Rated R – Readers are strongly cautioned about brutal, frequently real-life, violence. Not overly graphic, but definitely disturbing. Some strong language, not enough sex.

Author's Note:

This story is the next installment of my Control/Lily A.U. I'll warn you right up front, it is possibly the darkest story I have ever written, and definitely the most difficult to write.

The difficulty has not been with the fictional characters (I do not kill any characters we really like, I promise), but with the setting. The story is set in history – in a particularly awful history. Writing about the party that surrounded the fall of the Berlin Wall was easy: Create fictional characters and stick them in a real, happy setting – no problem. Creating fictional characters and stick them in a real Hell, without trivializing the real horrors that happened to the real people, was much, much harder.

Real people died. Real people were lost and terrified, homeless and hungry, raped and tortured and murdered. Real childhoods were cut short, by death or by the experiences of survival. And real people were brave and courageous and heroic. So how could a story – and a fanfic at that – begin to do their story justice?

I thrashed around with a dozen different approaches to this story (with Paige providing wisdom and patience far, far beyond the call of duty). Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the only answer was to let them speak for themselves. So throughout this story you will find their words, in italics, taken from a number of exceptional books on the Balkan conflict written by the people who lived through it.

The rest is mostly fiction. The Cellist of Sarajevo really exists, but obviously he was never helped by Lily Romanov. The massacre at Srebrenica really took place, but Anne Keller was not the one to reveal it. That act of heroism belongs to David Rohde, a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, who uncovered the first hard evidence of the slaughter (with information from unnamed U.S. intelligence sources) and gave it to the world at enormous personal risk.

I tried to understand and interpret the history as well as I could. It is shameful, and also a dark commentary on our times and our news, that I started with so little knowledge of a terrible war that took place in my adult lifetime. And it is not entirely over. New graves are still being discovered. War crimes trials are ongoing at The Hague, and a number of war criminals are still at large. The ski jump that filled all our TV screens during the 1984 Olympics cannot be repaired, because it is surrounded by land mines. The young man who killed five people in a shopping center in Salt Lake City a few years ago had spent his childhood in Bosnia, fleeing with his mother from Serb forces when he was only four years old.

For any mistakes and misinformation this story might contain, I take full responsibility and apologize in advance.

Disclaimer: All things Equalizer belong to Universal and I'm borrowing them for entertainment purposes only; no profit is being made. Excerpts from various books have been credited appropriately (I hope) to the best of my ability. No copyright infringement is intended.

With thanks, as always, to Paige, my most excellent beta, brainstorming partner, and all-around brilliant friend, and to Steve, my husband, who always has a plot twist when I need one.

Jagged Little Pieces

I had a new tricycle, red and yellow and with a bell….Do you think they have destroyed my tricycle too?

Nedim, 5, refugee

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

Now (1995)

Robert McCall squinted up at the black dot in the sky. It grew steadily larger as it approached the lonely runway. He glanced at his watch. Four minutes before his expected rendezvous. By the time it landed and taxied, the plane's arrival would be exactly on schedule. Say what you would about the Company – and Robert frequently did – they knew how to make the planes run on time.

He looked to his left. A black van was parked next to his Jaguar. It had the extended cargo box and no windows. There was a dent in the passenger-side door, dried mud over the tires, city grime everywhere. Just another worker's van. Nothing very noticeable.

Nothing nearly as attention-grabbing as a hearse.

He looked back towards the approaching plane. A damp breeze came in off the ocean and he shivered. It was not cold. On the last true weekend of summer, the mid-day air was already hot and the humidity was climbing. The sky was oppressively hung with middling-gray clouds that would neither rain nor clear. Thunder grumbled vaguely in the distance.

No, Robert knew, it was not cold that made him shiver. He clasped his hands in front of him and waited.

The plane landed in a roar of engines and brakes and fumes, slowed to a crawl and turned back towards the tiny metal building that served as a terminal. Four men – jeans, work shirts, only their short haircuts giving away their true profession – climbed out of the van and waited beside Robert. No one spoke.

The plane stopped. The engines cut, and the field settled into an odd silence, until the sounds of waves and sea birds and traffic and the far-off city asserted themselves again. A blue-shirted attendant rolled rickety stairs out to the passenger door. Two more rolled a baggage cart to the cargo door. The four men from the van followed it.

McCall waited.

Half a dozen men in dark suits came down the front passenger stairs. Behind them, two men in uniform. Then two women, the two Robert was here to claim.

Two of the three.

He walked out to meet them. Anne Keller walked faster and threw herself weeping into his embrace. It caught McCall off guard, but he held her tightly. "There, there," he said. "Mickey's all right, isn't he?"

She nodded against his shoulder. Robert could feel her trembling. He looked up to where Lily stood, a good ten yards off.

