The Small Boat of Great Sorrows (26 page)

“Scusi,” he said, brushing past her as if he owned the place. You did these things with confidence, or you didn't try them at all.

“Sir?” she said.

“I'll be right out,” he said briskly. “Then you can finish.”

Shutting the door behind him and setting the security chain, he saw a man's clothes and a newspaper spread across an unmade bed. He picked up the receiver, punching an eight for an international line. The dial tone sprang to life.

He punched in Amira's home number, grateful that she'd written it on her card, and as the phone rang, it really did feel like he'd gone back to his life during the siege—his wife had become a seldom-heard, distant voice in Germany, and he was again alone and in need of a favor from this woman in Sarajevo, only now he knew how dearly she had paid for helping him the first time.

He awakened her, just as he'd awakened Jasmina; her voice was drowsy and languorous.

“Yes?”

“It's Vlado. Vlado Petric.”

“Of course.” As if she wasn't the least surprised. She must have then cupped a hand over the receiver, because he heard her speaking to someone else, the words indistinguishable. Probably her foreign boyfriend. And Vlado again felt the irrational stab of jealousy, followed by a flush of guilt.

“Go ahead,” she said, all business now.

“I'm in Rome. But I need some information the Red Cross may have. Old stuff, from fifty years ago.”

“And you thought maybe I could look it up for you.” She was not happy about it but she wasn't angry, either.

“It's just that, well, I'm not sure that going through official channels would do much good. It's not something they'd be proud of.”

She laughed. Whatever reserve she'd maintained had dissolved. “And what will it be next time, Vlado? Will you need me to break into a building for you? Go ahead. Tell me what you need. Then I'll decide if you deserve it. Is it for the tribunal?”

“Yes. But it's personal, too, I guess.”

“These kinds of things usually are in our country.”

He told her he was looking for records of two Red Cross passports issued in Rome during the last week of June or the first week of July 1946—around the time of the break-in at San Girolamo. Most likely they would have been issued the same day, to males ages twenty-three and twenty-five, or thereabouts, in case they'd fudged their dates of birth.

“Under what names?”

“That's what I'm trying to find out. They would have wanted new identities. Evidently it was fairly common then.”

“Common now, too. At least in some quarters of the IRC. But I never said that, of course. Let's just say that some employees don't always maintain their spirit of altruism when faced with the prospect of a windfall profit for a few mere documents. Especially during wartime. Especially in shitholes like this.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Do you have a nationality?”

“It was a pair of Yugoslavs, ethnic Croats. But if I had to guess, I'd say they'd want to be listed as Italian, so they could stay awhile. Maybe with an address near Trieste, somewhere near the Slovenian border, so it wouldn't be implausible for them to have Slavic accents, or to know Serbo-Croatian.”

“A lot of the older stuff has been computerized. Leave it to the Swiss to digitize every possible record. In which case it's lucky you reached me on a Sunday. I can surf around on the office computer with none of the administrators around to ask what I'm up to. Which is no guarantee I'll find it. If it's still only in paper form, I might not be able to track it down until Monday, if then. But you're right about going through official channels. Total waste of time. How'd you end up in Rome?”

“Long story. And we're heading south in half an hour.”

“Still with the American?”

“Yes. Still with the German?”

She laughed. “I'll do what I can, Vlado. Try me back tomorrow at the end of the workday. Here, not at the office.”

“Understood. And thanks.”

“No need. The more of the bastards you can put away, the better. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Vlado stepped into the hallway. The maid had disappeared into some other room. He shut the door behind him, wanting to pack up and leave before she saw him again.

He met Pine in the lobby a few minutes later. It was just before nine, and the rental car was parked out front. Vlado wondered what he should say, if anything, about the morning's events. Nothing, he supposed, given all the warnings. Somehow it seemed safer keeping it all to himself, although it made him feel guilty.

