The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  ‘And fucking noisy,’ he shouted. ‘Eric Briggs. I’m the operations manager.’

  She shook his offered hand.

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘Come over to the office. We can talk there.’

  Anna followed him into a demountable of the kind she’d seen on building sites. It was barely furnished—just a desk, filing cabinets and a kitchen space with an electric kettle. The desk was large and uncluttered, apart from four telephones. Briggs settled in behind it and gestured for her to take the seat opposite.

  ‘Members of the public don’t often wander in here, love,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘What can I do for you? I hear someone’s got a sick kid.’

  ‘I have to talk to a fellow who works here,’ Anna said. ‘Ivo Katich. Do you know him?’

  ‘Steve Katich, we call him. Yeah, I know him. He’s a foreman of the painting crews. He’s got two sons, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got some bad news about Petar, the younger one. He’s very ill.’

  ‘You a relative?’

  ‘No, I’m a friend of his son. It’s really important I speak to him. It’s a matter of life and death.’

  ‘I suppose you know Steve’s been in the newspapers recently. A lot of bullshit. He’s a good bloke.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with that.’

  ‘You’re not a journalist, are you?’

  ‘Look, could you tell him it’s about his son Petar? He’s in a very bad way. My name is Anna Rosen. Will you tell him why I’m here? I’m sure he’ll want to speak to me.’

  ‘There are blokes from his team mixing paint down here on this level, but he’s somewhere up on the bridge.’

  ‘Can you find him?’

  ‘Life and death, you reckon?’

  ‘It’s critical.’

  ‘Tell you what, Anna,’ said Briggs, picking up one of the phones. ‘Why don’t you go over there and make us a cuppa while I see if I can find him.’

  Anna made a pot of tea while Briggs worked the phones. She poured a mug and took it over to him.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ Briggs said, spooning sugar into it. ‘Steve says he’ll meet you upstairs. There’s a rec room inside the pylon, up above the roadway. A bit of a hike, I’m afraid.’

  She was about to ask how to get there when there was a knock on the door and a younger man entered. He did a comical double take when he noticed Anna.

  ‘Hello, Briggsy. Not interrupting anything, am I?’

  ‘Come in, mate. This is Miss Rosen,’ Briggs said, ignoring the innuendo. ‘I want you to escort her up to the smoko room. Steve Katich is going to meet her there.’

  ‘Lucky old Steve.’ The young man winked. ‘Win the lottery, did he?’

  ‘Pull your head in, Hoges,’ said Briggs sharply. ‘One of Steve’s sons is in a bad way. She’s come to give him the news.’

  ‘Oh jeez, righto.’ The young man turned to Anna, a crestfallen expression on his handsome face. ‘Sorry, Miss Rosen, I was just pulling his leg.’

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘Paul,’ he said, shaking her hand vigorously. ‘We’ll get our skates on, then. It’s a lot of stairs. Not a smoker, are you?’

  ‘I am. Is that a problem?’

  ‘Nah, I am too.’ His eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘Might have to stop for one halfway. Give you a chance to catch your breath.’

  Anna laughed.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Paul, leading her out the door by her elbow. ‘See ya ’round like a rissole, boss.’

  ‘Behave yourself, Hoges, or I’ll cut your overtime.’

  Outside the office Anna discreetly disengaged herself from the garrulous Paul, who obviously fancied himself as a ladies’ man. He had blond, tanned good looks and the lean athletic build of a surfer. With all that came the whiff of arrogance that Anna had long associated with such men.

  *

  After they had climbed twelve flights of stairs they came to a landing with a doorway. Paul led her into a high-ceilinged room with a long narrow window. There was an old wooden table and chairs and half a dozen public service-issue green vinyl armchairs scattered around a battered coffee table that was littered with old copies of Pix, Man, the Sun and the Mirror. A series of topless centrefolds were taped to the wall and Anna had the same irksome feeling that assailed her every time she entered a men-only domain, as if the locker room stench of testosterone clung to the place.

