Killing Pilgrim

by Alen Mattich

  The car rattled and shook as he tried to drive forward. He hadn’t stopped for fuel on the way, but the gauge told him he had nearly a quarter of a tank left. Yet the juddering wouldn’t stop.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening,” the Montenegrin said, feeling another wave of cold air wash into the car as he rolled down the window.

  A third policeman came over and joined the young one standing by the driver’s-side door. By now most of the heat had leaked out of the car. The cold was even more biting here by the sea than inland. This policeman also started speaking Swedish, until the first policeman told him, “English.”

  “You have maybe low fuel?”

  “No. There’s still diesel in the tank.”

  “Ah, engine is maybe cold?” The policeman took his glove off and felt the car’s bonnet, and then shrugged. “You stop engine.”

  The Montenegrin turned off the engine. Despite the cold he felt sweat run down along his spine; he felt it form patches on his chest and under his arms. His hand trembled, hovering over the gearshift.

  “Now you start engine.” The Montenegrin turned the ignition. The engine caught but ran unevenly, as if it wanted to stall. Ahead, the ferry’s horn sounded, along with an announcement that he couldn’t understand. The younger policeman waved a van around the Montenegrin’s car towards the ferry and then another car, not stopping either of them.

  The Swedish policemen spoke to each other and then the one with the dog went towards the back of the car. Had he locked the boot? Was the dog trained to detect drugs? Would there be enough scent in this cold?

  The young policeman stood by the passenger-side door, making a motion for the Montenegrin to roll down his window completely. He put his head and one shoulder in through the window. The Montenegrin pushed his heel under the seat, keeping the gun wedged back.

  “We push, you drive, soft on clutch. Much gas but soft on clutch. Okay?”

  The Montenegrin nodded. He revved the engine and lifted up as gently as he could on the clutch. The engine heaved but the car still managed to move forward. He steered it towards the back of the woman’s car just as she pulled away towards the ferry.

  The young policeman ran alongside the car, his shoulder on the door frame.

  “You not stop. Go fast now, just go, up into boat,” he said.

  The Montenegrin wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, but the policeman kept waving him on. Maybe the cop didn’t want to organize a tow truck. Better to let the ferry company deal with a breakdown.

  “Go now fast, up into boat,” the policeman shouted at him.

  A ferry official stood at the side of the boat, arms crossed, watching the events.

  The Montenegrin managed to continue his shaky progress, pressing the accelerator until the engine whined, getting enough momentum going to get the car into the ferry’s maw and into an easy spot, moments before the heavy chains started to rattle, lifting the ramp. He caught a glimpse of the policemen looking pink and pleased with themselves, waving him off. He waved his thanks back.

  For a long time, the Montenegrin sat in the cold of the car as the ship’s engines sent a deep tremor through him. He sat in awe and fear of his own luck.

  Perhaps it would evaporate now. Perhaps the passport people would conduct a search en route, as they did on trains sometimes.

  The ship set off.

  It wouldn’t be a long passage. Drivers generally stayed in their cars on the ferry, though there was seating up top for foot passengers. There were few vehicles in the hold; it seemed to be a quiet morning. The Montenegrin got out of the car, fished the gun out from under the seat, wrapped it in a chamois cloth, and inserted it into his jacket pocket. He shut the door, not bothering to lock it behind him, and climbed up to the passenger level and then out onto the open deck. The morning was drained of colour apart from a washed-out blueness. The passage of the ship across the strait made a cutting breeze across the deck.

  He hadn’t worn his gloves, and his hand stuck where he touched the steel gunwale. The cold burned and he jerked his hand back. He leaned over to where he could see the green-grey water, almost metallic and hard. Beyond the bows, he could see the castle that guarded Helsingborg’s Danish twin, Helsingor, ghosts watching from its parapets. He huddled in his coat, regretting leaving his gloves and hat in the car. The breeze whipped tears from his eyes.

