The Wolf of Sarajevo (26 page)

KRIVA RIJEKA

NOVEMBER 14

10:45 A.M.

S
omething had gone wrong. Mali was not certain exactly what, but Gisler had missed two reporting deadlines. The system was not especially complicated. It wasn't supposed to be. What it was supposed to be was reliable and regular as a fucking Swiss watch.

Every two weeks, Gisler would put a coded message in the classified section of a Zurich-based Internet jobs site. Every fortnight, the message was the same: All is well. Then he had missed two postings in a row. That had never happened. He had taken Mali's money for the month, but that was an automatic transfer out of a numbered account. Gisler did not need to be alive for the check to clear.

Mali had used an untraceable burner cell to call Gisler's office. The assistant who answered had been polite enough but evasive about Herr Gisler's whereabouts. He had even tried the one-time-
use emergency number that he and Gisler had established for exactly that purpose. No answer.

He had to assume that Gisler was blown. Mali would need to make new arrangements for the safekeeping of the package, but that would take time. It would have to wait until the situation had stabilized. Until Lukić had done his job.

It was not like he had lost access to the package altogether. Gisler had been holding a copy. The lawyer was just a dead man's switch, an insurance policy. The original was hidden away someplace safe. You did not leave something as explosive as the package lying around.

Mali was not, by nature, an overly optimistic man. But events were moving in the direction he wished them to go with the seeming inevitability that was the hallmark of a well-conceived plan. There would be hiccups; there always were. Gisler's unexplained disappearance was one. But it was more an inconvenience than a cause for real concern.

The meeting last night with Dimitrović and his lieutenants had gone well. War was a complex business. Moving soldiers around the board was the easy part. There were political considerations, financial constraints, operational plans and backup plans, egos to massage and pockets to line. No one wanted to make a major decision without Mali's personal blessing, and it was easy—even gratifying—to understand why they were reluctant to cross him. Planning a war was a great deal of work with seemingly endless details, but it was almost done and it would be worth it.

Once it was all over, there would have to be some changes. In truth, Mali did not care much for Dimitrović. He was limited, undereducated, uninteresting. For the time being, he needed
Dimitrović. But if all went as Mali planned, the day would come when he could jettison the National Party leader. Until that day, Dimitrović would do what he was told.

As much as he might like to, it was unlikely that Mali would be able to rule directly. He had tried to shed his past the way a snake might shed his skin, but he knew that he would never be completely successful. His personal history was such that he would have to rule from the shadows. It would be better, of course, if he could do that through a vehicle that was less damaged than Dimitrović. The president of the RS carried a lot of baggage, psychological as well as reputational. He was a dark and twisted figure, easy to dislike. But for now Mali needed Dimitrović. For now.

Still, Gisler's disappearance gnawed at his confidence. Had that fat fuck looked at the tape he was holding for Mali? Had curiosity gotten the better of greed? Had he understood what he was looking at? And did he then decide that he could make better use of it? Mali could not afford another distraction. He had enough problems.

Nikola Petrović was one. His position as Sondergaard's pet Serb had given him a political profile well beyond anything Mali had imagined possible. His party was now the focal point of a growing political movement that had picked up support from the left, students, urbanites, and what was left of the intelligentsia. Dimitrović's local supporters were largely pensioners, villagers, and the working class. For now they had the whip hand, but it would be important to crush Petrović and his supporters at the early stages of the upcoming conflict. Once the fighting started, it would be easy to bring enough force to bear to overrun Petrović's surprisingly competent personal security.

Mali hoped it would all be over quickly, but there was a chance that fighting could drag on for months, maybe even years. He was prepared for that.

The bungled assassination attempt on Petrović had succeeded only in elevating his political profile and turning the Social Democrats into a legitimate rival of the National Party. Killing Petrović now would only solidify his status as a martyr and reinforce support for the blasted Sondergaard Plan. Mali needed to blow that up first. Then he could deal with Petrović and any other fifth columnists on the RS side.

From the bar, Mali poured three or four fingers of Chivas into a crystal tumbler. The humidor on the bar top was stocked with Cohibas and he took one of these as well. He needed to relax.

As near as he could tell, there were only three possible outcomes: victory, prison, and death. Victory was always good. Death was inevitable. It did not really matter when it came along. Mali did not believe in an afterlife and certainly not in hell. Human nature being what it is, the devil would long ago have run out of room.

