The hand was on the holster, fiddling for the locking button of the flap.
'We have a file. Maybe you will be an old man when the file is presented to an examining magistrate. You are one of those, Mr. Stankovic, who tells me loudly that Serbs and Croats can never again live together I tell you, never is a long time. My experience, Mr. Stankovic, those who shout loudest that there can never be reconciliation are those who hide the greatest guilt…'
But the pistol was out of the holster. The Political Officer rated his file as a puny weapon when set against the Makharov pistol. The pistol was armed. The clatter of the metal parts seared at him. For seventeen years he had believed in the power, glory, authority, of the blue flag. The reality was a loaded pistol on a village road. There was a shout from beside the Canadian policeman's jeep, a wiry little man in camouflage fatigues trying to peer past the bulk of the Kenyan's body and into the back of the jeep. He said in his reports that went to the desk of the Director of Civilian Affairs for on-passing to the Secretariat in New York that there was so much cruelty, so much fear, and his power of intervention was so minimal. Milan Stankovic was striding away towards the jeep, and the Headmaster had reached him.
'My friend, what happened to you..,?' The question of a fool.
The small piece of paper was put in his hand. He was told it was a prescription for the lenses of spectacles.
'We will have them made, my promise, we will bring them to you. Was it him that did that to you…?' The question of an idiot.
The Headmaster shrugged, turned away.
They had the door of the jeep open, and the Canadian and the Kenyan were blocked from intervention by the rifles. He saw the bag lifted out and held high, and passed to the hands of Milan Stankovic. It was because of the bag that he had come to Salika with the two policemen, and the Political Officer had believed he possessed the seniority to argue his way through the roadblocks that curtained Rosenovici. The face of Milan Stankovic was in front of him, and the face was contorted in hatred. The white plastic bag was held up. The three cartons of milk were tipped out and each one in turn was stamped on. The three loaves of bread were kicked, as footballs, across the road and into the rainwater ditch, and the cheese and the ham, and the apples from the kitchens of the hotel at Topusko where he had his room.
Another failure.
Failure was the reality of the power, glory, authority, of the blue flag.
He had good control of his voice, did not raise it. 'What, Mr. Stankovic, is a war crime? The killing of the wounded after the finish of a battle is a war crime… Who, Mr. Stankovic, is a war criminal? The leader of the men who killed the wounded after the finish of a battle… Do you sleep well, Mr. Stankovic, in your bed? Each night I add to the file…'
'Get the shit out, and stay out.'
Another failure.
The Political Officer could not see in the face of Milan Stankovic if there was guilt or shame or fear. He hoped they came, journeyed to the beast in the quiet of the night, gnawed at him. It was all he could hope for, that the brute's face would, one day, quiver in guilt, shame or fear, one day…
He was losing time.
With the lost time came impatience.
Penn wanted to be close up to Rosenovici before the total darkness came down on the woodland of birches.
With the impatience came arrogance.
The wire line that marked the perimeter of the minefield ran away to his left and seemed to reach as far as the edge of the tree line. If he were to skirt the mines going left then he estimated that he would have to break the cover of the trees, and he reckoned there was still sufficient light for his movement to be seen. He looked up to the right and the barbed wire stretched away to a rock wall. To go round the minefield, going right, he would have to backtrack and then climb the cliff, and that would be serious delay. He wanted to be close up to Rosenovici… Penn could see the evidence of the mines.
The trees were thinly spaced here, as if they had been coppiced within the last five years, and there was room for armoured personnel carriers or tracked vehicles to power between the tree stumps of the old harvesting.
The evidence of the mines was from their antennae.
It was his impatience and his arrogance that led him to step over the barbed wire line. The antennae, as far as Penn could see, were laid out in straight lines. The antennae of the mines were eighteen inches high, reaching to just below his knee cap. Penn had never been on a course, not for a weekend and not for half an hour, on mines. It was pretty obvious to an impatient and arrogant man, a man running late, that the mines with the antennae were developed to catch the undersurface of a vehicle chassis if the wheels or tracks rolled clear. He could step out briskly, and ahead of him was better light to tell him that the last of the woodland was near. There would be better light because a field was ahead, and if the map of Alija was correct, if she had drawn it with accuracy, then the village of Rosenovici was beyond that field. The minefield was no problem. There was a quiet around him because the tractors were gone now, and the harsh voices of the women, and the shouting of the children was stilled.
Penn, in sight of the break of the tree line, coming to the open greyness of the field, saw the cat.
There had always been cats at the tied cottage, semi-wild and only fed in the worst of the winter. Penn knew cats.
It was a big brute with nothing handsome about it.
The cat was black-coated but the white flash at its chest alerted Penn to its advance.
Penn stopped. The cat was a distraction. Couldn't help but watch the cat, and if he was distracted by the big brute then he might blunder in the dropping light against the fine khaki wires that were the antennae. He stopped and the antennae wires, motionless, were squared about him. The big brute came fast towards him. The throaty growl of the cat called to him. He could see its ribcage.
The cat crossed open ground, a dozen paces from him, and at the centre of the open ground was the spike of the antenna's wire. Penn reckoned the cat would have been a household pet or a farmyard ratter, and the cat had been abandoned in the flight from the village, perhaps by one of those who now lay as skeletons deep in the woods.
The big brute hesitated because Penn stood still. He could see the knots and the burrs in the cat's coat.
The throated growl had become a purring roar. Penn knew cats… On the carpet floor of dead leaves there were no stones for him to throw at the cat. Unless he moved past an antenna wire he would not be in reach of a dried branch to throw at the cat. He could not shout at the cat, he was too close to Salika, down through the trees and across the river, he could not shoot the cat with his Browning 9mm automatic pistol. Penn knew the way of an abandoned cat that had found a friend.
The cat arched its back. The purr riddled the wood. A cat with a friend always wanted to show its pleasure by arching its back, then finding a surface to rub against, and the surface nearest the cat was the needle-thin antenna of the mine.
Penn cooed at the cat. The back of the cat was against the antenna. Penn slipped to his knees, and stretched out his hand and he murmured his love for the cat. The antenna wavered as the vigour of the cat was arched against it. Ten pounds of high explosive in the mine below the antenna, maybe twelve pounds, enough high explosive to take the wheel off an armoured personnel carrier, enough to immobilize a tracked vehicle. Penn urged the cat, gently, to come to him. The cat left the antenna and the wire swayed like a dying metronome. Penn's heart pounded. The cat, wary, circled Penn, and there were antennae on either side of him, and an antenna wire behind him. He cooed, murmured, urged the cat to come to him. Again the high arch of the back, again the fur bedded against the wire, to his right…
The cat came to him.
One movement…
The cat was against his knee.
One chance…
The cat howled its pleasure.
If he missed the one moment, the one chance, Penn thought the cat would sc udder out of his range and find an antenna wire to snuggle against.
