Battling Brexit Read online

  “That is nonsense, John,” Hristijan snaps. “Chancellor Merkel and I already discussed the need for more security on the Croatia-Bosnia border.”

  Lucija throws her fork down. “All the evidence I have indicates that credible threats can be addressed using existing measures, before they even get to your precious little rock in the North Atlantic.”

  Watson arches an eyebrow. “And what qualifies you to make that judgment? Being Mr. Bektashi’s daughter? Without added protection on the UK’s borders, this is who is standing between the British people and a terror attack?”

  Lucija folds her arms and slouches in her chair.

  Erika gets out of hers and walks up to him. “What’s with you? You’re mean.”

  “And you are certainly…direct. Apparently it runs in the family.” Sir Jonathan arches an eyebrow again and points at me. “Maršal Marković”—he mangles the pronunciation—“may I have your answer?”

  I stand from the table. “I don’t know you. How am I supposed to know what your real motives are? With what you’re asking, you could support the UK leaving the EU, for all I know.”

  He laughs and passes a hand through the air. “I assure you, I am heartily opposed to Mr. Farage and his so-called Independence Party. The precise reason I am asking this of you is to send a message to the people of the UK that the EU will allow the UK to ensure its own safety, according to acceptable British standards. I am trying to head the Brexiteers off at the pass.”

  I mull it over for about three seconds. “No. What you’re proposing would result in an even harder border between the UK and the Schengen Area. That’s what I’m supposed to be fighting against. My answer is no.”

  “Well, that is certainly a shame,” Watson replies. He reaches into his suit coat and takes out a small card with his name on it. He writes something on the back with a pen that he keeps in his coat pocket. “Here, this is my personal number. Call me day or night, if you change your mind.”

  “Thanks, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

  Hristijan arches an eyebrow. “You have your answer, Jonathan. Now, please leave us to have our dinner in peace.”

  “Thank you kindly for seeing me at this late hour,” Sir Jonathan says by way of departure.

  Hristijan shakes his head as the elevator doors close. “I don’t know what it is with that man. He says he has the best interests of the Union at heart, but it’s like he keeps trying to use that as an excuse to rip it apart. You made the right decision, Elena.”

  I wonder why he bothered giving me his card. I stuck to my guns. That’s what counts. That’s what I’m going to keep doing.

  Drago

  I stand outside the entrance to La Bécasse, in front of its crossbarred windowpanes. I must have looked through them a thousand times. I see her waiting inside and I take a deep breath. I start to walk up the stairs just inside the wood-paneled restaurant.

  A waiter dressed in a shirt and bow tie walks over to me. He points at the smock from the guild that I have over my clothes. “Excuse me, sir, I’m afraid you’re going to have to take that off.”

  I look around suddenly feeling very underdressed in the old T-shirt, hoodie and jeans I have on under it. I struggle out of the smock, hurriedly fold it and stuff it into my frayed book bag.

  “I see we’re going with the vintage look.” The waiter sniffs.

  I notice Emilija with an almost mischievous smirk on her face from halfway across the room.

  I feel too embarrassed to admit that my frayed appearance isn’t a fashion statement. The waiter keeps staring at the stained Croatian Dinamo football scarf that I have around my neck. I can tell he’s about to demand I take that off, too, that he thinks it means I’m some sort of soccer hooligan.

  I take a step toward the waiter and glare. “Either I keep this on, or I walk. Deal with it.”

  The waiter backs down. I walk over and sit in the chair across from Emilija.

  “Hey, you made it. I’m sorry. I should have asked if they allow stuff from the guilds in here.”

  “It’s all right.” I shrug. “I should have expected it. Thanks for inviting me.”

  She pushes back some of her long bangs. “Please, I’m the one who almost ran you over.”

  There’s an awkward silence. The waiter comes and takes our order; she orders for me before looking me right in the eye, like she already knows me. “So, you’re Drago Horvat.”

  I stammer, “I think you have me at a disadvantage.”

  “Probably.” She shrugs. “I do with most people. After I almost ran you over, I took a picture of you with my phone and then ran a facial recognition program on you. You’d be surprised what kind of info is out there on the internet.”

  I jerk my head back in a combination of surprise and worry. I don’t know how much she knows about my past in Kosovo, if there is some kind of record of what I did that I don’t even know about. “Frankly, there’s some stuff I wished you didn’t know. What do you study again?”

  She shrugs. “Informatics, but that’s just so I have the degree. I’m already a top-notch hacker, if I do say so myself. I also know you study political science, come from Kosovo and don’t have much in the way of money. Oh, and you were raised by some Mujahedeen UÇK unit.”

  I flinch.

  She gives me something that is almost a compassionate smile. “Don’t worry, you and your brother don’t have much of a paper trail beyond that, but it makes checking up on you more of a challenge than with most people. I like a challenge. Here, I brought something for you.”

  She reaches into her computer bag and takes out something wrapped in a lot of packaging. Emilija pushes it across the table, a white and red scarf with some designer label on it. “I got this near the Grand Sablon for you this afternoon.”

