‘Illegal wood?’
‘Seventy per cent of Kosovars use log fires for heating their homes. Outside the cities life can be pretty primitive. Even in the towns, the electricity supply’s mediocre at best. Illegal logging’s a big problem.’
‘And he thinks we’re hot on the trail?’
By the pick-up truck, the guard was still talking earnestly into his phone. ‘Who knows what he thinks? Or who he’s telling. Those uniforms are Serbian police.’
‘Are they allowed –?’
‘Have you still got that lighter?’
Jessop held it out, but his hands were trembling so badly he couldn’t spark the flint. Abby took it from him and lit her last cigarette.
‘This is the Balkans,’ she said through a mouthful of smoke. ‘Uniforms mean nothing. In Bosnia in the nineties, Milosevic sent the Serbian army over the border, gave them new badges, and suddenly they were the Bosnian army.’ She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of expert?’
‘I’m a generalist.’
In front of them, the guard finished his call and put the phone away. It flashed like a knife where the headlights caught it. He slung his gun on his shoulder, then walked slowly back to their car.
‘Is everything OK?’ Abby asked, reaching to take the passport back.
After that, she barely knew what happened. He dropped the passport, grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward. His other hand yanked open the door. She tumbled out of the car and landed at his feet in the mud.
A rough hand grabbed her collar and hauled her to her feet, pushing her against the side of the car. On the passenger side, Jessop was being ushered out of the car at gunpoint by the other policeman. Abby felt her hands being forced behind her back and zipped together with cable ties. She didn’t resist.
They dragged her to the pick-up truck and lifted her between them into the back. Jessop followed. One of the guards climbed in with them, the other got in the cab. The pick-up lurched forward: Abby slid back on the wet floor and slammed into the tailgate. The guard, hanging on to a cargo strap, followed her all the way with his AK-47. The truck bounced on the rutted track, flinging Abby and Jessop about like a pair of corpses. With her hands tied behind her, she couldn’t even break the impact. The wound in her shoulder screamed in agony. She lay face down, tasting blood and rain and steel on her tongue, and waited for it to end.
The rain on her back got heavier; the air grew lighter. She twisted around and looked up. Thick forests climbed on to high mountain slopes, but the sky above was open. They must have come out into a valley.
She rolled around to face Jessop. ‘Where are they taking us?’
‘Serbia. It can’t be more than a few miles. Once we’re across the border, they –
The truck stopped with a bang, so abrupt that Abby and Jessop were thrown into the air and fell hard. Even the guard banged his head. He slid open the window that connected with the cab and shouted in to the driver. Any answer was drowned by the complaint of the engine, revving and groaning, but not moving.
And suddenly it cut out. All Abby could hear now was the rain drumming on the bed of the truck, and the sweep of the wind through the trees. The guard opened the tailgate, jumped down and went forward to the cab. She heard him arguing with the driver, swearing about something broken, though she didn’t know the words.
She curled in a ball, huddling against Jessop for warmth. Her sodden clothes encased her like ice; the heat had left her.
‘It’s OK,’ Jessop whispered in her ear. ‘I called it in. The cavalry are coming.’
But that required hope, and she had none. She lay there and waited for the rain to dissolve her to nothing.
She must have closed her eyes, because when she opened them the guard was crouched over her, shaking her awake. Her head pounded; her body shivered so hard she thought it would break apart.
Through the pain and the noise in her skull, she realised he was speaking Serbian.
‘Get up. He’s almost here.’
He pulled her upright and lifted her down to the ground. Jessop was already there. They’d come into a wild open meadow cupped between the mountains and the forest, a forlorn and lonely place. One track led down from the forest to the east; a second came down the valley from the north and met it at a crossroads where the pick-up had broken down. Two black Range Rovers were driving towards them, spraying mud behind the tyres. In the distance, Abby heard a roar like a waterfall.
The guard glanced nervously at the sky. He herded Abby and Jessop against the side of the truck and stood back, sweeping his gun from one to the other. The Range Rovers pulled off the track on to the grass, forming a rough triangle with the pick-up. Men in jeans and black parkas jumped out; one opened the rear door of the front car.
A slim figure in a long wool coat stepped out, daintily avoiding the mud, and walked towards them. He looked smaller in that vast landscape than he had in his office in Rome, but the aura of power that surrounded him was undiminished. Even the bodyguards seemed to keep a wary distance.
‘Dragovic,’ Jessop mumbled beside her.
Dragovic stopped a few paces in front of them. He ignored Abby, but gave Jessop a long, piercing look. He shook his head.
‘It’s not Lascaris.’
He pulled a pistol from under his parka and aimed it at Jessop’s head. The distant noise grew louder. Abby heard Jessop shouting desperate pleas, twisting like a dog on a leash. The whole earth seemed to be trembling underneath her. The wind rose, blowing rain against her face. Dragovic stepped back.
The flash from the muzzle split the world in two. The pick-up shuddered as the bullets slammed Jessop’s body
