The meeting took place in a windowless office with no name on the door and a sterile air about it, as if it was used only for emergencies, or for business that was supposed to remain secret.
Connors was there, but he said nothing. He stood by the door with his arms folded across his barrel chest like an executioner awaiting his orders. Freeman sat in his wheelchair, his hands lying loosely on the tops of the wheels. The two other men had arrived separately. One was American, a State Department official called Elliott who had a clammy handshake and an over-earnest stare and who clearly outranked the now-taciturn Connors. The final member of the group was a Serb, a small thick-set man with a square chin and eyes that never seemed to blink. He made no move to introduce himself and the Americans didn't tell Freeman who he was or why he was there, but it was soon apparent that it was the Serb who was going to have the final say. It was, when all was said and done, his country.
Elliott was shaking his head. 'Out of the question,' he said.
'She has no relatives,' Freeman said. 'No family members to take care of her.'
'She is a prisoner of war,' the Serb said.
'She's a child!' Freeman protested. 'A small, frightened child.'
'Mr Freeman, I can assure you that once hostilities are over, she will be released. This war will not go on for ever.'
Freeman thought he saw the beginnings of a smile flit across Elliott's face, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. 'And what then? How's a thirteen-year-old girl going to survive on her own?'
The Serb made a small shrugging movement. His eyes were hard and unreadable. Freeman couldn't see what he had to gain by refusing to allow him to take Mersiha out of the country.
'I can take care of her. I can give her a home.' Freeman leant forward in his chair. 'I'm the only friend she has.'
'She tried to kill you,' said the Serb.
'No,' Freeman said quietly. 'Your people tried to kill her.'
The Serb looked across at Elliott. 'Mr Freeman,' the American said, 'have you really thought this through? This girl knows nothing of America, she has no connections with the country, and she is a Muslim. What religion are you, Mr Freeman?'
Freeman was an irregular church-goer at best but he had no wish to be drawn into a religious argument. 'I'll be responsible for her religious upbringing. I'll make sure she has a tutor who teaches her about her religion, and her culture.'
Elliott had a file under one arm, but he made no move to open it. Freeman doubted that the State Department would have a file on a thirteen-year-old girl, and he wondered what was in the folder.
'The girl is a terrorist, and she will be treated as such,' the Serb said.
Freeman's eyes flashed fire. 'The girl has a name,' he retorted.
'Mersiha. Her name is Mersiha. She was with her brother, because you killed her parents. There was nowhere else for her to go. She's an orphan. Now you've killed her brother, she has no one. Where's it going to end? When they're all dead?
When you've cleansed the whole fucking country?' His hands were snaking with rage and he had to struggle to keep himself from shouting.
'Mr Freeman, there's no need to be offensive,' Elliott said.
Freeman glared at him. 'Listen to what he's saying, will you?
First of all he says she's a prisoner of war and that she'll be as right as rain once the war's over. Now he says she's a terrorist.
She's a thirteen-year-old girl, for God's sake. She needs help.
She needs a family.'
Elliott nodded as if he understood, but it was clear from the look on his face that he didn't care one bit how Freeman felt.
He took a slow, deep breath. 'You had a son, didn't you, Mr Freeman?' The 'Mr Freeman' came almost as an afterthought, as if Elliott was nearing the end of his patience. Freeman didn't reply. The room seemed suddenly cold. He held Elliott's stare and gripped the wheels of his chair. 'Are you sure you want to do this for the best of motives?' Elliott continued. Still Freeman didn't reply. He knew that the State Department official was trying to provoke him, to prove that he was unstable, and that if Freeman did lose his temper they'd never let him take Mersiha.
'There are also problems with adoption, Mr Freeman,' Elliott said. 'The authorities here aren't keen to allow their children to be taken away. They feel that their needs are best served among their own people.'
'In concentration camps?'
'You might also find it difficult to get the adoption approved back in the United States.'
