The voice, cold and without expression, carried to him from the tree line. 'Time is moving on, Mister. I'd have thought, by now, you'd have run.'
When the voice had dissipated in the darkness, Mister was left with the sound of the fox's teeth on the Eagle's leg, and the frost was crisp in his hair.
The first light of dawn came in a soft smear on the hills behind Ljut village.
Chapter Nineteen
The low sun gilded the valley. Gold was painted on the hills, and on the bare trees. The lustre fell on the fields and was trapped in the grass and in the dead stems of the thistle and ragwort; it nestled on the vineyard posts and glistened off the wires between them. Brilliant little shimmers of light ruddied the bristly back of a pig that had come out of the trees'
cover to snout for food. The softness of the gold was daubed on the fields and the woodlands, and played patterns on the smoke rising from the twin villages.
The smoke turned ochre in the early light as it peeped up from the chimneys and was dispersed. The sun made dazzling reflections in the river where the water ran over shallow stones between the deeper pools.
Joey Cann had watched the dawn come. The valley was laid out in front of him. He rocked with tiredness, and blinked, tried to scrape the confusion from his mind.
If he looked for Mister, he looked into the sun that burned off the frost. He could be patient. The sun would creep higher into the sky and then he would see Mister, would know how the night had gone for him. He sat on the ground with his legs outstretched and reaching to the yellow tape and he propped himself upright on an elbow. The men around him snored quietly and the dog lay close to them. He had thought Mister would have run in the darkness, would have gathered the courage and gone to the river, would have cheated him. Away to his left, he saw a column of pick-ups and ambulances come slowly down the winding track and they stopped near to the village.
He saw an old man come out of the front door of an isolated house further down the track, wearing a uniform greatcoat and a cap of authority and carrying an axe. Across the river, at another house that was separated from its village, children burst through the door and a woman hobbled after them on a crutch.
They went to a man who sat bowed on an old tree log.
The sun rose.
Joey saw Mister and he knew that he was not cheated. Above the field grass, he saw Mister's bent knees, his torn suit jacket, his tie that was askew at his throat, and the hands that held his face, and the hair on his scalp. The smile was at Joey's mouth. He cupped his hands together and his shout broke the peace, seemed lo scatter the gold dust that had fallen on the valley.
'You should have run, Mister, while you had the dark.
Were you too frightened to run?'
He jerked awake. He did not know how long he had slept, or where.
'What stopped you?'
He shook. A shiver rattled him. He was sitting and he thought he was falling. He felt his weight slide, and reached out to steady himself. His hand found the wet grass and the muddied earth, and slipped into the hole. For a moment he could not control its slide. He looked down. He scrabbled for earth, for a grip. His hand was half an inch above the six points of the antenna that would detonate the mine. His muscles were rigid . . . He knew where he was. He recognized the voice, but could not see Cann. His stomach growled in hunger and his throat was parched. Near to him, teeth scraped on a bone. He stared down at the mine in the little excavated pit and saw the mud smears on the green paint. He put the hand under his armpit, locked it there. In the night the trees around the river's roar had made a dark line. Now, the sun shone through them. He could see each branch and each sprig growing from the trees' trunks. The river was safety, a hundred strides away. Mister had never known fear. He took his hand from his armpit, brushed it against his stomach and felt the pistol in his belt. Then he worked the hand under the seat of his trousers, and pushed himself up. He nearly fell because of the stiffness in his knees. He stood, and started to massage his hips, his knees and his ankles.
When he had worked over the flesh, kneaded the joints and ligaments under the skin, he stood to his full height, made a bow arc of his back and stretched his arms. He would run - maybe he would close his eyes - towards the trees by the river. In his mind he put the boxes in their place. He would run for the river. A track of grey stone led from the river to the village, where he would find a car; he had the PPK
Walther pistol. He readied himself. He thought he would count to ten, and then he would run. He should not have, but he looked at the ground between himself and the river. The carcass of bones was bleached white, was cleaned in the sun, as if fresh paint was on it. Grass grew through the ribcage . . .
