Page 104 of The Nameless Ones

‘She didn’t work in isolation. What if she told her contact at the embassy who those passports were for? What if she identified me as the mediator?’

Ilic waved a hand in dismissal. ‘If she did, they’ll keep their mouths shut. You think they’ll want to be implicated? You worry too much.’

Ilic took out his car keys and deactivated the alarm, but Frend grabbed his arm as he moved to open the car door.

‘Don’t you understand?’ said Frend. ‘Kauffmann was protected. She had value. By killing her, you’ve damned me.’

Ilic spun. The punch wasn’t hard, and caught Frend only a glancing blow, but he was off-balance and fell awkwardly. He felt something give in his left wrist, and he let out a yelp. Ilic showed him the gun.

‘Are you in a hurry to join her?’ he said. ‘Because I’ll put a bullet in your fucking head and all your troubles will be over. Is that what you want?’

Frend didn’t reply. He was as close to weeping as he had ever come in his adult life. Ilic and the Vuksans had their documents. They could vanish, but he could not. Kauffmann’s death would be investigated, and not only by the authorities. The trail would lead back to him. He was sure of it. He would become a marked man.

Frend managed to get to his feet, cradling his injured arm with his right hand. As he did so, the rage on Ilic’s face disappeared, to be replaced by what Frend initially mistook for pity, until he realized that whatever the Serb was feeling was directed not at Frend but himself.

‘You’re not the only one who is damned,’ said Ilic. ‘We were all cursed from the moment we stood with the Vuksans. You think these are going to save any of us?’ He showed Frend the envelope containing the passports. ‘They won’t. They’re only going to postpone the inevitable. You know what you should do? You should go back to that graveyard, dig a hole for yourself with your bare hands, and pull the dirt down on top of you. Words won’t save you. Documents won’t save you. Money won’t save you. You’re cursed, just as I am. The only difference is that I’m resigned to it and you’re not.’

‘Then why don’t you just give up?’ said Frend.

Ilic took a moment to reply.

‘Because I’m a fool,’ he said, at last, ‘and the dirt is in no hurry to accept another fool.’

He got in his car and drove away without giving Anton Frend another glance. Miserably, Frend walked toward his own vehicle and minutes later was leaving behind the quiet ranks of the nameless.

For the present.

On the silos overlooking the graves, flocks of small birds settled for a time before rising, forming patterns in the sky like dreams drawn from the mind of God. Only one did not join them. It was squatter and heavier than the rest, and stood on four legs, not two. The drone’s propellers activated and it ascended slowly, its camera following the departure first of Zivco Ilic, then Anton Frend. It stayed in the air for a while longer before its battery gave out and it dropped back to the roof of the silo, there to join the corpses of two pigeons in their own little cemetery of the lost.

Chapter LXXXII

Radovan killed the call.

‘Zivco has the passports,’ he told his brother.

Spiridon was in his usual seat by the window, looking out over trees and green grass. If he concentrated only on the vegetation, he believed he could convince himself that he was gazing at the Pannonian Plain of his youth.

‘Then you can go,’ said Spiridon, ‘and take Zivco with you.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll accept the passport, because it might prove useful, but I won’t use it to flee. I told you, I’m going back.’

Radovan rubbed his eyes and marveled at the depths of his brother’s obstinacy. He had promised Ciric that he would talk Spiridon around in return for the release of funds to pay for the passports, but she had reneged on the deal. Perhaps it had not been her decision. He thought, even hoped, that this might be so. Ciric answered to Belgrade, and Belgrade was determined to trap the Vuksans in a kill box.

But they had defied Belgrade’s will, because Zivco had the passports.

‘You’ll die if you return,’ said Radovan.

‘Not before I make them sorry they ever heard my name.’

‘Why? It’s over. If we leave, they’ll forget about us. Soon Kiš and Stajic will become a more pressing problem for Belgrade, and the fact of our continued existence will be forgotten. We won’t be worth the trouble of killing.’

Spiridon’s face reddened. He pushed himself up from his chair and stood face-to-face with his brother.

‘I want to be worth the trouble of killing!’ he shouted, and Radovan thought how strange it was to hear his brother’s voice raised in this way. He knew then that Spiridon was beyond reason. ‘I want them to remember me! Why did I fight for all those years, if not for that? I waged wars to bring my country back from the dead. I fought the Croats and the Turks, and when the fighting was over, I sent money from Amsterdam to rebuild houses, churches, schools. I will not be forgotten. I will not end my days hiding from my enemies while picke like Kiš and Stajic dismiss me as a coward. I will show them how a real man faces the world, how a real man dies. You can run. You were never a fighter. Go! Go with my blessing, but I will not leave.’

‘Spiridon,’ said Radovan, ‘if you do this, all those who knew us, all those who called us “cousin”, “friend”, “comrade”, will be at risk. I will be at risk. They will avenge themselves on everyone.’

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