Butcher of Belgrade

by Nick Carter

  A parallel set of tracks ran about thirty yards away, and a slow train was approaching on them. It was going in the direction that I had just come from, heading toward the Dragoman Pass. Somewhere up ahead this train would switch over to the main track.

  It was a big break for me, for it would get me out of this neighborhood in a hurry and in a way that I could avoid the authorities. I quickly crossed over to the other tracks. In a moment the train was moving past me, increasing its slow speed gradually. I waited until the last car, one of several second class coaches, was approaching, and then I started running as fast as I could. I grabbed at the rail of the steps on the rear platform and held on, and the train jerked my legs out from under me. A moment later I was standing on the platform with Hans Richter's radio still in my hand, watching the landscape around Dimitrovgrad slip into the distance.

  In less than five minutes the train passed the spot where the Butcher had met an appropriate death. I saw what looked like a heap of old clothing lying between the tracks, but the debris was not identifiable as a person. The rest of Richter was lying somewhere along the far side of the tracks. I stared pensively at the heap for a long moment, and then it disappeared from sight.

  Ursula would be unhappy that Richter had not been brought back to Bonn for trial. But there had been a kind of justice in the end of his ugly career — a kind of violent retribution.

  Ursula and I would spend tonight in some small room at Crveni Krst. I would touch her body, and we would think only of those warm moments together.

  We had earned the right.