Blood Price (Dark Places Of The Earth 1) (7 page)

Saskia shivered with terror and excitement. Certainly not with cold, the air conditioning was broken, and even though it was well past sunset the Mostar-Sarajevo bus was a mobile sauna. Every seat was occupied: old ladies wearing babushkas and faded dresses, young couples in tight jeans and glittery shirts bedecked with logos, bearded middle-aged men in cheap suits who walked with limps. I supposed buses to Sarajevo, Bosnia’s alpha metropolis, were always busy.
   The three of us had disappeared individually into the darkness, met at the end of the street, and raced to catch this 8:40 bus. There was another at 10:00, but waiting that long might have been disastrous. In the end we got to the station on time by hailing a passing car and offering the driver 20 KM to drive us. Instant Taxi, another veteran traveller’s ploy. We had feared that someone at the bus station might recognize Saskia and carry news back to Dragan, but Mostar was big enough that one could be anonymous, and the bus station was after all on the Muslim side, little travelled by the Tigers and their ilk.
   I sat behind Talena and Saskia, next to a remarkably ugly teenage girl with bottle-blonde hair who read some Croatian equivalent of Seventeen while listening to angry hip-hop on her Walkman. I was nervous too. They had to be beginning to suspect that we weren’t coming back. Maybe Dragan was already in hot pursuit in his Mercedes. This bus was the only way to Sarajevo, but it was also a deathtrap, impossible to escape. Maybe they would cut us off on this dark and lonely road, force the driver to stop, drag us out and shoot us. It wasn’t likely. But it wasn’t completely impossible either.
   I realized that we were going to live in a haze of constant fear until we got Saskia out of the country. We would spend every moment knowing that the Mostar Tigers might suddenly appear and attack. It sounded like we were being pursued by some kind of demented football team, but I found myself entirely unable to smile at the idea.
   In front of me, Talena put her arm around Saskia, who quietly began to cry on Talena’s shoulder. I wished she would make noise when she wept, like a normal human being. Her silence was unnerving. I put my hand on Talena’s other shoulder and squeezed. She put her hand on mine. We rode like that for a long time.
   Eventually I broke the silence. “Do you think we should go back to the Pansione?”
   “Would anywhere else be better?” she asked.
   “No,” I said. The Pansione was cheap and inobtrusive. If – when – they came after us, they would probably start their search at Sarajevo’s famous Holiday Inn and other expensive hotels, what with their certainty that we were rich Americans. The Pansione was also located next to a parking lot, which was useful, since I planned to rent a car tomorrow. A car is a very practical investment when you’re running for your life.
   The journey to Sarajevo seemed to take several anxious days, but eventually the lights of civilization began to glimmer around us. I was worried that Dragan might have us followed from the bus station, so I had Talena convince the driver to let us out a few blocks away.
   It was a relief to be back in Sarajevo’s busy streets, out of Mostar, with Saskia, all of us still in one piece. But I knew that this initial escape had been the easy part. Getting Saskia out of the country would be harder. But with Hallam’s help, we just might pull it off, maybe even, if we were very lucky, in the next three days, before our nonrefundable flights from Zagreb expired.
   Our problem was not that Saskia couldn’t leave Bosnia. Our problem was that no other country would allow her to enter. The obvious solution, once I rid myself of my instinctive desire to follow the law, was to bring her in illegally. And we could hardly be in a better place for that. If refugee smuggling was an Olympic event, Balkan countries would be regular medallists. Bosnia’s human traffic went to Western Europe, not the USA, but that was fine. If we could pay smugglers to get Saskia into Germany, where she spoke the language, or England, where my friends lived, she would be safe. It wasn’t exactly an airtight plan, granted, more like a vague notion, but it sure beat no plan at all.
   Talena led Saskia to the Pansione while I checked email at the Internet café around the corner on Dalmatinska Street.
From:      [email protected]
To:        [email protected]
Subject:   Re: Urgent request for help – not a joke
Date:      5 May 2003 14:03 GMT
Paul mate,
I have a number of contacts still on duty in Bosnia. The most useful will you to will be Major William Botham. You’ll find him at NATO headquarters in Sarajevo. I’ve already called him and told him to expect you. He will be willing to bend the rules for you. The rest are enlisted men. I’m not sure how to get in contact with them immediately but I’ve started tracking them down. Let me know right away if you need their help.
