Scorpion Trail

by Archer, Jeffrey

  'Vitez. You?'

  'Zenica. The International Hotel.'

  She wasn't going to suggest they should meet. Leave that to him.

  'And who do you work for?' he asked, unnerved by her coolness.

  'Have you heard of CareNet of New England?'

  'Nope.'

  'It's a disaster agency that helps kids. We hand out medical supplies, and find homes for war orphans.'

  'People to adopt them?' he frowned.

  'Sure. You don't approve?'

  'It is rather controversial . .

  'And that is an old-fashioned, English understatement.'

  Her blue-grey eyes softened. She wasn't altogether disagreeing with him.

  Alex glanced towards the truck. The remaining boxes were being unloaded in an orderly relay. Better to steer clear of the past for now. Keep talking about the present.

  'And what are you in the village for? Medicines, or orphans?' he asked.

  Questions, questions, the biggest one inside her own mind. Why was he really here? But he'd just asked her something ...

  'This one's special. There's a kid here in real danger. You've heard of...'

  She stopped in mid-flow. Hell, she thought. I'm doing it again. Telling him things. It's those soft brown eyes, and the way he listens as if he cares.

  She slipped her mask back in place and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

  'Last time we met.. .' she began, 'you were a spook. M15 wasn't it?' He began to sweat.

  'We've got to talk about that, Lorna. Let's work out when we can meet.. .'

  'Do you still do that?' she interrupted. 'Are you still a spy? Out here?'

  'Give me a break, Lorna.'

  'Gimme a break! You watch too many soaps. Is that why you're here?' she demanded.

  'No, it's not.'

  It's happening again, he thought. Lying to her because the truth's too complicated.

  'I told you, I came here to help ... and to get away. I had problems at home. You know what I mean?' he added, appealing for sympathy. He saw pain in her eyes.

  'Sure,' she nodded. 'I know what you mean.'

  A couple approached, the man in a leather jacket. He had dark, greasy hair and jealous eyes.

  'Loma . . .' Josip snapped, irritated by her intimacy with this stranger.

  'Monika - she say we must hurry.'

  'Okay... okay!' Loma replied. just give me a minute.'

  This time she took Alex by the arm and led him a few metres away.

  'He's my translator,' she explained. 'I've got to go. There's a kid here who lost all her family in a massacre.'

  Mauacre. He had an eerie sensation of a window opening.

  'All right, but let's meet up somewhere. I'm staying opposite the UN camp in Vitez. Any chance you could get there?'

  'I don't know. I've got a lot to fix. .

  'That massacre,' he asked, ignoring her prevarication, 'was it Tulici?'

  'Uhuh,' she acknowledged warily. 'Were you here then?'

  'No. It's just that the way I'd heard it, there weren't any survivors.'

  'Mmm. That's what most people think. It's safer that way.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Loma swallowed hard. Nobody was supposed to know Vildana was in this village.

  'Because if there's a survivor, she might be able to identify the guy who did the killings. And if he knew there was a witness, he'd want to kill her too.'

  She'd said enough.

  'I've got to go.'

  'Hang on!' Alex gripped her arm. 'If this girl can identify the killers...'

  'I didn't say that,' Lorna protested.

  'But if she can identify them, then the UN must be told. They want to put the Tulici killers on trial. Did you know that.'

  'Not my problem! All I'm concerned about is the safety and future happiness of a twelve-year-old.'

  'She's here in this village, you say?'

  Questions. Questions. Just like Belfast.

  'I must go.' Yet she couldn't. Not without fixing to meet him again.

  'Can I come with you?' he pleaded. 'To see the girl?'

  'You have to be kidding,' she protested. 'Do you know what it took to persuade Monika to bring me here? No way., 'How long will you be? I'll wait.'

  Loma shrugged, exasperated. 'I don't know.'

  'I'll wait.'

  She hurried after the others. Monika led them briskly up the street to a half-built house less than fifty metres away.

  Suddenly Alex looked over to the truck. Children riffling the cab for anything consumable.

  'Hey, get out of there!' he yelled, sprinting across. He grabbed at the squirming bodies and yanked them out.