And the voice intruded once more.
'What you have to think of, Mister, is when it's going to happen: your first step or your last step, or one of the middle steps. At the start, at the end, or in between - you don't know, do you? And you don't know whether you'll scream, like the Eagle screamed.'
After he had seen the first skeleton, Mister counted six more. Some were on their backs, some on their sides, and others had just crumpled down as if their knees had given way beneath them and their heads had fallen forward. Two of the white bone hulks were directly between himself and the river.
Three more were to the right, and two were to the left.
There was no pattern to them. Should he run the shortest way loop to the left or right, or zigzag? He gazed out at the bones.
'Go on, Mister, run. Run so I can hear you scream.'
His legs were stiff, dead. He could not take the step.
Mister stopped the count. He was short of the last number. The wind played on the grass that covered the earth, and moved the dead dark weed stems. He heard the cry of crows above him, and the gnawing of the fox's jaws on the leg bone. He was leaden. The light and the warmth were on his face. He stood alone in the field.
'God, you're a disappointment to me, Mister. Is the fear that bad?'
They woke, they separated. The ground hadn't moved for Maggie Bolton, but the chassis of the blue van had.
Three times they'd done it. She'd let Frank do what neither the Polish boy nor the young Arab had been allowed to. She couldn't have said which of the three times was the best, but she'd have been able to hazard which was the worst. She was in her forty-eighth year.
It had been, for her, the first, second and third time -
and there would not be another. She doubted that even a kid of fifteen, on heat, would have chosen to lose their virginity in the back of the blue van on a bed of coats and rugs, beside the new bucket. If it had been with any of the men in Vauxhall Bridge Cross -
they'd tried hard enough - the bed would at least have cost them two hundred and fifty pounds in a West End hotel. Frank Williams lay against her and his cheek's stubble prickled her breast.
'So, is that what all the fuss is about?'
'You, Maggie, are an amazing screw.'
' I don't think so - you are certainly not.'
He turned away from her. Her back to him, she dressed . . . It would have been better with Joey. He had smooth hands, and long fingers, but he hadn't offered. She hooked on her bra. The light trickled opaquely through the back windows of the van and she found her knickers on the van's ribbed floor. They were torn - when he'd ripped them off. She wriggled into them, and her tights, and dragged on her jeans.
She wanted to be alone in her bed. She wondered if he'd talk about her to people in whatever bar he drank at, if her name would go on a list.
'Well, go on, get on with it.'
'Get on with what?'
'Look after your prisoner - find out what's going on.'
'You're great, Maggie - don't hurt yourself.'
' I am a middle-aged woman and so desperate for it that I'm the original easy lay. Don't worry, I'm grateful
- you'v cured my curiousity.'
' I thought there might be a future for us.'
'Nothing good comes out of
Bosnia - never has, never will. Get rid of them.'
She gestured behind her. Laid on the wheel arch, carefully balanced, were three knotted condoms. She pulled on her blouse and her sweater, then tugged her anorak out from under him. She clicked open the metal-sided box and lifted out the video camera and the collapsed tripod. He was putting on his vest, often washed and a fading dragon rampant on it. She took the mobile phone from the integral battery-charger in the case. His socks, sliding on to his feet, were threadbare at the heels. She hooked the phone's cables to the video. When he had his shoes on he snatched up the condoms, and leaned across to kiss her. Then he went to see to his prisoner, and Maggie took the video camera, the tripod and the mobile telephone out of the van,
She walked a few strides down the track that was hemmed in by yellow tape. She found a vantage-point. She wondered if she would be different when she returned to C'eausescu Towers, whether the people she worked with would recognize it. 'You know what, 1 think that tease bitch finally opened her legs . . . I reckon she had it, at last.' She set up the tripod then searched for stones inside the tape cordon and wedged them against the tripod's feet. It would have been better, on all three times, if she'd thought of Joey Cann. She screwed the video camera onto the tripod's head. She had never reached Joey Cann. She held the mobile in her hand, stood back to let the wind snag the tripod and the camera, and she was satisfied that the picture would be steady. He wore no uniform, but she could not have discarded hers . . . She would never reach him. On the track, Frank was in animated conversation with the de-mining team, men made grotesque by their plated waistcoats and visored helmets.