You have our mobile number. Call us any time, day or night, reverse charges.
Take care of yourself and for God’s sake don’t do anything stupid unless you absolutely have to. I suppose Bosnia is better than it was when I served there – it could hardly be any worse – but I expect it’s still a very bad place to be in any kind of trouble.
Hallam
From:      [email protected]
To:        [email protected]
Subject:   Your poor decisionmaking skills
Date:      5 May 2003 16:48 GMT
So you’re kidnapping Bosnian women now. Are you sure that’s wise? I know a harem sounds like a good idea on paper, but just imagine what happens when they all get simultaneous PMS. They might start acting like Bosnian men.
The many-tentacled corporate-banking monstrosity that signs my paycheques does business in Sarajevo, and has an office there. If you need money sent there quickly, let me know. I’ll divert it from Steve’s account, he’ll never notice.
If you need any other kind of help, needless to say I’ll do whatever I can. As you know I normally charge five hundred pounds a day for acts of derring-do. Please note that my Balkans rate is twice that.
How’s the beer there?
Lawrence
From:      [email protected]
To:        [email protected]
Subject:   Re: Urgent request for help – not a joke
Date:      5 May 2003 17:33 GMT
Gday mate. Sounds like a spot of trouble. Want me to come help sort it out? Cheers.
   Just opening up my inbox and seeing the three unread emails, Lawrence’s with his usual snarky Subject: line, cheered me up. Talena and I were not in this alone. Hallam’s email, in particular, was good news. I’d thought he might still have friends in the military here, but I hadn’t dared hope for anyone as high-ranking as a major.
   I sent a quick update back to the three of them and went back to the Pansione. I walked on the shadowy side of the street, looked for people who might be looking for me. Nobody obvious. En route I stopped in at the same convenience store where I had bought cigarettes. We had abandoned our packs in Mostar, we had nothing at all. I bought soap, toothpaste, and Snickers bars. That would have to do for tonight. Tomorrow, Talena and Saskia could go shopping while I tried to arrange for Saskia’s escape. A vaguely sexist division of labour, but Talena had the credit card that was not on the verge of disintegration. Though in Bosnia, even in Sarajevo, point-of-sale credit-card authorization machines were not common; a foreigner like me could probably go a long way with a maxed-out card and a confident smile.
   Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work at a bank, and last I checked refugee smugglers did not take MasterCard. It would be cash only once we found a gang willing to spirit Saskia out of the country. If we found such a gang. But it couldn’t be that hard. I had already stumbled onto one by accident.
* * *
   “This is crazy,” Talena said, lying next to me in bed, finishing off her Snickers bar.
   “You don’t say.”
   “I keep sort of forgetting what we’re doing. I was going to take a shower when I remembered we have no towels and even if we did I have no clothes to change into. And then I was like, oh, that’s right, we all but kidnapped Saskia and we’re running for our lives and tomorrow we’re going to try to find some criminals to help us get her out of the country. It doesn’t seem real.”
   “I know.” I shook my head. “I’m worried about the shopping. Maybe I should do that too. You two should stay here. The more we’re outside, the more chance they’ll have of seeing one of us.”
   Talena paused and then levered herself up on one elbow, facing me sternly, blue eyes flashing. “Are you seriously suggesting that Saskia and I stay in here like we’re in jail while you go out and have all the fun?”
   “Fun?”
   “I’m trying to think of it as an adventure,” she said.
   “Adventure. Noun. Long periods of tedium interspersed with brief moments of terror.”
   “No, that’s being beseiged by the Serbian Army for three years. In an adventure you’re the one going out and doing something. Makes a colossal difference, believe me.”
   I forgot sometimes that Talena was a war veteran too.
   “I’ve made my mental shopping list for tomorrow,” she said. “Top of the list: Towels. Underwear. Guns.”
   “Guns?”
   “Guns.”
   She was serious. “Uh…Talena…I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
   “I don’t seem to remember asking you.”
   Which sounded bitchy but was said good-naturedly. Now that we had embarked on this insane venture, the frost between us had thawed a little. For one thing we were both scared. The couple that prays to be spared together, stays together. For another thing, she was right, this was an adventure. Now that we lived in constant danger the world was enormously more vivid. Every breath was an event, every moment pungently intense. It was scary and painfully stressful, yes, but it was also exciting, and it made our last year of unhappiness and drudgery and petty sniping seem small and tawdry and irrelevant.
