The Serbian Dane (9 page)

‘Wait, Per!’ she cried.

Toftlund also got out and stood by the door. She tossed her cigarette over the edge of the quay.

‘You’re right. There’s no bloody point in arguing about art,’ he said placidly.

She walked up to him and took his arm.

‘It’s not that, stupid. I’ve just had an idea. You’re really worried about the press conference, right?’

Per nodded. She shook his arm vigorously, as if he were a little kid. She could feel his muscles. His arm was soft and yet solid. Totally different from Ole’s; she felt a surge of warmth in her breast.

‘There!’ she said, pointing beyond the harbour mouth, out into the Sound.

‘Sweden?’ Per said.

‘No. On an island in the middle of the Sound.’

Toftlund stood for a moment scanning the waves, looked down at her, then back at the water.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Christ-all-bloody-Mighty. Flakfortet. Easy to monitor. Easy to guard. Easy to block off. It’s bloody perfect,
chica
. God, you’re smart.’

She felt like a schoolgirl who had been praised for writing a good essay. It was a great idea, and she couldn’t help doing a little hop, skip and jump before having almost all the breath squeezed out of her as he gave her a big hug and pounded her gently but firmly on the back, sending a warm thrill all the way down her spine, from the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet.

V
uk had a dream in the hotel room in Berlin. As usual it began well. He saw his parents far in the distance, standing on a green hill under a pale-blue sky. They were waving to him. The light was golden, peaceful, but not for long. Suddenly the sun altered character. It turned a fiery red, even though it was high in the sky. It looked like a child’s drawing, with a glimmer of a smile and long tongues of flame shooting out from it. But there was laughter hidden within the sun-reddened landscape, and faint music. He was both in the picture and watching from the outside. Then a deep rumbling sounded in the distance, and he knew the blood-roller was on its way. The thunderous rumble grew louder, and at the same time the picture in his dream was filled with people. At first they were waving, then they started screaming. But their screams were soundless. He could only hear his parents. They were calling plaintively for his sister, but he could not see her. All he knew was that she was somewhere in the crowd. Soon the blood-roller would appear and he knew that he would be driving it and would, therefore, be three people at the same time. Three shadows in a bloodshot landscape.

Vuk struggled to wake up, and this time he managed it before the
blood-roller
came into full view on the horizon. He sat bolt upright in bed, trembling and drenched in sweat. The sheet was soaked through. The room was in darkness, and the furniture was nothing but flickering shadows. He had slept the whole day away. He switched on the light and helped himself to two miniatures of vodka from the minibar. He knocked back one bottle then went into the bathroom, poured the contents of the second into his tooth-glass and drank this too. Gradually his breathing calmed down. He looked at himself in the mirror: a young frightened face with narrowed eyes. He was having this
dream more and more often. He could control what happened in his life when he was awake, but it was becoming harder and harder to keep the demons at bay when he was asleep. Which was why he tried to sleep as little as possible. He dreaded sleep as others dread the calamities of waking life. But this time his body had triumphed over his mind. It had simply had need of all those hours. He tasted the sleep, like a greasy coating in his mouth. His head was heavy, but his body felt well rested.

Vuk showered. He called Kravtjov and was given the name of a café near Alexanderplatz. He was to be there at midnight. He stuck his Swiss Army knife in the pocket of his leather jacket and went out.

From the side street Vuk turned onto the Kurfürstendamm. He bought that day’s edition of the
Herald Tribune
and repaired to a café for a quick cup of coffee and a mineral water. He skimmed through the paper: things were not going well in Bosnia. There was a brief note on the back page announcing that the writer Sara Santanda would be visiting a number of European countries, including Denmark. There was also a piece about the CIA, which had been granted sixteen billion dollars to undermine the clerical government in Iran. Vuk didn’t understand the Americans. How could they let it be known that their intelligence agency had instigated such a project? Vuk hoped the CIA would succeed in their undertaking. He hated the Iranians. He had seen them in action in Bosnia, where these holy warriors had fought on the side of the government army. They were fanatics, ruthless killers. But they were also careless where their own safety was concerned. They probably imagined that the hand of Allah would protect them, but he had managed to bring down a few of them with his rifle while they were ordering about their Bosnian Muslim recruits. So much for Allah.

