by Dana Haynes
“They obviously knew who we are,” she said. “They wouldn’t have had a six-man team otherwise.”
“Well. We provoked a reaction, all right.”
“It’s the next reaction I’m afraid of. If the Kosovars are anywhere near as good as they appeared, the smart play would be to kill every child currently in the pipeline and shut down the trafficking operation until the heat cools down.”
Finnigan and Fiero sat on the bed, staring at each other.
C28
Amsterdam, Netherlands
“Oh, I say. Director Aleksić?”
The Dutch National Opera was offering that season’s rendition of Medea. During the intermission, Thomas Shannon Greyson found himself shouldering through well-heeled patrons and ran directly into the director of the Levant Crisis Group of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
“Ah, Greyson.”
Shan pivoted to his left. “May I introduce Judge Hélene Betancourt of the International Criminal Court? Don’t believe you’ve met.”
The three of them were jostled by the river of fans walking to, and returning from, the bar in the second-floor lobby of the Dutch National Opera & Ballet. Aleksić made his own complementary pivot as his wife drew up to them, creating a foursome. “Judge Betancourt, Mr. Greyson, allow me to introduce my wife, Marija.”
“How do you do?” said his wife, though it was clear that, amid the din, she hadn’t caught either name. She looked a bit lost, egg-shaped and smiling blandly. She blinked myopically about, not the least bit perturbed. She had lived sixty well-sheltered years of joining conversations without knowing who was speaking to or on what topic. She was most at home in the dark. Is she wearing a fox fur, or is the fox fur wearing her? Greyson wondered unkindly.
Director Aleksić and Shan Greyson were much of a kind. Both men were slender and impeccably dressed in tuxedos. Both were habitués of The Hague and Brussels, the lifeblood of New Europe. There was an ineffable Europeness about Shan’s casual wealth and style, and a similar Britishness to the Serbian diplomat’s restrained smile and body language. There are men who are born to the role, as if, in the delivery room, a hotel concierge had leaned over their cradles and murmured, “Would M’sieu require anything else?” And thus imprinted, they traveled through the world waiting to be asked that very question.
Hélene Betancourt stood in extreme contrast to the tall, slim men. Scoliosis meant she no longer stood five feet tall. She walked slowly and painfully, with the help of a cane. Her thick lenses made her look perpetually shocked.
Director Miloš Aleksić greeted the senior-most judge of the International Criminal Court. The director chose French. “This is a great honor, madam. I have, of course, followed your career from afar.”
“Too kind, M’sieu Director.” Aleksić had to step closer to hear her over the din of the opera fans. “How goes your work for the refugees?”
Aleksić grimaced. “Most difficult. Perhaps more even than I initially supposed. Germany is doing its part, of course, but the rest of Europe …” He shook his head in disappointment.
The stalactite chandeliers of the utterly modern opera house sparkled against Judge Betancourt’s far-oversized eyeglasses, and she peered up owlishly at the director. “And Turkey?”
The director glanced at the bar and the Champagne, which had been their original destination. He cast a questioning smile at Shan Greyson, who apparently missed it altogether.
“Ah. Turkey. Madam, Turkey is too busy fighting the Kurds to be of assistance. The Kurds are fighting ISIS. ISIS is fighting the American-backed rebels. The American-backed rebels are fighting Bashar al-Assad’s government forces. The government forces are finding new and creative ways to bomb hospitals and mosques. And Russia appears to be standing on the sidelines, throwing shoes into the gears, hoping to gum it all up.”
“Yes, indeed.” Betancourt nodded. “Well, at least Iran is behaving.”
Aleksić wondered if the old woman was naive or senile, but Shan Greyson belted out a laugh to show which it was.
“Indeed, madam. Well said.” Aleksić began making his excuses, tugging gently on the elbow of his wife and plotting a route to the Champagne.
“I am concerned about the rumors of trafficking through Kosovo,” Judge Betancourt said.
