North From Dorćol
When Russian gunmen destroy his cover in Belgrade, CIA officer Paul Doran has eighteen hours to reach Hungary, relying on his mechanic friend Ivana while concealing his suspicion that their transport contact betrayed him. That gamble leaves Ivana wounded and their friendship fractured, forcing Paul to choose between a clear escape alone and returning to fight for her life. They reach medical help with the pursuit ended, but survival cannot restore the trust his omissions cost.
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Paul Doran rinsed his plate while the lift stopped below his apartment. His phone said twelve fifty-seven in the morning on June sixth, two thousand twenty-three. Beside the sink, the acoustic meter he had used that evening still carried a smear of plaster dust. For three years, building noise had paid for his presence in lower Dorćol, Belgrade. At thirty-nine, living alone, he could finish a late meal without speaking until morning. Tonight Ivana Kostić had kept him on the phone.
“The brake hose is split,” she said. “You get the car when I replace it.”
“I only need it for tomorrow.”
“That is when you need the brakes.”
He dried the plate and set it upright. His last consulting appointment started at nine. After that, departure, the end of the rented flat, the end of explaining why he measured ventilation noise at awkward hours.
“I could take it somewhere else.”
“Then take it somewhere else. You asked me to fix it.”
Ivana owned the repair business across the Sava. She had also been his friend long enough to refuse instructions he dressed as consideration.
“Seven?” he asked.
“If the part arrives. Call first.”
The lift doors closed below him. Two sets of footsteps climbed the final flight.
Paul turned off the tap.
“Someone there?” Ivana asked.
“Call you in the morning.”
He ended the call and put the ordinary backup mobile in his trouser pocket. His pistol lay behind the folded dish towels in a drawer. He took it out, checked the chamber, and put on his jacket from the chair. Twelve cartridges. No spare.
At one in the morning, a hard impact drove the apartment door against its frame. A second struck lower. Paul moved away from the kitchen doorway as a shot punched through the lock. He fired once when a shoulder and a gun appeared in the opening. Plaster burst beside the man. A second man moved behind him.
Paul went through the rear service door before the answering shots reached the kitchen. The stairs behind the flat connected the kitchens to a roof landing. Down led to a locked courtyard gate overlooked by three floors of windows. Up led across an adjoining roof into the next building. He had used that connection while measuring an extractor fan the previous winter.
Paul climbed.
The Russian officer he had recruited had already left Serbia. The work had ended that afternoon. There was no object in the apartment worth dying beside, nothing to recover or deliver. Paul, a Central Intelligence Agency case officer under a consulting cover, now needed to get out of Belgrade and reach protection in Hungary. First he had to get outside the streets these men had closed around him.
A shoe scraped the flight below. Paul pushed through the roof door, turned behind its brick housing, and waited just long enough. The first pursuer came up with his gun extended. Paul fired twice. The man fell across the threshold, struck the door with his shoulder, and began making a low, continuous sound.
Paul crossed the roof with nine cartridges left. From the edge he saw a man covering the courtyard below. A pale estate car stood beyond the gate, its driver’s door open. Another man waited beside it. A dark saloon was parked farther along the street.
The adjoining building’s upper stairwell window had been locked since Paul last used it. He broke the lower pane with the pistol butt, reached through, and lifted the catch. Glass cut the outside of his left forearm as he hauled himself inside. His sleeve filled at the wrist.
Below, someone shouted in Russian. Paul understood the words.
“Other building. Move.”
Through the stairwell window he saw the man who had entered behind the first gunman. Cropped grey hair, dark overshirt, gun held close to his thigh. He was already crossing the street toward the neighboring gate.
Paul pulled his jacket off to get his bleeding arm free. The lining caught on the broken glass. He tugged, his left hand failed, and the jacket slipped outside. His house keys struck the courtyard paving inside its pocket.
“Fuck.”
A door opened below him. A woman called out, then slammed it shut when another shot cracked through the roof opening.
Paul ran down the neighboring stairs. At the bottom, a narrow passage led through the courtyard to the street. The man covering it moved into the passage mouth. Paul fired. Brick fragments struck the man’s face and sent him back behind the gatepost.
The grey-haired man appeared beyond him, taking the street entrance from the other side. Paul fired his fifth shot of the escape and drove him behind a parked van.
A resident shouted from an upper window. Another voice called for the police. Paul went through the gate, turned away from the van, and ran between parked cars. Behind him, somebody called a description. Dark trousers. Blue shirt. Gun.
He put the pistol under his shirt before he reached the corner. His apartment, equipment, jacket, and keys were gone. The consulting appointment would never happen.
He kept moving toward the Danube.
By the time Paul reached the working quay, his left sleeve had dried stiff and then become wet again. A fence blocked the route he had expected to take along the water. Beyond it, a forklift moved pallets under white lamps. He tried the pedestrian gate.
“Closed,” a worker said.
“I need the next street.”
“Then use the next street.”
A police siren approached behind the buildings. Paul released the gate. The worker kept his hand on it until Paul stepped away.
At the next vehicle entrance, the dark saloon from outside his building rolled slowly past. Paul crouched behind a stack of empty produce crates while its brake lights held red at the junction. The grey-haired man sat in the passenger seat. The car turned toward the road that led away from the river.
Paul waited through two deliveries, then crossed behind a reversing lorry. A driver leaned on his horn when Paul passed too close. He had to climb a low fence at the far end of the yard. The pull on his left arm opened the cut again. He tore a strip from the bottom of his shirt and tightened it around his forearm with his teeth and right hand.
