Heart of Danger

by Gerald Seymour

  "Totally illegal, cooking on the premises. We've had to invest in a very powerful deodorant spray, the sort for the most sweaty armpits .. . Are you going through the night, Mr. Carter?"

  "Looks like it. I'm hoping to get away at lunch time, mid-Wales. To tell you the truth, this isn't the sort of file that I'd want to leave over until next month .. ."

  "Interesting one?"

  He spoke through a mouthful of the bacon sandwich, so good, plenty of fat left on the bacon. "Not just interesting, rather tragic, and it's a text book on interference, what happens when you shove your nose in without thinking through the end game .. . Sorry, that's rather a heavy speech .. . If you'll excuse me .. . Oh, and thank you so much for the sustenance."

  The supervisor of the night shift drifted away and his feet glided and his hips swayed with the motion of the jazz beat. There were many triggers to what had happened, to the tragedy, but he thought the two sheets of the photocopied fax message were at the heart of the matter. The music was gentle, lulling him, but he was too old a dog to be seduced by atmosphere. Gentle music did not ameliorate a barbarity. The two sheets of paper sent from the hotel in Zagreb would have been a sledgehammer knocking down the doors of Mary Braddock's home. He returned to them, drew the blood from them .. .

  REPORT ON THE DEATH OF DOROTHY MOW AT

  (MISS)

  by

  William Penn Alpha Security Ltd

  (Prelim, report interviews)

  GOVT. CROATIA WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATOR: Is preparing evidence for future use in war crimes prosecution. No interest shown in this particular case of killing of Dorothy Mowat (DM), a foreigner.

  PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY, UCLA: Supervised exhumation of DM. Killed with Soviet-made Makharov pistol. "A fine young woman because she did not have to be there, because she stayed with the wounded' from the battle for Rosenovici tho' she herself was not a casualty. Could have made her own escape. At the end DM was trying to shield one young wounded fighter from 'the knives and the blows and from the gunshot'.

  EYEWITNESS I/MARIA .. .

