Killing Pilgrim Read online

  “You mean about the Montenegrin?”

  “That and a stay in Šipan.”

  “I don’t get it. What did we do there?”

  “I don’t either. I don’t believe the stuff about wanting to see if the Bosnians taking potshots at us had friends. Or not entirely. She hadn’t lined the place up for that. Nothing about these people makes much sense to me.”

  “Higgins says you’ve got an interesting deal going on down here. Mind telling me what?”

  “None of your fucking business, and Higgins shouldn’t have been talking to you.”

  “Smart guy. He’s been here for a couple of weeks and knows more than the whole local police force already,” della Torre said. “So what’s your deal? Women? Drugs? Guns?”

  Strumbić laughed. “Gringo, what kind of criminal do you take me for?”

  “One with a practised eye for a lucrative deal and an easy piece of ass. So what is it?”

  “CDs.”

  “What?”

  Strumbić pointed to the big floor speakers in the corner of the bar. “Shit we’re listening to now.”

  “Compact discs?” The technology had only just started making modest inroads among Croatia’s wealthy. Della Torre was surprised there was any market.

  “Yup,” Strumbić said. “Bloody expensive. But Higgins knows a man who runs a boat from Istanbul to Bari.”

  “And?”

  “He’s got these machines back in Turkey that copy CDs. Copies them, packs them up, and sells them to the Italians. Once he’s in international waters off Dubrovnik, he’ll drop them off with somebody who’ll run them to shore for me.”

  “How the hell does Higgins know this Turk?”

  “Met him in Bulgaria or somewhere. I don’t know. How the hell does he know me or you?”

  Della Torre thought about how easily and smoothly Higgins had inveigled his way into their acquaintance. He was a man who seemed to know how to find informative people.

  “So you talked to this Turk?” della Torre said.

  “Sure did. He’ll make a dry run. He’ll get one of his usual smugglers to drop off some samples for me next week. If it’s agreeable, we’ve got a business. He’ll do whatever CDs I want. All I’ve got to do is figure out which ones are going to sell. I know some people in Zagreb who’ll distribute them for me. Plenty of out-of-work pimps needing a bit of cash.”

  “Which is why our ears are bleeding now?” della Torre asked.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad. And it makes the girls hot. And when they’re hot, they start jiggling.”

  “One day I’m going to have a word with Mrs. Strumbić.”

  “Gringo, I’d rather you just shot me in the leg.”

  They had a wary laugh. Both had grown hoarse talking over the music and so they just drank, played some pool, pretended to dance with the girls, and drank some more. Della Torre wasn’t sure what time they’d made their way back to the hotel, but he remembered walking in the rain, singing “House of the Rising Sun,” swapping Dubrovnik for New Orleans in the lyrics.

  It wasn’t until Rebecca woke him that he realized how much he’d drunk the previous night. A quick swim and a breakfast of black coffee brought him close enough to life to be able to face her.

  She looked amused when she answered the door. “Heard you singing last night.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Well, come in.”

  She had a big suite with a view to Lokrum, Dubrovnik’s island. Bill and Rob were sitting on the balcony, drinking coffee. Rebecca handed della Torre his passport.

  “See, I told you you’d get it back.”

  “Thanks,” he said, flipping through it. He stopped at some newly stamped pages. On one was an endorsed Croatian visa. On another a visa to enter Yugoslavia. Della Torre looked up.

  “Oh, we thought you might like to travel as an American. That way if something happens, the State Department can get you out.” Rebecca said it in a chipper way, but della Torre understood. Whatever happened, the American government had made sure it could get hold of him. And keep hold of him.

  “Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling,” he said.

  “Maybe you can do something for me now?”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve bright lights or loud noises.”

  “That bad, eh? Well, we’re not heading off until this afternoon, so you’ve got time to recover. But first I’d like you to go down to the hotel kitchen and get me a whole fillet steak, one of those long, thin cuts of meat. Think you can do that?”

  “Developed a taste for beef?”

  “You might say.”

  “How do you want it cooked?”

  “Raw, please. Get it cut into four chunks. And see if you can get them to put it in a strong plastic bag with a good seal. I don’t want it bleeding all over the place. Here’s some cash, unless you can get them to charge it to your room.” She handed over a sheaf of Deutschmarks.

  He came back straightaway, the meat wrapped in newspaper and a couple of plastic shopping bags. It had taken a substantial bribe to get the catering people to give it to him. They demanded to know why he wanted it, seeing as they had an excellent chef and a very good kitchen that would prepare it any way he liked. He told them the American redhead staying on the top floor liked to rub raw meat on her breasts to keep them looking young. But it was the money that shut them up.

  Bill and Rob had spread out photographs on a table, along with a detailed map of the Bay of Kotor. Della Torre was called over to have a look. There were pictures of the Montenegrin, of his house and his village from various vantage points, some on the water, some from higher up.

  “If your people can get these, what do you need me for?” he asked.

  “Oh, our people didn’t. They’re mostly from your people. They come from UDBA files. Though Bill and Rob filled in some gaps,” Rebecca said.

