Текст книги "The Book of Q"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

It wasn’t all that difficult for the “Hodoporia” to slip to the back of his mind.

On the fifth morning, he was in the medical tent, the driver still stretched out on a bare mattress. Pearse had been with him through the latest surgery and half the night. When the most recent dose of morphine began to kick in, Pearse stood and started for the next mattress.

A voice from behind broke in: “I told you you could give absolution.”

The words in English stopped Pearse in his tracks. Not sure if he had heard correctly, he turned. The face he saw nearly knocked him to the floor.

“Salko?” Mendravic was already sidestepping his way through the mattresses, the same immense figure he had known a lifetime ago, his embrace as suffocating as the last one they had shared.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ian,” Mendravic whispered in his ear. He then stepped back, the familiar grin etched across his face. “Father, I mean.”

It took Pearse several seconds to recover. “Salko. What are you-”

“The priest’s outfit suits you.”

Still dazed, he asked again, “What are you doing here?”

“That’s all you have to say?” He laughed.

“No, I’m …” Pearse could only shake his head. Without warning, he pulled Mendravic in and embraced him again. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too. You, too.”

When Pearse finally let go, he was no less confused. “I still don’t understand-”

“Fighting the Serbs. I’ve been smuggling people in from Pri?stina for the last few months. Mainly through Montenegro.”

“So why here?” It seemed to be all he was capable of saying.

“Because two days ago, I heard about a ‘Baba Pearsic’ in Kukes-an American who’d been in Bosnia. Slitna, to be exact. Most of the Catholic priests are either in the north or in Macedonia. I thought I’d come and see for myself. And here you are. So, how’s the head?”

“That’s unbelievable.”

“You’ve stayed in one place for a few days. Not so unbelievable. Again, how’s the head?”

“About ninety percent.”

“So, better than it was before.” He laughed.

Pearse was about to answer, when movement from one of the beds broke through.

“You do what you need to do here,” Mendravic said. “I’ll be outside.”

Twenty minutes later, Pearse joined him. They began to walk.

“You make a good priest.”

“You make a good rebel.”

Again, Mendravic laughed. “Don’t flatter me. I’m not with the KLA, but I understand what they’re doing. It was the same with us. Except here, Dayton only made Milos?evic? stronger. Until your friends in the West understand that, there’s really no choice but to fight these people.”

“So you never went back to Zagreb?”

“Of course I went back. It never felt right. It wasn’t mine anymore.”

“And Slitna? You knew the people there.”

Mendravic took hold of his arm and stopped. “Slitna?” Pearse began to list names; again, Mendravic cut him off. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Petra didn’t tell you?” Before Pearse could respond, Mendravic continued. “The entire village was destroyed. Wiped out. The day after you left. You were very lucky.”

“‘The entire …’” The news hit Pearse as if it had happened yesterday. “Why?”

The loss seemed no less immediate for Mendravic. He shook his head. “They never really needed reasons.”

“But you and Petra-”

“We were also very lucky. Off getting something-I don’t remember what. Whatever we were so desperate to find in those days. When we came back, it was as if the place had never existed. Except for the rubble. And the bodies.”

“I … didn’t know.”

“Yes. Well … I was sure Petra would have told you-” He stopped abruptly, only now aware of the look in Pearse’s eyes. “When was the last time you spoke with her?”

“Petra? A month, maybe two after I left. Why? Is she all right?”

“Oh, she’s fine. She’s outside of Sarajevo now. Teaching again.” He started to walk. “She has a son.”

Pearse smiled to himself. “So she got married. Good for her.”

“No. She never married.”

Pearse’s reaction was immediate. “My God. Was she-”

Again, Mendravic cut him off. “No. Nothing like that. You didn’t have to worry about that with Petra.”

Pearse nodded.

“The boy turned seven just this May,” Mendravic added, his gaze now straight ahead.

“Really?”

“Really.”

It took another moment for Pearse to understand what Mendravic was saying. Seven years.

Pearse stopped. A son.

The Croat continued on, Pearse unable to follow.

FILIUS
four

Nigel Harris sat in the breakfast nook of his penthouse suite atop London’s Claridges Hotel, fifteen newspapers piled on a small table in front of him. Nestled in among them stood a cup of weak tea, a plate with two hard-boiled eggs, no yolks, and a bowl of piping hot oatmeal-the same breakfast he’d had every morning for the past twelve years, save, of course, for his recent meeting in Spain. Not that he didn’t enjoy fruits and jams and countless other savories, but the bland diet was all his stomach could abide. His eyes weren’t the only casualties of a military career.

