The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

Chapter LXVIII

Spiridon Vuksan had not survived for as long as he had through good fortune alone. He accepted that luck played a part in every man’s life, but so also did preparation, decisiveness, and ultimately, ruthlessness. Neither was Spiridon blind to his own flaws, not least of which was pride, although he balked at categorizing it as a sin, particularly when it came to his relationship with the country of his birth. It pained him that men like Matija Kiš and Simo Stajić were preventing him from returning to his homeland, a country that he and his brother had fought to build from the wreckage of Tito’s former dictatorship. Spiridon was a patriot. He had the scars to prove it. Kiš and Stajić were scavengers, filling their bellies from the battlefield sacrifices of braver men.

Now others were striking at Spiridon from the shadows: a peškir killer, a negro, a crnac, seeking revenge for De Jaager’s death when he bore some of the responsibility for having fulfilled the original contract on Andrej Buha; an American, too, which meant it was his people who had bombed Serbian troops from the sky in 1999 because they were afraid to fight them face-to-face.

As well as this Louis there were the muslimani, the Turks, no better than the balijas Spiridon had euthanized in the woods of Srebrenica and Žepa, descendants of the Ottomans who had beheaded and impaled patriots for rebelling against their rule. If Spiridon ran from men such as these, how could he ever hold his head high again? Better to let his beard and hair grow long like a monk’s than look upon his reflection in a mirror and see only a kukavica, a coward.

But his brother was counseling caution: a ‘strategic retreat’, Radovan termed it, while they consolidated their forces and waited to see what might emerge from the Kiš-Stajić axis, because Radovan, like Spiridon, was convinced that the union would not hold. Kiš was too politically ambitious and Stajić too unpredictable. Soon one of them would turn on the other, and Radovan’s opinion was that Stajić would end up with a bullet in the back of his head. Every killing left a vacuum, Radovan told his brother, and the Vuksans, with planning, could be in a position to fill it. They just had to bide their time.

But Spiridon knew that Radovan was lying. Once Radovan was in possession of a new passport and a new identity, with a house in the Caribbean and a small boat from which to fish, he would not want to return to Europe. Radovan was not a fighter, not like Spiridon, and had no concept of ignominy. He would live out his days in the sun, feeling no shame. Spiridon, by contrast, was a guerrilla at heart. He would do what his ancestors had done. He would gather his people and head into the mountains. He would make ghost villages and abandoned houses his own. Others would join him, because men like Matija Kiš and Simo Stajić did not inspire loyalty. They looked like the future only to those with no comprehension of the past, but Spiridon Vuksan knew different. Serbia’s past was its future. It had been an empire once, and could be an imperial force again. The wars in Croatia and Bosnia had been fought on the basis of that conviction.

Spiridon wondered where Zorya was. He had not seen her since the day before. She would have to be told of his plan, because he would need her by his side. He knew that she, too, wanted to return home, not spend years hiding on an alien island, waiting for enemies to die at the hands of other men. She was a creature of the cold and dark. Zorya had winter blood.

The door opened behind Spiridon. He looked back, expecting to see her, but it was Radovan who entered. Spiridon did not mind. A conversation with Radovan was required, but not about the choice they faced. There was another, more pressing matter to be discussed.

He rose to hug his brother, and they exchanged three kisses.

‘Sit,’ said Spiridon. ‘I have a question for you.’

Radovan took the nearest chair. It left him seated slightly lower than his brother. Spiridon would have avoided placing himself in a similar position of inferiority, even among family, but Radovan had never concerned himself with such details. He was content to let others believe he was weaker than he was because he felt it gave him room to maneuver. Sometimes, though, the perceptions of others concretized into fact. Let people believe you were weak and they might well decide to move against you. No one feared a weak man, or not beyond the potential damage his weakness might cause. Unbeknownst to his brother, recent events were causing Radovan to examine the implications of this.

‘What is it?’ said Radovan.

Spiridon took his brother’s hands in his own.

‘How close are you and Anton Frend?’ he said.

‘You know the answer,’ said Radovan. ‘We have been colleagues, and more, for a long time. He has never given us cause to mistrust him. Why do you ask?’

‘Because they will come for him, after we are gone: the Turks, the American killer. It is a wonder they have not done so already.’

‘What about Hendricksen?’

‘Hendricksen was just the advance guard,’ said Spiridon. ‘The ones that will follow are the real threat. They can’t get to us, not yet, but they can get to Frend.’

‘We need him. He is organizing the passports, and our route out of here.’

‘No, we need only the lawyer, Kauffmann. We know she is his contact. He told us so.’

‘She will not work with us directly,’ said Radovan. ‘We are too toxic.’

‘Or so Frend would have us believe.’

‘He is not lying about Kauffmann. This is Anton’s world, and he understands how it works. Clean hands: it is the Austrian way.’

‘It may be their way, but it is not ours,’ said Spiridon. ‘Even if Frend’s days are not numbered, do you really believe that Interpol and the Dutch police will fail to connect him to us? If Hendricksen could do it, so can they. And then Frend will talk, because he will not risk prison for our sakes.’

‘Brother, Frend and I have been very vigilant.’

‘Not vigilant enough to stop our money from being seized.’

‘Money can be replaced. The kind of relationship we have built with Frend cannot. His contacts are our contacts. Without him, we are entirely alone.’

‘And I tell you they will come for him,’ said Spiridon. ‘Even if the hunters miss the spoor at first, what is to prevent Matija Kiš from allying himself with them in order to harm us? He will feed Frend to them, and Frend will sacrifice us to save himself. As long as he is alive, we are at risk.’

Radovan did not know what pained him more: to hear his brother speak like this about a man for whom Radovan had much affection, or to know that he might well be correct. Frend was the weak link, but Radovan was not prepared to sacrifice him, not yet. And all this because Spiridon had insisted on marking his departure from the Netherlands with rape and murder.

‘Let me think on it,’ said Radovan. ‘Now I have news for you, and once more, it is not good.’

Radovan had advised against targeting the private detective in Maine. It was a chance they did not need to take, but Spiridon again had ignored his guidance, with Zorya whispering in his ear. Why she had urged Spiridon to strike at Parker, Radovan did not know. He was beginning to wonder if he was the only sane one left in their circle.

‘Well?’ said Spiridon.

‘The attempt on Parker’s life failed, and the men sent to take care of it are in police custody. Our friends in Ridgewood are very upset.’

‘Will they talk, these men?’

‘My information is that they were both seriously injured in the course of events. For now, they are incapable of saying anything at all.’

Spiridon stared at his hands and flexed his fingers. Radovan knew the uses to which Spiridon was putting those hands in his mind.

‘Perhaps they’ll die,’ said Spiridon.

Radovan stood to leave.

‘Death does not solve every problem,’ he said.

‘Actually,’ said his brother, ‘it does.’