by Tom Saric
Again, he pressed. Harder, more forcefully.
Fifteen.
He heard footsteps around the corner. “Hey, stop there!”
He pushed once more. The engine revved. He looked over his shoulder; the tall officer was approaching, hand on his belt, reaching for his firearm. Luka shifted the bike and cranked the throttle; the tires spun, squealing against the pavement before launching him forward and around the corner.
Luka picked up speed, staying focused on the road. He had at least a thirty-second head start; there were only two Interpol officers, and he could have gone in a dozen different directions.
As he crested the hill, he saw the meeting place: The Riva, Split’s waterfront promenade. Tonight, the marble walkway that stretched between Roman-era stone buildings on one side and the palm tree-lined Adriatic on the other was packed shoulder to shoulder with people celebrating Croatia’s independence. Two stages were set up, drums and bass guitars thumping away while a light show illuminated the sky in emerald, white, and electric blue.
It was here that Luka dreamed of living out his days, sipping Karlovačko beer under a white canopy at one of the dozens of outdoor cafés and periodically cooling off in the crystal-clear sea.
He pushed those thoughts aside. He could no longer stay.
Dropping his bike at the end of The Riva, he pushed through the sweaty mass of limbs: proud locals draped in red, white, and blue Croatian flags, lanky teenage boys in shorts and flip-flops with red and white checkers painted on their faces, young women in too-short skirts singing patriotic tunes and dancing atop benches, tourists holding cameras tightly, taking in the spectacle of Croatian Statehood Day.
He crashed into a young woman yelling into her cell phone, nearly knocking her over. He ignored the glance she gave him as he rushed to the meeting place.
As agreed upon, sitting at the third bench next to a couple locked in an embrace, was Tomislav Rukavina, Advokat. He wore a navy jacket with brass buttons and khakis with pleats that were razor-crisp.
“Were you followed?”
Luka shook his head. “There were only two. Interpol.”
Tomislav picked up a newspaper from the bench and they made their way through the crowd, deeper into the old town, where the spaces between the maze of stone buildings created a network of narrow alleyways, giving them more privacy.
They passed a bookshop, and Tomislav handed Luka the sports section. “You have everything you need inside.”
A police siren wailed behind Luka, followed by the flashing blue and red lights of two approaching police motorcycles.
Luka turned towards the window so that his back was to the police officers. Tomislav didn’t react. Luka craned his neck as the police raced right past him, surrounding a red BMW parked beside the open-air market.
A parking ticket.
Tomislav laughed and put his arm around Luka like he was an old friend. “Stop being so paranoid. The local police aren’t going to arrest you here, Luka. They wouldn’t dare. You’re a hero to them.”
Tomislav lit up a Du Maurier and offered one to Luka, who cupped his hands, lighting it up. Then he exhaled and unfolded the newspaper, revealing a yellow envelope. He pulled out two passports, both with his picture inside: one Croatian, with the name Ilija Srna; the second German, with the name Mladen Šimić.
“You might try to get another one when you have a chance. There are also birth certificates inside. We should hurry.” Tomislav glanced at his Rolex. “The boat leaves at ten.”
“Today?” Luka swallowed. “I thought maybe I’d have a few days to—”
“Listen carefully to me,” Tomislav said, his expression grave. “You don’t have time. They’ve sent a couple of low-level officers to bring you in. They haven’t sent the cavalry yet, for a few reasons. One, The Hague has three or four generals that they want to bring in first. The big fish. But after that, you’re next on the list. Two, they want to see if you’ll come in on your own. If you don’t, they’ll put a bounty on your head, and then there’ll be nobody you can trust. They’re already surrounding your apartment and notifying the airports. They know as well as we do that with each passing day you’ll get further and further away. The best chance you have is now.”
