Krstic had swapped his police uniform for that of the Serb irregulars. He took out a pistol and put it in the mouth of her baby brother Senad, who was only two years old. His little cheek was swollen by the barrel, like having a lollipop inside it. ‘Hello, Nermina,’ Krstic said. ‘Would you like to help your family? Otherwise it will be bad for them.’ Then he drew a knife and held it against her cheek and told her to take her clothes off. ‘Are you a virgin?’ he asked her. He said he liked virgins very much indeed.
Nermina was brave; she could do this thing, she had to do this thing. Once again, she understood. Her mother screamed and begged the policeman to rape her instead, but he ignored her. Krstic yanked down his trousers and the Chetniks cheered him on. Nermina was on the floor and weeping, and he was above her, with his unkempt beard and rotting teeth, and a half-smoked cigarette hanging from his mouth. This was what he had wanted, all those afternoons when he had watched her in her school uniform. But now, for all his desire, he could not make himself erect. The more he tried, the worse it got. His fellow Chetniks laughed and pushed him out of the way so that they could try.
Krstic was angry he had been humiliated. ‘Turkish whore!’ he screamed at her when the others had all finished. At first he said he was going to kill her, but then he thought of a crueller punishment: he would allow her to survive. One by one, he shot her family. Her baby brother first, then Emir who was eight. After that, and holding Nermina in his gaze, he shot her mother and finally the father she adored.
Krstic ordered the other Chetniks to leave her there, lying bruised and naked amid the corpses of her family. It was his punishment for her. The Chetniks were confused, but—as usual—Nermina was old enough to understand.
Rachel cried. She felt ridiculous and petty for having doubts about Danny: to unearth atrocities like these and recount them was journalism at its noblest. She wanted to meet survivors of ethnic cleansing like Nermina. She wanted to tell their stories to the world, so that it could know. Danny Lowenstein had not only been there and gathered this poor girl’s harrowing testimony, he had retold it with compassion.
She read a few more pages until the day overwhelmed her. She turned off her torch, put her hands between her thighs for some extra warmth, and drifted off into a half-sleep in which she gave thanks that the Bosnia Danny Lowenstein was describing with such power was no longer an ocean away: it was all around her.
Post-Liberation Baghdad, 2004
At the Hamra, a clunk announced the death for the day of the air-conditioning system. Baghdad had devoured its paltry quota of power. There was less electricity than in Saddam’s time: for all their billion-dollar programmes, the occupiers couldn’t keep the lights on. Soon, the last of the artificially cool air would be gone, chased out of the room by the high fever of an Iraqi summer’s day, as overheated as Bosnia’s winter had been frozen. The thermometer in the kitchenette said 122 degrees Fahrenheit and the Junkies wiped their fevered brows.
‘Drink, anyone?’ asked Edwin, his baldness reflecting the sunlight that cascaded through the window. He fetched a couple of large bottles of water from the fridge which, like the air conditioning, was lifeless, as if it had died in sympathy.
‘You know what, talking about that Vranac makes me want a glass of wine.’ Becky poured some red into a tumbler, even though it was still the middle of the morning. ‘Rach, you want some?’
‘No thanks. I’m giving it a rest.’
‘Ciggy?’
Rachel shook her head again.
‘God, that took me back.’ Rachel was still smiling fondly. For a while it had seemed they were in Bosnia rather than Baghdad.
‘Feels like a lifetime ago.’ Becky, having barely said a word, was starting to talk. The wine was helping. ‘We were babies really, you especially. I’d forgotten what a baptism of fire it was for you.’
‘I’d forgotten quite a lot of things,’ said Rachel.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Like what a sweetheart you were to me. And what a pig Danny could sometimes be.’
She said it straight, without humour, eyes locked into a steely stare at nothing in particular. Camille recoiled and studied Rachel more carefully. Who was she, this girl who seemed so endearing with all her naive ambition back then in Sarajevo? And a decade on, who had she become?
Munro came in and announced that First Cavalry had secured the area round al-Talha. They were offering to take him to the scene of Danny’s disappearance.
‘I’d like to come too,’ said Camille.
‘Not sure you’d find it very useful, and it might be quite upsetting. His car’s still there. Bit of a mess, apparently.’
Camille was irritated. Who was Munro to try and stop her? Danny was her brother, not his. She quietly insisted she would go and then, just to antagonise him a little more, she decided to invite Danny’s friends as well.
‘Maybe you guys want to tag along?’
Becky shivered again, the way she had when she first heard the news.
‘I don’t think so. Like he says, I’m not sure we would achieve much. Probably just get in the way’
‘Oh, I think we should,’ said Kaps. ‘There may not be another chance.’
‘Look, I just don’t want to, okay?’ Becky snapped.
‘Okay, Beck. It’s okay’ Rachel stroked her arm. ‘No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to.’
First Cavalry were taking no chances. Half a dozen Humvees with Mark-19 grenade launchers and .50-calibre machine guns formed an inner and outer ring around Mohammed’s car as if it were the Alamo. The vehicle still sat dead and useless where Abu Mukhtar’s boys had killed it.
In the end, all the Junkies had agreed to join Camille, even Becky. It was a question of supporting each other, sticking together. In a huddle they studied the car through their sunglasses. They were surrounded by a plain-clothes security detail from the embassy, requisite M16s on their hips, tight coils of plastic tubing sprouting from their ears and walkie-talkies glued to their mouths. Further away, nervy combat troops squatted on the road or lay face down in the dust and sand, pointing machine guns towards an enemy that could advance from any direction, at any time, in any form: a boy on a bicycle, a farmer pushing a wheelbarrow, a woman with flowers in her hands. The Holy Warriors of Iraq’s insurgency came in all shapes and sizes, and often with a belt of death tied around their waist.
Outside in the sun, Becky looked more washed out than ever. She knew she shouldn’t have come: her first instincts had been right; this would go badly for her. She’d held Rachel’s hand tight throughout the journey, and then cried in her arms when she saw the shattered windscreen and the blood baked dry on Mohammed’s seat.
A team of soldiers had started work, examining bullet casings, tyre marks and footprints, taking endless photographs and video footage of the scene. Munro was making his own measurements of the tyre treads on the road, and the distance between the bullet holes. He was in a world of his own, and making no attempt to involve Camille or any of the others.
The Junkies started wandering around, eyes fixed on the dusty ground. They seemed to be searching, too. Kaps, in particular, was preoccupied. He paced up and down imaginary channels, methodically