Her voice hardly carried in the great hall. Aleksić favored her with a smile. “Madame?”
“Kosovo, Director Aleksić. Reports of Muslim youth being hijacked into the slave trade.”
Marija Aleksić looked aghast. “Such atrocities! Most of these stories are wildly inaccurate, one assumes, but even if a fraction are true …”
Her husband nodded solemnly. “Prostitution is a crisis we have been dealing with since the times of the Old Testament. One wishes there were easy solutions, of course.”
“Prostitution,” said the judge, looking neither aghast nor solemn, but resolute, “is a term the legal community prefers to slave trade. It is a term which, like victimless crime, reflects only dimly the horrific nature of the human rights violations.”
Miloš Aleksić began to respond as the overhead lights flickered, signaling the end of the interval. “Ah. Perhaps we should—”
“I shall be counting on the High Commission’s assistance in rooting out any trafficking in the Balkans, Director. I speak for the Court when I say this is of the utmost importance.”
He favored the small woman with a critical, calculated smile. “I trust this has nothing to do with your position regarding Serbians, Madame Betancourt.”
“My position …?”
“Your sentencing of the former Serbian leaders could be seen, by some, as, ah, more strident than justice demands. That’s not my opinion, of course. But one hears talk …”
“Those cases were adjudicated more than a decade ago, Mr. Director, and have nothing to do with trafficking today.”
“Naturally. Trafficking in minors is horrendous. Of course, the problem lies in Hungary and Italy as much as the former Yugoslavia.”
His wife sniffed. “The Italians! I mean, after all …” She smiled as if those words had formed a sentence.
Judge Betancourt peered up at the director. “Are you aware of large-scale human trafficking, involving underage Muslim victims in Hungary and Italy, M’sieu Director?”
He blinked down at her. “Cross-border prostitution is a crisis for all of the Schengen signatory nations, Your Honor.”
“Yes, but you mention Hungary and Italy specifically, M’sieu. I cannot help but wonder if perhaps you are already focused on this crisis and if I am, once again, preaching to the choir.”
“Indeed, madam.” Aleksić glanced in the direction of the Champagne like a man crawling through sand toward a mirage. The house lights flickered again, and the flow of bodies moved decidedly back toward the theater doors with their brocaded curtains.
Shan Greyson turned to the judge. “Shall we head back in?”
“I am fatigued, Shan. Perhaps we could persuade Medea to carry on with her poisoned cloak without us?”
“Of course, madam.”
She offered Miloš Aleksić a hand misshapen by arthritis, with knuckles as gnarled as the thorns of an ancient grapevine. He held her hand, rather than squeeze it or shake it. Holding it seemed dangerous enough for such a frail person.
Shan, touching her elbow and leading the judge slightly, began wading against the inbound crowd.
They reached the edge of the balcony-level lobby and two beefy security guards stepped to the left and to the right of the judge. One of them spoke into a wrist mic; downstairs, a driver began bringing around her armored sedan.
Hélene Betancourt’s driver picked them up at the streetcar stop near the Stadhuis-Muziektheater, and Shan helped her into the car. He’d had a small, black-painted box installed on the left-hand side of the rear seat so that, when the judge sat there, her fe
et would rest on something solid. Sitting was terrible for her spine, and traveling even short distances was an agony.
One guard rode shotgun. Another climbed into the follow-car behind them. The route home would be selected randomly by the head of that night’s security detail; they never picked the same route twice in a row.
The car pulled out and Shan raised the privacy barrier behind the driver. “Think Aleksić knows?”
“About his son?” The judge began removing her antique opal earrings. “I don’t know. That bit about Hungary and Italy might have been misdirection, to save us asking about his son. Or it might have been national pride, after I pointed a finger at the Balkans specifically.”
“I can’t tell if he’s the villain or a compete bore,” Shan said, yawning.
“St. Nicholas?”
