The Miracle of Yousef: Historical and political thriller

by Gonçalo Coelho

  Meanwhile, next door, the former Yugoslavia that had bled and broke apart in recent decades, just like the former Soviet Union, and by the end of the 90’s had been reduced to the title of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia –a version of the same country consisting only of Serbia and Montenegro – would be attacked by NATO forces led by the United States. The reason cited for this military assault was the suspicion of genocide perpetrated by the Orthodox Christian Serbs against the Muslim Albanian Kosovars, although, according to recent reports, the biggest massacres in the region were committed after the NATO bombardments. The participation of the trans-Atlantic organization, openly on the side of the KLA, was understood by Serbia as a distinctly separatist stance, since they looked upon the KLA as a separatist terrorist organization that ought to be eliminated. The intervention of the powerful NATO forces in the conflict pushed victory towards the Kosovars, and after the surrender of Serbia, NATO forces installed the actual KLA leader as Prime Minister of Kosovo, a highly controversial step since it involved anointing as prime minister of a country a man considered to be a war criminal by Serbia, to many a terrorist, while the organization he had headed before NATO forces entered the conflict had committed a series of attacks against Serbs in the western territory of Kosovo Province, against government buildings, police stations and buses carrying civilians. In any case, after the NATO interventions, and under its supervision, the KLA was transformed into the Democratic Party of Kosovo, and began to govern the territory defended not only by it, but also by the Blue Helmets as of the writing of this book. In light of all this, Albania and the United States established increasingly close relations, to such an extent that after September 11th, the Government in Tirana offered not only its political support to the Americans, but also military assistance, if needed, making its military bases, ports and airports available for the anti-terrorist struggle at the global level. On October 10, 2001, a process was completed that led to the creation of a unit within Albania’s anti-terrorism division that would work directly under the supervision of the FBI.

  Yousef knew that this strengthening of ties between Tirana and Washington made his presence in the Albanian capital more of a risk. If for any reason the local authorities were to provide any information to the anti-terrorist division on his presence, or any suspicious action on his part, there was a high probability the FBI would be alerted immediately, and in that case, Yousef would be in very hot water. At present, he did not have any idea whether the FBI, and above all, his nemesis, Agent Borelli, did or did not have any ironclad proof against him, but at all events, he moved with caution, as though he were a global fugitive, carefully measuring every move he made. At all events, the notion he had of the United States and the FBI was such that he imagined that even if they had no proof, they would fabricate it, or simply take action against him regardless.

  Yousef’s meeting with a senior leader of the open-minded KLA, supported by NATO to manage the destiny of the Kosovo region, was scheduled to take place in a villa owned by the organization in Tirana, and that served precisely for informal meetings such as this one. The taxi dropped Yousef on a central avenue in the Albanian capital in front of a high gate with golden bars, and left him there. He went to the bell, noting the presence of security cameras. After ringing the bell, he raised his terrible gaze to one of the cameras and only had to wait a few seconds before the automatic gate began to open slowly. From inside, a tall, strong man, dressed in a black suit and tie, stepped forward with the obvious intention of searching the new arrival. Yousef kept his eyes on the ground as was his habit, but when the other man came within range, he leapt on him quick as lightning, immobilized him with an arm twisted behind his back and held a gun to his head. The villa’s security cameras trained on the entranceway observed this spectacle.

  “You’d better believe you don’t want any problems with me,” Yousef told him simply in English.

  From the walkie-talkie hooked to the guard’s belt a rasping voice emerged in a language unknown to Yousef. In direct response, the guard, clearly responding to an order from above, extended his one free arm and with the open palm indicated to Yousef that he should proceed.

  “You may go in,” he said in English, his face red from the awkward position he was in.

  Yousef let him go and slowly put away his gun, keeping an eye on the security guard. He then proceeded towards the entrance of the villa with no further interference. Behind him the automatic gate began to close.

  A few meters along Yousef went up some stone stairs and came to the front door of the house on an upper level beneath a small canopy. The door was open, and inside, a man dressed in military uniform awaited him, erect, in silence, standing rigid as a statue. From the end of the corridor another man appeared in a suit and tie who called out to Yousef in English, inviting him in.

