The Sentinel

Blaz Buric was a patient man – slow-moving and resolute.  It had taken him two months to find the home address of Brian ‘Lucky’ Brannigan and it was another three weeks before he deemed the night to be suitable.  The middle-aged Bosnian would not commence his course of actions until all possible influences were favourable.  And so it was at 2.00 am on a windy, dark night that he quietly moved a wheelie bin over to the centre of the garage door that housed Lucky’s prized Maserati sports car.  Blood-red and gaudy, the car seemed like a caricature of the man himself Blaz thought without amusement.

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With the help of a milk crate, Blaz clambered up onto the wheelie bin and pulled from his pocket a piece of dense black cloth which he slipped over the security lamp.  In the comforting darkness, he took from a bag slung over his shoulders, a small electric drill, and turned to the wall of the garage, noting with satisfaction that his guess of the horse-shoe charm being fixed with Pozidriv screws proved right – there would be no need to change drive bits.  The drill had been chosen because when the trigger was lightly pressed, an ‘aiming’ beam of light lit up the tip and it was only a matter of minutes before the traditional symbol of good luck had been rotated 180 degrees so the ‘U’ shape would no longer symbolically hold that good luck.  More importantly in Blaz’s mind, any good fortune being held in the cradle of the horse-shoe would now spill onto the unforgiving paving below.

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‘Tomorrow we begin’ he thought grimly and quietly sidled off home content with the thought that the path to absolution might finally be before him.  For 20 long years, he had held to the memories of his life back in Bosnia, a life made sweet by his beloved Dijana and their boundlessly energetic daughters Dada and Emira.  Their simple lives were filled with joy and earthy pleasure.  His hands may have been calloused with hard work in the forest but his heart was soft and gentle from the fulsome contentment his family gave him.  He’d wanted for nothing more.

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The destruction and crushing of their humble dwelling and the three vibrant souls within, may only have been seen by history as a small part of ‘the Balkan troubles’ but for Blaz, it was the pulling of a dark curtain across the light of his life.  His grief knew no depth.  There was no end to his sorrows and the years that followed were empty and everlasting.  He lacked the courage to join his departed and yet had not the will to recover.  He never smiled, he never laughed.  Even the sun on his back and the colours and smells of spring gave him no joy … nor did being sponsored across the world to a new life by his nephew Savo.  His heart was forever frozen back in Mostar.
The three years with Savo had just prolonged his life’s sentence; the sentence for not being at home on that fateful day when the Croatian artillery shell destroyed his universe.  If he hadn’t tarried for 30 minutes to sup a glass of wine with the village blacksmith, they would have been together forever.

 
His time with his nephew was spent helping, as a semi-mute assistant, emotionlessly resisting the young man’s cheerful attempts to teach him English.  He helped because he was family.  The work of designing and installing security systems and CCTV equipment had initially been baffling to Blaz, but being adept with his hands and blessed with an inquisitive mind he eventually took on some of his kin’s knowledge.  Now even Savo was gone. A few months earlier Savo had been commissioned to install a security light on the outside of a nine-storey building owned by Brannigan and Associates.  It was to be positioned at the third level and with the address being in the inner city, the street could not be blocked for a cherry-picker crane to carry out the relatively simple work.  Instead, the window cleaners’ swinging stage was lowered from above with Savo inside and Blaz controlling it from the roof-top.  When the stage was passing the 5th floor, one of the projecting arms that held the small open-top cabin clear of the building suddenly fractured, causing the cabin to drop vertically, spilling the contents to the courtyard below.  

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Savo had been very cautious in his approach to this task and had made sure that he had a certified safety harness and suitable lanyard and carabiner.  He’d carefully measured the lanyard, ensuring he had no more length than the distance down to the work.  He’d then clipped the carabiner to the safety eye at the top of the building and slowly fed the lanyard out as Blaz lowered the swinging stage.  When the arm broke, Savo had dropped clear but instead of being arrested painfully by his safety line, the jolt of the rope tightening just popped the safety eye out of the concrete and Savo plummeted to his death.