The wind brought her the flat tone of the shouted voice.
' I'm thinking the fear's worse, Mister. Each minute that you put it off, the running, will make it harder, Mister. I want to see you run, Mister, and I want to hear you scream.'
She looked over the sunlit valley . . . Beyond an abandoned vineyard, half-way between the tree-line and the river and far from the yellow tape, in the middle of an expanse of field, Target One stood. The crows circled above him. Near to him was the body of Target Two, and close to it was a blob of colour she could not identify. It was all, to her eyes, so pretty . . .
Joey had brought her there . . . so pretty and so cruel.
She would never reach him.
She aimed the camera and dialled the number.
Five men lumbered along the slight gap between the tree-line and the yellow tape. Frank was ahead of them, unencumbered. At the back of the line was a German shepherd dog on a rope leash, bigger than Nasir and older.
When they came close, Joey looked into their eyes.
There was a weariness, a dullness, that matched the slow speed of their approach. They wore overalls of dreary grey and heavy boots, thick shapeless waistcoats with a flap that hung down over their privates, and bulbous helmets with raised visors of unwashed Perspex. They carried thin metal probes and garden shears, and one had a small handsaw. Another had a metal-detector hoisted on his shoulder, and the one who held the dog's rope had a roll of yellow tape under his arm.
Nasir, growling, was taken hy Muhsin back into the trees.
Frank made the introductions.
Joey was asked by the foreman - good English - for his assessment.
Joey scowled. 'Two men, both British citizens, went into the field just before ten o'clock last night. At one minute past ten, a mine was detonated by the fugitive nearest to us Target Two, we call him. He bawled a bit, then he went quiet Alter midnight Target Two started to talk, but target One shot him. Target One is alone. He nearly moved at dawn. He stood and readied himself lo move, but then changed his mind.
He's not moved since he stood.'
He hated saying each word to the foreman. The man came into his space, the others with him, and their dog.
'So,' the foreman said, without enthusiasm, 'we have one cadaver and one uninjured person - that is correct?'
'Correct. What is the density of the mines?'
'We do not know. Mines were laid in the valley over a period ol nearly four years, but it was not a disputed front line. There is not a barrier minefield. Once there would have been a purpose to where they were buried but time and principally rain - will have changed that.
They can be anywhere. There may be ten, a hundred, or five hundred. We have to assume, always, that we must work through a concentration of mines.'
'Do you use the dog?'
' I think not. The dog is too valuable. If the casualty were still alive then there is great pressure on us to go faster. I think we do not use the dog.'
'What do you do?'
'We make a corridor, a metre and a half wide,' the foreman said. 'It is very slow. It is, my estimate, a hundred and thirty metres to him, that is the work of a whole day . . . The man is a criminal? He shot the man with him, you said that?'
Frank said softly, 'He carries at least one weapon with a full magazine. We have a prisoner. The prisoner said there were two firearms in their vehicle. I have searched the vehicle and there are no firearms in it. However many shots he used for the killing, he has the second firearm, a PPK Walther, with a fully loaded magazine.'
Joey said, 'The man who is dead is a lawyer, wouldn't touch a weapon. Whatever plan you make you should assume that Target One is armed.'
'Do you know about mine clearance?' the foreman asked.
Joey said that he did not.
