The Hill of the Ravens Read online

  “Certainly,” said Saltovic with a shrug. One did not rush

  BOSS.

  “How did you end up with the NVA?” asked Redmond.

  “When I was a child, I heard the American bombers coming

  for us in Belgrade,” Saltovic told them. “I was six years old. One night the sound of the jets was especially loud. There was a great flash of light and I knew nothing more for a long time. I am told that electronic sensing equipment heard me crying beneath the earth. It took the rescue parties almost two days to dig me out, during which they themselves were bombed and strafed several times by the Americans and some of them died, so their lives had to be added to my accounts payable as well. They haunt me in some ways worse than my own blood, those brave and simple working men of Serbia who never knew me or my family, who owed me nothing, and yet who kept on digging and seeking a crying child beneath the rubble even while Bill and Hillary Clinton’s power of darkness came for them and butchered them one by one. The men finally found me, and I lived. None other of my family did, besides myself. My father and my sister were never found, at least nothing that could be identified, but afterwards, I swore on the grave of my mother and my brother that someday the Americans would hear me coming for them, and that they would know the fear and the horror I felt during those days. It was the oath of a child, but I meant it. Fortunately for me, one of the housemothers at the orphanage where I grew up was an elderly Orthodox peasant woman from the countryside named Dorotta, who

  remembered the old ways, the old truths from the time of our fathers’ fathers, when men could speak such truth without fear. She would come to me at night when I had bad dreams about the American bombers, and she would sit by my bedside and we would talk, very quietly. She told me about the Jews, so that I came to understand that it was not only America that was my enemy, but also that evil alien race who are the enemies of all mankind, the enemies of all life.

  “I kept that promise of vengeance, Colonel. In my youth I became a Muslim of convenience for a time and pretended to be Bosnian, so that I could fight against the Americans alongside the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, and later on against the Israelis in Palestine. Then I heard that the white people of the Northwest had revolted against ZOG, and so I became a Christian again and crossed into America down by El Paso, on what was then the Mexican border before it moved north. I was caught by the U. S. Border Patrol, but then I pretended to be a Turk. I didn’t speak any Turkish, but neither did the Border Patrol, so they had no clue that in my jabber I was describing to them in Pashtun the various obscene and improbable acts their own mothers had performed with goats and horses. At that time the secular puppet government of Turkey were the only reliable Muslim allies with ZOG against the Saudis and the Afghans and the Palestinians and the Iraqis. So they had special orders to ignore Turks, and they let me go. I made my way Northwest, to Seattle, and made contact with the local Serbian community. In the orphanage we had no computers or television, only music, and I had come to love music as the only sign I could find that there was either a God or an Allah. I worked as a piano tuner for several months. One of my customers was a family of very rich Jews on Bainbridge Island. They had a magnificent Steinway and a beautifully restored seventeenth century harpsichord made by Stefano Faureggio of Pavia. The Jew boasted that the harpsichord had been ‘liberated’ by his grandfather from a German schloss of some kind during the Second World War. Eventually I met a man whom I had reason to believe knew where I could find the NVA. I told him I wanted to meet one of their commanders. The man said to me, ‘But why would they want to meet you?’ I told him, ‘Because I have something for them.’

  “After some delay I received a call from the man who told me to be in a boathouse on Lake Union at midnight. I came there at the

  appointed time, and I met Tom Murdock. I had a bag with me and this caused Commandant Murdock and his men to point their weapons at me in suspicion. Murdock asked me what was in the bag. I told him it was my admittance fee to the Northwest Volunteer Army. He became angry. He said ‘Yeah, we need money and that’s a fact, but nobody buys their way into the Volunteers!’ I disagreed. ‘I think you will find this an adequate price,’ I told him. They opened the bag and found the head of the Jew with the Steinway. After they had finished laughing Murdock told me, ‘I’d take your price, mister, but I’m afraid I don’t have change. All I got on me is two nigger heads and a Filipino dick.’ I shrugged and told him ‘So keep the change!’ Then those mighty men laughed even more loudly, and I was sworn in.”

