The Names of the Dead

by Wignall, Kevin

  As they got out of the car, the caretaker was strolling toward them. He and Mia had a brief conversation, the old man making the sign of cross and shaking his head sadly as he walked away.

  Wes looked up at the house and said, “You grew up here?”

  “Yes. It was wonderful to be a child here.”

  He noticed the caretaker had disappeared around the side of the house, rather than climbing the steps to open the main doors.

  “But you don’t want to look inside?”

  She shook her head. “The house is full of happy memories.”

  He understood her point, even as he wondered if General Pavić had seen it that way. Mia walked to the back of the car and took out the cardboard box. She opened that and removed the functional-looking urn that contained her father.

  “There’s a tree near the back of the house. My father liked to have a chair there. He would sit and read or sleep in the summer. I think that would be a good place.”

  “Show the way.”

  He followed her around the house and across the lawn. There was no chair beneath the tree now, but a small patch of grass looked a little worn, presumably from the General resting his feet there over many years. It would grow back eventually, but was still in evidence even after the years Pavić had spent in prison.

  Mia stood and bowed her head. For a little while she seemed deep in prayer, then she unscrewed the top of the urn and scattered the ashes around the base of the tree, as if feeding it. The air was still and already warm and the ash rested where it fell, a gray scar against the green of the lawn.

  Once she’d finished, she put the top back on the urn and placed it on the ground next to her. She bowed her head again and this time as she prayed he noticed her lips moving slightly. When she looked up again she smiled at him but there were tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Wes took a Kleenex from his pocket and held it out, and as she took it off him, their fingers touched, the most fleeting of contacts. But even now, even after all the time they’d spent together driving across Europe, her hand recoiled as if she’d touched something hot. He imagined some people would have been hurt by that response, but he only pitied her, imagining the storm that had to be raging in her head that she could be so disturbed by the touch of another human.

  She dried her eyes and said, “Thank you for coming. It meant a lot.”

  “I was glad to be here.” He looked down at the ashes, looking like powdered cement on the grass.

  “We can go now. You can kill the people you need to kill.”

  “I have to find them first.”

  “Yes.”

  By the time they got back to the car, the caretaker was waiting again. Another short conversation ensued, and as they drove away, Wes noticed the caretaker ambling down the drive to close the gates after them.

  “Tomorrow I will go to the cathedral.”

  He looked across at her, though she was focused on the road.

  “You’ve been before, I guess.”

  “Many times. But I can go to Mass. You can come too, if you like.”

  “No, I’ll leave that to you.”

  She smiled, as if at some private joke, or maybe just at Wes’s unwillingness to visit a cathedral.

  Back at the Esplanade, the concierge spoke to Mia in Croatian as soon as she walked into the lobby. She answered, thanked him, then turned to Wes.

  “I have visitors waiting for me in the bar. Perhaps they will be friends of my father. So they could help.”

  He nodded and they walked through to the bar together. There were maybe ten people in there, but Wes noticed three gray-haired men sitting around a table—they were probably about the same age as General Pavić, and although they were all portly now, they had a military bearing about them.

  As soon as they saw Mia, they stood, and as she neared them they bowed. Wes wasn’t sure if that was the customary polite greeting anyway or if they knew—as everyone from her past surely did—about her dislike of physical contact. She introduced Wes in English and they all shook his hand.

  One of the men called the waiter over and ordered more drinks, and Mia said to Wes, “These men were colleagues of my father. They fought together in the war. I’ve known them my whole life. We’ll drink pear brandy with them now.”

  “Okay.”

  Wes noticed the one in conversation with the waiter was a bull of a man, huge across the shoulders and with a thick neck and his hair cropped as if he were still in the military. Despite their age, all three of them looked robust.

  The waiter was treating them with what appeared genuine respect, smiling and laughing with the big man. The other bar staff were looking on from across the room, also smiling, seemingly pleased to have these men here, and like Mia, none of them looked old enough to remember the war.

  It cheered Wes in some way, maybe just to see a country that still respected its heroes as well as its celebrities. Wes hadn’t fought for anything as momentous as a country’s independence, but he’d fought to maintain America’s security, and he couldn’t help feeling a hint of bitterness at the treatment that had been sanctioned against him.

  Two more glasses were brought, together with the bottle of pear brandy, which the waiter left on the table once he’d poured the two new measures and topped up the other three glasses.

  The big man raised his drink and said something, and Mia turned to Wes. “We’re toasting my father.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  He joined them and they drank. The pear brandy was just as explosive as he’d expected it to be, but he followed them in draining it and watched as one of the men filled the five glasses again. Wes hoped they wouldn’t be making many more toasts.

  “Is it okay if we speak in Croatian?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  He presumed from the tone of the conversation that followed that she was talking to them about her father’s final days. They listened respectfully, nodding, occasionally upset. One of the men said something that Mia disapproved of and her measured rebuke was enough for him to offer a fulsome apology and the big man to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder.

  Everyone sipped at the glasses of pear brandy, which were once again filled. Then the big man gestured to the waiter. Wes hoped he wasn’t ordering more drinks—his tolerance for alcohol was still a long way from returning to its pre-prison levels.

