The Heart of Hell

by Alen Mattich

  “Would you have encouraged someone else to do so? That is to say, encouraged someone else to interfere with such an operation, had it existed?”

  “I don’t see how your question is materially different from what you’ve asked already.”

  “Would you please answer my question.”

  “I refer you to my previous answer.”

  Anzulović looked from della Torre to the interviewers. Della Torre took a final drag of his Lucky and rubbed it out in the ashtray.

  “Whether at your instigation or not,” Grimston continued, “did someone else interfere directly with this operation?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Who else knew about what was going on?”

  “No one.”

  “Your colleague Julius Strumbić?”

  “I don’t know what he knew. I don’t know what Rebecca told him. They had . . . intimate conversations.”

  Grimston nodded. Another, shorter silence.

  “If the Montenegrin thought you were involved in planning his liquidation, why did he let you swim to shore?”

  “Maybe he thought I’d drown.”

  “He could have guaranteed it.”

  “Maybe he’s a good sport.”

  “Did you collude with the Montenegrin in the murder of any of the three United States citizens?”

  “No.”

  “It seems strange to me that he should have let you swim to shore but that he threw Rebecca overboard with her hands tied. She had no chance of surviving. Was that the sign of a good sport? Drowning a defenceless woman?”

  “She was a professional assassin and she had tried to kill him. I was just a go-between,” della Torre said.

  There was a long pause. Dawes glanced over at Grimston, but Grimston had leaned slightly forward in his seat, keeping his eyes on della Torre.

  John Dawes broke the silence. “Mr. della Torre, since this is an informal conversation, I won’t challenge your assumption other than to say it is incorrect, and that Rebecca’s only intention was to persuade the target of our investigation to surrender himself to American justice so he could be made to answer for the murders he committed on American soil.”

  “Mr. Dawes, you may continue with that fiction for the purposes of any record being made, but you and I know you are being disingenuous.”

  Dawes smiled in an exaggerated show of patience. “We’re not here to throw around accusations. Shall we continue?” he said, after a moment’s silence. “Your contention is that the Montenegrin was punishing Rebecca for what he thought her intentions were. Surely, since you helped her, he’d have wanted you dead too.”

  “Is that a question or an assertion?”

  “I am asking why he should have sought to save you and to kill Rebecca.”

  “You seem disappointed that I survived. Like I said, I don’t think he particularly cared one way or the other with me. He was inclined to give me a chance.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, I suppose, he knew my role was merely to offer an introduction.”

  “Yet you were instrumental in . . . ah . . . arranging the contact between Rebecca and the Montenegrin.”

  “Yes.”

  “He forgave you for that?”

  “I suppose he must have.”

  “Mr. della Torre, your good fortune is a little hard to believe.”

  “Isn’t that the nature of luck? Then again, maybe he wanted me to live so that I could tell you what happened. As a warning against trying it again.”

  There was another long pause. Della Torre stared longingly at the coffees on the table. He and Anzulović had drunk theirs but the other two remained untouched. He wondered whether the Americans would notice if he helped himself.

  “What was Mr. Strumbić’s role in these events?” Grimston said.

  “He offered use of his house on Šipan.”

  “The house the two men were murdered in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he provide any other services?”

  “He was useful in getting us down to Dubrovnik, and there he did some background investigation into the Montenegrin for Rebecca.”

  “He left early to go back to Zagreb, at Rebecca’s request.”

  “Yes. I believe Mr. Dawes travelled with him on the flight.”

  “But he returned to Dubrovnik immediately after,” Grimston said.

  “I think so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he . . . he had some business.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Could it have been business with the Montenegrin?”

  Yes, della Torre thought, but not in the way you suppose.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did Mr. Strumbić set up Rebecca?” Grimston asked, catching della Torre’s eyes, holding them, refusing to look away.

  “I . . . I don’t know.” Della Torre broke eye contact, focusing on his cigarette, trying not to look as though he was lying.

  “Yet you made an indication to her that he’d interfered with her plans, did you not?”

  “I could have been wrong.”

  “Weren’t you directed by your own defence minister to give Rebecca the utmost help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you?”

  “Within the limits of law.” Della Torre crushed the cigarette and lit another one straight away, breathing the smoke in deep. As he exhaled, it curled blue towards the high ceiling.

  “Law that permitted this man to organize murders around the world.”

  “Extrajudicial killing is as illegal in this country — in Yugoslavia — as it is in any civilized place. But many countries perform executions within the restrictions of law.”

  “Please, Mr. della Torre. In Yugoslavia your organization, the UDBA, practised extrajudicial killings for decades, all over the world.” Grimston hammered away in his polite but unyielding tone. “And the Montenegrin led those killings for at least three of those years, after having been involved directly for almost two decades.”

  “If I may correct your observations, my job these past five years was to investigate the UDBA’s assassination program and to determine whether its killings were done within the scope of Yugoslav law or not. Most of the cases followed due process. Our due process. They were sanctioned by the presidency and the high court. You may not like it. I don’t like it. But capital punishment was as legal in Yugoslavia as it is in the United States. And practised.”