  He stood at the rail on the side of the ship and fished a fresh packet of cigarettes from an inside pocket. He lit the cigarette, crumpled the cellophane wrapper and foil paper, and dropped them into the sea. With a cursory look around, he reached into his pocket and took out the chamois-covered gun.

  An arm grabbed him, causing him to half-turn and, as he did, to drop the gun on the metal deck with a clank. Stupid of him not to have been more careful. How could he have missed the man in the steward’s uniform?

  The steward spoke angrily at him, though the Swedish cadences made it sound almost like a song. Once again the Montenegrin went through the explanation that he understood nothing. The man relented slightly.

  “It is forbidden from throwing things off the boat. Forbidden,” he said. “No rubbish in the sea.”

  The Montenegrin had trapped the Smith & Wesson under the ball of his foot. Gingerly, like a professional footballer, he got his toes under the gun. As he bent down as if to pick it up, he managed to flip it over the fifteen-centimetre gunwale.

  The gun tumbled with a metallic clatter against the side of the ship before it disappeared.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I am very clumsy in this cold. The cigarette paper slipped out. And now I’ve also lost my Thermos. I must remember to wear gloves.”

  The man nodded, suddenly sympathetic. “Yes, it happens sometimes. Sometimes people drop cameras too. But usually it is because they are throwing rubbish over the side.”

  “No,” the Montenegrin said regretfully. “Now I have no coffee.”

  “Come, it is too cold here. We have good coffee. But if you are in a car you must hurry to drink, because we will be in port in twenty minutes. It is too cold to be outside and the news is too terrible.”

  “Yes,” the Montenegrin said. “I heard. I am very sorry.”

  “We are all very sorry. Many did not like Palme, but for him to be killed is a very bad thing. A very bad thing. Come, I will buy you coffee.”

  DUBROVNIK, AUGUST 1991

  He was fast asleep. It was a deep, hard sleep, the sleep of a drowned man. Someone was shaking him, but in his half-slumber he dreamed it was the storm waves battering him against the rocks.

  “Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” Rebecca whispered in his ear. “Wake up and wake up quietly.”

  “What? What time is it? Is it morning already?” Della Torre’s tongue was thick and furry.

  “It is for you. Now. Clothes on, quick. We haven’t got much time.”

  He dressed, stumbling, half drunk, barely sensible. Why was this woman forever waking him?

  “Not that way. Here, out the window.”

  “What?” Was this, he wondered, part of his dream? No, he was cold and irritated in the way he became when woken in the middle of the night.

  “Out the window, and be quiet.”

  His memory, hard claws on stone, scrabbled for something. Dogs. “What about the dogs?”

  “Don’t worry about the dogs. The front door is locked but the window works fine, so out we go.”

  “They’ll rip our throats out.”

  “The most they could do right now is dribble on you. Come on.”

  He followed Rebecca as quietly as he could, stumbling out the window onto the terrace and from there down the steps to the weathered stone courtyard. The gate was already open. It was dark, barely any moonlight left, so he moved gingerly to avoid stumbling. He could see dog-shaped shadows lying on the ground.

  She led him to the passenger seat of t
he Hilux and then quietly shut the door. When she’d gone around the truck and taken her place behind the wheel, rather than starting the engine she released the handbrake and shifted into neutral, letting gravity take the Hilux backwards down the hill. Its tires crunched gravel, but otherwise the truck made no noise. She let it pick up speed, keeping one hand on the wheel and twisting back so that she could make out the little pool of illuminated road at the bottom of the hill. As they shot into the light, she steered hard, tugging down ferociously and braking at the same time. Della Torre could sense Rebecca’s intense concentration as she strained to keep the truck from falling off the embankment into the water. He felt the driver’s-side wheels come off the road onto a narrow gravel verge, but Rebecca steered back onto the road, where they slowed to a stop.

