The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

Chapter XLVIII

Frend contacted the Vuksans using a fresh SIM card. He kept a stock of them in his safe for emergencies, and it had already been decided with Radovan Vuksan that neither of them would use the same number to remain in contact for more than a couple of days. Frend had made sure to send, by encrypted email, a list of the numbers at his disposal so that his calls would be identifiable, and Radovan had done the same.

Frend had packed a bag in preparation for the move to the apartment above his office. He kept some changes of clothing there – shirts and underwear, for the most part, along with a spare suit and basic toiletries – but not sufficient for his current needs. He would not be happy to return home until the problem of the Vuksans was resolved, but it seemed increasingly unlikely that the solution on offer would satisfy either of the brothers.

‘Well?’ said Radovan, when he answered Frend’s call.

‘You can’t go home,’ said Frend. ‘And they have given us an ultimatum: You have one week to leave Europe, or face the consequences.’

Radovan was silent for a time.

‘Spiridon will not go,’ he replied at last.

‘Then, with respect,’ said Frend, ‘Spiridon will die.’

One hour later, Zivco Ilić was waiting for Frend at Café-Restaurant Corbaci in the Museumplatz. Corbaci’s modest exterior belied what lay within, including a beautiful vaulted ceiling of oriental tiles. Ilić looked out of place among the mix of tourists and Viennese, but it was hard to think of anywhere Ilić would not have looked out of place, apart from under a rock. Frend had never warmed to the man, but thankfully his exposure to him had always been limited.

Curiously, Ilić did not appear to be alone. A teenage girl was sitting opposite him drinking a hot chocolate, her face mostly hidden by a black hooded sweatshirt bearing the name of some band of which Frend had never heard but that he knew he would have hated from the first note. No young girl had any business being around a man like Zivco Ilić, thought Frend, not unless her business was being around men like him. She did not look up as Frend approached the table and took the chair to Ilić’s right.

‘I wasn’t expecting us to have company,’ said Frend. ‘Who is the young lady?’

Only now did the girl peer out at him from under her hood, and Frend felt a great urge to get up and walk away, to abandon the Vuksans and his own existence in order to hide away from creatures such as this. Here was no teenager, only a mockery of one. Her eyes were rheumy and old, the teeth discolored, and her skin was covered in very fine lines, like a piece of fruit in the process of decay. Her fingernails were unpainted and tapered to points, reminding him uncomfortably of Simo Stajić’s. Frend experienced a profound sense of absence: a dearth of feeling, of morality, even of good or evil, as though her antiquity and her otherness made a mockery of those concepts. One might as well have expected to encounter such higher functions in a spider or a scorpion, entities barely altered since prehistory.

‘This is Zorya,’ said Ilić.

Here, then, was Spiridon Vuksan’s witch. Frend had paid little attention to Radovan’s references to her, dismissing her as one of Spiridon’s indulgences, another indication of his innate primitiveness. Now, exposed to her presence at last, Frend accepted that he had been wrong. Spiridon Vuksan might have been a superstitious peasant by birth, but for this credulity he deserved to be excused. Zorya was unheimlich. A century earlier, Freud himself would have come running from his rooms on Berggasse just to set eyes on her.

‘Were you careful?’ said Ilić.

‘I believe so,’ said Frend. ‘But then, I advised against this meeting to begin with. A drop could have been arranged.’

‘Spiridon wanted it this way. I just follow orders.’

Spiridon, not Radovan. Frend thought this was interesting, but also worrying.

‘Did he say why?’ asked Frend.

‘I didn’t ask. That’s why they call it an order.’

A waiter arrived, and Zorya hid her face once again. Frend asked for a tea that he didn’t want and placed a folded copy of Der Standard on the table. Inside was a picture of Hendricksen and an envelope of €100, €200, and €500 notes: €10,000 in total. By prior arrangement, Ilić would take the newspaper and photograph with him when he left.

Frend was conscious of Zorya appraising him, but he tried not to look at her. She smelled of a combination of dryness and dampness, like an ancient cavern through which water had once flowed.

The waiter returned with the tea. Ilić watched the sightseers go by in the courtyard, following the prettiest of the girls, molesting them with his eyes. Frend reflected that the hour of Ilić’s death could not come soon enough.

‘You say this Hendricksen is ex-military?’ said Ilić, his gaze still fixed on young flesh.

