Scorpion Trail

by Archer, Jeffrey

  'Mohlweg,' Pavic announced. 'Ask someone where it is., 'Going to see someone there?' Gisela pressed. 'Some friend of yours?' She felt close to hysteria.

  Again, no answer.

  They were entering the centre of the village - half timbered houses, a church, a small shop selling bread and groceries, and a telephone kiosk.

  'Stop,' he growled, pointing to the right. He'd spotted a map of the village mounted in a timber-framed glass case beside the church.

  He got out and studied it.

  A voice niggled inside Gisela's head, a voice urging her to run, to jam her foot down and drive off, leaving him there without the sports bag which he'd nursed throughout the journey as if his life depended on it.

  She depressed the clutch and engaged first gear. Pravic heard the crunch and looked round with stiletto eyes. She slipped it back into neutral.

  Couldn't do it. Hadn't the guts. If she left him now, he'd chase her to the end of the earth to get his revenge.

  Revenge. That was the fire that burned inside him, the fire she'd never dared probe.

  He got back in and closed the door.

  'Two turnings on the right,' he told her, and waved his hand to show they should move on.

  'Second on the right?' she checked.

  'Mmm.'

  There was nobody about. Never was on a Sunday afternoon in these dormitory villages. All at home watching television or sleeping off their lunch.

  Gisela turned the car where Milan had said. New houses here, VWs and Opels parked on driveways.

  'Left here.'

  She obeyed, driving slowly. Two children on bicycles careered past on the pavement, wrapped up in anoraks against the rain.

  'Now right.'

  Mohlweg. She read the sign on a post at the junction.

  'What number?' she asked.

  'Just drive. I look.'

  The road sloped upwards. About a dozen houses, then it curved to the right.

  Larger homes now, with garages. She motored slowly past them. Pravic suddenly craned his head round. The house he was looking at had its garage door open and a Vectra parked inside.

  The road brought them round in a circle, back to the junction with the sign.

  'And now?' she asked.

  'Again up the road, but not far. I tell you when.'

  Up the gentle rise, the curve to the right and the bigger homes ...

  'Here. Stop. Switch off engine.'

  She did as she was told. They'd parked beside a plot that had not been built on yet. She looked up the road ahead. Three houses down was the one with its garage door open.

  3.46 p.m. Pfefferheim

  Lorna turned the Land Cruiser into Mohlweg and as she rounded the bend at the top of the slope pulled out to avoid a VW parked by the curb. Alex noticed it was a woman behind the wheel of the Polo.

  He felt wrung out after the catharsis of their lunch.

  'Nice houses around here,' Lorna remarked. 'Similar to what Americans have at home. I guess that's why they're popular with USAF families. Say, I wonder if Vildana'll be surprised to see you? Or maybe she thinks we're all part of her new, extended family.'

  'It'll be great to see her again. She's a sweet kid.'

  It had been Lorna's idea that he should come out to meet the Roches. He was delighted, particularly since it meant they would be together.

  'Here we are.' She stopped the Toyota on the drive in front of the garage doors.

  Irwin Roche appeared in the porch, grinning.

  'Hi. You're back. And it's stopped raining. Oh, hi to you too, sir,' he added, seeing Alex for the first time.

  'This is Alex Crawford,' Lorna announced. 'He's the guy who smuggled Vildana out of Bosnia in the back of his truck. You remember I told you?'

  'I certainly do. Let me shake your hand, sir. That must've been some hair-raising drive.'He looked at Alex with something like awe. 'So, I guess it's you I have to thank for our beautiful new daughter. . .' he added, laughing.

  'How's she doing?' Alex asked.

  'Great. just great. Ella's going to take her for a bike ride when the rain stops - which I do believe it has!' He held his hand out flat, then turned back into the house, shouting for his daughter to come out with Vildana.

  'Nice guy,' Alex whispered to Lorna.

  'Nice family,' she replied.

  Within seconds they'd all bustled out of the house into the front yard, with Irwin pulling his wife by the arm so he could introduce her to Alex.

  'Hey, Vildana,' Lorna shouted, as she ran past with the twins, chased by Nataga. The girl stopped at the sound of her name and looked back. All self-consciousness about the strawberry mark on her face had evaporated.

