‘OK,’ I said. ‘I guess I can maintain your high standards of cuisine.’
Miriam smiled and Peter said nothing else. I was feeling pretty good, until I looked back and remembered that I hadn’t taken the photo of the farm, the one I had wanted so much to.
~ * ~
It turned out to be a long day as we tracked down two possible locations for the elusive Site A. The first place was an athletic field for a regional elementary school. We parked the Land Cruisers in a paved lot at the rear of the school and the APC parked there as well. Without any prompting from Jean-Paul we put on our helmets and protective vests again, and we gathered around a wooden picnic table that had its footings set into concrete. The school was brick and one-story, with lots of windows — and with most of them shattered. What few windows weren’t broken had children’s drawings and paintings on paper taped to the glass. New grass had grown in the field and at both ends what looked like soccer nets stood sentinel, their netting torn and flapping in the breeze.
Jean-Paul said, ‘We received two pieces of intelligence saying that bodies have been buried here, in this field. Air surveillance last week proved inconclusive. So now it’s our turn.’
Sanjay turned and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand. ‘That’s bad intelligence, and you know it, Jean-Paul. Look at that grass. Nothing’s been disturbed here, nothing at all.’
‘True,’ Peter said sharply. ‘But we follow orders, don’t we? The word comes down from on high that we search this field, and that’s what we’re going to do. Right, Jean-Paul?’
Jean-Paul folded up his map and didn’t take the bait. He said, ‘So glad you agree, Peter. So let’s get to work.’
It was rather dull work. The Ukrainian soldiers stayed in their APC, keeping its hatches open, and Charlie sat on the ground by one of the Land Cruisers, his M-16 across his lap. It looked like the Ukrainians wanted to spend some time with Charlie but our Marine would have none of it. Foreign troops in his country. I could hardly imagine the humiliation he must have felt. We stretched across the field in a line, maybe five or six meters long, carrying thin metal probes. I had the feeling that if Peter had been in charge we would have finished this search in ten minutes or less. But Jean-Paul was doing things by the book and he set a slow pace as we marched across the field, looking for mounds of earth, for any fresh disturbances, poking and prodding at the ground with our metal probes.
By now the sun was higher up in the sky and with our helmets and protective vests on we got hot indeed, even though the calendar said it was fall. Since our line was so short, we had to trek up and down the field four times, finding absolutely nothing except on our third pass, when we found the remnants of a parachute flare. We gathered around it and Peter rolled over the heavy cardboard canister, saw the RAF markings. Part of the NATO contingent that had first come here after the troubles.
‘A postcard from home,’ he said, smiling. ‘How brilliant. How about a picture, Sammy?’
I looked at Jean-Paul, who gave a small shake of his head. ‘Sorry. My gear’s back in one of the Toyotas. Maybe later.’
Peter nodded and turned back, and we returned to work. I imagined a school band out here, playing for the students: it was spookier than hell, looking over at the school building, wondering where the children were, where they had all gone. Despite what the PM had ordered last spring, lots of families here and elsewhere had snuck across the border into my home country while so many others had just hidden out with families or relatives in the basements of their homes. The streets were almost always empty, and it was that emptiness that sometimes creeped me out most of all
~ * ~
Lunch was at the picnic tables at the rear of the school, near where some swing sets and other play gear was set up. The Ukrainians surprised us all by not only having their own food but by sharing what they had with us. There were four of them and only their officer could speak English, but that didn’t stop the other three from flirting with Karen and Miriam. They laughed a lot and eventually so did Miriam and Karen. They had loaves of chewy black bread and some sort of meat paste and cheese gunk in tubes, which they spread on torn-off chunks of bread. Peter, however, made do with a couple of hard rolls and a jar of peanut butter from South Africa. Charlie, as usual, ate by himself, still sitting on the ground, ignoring the Ukrainians.
When we were done, Jean-Paul made a brief report over his satellite phone, and then we drove out of the schoolyard. In front of the school was a white flagpole, and a dark flag hanging from it flapped in the breeze. Miriam looked up and said, ‘That flag is black. Completely black. What does it mean?’
I waited for Peter to say something and was pleased when he didn’t know the answer, which I supplied. ‘Anarchists,’ I said. ‘The black flag is the flag of anarchists.’
Miriam asked, ‘What do they want?’
‘Anarchy,’ I said.
‘Goody for them,’ Peter said, as we turned and got onto the road, the APC leading the way. ‘At least somebody’s got what they want.’
~ * ~
We drove about three kilometers to another site. The roadway passed through a cluster of small homes, each of which had been burned. The houses were smaller than what I had been used to when I’d been growing up in peaceful and prosperous Canada, but the yards were neat and well-maintained, with stone or wire fences separating them from their neighbors. Miriam shook her head as we proceeded, saying, ‘So sad, oh, how sad.’
‘Maybe so, but it’s just real estate,’ Peter said.
‘Excuse me?’ I said.
Peter said, ‘Look at all those houses. You see anything missing from the driveways?’
