A Partisan Art

Book 1

Chapter 1

Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

November, 1994

The first snows fall on the Czech Republic by St Martin’s Day. In this year Martin chose to ride his white horse across the Bohemian hills three nights earlier and so the world was white.

A small car, barely more than a moveable tin box, pulled off the main road where it had been hugging the belching trucks and then sped along a flat minor road. The turning into the forest was as per the directions received.

After half a kilometre it came to a clearing around a small lake and stopped neatly in line with a wooden diving platform. The passenger levered himself out of the door, reached in the back seat for a shotgun, gave a salute and was promptly abandoned by the small car. All was quiet and the snow perfectly clean in the absence of wind.

The man looked around in the treeline for something. Then he waved his arms up above his head, tentatively, but it still triggered a burst of coughing.

His movements were answered by two yellow lights in the treeline. The shape of a truck could now be made out a hundred metres away. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder, not unlike a farmer out hunting rabbits, and trudged through the snow to close the distance with the truck.

‘Ahoy!’

From the cab of the truck jumped a younger man, about thirty years old, his lean build evident under his black motorcyle jacket. He advanced to the other man with his gloved hands in plain sight but he was aware of the mass of his own handgun holstered under his jacket. The man from the road came forward. Both were more at ease as they recognised each other. They had the casual nodding acquaintance of tradesmen working the same area. They made a semblance of shaking hands under thick gloves.

‘Ahoy, yourself.’

‘So, Khailo, good’ said the older man, smiling. ‘Your boss said he was sending his best man for the job. Good, good. Remember me? Stepan.’

Mykhailo Perekhrest, the Ukrainian, nodded. The convention was that names went unasked and unoffered in the business but this was a signal of trust. Stepan was his counterpart in one of the Balkan gangs. Stepan was tow-headed, moustachioed and buoyant where Khailo was dark with pebble eyes and a lean lawyer’s jaw.

They moved around the back of the truck and Khailo stood just a few paces off as Stepan opened the doors and moved inside, casually inspecting the boxes.

‘You found the truck alright?’

‘Yes, yes! It took me a while with it being painted the same shade of snow. But, the weather helps him who works. Hop! Is this the latest Scania?’

‘The latest from across the border. You happy with the order?

‘It’s all here, as agreed. Your boss said he loaded it himself, right?’

Khailo grimaced. ‘Yes. The boxes are sealed. I usually check it myself but this time I’m just offering a safe handover.’

‘Of course,’ Stepan dismissed, ‘just as agreed. Well, it’s all here.’

‘Good –’

‘– but let’s not rush things. I have the payment on me. Cash. But I need a schnapps otherwise I’ll freeze to death on the way home. That cab doesn’t look warm enough to last me. We do it properly or not at all, no?’

Khailo was itching to get the delivery and payment completed. He spent his weekdays working hard in the Bohemian provinces and spent his weekends relaxing in Prague. But this deal had been made by his boss and he let it be known to Khailo that it had to run smoothly. Part of the job was keeping the both the boss and the customer satisfied.

The sky modelled hues of uncertain intent and Khailo spoke. ‘Ok – there’s a village down the road with a tavern. We’ll go there for a quick one.’

Stepan rode shotgun and Khailo drove the Scania a short distance through the forest and found the village was little more than a simple hamlet, with a church tower marking its presence. They found the building with a freshly painted restaurant sign outside and parked right by the front entrance, shook their boots off and Stepan made to lock up the truck. He disappeared to the back of the vehicle and Khailo walked ahead through the front door.

The hostess swept up, in traditional dress and freshly scrubbed with her blond hair braided. She had glimpsed the truck pulling up outside but was unprepared for the man that came bounding across the threshold. Her practiced greeting was now tentative and soft.

‘My friend and I would like to have a drink. At a private table,’ asked Khailo.

She hesitated and her eyes opened in worry. ‘Ah, I see. You see, I don’t have a table. I have guests coming any minute now. I thought, in fact, that you were here for the TV. It’s the new satellite dish, the snowfall has messed it up.’

He hesitated, momentarily unprepared by her awkward lie. He saw that her face was handsome and pale, yet with the natural light behind him Khailo saw early lines like a skater’s marks on a frozen pond.