At about two ten in the morning, he called Ruth Bell from beside a row of refrigeration units. Their compressors covered his voice without making the conversation impossible.
“Apartment attacked. Armed team. I’m out.”
“Injuries?”
“Cut arm. Usable.”
“Police?”
“Responding. Not with them.”
Going to the police meant detention over the shootings and exposing his local contacts. Ruth let the distinction stand.
“Your source is safe. He’s already out.”
“Anything left for me to carry?”
“Nothing. This is only you now.”
Paul pressed his arm against his ribs. Across the yard, men were unloading bread from a van.
“Can you get anyone to me?”
“No Serbian rescue. I’m in Hungary. I can receive you near Tompa at seven in the evening.”
“That’s seventeen hours.”
“I know. Get north. Tell me when you have transport.”
“I have a fallback.”
“Check it before you commit.”
He ended the call when a worker approached the refrigeration units with a handcart. Paul moved past him, keeping his wet wrist against his side.
The fallback flat lay inland, above a shuttered shop. He took more than an hour to reach it, doubling away from a police car at one junction and waiting behind a bakery while the dark saloon passed along a broader street. His phone worked. The streets worked. Every open entrance belonged to someone who could challenge him.
At roughly three thirty in the morning, he climbed the fallback building’s stairs. Inside that flat were clean clothes, dressings, and money. He had kept its address separate from his apartment for almost three years.
He stopped two steps below the landing. A floorboard creaked on the other side of the door. Paul had made no contact with it. He had taken out no key. The little circle of light in the peephole went dark.
He backed down one step. A latch moved.
Paul turned and descended fast. The door opened behind him, and a man came out with a pistol. Paul fired up the stairs. The man pulled back, then leaned over the rail as Paul reached the turn. Paul fired again. Plaster dropped onto his shoulder.
He went through the ground-floor entrance with five cartridges left and no supplies. A shot struck the outer door as it swung shut. Paul crossed the street behind a passing refuse truck and took the alley beside the bakery. The truck’s crew shouted when he brushed one of them. He kept going.
Goran Vuković knew both addresses.
The thought came before Paul reached the next corner. Goran had moved a mattress into the fallback flat. He had brought transport to the Dorćol apartment. Very few people could connect the two places without seeing Paul travel between them. Goran also ran vehicles near Novi Sad. He could provide a car north of the city, and Ruth would close that option the instant Paul gave her this suspicion.
Paul called her from a recessed shop entrance.
“Fallback occupied. I withdrew.”
“Seen?”
“Yes. Two shots. I’m clear for now.”
“What remains?”
“Money, documents, and a phone across the Sava. Then a car.”
“Who can you use?”
“Let me reach the cache.”
“Update me when you do.”
He put the phone away without saying Goran’s name.
Shortly after five in the morning, Paul boarded a working tram among adults carrying bags and early-shift breakfasts. He paid with the small money still in his trousers and stayed near a door, injured arm tucked inside his shirt. The tram crossed the Sava on the old bridge. He could feel the vibration through the soles of his shoes.
On the Novi Beograd side, the route straightened toward the next interchange. Beyond the first stop, the pale estate stood beside the tracks. The man who had covered the courtyard leaned against its open passenger door, watching the approaching tram.
Paul got off at the first platform instead of continuing to his planned connection. A woman protested when he pushed past her bag. He apologized without stopping and walked with the departing workers until the tram concealed him. Then he turned between the buildings.
The cache occupied a rented parking garage behind a row of workshops. Paul opened it with a key kept on the backup phone’s lanyard. Inside a ventilated tool cabinet, a plain handset charged beside a sealed pouch. He took the passport, the cash, and the phone. Everything went into his trouser pockets. There was no weapon and no ammunition.
He called Ruth on the cached handset and gave her its number. She repeated it back.
“Use this one now,” he said. “I’m retaining the other.”
“Transport?”
“Working on it.”
“Arm?”
“Still attached.”
“Paul.”
“Bleeding slowed. I’ll dress it properly.”
She gave him the reception point near Tompa and made him repeat it. He could hear traffic on her end of the call. She had her own roads to cover.
He called Ivana next.
“Is the car ready?”
“Brake hose is in. Where are you?”
He named the pedestrian ramp near her workshop.
“You sound terrible.”
“I walked.”
“From Dorćol?”
“Yes.”
“Wait on the west side.”
She found him among commuters cutting through to the bus stops. Without breaking stride, she passed the car key into his right hand.
“Blue saloon. Front bay. I’ll get the papers.”
Her fingers brushed the blood on his cuff. She stopped. Paul kept walking for two paces before he turned.
“What happened to your arm?” she asked.
“Glass.”
“Whose glass?”
“I need the car.”
“And I need an answer.”
A group of workers moved between them. Paul stepped closer so she could hear him without raising her voice.
“Not here.”
Ivana took the key back.
“Then at the bay.”
He followed her into the workshop through the side door. The place smelled of rubber and warm oil. Ahead, the blue saloon faced the street shutter. Behind it, a second shutter opened into a tyre yard, with a narrow vehicle exit onto the rear lane. Paul checked the rear route before he sat.
Ivana pulled a first-aid box from her work bag and cut the soaked strip off his forearm.
“This needs closing.”
“It needs covering.”
“It needs both.”
She rinsed the cut. Paul held his arm still against his knee while she worked. His fingers could move, but gripping sent pain from the wound toward his elbow.