I looked out the side window, saw what Peter was driving at. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘There’s no cars or trucks.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘So that means whoever lived here got a fair amount of warning and bailed out, probably heading east or up north, to the border, before the refugee streams got here and the locals started shooting. So what got left behind got stolen and burned by either the refugees or the townies. Sad enough, but I don’t consider that a war crime. Site A, where two hundred-plus people from a refugee column got disappeared over a weekend, that’s a war crime. Not a bumed-out block of shitty houses.’
I said sharply, ‘I can see why you joined the UN, Peter. You’ve got one hell of a humanitarian streak inside you.’
The back of his neck got bright red. ‘Bugger off, youngster,’ he said softly. ‘I was working the East End for the Metropolitan Police before you learned to wank off. I’ve seen bodies pulled from the Thames, swollen up and ready to burst. I’ve seen women and children burned and stabbed and bludgeoned, lying dead in flats where the rats thought they owned the place. That there is crimes, what’s done against females and kids and innocent men. Property is property. So bloody what? It gets burned or destroyed, it’s nothing. Rebuild, rebuy, go on somewhere else. At least you’re alive. This shit here doesn’t impress me. Site A impresses me, and if our Froggy leader doesn’t stop wasting time we’re never going to find it and a fair number of criminals are going to be set free from The Hague before the week is out.’
The road descended some and then ran by the side of a river. Across the river were open fields and a tent city, with the dark green and white canvas of the tents stretching for what seemed to be a kilometer at least. Flags were fluttering from some poles stuck in the dirt across the river but we couldn’t see what nationality they represented. Some of the white tents, though, had big red crosses on their roofs.
‘There,’ Peter said, motioning with a free hand. ‘That’s where we’ll find Site A. By going in there and talking to people in the area, people who had a hand in the rounding-up and the killing and burying. You can bet not all of them have fled the neighborhood. Some of them are right over there, feeding and sleeping on the world’s generosity, while we make do with half-arsed tips and stories.’
I was trying to think of what to say when the column ahead of us braked and slowed. We headed to the
second inspection site.
~ * ~
Past the small neighborhood of homes this site was part of an industrial facility of some sort, dominated by a large brick warehouse with small windows that was three stories tall. Graffiti scrawled on the side in white paint said RED RULES! Two other buildings, wood-framed, had been burned to a collection of rubble, scorched beams and black shingles. We pulled into a poorly paved parking lot on the other side of which were six trailers for tractor-trailer trucks. All of them were burned and split open. Still wearing our vests and helmets, we got out and looked at the warehouse. It seemed to be fairly intact. Jean-Paul, shaking his head, had his laptop and data gear on the hood of one of the Land Cruisers.
‘This site matches what was sent us,’ he said, looking up at the red-brick building. ‘But I don’t know ...’
Karen and Miriam stood together, looking as well, their arms folded. Beyond the land that belonged to the warehouse was a chainlink fence and a wood. The APC stood to the side of the Land Cruisers, its engine rumbling. The APC commander came out of the hatch, stumbled a bit on the lip of the opening, and came over to Jean-Paul. My hands felt itchy. Sanjay and Peter were talking to each other and I didn’t like the feel of the whole thing. The air felt like the heaviness you get just before a thunderstorm roars through, when the air is thick and moves slowly and there’s a sense of force in the air, an electrical force ready to be unleashed.
The Ukrainian commander shook his head after talking with Jean-Paul and went back to his APC. Then Charlie came over to Jean-Paul, his M-16 slung across his back. ‘Sorry to tell you this, Jean-Paul, but you can’t be going in that warehouse,’ he said.
‘And why’s that?’
Charlie gave him a look like he was saying, ‘Are you so dumb that you can’t see it?’ He went on, ‘Jean-Paul, that place is an ambush waiting to happen. Old warehouse like that, no power, lots of corridors and rooms and doors. You could place tripwires, motion detectors, even cut holes in the flooring and cover it with tar paper so you’d fall in. Man, it would take a platoon of Marines and three or four more UN teams like yours before I’d even think of going into a place like that.’
Jean-Paul said stubbornly, ‘We have intelligence. We have information that there are bodies in that warehouse.’
‘Maybe so, but you’re not going in,’ Charlie said.
‘This team is under my command,’
‘And the security and safety of this team are my responsibility,’ Charlie went on calmly. ‘You know that, just as well as I do, and I’m not going to get your people hurt or killed. Call for back-up, call for reinforcements, I don’t care, but that place is too big and spooky for me to let you guys go in.’
By now the others had joined in and Jean-Paul’s face was reddening up, like he was ready to let loose a good one. But there was a clang! as a side hatch of the Ukrainian APC came open and its commander strode back. He had a piece of paper in his right hand and said, ‘Monsieur, if you please, I have message for you.’
Jean-Paul was surprised. ‘A message for me? Through your comm net?’
‘Please, message,’ the Ukrainian soldier insisted. ‘Look at right now, please.’
I looked over Jean-Paul’s shoulder as he read the message, which was handwritten in block letters and which caused my legs to start trembling:
MONSIEUR UN —
OUR THERMAL DEVISE IN TANK SHOWS MANY BODIES IN BUILDING.
BODIES ALIVE, NOT DEAD.
