The Serbian Dane

by Leif Davidsen

  ‘Can you still crack a computer programme the way you used to do?’ Vuk asked.

  Mikael brightened up. He was saved from having to listen to more about the horrors in Bosnia.

  ‘I’m better than ever.’

  Vuk drew the disk from his inside pocket.

  ‘What’s on it?’

  ‘The key to success,’ Vuk said with a smile. Mikael smiled back, and the ugliness that had hovered in the air between them was gone.

  ‘Let’s go up to the den,’ Mikael said.

  Although Mikael now had the run of the whole house, Vuk saw that he had retained his big old room. With the same stripy wallpaper and the same unmade bed. The wall was still plastered with pictures of dinosaurs, but there was also one new photo – of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who appeared to be Mikael’s only idol. There was the same leather armchair, a confirmation present from his parents, and in the corner stood his old desk. The room was awash with computing magazines, CD-ROMs, wires and disks, but Vuk detected a certain order in the chaos. There were two desktop computers, each sitting on its own brand-new computer table, as well as a laptop on another small table. There were several printers, a mass of cables and heaps of manuals. There were two telephones, a scanner, and on an old desk sat a colour TV, tuned to CNN with the sound turned down. The swivel chairs were on castors and looked brand-new and very comfortable. The window was ajar, and the breeze wafted the scent of sea and seaweed into the room.

  CNN was showing scenes from Bosnia. They saw a man poking the earth with a long pole. He had a scarf wrapped round the bottom half of his face. The next shot showed him with a skull in his hand. Mikael looked away from the screen and pointed to the leather armchair. Vuk swept off a couple of computing mags and took a seat. Mikael sat down at one of the computer tables. Swivelled the chair around so that he was facing the computer screen with his back to Vuk. He clicked on the mouse, and a low hum announced that the computer had awoken from its slumber.

  ‘I do try to keep up with what’s going on in the world,’ Mikael said. ‘How did it happen? What can I do for you?’

  ‘Which question shall I answer first?’ Vuk asked.

  Mikael ran the mouse back and forth across the pad. He seemed nervous and awkward again, Vuk noticed. He didn’t like talking about what had happened to Vuk’s parents and little Katarina, who had been six years younger than them, but he felt that he ought to ask about them. He was like so many other people. They didn’t really want to know, and they were tired of hearing about some obscure war.

  ‘Christ, I don’t know. The first one, and in the meantime I can work on this,’ he said.

  Vuk got up and handed him the disk. Mikael took it from him with an inquiring look.

  ‘There’s a document on it. It’s password protected. Can you get into it?’

  ‘Do you know what type of document it is?’ Mikael asked, relaxing. He was on home ground here.

  ‘Word Perfect 5.1.’

  Mikael swung his chair around so that he had his back to Vuk again and popped the disk into the disk drive.

  ‘Piece of cake,’ he said and started tapping away at the keyboard. Vuk stood at his shoulder, watching as letters and numbers began to dance across the screen.

  ‘What are you anyway, Janos? Serbian? Or Croatian?’ Mikael went on, while his fingers flew. ‘I mean, in the old days you were all just Yugoslavian, weren’t you?’

  ‘No, that’s not how it was, not even in the old days. You simply didn’t know any better.’

  Mikael hummed to himself while, with a few quick taps, he proceeded to crack the password and open the document.

  ‘Won’t be long now. My little baby’s on the scent,’ he said.

  ‘The sun was shining when the Muslims came,’ Vuk murmured. He was standing right behind Mikael, speaking to the back of his head. Mikael did not look round, concentrated instead on the keys and the screen.

  ‘I designed this programme myself,’ he said, trying to get Vuk to change the subject. He had only asked out of politeness, but he didn’t really want to know what had happened. ‘It unlocks all known text files. I could make a bloody fortune from it. If I wanted to,’ he said, addressing the screen.

