Spies of the Balkans

evening wear took a few steps toward them and said, “We’ll find out who you are, you know, and we will settle with you.”

Vlatko shoved the general into the cell, then took a step toward the man who’d threatened him but Pavlic grabbed his arm. “Forget it,” he said.

The man in evening wear glowered at them. “You can bet we won’t.”

“Say another word and we’ll throw you in the fucking river,” Vlatko said.

The man turned and walked away, joining the other two on the bench.

By ten-thirty they were sitting in the bar at the Majestic, having rounded up the other three men on their list, stowing all three in the back of the car, where one of them had to sit on another’s lap to make room for Zannis. When the man complained, his dignity offended, Vlatko offered to put him in the trunk and he shut up. On the way to the prefecture the overloaded car crawled along the Milosha Velikog, where Pavlic had to stop twice, tires squealing, when armoured cars came roaring out of side streets and cut them off.

Throughout the next few hours, until well after midnight, detectives showed up at the bar to report on the evening’s work, while Zannis and Pavlic kept score on the master list. Around one in the morning it was over, they had twenty-two of the twenty-seven men in the holding cell at the prefecture. Two of the named subjects didn’t exist, according to the detectives-no trace in police or city records of their names. A third had escaped, having run out a back door and, as the story was told, “simply vanished, he’s hiding out there somewhere but we hunted for an hour and couldn’t find him.” A fourth was said, by a woman living at the house, to have been in Vienna for two years, and a search had revealed nothing-no men’s clothing. The last wasn’t home. The detectives had broken into his apartment and looked for him, but he wasn’t there. The neighbors shrugged, they didn’t know anything. One of the detectives had remained, in case he came home, and would stay until the morning.

There had, of course, been a few problems. One of the subjects, having gone for a pistol in a desk drawer, had been knocked senseless. Several bribes had been offered, and there’d been a number of arguments and threats. One of the detectives had been bitten by a dog, another had been scratched on the face. “By his woman,” the detective said, “so we arrested her, and now she’s in with the rest of them.” On two occasions, Pavlic was asked, “What will become of these people?”

“According to the plan, they are to be released in a day or so,” Pavlic said, and left it at that.

Many of the detectives stayed at the bar; this was an important night in the national history and they wanted to savor their part in it. Zannis encouraged them to eat and drink whatever they liked-the hotel kitchen produced roast chickens, the slivovitz flowed freely-as the money provided for the operation would easily cover the bill. At two in the morning, while the celebration raged around him, Zannis used the telephone at the bar and called the number he’d been given. A woman’s voice answered on the first ring. “Yes? Who’s speaking?” Her voice had a foreign accent but Zannis couldn’t place it.

“This is Zannis. We have twenty-two of twenty-seven. Locked up in prefecture.”

“Names, please.”

Zannis worked his way down the list.

“Wait,” she broke in. “You say Szemmer doesn’t exist?”

“No record. He is Serbian?” Zannis had wondered about the name.

“A Slovene. And he does exist. He is very dangerous.”

“They couldn’t find him. You know where to look, I’ll go myself.”

“No. Captain Franko Szemmer, that’s all we know.”

“Maybe, an office?”

“Where are you?”

“The bar, at the Hotel Majestic.”

“If I can find something, you’ll be contacted.”

After the telephone call, Zannis decided to go outside for a time, have a smoke, look at the stars, try to calm down. The front door was locked but the bolt turned easily and Zannis stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Half a block away, up at the cross street, somebody else had the same idea, on a tense night in Belgrade, and Zannis saw the red dot of a cigarette. There was one difference, between Zannis and his fellow star-gazer, the latter was sitting on the turret of a tank, its long gun pointing down the Knez Mihailova.

Zannis finished his cigarette and returned to the bar. “Maybe bad news,” he said. “There’s a tank out there.”

Pavlic swore, a nearby detective noticed the exchange and asked if something had gone wrong. Pavlic told him. “It could be,” he said, “that Cvetkovic has called out the army.”

Very quickly, the word spread. “If that’s true,” one of the detectives said, “we’re in for it.” He rose, went outside to see for himself, then came back looking more than worried. He spoke rapidly, Pavlic telling Zannis what he’d said. “I think we’d better find the back door.” As most of the detectives left, a heavy engine went rumbling past the hotel and the floor trembled. Zannis went to the door, then said, “Another one. Now they’ve got the street blocked off.”

Vlatko stood up, finished his drink, and said, “I’m going to find out what’s going on.” A few minutes later he returned. “They won’t talk to me,” he said. “Just told me not to ask questions.”

Zannis called the telephone number. When the woman answered, he said, “There are tanks here, blocking Knez Mihailova.”

“I will see,” said the woman, who took the telephone number, and hung up.

Out in the lobby of the hotel, by the overstuffed chairs and potted rubber trees, a large Philco radio stood on a table. Pavlic turned it on and searched for a station, but all he got was a low, buzzing drone.

Zannis stayed up until four-fifteen, waiting by the telephone, but it didn’t ring. The hell with it, he thought, and decided to go to bed. The faithful Vlatko, the last of the Serbian detectives in the bar, wished him a good night, and headed for a kitchen door that led to a back alley.

26 March. 7:30 A.M. Zannis had taken off his shoes, set his eyeglasses and Walther on the night table, and dozed. The roar of engines and rattle of tank treads woke him again and again, and finally he just gave up. He wouldn’t desert his post, but if the army had been called out that was the end of the coup d’etat, and he’d have to slip away somehow and make his way back to Salonika. Soon enough, somebody would discover the Cvetkovic loyalists at the prefecture and then, he hadn’t a doubt in the world, they would enlist their own thugs and come looking for him. So, no trains. Perhaps, he thought, he could steal a car. He would, at least, propose the idea to Pavlic, whose problem was severely worse than his own; he might well have to leave the country. Skata! Well, they had tried, and now he would have company on the run. Where to go? East to Bulgaria was closer than south to Greece, but he well remembered the swastika flag flown by the Bulgarian legation. Would Lazareff help them? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe, more than wouldn’t, couldn’t.

He walked down the corridor and knocked on Pavlic’s door. Pavlic answered immediately, wearing only his underwear, and holding his own Walther PPK by his side. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Well, good morning. Any news?”

“No. We’ll have to run for it, I’m afraid. Marko, I-” He’d started to apologize, but Pavlic waved him off.

“Don’t bother. I knew what I was getting into. Let’s try to find out what’s going on, at least, before we take off.”

He waited while Pavlic shaved-very much his own inclination at difficult moments. If you were going to face danger, even death, better to shave. After Pavlic got dressed, they went downstairs together and found the lobby deserted; no guests, no clerk, eerie silence. Pavlic unlocked the hotel door and they took a walk up the street. The tank crews were sitting on their machines, waiting for orders, content to relax while they had the opportunity.

Pavlic talked to the soldiers, his Serbo-Croatian much too fast for Zannis to follow. Brave sonofabitch, he really laid into them. Finally the sergeant commander got tired of him, sauntered off, and returned with an officer. Pavlic’s tone now altered-serious and straightforward, as though saying, come now, we’re fellow countrymen, you shouldn’t keep me in the dark. But, no luck. The officer spoke briefly, then walked away, back toward a wall of sandbags stacked across a doorway-the barrel of a machine gun poking out of a space that left it room to traverse.

“Well, what did he say?”

Pavlic’s face was alight. More than a smile-the cat had not only eaten the canary, he’d drunk up a pitcher of cream and got laid in the bargain. So, there was a joke all right, but Pavlic wasn’t ready to share it. “He didn’t say