to see her flinch… that the whole of the goddamn place beyond the cease-fire line was alive, roused… he expected to see her wilt.
'I want to look into his face. I want him to know that he murdered my daughter. I want to be there when he's brought across.'
'That's positive thinking, ma'am, and positive thinking is always good. Could just be premature thinking. Do you have any appreciation of the odds against…?'
'Penn'll bring him across the river, I don't doubt it.'
He felt almost an anger. She was sitting in an armchair and her legs, narrow and fine, were crossed in elegance, and Ulrike Schmidt, the best woman he'd known, was hacking through a bucket of hell with Penn and the prisoner, and the jaws of the goddamn trap were closing tight, as they had closed on those who were photographed on the walls of his converted freight container. One thing to goddamn talk about it, one thing to make the great goddamn plan, quite another to… 'Ma'am, it's not a picnic.'
'He didn't have to go… He never met my daughter, of course not, but he talked some unpleasant rubbish about loving her. I find that repulsive. I don't need lectures in motherhood. But I have the right to demand the punishment of my daughter's killer… He took our money.'
It was like a dismissal. He said he would go ring the mercenary down in Karlovac.
It was a recklessness that pushed Penn forward. Thought through, well considered, he would have made the decision to lie up through that long day, and then after the fall of dusk complete the last charge for the river bank. He did not ask her for her opinion, and she did not challenge his decision. He was drawn towards the river bank, goaded towards it. So tired, and wanting only to be there, where he could gaze out across the slow depth of the water, he was driven towards it, towards the danger of the last barrier… The sun was up above them and slanted down diffused by the upper branches… The danger would be at the last obstacle and that was where they would set their men, where they would run their tripwires, where they would make their ambushes… He had now used the gag cloth, wedged it between Milan Stankovic's teeth and knotted the ends tight against the shaggy long-grown hair at the back of his neck. Milan Stankovic accepted the gag, and at the last stop of two minutes Penn had thought he had seen the first slipping of his arrogance, the first breaking of the conceit, as if fear had begun to gnaw at the man, and Penn heard the breaking of a branch behind him. They were away from the path. They were far into the cover of the trees, and Ulrike had heard what he had heard and swung on her hips to look into his face. They were frozen. The movement of the forest woodland was around them, and both were straining to hear the sound again of the breaking of a branch, and Penn held the knife hard against Milan Stankovic's throat. She broke the moment of stillness. She moved on. He went after her, pushing the man forward, and he did not know if they were followed… He would not tell her that it was all ahead of them, that the worst was in front of them. The day supervisor scowled down at him. 'Oh, you're so kind, thank you so much… and another thing, I'd be very grateful if you could get me a few guidebooks, former Yugoslavia…' God, what a miserable woman. '… Yes, I'm very nearly through… Those books that get to the second-hand shops, full of photographs, I'd appreciate it so much.' Henry Carter smiled his sweetest. She walked stiffly away, and he regretted that he had insufficient courage to call after her and request a beaker of coffee… If she brought him coffee she would probably accompany the visit with a further dose of that obnoxious sickly air freshener… As a major favour, she had brought him a set of photocopied newspaper clippings. He was, indeed, nearly through. Perhaps he was nit-picking, perhaps he was far beyond his brief, but he did not care. A job worth doing, that sort of thing. He was sifting the clippings, believing they had a place in the file even though they were dated months after the events that consumed him. The Secretary General of the United Nations, should know what he was talking about, guaranteeing his organization's support for the international war crimes tribunal: We will put on trial those who have contributed to civilian suffering and it will not be forgiven… will deal not only with the people accused of committing the crimes, but also those who inspired the human rights violations… We have to denounce it… civilians are being bombed, starved and mistreated and children are targeted by killers in the shadows. Good solid stuff, and a pity that no one had bothered to tell the bureaucrats in their offices above Library, and not told the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and not told UNPROFOR. Worth entering in the file because Penn, that ordinary and decent man, and maybe a bit of a clairvoyant and most certainly blessed with common sense, would not have believed a word of it. He grasped at another clipping and wrote a brief summary to go into the file with the clipping, and hoped quite fervently that, one fine day, the file would be examined by a mandarin or an apparatchik with enough honesty to feel humility… some chance. FRITS KALSHOVEN: Dutch academic, had been appointed to job of Chief Prosecutor, but resigned. Cited 'refusal of Great Britain and France and Germany and Italy to co-operate'. Noted positive attitude of United States of America, Canada and Norway. Also blamed 'obstruction' of sister UN agencies.
Ah, getting better… Gratifying to read it. Another clipping, another digest. Henry Carter squirmed, but it was necessary for the full picture to be drawn if it were ever to be understood why Penn had made that desperate and poorly considered expedition behind the lines, into the heart of danger. Leave it to those bastards to sort out and a man may as well wait for his Bath chair… More brave talk.
A new PROSECUTOR named: Ramon Escovar-Salom (Venezuelan attorney-general). Total budget of $30 million. Eleven judges appointed (nice work if you can get it!), at salary of $150,000 per annum, payable regardless of whether charges are brought.
The voice was cold behind him.
'I have your guidebooks, Mr. Carter. I have also to tell you that I will be complaining, most forcibly, to In- House Management about the demands you have placed upon us, and your quite disgusting lack of personal hygiene.'
Henry Carter breezed, 'Not much longer, nearly finished.'
Nineteen.
The man was snivelling. Penn reckoned Milan Stankovic to be in bad shape and there were low grunting sounds in his throat that were muffled by the gag. Maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the tightness of the fine rope binding his wrists. They were going slower. They were close now to the inner line of the forward zone. He reckoned the forward zone would be five miles, a mile either way, deep, and in the forward zone would be the maximum concentration of strong points and minefields and tripwires and patrols, and the forward zone could not be avoided, could not be skirted. He had shown her the way they should move: weigh each footfall, stop and listen and go, and he thought she had learned well. He had the knife so hard against Milan Stankovic's beard that the man no longer seemed to doubt him, and took as great a care with each stride as they did. She would go forward, she would stop, she would listen, she would flick her fingers for him to come with the prisoner. They would both listen for a moment, and then she would move forward again. It was when the tears were coming faster on Milan Stankovic's cheeks that she began, again, to interpret what the man said through the gag. 'He is telling you about his grandparents. His grandparents were taken out of Salika village… There was a cordon round the village, made at first light by the Germans and by the Ustase fascists… Before the German troops and the fascists moved into the village his grandparents were able to hide his father in the barn where they kept two cows and their cart. His father was eleven years old…' Going forward again, stopping, listening. 'When the German troops and the fascists came into the village they took all the men and women they could find, and then the German troops stood back… Many of the Ustase fascists were from Rosenovici village, and the German troops allowed them to take charge of the villagers from Salika. They were walked, his grandparents and many others, to Glina town. It was said to them when they reached Glina, without food or water, that the Serb villages provided help and support for the Partizans who were hidden in the Petrova Gora forest which is near… They were put into the church at Glina, his grandparents and the other people from the village and from other villages… He says that many of the Ustase fascists were from Rosenovici, and many would have known his grandparents and the other people… The church was set on fire by the Ustase fascists…' Going forward, stopping again, listening. 'He says the German troops were from a regiment of Wurtem-berg, and they were country boys and they would have no part of it.. He says the fascists, and there were many from Rosenovici, had blocked the doors of the burning church and they fired their rifles at the windows so that there was no escape from the fire… He says it is the first story that his father told him…' Going forward, stopping, listening again. 'He says the story of what the Ustase fascists did to his grandparents, what the people from Rosenovici did to their neighbours, burning them with fire, is in his bones and