Even prison would have its charms, he decided. The luxuries he enjoyed in his new life were pleasant enough, but what Mali aspired to, what he craved, was power. He could have that in prison if it came to it. A man of his talents could always find a way to rise. Power was relative. Even in prison, someone had to be on top. Did they still use cigarettes to keep score in prison, or was that something out of the 1950s? If so, Mali would corner the fucking market in cigarettes. He'd be a king. Always a king. Given the choice, it was better to rule in hell.

The Scotch and cigar numbed his tongue. A pleasant alcoholic
fuzz grew like moss on his thoughts. He considered calling Marija into his office for a quick fuck, standing up at the bar or on the leather couch. Maybe later, he decided. There was work to do.

It would be better, on balance, to live and stay out of prison. He needed to know that things were on track.

Mali pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. Just a few years ago, he would not have dared to use the phone. The NSA would have quickly picked up the conversation. Even the mighty United States had its limits, however, and the Balkans was now little more than a backwater. The NSA was so focused on the mess in the Middle East, Ukraine, Pakistan, China, and other hot spots that it had little time for eavesdropping in the Balkans. Once the fighting started, that would change, but for now his scrambled cell would provide sufficient encryption to deter the local services.

He had his in-house assassin on speed dial. Mali took a brief moment to savor that thought. He had come far. And he had farther still to go. He would be king.

It hurt that she was involved. That they were on opposite sides. He wished that it wasn't so. She could have been his queen.

The sniper answered on the second ring.

“Da.”

“Is everything ready?” Mali asked.

“Da.”

Whatever his other charms, Lukić was not one for small talk.

“Any complications?”

“Ne.”

“Anything you need?”

“Ne.”

“This is pretty fucking important. Just so we understand each other.”

“I know.”

“Once this is done, there will be others. I have a list.”

“We'll see.”

“You understand how important this shot is? How much depends on it? It's the trigger for a whole series of actions that will transform this country.”

“I understand.”

“And you understand that the only way to communicate with us if anything goes wrong is over the radio. Cell phones won't work. Landlines will be down. All starting about three hours before zero minute. We're going to take the whole system down. You'll be on your own.”

“I always am.”

“Tell me that you can do this, Darko. That you can get it done. No bullshit.”

“She is already dead.”

TRNOVA, BOSNIA

NOVEMBER 14

11:30 A.M.

I
t was like traveling back in time. As Eric and Sarah drove through this forgotten corner of Bosnia, the trappings of modern life began to disappear. There were no power lines running alongside the road. No streetlamps. Smoke coming from the chimneys in the villages they passed through was from fires that Eric knew were used for heat and cooking rather than romance and atmosphere. Mud and wattle had fallen off the sides of the farmhouses in patches, exposing the timber frames beneath. The tractors parked beside the barns were old enough to remember Marshal Tito and the all-powerful Communist Party.

The mountains that loomed over them on either side were steep and foreboding. The forests were dark and threatening, like something out of a fairy tale.

Most striking to Eric, however, was the lack of commerce. The
constant blast of advertising, economic come-ons, and hustle were an inescapable part of urban life. Out here there were no ads for Coke, no billboards marketing second-rate politicians and second-division sports teams. There were no car dealerships or supermarkets or movie theaters. Other than the aging tractors and stubbly fields, the only markers of economic activity were the hand-carved signs advertising various personal services. A few farmers sold honey, jam, and
rakija
on the side. Many of the signs said simply
VULKANIZER,
indicating that the villager who lived there also repaired tires.

It was a wild part of the world. Out here, tradition was more important than law. And Eric knew that every single male villager, no matter how poor, had a gun.

“Have you seen a wolf yet?” Sarah asked from the passenger seat, evidently affected in the same way Eric was by the raw power of the landscape.

“Nah. The bears keep them in check.”

“Do you feel bad about missing the opening of the peace conference?” Sarah asked.

“Not too much. Today is strictly ceremonial. It'll be a set piece. The real negotiations start tomorrow. Those I need to be there for. We'll have a week to do a deal, maybe ten days. After that, we'll have lost whatever momentum we have and the Sondergaard Plan will wind up on the ash heap of history alongside a hundred other Balkan peace proposals.”

“You really think that this one's different, don't you?”

“I think that she's different. If anyone can pull this off, it's Annika. She's Dick Holbrooke in heels. I don't think anyone else could do what she's doing, match how far she's come.”

“So this has a chance?”

“Hell, yes.”

“And failure means another Balkan war?”

“That's what I think. The stakes are high. That's why we need to find Father Stefan now. If he really has something that can help us keep Dimitrović from playing the spoiler role, we need it now, not a week from now. I hope like hell he's home.”

“You sure about what we're doing? That we're not wasting our time on a wild-wolf chase?”

