CHAPTER 22
At the hotel, any floor above the fifth was especially vulnerable to artillery fire, and any room facing the river was a target for snipers.
Brenna’s room was on the third floor, an easy climb in a building without elevators, and it faced north.
Prime lodgings. She had been renting the room for over two years, and what little she possessed—rugged clothes, camping gear, and cameras—she kept here.
Turning the key in the door, she entered, flicked on a battery-powered lamp hung by the door, and set down her bags.
Two wooden crates, about four feet square, were stacked to the left of the door, hugging the inner wall.
In the outside world, the contents were valuable.
In Kav?ak, if sold on the black market, they’d be worth a fortune.
“I expected you yesterday,” a voice behind her said.
She spun around. “Jasha.” He could creep up on a sleeping cat, steal her cushion and depart without being noticed.
“May I enter?”
“Yes, of course.”
He stepped into the circle of light. Shadows slashed across the burns on his face and neck.
Jasha Suba?i? was the embodiment of the city’s history—a blend of Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim traditions.
A radio newsman, he had been ousted from his job when Nationalists seized the station early in the siege.
He could have kept the position had he been willing to broadcast their propaganda, but he hadn’t.
So now he contributed occasional news reports to Liberation, the city’s last independent newspaper.
The job didn’t pay, of course. Few workers in Kav?ak received paychecks, and those who did were paid in worthless dinars.
On the other hand, hard currency—US dollars and Euros—bought anything.
Jasha’s dream purchase was his mother’s escape to safety, an exceedingly expensive item.
So he offered his services as a fixer at the one place in town where wages were paid in hard currency, the Holiday Inn.
Mostly, he drove, taking journalists wherever they needed to go.
An outrageously expensive madman behind the wheel, he knew every barrier, trench, and switchback street in his home town.
He spoke four languages, had contacts everywhere, and could arrange anything for the right price—or the right cause: saving his city.
She wouldn’t work with anyone else.
“We move these today?” He gestured at the crates.
“The sooner, the better,” she said.
“The woman I see with you in lobby. She is the one working with you?”
“Yes. Grace Alcott. She’s a producer for EBS, an educational cable network.”
“She knows these crates?”
She shook her head. Grace was oblivious to them, and Brenna meant to keep it that way.
The less she knew, the safer everyone would be.
“Let’s get them open,” she said, kneeling to the red Mastercraft toolbox she’d scored from one of the Canadians.
She pulled out a sixteen-inch pry bar and a hefty slot screwdriver.
Jasha took the screwdriver. “I want the wood.”
Even the crates were negotiable. Cut into smaller pieces they could be burned for heat. Brenna knew the value of firewood in a city already denuded of its trees so she always ordered wooden crates. A smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “As part of your pay?”
He nodded. “For my mother. She is cold all winter. I will drive you one extra day.”
“Okay.” She tucked her chin against her chest and nailed him with a mocking look. “But—suggestion, Jasha? You want something, never say it’s for your mother. A tone of gentleness comes into your voice, and that’s a dead giveaway. Anyone other than me would charge you five times as much for it.”
“Anyone else I negotiate with thinks my mother is dead.”
She smiled. “The wood is yours.”
“Ha! You see? You Americans are so sentimental. I would trade two days driving to get this.”
At the table in the lobby bar, Grace stood over Geoff. “Roll up your sleeves,” she ordered.
“Darling,” Geoff declared. “If you want to undress me we should go up to my room. No need to shock the others.”
“Cut the bullshit, Geoff, and show me your arms.”
Geoff clasped his hands on the table and laced his fingers. “Oho! You’ve been talking to Miss Marple, girl detective. How long have you known her, Grace? You and I go a hell of a lot further back. How come she ranks so high?”
“Do it.”
“I don’t see a trust thing—”
Grace caught Geoff’s wrist, held his arm out straight, and slid the threadbare T-Shirt up his arm. “Good lord.” She let go in horror. Tracks. And lots of them.
Geoff yanked his arm back and slapped the sleeve into place again.