  Only then did she turn the key to fire up the engine, sliding it into gear and pulling forward, still without lights. Almost instantly they were beyond the reach of the village’s street lamps. Even in daylight, the road could be treacherous for the unwary. In the dark, della Torre was certain she’d crush them into a cliff face or drop them into the bay. She drove slowly, guided by little more than the reflection of a waning moon on the bay’s waters, and a sixth sense.

  Della Torre was by now fully awake, his senses sharpened by adrenaline. “Like to tell me what’s going on?”

  “We’re leaving our host a little earlier than forecast.”

  “Is that because you managed to slit his throat, and now we’re making a run for it before his people slit ours?”

  “No such luck. He left after you went to bed. A car collected him.”

  “You watched?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “I thought you were drunk and asleep.”

  “You were meant to.”

  “Oh. And I take it you had something to do with the dogs. Poisoned?”

  “They’re just having a little sleep.”

  “Hence the steak.”

  “Bingo.”

  “So why are we stealing away in the night like a pair of thieves?”

  “Because that’s exactly what we are.”

  “What?” he said, more in a desire not to believe than out of disbelief.

  That’s when he noticed the mewling sound from behind him. He turned in his seat to see something spread across the back, covered in a blanket.

  “What?” he said. Fear of the truth was dawning on him. “Stop.”

  “Can’t stop now. Got to keep moving, we don’t have much time.”

  They’d gone around a bend in the mountain that dropped into the bay, and they couldn’t see a trace of the fishing village behind them. She’d switched on the parking lights to allow her to speed up.

  “Stop, goddamn it.”

  “Sorry, Gringo. We’re going to have people looking for us before long, and I don’t want to be found. Not yet, anyway.”

  Della Torre twisted around, pressing against her as he did.

  “Hey, watch what you’re doing,” Rebecca said as he climbed with great difficulty over the gearshift and emergency brake into the truck’s back seat. He pulled back the bundled blanket. Snezhana’s mouth was sealed with electrical tape, which also bound her arms and legs.

  “I’ll take these tapes off you, Snezhana. Don’t be afraid. It’s Marko. I’m sorry this is happening. I’m sorry this happened. I had no idea. This may hurt your skin a little. Here we go.”

  She gulped air with harsh, rasping breaths, her eyes wild. He unbound her arms and legs, which shook jerkily. He sat the little girl up in the seat, held her, smoothed her hair, told her that she’d be fine, that he’d make sure she was fine, that she’d be returned to her father quickly, as quickly as he could manage.

  She calmed a little, making sounds that he knew were language but that he couldn’t understand.

  “Snezhana,” he said in Serbo-Croat in a low voice barely above a whisper. “Listen, Snezhana, this will be like an adventure. It will be like The Three Musketeers. You like The Three Musketeers, don’t you? They had jolly adventures, d’Artagnan and Porthos and Athos and Aramis. That’s what this is, an adventure like that. The woman driving the car is —” He thought hard, trying to remember the names of the book’s villains. “— one of Richelieu’s henchmen, and you can be, oh, I don’t know? The Queen. This is just a little game. Don’t be scared.”

  His words seemed to calm her, though now he felt the wetness of the seat where she’d lain. He mopped up the urine as best he could with a cloth from the back of the truck and kept the girl wrapped in the dry part of the blanket.

  They’d reached the little road, the spur that went up the mountain and over the ridge, where they’d gone sightseeing the previous afternoon. He now understood Rebecca’s interest in the route. Though unmarked on the map, it was the only other possible route out of the hemmed-in bay. Anyone watching for them would expect them to go out the way they’d come in, along the waterside road past the narrow inlet separating the inner from the outer bay, and then back through Herceg Novi before turning up towards Dubrovnik. This was also the most direct approach to the smugglers’ border crossing.

  Rebecca now had the lights on as she drove up the tight hairpins.

  “You’re mad,” he said to her. “How do you propose getting the girl over the border? I assume you didn’t manage to find her passport.”

  “You, Gringo, are going to get us all over the border. Children don’t need passports in this country; they can travel on their parents’.”

