Alan Furst: Spies of the Balkans

“It does,” Zannis said.

Vlatko stared out the side window. “Wait until tomorrow, you bastards.”

As they neared the prefecture, Zannis said, “If Prince Peter becomes king, who will run the government?”

“Whoever he is,” Vlatko said, “he’d better be a war leader.”

Zannis, hoping against hope, said, “You don’t think Hitler will accept a new government? A neutral government?”

Vlatko shook his head and said to Pavlic, “A real dreamer, your friend from Salonika.”

At the prefecture, the detectives had been listening to the radio and told Vlatko and Pavlic the news.

“What’s happened?” Zannis said.

“It’s what hasn’t happened that’s got them excited,” Pavlic said. “Cvetkovic was supposed to give a speech at ten, but it was delayed until noon. Now it’s been delayed again. Until six this evening.”

“When it will be canceled,” Vlatko said.

“Why do you think so?” Zannis said.

“I know. In my Serbian bones, I know it will be canceled.”

And, at six that evening, it was.

7:22 P.M.

A warm and breezy night, spring in the air. Pavlic pulled up in front of a villa; the lights were on, a well-polished Vauxhall sedan parked in the street. “They’re home,” Pavlic said.

“You don’t want this, do you?” Zannis said, nodding toward the shotgun.

“No, leave it. It won’t be necessary.”

There was no doorbell to be seen, so Vlatko knocked on the door. They waited, but nobody appeared, so he knocked again. Nothing. Now he hammered on the door and, twenty seconds later, it flew open.

To reveal one of the largest men Zannis had ever seen. He towered above them, broad and thick, a handsome man with blond hair gone gray and murder in his eye. He wore a silk dressing gown over pajamas-perhaps hurriedly donned because half the collar was turned under-and his face was flushed pink. As he gazed down at them, a woman’s voice, a very angry voice, yelled from upstairs. The giant ignored her and said, “Who the hell are you?”

“General Kabyla?” Pavlic said.

“Yes. So?”

Again the voice from upstairs. Kabyla shouted something and the voice stopped.

“We have orders to take you to the prefecture,” Pavlic said. Zannis didn’t get all of it but followed as best he could.

“From who?”

“Orders.”

“Fuck you,” said the general. “I’m busy.”

Vlatko drew an automatic pistol and held it at his side. “Turn around,” he said, producing a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket.

“I’m under arrest? Me?”

“Call it what you like,” Pavlic said, no longer patient.

As the general turned around and extended his hands, he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

In answer Vlatko snapped the handcuffs closed, took the general by the elbow, and guided him toward the door. Where he stopped, then shouted over his shoulder so his voice would carry upstairs, “Stay right there, my duckling, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

At the prefecture, there were already three men behind bars. Two of them, disconsolate, sat slumped on a bench suspended from the wall by chains. A third was wearing most of a formal outfit-the white shirt, black bow tie, cummerbund, and trousers with suspenders, but no jacket. He was a stiff, compact man with a pencil mustache and stopped pacing the cell when a policeman slid the grilled door open. As Vlatko unshackled the general, the man in evening wear took a few steps toward them and said, “We’ll find out who you are, you know, and we will settle with you.”

Vlatko shoved the general into the cell, then took a step toward the man who’d threatened him but Pavlic grabbed his arm. “Forget it,” he said.

The man in evening wear glowered at them. “You can bet we won’t.”

“Say another word and we’ll throw you in the fucking river,” Vlatko said.

The man turned and walked away, joining the other two on the bench.

By ten-thirty they were sitting in the bar at the Majestic, having rounded up the other three men on their list, stowing all three in the back of the car, where one of them had to sit on another’s lap to make room for Zannis. When the man complained, his dignity offended, Vlatko offered to put him in the trunk and he shut up. On the way to the prefecture the overloaded car crawled along the Milosha Velikog, where Pavlic had to stop twice, tires squealing, when armoured cars came roaring out of side streets and cut them off.

Throughout the next few hours, until well after midnight, detectives showed up at the bar to report on the evening’s work, while Zannis and Pavlic kept score on the master list. Around one in the morning it was over, they had twenty-two of the twenty-seven men in the holding cell at the prefecture. Two of the named subjects didn’t exist, according to the detectives-no trace in police or city records of their names. A third had escaped, having run out a back door and, as the story was told, “simply vanished, he’s hiding out there somewhere but we hunted for an hour and couldn’t find him.” A fourth was said, by a woman living at the house, to have been in Vienna for two years, and a search had revealed nothing-no men’s clothing. The last wasn’t home. The detectives had broken into his apartment and looked for him, but he wasn’t there. The neighbors shrugged, they didn’t know anything. One of the detectives had remained, in case he came home, and would stay until the morning.

There had, of course, been a few problems. One of the subjects, having gone for a pistol in a desk drawer, had been knocked senseless. Several bribes had been offered, and there’d been a number of arguments and threats. One of the detectives had been bitten by a dog, another had been scratched on the face. “By his woman,” the detective said, “so we arrested her, and now she’s in with the rest of them.” On two occasions, Pavlic was asked, “What will become of these people?”

“According to the plan, they are to be released in a day or so,” Pavlic said, and left it at that.

Many of the detectives stayed at the bar; this was an important night in the national history and they wanted to savor their part in it. Zannis encouraged them to eat and drink whatever they liked-the hotel kitchen produced roast chickens, the slivovitz flowed freely-as the money provided for the operation would easily cover the bill. At two in the morning, while the celebration raged around him, Zannis used the telephone at the bar and called the number he’d been given. A woman’s voice answered on the first ring. “Yes? Who’s speaking?” Her voice had a foreign accent but Zannis couldn’t place it.

“This is Zannis. We have twenty-two of twenty-seven. Locked up in prefecture.”

“Names, please.”

Zannis worked his way down the list.

“Wait,” she broke in. “You say Szemmer doesn’t exist?”

“No record. He is Serbian?” Zannis had wondered about the name.

“A Slovene. And he does exist. He is very dangerous.”

“They couldn’t find him. You know where to look, I’ll go myself.”

“No. Captain Franko Szemmer, that’s all we know.”

“Maybe, an office?”

“Where are you?”

“The bar, at the Hotel Majestic.”

“If I can find something, you’ll be contacted.”

After the telephone call, Zannis decided to go outside for a time, have a smoke, look at the stars, try to calm down. The front door was locked but the bolt turned easily and Zannis stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Half a block away, up at the cross street, somebody else had the same idea, on a tense night in Belgrade, and Zannis saw the red dot of a cigarette. There was one difference, between Zannis and his fellow star-gazer, the latter was sitting on the turret of a tank, its long gun pointing down the Knez Mihailova.