He flashed her his satyric smile. She had never met the principals of St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking, and God willing, never would. The streetlights of Herengracht threw oily rainbow colors across the upholstery of the seatbacks before them. “They’ve linked Aleksić the Younger to a unit of the Kosovo Security Force. But as for putting the bastard in a room with actual victims …”
“I want an arrest, Shan.” She didn’t have the lung capacity to emphasize the request, but then again, she never needed it. “I want a trial and a conviction.”
“And if that proves impossible, madam? If Lazar Aleksić is too well-insulated or too smart for an arrest, and a trial, and a conviction?”
Betancourt stared out the window as Amsterdam rolled by. Each pothole sent a wave of pain through her back. She rolled the opal earrings in her palm as if they were dice. Or as if she were a sorceress, casting bird bones and hoping for a glimpse of the future.
When at last she spoke, it was directed at her own reflection in the left-hand window, and not Shan.
“The system is the system, Shan. I can bend it. On occasion. But not break it.”
Greyson said, “Yes, ma’am.”
They rode through the night, admiring the distinctive architecture of the historic city.
Major Driton Basha’s satphone was tricked out with text capability, unlike the older models. And all texts came with a GPS indicator. He awoke the next morning to the chirp of a text.
He’d assumed it would be news from France. The team lead by Captain Sorak hadn’t reported in yet, to Basha’s surprise. Or, it might have been Lieutenant Akil Krasniqi, reporting from the Macedonian border, where he’d been assigned to pick up the merchandise.
Basha studied the readout on the satphone. It was from neither France nor Macedonia. The text originated in Amsterdam.
Drawing interest Judge Betancourt. She’s a problem. Must meet soon.
C29
Displaced Persons Camp 11-Y, Macedonia
The young medic checked Mohamed and Amira Bakour first, treating a nasty scrape on the boy’s arm with disinfectant and a clean elastic wrap. Mohamed never blinked, his jaw set to take the pain.
Amira had broken her wrist, and the doctor applied a cast from just shy of her elbow to the web between her thumb and fingers. She cried, but tried not to.
Jane Koury plugged her cell phone into an adapter and took her turn with the medic. He confirmed what Jane feared: that her eardrum was damaged on the right side, her hearing cut in half, and the tinnitus that had affected her on the bus drive north through Macedonia wasn’t going away any time soon. Jane also had sprained two fingers on her left hand, and the medic swapped out dirty tape for a smelly, yellow antibacterial scrub and new wrappings. She gave all three of them antibiotics.
“You are mother?” The medic was Greek, and attempts to communicate with them in Greek had failed. He fell back on stunted English.
“I’m British,” Jane said. “I’m a journalist.”
“Go,” the aide said, and pointed to a checkpoint thirty meters on.
Jane started to rise and the medic pushed Mohamed forward. “Go.” But this time, he pointed to another checkpoint in the opposite direction.
“We need to stick together,” Jane said. “I’m responsible for—”
“Go English,” the medic said, returning items to his Red Crescent backpack, casting his eyes about for the next patients. He waved vaguely to the first checkpoint, then to the second. “Go Muslims.”
“We need to stick—”
But the young medic had moved on.
“What happens to us now?” Amira asked, tears in her large brown eyes. Her face was smudged with dirt, her pretty jumper grimy.
Jane pulled her into a hug. Her older brother stood vaguely apart.
“We get across the border,” Jane said. “Come along.”
Mohamed had added a guarded look to his worried brow. “But you’re British. We cannot—”
Jane stuffed her passport into her shoulder bag, burying it deep beneath her palm-width reporter’s notebook. She took Amira’s unbroken hand and half dragged her toward the second checkpoint for the refugees. The queue was several hundred people deep and appeared not to be moving.
“Mohamed, come along!”
Once up to the checkpoint, Jane could see the gold-on-blue flag with six white stars. The flags were planted on the Kosovo side of the fence. She saw a mass of refugees, along with buses and military transport units. UN officials and Greek officials began separating the Syrian refugees from all others.