  “They need to be registered on their parents’ passport.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to say that she needs a hospital badly and has to go to the one in Dubrovnik. Anyone looking at her will know you’re not kidding. And it’s not likely you’d be kidnapping a cripple for any reason, is it?”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “If you don’t, well, you’ll remember I am under the absolute protection of the United States government. As for you, maybe you are and maybe you aren’t. I’ll just tell them you kidnapped the girl and threatened me, forcing me to drive you to the border. How long do you think you’ll live when your friend Mr. Djilas gets hold of you?”

  He turned to the little girl again. “Snezhana, this will be like the story of . . .” He paused. He’d never told a children’s story. What stories did they like? He scratched around his memory but only remembered fragments. Did Hansel and Gretel have a wolf? Then a tune crept into his head. “. . . the Ring. Do you know it?”

  She stammered out a “No.”

  “Ah, you’re in for a treat, because this story has giants and gods and a ring and dragons. Shall I tell it to you?”

  This time she said, “Yes,” with great effort.

  He told her the story Wagner had turned into his epic. He embellished here and there and hummed some of the themes of the great opera cycle, the story of theft and revenge and broken vows.

  Daylight broke. Rebecca kept to the small road along the ridge. A pale white light broke across the sky behind them, though the bowl of the bay below them remained dark. They drove past single houses and through woodland, the track becoming increasingly primitive, gouged from the high meadow, so that for almost a kilometre they bounced hard from rock to rut, Rebecca clinging to what path there was, until at long last they reached tarmac again.

  And then they descended, not as steeply as they’d climbed, to a valley where they finally reached the road that would take them to the border. Only there did they encounter some traffic, a couple of green trucks with canvas. They were on a flat, open stretch, within sight of where the hills formed the border between Croatia and what was left of Yugoslavia, when a Land Rover with military markings turned from a farmer’s ramshackle yard onto the road in front of them, cutting them off, and a car drew up behind.

  Soldiers emerged, pointing their guns at the Hilux.

  “Out,”
one of them shouted. “Everyone out.”

  “We need to get out of the car. Now’s not a time to be funny, okay?” della Torre said to Rebecca.

  Rebecca stepped out with her hands up. Della Torre held one up, the other supporting the little girl. Dawn was edging down the valley, though the air was still cool and damp with the night’s dew. He could smell rosemary and pine resin and the faint traces of wood smoke and ash. The clouds made an uncertain sky.

  A heavily armed soldier approached. He had the wolf flashings on his shoulder.

  “Put the kid back in the truck.”

  The soldier motioned across della Torre with the weapon. He did as he was told.

  Then the soldier prodded him forward to the camouflage-painted Land Rover and into the rear seat, next to another paramilitary. Unaccountably, it amused della Torre that the man had a mullet haircut, like a German footballer from the 1970s. He knew enough to keep his mouth shut. Not least because the man held a blunt-nosed submachine gun aimed at his side. The soldier who’d marched him to the car took his place next to the driver.

  Della Torre watched as Rebecca was led more politely to the other truck. Another soldier got into the driver’s seat of the Hilux and then all three vehicles headed off in convoy towards the farmhouse border post where he’d been entertained by his old sergeant the day before.

  But this time around, his welcome was less cordial. They parked next to the outbuildings by the side of the farmhouse, and the soldier with the machine gun yanked him out of the car. Using the gun like a farmer might use a stick to steer a cow, he pushed della Torre into an ox shed. The heavy wooden door creaked shut and he heard it bolted behind him. He was alone, and for a moment he stood there contemplating the space.

  A feeble naked bulb fixed high on a wall illuminated the disused barn. There were no windows and no other way out, though light glinted between the high beams and the tiled roof. It was roomy, square, with stone walls and a stone floor. He thought it wouldn’t be too difficult to climb the rough-built wall and dislodge a couple of tiles from the roof. He’d be able to make an escape that way. But he suspected he wouldn’t get far. He’d seen at least two dozen militiamen around the farmhouse. There’d be more in the surrounding countryside.