The Small Boat of Great Sorrows (16 page)

“Shall I put him on hold, sir?” Azudin was still awaiting an answer, looking far too curious for Matek's taste.

“No. Put the call through. And why don't you go down to see Silovic and pick up this week's take. If he grumbles about doing it a day early, tell him this is a test. That I'm making sure he isn't raking the till and juggling the books at the last minute, or taking midweek loans at my expense. Tell him it's a pop quiz. Tell him whatever you like. And take your cell phone in case I need you.”

There, Matek thought. Azudin hated chores like this. It would take his mind off this phone call. No sense piquing his interest in anyone named Petric. “Go now. And put the call through.”

“Yes, sir,” Azudin said, departing with the helpless expression of a driver of a tiny car about to be crushed between two careening trucks.

Matek returned to his desk, anticipation building to a boil and, he had to admit, his merchant's sense of an impending bargain prickling as well. If the son of an old colleague was in charge of a new demining contract, well, that was good news on a front he'd been trying to make gains on for months. But the very fact that Enver's name had been spoken over his telephone seemed alarming. Although, why worry? Azudin wasn't in the habit of reading anti-Ustasha tracts that named names and dug up old history. He was twenty-six, and about as interested in history as any young man on the make, meaning not at all. Even if he had been, the most detailed published accounts available never mentioned young officers who'd been so far down the pecking order. Matek had checked the books and pamphlets himself, looking always for the names Rudec and Iskric, just in case, scanning with a frantic thump in his heart that was always pacified in the end.

He could probably resume using his old name tomorrow without turning a single head, if he wanted. Well, maybe not. There were always the old heads to consider, the gray women in the streets or the men leaning on their canes. Funny how he thought of them as old when they were his contemporaries, and once or twice in his travels around the country he thought he'd noticed some of them eyeing him strangely—probably nothing but the idle curiosity of the rube, but you could never tell for sure. He remembered that American movie about the old Jews stumbling through the streets of New York, bony fingers outstretched, calling the name of some aging Nazi who tried to race away. A horror to have it end that way, which was one reason he seldom strayed beyond his region, and almost never journeyed to places where lots of Serbs lived. The war had made that easier, thank goodness, sending each side streaming for its own ghettos and enclaves, the crescents and the crosses once again penned in their own cantons. Now he could drive for miles without fear of meeting some unwelcome face from his past.

Azudin transferred the call. Matek lifted the receiver, wondering if he might begin to tremble, either with worry or anticipation. But his hand was steady, his voice calm. “Matek,” he said.

His caller turned out to be the one who was tremulous—from anger, from nerves, from dismay. Vlado had dialed quickly, as soon as he and Pine had reviewed the approach he should take, but he realized as soon as he heard the man's voice that he should have waited, if only for an hour, giving his emotions time to subside.

Hearing the man speak his name, he wanted to shout, “Who are you?” if only to calm the flutter in his stomach, the pressure in his fingertips. Instead he stuck to the formalities, working to keep the quaver out of his voice. “Mr. Matek?”

“Yes. And you're Enver's boy?”

“Undeniably.”

Curious choice of words, Matek thought.

“But I'm not calling to relive old times, because frankly my father never told me much about those. It's business that brings me to your doorstep.”

“You're hooked up with the EU, I take it?”

“Yes. Demining contracts. You're in the market for one, and I'm the new regional administrator.”

“I thought the EU was convinced I didn't measure up.”

“That was under the previous management. Now I'm in charge.”

“Glad to hear it. And with a name I can trust. You should visit.”

“The sooner the better.”

“Tomorrow, then. Early, if you can make it. Eight o'clock? We can have breakfast.”

“I'll be driving up from Sarajevo.”

“Make it ten, then. A more civilized hour. We'll have coffee, maybe a glass of wine.”

Matek was momentarily at a loss for what to say next. He wouldn't be laying on the usual spread, not for a local, much less one who was practically family. No need for any grand poses with this one, yet he'd still need to do some acting, given the circumstances. “We'll have more to talk about than just business, of course. So plan on staying awhile.”

“Sure. I'll count on it.”