They were both disturbed by the compressed whine of a car and they looked to see a silver Mercedes nose to a standstill next to the Scania in the forecourt.

The hostess quickly searched his face and then seemed to make a decision before he could speak in turn.

‘There’s a bar through the restaurant. Listen,’ she caught him as he made to pass her, ‘please bring me no troubles here.’

With that she abruptly went through the front door to greet her new guests. She had caught him off-guard but he wasn’t surprised – she had recognised him as an outsider. Foreigners, unless they paid in hard currency, massed near the borders with Western Europe in order to test the boundaries of law. He did not blame her – it was the simple truth. But he would not dwell on her discomfort – he had a successful week behind him and in a few hours he’d be back in Prague.

He walked through the restaurant room, carefully perfect with white tablecloths and peasant decorations. He knew full well how these taverns operated. The Czechs did Gemütlichkeit effortlessly and such restaurants were popular with German and Austrian weekenders who would hop the border and eat well-prepared food for perhaps a quarter of its usual price. Then they’d stumble to a guided tour of a crystal factory or a love hotel and loll home on cheap petrol. Businessmen from Prague would take up the slack during the week.

Khailo found a table in the bar room at the back and Stepan soon joined him. In the light and warmth of the tavern he had the opportunity to explore Stepan’s face. He was a mid-fifties battler, a man who still had to work for his money and made the most of it. His face was congenial enough with a moustache the colour and lustre of plaster dust.

‘It is cold – my blood is thin from too many warm summers on the Adriatic…’ Stepan trailed off.

Khailo automatically switched to mirror the mood of this man who he felt his boss wanted him to treat as a client. He conveyed enough concern with his question.

‘How are things in your country?’

Stepan squeezed his moustache, as one might a bundle of straw, in his fist. ‘Not good. In fact it’s not getting any better. We support them back home, you know that. But you take the eye off the business here. You make the wrong decisions. All these inefficiencies add up. I have a son who they’ve taken into the army, and a daughter studying just across the border. But really, our only hope lies with outside intervention’

The hostess arrived with some unordered vodkas and set them down on the table with force. Her voice trembled with bravado.

‘I have a table full of Germans in the restaurant. Do I have to… must I ask you to promise to leave them alone?’

Khailo stared at her, Stepan showed mock horror.

‘Sister! What do you take us for -’

‘No selling! No stealing! And definitely no whoring. This is not your village!’

‘Ok, hang on…’

‘I’m trying to run a business here!’

‘And I’m sure once you bring us some food we’ll tell you’re that you’re doing it admirably…’

‘You know what I mean!’ Anger began to bleed into her voice so she tightened her jaw and hissed, ‘Conducting your business here in full view, out in the open. In the old days you wouldn’t have dared.’

‘Are you talking about us, sister, or yourself?’ Khailo couldn’t resist and was met with glares from both. Stepan quickly stood up and mollified the hostess, clucking and cooing. Khailo sighed and brought another chair which Stepan steered the woman into. She was still berating them.

‘What is it you want? Tell me – you’re going to spoil everything!’

Still tempering her anger with his voice, Stepan pushed her stiff hands down and lifted a vodka glass into her mouth.

She drank and then lifted her apron to her eyes and kept it there for a while. Then she spoke.

‘I’m just having a day of it. My teeth are full of it! You don’t know the pressures we have nowadays. We inherited the house two years ago and fixed it up. We did well in the summer but now,’ she flicked her hand at the window ‘the snow is not helping. And the satellite TV did not work at first. And by law we’ve had to include the weight of all the portions in the menu, and beware you get them wrong – the Germans will measure them and tell you to your face that you’re cheating them. Never mind the price of a schnitzel is one quarter of what you pay across the border!’

Stepan still clucked and dropped the outer corners of his eyes. Khailo recognised that not only was Stepan’s Czech patter unmatched but his manner too and he knew that the elder man could pass as a local in his daily dealings. He was sanguine and jolly where Khailo could only burn on whatever confidence was in his tank.

