Protocol for a Kidnapping

23

The news of my death provided a conversational topic all the way to Visegrad where we crossed the Drina River over the bridge about which they’ve sung songs, recited epics, and even written a novel. The trip through the Zlatibor Mountains down to the valley of the Drina had been a series of memorable skids, fine views, and outstanding profanities by Wisdom who fought the Mercedes through the icy hairpins and switchbacks of the road that turned and twisted back upon itself like a piece of wet string. The view of Bosnia to the north and Montenegro to the south was spectacular in spots, awesome in others.

“We fought through here,” Tavro said in a somber tone and I decided that he was essentially a man without humor. “It is a harsh land.”

The bridge at Visegrad with its four and a half arches on one side and five and a half on the other rested on massive pillars built of stone which was the color of honey and we slowed down at its center, like a carload of Kansas tourists, to read the inscription which according to Arrie’s rapid translation said, “Bridge built by Mehmed Pasa Sikolovic in 1571. Destroyed or damaged by Germans in 1943 and rebuilt between 1949 and 1952. And that makes it four hundred years old.”

“You’re in Carstairs country again, Park,” Knight said.

“How so?”

“We’ve just left Serbia and we’re now in the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

“Ah,” Wisdom said. “The Gothic Carstairs.”

“Absolutely.”

“This,” Wisdom said, “is where Carstairs always flings his long, black cloak over his lean frame, thrusts the brace of finely wrought pistols through his belt, and plunges out into the bitter Herzegovinian night, his footsteps echoing hollowly on the worn steps of the ancient castle.”

Sarajevo lies halfway between Trieste and Istanbul although it’s difficult to get there from either place. We arrived just before dusk, having averaged a nifty thirty-two kilometers an hour since leaving Titovo Uzice at eleven. We came down through the narrow gorge that leads into the city which stretches along the banks of the Miljacka River just in time to glimpse a minaret or two.

“Which way?” Park said.

“Drive around,” I said, “we haven’t got anything better to do until nine.”

We drove around for half an hour, slowing down for a look at the fairly new bus station and the Mosque of Gazi Husref Bey which Tavro said was the finest in Sarajevo. It had a flattened dome that sat on an octagonal drum which rested on a square mass. I preferred the Bascarsija Mosque near the market better with its minaret that shot up toward the sky.

“I like minarets,” Wisdom said. “It’s like they’re always giving somebody the finger.”

“When you find a place to park this thing,” I said, “we’ll leave it.”

Wisdom found a spot about a block from the mosque and backed the car into it. “What do I do with the keys?” he said.

“Mail them.”

“Putnik’s going to be a little upset.”

“Did you give them a deposit?”

“No.”

“They they’ll be happy to get them back.”

“I am very hungry,” Gordana said. “Also I must go to the toilet.”

“Knight, do you want to be tour leader?” I said.

“You’re doing fine,” he said. “I’ve got some film here that I’d like to get developed.”

“And I’m hungry, too,” Arrie said.

“It isn’t going just quite the way I expected it to go, ladies and gentlemen, but if you’ll bear with me for a while, I’ll try to see to it that your bladders are emptied and your stomachs are filled.”

It was dark now, but the streetlights were on here and there, which gave some illumination to the narrow lanes of the old section called Bascarsija that I herded my charges through like a mean shepherd with five ewes that were about to lamb. If I’d wanted to buy a copper Turkish coffee pot, I could have struck several magnificent bargains. The rug merchants were out in force and there were places to have your fez ironed. Some of the men were down from the hills with their heads wrapped in red and striped turbans. A few wore braided belts and gusseted britches under their long sheepskin-lined coats. Others wore suits that looked as if they came from the state cooperative store while still others, a sinister lot, I thought, wandered about in blue, chalk-striped double-breasted suits that could have been new in 1930 or 1970.