  “You got in cheap. O. C. Oglevy would have sent you back to kill the rest of the family and burn the house down,” observed Redmond sourly.

  “Oh, I had already done that,” said Saltovic airily, waving his hand. “But I only had the one small bag.”

  “Er…right. So you fought with the Column until the disaster. Then where?”

  “Then with the Number One Seattle Brigade, as I suspect you know, Colonel, since you tell me you have examined my military records. Then I spent a time just after Longview with Charlie Randall where I carried out special assignments.”

  “Including the capture of Hillary Clinton herself, I believe?”

  asked Redmond. “I recall Corey Nash mentioning you once.”

  “Yes. That foul hag was attempting to influence her weak-minded daughter to abrogate the treaty and resume the war, and that could not be allowed. Randall saw a window of opportunity during an enemy political conference. I was able to infiltrate into the Denver Hilton by posing as a waiter and the rest I am sure you know. By the way, that man Nash is insane,” commented Saltovic.

  “Sir, I am aware of the fact that Mr. Nash’s treatment of Mrs. Clinton has been characterized as excessive even by some of our own historians,” said Redmond cautiously. “I am not sure myself whether he was left alone with her by accident or by design. I have always avoided asking. In any case, it should have been better handled, and I have stated that opinion personally to President Morgan. But she was a wicked woman and she deserved punishment, and if I may speak

  from personal knowledge, Mr. Nash has a story rather similar to your own.”

  “Yes, Colonel, he is a Rhodesian. I know what happened to his family. Nor do I, of all people, dispute that Hillary Clinton deserved death a thousand times over. She sent the bombers to Belgrade, after all. I do not criticize Mr. Nash or deny that I am very grateful to him. I am simply making an observation. I know the difference because I could see it in myself. There is a difference, sir, between evil and crazy. I am an evil man. Corey Nash is simply mad. I understood my own situation, and since the end of the War of Independence I have attempted to rectify it. I have tried to stop being evil and rejoin the human race through music. I hope I have at least somewhat succeeded. I kept my vow to avenge my family, Colonel. But after I had kept it, I knew that my parents would not have wanted me to live on in nothing but hatred and violence. My father was a cultured and gentle man who, I later learned, always did his best to try to make peace between the various nations of Yugoslavia. There comes a time when vengeance must end, sir, or else the enemy has destroyed yet another soul. I left the NVA when my duty was done, and I devoted the rest of my life to music, except when I was called up during Operation Strikeout, when I was attached to the military agitprop and psywar office. I know most Eastern European languages and I was able to help persuade the many Eastern European immigrants in British Columbia to support the Republic. Not that they needed much convincing in view of the persecution to which they were subjected by the Ottawa government and the B. C. provincial regime. Now, Colonel, may I inquire as to the exact purpose of your visit? If you have access to my files you probably know more than I do about my own career with the NVA, since I have forgotten quite a bit in the past thirty-odd years. How may I help you?”

  “You are one of the eight survivors of the Olympic Flying

  Column,” replied Redmond.

  “Yes,” said Saltovic, turning his head momentarily. He put his hand t
o his mouth. “That was a terrible time. The Republic lost some of the finest men and women who ever fought for us all. I’m sorry, sir, but they were…they were good friends. One especially. I assume you have some reason for reminding me of them?”

  “Mr. Saltovic, we need to speak of the events surrounding the destruction of the Olympic Flying Column during the War of Independence.”

  “Why?” demanded the pianist.

  “Trudy Greiner is coming back to the Republic on October

  22nd,” Redmond told him. Saltovic seemed to freeze. “She says she is innocent. She is demanding a public trial.”

  “What? Keep her away from me!” whispered Saltovic, his face suddenly going completely ashen. “I don’t know what you intend with this, Colonel, but do not ask me to go anywhere near her. I cannot. I swear to God that if you do I will find some way to kill her! I still remember some of those things. How to kill. Dear God, how could a woman so beautiful be so evil?” He looked up. His eyes had suddenly become almost insane. “But I want to be there when she is hanged!” he snapped.

