Heart of Danger

his blood and his mind, and has been since he was a small child… He says that you do not understand, and that you cannot understand… He says that you have no quarrel with him, and that he has no quarrel with you… He says now that you should try to understand… He begs you to permit him to return to his people, to his wife and to his son…' Going forward, stopping, listening. He felt the cold in him. Even when they crossed the small clearings where old trees had rotted and fallen, where the sun caught him, he felt cold. She spoke to the man, the whisper of the local language, and again she killed the words, and the pleading. 'What did you say to him?' 'I asked him, could he describe the face of Dorrie Mowat when he hit her, knifed her and shot her…' The man was broken. He took the lead. He did not know how she could find the cruelty. He let Ulrike have charge of moving Milan Stankovic forward. He handed her the knife and she held it against the man's throat, as he had done. She would use the knife, of that he was certain. Ahead were the strong points and the minefields and the tripwires and the patrols. As his defence, he had only the skills he had learned as a child, going to the badger sett or the vixen's den, stalking the fallow hind. He remembered about the INLA man, and what the detective sergeant of the Anti-terrorist Branch had told him weeks after the arrest, meeting in a pub to hand over surveillance evidence notes, that the arrogance and conceit had been stripped off the man with his clothes, that the man had sat in his cell wearing his paper overall suit and wept… There was nothing definite that he could tell her. It was just his instinct. Each time they stopped and listened, his instinct told him they were being followed, but he saw nothing behind and heard nothing. And it was all ahead of them, the worst. 'I don't know how we'll pick up the pieces again…' It was the usual way of their sessions. They were in the kitchen. The bulk of Charles Braddock's body was slumped on the table and he spoke muffled through his hands. 'I've always made the decisions for her. I've always said what'll happen. Damn it, she's always been here, waiting, available…' Arnold Browne leaned against the sink. Pretty rare for him to be invited inside the Manor House and not outside to the 'snug' shed at the bottom of the garden, but it was usual that he should play the punch bag for his neighbour's monologue. He supposed that he was attracted by the power of the man, but he found the whined self-pity quite unpleasant. '… Lost her to that damned child. I mean, it's hardly as if she can just walk back through the door, and we carry on like nothing ever… Humiliated me in my own house, at my own table, with my own friends… I mean, it's not even for the child living, it's for the child that's bloody dead. Not what I want, not at all. I've done everything that Mary could have wished for, needed, asked for… Arnold, she' scrapped on me, bloody ungrateful woman…' He went to the kitchen door. It was not Arnold Browne's way to tell his neighbour that he thought him the most opinionated bully he had ever met. Or to inform his neighbour that he thought his wife to be the most selfish woman he had ever known. It was not his way to tell his neighbour that a young man had been exploited when vulnerable… And it was not his way to reveal that, in his own mind, he was tormented by guilt for his part in the matter. He let himself out. 'Yes, Penn. He's Bill Penn… Might be under William Penn…' She stiffened. Mary Braddock could endure no longer the isolation of her room. She sat in a low chair in the lobby. She waited for the telephone call from the earnest young American. She straightened, taut. 'He was here, this is where he was staying, Bill Penn…' The reception clerk, bored and superior, was shaking his head, reluctantly leafing through the guest list. 'This is where he was booked in…' A nasal English voice. She saw a small man, overweight and bald. He was leaning over the desk trying to read the lists as the reception clerk's pencil moved languidly over the names. He wore dirty jeans that were smeared in engine grease and an open shirt with a pullover that was ragged at the cuffs. 'Ah, yes… Here, but gone… Gone two days ago, two days ago he checked out… Yes, I remember, Mr. Penn, I think he had had an accident… but gone.' She saw his disappointment. He looked Jewish. She saw him mouth a curse, and he turned away. She was up fast out of the low chair and she intercepted him by the glass swing doors. 'Excuse me… you were asking for Mr. Penn.' 'Right.' 'It's impertinent, but in what connection?' 'Depends who needs to know.' 'Well, if it doesn't seem ridiculous, I suppose I could say I'm his employer.' 'The girl's mother? Dorrie Mowat's mother? I'm Benny Stein, I met Bill Penn.' ''BENJAMIN (BENNY) STEIN: Crown Agent lorry driver, Brit aid convoy, rescued me (life threatened situation) from Sector North at considerable risk to himself, his colleagues, and the future shipment of aid through Serb-occupied territory.' She had recited it, as if it were learned by heart. '… You were in his report.' 'We were geared up to go back today, down to Knin, but there's some flap over there, crossing points closed. We got put on hold. Seems I missed him, just wanted to put alcohol down his throat. Good guy, but you know that, lucky guy. So, he's gone home…' 'Not home, Mr. Stein, back inside Sector North. I asked him to return there, and that's what he did. I asked him to bring out my daughter's murderer, that's what he's doing.' She stared him straight in the eyes. She saw him shudder. She thought that for a moment his mind was working like a slow mechanism, but when they came his words had the deliberation of a quite total dislike. 