  ‘Spring had just begun, Mikael. It comes early in Bosnia, to the valleys around Banja Luka. We lived in a mixed area – this was before the ethnic purges, before everyone started organizing themselves. But my father didn’t want to join the Serbian militia. My father believed in Tito and Yugoslavia. In a single state. One beautiful spring day, four men came to call. Not much older than you and me. They tied my father to a chair. Roughed him up a little. But not enough to knock him out…’

  ‘Right, we’re almost there now,’ Mikael muttered, still refusing to look round. He tried to block out the words coming from behind his back, but still they got through to him and hurt him so much that he wanted to put his hands over his ears.

  ‘You see they wanted him to witness what they did to my mother and sister. They took it in turns to rape them. In front of my father. He howled like an animal, so they cut out his tongue.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Janos. I don’t want to…’

  Mikael kept his eyes fixed on the dancing figures and letters, as if they could shield him from the words falling tonelessly and monotonously on his ears:

  ‘Before he choked on his own blood they cut off his dick, Mikael. They stuffed it into my mother’s mouth before they killed her. Then they strangled my sister. And once they’d done all that those fucking Muslims set fire to our house. Do you hear me, Mikael? That is how Vuk and Lea and Katarina died.’

  Mikael turned round and stared at him with fear-filled eyes. He was white as a sheet as he whispered:

  ‘And people think I’m crazy. Just because I keep myself to myself. Just because I can’t stand other people. Just because I like having a modem and a screen between them and me.’

  He turned back to the screen.

  ‘A-ha. Now my little baby’s onto something,’ he cried. ‘Come on, baby!’

  He looked round again, as if meaning to meet Vuk’s eye. But it was not on his face that he fixed his gaze when he asked:

  ‘Where were you? How do you know what happened?’

  ‘I was in Belgrade.’

  ‘So how did you find out about it?’

  ‘I tracked them down. It wasn’t hard. They lived only two houses down from us. I’d spent many a summer holiday running about with them, playing football with them. They were my friends. They had bragged to their mates about what they had done. They weren’t hard to find, and then they told me.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I persuaded them. One after another. It took a while, but they told me everything. In detail, before…’

  Vuk could tell from the look on Mikael’s face that he already knew the answer but couldn’t stop himself from asking anyway:

  ‘Before what, Janos?’

  ‘Before I killed them, of course.’

  For a second Mikael looked him in the eye, then he turned back to the screen just as the computer gave a little beep. It was a relief to have it demanding his attention.

  ‘That’s it, baby,’ he said. ‘We’ve got it! What the fuck? It’s just a timetable for some visit or other. Why the hell would anybody want to protect that with a password?’

  ‘Can you print it out?’

  ‘No problem,’ Mikael said and pressed two keys. In a corner of the room a laser printer began to thrum as it warmed up. Mikael leaned back in his chair but kept his face turned to the screen.

  ‘What is all this? Simba, Flakfortet, Press Conference, Airport, Safe House, dates and times. Weird. Ah, well. It’s not my problem. Anything else I can do for you, Janos?’

  Vuk pulled the garrotte out of his jacket pocket and curled his fingers round the two wooden handles. With one swift, fluid movement he flicked the length of strong, slender steel wire around Mikael’s throat and yanked, stepping backwards at the same time. The chair toppled over, and the weight
of Mikael’s body dragged him down and left him dangling from the garrotte.

  ‘Not a thing, Mikael. You’ve done your bit,’ Vuk said, hauling back on the wire to cut through the larynx and stifle an incipient gargled scream just as the laser printer gently discharged a white A4 sheet containing the final schedule for author Sara Santanda’s visit to Copenhagen.