  “If that is your wish, sir, and if a security court finds her guilty, then you would certainly have that right,” said Redmond neutrally. “We need to be sure of our ground, though, and go over once again what we do know about what happened. You drove the mortar truck from Hoodsport down to Port Orchard?”

  “Yes. It had to be me. I was the only one with a full CDL license, a license to drive an eighteen-wheeled vehicle, in case we were stopped. If that happened I had all my documentation and we would just hope to God they didn’t look inside the PVC pipes or notice that rather odd steel bar arrangement just behind the cab, the lift we would use to raise the mortar tubes into their firing position.”

  “How did you manage to get that license?” asked Nel. “How did you pass the ID and background checks?”

  “It wasn’t real. I had one forged when I was looking for work in Seattle. It was good enough to pass, and if it didn’t the cop who pulled me over just figured I was another foreign immigrant talking gibberish and would always take $50 to ignore it. My driver’s license

  wasn’t real either, but in those days all you had to do was talk like a

  foreign fool and the cops figured you were just another illegal. Since local police were forbidden to enforce what was left of the United States immigration laws, in some cases it was actually better to be caught with a forged document than a real one. ‘I am goot Amurrican!

  I come dis country for freedom, God bless Amurrica, iz greatest cuntry in verld!’ You get the idea.”

  “You and Frank Palmieri drove the mortars?” asked Redmond. “With Ed and Brittany McCanless driving your forward scout car?”

  “Yes,” said Saltovic. “Young Vitale wanted to go with me, he wanted to lay the mortars and fire them off. Like all young men, he enjoyed large explosions. But Commandant Murdock vetoed that.”

  “Why?” asked Redmond.

  “Because…” Saltovic chuckled, shaking his head. “Because, I think he felt I might not be comfortable with Volunteer Vitale. Or him with me.”

  “Because Bill Vitale is the illegitimate son of William Jefferson Clinton? The man who sent the bombers that killed your family?” asked Redmond.

  “Bill Clinton didn’t send the bombers, Hillary did,” said Saltovic again. “That is why I told you that I hold no grudge of any kind against Mr. Nash, even though my personal opinion of his mental stability is not good. Even in those days, before all the research and exposition done by the Republic’s historians, we knew that this was true, that Hillary was responsible for the American attack on Serbia. I knew it was true long before I came to America, although Clinton was certainly just as morally guilty of my parents’ death as was his evil wife. He went along with it. Commandant Murdock was actually incorrect in trying to keep Vitale and I apart. Despite a history of vendetta among the Serbian people that rivals that of the Sicilians, I personally do not believe in transferring the sins of the fathers to the sons. If you want to know the truth, I found the presence of Bill Clinton’s bastard progeny in the ranks of the NVA to be an amusing and edifying twist of fate. As to young Vitale himself, I liked him. Somehow I understood that he was aware of what his father did, but he was always too courteous to try and speak to me about it, and I found that very mature and honorable of him. After all, what could he say? ‘Gee, Drago, sorry my father was a berserk tyrant who slaughtered your family?’”

  “I understand. Now, the NVA men who ferried your two vehicles across Hood Canal. Did you know them?”

  “No. That often happened. People appeared out of the mist, sometimes quite literally in this land, and then disappeared after doing what had to be done.”

  “Their identities probably aren’t important, since it was the main column that was ambushed and not the mortar truck. Do you have any idea why the mortar vehicle was sent into the attack zone separately with such a small team of Volunteers or why Murdock kept the rest of the group together?”

  “No. Why? Is that important?”

  “The only reason I can think of why he might do that is if he were expecting the main column to be ambushed,” said Redmond thoughtfully. “But if that were the case, why did he walk right into it? Murdock was never that careless. It just seems odd to me. We have already interviewed Frank Palmieri and the McCanlesses, and I think that we have a pretty fair idea of what happened during your heroic assault on the courthouse, which jibes with our official military history of that day.”