  Ivan appeared and shouted in SerboCroat.

  Alex climbed onto the driving seat. A couple of packs of Marlboros that he'd left on the dashboard were gone.

  'They have nothing. . .' Ivan explained in mitigation.

  'They have now.'

  He looked over to the school. The last of the boxes was being carried inside. McFee started weaving through the crowd towards them.

  'Lots of happy faces in there, now,' he beamed, when he reached them.

  'Where's your lady-friend?'

  'Up the road somewhere.'

  He cocked his head on one side and studied Alex's face.

  'So how was your big reunion? Cut your dick off, did she?'

  Alex smiled. 'Not quite.'

  'Okay. We'd better get a move on. Young Ivan here needs to get back to his folks.'

  'We can't go yet.'

  'What d'you mean?'

  'I have to talk to Loma again, when she's finished doing whatever she's doing.'

  'Oh, great! And how long's that going to be?'

  'I don't know, but not too long.'

  McFee didn't disguise his annoyance.

  'Couldn't you have arranged to meet up this evening or something? At the Vitez cookhouse, maybe.'

  'No.' He wasn't going to explain. 'I'll keep a lookout for her, now you're back to guard the truck.'

  He gave him the keys, pushed open the door and dropped to the ground.

  Monika hustled Lorna down a path of broken bricks at the side of a house.

  The building was made of unrendered breeze-blocks and a concrete frame. The tiled roof was intact, but the windows were polythene.

  Inside, a young couple wearing pullovers and tracksuit trousers stood awkwardly beside a small kitchen table and two plain, wooden chairs. It was the only furniture in the room, which had a bare concrete floor and rough, plastered walls.

  Lorna's head spun in disbelief at what had just happened. Suddenly she feared it had been some extraordinary fantasy and wanted to run back into the road to check he was still there.

  Then she saw the fear on the faces of the Bosnian couple and jerked back to reality. Monika introduced them with names she didn't catch.

  'This man is cousin of friend of Vildana family,'Josip translated. 'Friend who live in Tulici ... Also dead.'

  The woman of the couple began talking volubly, all the while dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

  'She say Vildana very ... well, shocked, I should say,' Josip explained in a whisper. 'She eat and sleep little. Every time she hear gun, she cry and looking somewhere to hide, like animal.'

  'Poor little thing,' Lorna breathed. A child that traumatized might be hard to place.

  The woman put a hand to her mouth and spoke lower.

  'Vildana has something on mouth,' Josip whispered. 'Some mark ... Boys threw stones because of this. She always running away. That's why she alive the woman say. She know all the place to hide.'

  Lorna sensed an abyss opening up. This was no normal child.

  'Monika, we need to talk to the kid,' she pressed, gently. Josip relayed her words.

  The woman dried her eyes and blew her nose. Then she opened the door into the next room. A double mattress and a smaller single one lay on the bare floor. Blankets and bedding were scrunched up at the end of each.

 
; At first Lorna thought no one was in the room. Then she realized that what she'd taken for a pile of clothes in a corner was in fact a child. In bright red pullover and yellow trousers, a multi-coloured scarf draped over her head, and hands covering her face, this was Vildana.

  'Vildana?' the woman coaxed. She walked across and knelt before the cowering girl.

  A tang of salt burned the back of Lorna's throat as she swallowed her welling tears.

  The small hands slid cautiously down the face, exposing dark-brown, frightened eyes. Vildana kept her mouth covered, however.

  The woman talked to her softly in a sing-song voice.

  'She explain who we are,' Josip whispered, resting a hand on Lorna's shoulder and putting his face close to her ear.

  She flinched as the stubble of his chin brushed her cheek and she caught the smell of his hangover breath.

  'Ask Monika if Vildana knows that we're planning to get her out of the country,' she told him brusquely.

  Josip obliged. Monika bobbed her head from side to side as if to say 'yes, but. . .'

  How much of anything did Vildana understand, Lorna began to wonder.

  She crossed the room and kneeled on the rough concrete a few feet in front of the child. Twelve years old. About the same age as Julie was when she'd had to give up caring for her.

