The Field of Blackbirds (A Jeff Bradley Thriller)

by Thomas Ryan

  ‘Busy with my lawyer, Kimie.’

  She nodded. The Shala family knew what ‘busy with my lawyer’ meant for Jeff. He’d have been dealing with his marital problems. They would never question him about it.

  Six chairs were neatly pushed in around the dining table. Jeff sat in the place long ago regarded as his, at Arben’s right hand and next to their daughter, Drita. In the early days, the cute child with the mop of blond hair that bounced whenever she ran could be found anywhere Jeff happened to be, following him like a puppy. But now, at the ripe old age of thirteen, her former crush on Jeff had transferred itself to high school boys. Today the precocious and loveable teenager was in school.

  On the bench a cafetière sat brewing on a silver tray. Kimie placed espresso coffee cups and saucers round it. A pack of biscuits followed. Kimie tore open one end and jiggled a few onto a small white side plate. All this while her back was turned to Jeff and Marko. The son kept fidgeting on his chair and aiming expectant glances at Jeff.

  Jeff waited until Kimie placed the tray on the table. ‘Benny left a message on my answer phone two days ago.’

  Kimie sank into a chair. Her eyes focused on a spot on the back of her left hand. A distracted finger rubbed over it. ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kimie. The message wasn’t good news.’

  ‘Two days,’ Kimie whispered, her head drooping. ‘Two days. Jeff, you know how worried we’ve been.’

  Jeff shifted position in his seat. ‘I wanted to be certain.’ He turned to Marko. ‘Your father said he was in trouble. He was on his way to Macedonia the night he left the message. He said he would phone me once he got there.’

  Kimie’s hazel eyes rose to seek Jeff’s. Her expression revealed a mixture of resignation and fear and a hint of the rebuke that he knew he deserved. ‘I take it he hasn’t telephoned?’

  Jeff shook his head. ‘No. Not yet.’

  Marko’s elbows dropped onto the table. He looked at Jeff. ‘That doesn’t mean anything, does it? Maybe he couldn’t phone. Maybe he got to Macedonia and lost his money. He doesn’t know anyone there.’

  Jeff caught Kimie’s glance. He knew they shared the same thought: Arben would have found a way.

  ‘I think if your father hasn’t called it’s because he’s unable to do so. Not because of money.’

  ‘That’s what I think, too,’ Jeff said. ‘My guess is he’s still in Kosovo.’

  Cups rattled as Marko’s fist slammed the table. ‘If my father is in trouble then I’m going to Kosovo to look for him. Will you buy me a ticket, Jeff? And lend me some spending money? Please. I’ll pay you back. You know I will.’

  Jeff found himself suppressing a smile at the display of youthful impetuosity. ‘Not on your life. You’re staying right here, Marko. I need you to look after the business. And your father would want you here looking out for your mother and sister.’

  ‘Jeff is right,’ Kimie nodded. ‘Your place is with me and Drita.’

  Marko stood, knocking his chair backwards. ‘Look. If something’s happened to Dad, I have to go find him. It’s my duty to go. If you won’t let me have the money, I’ll find it somewhere else . . .’

  ‘Forget it, Marko. You’re not going. I’m going.’

  The words had blurted from Jeff’s lips before he had time to think. But once spoken, the adrenaline rush that followed surprised him. Cleared his senses. At the same instant, he realised how much he’d missed the SAS. Here was an opportunity to do what he did best in the service of a friend.

  Kimie’s eyes widened. ‘You would do this?’

  Jeff sucked in a deep breath. Kimie held his gaze.

  The conversation they’d had before Arben left for Kosovo had been haunting him for two days. Kimie had begged Jeff not to let Arben go. ‘You don’t know what it is like there,’ she had pleaded. ‘The country is overrun with criminals. It is too dangerous. Something will happen to him, I know it will.’

  Kimie would never openly blame him if things did turn out as she feared. Jeff knew her well enough to know this. But he also knew that in her eyes he would always see the unspoken accusation.

  ‘Yes, of course I’ll go.’