  Della Torre looked through the photographs. She was right. They’d have needed unusually good access.

  “Recognize all this?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He’d been there not long after the Montenegrin had retired. Before that, the interviews had always been held in Zagreb or at the Montenegrin’s offices in Belgrade.

  “You’ve been there before, haven’t you?”

  “Once.”

  “Tell me how you approached the village and the house, and what you did with your car.”

  “Well, the usual way would be to follow the coast road until you get to the main border crossing. Then you go to Herceg Novi.” Della Torre traced the main road south with his finger. He was pretty sure they’d be turned back. Politely but firmly. And that would be the end of that.

  “What about this?” asked Rebecca, pointing to a little route through the mountains. It was the route the Montenegrin had recommended and the one Higgins used to cross the border. He should have figured she’d know about it.

  “Smugglers who know the local cops use it, but it’s the best bet. We’d be pretty unlucky to get shot at,” he said.

  Rebecca nodded but didn’t say any more.

  “Anyway, once we’re across we just follow the main road in to the bay. There’s not a lot of choice of how to get in,” he said.

  The Bay of Kotor was one of nature’s wonders. The outer bay was shaped like a plumber’s bend, leading from the Adriatic into a harbour ringed by rocky hills. On the north shore was the port town Herceg Novi, overlooked by its angular, thick-walled fourteenth-century castle. The inland end of the outer bay narrowed into a tight channel, guarded on either side by steep escarpments, that led into the inner bay. The inner bay looked like a fjord transplanted to the Mediterranean, completely surrounded by the sharp-edged black mountains for which Montenegro was named. It was nature’s equivalent of Dubrovnik’s walled harbour, but on a much grander scale. Its defensive attributes made it a natural home for the Yu
goslav navy; the dark mouths of submarine pens opened into the bay’s secret corners.

  The ancient and pretty town of Kotor, still being rebuilt after the earthquake that had destroyed the area a dozen years before, sat at the far end. Opposite Kotor and across the water, in one of the bay’s other small inlets was the Montenegrin’s village. The navy dissuaded tourists from visiting much of the inner bay. The steepness of the mountains meant that nearly all traffic went by boat or along the meandering road that wound its way around the bay, only just above where water met raw limestone.

  “As far as I know, the Yugoslav navy hasn’t reinstated its travel restrictions. Up until the ’70s you’d have to go through a checkpoint to get into the inner bay, and you’d have to have a pretty good reason to be there. But that’s neither here nor there for us, because the Montenegrin has his own security.

  “As defensive positions go, you don’t get much better. His people will know about every car before it gets within ten kilometres of the house. You could come in by water, but the neck of the bay is so narrow you’d have to get past half the Yugoslav navy first. And anyway, he’ll have his informants there too.

  “It’s too mountainous for planes or parachutists, and helicopters wouldn’t have anywhere to land, never mind the weird thermals. Even if some enemy force did make it in, he’s got lots of deep ravines to hide in. This is his house,” della Torre said, shifting his attention to a high-resolution aerial photograph, “the highest one in the village. It has good views. It’s not far up the hill, but the road to the house is steep. Most people park down at the bottom and walk up.” He paused, sifting through some of the surveillance photographs of the Montenegrin’s house. “These ones weren’t taken by the UDBA.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because they were taken with a telephoto. A very powerful telephoto. The UDBA wouldn’t have needed to do that.”

  “You’re right.”

  “They’re recent as well.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Banner,” he said, pointing to a corner of the photograph.

  “Well spotted. Yes, it was taken in the spring.”

  “Around the time you were organizing your visit to my father?”

  “Bingo.”

  He nodded. They’d had it all planned out. Get to the Montenegrin through della Torre. And get to della Torre through his father.

  Della Torre straightened, turning to look out over the Adriatic at the forbidding sky.

  “So what normally happens when somebody arrives at Djilas’s house? How does he welcome guests?” she asked.

  “Like Strumbić said, he’s got somebody at the gate.”

  “Day and night?”

  “I was only there the one time.”

  One of the Americans spoke up. “Two men keep sentry during the day; they disappear at night. Then, as far as we know, one man stays at the little cottage at the entrance to the courtyard. It’s sort of a gatehouse. The overnight security seems to be just the two dogs that they let loose in the courtyard. I suppose they’re there to wake up the guy in the cottage.”

  “Thanks, Bill,” Rebecca said.

  “I guess you could park next to the house. But you’d want to be pretty sure of your parking brake. Like I said, the road is steep,” della Torre said.

  “Where does he have sentry points around the bay?” Rebecca asked.

  “Who knows? He’ll have people who live all around. The local cops will keep him posted. So will all the fishermen. He’ll have military people on his side too; some of them are there to make sure the Yugoslav forces don’t make a move against him. Shopkeepers, street-sweepers. It’s like dealing with a mafia godfather. Everyone wants to stay on his good side.”

  “But not so much that they won’t insult his kid,” Rebecca said.

