The searching ended… It was a dreadful photograph, quite unsuitable for his purpose, but it was what he must make do with. The photograph showed in foreground the tables and chairs laid out on the patio of that city's principal hotel, in bright summer, with lolling and burned holiday-makers under gaudy sunshades. Beyond the patio, glared by the sun, was a pedestrian road and then there was the bank of the river. It was what he had sought to find, a view of the Kupa river. The river of the photograph was low against high banks, wide but seemingly harmless. It could give him an idea, only a frail impression, of how the Kupa river would be, at night, swollen by the winter, guarded by strong points and minefields and patrols, approached by the German woman and the prisoner and Penn.
His eyes misted over.
Twenty.
They stood so still. His heart hammered and his chest heaved, and he tried to breathe through his nose because he thought that would be more quiet, and she had the bulk of Milan Stankovic pressed against him, and he hoped that she had the knife so hard against the man's throat, that the man would not dare to shout. The two shadow shapes were on the track that ran above the farm with the outhouses. The shadow shapes moved with care. They came within five stretched paces of where Penn and Ulrike Schmidt and Milan Stankovic stood, so still. The moon was high enough, full enough, to throw fierce light onto the openness of the track they used. Penn could see that the shadow shape leading wore metal rank pips on his shoulder epaulettes, and the shadow shape who followed was carrying, tensed and readied, an assault rifle. It was where it could end, and the worst had not yet begun… Milan Stankovic might not believe him, but would believe Ulrike. Milan Stankovic knew from her cold certainty that if he made a sound, the smallest sound, then the knife would be driven into the softness of his throat… She could try to make him cruel enough and she would not succeed… The shadow shapes moved away. He reached back with his hand, and his fingers found hers. He did not twist his neck so that he could see her, because he feared that the material of his camouflage tunic would rustle or grate. His fingers found her body. They held a pinch of flesh at the flatness of her waist, and he squeezed the pinch with his fingers, hard so that he would hurt her, so that he would make her concentrate, and the moment before he took the first step he pulled at the pinch as the signal that she should follow him. They went onto the path, onto the fallen leaves and the wetness of the mud. They followed the shadow shapes that were ahead of them.
There was a low whistle. The whistle was like the warning cry of a young owl, from his childhood when he had gone at night to the twenty-acre plantation. There was an answering call from the mature owl that located its position. They followed the shadow shapes that led them towards the Kupa river. He attempted all the time to keep the shadow shapes at the edge of his vision as they meandered along the track. It was a bastard… The whistle, the answering night call, and when he strained to hear in the close quiet of the forest there were softly spoken voices, murmurs in the trees, it was the identification of an ambush position… Penn understood… an officer and his escort moving to inspect the ambush positions that he had designated. Penn understood that it was necessary for the officer to whistle ahead so that the troops, lying up and cold and with their nerves stretched, would call back, would not blast at the shadow shapes approaching them.
It was their chance, he saw it.
He led Ulrike and Milan Stankovic wide of the track each time that the officer whistled, the owl's sound, and each time the call was returned, and each time that there was the brief whisper murmur of the voices.
It was the opportunity, he must take it.
