THE HEART OF DANGER (31 page)

back up the track from them, testing each footfall, looking behind

him

to be certain there was no dried wood that he might step on. He slunk away from the track and into the depth of the trees, and he lowered

his

weight down slowly and then he knelt and then he lay on his stomach

and

there was a thick bush of holly between himself and the track. He

heard their laughter and their cursing. They were moving again,

coming

to that part of the track closest to where he lay. Not daring to

move

... He could have been pitching up for work at Alpha Security, first

in

and climbing the stairs to the office above the launderette, he could

have been hearing the wail as the shutters went up on the shops beside

the launderette. He could have been going to work with the smell

of

Jane on him, and the taste of Tom's food from the kiss on the cheek.

He

could have been going in to collect the Legal Process to serve, or

going in from the night-time watch on a husband's cheating, or going

in

to meet a builder whose competition knew the contracts he was bidding

for ... Not daring to move, and seeing the young faces of the militia

men. Ham hadn't told him what to do if he were bounced. Ham hadn't been through the capture bit. Each one of them had a knife at his

belt. They went by him close enough for him to see that. They went off down the track. He had almost walked into them. He felt a true excitement. The excitement was an exhilaration. Truth was that he

had

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never before known such excitement. The blood pumped in him. They

wouldn't have known what he meant, about the excitement, at Alpha

Security, how it coursed in him and lifted him. The excitement was

danger. They wouldn't have known what he meant in A Branch. The

excitement was his own. He would move for another hour, and then

rest

up till the dusk. "Nothing I can do for you, Mr. Jones. It's the pressure of space .. ." The Danish woman in Administration

(Property)

deflected him. "We all have our little crosses, Mr. Jones. Better we

learn to accept them and live with them .. ." The Libyan man in

Administration (Headquarters) put him down. "Can't help you, Mr.

Jones. My good fortune, I don't have a dog in that fight .. ." The Canadian man in Administration (Finance) moved him on. "It's

sardine

time here, Mr. Jones. You're lucky to have what's been allocated

you

without sharing .. ." The Swiss woman in the Civilian Affairs Office (Central Directorate) dismissed him. "The question is one of

protocol,

Mr. Jones. Protocol dictates container accommodation as suitable

for

your work .. ." The Ethiopian man in the Civilian Affairs Office

(Deputy Director) was contemptuous. "You people, your job, your end game it pisses' me off, Mr. Jones. If I put it bluntly then perhaps you'll understand me better .. ." The Irish man in the Civilian

Affairs Office (Director) kept a pleasant smile and spat through his

teeth. It had taken Marty all morning to get that far. He had been shuffled up the ladder, and with each put-down he could have tossed

in

the towel and gone back to the ovenlike container on the far side

of

the parade ground at the Ilica barracks. But not that morning, no

sir

... There was a big photograph on the wall of the office of the

Director of Civilian Affairs. The photograph was labelled as "Co.

Cork

Where God comes to Holiday'. The Director liked to show the

photograph

to his visitors, show them where he was reared and where his parents

still lived. Marty thought the seascape of cliffs and the Atlantic

was

second-rate compared to the mountains and fiords of Alaska. He had

not

come to talk about Co. Cork, he had come to demand better

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accommodation for his work than a pressure cooker steaming goddamn

freight container. He had been told outside by the willowy German

secretary to the Director that there was no possibility of entry

without an appointment, and when the meeting inside had broken he

had

simply elbowed his way inside, sat down, challenged for attention.

'..

. You, your work, Mr. Jones, is an obstruction to what we attempt

to

achieve." "I want a proper room. I am integral to the United Nations'

effort in former Yugoslavia. I want decent accommodation." While he

had waited outside there had been a multinational bicker in the

English

language between the secretaries with German, Swiss French,

Scandinavian and Indian accents, about desk space. He had filed an

affidavit the last evening, from an eyewitness, who had seen

prisoners

of the Serbs beheaded by a chain-saw. Rome was not built in a day,

that sort of crap, but sure as hell the UN empire was putting in a

spirited challenge. He had transferred to disk the statement, the

last

evening, of an eyewitness who had seen a man castrated after a cable

had been tied between a motorcycle and his scrotum, and the motorcycle

had been ridden away, and the man had died from blood loss. The

secretaries had air conditioning and they had window light. His work

was pissed on. The goddamn secretaries were looked after and he was

not. "I am a busy man, Mr. Jones, so do me the favour of bugging

out

of here and going back to your quite adequate work area."

"A dog couldn't work in there."

But he was an Anchorage boy. Anchorage bred them stubborn. What

he

had learned from twenty-two months in New York, turning round paper

on

member nations' subscription debts, and what he had learned in Zagreb

had given him a deep-running hostility to the fast-created empire.

They

had the good apartments, and the good allowances, and the good life,

while Marty Jones survived in a stinking hot goddamn oven.

"Maybe a dog would be doing something more useful than your war crimes shit. Let me tell you a few facts of life, young man. War crimes

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talk

is just a sedative for the poor punters outside of here who've joined

the "Can't We Do Something Brigade". There will be no war crimes tribunal. You may want to jerk yourself off each night at the thought

of Milosevic, Karadic, Mladic, Arkan or Seselj, standing in the dock

without a tie or a belt or shoe laces it won't happen. Like it or

not,

and don't patronize me by thinking I like it, it c?nnot happen because

I need those bastards, and all the rest of the grubby little murderers

that walk this godforsaken corner of earth. I need them to sign a

peace treaty for Bosnia, then a peace treaty for occupied Croatia,

and

I'm not going to get them to sign if there's a sniff of handcuffs

in

the wind .. ."