  “In the United States, people are given their say in court before they’re condemned to death,” Grimston said. “But we’re not here to debate American justice.”

  Della Torre shrugged.“Here, in absentia rulings are . . . were legal. I’m not sure about the current state of affairs in Croatia.” But he would have bet on the continuity of those laws from the Yugoslav state: in absentia justice and subsequent execution of the sentence.

  “Is Mr. Strumbić as morally fastidious as you are?”

  All during the conversation, della Torre had been working hard to keep his nerves in check. But that question almost made him laugh out loud.

  “The question seems to amuse you, Mr. della Torre.” Grimston’s expression was set hard.

  “The smoke tickled my lungs.”

  “Maybe you should think about quitting, then. But I’ll take it from your reaction that Mr. Strumbić is less scrupulous than you are on matters of ethics.” The American was needle-sharp.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, no, you didn’t,” said Dawes. “But it doesn’t matter; this isn’t testimony. Just a little chinwag between old friends.” He sat back in his chair. Della Torre wondered whether he saw the American’s lips curl with the faintest trace of a smile. “Do you know where Mr. Strumbić is?”

&
nbsp; “No,” della Torre answered.

  “Where do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think the Montenegrin did to Mr. Strumbić what he did to Rebecca and the others?”

  Della Torre shrugged.

  “You don’t, do you. Is that because he helped the Montenegrin in setting them up?”

  Della Torre shrugged again.

  “Maybe that’s because you think Mr. Strumbić has fled the country? That maybe he’s gone . . . oh, I don’t know. To Britain?”

  Della Torre shot a look at Anzulović. Anzulović looked back, his expression blank, his eyes drooping. Maybe he hadn’t understood Dawes’s question. Maybe he didn’t know what they were talking about. Maybe.

  “I don’t know why you should think that,” della Torre said.

  Grimston watched della Torre closely. Della Torre held the man’s eyes for a long while and then looked away.

  “Mr. della Torre, we would appreciate it if you would testify to these and other facts in your statement to a United States medical examiner.”

  Della Torre was silent, wondering at the implications of the request. “This would necessitate your making a statement under oath within a United States–administered jurisdiction,” Grimston said. “That could be the embassy in Belgrade, though we appreciate it might cause you difficulty. So Rome or Vienna would do equally well.”

  And once in the embassy, he would be extradited to the United States. Then he’d be locked up as an enemy of the state, without trial. It unsettled him to think that his safety, his temporary immunity from these Americans, was down to the fact that no country in the world recognized Croatia as an independent state.

  “I’ll give it some thought,” della Torre said, and stood up to end the meeting.

  None of the others followed suit. Della Torre tried not to be obviously self-conscious. He had a sudden inkling that if he tried the doors they wouldn’t open. Dawes smirked. Even here, the Americans exert their power, della Torre thought as he stepped over to the French windows and lit another cigarette.

  “Of course, we could type up the minutes of our conversation today. We’ve recorded it, by the way; I knew you wouldn’t mind,” Grimston said. “And you could sign the documents without leaving Zagreb. That ought to be sufficient for the examiner.”

  “What’s the catch?” della Torre asked.

  “Catch? There’s no catch,” Grimston said. “But we would like some help. To apprehend Mr. Strumbić.”

  Della Torre had put the blame on Strumbić for the failed American mission to kill the Montenegrin and thus had implicated him in the Americans’ deaths. And these men now wanted him to compound the sin of bearing false witness with helping to arrange Strumbić’s murder. Because that, he had little doubt, was what it would lead to, whether it was a bullet in the back down a filthy alley or a lethal injection in the sterile death chamber of a federal penitentiary.

  Della Torre laughed. “What, so I take a flight to London on the promise that you’ll leave me alone once you have your hands on Julius?” Once he was out of the country, their promises, he knew, would be worthless.

  “No, not to London. You’d only have to go to Dubrovnik.”

  Della Torre turned to face the man, confusion etched into his expression.

  “That’s where we think he is, Mr. della Torre. In Dubrovnik.”

  Della Torre struggled to keep his jaw from dropping. Anzulović looked just as taken aback. He’d understood that much of the conversation. Dubrovnik? Was that what Mrs. Strumbić had been hinting at? It seemed absurd. And yet, what had she said? The staircase he’d admired. It came to him that there was a staircase he’d admired in Strumbić’s island villa, until he learned it had been stolen from someone else’s house.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” della Torre said finally.

  “Don’t think too long, Mr. della Torre. You can let us know through Mr. Horvat’s office. He knows how to get in touch with us.”

  The girl showed della Torre and Anzulović out. “Gentlemen,” was all she said. The Americans stayed back, offering perfunctory goodbyes.