The women seemed to wear anything that came along although Arrie’s long suede coat got a couple of admiring glances. With the veil still banished, the Muslim women drew their kerchiefs across their mouths. Some wore what looked to be pants suits, but weren’t, and others of the Muslim faith wore bloomers to make sure, the story had it, that no baby who just might be a descendant of the Prophet would touch soil at his birth.

It was a noisy section, flavored by the Orient as well as the West, and nobody seemed to be much concerned with The Reform. They were there to do business with anyone who came by and if it took six cups of coffee to make a deal, that too was Allah’s will.

We turned left at a narrow street that had no name, then right on to Asćiluk, and then left to the main road, Vojvode Stepe Obala.

“It is the bridge across the way that is named for the hero, Gavrilo Princip,” Tavro said mournfully.

“Is that where he shot the archduke?” Wisdom said.

“No,” Tavro said, “it is near here where we stand.”

“What about a café or a restaurant?” I said.

“There is one called the Dva Ribara,” he said. “It is not far.”

“Let’s try it,” I said. It seemed to be the first real decision that I’d made all day.

It wasn’t much of a restaurant, but it offered food, and Henry Knight and I, alone at the table, studied the menus as best we could. Knight folded his and put it down.

“I’ll let someone else order for me,” he said.

“What about a drink?”

“I can order that myself.”

We tried the plum brandy again. Knight fooled with the stem of his glass, moving it in small loops around the table. “Have you come up with any conclusions?” he said.

“About the radio story?”

“Yes.”

“None.”

“What about the kidnappers?” he said.

“You mean will it have scared them off?”

“That occurred to me.”

“And me. It was probably meant to.”

“Could that embassy guy have made a mistake?”

“You mean an honest one?” I said.

“Any kind.”

“It depends on what kind of shape the body was in. Stepinac did resemble me and there could have been some problem about identification. But I don’t think that there was.”

“But you can’t guess why?”

“I can guess,” I said.

“So can I,” he said.

“What’s yours?”

“It’s not a guess really. It’s just that somebody wants you dead for a little while. So it’s really not guessing about why but about who.”

“I can think of several who’s,” I said.

“Anybody I know?” Knight said.

“I’m not sure.”

The table talk was less than brilliant. Tavro appeared to have sunk into one of his despondent moods and spoke only when someone asked him a question, and that wasn’t often. Gordana, still looking lovely, seemed to have lost her appetite, but it may have been the food which she pushed politely back and forth across her plate. Arrie appeared thoughtful. She ate her meal quickly and then sat back, silently smoking a cigarette. Wisdom was still driving the car and his movements were tense and his speech was nervous chatter to which no one much listened, not even himself. Knight was the most relaxed, but then he was an actor and I couldn’t tell how he really felt. I felt rotten.

The meal dragged on, prolonged by the indifference of the waiters who showed up at odd times, looking as if they’d rather debate management policy than serve the coffee. The restaurant filled up slowly and I called for the check at a quarter after eight and it arrived at eight thirty which I thought was reasonable haste. I showed my appreciation with a ten percent tip.

We crossed the river near Sarajevo’s municipal museum and started through the Gypsy quarter of Dajanil Osmanbeg. It was a steep winding street, almost too narrow for a car. Small, evil-looking alleys led from the street and seemed to disappear into nothing.

“There is another way,” Tavro said, “but this is quicker.”

“So is a taxi,” I said.

We followed him through the street that wound through Bistrik which might have been a suburb of Sarajevo at one time, but now was a collection of shacks and wooden houses that tilted crazily at each other. It was a Muslim district with a sprinkling of miniature mosques and minarets built of wood. The Gypsies were short and swarthy, as most Gypsies are, and they talked to each other in what Arrie claimed to be Tamil. Kids were everywhere, but they were outnumbered by the cats, lean, tough, Gypsy-looking cats that prowled the alleys or sat in doorways and stared up at us with the knowing eyes that a Gypsy cat would have.

“The Prophet was terribly keen on cats, you know,” Wisdom said as we stumbled over a couple of kittens who pranced around spitting fiercely and arching their backs and puffing up their tails only to forget what they were mad about in the next second.

