The Blood Price

13. Back Doors

"You have brought a very large amount of trouble with you, Paul Wood," Sinisa said.

I shrugged uneasily. "Are you sure it's Dragan?"

"No. But I know the Mostar Tigers left Mostar a week ago, and have not been seen in Sarajevo."

I said, "I thought you would know if Dragan left Bosnia."

"The fact I did not know tells us they were assisted."

"Assisted?" I didn't like the sound of that. "By who?"

"I do not know. It is the nature of my business that I have many enemies. I think one of my enemies helped the Tigers into the country, shelters them, uses them to attack me indirectly."

"Right. So what's the bad news?"

He didn't get the joke and looked at me quizzically.

"Never mind. What's the plan?"

"You do not leave my compound, you or Saskia," Sinisa said. "Here there is no danger. They will not dare a frontal assault. I hope they do, but they will not. We are vulnerable only to ambush or a sniper, and if you remain in my compound, neither can occur. You will be safe, I assure you."

"That's a relief. For a moment there I was worried."

Sarcasm was wasted on Sinisa, it just didn't compute. "I am glad you are relieved. Furthermore, I am advancing our schedule. We leave for America in five days, not eight. Your system will be complete by then." It wasn't a question.

"If we're so safe, why are you advancing our schedule?"

"That is an independent development," he said smoothly.

Sure it was. "If you say so. Anything else I should know?"

"Yes," Sinisa said. "There is one thing. I want you to remember, Paul. When you are in America, safe in America, I want you to remember the risk I am taking for you. One day I may ask you to take risks for me."

I was not in a good position to argue. "I will remember," I promised.

"Good. Go to work. Five days."

* * *

From: balthazarwood@yahoo.com
To: talenar@lonelyplanet.com
Subject: Re: the albanian times
Date: 29 Apr 2003 01:50 GMT

Big trouble in little Albania. I got shot at tonight. I'm okay. Everyone's okay except some refugee who got hit by a stray bullet. He didn't make it. I don't even know where he came from.

S thinks D is in town and he's teamed up with one of S's business enemies.

I wasn't going to tell you any of this, but I guess you want to know, even though I know it's going to stress you out and there isn't anything you can do. Plus I figure you'd rip my head off if I didn't tell you and you found out later.

I'm not all that worried. We're going sooner, now, and as long as we stay in S's compound, we'll be fine. Don't go crazy worrying too much about us, all right? We'll be okay.

Love,
Paul


When I left Sinisa's mansion that night, around midnight, I paused outside the gate and took a good look at the street on which I lived. I was seeing everything with new eyes that night, Sinisa's deck, the room in which I worked, the windows of our house. Believe me, you start viewing your surroundings in an entirely new manner when an invasion by armed men who badly want to kill you becomes a plausible near-future event.

The air outside was refreshingly cool, and I wondered if the heat wave was finally fading. Two dim lights mounted above the iron gates of Sinisa's mansion provided eerie, dreamlike illumination. I looked up and down the street and again wondered why it existed, why Sinisa had built a dozen houses for the zombies, how long the zombies had lived here, why they had come all the way from Serbia to live in Sinisa's compound. It must have cost a fortune. Sure, labour was cheap and the houses were slapped-together crap, but Sinisa still had to have paid for electricity, running water, septic tanks, all this for a couple of dozen middle-aged Serbians who spent their days doing fuck-all.