“God in heaven, Geoff.” Grace pulled a chair out and sat across from her old school friend. “What happened to you?”
He licked his lips nervously. “Can I order a drink?”
“No.”
Fishing in his T-shirt pocket, Geoff pulled out a pack of Marlboros, lit one and sucked in a defiant lungful of smoke. “It’s hard to explain if you haven’t lived it.”
“I want to know how a friend of mine fell from the top of the world into the pit of hell.”
Geoff picked tobacco off his lip and took another deep drag.
“It’s scary at first, but you’re attracted to it in this primitive, macho kind of way. You want to test yourself, see if you can take it on, like a contest. It’s the ultimate challenge. Life and death. But you don’t know what to expect until the first time. And then—my God—the rush of it,
the sheer excitement, the intensity. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever experienced. All your senses come alive. Vision, hearing, taste. And oh, the sex. Everything else falls away and all you want is more.”
“More drugs.”
“No. Not drugs, Grace. War. It’s war that’s addictive, war that’s so intoxicating. It makes everything so simple. Everyone’s in the same boat, stripped of pretense, just trying to survive. You and the next guy live through a firefight, and you’re best friends. You’re not alone,
especially in the press corps. Plus, you have a story, a sense of higher purpose, and it all seems so important.”
Geoff’s cigarette trembled in his fingers. He put it to his lips again.
“But then—?”
Geoff ticked off his ashes. “Then you discover it’s a sham. There are no good guys, no bad guys, no freedom to make moral choices. It’s luck: Step on a mine. Get shot through your window. Live through the day. Whatever. There’s no God looking down.”
He sucked the last toxic lungful out of his cigarette and crushed the butt into the ashtray, systematically smothering every last burning ember.
“Journalists—we’re not observers here, Grace. We’re participants. We all get punished for what we see.”
“Geoff, come home.”
“Home?” He snorted. “There’s no path out of here.”
He glanced over Grace’s shoulder. “Hey! Look who’s coming. Lady Crusader, all freshened up. By the way, there’s a pool going, about who’s gonna get his prick past her panties. Another pussy would count too. She hasn’t been banged since she got here, so the pot’s rich.”
“Stop it. You’re being crude and disrespectful.”
He raised his voice, calling to Brenna: “Hey, Queen of the Billiard B—”
Leaping to her feet, Grace blocked Geoff’s view. “I said, enough.”
Geoff slid his eyes appraisingly over her. “Well, well! You fancy the Lady, defending her honor.”
Brenna reached the table. She held out a warm jacket, wool pants, and a knit cap to Grace. “Change into these before we go. Keep your travel documents and your money with you.”
Grace gratefully took the garments.
Geoff pushed out of his seat. “I’ve gotta go toss a chunk of money on a betting pool.” He grasped the table for support, and rose like an old man with Parkinson’s. Shuffling forward, he caught his toe on a chair and stumbled.
Grace caught his arm and steadied him. “I’ll help you get home, Geoff. Find you a rehab center…”
“You’re such a clueless fuck,” he said, good-naturedly. “Have fun in town.”
She didn’t release him. “Did you do anything for the money I advanced you?”
“Oh! Yes! I forgot.” He patted his pants and pulled a narrow notepad from his right rear pocket.
The cover was cracked from wear, its graphite-smudged pages thick from handling.
“It’s all in here,” he said, flapping it against his open palm for emphasis.
“Ruthless Generals. Righteous insurgents. International indifference, and of course the usual shelling, shooting, and rape.”
He picked up Grace’s hand and pressed the notepad into it.
“I bequeath it to you. Works in any country. All you have to do is fill in the names and change the dates.”
Standing beside Brenna, Grace watched Geoff shuffle out of sight, a once-good man in ruins.
Brenna unzipped a pouch on the side of her backpack “Something else for you.”
“What’s that?”
She withdrew a new three-by-five spiral notebook and a half-pencil with a sharpened point. “Just in case you decide not to use Geoff’s notes.”