"Then you give the world over to anarchy, intolerable anarchy."

"I need a lesson from you? Where have you been? You have been

fucking

nowhere. Peace between Egypt and Israel if the Brit buggers were

still

hammering for Begin to be tried for terrorism, for Sadat to be tried

for making war? Peace in Namibia if half the South African Defence

Force were to be wheeled in front of a court on genocide charges?

I

know reality because I have faced reality .. ."

"Your argument is morally bankrupt."

He faced the big, gross-set Irishman. He would screw him down, screw

him down hard, if the opportunity ever came his way. Screw him down

so

that he screamed.

"And your office is a converted freight container, so fuck off back there .. ."

Marty went back in the sunlight across the parade ground, back to

his

video and audio tapes and his computer disks.

The gravedigger, Stevo, had been on the expedition to the church at

Glina, but it was not personal to him.

It was personal to Milan Stankovic and the postman, Branko, and the

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carpenter, Milo, but not to him because no one from his family had

died

in the fire of the church.

They were ahead of the buses, it was usual for Milan to have a car

when

he needed it, and the fuel to go with it. Before the war, before

the

rise of Milan, they would all have been on the buses for the annual

journey to the church at Glina. Since the war, the gravedigger had

not

been able to make the particular long journey that was personal to

him.

His own mother and father had been murdered in the Crveni Krst

concentration camp that had been sited at Nis, near to Belgrade. He

knew that Milan, and he was grateful that Milan had tried, had last

year attempted to arrange the long journey for him, but there had

been

shelling on the road that week, near to Brcko, and all traffic had

been

halted. His father had died in the big breakout, 12 February 1942,

from the camp at Nis, machine-gunned against the wall by the Croat

Ustase guards, and his mother had died at the hands of the Croat Ustase

killing squads on the hill called Bubanj that was near to Nis where

a

thousand were killed each day, and they were buried now, together,

amongst the trees on the hill called Bubanj.

The buses would be far behind them now, and the old Mercedes with

in

excess of 150,000 kilometres on the clock powered them home. He knew

it was not the ceremony at the ruin of the church that affected Milan.

It was not the ceremony and the prayer and the singing of the anthem

and the reciting of the poem of the Battle of Kosovo that left Milan

sullen and quiet, because he had been that way for too many days since

the digging in the field at the end of the lane in Rosenovici.

And the others in the car had taken the bastard mood from Milan

Stankovic.

And because it was not personal to him, where they had been, the

gravedigger, Stevo, thought it right to break that bastard mood. He

leaned forward. The radio in the car played, faint and r distorted,

and the singer was Simonida with the one-string gusla to back her.

He

tapped Milan's shoulder. "Milan, I love you .. . Milan, if you were 181

dead, I would dig the best hole for you .. . Milan, why are you now

such a miserable bastard .. . ?" The gravedigger thought he could

break the mood with mischief. '.. . Milan, you are a miserable

bastard, you are a miserable bastard to be with. If you want me to,

Milan, I will go and dig a hole, as deep as I can dig it, so that

I

have to chuck the earth up over my shoulder, and you can go and lie

in

the hole and I will chuck the earth back on top of you, and that might

cure you of being such a miserable bastard .. ." He had reached

forward, and his fingers worked at Milan's shoulders, like he used

to

see the postman's fingers, Branko's, at Milan's shoulders when he

loosened him before a big match of basketball. '.. . Milan, you

are a

miserable bastard to be with, and you make everyone else a miserable

bastard. Look at us, we are all miserable because you are a miserable

bastard .. ." And the man pulled himself forward, and broke the

grave-digger's hold on his shoulders. And he thought he could play

Milan because he had the sort of black humour that would make Milan

laugh. The gravedigger was on the crest, and he could not see Milan's

face. If he had seen it he might have sat back into the seat, let

the

springs tickle his arse, but he could not see it. "You know why you are such a miserable bastard, Milan? You are a miserable bastard

because you are scared .. ." The gravedigger could not see Milan's face, and he could not see his hands. '.. . You are Scared. Have

been

scared since that old American came and farted over at Rosenovici.

Why

are you scared? Then he saw Milan's face. He saw the erupted anger.

He saw the hands and he saw the pistol. The face was against his,

bright red and flushed. One hand coming past his eyes and locking

into

his old straggled hair and pulling his head forward. One hand

holding

the pistol and driving it through his teeth, grating them, until the

foresight ground against the roof of his mouth. And he had seen Milan

kill, and he could not doubt that Milan would kill. And he had seen

a

bastard Ustase killed by a bullet fired from a pistol deep in the

mouth, and seen the crown of the head, where the hair was thinning,

lift off. And the postman had swerved the car, gone half into a ditch

and come out, and the carpenter cowered away against the far window

of

the back of the car.

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And the anger was gone. The foresight of the pistol scraped the roof

of the gravedigger's mouth and against his teeth and nicked at his

lip.

And the smile was there, as if Milan was saying that he was not

scared.

Stevo's mouth was raw agony and he could feel, already, the wet of

his