Freeman kept his eyes on Elliott. He had only one card left to play, one threat to use against the hard-faced State Department official and his file. 'If you insist on leaving her in that camp, I'll have no choice but to go public,' he said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. 'I'll speak to every newspaper and TV correspondent I can find. I'll go to London and hold a press conference there, and then I'll do the same all across the United States.' He slapped the side of his wheelchair. 'I'll sit in this chair and I'll tell the world how a mercenary with blue eyes and a Virginia accent tried to blow away a little girl, and I'll tell them that the State Department wanted her to be kept in a concentration camp because they didn't want the world to know the truth.' – j Elliott studied Freeman, his forehead creased as if he were {v* contemplating a mathematical problem. 'No one will care,' he said. 'Besides, the mercenaries, if indeed they were mercenaries, were acting on your behalf.'
'They'll care,' Freeman replied. 'And you know as well as I do that once it gets into the media, you'll have no choice but to let her into the States. And I don't think it'll be too difficult to prove that they were assisted by the State Department. I'm sure the New York Times would love to know what you and Connors are doing here.' He paused for breath. 'Look, this isn't a poker game. I've no reason to bluff. You allow my wife and me to adopt Mersiha, or I go public. One or the other. Your choice. And don't worry about the adoption. I'll go to the best lawyers in the States, I'll pay whatever it takes.
Whatever.'
Elliott looked across at the Serb. Freeman kept his eyes on Elliott, as if he could get the answer he wanted by sheer force of will. He didn't see how the Serb had reacted, but he heard Connors shift position behind the wheelchair.
'You take her,' Elliott said. 'You take her today. I'll arrange the paperwork at this end, you'll be responsible for all costs.'
Freeman nodded. 'Agreed.'
'I haven't finished,' Elliott said smoothly. 'You are never to come back to this country, Mr Freeman. Neither is the girl. If the girl leaves, she is never to return. And you, Mr Freeman, are never to speak of this again. To anyone.'
Freeman nodded. He couldn't stop himself smiling. He'd won. He'd played his last card and it had been a trump.
'I hope you understand what I'm saying, Mr Freeman,' Elliott said, his voice suddenly hardening. 'You will not talk to anyone about what happened. In the cellar. At the camp. Or within these four walls. It never happened.'
Elliott stared at him, and Freeman knew that there was more that the State Department official wanted to say. He wanted to tell him what would happen if he broke the agreement, and Freeman knew that it would involve a man like Connors, or maybe a man with blue eyes and a Virginia accent, and he was suddenly scared. Before Elliott could continue, Freeman nodded, almost too eagerly. 'I understand,' he said. 'Mersiha's all I want. Nothing else matters.'
Elliott continued to stare at Freeman, and for a moment Freeman feared that he was about to change his mind. 'Thank you,' he said. He looked across at the Serb. 'Thank you,' he repeated.
The Serb and Elliott exchanged glances, then left the room without a word. Freeman turned his chair around to find Connors leaning against the wall with a sly smile on his face, slowly shaking his head. 'You're a lucky man, Freeman,' he said enigmatically.
Freeman opened the refrigerator door and peered inside. He pulled out a carton of orange juice and took it over to the sink.
As he poured himself a glassful he looked through the window and across the lawn to the line of trees that separated his property from that of his neighbour. Mersiha was playing with Buffy, throwing a blue frisbee for the dog and laughing each time she ,* brought it back. It was a game Buffy would happily play for hours " amp;' at a time without getting bored. Mersiha's laughter carried into the kitchen and Freeman smiled. The teenager who was running across the lawn was a far cry from the frightened girl he'd taken from the camp in Serbia almost three years earlier. She was a great deal taller, almofffa* young woman, and her jet-black hair was thick and shiny.
'Go get it, Buffy!' she shouted. There was hardly any trace of a Bosnian accent any more. The all-American girl. Freeman drank his orange juice. Mersiha saw him and ran to the back door. She burst into the kitchen with all the energy of a SWAT team.
'Hiya, Dad,' she said, hugging him around the waist.
'Hiya, pumpkin. Do you want a ride to school?'
'No, thanks. Katherine will take me later.'
Freeman put his glass in the sink and untangled himself from Mersiha's hug. She picked his briefcase up and handed it to him.
'What time are you coming home?' she asked.