by Tom Saric
Luka jumped.
After telling Natalie to stay put, he walked through the hallway towards the living room, staying in the shadows. He stared at the front door, then the living room window. Two silhouettes were visible through the window shade.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
He stood over the telephone. The lines had been cut, so it could only be the police.
He took a deep breath and lifted the phone off the cradle, then placed it to his ear but said nothing.
“Hello?” a man’s voice said. “Hello? Branko? Are you there, Branko?”
Luka swallowed. “I’m sure you know better by now.”
A pause. “So you’re going by Luka.”
He said nothing.
Another beat. “Luka sounds good. You’ve seen us outside.”
“Curtains are drawn; I can’t see anything outside.”
“But you know we’re here. My name is Mark. I’m with the Winnipeg Police. I want to help you get things sorted out.”
“No offense to you, Mark, but I don’t think this is the kind of thing you can sort out.”
“I’m here to help you.”
“How?”
“I need your assistance with that. What is it you want?”
Luka laughed. “I don’t want a million dollars and a helicopter, if that’s what you think. I only want my family safe.”
“Good, that’s what we want too, Luka. We want Natalie to come out here with us where it’s safe.”
Luka winced. He knew Natalie was leverage with the police. If he was barricaded in the home alone, his bargaining power was effectively gone.
“I think she’s safer here.”
“Okay, I understand you feel that way, but—”
“Listen, Mark. I’m not talking to you. I will only talk to my wife. She’s the only person I trust.”
“Okay. That’s reasonable. We’ll see if we can track her down.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mark. I know she’s with you. Put her on the phone.” He decided to play a bluff. If they knew his real name, then they knew his history, his expertise in demolitions. He looked at the silhouettes on the window shade. “And Mark, tell the two officers to get away from the living room window. The house is wired. I won’t hesitate to set off the charges.”
Silence.
“Luka, we want to work with—”
“Don’t say another word. Just get me my wife.”
Luka moved into the hallway and paced, running his hand through his hair.
“Branko?” Her voice came on the line.
“It’s me, babe. I’m so sorry.”
“Is it true?”
Luka clamped down on his lower lip. There was no time for a preamble. “Yes.” The word hung in the air for what felt like an eternity. He heard Sara stutter on the other end. “I thought it was over and behind me. I couldn’t tell you.”
“You lied to me. Everything was a—”
“I didn’t know what else to do. There was no good time, and then it was just too late.”
“You’re wanted for murder.” She spoke with a calm distance that he wasn’t used to.
“Sara, listen to me. I promise you that I didn’t kill anyone. Someone set me up and I ran. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. But I did not murder those people.”
“You shot a private investigator today. That man, Jurica, from church.”
“A private… what? Is that what they’re saying?” The police were listening on the other end, and he couldn’t tell them or Sara Jurica’s true identity yet. He needed to buy himself some time. “Sara, he was no private eye. You have to believe me.”
Sara huffed into the phone. “I just want to know Natalie is okay.”
“She’s fine.”
“Can you let her out?”
“Of course. But listen to me. I don’t expect forgiveness, but I need you to listen to this: you are not safe. I can’t explain everything, but I need you to take Natalie somewhere. Don’t tell anyone where you are going.”
“What are you—”
“People have tracked me for over a decade. They want me dead for some reason. I don’t know why.”
“Where will you go?”
“I have to end this.”
“No, wait, Branko—”
“I love you.”
Click.
Luka stared at the phone. He hoped Sara trusted him enough to hide. The White Tigers were relentless, and if someone had ordered them to kill Luka, they would carry it out. More would come. And when they couldn’t find him, they’d come after his family.
“Where’s Mama?” Natalie stood in the hallway.
“She’s outside.”
“Why isn’t she coming in?”
“She’s not going to.”
“But she’ll get cold. What is she doing out there?”
“She’s waiting for you.” Luka crouched down. “Natalie, Mama is outside with the police. You’ll have to go with her for a little while.”
He took Natalie by the hand and led her to the front door. He grabbed her jacket from the closet and zipped it up, then helped her pull on a toque and mittens.
After that, he walked to the kitchen and grabbed the egg timer before placing it in Natalie’s hand.
“I have to go to the basement. You have to stay here. When the timer dings, open the door and go outside. Not before. Okay?”
Her face was pallid. “I wish you were coming with me, Daddy. Please?”
“I wish I were coming with you too. I’ve just got—” He faltered. “I’ve got to make some things right. I need you to be brave.”
He expected more protests. But Natalie nodded, trusting his word as gospel. He said he’d return, so he would.
Luka moved to the office and scribbled down a message on his notepad, then ripped the page off, folded it in four, and pressed it into Natalie’s palm.
“When you’re outside, give this note to the police.” He kissed Natalie on the forehead. “I love you so much. Tell Mama I love her too.” He knelt down and held Natalie by the shoulders. “This is very important, Natalie. Tell Mama to check her email as soon as she can, okay?”
Natalie nodded. He twisted the egg timer to seven minutes. It started buzzing.
13
Braun bounced on his toes beside the police cruiser with his hands tucked under his armpits, trying to keep warm. His ears and nose burned from the cold, but he could ignore that. The hunt was on.
