Fuck it, why not? In any case, if I wanted more from him, I had to expect to trade.
I told him why I was there, how I just lay in my hide, waiting for the Paveway to come down on Mladic. ‘I felt a lot of guilt for not calling it in sooner. I was haunted by the thought I could have stopped the killing. Lately, I’ve even been thinking that talking to you about it might help me. You were there, maybe you would have understood.’
Nuhanovic’s face was set in a frown. ‘Mladic?’ He nodded to himself, as if working out the answer to his own question. ‘Mladic . . . but they let him escape.’
I didn’t want to talk about fucking Mladic. ‘Someone explained to me I don’t need forgiveness. I did what I thought was right at the time . . .’
Nuhanovic stared deeply at me, his lips pursed. ‘I agree with your friend. He is very wise.’ Then he added, without a flicker of a smile, ‘He is obviously not a Serb.’
I lifted a glass of orange juice to my mouth and took a sip. Time to up the ante. ‘I’m confused about something, too. Why were all the girls kept behind after everyone else had left? And why were a few of those kept by Mladic after you yourself had gone? Did you know about that?’
‘Of course I did.’ He seemed angry, but with what or whom I couldn’t work out. ‘The argument with Mladic was because he wanted me to pay the agreed price for the young women, yet keep some back for his men. We were arguing about cost, not lives. He is an animal. And yet he was allowed to live.’
‘You bought the girls off Mladic?’
‘The attack on you last night was not about ideology, just money. The Serbs are competitors in the market we both service.’
‘Those girls were business?’
‘I make no apology for that. What you saw wasn’t just about buying those young women, it was also about saving the others. Their mothers, their brothers. That had always been part of every deal. The high prices I paid the Serbs reflected that. Does that disgust you?’
’Surprises me.’
‘Some find what will soon be my past a little . . . unsavoury. But I have saved many lives, including the very ones you could have saved. Mladic and his aggressors murdered many thousands. Five thousand at Srebrenica alone. Now, that disgusts me, Nick.
‘And yet the West chose not to kill Mladic that day. They still seem happy for him to be at large. Why would that be, I wonder? I have told them where he is. He’s in a monastery in Montenegro. But where are the bombs? Where are your special forces?’
I wanted to deflect his anger. We needed to stay best mates if Jerry and I were going to walk out of here. ‘Jerry, you tell him.’
Jerry lowered the camera and explained about the international court. ‘Simple as that. Looks like they decided to preserve a few big names to stick in the dock after the war.’ He ripped the cellophane off camera two and waited for its flash to get up to speed.
Nuhanovic looked ready to explode. ‘The criminals like Mladic and Karadic are still out there, yet I, not a murderer, am the target of so much hostility from the West . . . so much that I now have to move country to continue my work.’
Jerry took a chance and pressed the shutter release. The flash made Nuhanovic blink again. When he opened his eyes I could see the oil lamps reflected in their angry gaze.
‘I, too, saw the horror on their faces as I left them to that terrible fate. But God will understand. I have Him on my side. What you have heard from Benzil, and no doubt elsewhere, is true. I can, and will, bring Islam together.
‘The West and even Islam itself will try to stop me, but I have faith and commitment, the very qualities that make a mother become a suicide bomber, or a husband fly a 747 into a building. They also know that sometimes their own brothers and sisters have to die for greater things to come. It’s a faith you will never understand.
‘You look surprised again, Nick. You shouldn’t be. Today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s statesman. If Ariel Sharon and Nelson Mandela can be accepted as leaders, then why not Hasan Nuhanovic, a man whose motives are essentially pure? God understands what I have had to do in order to continue and finance His will. I have done more for my Muslim brothers and sisters against the tyrannies and imperialism of the West than any terrorist bomb will achieve – and my work has only just begun.’
Jerry moved the lamps about again, trying to catch his subject’s changing mood.
Nuhanovic nodded up at him. ‘Jerry, if my face is to appear on a billion Muslim T-shirts, I suggest you just keep shooting. They will be the last photographs for quite a while. I am going to accept Benzil’s offer of sanctuary and continue my work from his country.
‘I thank God that Benzil is alive. His commitment, and the fact that God has chosen to spare him, has confirmed to me that taking up his offer is the right thing to do.’
‘When are you going to Uzbekistan?’
‘Soon, once Benzil and I have talked. The last few days have been very fraught – as I know I don’t have to tell you.’
The door opened and the two AKs appeared. One stayed where he was; the other went over to Nuhanovic and spoke quietly in his ear.
Nuhanovic looked at the two of us, his brow creased. He nodded at the AK boy and waved him back to his mate, then got up with an expression of regret, and went over to the bowl to wash his hands.
‘Our meeting has come to end. It appears it is not only you two who are helping accelerate my schedule. There has been a lot of activity after the incident at the cave and Lord Ashdown seems to think that SFOR are closing in on Karadic or Mladic. I think he would be more delighted to discover I am in fact his target.’
The AK boys were making a show of checking their watches. Nuhanovic held out a clean hand. ‘All I now ask is that you escort Jerry back to safety and make sure he gets his photographs developed. And publish my story. Tell your Western friends, whoever they are, that I know they let Mladic go free. They have blood on their hands.’
We shook. He turned to do the same with Jerry.
There was still one more question.
‘Our bags, when do we get them?’
‘In Sarajevo.’
The AK boys were looking even more agitated. Time for us to go.
95
Four clouds of breath hung in the cold, still air. The AK boys lit an oil lamp each, then we followed them across the courtyard to the passageway. The sky was still completely clear, the frost now hard underfoot.
Jerry had pulled up the hood on his parka, but I kept mine down. I wanted to take in as much information as I could. A vehicle was ticking over somewhere on the other side of the visitors’ building.
Guided by the oil lamps, we went back along the passageway towards the guest courtyard. As we neared the door, Jerry quickened his pace to get level with me. His eyes stared out from inside the hood, shouting a silent question: ‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’
The AK boys held the door open and motioned us through. The engine was the other side of the wall. ‘Speak English?’
One nodded.
‘Our bags? We came with bags. Will we get them back?’
‘Of course. No problem.’
‘When?’
‘Later.’
We crossed the courtyard towards the archway. The vehicle the other side of the double doors wasn’t chugging. It wasn’t the VW.
They were pulled open and we were blinded by headlights. The wagon was buried in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
It appeared the AK boys weren’t coming with us. They stayed where they were and gestured for us to climb in. We stepped into the cloud and discovered a Suzuki Vitara hardtop. The choke was doing overtime to fight the cold.
It was two up, both in front. I opened the back door and let Jerry get in first. I got in behind the driver. The cloud of cigarette smoke was as dense as the exhaust fumes outside.