‘…And we’ve been having trouble with gangs. They want their whores to use our rooms. I have nothing against a woman doing what she must – we say, every cat is black in the night – but it’s not right for a family business. They can’t expect us to allow that here! A few villages away they’re now asking for protection money. Foreigners! Oh, what’s the point – I’m telling you your own business.’

Stepan was gently rubbing her upper arm but now he took both her hands in his. Where his head had leant left and right and forward and down, he now was level along her eyeline.

‘Sister, we aren’t gangsters who will rob you or your guests. That I can promise you. But I think you want us to tell you that our hands are clean. Maybe that we are travelling businessman or that I am an esteemed countryside doctor and this young man here is my protégé. That would make you feel much better, I think. Yes? But in truth we can’t.

‘We think day and night about how we can take advantage of the fact that the first world is only twenty kilometres away. We feel that being part of Europe is not part of our dreams because then we become irrelevant – overnight.’ He snapped his finger for effect.

‘I can tell you that me, and my friend here with the handsome face, may move things but we don’t bring harm. I know his business as well as my own. You could call us smugglers if you were being cruel, but you could never call us poachers. We don’t do prostitutes, we don’t do drugs and we don’t shake the small man. Of course, in my private capacity I have been known to do all three.’ The hostess surrendered a smile and a sniff at the joke.

‘That’s my girl. It’s not so bad, is it? These things, though, they will come. Hear my warning, my darling – we are buying and selling things that the government decides from one day to the next are illegal.’

Stepan launched into more showy talk so Khailo excused himself and went to check up on the truck. As far as he was concerned ownership had been transferred to Stepan’s gang but he was bored with placating the hostess.

He walked through the restaurant, noticing the hostess’ favoured party of Germans with blond pilsners in tulip glasses, enthusiastically discussing every item on the menu.

The Scania was in order. It was the latest model, brought across the border only a few weeks ago. It had faked papers that, in all likelihood, would not hold up to a comprehensive check, but Khailo was an expert in all the back routes and the small methods of bribery to avoid such situations. In its own way it outshone the sleek Mercedes parked next to it.

When he came back he saw Stepan had coaxed the hostess onto his knee. His shoes were off and his red knitted socks were planted on the wooden floor. Khailo hesitated for a second, but there was no sexual sting in the pose. Stepan was playing the grandfather. He was not big, and she was not small, but somehow it did fit– she was looking mainly out of the window and talking on in a soothing plaint, polishing her fingers in her apron.

‘And you know, you cannot take anything at face value anymore. Everyone has an agenda – I think in the old days you knew who you could talk to. You knew who was likely to denounce you.’ She cast a meaningful look at Khailo and paused.

Stepan followed the stare and laughed ‘He’s Ukrainian – they don’t smile just because it’s the polite thing to do. Their teeth get cold very easily, in company!’

‘It was all so much clearer – the communists were about many things, but deceit to your face was beneath even them. And in this business you meet new people every day. The guests, the suppliers who are late with the meat, the sales people and the government who try and find new ways to tax you each year. And all the new people from the East – and not like you, good sir – they frighten me. I know they’ve come around here before – they are up to no good. Why are they here?’

Stepan gave a reluctant frown. ‘Materialism is a long process. It takes time to accumulate things. This is not East Berlin – you do not have the fairy sister who can transform you overnight.’

‘We don’t want quick fixes – we expect to work hard. Don’t you see? Like our parents before the war. But not without protection.’

A bell rang from the kitchen and the hostess stood up to smooth her apron. ‘I must serve their lunch. You can order from the menu – ignore the tourist prices. What I said still stands – please don’t cause trouble. If you yourself happen to come past here in the future, stay the night – by all means. If you feel the need to come with a woman and that’s what you’re here for, then you can book a room upstairs like anybody else. And you will come and go by the back stairs. But don’t do any dirty business in my sight. As I’ve said, my teeth are full of dirty business.’

She marched off. Presently they heard reverent and approving noises coming from the restaurant as the food was presented.

Stepan toasted Khailo with the schnapps and a smile.

‘We live in the margin.’

‘Hmm –?’

‘We live our lives in the margin. Smugglers like us have got no other space to move in.’

