21 DECEMBER 2005
ANOTHER BITTERLY cold morning found Anna Rosen outside the walls of Scheveningen prison. It had taken nearly a week in the slow Christmas season to get the permissions she needed from the registry of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Now she shivered, pacing up and down in front of the giant fortified gate. Her long black coat swished with each turn, her boots clicked on the cobblestones. She was waiting for Willem van Brug. She clenched her jaw to stop her teeth chattering, an exaggerated effect that she reckoned was more due to agitation than the chill. The lawyer was not late. She was early. This morning she would see Marin Katich for the first time in thirty-three years. An absurd phrase of her father’s kept repeating in her head: Nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
The previous day, Anna had taken the familiar number 1 tram and got off at World Forum. It was a short walk from there to the imposing building at Churchillplein 1, an appropriately severe, brutalist structure, which housed the ICTY. She entered via the glass box of the security office, which had been grafted onto the entrance. X-rayed and wanded, she was directed inside to a young, tough-looking Nepalese guard behind a desk in the foyer, to whom she explained that she had an appointment to see the court Registrar, Prometheus Singarasa. While she was waiting, Anna chatted with the guard and discovered that he was a Gurkha.
‘My dad fought alongside Gurkhas against the Japanese in New Guinea,’ she told the young man. ‘He brought back a kukuri knife and put it up on the wall. I remember him showing it to me when I was a little kid. He kept it sharp as a razor.’
The young man was surprised.
‘They must have been good friends to give him a kukuri,’ he said.
‘I guess so,’ said Anna. ‘He did say he was glad they were on his side—but, friend or foe, they’d slit your throat in the dark if you forgot the password.’
The Gurkha man was still laughing at this when a short, elegantly dressed man walked up to introduce himself. Prometheus Singarasa was as handsome as a Bollywood star. He had perfect hair, an unlined face and shrewd brown eyes.
‘Good to finally meet you, Anna,’ he said, his Australian accent both obvious and unfeigned. ‘You won’t know this, but you’re one of the main reasons I ended up in The Hague.’
‘Ivo Katich?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I went to work for the DPP just out of law school and got involved in drawing up his indictment. Pity he never made it to trial.’
‘Yeah,’ said Anna. ‘He should have died rotting in prison.’
‘We were pretty confident of a conviction, that’s for sure,’ said Singarasa, ‘and we were ready to go. Anyway, the Katich case gave a whole bunch of us war crimes experience. That’s why there’re so many Aussies here—the perfect line in your CV. So, welcome. Sorry it’s taken so long to meet you, I was at a conference in Belgrade.’
‘Your office told me,’ said Anna. ‘I’m sure I’ve been a nuisance calling them every day.’
‘You’re here now so come on, I’ll take you in.’ He touched her elbow and led her through a second set of security doors to a lift. ‘It’s a bit of a rabbit warren. The ICTY grew like Topsy and took over the whole building. It’s ugly, I know. Used to be the HQ of a big insurance company, but that was good because they had big disaster-proof bunkers for storing their documents.’
The lift arrived and Singarasa pressed 3.
‘First two floors are the judges’ chambers,’ he explained. ‘The Registry’s on the third, along with the investigators.’
‘That’s where Pierre works?’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘And the investigators John Ralston and Bob Reid are there. Both Aussies. Both former NSW homicide detectives, actually; you should meet them. Bob’s here, I can introduce you.’
‘I do hope to meet them both, Prometheus,’ Anna said as the lift opened, ‘but not today.’
Singarasa gave her a quizzical look as he led her into the corridor.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain later.’
•
Singarasa showed her into a large corner office with windows on two sides. Anna accepted his offer of coffee. She had relaxed somewhat when she learned of his involvement in the Ivo Katich case, but that also meant he knew a great deal about her journalism and that familiarity could work against her. She knew that without his agreement, she was sunk.
As the senior legal officer of the war crimes tribunal, Singarasa had the authority to allow her to join Tomislav Maric’s defence team. This he had already agreed to in principle after a written request from van Brug, but he had insisted that Anna must sign an agreement not to publish anything about the case until it was concluded: no journalist articles, no public commentary, no book. He had wanted to meet her to formalise the arrangement face to face. When the coffee came, he handed her the written agreement. She read it quickly and looked up.