   I wondered if Saskia, across the hall in a room even smaller than ours, was at all excited. I didn’t think so. I thought she was probably nothing but frightened, and would be until we got her out of Bosnia. Saskia knew what happened when this kind of adventure turned sour. You were beaten with fists and boots and an iron bar until you heard your own bones breaking, your face was so thick with blood that you couldn’t see, and finally your baby died inside you and you were reduced to a huddled, broken heap, whimpering for mercy.
   For a moment I involuntarily imagined Talena, captured by Dragan and the Tigers, helpless and alone with them in a cold concrete cell. I imagined what might happen to her. It made my stomach clench violently with fear. The part of me that enjoyed this adventure was suddenly nowhere to be found.
   “I don’t think you should go outside,” I said again, my voice a little hoarse. “Especially not alone.”
   Talena opened her mouth to say something intemperate, then studied my face for a second. “You’re worried about me, huh?”
   I nodded.
   “That’s nice of you. But you should really be worried about yourself. You’re not from here. You don’t know the streets. You don’t know the language. People notice you. If they find us, they’ll definitely find you first.”
   “Oh.” I hadn’t thought of it like that.
   “Maybe you should stay hidden in here while I take care of things.”
   “There’s no fucking way I’m –” I began, then stopped halfway to outrage. “OK. Fine. Point made.”
   “We’re in this together, understand?” she asked. “Partners in crime. Got it?”
   “Got it.”
   “Good. Now turn the light out and come here.”
   They say power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, but believe me, it’s got nothing on danger.
* * *
   The next morning, hoping to track down Sinisa the refugee smuggler, I rented a diesel-fuelled stick-shift Citroen. I hadn’t driven a stick for years and it quickly became apparent that the most terrifyingly dangerous parts of my adventure might take place on the road. I nearly died three times on the road out of Sarajevo.
   It took me an hour to locate the right gravel road. I knew that the expedition would be fruitless when I found that the pedestrian gate on the dirt-road offshoot was locked, but I had to see for myself. I tore my jeans climbing over the fence.
   The abandoned factory where I had returned the Tamil boy to his family was utterly deserted. There were no cars and the loading-dock door was locked. I got in through a broken window, dug out my Maglite and found my way through rusted machinery and along a conveyor belt to the room where the refugees had huddled. There was nothing and nobody there. Aside from scuffed sawdust the room might have been empty for a decade.
   So much for Plan A. I wondered uneasily if finding someone willing to take Saskia out of the country would turn out to be a very difficult process. Criminals don’t exactly advertise in the Yellow Pages, and none of Talena’s friends seemed the type to hang out in shady bars with suspicious characters. If Major Botham couldn’t help us, we would be in trouble.
   HQ SFOR – milspeak for the headquarters of NATO’s Stabilization Force – was a compound called Camp Butmir, near the airport, smack on the border between the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzogivinia. There’s symbolism for you; NATO standing between the combatants like a boxing referee. The main gate stood amid a forest of rippling flags, one for each of NATO’s members.
   Major Botham was a short, wiry man in his mid-forties with so much restless energy that his office felt a little like a cage. He greeted me with a short handshake and invited me to sit. I did. He remained standing.
Through the window behind him I could see Sarajevo’s airport. During the seige, the UN had controlled the airport proper, the Serbs had controlled either end of the runway, and the Bosnians had controlled either side. The east side of the runway was beseiged Sarajevo, and the west was relatively free Bosnian territory. The usual bewildering Bosnian-war insanity which was hard to believe even now. There had been a tunnel under that runway, the one route other than the ongoing UN airlift through which people and goods could move in and out of the city in relative safety. That was just what I needed now. A tunnel to the West.
   “Hallam informed me that you needed some extracurricular assistance,” he said. His accent was South African.
   “That’s one way of putting it,” I said. I paused. I didn’t know how to phrase what I wanted to say. Now that I was here, actually talking to a NATO major, my plan seemed like the stupidest, most ridiculous notion ever conceived. Was I actually going to open my mouth and ask him to help me break the law?