Luka felt a knot in his stomach. Tomislav had worked a desk job for UDBA, the Yugoslavian secret police, prior to the war, and then he worked for OBS, the Croatian Secret Service, before starting his own law practice. He knew how things worked. And since the Croatian military’s initial internal investigation into the murders in the village, Tomislav had been Luka’s advisor, and he hadn’t led him astray.
But as it stood, all The Hague wanted was for him to appear and go through a trial. He was charged with murder, but he wasn’t guilty. The internal investigation had cleared Luka of any wrongdoing, citing a complete lack of evidence that he murdered the fourteen individuals in the home. He could turn himself in and explain to the prosecutors at The Hague that there was another assassin, a White Tiger.
Could he? The Hague was a separate animal. They had their own investigators, lawyers, and judges, all with the same mission of righting all the wrongs of the war.
He stopped in front of a store window displaying local paintings of the islands off the coast. He pulled another drag on the cigarette and blew smoke on the glass.
“What if I stay?”
Tomislav’s face puckered. “Stay where?”
“Here.”
Tomislav forced an incredulous laugh and then shook his head.
“I didn’t kill them, Tomo, I didn’t.”
Tomislav put his hand on Luka’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “I know you didn’t, Luka. It was war, and there are casualties.”
“If I’d gone to the village sooner, they’d still be…”
“Stop thinking like that. You have to think about yourself now.”
“I could’ve saved them,” he said, then swallowed hard. “Has anyone heard anything about her… Natalia?”
He’d learned the girl’s name two months after she’d slipped away from him. It made things worse. Luka had spent the past six years searching for her. He’d tracked down cousins once, twice, and thrice removed, searched through church archives and hospital records, but turned up nothing. Twice a month he drove to Nisko, the village where she had run away. He walked the fields surrounding the now-abandoned home, hoping to find a clue that could lead him to her.
But she had vanished.
“There’s nothing you can do now,” Tomislav said. “Are you going to keep searching for her, going back to the same place, asking the same questions? Luka, my heart bleeds for her. But she’s gone. Maybe she’s okay. Maybe she’s not. But it’s been three years.”
“I just don’t understand why?” He wiped his glassy eyes with his palm.
“No one does.” Tomislav stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “It’s war. But someone wanted them dead for a reason—something that had nothing to do with you or me.”
“But if I’d—”
“God’s will is greater than ours.”
Luka paused for a moment at that, his vision becoming blurry with tears.
Tomislav continued, “Luka, you have to forgive yourself. You were doing the right thing, freeing your country. There’s nothing nobler than that.”
“But Tomo, maybe if I turn myself in, then—”
Tomislav grabbed Luka’s shoulder. “Have you been looking at the papers? Do you think The Hague is interested in innocence? The only innocent people, as far as they are concerned, are the dead ones. It’s about getting even. Revenge. And they don’t care who it is. An indictment is as good as a conviction. Twenty years minimum, Luka.”
“But maybe if we find out what happened. We could find Čapan, and if our testimonies are consistent, then—”
“Are you listening to me? It’s a goddamned witch hunt. Čapan’s already gone underground; who knows where he is? And you’re on their list. Not very high, luckily, so you can escape and li
ve out the rest of your years somewhere in peace, knowing that you’ve given your countrymen freedom. And if you think that being punished by them will somehow make you feel better, then you’re stupider than you look.”
Luka threw his cigarette on the ground and put it out under his foot.
“Are we done with this?”
Boom! Boom! Boom! Luka startled, then scanned 180 degrees. He looked up at the sky. Fireworks rained down; the crowd cheered.
Luka and Tomislav picked up the pace, walking around the back of old town and up Sustipanski Put towards the marina. The crowd was thin here; a few people sat outside a café where a folding sign advertised spit-roasted lamb as the special of the day. Luka scanned each person, but none of them glanced his way. The café was quiet. Safe. He looked at Tomislav.
“If you could do me a favor, my father…”
“How is your father?”
“Holding up,” Luka said. “He mostly sits outside, reading the newspaper, waiting for someone to visit. Memory is getting worse. The doctor said he has to stop smoking or he’ll have another one.”
