Warriors (9781101621189) Page 15

  “Are we sure we’re not trespassing?” Cunningham asked.

  “It’s all right,” Gold said.

  “Webster wanted us to understand just how bad things can get around here,” Parson said. “Nothing will do that like a visit to a spot like this.”

  A half-truth, Gold knew. Parson needed no convincing. But there was no reason for Cunningham to feel like he was getting some kind of remedial schooling. And Gold believed she, too, had things to learn here. She would leave Bratunac a little wiser and much, much sadder.

  They walked through the grass to the edge of the grave site. Gold expected to pick up whiffs of the stench of death, but then she realized far too much time had passed for that. The place smelled only of churned soil; the flesh that had covered these bones had become soil itself.

  On a black tarpaulin, the workers had placed a number of objects from inside the grave. Gold saw a mud-caked watch with a metal band, hands long stilled at 3:12. Had that been the time of death two decades ago? Probably not. She imagined the watch strapped to a decaying wrist underneath the ground, running on battery power perhaps for a few years in a hopeless effort to track eternity.

  Next to the watch lay a wedding ring and a wallet. The wallet looked as if it had been dropped in the dirt yesterday. The owner might wipe it off and return it to his pocket. But the owner resided in that pit somewhere, represented by a red flag.

  Gold found it odd that these valuables remained. She’d seen horrific scenes of mass murder in Afghanistan, and the killers usually took everything useful from the bodies. These victims had been slaughtered and buried by people in a hurry.

  Irena bowed her head as if in prayer. Parson stood with his hands clasped in front of him, as near to reverent as Gold had ever seen him. Cunningham just shook his head, turned away and looked into the woods, turned again and faced the grave.

  “God, this is horrible,” he said. “Hard to believe these things went on.”

  “They went on because the world didn’t care enough,” Irena said.

  Gold thought of words from John Donne. “‘No man is an island, entire of itself,’” she said, “‘every man is a piece of the continent . . .’”

  Cunningham looked at her, nodded. He went over to the edge of the pit and kneeled. His eyes wandered across the grave site and seemed to stop where a forensic specialist dug at a skeleton only partially visible. Beside one of the red flags, accompanied by a placard with the number 15 on it, there was a human skull. The specialist used a trowel to work at the other bones. Roots curled around a clavicle as if the land resisted giving up its secrets.

  As Gold looked more closely, other skulls became visible in the grave. She had to observe with care; the bones were not bleached white but had taken on stains the same color as the earth around them. Some of the skulls bore bullet holes in the back. A few of the skulls appeared too small to be those of adults.

  Nearer to Gold, a specialist dug where no skeleton was apparent. The worker shoveled soil onto the screen of a sift box and began to shake the box. The wet earth did not sift well, but eventually enough dirt fell away to expose the delicate metacarpal bones of a hand, detached like puzzle pieces. The next bite of the shovel brought up what at first looked like a primitive bracelet. Gold recognized it as the circles of wire that had bound the hands.

  “Who does things like this?” Cunningham asked.

  “I don’t know,” Parson said, “but I think Webster’s point is that some of the people who do these things are still around.”

  Another shovel full of dirt went into the sift box. This time the soil filtered away to leave a single shell casing. Not the short casing of a pistol cartridge but the longer, necked-down brass of high-powered rifle ammunition.

  Gold imagined the scene that had taken place here. She could see the trucks trundling up the narrow path, the victims herded into a swale near the woods. If the atrocity had happened at night, headlights of vehicles would have thrown stark beams and shadows.

  What last words had these victims spoken? Had they screamed or cried, pleaded for their lives? Had they said anything at all? And what thoughts could have gone through the minds of the shooters?

  Another shovel of earth went into the sift box. The sifting yielded two more empty rifle cartridges. The forensic worker placed them next to the first casing, lined up in a row on a strip of plastic sheeting. Gold could almost hear the explosions of gunfire, the rifle reports rolling in waves, the dead dropping in ranks.

