper of the local language, and again she killed the words, and the pleading. "What did you say to him?" "I asked him, could he describe the face of Dorrie Mowat when he hit her, knifed her and shot her…" The man was broken. He took the lead. He did not know how she could find the cruelty. He let Ulrike have charge of moving Milan Stankovic forward. He handed her the knife and she held it against the man's throat, as he had done. She would use the knife, of that he was certain. Ahead were the strong points and the minefields and the tripwires and the patrols. As his defence, he had only the skills he had learned as a child, going to the badger sett or the vixen's den, stalking the fallow hind. He remembered about the INLA man, and what the detective sergeant of the Anti-terrorist Branch had told him weeks after the arrest, meeting in a pub to hand over surveillance evidence notes, that the arrogance and conceit had been stripped off the man with his clothes, that the man had sat in his cell wearing his paper overall suit and wept… There was nothing definite that he could tell her. It was just his instinct. Each time they stopped and listened, his instinct told him they were being followed, but he saw nothing behind and heard nothing. And it was all ahead of them, the worst. "I don't know how we'll pick up the pieces again…" It was the usual way of their sessions. They were in the kitchen. The bulk of Charles Braddock's body was slumped on the table and he spoke muffled through his hands. "I've always made the decisions for her. I've always said what'll happen. Damn it, she's always been here, waiting, available…" Arnold Browne leaned against the sink. Pretty rare for him to be invited inside the Manor House and not outside to the 'snug' shed at the bottom of the garden, but it was usual that he should play the punch bag for his neighbour's monologue. He supposed that he was attracted by the power of the man, but he found the whined self-pity quite unpleasant. '… Lost her to that damned child. I mean, it's hardly as if she can just walk back through the door, and we carry on like nothing ever… Humiliated me in my own house, at my own table, with my own friends… I mean, it's not even for the child living, it's for the child that's bloody dead. Not what I want, not at all. I've done everything that Mary could have wished for, needed, asked for… Arnold, she' scrapped on me, bloody ungrateful woman…" He went to the kitchen door. It was not Arnold Browne's way to tell his neighbour that he thought him the most opinionated bully he had ever met. Or to inform his neighbour that he thought his wife to be the most selfish woman he had ever known. It was not his way to tell his neighbour that a young man had been exploited when vulnerable… And it was not his way to reveal that, in his own mind, he was tormented by guilt for his part in the matter. He let himself out. "Yes, Penn. He's Bill Penn… Might be under William Penn…" She stiffened. Mary Braddock could endure no longer the isolation of her room. She sat in a low chair in the lobby. She waited for the telephone call from the earnest young American. She straightened, taut. "He was here, this is where he was staying, Bill Penn…" The reception clerk, bored and superior, was shaking his head, reluctantly leafing through the guest list. "This is where he was booked in…" A nasal English voice. She saw a small man, overweight and bald. He was leaning over the desk trying to read the lists as the reception clerk's pencil moved languidly over the names. He wore dirty jeans that were smeared in engine grease and an open shirt with a pullover that was ragged at the cuffs. "Ah, yes… Here, but gone… Gone two days ago, two days ago he checked out… Yes, I remember, Mr. Penn, I think he had had an accident… but gone." She saw his disappointment. He looked Jewish. She saw him mouth a curse, and he turned away. She was up fast out of the low chair and she intercepted him by the glass swing doors. "Excuse me… you were asking for Mr. Penn." "Right." "It's impertinent, but in what connection?" "Depends who needs to know." "Well, if it doesn't seem ridiculous, I suppose I could say I'm his employer." "The girl's mother? Dorrie Mowat's mother? I'm Benny Stein, I met Bill Penn." '"BENJAMIN (BENNY) STEIN: Crown Agent lorry driver, Brit aid convoy, rescued me (life threatened situation) from Sector North at considerable risk to himself, his colleagues, and the future shipment of aid through Serb-occupied territory." She had recited it, as if it were learned by heart. '… You were in his report." "We were geared up to go back today, down to Knin, but there's some flap over there, crossing points closed. We got put on hold. Seems I missed him, just wanted to put alcohol down his throat. Good guy, but you know that, lucky guy. So, he's gone home…" "Not home, Mr. Stein, back inside Sector North. I asked him to return there, and that's what he did. I asked him to bring out my daughter's murderer, that's what he's doing." She stared him straight in the eyes. She saw him shudder. She thought that for a moment his mind was working like a slow mechanism, but when they came his words had the deliberation of a quite total dislike. "Do you know Oscar Wilde, Mrs. Braddock? Maybe you don't… "Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious." What is obvious to me but not obvious to you is that over there, inside Sector North, is a bloody awful corner of hell. So, you "asked" him to go back inside… When I got to meet him, he was kicked half to death, they were taking him out to shoot him. You know what he said? He said that you told the worst stories about your daughter… "a story about her for every year of her life, the stories seemed to queue up to foul-mouth her…" And for your peace of mind, you "asked" him to go back into that place.. . Well done, Mrs. Braddock, for missing the obvious." He pushed past her, hammered into the swing doors. She thought that Benny Stein, if he had not pushed past her and run across the pavement, would have hit her. They played it as a game, and the Director watched. The tip of the wand moved high on the wall map of the operations room, and the Canadian officer described the moves. But there was no passion to the commentary. "Initially there was a search mounted out of Salika village, that search did not make a trace and was wound down this morning. The activity of the search is now in their prime militarized zone fronting onto the Kupa river. They've cancelled leave, beefed up the duty rosters. They believe they have sealed the militarized zone it's out of the hands now of the rabble because their main force military have taken charge. We have no idea of the location of their target, whether he is pressing on, whether he has decided to go to ground while the heat's hot. From our monitoring of their radio it is clear that they do not, as of this moment, know his position, nor his approximate position. They seem, however, confident of blocking him in their militarized zone. That's about where it stands… You'll excuse me for asking you, sir, but do you have that information, where he's coming to?" They waited on him. The Argentine captain held the sheaf of papers that carried the monitored radio messages. They watched him. The Jordanian major lowered the pointer from the map. They searched him for truth. The Canadian colonel smiled, dryly. The Director said, in sadness more than anger, "I bloody well don't. We're only the United Nations, you see, only the world body, only the one international authority that every clown politician pays lip service to. We are good enough to be derided, humiliated, insulted, kicked from one fucking end of this place to the other, good enough to shuffle aid round without being thanked. Not good enough to be trusted. It's what I've made a career at, advancement without trust.. . Thank you, gentlemen." He went back with heavy steps, up the flight to his office. His secretary greeted him at the outer door, messages in hand and with a gesture towards the three men sitting uncomfortably in the outer office and waiting for their delayed meeting. He waved her away. The Director closed the door hard behind him. He sat long at his desk and he smoked his cigar and loathed himself for the habit. There were many telephones on his desk. Big decision of the day… He reached for the white telephone, and he dialled hard, belting the buttons. '… Your guarantee? He does not cross with his prisoner, I want that as a promise. I have that as an unequivocal promise? I accept your guarantee." He had the promise from the First Secretary of the British mission that the man who was disowned would not be permitted to cross the river that night with his prisoner. He must place his trust in the guarantee. She did not know how much longer she could keep up the pace. The dog could hold the pace, whining for food in its hunger when she stopped to rest, sometimes veering away from the scent to lap at a pool of old rainwater, but the dog kept strength while she faded. Sometimes she had a kaleidoscope of lights in her mind, hallucinations at her eyes… She knew this part of the forest, not well, but she had been there as a teenager with the Pioneers of the Party, when the young people had gone on long hiking marches with their tents and cooking gear, when they were brought to the place of the massacre. Where the dog led her was within a half-hour's walk of the place of the massacre. At the place the teenagers had been lined up by the officials, the rain dripping on them, and the Croat children and the Serb children had listened to the officials tell of the shooting in cold blood by the Ustase men of the group of women who were taking food to the Partizans, and after the speeches the teenagers, Croat and Serb, had murmured their factional insults at each other. It was why she knew this part of the forest.. . She had thought, all through the length of the day, that she would find soldiers, and that the soldiers would go with her as the dog led them on the scent. She had found no soldiers, and now the light amongst the trees was fading. She had only the bayonet. Evica Stankovic had seen them first an hour before. When darkness came they would be close to the river. She had seen them for a moment, where the haphazard growth of the trees made a clean corridor for her vision. When darkness came again, when they were near the river, she would lose them. She went on and all the time her eyes, sometimes blinded in tiredness, sometimes seared by the leaping lights, searched for the shape of them. Evica Stankovic had seen, in that moment an hour before, the man leading, and the woman, and her husband who was called a murderer was dragged between them. The two military policemen were waiting on the platform of the station. They were tall men and their heads were above the mass of passengers, friends, relations, who crowded and waited for the instruction that they should board the train. "What I don't understand…" "Wrap it up, Freefall." The First Secretary threaded through the crush, going towards the military policemen. Ham had spent the day, imprisoned without ceremony in the basement cellar of the First Secretary's villa on the high northern outskirts of Zagreb, among the firewood and the coal sacks with a thermos and a plate of sandwiches and a bucket. "I don't understand

