by Joseph Badal
“How much further, Mr. Radko?” Michael asked.
Stefan didn’t answer. He wasn’t paying attention. How can it be? he thought. Impossible! Danforth! Gregorie’s murderer. Now his son is here.
Michael repeated his question.
“What! Oh! It’s just around the bend in the road. You will see an old, gray Mercedes on the right side.”
“How’d you get a car this far south? The roads must have been crammed with people.”
“We just drove at their pace most of the time. There is the car up ahead,” Stefan pointed. “That is as far as we got before the traffic stopped completely.”
Michael shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare. The road and the fields on each side were wall-to-wall people. A woman and a teenaged boy stood next to the Mercedes, parked in the shade of a large tree. While the truck edged forward, hundreds of refugees rose from the ground and began to move toward it.
“Don’t stop,” Michael told the driver. “Pull over to the middle of that pasture.” He turned to Radko. “As soon as we stop, go to your family and get them in your car. The road will clear a little when people crowd around the truck. When the truck is empty, I want you to follow it back out of here. I’ll be riding with you.”
“I do not want to just go back to that place where we met,” Stefan said. “I want my family taken all the way to your headquarters, and then out of Macedonia as soon as possible.”
“Those papers you say you have better be damn good if you expect tickets to the United States.”
“They are damn good!” Stefan said.
“Why don’t you let me take a look at them?” Michael suggested.”
“And then maybe you will tell me how you know my daughter’s name?”
“Fair enough,” Michael agreed.
As soon as the truck came to a halt, Michael followed Radko out of the cab. While Radko walked toward his car, Michael ran to the back of the truck.
“Stay in the truck,” he ordered his men. “Let them see your weapons. We don’t need a riot.”
He climbed into the truck to join his men, while Hunter began to address the milling, murmuring crowd in Albanian.
“Your attention, please.” Hunter waited for his words to be passed back to those who were too far away to hear, and then he waited for the crowd to quiet. “We have food and water, and some medicine.” Another wait for the message to be carried to the rear of the crowd. “If you will line up, we will pass out what we have. There is not enough for all of you, but–”
The sound of several thousand voices rose in complaint, and the sound grew when Hunter’s words traveled through the crowd.
Hunter raised his arms for quiet. It took over a minute for the din to calm. “There are twenty trucks just like this one distributing supplies one and a half kilometers from here. Those of you who are strong enough to walk should go there. Please let children, the old, and the sick get through to us here.”
The sounds of complaints rose again, but many of those in front moved aside to allow the weaker people to come forward.
“Amazing,” Michael told Hunter. “Even after all they’ve been through, they still behave in a civilized fashion.”
“I’ve seen the same thing everywhere I’ve gone since coming over here,” Hunter said.
Michael just shook his head and jumped down from the truck.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
General Dimitri Plodic handpicked the five-man Serb Army Special Forces team to infiltrate Macedonia. The Serb Special Forces had been modeled after the Russian SPETSNAZ. Like the American Green Berets and the SEALs, the SPETSNAZ troops were the best and the brightest of the Russian military forces. They were paramilitary forces that could operate in almost any situation, no matter how extreme. All the men he selected were at least bilingual in Serbo-Croatian and Albanian. A couple also knew English. And each had years of combat experience and other qualities Plodic valued: a pathological need for action, fearlessness, and no conscience. The fact that a couple of the men were borderline psychopaths only served Plodic’s purposes.
The Serb Intelligence Agency provided each man with false ID and a fabricated personal history. Plodic told them not to shave, to look more like civilians, like refugees. They were to pass as Bosnian Muslims. The General personally explained the mission to the team’s leader, Captain Mikhail Sokic, making his options clear: Succeed and be national heroes, fail and . . .. He left the alternative to Sokic’s imagination.
“Captain Sokic, you have three weeks to prepare your men,” Plodic said. “Intelligence Service personnel are available to you at any time. Use them! I want you to know everything about the Kumanovo area and about the 82nd Airborne Division – its location in Macedonia, its mission, its weaponry. Everything.”
“Yes, General Plodic. We will do our best,” Sokic barked.
“I hope so, Captain. The President wants this American officer brought to him. My career and yours are on the line.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The day had been filled with budget meetings, which had strained Bob’s patience more than usual. He thought more than once that, perhaps, he had come to the moment when he should put in his papers. At least that’s what Liz wanted him to do. Retire. He’d thought a lot about changing careers – maybe go into teaching at the university level.
He breezed through the outer office, gave a half-hearted wave to his secretary, and walked into his office. He dropped into his chair and noticed an envelope lying on the middle of the blotter. He noticed the APO return address and Michael’s familiar scrawl. Thank God! A letter, finally. He checked the date. It had been sent just five days earlier. Tearing the end of the envelope open and extracting the single sheet of paper, he walked to a window while standing in a ray of sunshine.
Dear Dad:
This is addressed to you alone because I have to get something off my chest. You can’t imagine how angry and disappointed I am that you would interfere with my assignment and my career. The embarrassment and humiliation you have caused me is unbelievable. While every other company commander has led missions into the hills along the border to sweep them clean of Serb units, I‘ve been kept behind the lines. While other companies do their jobs, mine stays in the headquarters area, safe and sound. And why? Because I have connections. Because my father has pull.
