As I watched the to-ing and fro-ing about the pool I tried to remember her birthday, or even how old she was. It wouldn"t come to me. I"d sort of lost interest in that kind of thing when she lost interest in mine, when I was ten. My last birthday present was my first ever 99 ice-cream. The deal was me not saying anything to the school about the bruises on my neck and cheek.
My mum had been called in to explain. Was Nicholas being beaten at home? The ice-cream worked: I shut up as she told them how I"d fallen down the stairs. I nodded in agreement instead of saying her nice new husband had filled me in because I"d asked for a 99 when the ice-cream van came into the estate. Whatever. At least she"d come in handy for an excuse to see who Jerry had been calling.
The waiter turned up with two cans of cold c.o.ke. Either he was clairvoyant, or I was fluent in Iraqi sign language. Or maybe this was all they stocked. He put them on the table and showed the kind of smile that could have done with renting the Aussie"s teeth.
Jerry pulled back on his can and took two very thirsty gulps.
I picked up the menu before the waiter had time to decide he had better customers elsewhere. "I"ll have some potato fingers and a couple of bread rolls."
"Yes, sir. Sure, sure, sure." He didn"t write it down, which was always a worry. It normally meant he wouldn"t come back, or if he did, it would be with a boiled egg.
Jerry was checking his camera gear. "I"ll have whatever you"re having, and another c.o.ke."
I looked up at the crumpled shirt. "Two more c.o.kes, two potato fingers and tons of bread. These soldiers here, do you know if they"re allowed drinks?"
He didn"t seem too sure.
"Give them a c.o.ke each, will you? And make sure they"re cold ones." I handed the waiter eight dollars as Cecil managed to make the women laugh. b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
Jerry was obsessing round his lenses with a little brush. "You"re getting generous in your old age."
"Must be thirsty work listening to that bloke"s bulls.h.i.t all day." I sat back in the chair and enjoyed the shade a while. I might even have dropped off for a minute or two.
53."Sir?"
Crumply Shirt was back with the bowls of chips and bread rolls.
I showed Jerry the finer points of making a b.u.t.tie with undercooked chips and b.u.t.ter so hot it had turned to oil. There was still no sign of Rob.
The place was filling up. One white guy stood out. He was sitting with another white guy and a couple of locals, all drinking tea from little gla.s.ses. His crewcut was just cropping out to show the grey on the sides. His face was peppered with small scars, as if he"d been blasted with fine shrapnel. Stubble only grew where the skin wasn"t marked. But what made him difficult to ignore was that he was missing the little and ring fingers of his right hand.
Jerry had spotted him too. He leaned forward, grabbing some more bread out of the bowl. "Bosnian Muslim? What you reckon?"
"Dunno, can"t hear him properly."
Jerry got up, still chewing a chip.
He skirted the two women, and went on past Three Fingers" table. A couple of paces further on he stopped, turned back, smiled and started talking to the four men.
He certainly looked old enough to have been captured by Mladic"s mates. Cutting those two fingers off a prisoner really gave them a buzz because it left the hand in a Serb salute, sort of a Boy Scout thing.
The conversation lasted less than a minute. It didn"t look promising. Jerry moved on to Reception, maybe going for a p.i.s.s. It had to look like he was pa.s.sing for a purpose.
The guys finished their tea and left before Jerry came back and helped himself to the two remaining chips.
"What you say?"
He sprinkled salt over the last one. "He didn"t speak English, but the other guy did a little. I just said I heard him talk, and wondered if he knew my old friend Hasan who I"d heard was in town. "I know it"s a long shot but I"d really like to catch up with him." That kind of thing. But jack s.h.i.t, man."
I dipped a finger into a puddle of salt and chip grease on the table. "What you reckon? Girl power? We got Muslims at this place, Serbs at the Palestine. We could have a war inside a war soon over who runs the knocking shops."
Four cans of c.o.ke and another round of chips later, the sun was a lot higher and hotter, and we were about to be in the firing line. I stood up and raised the parasol. Most people had drifted away from the swimming-pool and gone indoors.
"Midday." Jerry was looking at his watch.
"Well, I guess I"m still an Englishman." I sat back down and moved my chair a little to get right under the canvas with Jerry. "So I guess that makes you the mad dog."
I saw movement up by the doors. Rob stepped out on to the terrace, AK in hand. He squinted as he looked around for us.
"Heads up, mate, here we go."
I didn"t want him to come over to us. We"d be within earshot of the Australian, who was now standing in the shade of a big sheet of cardboard rigged up in the corner where the external wall met the building.
