There was a shatter of gunfire from outside, and the walls seemed to blow inward, the house filling with splinters and stabs of light. Two of the Ustase twitched backwards and fell, the others hunched down and away from the shredding tear of the bullets.
The gunfire stopped. The inside of the house was a craze of smoke and dust, webbed by the cones of light from the holes. There was a voice from outside. The Ustase whispered frantically among themselves as two of them hauled Reinhardt to his feet again. The voice came again, a note of finality to it. Ljubcic yelled back, then put his pistol on the floor. His men did the same, the Ustase motioning at Becker furiously. ‘Down! Pistol down!’
Becker rocked his pistol to the tips of his fingers, then let it drop. Slipping slowly, he followed it to the floor, and Reinhardt saw the spreading red stains along his thigh and groin. He slumped into the angle of wall and floor and gave a keening groan as he slid sideways, his hands clutching at his wounds.
None of the others spared him a moment’s glance as the door crashed open and a pair of men stepped inside. They looked rugged and solid, their eyes and rifles scanning around the room, one dressed like a farmer, the second in an old Royal Yugoslav Army uniform patched at the knees and elbows. One of them called something over his shoulder. A third man dressed in unmarked German combat fatigues and a pair of binoculars hanging on his chest stepped into the room. He had a hard face, all planes and angles beneath a short, thick beard, flinty eyes that fastened on Becker, on Reinhardt, the Ustase holding him up, and they seemed to quail from him like dogs from a wolf.
The Partisan stared at Ljubcic, and their gaze seemed to strike sparks. Something visceral, unforgiving. Like two forces of nature, neither with any concept of pity for the other. The Partisan looked past him to the Ustase holding Reinhardt. Moving smoothly, unhurried, he drew a pistol and, aiming past Ljubcic, shot the two of them in the head. Reinhardt gasped at the spatter of brain and blood that slapped across his face. His legs shook, then folded, and he slumped back against the wall as the two Ustase collapsed like empty sacks.
Ljubcic went very still, but all the lines of his lumped body screamed outrage. The Partisan locked eyes with him again. The hate seemed to resonate between them, shimmering, like a mirage. The Partisan stepped back and snapped something at the Ustasa, who put his hands atop his head and walked out, head high, the two Partisans following him out.
The Partisan shifted that stony gaze onto Becker, who shrank against the wall, hands up and out. ‘Don’t. Please.’ He pocketed shy;Becker’s pistol, glanced at his wounds expressionlessly, then walked over to Reinhardt. There was a finality in how he turned his back on him that left Becker blinking after him in confused awareness that his wounds were fatal.
The Partisan watched impassively as Reinhardt slid heavily to the floor and let his head hang down between his knees. His breath caught, hinging on a sob. He had no idea if this was the end, but it felt like it.
‘We have met, you and I,’ said the Partisan.
Reinhardt looked up, narrowed his eyes. A memory sparked to life. ‘Goran?’ The man nodded. ‘Begovic’s driver.’
‘When I have to be. Drink this,’ he said.
Reinhardt took the canteen Goran offered, rinsed his mouth and spat, the water all bloody where it splashed on the floorboards, and then drank. He poured some into a cupped hand and wiped his face as best he could. He worked his mouth, running his tongue over his teeth. ‘Thank you.’
‘You are welcome. So, Captain Reinhardt. Is this where your Ilidza investigation has led you?’
Reinhardt shrugged, twisting his mouth as he rinsed and spat again. ‘It would seem so.’
‘You seem to have many friends, Captain.’ He stared at the bodies in the room. ‘I’ve never met a man so lucky.’ Becker shifted where he lay, his eyes gleaming wetly. The floor under him was sodden with his blood, and his face was very pale.
‘You forget the Partisans.’
Goran gave a tight smile. ‘Some of them, for sure.’
‘Not you?’ Reinhardt put a hand on the floor and pushed himself upright. He leaned against the wall, straightening up against the pain in his stomach and ribs. His fist quivered as he closed his fingers around what Ljubcic had done to his hand.
‘I cannot tell what you are, Captain. That worries me.’
‘Dr Begovic seems to trust me.’
‘Muamer is a good man,’ replied Goran. ‘Sometimes too good for his own good…’
‘Lucky he has you to watch over him. Is he here?’
‘No,’ said Goran, shortly.
There was a sudden air of decisiveness about him, and Reinhardt was afraid again. ‘Why did you shoot them?’ he asked, pointing at the two Ustase. He felt overwhelmingly the need to keep Goran talking, and it was the first thing that came into his head.
‘They deserved it.’
‘Ljubcic does not?’
‘Ljubcic will be dealt with differently.’
‘What about me?’
‘What about you?’ Goran’s eyes gave nothing away.
‘Am I your prisoner?’
‘We are a raiding party, Captain. I have no time for prisoners.’ Just a few words, but the weight behind them was inexorable, and Reinhardt found he had nothing to say. Goran looked at him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m looking for the German 121st Division.’
‘I believe they’re south of here. In Predelj.’
‘You could just let me go. Let me continue.’ The words felt weak, and feeble.
‘I don’t think so, Captain.’
‘Begovic trusts me enough to let me know he is Senka,’ Reinhardt blurted.
Goran’s eyes narrowed. ‘He told you that?’
‘Yes,’ Reinhardt lied. ‘The Shadow. There’s no one the Gestapo want more.’ It was a desperate throw of the dice, just something he had guessed from things Begovic had said, but it was all he had.
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Why…’ Reinhardt repeated, then paused. He felt the ground teeter under him, his guts tighten as if in expectation of a fall. All of a sudden, he realised he could see more than those two proverbial steps ahead, but the path was not clearer for it. He stood on perilous ground. Untrodden. Very few of the steps that might lead him out of this would avoid betrayal. It lay here, suddenly, all around him, and there was the sense that he had to choose his way carefully, as there would be no path back. ‘He and I… we see some things the same way.’
Goran took a long, slow breath, his eyes not leaving Reinhardt. ‘I must think about this,’ he said, finally. ‘But first, I have something I must attend to. You will wait, and we will talk again.’ He turned and left, a shift of movement at the door as a Partisan stood guard.
Reinhardt felt adrift, just that cold feeling in the pit of his belly anchoring him in place, a reptilian awareness of danger he was not yet out of. The dust settled in the room, spiralling and sparkling down through the lattice of light from the bullet holes, and he began to feel the outlines of an understanding of something he had heretofore only felt unconsciously. He forced himself to calm, to consider what he felt taking shape.
There was a fork here in his path, he realised. One path led onward. One path ended here. He could go on, try to follow his investigation, do it in the way that would let him remain true to himself, and maybe serve the wider cause Meissner had shown him. Or he could shrink back, turn away. If he went forward with what he felt taking shape, what would it cost him? What accommodation would he have to make? Betrayal was never to be taken lightly, but would that accommodation be any worse than the dozens – some mundane, some not – he had had to make over the last few years?
There was a low moan from Becker. Reinhardt knelt next to him. There was nothing he could do for him, but even if there were, would he do it? This realisation terrified him. He had never been in such a position before. Becker was an obstacle to him. He realised now that to make work what was taking shape in his mind, at least two men had to die. The chances were that both of them would, here, today. He remembered what he said to Begovic, that everything good that had happened in his life had happened despite him. It was happening again.