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In the rest of Yugoslavia, the civil wars had been fought on a large scale: a conflict of armies, air forces, and artillery barrages, with towns besieged, territories conquered, populations deported, raped, and slaughtered. So far, Kosovo had been different. Resistance to the Serbs had been peaceful for so long that most people, on both sides, were taken by surprise when hostilities began. The attacks were random and sporadic: guerrilla assaults on one-off targets, rather than organized military campaigns. As he drove northward, deeper into Kosovo, Carver saw occasional signs of fighting-a burning building in the distance, a truck filled with soldiers almost knocking him off the narrow two-lane road as it thundered by.
He was miles from anywhere, in open countryside, when the phone rang. It was Grantham.
“Change of plan,” he said. “Forget Trepca. You’re being rerouted to Pristina airport, which is actually located at a place called Slatina, about twenty kilometers east of Pristina city. We have new information. I’m just going to hand you over to Ted Jaworski. He’s an American colleague, heading up a task force looking at this issue from the Washington end.”
“Good evening, Mr. Carver…”
Carver did not reply. His headlights had just picked out a roadblock a few hundred yards down the road. A couple of armed Serbian paramilitaries, in the same blue uniforms as the men at the border post, were standing by a crude barrier made of planks and oil drums, lit by spotlights shining down into the road. Their truck was parked behind the barrier, across the road, just to underline the idea that no one was getting by.
“Mr. Carver…?”
“Yeah, I can hear you.”
“Okay, you need to know the way this situation is developing. We believe that Vermulen’s backer, a man named Waylon McCabe-”
“I know who he is.”
The men by the roadblock were waving at Carver, indicating that he should stop.
“Well, McCabe may be planning a double cross.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m saying I agree-that’s what I’d expect him to do. Hold on, I’ve got company…”
Carver put the phone down on the passenger seat as one of the paramilitaries appeared at his window, rotating his finger in the air to indicate that he should wind it down. As Jaworski’s disembodied voice crackled from the phone, “Carver? Are you there?” and Grantham barked, “Stop pissing around,” the paramilitary started jabbering in Serbian.
“Sorry,” said Carver, playing the dumb foreigner. “Don’t understand.”
He was wearing a hunting vest, with external pockets at chest and hip level. Slowly, he reached into one of the chest pockets and pulled out his BBC press card.
“Journalist,” he said, pointing at himself. “BBC… British, yes?”
The man turned back toward his mate and waved at him to come over. That gave Carver the opportunity to pick up the phone.
“Sorry about that. I’m at a roadblock. Be right with you.”
He put the phone down again as the second paramilitary came up and in heavily accented English said, “Road close. You no go. Close. Yes?”
“I understand, yes,” Carver said. “But I must go. BBC.”
Before the argument could go any further, the Serbs were distracted by the arrival of another car, a decrepit Skoda, which pulled up behind Carver. It had a big bundle on its roof wrapped in plastic, which made him think it must have crossed the border just behind him.
One of the Serbs pointed at the pennant fluttering from the radio aerial. It bore a black double-headed eagle against a red background, the national symbol of Albania. He walked up to the car, ripped off the pennant, threw it to the ground, and spat on it before grinding it into the dirt with his boot heel. Then, while his partner pointed his gun at the car, the paramilitary ripped open the driver’s door and dragged out an unshaven black-haired man in his thirties, wearing an Adidas track-suit over a red-and-black-striped AC Milan soccer shirt. The man was pleading, pointing back to the car as he staggered forward a few paces before being thrown to the ground.
While the first paramilitary aimed a couple of halfhearted kicks at the Albanian, the other peered into the car. He gestured at the passengers to get out. A woman emerged from one side, a second, much older female from the other. Carver assumed they were family: the man’s wife and mother, maybe. The missus was hugging an absurdly big pink teddy bear that looked like a prize from a tatty fairground stall. Ma was wrapped in a fringed, woven shawl. The man guarding them lined them up by the side of the road, then half turned to watch his partner kicking the man curled up in the dirt. Neither of the paramilitaries saw what happened next. As Carver looked on, the younger woman flung her teddy bear to the ground as the older one threw back her shawl. Both were carrying guns. Neither hesitated for a second before firing at the paramilitaries.
One went down immediately, clutching his belly and screaming out in pain. The other tried to flee the blast of gunfire, but managed only a few strides before a bullet hit the side of his head, splitting his skull like a teaspoon cracking a boiled egg, and throwing him dead to the ground. Several of the shots had missed, the bullets flying straight past the paramilitaries toward Carver’s car, smashing his rear window and punching into the bodywork.
A voice over the phone cried, “What the hell was that?” but Carver wasn’t around to hear it. He’d already kicked open the car door and rolled out onto the pavement, drawing the Beretta as he went and scrambling into a ditch by the opposite side of the road. A knife had appeared from nowhere in the Albanian’s hand and he was