  Paul noticed her discomfort. ‘It’s the smoko room,’ he said with a grin. ‘Women’s lib’s not big around here. So, listen, I’ll have to leave you. Steve’ll be down in a minute. When you’re finished, dial 9 on that wall phone and Briggsy’ll send someone to fetch you back down.’

  He turned to leave, then stopped at the doorway.

  ‘If you want to meet up for a drink later, I’m headed for the Harbour View. Just up the road. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll see how I’m feeling.’

  ‘Stiff drink, game of pool … Fix you right up.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Anna sat at the table to wait. Five minutes later the door opened and its frame filled with a silhouette. A hulking figure in paint-spotted overalls came into the light and her eyes were drawn to a grim face with cold, dark eyes. He was clearly the progenitor of Marin Katich, but the depredations of time had thickened the body and coarsened the features of a once handsome man.

  Anna stood, but made no move towards him. She found that her heart was pounding. ‘Mr Katich?’ Even to herself she sounded tentative.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered gruffly, moving to the other side of the table.

  While she sat back down again, he remained standing.

  ‘You say you have news about Petar. So, tell me.’

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’

  ‘No.’

  He was even taller than Marin, broad across the shoulders and thick through the chest. He stared down at her with imperious contempt. Anna, as she guessed was his intention, was duly intimidated.

  ‘I went to the South Coast to see Petar at your farm,’ she said, her voice quavering. ‘He was in a very bad way. He needs help. I think he needs psychiatric help.’

  ‘You are a medical doctor, Miss Rosen? You have some qualification to say such things?’

  ‘I know when someone is suffering. I think he’s suicidal.’

  ‘You don’t know Petar. You know nothing of him. He was always the same after his mother ran off and left him, always suffering from his nerves. He’s a troubled boy.’

  You are the source of his troubles, she thought, staring up at the remorseless creature who seemed to bristle with barely contained rage.

  Anger lent strength to her words.

  ‘He’s not a boy, Mr Katich. I can only tell you what I saw for myself. I watched him put a loaded gun to his head. His finger was on the trigger, but he was so drunk that he collapsed. I helped him to his bedroom to sleep it off and, when he came to, I caught him injecting heroin.’

  ‘How dare you! A journalist! On my property—’

  ‘Would you prefer I’d left Petar lying on the ground where he collapsed? You should be thanking me.’

  ‘Oh yes—thank you, thank you very much, Miss Rosen … Thank you for sneaking into my property to spy on my son. Did you go through the cupboards while you were there? A journalist! As God is my witness, your breed has no morals. You come up from the sewers. Rats gnawing away my guts. I’ve met many journalists. Not one I trust for a minute.’

  ‘You’re his father. I’m shocked that you care more about who’s been on your property than for Petar’s welfare.’

  ‘I am his father, yes. I care for my son his whole life. I know him. And I know you. I know who is your father. The filth you spring from. We don’t need help from your kind.’

  ‘My kind?’

  ‘Communists! The same people who destroy my country.’

  ‘I don’t much care what you think about me, Mr Katich, but I’m not a communist. I came here to talk to you about Petar.’

&
nbsp; ‘Now we’ve talked. Good. Is finished.’

  ‘Did you know that the police went to Khandalah this morning to arrest him?’

  Katich lowered himself into a chair and leaned across the table. ‘What! What are you saying?’

  ‘Police went to the farm this morning at dawn, but Petar wasn’t there. The whole place was cleaned of all his belongings, but there was no sign of him. They found blood on his mattress. Do you know anything about this?’

  Katich raised two huge paint-stained hands to his face. His fingers kneaded at his temples for a time, until he lifted his head and stared back at her.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you are talking about,’ he said, quieter now.

  ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was Petar involved in the Sydney bombings?’

  ‘Are you crazy? To ask me such things!’

  ‘He feels guilty about the people who were blown up on George Street.’

  ‘What? You say Petar tells you this?’

  ‘He’s been keeping a journal. He wrote it in there.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Katich slammed both hands on the table and then pointed a finger at her. ‘You have something private of my son’s? So, is true. You search through his belongings. You trespass and you steal! It’s you the police should be arresting.’