  “You have to understand the mentality here. People would think they were doing him a favour. As if to say that they understood and wouldn’t think badly of him if he put her away. It wouldn’t cross their minds that he might want to do otherwise. This is still the sort of country where they either hide the handicapped or put them on a stool with a sign around their neck and a begging bowl in front.”

  Della Torre wasn’t sure what sort of reply he’d expected from Rebecca, but her indifference to what he’d said unsettled him. “How long do you think it’ll take us to get down there using this inland route?” she asked.

  “Depends on the border. With a free run, an hour and a half, two maybe.”

  She nodded. And then, still staring at the photographs in front of her, she asked: “You getting along with that Canadian?”

  The question caught della Torre off guard. But why should anything surprise him?

  “Higgins? Seems a nice guy,” he said and then, like an afterthought: “He is a journalist, isn’t he? Or is he your competition?”

  “What makes you think we’d know?” Rebecca said.

  “Are we playing games now?”

  “He’s a journalist. Though how long he’ll be a journalist in Croatia is another matter. Your deputy defence minister doesn’t take kindly to people asking too many questions about him,” she said.

  Della Torre absorbed what she’d just said. He realized she’d mentioned Higgins as a way of slipping in the warning. Why? So that he could pass it on to the Canadian? Just how tied in with Horvat were these Americans?

  “What time do you think we should show up at Mr. Djilas’s?” she asked.

  “He said he’d be back in the afternoon and that he’d feed us. Which means we should be there by around six. It’ll be a drive back in the small hours. Dinner might start early, but if we want him to talk, it’ll go on late.”

  “So we have lunch here and head off soon after.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “What do you think, boys?” Rebecca asked the two Americans.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” said Rob. Or Bill.

  Della Torre couldn’t help smelling blood when he stepped into the Hilux. Maybe it was just the steaks.

  He was still thick-headed, but sleep, pills, and lunch had knocked the edges off the pain. Even so, he could have done without the tape Rebecca plugged into the sound system. It was a pop compilation; not as rough as the music in the bar the night before, but it wasn’t Schubert either. The song titles written on the case, he saw, were in somebody else’s handwriting. But when he asked her about it, she said nothing.

  They followed the coast road south, past the small port town of Cavtat and Dubrovnik’s airport, and then cut inland.

  There were some Croat militiamen about who made half-hearted efforts to stop them and then watched the truck pass into no man’s land. The small paved road ran up into the hills that framed the mountainous point where the southern tips of Bosnia and Croatia met Montenegro.

  The road was clear into the hills, though they could see a manned post up on a ridge. They didn’t encounter the Yugoslav border guards until they’d driven over the crest, which looked across limitless low brush and sun-bleached mountains. Green and white. At night, the vista would be an impenetrable blackness far inland.

  A truck was parked across the track at the bottom of a stony valley, where it met a bigger road that stretched far into the uninhabited distance and, in the other direction, south into Montenegro. One lonely building stood at the crossroads, a wooden hut with a tin roof and an elevated water tank next to it.

  Two men wearing army fatigues and sporting machine guns made their way from the building. Rebecca stopped the Hilux and della Torre got out. On the hillside he could see a stone-and-sandbag emplacement.

  Della Torre handed his and Rebecca’s American passports to the militiamen, each with a hundred-Deutschmark note on the picture page.

  “What’s this for?” said the militiaman, waving the money at him.

  Only then di
d della Torre notice the strange flashes on the soldiers’ shoulders. One patch was the Serb’s white double-headed eagle with a sword. Della Torre couldn’t read the writing on it. The other was an image of a wolf’s head.

  “That’s for the various fees for crossing the border,” della Torre said.

  “It says here you were born in Yugoslavia. Why do you have an American passport? Are you a spy?”

  “I was born here and I speak the language, but I’m an American.”

  “An American spy who wants to bribe us to cross the border.” The man looked at him with dead eyes.

  “If you look, both passports have visas.”

  “If you have visas, why do you put money in them?”

  “I don’t know how long you’ve worked the borders, but there are always fees to pay.”

  The soldier pocketed both banknotes. “Both of you out of the truck. Put your hands on the hood. It’ll make my corporal nervous if you start dancing around, so I suggest you stay still. I’ll see what you’ve got in the back.”

  Della Torre and Rebecca did as they were told. They watched through the windscreen as the soldier opened up the back of the Hilux and picked through their things. He walked to the front of the truck with a bottle of slivovitz and a box of biscuits. He had the expression of somebody who had picked up a cup of hot coffee only to find he was drinking warm mud.

  “There’s import duty on these,” he said.

  “How much?” della Torre asked.

  “Fifty,” the soldier said.

  “Dinars?”

  “Deutschmarks,” the soldier replied.

  “They’re not worth a fifth of that. I’ll tell you what, they’re presents for a friend. I’ll give you ten Deutschmarks. Otherwise you can keep the stuff,” della Torre said. He wasn’t sure the soldier wouldn’t keep the stuff anyway.

  “Twenty. And only because I’m a nice guy,” the soldier said.

  Della Torre shrugged. It wasn’t his money anyway.

  “Pay the nice man twenty Deutschmarks,” he said to Rebecca. “It’s a tax.”