Romanov was wearing a faded red baseball cap, with her hair shoved up under it. No, he realized, that was wrong. Her hair was short, so short that it barely peeked out from under the cap in jagged bits. As thin as she was, she looked boyish. And very, very young.

She also looked blank.

"Mickey's all right?" he repeated over Anne's head.

Lily nodded.

Annie straightened. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, I just …"

Robert studied the woman in his arms. She was much thinner than the last time he'd seen her, and exhaustion was etched on her face. And something more than that. Some unbearable grief, something she could not carry alone. He shifted, tightened his arm around her shoulder. "Not to worry," he said warmly. "You're safe now."

The four men carried a heavy wooden box to the back of the van and slid it inside.

"The pictures," Anne said.

"What?"

"The film," she repeated, gesturing towards the van.

"Ah." Robert understood. They – likely Lily – had been afraid someone would try to take the film from them, so she'd stuffed it in with the body. "I'll get it."

He half-expected Romanov to counter his offer, but she remained silent. He squared his shoulders and walked to the back of the van as they were closing the doors. "A moment, please," he said simply.

The men shared a look. Robert didn't know any of them, but they clearly knew who he was. They stepped back, let him climb into the van beside the make-shift coffin.

McCall's hands began to shake. He did not want to do this. Did not want to undo the cargo straps and open the box and look inside. But someone had to. And he had done worse.

With grim quickness, he slipped the buckles open and pushed the lid aside.

Within the larger box was a narrower one, also covered. Beside it was a zippered black pouch. Robert grabbed it, felt the film canisters inside. Good. He didn't have to view the body at all. Take the pictures, get out. He reached the pull the lid of the outer box back on.

Then he stopped. He didn't have to view the body. But it seemed somehow cowardly not to. Lily had seen it, and likely Anne, too. Could he ask them to bear what he had turned away from? And could he break faith with the woman whose body rested in the box? Could he turn away from her corpse as too disturbing, too disgusting?

He reached for the inner coffin. The lid was nailed shut.

With a silent prayer of relief and regret, McCall closed the outer box and stepped from the van.

Anne Keller was still waiting for him, still crying silently. He put his arm out and gathered her back to his side. "Is this all of them?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Good." He did not ask, yet, what was on the film. Instead he turned and scanned the airfield. "Where's Lily gone?"

Anne shook her head. "She was just here."

"Hmm." He turned to the men with the van. "Romanov?" he called.

"Gone," one of them answered.

"All right. Drive carefully."

The man nodded solemnly, and the van pulled away.

"Do you need to go with them?" Anne asked.

"No," Robert answered. "They'll take care of it. Her. The Company is very good at dealing with the dead. Unfortunately."

Anne shuddered.

McCall longed for answers, for information. He'd been given damnably little. Control had, in his usual brusque manner, told him only that Nancy Campbell was dead and Keller and Romanov were flying home with her. That Robert was to recover Anne and her cargo – presumably the film – and await further instructions. Nothing to explain how the young courier had died, nor why the women with her were so shattered.

Naturally, nowhere in the brief conversation had the word 'please' been uttered.

And yet, Robert thought, here he was, doing exactly as Control has asked. No, not asked. Ordered.

Just like old times.

He steered Anne towards the Jaguar. Whatever had happened overseas, she was in no condition to talk about it just yet. "What you need, my dear, is a hot bath and a good meal."

"What I need," Anne said, with some strength, "is a darkroom."

Robert frowned. His instructions had not included developing the film. But then, they hadn't precluded it, either. And who the hell did Control think he was, to be issuing orders to an agent who had retired years ago? "As it happens," he answered easily, "I am able to provide all of those things." He helped her into the car, dropped the film into her lap, and closed her door.

Circling to the driver's side, Robert glanced back at the airplane. It was already being fueled for another trip to somewhere. "Wherever you are, Mickey," he whispered to the sea wind, "keep your bloody head down."

Terrible reports and pictures are coming in from all over. Mommy and Daddy won't let me watch TV when the news is on, but you can't hide all the bad things that are happening from us children. People are worried and sad again. The blue helmets (actually, they're blue berets) have arrived in Sarajevo. We're safer now. And the "kids" [politicians] have retreated from the scene.

Daddy drove me to the building on the UN peace force command. He told me that now that the blue flag is flying in Sarajevo we can hope for something better.

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

Then

They were up a tree the first time he saw the cat.

Mickey Kostmayer was ten feet off the ground, with his back to the trunk and his legs resting on a wide branch, and he was half-asleep. On a branch above him, Lily Romanov was sprawled face-down, her arms and legs dangling over the sides. She looked like some pale, hairless ape.

