Having tied us, the four masked men walked us over the crest in the road, about one hundred yards, to two small square cars with Serbian license plates. They shoved us roughly into the backseat of one car, while the apparent leader walked ahead to the other vehicle.
I tried to talk myself down from panic, which would be paralytic. Killing two credentialed investigators from the International Criminal Court had to be bad juju. Cell tower records would provide a rough fix on our whereabouts when we were taken, and dealing with a dependent state like Bosnia, the Western powers behind the Court would demand accountability. Unless those countries had signed off on this. Perhaps that was why Merry had turned over the documents? As a cover? No, that was ludicrous. But I couldn’t understand why exposing a small-timer like Ferko seemed to merit a death sentence. We didn’t even know what we’d found.
“I don’t think they’re going to kill us,” I said to Goos.
The blood flow from his temple had still not fully subsided, accumulating on the front of his shirt and soaking the collar. The side where he’d been kicked didn’t seem to hurt any less now that we were sitting down. In response to me, he merely shook his head, not agreeing so much as acknowledging what I’d said.
After a few more minutes on the road, I whispered to Goos, “Where are we?”
“Near Tuzla,” he mouthed.
I couldn’t understand the reason to take us back to where we’d been, except to return us to our hotel, even though logic told me that was unlikely. Did they want it to look like we’d disappeared on our way home? I kept on with thoughts like this, adding things up to mean we’d be safe, and then again, concluding we were in deep trouble.
After another half hour, I saw out the window the same landmarks we’d passed when Goos said we were near Tuzla. I wondered why we were circling, which, on reflection, seemed to be what the cops had been doing as well. The answer, when it came to me, drove another icy shard of terror into me. They were waiting for dark.
By now the sun was declining toward the mountains, the first faint hints of pink starting to color the sky. I tried not to be sentimental or morbid, but wondered whether this was going to be my last sunset. It was probably an illusion, but it felt worse to be dying for reasons I couldn’t understand.
As the horizon faded toward purple, we started off in a new direction. The terrain seemed familiar, and for a second my hopes sparked that we were going back to the Blue Lamp after all. Then we made a sharp turn and headed up into the hills, where I knew no good outcome awaited us.
About ten minutes later, we left the paved road to ascend on a dirt path, where the dust clouded up like fog, reflecting in the headlights. We passed through a gate, but the property, whatever it was, seemed heavily forested, leaving aside yellow and green pipelines that ran close to the road, rising and falling with the contour of the earth.
“Ah, Jesus,” said Goos.
“What?”
“It’s a salt mine.”
The words—or Goos’s agonized tone—intensified my terror. The old saying, ‘Back to the salt mine,’ seemed to equate places like this with harsh conditions.
“Are we headed for the bottom of a mine shaft?”
“Not likely,” said Goos. “They mine these days with water.” He outlined the process briefly. Rigs drilled as if for oil. The dense salt deposits created a sealed chamber under the earth, and freshwater was pumped in through the green pipeline, driving salt-laden water out in the yellow one. The salinated water was stored in the huge white tanks I’d seen before, when we drove by with Attila. The salt water was then shipped to production facilities, in which evaporation produced the celebrated salts of Tuzla.
I was surprised that the two Chetniks in front didn’t bother to tell Goos to shut up while he was grunting his way through this explanation. I took it at first as a sign that our situation was completely hopeless—they didn’t care what we talked about because there was no way out. Then it dawned on me that they probably had another reason to let us speak.
“English,” I mouthed to Goos and nodded toward the front seat. One of them was probably fluent and gaining intelligence just by listening. Goos smiled somewhat bitterly in response. I knew Goos had a better idea than I about what was coming, and that I should ask, but I was beginning to try to find a place of peace.
In another moment, the cars ground to a halt. The four masked gunmen jumped out and tore open our car doors. We were parked beside three enormous white water tanks, each at least a hundred feet high. With AKs pointed, the men instructed us to walk toward the nearest tower. I still had no idea why, until we came around the side, where a narrow ladder ran to the top. Goos took one look and fell to the ground, and I followed suit.
The one who had kicked Goos before did it again. With his hands tied behind him, Goos had no way to protect himself. The guy kicked him twice, the second time with another huge windup. Goos screamed and was left groaning afterward. In the meantime, the leader motioned to one of the men we’d ridden with. As I suspected, he spoke good English and sounded American. It crossed my mind that he might even have spent time in Kindle County, where we had a large Serbian community. I amused myself for a second with the thought of asking him if he knew Rusty Sabich, a judge who was also Serbian and could pass as my friend.
“If you like,” the masked man said, “we can beat you so that you’ll be glad to be dead, or you can go up the ladder and die like men.”
In the wake of the second kick, Goos was lying on his back, coping with his pain. He spoke in a low voice, once he was able to.
“I’ve had enough, Boom. But suit yourself. No hard feelings either way.”
He rolled over at that point and struggled to his feet with the help of one of the Chetniks. I thought about it and followed his lead, but told off the English-speaking guy as they were grabbing my elbows.
“Ferko has no reason to treat us like this,” I said. “And he’ll never get away with it. They know at the Court that we were in Vo Selo and what we found. If we disappear, Interpol will make Ferko’s life a living hell. This is pointless.” I added another two-word message to Ferko, which, as they said when I was an adolescent, was not ‘Let’s dance.’
At the bottom of the ladder, one of the Chetniks held a length of yellow plastic utility rope, which he formed into a noose. He put it around Goos’s neck and then, after letting out about six feet, doubled the rope around my throat so that Goos and I could basically be garroted at the same time. Then he sliced through the zip ties on our wrists with a steel box cutter. The two who had driven us here, including the one who spoke English, climbed up first, with their rifles slung across their bodies. The other pair circled their AKs as a sign for Goos and me to follow.
“Ready?” Goos asked me.
I nodded. I still wasn’t sure if we were about to be shot, or hanged by tossing us from the top. For the present, the nooses ensured that we couldn’t make any attempt at escape by jumping off the ladder as we ascended. Even if we miraculously timed it perfectly and leapt off together, the impact when we fell to the ground might effectively hang at least one of us, maybe both.