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Savo’s death was shocking and devastating for Blaz.  He was now utterly alone and on the far side of the world from his homeland; confused and distraught. A judicial hearing found that metal fatigue had caused the derrick arm to break and tellingly, maintenance schedules had been ignored.  The responsibility for those schedules to be followed lay with Brannigans, who had also overseen the construction of the building.  The building was 11 years old and the relevant archived paperwork from the specialist installer was vague, and no clear hand-over of the schedules could be located.  In addition to owning the development, Lucky Brannigan had carried out the role of Project Manager during the construction.  A search of council records relating to the Construction Completion Certificate showed that initially one security eye at the rooftop was found to be missing and was instructed to be retrofitted before sign-off.  This was the very security eye that had failed Savo. Cross-referencing with site diaries showed that an agency worker had been assigned this work and further investigation found him to have been a holidaying Irishman named Sean O’Leary.  

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When located in Dublin Mr O’Leary told the hearing by teleconference that he was instructed to simply scabble away the surface of the concrete and just ‘bog up’ the crater with some high-strength mortar, bedding in the eye with a short stub of steel to hold it in place.  A similar operation was done on the other side of the parapet wall … so the end result looked like the new work was connected right through.  This led to the assumption that that the eye was correctly connected behind the main reinforcing steel with right-angle tails and the whole void filled.  Mr O’Leary knew this was a ‘quick and dirty’ fix with no hope of working if ever called upon to do so, but recounted that he had been instructed to do so by ‘the main man’.  He was unable to recall the name of that person, but his description could fit that of a younger Lucky Brannigan.  Brannigan’s affronted defence to this suggestion was that he never, ever directly instructed any of the work-force.  His counsel asserted strongly that a worker like O’Leary would have got his instructions from the leading hand or possibly the foreman but never from the project manager.  The foreman had subsequently died in the intervening years and the leading hand was not able to be located.  Consequently, Brannigan was found not to have personally contributed to the death of Savo Buric.  

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How much of this finding was understood by Blaz was unable to be ascertained, given what followed. On the morning after his actions of rotating the horseshoe charm, Blaz positioned himself on the footpath opposite the town-house of Lucky and his partner Lola.  When the snarling Maserati paused to enter onto the roadway, Blaz stepped forward and silently raised his arm and pointed at Lucky.  This action was missed by Lucky because he was focussing on looking for a gap in the traffic to sling-shot his wonderful Italian beauty into, but Lola did note the oddly still figure and his chilling stare. Returning that evening Lola again sighted the mature figure and his raised arm, which pointed and followed their path into the garage.  This disturbed her and she called to Lucky that “Some weirdo is pointing at us!”

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“Just a fruit loop. Ignore him!”
“He was there this morning too.  I don’t like him, he looks a bit creepy!”

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Blaz watched them scurry inside and he settled down to his vigil.  Surprisingly, he found he was drawing comfort from his past.  He sank down onto his haunches and slowed his thinking, trying to empty his mind; just as he did when he would spend his nights as a shepherd in the hills above Mostar.  Back then, Blaz and two of his cousins would share the role of night sentinel watching over their shared flock, to keep them safe from a wolf attack.  Once the sheep had quietened, Blaz would damp down his cerebral activity and remain motionless for hour after hour with seemingly only his eyes monitoring the surroundings, programmed to react to any movement in the night.

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At 11.30 he saw the light go out behind the curtains of what he presumed was their bedroom.  A few seconds later he saw the curtains pulled open and he sensed he could make out the pale visage of Lola.

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“He’s still there Lucky, he is looking up at me!”
“Well come away, he can’t see you then.  He’ll be gone in the morning.”

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But he wasn’t gone in the morning.  The silent figure was still there staring at them, expressionless.  Lola shuddered as they quickly drove by.  This was to be a constant in the days to come.  Whenever they left their property, Blaz was always there staring at them, sometimes raising his arm to point, but always expressionless and always present.  They couldn’t work out when he slept or whether he was there all day. Finally Lucky could take no more.  His relationship with Lola was suffering and something needed to be done.  Lucky summonsed a couple of ‘heavies’ he had access to and told them to find out who the strange man was and make him ‘piss off’.  

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“Do it discretely, at night so no one can see you, but make it happen!  I don’t want to see him again.”

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A couple of mornings later Lola crept to the window and looked out cautiously.

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“He’s gone … thank God for that! Oh, what a relief.”

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Lucky’s lackeys reported back to him later to advise that they were not very happy about their mission.  They’d ascertained that the guy was a foreigner called Blaz and that he showed absolutely no resistance to being roughed up.  To the contrary, he almost seemed to be smiling.  He took his beating without making a sound or raising a hand in defence.