WE LEAVE NOW.
Karen put her hand to her face as Jean-Paul folded the piece of paper and said quietly, ‘We don’t do anything drastic. We just move away, quietly and smoothly. Don’t raise your voices, don’t stare at the warehouse. Just get in the vehicles and get out.’
We all did just that. I couldn’t help myself, though, and I did spare a look at the warehouse. Its windows seemed to mock us all, this little group of international visitors, ready to go in and do good. The building seemed haunted—possessed, even—and I thought of that message again from the Ukrainian APC commander. Bodies alive, not dead. We leave now. We sure as hell do. I’d been spooked when Charlie had talked about the booby traps that could be in that dark building—tripwires and concealed holes in the flooring—and the thought of men with guns and knives, just waiting for us to clamber inside, full of earnestness and good intentions, with them ready to tear us apart, made me want to stand behind Charlie and ask for his help.
But Charlie was busy, his eyes flickering back and forth, looking at the entrance, at the many blackened windows. I got inside our Land Cruiser with Peter and Miriam, and then everybody else was in the other Land Cruisers as well, with Charlie bringing up the rear, being the last one in. Peter was muttering something and his face was mottled red and white, and Miriam seemed to hunker down in the front seat as though she was trying to present a smaller target. All three Land Cruisers backed out of the parking lot, their reverse gears making a high-pitched whining that made my teeth ache, and then the APC backed away as well, all its hatches clamped shut, the turret with the grenade launcher and machine gun moving from side to side like a hunting dog looking for a scent.
~ * ~
CHAPTER SEVEN
From the warehouse we headed north, passing over a small bridge that spanned a swollen river, the water rushing by so fast that little spumes of spray rose up as if a pod of whales had hidden themselves there. After the bridge we passed through another deserted village, the buildings closed and locked, and took refuge at the top of a small hillside park a couple of kilometers away from the warehouse. Here there were a set of picnic tables and a monument to a couple of past wars, plus a white flagpole that wasn’t flying anything.
There was a dirt path that was meant for walkers only, but our group wasn’t in the mood for conforming to such niceties so all four vehicles clambered their way up, led by the APC. It was late afternoon and I felt nervous and strangely tingly and alive when I stepped out of the Land Cruiser. I stripped off my helmet and the protective vest and threw them both back inside the vehicle. Karen said, ‘Don’t you think you should keep that stuff on?’
And I said, ‘If it stays on any longer, I’m going to die of heat stroke, and what’s the point then, right?’
Maybe I was too sharp for her, but I didn’t care. Some pine trees shaded the area of the war monument and Sanjay was leaning against it, cleaning his glasses with his handkerchief. The monument had been defaced with black paint and it looked as though someone had taken a hammer and chisel to some of the names, hacking them out. ‘Rewriting history,’ I said to Sanjay. ‘Just like the ancient Egyptians.’
‘Excuse me?’ he asked.
I gestured to the place on the monument where the bronze names had been hacked out. ‘When a Pharaoh passed on, his name—his cartouche—was cut in stone throughout the empire, to symbolize that his memory would last for ever. But sometimes dead pharaohs passed out of favor due to some religious or political struggle. So then their names would be gouged from the stone, to erase the memory that they had even existed.’
Sanjay looked at the stone he was leaning on. ‘So that’s what happened here. Rewrite history, destroy your enemies. They kill the living, bury their bodies, and then obliterate the names of their ancestors from the old stone. This is a blood-drenched country, you know that? Ever notice how many monuments and statues and plaques they have dedicated to their wars? Every village, every crossroad, every marketplace or town square has a monument to death.’ He put his glasses back on. ‘No wonder what happened here took place, with such a bloody people, after the spring bombings.’
I said, ‘Don’t throw stones.’
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’
I looked at him calmly. ‘You and I both know the history of your own country, from the 1947 partition on, all the millions dead on both sides, up to and including the present day. There’s a saying: people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’
Sanjay’s gaze back at me was just as calm. ‘Are
you excusing what has happened here?’
‘No, I’m not. Just asking you to adopt some perspective.’
‘Young man, I’m not in the mood for lectures,’ he said.
“I don’t think I’m that young, and I wasn’t offering a lecture.’
‘Yes, you were. I come from a place with thousands of years of proud history, millennia of art and architecture and poetry that still sings to us . . . and you are from a frozen wasteland that offers hockey and beer. Grow up, why don’t you? And stop lecturing.’
‘Sure. One of these days.’
‘I won’t wait for you,’ Sanjay said dismissively. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, before you start yammering about Kashmir...’
He moved away from the stone and walked down to one of the Land Cruisers, while I looked again at the monument, which had listed the names of the sons and fathers from this village who had fought in the Second World War. I rubbed both hands through my sweaty scalp, thought of the hate and energy that it had taken to do this, to climb up this hill with hammer and chisel and try to obliterate the past because someone’s descendants had done something wrong, like feeding or sheltering some of the many people who had deserted the cities when the power had gone off. With all that had gone on in this country, making this final gesture of destroying the past seemed as dark and as despicable an act as spitting into an open grave.
Dead of Night Page 8