  'Look who's here!'

  Fifty metres down the road the engine started in the Volkswagen. In the hubbub of bicycles being retrieved from the garage, no one heard it.

  'It's Alex!'

  A smile spread shyly across Vildana's face as she recognized him. Alex gave her a hug.

  'Good to see you,' he grinned. Nataga translated.

  Vildana grabbed hold of a pair of handlebars that had been thrust at her, then she and Ella wheeled their bicycles out to the road.

  'Watch out for that car,' Nancy shouted.

  Alex glanced up. A muddy, white Polo creeping towards them.-Just a car, yet something about its slowness made it menacing.

  Suddenly bells rang in his head. The woman driver was dithering like a kerb-crawler - why? Her male passenger stared like a snake at the girls wobbling on their saddles - why?

  His limbs tensed. The man's eyes - the eyes of a killer ...

  He leapt forward, but too late. A fist snaked from the car window like a cobra's head, gripping a cold, grey automatic.

  Two sharp cracks. The weapon kicked twice. Vildana's bicycle clattered to the tarmac. Alex ran towards the car, which tore off with a squeal of tyres. For a micro-second the gunman's eyes met Alex's. Then the car was gone. As it turned the corner of the road, a woman's scream shrilled through the open window. Alex stopped.

  Gisela heard the scream, unaware it was from her own throat.

  'Go! Quick, quick!' Pravic yelled, yanking the handle to close the window. 'And shut up woman!' He hit her on the shoulder with the pistol.

  Shaking with shock, Gisela accelerated out of Mohlweg, back through the centre of the village.

  'You ... you...' she babbled, sobbing, 'Milan, you shot a girl! That girl on the bike ... Why? What you do that for, eh? Tell me! Tell me!'

  'Shut up!' He scrabbled with the map, trying to work out the way back to Frankfurt as his mind played back what he'd seen. He'd hit her. Yes.

  Killed her? Didn't know. Aimed for the heart, but the girl had turned.

  'Why?' she screamed at him. 'Tell me why!'

  Irwin Roche sprinted to where Vildana had fallen. The girl's legs were twitching with shock.

  'Vildana! Oh my God, what's happened?' Lorna hollered, The twins began to scream.

  'She's been shot,'Alex mouthed. 'They've bloody well shot her!'

  'No . . .' moaned Nancy Roche, arms hanging limply by her sides.

  Roche knelt on the ground, pressing on Vildana's shoulder.

  'Scott!' he ordered calmly, 'get that T-shirt off and bring it here fast.' The child began to obey.

  Alex dropped down beside him. Vildana whimpered like a wounded animal.

  Jesus!' he gasped, seeing the blood oozing from under Roche's fingers.

  'Somebody call an ambulance,' the colonel shouted.

  His wife dived back into the house. Nataga began to cry.

  'Hit in the pectoral,' Roche said to Alex out of the side of his mouth.

  'I wasn't watching. I thought it was a backfire. Where's that T-shirt son?'

  The boy dropped it in front of him then backed away, colour draining from his face at the sight of all the blood.

  'You've got to fold that into a dressing, right?' Roche told Alex. 'Then press it onto the wound. Can you do that?'

  'Sure,' he answered,
grateful that Roche had taken charge.

  'We've got to stop the haemorrhage, so press hard.'

  The girl moaned with pain.

  'Sorry,' Alex winced, fearful of pressing too hard. 'Feels like something's broken in there.'

  'Probably a rib. But keep pressing while I see if she's hit anywhere else.'

  Alex felt the girl's body quiver, saw her eyelids flutter as she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness. Behind him he heard Ella and the Bosnian girl comforting each other.

  Roche gently probed Vildana's chest and stomach, then ran his hands down her legs.

  'Seems okay,' he said half to himself. 'Nataga!' he called. 'Get over here and talk to her, will you? Tell her she's going to be okay.'

  Nataga didn't move.

  'Nataga? Come on, honey,' he repeated soothingly.

  The girl kneeled beside them, but turned her head away.

  'She'll be okay, I mean A,' Roche said, touching her on the knee. 'It's just a flesh wound. So quit that crying, for her sake, okay? You have to calm her. And somebody go in the house and get Nancy to find a blanket.'

