Choosers of the Slain

by John Ringo

"Not a problem," Pierson said. "Good-bye."

  * * *

  "I won't ask what you're doing in Romania," Pierson said over the secure link.

  "You didn't get the message?" Mike asked incredulously.

  "The station chief blew his lid and I had him send your unnamed Keldara back," the colonel said. "He should be on his way. Tell him no big deal. I'll send a courier over. Where are you?"

  "You don't want this going by anyone who's not one hundred percent, Bob," Mike replied , tightly. "You really, really don't. I think ... no, I know I got scammed. The message laid it out to date and more or less asked if you-know-who wanted me to go home with my tail between my legs and discuss it with the person that sent me or to keep going."

  "You're being so discreet it's scary," Pierson said.

  "I don't want to end up on C-Span, Bob," Mike replied.

  "That's scary all right," the colonel said, breathing out. "I need that data."

  "Damned straight," Mike said.

  "If Sawn's not gotten too far, have him go cool his heels in the embassy," Pierson said, thoughtfully. "I need to make some calls."

  * * *

  "Mr. Makanee?" the Marine said politely. "Could you come with me, please?"

  "May I ask where we are going?" Sawn said, just as politely.

  "The military liaison office," the Marine replied.

  As they were walking down the office Sawn saw the station chief walking in the opposite direction. There were two Marines with him. One was carrying a box that appeared to contain personal effects while the other was discreetly if unmistakably escorting him.

  "This is an outrage!" the station chief snapped as he approached Sawn.

  "Sir, your orders are to remain silent," the Marine trailing him said definitely. "Further attempt to speak will require that we restrain you, sir, with respect."

  The station chief opened his mouth to respond and then clamped it shut.

  Sawn ignored the byplay, with the exception of stepping politely out of the way, until they were passed.

  "Thanks," the Marine escorting him said. "Turn right at the next corridor."

  "I did not think it best to argue in the hallway," Sawn replied, turning the corner.

  "Oh, thanks for that, too," the Marine said. "But I meant getting rid of that guy. He was a real shithead. I'd love to ask what this is all about, but I know better."

  "The reason I'm here is that we are not sure," Sawn admitted as he entered the Office of Military Liaison.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was well past his official quitting time, but Bob Pierson wasn't even sure what that meant anymore. Generally, this job had involved sixteen-hour days running up to sixty in the bad times. The military had long before learned to count "days" as the period between one solid sleep and the next and ignore such things as the rising and falling of the sun. And he was afraid this was one of those "bad" times. When Mike got that cadgy on the phone he was onto something hot. And the mention of C-Span meant he was afraid it was going to explode.

  So he sat and tapped the balls of his fingers together, wondering what was about to come in on the secure server.

  SIPARNET was the military's internet. Set up like the civilian internet it was entirely separate and transmitted only over secure lines. Theoretically, it was uncrackable. Lord knew the military tried to keep it that way, tried very hard. And, thus far, there had been no leaks. But there was always a first time. Pierson had half considered that they might want to hand carry the data back to the States. But Mike must have thought it was time-critical.

  His inbox dinged and he hit the message with a sigh.

  A moment later, after the second "Holy Fuck!" he picked up the secure line to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This was going to be a long one.

  "This is Pierson in SOLO," he said. "I need to talk to the secretary. Now."

  * * *

  "We're over time for our cover," Adams pointed out as the Keldara fast-roped off the balcony, again.

  "Well, I'd say we're dialed in," Mike replied. "I'm hoping for some word from Pierson, though."

  "Thus Nadzia following you around with the sat phone," the chief said, looking over at the Keldara girl. She was wearing a short dress and more makeup than he'd ever seen on a Keldara female.

  "And she builds the cover," Mike said.

  "Speaking of which, I haven't gotten my ashes hauled in a few days," Adams pointed out.

  "Be discreet and smart," Mike replied as the sat phone started to beep.

  "Kildar," Nadzia said, walking over.

  "Jenkins," Mike said once he got the headphone in.

  "Approved," Pierson said. "Find the girl and gather all possible intel. You can probably guess how high that went."

  "I take it that it only went up one chain," Mike said.

  "Absolutely," Pierson replied. "And nobody actually had the conversations. Nobody had lots of conversations late into the night. And nobody is going to say anything about it, ever again."

  "Gotcha," Mike said.

  "Except one thing," Pierson replied, then paused. "I need to send that by courier, though. Damnit. I don't want any more conversation on this than necessary. It's incredibly inflammatory. Mike, you might want to just back out."