“Sure? No. But it makes sense. You're the one who told me about the Geneva connection. The book we found in Mali's desk drawer listed regular payments to someone in Geneva. It's hard to believe that this isn't connected to this package you're so damn cagey about. The only other entry in the book was for someone called Father S.”

“And you think it's this guy?”

“I do. It seems to fit. Father Stefan was the spiritual advisor to Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, and the old gang from the genocide. He was the most important figure in the Orthodox Church in Bosnia through most of the nineties. And then he just disappeared. Dropped off the grid. Word was that he became a hermit. Not a few people assumed he had gone crazy. Then a few years ago he resurfaced as a simple parish priest in a small chapel out here in
vukojebina
.”

Sarah laughed. “That can't possibly be the name of this place.”
Vukojebina
meant literally
the place where the wolves fuck
.

“Alas, no. It's just an expression like ‘the sticks' or ‘the middle of nowhere.' But I suspect that it might be literally true as well.”

“I remember Stefan from the nineties, but I never met him. Is he still political?”

“Not so far as anyone can tell. He's been quiet as a church mouse for the last fifteen years or so.”

“Then why would Mali go to him?”

“Because of ideology. It makes sense that Mali would have confidence in Father Stefan, that he would see him as a fellow traveler. Stefan's a right-wing nationalist with deep roots in the RS. It's easy to understand how Mali would feel that he could count on the priest to keep the faith.”

“Maybe he's changed,” Sarah suggested. “Fifteen years. Twenty years. That's a long time.”

“Not for these guys. It's the blink of an eye. They think in centuries. And besides, you know what the Serbs say about wolves.”

“What?”

“The wolf can change its fur, but never its character.”

Sarah looked at him curiously. “You sure about that?”

—

It was not easy
to find the chapel. Sarah observed that it was as though it did not want to be found, like a Bosnian Brigadoon. The locals they stopped to ask offered confusing and contradictory directions, much of it predicated on a detailed knowledge of landmarks that used to be there some decades in the past. “Drive straight until you see the place where the widower Tamjanović cut down the big oak,” one older woman had suggested unhelpfully.

Finally, after almost two hours of driving around nameless back roads, they found the Monastery of St. Archangel Gabriel, a collection of neat whitewashed buildings surrounded by well-tended orchards. Although the monastery was six hundred years old, there was nothing touristy about it. There were no signs in fractured
English, no guides, not even a stand selling souvenirs and religious bric-a-brac. It looked like what a monastery was supposed to be, a working religious community.

They parked the car under a maple tree with flaming-red leaves that were just beginning to fall. As they walked up the path toward the rectory, Sarah took Eric's arm and leaned against him. It was an intimate gesture, the kind that new lovers might make as easily as a couple celebrating their golden anniversary. Eric did not know what to make of it. To call Sarah's signals mixed was to devalue the concept.

They stopped a young monk carrying a load of firewood on his back. In the Orthodox Church, except for hieromonks like Father Stefan, there was a sharp divide between monks and priests. Priests were allowed, even expected, to marry and have children. Only the monks were celibate. Priests were generally educated and drawn from the middle class, while the monkhood did most of its recruiting among the working poor. This young man could look forward to a life of hard work, but he could at least count on steady if parsimonious meals.

Eric asked the monk where they could find Father Stefan. The monk said nothing but pointed them toward a small chapel located on the crest of a hill.

“Hvala,”
Eric said.
Thank you.

The monk simply nodded and shouldered his burden.

They walked up the hill to the chapel shoulder to shoulder rather than arm in arm. Stolid and serious. Representatives of the United States of America.

Two rows of white apiaries stood a hundred meters or so from the chapel. A man dressed in the rough clothes of a laborer but sporting
a beard that was unmistakably priestly was tending to the hives. Eric saw him bend over to grab one of the hives from the bottom and lift. He had to strain to raise the bottom up even a few inches. Seemingly satisfied, the priest set the hive back into place gently.

“That looks heavy,” Eric said, as they approached. “Do you need help moving it?”

“No, thank you,” the priest replied. “I was just checking the weight. The hive needs somewhere between thirty and forty kilograms of honey to make it through the winter. I want to make sure that my little friends are prepared. Praise God, they seem to be ready. Which is a good thing. It looks to be a harsh winter.”

“It could be a very harsh winter, Father. But with your assistance, it may yet be less brutal than the winter of 1993.”

The priest looked at them sharply, seeing them for the first time. Eric with his dark complexion and exotic features and Sarah with her unmistakable Americanness. There was no mistaking Eric's reference to 1993. It could be to nothing except the siege of Sarajevo.

