Avenger by Frederick Forsyth Page B

had arrived in 1995 was still untouched. Its desolation would be provoked in the Kosovo war, yet to come.
    His London office had advised there was one private detective agency in Belgrade, headed up by a former senior police officer whom they had used before. He had endowed his agency with the not too original name of Chandler and it was easy to find.
    "I need," the Tracker told the investigator, Dragan Stojic, 'to trace a young guy for whom I have no name but only the number of his state ID card."
    Stojic grunted.
    "What did he do?"
    "Nothing, so far as I know. He saw something. Maybe. Maybe not."
    "That's it. A name?"
    "Then I would like to talk to him. I have no car and no mastery of Serbo-Croat. He may speak English. Maybe not."
    Stojic grunted again. It appeared to be his speciality. He had apparently read every Philip Marlowe novel and seen every movie. He was trying to be Robert Mitchum in The Big Sleep but at five feet four inches and bald, he was not quite there.
    "My terms .. ." he began.
    The Tracker eased another ten hundred-dollar bills across the desk. "I need your undivided attention," he murmured.
    Stojic was entranced. The line could have come straight from Farewell, My Lovely.
    "You got it," he said.
    To give credit where credit is due, the dumpy ex-inspector did not waste time. Belching black smoke, his Yugo saloon, with the Tracker in the passenger seat, took them across town to the district of Konjarnik where the corner of Ljermontova Street is occupied by the police headquarters of Belgrade. It was, and remains, a big, ugly block in brown and yellow, like a huge angular hornet on its side.
    "You better stay here," said Stojic. He was gone half an hour and must have shared some conviviality with an old colleague, for there was the plummy odour of slivovitz on his breath. But he had a slip of paper.
    "That card belongs to Milan Rajak. Aged twenty-four. Listed as a law student. Father a lawyer, successful, upper middle-class family. Are you sure you've got the right man?"
    "Unless he has a doppelganger, he and an ID card bearing his photograph were in Banja Luka two months ago."
    "What the hell would he be doing there?"
    "He was in uniform. In a bar."
    Stojic thought back to the file he had been shown but not allowed to copy.
    "He did his national military service. All young Yugoslavs have to do that. Aged eighteen through twenty-one."
    "Combat soldier?"
    "No. Signals Corps. Radio operator."
    "Never saw combat. Might have wished he had. Might have joined a group going into Bosnia to fight for the Serbian cause. A deluded volunteer? Possible?"
    Stojic shrugged.
    "Possible. But these para militaries are scumbags. Gangsters all. What would this law student be doing with them?"
    "Summer vacation?" said the Tracker.
    "But which group? Shall we ask him?"
    Stojic consulted his piece of paper.
    "Address in Senjak, not half an hour away."
    "Then let's go."
    They found the address without trouble, a solid, middle-class villa on Istarska Street. Years serving Marshal Tito and now Slobodan Milosevic had done Mr. Rajak senior no harm at all. A pale and nervous-looking woman probably in her forties but looking older answered the door.
    There was an interchange in Serbo-Croat.
    "Milan's mother," said Stojic. "Yes, he's in. What do you want, she asks."
    "To talk to him. An interview. For the British Press."
    Clearly bewildered, Mrs. Rajak let them in and called to her son. Then she showed them into the sitting room. There were feet on the stairs and a young man appeared in the hall. He had a whispered conversation with his mother and came in. His air was perplexed, worried, almost fearful. The Tracker gave him his friendliest smile and shook hands. The door was still an inch open. Mrs. Rajak was on the phone speaking rapidly. Stojic shot the Englishman a warning glance, as if to say, "Whatever you want, keep it short. The artillery is on its way."
    The Englishman held out a notepad from a bar in the north. The two remaining