  'Hi, Vildana. I'm Loma,' she said, forcing a smile.

  The dark eyes wouldn't look at her. The grubby hands still covered her mouth. Twelve years old and still so much a child. Julie had developed a woman's ways by this age.

  'Vildana? I want to help you if I can. If you'll let me.'

  She beckoned Josip over to translate.

  'Do you want me to help you?'

  Josip let the translation slip softly from his tongue.

  The girl's eyes looked up for guidance. The woman who'd been caring for her nodded.

  'Will you tell me?' Lorna pleaded. 'I want to be your friend, Vildana.'

  Slowly Vildana pulled her hands away from her mouth, eyes watching for the look of distaste which, experience had told her, would flit across the visitor's face.

  A strawberry birthmark. A big one. Poor kid, Loma thought. Such a pretty face otherwise. Maybe the surgeons could fix it.

  Fighting for self-control, Lorna let nothing show. Just smile, she told herself. She'd done it for Julie, she could do it for this girl.

  She reached out. Vildana's cheek felt hot and moist.

  'Do you know where America is?' Lorna coaxed.

  Josip relayed the question. Vildana nodded.

  'Would you like to go live there?'

  She shook her head and the eyes began to fill with tears.

  The woman looked desperate. She hugged the child, then whispered something to Josip.

  'She say they cannot look after her much longer. They only marry few months, and Vildana not their family.'

  'And there's no one else? No uncles, aunts, cousins?'

  'She say no. Vildana father killed months ago, and the rest of her family die at Tulici.'

  Monika beckoned Lorna and Josip to the other side of the room.

  'Well, she say there is nothing for this girl in Bosnia,' he explained.

  They both glanced at the damaged creature in the corner. The problem was how to get her out of the country. Apart from anything else she'd need a passport.

  Lorna turned to the girl again, an idea forming in her head.

  'Vildana, can I see how tall you are?' She held out her hands and beckoned the girl over. Hesitantly Vildana obliged.

  She can walk at least, Lorna thought. Looks more normal standing up. She held her lightly by the shoulders.

  'Monika, can you explain to Vildana that we'll try to find her a nice family to live with, in a place where there's no shooting?'

  Lorna watched the girl's face as Monika talked to her.

  'Tell her she'd have her own room, lots of nice clothes and things."

  She was determined to find something that might bring hope to those tragic eyes.

  No response.

  Hell! This was like walking a minefield, but she'd give it a shot.

  Josip,' she whispered in an aside, 'tell Monika to say to Vildana there'd be doctors in America who'd make her mouth better. She could look as beaufful as a moviestar and have all the boys begging for her to smile at them.'

  Josip coughed.

  'You're sure you want me translate?'

  'Whisper it to Monika. See if she thinks it's a good idea.'

  He did so. Monika's tired eyes seemed to grow in their sockets. She looked across at Lorna as if to say 'how could you?'

  Then the girl's eyes darted from one face to another.

  'She heard you,' Loma whispered.

  Vildana's voice when it came was a husky squeak.

  'She ask if it true,' Josip confirmed.

  'Then we're getting somewhere. Josip, bring Monika next door, would you?'

  Loma walked back into the room with the kitchen table. The other two joined her a moment later.

  'Maybe Vildana will be happy to go with me,' Lorna began. 'But the first problem is how to get her out of here. Would I be able to take her through the checkpoints on the road to Split, without any papers?'

  Josip make a'tchk' sound.

  'Impossible. Armija could shoot you for steal child, and HVO shoot her because she Muslim.'

  'So how do we do it? Ask Monika what's happened in the past.'

  Josip conferred.

  'She say sometimes UN fly children from Sarajevo, but only when television makes big story. Anyway, it impossible to take Viddana to Sarajevo. No.

  Monika say the only way is to hide her in a white truck. There are many go to Split empty.'

  'Hmm.'

  Alex! He had a truck.

  It was as if spring had arrived. Maybe this was the reason they were suddenly meeting again. Somebody up there making the breaks - like they'd done before.

