The Grey Falcon

by J. C. Williams

  “So what is the quest? And why me.”

  “Ah, the simpler answers,” the Professor answered. “There is an artifact or artifacts associated with Serbian history. Mihajlo Brajkovic contacted an archeologist, a Muslim, in Kosovo where a significant battle occurred connected to these artifacts. The archeologist could not make progress in finding them and recommended that the Minister hire someone who was good at locating things, someone like Dr. Henry Clark. But, he told the minister Dr. Clark is deceased. A colleague through another source learned of this and told us. I thought of you. If you agree, I will go back through that path and arrange for you to meet Brajkovic.”

  “Interesting. When?”

  “You leave tomorrow.”

  “And why such a rush?”

  “I don’t know, Chad.”

  Chapter 7

  “What time is it?” Chad mumbled as he heard Sandy come in the bedroom.

  “It’s just past one.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Not so well. We did not find Baywater at any of the four spots Dickie considered primary possibilities. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “Sorry,” Chad empathized.

  “No worries. It might take some time, if he is hiding. Maybe Cyrus, the pawnshop bloke, alerted him. Yuk. I feel dirty. A couple of those places were terrible. Plus I had to drink some bad booze and fend off hits all night. Imagine someone finding this attractive?”

  Sandy spread her arms and frowned to display her clothes. Chad was sitting up.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said disgustedly and turned over burying his face in the pillow.

  “Ooh, you’re bad, Archer boy,” Sandy spit out, picking up her pillow and smacking Chad’s head.

  “So how was the meeting with the Professor?” she asked, starting to undress.

  “Fine. He has a job for me in Serbia. I think I’d like it.”

  “Told you so. Told you so,” she taunted. “I told you he’d talk you into something.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Chad retorted.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow, I mean today, if Adrien can let me go from the task team. The semester is over, so school is not a concern.”

  Sandy was taken aback letting the immediacy of it set in.

  “I’m sure Adrien can let you go,” she said. “Since you haven’t solved it yet. Leave it to we professionals.”

  “Oh, right. You just want more time hanging around bars, getting hit on, just to boost your ego.”

  “Speaking of boosting things, I need to take a shower. Want to come with me?” she coyly delivered the double entendre.

  “I don’t know. You don’t get picked up on your night out so you come home to me thinking I’m a sure thing. I feel like a second choice.”

  She jumped on the bed and started to tickle him. “You’re not funny, Archer boy.”

  He moved quickly to grab her poking hands but missed. She changed from poking to stroking, and then as he grew quiet and hard, she leapt from the bed. “I’m taking a shower now.”

  Chad quickly followed.

  -----

  Luc Millet, known to Archer as Ponytail, walked along the second floor balcony fronting the motel rooms twenty miles east of London center. As he passed the central stairwell, a large man stepped in front of him.

  “Merde,” Luc exclaimed in his native French. Then he recognized Zevic, and sighed relief.

  “Where have you been, Luc?” Zevic asked.

  Luc looked sideways at Zevic, then walked ahead and opened the door to his room, looking over the parking lot for any other visitors. The thief didn’t know how Zevic found where he was staying, but over the last six weeks he had come to respect Zevic’s network of contacts and ability to find information.

  As Zevic stepped cautiously inside the room, he stated matter-of-factly, “I’ve been calling you.” He spoke in German, their best second language.

  “Leid. Sorry. I turned it off.” Luc took his cell and pushed a couple buttons. “What do you want? I thought we were done.”

  Zevic ignored the question. “Where were you?”

  Luc weighed the option of arguing with Zevic. It was a losing proposition.

  “I have some things to dispose of as you know. I need to broker deals.”

  Part of their agreement for the museum robberies was that Luc could have whatever they stole and sell it as he wished.

  Zevic got to the point. “One of your team talked to someone. From what you told me, the police knew it was going down last night.”

  “I don’t think so. My guys were not in on the planning. They were all picked up across town. They didn’t know the target. I gave instructions at the last minute.”

  “Then they must have called someone when they arrived.”

  That was a logical conclusion and Luc didn’t refute it, because if he did, the alternative was the electrician, the person that he now suspected. A person that he didn’t want Zevic to suspect.

  “What does it matter?” Luc asked. Are you afraid someone will link the robbery to me and then I’ll link it to you? Is that why you’re here? To tie up loose ends?” Luc knew it wasn’t but wanted to get it out. Zevic was intimidating, but Luc was not afraid.

  “It’s about doing business with me,” Zevic said. “It’s why you’re safe and why the talkative one is not.”

  They both knew that Zevic couldn’t kill Luc or else others would be reluctant to meet and do business in the future. They also knew that should Luc ever be arrested and roll on Zevic that there was no place Luc would be safe. On the other hand, retribution for not keeping confidence about a job was paramount to every future job’s success.

  Zevic had also concluded that the electrician was the most logical suspect, but he sensed there was some deeper personal connection between Luc and his electrician – the man with both the skills to hack security systems and access power grids. He’d go about this a different way.

