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.The houses were smaller than what I had been used to when I’d been growing up in peaceful and prosperous Canada, but the yards were neat and well-maintained, with stone or wire fences separating them from their neighbors.Miriam shook her head as we proceeded, saying, ‘So sad, oh, how sad.’‘Maybe so, but it’s just real estate,’ Peter said.‘Excuse me?’ I said.Peter said, ‘Look at all those houses.You see anything missing from the driveways?’I looked out the side window, saw what Peter was driving at.‘Yeah,’ I said.‘There’s no cars or trucks.’‘Right,’ he said.‘So that means whoever lived here got a fair amount of warning and bailed out, probably heading east or up north, to the border, before the refugee streams got here and the locals started shooting.So what got left behind got stolen and burned by either the refugees or the townies.Sad enough, but I don’t consider that a war crime.Site A, where two hundred-plus people from a refugee column got disappeared over a weekend, that’s a war crime.Not a bumed-out block of shitty houses.’I said sharply, ‘I can see why you joined the UN, Peter.You’ve got one hell of a humanitarian streak inside you.’The back of his neck got bright red.‘Bugger off, youngster,’ he said softly.‘I was working the East End for the Metropolitan Police before you learned to wank off.I’ve seen bodies pulled from the Thames, swollen up and ready to burst.I’ve seen women and children burned and stabbed and bludgeoned, lying dead in flats where the rats thought they owned the place.That there is crimes, what’s done against females and kids and innocent men.Property is property.So bloody what? It gets burned or destroyed, it’s nothing.Rebuild, rebuy, go on somewhere else.At least you’re alive.This shit here doesn’t impress me.Site A impresses me, and if our Froggy leader doesn’t stop wasting time we’re never going to find it and a fair number of criminals are going to be set free from The Hague before the week is out.’The road descended some and then ran by the side of a river.Across the river were open fields and a tent city, with the dark green and white canvas of the tents stretching for what seemed to be a kilometer at least.Flags were fluttering from some poles stuck in the dirt across the river but we couldn’t see what nationality they represented.Some of the white tents, though, had big red crosses on their roofs.‘There,’ Peter said, motioning with a free hand.‘That’s where we’ll find Site A.By going in there and talking to people in the area, people who had a hand in the rounding-up and the killing and burying.You can bet not all of them have fled the neighborhood.Some of them are right over there, feeding and sleeping on the world’s generosity, while we make do with half-arsed tips and stories.’I was trying to think of what to say when the column ahead of us braked and slowed.We headed to the second inspection site.~ * ~Past the small neighborhood of homes this site was part of an industrial facility of some sort, dominated by a large brick warehouse with small windows that was three stories tall.Graffiti scrawled on the side in white paint said RED RULES! Two other buildings, wood-framed, had been burned to a collection of rubble, scorched beams and black shingles.We pulled into a poorly paved parking lot on the other side of which were six trailers for tractor-trailer trucks.All of them were burned and split open.Still wearing our vests and helmets, we got out and looked at the warehouse.It seemed to be fairly intact.Jean-Paul, shaking his head, had his laptop and data gear on the hood of one of the Land Cruisers.‘This site matches what was sent us,’ he said, looking up at the red-brick building.‘But I don’t know.’Karen and Miriam stood together, looking as well, their arms folded.Beyond the land that belonged to the warehouse was a chainlink fence and a wood.The APC stood to the side of the Land Cruisers, its engine rumbling.The APC commander came out of the hatch, stumbled a bit on the lip of the opening, and came over to Jean-Paul.My hands felt itchy.Sanjay and Peter were talking to each other and I didn’t like the feel of the whole thing.The air felt like the heaviness you get just before a thunderstorm roars through, when the air is thick and moves slowly and there’s a sense of force in the air, an electrical force ready to be unleashed.The Ukrainian commander shook his head after talking with Jean-Paul and went back to his APC.Then Charlie came over to Jean-Paul, his M-16 slung across his back.‘Sorry to tell you this, Jean-Paul, but you can’t be going in that warehouse,’ he said.‘And why’s that?’Charlie gave him a look like he was saying, ‘Are you so dumb that you can’t see it?’ He went on, ‘Jean-Paul, that place is an ambush waiting to happen.Old warehouse like that, no power, lots of corridors and rooms and doors.You could place tripwires, motion detectors, even cut holes in the flooring and cover it with tar paper so you’d fall in.Man, it would take a platoon of Marines and three or four more UN teams like yours before I’d even think of going into a place like that.’Jean-Paul said stubbornly, ‘We have intelligence.We have information that there are bodies in that warehouse.’‘Maybe so, but you’re not going in,’ Charlie said.‘This team is under my command,’‘And the security and safety of this team are my responsibility,’ Charlie went on calmly.‘You know that, just as well as I do, and I’m not going to get your people hurt or killed.Call for back-up, call for reinforcements, I don’t care, but that place is too big and spooky for me to let you guys go in.’By now the others had joined in and Jean-Paul’s face was reddening up, like he was ready to let loose a good one.But there was a clang! as a side hatch of the Ukrainian APC came open and its commander strode back.He had a piece of paper in his right hand and said, ‘Monsieur, if you please, I have message for you.’Jean-Paul was surprised.‘A message for me? Through your comm net?’‘Please, message,’ the Ukrainian soldier insisted.‘Look at right now, please.’I looked over Jean-Paul’s shoulder as he read the message, which was handwritten in block letters and which caused my legs to start trembling:MONSIEUR UN —OUR THERMAL DEVISE IN TANK SHOWS MANY BODIES IN BUILDING.BODIES ALIVE, NOT DEAD.WE LEAVE NOW.Karen put her hand to her face as Jean-Paul folded the piece of paper and said quietly, ‘We don’t do anything drastic.We just move away, quietly and smoothly.Don’t raise your voices, don’t stare at the warehouse.Just get in the vehicles and get out.’We all did just that.I couldn’t help myself, though, and I did spare a look at the warehouse.Its windows seemed to mock us all, this little group of international visitors, ready to go in and do good.The building seemed haunted—possessed, even—and I thought of that message again from the Ukrainian APC commander.Bodies alive, not dead.We leave now.We sure as hell do.I’d been spooked when Charlie had talked about the booby traps that could be in that dark building—tripwires and concealed holes in the flooring—and the thought of men with guns and knives, just waiting for us to clamber inside, full of earnestness and good intentions, with them ready to tear us apart, made me want to stand behind Charlie and ask for his help.But Charlie was busy, his eyes flickering back and forth, looking at the entrance, at the many blackened windows.I got inside our Land Cruiser with Peter and Miriam, and then everybody else was in the other Land Cruisers as well, with Charlie bringing up the rear, being the last one in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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