Avenger

"I want to write about what happened to Srechko. I know it ca

She shrugged. "I know nothing," she said. "I never asked about his work."

"The night that he diedÉwas he carrying anything with him?"

"I don't know. The body was searched. They took everything."

"They searched the body? Right there on the street?"

"Yes."

"Did he have papers? Did he have notes that he left behind? Here in the flat?"

"Yes, he had bundles of papers. With his typewriter and his pencils. But I never read them."

"Could I see them?"

"They are gone."

"Gone?"

"They took them. Took them all. Even the ribbon from the typewriter."

"The police?"

"No, the men."

"Which men?"

"They came back. Two nights later. They made me sit in the corner there. They searched everywhere. They took everything he had had."

"There is nothing left at all of what he was working on for Mr. Kobac?"

"Only the photo. I had forgotten about that."

"Please tell me about the photo."

It came out in small details, all via A

When he was dead there was no point. She, too, forgot about the laundry bag, and the gangsters never thought to ask. When she was making a pile of her dead son's clothes, the winestained denim jacket fell out. She felt the pockets quickly to see if her son had forgotten any money, but felt something semi-stiff. It was a photograph.

"Do you still have it? May I see it?" asked Dexter.

She nodded and crept away like a mouse to a sewing box in the corner. She came back with the photo.

It was of a man, caught unawares, who had seen the photographer at the last minute. He was trying to raise his outspread hand to cover his face, but the shutter had clicked just in time. He was full face, upright, in a shortsleeved shirt and slacks.

The picture was in black and white, not of professional clarity, but with enlargement and enhancement was as good as he was ever likely to get. He recalled the teenage picture and the cocktail party photo he had found in New York and carried in the lining of his attachŽ case. They were all a bit grainy, but it was the same man-Zilic.

"I would like to buy this picture, Mrs. Petrovic," he said. She shrugged and said something in Serbo-Croat.

"She says you may have it. It is of no interest to her. She does not know who he is," said A

"One last question. Just before he died, did Srechko go away for a while?"

"Yes, in December. He was away a week. He would not say where he had been, but he had a sunburn on his nose."

She escorted them to her door and the landing exposed to the winds, which led to the nonfunctioning lift and the stairwell. A

"You can't understand a word I say, lady, but if I ever get this swine into a slammer in the States, it's partly for you. And it's on the house."

Of course she did not understand, but she responded to the smile and said, "Hvala." In a day in Belgrade he had learned that it means "Thank you."

He had instructed the taxi to wait. He dropped A

Zilic was standing on what looked like an open expanse of concrete or tarmac. Behind him were big, low buildings like warehouses. Over one of the buildings a flag floated, extended by the breeze, but part of it was off the picture.

There was something else sticking into vision out of frame, but he could not work it out. He tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder.

"Do you have a magnifying glass?" He did not understand, but elaborate pantomime cleared up the mystery. He nodded. He kept one in the glove compartment for studying his A-Z city road map if need be.

The long, flat object jutting into the picture from the left came clear. It was the wingtip of a plane, but no more than six feet off the ground. So not an airliner, but a smaller craft.

Then he recognised the buildings in the background. Not warehouses, hangars. Not the huge structures required for sheltering airliners, but the sort needed for private planes, executive jets, whose tail fins rarely top more than thirty feet. The man was on a private airfield or the executive section of an airport.

They helped him at the hotel. Yes, there were several cyber-cafŽs in Belgrade, all open late. He dined in the snack bar and took a taxi to the nearest. When he was logged on to his favourite search engine, he asked for all the flags of the world.

The flag fluttering above the hangars in the dead reporter's photo was only in monochrome, but clearly it had three horizontal stripes of which the bottom one was so dark it looked black. If not, then a very dark blue. He opted for black.

As he ran through the world's flags, he noted that a good half of them had some kind of logo, crest, or device superimposed on the stripes. The one he sought had none. That cut the choice down to the other half.

Those who had horizontal stripes and no logo were no more than two dozen, and those with a black or near-black bottom stripe were five.

Gabon, the Netherlands, and Sierra Leone all had three horizontal stripes of which the lowest was deep blue, which could show up black in a monochrome photograph. Only two had a bottom stripe of three that was definitely black: Sudan and one other. But the Sudan had a green diamond up against the flagpole as well as three stripes. The remaining one had a vertical stripe nearest the flagpole. Peering at his photo, Dexter could just make out the fourth stripe, not clear, but it was there.

One vertical red stripe by the flagpole; green, white, and black horizontals ru

Even in December a pale-ski

18 The gulf

There are seven emirates in the UAE, but only the three biggest and richest, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah spring readily to mind. The other four are much smaller and almost anonymous.

They all occupy the peninsula at the southeastern tip of the Saudi landmass, that tongue of desert that separates the Persian Gulf to the north and the Gulf of Oman to the south.

Only one, Al Fujayrah, faces west onto the Gulf of Oman and thence the Arabian Sea; the other six are strung in a line along the northern coast, staring at Iran across the water. Apart from the seven capitals, there is the desert oasis town of Al Am that also has an airport.

While still in Belgrade, Dexter found a portrait photographic studio with the technology to rephotograph the picture of Zoran Zilic, increase its clarity, and then blow it up from playing card to softcover book size.

While the photographer worked on one task, Dexter returned to the cybercafŽ, enquired after the United Arab Emirates, and downloaded everything he could get. The following day he took the JAT regular service via Beirut to Dubai.

The wealthy emirates derive their riches mainly from oil, although they have all tried to broaden the base of their economies to include tourism and duty-free trade. Most of the oil deposits are offshore.

Rigs have to be resupplied constantly, and although the vehicles used for heavy cargoes are seaborne lighters, personal transfers are faster and easier by helicopter.

The oil companies operating the rigs have their own helicopters, but there is still ample room for charter firms, and the Internet revealed three such, right in Dubai. The American Alfred Barnes had become a lawyer when he visited the first. He picked the smallest, on the grounds it was probably the least concerned with formalities and the most interested in wads of dollar bills. He was right on both counts.