“I didn’t,” I said.

“You can see the mark of His hand on their heads,” Wisdom went on.

“Truly,” I said.

“There is a legend.”

“Ah.”

“Mohammed cut off a piece of his robe rather than disturb the cat who was sleeping on it.”

“There must have been an easier way,” I said.

“Then there would have been no legend.”

I looked back several times, but if we were being followed, I couldn’t spot the tail in the dim streets. If there were more than one, they could have been ducking in and out of a score of dark alleys and doorways. I didn’t feel as if I were being followed, but then I never did which must indicate a low level of paranoia if nothing else.

“Left at the next street,” Tavro said and we turned out of the quarter and onto a wider thoroughfare that commemorated the Sixth Day of November which, Tavro informed me, was a state holiday whose occasion he couldn’t recall. It was his only failure as a guide thus far and I think it upset him a little.

“The train station is left at the next corner,” he said and I turned to inspect the group which I reluctantly was beginning to think of as a brood. Wisdom was with Gordana and Knight was with Arrie.

“This is a dead-end street,” I said. “The train station is about a block up. This time I’ll go by myself. If I’m not back in ten minutes, I suggest that you check in with Traveler’s Aid.”

“It’s cold here,” Arrie said.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” I said, turned and walked toward the station. I looked back twice at the five of them who huddled at the corner in a disconsolate group, looking something like a Salvation Army band that had lost its instruments.

The station was nearly empty except for a couple of Gypsies who were more interested in the tile stove than the next train and a shaggy-haired man in his thirties who wore a long, sheepskin-lined shepherd’s coat, a fur hat, and scuffed leather boots. He looked at me and I looked at him. Then I looked at my watch and wandered over to examine the train schedule.

“You figure on catching a train?” a voice said and I turned. It was the shaggy-haired man.

“I hadn’t thought of it,” I said. He needed a shave and maybe a bath, but he probably knew it as well as I did.

“The radio said you were dead. Hit-and-run.”

“Then what’re you doing here?”

“We took a chance.”

“How’s Killingsworth?”

“You ever spend a week with him?”

“No.”

“Don’t,” he said and looked around the station carefully. “You weren’t followed?”

“None that I could spot.”

He was a little shorter than I with dark brown eyes and quick, nervous movements. His hands made rapid, fluent gestures.

“You’re the Italian,” I said.

He nodded. “My partner’s staying with Killingsworth. Where’re the rest of them?”

“At the corner.”

“How many?”

“Five. Two women, three men.”

He rolled his eyes a little at that, but then gave me a magnificent shrug which made it perfectly clear that he considered them to be my foolish responsibility and one which would rest lightly on his shoulders for only a brief time.

“I got a Volks bus outside,” he said. “We may as well go.”

I followed him outside to a three- or four-year-old gray Volkswagen microbus that had chains on its rear wheels. I looked around again, but I could still see no one other than the two Gypsies in the train station. The Italian also took his time before climbing up into the driver’s seat.

“You sure you weren’t followed?” he said, starting the engine.

“Hell no, I’m not sure.”

“Cool it, friend, we’re almost home.” He paused a moment and then gruffly asked, “What do you think of my English?”

“It’s swell.”

“That’s what he says.”

“Who?”

“Killingsworth.”

“What’s he been doing?” I said.

“Chopping wood and when he’s not doing that, he talks. He says he’s going to write a story about us.”

“What do you tell him?”

“That we’re going to kill him. It keeps him quiet for a little while.”

“He still thinks it’s for real?”

“All the way,” the Italian said.

“What’s the schedule?”

“I’ll get you up to the castle. Then you’re on your own. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay.”

He pulled the Volkswagen up to the corner and I got out. The two women got in first, then Wisdom and Knight. Tavro seemed to hesitate. “What’s the matter?” I said.

“I must know your plan,” he said.

“Get in,” I said, “and I’ll try to think of one.”