‘Hmph,’ Khailo indulged, ‘in the margins of acceptable society, you mean?’

Stepan picked a little box from a pocket and tapped a pinch of snuff behind his thumb. He offered to Khailo, who answered by way of pulling a cigarette from a packet.

Stepan put the box of snuff down and stuck out a thumb.

‘One: the smuggler comes into existence because there is a gap set by the state between the price for a good and the value of the good.’

His index finger joined his thumb. ‘Two: he works outside of the economy that is run for the rich, by the rich. Yet he depends on that economy for his own business. The little bit that he can shave off the bulk of the economy is his prize.’

‘Three: he must operate in the borderlands between two different economies, that’s where the transfer of goods must happen. The margin is like a trading floor, or a decompression chamber, a no-man’s land…’

At that moment the hostess rushed into the bar area, her face brimming with panic.

‘Please – come see – there’s trouble!’

Khailo immediately pushed off his feet and followed her into the restaurant. The eating party was crouched around one of their own, a man whose entire face and scalp had turned a bright red and the snow in his hair showed that he’d been outside. The Germans’ voices were urgent and scared.

‘But what do they want?’

‘To steal the car, it’s clear!’

‘You Vollidiot! You had to drive your big, fat Mercedes into der Tschechei!’

Khailo followed the hostess to the front room and stood obtuse to the window that looked onto the forecourt and inspected the scene. Four men stood about the forecourt, two girls stood out of the way to one side. The men were laughing at the one who was shaking his hand ruefully and saying something comic. They had taken up a box position and seemed to be waiting for someone from the tavern to come out to them.

His own private canary, the indicator of danger to him, was when his salivary glands infused his mouth with a taste of nicotine. At times like this he lost the urge to do anything and became aware of his physical mass simply planted on the planet. Life and death became moot, and there was only a deep need to be carried forward by the events themselves.

He was being lost to the situation and then he recalled, without urgency, the habits he had put in place to shake himself out of it. He had to remember that he was lucky.

He rubbed the scar that led from his eye into his hairline where his eye had nearly been lost and treated carefully in a field hospital. That then made him remember climbing into the back of the truck in the Panjshir Valley after his company had jumped to block off the retreat of the Mujahedin. He recalled the faces of those that clambered into the truck that was to take them back to the base and the jokes they made. A sergeant with drooping moustaches, who had comically steered his parachute into a pit of lime and was dusted white, was ribbed mercilessly. The back of a Tartar corporal’s hair was furrowed by sweat and Khailo had captured the memory of wheatsheaves.

Then the truck had driven on top of a landmine and there was no memory after that, not until the horrid shapes dissembled into the dark canvas folds of the field hospital tent. His scalp had been stitched together and the rest of his assorted wounds were covered in gauze and cotton wool.

In time his comrades visited him. Seasoned soldiers were shy around his cot. His commanding officer paid him a perfunctory visit, hardly listening to Khailo or his own words, but staring deep into Khailo’s good eye as if only to recognise the soldier’s totem of Death.

Everyone else in the truck had perished. Khailo had been initially included among a pile of the dead until a reflex cough had seen him airlifted away to be saved. To the standing, living soldiers Khailo had been a priest visited by God, a consul who met the Premier. And who had survived and was considered lucky.

That melancholy reminder of being lucky always did what he required of it, popping like amyl nitrate under his nostrils.

‘Well, I’m still here’ he said to himself. The hostess was still frozen in fear behind the door. The red-faced German stumbled back into the front room with his keys in hand, looking at neither of them and making for the door. Khailo neatly intercepted him and took the keys from him, then went out.

They were laughing as he opened the door. The front man was short and neat with a blond crew-cut and golden colouring. He did not appear to expect Khailo, perhaps only the German or the hostess. He gave a winning smile and seemed to want to work out what to say. Khailo scanned the others – two stood a few metres at the back and one stood near the front man to one side. Hemmed in by the cars, they covered the front of the tavern adequately. The girls stood further off, to the side. One of the men at the back had a submachine gun in hand that he brought up reflexively and then held it neutrally. The front man presently found his words and flourished them before Khailo.