  Now the dead who remained in the pit waited their turn to be placed into a transfer case. Perhaps they would make one final journey to a proper cemetery to rest with their ancestors.

  Cunningham stood up, stepped away from the pit. “You guys up in the airplane heard something about a sideshow and the main event,” he said. “Is this what somebody could mean about the main event? More of this?” He swept his hand toward the mass grave.

  “There’s no telling,” Parson said. “But I think we want to hang in with this mission until we find out.”

  Cunningham looked into the grave, then off into the woods. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we do.”

  17

  AT HIS DESK, Dušic seethed. He fought the urge to hurl his telephone through the office window. No answer from the pilot, Dmitri, since yesterday. No answer at the warehouse. For security reasons, Dušic never left voice mail messages, but if any underlings ever missed his call, they’d dial back right away. So far, nothing. He could not escape the obvious conclusion: Those fools had gotten themselves arrested. Thank God he’d not been at the warehouse himself.

  “Milica,” he called to his secretary in the next room, “has anyone phoned on the landline this afternoon?”

  “No, sir. It is nearly six, Mr. Dušic. Do you have further need of me?”

  Dušic ground his teeth, but he saw no reason to take out his anger on Milica. She was his youngest employee and the only woman on his payroll, and he saw her as the future of Serbia. The chaste daughter he never had, the counterpoint to those Muslim whores who bred like rabbits. He had never once raised his voice to her, and he often counseled her to find some promising Serb officer and start a family. Do not let the Turks outnumber us, he joked with her.

  “You may go, my dear,” he said. “Business may take me out of town for a few days. Sort the mail and tell any callers I can be reached on my mobile. If they do not already have the number, do not give it out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dušic listened to her gather her things and leave. When the outer door clicked shut, he closed his eyes and tried to settle his mind. Unlike the recent plane crash in Kyrgyzstan, this disruption was no mere setback but a genuine combat loss. However, a commander must handle these things. What would General Mladic do in this situation? He would adapt.

  Now Dušic needed to act quickly: withdraw some funds, procure some weapons, go to ground. He hoped those idiots who got arrested wouldn’t talk; surely they could imagine the consequences of betraying him. But even if the underlings kept their mouths shut, the authorities might still pick up the trail.

  He would have to complete his mission under less-than-ideal circumstances, but that was war. No plan survived contact with the enemy.

  Dušic removed his jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves. He slid open the bottom drawer of his desk and lifted his CZ 99 and shoulder holster. Slipped on the holster, drew the weapon, and pulled back the slide just enough to see the gleam of the brass cartridge. Satisfied that the gun was loaded, he released the slide, holstered the pistol, and donned his jacket over the shoulder rig.

  At a safe mounted in his office wall, Dušic tapped a combination into the keypad: 15-6-1389. The date of the battle at the Field of Blackbirds. A moment in time that transcended time, a portal through which vengeance flowed forever.

  The lock’s bolt retracted, and Dušic opened the safe. He removed a manila envelope filled wi
th euros, American currency, and Serbian dinars—in all, just over one hundred thousand dollars.

  By the time he pulled out of the parking garage in his Aventador, a charcoal dusk had turned Belgrade to shades of black and white, highlighted only by the colors of traffic lights. Pigeons flapped into the cornices of buildings, settling into their roosts. Dušic considered the problem of communication. Were his phone calls being monitored? He decided his throwaway cell phone was safer than his landline. His office location was public knowledge, and if the authorities decided to investigate him, they’d probably start by tapping his office numbers. As he drove, he used the cell phone to ring Stefan.

  “Can you meet me tonight at the storage facility?” Dušic asked.

  “I can,” Stefan said. “But I am home in Sarajevo. I will need some time to make the drive.”

  “Very well. Just make sure you get here. Bring your utility van. A problem has arisen.”

  “Are you calling off the operation at the Patriarchate?”