  “I want you to find out if any your fences or brokers are the source of information to the police.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you probably contacted fences or brokers before the job. You needed to know whom you could use to move the museum items quickly. You have well established conduits in France, Germany, and other European counties, but I know you are not so well connected here.”

  “What is it you expect me to do? I don’t meet with fences directly. I use two brokers here. How do I get them to ask the questions?”

  “I’ll set you up with button cameras for your brokers. We’ll judge the response of the fences to questions that I will give you. Your brokers need to meet the fences face-to-face.”

  Luc considered his options. There were none. Besides, Zevic was grasping at straws for this to work. And, more importantly, it kept the spotlight off the electrician.

  June 19

  9 Days to Vidovdan

  Chapter 8

  Archer absorbed the activity in the waiting area outside the office of the Serbia Minister of Economy. He noted that a visitor leaving the elevator first walked through a large room full of cubicles filled with youthful activity, then entered a comfortable waiting area, with sofas, deep chairs, and walls covered with framed scenes of Serbian manufacturing, technology, and service industries. Two attractive secretaries sat on either side of double doors leading to the Minister’s office. One wing of the waiting room was a glass enclosed conference room looking out from the fourth floor of the government building across Belgrade toward the rising new construction. The other wing was a walled conference room. The two conference rooms were named in four languages. The Serbian Cyrillic and English were recognizable. Chad thought the third was Latin or Greek, and assumed the fourth was Croatian. The names of the rooms were Tomorrow and Together. It was all designed to be an uplifting and positive message about the present and the future.

  He was early and well rested. The headaches did not return this morning. Yesterday’s early afternoon three-hour flight and a quiet
evening at the Hotel Europe provided an opportunity to read the information from the Professor and look up additional information on the unrest in the Balkans since 1990.

  A second man entered the waiting area just as one of the secretaries said in English, “You can go in now Dr. Archer.”

  She spoke to the new arrival in Serbian. Chad thought he heard the word barrister. The man answered. “Hvala vam.” Archer recognized thank you from the hour he took last night to learn some Serbian expressions. The man entered with Archer.

  The Minister greeted them both warmly, speaking English.

  “Dr. Archer, thank you for taking the time and trouble to come to Serbia. Mr. Barrison, as always, thanks to you for your services. Dr. Archer, please meet Mr. Harry Barrison.”

  Barrison extended his hand. Archer sized him up. Short - maybe five-six, thin – maybe more like trim, and spectacled – an impression of intelligent eyes.

  “Mr. Barrison is a lawyer,” the Minister said, raising Chad’s warning antennae, “but his function today is as an interpreter.”

  “Dr. Archer, it is a pleasure to meet you,” Barrison said, in a distinctly UK English.

  “The pleasure is mine,” Chad answered. The he turned to Mihajlo Brajkovic, “Minister, I have heard wonderful things about you and I am very impressed with your offices, your people, and the message that you have constructed here.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Archer. But in all honesty, the compliments go to my hard working team.”

  “Perhaps, but you are their leader.”

  “I learned early in life and business that to be a good leader, surround yourself with great people and then just try to get out in front of them and stay out of their way.”

  Chad observed the sincerity of Brajkovic. It was the third clear emotion he had shown in just these first few minutes. His eyes revealed his feelings and his face expressed his thoughts openly. The words charm and natural leader sprang to mind.

  “Let’s sit,” the Minister said. “And, call me Mihajlo. Can I call you Chad, or do you prefer Dr. or Professor? I know you teach.”

  “I prefer Chad.”

  “And, I, Harry,” Barrison added.

  “Fine,” Mihajlo said. “I learned a little about you, Chad. If you haven’t had time, Harry, and I know it was a last minute request that we made of you, let me tell you about this man. And, Chad, my English is passable, but I may need help. That is one reason that Harry is here. The second is that if you take this quest, he will accompany you. Harry speaks Serbian and English. The Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian languages are so close; he knows them all well enough. The three languages used to be called one, either Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian. He even has a workable understanding of Albanian, one of four hundred dialects of Indo-European languages. The Albanian language has evolved and one can see a blend of Greek, Latin, Turkish, and Arab. I’m trying to learn it myself.”

  “That will be helpful,” Chad said nodding toward Harry.

  Harry commented humbly, “Sometimes, I think knowing those various languages, makes me a very poor communicator. A living Tower of Babel.”

  Chad smiled, appreciating Harry’s self-deprecation and dry humor.

  Mihajlo continued, “So, Harry, a little about Dr. Archer. A Boston, Massachusetts , boy genius that entered Braxton College at an early age, graduated in archeology with honors, learned his trade under the esteemed Dr. Henry Clark, earned a doctorate degree, and teaches both at Braxton College as well at the University College London. His expertise is Forensic History. He has assisted Interpol, Boston police, and Scotland Yard. I understand he is the best in a field of any top list of detective analysts. That was too brief a description. I’m afraid I may have done you a disservice, Chad.”

  “Not at all. I think you may have exaggerated my abilities to the point that my head is too large to fit through your door.”

  Mihajlo looked to Harry for an explanation in Serbian.

  “Ah, that is why I have double doors,” Mihajlo responded laughing.