The tactical team was deliberating whether they would forcibly enter the home. Priority one was getting the daughter out unscathed. Pavić was calm on the phone, which meant one of two things: he was rational, and eventually he’d realize the futility of barricading himself in the home and surrender; or he was so detached that twisted logic now prevailed and children became mere bargaining chips. Two years ago, on the outskirts of Leipzig, Dražen Račan had appeared serene too. His wife and three kids came out on stretchers, covered with white sheets.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the front door open a crack. A purple mitten grasped the door. A young girl wearing a puffy pink jacket emerged, stopping on the landing. Her eyes searched over the lawn and through the crowd of police officers, reporters, and neighbors, all of whom held a collective breath.
The scene was as quiet and hollow as an empty auditorium. Even the wind stopped howling momentarily.
The silence was broken by a high-pitched scream: “Natalie!” That one word was delivered with more joy and relief than Robert Braun had ever heard.
The sound of her mother’s voice instantly mobilized Natalie. Her eyes widened and her head turned as she tried to localize the sound. Sara Lovrić ran through the snow—no amount could slow her down. They hugged on the sidewalk.
Two officers ran up behind them and escorted them to the perimeter.
Braun watched as Mrs. Lovrić planted kisses all over Natalie’s face. When the two officers asked Natalie to go to the ambulance to be checked over, she handed Officer Leitch a piece of paper. He loo
ked at the front and back, brought his eyebrows together, and folded the paper in half.
As he walked towards the tactical team, Braun ran over to intercept him.
“Something troubling on that note?”
Leitch swiveled around. “The girl came out with this. Pavić told her to give it to us.” He passed Braun the paper. “Gibberish,” he added. “Guy’s losing his mind in there.”
Braun read the note, feeling his pulse in his throat. He looked at it again, both sides. It couldn’t be a coincidence. What was Pavić trying to tell them?
тигар
“It’s not gibberish. It’s Cyrillic.”
“What does it mean?” Leitch said.
Braun was already running over to the squad car. He pounded on the window, and Kostick rolled it down.
“Pavić sent this out with his daughter.” He handed Kostick the note.
Kostick glanced at it and then immediately back at Braun.
“You’ve seen this before,” Braun said.
“Yup.” Kostick opened the door and got out. “What’s it mean?”
“It’s Serbian for ‘tiger.’ Where did you see it?”
“Victim had it tattooed on his forearm.”
“Anything else on the tattoo?”
“A tiger with a snake for a tongue.”
Braun tried to think calmly. He remembered what Pavić had said to his wife on the phone. “Jurica’s lying, and Pavić’s right: he’s not a private eye.”
“I had my doubts. What does the tattoo mean?”
“They’re called the White Tigers. They were paramilitaries during the war in Yugoslavia. Now, a lot of them are hired killers. We need to talk to him. Is he out of surgery?”
“Stable condition, last I heard.”
It changed nothing.
Braun repeated this to himself as he and Kostick followed the nurse up the corridor of the Health Sciences Centre to Room 3-818.
The possibility that the man Pavić shot was hired to kill him didn't change the fact that Luka Pavić was a wanted war criminal. It didn't change the fact that Luka Pavić had allegedly executed eleven young women and three men with wives and children. It didn't change the fact that Natalia Nemet, age six, last seen in that home, was missing and presumed dead.
It also didn't change Braun's mission. He had to get Pavić out of the house and into the custody of the International Criminal Court before there was any more collateral damage. There, justice could be delivered coldly and rationally.
He wasn’t surprised to learn that an assassin was searching for Pavić. He'd torn families apart. Time didn’t heal those wounds, or dull the craving for sweet revenge.
Pavić pleading innocence to his wife on the phone was nothing new. These war criminals were manipulators of the highest order. Their families were under their spell.
When they reached the room, the nurse pulled the clipboard out of the slot on the door and began writing on it. Kostick hurried to Braun’s side.
“Robert, if the victim’s a hit man, that means this could be self-defense.”
Braun pulled him away from the door, out of the nurse’s earshot. He leaned in to speak to Kostick and was stunned to smell alcohol on his breath. Kostick seemed sober and calm, showing no signs that he was intoxicated. Braun decided to ignore it. Soon, he’d have Pavić on a plane to the Netherlands, and Kostick could drink all he wanted.
“Maybe.” Braun measured his words carefully so as not to be dismissive of Kostick’s investigation. “On this one, maybe. But there are fourteen others lying in a grave because of him.”
“Sure. But he’s claiming innocence.”
“They always do.” Braun stood with his hands clenched in his pockets. How could Kostick not get it? Had the alcohol dulled him? These weren’t run-of-the-mill criminals. They needed to be dealt with swiftly and mercilessly, as they had done to their victims.
“And someone wanted him dead. I mean, this could change every—”
“It changes nothing!” Braun had his finger in Kostick’s face. “Maybe if you weren’t half-lit you’d be able to process that.”