  Chapter 18

  Vuk studied the sheet of paper that the printer had neatly deposited in the tray while he was strangling Mikael, who now lay on the floor with dead bulging eyes and a long bloody gash in his throat. Vuk paid him no heed, intent as he was on the schedule. What really intrigued him was Flakfortet. Even in Denmark, not the most security-conscious of countries, the airport was too well guarded and too hazardous, although the hit could conceivably be carried out in the arrivals hall when Santanda came through customs. Or as she left the arrivals hall on her way to the waiting car. It would be possible to slip away amid all the confusion but very risky. And for all he knew they might bypass customs with the Target. He would have to assume that they would. They would give her the VIP treatment, and he didn’t have the time or the wherewithal to obtain the relevant details. Iran might be prepared to use its intelligence network if it could be done in such a way that their involvement would be masked, but he didn’t want to ask the Iranians for help, even if they could get him the information he needed. The safe house would be under close surveillance. The only chance he would have there would be when the Target was entering or leaving the place, at that vulnerable moment between the house and the car door: a shot with a rifle from a spot above the street and the car, but could he gain access to a neighbouring apartment? The press conference seemed the obvious choice, but he wasn’t exactly sure what Flakfortet would entail. There would be a lot of people at the press conference, which meant he would be able to mingle freely. The Target would be exposed, sitting behind her microphone, and when arriving and leaving. The problem was how to smuggle a gun in, but that he would figure out. But Flakfortet was a worry. He vaguely recalled the existence of some disused sea forts in the approaches to Copenhagen harbour, but he couldn’t picture them. The police knew that the Target would be a sitting duck during the press conference. That may have been why they had chosen to hold it offshore, where it was easier to keep tabs on the reporters and photographers who would be attending. They could only get there by boat. And it wouldn’t take too much in the way of resources to secure the area. He would have to take a trip out there as soon as possible, to reconnoitre. The main thing was to find out whether Flakfortet was open to the public or whether it was a restricted military area, which would make things more difficult, though not impossible. Killing a person was never impossible. There were only varying degrees of difficulty. But every contract boiled down to the same essentials: get close to the Target, hit the Target and make your getaway. That was the contract. Everything else was pure logistics.

  Vuk was feeling quite pleased. He had a programme, a schedule, a deadline. For the rest, it was all a matter of planning and execution, as well as the modicum of luck which was always needed and which he did not believe he had used up yet, even if he did have the sense in his dreams that his account was almost empty. But he still had one big advantage: he had the schedule, and they didn’t know that he had it. Five days from now he would know whether it was possible for him to start a new life with Emma or not. If anything were to go wrong this time, there would be no more jobs. He pushed this thought away as soon as it entered his mind. Failure was not an option. He couldn’t see the Iranians simply letting it pass. He knew too much, another contract would be issued, this time with his name on it. It was now or never.

  Vuk folded the sheet of paper carefully and rudely shut off the computer at the plug before removing the disk. He left it next to the computer. He would format it later, to delete the document containing the schedule. He lifted Mikael’s body with ease and carried him down the stairs to the hall. He remembered that there were more stairs leading down to the basement. The door to the basement was behind the kitchen. He laid Mikael on the floor, opened the door and located the light switch on the wall just inside. The dry dusty odour of the cellar rose to meet him. He grabbed Mikael under the arms and dragged him down the stairs. The basement consisted of a long passageway with rooms running off it on either side. These had once done service as coalhouse, larder, washhouse and drying room. In the old washhouse two large tubs still stood against the wall, but the old copper was gone. In its place were a modern washing machine and tumble dryer. In another corner, on a trestle table sat what looked like a well-maintained outboard motor, and from the ceiling hung a black rubber dinghy. Vuk tipped Mikael into one of the tubs, folding him in half to make him fit into it. He took a look around and found a tarpaulin lying neatly folded in a corner. He spread this over the tub. Mikael might have been a slob as far as the house was concerned, but he had kept the basement spick and span. Maybe he hadn’t come down here very often. The house certainly didn’t look as though anyone came in regularly to clean. Mikael had been a loner, a bit of an oddball.

  Vuk examined the dinghy, which was suspended from four hooks in the ceiling. It was a standard, black naval model. It was in need of a bit of air, but there was a foot-pump lying alongside the outboard motor. Vuk explored the other basement rooms. One was crammed with old suitcases, furniture and books. Another held bikes, an old scooter, sledges and skis. In a third, gardening implements were lined up like soldiers on parade, and in the last an orderly array of saws, hammers, drills and other tools hung on the wall above a workbench and lathe. The basement contained everything he needed. He would make the house in Hellerup the final crucial base from which to launch his attack.