  Marko was now at his side. ‘You can’t go alone, Jeff. You don’t speak the language. I do. How would you find your way round? How would you know who to trust? Kosovo is full of bad guys. You must take me with you. Tell him, Mum.’ Kimie reached out to stroke her son’s arm. Marko yanked it away. ‘It’s not fair.’

  It looked as if he wanted to say something more. Instead he turned and raced out of the room. Jeff suspected he must have been close to tears.

  ‘There is a man who was a close friend to my father.’ Kimie’s voice was calm. ‘I’ll phone and ask him to have his son, Sulla, meet you at the airport. He used to have his own business, importing household products from Macedonia, I think, maybe to Serbia. But something happened, I do not know what, but Sulla no longer does this business. So he has time. He can look after you. Be your driver.’

  Jeff nodded over a sip of coffee. Even then his military brain was beginning to formulate a strategy.

  4.

  Halam Akbar smiled to himself at the beginning of a lovely winter’s day.

  The rays of the early morning sun glinted through dew clinging to the leaves of drooping willow branches, creating tiny rainbows. Against the opposite bank, a long glass-topped boat bobbed at its mooring. Creepers along the riverbank bloomed with flowers – purples, reds and whites. His eyes rose to take in the three-storey apartment buildings behind. The colours on the bank were reflected in flowerpots in almost every window.

  Good to be alive.

  Crisp temperatures hadn’t forced Halam inside the cafe. He chose instead a table against the metre-high stone wall that banked the Ljubljana River. There he sat and sipped his espresso. Italian, the waiter had said it was. It tasted Moroccan to Halam. Ripping the top off a sugar sachet, he upended the contents into his cup then stirred while contemplating the day ahead.

  Across the river, athletes were gathering in the town square. As part of their limbering up, men and women had been jogging past him for the past half-hour. A few had smiled and offered morning greetings. Halam had responded with nods of acknowledgement. Supporters milled about, watching the warm-up routines and seeking out the best vantage points for the start of the marathon. It pleased him to see such a growing crowd of spectators.

  At his back, a row of trestle tables stretched to the end of the street. The Sunday market was further incentive for citizens to leave their centrally heated apartments and take the opportunity to haggle over an assortment of war medals, paintings, flags, old coins, new coins made to look old, and household bric-a-brac from second-hand garden tools to fake stained-glass lampshades. To Halam it was all junk. But what did he know? He had no wife to discuss such things with. Nor a home to hang paintings in. Nor a garden to dig with second-hand tools.

  In the foreground, three bridges less than fifty metres apart spanned the river. Beyond the bridges were the fish and vegetable markets. For the past few days while reconnoitring the Ljubljana inner city, Halam had seen these markets teeming with shoppers. But today they had closed. Halam mused how sometimes people just got lucky.

  Magazines described Slovenia as a fairy-tale land and Halam had to agree it was true. He had enjoyed his stay. A night at a world-class ski resort and a walk along the shores of a lake with a castle in the middle of it had been a joy. Picture postcard villages snuggled into forested slopes. And up in the mountains too he had found a peace he had not experienced for as long as he could remember.

  He stirred his coffee.

  He was satisfied that the placement of the bombs would achieve maximum effect. Now it was time to move on. In his world it was always time to move on. To any passer-by he might easily be mistaken for a resident from one of the nearby apartments: a man without a care in the world.r />
  Only he and his baby brother had survived the Israeli bombing raid that had destroyed his family home and killed his parents. Forced to live on the streets, their miserable experience had fuelled Halam’s hatred and fed a desire to exact revenge. He and his brother’s history did not differ greatly from that of thousands of bitter young men trapped in the war zones of the Middle East. Hamas had duly offered Halam martyrdom, but becoming a suicide bomber held no appeal. His family, devout Muslims, had taught their sons well. Although barely out of puberty and filled with the naivety of youth, he was not stupid. Halam had no interest in killing himself and he did not believe seventy virgins awaited him if he did. The Koran was very clear: martyrdom rewarded soldiers killed defending or fighting the enemies of Allah. It said nothing about innocent women and children. Luckily for Halam there was no shortage of alternative opportunities.

