Somehow, they even managed to dampen the sound of the exploding mine.

“When?”

Blaney stared at the paintings on the wall across from his desk. He hardly noticed them, his focus so completely trained on the voice on the other end of the phone line.

“Yesterday. Around noon.”

“And I’m only finding this out now?”

“They thought they’d be able to pick him up again before-”

“Before I found out that they’d lost him?”

Silence on the other end.

“We believe he made his way to Athos and-”

“Of course he made his way to Athos,” said Blaney. “Even the cardinal knows that. The calls have been coming in since five this morning. And you’re sure he wasn’t hurt at the station in Kalambaka?”

“Yes…. I was told he got up at once. No injuries. But, as I said-”

“I know. No one was close enough to him at that point to be sure.” Blaney took a deep breath. He couldn’t let anger get in his way. “All right. We’ll assume he’s heading west. My guess is he’ll try for Bosnia, maybe Albania. He obviously knows the region. And he knows he can get lost in there. We just have to hope he makes a mistake.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And I want you to get in touch with me the moment you make contact. No one else, this time. And no delays. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good.” Blaney waited. “Then go in peace, my son.” He hung up the phone and turned to the woman standing by the door. “You say he sounded well, Gianetta?”

“Yes, Father.”

“But you didn’t see him?”

“No, not really, Father. Only from the window as he walked off.”

“And he didn’t say why he wanted to see me? He didn’t mention a … something he wanted to show me?”

“No, Father.”

“All right,” he said. “Thank you, Gianetta. You may go.”

She nodded, then left the room, closing the door behind her.

Again, Blaney stared at the pictures. No injuries. At least there was some good news in that.

Pearse had been lucky, a few bruised ribs, some lacerations, a twisted shoulder. The worst of it was the concussion. At least four or five days before the doctors at Kukes would let him go.

The Red Cross man and the young Indian had also escaped relatively unscathed. The driver, however, hadn’t fared so well. He lay next to Pearse, a battery of tubes hooked up to his arms, little sign of life save for the slight rising and falling of his chest. The heat inside the tent wasn’t helping.

It had been a day and half since the accident, Pearse only now able to focus his thoughts and prayers on the man for more than a few minutes at a time. Still, it was an improvement. It was also enough to get him out of his own cot; he stood. With his head pounding, he walked to the flap of the tent and stepped outside.

What he saw made Blace look like a resort. Pearse could almost taste the stench with each intake of air, thousands upon thousands of bodies more animal than human everywhere he looked. During the war in Bosnia, he’d visited two or three such camps, nothing to compare with the sprawl he now encountered. Hundreds of small tents dotted the mud-filled pastures, patches of gravel here and there where ICRC engineers had tried to stem the drainage problems. The toilets stood in a row along a steep slope, gravity their best hope against blockage. Everywhere, webs of rope line stretched from tent to tent, clothes hanging from them, an open-air tenement at eye level. Pearse knew the drill. Nothing to wash with, save the rainwater.

The town itself-bombed beyond recognition even a year after the official cease-fire-blended into the morass of canvas landscaping, the few remaining buildings given over to medical facilities. Even so, he was told that the spillover into the camp was beginning to take its toll, especially with the hot weather. Humidity meant flies; flies meant the threat of epidemic. A section of the camp had been isolated for several weeks, though never quarantined, family members insisting they be kept together. There was little any of the relief organizations could do to dissuade them.

An hour walking. It was all he could handle his first time out.

As much as knew he needed to get moving-Angeli’s voice never far from him-he also knew the doctors were right. He needed to take the time to recover. What they probably didn’t realize, however, was how much more they had given him.

For three more days, as his head cleared, he did what he could, “Baba Pearsic” allowed again to act the priest. Women, children, old men-the latter in the familiar flat hats, wool jackets, and countless layers of clothing-all seemed strangely comforted by him, those who knew they wouldn’t survive the camp eager to talk with him. Not about God or faith, but simply to talk. There were plenty of village hohxas wandering about, holy men to handle the more elaborate Muslim rites.

At night, he managed what little sleep he could, trying to ignore the occasional screams within the camp, depravity, like a virus, having spread even to the hunted. It only sharpened his memories. No one ever talked of rape, he remembered. Not because it was a sin, or because it might be too painful for the women involved, but because husbands and fathers thought of its victims as abominations, forever unclean, no matter what the circumstances or who the perpetrator. Proof that barbarism played no favorites.

It wasn’t all that difficult for the “Hodoporia” to slip to the back of his mind.

On the fifth morning, he was in the medical tent, the driver still stretched out on a bare mattress. Pearse had been with him through the latest surgery and half the night. When the most recent dose of morphine began to kick in, Pearse stood and started for the next mattress.

A voice from behind broke in: “I told you you could give absolution.”

The words in English stopped Pearse in his tracks. Not sure if he had heard correctly, he turned. The face he saw nearly knocked him to the floor.

“Salko?” Mendravic was already sidestepping his way through the mattresses, the same immense figure he had known a lifetime ago, his embrace as suffocating as the last one they had shared.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ian,” Mendravic whispered in his ear. He then stepped back, the familiar grin etched across his face. “Father, I mean.”

It took Pearse several seconds to recover. “Salko. What are you-”

“The priest’s outfit suits you.”

Still dazed, he asked again, “What are you doing here?”

“That’s all you have to say?” He laughed.

“No, I’m …” Pearse could only shake his head. Without warning, he pulled Mendravic in and embraced him again. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too. You, too.”

When Pearse finally let go, he was no less confused. “I still don’t understand-”

“Fighting the Serbs. I’ve been smuggling people in from Pri?stina for the last few months. Mainly through Montenegro.”

“So why here?” It seemed to be all he was capable of saying.

“Because two days ago, I heard about a ‘Baba Pearsic’ in Kukes-an American who’d been in Bosnia. Slitna, to be exact. Most of the Catholic priests are either in the north or in Macedonia. I thought I’d come and see for myself. And here you are. So, how’s the head?”

“That’s unbelievable.”

“You’ve stayed in one place for a few days. Not so unbelievable. Again, how’s the head?”

“About ninety percent.”

“So, better than it was before.” He laughed.

Pearse was about to answer, when movement from one of the beds broke through.

“You do what you need to do here,” Mendravic said. “I’ll be outside.”

Twenty minutes later, Pearse joined him. They began to walk.

“You make a good priest.”

“You make a good rebel.”

Again, Mendravic laughed. “Don’t flatter me. I’m not with the KLA, but I understand what they’re doing. It was the same with us. Except here, Dayton only made Milos?evic? stronger. Until your friends in the West understand that, there’s really no choice but to fight these people.”