‘Should I sign it now?’ she asked.
‘You realise that it’s completely binding?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Maric case could go on for years.’
‘I know.’
‘You won’t even be able to talk about the indictment.’
‘Yes, I know it’s sealed,’ she acknowledged. ‘Why is that?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Is it something to do with the witnesses?’
Singarasa gazed at her impassively for a moment, making a calculation. ‘Look, Anna,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll tell you this much off the record because it may be relevant to the case. Several potential witnesses to the events in the indictment have recently died suspicious or unexplained deaths.’
‘What? Is Maric a suspect?’
‘I really can’t tell you …’
‘How many potential witnesses? Can you tell me their names?’
Singarasa shrugged. ‘Van Brug will be given this information in due course.’
‘A mystery, then?’ said Anna.
‘Yes,’ said the Registrar. ‘I know you’re good at them.’
‘Okay, where do I sign this thing?’
‘Before you do,’ said Singarasa, ‘I’m curious. Why do you want to do this? What is it about this case? It won’t be the most high-profile trial. He’s far from the biggest war criminal here. Why are you so interested?’
Anna composed her face and appeared to consider his question. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, Prometheus,’ she said. ‘Provided you let me sign this first.’
Singarasa’s shrewd eyes widened, he had not expected such a response. ‘Now I really am curious.’
‘Do you agree?’
‘If you were anyone else, I’d say no,’ he said. ‘But all right, I agree.’
‘Good,’ said Anna. She signed both copies of the agreement and gave them to Singarasa to countersign. He did so, handed over her copy, and watched as she put it into her briefcase.
‘So?’ he said.
‘Okay,’ she said, pausing to take a breath. ‘There is no such person as Tomislav Maric. The man you have locked up is Marin Katich. He’s the son of Ivo Katich and he was born in Sydney.’
The Registrar looked startled, his unflappable demeanour deserting him.
‘Oh my God,’ he cried, running both hands back through his perfect hair as he calculated the implications. ‘Ivo Katich’s son?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s just … Well, it’s unbelievable.’
‘I know, Prometheus,’ said Anna. ‘It’s a lot to take in.’
‘He’s Australian?’
‘Unless he gave up his citizenship. But I’ve no reason to think he did.’
‘His Croatian papers?’
‘Forgeries, I imagine. Not so hard to find a new identity during a war. Remember he had a nom de guerre in Bosnia. Maybe he knew the real Maric well enough to obtain his birth certificate.’
‘You know what’s going to happen, don’t you,’ said Singarasa, his voice rising, ‘when it comes out that Ivo Katich’s Australian son is locked up here, waiting to face a war crimes trial?’
Anna responded in a deliberately neutral tone. ‘I know exactly what’s going to happen,’ she said.
‘I’m going to have to put out a press release about this,’ Singarasa said. ‘And then every Australian tabloid, every journalist under the sun, will be camped out here. They’ll be chasing after me, they’ll be after Pierre, and every other Australian working at the tribunal. Ralston’s away right now, thank God, but there’s Bob Reid in the investigations unit. His wife, she’s a lawyer. Christ, there are so many of us.’
‘I know all that,’ said Anna, locking her eyes on his. ‘That’s why I need to get in to see him as soon as possible. In the meantime, you don’t have to say anything at all. First you’re going to have to find the proof that what I’ve told you is true and that will take some time.’
Singarasa nodded glumly, then picked up the signed agreement from his desk. ‘Bloody hell, Anna, did you trick me into this? You know you won’t be able to say anything, no interviews. That would break the agreement and you’d be locked out forever.’
‘Prometheus, that’s the last thing in the world that I would do.’
‘I’m trusting you, Anna. I’d lose my job if you talked.’
‘You can trust me,’ she said and she meant it.