…" "Never was your strong point, Freefall, understanding." Ham was given into the custody of the military policemen and they looked at him with a savagery that stripped off his face the first trace of the cheeky smile. He was handcuffed to the younger of them. He was handed the envelope of travel documents and checked them awkwardly, one-handed. "Why did you help me, why didn't you leave me with the bastards?" "Now, don't dally, not in Budapest, not in Sofia, not in Istanbul. Just get yourself straight through to Yerevan. Frankly, if you survive that train journey then you'll come through any war intact, even Nagorny Karabakh's little scrap… Part of the code, Freefall. I don't like to leave colleagues dangling, not in mid-stream." The announcement was made over the loudspeakers and the passengers surged to the train's doors. The cases were being passed up, and the knotted bundles, and the cardboard boxes reinforced with string. The older military policeman elbowed a way through, and Ham was pulled forward and the First Secretary trailed him. "You think I let him down, Penn, you think I caved too bloody easy?" "I'm having you met off the train at Istanbul, you'll be given the ticket for Yerevan. Armenia is the side to be on, Freefall. Keep your nose clean and your bottom wiped, and you can be quite a useful asset to us there. It would be very sad if you were silly, could have dangerous consequences for you… Of course you let him down, of course you caved too quickly. You're a coward, Freefall, but not an idiot, that pleasant lady would have killed you if you hadn't been a coward, and she would not have lost five minutes of sleep over it." He was taken up the steep steps and the handcuff ring cut at the flesh of his wrist. He looked down onto the First Secretary, and the man was peering at his watch as though already bored. "Where is he?" "Somewhere behind that bloody line, stumbling forward… yes, with his prisoner… stumbling forward towards your promised rendezvous