I'll have to play this one carefully, Matek thought. He'd be trying to gauge exactly what the boy knew before committing himself to one truth or another. He'd need to do some thinking between now and tomorrow morning.

He gave Vlado directions, then they said good-bye. Tomorrow would be interesting indeed.

CHAPTER TEN

Pine and Vlado drove north on the highway out of Sarajevo, up through Kiseljak, Busovaca, and Vitez. During the war the road had crisscrossed territory held by all three warring factions, with sandbagged checkpoints and scattered mines. Travnik was about sixty miles away, but they'd allowed an extra hour for bad roads and slow traffic, saying little to fill the awkward silence as the miles passed. The mountains shouldered the route as the pale winter sun climbed the sky to their right.

Vlado had a slight hangover, less from three shots of the hotel's plum brandy than from the evening's revelations, which had called to him throughout the restless night, a gruff whisper through the pillow.

“Guess we ought to review some of the details,” Pine said, clearing his throat. Their hope was that Matek would want to sign the contract the following morning, a Friday, the day of the Andric raid, coordinating the timing to please all sides. The key would be luring him onto neutral ground at the Skorpio.

“It's a little rat hole near the Suleiman mosque,” Pine said. “Cheap
rakija
that will melt the paint off a wall. Matek supposedly has a stash of Italian wines they keep in the back. They don't even need to lock it up. That's what a reputation will do for you. Nobody would dare touch it.

“There's a
cevapi
stand where he usually likes to stop, too, up an alley around the corner. Then he usually meets one of his mistresses at the Skorpio. Spends an hour filling her up with Chianti or something stronger before they go upstairs for an hour of fun.”

At one level Vlado was listening. At another he was wondering what he might be able to learn from Matek about his father without revealing the true nature of his visit. Pine probably had more information worth knowing, too. But he was still talking, still reviewing every possible detail of the day ahead. Maybe it was his clumsy way of softening the blow. Or maybe he was just embarrassed about having strung Vlado along.

“Pull over,” Vlado interrupted. “I need to check something.”

“We'll be late,” Pine said, plowing ahead.

“Which would make me like every other Bosnian,” he said icily. “It's you and the Germans who are obsessed with punctuality. We're way ahead of schedule. Pull over.”

Pine complied with a frown, yanking the wheel, the car shuddering to a stop on the graveled shoulder.

“I want to see anything else you might have with you about my father,” Vlado said. “Even if I only have time for a glance.”

“You've seen the file.”

“But there's more, isn't there. Someone must have wondered what would happen if I needed more convincing. That was pretty thin stuff, really. Just a few dates and assignments. If I'd demanded more proof, what would you have shown me?”

Pine sighed but never took his eyes off Vlado. “It's in my bag,” he said. “Just a few pages. There's more back at The Hague, but we figured this would do it. If you really want to see, that is. If I were you, I wouldn't.”

“You're not me. Get it, please.”

Pine nodded, reaching for his briefcase. He snapped it open, foraged a moment, then pulled out a thin, stapled report stamped EYES ONLY below the tribunal letterhead. It was an old report from a U.S. Army counterintelligence officer.

“It's a witness report,” Pine said. “From Jasenovac. Taken at a DP camp in Italy in 1946.”

Vlado had second thoughts as he scanned the cover page. How much did he really need this? He decided to plunge in before losing his nerve.

“I'll take a little walk,” Pine said, opening the door. “If you don't mind.”

“Watch for mines,” Vlado said absently.

“I know.”

The name of the witness was Dragan Bobinac. He was a musician, a cellist from the Serb village of Crveni Bok on the banks of the Sava River, not far from Jasenovac. His account began with the day he was rounded up near his home along with several hundred of his neighbors, and he had plenty to say about the man known as Josip Iskric, who later became Enver Petric:

The soldiers came into our village in early morning, about a hundred of them, led by two lieutenants. I later learned their names were Rudec and Iskric. Iskric was the one giving orders, shouting at his men to keep anyone from escaping into the river. Some of his men shot people as they ran from their homes. Anyone who resisted was clubbed or stabbed on the spot. Children who didn't come fast enough were shot or struck in the face with sticks or bayonets. Some were dumped immediately into the river, still bleeding and alive. As we were marching I saw the naked body of a woman on the riverbank. Her eyes had been gouged out and a metal rod was shoved in her genitals. Iskric ordered me and another man to throw her into the river. The other man's name was Cedomir, he was a baker in the village. When Cedomir saw the woman he fell to his knees and said she was his niece. Iskric took a sidearm from a holster and ordered Cedomir to get up or he would be killed, but he stayed on the ground, crying. Iskric walked in front of him and shot him in the face, then rolled the body over with his boot. He ordered me to push both bodies into the river. I got them into the water, but the woman snagged on a branch after floating a few feet downstream, and Iskric ordered me into the river to pull her free. All this time the entire column was halted, watching everything, while some of the children were crying. I waded into the river up to my knees and pulled away the branch, then I watched the woman float toward the main current, which carried her downstream.

Vlado couldn't bear the scene any longer. He skipped ahead to an account from inside Jasenovac itself.

I was one of 10 people employed in the carpentry shop in the main camp. We were marching to the shop from our barracks when we were ordered to halt to allow a large column to pass in the opposite direction. They were young women— 150, maybe 200—led by several guards and Lieutenant Iskric. Someone shouted an order for the women to stop as well, and we looked at each other. Tears were falling from their eyes, and Iskric made a speech, telling our column to look closely because in an hour all these women would be dead, and that the next morning perhaps we would be killed as well unless we worked hard enough that day. We were forced to watch while the women were marched to the river. They were loaded onto rafts that took them to the other side, where the current was stronger. As they stepped onto the bank they were pulled aside by guards, who stabbed them with bayonets, and cut their throats and stomachs with knives. We could hear their screams and groans very clearly when they were stabbed or clubbed. Their bodies were then thrown or pushed into the current, sometimes while they were still alive and screaming.

Bobinac's account ended a few pages later with his escape the following month. He, too, had finally been ferried across the river with a hundred others. He got away when one of the guards hastily shoved him into the current with only a superficial wound, from a bayonet to the stomach.

There was more, but Vlado had seen enough. He gingerly placed the pages back into Pine's briefcase. Then he rolled down the window, the air cool and damp on his face, which boiled with shame and revulsion. So how much more of this sort of material was on file at The Hague, he wondered? How many chapters of such unbearable tales? He would need to see each and every one, no matter how agonizing.

“All done,” he shouted in a quavering voice. What he needed was a brisk walk to collect himself, but he figured he didn't deserve it. Better to take it like this, stewing and guilty in a seat next to someone whose hands were clean, while driving across this tired landscape where armies had marched for generations, from one war to the next.

Pine was about twenty feet in front of the car when Vlado called out. For a moment he paused, facing the other way like a forlorn hitchhiker. Then he turned and slowly strolled back, rubbing his hands together for warmth as he slid into the driver's seat. He started the engine without a word.

It was a mile or so before either of them spoke.

“You okay?” Pine said softly.

Vlado nodded. “No worse than yesterday.” Then he shrugged, exasperated. “But I'm still not really sure how I felt then. So how can I say what's going through my head now? Don't expect me to be okay. Just expect me to do my job. Just get me to the meeting. At least now I know the sort of person I'm dealing with.”

“Sure.” Pine kept his eyes on the road.

Vlado waited a moment, then asked, “This witness, Bobinac. Is he still alive?”

“Living in Novi Sad, I think. He's prepared to testify at Matek's trial.”

After a few minutes of silence, Pine tentatively resumed his impromptu briefing. “There's a wide street out front of the Skorpio,” he said, “and no way to exit through the back without having to go through the kitchen. They keep the kitchen door in the rear padlocked. Firetrap, but perfect for us 'cause he has to come out the front even if he decides to bolt. Try to let the Skorpio be his idea. But if he starts making noise about another meeting at the house, insist that your boss never meets the locals on their own turf, that the meeting has to be in town. That should steer him where we want him.”

“Plus, I'm his old friend's son, and his new partner in crime. So how can he possibly say no?”

“Yes. That, too.”

Vlado wouldn't let it go. Not yet. “So tell me. What would you have done if you hadn't found me? Or if I didn't exist? Would this swap still have been arranged? And don't give me any of that ‘Plan B' business.”