  And the sledgehammer would have brought a cold wind into Mary Braddock's home. "They get on wonderfully, but then Jocasta's such a caring girl, and Tarquin's so easy. It's such a relief .. ." It was prawns and crab with cubes of turbot, done in a cheesy sort of sauce, for the first course. Guests didn't talk, not these recession-ridden days, about the value of their houses, nor about the cost of the school fees, nor about their Jules Verne holidays. Houses were repossessed, children had to be withdrawn from schools, holidays for some were impossible. Safe talk, talk that would not, in ignorance, wound, was about how first-marriage children tolerated second-marriage children. Charles always poured the neighbours fierce gins before bringing them into the dining room, he was good at giving the conversation a hefty kick-start, and children were safe talk. "I don't know how I'd do without Emily, she wants to be a nanny, poor sweetheart. She's getting the training with Ben, don't know how I'd do without her." The Belgians hadn't finished eating. Mary wondered if they slept together, the big Belgian with the stomach and the little Belgian with the shaved head. They hadn't finished and they hadn't said much, as if the offspring melding of first- and second-marriage children was low down on their agenda. Well, it would be, wouldn't it, if they slept together ... It was prattle conversation, washing over her, and when the bloody Belgians had finished she could get back to her kitchen and heave the bloody lamb out of the Aga oven. "Tanya's become really excellent at soccer, that's because Jake is so marvelous with her. But I do worry for Jake. Jake gets more soccer with Tanya than with his father. His father's quite hopeless .. ." Mary stood. If the bloody Belgians didn't like her crab and prawns and turbot, in a cheesy sort of sauce, then they could bloody go without. One perfunctory "Can I lend a fist, Mary?" from Giles, the bankruptcy accountant, and a curt shake of her head. She put the bowls on the tray. "We were allowed to have Jocasta for Christmas, but only after a solicitor's letter .. . lovely, darling, quite delicious .. . she's so much happier with us .. ." She carried the tray out of the dining room. She left the door ajar. If the Manor House had not been listed, Grade 2, then they'd have been able to knock a hatch through from the kitchen, but Charles had said that a hatch knocked through would be an act of heritage vandalism. She toed open the door of the kitchen and clattered the tray down onto the table. She was by the Aga. She was away from them, and they could talk now freely, ditch the safe talk. She heard them. "Do you think she's getting over it, Charles? .. . God, what a trial for you both, Charles .. . She put you both through a hell of a hoop, Charles, but Mary particularly ... I think you showed the patience of saints .. . Don't take me wrong, Charles, but I think Dorothy was quite wicked, and God knows where that came from .. . Time's a great healer, Charles, like an open window with a smell, time will make her forget .. ." Mary heard their voices, and she heard the low bleeping from her den room, not much more than a broom cupboard, off the kitchen. She had the lamb in the basting dish out of the Aga oven and onto the table. She was tipping her vegetables, potatoes and carrots and leeks, everything that was boring, into the serving dishes. If the bloody Belgians hadn't taken so long then the cutlets wouldn't have dried out. She tilted her head, and she could see over the back of the settee in her den room to the fax machine on the table beside the television, and she saw the paper spilling out. And Judy with her tail, silly wagging tail, had broken the plastic frame that caught the completed faxed messages, and Liz would chew anything that was paper or cardboard, and Judy and Liz were craning from their baskets on either side of the Aga, alerted by the working sounds of the machine. She left the vegetables and the lamb cutlets and the gravy and the jelly, she strode off into her den room on her mission of protection for the fax message. She picked the first sheet off the floor, and the second sheet was rolling. She read the address of the headed notepaper, and the title of the message, and the name of the sender. She sat on her sofa, and the dogs came against her legs, and she read. She heard the voices through the opened door of the kitchen, across the hall, through the opened door of the dining room. '.. . So much love for such an undeserving child ... I think she's coming to terms with it, the reality that Dorothy was just a shameful little minx .. . Such a dreadful place she went to, I won't read about in the newspapers, I switch the telly off when it's Sarajevo. She's got to wash it out of her mind. It's not our responsibility if they want to behave like animals there ... I think she's on the mend .. . You should take her away, Charles, about as far away as you can go, where that dreadful girl can be forgotten .. ." She read what she had demanded to know .. . EYEWITNESS 1/MARIA: Refugee from Rosenovici. DM had come to the village with a Croat/Australian boy who joined village defence force, was wounded. DM carried wounded back from front line to the cellar. There when village surrendered. "She was an angel in her prettiness, an angel in her courage." EYEWITNESS 2/ALIJA: Muslim Bosnian refugee, trapped in Rosenovici. DM organized collection, under fire, of dressings for wounded. After surrender DM was brought with wounded from cellar, beaten by Serb militia, but refused to be separated from the wounded. "She was so brave .. . she was an angel." EYEWITNESS 3/SYLVIA: Refugee from Rosenovici. During the battle DM, alone, nursed the wounded. After the surrender, the Serbs attempted to separate DM from wounded, she fought them. The wounded were taken down a lane, DM helped carry two of them, DM was beaten. "The young woman was an angel." CROATIAN DEFENCE FORCE LIAISON OFFICER (name withheld): Rosenovici is now a 'dead' village, destroyed so that its inhabitants have nothing, ever, to return to, even the cemetery bulldozed. Names MS (see below) as local militia commander, who would believe himself safe from accountability for death of DM and wounded. SIDNEY E. HAMILTON: Mercenary, serving with Croat Defence Force, ex-3 Para, provided necessary info, weapons and general material for my entry to Sector North, Rosenovici area. 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.

  HEADMASTER/SALIKA VILLAGE SCHOOL .. '.