“Lift the front shutter,” he said.
“Hold this pad.”
“Then lift it.”
“Tell me what I’m letting in.”
He pressed the pad down.
“People came to my flat.”
“To rob you?”
“No.”
Ivana wrapped a dressing around his arm and secured it firmly. She stayed crouched in front of him until he answered the question she had actually asked.
“Armed men,” Paul said. “Russian. They’re trying to kill me.”
“How many?”
“I saw four. One won’t be following.”
Her hands stopped at the edge of the bandage.
“You shot him.”
“Yes.”
“Police?”
“They’re responding to the shooting. They aren’t helping me.”
Ivana stood and went to the front shutter. She raised it high enough to see outside, then stopped. A delivery van had backed across the shared entrance and lowered its ramp.
Paul got up.
“Tell him to move.”
Above the adjoining workshop, an accordion started the same short phrase twice. On the third attempt, the player held a wrong note long enough for Paul to turn toward the ceiling.
“Can he stop that?”
“He only started last week,” Ivana said.
The van driver wrestled a metal trolley onto his ramp. Upstairs, the adult beginner tried the phrase again, slower this time, and stopped halfway through.
Paul moved toward the entrance.
“Leave the driver alone,” Ivana said. “He has to secure the trolley.”
“We need to leave.”
“I heard you.”
The driver kicked the ramp latch into place. His van rolled clear. Ivana lowered the shutter again before Paul could reach it.
“Does anyone who helps you get shot too?”
“They could.”
“Does this place become part of it?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop giving me fucking jobs before you tell me what they mean.”
Paul’s right hand closed against his thigh.
“Take your bag and leave by the side door,” he said. “I can drive.”
“With that arm?”
“I can manage.”
“Where?”
“North. Hungary.”
“Which crossing?”
“Kelebija, if it stays usable.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“I need to keep moving.”
Ivana took her work bag from the bench. She checked the first-aid supplies, added two bottles of water, and opened a drawer for her passport. Paul wanted to tell her to leave the documents. Instead, he watched her put them into the bag.
“I’m driving,” she said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know that. You’ve said it. Now tell me the route.”
He named the motorway approach. Ivana took a folder of vehicle papers from the wall cabinet.
“These cover this car and the estate I keep across the Danube.”
“What estate?”
“The old service car. For the pump work, north of Petrovaradin. I left it there on Sunday.”
“How do you reach it?”
“My launch. At the service landing below the town. Keys are in here.”
She tapped the work bag and put it behind the driver’s seat. Paul had seen the launch when she serviced an engine the previous autumn. A small open boat, no cabin, enough room for people and tools.
“We may need that,” he said.
“We may need a lot of things. Start with the shutter.”
Paul went to the chain. A man from the neighboring vehicle-hire yard appeared through the lifting gap, pointing toward the bay. Beside him stood the grey-haired man from Dorćol.
Paul let go of the chain.
“Down.”
The hire-yard worker stepped away. The man beside him brought his gun up. Paul dropped behind the brick pier as two shots struck the shutter. Metal snapped inward above the saloon’s bonnet.
“Fuck. Rear exit. Now.”
Ivana was already in the driver’s seat.
“Get the rear door up,” she said.
Paul pulled the release and hauled on the handle. His left hand slipped. Pain forced a sound out of him before the shutter rolled high enough.
“Which side?” Ivana asked.
“Yard clear. Lane unknown.”
The front shutter rose from outside. Another man crouched beneath it with his gun pointed toward the car. Paul fired once. The man jerked behind the pier. Four cartridges remained.
Ivana reversed through the rear opening. Paul ran beside the passenger door, folded into the seat, and pulled it shut as she turned into the lane. A shot broke the rear side window.
“Left,” Paul said.
A pale estate car moved across the far end of the lane, blocking the direct road toward the motorway feeder.
“Left is closed,” Ivana said.
“Then right. Go right.”
She took the turn tight. The front bumper struck a low steel post hidden beside the gate. Something tore under the grille, but she kept the car moving.
Paul twisted around. The pale estate had stopped at the junction. Its driver was reversing to come after them.
“Are they behind us?”
“One car. Turning.”
“Then give me distance, not just behind.”
He forced himself to face forward long enough to read the next junction.
“Two hundred metres. Right there. It takes us west.”
Ivana drove past the motorway signs and toward the industrial roads beyond Novi Beograd. Goran had introduced Paul to this workshop. Goran’s vans used the hire yard next door. Paul put the pistol away before Ivana could ask what had changed in his face.
By the time they reached the roads toward Surčin, the car’s temperature needle had begun to climb. Ivana turned the heater to full. Hot air blew against Paul’s legs.
“Open your window,” she said.
“Can we stay on the main road?”
“Until it boils.”
“What hit?”
“Something behind the bumper. I need to see.”
A queue of commuter traffic held them near a distribution entrance. Paul watched the mirrors while she eased forward a car length at a time. The pale estate appeared three vehicles back, then vanished behind a turning bus.
He told her.
“Which car?”
“Pale estate. Three back.”
“Still there?”
“Can’t see it.”
“Say that, then.”
She took the next service turn. They passed loading bays and came out on a village road heading into Srem. No car followed them through the turn.
They stopped behind a closed farm-machinery business after seven in the morning. Ivana kept the engine off while it cooled. Paul stood where he could see the access road, pistol secured under his shirt, left arm held against his body. When Ivana finally opened the bonnet, a thin wet line marked the radiator.