“We should all quit, really,” Tomislav said, and cleared his throat. “Maybe your brother could—”
“What brother?” Luka turned his head towards the islands in the distance.
“Well, if it’s like that, then…”
“It’s like that.”
Tomislav took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it onto the road. “He was a brave man, Nikola was. But it’s been eight years. Sometimes we need to know why people make the decisions that they do. Maybe then we can understand.”
Nikola had left a handwritten note in Luka’s mailbox on a rainy day four months to the day after war broke out, the same day that the Yugoslavs fired up bulldozers to reduce the city of Vukovar to rubble. The note offered no explanation as to why Luka’s big brother had traded sides, leaving Luka to suspect it was all because of Nikola’s blind love for a woman.
I wish I could explain my actions. I know you’ll be confused and disappointed. He had crossed out the word “ashamed.” I don’t expect forgiveness. Luka had read the letter only once before striking a match and burning it.
“I know who he was,” Luka said. “But that’s not who he is. Not who he chose to be. A brave man doesn’t choose to fight his own countrymen. His own brother.” He bit down on his lower lip before looking at Tomislav with sharp, stern eyes. “Can we stop this now?”
“I’ll visit your father every Sunday.”
They entered the marina, where hundreds of sailboats bobbed up and down in rows along stone wharfs. They stopped at number sixty-two, where a small yacht with its lights on was tied up, humming. A shirtless man with sun-bleached hair stood on the deck, polishing the wheel. He nodded.
“He’ll take you to Ancona. From there, take the train to Nice. There’s a man named Laurent Petit; his address is in there. He’ll set you up with a one-bedroom apartment and a job at a fish cannery. You should move from there in a few months, but wait for me to contact you first.”
Luka pulled several printed sheets out of the envelope as Tomislav continued, “There are also documents with basic information on your new identities: where and when you were born, etcetera. Memorize them and make up the rest. But be consistent.”
The last item in the envelope was a blue Bank of France bankcard. The passkey was written on a note taped to the front.
“There’s forty thousand euros sitting in that account right now. You can withdraw from any bank, anywhere in the civilized world. It will be replenished periodically.”
“Where did you get this money?”
“Let’s just say there are people that are appreciative of what you’ve done. They want you to be rewarded. You’d be wise to stay anonymous, under the radar. You never know how long this investigation will go on. If you’re not careful, you’ll have agents from The Hague following you, and by the time you notice them it will be too late.”
“So, I guess that’s it,” Luka said. “Until I hear from you again.”
Tomislav nodded and pursed his lips. “One other thing, Luka. Don’t get too personal with anyone. It won’t end well.”
They shook hands and Luka stepped aboard the yacht. The shirtless man untied the vessel, and they floated out into the marina.
Tomislav yelled, “Don’t ever forget: you’re a hero.”
4
Winnipeg, Canada
Eight Years Later
At 11:05 a.m., after the winter’s third blizzard, Branko Lovrić pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the Children’s Hospital. Snowplows had been at work all night scraping the roads clean, creating walls of snow along the sidewalks. Branko stopped the van beside the narrow gap in the snowbank so Sara could get out.
“You park up there,” she said, pointing to the parking meters that were buried in snow halfway up to their dials. “We’ll check in.” She turned around in her seat and helped Natalie with her mittens and hat, all pink with sparkly trim to match her jacket. Natalie lifted her scarf so that it covered the lower part of her face, obscuring her grin.
“Don’t dawdle, Daddy.”
“You’re the one that Dr. Morrison wants to see, not me.”
Sara opened the passenger door a crack, and a gust of frigid wind threw it open against the snowbank. She stepped out and slid the side door open, and snow blew inside. Natalie waddled out, looking like a giant stuffed toy. As Sara pressed the door closed, Branko smiled. Natalie walked so smoothly. Pain free. For years he’d hoped to see her move with such freedom, like any other kid. Sara, too, was more relaxed.
