“What did he say?” I asked.
“He wanted to know what we were doing around here. I told him we were here to talk to a witness, but he said that we could not operate in the Republika Srpska without permission of the local police. He was quite emphatic.”
When the cop ambled back, he pointed to their vehicle and told us we were going to have to come with him.
Goos objected several times and even offered to follow them in the rental car, but the cop kept shaking his head. He was heavy enough that the mere stroll back and forth to his car had brought a line of sweat dribbling down from beneath his hat.
“Don’t move,” Goos said. My suitcase, in the hatchback, made me particularly reluctant to abandon the Ford. Goos kept remonstrating in a patient way, while the fat officer continued pointing to their car and motioning, as if he were directing traffic. Finally the thinner cop took out his gun and pointed across the auto’s roof at Goos.
Once we were both in the backseat of the police car, Goos said, “Mate, this doesn’t feel right at all.”
“Is this Ferko’s posse?”
“Damned if I know. Can’t say I’ve made a lot of friends in this part of Bosnia. Might be someone knows my name and wants to pay his respects.” He was being sardonic. “But it appears they’re getting orders. I saw the big fella on the radio before they decided to haul us in.”
“Are we under arrest?”
Goos found this laughable.
“Boom, you are one of the least lawyerly lawyers I’ve met. Which I appreciate. But, you know, what does it matter what they call it? We’re in a police car headed nowhere we know with coppers who don’t seem to care about our credentials. To me, that sounds like big mobs of trouble, no matter what the label.”
The longer we drove, the more concerned we became. After about twenty minutes, Goos asked again where we were going and the wiry cop told him to shut up. A few minutes later, Goos pointed to a road sign that said we were twenty kilometers from Tuzla, which clearly relieved him. He’d been worried, I think, that they were going to take us into Serbia, where, in many quarters, the international tribunals in The Hague were reviled.
It was now after five, but in this season, the sun was still about two-thirds of the way above the horizon. The recognition that we had several hours of daylight left was mildly comforting, since the thought of traveling with these two in the dark seemed petrifying. As we continued winding through the mountains, Goos tried again to find out where we were headed. This time, the thin guy wheeled back, once more displaying the pistol, the barrel not quite leveled at us. We both subsided to silence. I could see from his pale blank look that Goos had gone from concerned to scared, a place I’d been since the thin cop first pulled out his sidearm.
We drove around more than another hour, until we suddenly parked at a roadside turnout. It was a vista point, looking down on thick hills of green trees, amid which tiny beaches of snow remained in the deepest gloom. I thought one of the policemen might need to piss, as I did, but instead they directed us to leave the car.
“Stay put,” Goos told me. He rattled on in Serbo-Croatian. It seemed as if he was now demanding to be taken to a police station at once. The fat cop walked away from him, while the wiry one returned with his pistol drawn and opened the rear door on Goos's side. He was about thirty, with lifeless blue eyes and the pebbled remnants on his face of some skin condition that had gone untreated during the war years. By long experience, I marked him as one of those cops who liked the job because it came with a license to be mean. Goos, probably of the same mind, was aggravated and continued telling him off. The cop seemed to be listening attentively when, with no warning, he smashed Goos in the temple with the gun barrel and pulled him out of the car. Immediately, the fat one opened my door and wrestled me out and pushed me along to the driver’s side of the car, where Goos was on all fours in the dust of the roadside. Blood flowed from a small gash at his temple, the steady drip coloring his hand and the ground.
I started screaming when I saw that.
“For God’s sake, what is wrong with you people? We are lawful investigators here, operating with the full authority of your government. And you beat this man? You have created a diplomatic incident. You will all be fired. Don’t you understand that?”
The wiry guy responded by motioning with the pistol, instructing me to kneel beside Goos. The cop seemed to understand a little English and was smiling just a bit, revealing craggy yellow teeth. He might as well have said, “Motherfucker, you don’t have a clue.” He then grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me down, until I was on all fours. He pointed his gun again, instructing me to look at the dirt, as Goos was doing.
“How are you?” I whispered to Goos.
“A bit whirly,” he answered. “Bout thirty seconds now, I’m going to collapse and make out like he might have hurt me quite badly. Maybe we’ll get to a hospital.”
Just as he said, Goos shortly reared up, held the side of his head, groaned deeply, and went facedown on the gravel. The thin cop sauntered up and felt the pulse in his neck. When I looked up at him, he slapped me open-palm in the back of the head and pointed down, then walked off at a casual pace. Compared to the way he’d hit Goos, his blow to me was minor, but my front teeth had smashed together and I could feel some lingering pain there.
I was like that as much as half an hour, when I heard footsteps. In front of me, I caught sight of a pair of heavy work boots. I peeked up timidly and as I went south to north, I saw blue jeans and then a rifle barrel with a sight. Lifting my head fully, I found myself facing a man in a flak jacket and a black balaclava. He was holding a Zastava and smiled tauntingly through the stitched mouth of the ski mask.
He beckoned with one finger, indicating I should stand, then ambled over to Goos, who was still lying there, feigning unconsciousness. The Chetnik who’d appeared in front of me suddenly kicked Goos in the ribs, with the velocity of a soccer player striking a ball far downfield. The boots were probably steel toed, and Goos cried out and flew up off the dirt, landing on his side. He went fetal, until two others, also masked and armed with Zastavas, hoisted him up by the elbows with their free hands.
The first one looked beyond me and spoke, and I revolved to see a fourth man in a mask, with his AK pointed toward us. The cops and their car were gone. They must have coasted down the road, because I had not heard their engine.
The man whose gestures had brought me to my feet now spoke in Serbo-Croatian, and I shook my head to show I didn’t understand. He repeated himself to Goos, who, while standing, was bowed limply toward the ground, clearly as a means to contend with his pain.
“He says put your hands behind your back,” Goos said. His voice was husky and I could tell it hurt him to talk.
“Should I?”
“Suit yourself, Boom. They’ll beat you until you do. You fancy our chances two on four, and them with assault rifles?”
Goos tucked his hands behind his waist and I watched as the fourth man slid a white plastic zip tie over Goos’s wrists and wrenched it tight. I gave a second to the thought of fighting, largely as a matter of deduction. It was going to be my final chance, but I had learned in the last hour about the sheer terror that flows from the barrel of a gun. I’d never had a firearm aimed at me, and the fear driving stakes through my heart seemed entirely out of keeping with the reluctant cooperation and smart remarks people in the movies mustered in the same situation.