Brendan DuBois - Dead of Night

That seemed to snap Gary out of his happy memory, and he smiled. ‘Hah. Maybe if you’d spent a couple more days out in the woods instead of being in camp you would have fallen into it. See ya. Maybe I’ll come look you up in Toronto when this is all over.’

‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘You’ll be arrested.’

He winked at me. ‘In a few short hours, me and everybody else here will be given a worldwide blanket amnesty. Not to mention our POWs over there at The Hague. Just you see.’

Gary turned and walked away and I felt this insane rage just roil through me as I remembered the burned buildings, the dead Australians, Sanjay lying there cold on the ground, the German air-force pilot dangling from a tree, the UN soldiers being shot, one by one, and dumped into a pit…

A hole. A pit.

Gary looked at me again and waved. I think I surprised him, for I waved back just as enthusiastically. Then I walked past the armed Poles, back into the crowd.

I was looking for Miriam, I was looking for Peter, and I couldn’t find either of them. There were more aid workers and off-duty soldiers and hospital folks around me, some talking in small groups, others lifting themselves up on tiptoe to see the dreary action taking place over by the tents, where the militia representatives were being escorted in for the armistice negotiations. I looked around, frantic now. Time was slipping away, and I thought about the militia generals, over there in The Hague, getting prepped to go home. Thought about Peter looking for the body of his Grace, looking for the truth about what had happened here, truth that might still be hidden for years to come. I moved around in a circle, looking for Peter’s tall build, for Miriam’s blonde hair. I bumped into people, moved again, heard the strange mix of languages, from Dutch to Polish to—

A flash of yellow. Over there. Hillside.

I went through the crowd again, using my elbows and whatever else to clear my way, and praise the Lord and pass the good fortune, there was Miriam, talking intently to Peter, standing a little ways up the hill. I ran on the grass and she smiled at me and any other time I would have just stood there for a second and enjoyed the sensation. But not now.

‘Peter!’ I yelled. ‘Where’s the general?’

Peter turned in mid-conversation. ‘Oh, there you are. Who in God’s name was—’

‘Shut up, please, just shut up,’ I said, trying to catching my breath, trembling with excitement. ‘The general. Hale. The one we talked to yesterday. Can you get hold of him?’

I think anyone else would have started asking lots of questions, would have tried to dissuade me from doing what I was doing. But for once in our brief relationship Peter managed not to disappoint me.

‘Is it important?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Miriam said, ‘I’m sorry, who’s this general? And how come the two of you know him?’

I held up a hand. ‘Just a sec, Miriam. Please. Just a sec.’

Peter said, ‘Important. Just how important?’

I took a deep breath. A gamble, but what the hell. What could anybody do? Send me back home? Assign me to the UN to investigate war crimes?

‘Site A,’ I said.

Miriam stood stock-still. Peter stared at me, his eyes ablaze.

‘What about it?’ he asked.

‘I think I— Hell, scratch that,’ I said. ‘I know where it is. Peter, I know where Site A is.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s important enough.’

Peter worked his intelligence-agency magic while I was put in the very uncomfortable position of trying to explain to Miriam who Peter really was and why I hadn’t told her before. I also had to touch on the question of what kind of relationship we were going to have if I kept secrets, and I was fortunate enough not to have to answer it right away because I was still keeping secret the story of the diskettes. Soon we were escorted into a mildewy-smelling canvas tent housing General Hale and two other UNFORUS officers. Hale looked very irritated, almost like my father on one of his better days, and I started right off.

‘General, please excuse me, but a quick question.’

Hale looked at Peter and God bless Peter but he didn’t look awed or scared or overwhelmed. He just looked confident, like he was here to back up a colleague, someone he had worked with and whom he trusted. That look on his face warmed me almost as much as one of Miriam’s smiles.

‘All right, a quick question,’ he said.

‘In my debrief, I mentioned a German Luftwaffe pilot’s body, on a road by a river. Has that body been recovered?’

Hale looked over at the officers. ‘George?’

The officer called George flipped through a clipboard, looking at a sheaf of yellow message slips. ‘Yes, sir. Two days ago.’

‘How was it recovered?’

The officer looked over at me. ‘Excuse me?’

‘How was it recovered? Who went in there and took it out?’

‘An SAR unit,’ he said. ‘Search and rescue.’

‘They use helicopters, don’t they? Not ground vehicles.’

‘Not with the armistice in tatters,’ Hale said. ‘Look, young man, I should be there with the negotiations, not spending time with you—’

‘Site A—it’s at the end of that road,’ I said.

The general paused in mid-sentence. He swallowed. Looked at me—I was so glad I was not wearing the uniform of the British Army. ‘What makes you so sure?’

Good question. I hoped my answer would be just as good. ‘At the end of that road is a tourist attraction. I spotted a brochure for it, and one of the locals who helped me told me about it. Bronson’s Iron Works. One of the first open mines and forges in this part of the state.’

‘And?’ the general asked, putting about a ton of skepticism into that one word.

‘And it’s been disguised. The signs showing how to get there have been removed. And the road leading into the mine has been disguised and blocked, with an earth berm and some foliage. Not enough to fool a serious search operation but enough to fool most people. And I just had words with one of the militia people you’ve been negotiating with. He let something slip about me being out there and almost having found Site A. Something about falling into it. Sir, it just came together. The disguised road. The missing signs. And an open pit or mine.’

As I had been talking, one of the general’s assistants had been going through a series of file folders, holding them up to his chest like some paper accordion. Hale turned to him and said, ‘Henry?’

‘Sir, records show that the state park called Bronson’s Works was investigated almost two months ago. There was nothing to report. All clear.’

Hale turned to me, his face showing disappointment and anger and maybe just a little concern for me for trying to come up with something at such a late date. ‘Sorry, young man, it looks like you didn’t quite—’

‘Who did the search?’ Peter asked, arms folded.

Hale asked, ‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me, General. A fair question. Who did the search? Who told you there was nothing there?’

Hale said to the aide, ‘Henry? You heard the man. Who led the search that told us there was nothing at the place called Bronson’s Works?’

Another flip-flip through the papers and folders. Then, looking as pleased as a dog treeing a squirrel, Henry held up a piece of paper.

‘One of the first investigators on the ground,’ he said. ‘A fellow called Jean-Paul Cloutier.’

Before the UN convoy left the parking lot, the passenger door of a Land Cruiser opened and Charlie Banner, USMC, clambered in, M-16 in his hands, and sat next to Peter, who was behind the steering wheel. Charlie turned, grinned, and held out a hand to me. I was sitting in the rear.