He parked the van behind a Buick, pulled on his toque and gloves, and got out. Reaching into his pocket, he dug out a few quarters, then fed them into the meter until it gave him an hour.
He flipped his collar up and walked to the front entrance. The wind rushed through every little space between his jacket, sweater, and skin. He hurried right past the front doors, head turned towards the street in case Sara was watching him through the glass. Then he walked around the hospital, head down and hands in his pockets, nonchalantly glancing at each parked car as he passed.
Some habits were hard to break. This one had developed over the past eight years: one pass around a building, then a thirty-second wait at a corner before entering. Sometimes twenty in this cold.
Precisely who he was looking for, he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t know what a person who knew that Branko Lovrić didn’t exist, except on a set of forged documents, looked like. Part of him—the rational, logical part—said that enough time had passed to abandon the paranoia. Luka Pavić was nothing more than a vague memory in the minds of a dwindling number of people.
But preservation of a secret such as his, he repeatedly told himself, required a certain level of vigilance. What was thirty seconds, after all?
Satisfied that all was clear, he walked to the entrance and the doors slid open. He saw Sara standing at the far end of the hall at the receptionist’s desk, motioning for him to hurry up.
A nurse wearing too much makeup led them to an office and dropped Natalie’s bulky chart into the slot on the door with a nameplate listing Dr. R. Morrison, Rheumatology.
“The doctor will be in shortly to see you.” She smiled, patting Natalie on the head.
He turned Natalie around and started unzipping her snowsuit, causing her to whine in protest.
“Sweetheart, Dr. Morrison is going to want to check you out.”
She paused and smiled. “Will I get a sticker?”
“I saw a Winnie the Pooh one.”
She stood up ramrod straight, letting him unzip her snowsuit and take off her boots. She ran underneath the desk and covered her eyes.
“You count, Daddy.”
“Not right now, Natalie, we’ll play when we get home.”
Natalie pouted. As far as she was concerned, it was always time to play hide-and-seek. When she realized he was serious, she went to the rollercoaster table, moving the beads along the tracks.
He caught Sara smiling. For years, as Natalie suffered, he wondered if Sara had lost that ability altogether. The experimental medication that Dr. Morrison had suggested for Natalie’s arthritis had transformed them all. Natalie could now move without pain and play with friends. She could make it through the night without waking up in agony. His own worries had slowed. Sara now had a delightful energy, one that he hadn’t felt since they’d met.
The door opened and Dr. Morrison entered, wearing his lab coat with a stethoscope decorated like a tiger stuffed inside one of the pockets. He dropped the chart on the desk, took a seat, and watched Natalie play.
Dr. Morrison had never given up. Trial after trial of medications, injections, and physical therapies were ineffective. Natalie became more rigid and disabled, and the side effects of the treatments made her lethargic and sleepy. Rheumatoid arthritis was going to take away her childhood.
But Morrison told them that would happen. “Keep trying,” he’d said. “We never know which treatment will work for which child. We have to keep trying, but we’ll get it right.”
And he did.
Yet today he seemed distant. Luka, whose hypervigilance had made him an expert on reading human behavior, noted the doctor’s shiftiness. He couldn’t manage to look at them directly, preferring to keep his eyes on Natalie or the floor as he slumped in his chair. He was hiding something.
“She’s doing well.” He flashed a smile before looking past them, at the wall, at nothing.
“Is something wrong?” Sara asked. She felt the disconnect too, Luka thought.
“It’s that she’s responded so well to the Rebonex. Amazingly well.”
They said nothing. The room felt swollen.
“You remember that I told you this was a medication under investigation? Well, the trial ended.” He cleared his throat into his fist. “And the study was negative.”
“Negative how?” Luka said.
“Overall, the medication didn’t appear to be effective.”
“But it’s worked for her.” Luka threw his hands up. “Look at her, you said so yourself.”