  I reach up to feel the tattered, bloodstained scarf around my neck. I feel like I have to accept the new one. Probably saying thank you would be the most diplomatic thing.

  Emilija must see my expression change. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”

  “No, it’s great. It’s just, I took the scarf I have now from my dad’s body, when my parents were killed by the man who took me in. I’ve worn it ever since. It’s hard to explain, but it’s my own form of resistance against everything that’s happened to me. A sign that I’ll never give in no matter what.”

  She takes the scarf she bought and puts it in her computer bag. “I’m sorry. I should have known. That was insensitive of me.”

  “It’s all right. How can it be insensitive if you didn’t know?” I sigh, trying to draw attention away from me and my background. “If you’re interested in our student guilds, just let me know. I hope you know you’re free to come hang out with us whenever you want.”

  She almost jumps up from the red-cushioned bench seat. “Interested? Are you kidding me? Can I ride along with your guild on Saint V’s Day?”

  I sigh. “Yeah, you could if we had a truck. Maybe if you come down to Belgium again next year.”

  She puts a hand on my arm. “Wait a minute, you’re not renting one? What about this year?”

  “That isn’t in the cards for us right now. The former president of our guild changed his course of study to business administration and joined their guild. We don’t even have enough money to rent a truck, let alone decorate it.”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “Maybe I can help with that. I’ll just ask my dad if he can send you some.”

  “Who is your dad, by the way?”

  “Ranko Stanić,” she says simply.

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Ranko Stanić? The Ranko Stanić? No way.”

  “Yes way,” she goes on, like she’s just a normal person, not the daughter of one of Bosnia’s most successful refugees. “Now that I know what happened to your parents, I hope it doesn’t bother you that I’m a Serb,” Emilija finishes after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Not in the slightest,” I tell her, and I mean it. Now I know I can’t say no to her. “My best fr
iend was a Serb, once upon a time. You never did anything to my parents, or me. I just hope that it doesn’t bother you that I used to fight for a bunch of Muslim Albanian extremists.”

  “Are you kidding me? My dad dealt with my mom’s death by promoting reconciliation between Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia. He makes sure the two integrate in the factories he opened back there. Like I said, I’ll ask him about sending you some money for Saint V’s Day. You can even come and meet him in Gothenburg when I fly back home for winter break, if you want.”

  I put a hand on her arm. “Thank you. Really. I think I’ll take you up on that.”

  Elena

  I sit in the residence’s living room, hunched over my textbooks on the coffee table. Hristijan’s wife walks into the living room with the mail.

  “Here, this came for you.”

  My level of tension shoots up. It is mail from the British Permanent Representation to the EU. Apparently, I have to go to the post office at somewhere called the Porte de Namur to pick it up.

  Lucija snatches her mail out of Lara’s hand without even looking up at her, from where she’s staring at her laptop. I’m about to ask Lara how to get to the post office and go, when something I’ve been wanting to ask for the past few months occurs to me again.

  “Hey, Lucija, can I ask you something?”

  “Make it quick.”

  “Do you have something against Lara?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Cut the bull and ask me what you really want to know. Lara is my father’s second wife after all.”

  “All right, what happened to Mojca?”

  “He divorced her and after that my mom…well, she went away.” Lucija gets up. She walks into her room.

  “Why? How? What happened? Is she still alive?” I call after her.

  “Hell knows,” Lucija calls behind her and slams the door.

  I shrug and ask Lara how to get to the post office, wondering what set Lucija off even more than normal. I walk to the dedicated elevator, which takes me down to street level. The wide ring road with tunnels in it is spread out in front of me. Turning to my left, like Lara told me, I walk down the sidewalk to where the post office is.

  I try to go directly to one of the desks. A bunch of people yell at me and tell me I have to take a number from this machine-thing and wait. After about fifteen minutes, my number and the post office window that I guess I’m supposed to go to comes up on a red electronic screen. I walk up to the window and give the guy behind it the piece of paper. He takes it and walks off to rummage through some envelopes and packages. Eventually, he comes back, hands me an official-looking envelope and makes me sign for it.

  I stand over to the side of the post office and open it with my thumb. Inside is an invitation:

  Maršal Marković,

  Your presence is kindly requested at a reception at the embassy and Permanent Representation of the United Kingdom to celebrate your arrival in the city. To be held on Oct. 15 at 20:00.

  Sincerely,

  Sir Jonathan Watson, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the European Union.

  I roll my eyes at the pompous title that’s almost longer than the actual message. I imagine that a lot of high-ups in Brussels are going to be there. I’ll look either like an idiot or a snob if I don’t go. I try to tell myself that there’s nothing wrong with going to a reception held by the same guy who wants me to support Britain hardening its border. I don’t really want to go, but maybe this is one of my duties as Maršal. No matter what Sir Jonathan tries to throw at me, I’ll never change my mind.

  Six:

  The Proclamation

  Drago

  I enter Tour et Taxis’ Gare Maritime, where Afrim and I live. I walk down the hall at the back of it, where the offices for the management and staff used to be, into the room that we sort of fixed up.