  She grabbed Josip's arm.

  'Hang on here Josip. Get Monika to keep up the persuasion. I got to go see someone.'

  She ran back down the path of broken bricks into the road. Two bearded men in fatigues watched her with cool curiosity, rifles slung lazily across their backs.

  The truck was still there, just beyond her own Land Cruiser. Alex lounged against it. He spotted her and came her way. She slowed to a walk, hurriedly composing her thoughts.

  'The girl's okay?' he asked, seeing the concentration on her face.

  She stopped a few feet away, hands behind her back and chin thrust forward in that intense way she had when there was something important to say. Her blonde hair stuck out spikily as if electrified by the energy inside her head.

  'Are you taking that truck back down to Spliff He read her mind.

  'Well, yes, in a day or two. When we've handed out all the supplies we brought up.'

  She nodded, her whole body rocking with the motion of it. Dare she trust him again?

  The salt and pepper grizzle on his chin might have changed his appearance, but his eyes had the same directness she'd fallen for in that Hampstead pub.

  Oh hell! She had to trust him. No alternative.

  'When you and I ... all those years ago . . .'she began hesitantly. She held out her right hand, fingers cupped as if holding something precious.

  'Ye-es,' he answered, worried about what was coming.

  'We ... we shared something, didn't we?'

  She saw his frown and nearly gave up.

  'This sounds crazy, but I'm talking about fate Alex. You remember,' she floundered, unable to look him in the eye. 'Things that are meant to be?

  We were believers, weren't we? God, I must be mad standing in the middle of all this shit and talking such stuff. .

  'Go on. I'm listening.'

  'Well, you've got to admit it's one hell of a coincidence, that we both end up here, doing the same sort of job?'

  'It certainly is,' he nodded, his mind racing.

  'Okay. Here it is. In that house up the r
oad, there's one totally traumatized twelve-year-old child called Vildana. She needs psychiatric treatment, she needs surgery, and she needs to be gotten away from this place where there are people who want to kill her.'

  'I see,' he nodded, listening intently.

  'But for a Muslim girl with no papers, there's only one way you can get out from Central Bosnia.' She pointed at the Bedford. 'Hidden in the back of an aid truck.'

  'Ahh . . .' He'd guessed right.

  His pulse quickened. Maybe he would start believing in fate. This twelve-year-old girl could be the catalyst to bring him and Lorna together again. And she might lead him to Milan Pravic.

  'I'll have to talk it through with Moray,' he answered cautiously.

  'Can you do it now?'

  'It'd be better tonight. Over a drink.'

  'Okay, okay. I've got a lot of things to fix, anyhow. Now, look. How do we meet up tomorrow? Where do I find you?'

  'Come to Vitez in the afternoon. We're in a house opposite the UN camp. Ask for Bosnia Emergency in the P.Info, that's the press office.

  They'll show you where.'

  Behind him the Bedford coughed into life. McFee was making his point.

  'Okay. I'll get there.'

  They stood just inches apart, unable to bridge the gap, staring at each other awkwardly.

  'Tomorrow, then.'

  'Bye.'

  He turned on his heel and pulled himself into the cab through the door that Ivan held open.

  Thirteen

  Central Bosnia

  McFee simmered silently for most of the drive down from the village. Then, after they had dropped Ivan at the Travnik refugee centre, he let fly.

  'Look chum, there's rules in this place. And thanks to you we just broke a whole set back there!'

  'What d'you mean?' Alex snapped, angry at McFee's high-handedness.

  'That village was dead dodgy. Mud all over the place. The rule is get in, get the stuff off, and get outJast. It's not the time to hang about so's you can chat up old girlfriends!'

  'Christ, Moray! If you'd met someone you hadn't seen for twenty years, what would you have done?'

  Alex bit his tongue. Not a good time to pick a fight with McFee.

  McFee weaved past the junction with Route Triangle. Ten more minutes and they'd be at the house. It was late afternoon.

  'I suppose the lassie will be warming your bed for ye, tonight,' he needled sourly, hunched over the wheel, grubby and frayed.