The brief meal with the contessa was still having its residual effects. So be it. He’d hardly been in a position to refuse, the contessa famous for her strict adherence to the rules of hospitality. How and what he had eaten had been as important as what he had said. He’d known that going in. More than that, he truly believed she would have taken a weak stomach for a weak character, and he couldn’t have her thinking that. Thus far, the results of their meeting had more than made up for the few days of discomfort.

Bringing the cup to his lips, he took a sip of the tea, the first always eliciting a momentary twinge in the hollow of his gut. Something to do with acids, the doctors had explained. The sickly sweet taste of bile constricted in his throat, a compression of liquid and air, nauseous tightening gripping at the base of his tongue. He swallowed several times, the saliva only adding to the swell of gastric insurgence. He waited, then took a bite of the first egg. He had trained himself to visualize its path, the malleable white adapting to the contours of his esophagus, down through the center of his chest, every toxin absorbed within its spongy skin. The burning began to dissipate. He ate the second egg. Routine. It had gotten to the point where he almost wasn’t aware of it. Almost.

He pulled the last of the papers from the table and flipped to the end of the A section, the op-ed pieces, with no hint of yesterday’s events. Instead, they offered the usual New York Timesfare: a Hoover Institution expert on U.S. policy in Kosovo; Safire on Clinton (one more chance to paint Nixon in a softer hue); the mayor on tax restructuring. No doubt tomorrow, things would be different. For now, though, he’d have to settle for the editorials. He’d already made it through fifteen of the world’s leading papers, a mixed bag of responses to the Faith Alliance’s mission statement. He’d saved the Timesfor last. Best to build up his stamina.

The title of the first piece said it all: “Savonarola in a Suit.”

He sat back and read:

Yesterday, Nigel Harris, former executive director of the Testament Council, began his latest campaign to assert himself as moral beacon of the West. His most recent attempt comes in the form of the loosely defined Faith Alliance, a group that boasts a following from as far afield as Hollywood and academe, Wall Street and the church. A broad base, to be sure. With a set of Twelve Guiding Principles (the number only fitting), the new apostles of ethical probity have decided the time is ripe to confront those elements within society that threaten the basic tenets of decency. Their answer: a cross-cultural, multifaith incentive “devoid of political ambition.”

While on an abstract level we applaud Mr. Harris and his colleagues for their concerns, we find enough in the alliance’s mission statement to raise serious questions. Although never pinpointing the focus of the campaign, Mr. Harris does hint at where we might expect to find his alliance making its presence known: rap music, the Internet, single-sex marriages, prayer in the schools, etc. It seems somewhat disingenuous to dive into these hotly debated issues while claiming to have no political agenda.

More troubling, though, is the ambiguous definition he gives for an “alliance of faith,” one in which “religious differences fade in favor of a wider spiritual commitment.” That Mr. Harris champions tolerance is commendable, especially given the history of his former associates at the Testament Council, who shied away from such inclusiveness. That he chooses to characterize that coherence, however, as a response to “a threat from those who understand holy war as a form of diplomacy” paints a far more divisive picture. Islam as straw man hardly seems the best way to foster decency.

For the fifteenth-century Savonarola, the scourge …

Harris glanced at the final paragraph, the historical tie-in something of a stretch, though amusing, a stern reminder of the fate the Florentine preacher had met at the hands of his own followers. Given the response from the majority of papers, however, Harris had little reason to heed the warning. Overwhelming approval. Confirmation of the fifty thousand E-mails that had arrived just in the last two hours.

Not bad for quarter to eight in the morning.

Pearse sat on a slab of rock, the mountainside strewn with countless such mounds, the camp some two hundred yards below. To the east, an artificial lake-courtesy of the Fierza hydropower station-spread out like a wide pancake, serenely smooth within a curve of mountains, the water long ago contaminated, unfit for drinking or bathing, according to the latest Red Cross bulletin. It didn’t seem to matter. The refugees continued to put it to use, dysentery, diarrhea, and fungus acceptable tradeoffs when pitted against their own squalor. He could just make out a small group of women huddled by the shore, too far, though, to see what they were doing. Still, from this distance, it looked quite tranquil, his perch a temporary refuge from the chaos below.

