Alex guessed they both looked like that by now. 'I should be so lucky. . .' he snorted.
They jolted on.
'Women, eh?' McFee mused bitterly. 'Nothing but trouble. . .'
'Yeh ... Don't know why we bother...'
McFee seemed to want to get something off his chest.
Alex decided it might pay dividends if he were to play along.
The Scotsman whistled tunelessly for a second or two.
'All that hassle for a few moments of pleasure. . .' he sighed.
Alex sensed the imminence of a torrent of misogyny.
'It's a matter of luck,' he answered vaguely. 'Some you win, some you lose.'
'Me? I lost...' McFee continued, bitterly. 'Picked a woman who was no use to any man, and waited too long before doing anything about it.'
'How long were you married?'
'Sixteen years. Didn't get hitched until I was nearly forty.'
'No kids, you said?' Alex checked.
'She lost a couple. Miscarried. Then refused to try any more. Pity. I really love kids. And after that, she didn't want to know about sex...'
'But you stayed with her sixteen years?'
'Aye!' McFee shook his head in disbelief. 'Must want in' head examined.'
'But now you've split up for good?'
'Oh aye!' he chuckled. 'She'd take a carving knife to me now, if she could...'
'Why, what did you do to her?' he asked, then wished he hadn't.
McFee laughed awkwardly.
'Well if a chap doesn't get his oats at home, he has to go somewhere else.'
'Ali. A girlfriend, eh? Nothing so dreadful in that.'
McFee didn't answer. He looked as if he wanted to open up but there was something stopping him. They reached the outskirts of Vitez.
'Quite a lot of "somewhere elses", that was the trouble,' he mumbled eventually. 'Ladies o' the n~ght.' There was a glint in his eye, almost like pride.
'Sounds expensive,' Alex remarked lamely.
'Not at all,' McFee answered. 'It costs plenty if you take a lassie to a nice restaurant because you want to fuck her after. And she may not even oblige. My way costs the same, but removes the doubt. . .'
A grubby argument for self-interest that sounded well rehearsed.
'And since you're paying, you call the shots. Don't have to worry about whether the earth moves for them.. .' he added, his mouth twisting.
So, Moray was into hookers, Alex thought. Not often you met someone who'd admit to that. He couldn't help a sense of disgust.
He began to remember things. The girls McFee had chatted up in the London pub the evening he came down from Edinburgh. Must have gone with one of them when he slipped out of the boarding house in the middle of the night.
'And as you said last night, I suppose out here the tarts come pretty cheap,' Alex prodded, thinking of the woman from the camp kitchens with the gipsy eyes.
McFee bristled. 'What I said's between you and me, okay?' He reversed the truck into the driveway to their house. 'I don't go telling everyone. Some people can take against you.'
The Scotsman looked flushed, as if fearful he'd said too much already.
'Fine.' Alex had heard enough.
Inside the house, McFee put the kettle onto the heat. Alex decided it was time to talk business.
'So what's the plan for the next few days, Moray?' he asked, trying to sound casual.
'It's the Croats tomorrow. We'll find a home for the other half of our supplies. Then we might head for Split the day after. There should be another bread van out from England soon. I'll check at P.Info to see if there's been a fax for us.'
The landlady came in with fresh bread and homemade curd cheese.
'Dobar dan, Dragana,' McFee greeted her.
'Dobar dan, Dobar daa!'
They brewed the tea and ate the food.
Alex noticed McFee looked preoccupied, as if the man regretted letting even a small amount of daylight shine on the dark secrets of his sex-life.
He cleared his throat. The issue of Lorna's orphan could wait no longer.
'If we join a convoy on the way south,' Alex began innocently, 'do we get much hassle? Road blocks, searches and so on?'
McFee seemed not to hear. Then he began to focus.
'Er ... well I've only done the trip once,' he reminded him. 'Had a clear run that time. Why?'
No point 'in prevaricating.