He was ready for anything again. He felt safe in the big anonymous city, where he was just one young man among many in his blue jeans, checked shirt and shabby, brown leather jacket. The Berlin evening was cool but not cold. There were lots of people in the streets. He walked up the Kurfürstendamm to Brandenburger Tor. Construction cranes pierced the night sky like the church spires of a new age. The din of the traffic throbbed in his ears, making his nerve-endings vibrate. It was a long time since he had strolled around a city that was not in the grip of war or blockades. The city soon came to feel to him
like a welcoming glove into which he could crawl and disappear. He was on his guard, but he felt secure. No one knew where he was. Nonetheless, he took no chances. He crossed the street a couple of times. Walked back the way he had come. Walked quickly in and out of a café. Stayed in one spot for a long time, using a shop window as a mirror. He was alone in the crowd.

He stood for a while watching a couple of Romanians trying to hoodwink two East Germans. The trick was as old as the hills, but apparently it still worked: three small eggcups and a tiny pea set out on a speedily erected table. The pea disappears under one of the eggcups, and all three cups are shuffled around at lightning speed. Punters have to bet on which cup the pea is under. But maybe the trick was too old after all. The Romanians spent most of their time playing together, endeavouring to attract custom, and the man with the cups always lost. But Vuk knew that he could have won any time he wanted to. The few bystanders gathered around the table looked as if they had seen it all before.

Vuk walked on until he came to a steakhouse. There was a table by a window. He ate a steak and drank a bottle of mineral water followed by a coffee before moving on. He crossed the old sector boundary. There was no sign of the Wall. It might never have existed except in nightmares. No one had considered preserving it as a historic monument. Where the Wall had stood was a broad band of upturned earth, tufts of grass and disintegrating chunks of stone, punctuated by cranes and half-finished buildings. But Vuk knew right away that he was now in East Berlin. He found himself surrounded by
Soviet-style
concrete buildings. He could have been in Belgrade or Minsk. But there were more neon signs and western cars here than previously, and the shop windows cast a golden glow over the pavement which ran past ranks of identical concrete tower blocks, like giant soldiers in a petrified army.

Vuk reached Alexanderplatz. There were only a handful of people about. Marx and Engels stood alone on the square in the shadow of the television tower, looking lost and forlorn. They seemed so small. As if the regime had not thought them worth expending too much granite on. Vuk walked over to the statue and lit a cigarette. He pulled his map of Berlin from his inside pocket and checked the location of the café: down a side street only a few hundred yards away.

It was on the ground floor of the building and looked like an old
East-German
kneipe
, but Vuk noted that the proprietor seemed to have splashed out on a new sign and a lick of paint for the facade when the place had been privatised. It had the look of a place frequented by Russians. Vuk positioned himself in a doorway opposite the café. He zipped his jacket up to the neck and waited.

It was close on midnight when Kravtjov showed up. With him was a slim, very short man with black hair. They could have passed for a couple of businessmen in their navy suits and blue coats. Kravtjov let the Iranian precede him into the bar. Vuk stayed where he was. He waited fifteen minutes more, but no one else appeared. He took a walk up one side of the street and back down the other. There were only a few late-night wanderers around. The two men had been on their own.

The café was bigger than Vuk had expected. It stretched a long way back. It was simply furnished with a bar and some wooden tables and chairs. There were about a score of people in the place, drinking beer and schnapps. A couple of them glanced his way, then promptly turned back to their talk and their beer. Vuk peered through the smoke that obscured the blue lighting in the dim room. The Russian and the Iranian were sitting alone at a table right at the far end of the café. Kravtjov sat facing the door, while the Iranian had his back to it. The latter had short black hair that was plastered down with gel. Kravtjov had an almost empty glass of draught beer in front of him. The Iranian appeared to be drinking coffee. Two extra cups stood on the table next to the coffee jug.

Kravtjov caught sight of Vuk and lifted a hand ever so slightly. Vuk crossed the floor silently in his trainers. The Iranian turned to look at him. Vuk could see he was surprised that he was so young. He had been expecting a more experienced man. As if experience comes only with age. It has as much to do with the chances that come your way. Vuk had learned more in four years than most people would learn in a lifetime. And he had survived. He took a seat at the end of the table with his back to the wall, Kravtjov on his right and the Iranian on his left.

Kravtjov smiled. The smile did not reach his eyes. The Iranian looked long and hard at Vuk. He had close-set, dark eyes. He was toying with his teaspoon.

‘Coffee?’ he said in English.

Vuk nodded.

The Iranian picked up the jug on the table and poured him a cup.

‘Vuk, meet Mr Rezi. Mr Rezi, this is Vuk.’

Vuk nodded again and raised his coffee cup. His hand was steady as a rock.

Kravtjov shrugged and said:

‘Right, then. Mr Rezi is authorized to speak for his government.’

