It was dark by the time I could stand, pick up the weapons and walk.
I staggered, falling frequently, for several miles across fields and through forests before I came to a village somewhere south-west of Srebrenica. Walking in, carrying the guns, I heard something above and beyond the ringing in my ears. Men were shouting somewhere in the darkness ahead of me.
Those angry voices drew me, and as I went towards them I felt my old friend hatred building in my head, irrational, urging me to slay somebody.
Anybody.
Chapter 12
THE MEN WERE Bosnians. There were seven of them armed with old single-barrel shotguns and corroded rifles that they were using to goad three handcuffed teenaged girls ahead of them as if they were driving livestock to a pen.
One of them saw me, shouted, and they turned their feeble weapons my way. For reasons I could not explain to myself until much later I did not open fire and kill them all right there, the men and the girls.
Instead, I told them the truth: that I was part of the NATO mission and that I’d been in an explosion and needed to call back to my base. That seemed to calm them somewhat and they lowered their guns and let me keep mine.
One of them spoke broken English and said I could call from the village’s police station, where they were heading.
I asked what the girls were under arrest for, and the one who spoke English said, ‘They are war criminals. They belong to Serbian kill squad, working for that devil Mladic. People call them the Furies. These girls kill Bosnian boys. Many boys. Each of them does this. Ask oldest one. She speak English.’
Furies? I thought with great interest. I’d been reading about the Furies the day before in my book of Greek mythology. I walked quicker so that I could study them, especially the oldest one, a sour-looking girl with a heavy brow, coarse black hair, and dead dark eyes.
Furies? This could not be a coincidence. As much as I believed that hatred had been gifted to me at birth, I came to believe instantly that these girls had been put in front of me for a reason.
Despite the pain that was splitting my head, I fell in beside the oldest one and asked, ‘You a war criminal?’
She turned her dead dark eyes on me and spat out her reply: ‘I am no criminal, and neither are my sisters. Last year, Bosnian pigs kill my parents and rape me and my sisters for four days straight. If I could, I shoot every Bosnian pig. I break their skulls. I kill all of them if I could.’
Her sisters must have understood enough of what their sister was saying because they too turned their dead eyes on me. The shock of the bombing, the brutal throbbing in my head, my jet-fuelled anger, the Serbian girls’ dead eyes, the myth of the Furies, all these things seemed to gather together into something that felt suddenly predestined to me.
The Bosnians handcuffed the girls to heavy wooden chairs bolted to the floor of the police station, and shut and locked the doors. The landlines were not working. Neither were the primitive mobile-phone towers. I was told, however, that I could wait there until a peacekeeping force could be called to take me and the Serbian girls to a more secure location.
When the Bosnian who spoke English left the room, I cradled my gun, moved close to the girl who’d spoken to me, and said ‘Do you believe in fate?’
‘Go away.’
‘Do you believe in fate?’ I pressed her.
‘Why do you ask me this question?’
‘As I see it, as a captured war criminal your fate is to die,’ I replied. ‘If you’re convicted of killing dozens of unarmed boys, that’s genocide. Even if you and your sisters were gang-raped beforehand, they will hang you. That’s how it works with genocide.’
She lifted her chin haughtily. ‘I am not afraid to die for what we have done. We killed monsters. It was justice. We put back balance where there was none.’
Monsters and Furies, I thought, growing excited before replying: ‘Perhaps, but you will die, and there your story will end.’ I paused. ‘But maybe you have another fate. Perhaps everything in your life has been in preparation for this exact moment, this place, this night, right now when your fates collide with mine.’
She looked confused. ‘What does this mean, “fates collide”?’
‘I get you out of here,’ I said. ‘I get you new identities, I hide you, and protect you and your sisters for ever. I give you a chance at life.’
She’d gone steely again. ‘And in return?’
I looked into her eyes. I looked into her soul. ‘You will be willing to risk death to save me as I will now risk death to save you.’
The oldest sister looked at me sidelong. Then she turned and clucked to her sisters in Serbian. They argued for several moments in harsh whispers.
Finally, the one who spoke English said, ‘You can save us?’
The clanging in my head continued but the fogginess had departed, leaving me in a state of near-electric clarity. I nodded.
She stared at me with those dark dead eyes, and said, ‘Then save us.’
The Bosnian who spoke English returned to the room and called out to me, ‘What lies are these demons from hell telling you?’
‘They’re thirsty,’ I answered. ‘They need water. Any luck with the telephone?’
‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘Good,’ I replied, flipping the safety on the sub-machine gun as I swung the muzzle around at the Furies’ captors before opening fire and slaughtering every one.
Part Two
LET THE GAMES BEGIN
Chapter 13
AS THE TAXI pulled up in front of a sterile-looking skyscraper deep in the City of London, the UK’s main financial district, Peter Knight could still hear his mother sobbing. The only other time he’d ever seen her cry like that had been over his father’s body after the accident.
Amanda had collapsed into her son’s arms after learning of her fiancé’s death. Knight had felt the racking depths of her despair, and had understood them all too well. She’d been stabbed in the soul. Knight wouldn’t have wished that sensation on anyone, least of all his own mother, and he held her through the worst of the mental and emotional haemorrhaging, reliving his own raw memories of loss.
Gary Boss had come into her office finally, and had nearly wept himself when he’d seen Amanda’s abject sorrow. A few minutes later, Knight received a text from Jack Morgan telling him to come directly to Private London’s office because the Sun had hired the firm to analyse a letter from someone who claimed to be Marshall’s killer. Boss said he would take over Amanda’s care.
‘No, I should stay,’ Knight had replied, feeling horribly guilty about leaving. ‘Jack would understand. I’ll call him.’
‘No!’ Amanda said angrily. ‘I want you to go to work, Peter. I want you to do what you do best. I want you to find the sick bastard who did this to Denton. I want him put in chains. I want him burned alive.’
As Knight took a lift to the top floors of the sky scraper, his thoughts were dominated by his mother’s command, and despite the steady ache in his side he felt himself becoming obsessed. It was always like this with Knight when he was on a big case – obsessed, possessed – but, with his mother’s involvement, this particular investigation felt more like a crusade: no matter what happened, no matter the obstacles, no matter the time needed, Knight vowed to nail Denton Marshall’s killer.