Never in my life would I have expected you to do something like this. I found out that someone at the CIA contacted the Pentagon about me. I must assume it was you.
Butt out, Dad! This is my life. Give me a chance to live it.
The letter was signed “Michael.” No “Love” or “Your son.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Michael got in the front seat of the Mercedes, next to Stefan’s son. Stefan, seated behind the teenager, said, “Captain, this is my wife, Vanja, and my son, Attila.”
Michael turned to look at Vanja and said, “Hello.” The woman smiled and tipped her head in return.
As Attila pulled away from the side of the road and followed the U.S. Army truck, Stefan said, “Vanja, this is Captain Michael Danforth.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Michael said, noticing the woman’s jaw drop and her eyes widen while she stared at him. She looked over at Stefan. Michael thought he detected nervousness in her expression. But he remembered Stefan reacted the same way when he saw his nametag. Maybe Danforth is a dirty word in their language, Michael thought.
Michael shifted his gaze to Stefan. “Now would be a good time to see your log, Mr. Radko,” he said.
“Go ahead, Vanja. Show him what you wrote down,” Stefan ordered.
Michael looked back at Vanja and watched her pull three thick sheaves of paper tied with ribbon from a large straw bag. Placing them on her lap, she took the top packet, reached out, and handed it to Michael. He untied the ribbons, removed a blank cover sheet, and noticed the handwritten words on the next sheet. “What language is this?” he asked.
“Roma,” Vanja said. “The Gypsy language.”
“How am I supposed to understand this?”
“You are not, unless you can read Roma,” Stefan said sarcastically.
“So these could be love letters, for all I know?”
“Captain Danforth, you will just have to take our word for it,” Stefan said. “Every one of those sheets of paper is a separate eyewitness account of a crime committed by one or more Serbs against a Kosovar Albanian, Bosnian, or Gypsy.”
Michael again wondered, Can I trust someone whose own daughter describes him as a sonofabitch?
“Now that I have delivered what I promised, tell me how you know Miriana.”
Michael swung around in his seat again and looked back at Stefan. Before he could respond, Vanja yelled something in a high-pitched voice and a language Michael didn’t understand.
In a paternalistic tone, Stefan, using English, told her, “Now, now, dear. You must not be rude. English please.”
“He knows Miriana?” Vanja cried, now staring at Michael. “How? Is she all right? Where is she?” She looked back at Stefan. “Why did you not say something earlier?”
Stefan patted her hand. “Give him a chance to answer.” He had a smug look on his face.
Michael turned away from Stefan and looked once again at Vanja. Her face was etched with anticipation. Her hands were finger-laced together against her chest as though in prayer. Stefan moved across the seat, coming closer to Vanja and put his arm around her. But he was staring at Michael, slit-eyed, somehow triumphant. Miriana has her mother’s eyes and nose, he thought, and her father’s cheekbones and hair color. But her complexion fell somewhere in between her mother’s fair skin and her father’s dark coloring.
“Miriana’s well,” he said. “I don’t know the whole story, but my father had something to do with getting her to the United States. She’d helped him with some assignment.”
“She is okay . . .?” Vanja’s voice broke.
“She’s great,” Michael said, seeing immediate relief spread across her face.
“Assignment?” Stefan demanded in a sharp voice. “What business is your father in now?”
Michael thought Radko’s use of the word “now” was odd, but he brushed it off. “He’s a . . . consultant,” Michael said. “Anyway, I met Miriana at a party. She told me her last name is Georgadoff. If she hadn’t told me your name, Mr. Radko, I wouldn’t have made the connection.”
Michael noticed a suspicious look in the man’s eyes, a look that said he doubted Michael had told them everything.
Michael told Attila to park the car in front of a communications tent fifty yards off the road.
“Wait here,” Michael said. “I’ll be right back.”
He stepped inside the tent and over to a Sergeant seated in front of a radio. “Sergeant, see if you can raise Colonel Sweeney for me.”
“Yes, sir. This may take a minute, Captain. Where will you be?”
“Right here, Sergeant, waiting impatiently.”
“Gotcha, sir.”
“I am confused, Stefan,” Vanja said, while the Radkos waited in the Mercedes outside the American tent. “Is the American officer who I think he is? Can that be possible?”
“The Americans have a saying: It is a small world.” He smiled, but there was no joy in it. “Yes, he is exactly who you think he is.” Yes, my wife, Stefan thought. And his father is the man who killed my son, Gregorie. The man who could have caused the death of our beloved daughter. And now his son knows Miriana. That look in his eyes when he says her name!
“Babo, Mama, what are you talking about?” Attila asked.
“Shut up!” Stefan growled.
Colonel Sweeney paced the wood floor of his command tent at the 82nd’s base camp. He slapped the easel-mounted map and said to his operations chief, “Chuck, we got units covering a thousand square miles trying to assist the refugees. We can’t spread our men out like that. I want our people in platoon-sized units. Nothing smaller. Get–.” The phone on his desk rang. He leaped to answer it and barked, “Sweeney.”