  There was a brief exchange with the waiter, and he came back quickly with a sheet of paper and a pen. The big man thanked him and placed the paper and pen on the table in front of Wes.

  “Please. Write down the names of the three men you need to find. They’re not in the embassy?”

  “No.” Wes was certain Raphael would have found them if they’d been attached to the embassy, and the whole point of the gray teams was that they weren’t answerable to an embassy or station. “But they’ll have an office in the city, probably dressed up as a shipping agency or something like that.”

  “It’s a small city. Leave it with me.”

  Mia smiled and said, “Uncle Slavko will find them.” Then she added, “He isn’t really my uncle. I have two uncles but I don’t see them. Uncle Slavko is better than an uncle.”

  As big as he was, Slavko suddenly looked boyishly embarrassed by the compliment and said something under his breath in Croatian, a tone of modesty about it.

  “Well, I appreciate your help. It’s possible there are more than three, but I don’t think it will be many more. But it’s important for you to know that these are dangerous people. They’ll be expecting me to come to Zagreb, but it’s best they don’t know I’m already here, and . . .” He was about to suggest Slavko shouldn’t engage with them himself, but Wes could see how advice like that would probably be seen as a challenge. It wasn’t even as if he was worried about Slavko’s safety, so he simply fell back on the truth. “These people, they got me sent to prison, and they arranged the murder of my wife. I’m sure you’ll understand, I want to deal with them myself.”

&nb
sp; “I understand. We’ll find out where they are, and then it’s up to you. But if you need help, of course, we are here. What Mia asks, we give.”

  Wes nodded, seeing the truth in that, but it was something that played on his mind after they left, and also later over dinner in the restaurant. Mia was a well-known figure here in Zagreb. Grace Burns and her friend Noah would have reported back that Wes was traveling with someone very distinctive-looking. They hadn’t heard her surname, and without it the puzzle might be harder to piece together.

  But it wouldn’t be impossible, and Sam Garvey had apparently outwitted Wes once before. No, they wouldn’t know that Wes was here yet, and they wouldn’t know Mia was with him, but given her renown, it might only be a matter of time. Things were okay for now, he was confident of that, but he hoped Slavko could come up with something quickly, because Wes was certain he wouldn’t be the only person searching for someone.

  Thirty-Five

  Mia went to the cathedral the next morning. Wes slept soundly, probably helped along by the pear brandy and the wine at dinner. He had breakfast out on the terrace that overlooked the square and the railway station beyond. There was a strong breeze, but when it paused he could tell that it would be warmer than the previous day.

  He lingered over breakfast, thinking she’d come and join him as she had on other occasions following her cathedral visits, but she didn’t come. He remembered then that this was not just a visit, that she was attending a service, so in the end he walked back through to the concierge desk.

  “Good morning, sir!”

  “Good morning. I wonder, have you seen Miss Pavić come back?”

  It seemed like an extraordinary request given the size of the hotel and the number of people coming and going in the lobby, but aside from Mia’s social standing, her startling appearance made her hard to miss.

  “I saw her leave, but I don’t think she’s returned yet. I saw her talking to Josip at the door before she left. Perhaps you could ask him.”

  He pointed to the bald middle-aged man standing on duty in front of the main doors.

  “Thanks.” Wes walked out and asked the same question.

  “No, sir, not yet.” He checked his watch and produced the slightest frown. “She was going to morning Mass but that would finish before ten. Maybe she went shopping?”

  It was ten thirty, so there wasn’t much in it, particularly now that she was back in her own city, a place full of landmarks and meaning for her. But Wes couldn’t fight the beginnings of a creeping nausea in his stomach. Just last night he’d considered and temporarily dismissed the possibility of Sam targeting Mia, but it was back in the forefront of his mind now.

  “Did she walk?”

  “Of course, sir. As you can see, a beautiful day.”

  “How far is it?”

  “About ten or fifteen minutes in that direction, but if you’ll excuse me, it’s pointless you going to intercept her—she could take any route back to the hotel.” With a hint of curiosity, maybe even suspicion, Josip said, “Don’t you have her cellphone number?”

  Wes knew there was no true answer he could give that wouldn’t lead to outright suspicion—he didn’t have a cellphone because he’d just been released from prison and someone had tried to murder him; he didn’t have her number because they hadn’t really been apart since he’d come bloodied out of a French forest; more than that, he didn’t have her number because they didn’t really know each other at all.

  “She doesn’t take her cellphone when she’s going to church.”

  “Of course, I should have thought of that. She’s very religious, like many young people in Croatia.” Josip didn’t have much more to offer. “I’ll tell her you were looking for her. When she comes back.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Wes walked back into the hotel. The concierge was busy talking to another guest so he slipped past unnoticed and went upstairs. He rang the bell to her suite, just in case she’d come back without them noticing. Getting no answer, he returned to his own room.

  He looked out of the window, down at the terrace below where they were just clearing away after breakfast, out at the square with people walking and cycling, trams and cars moving in a continual clockwork motion, taxis sitting outside the station.