‘Ciao, compagno – have you lost something?’

Italians – that could only have meant they were the Camorran gang in the area. That made sense. Khailo cast his eyes over the gang a second time, this time taking longer.

The long hair and general style of the men was in keeping with the urban Italian style, except for the one standing in the front with the speaker. He was small and wiry as if from hard living but his eyes were dark coals staring back in hostility. His front pate was entirely bald and the hair grown long at the back to his shoulders. In the cold he was wearing a denim jacket with cut-off sleeves over a flimsy jersey. Everything about him suggested a harnessed menace that could be released at a word. The girls were local Český, late teens. Probably recently conscripted into the sex trade.

The Italian had spoken functional Czech. Khailo stood square and emphasised his accent.

‘I’m having my breakfast. I’m just wondering what the disturbance is on this fine snowy day.’

The Italian cocked his head with a quizzing mouth.

‘Russian? Ah hah – hah. No wait – the Russians are not in this district.’ The front man turned to the two Italians at the back, ‘Un uomo Ucraino.’ They grinned. He considered saying something to the mullet-man, but that man’s attention was fixed steadfastly on Khailo.

‘Well, Ukrainian, you are far from home.’

‘We are all far from home, are we not?’

The Italian smiled. Khailo had a strong impression of the kind of man who could pull up a chair to a table of girls at an outside cafe and walk away with at least one of them.

‘I think I mean that you are now in our paese, our town. This is not the town for the Ukrainians, or Russians, or any of the other vodkalcolistas. Or is there something that I should know?’

‘I see. I am not doing business here.’

The Italian nodded for a long time. ‘This truck, it is yours?’

Khailo swallowed. ‘I’m just passing through.’

‘Ah. But that’s not good enough. We are all passing through from one place to another, aren’t we? What do you have for me today in your nice new truck?’

Khailo tried another tack. ‘I know Signor Luzatti. We have done business together.’

‘Oh, oh, oh’, the Italian waved his finger quickly as if to disperse his words into the frosty air. ‘Luzatti is yesterday. All agreements – are yesterday. We’ve been slow for far too long. We work now with our friends from Albania.’ At this he nodded, almost courteously, to the mullet-man a few paces away, then back to scan Khailo’s face for the effect.

This was unwelcome news to Khailo. The Italians were low-level racketeers and Bohemia was a sideline for them. The Albanians moved stolen vehicles and gold and precious stones, a trade commensurate with the level of brutality they brought. A shift had occurred in the balance of power. More pertinently, it meant that the mullet was accompanying the Italians on their rounds in order to spike some mongrel into proceedings.

‘We came for the Germans. The car is ours. Do you think otherwise?’

‘If that’s what you do – I can’t stop you…’

‘Of course not…’

‘…but don’t hurt them, it’s not professional. None of us want the police over here on our backs.’

‘Who’s hurting anybody? We’ll try not to hurt anybody. No, wait, you are right. You are clever, that is good. We want to keep it quiet,’ he looked over at the Albanian and pushed his hands down in a slowing motion.

‘We don’t hurt anyone. But now,’ he chanced a winning smile again, ‘we have to take the truck too. You see how it is?’

Again he looked for an effect on Khailo’s face which he would not find, but the time for an irenical solution had moved on. Speech was a knotted cable they had picked up between them, moving from generalities to faded third parties like Luzatti, to the Germans to Khailo, and now there was no slack left and they were toe-to-toe.

‘You think that? Do you know with whom I am affiliated? Why did you not bother to find that out – is that not poor preparation for a businessman? You seem to want to be the cause of the Ukrainians and maybe even the Russians killing all your men and taking your Capo. That is not the right decision.’

‘It’s my decision! I make them around here, if you haven’t noticed. We take the truck and they can make a deal from that afterwards…’

‘Let me talk to your boss. Your Capo. I think you are too light in the pants’.

Several things happened after Khailo’s words.

One of the girls standing a few feet away sniggered from reflex before covering her mouth in instant dismay. The blond man lost his stare with Khailo and whipped his head around angrily to her. The Albanian interpreted the look and stepped three strides backwards and backhanded the girl onto the ground. He whipped a knife from a belt in one movement.

