Gordon took his cue. ‘Quill is engaged on dietary analysis of effects in combination of food additives,’ he said. ‘He was prompted into this research by observed correlations of the rise in consumption of some types of fast food and aggressive and antisocial behaviour among the age-group consuming them.’
‘In other words,’ said Sir Greville, ‘young thugs eat burgers and beat up old ladies.’
Gordon was clearly used to such interruptions from his boss. ‘It is well established that some additives produce hyperactivity which can involve aggression in a proportion of people,’ he went on, ‘but there are some complex sugars which are known to have a dual effect. They provide very rapid bursts of energy, which bring the kids back for more, and Quill seems to believe that they are used in fast food to give an addictive effect: but they also, in some surprising cases, produce a psychological effect. They appear to inhibit understanding of the consequences of actions.’
Sir Greville was enjoying this. He interrupted again. ‘Aggression magnifiers. They get rid of the natural control mechanisms, you see? Stop your brain warning you what might happen next.’
‘By themselves,’ said Gordon, ‘they are unpredictable in effect and seem to depend on the metabolism of the consumer. However our research has shown that in combination with two other groups of additives, one a preservative and the other an emulsifier, they take on a new range of powers and predictability.’
‘That’s where we came in,’ said Sir Greville. ‘Packaged as a drink and given to troops involved in close-quarters combat at the right time, they can give the winning edge.’
‘What exactly happens?’ asked Johnny.
Chapter Five
The phone had woken Peter Hansen at four in the morning and what he had been told made no sense at all, not even to someone used to the bizarre turns of Central European politics. There was nothing for it but to go up and see for himself. The UNPROROM duty officer sounded half asleep when he answered the call and dropped the phone twice but he promised an escort ready to go within half an hour, Irish troops freshly arrived in Western Romania and not yet used to the peace-keeping role. Hansen had the usual breakfast out of the usual cans, augmented by some fresh tomatoes bought the previous day in the market.
The remains of the towers and battlements ringing the steep summit of the town showed very faintly in the light of the half moon as they set out for the hard drive north to Tirgu Mures. Forty miles of bumps with the speed set by the tracked escort so that even Peter’s hardened Land Rover, with its abused springs and tendency to be knocked off course by every pothole, was well below its comfortable cruising speed.
Another day as a UN observer in the never-ending unravelling of the Balkans. Oh, to be back drinking good Norwegian beer in Stavanger. He missed his cabin in the mountains and the wholesome certainty of knowing there would be no mass exterminations to spoil his day.
The white-painted convoy snaked out of the town towards – well, what exactly? The man on the phone had been far from clear. Another massacre involving the miners, that was quite obvious. Another foul and probably untraceable atrocity in the growing swell of such incidents. Another crime in the name of ethnic cleansing against a minority population. Hansen sighed as he changed up into top and caught a glimpse of an old farmhouse in its walled enclosure as his headlights swung across it. The incursion of the totalitarian Ceaucescu years was less marked here than in the country to the east, towards the capital. The road got worse as they reached the river and the sun was just starting to glint on the peaks of the wild Transylvanian Alps to the north and the east, the highest point the Carpathians would achieve for many, many miles, their lower slopes still covered with forests that softened the stark edges of the canyons.
Hansen was a historian which helped him understand as far as it could be understood. This should never have been Romania. There had been no perfect solution for Transylvania, a mass of Magyars – Hungarians cut off from their own country and surrounded by an even greater mass of Romanians – but the solution after the First World War of simply handing them over to Romania had been very far from perfect and now, nearly eighty years on, it was trying its best to come unravelled.
Bloody hard to deal with it, he thought, when half the time you’re not even up against soldiers. The simmering violence directed at the Magyars from the east was often instigated by the Romanian miners, the brutal but conveniently amateur shock troops used from Ceaucescu’s time onwards against those who became targets of the State. They seemed always ready to leave their pits and career into town in commandeered trucks and buses, always ready with their crowbars and axe handles to split the skulls of the protestors. First it was to put right what they saw as the dangerous tide of reformism after Ceaucescu’s expedient death lanced the boil of revolution. Now it was the Magyars, though on the side, they were usually prepared to have a go at the gypsies, every other Romanian’s favourite target.
The UN convoy’s passing disturbed a heron on the last straight before Tirgu Mures and Hansen watched it flap heavily away in the first light of dawn. He followed it with his eyes for as long as possible to grab what he was sure would be the last peaceful moment of the day until, in the end, he had to turn back to look at the road. Marosvasarhely was the town’s Hungarian name and on the outskirts they were flagged down by the local man, standing, waiting anxiously next to his car with its oversize UN stickers down both sides and a UN flag flying from the radio aerial.
‘Istvan!’ Hansen hailed, climbing stiffly down.
‘Mr Hansen. I am glad you have come. You must follow me.’
Hansen asked no questions. He thought he knew what they were going to see. Istvan could only have misunderstood the situation in the darkness. It was inconceivable that his account could be correct. They would find a tragedy that would fit into a now familiar pattern, a small hamlet of wrecked, burnt houses. The bodies of the villagers would be sprawled where they had been killed, their heads usually shattered by the miners’ hammer blows. If there were any survivors, they would tell, as far as they were able, a stomach-turning tale of brutal rape and murder then they would slump back into a blank, bewildered stupor in which the future held nothing.
He was wrong and Istvan, against the odds, was right. The hamlet was eight miles from the town, hard to get to, the far side of the river which was called either Mures or Maros depending on whether you were giving or receiving the miners’ blows. The first inkling he had that the man in the car leading the way had told it the way it was came when he noticed the lack of smoke. The houses still had their roofs on. All looked normal – normal, that is, until he took in the objects on top of the poles that lined the road past the church. He braked hard and there was a chain reaction through the rest of the convoy. Unable to take his eyes off them, he got slowly down from the driver’s seat, leaving the door swinging open behind him, and walked towards them with reluctant, necessary steps. The young lieutenant, O’Driscoll or something like that, got there before he did and stopped in bewilderment, looking up. The poles were thin, perhaps eight or nine feet tall, bending and bobbing slightly with the weight.
Impaled on top of them were heads, human heads, sawn roughly through the necks so that ragged flesh, yellowing gristle and hideous tubes hung from the cuts.
‘God in heaven,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Who has done this? Miners?’
‘Look again, Lieutenant,’ said Hansen, ‘look at their faces. They’re not Magyars. These are the miners.’
‘On poles, though,’ the younger man said, and Hansen knew he had to keep talking to keep it all at bay, ‘why on poles?’