  “We were not heroes,” said Saltovic. “We were simply doing what had to be done. None of us could have lived with ourselves if we had run away from the destruction of our brothers and sisters without striking a blow to make sure their deaths were not in vain.”

  Redmond spoke again. “Mr. Saltovic, there’s another angle we’re looking at in our investigation. That’s the possibility that what you might call a lover’s triangle between Commandant Murdock, Melanie Young, and Trudy Greiner might have some bearing on what happened at Ravenhill. It goes to motive, you might say. I know it’s been a lifetime ago, and believe me, sir, I’m not just fishing for idle gossip from the long dead past. But what can you tell us about the relationship between Trudy and Murdock and Melanie in that sense?”

  “Trudy Greiner was an extremely beautiful young woman,” said Saltovic. “That I will grant her freely. Yes, it is my understanding that when I first joined the Column, she was Commandant Murdock’s mistress. One has a feel for these things, you understand. And then there came a time when there was a perceptible change, just after Melanie Young arrived. We all knew, of course. You cannot keep secrets in such a close group of people who live in one another’s pockets and share the daily danger of death.”

  “Did you yourself feel any attraction to Trudy Greiner?”

  “Beyond the ordinary admiration of a normal man for such a woman, no,” said Drago. “There was another one of the female Volunteers whom I loved. A French Canadian girl. Her name was Gina. That story is not relevant to your inquiry, Colonel, except insofar as it tends to indicate that I am capable of judging the situation between Commandant Murdock and the other two objectively. Gina died with our comrades on that morning, but she lives on in my memory. In my heart, she is forever nineteen. Next question, please.”

  “Did you ever speak of religion to Commandant Murdock?” asked Redmond. “Were you aware of the fact that he wore a Mjolinir on his person and appears to have been a follower of the Old Gods?”

  “I seem to recall that he did, yes. There were men and women of all different Aryan religious persuasions in the NVA, Colonel. Many of us were there, in fact, because the dictates of religious faith demanded it and it was felt to be a duty to God or the gods as well as to mortal men to fight against the tyranny of ZOG. I myself once fought against ZOG in the name of Allah, as I have told you. But to most of us it did not matter why our comrades were there, so long as they were there.”

  “There must have been exceptions?” asked Redmond. “
Dr. Joseph Cord, for example?”

  Drago shrugged. “Joseph could be annoying, Colonel, but he had a very good instinctive feel as to just how far he could go and he was always careful not to cross that line. And no one has ever questioned his genuine devotion to the revolution. If I understand your hint, no, I cannot believe that Cord had anything to do with what happened to the Column.”

  “What do you believe happened?” asked Nel.

  “My understanding is that Trudy Greiner is known to have received one million dollars from an unknown source the day after the ambush, and it is certain that she disappeared. Why should we doubt the official version of events?” responded Saltovic.

  “If that version is correct, why would Gertrude Greiner suddenly decide to come in from the cold after all these years?” asked Redmond.

  “Do you know what motivated me during the time I was on my quest to avenge my murdered family and my murdered country, Colonel?” asked Drago grimly. “Most would say it was hate, and yes,

  there was great hate in me. But most of all it was guilt, the unreasoning guilt of the survivor. My family were gone, all destroyed, and yet I remained behind. Why? Why should they be gone forever and why could I not be with them? Religious belief aside, sir, one has an inescapable feeling of being cursed of God, that one’s survival is not a blessing but a punishment. Have you considered the possibility that this woman can simply no longer live with what she did and seeks to expiate her crime before the eyes of God and man?”

  “But she says she is innocent,” prompted Nel.

  “Her mind may believe that,” said Saltovic. “It is even possible, I suppose, that she is innocent in fact and that someone else betrayed the Column. But I can guarantee you, Sergeant, that her soul tells her she is guilty. She is guilty for being alive, while all those others whom she loved are dead.”

  “And how can you tell that?” asked Redmond.

  “Because there are eight more like her,” said Drago. “Me, and seven others.”