‘He served in the Balkans,’ said Frend. ‘His battalion was at Srebrenica.’

‘Is he trying to atone?’

‘Who knows?’

‘We’ll have to find out. Zorya will ask him.’

‘What about Spiridon?’ says Frend. ‘Has there been any change in his position regarding Belgrade?’

Ilić shrugged. ‘Radovan is trying to reason with him, but Spiridon does not believe in running away.’

Frend pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He was largely immune to headaches, except in extreme circumstances, but he could feel the pain of one coming on now.

‘And you,’ said Frend, for want of a better question, ‘what do you believe in?’

‘Money. Pussy. What else is there?’

‘God?’ Frend suggested. He was half-joking. Even after all this time, he struggled to balance these men’s devotion to Serbian Orthodoxy with their relish for sadism and murder. But Ilić appeared to be giving the question his serious consideration.

‘Zorya says there is an existence beyond this one,’ conceded Ilić, ‘and she does not lie. But even if she’s right, I won’t see God when I die, or not for long. You won’t either, so you shouldn’t concern yourself with the mechanics of His existence.’

Frend felt a pressure on his right hand: the nail of Zorya’s index finger was tracing a pattern over the veins, writing a word. Three letters: P-I-A.

Pia.

‘That’s your daughter’s name, isn’t it?’ said Zorya. Her voice was too deep, too cracked.

‘Yes,’ said Frend. ‘Did you learn that from Spiridon?’

‘Spiridon has never mentioned her, and neither has Radovan. Would you like me to share more with you about her?’

‘No.’

She ignored him.

‘I can tell you that you’re never going to see her again.’

‘I don’t think I want to have this conversation,’ said Frend.

One of Zorya’s fingernails scratched the back of his hand. He quickly withdrew it from her reach. Ilić sniggered.

‘She has all kinds of parlor tricks,’ said Ilić. ‘I wouldn’t let her bother you, though.’

Zorya hissed at Ilić. It was a peculiarly adolescent action, although it struck Frend as being almost entirely without malice. Zorya gave the impression of liking Ilić, or not actively disliking him. In Frend’s opinion, it didn’t say much for either of them.

‘They tracked down Fouad,’ said Ilić.

It took Frend a moment to recall the name: Fouad, the missing man from Paris, the one Radovan suspected of betraying the two Syrians to the French. Frend had long known of the Vuksans’ activities in the area of people smuggling, particularly the movement of high-value individuals, but as with most of their affairs, he had managed to keep his distance from the particulars. Unfortunately, he no longer had that luxury. Had the Vuksans consulted him on the matter, he would have advised against consorting with suspected terrorists. It was depressing, he thought, that he might even have been required to offer such counsel.

‘Who found him?’ said Frend.

‘The Turks, we believe,’ said Ilić. ‘They tortured him to death in a basement in Marseille.’

‘And how did Radovan react to this?’

‘He has made contact with the Turks through an intermediary. It seems Fouad claimed to be working alone with an American handler, and exonerated Spiridon and Radovan of any involvement in the failure of the operation.’

An American intelligence handler: that was curious, thought Frend. Had the Americans then fed the Syrians to French intelligence? It was unlike them to give up a prize so easily, but a new order prevailed in Washington. Islamist plots were of less interest than the maneuverings of the Chinese and the mischief of the Russians.

‘That vindication is good news,’ said Frend.

‘Not good enough to absolve us of responsibility for trusting Fouad to begin with,’ said Ilić. ‘The Turks still want their blood money.’

‘Then you may have to pay it.’

Ilić looked at Frend as though he were a fool.

‘Paying won’t make any difference,’ he said. ‘By now, the Turks must be aware that we’re running out of friends. They wouldn’t have dared target Fouad otherwise. If we pay them the money, they’ll still kill us as an example. If we don’t pay them, they’ll kill us for not paying and as an example. Therefore, we don’t pay.’

‘But they won’t stop looking for you,’ said Frend.

And what about me?he thought. What do I tell them if, or when, they come for me?

‘We’re working on it.’ Ilić patted Zorya on the shoulder. She stood, pulling the hood closer to her face with its drawstrings.

‘Tell Radovan I’ll be in touch again tomorrow evening,’ said Frend.

Ilić nodded, and guided Zorya toward the door.

‘Let’s go talk to a Dutchman,’ he said to her.

But Zorya did not move.

‘Wait,’ she said.