  She had the photograph in the old silver frame on the table beside the fax machine. Because Charles never came there, she had the photograph in her den room. She read .. . "Well, my dear, you wanted to be told, and you have been .. ." He said it out loud, then caught himself and smiled, and he saw that at least three of them in the quiet of Library where the jazz music played softly, were watching him and curious. Yes, like a blow from a sledgehammer .. . HEADMASTER/SALIKA VILLAGE SCHOOL: Salika (Serb) is twin village to Rosenovici (Croat), 1 mile apart. (Capture of Rosenovici by Salika men, who were responsible for killing of wounded and DM.) Found praying at night in Rosenovici mass grave site, 'a place of evil'. He helped me because 'you have the power to hurt the madness'. Educated, intelligent, early sixties, with personal bravery to condemn the war crime killing of DM and wounded. In the past he had carried food to KD (see below), but stopped after threatened denunciation by wife. A man standing alone against his own society. Recently removed from head mastership of school, now isolated in Salika, recently beaten by para militaries Took me to meet KD, the only known eyewitness to the killings (other than participants). Was due to accompany me and KD into Rosenovici, following evening after meeting, but did not show. An extremely brave man. KATICA DUBELJ: (See KD above). Aged 84. KD is only prime eyewitness to death of DM. Now lives in cave, 1 mile approx, in woodland NNW from Rosenovici. Quite appalling conditions, diet of roots and berries, no hygiene. All other former residents of Rosenovici are refugees, or dead. Speaks no English, cannot write. Because Headmaster did not return, no signed affidavit of her evidence. Unable to communicate with her except by sign, shown photograph of DM, recognized, kissed it. Took me in darkness from woods into Rosenovici village. Showed me from her house the route used by para militaries to take DM and wounded to mass grave site. Route passed directly in front of her window, which afforded clear view of grave site. Paramilitaries commanded by MS (see below). KD mimed action. DM carried two wounded, kicked 1 paramilitary. DM and wounded made to wait in field while bulldozer dug pit. DM and wounded forced into pit. DM, holding her boy, last in line as wounded knifed, beaten, shot. Final effort made to separate DM from her boy, unsuccessful as DM fought para militaries back. DM and boy killed by MS (see below) after DM kicked him. KD escaped when I was captured and taken to Salika village. My opinion, KD is a most reliable witness with total recall of events. MILAN STANKOVlC .. . Henry Carter felt so old. So old and so tired and so sad. They were all trapped by young Dome Mowat, who was dead. All trapped, Mary and Penn, Benny and Ham and the eyewitnesses, and the Headmaster and this most extraordinary old woman .. . and himself. All flies in the skein web of the spider that was Dome Mowat. "Would you like some more coffee, Mr. Carter?" The supervisor called across the Library floor. "They didn't have it in my day, but then that sort of music would never have been allowed in Library in my day .. . I don't suppose you've any brandy .. . ? We all demand the truth, but we very seldom stop to consider the consequences of knowing the truth .. ." There was brandy, cheap and Spanish, kept in a locked drawer of the supervisor's desk, hidden from the day shift, and poured for him into his coffee mug. They were all looking at him, each young man and each young woman on the night shift, as though he were just a sad, tired, old desk warrior, trapped in nostalgia by a file. She came very quietly down the stairs, but then she knew which step creaked, carrying her bag and her shoes. They were still talking, still discussing her, in the dining room, as she went silently back into her kitchen. '.. . You've got a chance now, Charles, and you'd better damn well take it. Like someone's overboard and you go into the water to get them out, double damn quick. You've got a chance now to rescue her .. . My nephew was down in Bosnia, driving Warriors, he said that standards of common decency don't exist, it's a cruel madhouse. We should all turn our backs to it until they come to their senses, and so should Mary .. . She's such a lovely woman and the strain she's been under, the stress, so many years, it's been pitiful to see ... I tell you, Charles, each time I came here, when I left I'd say to Libby, thank God that child's not ours .. ." Mary took the last saucepan off the Aga's hot surface, and she closed up the Aga's lids. The dogs, slavering mouths, were sitting either side of the table and