  “Security, my friend,” Dušic said. Though he doubted this number would ever be monitored, he did not want any carelessness. “I will answer your questions when you arrive,” he added.

  At an automatic teller machine, Dušic withdrew additional cash. He knew how events could overtake even the best commanders, and he wanted to have plenty of emergency money on hand. If police closed in, he might not be able to risk making an appearance at a bank or using his credit cards. His latest withdrawal left an electronic signature that placed him in Belgrade, but so what? That’s where he lived. But if he needed to start moving around, the cash would allow him to do so without leaving more clues.

  His safest move, he knew, would be simply to disappear. He could go to Russia, where kindred spirits and expatriate veterans would give him shelter. Mladic and Karadžic had hid out for years right here at home; in Russia or perhaps Ukraine, Dušic could vanish forever. But a life in hiding held no appeal. And if his plan succeeded, Serbs would hail him as a hero, and there would be no more need to hide.

  Dušic felt he had pushed off from a shore to which he could never return. He had started across the Rubicon, and he would lead his people to the glory they deserved.

  Full darkness had fallen by the time he reached his storage facility in Novi Beograd—New Belgrade, just across the Sava from the old part of the city. A chain-link fence with an automated gate surrounded rows of corrugated metal sheds, most of them available to the public for rent. But Dušic had bought one set of the storage units, wired them for electricity, installed climate control, and enclosed them with his own locked inner fence. He stopped his Aventador at the outer fence, reached through his open window, waved his security card at a card reader. The reader box beeped once, and its indicator light changed from red to green. An electric motor began to hum, and the gate inched open.

  Dušic took his foot off the brake and rolled forward a few meters through the gate. He stopped to wait for the gate to close behind him. When the gate lurched shut again, he drove forward and turned left onto a concrete driveway that ran between the rows of storage units.

  He kept his own fence locked with low technology: a padlock and chain. Dušic shut down his car and keyed open the padlock. More sophisticated gear protected the roll-up doors to his storage sheds. At one of them he entered a code for an electronic lock, and when it released, he raised the door and turned on the lights.

  Man had always channeled much of his ingenuity into inventing ways to kill, and Dušic prided himself in trading on that ingenuity. The fluorescent tubes buzzing overhead illuminated the best of his stock in small arms, optics, night-vision devices, and other infantry gear. He bought and sold equipment up to and including Sukhoi jets, but hardware a man could carry represented Dušic’s bread and butter. He always kept supplies on hand for small orders, and from that cache he would outfit himself and his team.

  AK-47 assault rifles hung from racks along one wall. Dušic hoped Stefan had recruited more razvodniks, and he selected five AKs for the attack on the Patriarchate. For his own use he preferred other firearms, but Kalashnikovs were usually the weapon of choice for Muslim terrorists, probably because the rifles were durable as earth itself and could be operated by any fool. The whole point of his upcoming operation was to make it look like a towel-head strike on an Orthodox holy place.

  But Stefan, Dušic knew, had the talent for instruments of more precision. For his friend, he reserved an American M24 sniper rifle. Though Dušic had no use for Americans, his judgment in weapons knew no politics, and he cared only about quality. And the Americans, he admitted, made some of the finest weapons in the world. In the right hands, this thing could deliver death from afar like bolts of lightning, guided by a telescopic sight with fine adjustments marked in increments that looked like the scales of a micrometer. In keeping with Stefan’s preference, the rifle was a bolt-action. Dušic had long since quit trying to talk his friend into using automatics; Stefan had demonstrated well enough what he could do with one bullet at a time.

  Dušic set the weapons by the door, the equipment protected by foam-padded cases. Then he collected cans of 7.62-millimeter ammunition, batteries, handheld radios, and other accessories that might come in handy over the next few days. He even picked up body armor and a few fragmentation grenades for good measure. The Holy Assembly of Bishops would take place in the following week. If all went according to plan, the clerics would become martyrs by Dušic’s hand, and their deaths would serve a more sacred cause than their lives ever had. Those clerics who must die had been called by God to the service of the church. Dušic had been called to the service of his people. Surely fate had intended this convergence.