•
Anna’s face was pale in the winter sun and would have been paler still were it not for the faint touches of colour she had begun to apply before abandoning the effort, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror as if she were mad. She was thinking about Rachel when she spotted the lawyer’s gangly, long-limbed stride in the distance. She had resolved to say nothing to Marin Katich about their daughter, but she was worried she might suddenly lose her composure and blurt it out.
‘Goedemorgen, Ms Rosen,’ said van Brug, and Anna looked up in surprise, wondering how he had managed to cover the ground so quickly.
‘Good morning to you, Willem, and please call me Anna.’ She reached into the briefcase slung over her shoulder. ‘I have brought something for you. My book on Ivo Katich.’
‘Ah, thank you,’ said van Brug, taking it carefully in his gloved hands as if handling a precious artefact. ‘“Australian Nazi”—I can see how the family would not have welcomed the publication. I will read it with great interest.’
The lawyer took a moment to secure the book in his own briefcase.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘there are several security points before we reach the meeting room, so I must remind you that you cannot be carrying any weapons or contraband, and no recording devices. We are permitted to take with us documents or books as required, so this one is not a problem.’ He patted his briefcase. ‘And notebooks and pens. This is understood?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Good, good,’ he said, dipping his long face to one side.
‘Is there anything else, Willem?’
‘I was wondering if you are perhaps a little nervous?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m anxious, of course, that it goes well, and about where to start talking after all this time.’
‘I know you don’t want me in the room for this first meeting, so I will take you in, make some excuse and leave you alone. I will go back to my office to wait, but I will expect a full briefing after, yes?’
‘Of course.’
‘And tomorrow he must also speak to me,’ said van Brug. He had already made this clear, but wanted it confirmed. ‘There is much to do.’
‘I will do my best to convince him.’
‘You must,’ he said. ‘Now, I have told the commandant two hours for this first meeting. Do you think you will be that long?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I imagine that will be up to Katich.’
‘If you send me a text when you do know, I will come and pick you up outside the gates.’
Anna agreed and then shivered. She had been standing still for too long in the icy air and her face, only partly protected by the high astrakhan collar, had gone numb.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said van Brug. ‘You are going blue from the cold. That was thoughtless of me. Come, it’s warm inside.’
Their bags were X-rayed and they passed through the airport-style metal detectors. Then, accompanied by a guard, they walked into a courtyard past the prison hospital. Ahead was a high razor-wire fence and behind it a modern-looking four-storey block—the purpose-built UN detention unit. Here was a second round of security screening, more X-ray machines, handheld metal detectors and bag searches before they entered a communal meeting room where two colourfully dressed African woman were seated at a table talking to a black man with cropped white hair. The man glanced up at Anna and she saw his bloodshot, malarial eyes pierce through her façade of normality. She felt a griping pain in the pit of her stomach and hoped she wouldn’t have to make a dash for the toilets. Van Brug pointed out a closed door at the end of a hallway—a special room, he explained, for conjugal visits. She glanced at him, suspecting some peculiar attempt at humour.
Then they came to a guard sitting outside one of several small rooms in the same corridor. Beyond the guard, through a thick glass window, she saw a dark figure sitting behind a plain wooden table, smoking distractedly. Somehow she recognised the shape of him. Van Brug inadvertently moved between her and the man in the room, but as the lawyer talked to the guard she managed to catch fleeting images of what lay ahead: an ashtray full of butts; a haggard man, thinner, but still powerful; burning eyes; strands of grey-streaked hair falling across his face; and something else, something intangible. Had she caught in his restless shifting some trace of the old Marin Katich?
The lawyer was saying something to her.
‘Sorry, Willem, I wasn’t listening.’
‘You can go in,’ he said. ‘The guard will stay here. You have two hours. Don’t forget to text me.’
She went through the door and shut it behind her. Marin Katich looked up at her, a burning cigarette poised mid-air in between tobacco-stained fingers, a wisp of smoke, expressionless green eyes. Anna stood still, her back pressed against the closed door. Some time passed before she spoke.
‘Can I have one of those?’
The green eyes blinked. ‘I thought you’d given up,’ he said.
‘That’s funny,’ she said.
‘Not really,’ he said.