  "Forget the other unless it's truly pertinent intel," Mike said. "And, no, I'm going to follow the trail. I said I'd know what was going on when it started to smell. I think I'm getting a whiff. And it stinks like hell."

  "Be careful."

  "There's careful and then there's careful," Mike said. "Out here."

  He watched the Keldara slide down the rope again and fan out as one of the Keldara intel specialist followed them down. Anisa, who was no more than seventeen and until six months before had never seen a computer, never driven a car, never been on a date, was wearing the same black uniforms and body armor as the fighters. She ran immediately to a computer on a desk, threw the monitor on it to the side and began removing the cover. In no less than thirty seconds she had it disassembled and the hard drives stashed in a pouch. Despite the gas mask she was wearing.

  Thirty seconds later, all the Keldara were back on the balcony.

  "I think we're ready."

  * * *

  "It's a profitable night," Dejti said, looking around the club.

  "They are all good nights," Nicu replied.

  "I said 'profitable' not 'good'," the Albanian replied.

  "This is much better than running around in the mountains being chased by the Serbs, yes?"

  "Sometimes," Dejti said, stoically. "But the tension is the same, yes? Or don't you feel it? I have felt this before. There is something moving. The American is back in the house, with some of his girls. You see?"

  "I saw," Nicu said. "They're buying drinks and whores. What about it?"

  "I don't trust him. He doesn't have the right feel."

  "You worry too much," Nicu said, shrugging.

  "And you don't worry enough," the Albanian said darkly. "You think that because we have done well, that it will always continue. You think that because we have the government, that there are no other forces against us. That is what Kadul thought, too. And now who owns the club? Perhaps the Americans are looking to take over, eh?"

  "Calm down," Nicu said. "I will get you a girl, a young one. Have your fun with her, you will feel better."

  "No, not tonight," Dejti replied, looking out at the dance floor. Too many of the fucking guards that were supposed to be looking for threats were looking at the women. Most were not his people. He could trust his tribe, but too many had to be in positions like his, handling the money and the girls. Muscle you could hire, but could you depend on it? If not, when things went wrong, could you depend upon them to die, to keep you alive, to fight for you like members of your family? No. That was why it was Albanians who were on his cars. It was Albanians in the office, counting the money and bundling it. Nicu thought he ran the club. Let him handle the women; Dejti's people handled the money.

  "
Tonight I want to be clear," Dejti continued. "There is a feel in the air, yes? Like before a storm when you are walking in the mountains; you can feel the prickling on your skin? Like before an ambush."

  "There will be no ambushes here," Nicu said, yawning. "And I wouldn't know about storms in the mountains. I'm a city boy."

  "So you are," Dejti replied. You useless shit he thought. As soon as he could get a decent Albanian to replace him, Nicu was going to be a graveyard boy.

  "You need a girl," Nicu said, waving at one of the guards. "Dragos, go and get Bohuslava. You'll like her," he added to Dejti. "Very young, very new, from Slovakia. Beautiful. Don't mark her too badly, please."

  "I said I didn't want a girl you stupid—" Dejti started to reply, then stopped as screams and coughing erupted on the dance floor.

  "What is happening?" Nicu yelled as the music kept throbbing.

  "Someone dropped a stink bomb!" the nearest guard said, just as Nicu caught a whiff of the stench. Already people were crowding to the exits.

  "Fucking jokers," Nicu growled, standing up just as the ground thumped hard, twice.

  "This is no joke," Dejti shouted. "Out! Now!"

  "What?" Nicu yelled. "Why?"

  "Because, this is an attack," the Albanian yelled as he ran for the back door to the offices.

  * * *

  Mike leaned back in the booth and tried to ignore the stench.

  "I'm really wondering about this," he said.

  "Timing," Adams said. "And ... now."

  The three Keldara girls got up and started screaming and coughing, running for the nearby door that had just been opened. Nicu had finally gotten up and was hurrying for the same door, his bodyguards closing in around him.

  Mike, Adams and Russell got up and followed the girls, shouting at them to calm down. Mike caught one just before they reached the line of bodyguards.

  "You little bitch!" Mike yelled, slapping the girl so hard she fell over. "You don't try to run on me!"

  He turned to grab at another, who had literally bounced off one of the guards, and continued through with a stab into the guard's gut. The polymer blade sank up to the small hilt and he yanked sideways, but left it in the wound, as the guard started to crumple.

  Adams and Russell had each accounted for two more and that left just one between the door and Mike. The guard had drawn a gun but had no fucking clue how to use it at that range.