… Enjoy Nagorny Karabakh." The door slammed behind him. The handcuff jerked him towards the corridor of the carriage. He stood his ground, sod the buggers. There was the whistle's blast and the first shudder of the train lurching away. Ham shouted, "Tell him it wasn't my fault. Tell him I wasn't to blame." A faint reply, through the filthy window of the door. "Goodbye, Freefall… If I see him, I'll tell him." The train ground out of Zagreb station. Three passengers, Bosnian refugees, with all that they owned around them, were cleared from their seats by the military policemen. They would be with him until the Slovenian border, then the military policemen would free him, leave him. From Ljubljana he would go on alone into Austria, and at Vienna he would start the long journey, via Budapest and Sofia and Istanbul and Yerevan, to the war in Nagorny Karabakh, wherever the fuck that was. Of course it was not his fault, of course he was not to blame. Nothing in his life had ever been the fault of Sidney Ernest Hamilton. In the dropping light the train cleared the concrete outer suburbs of Zagreb. He was without blame. He reached with his free hand into his pocket for the carton of Marlboro cigarettes, and for his playing cards… She said it softly. '… He says that you have seen his wife. His wife is a fine woman. He says that you have seen his boy, and that I hurt his boy. His boy is a good son… Everything that he knows is in the village of Salika, and everything that he loves is there. He asks you, begs you, pleads with you…" He looked away from the wreckage of the man. He remembered the power of the man and the glory of him in the hall of the village's school, and his boots and fists. He could not make the link. She said it quietly. '… He says that his wife should have a husband, and his son should have a father… He says that he will swear to you, promise to you, on his mother's life, that he will never hold a gun again, will never fight again. He says that you are a man of honour, a person of courage, and that you will understand his weakness… He begs you to let him go back to his wife, he pleads with you to let him return to his son…" Her voice dripped in his ear. He stared again into the face of the broken man. The eyes of Milan Stankovic ran wet and his mouth dribbled saliva against the folded material of the gag. The man was pitiful. He could not make the link between the man who was laden with conceit and the man who grovelled for his freedom. The birds clattered in the branches above him and there was the panting of Ulrike's breath spurts and the moaning in Milan Stankovic's throat. "I told you." Her face and her eyes and her short bob-cut hair were close to him.