Below, something snapped softly across last year's leaves. It was maybe twenty yards off, on the far side of the trail.

Mickey sat very still. They were shielded by this summer's lush green leaves; a casual observer on the trail would never notice them. He could hear Lily breathing, the slow hiss of deep sleep. No point in waking her yet. Whatever it was, it was soft and slow. One person, maybe two. Maybe children, as soft as the footfalls were. Not a Serb patrol. Not a scavenging band of refugees. He turned his head slowly so that he could look directly down on the wide trail when they broke cover.

The sound stopped. Perhaps they had seen him. Perhaps they were only watching to be sure the trail was clear.

Kostmayer waited.

They'd been resting for most of an hour. They'd been climbing for three hours before that. There were two ways to get to the Muslim enclave of Gorazde: On the road with the UN convoys, what the locals called the Blue Road, or on foot over the mountain. The Blue Road was supposed to be safe. The Serb military and militias were supposed to allow humanitarian aid and observers safe passage. If you had blond hair and a blue helmet and the correct papers, you could generally pass that way – provided you were with a large-enough convoy. If you were a Muslim refugee, however, that option was not available. You climbed the mountain on foot, up the game train through the dense forest, you gathered what aid you could, and you carried it over the mountain again on your back.

And whether your children ate or starved depended almost completely on how often you could make the climb and how much you could carry.

The whole situation, in Mickey's view, was seriously, seriously fucked up.

It didn't help that he'd seen half a dozen other places – this war and others – where exactly the same thing had happened.

It didn't help, either, that it was a beautiful day. Early summer, warm sun, cool breeze, miles of shady trees. Absolutely breathtaking views from every mountain peak. A challenging climb, if you were doing it for pleasure. Mickey was trained and fit, with proper footwear. Except for the threat of being gunned down by roving patrols, it had been a nice hike.

But the refugees who made this climb to feed their families had none of his advantages. They were bankers and bricklayers, doctors and accountants. They wore dress shoes or sneakers or no shoes at all. Mickey could feel how killing this climb must be for them.

They had passed two unburied bodies and three shallow graves on the way up the mountain. Lily said there were more. The refugees made the journey in loose bands, helping each other when they could, but no one would leave his food to carry a dead man off this mountain.

And in the winter…

The footsteps began again.

From the brush at the far side of the trail, a tailless leopard emerged.

Not a leopard, Mickey corrected mentally. There were no leopards here. It did have the same golden-brown color, the same dark brown spots. But the thickness of its coat, with a white layer underneath, and the stump that served as its tail were giveaways. What stood on the trail, looking casually around as if he owned the place, was a Balkan lynx.

The cat turned his head easily and looked up, directly into Mickey's eyes.

For all his years of training, and for all the weapons he carried, there was something deep in Kostmayer's primal soul that screamed, 'Climb higher! Climb higher!'

He grinned, shrugging off the instinct. He didn't think the cat could climb. Or, in any case, that the cat would climb. Too much fresh meat scattered around on the trail these days; no point killing your own meat. Although maybe lynx weren't scavengers. They'd glossed over local wildlife in the briefing.

The cat sat down on the trail and continued to stare at him.

"Lily," Mickey said, very quietly.

She didn't move, but her breathing changed. "What?" she answered, at exactly his volume.

"On the trail," he said, his voice reassuring her that it was all right to move.

Lily lifted her head. "Holy shit."

"Can they climb?" Mickey asked.

"Yes."

"Are they carnivores?"

"Yes."

"Do they scavenge?"

"Probably," Lily answered. "But we didn't see any evidence on the bodies that he has yet."

"Hmmm." Mickey moved his hand slowly to the butt of his gun.

Lily sat up slowly and resettled on her branch. "He's pretty."

"He's fat," Kostmayer answered. "I'm not sure that's a good thing."

The lynx stood and stretched. Then he paced slowly towards them. His feet were huge, but almost silent on the leaf litter. He never took his eyes off Mickey. He walked unhesitatingly to the base of the tree and looked straight up at him.

"Shit," Mickey breathed. He thumbed the retaining strap off his handgun.

Of course, firing a shot up here was likely to bring Serb forces down on them from all directions.

He and the cat stared at each other for ninety seconds. Then the lynx shook himself indignantly, lifted his leg, and pissed copiously on the tree trunk.

With a final shake, and without a backward glance, the lynx ambled back into the forest.

Lily began to giggle.

Kostmayer threw his head back and laughed out loud.

Now

Lily Romanov waited in the shade of the tin shed until the vehicles were gone. There were still people milling around, other passengers, airstrip people, but they didn't know her, so they didn't matter. When the van and the black Jaguar were out of sight down the gravel road, she stepped out of hiding and started to walk.