  Small chores kept him occupied while he waited for Stefan. Dušic conducted function checks on his radios and optics. He made sure everything turned on and tested good, and that things adjusted, focused, zoomed, and tracked. When he completed all of those tasks, he sharpened tactical knives and charged up nickel-cadmium batteries. After what felt like an eternity, the glare of headlights and the crunch of gravel announced the arrival of a vehicle. Dušic walked to the main entrance. When he recognized Stefan’s van, he opened the gate. Stefan waved as he drove through. Neither man smiled. Stefan stopped and lowered his window.

  “Drive down to small-arms storage,” Dušic said. “I will brief you there.”

  Inside the shed, Stefan surveyed the gear Dušic had collected. “This feels like the old days,” Stefan said, “when we visited the quartermaster before an operation.”

  “I had the same thought,” Dušic said, “but we have no time for reminiscing.” Dušic told Stefan about the arrests.

  “A sad turn of events,” Stefan said.

  “If they talk, they die.”

  “To be sure.”

  Dušic outlined his plan for the days remaining before the Assembly of Bishops: lie low, brief the razvodniks on their final instructions, and watch for any hint of betrayal by the fools now in custody.

  “The car bomb is ready,” Stefan said. “I wired together three shells, as we discussed. I need only to install the battery and drive the car into place.”

  “Excellent,” Dušic said. He considered the yield of such a weapon. The explosion would amount to three simultaneous direct hits by large-caliber artillery. It would rip the Patriarchate right off its foundations. And the act would rip away the inhibitions and caution of the Serbian people, stir them to finish what they had started in Dušic’s youth.

  “I obtained the vehicle as well. Everything is set.”

  “Were the funds I gave you sufficient?” Dušic asked. He had wired Stefan nearly two million Serbian dinars to purchase a car for the operation.

  “Actually, I can return all the funds to you. I hot-wired some Turk’s Citroën. If any identifying marks remain on the engine block, the police will trace it to a Muslim who says his car was stolen.”

  Dušic laughed, c
lapped his friend on the back. “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” he said. “At least something has gone well. And I have a gift for you. Open that long case.”

  Stefan gave a puzzled look, kneeled, and popped the fasteners on the case. He opened it to reveal the M24.

  “A Stradivarius for the maestro,” Dušic said.

  “Very fine,” Stefan said. He lifted the rifle, clicked open the scope’s spring-loaded lens caps. Shouldered the weapon and sighted through the scope. Then he placed the rifle across his knees and unscrewed the thread protector at the end of the barrel. The effort revealed the threads that could accept a noise suppressor. Stefan found the suppressor inside the rifle’s case, and he twisted the device onto the barrel. Hefted the rifle and looked through the scope again. “Very fine,” he repeated. “I thank you.”

  “If you do not need such a rifle in our opening phase,” Dušic said, “you will surely need it later.”

  Stefan examined the markings on the Leupold scope. “Telescopic sights keep getting better and better,” he said. “With this reticle, one can estimate range very accurately.”

  The two men loaded the gear into Stefan’s van. Prudence dictated that Dušic leave Belgrade until the day of the bombing, and that he travel in something less eye-catching than the Aventador. He removed his briefcase and laptop computer from the car and placed the items in the van.

  “I will leave the Lamborghini here,” Dušic said, “if I may ride with you.”

  “Of course.”

  “I have kept the car in my enclosure here before, so the people who rent storage units should not think it strange. But I believe we should get out of the city for now.”

  “Where shall we go?” Stefan asked.

  “Tuzla. That is a fairly central location for the razvodniks to meet us when the time comes.”

  “It is. And I have found three more, all veterans of volunteer units.”