  Lorna hurried inside and reappeared with the one she'd used on the sofa last night.

  'Alex,' she murmured breathlessly, her lips close to his ear, 'do you think that was. .

  'Pravic?' he breathed. 'Can't be. Not here. You think?'

  'But who else for Pete's sake?'

  'You two know something?' Roche demanded. 'Hey, don't let up the pressure on that dressing,' he added.

  Alex pushed down again.

  'It's the reason we got her out of Bosnia. . .' Lorna gulped. 'Because some guy wanted to kill her. And now this happens! I can't believe it!'

  'Did he follow you here, or what? And who the hell is the guy?' he asked angrily.

  'He's called Milan Pravic. He's the man who led the Tulici massacre,'

  Alex answered flatly. 'They call him the Scorpion.'

  'Scorpion?'

  'Yes. Apparently he got the nickname when he was a kid.'

  'But if it's him, what's he doing here in Germany?' Lorna demanded. 'And how did he know where to find Vadana?'

  'You tell me,' Alex replied.

  Milan Pravic told Gisela to take the airport turning. And to wipe her face. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara.

  She pulled a fistful of tissues from the box on the parcel shelf.

  It was his silence that terrified her. The calculating silence on the drive from Berlin, when he'd been planning the death of' a child. The sullen silence when she'd demanded to know the reasons why. The cold silence now as he worked out what to do next. What to do with her.

  'Drive into the car park,' he ordered as they crossed the airport perimeter.

  He'd buried the gun under some clothes in his bag.

  She pulled a ticket from the entry gate and the barrier lifted. He told her to drive to a floor where there were empty spaces and few people about.

  She knew then that he was going to kill her. Knew it with a terror and a certainty that clenched her stomach into a ball and made her gag. She thought of stopping the car near some businessmen loading luggage into their sleek BMWs. She thought of getting out and running. But she knew it would be too late. Knew that at the first tiny sign of her doing something to cross him, that gun would be out of the bag and the bullets hammering into her back.

  All she could do was grovel, beg him to spare her life.

  'Here,' he pointed at a row of empty spaces. Nobody near. No witnesses.

  She stopped the engine. He lifted the sports bag onto his knees.

  'Milanchen, sweetie . . .' she began, desperately.

  'Listen! You ... you don't understand, Gisie. . .' He fumbled for the words. 'Nobody in Germany ... nobody in world understand why I must kill!

  In my country we fight for life - Christian peoples fight Muslim peoples.

  Muslim men I must kill, because they think they can fuck arse of Croat peoples!' He jerked his middle finger upwards. 'Muslim women why kill?

  Because they make sons who fuck arse! They Turks!'

  A mad ramble that made little sense to her, she let him bleed the poison from his soul.

  'And if they in Germany, I kill also.'

  'But that was only a girl?' Gisela whined. 'Couldn't have been more than twelve. Why her?'

  'Tulici,' he murmured. 'Muslim girl. From Tulia.' He fell silent, as if no other explanation were needed.

  Gisela knew well the significance of that name. Knew the crime she'd just helped him commit was nothing to what he'd already done. The nightmare was true; the man she'd almost loved was a monster, a practitioner of genocide.

  He pulled open the zip of his bag and gripped the gun. Gisela gulped.

  'If you talk to police, I kill you too,' he growled.

  'No, no,'she babbled. 'I'm your friend, you know that. I'm not talking to the police. I promise you, I don't want to tell anyone about today. I wasn't here, even.'

  'That's right. You were not here.'

  He nodded repeatedly to reinforce the point. The hammer clicked as he fingered the pistol.

  'Now I go. You make car clean again. Then you drive to Berlin and find friend who will say you were with him last night and today.'

  'But what if the police stop me?'

  "Fake the Bundesstrasse. The police will look on the Autobahn.'

  'And you? Where are you going? Back to Bosiiia?'

  Silence again. Shouldn't have asked. He still had his hand on that gun.

  He pushed open the door and got out. Then, clutching his bag, he Icaned back in.

  'Remember, Gisie. If you my enemy, I kill you.'