“Colonel, it’s Captain Danforth. I’ve got an interesting situation here. I think you need to meet some people I ran into.”
“What kind of situation?”
“One with political implications, sir. I’d rather not discuss it over the radio.”
“Okay, Mike. Bring them in.” Sweeney cut the connection. Now what? He thought. But his phone rang again with yet another problem, and he quickly put Danforth’s comments in the recesses of his mind.
An hour later, Sweeney felt his pulse accelerate while Michael described what was allegedly written on the pile of papers lying on his desk. He tried to keep his excitement from showing on his face, but he couldn’t keep his hands from trembling. He noticed the man named Radko standing on the other side of his desk staring at his hands and quickly moved them under his desk.
Sweeney stared at Radko and the woman and teenaged boy standing with him. “I can’t read Roma,” he said. “How can I know these papers are what you claim them to be?”
“There are several hundred Gypsies caught up in the mass of people on the road north of here,” Stefan said. “Pull any one of them out at random and let him translate the papers. As for their authenticity, every one of the people we interviewed is also out on that road. Your men can find them – every refugee is being registered by name and village. The names of those we interviewed are in those pages. When you find them – in a week, or month, or so – they will verify the information in their statements. Every word we wrote down is true. It would take weeks for you to duplicate what we have already done. The International War Crimes Tribunal would love to get these documents. We can get more statements than these. Why not put us to work? We know and understand these people. We can get more out of them than your NATO clerks safe in their little offices would ever be able to get.”
“Whoa, slow down,” Sweeney said. The Colonel sat quietly in thought for a moment. “Mr. Radko, I’m going to do exactly as you suggest. If what you say is true, you and your family can be a big help to us.”
He turned to Michael. “Captain Danforth, take the Radkos to the processing center. Move them to the head of the line. Once they’re registered, see they receive housing. Assign one of your men to help them get settled.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jack looked around the BOQ room at Andrews Air Force Base and, for the first time, really noticed the stark furnishings of the place: vinyl-clad furniture, a throw rug over the linoleum-covered floor, and no pictures on the wall. This was no place for a beautiful young woman to spend her time. As soon as Miriana’s safety was no longer an issue, he would have to help her find an apartment.
“We’ve finished debriefing you, Miriana,” Jack Cole said. “Now we need to make arrangements for your future. Get you a job. Find a place for you to live. As soon as we are sure this Vitas character is gone.”
“Mr. Cole, I cannot think about future until I know family is safe.”
“We tried to find them in Mladenovac, but the neighbors said they left days ago. They could be anywhere.”
“The Serbs will hunt them same as me. They will assume my parents were involved with Karadjic’s kidnapping. You must get them out of Yugoslavia,” she said. Jack noticed that her fingernails were bitten to the quick.
“Miriana, we’ll do all we can, but I can’t promise.” She had dark circles under her eyes, and her clothes hung on her because she’d lost weight. He tried to change the subject. “What do you plan to do with the money?”
“Nothing! Money is to help family. When I am with them I will think about money.”
“Miriana, there’s one thing we have to do. You can’t stay here forever. We need to relocate you, get you out in the real world.”
“I think I would like talk to Mr. and Mrs. Danforth,” Miriana said. “I want to ask advice.”
“Okay, Miriana, I’ll set it up.” Jack walked out of the room and nodded at the guard sitting in the hall. He wondered what the odds were that the members
of her family were still alive.
He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. The dashboard clock read six-forty-five p.m. Tromping on the accelerator, ignoring the posted fifteen mile per hour speed limit, he traversed the base and drove toward Washington, D.C. He picked up his cell phone and punched in Bob Danforth’s office number. When no one answered, he tried the house.
“Hello!”
“Hi, Liz. It’s Jack.”
“He just got home, but he’s in the shower, Jack. Can I give him a message?”
“How do you know I’m not calling to talk to you, gorgeous?”
“In the twenty years I’ve known you, how often have you called just to talk to little old me?”
Jack chuckled. “All right, Liz, you got me. Actually, I’m calling for you as much as for Bob. I just left Miriana Georgadoff at Andrews. We’re about to relocate her somewhere outside the beltway. She wants to ask you two for advice.”
“We’d love to see her! In fact, why don’t you bring her here Saturday afternoon? We’ll put some steaks on the grill.”
“Liz, I’d like that, but I’ve got to catch a flight to the Balkans. I’ve got to sit in on the meetings between NATO and the Serbs. But I could have one of my people drive her over. He can watch the street while you visit with Miriana, and take her back to the base afterwards.”
“Great! I’ll let Bob know.”
“Thanks, Liz.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Captain Sokic led his four men up the rocky Serbian hillside, setting a blistering pace. They’d all pushed the envelope during the past week, honing their physical condition, and today had been no exception. Their packs loaded with fifty pounds of sand, they’d already run ten miles. Scaling this cliff face would put them on the mesa above their base camp. From the top of the mesa they would run two miles to their barracks.