Stepan then appeared from behind the Scania. He may have worn the face of a concerned paterfamilias investigating a noise in the household but he moved nimbly and, with his shotgun aimed at the Italians, he was the deadly difference between the two groups. He hissed at the one with the gun and again more urgently until the Italian fought his urge to seek direction from his leader and put the weapon on the muddy snow.

Khailo produced his own pistol from under his jacketand covered the Albanian who stared back. It took the frontman some effort to urge him to drop it, which he did eventually by throwing onto a clean patch of snow, spitting in anger.

Khailo took stock of the situation. If they chased the Italians away the blond man and his gang would simply regroup and hunt them down within the hour to an ugly death. If they called the police Khailo’s truck would come under scrutiny, as would their guns. Either way, there was violence brewing. And the first person to taste that broth would be the girl.

He pointed the pistol at the blond man.

‘The girl. She comes with us.’ He motioned the girl over, the one who had been knocked to the ground.

‘Stepan, you take the Scania. You’, he motioned to the girl ‘will take the back seat of the Mercedes. Stepan goes first, then I’ll follow.’

Khailo called loudly for the hostess.

She had been by the window and stepped out extremely cautiously. He handed her a money note. ‘For the drinks. Call the police right now and take the Germans upstairs. Lock yourselves in. If you’re paying anyone protection money, apart from these scum, now’s the time that they should come and earn it. We’re taking their car before they get killed over it.’

Stepan had jumped into the truck, reversed and drove slowly moved onto the road. Khailo carefully got in the Mercedes, started it and then drove as fast as he could toward the road.

A few kilometres out of the village Stepan flicked his rear lights on and off. The Mercedes sped up and drew level with the Scania. Stepan idled on the side of the road.

‘Ukrainian, are we heading for the main road?’

‘No – rather not. We’re out in the open then. Take the long way round to Děčín. If we get lost, look for signs to the Labe river. I’ll keep close.’

‘Moment.’ Stepan leaned further out of the cab window ‘I said nothing before. It was because you didn’t need to know. There are… some weapons that were loaded in the back of the truck.’

‘What? Who…what kind of weapons?’

‘It was a special part of the agreement. They are not to be given up.’

‘I supervised the loading…’

‘…you wouldn’t have found them – trust me. It was a deal made between our bosses. Not for us to get in the way of it.’

Khailo was furious. Apart from the danger of being caught in possession of weapons he was not a gun-runner and especially did not want a hand in the Balkan wars. His boss. It had been his plan to do this deal and that’s why he insisted on Khailo getting it done and none of the contractors they used.

They were surrounded by rolling winter farmland with the outcropping of mountains of the area known as the Bohemian Switzerland a few hundred metres ahead. Then they heard the buzz of a dirt-bike far off, heard it pick up speed and occasionally throttle down again until it could speed up again.

Khailo raced past the Scania’s window and they spoke through open windows.

‘They have a bike – they’re in the forest. That means they’ll also be behind us with a car,’ stated Stepan.

‘We have to move – on the other side of the forest are a few villages. We keep heading south-east until we get to Děčín.’

They drove on, the Mercedes behind the truck and headed for the trees. The foliage was quite thick, having only been nipped by the cold in autumn and the boughs stood now in shock, their leaves supporting the night’s snowfall. As they entered the dark canopy Khailo heard the dirt-bike buzz again. The truck ahead had to slow to account for the winding of the road and he scanned the sides of the road. He saw movement through the trees to the right and opened the window to hear better. The dirt-bikes engine rose and fell as the rider negotiated a service path which seemed to run nearly parallel to the main road. The bike was probably no more than thirty yards to the side and started to flash more frequently in the half-light of the forest. Khailo was considering loosing off just one or two shots to keep the rider honest.

They were entering a straight and he turned to the girl, ‘You look behind us for cars, if someone starts shooting you stay on the floor.’

As he looked up he saw the dirt-bike burst through a gap in the trees and swung on the road, just missing the front of the truck. Stepan swerved but corrected the Scania sand Khailo saw the Albanian standing up on the bike, long hair trailing as he looked back over his shoulder. He swerved to and fro, jerking on the brakes in an attempt to slow the truck down. The brake lights flickered on the Scania.