' It is necessary to be very careful. We concentrate only on the work. We go on our hands and knees and we probe. All our attention is on the ground a few centimetres in front of our bodies. We wear personal protection equipment, but that is of little use to the man who sets off the mine. The second man, or the third, if he is a few metres away, will take the benefit from the clothing. There is a full bomb suit, from Canada, but it weighs thirty kilos, and you cannot work in it, not on your knees. You have in the field a criminal, an armed fugitive . . . Do you think I should ask my men to crawl towards him - and forget that he is a criminal, armed, a fugitive - and probe for mines and never look at him? I cannot.'
' I'm not criticizing you,' Joey said.
' If he were not armed, if thai were proved, if he gave clear signs that he wished to surrender, then I would reconsider.' The foreman shrugged.
'Should he run, what would be his chance of setting off a mine?' Joey asked.
' It would be in God's hands.'
'He's not broken, not yet,' Joey said. 'He will be.'
They walked away, taking with them their shears, their probes, the metal detector, the roll of yellow tape and their dog. The sun was rising and bathed the valley's fields. They trudged off alongside the tree-line, and Frank was close to the foreman. Joey thought it was how he wanted it to be. He smiled at the four men who were withj him but none caught his gaze.
He sat down The dog, Nasir, came to him. It lay against his leg and his raised knee threw some shade for it. The Sreb Four made a little huddle and sat apart from him. In front of him, caught in the sun's strength, Mister stood and Joey did not see a muscle of his body moving. He would weaken, Joey knew it. Exhaustion, hunger, thirst and the creeping fear of the mines around him would sap Mister. And then Mister would run . . . He cupped his hands.
'Men were here, Mister, who had the skill to reach you and bring you out, but I told them you were armed and had killed, and who you are. They've decided you're not worth the risk. All that's left to you, Mister, is to run and to hope.'
Midday . . .
. . . Judge Delic, having recessed his court till the late afternoon, wheeled Jasmina from the Mercedes to the doorway of a boutique on Ferhadija, tilted the chair over the street step and pushed her inside. They were no longer window-shoppers. She knew the trouser-suit she wanted, black, professional and styled from Milan.
The car was left on the kerb, a no-parking zone, but a black Mercedes would not be interfered with by the police. And up on the hill, over the river, workmen scrambled over and through their home.
. . . the firemen took the strain on their rope, relied on the grappling hook to hold, and pulled the body on to the steep stone-clad bank of the Miljacka. The water dripped from it as it was beached. Around the ice-white throat of the body was a gold chain. A fireman fingered it and read the inscription on the bar: 'To dearest Enver, with love, Serif'. He wiped his hands on his overalls, and activated his radio.
. . . Ismet Mujic sat in his apartment, the curtains drawn, the gloom on his face, his world collapsed, and waited for the telephone to ring. And as he waited, he cursed the day that a man from Green Lanes in London had telephoned to urge him to receive strangers anxious to put to him a business proposition.
. . . Nikki Gornikov slept off his overnight travel in his own Budapest bed, and Marco Tardi dozed in the Rome transit lounge before the Palermo feeder flight was called, and Fuat Selcuk snored in the first-class cabin of the Austrian Airlines flight to Damascus.
Going their different ways, returning to their base camps, they had each pledged that they would -
singly or collectively - never deal again with Albert William Packer. He was dead meat, might as well have hung from a butcher's hook.
. . . Monika Holberg, her desk and computer screen in the Unis building abandoned, walked into the Holiday Inn's atrium, crossed to the reception desk and saw her letter in the pigeon - hole beside the key.
She asked for it to be returned to her. She tore it into small pieces and gave the scraps back to the clerk to be dropped in the rubbish bin behind the desk. As she pushed open the hotel's doors she felt a sense of disaster falling on her. It was the same sense she had known when coming back to her home at Njusford, on the island of Flakstodoya, to be told that her brother had hanged himself in the cattle byre.
. . . the men and the woman of Sierra Quebec Golf stood around Gough's computer screen on the central desk and stared in tongue-tied astonishment at the image presented to them.
The Untouchable Page 48
