because you won't shut your mouth.' 'You have anger and principle, and they ride together, that is why I came.' 'Brilliant, thank you, good night. Lights out and silence, please…' And he could not push open his eyes. Eyes closed and the tiredness clinging in him. Typical of a bloody woman that there must be a bloody discussion… Just like at Five, just like the women graduates in General Intelligence Group. Why must the mountain be climbed? Analysis and thought and team discussion as to why the mountain must be climbed. Best to have a paper written on Aims and Objects for Climbing the Mountain, then have a subcommittee report on the paper to the full team. Penn was climbing the mountain because the bloody mountain was there. Penn was going up the bloody mountain because Mrs. Mary bloody Braddock was holding a bayonet, sharp as hell, against his backside for him to impale himself on if he should bloody well stop climbing the bloody mountain. Penn was crawling up the bloody scree slope of the mountain because she was there, Dorrie was at the top with the wind in her hair and the rain on her face and the mist about her, bloody laughing and mocking him… Ulrike was close to him. He sensed her bent over him. There was a garlic taste on her breath. Her fingers were smoothing the hair from his forehead… Because the bloody mountain was there, with Dorrie astride it. She said into his ear, 'I understand that there is no future, and the future for us is not important, but the future of the principle is everything. If nobody speaks, if nobody calls out, if there is only silence, then there is a new dark age of barbarity…' He murmured, 'Principles are not important. What is important, if we take Milan Stankovic, when we run with Milan Stankovic, then the wasps' nest is well stirred. It's shit-frightened running then, and when you're running it's not bloody principles that'll help you along. And if we try to take the eyewitness, she's old, slow, needing to be carried.. .' Maybe it was just the movement of her lips speaking into his ear, maybe she kissed his ear, but they had no future. The future was Jane, was Tom. It was not important whether he wanted it, or what he wanted. There was no future with Ulrike. 'It is the difference between us and them, we have principle and they have only barbarism…' 'Christ, Ulrike, principles don't stop bullets, can't blunt knives.' Tenn '…?' 'Yes.' So tired, and slipping, and her lips breathing the words to his ear. Tenn, if you had him, if you have taken him, but you are blocked, and you cannot bring him out, would you kill him?' 'I don't know.' 'You have to make an answer. Would you kill him as justice? Would you kill him as revenge, for what he did to the wounded?' 'I don't know.' 'Kill him for what he did to Dorrie?' 'I don't know.' 'You will remember what I told you… if he is begging you for his life, you will have to be cruel. Do you have it inside you, good and ordinary and decent man, to be cruel…?'
'Please, don't talk, please.'
'I want to know what he is like. I want to see his face, hear his speech, watch him move. I want to know how he is different. He is married, he has a child, he is a leader of his people. I understand all of those things. I do not understand how he could have beaten the wounded and knifed them and shot them. I do not understand how he could have looked into the face of your Dorrie and beaten her and knifed her and shot her. I have to believe that I will find something of him that is different. If he is not different then we are all lost. I see only victims. I do not know those who make the victims. I see the results of their violence but I am not able to see the source of the violence. Penn, surely you don't believe that I came here only because I was afraid for you. Penn, I despise sentiment… There are 2,400 souls in the Transit Centre, and they do not even own hope, and their number is minimal in comparison with the greater number who have suffered. They deserve some, however small, act of retribution… Half a century ago it was my own country that bred the evil, and the evil was made by men and women that you would have passed in the street and thought no different from yourself. The evil must be isolated, stopped… If he is a good and ordinary and decent man then there is no hope for any of us, none, then it is indeed the beginning of that dark age. I have to pray that he is different…'
Penn slept.
'You will give me the wit to believe that you are not joking with me?'
'No, sir, I am most serious; would that it were a joke.'
It was a part of the First Secretary's upbringing that he would address a more senior man with respect. And a lesson of his teenage years at Marlborough School, well learned, that evasion of a problem came back to haunt. He sat stiffly in the chair while the Director of Civilian Affairs paced, heaving on his cigar.
'He got himself out, and now he has gone back in?'
'That's what I am saying.'
The smoke of the cigar spat from the Director's mouth. 'You appreciate the implications of what you tell me?'
'It is because I appreciate them that I have come to you.'
'I am not a highly educated man, just a fucking Paddy, I have a bad degree out of Dublin, Business Management crap, maybe I don't have the intellect for this job. Maybe a man with a greater intellect could do this job without having to spend fifteen, seventeen, hours a day stuck at this desk or sitting in on meetings with the most God-awful people Christ ever invented, maybe. I spend those hours every day trying to stamp out the nastiest brush fire Europe has seen in half a century. I hate this place, I hate its bestiality and its barbarity, its love of slitting the throats of old friends and former neighbours …'
'I understand, sir.'
'What I am trying to do, with my piss-poor intellect, is create some sort of cease-fire so that the killing stops. Are you following me?'
'Very clearly.'
'I have these war crimes groupies fucking about in my backyard. At the moment they are little more than a nuisance, but each day they're here, each day they dig their hole deeper, so their power of sabotage increases…'
'I appreciate that, sir.'
'Let me tell you something, in confidence. Right now, this week, there is a meeting in Budapest between Croat bureaucrats and Serb bureaucrats. There is a meeting scheduled tomorrow in Detroit, out of the limelight, between a Croatian constitutional lawyer and a Serb with the same education. Two days ago, in Athens, there wound up a session involving Bosnian Muslims and Serbs… Thank Christ, those bloody journalists down in Sarajevo and Belgrade and Zagreb are too preoccupied with getting hero medals on the front lines, they don't know the half of what's being worked…'
The First Secretary knew of all three meetings, and disguised his knowledge. 'Small mercies.'
'Under the fucking carpet, we are working night and day for a cease-fire, and talk of war crimes tribunals is an obstruction. Shit, the Serbs have monsters in their ranks, but so do the Croats, so do the Bosnian Muslims. Everybody in this mess is guilty. If an alleged war criminal is kidnapped and brought out of Sector North then I can kiss goodbye to a cease-fire, most especially if they also bring out an eyewitness. Got me? For six months now I have oiled these bastards towards talking with each other… You know what, you should see them. Get a Croat and a Serb together in a quiet hotel with a bar, and you sure as hell wouldn't know they've been beating double shades of shit out of each other. They want a deal. They laugh together, drink together, probably go looking for tail together. They want out…'
'I wouldn't wish you to think that my government in any way condones the action of this freelancer, quite the opposite…'
'And who will believe you?'
There might have been a microphone in the room. Best to assume there were microphones recording the conversation. The First Secretary spoke softly. 'Which is why I brought you the information, which is why we will do our damnedest to make certain no alleged war criminal is brought out from Sector North. I think we are running on the same rails. It won't happen…'
The face of the Director lightened, as if he were now amused. 'But it was your Prime Minister who called for tribunals…'
'Should never pay too much attention to political ramblings.'
'And this Penn, interfering fucking nobody, he's your man…'
The First Secretary was smiling. 'Pity that he didn't stay home. I met him. Not very impressive, but he's been caught up in the emotion of the place. Capable in a technical sense, but not very bright. Capable enough, perhaps, to make it back to the Kupa river, but not bright enough to see the implications of his actions. If he takes his man then we'll hear about it… As you know better than me, the dust sheets will be coming off the artillery pieces and the cladding will be off the ground-to-ground missiles that can reach southern Zagreb. They might even get to loading up… I don't think they'd fire unless this wretched clerk from Salika village is actually out of their territory. Penn will not be allowed to cross the river with his prisoner, I thought you should know.'