the tray with the cutlets was between them. She covered up the vegetables. She took her coat from the hook behind the door, and the keys for her car. '.. . Do you think, Charles, that Mary needs a hand? Jocasta's such a help .. . Emily's always there when I need her .. ." Mary took a sheet from the memory pad. She wrote, "Gone away. Dorrie's business. Back soon. Don't ever let those bastards and bitches into our house again. Mary." It was Charles's business maxim, never to explain, never to apologize. She left the note under the gravy boat, where he'd see it, when he came searching .. . She wondered how long it would take them, the stupid puerile bastards and the malicious scavenging bitches, before they came to offer help, and she wondered whether Judy and Liz would have beaten them to the lamb cutlets. She was drawn back, a last time, to look at the photograph in her den room. Mary said, "Darling, understand me, I am so sorry .. . and I am so proud." She slipped out, carrying her bag and her coat, through the kitchen door, closing it carefully after her. She would drive away through the village, leave it behind her. Behind her would be the garden of the Manor House where she had that afternoon picked spring flowers for the lounge arrangements, and behind her would be the brick cottage with the climbing wisteria where the old widow with the varicose veins lived whom she had visited that afternoon, and behind her would be the smiling greeting of the butcher where she had bought her meat that afternoon, and her neighbours and her friends who had been a part of her life that afternoon. All behind her. There was a bitter wind on her face, a cleansing wind. When he had no audience then he hated to be alive. Sometimes the drink made Ham morose and self-pitying, and sometimes it made him loud and aggressive. He sat on the floor of the hotel room and the Dragunov rifle with the big telescopic sight was on the carpet near his stretched legs, and he held loose to the bottle's neck and the bottle was going down. He felt such morose self-pity because he was alone and they ignored him. They were on the wide bed. He could see Penn's head, and he might have been sleeping, and he might just have been lying still with his eyes closed, and he could see the fingers of the German woman playing smooth patterns on the skin of Penn's face. Penn was his nightmare. When he was alone, his nightmare was capture, and capture was torture. They always tortured the foreigners. He could see Penn's face, where her fingers made the patterns, and his face was the start of the torture. There were many nightmares for Ham, when he was alone .. . Torture was the worst but the fears, when he was alone, competed with torture. The small kid in the tower block, his father long gone, with the acne, bullied and rejected. His Karen holding tight to his Dawn and carrying the suitcase to the door of the married quarters house and wearing the bruise he had given her with his fist, and her not looking back as she walked to the taxi, and his bawling after her because he was rejected. His "Sunray', commanding officer of 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, reading the riot act at the depot in Aldershot, telling him it wouldn't go to court but that his services were no longer required, rejected. Him being told, the bastard sneering, that he didn't fit into the scene at Personal Security Ltd (Bodyguards), wasn't smart enough with the clients, didn't keep his mouth shut enough with the clients, going at the end of the week, rejected. His getting pissed up in the bunker at Osijek, and the crap guy Howard needling him because he had the photograph of his Karen and his Dawn, and the gun pulled to shut the bastard up, and the shot in the bunker blasting his ears and the blood on his body, and the other Internationals chucking him out and letting him know that they didn't want him when they headed for Bosnia, rejected. The nightmares of rejection pushed close to the worst nightmare, when he was alone .. . And the man on the bed with the woman, he was different. The man, Penn, listened to what he said, with no shitty sneers. The man on the bed thanked him. Penn didn't shout at