  He went down the hall and into a spacious room with a high ceiling. At the far end of the room, standing in front of the fireplace, were two men in military uniform. Yousef was once again invited in by the man in the suit and tie, and was also asked to sit down, which he declined. The man in the suit and tie also remained standing, and proceeded to introduce himself and the other two men. Yousef did not take in their specific titles, only that the man in the suit and tie had a political title and the other two were prominent generals in the Kosovar government. He also took in that they all belonged to the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Always sparing in small talk, Yousef wasted no time, and after a few words by the man in the suit and tie, he asked right away how they planned to manage the destiny of the new Kosovo, and how they planned to integrate Islam into the destiny of the country as well as in matters having to do directly with the government. The men from the KLA replied that what mattered most at this time was to ensure the stability of their recent independence, which meant maintaining power over the province of Kosovo and expelling the Serbian and Orthodox Christian enemies they hated. The man in the suit and tie reaffirmed that the two peoples could not live together in the same province, and taking this as a given, it was important now to lay the foundations to begin to build a new country. At which Yousef inquired, a new greater Albania? He knew that this idea was not entirely foreign to the KLA. One of the generals emerged then from his silence to reply that this was not on the horizon, nor was it necessary. After all, they were all Albanians. Just that some now had power over Albania and others over Kosovo, a second homeland for the Kosovar Albanians who had suffered throughout their history for self-determination against the Orthodox Christian Serbs. And what about the integration of Islam into Kosovar society? There were vague replies given by the politician, which Yousef interrupted with an obviously angry gesture and with a brusque change of the subject to what had really brought him there. The man in the suit and tie then replied that they were immensely grateful for the presence of the Arab mujaheddin who had come to help their cause, but it had to be borne in mind that they had already repaid them with a number of Albanian passports, offering a gateway to Europe sought globally by many Arabs. To Yousef’s counter arguments, this rhetoric was repeated again and again. Although they were grateful, the KLA, in the voice of these men, no longer felt that it owed any further favor of any kind. Yousef then changed his tone. He directly asked these three men what their political positions were with respect to the United States, adding that they probably owed them greater favors considering that after all, it was true that the U.S. was most responsible for installing them in power and achieving their independence (little did he know that the United States would have at its disposal in Kosovar territory a base the size of 525 soccer fields, considered in November of 1995 by a human rights envoy of the Council of Europe to be a second Guantánamo). Yousef was 32 years old, but he imposed himself on the others as though he had the maturity and experience of a man of 60, combined with his reputation as an absolutely cynical and fearless man that always preceded him in circles such as this one. With the men he was meeting now, his track record of lethal efficiency was very w
ell known, if not in the details, certainly by the results.

  A man knocked suddenly on the door to the room. He then entered and made a sign to one of the generals in uniform, who excused himself immediately announcing that he had received an urgent phone call, and withdrew. The man in the suit and tie then asked Yousef whether he might be available to provide some training for soldiers of the KLA, and at this stage, it was as though an alarm went off in Yousef’s mind. The question struck him not only as outlandish but completely divorced from the context of their conversation. He had just provoked them. It would be natural for them at least to defend themselves or seek to curtail the discussion, perhaps with a threat by the general who was still present, but no, they had simply changed the subject as though nothing were amiss. In light of this situation, Yousef resolved to stay calm and give an evasive reply, jumping into the game to see where it would lead. The man in the suit and tie fell silent, looked at the general, there was a brief exchange of glances, some understanding that eluded Yousef and then, right away, the politician sought to launch a new topic of conversation. It looked like they simply intended to keep him talking for a while, for as long as necessary, no longer caring what they asked him about. But for what reason? This was what Yousef was wondering. He approached one of the high side windows in the room and drew the curtain aside. Outside there was a tall wall and a narrow path that went between it and the house. From a reduced angle of vision it was also possible to see a portion of the yard in front of the villa. The man in the suit and tie fired off a new question but Yousef did not reply, he simply remained looking out the window, as though he were completely deaf. Faced with this silence, the politician simply pressed ahead.

  “Listen, I’d like to take advantage of the fact that you’re here…”

  “You are now independent,” Yousef interrupted, looking out the window. “And if you are independent this is due to…”

  “Our tenacity,” the politician put in.

  “To our determination,” said the other, almost in unison.

  “No. It’s due to your alliance with the United States.”

  Yousef had just seen pass in front of the house one and then a second man, armed and wearing uniforms of the Albanian police. This was enough to clue him in on what was going on: an ambush. The KLA general took out a pistol, but before he could fire, Yousef also pulled out his and shot the man point blank, then did the same to the politician. The sound of running feet getting closer could then be heard in the corridor. Yousef opened the window and climbed onto the parapet. The figure of Agent Borelli appeared in the door with a gun in his hand.

  “Yousef Al-Khaled, give yourself up, there’s no where you can run to.”

  Yousef glanced over his shoulder and recognized him. There was still one last possibility of escape. Across from the window was the wall, and though it would be difficult, particularly because he could not get a running start, it was possible to leap directly over the wall. With no other alternative, Yousef leapt at the same time as Agent Borelli shot at him. Missed. Yousef snatched at the top of the wall, scrambled up and fell onto the other side belonging to the neighboring villa. A Rottweiler raced towards him barking menacingly and salivating. He ran for the gate as fast as his legs could go, opened it, and went out into the street, slamming the gate right on the snout of the dog who absorbed the blow then leapt back up wildly barking and salivating.

  15

  The police standing in the yard by the entrance to the KLA villa, quickly realizing their target had escaped through the house next door, bolted into the street in hot pursuit of the fugitive. Yousef raced off hearing shots fired his way. At the intersection where a number of cars were stopped at a red light he saw a metallized blue 3-door BMW, which sprang to his eyes as the perfect getaway car. He stood in front of the hood pointing his gun at the driver, making obvious signs for him to get out of the car and leave the key for him. The driver got out quickly, frantic to save his life. Yousef sat in the driver’s seat, slammed the door and instantly took off, tires screeching and leaving marks on the asphalt, under a hail of bullets fired by the police just arriving at the intersection.