“I called and got us a hotel in Castellammare di Stabia,” Pine said. “But damned if I've decided what we'll do when we get there, other than spend some more of the tribunal's money.” Then he smiled, picking up his bags. “But I guess we've got three hours to come up with an answer. C'mon. Let's hit the road.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

As Vlado and Pine were climbing into a rental car in Rome, Pero Matek was gazing out the window of a train.

It had been a long two days, he reflected, although much easier than the last time, when it had taken months, even years, and every turn had been fraught with either ambush or deception. One enemy after another, from armies to gumshoes to priests. But he'd had the energy to deal with it then, outwitting all comers even when operating without food or sleep. Now a mere day in a car and a second aboard trains had exhausted him.

He hadn't helped himself by making the journey longer than necessary. The most direct route would have taken him west by northwest to the Croatian coastline, then up along the shore, cutting the corner at Slovenia toward Trieste—a circuit of the upper Adriatic, like some tourist with his Baedeker. But he'd headed for Austria instead, spending the first night just across the border, awakening in Villach to a warm morning with steam rising from the streets. He'd dumped the car, which had been stolen anyway, and since then it had been trains all the way, zigzagging down the boot of Italy until he found himself in a second-class compartment crawling around the Bay of Naples. The view toward the water was blocked by industry and crumbling apartments, so he turned in his seat to look inland, up toward the imposing brown cone of Vesuvius.

The top was bare, leveled by its last great blast in '44, only two years before his own arrival. He remembered the way the mountain had been smoking then, a sulfurous steam that had made him uneasy, bringing to mind all those ancients fleeing for their lives at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Panic was the same no matter what its era, and the fear that drove mobs disgusted him.

He thought of the crowds along the northbound road out of Zagreb in the last month of the war, refugees clogging the highway with their carts and bundles, slowed by their belongings when they should have just cut and run.

Or worse, there were the crowds during the fighting in the Kosarev Mountains—a church full of people, all of them screaming while his men formed a line around the building. The mobs had started breaking their own damned stained glass just to try to save themselves, until a few machine-gun bursts persuaded them to remain inside. Then the fires had begun, his men pouring gasoline by the gallon, wasting it, an inefficient way to do business when you could sell your surplus at a premium. The noise made by the trapped crowd had reminded him of cavitation in the bottom of a kettle as water comes to a boil, the molecules excited with a clattering noise like fingernails tapping on the bottom. The angry buzz of hornets in a shaken nest. And you killed them the same way, with smoke and flame, to make sure none would ever sting you. Roasted alive, the propagandists had said later. Well, burned for sure. But by the time the roasting began they'd been dead enough.

He turned from the window. The man next to him was getting up, a bag of apples in his hand. Matek checked the stop. Still five more to go on this rattling local that seemed to stop every mile, dot-ting the arching coastline all the way to Sorrento, which even this time of year attracted vacationers. He spotted a pair of young Germans with backpacks, a few middle-class Brits and their pale brood. No Americans, though, thank God, so the only noise on the car came from the Italians, especially the two near the front, arguing loudly above the rattling of the car, their arms moving as if they were conducting an opera, some energetic scene from Puccini. It had turned into an unseasonably warm weekend, so he supposed he had to expect some holiday crowds. The views from the bluffs of Sorrento and Positano would be no less spectacular merely because it was winter. The swimming pools would still be heated, the restaurants still overpriced, the shops still full of everything that was coveted and useless. But for him, only a few calls at a few old stops, a brief interlude for collecting on an insurance policy of sorts, a retirement fund, something he'd set aside long ago for some vast unforeseeable emergency, for which his current predicament surely must qualify.

At last the train screeched and shuddered into his stop, a grimy and crowded port city that he had once called home. Hardly anyone else was getting off here, he noted with pleasure, and he stood with his small canvas bag, still a man who could travel light. But the journey had drained him. As he made his way down the aisle he felt the fatigue in his calves and at the backs of his eyes. He could never have made the pilgrimage of '45 now. He'd have become one of the thousands left for dead, strafed by the Russian planes and rounded up by the Partisans. Herded into long lines and shot. Then, the mass graves. Had there ever been an era when his countrymen hadn't been digging them?