'So if there was a good reason to smuggle someone out of here through the front lines, in the empty truck, it should be possible. . .'
Too blunt, Alex thought. Damn!
McFee raised an eyebrow, startled.
'Oh aye! And if you wanted to smuggle grenades in with the supplies on the way up, that should be possible too. Only you'd never do it. Because if you got caught you'd be dead. And every aid organization in Bosnia would become suspect. You'd screw it for everybody.'
'There could be exceptions though, like a child who would die if she didn't get medical treatment?'
McFee looked at him suspiciously.
'What are you on about? It's yon lassie, isn't it? Yon Lorna.'
'Well, yes, actually. She's got a big problem on her hands and needs our help.'
'God almighty! You only spent a few minutes with the woman and already she's got you jumpin' through hoops ... What's this all about?'
This wasn't going the way he'd intended.
He told McFee about the girl Vildana. The Scotsman's eyes seemed to fill with mist.
'And all of this came out when you bumped into Lorna this afternoon?'
Alex nodded.
'I wonder! You sure you didn't fix all this up before? I'm beginning to think I'm being set up by you twose.'
'Come off it, Moray!'
'Well, whatever ... The answer's no. Major Mike would go through the roof.
It's just not on, chum.'
'There's no reason Mike should ever know about it.. .'Alex pressed.
'Don't even think about it! It's too bloody dangerous. For us, for the kid and for Bosnia Emergency. You'll have to tell the lassie to try it on in her own car.'
'There's not a lot of room to hide in a Land Cruiser,' Alex responded.
McFee was adamant. 'There's no way, Alex. No way.' His scowl warned not to press the point any further.
He sat hunched on the sofa, the troubled look back in his eyes. He jiggled his foot nervously. Suddenly he stood UP-
'I'm just off out for a minute,' he said. 'I'll see if there's any messages and find out where's the best place to take the stuff for the Croats tomorrow. See you later.'
Alex raised a hand. He watched McFee amble to the door, seeing him in a new light now. For some reason it was hard to respect a man who had to pay for sex.
There was a roundness to McFee's shoulders, a bit of a stoop. He had the look of someone living amongst shadows.
Alex pulled out a cigarette, tapped it on the arm of the sofa, then lit up.
He felt angry with himself. Should have handled things better. Smuggling the girl out was something he had to do. It wasn't just her future that depended on it.
But McFee had the power to block him. He was the boss out here. Unless Alex could think of a way to change that ...
Fifteen
Zenica, Bosnia
The power was on ,it the International Hotel in Zenica. Lorna hurried to gct things done before it blacked out again. Since returning from the village of Duba, she'd hardly stopped shaking.
Her bedroom window faced southwest, as she'd requested. She opened the glass and positioned a bedside table under the ledge. No obstructions. A clear view to the Atlantic sky.
The evening air made her shiver and she put her anorak back on.
She placed the digital satphone on the table, unfolded the flat antenna and adjusted it for elevation and azimuth. Luckily there were no tower blocks in the way.
She powered up the equipment, fine-tuned it for signal strength, then connected the modem lead from her portable computer an
d switched on.
'This is where I start praying. . .' she muttered, not too hot on technology.
Laurence Machin, the computer-wizard who'd founded CareNet had coached her in how to use the equipment, but would she remember it right?
The screen of the portable flickered and flashed as the software loaded, then settled on the 'Cityscape' navigator software. She clicked on the 'dial' button with the mouse.
'If this works it'll be a miracle,' she whispered.
The modem purred and bleeped, then the screen prompted her for her log-in name and password.
'Wow. I sure am getting the breaks today. . .' she grinned.
From the Internet menu she picked
Another menu appeared. She chose the item
She was now connected to the electronic bulletin board used by Machin as a 'hyperspace' adoption agency.
She typed 'ADD', then the screen cleared for her message.
Urgently seeking foster home, 12 year-old Vildana from central Bosnia. This child must be evacuated for her own safety. Badly scarred mentally, after seeing her family murdered, and with a mild physical handicap, she will need extensive pjychuitric therapy and medical attention.