'Do you know Oscar Wilde, Mrs. Braddock? Maybe you don't… 'Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.' What is obvious to me but not obvious to you is that over there, inside Sector North, is a bloody awful corner of hell. So, you 'asked' him to go back inside… When I got to meet him, he was kicked half to death, they were taking him out to shoot him. You know what he said? He said that you told the worst stories about your daughter… 'a story about her for every year of her life, the stories seemed to queue up to foul-mouth her…' And for your peace of mind, you 'asked' him to go back into that place.. . Well done, Mrs. Braddock, for missing the obvious.' He pushed past her, hammered into the swing doors. She thought that Benny Stein, if he had not pushed past her and run across the pavement, would have hit her. They played it as a game, and the Director watched. The tip of the wand moved high on the wall map of the operations room, and the Canadian officer described the moves. But there was no passion to the commentary. 'Initially there was a search mounted out of Salika village, that search did not make a trace and was wound down this morning. The activity of the search is now in their prime militarized zone fronting onto the Kupa river. They've cancelled leave, beefed up the duty rosters. They believe they have sealed the militarized zone it's out of the hands now of the rabble because their main force military have taken charge. We have no idea of the location of their target, whether he is pressing on, whether he has decided to go to ground while the heat's hot. From our monitoring of their radio it is clear that they do not, as of this moment, know his position, nor his approximate position. They seem, however, confident of blocking him in their militarized zone. That's about where it stands… You'll excuse me for asking you, sir, but do you have that information, where he's coming to?' They waited on him. The Argentine captain held the sheaf of papers that carried the monitored radio messages. They watched him. The Jordanian major lowered the pointer from the map. They searched him for truth. The Canadian colonel smiled, dryly. The Director said, in sadness more than anger, 'I bloody well don't. We're only the United Nations, you see, only the world body, only the one international authority that every clown politician pays lip service to. We are good enough to be derided, humiliated, insulted, kicked from one fucking end of this place to the other, good enough to shuffle aid round without being thanked. Not good enough to be trusted. It's what I've made a career at, advancement without trust.. . Thank you, gentlemen.' He went back with heavy steps, up the flight to his office. His secretary greeted him at the outer door, messages in hand and with a gesture towards the three men sitting uncomfortably in the outer office and waiting for their delayed meeting. He waved her away. The Director closed the door hard behind him. He sat long at his desk and he smoked his cigar and loathed himself for the habit. There were many telephones on his desk. Big decision of the day… He reached for the white telephone, and he dialled hard, belting the buttons. '… Your guarantee? He does not cross with his prisoner, I want that as a promise. I have that as an unequivocal promise? I accept your guarantee.' He had the promise from the First Secretary of the British mission that the man who was disowned would not be permitted to cross the river that night with his prisoner. He must place his trust in the guarantee. She did not know how much longer she could keep up the pace. The dog could hold the pace, whining for food in its hunger when she stopped to rest, sometimes veering away from the scent to lap at a pool of old rainwater, but the dog kept strength while she faded. Sometimes she had a kaleidoscope of lights in her mind, hallucinations at her eyes… She knew this part of the forest, not well, but she had been there as a teenager with the Pioneers of the Party, when the young people had gone on long hiking marches with their tents and cooking gear, when they were brought to the place of the massacre. Where the dog led her was within a half-hour's walk of the place of the massacre. At the place the teenagers had been lined up by the officials, the rain dripping on them, and the Croat children and the Serb children had listened to the officials tell of the shooting in cold blood by the Ustase men of the group of women who were taking food to the Partizans, and after the speeches the teenagers, Croat and Serb, had murmured their factional insults at each other. It was why she knew this part of the forest.. . She had thought, all through the length of the day, that she would find soldiers, and that the soldiers would go with her as the dog led them on the scent. She had found no soldiers, and now the light amongst the trees was fading. She had only the bayonet. Evica Stankovic had seen them first an hour before. When darkness came they would be close to the river. She had seen them for a moment, where the haphazard growth of the trees made a clean corridor for her vision. When darkness came again, when they were near the river, she would lose them. She went on and all the time her eyes, sometimes blinded in tiredness, sometimes seared by