He walked slowly into the town on narrow streets, and within a few blocks he found a small pension that seemed suitable. It was a bit down at the heels on the outside, but the room was clean and the rate cheap. The proprietor was kind enough. She was roughly his own age, probably a widow from the way she hovered over him, seemingly with little to do but talk and ask questions. Not that he was answering. His Italian continued to bloom, his fluency returning faster than he would have guessed. Yes, he would do just fine here.

After the woman finally left—a trifle too nosy for his taste, he decided—he threw open the shutters to let in the air. Looking past a church steeple he could just see a sliver of the Bay of Naples, glittering in the morning sunlight. And if he leaned just a bit to the left, there it was, the great cone of Vesuvius. He had forgotten the way the volcano dominated the entire basin, making every village seem vulnerable to her brewing and steaming. But she was quiet today, as she had been for years. Like his own life, he reflected. And surely one measure of greatness, whether you were a man or a mountain, was how well could you emerge from dormancy, how deftly, and with how much residual power and skill.

He had some time to rest now. No sense in acting hastily, especially when there soon might be others to contend with. Perhaps by now the investigators had discovered his old identity, and if so, they might have discovered other things as well. From the moment he'd heard from his informant Osman in Travnik he'd known he'd have to keep moving for a while. The boy, the son of Enver Petric, had been unnerving enough, turning up out of the blue like that. But then Matek had learned he was traveling with an American, and the name Calvin Pine had sounded familiar. A short search on the Internet had easily turned up the man's background: the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Meaning that he'd have been a fool to wait for their next visit. Handcuffs and a show trial, the end of everything.

Thinking of them now only made him irritable. His plan to booby-trap his office with mines had seemed elegant at the time, but he realized now it had been too clever by half. Too imprecise. He'd been worried about sloppiness, about attracting too much attention with blunt force, when he should have realized that, for all intents and purposes, he was going back to war. Better to have simply sent a few thugs down the mountain to murder them in their beds, especially the son of Petric, with his father's eager eyes and earnest determination. The sort who wouldn't give up until you put a bullet through his brain. Instead he had killed neither of them. Just some third wheel. The other three mines hadn't even gone off. Or else Azudin had found some way to fuck it up. He'd cursed when he heard the victim's name on the radio. A fellow he'd never heard of, yet a killing that was just as likely to make them hunt for him. So much for elegance.

And what if they turned up here? Local talent could handle it, of course. It was as easy to find in Italy as it was at home. Perhaps easier even, once he'd had a day or so to get the lay of the land. Or he could take care of things himself. The gun was in his bag, and now that he was back on a war footing, it would only seem natural.

But he'd found other news even more disturbing. The radio bulletin yesterday from eastern Bosnia. A botched raid by the French. The escaped general still at large. It was too much of a coincidence that they'd both be on the run at the same time, and Matek was convinced there would soon be at least one other visitor to keep him company.

He unpacked his bag and sprawled on the bed. Later he would have a nice dinner, some wine. A decent vintage and a bowl of pasta, nothing too heavy. Then, early tomorrow, he would find the right place to begin doing business, a vantage point that would let him take stock before making his move. But for now, rest. He lay his head on the overstuffed pillow, feeling the surprising warmth of the coastal breeze in November, the shutters drifting and slapping lightly against the wall. By late tomorrow, a bustling Monday, there might well be quite a show to watch, and he wanted to be rested for his part in it. Closing his eyes, he tumbled toward sleep, still dormant for the moment, feeling like a man with all the time in the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Not long after Pine pulled onto the Autostrada heading south, Vlado, exhausted, fell asleep, with the windows down and the breeze in his face. He awoke later with a start, having no idea where they were or how much time had passed. It was warmer, the traffic heavier. To the right, the ocean glittered in the distance. Glancing left he was startled to see a huge brown mountain, lopped flat at the top. Vesuvius, no doubt. He wished Sonja were here to see it. They'd hike the trail to the top. Peer down into the crater.