This one's a real 'toughie',- the girl is in bad need of an 'angel'. If there's one out there, please reply to this as soon as possible.
For legal reasons, adoption cannot be entered into immediately!, but it can be a long-term intention.
Next she switched to e-mail and sent a longer, more detailed message to Machin himself, explaining how she was planning to get the girl out of Bosnia.
There were no messages in her own box, so she logged off.
That was it. Thirty million people could now read her words, people in what Machin termed 'the grade one market' of academics and businessmen who used the Internet. just the sort of people who had the drive and the financial resources to make the adoption of problem children viable. In theory.
Lorna powered down the equipment. So impersonal this idea of computerized child adoption. What she'd fired into the ether wasn't keystrokes. It was a life.
She folded the antenna and closed the window.
God, it was cold! She removed her boots and lay on the bed, her legs under the blankets, shoulders propped against a pillow. She'd keep the anorak on until the room warmed up again.
Across the room on the dressing table sat her Nikon. Inside it was Alex - a picture of him at least. With his arm round her. Just like old times.
She still found it hard to believe. The beard had thrown her. She'd never liked facial hair. Soon get him to sha ...
Hell! Slow down!
She'd been vilifying the man for two decades, how could she even consider a new relationship with him? Didn't know anything about him any more.
He'd said he'd been hiding. Where? Married? Kids?
She closed her eyes, trying to visualize him in that house near Vitez.
Half-a-dozen in his team, she guessed. Drivers, organizers, a mechanic and a translator. Probably with their own generators and satcoms. You'd need that sort of set-up to function long-term in Bosnia.
The translator could be a girl. Maybe he desired her. Maybe they were lovers even ...
She opened her eyes wide to stop the racetrack of her mind. Fate had brought Alex back to her for one purpose and one purpose only - to get Vildana out of Bosnia.
The cookhouse was crowded. Alex and McFee squeezed in amongst shaven-headed French soldiers who'd stopped for an evening meal on their way to Sarajevo.
Alex hadn't mentioned Vildana again. He planned to wait until later when the Scotsman had a few whiskies inside him. McFee looked tense and thoughtful, his mind elsewhere. He kept glancing over his shoulder.
'Bloody great this apple dappy,' Alex remarked, spooning in the sticky pudding.
'Oh aye. But it makes you droop, that stuff,' McFee joked absently. He had eaten little that evening.
'Tell you what,' he went on. 'I've an idea. Why don't you go to the P.Info briefing on your own? I'll wander round the camp a bit and see if I can pick up a bit o' goss'p. Always useful.'
'Sure. Why not?' It wasn't gossip McFee planned to pick up, Alex reckoned.
They took their trays to the bin.
'See you later, then, eh?' McFee said, out in the darkened Warrior park, expecting Alex to head straight for the Press Office.
'I'm going to take a leak first.'
His feet crunched across the hardcore to the white portakabins which accommodated the soldiers. The floor of the toilet was mud-stained and wet.
He headed back into the darkness, annoyed at having left his torch at the house. He paused to let his eyes adjust. To his right, pans clattered in the cookhouse, to his left, a diesel Land Rover rattled past.
He set off again, once his eyes could make out the boards that would get him safely through the mud on the camp perimeter. Had to hurry or he'd be late. The planks passed between rows of containers. From somewhere amongst them he heard hushed voices arguing. A woman, then McFee.
The man's a sex junkie, Alex thought. He squelched into deep mud.
'Shit!'
His boots were caked. Reaching the tarmac at last, he stamped and scraped until his feet felt lighter again. At the door to P.Info he paused to wipe off the remains of the slime. On the way in a corporal was inspecting the journalists' feet.
'You're a house-proud lot,' Alex remarked.
'So would you be if you lived in this 'ouse,' the soldier replied.
Major Clarke-Hartley had little to say that evening, other than that the Bosnian Army third Corps was having trouble getting its MuJahedin elements to obey the ceasefire.