She didn't know exactly where she was going. Across the road, into the scrub woods, was as far as her thoughts had taken her. Away from people who knew her. Away from the cushiony leather seats of Robert's car, away from his calm and sympathetic voice, away from his comforting arms. Away from his pale green eyes …

No, those weren't McCall's eyes. They were someone else's, and he was already far away.

Further away than she could grasp.

Beyond the thin stand of trees was an empty factory. There was a chain-link fence, high and rusty. Lily scaled it easily, dropped lightly onto the broken concrete that had been the employee parking lot. Trash and leaves gathered in piles against the fence, driven by some long-ago wind. Dandelions pushed up through the cracks in the pavement and bloomed ridiculously yellow against their gray world. She bent to pick one. When was the last time she'd picked a dandelion? Years on years. She brushed her finger across the top, looked at the bright yellow pollen on her fingertip. There were explosives that color. Then she tucked her thumb under the flower's head. "Mama had a baby," she chanted softly, "and the head popped off."

She flicked her thumbnail and watched the blossom fly off the stem.

Pale green eyes. Head popped off.

Lily looked around. She couldn't stay here. Too open, too exposed. Too damn many trees. She needed to move.

She walked along the fence towards the far side, the bigger road. The air smelled of old rain and rusting metal. The broken concrete in the dull daylight, the hulking silent building to her left, the half-assed trees that would neither grow nor die. She'd been here before. Any minute another shell would come whistling down off the mountain …

She looked to her right. There was no mountain. Only flat, the river, and then the city.

A small plane buzzed onto the airfield and dropped out of sight.

Lily paused, orienting.

She couldn't very well walk back to Manhattan. She should have gone with Robert, or in the van … no. No. And why couldn't she walk home? She'd walked a hell of a lot further. And there would be no shells off the mountain. She could walk right through the middle of the vast parking lot and no mortar would fall, no sniper would fire …

She took one step towards the wide open space. Then she retreated again to the shadow of the fence.

She'd been here before. Not in the Balkans, but in Tennessee.

She wanted the sun to go down. She wanted the darkness to hide in.

She stuck close to the fence, and she began to walk.

On July 8 we got a UN package. Humanitarian aid. Inside were 6 cans of beef, 5 cans of fish, 2 boxes of cheese, 3 kilos of detergent, 5 bars of soap, 2 kilos of sugar and 5 liters of cooking oil. All in all, a super package. But Daddy had to stand in line for four hours to get it.

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

Then

His name was Pavle Racz. He was a small dark man of middle years and striking looks. Though he shared a table with six other men, he rarely spoke.

He was also a JNA captain.

"Ah, hell," Lily said. "Are you sure that's him?"

"I'm sure," Harley answered. "If you got the name right, he's the guy." He took a sip of his tea. It was lukewarm and pale; the leaves had probably been used three times already.

"What do we want him for?" Nancy Campbell asked.

Lily shrugged. "We just want him."

"We just work here," Mickey interpreted.

"Exactly."

They looked casually across the half-empty coffee house to where their target sat. His tea was significantly darker than theirs was. Naturally, the army officers got the best of everything.

"No play here," Gage said quietly.

"No," Romanov agreed. "We need him alone."

Kostmayer shifted. "Can we drop him in a bag?"

Lily shrugged.

"You know," Harley said, exasperated, "just a little more information would be awfully useful right about now."

"If I had it, I'd give it to you," Lily promised. "All I know is that Jason Masur wants him in New York. In one piece."

The men sighed in unison disgust.

"Isn't he Control's boss?" Nancy asked.

"He likes to think so," Mickey snarled.

"This guy must be really important, then."

"Don't bet on it," Lily answered.

The four sat in silence again. "So what do we do?" Nancy finally asked, too eagerly.

"We wait," Kostmayer pronounced.

"Just wait?"

"Yes."

"And watch," Harley added. "Catch him alone and let Lily talk to him."

"Why me?" Lily asked.

Gage raised one eyebrow. "Because he's a man. And you, angel, can talk any man into anything."

The courier shrugged. "That's true."

They sipped their tepid tea and waited.

The Serbs left an hour later. The spies lingered briefly, haggling over the check. When they reached the street, all the other officers were gone. Racz was sitting on a bench at the bus stop.

The buses had not run regularly for a year.

The agents paused on the sidewalk, milling around like their casual date was breaking up. "If they made us," Harley warned, "this could be a trap."

"One way to find out," Lily answered gamely. She walked across the street and dropped onto the bench next to him.

The officer glanced at her, then looked away. "When Tito was in charge, the buses always ran on time."

"And now they don't run at all," Lily answered.

"Did Jason send you?"

"Yes."

The man stood up, then looked back at her expectantly. "What took you so fucking long?"