Pine hadn't yet noticed that Vlado was awake, and Vlado watched him. He looked relaxed, steering with one hand, sunglasses shining, an elbow propped on the open window—the very picture of an easy-going American traveling without a care in the world, spiky blond hair tossing in the breeze. He was easy to work with, a pleasant fellow. But more important, Vlado trusted him, and he had a feeling that was going to be more important than ever in the next few days.

Pine glanced over, saw that Vlado's eyes were open.

“Quite a sight, huh? Wouldn't want to be around when she blows.”

“How much farther?”

“Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty with the traffic. You had a pretty good nap. I think you needed it.”

Vlado nodded, still groggy.

“I've been thinking,” Pine said.

“About what?”

“Matek. Him and your father driving down here in that truck. Assuming that was who Fordham saw, of course. I guess we have to assume that, or we might as well not be here. Let's say they ran out of gas somewhere around here. Then they've got to find some way to keep moving with two crates of gold. Another assumption, of course, that they took the crates to begin with.”

“Sounds right for Matek.”

“If you had a bunch of gold bars at your disposal, you'd be able to afford any kind of help to keep you moving. Except you wouldn't exactly be able to melt into the landscape once you started spreading gold around. Matek strikes me as too careful to have done that. He'd have kept it hidden, at least for a while. I also doubt they'd have been able to take much of it with them when they slipped back into Yugoslavia. For that matter, why go back at all once you've taken fifteen years to build a life here, and have a nice nest egg salted away? Unless you had to leave, and leave in a hurry. Which is all my way of saying I think it might still be here. The gold. The envelope. All of it. Or whatever they didn't spend in fifteen years. Sound plausible?”

“Sounds like you want it to be plausible.”

“Not much point in us coming here otherwise. Because Matek would certainly have no reason to come back.”

“Except for the woman, maybe. The one in the picture.”

Pine cocked his head. “You really think that's his style? To be pining away all these years for a woman?”

“No. Just trying to convince myself, too, I guess. I'd hate for this to be a dead end.”

“Maybe it isn't, even if he's not here. Spend fifteen years anywhere and there's a good chance that somebody left behind will have an idea of how to find you later.”

“Possibly.”

“Or possibly not. I don't know. The more I think about it, the more I wonder about all our assumptions. They're mostly based on the recollections and conjectures of a paranoid old man. And if all his secrets are so damned dangerous, how's he lived to the ripe old age of, what, seventy-eight?”

That thought silenced them both, and Vlado couldn't help but remember what Harkness had said about their short tether. If he was right, this would be their last stop, whatever happened.

“At least the weather's nice,” Pine said, speaking over the breeze. “At the worst we'll have a couple days' vacation.”

“With a few more nice meals.”

They drove on a few miles, watching the signs for Castellammare.

“So, what do you think you'll do when this is all over,” Pine asked, “now that we've turned your life upside down? Think you'll move back to Bosnia?”

“Hard to say.” He tried not to think of Popovic, or of all the people who might have worked for him, still in the country. Or of Haris, who'd gone back and may have gotten into a jam. He wasn't sure Jasmina wanted to go back anyway.

“Jasmina doesn't like Germany, but she likes what's happened to her there. You'd think it would be the ones who lasted out the whole war who'd be tougher now, but they're just worn out. She's stronger. More forceful. You ought to see her with a German butcher. Fights him by the gram, and comes away gloating about it. She was happy to have me back, but she's a different person. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't.”