  Everything looked normal about this early summer day. And it was perfectly normal for a twenty-nine-year-old woman to go to church and take her time coming back. But that nausea was still there, and it wasn’t just the fear that something might have happened to her, but also that he had indeed been outmaneuvered by Sam Garvey yet again, and with relative ease.

  He waited an hour, and was just beginning to think it might be worth walking to the cathedral anyway when the room phone rang.

  “Good morning, Mr. Wesley, you have a visitor—he’s waiting in the bar for you.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be right down.”

  He imagined it was probably Slavko and hoped he’d already come good on his promise to track down Garvey’s office. At the same time, he hoped Slavko didn’t ask where Mia was, because although it was too soon to presume she was missing, Wes didn’t trust his own unease not to show through.

  When he got there the bar was a little busier than the previous day. Wes scanned the faces—he was looking for Slavko and was surprised not to see him there. Then something pulled his gaze to the far corner of the room, where a man in a plaid shirt was sitting on his own. His hair was short and reddish-brown and he was sporting a suspiciously hipster-looking beard.

  He didn’t wave when Wes looked in his direction, but their eyes met. Wes walked toward him but he did another quick survey of the bar as he moved across it, checking who else was in there. Wes’s caution was well founded, because the beard was new, and looked faintly ridiculous, but the man was Sam Garvey.

  And now Wes was angry, at Sam but also at himself. He’d told her time and again to leave him, and he’d accepted her refusals because he was weak, because he’d needed the company and liked being around her. But this was what his weakness had led her to, a dire situation summed up in the smug face of Sam Garvey.

  As he got there, Sam smiled and held out his hand.

  Wes looked at it but left it hanging as he sat down. Sam raised his eyebrows, as if to say there was no need for bad manners, and let the hand drop again.

  “I was hoping we might be able to sort things out, Wes, but you don’t seem to be in a very conciliatory mood.”

  Wes didn’t answer because the same waiter from the previous day came over and said, “Good morning, Mr. Wesley, what can I get for you?”

  “The same as yesterday, I think. Thanks.”

  “Of course.”

  The waiter looked expectantly at Sam.

  “I’ll have the same as him.”

  “Coming right up.”

  The waiter left and Wes said, “Almost didn’t recognize you with the facial hair.”

  Sam stroked the beard, smiling. “Just keeping up with fashion, you know.”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve been in prison for three years. What do you want, Sam?”

  “You’re the one who came looking for me. What do you want?”

  What did he want? He wanted Ethan, he wanted Rachel not to be dead, but beyond that?

  “Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, all that stuff about emotional intelligence. See, I know what I think I should want, but I don’t feel it. It’s nothing so primal as revenge, it’s just expediency, or like a mental exercise, a war game—these are the problems, what are the most logical solutions. What do I actually want—that’s a tough question.”

  “Jesus! Have you any idea how insane you sound?”

  The waiter came, carrying a tray. He placed the two small glasses in front of them and poured from the bottle of pear brandy.

  “Should I leave the bottle, like yesterday?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Wes picked up his glass as the waiter took the tray away. He looked at Sam. “How about a toast?” Sam caut
iously raised his glass and Wes said, “To Rachel.”

  He drank the shot back in one and, reluctantly, so did Sam. Wes filled the glasses again.

  “Where were we? You were telling me I sound insane. I don’t think I am, but one thing I do know is I’m not stupid—that’s your specialty.” Sam raised his eyebrows again—maybe he’d always had that tic but Wes hadn’t noticed it so much without the beard. “All you had to do was visit me twice a year while I was in prison, keep lying to my face—you were good at that—and I wouldn’t have suspected a thing, and your man Pine could have killed me so easily. All the complexity of your crimes and your treason, and yet you undermine it with one stupid oversight. It was always your problem, the reason you had to rely on treachery to get me out of the way, because you were never that smart.”

  Sam smiled, but it was pinched, and he sighed, as if unsure where to start.

  “I certainly haven’t come here to defend myself against you, Wes. Maybe in your own mind that’s how you think it was, that I was corrupt, that I had to get you out of the way, that I was afraid Rachel would find out the truth so I had to kill her. The fact is, you caused all this. You were out of control, running things like it was your own little fiefdom, sharing more information with Konstantin Grishko than you were with Langley or even your own team. You’d become a liability.”

  “I was getting results.”

  “In appalling ways, using appalling methods.”

  “Seriously? You’re taking the high ground on my methods? You tricked a kid into becoming a suicide bomber and used him to kill a dozen people, just to stop Rachel getting to the truth.”

  “I did no such thing.” He looked angry and sipped at his drink but put it down again, a sour expression on his face. His tone was earnest when he spoke again. “You know how gray teams work. I gave Scottie a job, but without rules of engagement. I had no idea he’d kill all those innocent people. I did instruct him to kill Rachel, and that was the hardest decision I’ve ever come to in my life, but I couldn’t allow her to get to Grishko. The collusion between you and the GRU, there’s just no way we could allow that to get out, not in the current climate.”