  The front door closed behind them. Della Torre noticed that the terracotta tiles on the terrace were showing their age, cracked from years of frosts. The gardens had once been beautiful, as elegant as the interior of the house, but now the pergola of vines was overgrown, weeds broke through between the paving stones, and the lawn was stubbly and scarred by molehills. It seemed that whatever senior UDBA official had had tenancy of the house was no longer around. If he was a Serb, it was likely he had left in the exodus at the turn of the year. Della Torre wondered whether Horvat was easing his way into the property. Good luck to its real owners.

  Their driver was standing by the Zastava.

  “Why don’t you take the car back. We’ll walk,” Anzulović said. He sniffed the air, damp with the threat of drizzle. “Or we’ll take the tram.”

  “I take it you didn’t find that rewarding,” Anzulović said as they passed through the wrought-iron gate, held open by the soldier in dress uniform.

  “Did you understand any of it?” della Torre asked.

  “A little. Enough to know they want Strumbić and that they think he’s in Dubrovnik. The rest, it doesn’t matter. The translated transcript will pass across my desk on its way to Horvat,” Anzulović said. “Any ideas why they think Strumbić is in Dubrovnik?”

  “Because they have better intelligence than we do?”

  “Then why the hell don’t they just pick him up?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because of the blockade.” In the past few days Dubrovnik had been subject to a land assault by the Yugoslav forces, Serbs and Montenegrins mostly, cutting off the city and its littoral from the rest of Croatia. At the same time, the Yugoslav navy had raised a sea blockade.

  “But they want you to help find him?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “What do you think?”

  “They want me and Strumbić dead. Or in some military jail. Both, probably. You can bet they tried to find him themselves, without any luck. I’m the bait to lure him out of whatever velvet-­lined hole he’s curled up in. And then they’ll have us both.”

  “You’d think they’d have learned by now,” Anzulović said. “I mean, you fucked it royally for them with the Montenegrin. Why are they putting themselves in a position for you to screw them again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They walked through the autumn leaves, down the hill, back towards the centre of the city. Rich, earthy smells filled the air, mushrooms and the compost from the forest floor. Zagreb was a green city, pocket-sized and close to wilderness.

  “So, are you going to help?”

  Della Torre was silent for a long time, long enough for Anzulović to suspect he might not have heard him. Something deep inside della Torre rebelled. A visceral reflex, like the urge to vomit. He was tired of running, tired of being set in clockwork motion at the whim of others. And he was tired of evading his responsibilities to Irena, to his father, to Strumbić. To himself.

  They were back in the old town, gloomy under grey skies, when della Torre said, “No. No, I don’t think I’ll help.”

  THEY CAME FOR him three days later.

  Della Torre was on his way to the office, called in earlier than usual by Anzulović. Around the corner from his apartment, a young couple was horsing around on the sidewalk. The boy had taken her scarf and was making her jump for it. University students, della Torre thought. Wealthy ones, in their foreign jeans and Benetton sweaters. Maybe a pair of Yugo-Germans visiting family. No, the clothes weren’t quite German. It made him smile that there could be lightheartedness at a time of such general despair.

  He stepped to one side in an effort to avoid them, and from the corner of his eye he saw a man step towards him from a building�
��s shadowy doorway. Before he could react, the man had put a hand on della Torre’s shoulder with a firm grip and slurred a greeting. He was unkempt, unshaven, his hair askew, his clothes rough and patched.

  The man’s thick accent was impenetrable. Della Torre wondered if he was speaking Slovene.

  “Wish I could help, but you might just want to sleep it off,” della Torre said.

  The man continued to hold on to him, one hand gripping his shoulder, the other his arm. He was leaning against him, almost pushing him.

  “Mister, I won’t say it again. Let go of me and find somewhere to get a bit of rest and tidy yourself up.”

  The tramp ignored him.

  “I’m from the UDBA,” della Torre said.

  Those four letters could chill the blood of a Yugoslav and sober a drunk. People might shrug off the ordinary cops, dim flatfeet who shuffled away after being palmed a couple of folded banknotes. But everyone down to a primary school child knew the UDBA were another matter. They could make people disappear into the vortex of state security, only to emerge years later. If ever.

  Della Torre began to register that this tramp was somehow different from the usual drunk peasant. He didn’t smell. His teeth were straight and fine.

  And then della Torre saw the young couple approach. Maybe they were coming to offer help, to mediate. By the time he realized they weren’t, the rear door of a parked Mercedes saloon had opened directly in front of him and the young couple were pushing him into the rear seat.

  A man sat by the far door. The young man edged della Torre over and shoved in beside him. The woman got into the front seat. The tramp remained on the pavement, looking both ways, speaking into the lapel of his jacket.

  The instant the doors shut, the driver pulled into the road.

  “Please be calm and sit still, Mr. della Torre,” the man to his left said in American-accented English.

  Della Torre leaned back and looked up at the car’s fabric-lined roof. He didn’t need to ask who they were or what they wanted. All he wondered was how they would get him out of the country.

  They could be in Austria in little more than two hours. In Slovenia in less than one. Or at the airport and on a private plane in twenty minutes.