Mendravic sat at his side, silently waiting. They’d been here for over an hour, sitting, staring. Finally, Pearse spoke.

“She should have told me.”

Mendravic said nothing.

“Does he know about me?”

Mendravic started to answer, then stopped. “An hour ago, I would have said yes. Now …” He let the thought trail off. “I thought she’d told you. I haven’t seen them in months.”

Pearse nodded and continued to stare out. His eyes fixed on a clump of burned grass, a spray of blackened roots, only the tips still green. He had no idea what had caused its singular presence. Nothing other than to stare blankly into the charred wound.

At some point-not quite remembering when-he’d reached up and pulled the collar from his shirt. Seeing it in his hand now, he turned to Mendravic.

“Still think it suits me?”

Mendravic waited, then answered. “What are you really doing here, Ian?”

“That’s a very good question.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Whatever Mendravic had meant, Pearse had been asking himself the same question for the last hour, his only answer one that seemed to define the past eight years of his life.

Running.

Not that he’d known about Petra and the boy, not that he could have known. But whatever he thought he’d find in the church hadn’t really been there. Not for a long time now. Granted, he’d never lost his faith in the Word, in its power-he did have that-but it didn’t make much sense to be a servant of the church when the church itself was causing all the misgivings. He couldn’t help but wonder: Except for a collar and an address at the Vatican, how different had he really turned out from his dad? Priest or not, he’d made a habit of keeping everything at a distance. He’d abandoned Bosnia and Petra to become a priest. He’d abandoned Boston to become a scholar. He’d abandoned Cecilia Angeli … What reason this time? Kukes was simply one more noble distraction in an all-too-predictable pattern. And one that rang equally hollow.

His devastation at hearing of his son had nothing to do with the profligacy of a priest, the corruption of canon law, the depravity of mortal sin. It had to do with a boy, a woman, and a man. And the realization of a life lived in flight.

“You’re not here because you came to help the refugees,” said Mendravic, as if having read his mind.

Pearse slowly turned to him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you don’t really belong here, do you? The ICMC had no record of you. And the Vatican thought you were in Rome. It looks as if you simply appeared out of nowhere.”

“You contacted Rome?”

“I had to make sure I had the right priest, didn’t I? I wasn’t going to trek halfway across Kosovo for the wrong one.”

It took Pearse several moments to answer. Somehow, the mention of Rome brought him out of himself. He looked at Mendravic. “I have to get to Visegrad.”

The sudden shift caught Mendravic off guard. “What?”

“And then you have to take me to Petra.”

Before Mendravic could answer, Pearse was on his feet. “You’re right. I didn’t come here for the refugees. And I let myself forget that.”

Without waiting, he started down the mountain.

Via Condotti on a summer afternoon is, more often than not, a swirl of wall-to-wall people. The spill of tourists from the Spanish Steps combined with the surge of shoppers on the Corso take it to critical mass at around 4:00 P.M., not the moment to be fighting one’s way toward a building nestled at its midpoint. Poor timing, to be sure, for Arturo Ludovisi, whose plane from Frankfurt had been delayed just long enough so that he now had the pleasure of experiencing Via Condotti at its most lunatic. Still, given the ledgers he had taken with him, he knew it was best to deposit them back in the safe as quickly as possible.

Pressing his way through the crowd, he arrived at the stoop of number 201, a building remarkable for its ordinariness, four floors of gray-black brick squeezed in between two elegant boutiques, men’s apparel draped over faceless mannequins. The shops’ interiors mirrored that austerity, stark walls, hardly any clothing in sight. Ludovisi had never understood the point.

As he fished through his pocket for the key, he carefully glanced around to make sure that no one was taking any special interest in him. Satisfied, he turned the handle and stepped inside.

The smell of damp wool wafted up to greet him as he shut the door. He turned on the overhead light, the dilapidation of the place brought into clear focus. Beyond the tiny foyer, a narrow staircase labored up to the second floor, a pronounced sag matched by an equally crumbly banister. Matted brown carpet, worn and stained, stretched taut along each step, enough of a cushioning, though, to mute the creaks and squeals from the wood below. Along the walls, strips of blue-and-white wallpaper-flowers and vases, as far as he could tell-vainly tried to brighten the hall. Years of cigarette smoke had smeared the pattern with a yellowish brown film, relieving it of all such responsibility. All in all, a grotty little cave, four floors high.