We got to him as he was coming down the steps. We shook hands. "I need a favour."
"Haven"t got that much time, mate. I"m off again soon." He paused. "But what"s all this about me having a big nose?"
He was wearing exactly the same clothes as yesterday, only now his shirt-tails were hanging out. They were probably covering a pistol in his jeans. His back and armpits were soaked. Sweat covered his face and chest.
Jerry shook his hand. "I saw you at the party last night."
"Yeah." Rob turned back to me. He didn"t know Jerry, so why talk to him? It"s just how it is.
"Tell you what, let"s go up."
"Which floor?"
"First."
Of course. I bet the crumpled shirts came to him without being asked as well.
A news crew, laden with cameras, cables and body armour, was waiting by the lifts, so Rob turned right for the stairs. "I heard the Palestine got hit this morning."
"Yeah, RPGs. Danny Connor"s dead."
"That"s a shame." His tone was matter-of-fact. "At least his boy"s a bit older."
"Yeah. Nineteen, at university."
"I hope he sorted his pension."
"Connor? As if."
And that was it, subject closed. There never was too much said about these things.
We got to the first floor and turned down a narrow corridor. The walls were covered with the same lumpy concrete finish as the Palestine, and painted white.
"What are the Aussies doing here?"
"Their consulate"s just behind the hotel. They"re here to make sure no one uses the terrace as a mortar baseplate. It"s good for us because there"s always a presence."
We"d got to his door, and I followed Jerry into what was more like a small apartment than a hotel room. It didn"t have air-conditioning, but it had everything else. A seating area with two foam settees with flowery-patterned nylon covers. A coffee table. The obligatory plastic-veneer TV, some kitchen units, a sink, a little Belling cooker and a kettle.
We dumped our kit and headed over to the settees. Jerry and I shared one, sitting with our backs to the wall of what I guessed was the bedroom. I could see a bathroom through the other open door.
Rob came and dropped his keys and AK on the worktop, then pulled the pistol from his jeans and placed it alongside them. "Brew?"
We both asked for coffee and watched as he filled the kettle with bottled water. There was a little balcony, no more than a metre wide, the other side of french windows. Only one floor up, there wouldn"t be much to look at anyway.
Rob messed with mugs and spoons and stuff, waiting for me to get explaining.
"Listen, mate, we need your help. We got ourselves lifted by the military this morning. They wanted to know why we"ve been asking about the Bosnians. They"re flapping in case it turns out to be a bad story for them."
Rob leaned against the kitchen unit, watching us silently as he unscrewed a small jar of Nescafe.
"They want us out of town like, yesterday. I said we"d go north to Turkey. But we want to stay. Cards on the table, mate. We need a place to hide, maybe five days max, while we try to find this guy. It"s putting you at risk, but we can"t check in anywhere, and it"s not as if we can doss on a bench. Even if I put on a bit of boot polish I"m not going to last long out there, am I?"
Rob over-concentrated on spooning Nescafe into multi-patterned mugs. "Why are they p.i.s.sed off? You mention Nuhanovic?"
"Nah, Jerry reckons they think we"re trying to dig some dirt on reconstruction contracts."
The kettle clicked and he poured boiling water into the mugs. "I"m just going to ditch this." He started unb.u.t.toning his sweaty shirt as he headed for the bedroom.
Jerry wasn"t happy with my intro. "Why are you telling him all that? He might say no. Then what?"
I got closer, almost in his ear. "If he"s going to hide us he deserves to know what"s going on. He"s OK. Let me do the talking I know him."
Rob came back, pulling a faded blue T-shirt over his head. An armoured vehicle rumbled out on the main. A helicopter flew past, quite high. He said nothing as he tipped condensed milk into the coffees, gave them a stir, and brought the mugs over with a bowl of sugar. Then he sat down opposite us and took a deep breath. "Nuhanovic is quite an elusive f.u.c.ker, isn"t he?"
54.Rob took a sip of his brew. "Fixing an audience with Saddam might be easier." He took a bigger one, then rested the mug on his thigh. His eyes were fixed on mine. "We"re looking for Nuhanovic as well."
Jerry jumped in without an invitation. "You know where he is?"
Rob glared. "If we did, we wouldn"t be looking, would we?"
It wasn"t love at first sight.
"Let him finish, Jerry." I got back to Rob. "Why"s he so hard to find, if all he"s doing is spreading the good news?"
He put his mug down on the ring-stained table. "Because every man and his dog wants to stop him. Unity is strength. Strength is trouble for everyone. He knows he"s a target."