“Slow leak,” she said. “We can add water. We can’t make it sound.”
“How long?”
“Until it gets worse.”
He almost asked again. Instead, he handed her a bottle. She checked his bandage before they moved. The outer layer had spotted red.
“You keep using it.”
“I keep needing it.”
“Then use the other hand where you can.”
They lost more time behind resurfacing work outside a village, then took a longer road when a line of heavy lorries blocked the shorter one. Between sightings, Paul made himself watch ordinary traffic instead of assigning every dark car to the men behind them.
At one junction, he saw the dark saloon pass across their road ahead. The grey-haired man sat in the passenger seat, turning toward their windscreen.
“Straight,” Paul said. “Don’t follow it.”
Ivana continued past the turning. The saloon needed room to reverse. That gave them several minutes, enough to reach another road toward Inđija, not enough to trust the lead.
They stopped again to let the temperature fall. Ivana used the second bottle of water to top up the cooling system. Paul changed the bloodied outer pad with her help. His left thumb trembled when he tried to pull the tape tight.
“You should have told me there were more places waiting for you,” she said.
“I didn’t know they were waiting.”
“Were there?”
“The fallback flat. Yes.”
“And now?”
“Nothing in Belgrade.”
She closed the first-aid box.
They had been moving for more than three hours when the road narrowed beside a materials yard. Concrete barriers reduced the approach to one lane. A tipper lorry came toward them through the restriction. On the right, the yard entrance opened onto gravel, with a second gate visible beyond the stacks.
The pale estate slowed ahead. Paul saw its brake lights stay on.
“Left,” he said.
Ivana began to move out, then the tipper filled the gap.
“Wait. Right.”
“Which?”
The estate turned across the lane ahead. Behind them, the dark saloon came around the bend. Paul raised his right hand toward the windscreen, then dropped it. Ivana had already begun steering toward the yard entrance.
“I’m driving,” she said. “Tell me what moves.”
“The lorry’s still coming. Estate door opening ahead.”
“Right side?”
“Driver’s side. Away from us.”
She aimed for the strip between the tipper’s front wheel and the yard gatepost. Paul could see the driver high above them, his mouth open, both hands turning his wheel.
“He’s braking,” Paul said. “Post on your right. You have a hand’s width.”
Ivana folded the mirror against the gatepost. It broke with a flat crack. The car scraped through.
“Rear is clear,” Paul said. “Man coming around the estate. Gun.”
She accelerated across the gravel apron. The tipper blocked the man’s line toward them. A stack of concrete blocks passed between the car and the road.
“Second gate,” she said. “Open. Van on the service lane, moving left to right.”
She braked just enough for the van to pass, then went through the gate behind it. Paul turned in his seat. The dark saloon had reached the yard entrance, but the tipper now stood across most of it. Its driver was climbing down.
“No one through yet.”
Ivana kept both hands on the wheel.
“Tell me when that changes.”
He watched until the service lane bent and the yard disappeared.
They had broken the squeeze. The temperature needle kept rising. Past Inđija, the intervals of clear road grew longer. Paul saw no pursuer during the next cooling stop. That absence let him unclench his right hand, but it gave him no reason to trust Goran.
Two addresses. The workshop connection. He could have told Ruth at the fallback. He could tell Ivana now. She was driving toward a contact she would never accept without questions if she knew what he knew.
Instead, he took out the cached handset.
“Who?” Ivana asked.
“Goran. He has vehicles near Novi Sad.”
“Can he bring one south of the river?”
“I’ll ask.”
“Ask if it runs properly.”
She pulled into a gravel maintenance lay-by on the local approach to Petrovaradin. Two concrete culvert sections lay beside the verge. Beyond them, the road continued toward town, still south of the Danube. Ivana kept the engine running. The heater blew against Paul’s shins. His passport and remaining money pressed against his thigh. The pistol stayed secured beneath his shirt, four cartridges and no spare. His bandaged left forearm rested painfully against his stomach while he held the phone in his right hand.
Goran answered on the fourth ring.
“Paul. Where are you?”
“South of Petrovaradin. Car trouble.”
“What kind?”
“Cooling system. We need replacement transport.”
“We?”
“Ivana’s driving.”
A brief pause carried ordinary workshop noise from the other end.
“I can arrange something,” Goran said. “Not immediately.”
“Noon.”
“That gives me forty minutes.”
“Can you do it?”
“Yes. There’s a car you can use.”
Ivana held out her hand for the phone. Paul covered the microphone.
“He says noon.”
“Where?”
Paul uncovered the microphone and asked. Goran named a service-road junction below Petrovaradin and described the entrance from the south. Paul knew enough of it to place it ahead of them.
“Stay this side of the river,” Goran said. “No point taking that car farther.”
“You’ll bring the replacement?”
“Yes, Paul. Noon. Keep this phone on.”
“We’ll meet you there,” Paul said.
At eleven twenty in the morning, he ended Goran’s call as Ivana released the brake.
The two concrete culvert sections slipped behind them as the car gathered speed.
“Keep toward town. Take the next right.”
She checked the road and accelerated. Ahead, beyond a bend, the pale estate stood nose-out beside a row of garages.
“Right now,” Paul said.
“The next right or this one?”
“This one. The estate from the yard is ahead. Driver inside.”
Ivana turned onto a narrow road between fenced properties. Something beneath their bonnet rattled against the fan housing. Paul watched through the broken rear side window until the junction disappeared.