The shadow shapes of the officer and his escort took them through the network of the ambush positions. Four times they heard the whistle, the response call and the short whisper of voices, four times they were able to skirt the waiting troops. All the time the sight of the shadow shapes drew him forward, and the ache of the tension was in his legs and there was the hammer of his heart, and he wondered how it was possible for Ulrike to hold, all that time, the knife blade so steady against the beard and throat of Milan Stankovic with cold certainty. There was vomit in his throat, from fear. He depended on Milan Stankovic, on the desperation of the man. Would the knife go in if the man stumbled and a twig broke? Would the knife go in if the man spluttered once? It would be in Milan Stankovic's mind that if he stepped heavily, grunted once, then they were gone… He was trying to evaluate how desperate the man was… And if the man made a noise and Ulrike stabbed him in cold cruelty, then he and Ulrike were gone
… They were in the hands of their prisoner, dependent on the desperation of their prisoner… The vomit was in Penn's throat and sliding forward and he could not spit and he did not dare to swallow. They were so close to the shadow shapes, and to the voices, and once a metal water bottle rattled against a rifle barrel, and he trembled, and did not know how the faster panting of his breath had not been heard… The shadow shapes turned. So still again, so frozen against a tree's trunk, so quiet, and the shadow shapes had gone away and past them, retreating until he could no longer see the blurred half-images. Weakness dribbled in him. They went off the path. He glanced at his watch. He estimated it had taken one hour and forty-seven minutes to cover one mile. And he should, too bloody right, have listened better to Ham, and he could not remember the details that Ham had given him of ambush positions. He should have listened better because there would be ambush positions to a depth of a mile, and then there would be tripwires, and then there would be the patrols moving on the bank of the river, and then there would be the bloody river. Her hand came to him. She took his shoulder and she squeezed it hard, as he had squeezed her. She squeezed the bone of his shoulder as if to tell him that she thought he had done well. He knelt. Penn brushed the floor of the forest with his hand until he had found a small branch. He held the branch ahead of him, making a blind man's progress, going towards the river. 'It's Hamilton, I want, Sidney Hamilton. I expect you call him 'Ham'. I'm his friend The warning was there, quick. Marty Jones was at the sandbagged entrance to the old police station, and the sentry had come out of the protected san gar to block him, and the corporal was reaching for the field telephone in the guardhouse. The sentry was aggressive, and the corporal was evasive. Marty Jones hesitated. He knew it had gone foul and the aggression and evasion were the evidence. He hesitated and he did not know what his response should be, and then in front of him was the blast of the horn and the flashing of headlights. Two jeeps and a car lined up and trying to get the hell out of the inner courtyard of the old police station, and the barrier was down and blocking their leaving. The corporal abandoned discipline and the field telephone and came out to lift the barrier. Two open jeeps came by him, and he saw the flashes on the tunic arms of the guys and he knew they were Special Forces, and there was a big Rover tailing them out under the raised barrier. The barrier came down and the corporal was reaching again for the field telephone, and Marty was running. They could just as well have shouted a warning at him. Marty Jones ran to where he had parked the car, flung himself inside, twisted the ignition and hit the gears. Not until he had caught them, could see the lights of the Rover and the two jeeps, going down the big avenue, out of Karlovac, towards the river where there were the tanks' teeth of concrete beside the wide road, and the artillery-damaged apartment blocks from the war gone by, and the bazooka defence bunkers, did he kill the lights and let them lead him. He hissed to Mary Braddock, through his teeth, 'I don't know what it is, I just know it's gone bad…' He was trying to concentrate, but his mind was leaping… Two more hours gone, and he reckoned a mile covered for each hour. And no longer the surety of the moon to guide him with the flow of silver light. He had found one tripwire. The taut wire checking the motion of the stick, and crouching until his fingers brushed the wire, and Ulrike and himself lifting the weight of Milan Stankovic over the wire and the knife blade never leaving his beard and his throat. The last stretch before the river, and facing the last patrols… and the concentration came harder and his mind leapt faster. The wind rising, and cloud scudding across the moon's face. Too much damn well surging in his mind, and that was danger. Danger was distraction from the gentle loose hold on the stick that wavered in front of his footfall… Penn took them off the path that ran down alongside the planted mines, and on towards the river bank… It was a place where brambles were thick, near to the path, and the moonlight was at that moment gone from above the tree canopy. A mile from the river bank… His mind leaping, concentration failing, danger… The flashing of the torch, shaded, and the ripple sounds of Ham edging the inflatable into the current of the Kupa river. The drive to Zagreb, the prisoner given over. A taxi for the airport, first flight out. She was so strong and there was no future for them. He would not know what to say to her. Gazing into her eyes, staring into the depth of them, wondering if she would cry, if she would laugh, if she would kick him on the shin. No future for them. Her going back to the Transit Centre. Him going back to Alpha Security Ltd, and tramping up the stairs from the street door beside the launderette, and seeing Basil and Jim and Henry, and Deirdre giving him the post that had accumulated, two