"You told me to be cruel."

"And it is hard for you to be cruel."

"It is hard."

"Because you do not see the evil in him."

"I cannot make the link between what he was, what he did, and what he is now, pathetic."

She was so strong. He could see that she did not waver, and that she had no doubt.

Ulrike said, "It is what they are all like, it was the same long ago, and it is the same now… It was the same long ago in my country, when the men and women who had committed acts of evil were stripped of that power and put in the cells to await trial, and left in the cells to await execution, and when they were taken to the scaffold some had dignity and some were pitiful… they could not be recognized for what they had been, what they had done…"

Penn hissed, "Don't worry, don't bloody worry your pretty head, because I will try to be cruel."

He went on. Penn led. It came to him again, the instinct… He thought they might be a mile from the farm with the outbuildings where the troops were billeted. Twice he looked behind him, long and hard, and his eyes that were drifting with tiredness saw only the swaying trunks of the trees and the spreading shadows. He thought that the worst would begin after the farmhouse where the troops were billeted, and the worst would be all the way to the Kupa river and he still could not escape the instinct that they were followed in their flight.

There was no minute taken of the meeting, no stenographer present, no tape recorder in use. The room allocated for the meeting was on the third floor of the Ministry of Defence building with windows that looked down onto the central courtyard where the lights now burned bright. The room was the office of a senior civil servant, young and Harvard-trained.

"It will be done with discretion. There will be Special Forces, of the Black Hawk unit, under the direct command of the Intelligence Officer of 2nd Bn, 110 (Karlovac) Brigade. They are to be given no help, the German woman and the Englishman, in crossing the Kupa river. They are in charge of their own destiny. Under no circumstances, none, will they be permitted to bring Milan Stankovic across the river. From what I hear, if Stankovic crosses then Karlovac and Sisak will be shelled, Zagreb will be attacked by missiles. There can be no misunderstandings in this matter." The First Secretary leaned forward, elbows on the table. "No misunderstandings… because if Stankovic comes across and into your jurisdiction then international opinion would demand your own dark corners be examined, your own psychopaths be arraigned, and that would never do." Parked in the courtyard below was the Mercedes of UN PRO-FOR's Director of Civilian Affairs. "The meetings that we are brokering, from what I hear from my sources on the other side, will be immediately curtailed if a Serbian is kidnapped and brought before a war crimes tribunal. Gestures are unimportant. It cannot be allowed to happen. Gestures are trivial and cost lives. A substantial window for peace would have been closed." The First Secretary swung back in his chair. "And we must not block the path to the appeasement of violence, good God, no. Peace in our time, peace at any price. Why not…? And you should know, what I now realize, she was a very fine young woman, Miss Dorothy Mowat, and such a shame that her murderer, by our hand, should walk free… If you'll excuse me… It's my job to be on that bloody river bank tonight." He had made four telephone calls and all had been deflected. Four separate times he had dialled the number of the old police station, the number of the 2nd Bn, 110 (Karlovac) Brigade. He had asked, in turn of the duty officer and the commanding officer and the liaison officer and the adjutant, if he could be hooked through to Hamilton, Sidney Ernest, on a matter of importance. Four times asked to wait no problem four times asked the business of the call personal four times asked his name mumbled and unintelligible four times told that Hamilton was not available to come to the telephone and asked again for the nature of the business and the repetition of his name.

Marty Jones was not easily unsettled, less often now that he had been in Croatia and Bosnia for close to a year. But now apprehension crawled in him. Dusk was coming to the parade ground beyond his converted freight container… Hell, he was not going to take goddamn crap from them… After the fourth deflection, Marty telephoned Mary Braddock, told her he was coming soonest to collect her, that she should have warm clothes.

He did not know the place of the rendezvous on the bank of the Kupa river, and Ham should have rung him. He felt a bad night was taking shape.

Before he locked the door of the freight container behind him, he looked a last time, longingly and almost lovingly, at the camp bed with the sleeping bag and the blanket primly folded, at the brightness of the handcuffs, at the length of the chain and the strength of the ring set in the floor.