“Moving?” she asked.
“I couldn’t see its wheels. It hasn’t followed us through.”
“Then say that first.”
He put the handset away. Heat continued to blow against his legs, and the temperature needle had reached the edge of the red.
A filling station appeared at the next junction. Ivana eased toward it, then stopped behind a van.
Beyond the van, damaged cars blocked the entrance. A police officer stood beside an ambulance, directing traffic around broken glass. Beyond him, the forecourt tap Paul had hoped to reach stood against a wall.
“We can’t stop there,” Ivana said.
The officer waved them on. Paul kept his injured arm below the window and his face turned toward the road.
They lost another quarter of an hour getting around the collision and back onto the approach Goran had described. Ivana stopped once in the shade of an industrial wall and switched off the engine. Neither of them spoke while the temperature fell. When they moved again, she kept the heater on full.
At the service-road junction, she positioned the car beside a gate recess, facing back toward their escape route.
“Noon,” she said. “Where is he?”
Paul called. Goran answered while walking; Paul could hear his shoes striking loose material.
“I’m coming down now.”
“With the car?”
“We need to discuss that.”
Paul ended the call.
Goran appeared beside the locked gate, carrying nothing. He raised one hand and came toward the passenger window. Behind him, the service road curved toward the bridge approaches. The pale estate moved across that distant opening and stopped.
Paul’s fingers tightened around the handset.
“Where’s the replacement?” Ivana asked.
“There’s a difficulty,” Goran said. “The owner wants assurances before—”
Paul turned toward Ivana.
“Goran knew both addresses. My flat and the fallback. I’ve suspected him since the fallback.”
Her hand stayed on the gear lever.
“Since when?”
“Before dawn.”
Goran stopped beside the window. “Paul, you’ve misunderstood what happened.”
A dark saloon entered the road behind them. The grey-haired man drove. Another man sat beside him.
“You brought us here knowing that?” Ivana asked.
“I suspected. I wanted the car.”
Goran bent toward the open window. “I only gave them the addresses. They said they would take you quietly.”
“You sold them?” Paul asked.
“I had debt. They would have closed me.”
“You sold both fucking addresses?”
“Yes. But this wasn’t what they agreed.”
The saloon accelerated.
“Reverse. Into the gate recess,” Paul told Ivana. “Car behind us. Two men. The road ahead is blocked by the estate.”
She moved before he finished. Goran caught at the passenger door, found it locked, then ran across the road toward a stack of discarded tyres.
“Get down,” Paul shouted.
The saloon’s passenger fired. A shot struck the frame of their shattered rear side window. The next caught Goran in the side of the head. He dropped beside the tyres and stayed there.
Ivana reversed into the gate recess, changed gear, and drove through the space the saloon had left. Its passenger was twisting around to bring his gun back onto them.
Paul crouched below the window. A shot broke glass behind his head.
“Which way?” Ivana demanded.
“Bridge approach ahead is threatened. I haven’t seen anyone on the lower road. I don’t know whether they know your landing.”
“And the car?”
“Only until it overheats.”
“Don’t ask me to trust you again. Give me the choices.”
“Bridge or your launch. The estate went toward the bridge. Two men in the saloon behind us.”
Ivana took the lower road.
“Then we use the launch.”
She drove toward the southern bank with the engine knocking under load. At a fork above the river, Paul saw the saloon again. It slowed long enough for the passenger to get out beside a footpath. The grey-haired driver continued uphill toward the bridge.
“One on foot,” Paul said. “Coming down toward us. The driver’s taking the bridge.”
“Then he knows where we’re going.”
“He knows we’re going north.”
Ivana turned between two work sheds and stopped at the landing. Steam escaped around the bonnet. She switched off the engine and left the key.
The small launch lay below a concrete step, its stern pulling against its line. The Danube separated them from the northern, left bank and the waiting estate. A barge moved upstream well beyond their crossing line.
Paul got out with the pistol in his right hand. His left forearm had stiffened inside the bandage.
“Bag first,” Ivana said. “Then step where I step.”
She pushed the vehicle papers into her work bag and threw it into the launch, then climbed down and started the outboard. Paul watched the path between the sheds while she cast off the bow line.
“Take the stern rope,” she said.
He freed it with his left hand. Pain ran into his fingers, and the rope slipped against the concrete.
The man from the saloon came around the farther shed.
Paul shouted her name as the gun came up.
The shot drove Ivana sideways against the boat’s bench. She made a hard, startled sound and clamped her right hand around her left upper arm.
“Fuck!” Paul fired from beside the concrete step. His first shot struck the shed behind the man. The second hit him high in the chest. He fell backward, his gun slipping beneath him, and lay still.
Two cartridges remained.
Paul climbed down. Ivana had bent over her arm, blood running between her fingers onto the bench. The launch swung away from the step before he had both feet aboard.
He tried to hold it with his left hand. His grip failed. The boat rolled under his weight, and he caught the gunwale with his right.
The pistol struck the edge and went into the river.
Paul lunged after it, stopping with his chest across the side. Beneath the disturbed brown water, it had already vanished.
“Leave it,” Ivana said. “The rope.”
He pulled the loose stern line aboard and shoved away from the concrete. His right hand shook when he reached for the tiller.
“Where?”
“Out from the bank. Then left of the barge’s wake. Don’t turn upstream yet.”
He opened the throttle too far. The bow lifted, and Ivana slid against the bench.
“Less,” she said.
