Gerald Seymour - Heart of Danger

She went back slowly up the stairs and tidied the file on Dome's bed.

They were a rather more cheerful crowd for him to be with than the day shift, and they did not seem to regard him as a hostile antibody inserted into Library.

And the memories seeped again over the pages, typed and handwritten, and the photographs and the worn maps. Shaken the hand of that lovely young man, Johnny Donoghue, and watched him go tired away to the entrance tunnel of the Underground train at the end of the arrivals concourse, and gone to look for the car that would run the old desk warrior back to Century House. Walked down his corridor on the eleventh floor. "Hello, Henry, have a good trip?" "Well, I wouldn't say…" Carrying the duty free towards his corner of the office. "Just one of those things, I hope you're not thinking it'll be your head on the block?" "Well, we did all we could…" Settling down into his chair. "Always a problem when you use an amateur, don't you think?" "Well, you win some and you lose some…" Brought a beaker of coffee, and sipped it, and opened his briefcase, and started out on the damned report for the file of a young man's journey through the lines, a used young man.

It was long after he would normally have cleared the desk and trudged away to the station, but the night shift's supervisor had wandered, friendly, to his desk with a mug of coffee for him. A good young fellow, and chatty, and they talked desultorily about the new world that was dangerous, and nostalgically about the old world that was comfortable. The usual son of garbage… He waited his moment, then asked.

Henry Carter requested the trawl. Didn't know what they would find if they trawled for him, didn't know if they would find anything.

He had the clearance.

He wouldn't have called the supervisor a chum, but there had been times back in the old Century House that he had shared a lunch table with him in the canteen.

The trawl had left in the net what he regarded as a prize catch.

A short memorandum at the top of a light pile of flimsies, and worthwhile him staying late because it was a catch that the day shift supervisor would never have searched for…

From: George Simpson, Security Service (Liaison), Rm C/3/47. To: Desk Head Yugoslavia (former), Rm E/2/12. Ref: GS/1/PENN.

Following regular weekly liaison meeting, I took lunch with Arnold Browne, Sec Serv, ranked senior executive officer. In confidence AB spoke of Sec Serv involvement in former Yug, using a reject freelancer. Involvement follows death in Dec 91 of Dorothy Mowat, Brit citizen, in Croatian village overrun by Serb irregulars in area now designated by UNPROFOR as Sector North. Following recovery of Mowat's body (April 93), AB recommended to deceased's family that PENN (William), formerly with Sec Serv and now private detective (exclaimer), should travel to Croatia to investigate circumstances of death. AB drops that PENN, 'dogged' and 'end of road man', will hopefully produce war crimes evidence for use in pressuring Belgrade towards peace talks negotiation which Sec Serv can on pass to FCO… Sounds like empire building, sounds like interference outside Sec Serv remit. Are we happy query.

Signed: Simpson, George.

He knew Simpson, old Georgie. Simpson, old Georgie, was the sort of man that he used to meet in the corridor, never seemed to be in a hurry, never seemed to have anything pressing, could always give him the latest cricket score. He could see Simpson, old Georgie, under-achieving and passed over and frightened witless of redundancy, wrestling not too hard on a matter told in confidence. Carter thought that so much now fell into place… A trust betrayed?… Well, Simpson's, old Georgie's, dilemma about betraying a trust hadn't gone the distance, hadn't stopped him snitching.

It was an old maxim, but true, that confidences didn't count for too much in the trade…

The Intelligence Officer fronting as Liaison had known that the opportunity would not come until the end of the meeting. At the break-up there would be coffee provided, and biscuits and juice, and the opportunity.

There was a working relationship now that civilized the meetings. Stiff, formal, but a relationship… The meetings were always in the police station at Tusilovic that was twelve kilometres into the occupied territory from the crossing point at Turanj. The relationship had prospered sufficiently for there to be a hot line from his office in Karlovac to the police station at Tusilovic, and a monthly meeting across a table. They never came to Karlovac… And it was usual, also, for the Intelligence Officer to meet Milan Stankovic at Tusilovic…

The Intelligence Officer, before permanent secondment to the military, had been chief salesman (export) for the timber factory at Karlovac. He was trained to read body language. The Serb was sullen, there had to be room for sport there.

More on the agenda concerning the electricity supply across the cease-fire line: deadlock. The sort of agenda item on which Stankovic would usually have shouted his opposition, hammered the table. The matter of the woman, Croatian-American, who had travelled from Chicago for her mother's funeral at Topusko, and been kept waiting three days in Zagreb with no permission for entry into Sector North granted, until after the burial and no explanation. The sort of matter on which Stankovic would usually have sneered contempt.

The Intelligence Officer anticipated sport.

They had been through the litany of cease-fire violations. A sentry, frozen and lone, looses off a single shot. A section, bored, responds with a mortar round. A platoon, angry, replies with an artillery piece. A company, furious, loads up an Organj multiple rocket launcher… The sort of litany on which Stankovic would usually shoot his mouth off.

There had to be good sport because Stankovic was sullen, head hanging.

The Intelligence Officer came round the table and he held the coffee cup in his hand. He eased himself onto the table, sitting casual, beside the big bowed shoulders of Milan Stankovic.

"Hello, Milan… Bit quiet today… How's Evica? My wife always tells me to ask after her… Managing, is she? I heard her school was short of books, but then you're short of everything… Must have been shit, through the winter, without the power…"

He watched the hands fidgeting and the body hunched, and the Serb's eyes avoided his own.

'… We're quite well on with the new co-operative building, out on the Ilovac road, good position and close to the Zagreb highway… Your farmers happy? You built a new co-operative? No? Well, maybe next year, maybe some time…"

There was clearly a personal burden there for the Intelligence Officer to scratch at. He probed, and sipped his coffee.

'… You know what people ask me, friends who know I come to the meetings, the ones who used to know you? What they ask is this. That Milan Stankovic, the clerk once but the big man now, what does he think his future is? I've an idea of the future, long-term, because nothing will be forgotten. What I tell my friends, the people who ask me, it may not happen in my lifetime nor in yours, the vengeance, but my son will come for your son because it will never be erased…"

He wondered if it was shame that he saw, or whether it was fear. He imagined his quiet voice as a knife between the blades of Milan Stankovic's shoulders.

'… I nearly forgot to say. I'd have kicked myself if I'd forgotten to say it. There are questions being asked about you, your name is mentioned. I suppose if you hadn't been in Belgrade then you would have been able to prevent it, but you were in Belgrade when they dug for the bodies of our wounded that were killed after Rosenovici fell. That was a mistake, you being away in Belgrade. I'm told they're filling a file on you, Milan… There was a bigger mistake…"