And yet, if just for a moment, the place managed to transport Ludovisi to another seedy little hallway, another building now long torn down, the sounds of screeching violins and crackling trumpets filling the air. The tiny conservatorioin Ravenna of il Dottore Masaccio, the man’s enormous foot pounding out the meter, thick fingers stabbing at the notes on the page, an ominous stare as the young Ludovisi tried again and again to master the dreaded triplet, always to no avail. He always seemed better in two-two time. Room after room of young virtuosi, all but a select few with the talent only to frustrate the great maestro.

Ludovisi hadn’t picked up a clarinet in over forty years; 201 Via Condotti hadn’t inspired him to reconsider.

No doubt because the old place conjured a far more powerful association than the strains of Mozart and Vivaldi. Strange as it seemed, 201 had once been the breeding ground for the most debilitating financial scandal in the history of the Vatican. The story’s most poignant memento? The image of Roberto Calvi dangling at the end of a rope under London’s Blackfriars Bridge-June of 1982-the end to a rather undistinguished career, an unwitting dupe brilliantly placed at the center of the entire mess by von Neurath. That the press, along with countless “conspiracy theorists,” had managed to mangle the facts surrounding Calvi’s death had only made the cardinal’s scheme all the more ingenious. A tale so intriguing that none other than Mario Puzo had found a place for it in his Godfathertrilogy. Freemasonry, Mafia money laundering, the death of John Paul I. All somehow linked together. It still made Ludovisi smile to think of it.

In all honesty, von Neurath had never meant to undermine the prestige of the Institute of Religious Works (the IOR)-known to the outside world as the Vatican Bank. At least not at the start. His target had been far less lofty: one Licio Gelli, an erstwhile rival for the position of summus princeps, the highest office within the Brotherhood.

Born in 1919, Gelli had chosen the political, rather than the religious, path within Manichaeanism, infiltrating the Blackshirt battalions in Spain in the 1930s, later the SS Hermann Goring Division during the war. In the 1950s, he’d established himself as a leading player in the Italian secret service, instrumental in operations Gladio and Stay Behind-the West’s efforts to station anti-Communist guerillas behind the lines in the event of a Soviet offensive. But while seemingly ideal to spearhead the “great awakening,” Gelli had become too visible. When, in 1960, he was passed over in favor of the much younger von Neurath, he’d decided his link to Manichaeanism had outlived its usefulness. Simple fascism would be more than acceptable.

With access to the most sensitive intelligence files in Europe-blackmail the surest way to fill his coffers-and with fifteen thousand operatives at his disposal, Gelli created Propaganda Due, a private shadow army with tentacles into every aspect of Italian life. At his trial in 1983, one prosecutor claimed that, by the late 1960s, P2 included “three members of the Cabinet, several former prime ministers, forty-three members of Parliament, fifty-four top civil servants, one hundred and eighty-three army, navy, and air force officers (including thirty generals and eight admirals), judges, leading bankers, the editor of the country’s top newspaper (Corriere della Sera), university professors, and the heads of the three main intelligence services.” Though limited in scope to Italian politics, P2 looked as though it might pose some serious problems, especially given Gelli’s intimate knowledge of the Manichaean cell structure.

At first, von Neurath responded subtly. He would control Gelli, rather than destroy him. Realizing that Propaganda Due was the perfect distraction for anyone looking to expose a group like the Manichaeans-conspiracies all the rage, given the Kennedy shooting-the cardinal created the myth of the Lodge. Von Neurath let slip that P2 was actually the most recent successor in a long line of secret societies connected to the Knights Templar-Freemasonry, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Carbonari. An organization not to be trifled with. Just for fun, he hinted that the Vatican had taken a hand in funding operations, all in the name of the great fight against the godless Left. (After all, the IOR had fostered some rather dubious affiliations over the years-Spider and ODESSA, the ratlines that had ferreted former Nazis out of Europe. Why not P2?) A few well-placed minions in the right offices were enough to substantiate the ruse. And while Gelli was certainly carrying on his own dirty war-albeit on a very rudimentary level-it was von Neurath who saw to it that P2 was linked to any number of terrorist activities throughout Europe and the Middle East, from arms sales to purchases of crude oil. A wonderful opportunity to test just how much influence a Manichaean could wield. In fact, for a period in the late 1970s, it was virtually impossible to unearth anything to do with “black ops” and not hear the name Propaganda Due. To those in the world of intelligence, Gelli’s influence extended to South America (Juan Peron), and even to the United States (Alexander Haig and the Nixon administration). That P2 was actually involved with less than 10 percent of those activities mattered very little. Gelli-quickly dubbed “the Puppet Master”-was being held responsible for it all. Those looking for conspiracies had found their demon.

