Gerald Seymour - Heart of Danger

"Please, don't talk, please."

"I want to know what he is like. I want to see his face, hear his speech, watch him move. I want to know how he is different. He is married, he has a child, he is a leader of his people. I understand all of those things. I do not understand how he could have beaten the wounded and knifed them and shot them. I do not understand how he could have looked into the face of your Dorrie and beaten her and knifed her and shot her. I have to believe that I will find something of him that is different. If he is not different then we are all lost. I see only victims. I do not know those who make the victims. I see the results of their violence but I am not able to see the source of the violence. Penn, surely you don't believe that I came here only because I was afraid for you. Penn, I despise sentiment… There are 2,400 souls in the Transit Centre, and they do not even own hope, and their number is minimal in comparison with the greater number who have suffered. They deserve some, however small, act of retribution… Half a century ago it was my own country that bred the evil, and the evil was made by men and women that you would have passed in the street and thought no different from yourself. The evil must be isolated, stopped… If he is a good and ordinary and decent man then there is no hope for any of us, none, then it is indeed the beginning of that dark age. I have to pray that he is different…"

Penn slept.

"You will give me the wit to believe that you are not joking with me?"

"No, sir, I am most serious; would that it were a joke."

It was a part of the First Secretary's upbringing that he would address a more senior man with respect. And a lesson of his teenage years at Marlborough School, well learned, that evasion of a problem came back to haunt. He sat stiffly in the chair while the Director of Civilian Affairs paced, heaving on his cigar.

"He got himself out, and now he has gone back in?"

"That's what I am saying."

The smoke of the cigar spat from the Director's mouth. "You appreciate the implications of what you tell me?"

"It is because I appreciate them that I have come to you."

"I am not a highly educated man, just a fucking Paddy, I have a bad degree out of Dublin, Business Management crap, maybe I don't have the intellect for this job. Maybe a man with a greater intellect could do this job without having to spend fifteen, seventeen, hours a day stuck at this desk or sitting in on meetings with the most God-awful people Christ ever invented, maybe. I spend those hours every day trying to stamp out the nastiest brush fire Europe has seen in half a century. I hate this place, I hate its bestiality and its barbarity, its love of slitting the throats of old friends and former neighbours …"

"I understand, sir."

"What I am trying to do, with my piss-poor intellect, is create some sort of cease-fire so that the killing stops. Are you following me?"

"Very clearly."

"I have these war crimes groupies fucking about in my backyard. At the moment they are little more than a nuisance, but each day they're here, each day they dig their hole deeper, so their power of sabotage increases…"

"I appreciate that, sir."

"Let me tell you something, in confidence. Right now, this week, there is a meeting in Budapest between Croat bureaucrats and Serb bureaucrats. There is a meeting scheduled tomorrow in Detroit, out of the limelight, between a Croatian constitutional lawyer and a Serb with the same education. Two days ago, in Athens, there wound up a session involving Bosnian Muslims and Serbs… Thank Christ, those bloody journalists down in Sarajevo and Belgrade and Zagreb are too preoccupied with getting hero medals on the front lines, they don't know the half of what's being worked…"

The First Secretary knew of all three meetings, and disguised his knowledge. "Small mercies."

"Under the fucking carpet, we are working night and day for a cease-fire, and talk of war crimes tribunals is an obstruction. Shit, the Serbs have monsters in their ranks, but so do the Croats, so do the Bosnian Muslims. Everybody in this mess is guilty. If an alleged war criminal is kidnapped and brought out of Sector North then I can kiss goodbye to a cease-fire, most especially if they also bring out an eyewitness. Got me? For six months now I have oiled these bastards towards talking with each other… You know what, you should see them. Get a Croat and a Serb together in a quiet hotel with a bar, and you sure as hell wouldn't know they've been beating double shades of shit out of each other. They want a deal. They laugh together, drink together, probably go looking for tail together. They want out…"

"I wouldn't wish you to think that my government in any way condones the action of this freelancer, quite the opposite…"

"And who will believe you?"

There might have been a microphone in the room. Best to assume there were microphones recording the conversation. The First Secretary spoke softly. "Which is why I brought you the information, which is why we will do our damnedest to make certain no alleged war criminal is brought out from Sector North. I think we are running on the same rails. It won't happen…"

The face of the Director lightened, as if he were now amused. "But it was your Prime Minister who called for tribunals…"

"Should never pay too much attention to political ramblings."

"And this Penn, interfering fucking nobody, he's your man…"

The First Secretary was smiling. "Pity that he didn't stay home. I met him. Not very impressive, but he's been caught up in the emotion of the place. Capable in a technical sense, but not very bright. Capable enough, perhaps, to make it back to the Kupa river, but not bright enough to see the implications of his actions. If he takes his man then we'll hear about it… As you know better than me, the dust sheets will be coming off the artillery pieces and the cladding will be off the ground-to-ground missiles that can reach southern Zagreb. They might even get to loading up… I don't think they'd fire unless this wretched clerk from Salika village is actually out of their territory. Penn will not be allowed to cross the river with his prisoner, I thought you should know."

He saw the spreading astonishment crack the Director's face. "You'd see him go to the wall, your man?"

The First Secretary had served one tour, two years, in Dublin as a junior Six person covered by diplomatic status. He thought he knew the southern Irish. He thought they reckoned that the British were always totally devious, quite ruthless. Well…

"He's not our man."

Everything of note, everything sensitive to his work, Marty had locked away in the floor safe. He was checking his shopping list and beside him as he stood was the howl of the mains-powered electric drill. They were cheerful young guys, the two Swedish soldiers with the drill, perhaps carpenters or engine mechanics back home before their turn in the armed forces. When they had made the deep screw sockets in the floor they would fix down the metal ring that he had demanded. They did not ask him why he wanted a metal ring fastened to the floor of the converted freight container, and he would not have told them the reason for it. He checked his list, carefully typed out.

1 Bed (collapsible).

1 Sleeping bag, plus blanket.

Food: Bread, margarine, jam, sliced ham, sausage, milk

(3 lit res 1 Hotel room reservation (KD eyewitness).

1 Chain (4 metres).

2 Padlocks (2 keys each).

1 pair Handcuffs (2 keys).

He told the Swedish soldiers that they should close the door when they had finished fastening the ring in the floor. The ring would hold a padlock, the padlock would hold a chain, the chain would hold a second padlock, the second padlock would hold a pair of handcuffs, the pair of handcuffs would hold a war criminal. Marty Jones had told anyone who would listen since he had come to Zagreb that it was the means that were important, not the end. He reckoned himself entitled to change his mind. He said to the Swedes that he would be out for the rest of the afternoon, gone shopping.