Remaining seated, he shook a cigarette from the pack and held it out. She walked towards him unsteadily, took the offered smoke, bent as he lit it for her and then straightened, stepped back and drew on it, swaying a little.
‘Christ, that’s made me dizzy,’ she said.
‘You lose the taste for it, I suppose.’
‘Do you mind if I just put it out?’ She leant down and ground it into the ashtray without waiting for his answer. ‘Seems like a waste. These are probably like currency for you.’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘You can get them from the commissary. Everyone smokes in here. It’s like a Balkan café.’
‘It sounded a lot worse in your letter.’
‘A café full of psychopaths.’
‘Where should we start?’
‘You could take your coat off and sit down.’
‘I can’t …’ She paused again. ‘Give me a moment.’
‘At least stop pacing around. You’re making the guard nervous.’
‘Look!’ she said, louder than she intended. ‘I just don’t know who the hell you are.’
‘Now you’re making me nervous.’
‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘Okay, I’ll sit.’
Anna pulled up the chair, hung her coat on the back of it and sat.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
‘Not for me.’
In the long silence that followed, Marin lit another cigarette.
‘I’m just so fucking angry with you,’ Anna said finally. ‘That’s why it’s so hard to sit still.’
Marin nodded.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I get it. Why don’t you start by asking questions?’
‘No, you don’t get it! I thought you were fucking dead, mate!’
‘They wanted me dead,’ he said, ‘and once they thought I was, I had to stay that way.’
‘Who is they in that sentence?’
‘Those who betrayed me. It’s a long story. Is that where you want to start?’
‘For fuck’s sake. I have no idea where to start. Don’t answer a question with a question. Up until last week, as far as I knew, you’d been dead for thirteen years.’ Anna automatically touched the tear-shaped scar under her left eye. ‘Thirteen years!’ she repeated. ‘Thirteen years ago, I came looking for you in Bosnia and almost got myself killed.’
Marin stared at her, incredulous; a long piece of ash fell into his lap. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘It happened in June 1992. I was in Mostar looking for a man who called himself Cvrčak and I got blown up by a mortar shell.’
‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘A mortar shell? How badly hurt were you?’
‘It’s a bit late to be fretting over my welfare, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s just …’
‘What, Marin? Unbelievable? It’s very hard for me to accept that you didn’t know about this.’
‘Anna, you have to believe me, I have no idea what you’re talking about. This is … Not just unbelievable, it’s incredible. I didn’t think anything could surprise me, but this … You have to tell me what happened to you.’
‘I was lucky,’ she said. ‘No serious damage. They patched me up and we drove to Ljubuski the next day. Went to your headquarters. That’s where your man, Jure Rebic, showed me the bullet-riddled car you were supposedly in. That was a nice touch.’
‘Wait, you met Jure Rebic?’
‘He was very convincing.’
‘I’m sure he was. He’s one of the world’s biggest liars—’
‘Fuck this! Don’t tell me you didn’t put him up to it! You must have heard I was coming. That whole scene had to be a set-up. It’s all too—’
‘Anna!’ said Marin with a sudden intensity. ‘I know you’re angry. You’ve got every right to be, but please, just stop interrupting for a moment and listen.’ He pushed back his chair, stood and pulled up his T-shirt.
Anna winced at what she saw. From high on the left side of his chest and down over his belly to the beltline, his flesh was crisscrossed with ugly ridged scars, evidence of rough battlefield surgery. He pulled the shirt back down, sat and lit another cigarette.
‘They took eleven bullets out of me, along with my left lung,’ he said and smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, what an idiot to be chain smoking with one lung, right? That man you met, Jure Rebic, he was responsible for this. He’s the one who betrayed me. He’s the reason I was in that car. He sent us into the trap. My best officers, all of them, were slaughtered. It’s only by a miracle that I survived.’
Anna stared at him across the table, looking for the truth in the eyes she had once known intimately. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but whether that was from tiredness or emotion was impossible to tell. Time and distance and bitter experience had turned them into the eyes of a stranger—but in them she also saw Rachel.
‘Tell me about Rebic,’ she said.
‘It started in Vukovar,’ he said. ‘That’s where I met him.’