Von Neurath-perhaps naively (although Ludovisi would never have been the one to point it out to him)-assumed that eventually one of the myriad international crime-fighting organizations would step in and put an end to it all. Not so. In fact, Gelli’s influence began to match the reputation von Neurath had concocted for him. Myth had turned to reality. The Vatican and Mafia were now two of P2’s leading contributors. Evidently, subtlety wasn’t doing the trick.

As much as von Neurath enjoyed having P2 as a diversion for any prying eyes, he realized Gelli had become a genuine threat. With the Lodge ever more active, he knew his old rival would need a place to launder the money he was receiving from his more unsavory connections, thereby protecting his association with the IOR. Enter Roberto Calvi and the Milan-based Banco Ambrosiano. Calvi had been in von Neurath’s pocket since the mid-1960s, when the bank had gone through several lean years. Under the guise of private investment, the Manichaeans had been more than happy to bail him out. Those investors now called in the favor. Calvi became Gelli’s middleman. Ambrosiano started funneling the dirty money. And the Vatican was kept clean.

Until von Neurath told Calvi to muck up the works.

The scandal surrounding Calvi, Gelli, the shortfall of nearly $1.3 billion at Banco Ambrosiano and its link to the laundering of reputed Mafia money through the IOR became front-page news in 1982 and set the ball rolling. Calvi’s “suicide” forced the Vatican to establish an independent commission, introducing one of its junior members-a young investment analyst named Arturo Ludovisi-to the inner circles of Vatican finance. An added boon. The final results: a tremor through the very heart of the papacy, the imprisonment of Gelli-reported to have escaped Swiss jailers in 1986, his body delivered to von Neurath two days later-and the dismantling of Propaganda Due. For those seeking out secret organizations and the like, victory had been won. No reason to look elsewhere.

And all neatly orchestrated by von Neurath.

For the Manichaeans, the payoff proved even more beneficial. They easily incorporated the P2 cells into their own network-all of which came to believe they were still working for Gelli through his successor, one Arturo Ludovisi. They, of course, had been a bit surprised by the nervous little man the first time they had met him. Ludovisi’s genius for numbers had more than won them over. After all, who would believe someone like that to be the head of P2? The cells had given him their full endorsement. As a result, the first seeds of Pentecostal, Baptist, and Methodist Manichaeanism had taken root in the States. And, to top it all off, Ludovisi was asked to stay on as senior analyst at the Vatican Bank-on special recommendation from the Cardinal Camerlengo-a position of considerable autonomy. Not bad for what had started out as nothing more than a bit of housecleaning.

In fact, it was Ludovisi’s relationship with the old P2 cells that had made his recent trip so easy. Eighteen cities in nine days, another $30 million deposited with over six hundred cells. If the “great awakening” was on the horizon-as von Neurath had promised-the financials were more than in place. It was just a matter of making sure the ledgers he had taken with him remained consistent with the numbers on the Vatican database.

Hence the need for the quick trip to 201 Via Condotti.

Reaching the second floor, he headed for the back office, little more than a six-by-six square, room enough for a weathered desk and chair, the former bolted to the floor. An odd touch for anyone not in the know. A single window overlooked the alley below, little light, less air. Ludovisi liked it here. No one to bother him. No one to answer to. He turned on the table lamp, then pulled the cord for the overhead fan. Sitting, he retrieved a small card from his jacket pocket and began to glide his fingers along the underside of the desktop. Locating a narrow slot on the left-hand side, he slid the card in. A moment later, a keypad-far more sophisticated than one would have expected-slid out from one of the drawers. He punched in a series of numbers, then watched as a panel opened at the center of the desk. Beneath it, a computer screen. Hence the need for the bolts.