  He went upstairs to the kitchen. He couldn’t stand the mess, he was itching to tidy the place up, but first he walked through to the sitting room. A fine layer of dust covered the old-fashioned furniture. This was not where Mikael had spent most of his time. Three connecting rooms looked out onto the back garden, enjoying a beautiful view of the Sound. On a sideboard in one of the rooms stood a range of bottles. From the fine grey film that had also settled over these, Vuk deduced that alcohol had not been one of Mikael’s vices. He had stuck to cola and coffee. From the hall, a door led to a utility room, and from there to a locked garage. There were no cars. He had not expected there to be. In the garage were a motor mower, a wheelbarrow and a small trailer with rubber wheels, which he guessed Mikael must have used to run the dinghy down to the water. The garage smelt musty, as if some small trace of summer had been preserved in this sealed-off space.

  Vuk returned to the kitchen and found the telephone directories under a pile of freesheets on a stool under the wall telephone. He looked up Flakfortet in the phone book but found only a restaurant by that name. After a moment’s thought he picked up the Yellow Pages and turned to ferry services. There was an ad for a company called Spar Shipping. He gave them a call, introduced himself as Kaj Petersen from Viborg and said that he had heard that it was possible to take a boat out to Flakfortet. A cheery female voice assured him that this was indeed the case. One could make a group booking, but there were also daily sailings from Nyhavn in the centre of Copenhagen at 12.00 noon, 2.00 pm and 4.00 pm from the first of May to the first of October. It was just a matter of showing up. ‘If I wanted to charter a boat, for a group of business colleagues, for example, could I do that?’ Vuk asked.

  ‘Certainly. We often cater for private parties. That way you have the boat to yourselves,’ the woman said.

  ‘We’re organizing a company outing. Not a big affair, there would be about twenty of us, I would guess,’ Vuk said.

  ‘We could easily arrange that for you. And we could also book a table at the restaurant for you, if you would like. A lot of companies do that. Mostly in the summer, of course, but even now, in September. We can guarantee you a great trip, although we can’t, of course, guarantee good weather.’

  She laughed, and Vuk laughed with her.

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nbsp; ‘I know it’s kind of short notice, but the date we had in mind was the twentieth of September.’

  ‘Just a moment.’

  Vuk waited, then the woman came back on the line:

  ‘No, I’m sorry we can’t do the twentieth. Another party has booked the fort for the whole day. Is there some other date we could try?’

  ‘I’ll have to check with the others,’ Vuk said. ‘Then I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘You’ll be most welcome.’

  Vuk thanked her. He stood for a second, considering. The kitchen would have to wait. He could clear it up this evening. The time was now half-past twelve. He could catch the two o’clock boat; he would have to check out of his hotel afterwards. He glanced round about. The door key was hanging on a board next to the telephone. He took a look in the fridge. There wasn’t much in it except cola and an old pack of butter, but in the freezer cabinet underneath the fridge was a pile of ready-made meals. All he needed to buy was some bread, cheese and salami and a fresh pat of butter. He took the key and left his new lodgings.

  A couple of hours later he was standing on the foredeck of the large converted fishing cutter, the M/S Langø which, after years of working the waters off the Norwegian coast and round the Faeroes, now sailed between Nyhavn and Flakfortet. Vuk stood there, along with a couple of fathers and their school-age children, three elderly ladies and a young couple, and watched Flakfortet come into view, a hillock in the middle of the Sound. The fortifications ran the entire length of the islet. The grey blocks of stone were overgrown with grass and bushes and on the very top of the fort were the remains of the gun emplacements. Attached to the restaurant was a glass pavilion with a soaring white roof. As they headed into the harbour Vuk spotted two entrances into the fort itself. Three yachts bobbed gently alongside the jetty, and a small group of tourists were waiting to sail back to Copenhagen on the M/S Langø. The cutter had a saloon where beer, water and coffee were sold from a little hatch and an upper-deck with seating in the shape of some benches under a green canopy. It was a mild grey day with a hint of rain in the light wind blowing from the west. Vuk wore a sweater under his leather jacket; a distinct, blond five-day growth covered his chin. Despite the clouds, he was wearing sunglasses. Over his shoulder he carried a leather bag.