‘Don’t slow down! Run him down!’ Khailo roared and leaned on the wheel so that the Mercedes hugged the left edge of the road until leaves of the longer branches were being struck by the car and cold snow flew onto the girl on the back seat and against the rear window.

When he could see a glimpse of the dirt-bike rider past the truck he stuck his gun out the window and fired without aiming. The Albanian ducked over his handles and swerved into the centre of the road, sheltered by the truck.

The road through the forest was long and Khailo knew they were deep in the Bohemian Switzerland. Eventually they had to emerge from the forest and get to a village, and then another, and another until Děčín arrived or their fate improved. And hopefully before they were boxed in from behind by the rest of the gang.

As they turned another steep corner Khailo saw the Albanian cradling a mini-submachine gun with one hand. He was preparing to tuck the barrel under his arm until it aimed straight back at the Scania and then fire blindly. The large cab windscreen and thin metal were mortally exposed at that close range. Khailo prayed that Stepan would hit the brakes, then perhaps he could run out in time and the two of them could close the Albanian out with their weapons. He saw the submachine gun’s snout poking out against the denim jacket and the Albanian settling his pace in preparation to shoot.

At that moment the road forked, with signs announcing the right fork’s descent to the next village and the left fork climbing up the hill to a historic viewpoint. The Albanian hesitated and turned down the right fork, Stepan swung up the left contour road without hesitation and disappeared around a climbing corner.

The Mercedes screeched to a halt with its nose in the right fork and the girl in the back shouted as she fell hard against the seats. The Albanian had stopped 50 metres ahead and fired a volley up at the truck disappearing above him, sheltered by trees and the road.

Khailo opened the car door using the open window as a rest and fired twice, but the Albanian had already crouched and gunned the engine until he disappeared around the next corner.

Khailo got back in the car and reversed in one movement until he was heading up the left fork contour road in reverse. As he drove backwards the girl pointed and he saw a red car flash through the trees on the right fork below.

Khailo continued for around a hundred metres up the hill and then saw Stepan appear from behind a tree, rifle in hand. The truck was parked in the middle of the road.

He stopped and got out, the girl stayed put. It was inordinately quiet, no birds or machine noises save for the gurgling and ticking of the Mercedes’ engine.

Stepan was white in his face, facial stubble was now more distinct on his cheeks and his eyes were smudged with darkness. ‘Enough of this shit.’ He pressed the rifle into Khailo’s hand and jerked keys from his pocket and opened the back of the truck, jumping in before the door had clattered open. ‘Right here, in the boxes with the Becherovka bottles. The thinking was anyone taking a quick look would grab a bottle or two and move on.’ He rummaged in the box, as the heavy green bottles clanked on the truck floor. He pulled out a well-oiled assault rifle and scrabbled two banana-shaped magazines from the bottom of the crate. Khailo took them off him.

‘What else do you have there, friend – grenades?’

‘No, I don’t transport explosives. Never have. But maybe you know how to work this thing.’

He began cracking open another crate. Khailo took a look around at the surroundings – still silent. Some of the trees were still blazing their autumn colours despite being top-heavy with snow. There was neither sound nor movement in the area he estimated the Italians to be.

Then the girl was gone.

He looked over to the Mercedes and she wasn’t there, she must have slipped into the forest and was hiding behind a tree. He heard a branch snap in the distance – they didn’t have much time.

‘The girl’s gone!’

‘For the best.’ Stepan had pulled out a long canvas bag out of the opened crate and gripped it between his thighs, shucking the gun from the bag.

Khailo had never seen such a long rifle. It was probably two metres long and weighed nearly 20 kilograms. He shrugged the assault rifle around his shoulder and studied the big weapon.

‘Český make good liquor, good crystal and good guns.’ Stepan had the breath to comment despite his nerves.

‘What is this?’

‘A big gun. An anti-material rifle. It’s an elephant gun compared to what we have. You think you know how to use the gun?’

‘It makes sense. Bullets?’

‘Here’ Stepan fumbled four magazines of about 10 rounds