'How many of them are there?' asked a man from the BBC.
'Don't know for sure. A couple of hundred, maybe. But they're a determined bunch, as many of you know.'
There was a murmur of assent. The MuJ hated journalists and they'd all had brushes with them.
The briefing over, the Major nobbled Alex as he was about to leave.
'Hi. Tell me, how's old Mike Allison?' he asked amiably. 'He was in my regiment, you know. Splendid chap.'
'Really? Well I've only met him once. Seemed pretty switched on.'
'He certainly is.'The Major seemed eager to chat. 'So ... where've you been today then?'
Alex struggled to remember the name of the village.
'Place called Duba?'
'Oh, ye-es. Lots of MuJ up there. We did a patrol through the area first thing this morning.'
'And tomorrow we're going to Busovaca,'Alex continued. 'There's some village near there with a lot of Croat refugees, apparently.'
'Balancing the books, eh? Well if there's anything I can do, do tell me.'
The man from the BBC had returned and hustled the Major away.
Alex wandered back outside. Heading for Dragana's house he suddenly noticed two armed men watching from the darkness on the far side of the road. Their eyes followed him as he turned into the drive, making the skin crawl on the back of his neck.
He opened the door to the house and called out. No reply. just the crackle of logs in the stove. McFee must still be doing his business. Could the man really get a thrill by paying some slag to serve him behind a container filled with ballast?
In the living room, a single candle flickered. Alex lit another to brighten the place up, opened a can of beer and pulled out his cigarettes.
Sod it! How was he going to persuade McFee to smuggle the girl out? He took in a lungful of smoke.
Blackmail? Tell him he'd reveal his sordid sex life to the world? Hardly...
He closed his eyes and thought of Lorna, remembering how good it had felt to be near her even if only for a moment when McFee had taken the photograph. Sounded stupid, but it had made him feel complete again. He'd never had that sort of closeness with Kirsty. He wondered how she was.
There'd been no news when he'd telephoned from Split.
He felt cosily comfo
rtable with the gentle popping of wood on the fire, and the candle flames still as a painting. His eyelids drooped.
After a while the sound of footsteps on the gravel stirred him from his doze. McFee returning?
Two pairs of feet. Wouldn't bring the whore back here, surely? He glanced at his watch.just after ten. Late for visitors.
A firm knock on the door. Alex took a candle to answer it.
'Good evening, sir!'A voice like a rasp. More announcement than greeting.
Two UN soldiers with armbands.
'Good evening. What can I do for you?'
'Would you be Mister Moray McFee?'
'No. He's not here at the moment.'
The soldiers glanced at one another.
'Would it be okay if we came in and waited for him?'
'I suppose so. . .'
As he let them in, he saw the initials M.P. on their arms in big, red letters.
'Can I ask who you are, sir?,
'Alex Crawford. Moray and I work together. What's this all about?'
He gestured towards the velour sofa and they sat down, looking stiff and awkward. They laid their SA80 rifles on the carpet beside them.
'A personal matter, sir. Can't discuss it.'
The one who'd done the talking had a sergeant's stripes. His companion was a corporal.
'I see. Well, would you like a beer?'
Again, the policemen eyed each other.
'That'd be grand.' The accent sounded northern. Probably Liverpool.
Alex retrieved the last two cans from the box in the corner.
'Running low. I suppose I can get some more at the camp?'
'No problem. Talk to my mate round the back of the NAAFI shop. He'll see you right. Cheers.'
They nattered for a while about beers, about the food at the camp and about the craziness of the Bosnian war. Then the sergeant looked at his watch.
'D'you know when Mister McFee will be back?' he asked.
'No, I don't. Don't even know where he is.'
Alex felt the sergeant's eyes boring into his head. Disbelief was written on the soldiers' faces.
'What's the outfit you work for? Bosnia Emergency, is it?'
Scorpion Trail Page 15