  I throw the piece of scrap metal I scrounged up on the room’s bare concrete floor. “Hey, Afrim, I found this huge piece of scrap metal lying around outside of a construction site. We should be able to get at least twenty euros for it.”

  Silence.

  “Afrim?”

  I walk back out to look over the covered main atrium of the station, its loading platform and the abandoned rail track, sunk down into a well.

  I cup my hands around my mouth. “Afrim? Are you here?” My voice echoes through the Gare Maritime’s cavernous steel and glass space. No response. This reminds me of when he volunteered for that arms smuggling mission and I had to go after him, back in Kosovo, the time when I met Elena’s parents and they couldn’t rescue me.

  I walk back into our room, past where both old mattresses are on the floor, behind where I tossed the scrap metal. There is a note on the unfinished table in the corner, next to the bucket we use as a washbasin:

  Drago,

  I had an idea about where to get the money for the Saint V’s Day. Went to go see Avdi for the funds this morning.

  My eyes roll skyward at how bonkers his idea is. I never told him about my dinner with Emilija the other day. I didn’t want to get his hopes up if she doesn’t come through. Apparently, he went to ask for money from the guy who took us in and went along with it when al-Qadir made me fight, the same guy I now want nothing to do with. When will Afrim get it that, even though Avdi raised us since our early teens, he doesn’t have our best interests at heart? Who knows what Avdi, or his benefactor, might do to him?

  I try to call him on my dumb-phone. No response. I hurry out of the Gare Maritime and check all of his favorite hangouts—the Marie-José Park, the Pigeon Soldiers monument, the walking street near Comte de Flandre. Nothing. It’s now midafternoon. I think I know what is going on. It’s happening. Al-Qadir and his Mujahedeen are coming for us. They have Afrim. But I don’t know where and I don’t have the money to pay any ransom, if they’ll even accept that. Maybe Emilija could hack into something and find out, but that wouldn’t help me get him back, even if she could find him. I don’t want to get her involved unless I absolutely have to.

  I tell myself to keep calm, like always. Maybe it’s nothing. Afrim and Elena have been spending a lot of time together lately, much to my chagrin. Maybe he had his little meeting with Avdi and then finally worked up the courage to show up at the Croatian residence. If that is it, I’ve got to confirm it. I look for Elena’s phone number, but then I realize I never asked for it. I run into the Comte de Flandre subway stop and climb over the machine designed to make you pay. I change for the number six line at Arts-Loi and take it one stop. I break back into a run for the Croatian Residence, hoping to find him there. None of the alternatives are good at all.

  Elena

  Erika rushes into my room, her mouth running at a kilometer a minute. “You won’t believe who’s at the front entrance, on the intercom. It’s that Kosovar-Croatian guy who you keep saying never pays attention to you at school. Are you going to buzz him in, or are you going to send him packing? Because, either way, I want to watch.”

  “Whoa, slow down, Erika. Did you have too much caffeine or something? Just let me talk to him.”

  I walk out of my room, down the hall to the intercom that connects to the doorbell directory down on the ground floor.

  “So, look who’s finally decided to acknowledge my existence,” I say, thoroughly intent on making him eat a large slice of humble pie over how he’s been treating me, now that he’s here.

  Those plans go away the second I hear the current of worry in his voice. “Is Afrim there?”

  “No. Why would he be here?”

  “This is bad. I really need to talk to you, alone.”

  Part of me wants to call him a prick and send him on his way, but another doesn’t. Afrim was basically one of my first friends and if something happened to him then I have to do something. “Okay, I’ll buzz you up. The elevator doors should be open when I do. When I see you’re inside through the security cams, I’ll activate the elevator.”

  “Okay, thank you.
”

  I hang up and do what I told him I would.

  The next thing I know he’s standing in the entryway seeming out of place, uncomfortable, in an old soccer scarf, a frayed leather jacket and ratty sweat pants.

  Before I can say anything, I hear Erika behind me. “So you’re the guy that drives Elena crazy at the ULB? Did you know that your brother can tutor her better than Dad? Tell me, why don’t you like her being the next Maršal of Yugoslavia? Because she says that really bothers her and…”

  I cut her off. “Erika, go play in your room.”

  “But I said that I wanted to…”

  “You said watch, not talk our ears off.”

  “Oh, okay.” Her shoulders cave and she walks off.

  Drago and I stand there, awkwardly. “Sorry about that,” I finally manage to say.

  “It’s fine.” He brushes it off. “Are your mentor or your counterterrorism cousin here?”

  “No, they’re at work. Lara’s out. It’s just me and Erika. Why?”

  “Because they can’t know about this. Afrim is missing and I think he might be in the clutches of the Mujahedeen organization that we used to work for. He left me a note this morning saying that he was going to meet with the guy who raised us. Sometimes he gets these crazy ideas and I don’t think he realizes how dangerous they are—how dangerous that man is. I came here hoping that this was all in my head and that I would find him with you.”

  I hunch my shoulders. “Sorry, I don’t have a clue where he is, but I can help you find him.”

  “Thanks, but I understand what I’m dealing with. You would just slow me down,” he says, almost a little too defensively.