‘Then let him speak,’ said Vuk wryly. The Iranian looked at him, and Vuk looked straight back at him. Kravtjov felt the frostiness of the atmosphere between them. He’d been expecting that. These days, seating a Serb and a Muslim at the same table was possibly not the wisest move, but Kravtjov had learned from long experience that big business makes for the most unlikely bedfellows. Even though Rezi must know that Vuk had hunted and killed his countrymen in Bosnia. But this was business. These former enemies now had a common interest. There was no room here for ideology or idealism.

Rezi raised his own coffee cup, took a sip and set the cup down again without a chink. He lit a cigarette and leaned across the table. His voice was hushed. He spoke exquisite English. BBC English, Vuk thought. He had to be about forty, seemed well educated and urbane, but Vuk knew that Rezi would kill a man as dispassionately as he sipped his coffee. Whether he was pulling the trigger himself or dispatching someone else to do it. The Iranian security police showed their enemies no mercy.

‘We want that infidel whore dead,’ he said in his smooth, dry voice. ‘We are willing to pay you and Mr Kravtjov’s organization four million dollars to do the job. The contract stands for six months.’

It was Vuk’s turn to lean across the table.

‘I don’t kill for money,’ he said.

‘I realize that. You can do what you like with the money.’

Again Vuk took his time. Drank some more coffee. It was lukewarm. The pleasant low hum of voices filled the room. The bartender had switched on the television and was watching football highlights. Vuk fixed his eyes on Rezi as the latter spoke again:

‘Officially, Iran does not send out hit squads. It would not be politic at the moment. It is important for our economy that we collaborate with the infidels. But we want that whore done away with. A fatwa is final. No politician can
rescind what Allah has decreed. No matter what our official line may be. Do you understand me?’

‘Perfectly,’ Vuk said.

‘So Mr…’

‘Just Vuk…’

‘So, Mr Vuk. Where do you stand?’

Vuk had had enough of his smooth diplomatic mouthings.

‘I hate all fucking Muslims,’ he said.

Vuk saw Rezi blink, with eyes that turned black as pitch. The businessman and the diplomat seemed suddenly to have disappeared. The blue suit no longer appeared to sit right on him. The security agent, the torturer from Tehran could no longer conceal his true self.

‘Take it easy, Vuk. Please.’ Kravtjov fiddled anxiously with his teaspoon.

Rezi smiled and raised his hands deprecatingly.

‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ he said. ‘He is young. I understand. Perhaps his family has suffered. War is a terrible thing. We know. We fought for eight years against the godless Iraqis. I myself fought in the swamps of Basra. War leaves its mark on a man, although the scars are not always visible.’

Kravtjov smiled, but there was sweat on his brow. He drained the last of his beer and said:

‘Tell him about the plan, Mr Rezi. The beauty of it.’

‘Ah, but it’s your plan. I think…’

Kravtjov laid a hand on Vuk’s arm but removed it again hastily when he caught the look on the young man’s face. Instead he began to talk very fast:

‘Listen, Vuk, Mr Rezi will put the finger on a Bosnian Muslim. And you hate those people, right? A good, dead Bosnian Muslim. He’ll get the blame. He’ll be proclaimed a martyr in Tehran. They can always rustle up a mob down there. All those stupid bleeding hearts in the West will be outraged! And you Serbs could do with a little sympathy. Think about it! What does some woman writer matter to you? Fuck-all. And some dumb Bosnian Muslim and all his kind will get the blame It’s beautiful. Can’t you see that?’

For the first time Vuk smiled. The atmosphere around the table had improved. Yes, he could see that. He saw it better than Kravtjov, because the old KGB bastard didn’t know what Vuk’s actual plan was.

‘Your old organization has trained you well,’ Vuk said. ‘But what do you get out of it? And don’t say “money”. The money’s ours.’

‘That really is none of your business,’ Kravtjov said.

‘It could turn out to be.’

Rezi leaned over the table again. He poured coffee, first for Vuk then for himself, and passed round a pack of Marlboros. The others both took one, and he lit their cigarettes for them before saying:

‘Gentlemen, let’s be businesslike. Mr Vuk! My government will give Mr Kravtjov and his – how shall I put it? – his business associates access to some bank accounts. Legal bank accounts. Clean bank accounts.’

Kravtjov hunched forward:

‘Vuk, listen to me! Nowadays, it’s easy to make money. But it’s not so easy to spend it. We need channels. Legal channels.’

At this Vuk’s face broke in a broad grin.

‘So your government is going to be laundering money for the Russian Mafia?’

Rezi was grinning now too. But his eyes weren’t smiling as he spread his hands in a gesture that said that was about the size of it.