“Who are you?” the priest asked in excellent English. “You're not from here, although you speak our language tolerably well.”

“Not as well as you speak ours,” Eric replied in the same language. “My name is Eric Petrosian. This is Sarah Gold. We're from the American embassy in Sarajevo.”

The priest looked at Sarah with an expression that was difficult for Eric to interpret.

“Gold?”

“That's right. Not literal, unfortunately, more an aspiration.”

The priest nodded slowly.

“I am Stefan, the priest here at this chapel.”

“We know. You're the man we've come to see.”

“What is this about?” The priest made no effort to hid his suspicions.

“Is there someplace we could sit and talk?”

“There's a table and benches behind the church,” the priest said grudgingly.

No matter his suspicions about the visitors and their motives, the rules of hospitality were permanent and inflexible. Father Stefan brought them coffee and sweet cakes made from walnuts and honey. It was a warm day under a blue sky, and it was pleasant enough to sit outside as long as they kept their jackets on.

Sarah complimented Stefan on the honey.

“Thank you,” the priest replied. “If the bees are happy and content, the honey is sweet and pure. I try to keep them happy. Beyond that, I can take no credit for the product of their labors.”

They talked about nothing in particular while they drank the coffee. The weather. The frescoes in the chapel. The bumper crop of pears and apricots from the monastery's orchards.

Eric studied Stefan's face while they talked, comparing it to the man he remembered from the war years. The priest had seemed younger than his forty-five years when he was thumping the pulpit in support of national unity and in defense of ethnic cleansing. His arctic-blue eyes had burned with a fervor that reminded Eric of the line from Yeats.
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Now he seemed older than his three score and five, bent under the weight of memory and—Eric dared to hope—regret. The blue eyes had grown milky and softer, the color of a hazy summer sky.

The face that had been as smooth and unblemished as that of a porcelain doll was now leathery and wrinkled from long hours
laboring under the sun. His once-dark hair now more white than gray. His hands were rough and calloused.

But the most salient difference was not the physical change. The younger priest had been charged with pent-up energy, eager and focused like a dog straining on the leash. Two decades later, Stefan seemed at peace, reflecting on the world rather than seeking to bend it to his will.

There was a risk, Eric understood, that he was projecting, seeing in the priest what he wanted to see rather than what was there. He would find out soon enough what was real and what was not.

“Now,” Stefan said, when a sufficient time had elapsed to permit business to be done. “Why don't you tell me why you are here. I don't expect the fame of my honey has reached as far as the embassy of the United States.”

“No,” Eric acknowledged. “The honey is a bonus. We are here to talk to you about a man we believe you are working with in some capacity. Marko Barcelona.”

For a brief moment, Stefan looked startled, but he quickly buried that expression under a mask of priestly calm. It was too late. His reaction had confirmed for Eric his suspicions about the identity of the Father S in Mali's ledger. The trick now would be eliciting the information they had come for, the location of Sarah's mysterious “package.”

“I have heard of this man,” the priest admitted, after a long pause in which he seemed to be weighing his response. “And I can understand why you would think of me in connection with him. I have a reputation. That reputation may be unfair, but it is not unearned. As a younger man, I was fiery, impetuous, quick to anger, and even quicker to take offense. I am an older man now. Slower. Wiser, I
would like to think. Wise enough to stay out of politics and stay away from politicians as much as I can. They speak as the serpent spoke to Eve. Up is down. Black is white. They would as soon argue the one as the other depending entirely on utility to determine their position.”

None of this was an actual denial. It would be better, Eric decided, not to press the priest too hard, but rather to lead him gently to the answer he desired. As a reporter, he had interviewed countless reluctant sources. What he was doing with Stefan was closer to investigative journalism than diplomacy.

“If I understand you correctly,” Eric said, “you are telling me that you are not the same man you were when the Bosnian War was at its height. The Palace Priest of Pale.”

“That is what they called me,” the priest acknowledged with a sigh. Pale was the ski resort not far from Sarajevo that had been the seat of government for the leadership of Republika Srpska during the war. Stefan had been a prominent figure there, offering blessings and convocations at official functions and celebrations. “I was blind. We all were. The other sides were no better, but that hardly matters. So much blood. So much suffering.”

Eric could see that the priest was genuinely moved by the memories of the hardship of war.

“Father, what if I told you that it could happen again. That the Bosnia we have been trying to build for twenty years with room for all regardless of ethnic origin could fall apart. That the four horsemen could ride again through the Balkans.”