The last of the sun, rich gold, came from the trees on the far side of the river and made sweet lines on the moving water, and bathed the worn face of Zoran Pelnak and hurled his shadow back against the old timbers and the weathered brick of his home.

Too much of his time, he liked to joke with the soldiers who came from their tent camp for his well water, was spent gazing at the great Mother, the force, that was the Kupa river. He could spend more hours than the day gave him just watching the movement and the flow of the river. Each day, each hour, he could find something that was new in the movement and power of the river… And the river was something to respect, as worthy of respect as had been his own mother, because the river was strength. They did not comprehend, the soldiers who came with the scrubbed old milk churns for their water from his well, the force of the great Mother. Zoran Pelnak did… His respect, his awe, of the river had been with him since he was a child, since the evening that the sunken log had come without warning to beat against the bow of his small boat and trip it. He had lost his footing, fallen, scrabbled, slid into the dark cold of the water. What he could remember was the helplessness that he had felt, long ago as a child, thrashing against that force, and his father had pulled him clear. The force would never be forgotten by Zoran Pelnak, never trifled with. He had not swum in the river that bordered his fields since that day when he had struggled in panic against the cold darkness of the current. He knew the force of the great Mother… And there was always something new to see.

He paused at the door of his home, and he scratched the debris from the animals' fodder off the sleeves of his greatcoat.

There was a place in the first line of the trees opposite, where the herons made their nest. He could not look into the low sun at the nest, but he could see the male bird erect in the shallow water by the reeds poised and waiting, perhaps for a frog.

He considered the male heron to be the most beautiful of the river's birds.

And when he was inside, warm from the fire, his meal taken, then he would sit by the window and light his lamp and wait for the moon to climb, and the gold would have gone from the great Mother, replaced by silver.

The pistol was aimed at her.

The man was crouched down beside the tree and he held the pistol, aimed at her, with his arms extended. The woman stood beside the man and held the knife against Milan's beard, against his throat. She stopped, and she took the weight of the dog and the farm twine tied to the dog's collar cut at the palm of her hand. She stopped, and she clutched the rusted bayonet.

The pistol was aimed at her across the width of the track that divided them.

She said it in the man's language, deliberate. "Let him go…"

Evica had come fast, closed the last gap, run noisily through the final metres, and she had blundered from the cover of a corner of evergreen holly. They would have heard her come the final metres, but they would only have seen her when she broke the cover of the holly. The dog strained to cross the track.

The aim of the pistol wavered.