Paul eased back. She drew her work bag close with her heel.
“Open it. Pads in the top.”
He throttled down and held the tiller with his knee while he pulled out the first-aid box. The bullet had passed through the fleshy outside of her upper arm. Blood came from both holes, steady rather than spurting. He put folded pads against both sides of the wound and guided her right hand over them.
“Press them together.”
“I am pressing.”
“Can you feel your fingers?”
“Yes. Keep driving.”
He took the tiller again.
The southern landing receded. The dead man remained beside the shed; the first car stood above him, bonnet steaming. Paul was unarmed.
Ahead, a pale estate moved along the northern embankment road.
“The scout’s across,” he said.
Ivana lifted her head far enough to find the road.
“Stay below that line. Our landing’s beyond the willows. You’ll see a rusted lifting frame.”
“The car may reach it first.”
“He has to leave that road and come back through the pump yard. We go straight in.”
Paul steered toward the lifting frame. The launch struck the barge’s wake at an angle, and he reduced speed until the bow settled.
“Here?” he asked.
“Another fifty metres. Then in. Keep the engine clear of the stones.”
They reached the northern landing without another shot. Paul caught the ladder with his right hand and held the boat while Ivana climbed. She used her legs and free hand, stopping once with her forehead against a rung.
He waited below her, unable to hurry her and unable to leave the boat unsecured.
When she reached the top, she sat on the concrete.
“Estate,” she said. “Behind the pump shed. Bag pocket. Separate key.”
Paul tied the launch, took the bag, and crouched beside her. The pad had soaked through. He used the remaining large dressing to cover both sides of the wound and wrapped it firmly. She swore when he lifted her arm enough to pass the bandage beneath it.
“Too tight?”
“Fingers still work. Leave it.”
The service estate stood where she had said, under a corrugated lean-to. Dents marked both rear wings. Its tyres held air, and the engine started on the first turn.
Paul brought it beside her. Across the yard, beyond the fence, the pale estate passed an opening in the embankment road.
“He hasn’t turned in yet,” Paul said.
“Then help me up.”
He supported her with his right arm. She kept her feet beneath her and lowered herself into the passenger seat. He put the bag and vehicle papers within her reach.
“North exit?” he asked.
“Past the tanks. Left through the open gate. The right one ends at the river.”
He drove them out as the dashboard clock changed to one.
The estate’s steering pulled slightly left. Paul held it with his right hand whenever he could, using the heel of his injured palm while he changed gear. Each tight turn sent pain into his elbow.
Ivana rested her wounded arm against her body. Her shirt had darkened from shoulder to waist on that side.
“Phone,” she said.
He gave her the cached handset.
“Tell Ruth the wound,” he said. “Through the upper arm. Bleeding reduced under pressure. Fingers moving.”
Ivana called and put it on speaker.
Ruth answered with a question. “Where are you?”
“North of the Danube,” Paul said. “Different car. Ivana’s been shot.”
“How long ago?”
“About twenty minutes.”
Ivana gave her own account before he could continue. “Left upper arm. In and out. I can feel my hand. I need proper treatment.”
“I’ll have a medic at reception,” Ruth said. “I need to know if the bleeding increases or she becomes confused.”
“Stopping here means police custody over the shootings,” Paul said. “Can you protect her there?”
“I can arrange care here, not protection in Serbia. If the bleeding won’t stay controlled, call an ambulance.”
“Goran sold both addresses. He’s dead.”
A pause, then Ruth asked, “When did you learn that?”
“He confirmed it at noon. I suspected before I reached Ivana.”
Ivana kept the phone raised.
“We’ll discuss it after treatment,” Ruth said. “Can she keep pressure on the dressing?”
“Yes,” Ivana said. “Tell me exactly where we’re meeting.”
Ruth repeated the reception point near Tompa. Ivana made her give the turning from the main road, then ended the call.
Paul kept both hands against the wheel through a bend.
“I should have told you before I called him.”
“Yes.”
“I thought we might still get a vehicle.”
“You got me to drive to him.”
He let the estate straighten before he changed gear.
“Yes.”
Beyond the outskirts of Novi Sad, they reached a junction that offered a direct road toward the motorway. The dark saloon stood at a petrol station on the opposite side. The grey-haired man was beside its passenger door. Through the windscreen, Paul saw the man from the courtyard settle behind the saloon’s wheel.
“There,” he said. “Both remaining men. Dark car. They’re joining up.”
Ivana turned enough to see.
“Don’t take the motorway.”
“Where instead?”
“West first. Then north through the villages. Longer.”
“How much?”
“At least an hour. More with traffic.”
He took the western road. In the mirror, the saloon waited for a gap.
By the next village, Ivana’s dressing had started to stain along its lower edge. Paul pulled behind a closed roadside stall where he could see the approach from both directions. He left the engine running.
“Hold the middle,” he told her.
“I need you to press the back.”
He put his right hand behind her arm and compressed the pads together. She leaned forward, teeth set, while lorries passed on the road beyond them.
Five minutes brought little change. At ten, fresh blood stopped spreading across the outer wrap.
“Another five,” she said.
Paul kept his hand in place. His left arm hung uselessly beside his knee.
They had used the clean large pads. He cut a strip from the unbloodied side of his shirt and secured it over the dressing without lifting the layer against the wound.
“I can hold that,” Ivana said.
“Tell me if your hand goes cold.”
“It’s warm. Drive.”
