Part 4 (1/2)

Were not much good at warfare, though. Were so easy to find on the Internet. If notorious war criminals want to know whats been written about them in the media, they can find us, no problem.

It sounds to Malene as if Iben truly believes that her life is in danger. She seems to be going through many of the same feelings Malene has endured for years, ever since learning about her illness. Malene feels more connected to her old friend than ever before. She smiles and says shes going to get another gla.s.s of wine. This time Iben wants one too.

Back at the table, Malene quickly checks the dark street outside once again. Why now, do you think?

Because weve challenged somebody.

She sits up straight. Thats it. Someone thinks were making a difference. Enough for him to feel uneasy.

Malene wants to call Rasmus and goes outside to escape the music. Blgrd is a quiet pedestrian street. She looks around for Ibens men with swarthy faces and a military bearing. There are dozens of them. At this time of evening the street is full of immigrants gathered in small groups, almost all of them male.

Rasmus replies this time. Hes in a taxi, taking a few clients to a bar.

Malene tells him about the e-mails and Pauls advice. She adds that Iben is taking the threats much more seriously than she might have expected. Ive never seen Iben like this before. At least now she seems ready to admit that there was no one in her apartment.

Two years younger than Malene, Rasmus has a laid-back, boyish style that makes their age difference more p.r.o.nounced. Nevertheless, he is sensitive to her moods and able to s.h.i.+ft instantly from being narcissistic to being supportive. If only I were at home with you. We could find out more about this together.

They talk for a few more minutes. Malene feels happy because she has someone special to lean on, but shes aware that if she discusses her concerns even her illness for too long, Rasmus becomes restless. She hates to thinks about it, but he seems to have less and less patience.

Would any of your IT specialists know how to trace a sender?

His voice becomes animated at once. Actually, I know quite a bit about that. If your sender is smart h.e.l.l have e-mailed via an anonymizer site. If he has, we wont be able to trace him so easily. But lets make sure. E-mail his mail header to me. You should be able to find his IP address if you right-click on the mail. Choose Properties and then Details. If he uses a fixed Internet link, well have him cornered. If not, it will give us the name of his service provider, so well know which part of the world hes mailing us from unless he uses an anonymizer site, that is. If he does, well write a spyware program and send it back to him by using Reply. If we do it right, the spyware will pick up his personal details and mail them back to us.

Is it hard to write spyware?

Dont worry. Well try it when I come home. Rasmus doesnt sound eager to get off the phone, but he has to go. Well track down this lunatic, no problem.

In the cafe the music has changed from Steely Dan to Gotan Project. Iben has been in touch with people in England and France and is feeling energized. They all send their regards.

Thanks.

And they had loads of ideas about who mightve e-mailed us. I borrowed a notepad from the bar and began a list. Here, look. The list already has more than twenty names.

Malene sits down. I dont know where to begin.

Lets move to an Internet cafe.

Malene hasnt finished her wine, but she understands that collecting information is Ibens way of dealing with stress, so she drains her gla.s.s quickly.

While theyre getting ready to leave, Malenes cell phone rings. Its Lotta from the Swedish Study Program on the Holocaust and Genocide.

Iben called me earlier. Her phone has been busy so I thought Id try yours. I wanted you to know that Ive phoned around. n.o.body seems to have received any e-mails. Thats all, really. Except everyone I spoke to came up with people who might have done it. Do you have pen and paper handy?

Malene adds to Ibens list. Thanks. Thats great.

Youre welcome. Take it as a thank-you for your article. It was great.

What? Which article?

A Guitarist from Banja Luka. About Mirko Zigic. We had it translated and printed it in our weekly paper.

But Iben wrote it.

She did? I thought it was you.

No, I didnt. She did. Iben must have left out her byline in the Word version of the article. Then it hits her what the mistake means. Christ!

Whats the matter?

Malene has to make sure. Lotta, that article, is it on your Web site now in my name?

I think so. I mean, what we publish in print instantly goes onto our Web site as well. Automatically. Not that I Iben interrupts. Tell me. Whats happened?

Malene needs to sit down, but somewhere else, where they arent visible from the street. Holding the phone, she puts her arm around Iben.

Iben, Im so very sorry. In Sweden your article about Zigic was put on the Internet under my name.

Iben backs away. I see. Now we know. It couldnt be anyone else, could it?

Malene doesnt like the tone of her voice. No.

Mirko Zigic is the only one weve both written about.

A GUITARIST FROM BANJA LUKA.

Old friends of Serb war criminal Mirko Zigic still cannot grasp that their schoolmate is wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

BY IBEN HJGAARD.

Mirko was a guitarist in the band and composed most of their music, says Ljiljana Peric, who was at secondary school in the same cla.s.s as Mirko Zigic.

No question about it, he had something special. He believed he could make a living as a rock musician after leaving school. His band played a kind of intense, poetic guitar rock that only became the in thing a few years later. He was good, and we all wished him well, but no one really believed that hed make it apart from the boys in his band and a handful of groupies.

Ljiljana Peric is a political scientist from Serbia who attended the Oslo conference Strengthening Democratic Media in the Aftermath of War. Our hotel rooms were on the same floor, and, chatting in the elevator one afternoon, Peric touched on her early friends.h.i.+p with Mirko Zigic. Zigic has been charged with war crimes and is wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

We agreed to meet in the hotel bar that evening, and that I would bring my tape recorder.

THE GOOD YEARS: UNTIL 1990.

That evening, Peric began by describing the high school in Banja Luka, the town where she and Zigic grew up.

It was a large school, with more than a thousand pupils, and was built in the 1970s. Mirko was good-looking, and had a mane of blond hair and a thin face that made him look like a rock star. He arranged gigs in cafes and bars, not only for his own band but for others too. He might have made it if the fas.h.i.+on for U.S. grunge music had arrived a few years earlier and not when the war started.

I used to gossip about him with my girlfriends. Some of them were crazy about him. And I have such a clear image of Mirko putting up posters for concerts that he had arranged himself. He was so pa.s.sionate about music, always insisting that everyone should subscribe to his favorite music and not waste time on dumbed-down pop.

We were a mixed school Serbs, Muslims, Croats but we never paid much attention to ethnic divisions. After the economic crisis of the eighties the future looked bright for young people. The Yugoslav economy was buoyant and the country politically independent of both the Eastern and Western Blocs. Lots of people went shopping for clothes in Italy and traveled to places like Budapest for concerts or theater. The recent Communist past meant that tickets were much cheaper.

In 1990, one year after we had left school, there were occasional TV reports about small paramilitary groups stopping cars at roadblocks to check ident.i.ty papers. It seemed to be happening only in the countryside, so we figured it must be gangs of peasant blockheads who had nothing better to do than play soldier. n.o.body I knew even imagined it might be a precursor to war.