Heart of Danger

by Gerald Seymour

  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 wh
at 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 so
cks. 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.

  Ten.

  It was as Ham had told him .. . Penn had moved on his stomach up from the river bank, trying to insert himself between the reeds where they were most thick. To spread his weight, was what Ham had told him, and not to walk where it was easiest, where boot marks could be most clearly seen. He had moved up the bank and there had been the open space that he assumed was a path, and he had rolled across the space, which was difficult with the backpack, and the pistol on his waist had bruised into his stomach. Past the open space, the path, he had found, as Ham had told him he would, a single low strand of barbed wire. He had found it because the barbs on the wire had suddenly trapped him, become embedded in the material of his camouflage tunic. Ham had told him that he should not shake the wire because it would carry empty tin cans, and he should not go beyond the wire because it marked the perimeter of an area where mines were buried. He had a sort of reassurance when the barbs of the wire caught at him, proof that Ham knew. He had picked the barbs off with small and careful movements, then crawled in the darkness along the length of the wire, threading the wire through the circle he had made with his thumb and forefinger until his hand was a mess of blood from the barbs. He led himself, on his stomach, along the length of wire until his hand felt the post and then the twine binding the wire to the post. From the post the wire twisted in direction and headed back and away from the river behind him. It was as Ham had told him .. . another path, going away from the river, and he had searched for a small stick, as he had been told to do, and he had held the stick loose in front of him as he had walked at the side of the path. Ham had said that he should be at the side of the path because the mud that would betray his boot weight would be in the centre of the path. He had held the stick loose in front of his knees because Ham had said, but didn't know, that there might be a tripwire slung across the path, at knee height, and a tripwire might rattle empty cans, or it might detonate a grenade. It was as Ham had told him .. . Penn stopped when he reckoned he had gone a full hundred yards from the river bank. When he had stopped, he groped with his fingers and found the barbed wire that ran two strides from the path, and he followed the barbed wire deep into the birch wood. He had sat down on the old leaf mould, and waited. They were desperate hours to wait, especially when the rain had started. The rain dripped from his head to his chest and his shoulders. He tried to ration how often he looked down at the luminous hands of his watch. Should have rested, should have catnapped, as Ham had told him, but he could not have slept and could not have dozed. He reckoned he heard each dribble and splatter of the rain coming down from the tall birches, and each minuscule shifting of his weight where he sat seemed a confined explosion of sound. He waited for the dawn. The dawn was late because of the low cloud. The dawn coming late meant that he would have to push faster when he moved off. When he could see where the weight of his boots would fall, then it was the time for him to move forward. There was no going back. There was no inflatable waiting at his bank of the Kupa river. There was no alternative to moving forward. There was nothing in his mind of sentimental crap, staying alive was going forward. As Ham had told him .. . the most dangerous part of the journey for him was the first five miles, and the worst of the most dangerous ground was what he would cover in the first mile. He tried to razor his concentration. The first mile was where the minefields were most closely settled, where the tripwires were, where the military ruled. The first five miles were where the patrols would be most frequent. It was the fucking contradiction, was what Ham had said, that he must move most carefully in the first miles, and move fastest. When he could see the path, Penn hoisted the backpack onto his shoulders and went forward. Not running, not jogging, but going with a brisk pace. When he had gone half a mile, twelve minutes going on thirteen, he realized the futility of the map drawn by Ham. He had no detail. The farmhouse was not marked on the map. The farmhouse was two-storey, brick-built from the ground up and then heavy-set planking for the upper floor. There was a wide balcony area at the front on the upper floor. He could see the man clearly. The man on the balcony did not bother to look out, to wonder if he were watched. The man opened the front of his trousers and urinated through the bars of the balcony and down onto the waste ground near to the front door of the farmhouse. And then Penn saw the woman, nightdress under her coat and above her black rubber boots, and she had the washing basket on the ground beside her and was starting to peg out the clothes a bloody early start for the old house chores and she bawled. Penn heard her voice, full of rich complaint, and was near enough then to see the man scratch, and ignore her, and yawn and stretch and belch, and still ignore the beat of her complaint, and turn to go back inside. Penn moved on. Each time that he stopped he tried to be certain that he was against the line of a thicker birch trunk. As Ham had told him .. . never to be in Silhouette, never to be the unnatural Shape, and Sound and Smell and Shine could bloody wait, it was Silhouette and Shape that mattered. At the back of the farmhouse were outbuildings and barns, a mess of slumped roofs and corrugated iron and abandoned harvest equipment and the corrals for cattle and pigs and sheep. Parked up amongst them were three military lorries and a jeep. He could no longer see the front of the farmhouse but the woman's yelling carried to him, and there were new cries of encouragement and jeers from young troops. So young. Half asleep and paddling around in the mud, the troops, but they had their rifles slung on their half-dressed bodies. Hesitation, to move or not to move, but the light was growing all the time .. . None of the training on the Five surveillance courses seemed relevant. He had only his instincts to protect him, and the guidance that Ham had given him, and the instinct and the guidance seemed damn all of nothing. Going so carefully, tree to tree, along the track, and knowing that if the movement were seen .. . holy shit.. . going carefully. One of the troops, a fresh-faced young boy, a straggle of beard on his chin, walked purposefully from the barns and up the field towards the track. Carried his rifle and a small entrenching spade, and three dogs gambolled and chased around him. Penn had to move, because the line that the trooper had taken would cross the track ahead of where he now stood. He had to risk the movement. Going forward fast, too fast, going from tree to tree, spurt rushes. Just a boy coming up the hill behind the outbuildings, probably a shy boy, probably looking for a place where a shy boy could dig his small pit and defecate and not be watched. There was a terrier dog and a cross-collie dog and there was a big, slow, heavy-coated dog. His last surge, and the terrier had its hackles up and the cross-collie barked, and the heavy-coated dog didn't seem to know what the hell was happening. The boy was twenty paces from him. Slow hands, trembling, feeling into the flap of the backpack, twisting his arm round, finding the paper holding the sandwiches that Ham had given him. Ham had said there was cheese and beef and pickle in the sandwiches. The terrier growling as the boy dug. Slow hands, clumsy, un peeling the newspaper from the sandwiches. The cross-collie barking as the boy lowered his trousers and the rifle was beside him. Penn put the sandwiches gently to the ground, on the wet dead leaves. The heavy-coated dog wagging its tail in vigour. Penn understood dogs because that was his childhood. Dogs had poor eyesight but had the sense of smell and the sense of hearing. They came close. It was his luck that the boy had his crouched back to him. They were close, and he looked into the sharp teeth lines of the terrier and the barking fangs of the cross-collie and the happy friendship of the heavy-coated dog. With his boot he edged the sandwi
ches closer to them. He went on his toes. He went in silence and behind him was the snarling for possession of his sandwiches. Penn went with his chest heaving and his legs leaden and his heart pounding. He went, and all the time that he moved he waited for the shout and the metal scrape of the rifle being armed, but he heard only the dogs disputing for his sandwiches.