Jane identified herself as Jinan Koury and held the siblings close together.
“You are Syrian?” an aid worker asked.
“We are together,” she replied in Arabic.
“These children, they are Syrian?”
“Yes,” Jane said.
“And you are—”
“We are together.”
The flow was too much; the aid worker stamped a sheet of paper, thrust it at Jane, and waved them through.
Together.
The journey through the checkpoints, and onto Kosovar soil, took another three hours. Someone brought water for the refugees, and the kids drank their fill. Someone provided sandwiches and woody, tasteless apples, and Jane Koury made sure her charges got fed, then stuffed two more of the prewrapped sandwiches into her bag. The ringing in her ears and the dull ache from her sprained fingers made every simple movement a challenge. The sun shone down bright, and the slow-moving refugees kicked up a cloud of dust.
Amira cried into her sleeve. From the way she held her right arm, she was in considerable pain.
Jane rummaged through her rucksack and found the flip phone that she and Tamer had purchased, the one she’d charged in the medic’s tent. It was identical to the phone they’d left with Mohamed and Amira’s parents.
Jane showed it to the girl. “When your mom and dad get through, they’ll be able to reach us. Okay?”
Amira nodded, eyes large and glistening behind tears.
“I need to keep this safe. I have an idea.” Jane took the slim phone and slid it into the space between the girl’s cast and her skinny forearm. “There. Your job is to keep this safe. When your mother and your father call, we’ll know just where it is. Okay?”
That seemed to make her smile.
Jane turned to see how Mohamed was holding up. The boy was peering over his shoulder. He turned back and bent close to Jane, speaking for her ears only.
“The other checkpoint has shorter lines,” the boy said. “You’d have been through by now.”
Jane squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll be through soon enough.”
An hour later, they were in Kosovo, amid more aid workers. Tents had been established. Food and water were distributed, along with salt tablets and used clothes. A Red Crescent tent provided a mobile surgical hospital. It was doing a brisk business.
The threesome sat under a tree and ate oranges and carrots, gulping water.
Jane excused herself and stepped behind a tree to puk
e, but brought up only froth. As she turned back to the siblings, a handsome young man in a military uniform approached them. He crouched low and smiled.
“You are Serbians? You are family?” he asked in stilted Arabic.
“We’re together,” Jane replied, stepping closer, wishing the ringing in her ear would subside.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jinan. This is Mohamed and Amira. We’re together.” She kept to her mantra, now fearful that her British passport would serve as a wedge between herself and the children.
“You’re so young!” the soldier said and smiled. Jane knew she looked like a teenager, even when she tried to dress stylishly in London. Now, in a dirt-stained hijab, long skirt, and trainers, she probably looked like she was eighteen.
“We’ve had a long journey. They … we have family waiting for us,” she said.
The soldier said, “This lot won’t get out of the camp until the day after tomorrow. I think I can get the three of you through faster. Come with me, I’ll see if I can’t expedite matters.”
They stood. Jane damn near threw her arms around him and kissed him. “You are too kind!”
“Not at all. Give me a moment to contact my people.”
He walked fifteen paces away, drawing his walkie-talkie.
“It’s Krasniqi. Let Major Basha know: we have a new shipment.”
C30
Tours, France
Finnigan unlocked the cargo hold of the de Havilland. He found their prisoner sitting up, glowering sullenly at them. He dogged the hatch and sat on the floor. His prisoner’s left wrist cuffed to the iron tie-down D-ring in the floor. He was maybe twenty-five, Finnigan thought, and clearly a tough guy.
Finnigan had brought his iPad. He sat very close to the soldier; within striking distance. That term goes both ways. The soldier leaned a bit to his right, away from Finnigan. He said something in a Slavic language—do your worst, Finnigan figured, or some such cliché.
