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Kosovo, 1948
Petar sipped his slivovitz—plum brandy—seemingly studying the clear liquid while he was, in fact, watching a man in the smoky Kosovo bar.
Petar’s body was compact and wiry without a trace of fat beneath his open wool sports coat and button-up white shirt. His brown hair was combed smooth to the side, and a thick mustache hid his upper lip. In the dim bar, most of the men were two hours past drunk. There was a good chance they had stayed well-oiled since May 8, 1944, when the war ended.
The man, Omer, was no exception. Petar wasn’t surprised. They had served together in Josip Broz Tito’s Partisans, fighting the Nazis for a new Yugoslavia. Omer was a large fellow, towering over Petar and outweighing him by a good twenty kilograms. But his weight tended toward fat, and he had never been able to hold his drink. Petar wasn’t worried.
Omer drained a beer and set the mug down loudly on the table, glanced at his watch, and scraped his chair back to stand. He plucked an overcoat off a hook near the door and pulled it on, missing one sleeve on the first try. He screwed a fedora onto his large head, and pushed into the night, a swirl of cold, damp air scurrying into the bar as he exited.
Petar stood and followed, leaving his glass of plum brandy practically untouched.
Outside, a slight drizzle filled the night air. The cobblestone street was deserted and all the businesses that lined the street had closed hours before. Petar listened as Omer’s footfalls echoed on the stone, and silently followed.
No moon, no streetlamps illuminating the street, and the alleys that dissected it were darker still. Omer wasn’t staggering, but an observant eye could pick up the unsteadiness of his gait. As Omer approached an alley, Petar closed the distance between them, and just as Omer was about to pass the alley entrance, Petar made his move. His left hand shot up to cover Omer’s mouth and he pushed Omer several body lengths into the darkness. Omer gasped as Petar spun him around and pressed him up against a brick building with no windows, in the exact spot where Petar had planned to have this conversation. Petar kept his hand on Omer’s mouth and banged his head against the brick wall, knocking off the fedora. Petar pressed his forearm against Omer’s throat, firmly enough to keep him docile but not so much as to cut off his air. Omer’s eyes went wide with fear, then narrowed in recognition. Petar removed his hand from Omer’s mouth.
“Petar,” the man gasped. “What the hell?”
Petar almost smiled, but his thin lips barely twitched beneath his mustache.
“What’s this all about?” Omer demanded, a tentative, indignant tone to his voice.
“Stalin.” Petar whispered, lightening the pressure on Omer’s neck, allowing space between the man’s back and the brick wall.
A look of suspicious hope passed over the man’s face. “What about him?”
“If someone wanted to join Stalin, what would they do?”
Omer took a deep breath, brushed off his coat, looked toward the street, back to the dark, depths of the alley, then to Petar. “Well,” he smiled. “You’ve come to the right place.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Petar, bending down to pick up Omer’s fedora from the wet and dirty ground. As Petar reached up, as if to put the hat back on Omer’s head, a thin, sharp blade secreted beneath the hat touched Omer’s neck. The blade tip drew a red line across his flesh, blood spurting out as it crossed the artery so close beneath the surface of the skin, ruining Petar’s white shirt. Omer’s eyes widened in surprise. His mouth opened but no sound came out as Petar held him up against the wall again with a forearm to the chest.
“Tito doesn’t like Stalin,” Petar whispered. “You should have known better, old comrade. Nothing personal. It’s just my job now. OZNA.”
Omer seemed to almost nod in understanding. It made perfect sense that a loyal soldier like Petar would naturally become a member of OZNA—Tito’s secret police. Of course, he would be tracking down Stalin sympathizers.
Petar waited until the blood pumping from Omer’s neck slowed to a trickle, then he stepped back. Omer’s body slid down the wall and crumpled onto the ground. Petar placed the fedora on Omer’s head angled down over his face, as if he were sleeping.
Petar slid the knife back into its sheath inside his boot, pulled his wool coat tightly closed, buttoning it up to the neck to cover the ruined shirt. He walked to the alley entrance, looking to the left and then the right. Nothing stirred, not a leaf, not an alley cat, not a soul.
He fished a cigarette out of a pack in his jacket pocket along with a lighter, which he clicked to life, briefly illuminating his face. His expression betrayed no emotion. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, allowing the calming effect to relax his mind, then turned and walked in the opposite direction from whence they had come, footfalls silent on the deserted street.