The western detour took them onto village roads behind farm vehicles and buses. Paul left room to turn rather than forcing past on blind bends. At one junction he stopped while Ivana distinguished between two signs pointing toward Subotica.
“That road takes us back toward the motorway,” she said. “Use the other one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. About this, yes.”
He turned where she told him.
Later, her directions shortened to a place name and a finger against the windscreen. He asked before junctions, giving her time to answer. Between them, she rested with her head against the seat.
At three forty, she called Ruth again.
“Medic confirmed,” Ruth said. “I’ll be driving. He’ll have room to work in the back.”
“Hospital afterward?” Paul asked.
“Yes. This is reception and immediate care, not the end of her treatment.”
Ivana closed her eyes. “Good.”
Traffic held them behind a slow-moving line of lorries on the approach to Bačka Topola. Paul could see clear road beyond the lead vehicle, but every opening ended at an oncoming car. He stayed in the queue.
His own bandage had become tight with swelling. At the next necessary stop for Ivana’s dressing, he loosened the outer turn. His left thumb could still close against his fingers, though the effort made the wound pull.
Ivana watched him test it.
“You’re going to need that hand.”
“I have some grip. It hurts when I turn it.”
“That’s an answer.”
They moved again. The estate kept running, its temperature steady. The time went into villages, necessary pressure on the wound, and the long route they had chosen when the direct approach became unsafe.
South of Subotica, the dark saloon appeared across a junction ahead of them.
Paul slowed before reaching the stop line.
“Same car. Crossing toward Kelebija.”
“Did they see us?”
“The passenger turned. I don’t know.”
“They know the crossing.”
“Yes.”
Ivana shifted her wounded arm and drew air through her teeth.
“What else remains?”
“Another crossing means more distance and another wait. We have no dressings left.”
“Then Kelebija. Stay with other traffic where you can.”
He followed the signs north.
Shortly after six, Paul saw the saloon again on a frontage road parallel to their approach. It passed behind a warehouse and emerged at a service junction ahead.
Its driver swung across their lane.
Paul braked. The estate’s rear stepped sideways, and he steered into the only open space, a recessed access area screened by tall hedges and concrete storage bays. The right front wheel struck a kerb. Ivana cried out.
A locked gate blocked the far end.
Paul swung the estate around short of the gate, then stopped with its nose toward the access mouth. He left the engine running and put the gear lever into neutral.
“Down,” he said.
The grey-haired man got out of the saloon at the access mouth. His gun came up before Paul could move again.
Paul opened his door and dropped behind it. A shot went through the estate’s windscreen. He crawled past the front wheel and reached the nearest concrete bay.
Getting out had torn his bandage against the door edge. Warm blood ran toward his wrist.
Beyond the bay, a gap in the hedge opened onto a narrow foot margin. Paul moved through it, bent low. The border approach lay ahead, busy with queued cars. Travelers stood beside two vehicles. The public entrance was within a short run.
No fence blocked him. His passport and cash remained in his pocket.
He took two steps along the margin.
Through the hedge behind him, he heard the estate’s engine idling. Ivana had made no sound since the shot. From where he stood, he could reach the travelers before the grey-haired man came around the concrete bays.
Paul put his right hand on the hedge and stopped.
Then he went back through the gap.
Ivana remained low across the passenger seat. The gunman had moved along that side of the estate, keeping the car between himself and Paul’s cover. The saloon blocked the access mouth, its driver still inside.
Paul crouched behind the rear corner of a concrete partition.
“Ivana.”
Her face turned toward him through the rear side window.
“Get across,” he said. “Keep it running. First gear when he comes toward me.”
She pulled her knees under her.
“Where do I take it?”
“Toward the entrance. Stay inside this access until you can see the road.”
She nodded once and began moving over the centre console, using her right hand to drag herself toward the wheel.
The gunman heard her. He stepped back from the passenger door, turning his weapon toward the windscreen.
Paul struck the concrete with his right palm.
The man turned.
Paul dropped below the partition. A shot broke chips from its edge and struck the ground beyond his shoe. He heard the man advancing, measured steps on loose gravel.
Paul had no gun. His left fingers had begun to cramp.
A shoe entered the narrow space beside the partition.
He drove his right shoulder into the man’s gun arm and pushed it against the concrete. The next shot went into the gravel between their feet.
The man hit him across the face with his free hand. Paul’s knees struck the ground. He kept his right hand on the weapon wrist and wrapped his left arm above the elbow.
The cut opened under the strain.
His grip slipped.
The man forced the muzzle downward toward him. Paul shoved his head against the man’s ribs and drove forward until they hit the opposite bay wall. Pain burst across his cheek. His left hand opened completely.
“Fuck.”
He caught the wrist with both forearms and hammered it against the concrete. Once. Again.
The pistol fell between their shoes.
The man drove a knee into Paul’s side. Paul folded over it and scraped his right hand across the gravel. His fingers closed around the pistol grip.
Behind them, the estate lurched forward. Its engine strained against too little throttle.
The gunman turned toward the sound, reaching inside his overshirt.
Paul fired twice into his chest.
He hit the wall, dropped onto one knee, and fell sideways. His reaching hand lay open beside him. Paul kept the pistol trained on him until the movement stopped.
Beyond the hedge, someone shouted about gunfire.
“Ivana.”
The estate rolled across the access at walking speed. Its nose came between Paul and the surviving driver, who had opened the saloon’s door and started out. Forced back behind his own door, the man lost his direct line into the yard.
Paul ran bent toward the estate.