Pine didn't look up. “Probably. Just would have been harder. We might have just waited until he went to the café on his own, then jumped. But SFOR doesn't like doing business that way. You have to get paid informants involved, and once you've done that the whole thing tends to leak like an old pirate ship. So we were looking for something to simplify this, and that's when we found you.”

“How did my name turn up?”

“Harkness or LeBlanc, apparently.”

The names chilled him, especially Harkness's, remembering the man's face in the dark as he'd muttered about Popovic. For all he knew, LeBlanc had been poking around in his affairs as well. Either of them might have been the man who'd shown up on Haris's doorstep in Berlin. LeBlanc was simply too clever to have asked him directly about Popovic, the way Harkness had. But now it seemed more unlikely than ever that any of that should matter to this operation.

“I heard they came across your name while researching Matek,” Pine continued. “I guess through your father's file. We checked records for any living relatives of either. We couldn't believe our luck. They had me on a train to Berlin within a week. Contreras wanted it moving fast. The French did, too. Didn't know how long they could hold together the political momentum in the defense and foreign ministries. That was LeBlanc's doing. The French still aren't exactly keen on the idea of picking up Andric. It'll be the first arrest in their sector since the Dayton agreement. But at least they'll be starting with a bang. He'll be the biggest suspect yet to go to trial. But the main reason you made the pieces fit is because SFOR loved the idea. There's nothing they like better than ordering up a time, a date, and a secure location for bringing in a suspect. I'm not even sure we could have talked them into this one without the kind of assurance you'll provide. If you can provide it.”

“And if I can't? What if Matek says we close the deal at his place or no place?”

“I can't imagine he would, given the stakes. He's wanted this contract a long time.”

“But say that he does.”

Pine turned toward him for the first time, the tires thrumming on the road. “I don't know. You tell me. We're flying by the seat of our pants as it is.”

“Like you said. Half-assed.”

“Sometimes that's as good as it gets down here.”

Vlado wished Pine would quit saying “down here,” as if it were some quaint corner of hell.

“How many SFOR people will be involved?”

“The soldiers? Hard to say. We're never privy to that. I'd guess at least twenty. Two APCs and maybe a Humvee with a big gun mounted on the back. It'll look like they're coming after Genghis Khan by the time they're in place.”

“Won't that be kind of . . .”

“Stupid? Ridiculous? Noisy? Enough to panic everyone in the neighborhood and maybe him, too? Sure. You ever seen cops or soldiers do it any other way?”

Vlado smiled ruefully. “I guess not.”

Vlado wondered how many other people back in The Hague must have known about his father when they'd met him. Harkness and LeBlanc had, of course. Contreras and Spratt had presumably known as well, smiling and chatting as if none the wiser. Perhaps Janet Ecker, too. All of them looking him in the eye and not wavering a bit. And these were the good guys. No wonder Pine had been so irritated when LeBlanc made the crack about “surprises” awaiting Vlado in Sarajevo. Maybe the Frenchman had been trying to warn him in some oblique way, although it struck him more as a clumsy joke, something to get under Pine's skin.

Everyone had fooled him, and now he was about to fool Matek, all in the name of family. He wondered how he'd feel when the moment of truth came, and the old man—his father's friend, for better or worse—looked into his eyes, realizing what was happening. Just what Vlado needed this morning. Another reason to feel rotten. At least after tomorrow he'd be able to call Jasmina. Who knew what she and Sonja were thinking by now? More than two days without a word, except from some tribunal secretary. And so much to tell her, so much that would be difficult and embarrassing. She'd never met his father, had only seen his picture.

“Here's the turnoff to Travnik,” Pine said. “Nine-twenty. We're in good shape.”

Travnik was long past its prime, worn down in past years by cataclysmic fires, and more recently by wearying tides of refugees. A century ago it had been a hub for the Ottoman viziers who ran Bosnia for the sultan. European diplomats came and went, observed by the young Serbian novelist Ivo Andric, who skeptically recorded their doings in his
Chronicles of Travnik
. His home there, once a popular museum, was now largely ignored. Never mind his Nobel Prize. He was the Serb who'd portrayed the Turks and their local Islamic converts as bloodthirsty tyrants, deserving of vengeance.