  Hamas found him other work. Halam discovered he had a talent for bomb making. In his hands explosives became sophisticated masterpieces used to create maximum damage on buses and trains, and in city centres. Codenames protected his true identity but his bombs became as recognisable as a fingerprint. But with each explosion his hatred blurred. Having revenged his family many times over, his youthful zealotry waned with maturity and the onset of middle age. His younger brother, Zahar – barely out of his teens and too young to even remember the attack that had orphaned him – still burned with the fire of idealism. Halam knew it would eventually get the boy killed. So, establishing a new and different kind of life for them both had become a priority. Occasionally, he would daydream about finding a wife and starting a family to carry on his father’s name.

  But Israeli agents had infiltrated parts of the organisation. When they came for him, his group’s counter-intelligence unit had received advance warning. With his brother in tow he just managed to escape to southern Lebanon.

  Hezbollah welcomed the brothers and soon found work for Halam’s unique set of skills. But the Israelis were persistent. They wanted Halam Akbar and they would destroy anyone standing in their way to get him. Even for Hezbollah, Halam had become a dangerous liability. He and his brother were supplied with new identification documents and smuggled into Italy, dropped off at a seedy hotel and left to their own devices. A new employer would make contact, Halam was told. So he kept his head down, kept his brother pacified and waited.

  It surprised Halam that when the contact finally came, it came from Kosovo. From that day on he discarded his old life and identity as thoroughly as a desert lizard sheds its skin. He became a contract bomber available to anyone prepared to pay the price for his services. It amused him to think of himself as no better than a high-priced whore pimped out to the highest bidder by his intermediary contact in Kosovo.

  What he was mattered little to him.

  Halam’s new life of five-star hotels and first-class travel was a welcome change from hiding in rubble and sharing food with sewer rats. Hiding in plain sight had its merits. But Halam entertained no dreamy illusions. Eventually it would end.

  Then a letter arrived. An old acquaintance from his Hezbollah days was offering them a new life in a village in northern Iran – for a considerable amount of money. The village elder had two daughters he was willing to offer as brides in exchange for half a million US dollars each. The letter had enclosed photos of the two girls, both barely teenagers. They were not unattractive.

  Halam had agreed. Paying for new identities, the purchase of two houses and the dowries well exceeded their current cash reserves. However, the reward for completing the job that currently occupied him and his brother would set them up nicely. After this they could put violence behind them. Village life might well prove too sedate for them after the cities and towns of Europe, but he did not care. It would be nice just to sit in the shade of a tree and enjoy a sunset with a young wife resting her head on his shoulder and children playing at his feet. He knew Zahar had a different future in his head. Village life held no appeal. It was for goatherders, not for men of substance, Zahar argued. His young head lacked wisdom but when the time came he would obey.

  On the opposite bank in front of the pharmacy, Halam observed that two athletes involved in a stretching routine had blocked Zahar’s progress. One of the runners eventually noticed him and stood aside. Zahar gave a bow and continued on his way. Halam smiled. Zahar played the cooperative citizen so well.

  When Zahar reached Dragon Bridge, the furthest of the three bridges, he turned towards Halam, lifted his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his hair – the signal that it was time to leave.

  The square had filled with athletes. More runners were spilling into the surrounding streets. Those marathon runners who hadn’t yet stripped out of their tracksuits did so now. Others finished loosening up and began to gather near the start line.

  Police paced back and forth inside barriers erected earlier to keep spectators away from the competitors. The well-behaved crowd needed little supervision. The officers smiled and exchanged pleasantries with them. When the race started the runners would cross the first bridge, run through the barriers, between the buildings and out of sight onto the course proper. Halam checked his watch.

  Twenty minutes to start time.

  He dropped a handful of euros on to the table, including a large tip, and waved to the waiter before moving off. The explosives in the two refuse bins – one in the square in front of the old Franciscan Church of the Annunciation and the other in front of the antique shop a few metres ahead of him – were now covered by drink cans and other rubbish.