“Sounds like what she said about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had a chance to talk in Berlin. While we were waiting for you to get home. She said the war had hardened you. And part of it was good. She said there would never be anything that could beat you or break you after you'd survived the siege. But she worried about you, too. All those emotions you'd stored up. She said you'd learned a little too well how to keep things from bubbling to the surface. It's what you'd expect a woman to say about a man, I guess. None of them think we can communicate. But still.”

Vlado nodded, feeling his heartbeat quicken. He desperately wished he were home. If he were there just now, he'd finally be able to talk about everything, not just from the past few days but from all seven years. It would come out of him like an illness, a dark liquid purged from his system. Yet there would be sweetness as well. And then he would share a drink or two with Jasmina, and as the night grew still they would slink off to bed, and enjoy a welcome bliss where there was no past but their own.

“How'd you two meet?” Pine asked.

Vlado smiled. “Like peasants. I was the city boy visiting her village, staying with some old friends of my mother's. There was a big celebration for the Feast of Saint Damien, the village patron saint.”

“I thought Jasmina was a Muslim name?”

“It is. But no one missed a feast like this. Lambs on a spit. A big dance. And it's where all the courtship took place. Especially if your parents were part of the old ways, and hers were. So there I was, the city boy in his blue jeans. I held myself above all that courtly business and the stupid traditional costumes. But they made a big circle and went round and round, dancing the
kolo
. Once that starts, you can't help but join in. And I saw this girl on the other side of the circle looking at me, so I smiled back. I think she liked that, liked it that a city boy so disdainful of it all still found time to do some shopping. She was fed up with all the farm boys with thick necks, especially the ones her parents kept picking out. So we spent the evening talking, way too much for her uncles and her aunts, but her mother was okay about it. The hell with tradition for a change.

“After that I started driving out from Sarajevo on weekends, borrowing my father's car. All very formal for a while, and always with a chaperone, but she minded it more than I did. I thought it was kind of charming. Romantic. And it was always such a victory when we managed to sneak away.”

Vlado remembered one such time in particular, slipping off to a farm pond during another feast day, darting barefoot through the pines. Vlado tiptoeing on his city-boy feet in a way that had made her laugh. Then reaching the water's edge, shedding their clothes without a word or a prompt, the entire village off somewhere else. They'd plunged into the cool water, laughing, playing like otters, lithe with their touches and feints. Then, drying off, they'd looked each other in the eye and understood what their future would be without even speaking, and they'd tumbled together onto the grassy bank, wet bodies molding to each other, sliding and warm. He'd pressed his face to her hair, smelling the pond, and afterward, as they held each other, they'd spoken of what their lives would become, adorning their futures with the sorts of dreams they had never before admitted to anyone. Four months later they'd married—more dancing of the
kolo,
then a golden age with a child and success, and no hint of war or upheaval or separation.

If Jasmina had known all the trials ahead, Vlado wondered, would she have come along with him anyway, especially if she could have foreseen his latest and darkest secret? It was this painful question that at last burst the dam of his thoughts and made him realize he had to tell Pine everything, now, no matter what—that if he didn't do it this instant, he might never, and somehow it would poison them all.

“Calvin, there's something I need to tell you. Something that may be related to the case. Or maybe not. Only Harkness and LeBlanc probably know for sure. But you need to be told.”

Pine furrowed his brow, obviously caught by surprise. “Okay,” he said. “I'm listening.”

So Vlado told him all about Haris, Huso, and Popovic, and the body in the trunk. He held back only when it came to Harkness—the man's threats, and Vlado's worst suspicions. Those, at least, would have to wait until he knew his family was on safer ground.

When he was finished, Pine shook his head slowly in apparent sympathy. “Jesus, what a spot to be in. No wonder you looked so wary when I showed up in Berlin. But don't worry. Nobody will hear it from me. The tribunal needs to know Popovic is dead, but nobody needs to know my source. They probably suspect as much by now, anyway, given how long he's been missing.”

“Thanks. But I can't ask you to protect me. Not once our work is finished. You'll have to tell them what you know. Or maybe I'll tell them first.”