Ivana stopped with the passenger side beside him.
“Get in,” she said.
He pulled the door open and struck his left forearm against its edge, leaving blood on the paint. He fell into the seat and pulled the door shut. She worked the clutch with a shaking leg and brought them toward the access mouth. The saloon’s driver retreated into his car.
“Road?” she asked.
“Clear this way. Turn right.”
She completed the turn at little more than walking pace. Ahead, queued vehicles led toward the controlled crossing.
The saloon reversed out of the access. Paul watched its driver stop, turn the wheel away from the border, and accelerate south. The car continued down the road, passed the junction, and disappeared behind the warehouse.
It had gone the other way.
Paul lowered the captured pistol to the floor.
“Stop at that verge. We change seats.”
Ivana pulled in before the queue. Her right hand stayed locked around the wheel until he touched her wrist.
“I have it,” he said.
He picked up the weapon, stepped out, and placed it in the drainage ditch beneath the hedge. He left it there and helped Ivana across to the passenger seat. She could scarcely lift her wounded arm now.
When he resumed driving, blood from his reopened cut made the wheel slippery beneath his left palm. He wiped it on his trousers and used his right hand.
At six twenty-five, they joined the border queue.
Paul kept the estate straight between the white lines. Ivana held the dressing while he pulled forward a few metres at a time. Between movements, he pressed his right hand over the torn bandage on his own arm. No pursuing car appeared behind them.
At the Serbian booth, the guard took both passports and the vehicle papers. He checked the estate’s plate, then the authorisation among Ivana’s documents.
“Your vehicle?” he asked her.
“My business vehicle. I own the business.”
“Who is driving?”
“He has my permission.”
The guard examined Paul’s face against the passport photograph. Paul answered the questions for the identity he carried. The guard entered the details and waited for the result.
He asked whether they had heard the shooting behind the queue. Paul said yes and named the service road. The guard noted the answer.
“What happened to your arms?”
“Mine was glass,” Paul said. “She was injured at a river landing outside Novi Sad. We’ve dressed it. Medical care is waiting near Tompa.”
The guard came out of the booth. He checked Ivana’s face, her bloodstained sleeve, and the fingers below the dressing.
“Do you need an ambulance here?”
“I need treatment,” she said. “We have a medic meeting us across.”
“Can you remain seated?”
“Yes.”
He asked when the injury had happened and whether the bleeding had increased. Ivana answered him. He spoke to another guard, checked their documents again, and returned them.
The check took time, but the guard asked nothing about Belgrade before pointing them onward.
At Hungarian control, they answered the questions again. A guard opened the rear hatch, inspected the mostly empty service compartment, and compared the vehicle papers with the car. He asked for their destination and repeated the offer of medical assistance.
Paul gave the reception turning Ruth had supplied.
“Go directly there,” the guard said. “If her condition changes, stop and call.”
The barrier rose.
Paul drove into Hungary with both hands against the wheel and Ivana breathing beside him.
She called Ruth.
“Through,” she said. “Coming now.”
Ruth’s answer carried no celebration. “I’m at the turning. Grey people carrier. Rear door open.”
Paul found it at seven.
Ruth stood beside the vehicle, one hand raised so he could distinguish her from the medic waiting at the open door. Paul stopped the estate close enough for the transfer and switched off its engine.
For several seconds, he remained holding the key.
“Paul.” Ruth opened his door. “Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
The medic was already at Ivana’s side, asking permission to touch her arm. He had grey hair and a case open on the ground. He checked her pulse, her hand, the dressing, then asked Paul to maintain pressure while he prepared a fresh one.
Paul put his right palm where the man directed.
At one that morning, he had left the kitchen. At seven that evening, eighteen hours later, someone else finally took charge of keeping them alive.
His legs began to shake.
Ruth supported Ivana’s good side while Paul helped her into the rear seat of the receiving vehicle. The medic settled beside her and cut away the blood-soaked outer wrapping. He covered the wound with fresh pads, then put a temporary dressing around Paul’s forearm before returning to her.
“This still needs hospital treatment,” he said. “Both of you.”
Ruth took the estate’s key and papers.
“Anything you need from it?”
“The bag. Her documents.”
“Anything else?”
Paul pressed his free hand against his trouser pocket. Passport, cash, two phones. His flat, consulting equipment, and everything he had expected to take that morning remained behind.
“No.”
Ruth brought the bag. She put it beside Ivana rather than handing it to him.
Ivana watched the movement.
“My workshop,” she said. “Don’t contact anyone there.”
Paul kept pressure on the dressing. “All right.”
“Not to check. Not to send someone. I decide what contact there is.”
“Until you say otherwise, no contact.”
She settled back against the seat. Her face remained drawn with pain. Cooperation had got them here; she had offered him nothing beyond it.
“You got us across the river,” he said. “And out of that access.”
“I know.”
He accepted that and adjusted his hand when the medic told him to press nearer the back of her arm.
Ruth closed the doors and took the wheel. As they pulled onto the northbound road, Paul’s concentration loosened. He felt the ache in his jaw, the cut in his arm, and the exhaustion that made keeping his hand steady require his full attention.
“What do you need?” he asked Ivana.
“Keep pressing. I want the window open.”
“Is that all right?” he asked the medic.
“A little. Keep her warm otherwise.”
At seven ten, Ruth drove north with the medic beside them, Paul held the fresh dressing firmly against Ivana’s arm, and Ivana lowered the window with her free hand.