  ‘Petar gave it to me, Mr Katich.’

  Anna lied without compunction. She told herself she was lying to a liar so it didn’t matter, it didn’t count. She could live with it.

  ‘He wanted me to have it. There is much in it about you.’

  ‘Petar is not in his right mind. You tell me this yourself, and yet you take advantage of him. You make me sick.’ Ivo Katich jumped back to his feet, towering over her again, his voice filled with menace. ‘Get out of here! Get out of my sight! Or I won’t be responsible for what happens.’

  Anna had grown used to his tactics. She felt she was getting under his skin now and dared to taunt him further.

  ‘What are you going to do? Throw me off the bridge?’

  Katich moved towards her around the table. ‘You think I wouldn’t do that?’

  There was such vehemence in him that Anna stood up and put the chair between them, as one might prepare to fend off a wild animal.

  ‘You like to make threats, don’t you,’ she said. ‘You bullied your sons, held them under your thumb. I won’t be intimidated by you.’

  Katich took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘I know what you are. How you get men to talk. Did you fuck Petar, too?’

  ‘So you know about me and Marin?’

  ‘I know all about women like you.’ He jabbed his finger close to her face. ‘Women who reek of sex.’ He leaned forward, his face grotesque, contorted.

  Anna reeled back. ‘Get away from me.’

  Katich moved closer. ‘I know the smell that comes off you. Some women give off this smell, like animals. They wrap men around their fingers.’

  ‘Marin would never forgive you for this.’

  He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Young men are weak.’

  ‘Marin is not weak, and he’s nothing like you.’

  ‘You may have fucked him, but you don’t know my son.’

  Anna stepped backwards. She imagined him chasing her around the table, in some kind of dark farce. But the fear in her had now evaporated and, rather than fumbling for words, she became more articulate. ‘You’ve really taken off your mask, haven’t you? It’s easy now to see the monster behind it. I think Petar saw it too. He saw you, didn’t he? He knows what you really are, and it drove him mad.’

  Katich suddenly put both hands on the table, as if he planned to scramble across it and strangle her. Then he screamed at her: ‘Stay away from my sons, you Jewish whore!’

  Anna was so shocked she lost all sense of caution. ‘Now come the words you’ve been thinking all along,’ she said mockingly.

  ‘Stay away from my sons, or you’ll regret it.’

  ‘Stop pretending you care about either of them except as reflections of your own ego. You abandoned Petar. You left him alone to rot in the bush. You care nothing for him. He must remind you too much of his mother.’

  Katich hit the table with such force she thought it might splinter. She flinched as he shouted at her, ‘Shut your filthy whore mouth!’

  ‘No, I won’t.’ She risked a last roll of the dice. ‘You have nothing but contempt for Petar. That’s obvious. But what about Marin? Your “real” son, as you must surely think of him. And yet you sent him to his death in Bosnia.’

  ‘He’s not dead!’

  ‘They’re all dead. You sent them all to their deaths.’

  ‘Marin is not among them.’

  ‘He escaped?’

  Katich seemed to gather his wits and she imagined him realising that the clever little Jew had gotten under his skin.

  ‘Get out!’ he said with quiet intensity.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No more talk. This was a mistake. Forget about Marin. You’ll never see him again. Now get out.’

  Anna reeled out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She heard a chair crash against it. She was shaken to her core, but there was one thought in her head: He’s alive! Marin is alive!

  15.

  Monday, 28 June 1972

  A bloodless dawn crept over Mt Radusa. Marin Katich lay, cold and stiff, hidden in a cleft of the mountain. He had volunteered to take the last watch rather than lie awake in the claustrophobic cave. As the alien wilderness below came slowly into focus through the mist, blackbirds were startled into flight. Thousands of them rose from its depths, smudging the sky with dark patterns. This should have been a beautiful thing, but their cries filled him with a premonition of terror.

  Marin gripped his cold weapon. Vili Ersek was sleeping next to him like a puppy. He kicked him softly, until Ersek opened his eyes.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Shut up,’ Marin whispered. ‘Go wake the others.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something’s moving down there. Be quick.’