Pine scowled. “You think you're the only cop I've ever had to cover for? In Baltimore it must have happened once a month. Planted evidence? Look the other way, buddy. Botched warrant? Here, sign this one instead, postdated. A little trigger-happy in that shoot-out? Hey, that's the streets, the guy was dirty anyway. At least with you the victim was truly deserving, not some fifteen-year-old from a housing project with his mom strung out on heroin. It's why I left. Why I volunteered for the tribunal. What could be a clearer and cleaner mission than hunting genocidal maniacs? Even an old one like Matek.” He paused, shaking his head again. “But look at us now. Wondering who's calling the shots, or how long we'll be able to stay on it. Confess later if you want, but you might think first about your wife and daughter.”

It was exactly who he'd been thinking about, wondering with each passing mile if they were still okay. Vlado nodded, relieved that he'd spoken but still unsure of his next move, half wishing Pine hadn't let him off the hook so easily.

Pine, in fact, was soon moving on to other matters, such as how Vlado's revelations might figure into their pursuit.

“So, how was Popovic supposed to have fit into all this?” he asked. “It still doesn't make sense. From what I gather, Popovic has been a sort of glorified errand boy for Harkness since the war ended. When he wasn't out killing Kosovars, anyway. And he almost definitely had ties to Andric. The whole sick crowd of Serb generals and paramilitaries. It's why he was so valuable to the tribunal as a possible witness. But damned if I know how Matek fits that picture.”

They drove a while longer in silence, turning over in their heads what they knew, or thought they knew.

“Then there's LeBlanc,” Pine finally said. “I wouldn't underestimate his ability for mischief any more than I would Harkness's. For all we know Castellammare could already be pretty crowded. And if they know more than we do . . .” He shrugged. “Then everything might be over before we even get started.”

“Like what happened to Fordham.”

Pine nodded grimly. “Where would you go first then, if you're Harkness or LeBlanc?”

Vlado shrugged. “I don't travel in their world. I can only tell you what a policeman would do.”

“Good enough for me. I'm just a prosecutor. What does the out-of-town cop do first?”

“Visits the local cops. Partly as a courtesy, partly to get a few more eyes and ears working for you. You don't mention any crates of gold, of course, unless you want the whole town in an uproar.”

Pine frowned. “I don't exactly want the local yokels to know what we're up to. Not yet. I've had enough dealings with the carabinieri before. Too military. They're breathing down your neck until you're boarding the flight home.”

“Then go to the
polizia di stato
. It's who I dealt with whenever we had to contact the Italians over smugglers or fugitives. You're more likely to get somebody in a suit. And they hate the carabinieri more than you do.”

“You're kidding.”

“Big rivalry. They monitor each other's scanners. Steal each other's sources. It's all very Italian.”

“I should travel with Europeans more often. Broaden my world-view.”

The Autostrada ended just as it reached Castellammare di Stabia, giving way to a winding two-lane road that crept up and over hills, hugging the rocky slopes that fell away to the Amalfi. The town— more like a city—was the gateway to a string of resorts, with the gray hump of Capri visible offshore in the distance. Castellammare had once been a resort itself, going back to ancient times when its mineral springs fed Roman baths. Then came the green parks and princely villas. Local boosters still liked to think of their town in those terms, but the dominant sights today were gantry cranes and bustling wharves. It was the last oily smudge of industry before the shoreline gave way exclusively to leisure.

It was also the home to citrus groves, terraced forests, mostly lemons, harvested for every sort of product, including a strong local liqueur.

“Look,” Pine said, as they passed the first of the orchards. “Like the one in your photograph.”

Vlado had been thinking the same thing, although at this time of year the trees held no fruit, so there were no workers up on ladders. Nonetheless, he felt strange seeing the orchard, as if he were moving ever closer to the heart of something he wasn't yet sure he wanted to reach.