  The Minister took the opportunity to offer them coffee from a sideboard. It was a Nespresso machine with recyclable aluminum cups. Chad had seen them all over the UK.

  “This quest, Chad. I don’t know how much you know of Serbian history or the recent Balkan wars, and current state of tensions and the economy.”

  Chad answered the implied question, “I do not know much. I started reading yesterday on my trip here. I appreciate it is complex, and I wouldn’t presume to say one day of study qualifies me in any way. In fact, just the opposite. I feel like I know even less now. Or perhaps, I have learned how much I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me what you think I should know to best understand the quest?”

  “Fair enough. I appreciate your open mind. As you have said, this is a complex region, with a long and troubled history. The quest goes back to events in 1389 at the Battle of Kosovo. In the previous seven hundred years the world saw the birth of Islam, the split between Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Crusades, and the rise of strong nationalist countries. The next seven hundred years, up to the present, was a continuous push and shove across the Balkan countries between the three religions. That time period also saw the formation and dissolution of many empires, like Austria-Hungary. The European countries and empires were content that the Balkan countries were the buffer between their Christianity and the Muslim Ottoman Empire.”

  Chad asked, “How did the individual countries develop?”

  “Good question. There was an evolution with many changes, but rather than the region becoming, as America did, a melting pot of nationalities and religions, we became very polarized. Slovenia and Croatia were Roman Catholic. Serbia and Montenegro were Orthodox, with the exception of the Kosovo region. Albania was Islamic. Bosnia and Herzegovina was mostly Islamic, but a sizable portion was Serbian, and a smaller portion was Croatian. Yet, as separated as they were by religion there were citizens that wanted unification of Slavic countries or states. Italy and Germany both had done that in the late 1800s. In order to be as big, as strong, and as independent, these groups advocated unification. At the time of World War I, Croatia and Slovenia had been made a part of the Austrian-Hungary Empire, not by their choice, but by treaties between European Powers. That is an example of what unification advocates were opposed to – the powerful empires of Europe dividing and assigning the Balkan countries.

  “In 1914, a Serbian, from a group called Young Bosnia, who were associated with the militant group the Black Hand of Serbia, assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria when he visited Sarajevo in Bosnia, part of the Austrian Empire at that time. The result was that Austria declared war on Serbia. That was an empire of fifty-three million declaring war on three million. Russia came to Serbia’s defense, declaring war on Austria. Germany then declared war on Russia in support of Austria. France was aligned with Russia and there we have World War I. A result of Balkan oppression and their resistance. Of course it was the underlying desire for another’s land and resources that really promulgated the fighting.”

  Chad interrupted, “The Balkan countries ended up on the winning side, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. And, they got their wish, a unification of south Slavic countries. The Serbo-Croatian word for south is Yugo. Yugoslavia was formed, a country of twenty-two million. Finally a large power. I’ll skip forward seventy years to 1990. I will not go in to the atrocities in Croatia against Serbians in World War II and the communist dictatorship of Tito. I will say that Tito was a benevolent dictator and well loved by the people. He fought for Serbian resistance in the War and was born to a Croat father and Slovene mother. He died in 1980. Then the old independencies surfaced. We should note that by then the United Nations had become an International force and the USA was no longer isolationist as it had been in 1910. Small independent countries could exist in the new world order. In addition to the countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro there were two autonomous regions within Serbia – Kosovo and Vojvo
dina. This is important because they had experienced autonomy under Tito.

  “There were a series of wars for Independence. Terrible wars. Ethnic cleansing, genocide, rape, forced emigration. A United Nations force was called upon to fight rather than just keep the peace, ending in UN protectorates. Bosnia is now a geographic administrative anomaly. Serbian citizens were a minority in Bosnia, however they have formed the Republic of Srpska within the borders of Bosnia. It comprises an area in the north and then along the southeast border. It is not continuous.”

  They took a moment to look at a series of maps that made the situation much clearer for Chad.

  Chad broached a touchy subject. “Are things now tenuous and dangerous?”

  “Tenuous, yes. High unemployment. Poor economies. On top of ethnic and religious differences, these make for possibilities of more conflict. Some of us recognize the problem and the solution.”

  “What’s the solution?” asked Chad.

  “Money.”

  Chapter 9

  “Money?” Chad repeated.

  “Foreign investment. That will lead to jobs, tax revenue, and education. It will lead to hope and a future. We owe that to our youth.”

  Mihajlo went to his desk and picked up a report.

  “Listen to this. These are unemployment percentages for our region. Serbia, Albania, Croatia is sixteen percent. Kosovo is thirty percent and Bosnia is forty-four percent. Our neighbors Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria are at seven to nine percent. Even worse is the youth unemployment, ages fifteen to twenty-four. Croatia forty-six percent , Bosnia fifty-six , Serbia forty-nine , and the highest rates are in Kosovo. Over sixty-percent . Compare that to our neighbors at twenty to twenty-five percent. Your USA is only fourteen percent.”

  “Those sound dangerous,” Chad said. “There is something at risk now isn’t there? There is something that will happen, or not happen, as a result of this quest, isn’t there? Something that ties back to a medieval war and the Battle of Kosovo.”