him, didn't rubbish him. There hadn't been officers like Penn at 3 Para, hadn't been management like Penn at Personal Security Ltd (Bodyguards), hadn't been commanders like Penn in the Internationals. Penn listened, and Penn thanked him, no other bastard did. Because he was close to Penn, Ham felt safe from the nightmares .. . And he believed what Penn told him .. . believed that Penn would take the flight out in the afternoon, when he'd slept and sobered, and go find his Dawn and his Karen. He thought Penn the best man he ever knew .. . "Have you any bloody idea what the time is?" Georgie Simpson said miserably, "It's past one here .. ." "And if you didn't know it, there is a time difference between London and Zagreb. I have 2.17, it is 2.17 in the morning." He could hear, down the telephone line, a baby crying. "I'm sorry ... I was told to speak to you personally. They seemed to think it urgent. I was told it wasn't to go by telex .. ." "So damned urgent that it couldn't wait till the morning?" He ignored sarcasm by habit. And Georgie Simpson had never been elevated to the responsibility of running a field station, and he had never ceased to wonder at the goddamn arrogance of field officers abroad, wearing a first secretary's cover. It was not the moment to let it be known that his own office, from which he had telephoned Zagreb at two-hour intervals from eleven o'clock the previous morning, had the heating off and was cold as the grave. "You weren't in your office, and neither your secretary nor your wife knew when you were returning .. . I'm sorry .. ." "We don't run by the clock here. I've actually been in Sector East, not that you'd know where that is. I've actually been in a quite bloody unpleasant area, not that you'd understand it ... Well, what's so important?" "Can we go to "secure" .. . ?" There were clicks on the line, a sharp bleep, then the voice level from Zagreb was at reduced volume. "Give it me .. ." Georgie Simpson gave the name of William Penn, described the nature of his assignment, spoke of Security Service meddling .. . "I met him. I gave him a useless start point. He came to see me. I told him to let the dead sleep. I told him to go away." He felt he held the high ground, felt more cheerful. "Didn't listen to you, I'm afraid. Pity that you've been out of touch. If you'd been in touch then you'd know of events in Sector North .. . We think he'll be back in Zagreb by now .. . Get him on the first plane, will you?" "Yes." And it was not Georgie Simpson's business to concern himself with Penn. Not for him to consider the effect of his telephone call, on 'secure', to Zagreb. He was just the Joe who passed on messages from an unheated office in the small hours of the night. But curiosity stirred in him. "You said that you'd met him?" "I did, does it matter .. . Personally, I regard it as late for conversation .. ." "I just wondered about him ... I mean, what on earth did he do it for?" "I am actually rather tired .. . They're a bit pathetic, these sort of people. Dig into their lives and you'll find angst ... are you following me? They're failures, and they're looking for a way back. Myself, if I needed to up the dose of self-respect then I hope, dear God, that I could find an easier way than trekking into Sector North. It's a bad hook to be caught with because there are likely to be tears at the end of the line .. . Don't ever bloody well ring me at this time again." "My apologies to your wife. Sorry I woke the baby .. ." Ulrike thought the squat little man in the uniform that was a size too large, on the floor with the long-barrelled rifle beside his legs, was like a guard dog. Sitting without speaking, sitting and always watching. The mercenary did not matter to her. She lay on the bed beside Penn and she stroked his face and his chest where she had unbuttoned the front of his shirt. Long enough it had taken, holy Christ, for her to follow her mother's message. Ulrike Schmidt's mother told a story of a friend. The friend lived at Rosenheim, on the autobahn and the train route from Munich to Salzburg, so it was easy for her mother to travel to see her, and to update the story. Her mother's friend made preparations for each stage of her life ... at chess speed. The education that would present her with maximum earning capability, the husband who would be a rock for her, the holidays that would relax and divert her, the home that would be pleasant and convenient for her. Her mother's friend could no longer find a private bank to employ her, and was locked in a loveless marriage, and had been food poisoned the last winter in Mombasa, and the home was mortgaged to the bank as collateral to her husband's failing business. And the friend, her mother said, stuck stubbornly to the principle that everything must be planned for. And it was rubbish ... All the planning, all the preparation, that had sifted through job opportunities, weighed the young suitors, agonized over brochures to the sun, toured housing developments, was rubbish. Her mother said, coded for Ulrike each time she flew from Zagreb to Munich for the weekend, that her friend had never known the freedom of impulse.