"Let him come to me…" Penn blinked at her across the track and she saw the raw tiredness of his eyes that tried to lock along the barrel length of the pistol. It was as if the birds had gone, fled the place, because the silence crawled around her. There were scars on his face. He was the man who had come into her life, the man who would destroy them. The weight of the dog cut the farm twine across the palm of her hand. If she let go of the twine, if she released the dog, then the dog, going forward, forty kilos weight, would overwhelm the man, Penn, with exhaustion in his eyes… if she let go of the twine. "Let him be free…" She looked away from the man, Penn, away from the muzzle of the pistol. The woman's hand did not move. The man, Penn, whispered to the woman, as if he placed and identified her. The knife was steady against the hair of Milan's beard, against his throat. She saw the chilled certainty in the woman's face, as if tiredness had not washed it clear. The knife was sharp and clean. Evica had seen before such chilled certainty, seen it on the faces of the men as they had gone away across the bridge early on the last day of the battle for Rosenovici, and she had heard later that day, and not looked from her window, the rumble of the bulldozer in the field across the stream, and heard the final shots. And she had seen the chilling certainty on the faces of the men who had gone to the headquarters to take the Headmaster from his cell… She knew, in her exhaustion, that the dog could take the man, Penn, even if he fired, even if he hit. She knew, in the anguish of her mind, that if she loosed the dog then the woman, determined, cold, would gouge the blade of the sharp clean knife deep into the throat of Milan, would not hesitate because it was in the certainty of the woman's face. "Please, you should let him come to me…" There was a wetness on the face of Milan, and she could see where the tears had run from his eyes and across the dirtied skin of his cheeks, and gone to the matt of his beard. And Evica saw the fear in Milan's eyes, as if he too knew the certainty of the woman, "I beg of you, let me take him home…" The man gazed at her, dulled. She remembered, a long time ago, many years, when she had gone with the beaters and the dogs to flush a boar, a long hard run and chase and they had found the boar against a rock outcrop that it could not climb, and it had turned to face the leashed dogs and the guns, and she had seen the dulled eyes of the boar. The man with the pistol did not have the cold certainty of the woman who held the knife so steady against Milan's beard and throat. But it was not the man who spoke. She had a clipped voice, controlled. "What was done at Rosenovici was a crime. What has been done through former Yugoslavia is a crime. At stake is the rule of law… What we do is small, because we are only small people, but it is necessary to find a point for a beginning. You are the wife of Milan Stankovic, you know what he did. After the flag of surrender, he took the wounded from Rosenovici, and he had a grave dug, and he butchered those wounded… You are his wife, you know what he did, you know the scale of his evil… And with the wounded was a young woman…" The young woman, the girl, coming to the school at Evica's invitation, speaking English that Evica might improve her language, coming in torn jeans and sweaters that were holed at the elbow, sitting with the fun laughter bubbling in her… dead and buried. "The crime of the young woman was that she stayed when others ran. She stayed with those who were wounded. She gave them help and love. Your husband made the chain. The chain is from the young woman to her mother, to Penn, to your village, to your husband. He made the chain when he killed that young woman… We do what small people, Mrs. Stankovic, have always done through history, we make a beginning. And the law, Mrs. Stankovic, belongs to small people, and I am small and Penn is small, and the law belongs to us. We cannot give him back to you and to your child because the rule of law, without which we all fall, demands that your husband be brought to account…" Evica thought the woman was without mercy. The fingers that clasped the knife against Milan's beard had no gold wedding ring. She could see the tight waist of the woman behind her opened coat and there was not the slackness at her stomach of childbirth. Evica thought the woman was without love. "That night, when he came back from Rosenovici, did he tell you what he had done? Did you hold him, and tell him that it did not matter? Did you cuddle him, and tell him he was without guilt…? Or did you feel shame, Mrs. Stankovic, did you feel that when he lay beside you he dirtied you. You should go home, you should go home to your son and tell the child that his father is a murderer, and you should tell the child that the rule of law demands his father's punishment…" She looked into her husband's face. She remembered the night. She remembered how she had lain awake, how she had pushed him away from her, how he had slept and she had not, how he had cried out twice but not woken, how he had once thrashed with his arms as if to beat away a nightmare, and how in the first light of the morning she had stood at the window of their bedroom and looked across the fields, across the stream, and seen the smoke rising from the buildings and seen the grey-black scar in the corner of the field. Penn said, "He has nothing to fear from me. It will not be as it was for Dorrie Mowat…" She let the bayonet fall from her hand. '… I protect my prisoner with my life." She turned away. Evica pulled the dog, reluctant, after her. She twisted her back on her husband. The dusk was falling on the woodland. She could not answer the argument of the woman. She could not fault the promise of the man. She heard them moving, first loud and then fainter. Evica never looked back, never turned to see her husband taken as a prisoner towards the Kupa river. He turned the pages. Perhaps it had been stupid of him to ask for the books. He leafed through photographs in expensive colour that showed children in national costume, and wedding dances, and the archaeology of the national heritage, and Roman amphitheatres, and the beauty of polyptych work from churches. Henry Carter thought it an obscenity that a nation of such age-old talent should have stooped to such far-down barbarity… God, and since when had he been qualified to criticize? He leafed the pages, searched patiently. There was an aerial view, across two pages, of the old quarter of Karlovac, and he could make out clearly the former barracks built by Napoleon's marshal where the German woman had administered the Transit Centre.

The searching ended… It was a dreadful photograph, quite unsuitable for his purpose, but it was what he must make do with. The photograph showed in foreground the tables and chairs laid out on the patio of that city's principal hotel, in bright summer, with lolling and burned holiday-makers under gaudy sunshades. Beyond the patio, glared by the sun, was a pedestrian road and then there was the bank of the river. It was what he had sought to find, a view of the Kupa river. The river of the photograph was low against high banks, wide but seemingly harmless. It could give him an idea, only a frail impression, of how the Kupa river would be, at night, swollen by the winter, guarded by strong points and minefields and patrols, approached by the German woman and the prisoner and Penn.

His eyes misted over.