  He'd stated it as a matter of fact. He closed the door and she watched him walk towards the exit.

  The police sealed off the road and pavement around the house in Mahlweg with striped yellow tape to keep the press out. Both the newspapers and the local TY had been tipped off about the shooting.

  In the road just metres from where Vildana had been gunned down, detectives recovered two 9mm cartridge cases.

  Nancy Roche and Nataga had gone with Vildana in the ambulance. The paramedic had congratulated the colonel on his first aid. Probably saved her life, she said.

  The Hessen State Police, who'd answered the I 10 call that Nancy had put in, decided to call in help from the Bundeskriminalamt. The shooting of a Bosnian was political and needed the Federal specialists from Wiesbaden.

  A Kommissar was on his way, but it would be an hour before he arrived. In the meantime, patrol cars were searching for a muddy, white, VW Polo, possibly driven by a woman, registration number unknown. Unfortunately, the police pointed out, the Polo was one of Germany's most popular cars, and white one of the most popular colours.

  While the police went from house to house, seeking witnesses, Irwin Roche despatched the twins to watch TV, then hustled Alex and Lorna indoors and sat them at the kitchen table, so they could tell him exactly what all this was about.

  'Oh God ... what have we done?' Lorna sighed, cupping her head in her hands. 'I brought Vildana halfways across Europe, just so she could be shot at.'

  Alex clasped and unclasped his fingers, kneading his knuckles. By now he was convinced the gunman must have been Pravic. So close, just metres from the man the world was hunting, the man he'd been hunting, and not known it.

  In his mind he kept trying to improve on the meager description he'd given the police - cropped fair hair, male, in his thirties, grim, grey-blue eyes - it wasn't much.

  'I still don't understand how Pravic knew where to find her,' he murmured.

  Suddenly Roche blushed scarlet.

  '0 ... h, oh boy,' he said, getting up from the table and heading for his den.

  'The Internet,' Lorna moaned. 'Must've put his address on an open message on the bulletin board. You're not supposed to do that. Anything confidential should go e-mail direct to CareNet.'

  They followed Roche into the den. The modem bleeped as it made the connection. A few keystrokes and he was int
o on the Usenet. He selected the 'Children available' item from the menu. The most recent messages came up first. Some of them offensive, some from cranks, some saying that adoption on the Internet was God's gift to child-abusers.

  He kept typing 'back' until he came to the response he'd lodged to Lorna's request for an 'angel' six days ago.

  'Oh my! Look at that,' he sighed.

  There at the top of his offer of help was his home address, street number and everything, instantly readable by any of the Net's thirty million subscribers.

  'How could I be so stupid?' He thumped the screen with his fist.

  Alex led Lorna back to the kitchen, while Roche logged off.

  'I still don't get it,' he murmured, 'I mean, how would Pravic know about the Internet?'

  'CNN. They filmed a report on us,' Lorna answered, her voice heavy. 'My God, Alex, what have we done? Not you, but me, Larry Machin, CareNet. So busy being clever, instead of saving Vildana's life we may have lost it!'

  Milan Pravic found a (lank stairway which took him two levels down in the airport car park - the floor where the rental agencies kept their vehicles.

  He walked past a small office and a line of sparkling automobiles. Must be a toilet here somewhere for the staff.

  He found the door and pushed inside. It smelled of urine, as if drunks had given up their search for porcelain and used the walls. He tried the taps on the washbasin. They worked. Hot water too.

  He unzipped the sports bag and pulled out a towel and a sachet of hair colourant shampoo. Dark chestnut.

  He draped the towel round his shoulders to protect his clothes, then wet his hair. He rubbed in the shampoo and rinsed his hands. A quick look in the mirror, then he picked up his bag and retreated to one of the cubicles.

  The instructions said wait ten minutes before rinsing.

  Two floors up, Gisela washed clean the number plates of her car, using water from a bottle she always carried in the boot. Then she re-parked it near the exit and behind a pillar, so that if Milan came back to check on her, he would think she had gone.

  She walked as casually as she could down the long passage to the terminal and located a phone booth.

  Her fingers hovered over the dial pad. 110 would get her the police. An anonymous message perhaps, to tell them he was at the airport?