Jerry was nodding eagerly, trying to join the club. "That"s why no one"s managed to get to him in Bosnia. Baghdad"s our best chance."
Rob ignored him.
"Unity?" I kept Rob"s attention. "He must be quite a guy."
Rob nodded. "He"s showing the people that you don"t need missiles to win battles: you can use the coins in your pockets. If you do it together, you can have every government and corporation on their knees."
Rob"s eyes stayed fixed on mine, completely blanking Jerry. "You hear about the c.o.ke boycott in Pakistan? He showed the locals how they could wage cola wars instead of real ones."
Jerry opened his mouth to speak, but I got in quicker. "How did he do it?"
"First, he convinced businesses to sell Zam Zam, Mecca, all the Muslim brands. Then he preached his message." He lifted a finger. "To fight back against American imperialism, they didn"t have to load their weapons, just their fridges. And it"s working. Whenever a kid buys a bottle of Muslim-owned cola he knows a percentage of the profits goes to Islamic charities, not to some fat stockholder in New York." He smiled. "There are some great slogans. "Liberate Your Taste." "Don"t drink stupid, drink committed." Every bottle"s a protest two fingers to the US."
The windows rattled as some helis came in low and f.u.c.ked about just above the building. The pilots were probably eyeing up the women on the sun-loungers. Rob waited for them to leave, then got back to the story.
"A couple of provinces in Pakistan have now even banned Coca-Cola altogether. Imagine where this could lead if Nuhanovic does the same with electrical goods, cars, food, clothes. It"s got people flapping. Not just corporations, but governments. Our man is a cancer that needs to be cut out before it can spread."
"And what do you want with him?"
Rob picked up his keys. "Look, I need to go down and get some cold ones. You coming, Nick?"
I got to my feet. Jerry stayed where he was. He was learning, slowly.
55.We took the stairs again. At the bottom, we went through the gla.s.s doors and on to the terrace. Within seconds, Rob was ordering some water from a crumpled shirt who"d appeared from nowhere. I watched two others trying to fish out a parasol the helis had blown into the pool.
We moved out of earshot of the Aussie as the crumpled shirts resorted to brooms and a lot of Arabic curses.
"I don"t mind you both staying, but I"ll have to get the OK from my man and tell him what"s going on with you two. He"s too good a guy to be kept in the dark."
"We"ll keep out of the way, whatever."
The Aussies swapped positions, probably to relieve the boredom.
"You could be still out on your a.r.s.e. I"ll vouch for you, but if my man says no, there"s nothing I can do about it. "
"Fair one." The heat was unbearable. "There"s something I want to tell you." I nodded over to a patch of shade near the building. "Jerry doesn"t realize this, but I know Nuhanovic well, sort of. You remember the Mladic Paveway job? It was me you put the cache in for. Nuhanovic was there."
Rob listened intently as I told him about that day, how Nuhanovic had fronted up to Mladic and saved so many people. Then I told him about Zina, and about the general surviving because Sarajevo had called off the strike. "I don"t give a f.u.c.k about Jerry"s picture any more never did." I had just discovered something, and it had taken me by surprise. "I want to meet him for myself."
The waiter reappeared. Rob took a bottle for himself and handed me the tray. He liked the idea. "I"ve got to go and talk to my man." He headed for the gla.s.s doors.
"If you find him, I wouldn"t mind being there."
He turned, the bottle at his lips. "Things might work out a lot better than just meeting him if you"re up for it."
That was the second time he"d talked as if he was some game-show host. "What the f.u.c.k are you on about? Start tree-hugging and stop drinking c.o.ke?"
"You"ll find out soon enough. We"re leaving in about thirty, meeting someone who might know where he is. Maybe my man will let you tag along so he can explain exactly what I"m talking about. I"m just going to grab some kit, and have a word with him. See you here in a bit?"
He disappeared into the lobby.
56.Rather than bake outside I waited in Reception, sipping occasionally from the not-so-cold symbol of American imperialism I"d bought. Canned in Belgium, with information in French and what looked like Greek, it promoted the 2002 World Cup in j.a.pan.
It was quiet; there was no one around apart from the two behind the desk. They exchanged the odd sentence in Arabic, and there was a clink now and again of tea-gla.s.ses on saucers as the serving staff made themselves sound busy at the back.
I sat there thinking about these Muslim colas. There were nearly a billion and a half Muslims, and it was the world"s fastest-growing religion. No wonder the corporations were getting jumpy.