  They were above a cave and there was a hidden entrance that allowed Ersek to climb back inside it.

  Blackbirds continued to swirl above Marin as he scanned the forest floor through his scope. He moved the rifle back and forth, adjusting for its different balance and weight with the suppressor screwed onto the barrel.

  Ambroz Andric came scrambling up in a low crouch.

  ‘What is it, Katich?’

  ‘Something spooked the birds.’

  Andric detached the scope from his own rifle and lay on the limestone ledge, searching the dark valley for movement. Ersek and Vegar crept up beside them.

  ‘Don’t let anyone else up here, for fuck’s sake,’ Marin whispered.

  ‘I’m not stupid,’ Vegar said. ‘Lovric has taken two men to a position on the other side of the entrance. See anything?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Marin was starting to think it had been a false alarm when Andric stiffened.

  ‘My two o’clock,’ he said.

  Marin swung the Steyr to his right, caught movement in the scope and stopped. A figure in camouflage emerged from the forest cradling an automatic weapon. A big man. He was alone. A scout, perhaps.

  ‘He’s heading straight for the cave,’ said Andric. ‘Take him out, Katich.’

  The man’s face filled Marin’s scope. He was older, with a big drooping moustache. Fifty or so. His father’s age. Marin let his breath out, his finger on the trigger. Probably had a wife and children.

  He hesitated.

  ‘Katich!’ Andric snapped.

  Still he hesitated. But then there was a sound to his right—a sound like someone stapling a thick pile of papers, the sound of a suppressed subsonic round. The old soldier in his scope wheeled and went down. Vegar had shot him.

  They waited. The man didn’t move. Didn’t call out. No one else came out of the woods.

  It began to rain. Vegar
slapped Ersek on the shoulder. ‘Vili, here’s your chance.’

  Ersek looked up apprehensively. ‘For what?’

  ‘To prove your worth. To prove you’re not a little coward.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Get down there and see if that Serb is really dead. And take his weapon and ammo and any food he’s got in that pack. We’re going to need it.’

  ‘How do you know he’s a Serb?’

  ‘He’s trying to kill us, isn’t he?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So he must be a Serb.’ Vegar laughed. ‘Who else would chase a bunch of Croats up a mountain?’

  Ersek produced an edgy smile and looked over at Marin, who refused to meet his eyes.

  ‘Get down there quick,’ said Vegar. ‘Or I’ll wipe that shit-eating grin off your face.’

  They watched Ersek scramble clumsily down the steep slope, slipping on the wet limestone as the rain grew heavier. Marin followed him through the scope. On the forest floor Ersek ran crouched, his submachine gun in two hands. He hopped over a log like a rabbit and ran the short distance to the body. He checked for a pulse, turned his face up to them and gave a thumbs up.

  ‘Does that mean he’s dead?’ asked Andric.

  Vegar shrugged. ‘We forgot to agree on a signal.’

  ‘That one’s counterintuitive,’ said Marin.

  Vegar decided for them. ‘I say thumbs up means he’s dead.’

  They watched Ersek strip the body of weapons, ammunition and a small pack. He looked up, wiped rain from his eyes and gave a second thumbs up. Then he rose to a crouch again and ran towards them.

  As he hopped back over the log, a shot rang out from somewhere in the forest. The back of Ersek’s head exploded.

  Marin flinched. Ersek’s body pitched forward into the ground, a tangle of dead limbs.

  Vegar cried out, but his voice was quickly drowned by a torrent of fire from hidden positions in the forest. It was concentrated on the cave mouth, but bullets whined over their heads. The three of them flattened behind cover.

  Marin snatched a look and saw two groups of soldiers, running from either side of the forest. ‘They’re trying to outflank us!’

  Infantrymen in the forest kept up cover fire on the cave. They still had not spotted the defensive position above it. Marin swung his rifle to the attackers on the right. Lovric would have to deal with the threat on his side. The rain had stopped, but it was unnaturally dark under the low cloud cover.