The Nameless Ones by John Connolly
Chapter LXXXI
Frend looked down at Kauffmann’s body. Her eyes were closed and her features contorted, as though she had survived just long enough to register the pain of the bullet’s passage. It had left a small hole in the bridge of her nose, but very little blood.
‘Help me get her into the chapel,’ said Zivco Ilić. He grabbed her left leg, but Frend did not move. He supposed he was in shock, but he was also thinking about his future, because as of that moment he no longer seemed to have one. He needed the passport, but the passport had died with Kauffmann.
‘Why did you do that?’ he said, once he’d found his voice. ‘Why didn’t you just pay her the money as agreed?’
But Ilić was too busy dragging Kauffmann into the dimness of the chapel to reply. Frend, realizing that the only thing worse than what had already happened might be someone coming across the body, awkwardly lifted Kauffmann by the arms. He lost his grip and her head banged against the chapel floor, but by then she was out of sight. Ilić finished the job unaided, dumping her against the wall. He picked up the fallen envelope and placed it in his jacket pocket before tossing the bag on top of the body. He then pulled the doors closed behind him, followed by the metal gates.
‘The money,’ said Frend. ‘Where is it?’
‘Don’t you understand?’ said Ilić. ‘There is no money! Radovan said that he’d found a way to get it, but the funds never came through. It’s of no consequence now. We have the passports, and by the time they find the body, we’ll be gone.’
‘You’ll be gone,’ said Frend. ‘What about me?’
‘You can talk your way out of trouble. That’s all you lawyers are good for, talking. Anyway, what have you done that’s so bad? You moved some cash around, nothing more. Your banking system launders millions for the Russians and your prosecutors don’t even blink, so what do you think they’ll do to you? You’ll barely feel the slap on the wrist.’
‘And Kauffmann?’
By now Frend was trailing Ilić as he walked quickly to the parking lot.
‘What of her?’ said Ilić. ‘She’s dead.’
‘She didn’t work in isolation. What if she told her contact at the embassy who those passports were for? What if she identified me as the mediator?’
Ilić waved a hand in dismissal. ‘If she did, they’ll keep their mouths shut. You think they’ll want to be implicated? You worry too much.’
Ilić took out his car keys and deactivated the alarm, but Frend grabbed his arm as he moved to open the car door.
‘Don’t you understand?’ said Frend. ‘Kauffmann was protected. She had value. By killing her, you’ve damned me.’
Ilić spun. The punch wasn’t hard, and caught Frend only a glancing blow, but he was off-balance and fell awkwardly. He felt something give in his left wrist, and he let out a yelp. Ilić showed him the gun.
‘Are you in a hurry to join her?’ he said. ‘Because I’ll put a bullet in your fucking head and all your troubles will be over. Is that what you want?’
Frend didn’t reply. He was as close to weeping as he had ever come in his adult life. Ilić and the Vuksans had their documents. They could vanish, but he could not. Kauffmann’s death would be investigated, and not only by the authorities. The trail would lead back to him. He was sure of it. He would become a marked man.
Frend managed to get to his feet, cradling his injured arm with his right hand. As he did so, the rage on Ilić’s face disappeared, to be replaced by what Frend initially mistook for pity, until he realized that whatever the Serb was feeling was directed not at Frend but himself.
‘You’re not the only one who is damned,’ said Ilić. ‘We were all cursed from the moment we stood with the Vuksans. You think these are going to save any of us?’ He showed Frend the envelope containing the passports. ‘They won’t. They’re only going to postpone the inevitable. You know what you should do? You should go back to that graveyard, dig a hole for yourself with your bare hands, and pull the dirt down on top of you. Words won’t save you. Documents won’t save you. Money won’t save you. You’re cursed, just as I am. The only difference is that I’m resigned to it and you’re not.’
‘Then why don’t you just give up?’ said Frend.
Ilić took a moment to reply.
‘Because I’m a fool,’ he said, at last, ‘and the dirt is in no hurry to accept another fool.’
He got in his car and drove away without giving Anton Frend another glance. Miserably, Frend walked toward his own vehicle and minutes later was leaving behind the quiet ranks of the nameless.
For the present.
On the silos overlooking the graves, flocks of small birds settled for a time before rising, forming patterns in the sky like dreams drawn from the mind of God. Only one did not join them. It was squatter and heavier than the rest, and stood on four legs, not two. The drone’s propellers activated and it ascended slowly, its camera following the departure first of Zivco Ilić, then Anton Frend. It stayed in the air for a while longer before its battery gave out and it dropped back to the roof of the silo, there to join the corpses of two pigeons in their own little cemetery of the lost.