As much as he recognized its technical wizardry, he’d never learned to trust the thing. Too great a chance that someone from the outside might hack his way into the files. It was why Ludovisi continued to use the written ledgers for the Manichaean accounts. One copy, safely stored. That the Vatican had switched over to the more modern system five years ago meant that he had no choice but to play with the gizmo from time to time.

He opened a file and began to type.

Twenty minutes later, the IOR database reflected the recent outlays-funds for relief projects, schools throughout Latin America, pro-democracy movements in the Far East. Nothing that could be traced with any real precision. That over half the $30 million had gone to finance the Faith Alliance was nowhere in evidence.

He pulled a second card from his pocket, and spent another few moments hunting for a slot. Finding it, he slid the card in-another keypad, another combination. This one released the door to a safe located within the two bottom right-hand drawers. Ludovisi placed the ledgers inside and closed the safe. Scanning the desk for anything he might have missed, he reached underneath and pulled out the two cards. The computer and keypads disappeared-the ancient desk restored. He then cracked the cards in half and tossed them out the window.

A minute later, he stepped out onto Via Condotti and began to make his way to the Corso. Almost at once, he felt someone grab his arm. Instinctively, he turned, a twinge of pain in his shoulder, as he saw a man directly at his right, the grip extraordinary.

“What … what are you doing?”

Another subtle twist of the arm. “Don’t scream.” They crossed the Corso, the rear door of a waiting limousine opening as they approached. The man helped Ludovisi inside, then closed the door behind him. The lock bolted shut.

Staring across at him sat Stefan Kleist.

Pearse emerged through the canvas flap in a clean, if wrinkled, pair of pants and shirt, the priest’s attire having been divvied up among his various tent mates. At first, they had hesitated. Priest’s clothes. Not that any of them were Catholics, but, given their current situation, no one seemed all that eager to tempt the fates, no matter whose God was involved. Then again, an extra pair of pants and coat would certainly come in handy when the weather changed. It hadn’t taken Pearse long to convince them that the clothes would be far more useful to them than to him, for more reasons than perhaps he cared to admit.

It had been forty minutes since Mendravic had gone off to rustle up whatever he could-water, food, and, more important, a ride west. Podgorica if possible. Not the most traveled route, but certainly the fastest. And with the sky promising imminent downpour, they both knew it was best to get going before everything turned to slop. That Mendravic had headed out without pressing Pearse for a more detailed explanation for the change in plans-the Croat more concerned that each of the men in the tent had enjoyed several swigs of the brandy he had brought-reminded the young priest just how comforting it was to have his friend looking out for him. Again.

Another nod from on high.

But it wasn’t Mendravic’s calming influence that confirmed a divine will at work. Nor his sudden appearance as ideal guide for the trip to come. Those would have made for too easy an affirmation of faith. It was the turmoil he brought-the news of Petra and the boy-the jarring intrusion of reality into Pearse’s life. What confirmed the Divine here, as it had done on Athos, was a kind of brutality, there within nature, here within a single truth. One not to test faith, but to define its very essence: harsh, jolting, perhaps even gnawing, but ultimately human. A living faith in its fullest sense, a Teresian ecstasy born of genuine struggle, the human condition painted in raw, jagged lines. Gone was the notion of serenity nurtured in cloistered retreat. That brand of contentment could only dull clarity, cushion it under a haze of self-serving bliss. Faith required confrontation. Clarity demanded such vigor.

It was only now that Pearse was beginning to understand that.

“Baba Pearsic?” He looked down. A boy no more than ten was staring up at him, his eyes beginning to bulge from a lack of food and real shelter. Still, a hint of animation, a sparkle as he spoke. He seemed eager to talk with the priest. The change of clothing, however, was causing him some confusion. “Father?”

“It’s me. What’s wrong?”

“Some men. My grandfather told me. Men from the outside. They come to see you.” Pearse had trouble keeping up with the Serbo-Croatian; he heard more than enough, though, to recognize the fear in the boy’s voice.

“Did they say what they wanted?”

The boy continued to stare. He pointed in the direction of the western gate. “Some men. They come to see you.” And with that, he sped off through the maze of tents and rope lines.

Men from the outside. It was an odd way to describe anyone. Pearse knew that a boy that age would have had no trouble identifying the uniforms of every relief worker in the camp, likewise those of the KLA, NATO, and the Albanian police. The vague designation “men from the outside” told him the boy’s fears were warranted.