Kostick’s eyes grew wide, and then he looked at the floor in shame. Braun lowered his finger into a fist and put it to his forehead. “Sorry. That’s none of my business. But I’m here to get information that will help us get Pavić out of the house. I’m not interested in guilt or innocence. There’s a system to decide that.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Kostick dropped his head and took a few steps back.
Braun turned his back to Kostick and faced the door, waiting for the nurse to finish writing and let them into the room. Jurica knew Pavić’s state of mind and could be invaluable in extracting Pavić. But more so, Jurica had managed to find Pavić after he had successfully hid from justice for a decade. He could shine a light on the networks Pavić used, information that could lead to a dozen arrests for aiding and abetting.
The nurse put the clipboard back on the door. Braun and Kostick stood behind her and pumped hand sanitizer into their palms.
“Ready, gentlemen?” She knocked on the door, waited a moment, and swung it open.
They took three steps inside. The nurse poked her head around the curtain.
“Oh shit.”
She threw the curtain open. A man in a hospital gown lay on a bed in the middle of the room, convulsing. His arms twitched and flapped and he made soft gasps, but his chest didn’t seem to be moving.
The nurse ran out of the room, shouting, “Code Blue!”
Braun moved closer, staring at Jurica. His eyes were wide and pleading. Red pinpoint dots had formed around his eyelids, and pale yellow froth bubbled from his mouth.
Braun touched the man’s quaking arm. It was deathly cold and there was no IV, only the medical tape that had held it in place. A circular, expanding bruise ringed his upper arm.
The man’s eyes begged for something. A blood vessel had burst in one of them.
“You have something to say?” Braun whispered.
The man made a sound in his throat.
Braun leaned in. “Speak, please.”
He heard a sudden loud crack behind him and turned. The door had been flung wide open against the wall as six people in lab coats and scrubs burst into the room, pushing a crash cart. The nurse pulled Braun away by the arm, and a man in scrubs took his place next to the bed.
He stood in the corner next to Kostick as the code team surrounded Jurica. The nurse read from the chart, informing the team that he was eight hours out of surgery, had been stable, had his vital signs taken fifteen minutes earlier. One woman started an intravenous line. Another taped wires to his chest. Shoes squeaked. A monitor beeped. Oxygen whooshed through tubes coming out of the wall. A mask was strapped over Jurica’s face before the team decided he needed a breathing tube. Then someone yelled that the pulse had stopped. A doctor climbed on the bed, pumping the man’s chest. A nurse announced she had given epinephrine. The doctor decided they needed the intensive care unit, so the nurse ran out and called, then came back and said yes, ICU was ready. And just like that, Jurica was wheeled out of the room.
The nurse stayed behind, picking the bed sheets off the floor.
Braun approached her. “What are they going to do with him?”
“He’s going to the ICU, maybe back to surgery. They’ll see.”
“Will he be okay?”
“They’ll take care of him.”
“Does that mean he’ll survive?”
The nurse picked up another sheet and tossed it into a plastic bag. “He’s in a hospital. People die here. But the doctors will try to prevent that.”
She carried the bag out of the room, leaving Braun and Kostick alone. Braun put his hand on his head. Jurica seemed desperate to tell him something. He had information. But just like that, it had slipped away.
He looked at Kostick, who stared statue-like out the window, into darkness. Braun waited by the door, ready to go back to Pavić’s house, but Kostick didn’t seem to notice.
“Last year, my wife died in this hospital. Two floors up.” Kostick cleared his throat and kept looking out the window. “I haven’t been dealing with it the best.”
“It’s okay, Jack. Like I said: none of my business.”
“I just needed a bit to be able to get through the doors of this place. I know it’s not right.”
Braun said nothing. He knew that alcoholics could always rationalize a drink, and they would always apologize later. But later was always too late.
“I watched her die. Take her last breaths, drowning in her own fluids. It was fucking awful.”
Kostick turned and stepped forward, pointing at the floor where the bed had been. “All of her muscles were straining, even though she was weak. They didn’t stop moving until all the life was out of her.”
“I’m sorry, Jack, that must have—”
“I’m not looking for sympathy.” Kostick’s eyes were red around the rim. “I’m saying that this man wasn’t dying the way people are supposed to die. His chest wasn’t moving. Not an inch. He was trying like all hell, but nothing was happening.”
“It didn’t look right to me either.” Braun crossed his arms. “But how did they get in unnoticed?”
“A lot wasn’t right. IVs don’t just fall out. Bodies don’t just convulse, unless it’s a seizure. But people having a seizure don’t look you in the eye, begging, trying to say something. And that bruise on his arm. What was that? It was fresh and red. In fifteen minutes he goes from stable to twitching like a leaf? That doesn’t just happen.” Kostick turned and held Braun’s stare. “Who keeps the window open when it’s minus fifteen and dropping outside?”
Braun’s eyes darted to the window, which was a foot and a half high and three feet wide. It was open three inches. When he pulled it wide open, frigid air rolled in.
He stuck his head out. The overhead security light threw an orange glow over the scene. Fresh snow covered the alley. Directly below the window, a small area of snow was packed down, with footsteps leading out of the alley onto the road. Braun turned around.
“This just became more complicated.”
14