  Without knowing where he was or which way to go, Yousef simply took off down the highway for several kilometers until it occurred to him to open the glove compartment, where luckily he found a map. He saw a road sign pointing in the direction of a city called Elbasan. Braking abruptly, he pulled over, then unfolded the map on the steering wheel, looking for Elbasan. He looked around Tirana, then to the coast, to the north, and then to the east of Tirana he found it. It’s towards the interior of the country, he thought. And why not? Who knows, maybe I can get to Istanbul over land? There was no time to lose. He threw the map any which way into the passenger seat and accelerated on the road to Elbasan. It could also be said that he was setting out towards Mecca, though this did not occur to him.

  The weather was cold and damp. The sky was overcast now but it wasn’t raining yet, which made the road easier to drive on and better for driving fast through traffic. On the outskirts of Tirana he saw a gas station and had an idea. He pulled in with the car as though he were going to fill up, parked, calmly got out of the BMW and got into a jeep, a Toyota Land Cruiser, whose door wasn’t locked, and whose driver had gone into the store to pay. At that point a short but powerful man somewhere between 30 and 40, with very short, spiky hair came out of the store, and naturally, when he looked at his jeep his face assumed a look of astonishment when he took in the stranger sitting at the wheel. His surprise gave way to rage.

  “What’s going on?” the man yelled, glaring at Yousef and striding decisively towards the driver’s side. But Yousef was ready for him. Opening the door as the man approached, he simply pointed his gun at him and without even getting out of the Land Cruiser, simply spoke to him the English words, “the key,” which the other man understood, promptly delivering it, only to find himself watching his jeep disappear with a new driver at the wheel.

  On the highway from Tirana to Elbasan, the surrounding hills and plains were green and fresh. Housing settlements were modest, becoming more rural and sparsely distributed as Yousef moved away from the capital. He was ready to get off the main road if he noticed the slightest hint that he was being followed, but he believed that by changing the BMW for the Land Cruiser they would not get onto him too quickly. The road became more mountainous until, from a summit traversed by the highway 30 kilometers outside Tirana he caught a glimpse down below of the next major urban center spread out on the plain, which was Elbasan, the country’s third largest city. Yousef hoped that his pursuers would be more concerned about the northern borders with Montenegro or Kosovo, or perhaps even the coastal zone west of Tirana that could afford access to Italy by boat. In that case, perhaps they would overlook possibilities of flight to the mountainous region of Macedonia. Or perhaps they did not have has many resources for capturing him as it seemed. The further he could bury himself in the mountains in Albania’s interior, the better. On his way out of Elbasan he drove through fields and woods, then began winding through the foothills of the green mountains. The rain that had been promised since Tirana began to fall timidly, then burst out of the sky in a dense and heavy downpour. Little by little night was starting to fall as well. The countryside began to appear more diffuse to Yousef’s eyes through the water flung back and forth by the jeep’s windshield washers, and the road was now lit up by its headlights. Even so, he was able to make out distinctly a World War II bunker by the side of the road. The bunker and the idea of driving into a mountain landscape reminded him of Afghanistan, and then he felt protected by God, as though this highway running through the mountains was nothing more than a series of scratches on the vast, divine hand of God.

  Around 50 kilometers past Elbasan, a police car entered the highway a few meters in front of him. By his reckoning, the border with Macedonia had to be a mere five kilometers off. The sirens were not turned on and the police car did not seem concerned with him. Even so, he b
raked so as to let the police car gain some distance on him. They were now in the vicinity of Lake Ohrid. An exit from the main road appeared, and acting on impulse, he turned off, leaving the police car. Soon he pulled over and turned on the dome light, grabbing the map he’d taken from the glove compartment of the stolen BMW in Tirana and unfolding it. He now found himself in the zone of the triple frontier between Greece, Macedonia and Albania, on the shore of Lake Ohrid. On the far shore was Macedonia. Forty or fifty kilometers further south was Lake Prespa, and here lay the border with Greece. It wasn’t that much farther after Greece, moreover, he could proceed to Turkey and on to Istanbul, traveling over land the whole way. Perhaps the police car had been a divine signal to get him to take this new route. With the passing of the years, Yousef had become a deeply superstitious man, in a manner that was also in keeping with his fervent religiosity. He was glad when he ascertained on the map that after entering the province of Korçë he could try to cross the Greek border on foot over the mountains. He was not afraid of the difficulty of the mountain, particularly since from what he could calculate from the map, he would only have to travel about ten kilometers on foot if all went well, twenty or thirty if he had to zig-zag a great deal, or if the scale on the map was very misleading. He folded the map and turned off the dome light. Then he started the car, got back on the highway and continued in the direction of Pogradec, then Korcë, and a few kilometers farther on, to Bilisht. This stretch added up to a little less than fifty kilometers and was slow going with the rain and reduced night vision, plus driving through the towns, a solid three quarters of an hour. Arriving in Bilisht, he took a road that led to the foot of the mountain to the south of this border town and parked the Land Cruiser.