  Two excited young girls darted in front of Halam as he approached the police barrier. The parents offered an apologetic smile which Halam returned. The children climbed onto the refuse bin. Their parents scolded them to get down but the children would not move. The couple looked back at Halam and shrugged. The children, happy they had won the day, turned their attention back to the festivities. Halam hesitated, but only for a moment.

  He gestured to a police officer that he needed to cross. The officer pulled a barrier segment aside to let him through then placed it back into position. In the middle of Dragon Bridge he stopped to survey the scene. Spectators occupied every vantage point on the ground. Overhead onlookers leaned out through apartment windows.

  Satisfied that today would be a good day’s work, Halam walked on.

  Halfway up the sloping street that led away from the square to where their car waited, Zahar materialised and fell into step beside him. Patrons of the adjacent McDonald’s hamburger restaurant had ventured out onto the terracing and sat round tables munching on the breakfast menu. They looked down on the activity fifty metres away. Halam and his brother exchanged nods. They both knew it was well within the planned blast zone.

  Halam tossed Zahar the keys.

  ‘You drive.’

  They climbed in. As Halam buckled his seat belt, he noticed his brother had not done the same.

  ‘Zahar, seat belt. Don’t forget to turn on the headlights, you know that it is the law in Slovenia. And keep to the speed limit.’

  He wanted the drive to the Italian border to be without incident.

  5.

  Pushed into a cell, the door slamming behind him, Arben sat on a bed with his head in his hands. Then he stood and paced awhile before leaning against the wall. He scratched his arm, but stopped when he realised it was bleeding. The stench of vomit and urine was overpowering. He tried breathing through his mouth. After a few quick breaths his head spun and he gave up. Mercifully, fatigue and depression took its toll. He collapsed onto the bed, curled into a ball like a child and fell asleep.

  He awoke disorientated. All perception of time had departed. Staring at the light bulb overhead he trawled his brain for recall. Then memories came flooding back and with it his depression.

  He knew he was in the basement of the Central Police Station in Prishtina. The police who had brought him back had marched him t
hrough the main entrance then pushed him down the stairs. He had fallen at the bottom and smashed his knee on the cement floor but had refused to cry out. To his befuddled mind, by not crying out he had been putting one over them. Thinking it through now, he wanted to laugh at the silliness of his bravado. Who would have cared? Who would even know?

  The policemen had hauled him to his feet and dragged him along a narrow corridor to a small room next to the shower block. Behind a wooden bench were two overweight middle-aged female police officers, both in uniforms too small for them. Their breasts threatened to burst the buttons, and the trousers on the one with short black hair had ridden up into her crotch. They looked him up and down and dismissed him as if he were little more than a bug. Answers to personal questions were written down on a form attached to a clipboard. The form and his watch and other valuables went into a brown envelope. The woman with the short black hair tossed it into a tray sitting on shelving bracketed to the wall. Arben had protested at the treatment of his valuables and both women had turned on him, snarling like trapped ferrets.

  A prison guard took over from the police and pushed him into the cell. There was no toilet. The guard instructed him to bang on the door if he needed to relieve himself.

  That was hours ago.

  He swung his legs to the floor and sat up. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he scanned his new environment. Four beds were lined up against the right-hand wall, each covered with a quilted duvet. Arben pulled back the duvet on the bed he’d selected. The sheets looked brownish. The state of the other beds was much the same. He picked up the pillow. It was lumpy and grimy. Imagining a succession of prisoners drooling saliva over the spot where he had just laid his head caused him to gag. He dropped it, rubbing his fingers across the front of his shirt like a man who had just shaken hands with a leper.

  A small window high on the rear wall proved to be only for show. A single light dangled from the ceiling on the end of a strand of wire. A plastic bottle filled with water stood on the floor beside the bed. He was thirsty. Holding the bottle to the light he determined that no strange creatures were swimming in it. He screwed off the top and took a swig. It tasted refreshing enough. He gulped down a third of the contents.