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Indeed, Blaz had welcomed the pain and bruising.  Finally, he felt there was some honour in his life and in some way was sharing a link with his lost family. There was only a day’s respite before Blaz was back as a burr under the saddle of Lucky and Lola’s life.  He did nothing … but he was there … always there like a tap dripping onto a rock.  His presence was relentless.  Another week went by before in desperation Lola rang the Police.  They knew who she was and how humiliating it must have been for anyone associated with the Brannigans to ask for help from them.  Of course, there was nothing they would do as they explained.  They couldn’t arrest people just for looking or even pointing.  They could perceive no threat and saw no reason to move Blaz along, not even for loitering. Stress levels for Lucky and Lola relentlessly climbed.  From just being an odd annoyance, the presence of Blaz slowly took on a significance beyond explanation.  For them, he was an uninvited intruder who wouldn’t leave their lives.  They began to dread coming home and each morning was greeted with a dark realisation that the irritant was still outside.

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Six weeks after first laying eyes on their tormentor, Lucky stormed downstairs at three in the morning with a softball bat in his hand, unable to control his emotions any longer.  He strode resolutely across the road to the shadowy figure.

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“What do you want?” he hissed at the now standing Bosnian.  The emotionless face stared back at him and a heavily accented voice replied.

 “You.”
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Lucky stood back and swung the heavy wooden bat with all his strength.  The rage within him gave him power and he felt the bat shudder with the impact and simultaneously a crunching of bone registered with him.  The darkly clad figure did not cry out with pain, it just slowly fell … like a forest giant finally giving way to a determined Husqvana.  There was no sense of submission or fear from the unarmed man.  Lucky was incensed and filled with a fury he had not experienced before.  He could barely control his limbs as he fled back to the apartment.

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Lucky did not sleep and dawn saw him still shaking and even Lola telling him that Blaz was not there could not quell his quivering movements.  It took days of remaining at home on strong medication before he could face looking from their front window and focus his gaze on the leafy alcove, now empty of their opponent.  His spirits slowly rose and as Lola’s mood also stabilised they would often hug and exclaim, “Thank God it’s over”.  Secretly each wondered if it was though and couldn’t help checking and rechecking the vacant area opposite.

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Their nightmare resumed on the thirteenth morning after what Lucky had thought of as an exorcism –  Blaz was back.  Just as before, he was stationary but ever-present. He just stared at them as they raced past in the Maserati.  Each evening they faced coming home with an irrational dread.  This was more than just having someone standing in a public place near where you lived.  This was a black cloud, a scary presence … a menace that could not be explained.  There was a sense of pending doom in the air.  Lucky and Lola had no idea how to stop the torment.  A plaster cast made squatting for Blaz impossible but the white tube made his presence at night even more evident.  

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No longer could Lucky function during the day, his nerves were shot and he constantly fidgeted and seemed to be away in another place.  Deep down he knew there was a connection with the swinging stage fatality and he knew there would be no end to the purgatory their lives had been thrown into unless he could remove the cause.  This was a step he had never considered in all the dodgy dealings he had been involved with over the years.  “I’m a wide-boy, an opportunist, not a thug … or more!” he told himself over and over.

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It took six more weeks until he finally snapped and in a semi-deranged state he stole from their bed and took a gutting knife from his fishing gear.  He could take no more – the head had to be removed from the snake.  Only then would he be able to sleep easily and deeply.  He wanted their lives back. Blaz saw the approaching threat and smiled.  He sensed finality.  He knew the pain would be excruciating, but he also knew it could never match what he had already been through.  He threw his arms wide in a welcoming embrace and cleared the way for Lucky to plunge the knife into his breast.  The pain was indeed beyond anything Blaz had imagined, but he knew it was the payment of the final portent and the pathway to his loved ones.

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Although Lucky carried away the lifeless body, and took it 50 km away before dumping it into a sinkhole on the land of an acquaintance, he felt no release, no joy.  He’d always espoused that ‘winners are grinners’, yet now all he did was shake and weep.

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A week later his door shook to the robust knocking of the police.  Five armed and grim-looking uniformed men took him into custody under the watchful eye of a detective inspector.  It unfolded that Blaz had instructed his Assyrian landlady that if he was ever missing for more than three days, she was to take the laptop computer which had belonged to Savo, to the authorities.  He had shown her an icon on the desktop screen, which she was to point to and have them open.  A hidden security camera with motion sensors and a lens to capture low-light action had recorded each interplay and wirelessly fed them back to the computer.  It seemed that the legendary Brannigan luck had finally run out.

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