They waited for a further twenty minutes, then there was shouting and a single shot. Irina appeared in the yard, still illuminated by one light on the end of the new barn. She was in a state of considerable excitement. ‘Ifkar has prisoners!’ she shouted up to her husband. Then Ifkar appeared, his face and hands blackened with mud, prodding two burly men at the end of his rifle.
‘Srbijci,’ he told them. Serbians. He dropped two handguns, one equipped with a silencer, on to the broken stone of the yard, and Irena picked them up and waved them in the faces of the two men with a bloodthirsty yell. At that moment there was a distant crump as their vehicle blew up. Ifkar had stuffed the petrol tank with a piece of cloth and lit it, Darko deduced with enormous pride. Naji caught the drift of what he was saying and applauded his friend.
‘We need to find out who they are and why they’re here,’ Anastasia said. The two men reminded her of the pair that had kidnapped her on a country road in southern Italy – street thugs who would turn their hand to anything for not much money. They were nothing like a professional hit team. They had announced their arrival, botched the approach to the farm, and then the driver, who must also have been armed, had fled when Ifkar shot out his tyres. And yet there was no doubt in Anastasia’s mind that they would have killed everyone at the farm without the slightest hesitation.
The men were pushed into the barn. Anastasia was concerned that the old lady, now moving the pistol casually from one hand to the other, could be enjoying herself rather too much and might get carried away with the two Serbs. She went down with Naji. As they crossed the yard, she said, ‘Maybe you should hold back. I don’t want them to see you.’
She went into the barn, followed by Irina, to find Ifkar holding the gun to the belly of one of the men and cuffing him about the head. She and Ifkar had no common language, but she said in Greek to Irina, ‘Are we going to do this? Here, on the very spot where Ifkar himself was tortured? Really! Is that what we do now?’ Ifkar understood and stepped back. ‘Let’s ask these gentlemen in their own language why they are here,’ she said to Darko, who spoke Serbian.
He tried a few questions, but nothing was forthcoming, until Moon, who had pursued her master into the darkness after Ifkar had left, bounded into the barn and started barking at the men. The dog’s docile nature made you forget what a big, powerful animal she was, and both men concluded that she was about to be set on them. The smaller of the two, who had ear studs and wore a training jacket with stripes up the arms, said he would tell them all he knew, which wasn’t very much, as long as the dog was removed.
Moon was locked up with her puppies by Irina, but before Darko recommenced with his questions Anastasia asked him to wait a few moments while she went outside. On the incline at the top end of the yard, where there was good reception, she dialled a number. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Samson when he answered. ‘I know it’s late, but I need your advice. I have two Serb gunmen here who were on the way to the farm – yes, that farm – to kill me, or Naji, or both of us. Ifkar, who turns out to be quite the dab hand with a rifle, captured them, but one escaped. Before we hand them over to the police in Pudnik, are there any questions I should ask them?’
‘You’re with Naji at the farm! How the hell did you wind up there? Frankly, I’d rather you ask Naji what his involvement is.’
‘I have – he won’t say. I’ll get it out of him, though. What do we want to know from these men?’
‘You’ve got limited time, because their partner will raise the alarm.’ Samson was coming to and focusing. ‘Mention a man named Oret. He’s dead, but it will surprise them that you know about him. Then drop the name Stepurin into the conversation. Ask them if they were hired by Anatoly Stepurin.’ He told her what he knew of Stepurin then said, ‘Of course, the million-dollar question, which you rightly put your finger on, is are they there to kill you or Naji?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah. The CIA would really like to talk to them before you hand them over to the local police. I’ll fix that for you and give them the coordinates of the farm. But you need to get out of