  Mike ducked down and sideways, wrapping a hand around the barrel and left the guard with a broken finger that had nearly been ripped off.

  Nicu was through the door but Mike took up a stance and put a round right through his leg as Russell turned and shot the nearest guard that hadn't been covering the retreat.

  "Sixteen seconds," Greznya yelled, ripping off her shoes and rolling to the side. She somehow had acquired a pistol as well and used the body of one of the dead guards as a resting spot to fire across the room, taking out another guard. "GO!"

  Russell was already through the door, dipping down to lift Nicu by his collar as the assault team came through the door to the offices. There were two guards between them and Dejti and one got off a burst from his Skoda Skorpion. It was his last action as the following Keldara put two rounds in him, center of mass. The other guard had already flown forward, his face blasting open as a 9mm round from Chief Adams blew through the back of his head and out the front.

  Dejti had drawn a pistol but he was surrounded and slowly laid it on the ground, his hands in the air.

  "Twelve seconds!" Greznya yelled, backing through the door and closing and bolting it.

  "Tag and bag 'im," Russell said, thrusting Nicu at the Keldara now filling the hall. Two were covering the far end, one was working on the downed Keldara and the other two caught Nicu, rapidly wrapping his hands and mouth with rigger's tape.

  "You're going to die for this," Dejti said as Russell caught a tossed roll of tape and pulled off a strip.

  "I've heard that one before," Mike said.

  "Seven, six ..."

  * * *

  "How's Endar?" Mike asked as the van pulled away.

  "Bad," Yevgenii answered, pulling off his black balaclava. "I think even if we could take him to the hospital he would not make it."

  "Vanner, status on the casualty?" Mike asked as soon as he had his headset in.

  "Gone, sir," Vanner answered. "I get terminal reactions. He took one through the aorta, I think. They must have been using hot rounds."

  "That Skorpion was a 5.54 variant," Adams said. "It went right through the plate. I checked. Three rounds, one of them dead through the target point."

  "Understood," Mike said. "Continue plan."

  * * *

  "What do we have?" Mike asked as he walked into the new command post.

  It was another abandoned warehouse. The former Eastern Bloc was littered with them. Mostly they had held military equipment that was designed to fight the evil Americans and their hordes of puppet-state armies. Once the world woke up and shook off the miasma of communism, they'd been filled with nothing of much use. The military equipment was sold off at ten cents on the dollar, if that, the factories mostly shut down, and the warehouses now awaited someone to fill them with ... something.

  At the moment this one was filled with white vans, computers, cots and Keldara racking out on the floor and talking in low tones about the op. It had been successful, but the loss of Endar was clearly weighing on them.

  And towards the back it was filled by two guys trussed up in station chairs and the group regarding them with interest.

  "We got anything useful to ask them yet, Vanner?" Mike asked.

  "Not really," Patrick replied. "We're still looking for Natalya. Do you know that they've moved over two hundred girls named Natalya alone in the last year. Twenty in the period we're looking for."

  "You should be through twenty already," Mike said.

  "Their database is for shit," Patrick sighed. "They're using Excel if you can believe it. Finding a grouping of Natalyas is easy. I think it's only twenty in the date range; some of the dates aren't input right. And I've looked at those; she's not any of them. So I'm expanding the search."

  "Hurry," Mike said, turning to look at Nicu and Dejti. "I'm looking forward to asking these guys the right questions."

  "Ah, here she is," Vanner said, happily. "She was received on the fifteenth of May and shipped out on the third of July. The guy transporting her was called Mehmet Hubchev and she was going to the Belgrade facility ..."

  "So we're going to Belgrade?" Mike said.

  "But!" Vanner added. "There's a note that she was to be transshipped to Rozaje. Where in the hell is Rozaje?"

  "Montenegro," Adams said. "Near the Albanian border."

  "That got a rise out of Dejti, here," Mike said, stepping forward and yanking the tape off the Albanian's mouth. "So, Dejti, what's so important about Rozi or whatever."

  "I tell you nothing!" the Albanian said, spitting at him.

  "Hey, a live one," Mike said. "Chief, the screams really hurt my ears, stuff something in his mouth."

  "Okay," Adams said, stepping forward while he drew his knife. He took Nicu's ear in a thumb and forefinger and then cut it off, neatly. Then in one swift motion he stuffed it in Dejti's mouth and followed it with a wad of cloth. "That do?"

  "Works," Mike said, stepping around the back of the chair to pick up the sledge hammer. "Now, it only took a couple of wacks from this to get Nicu's friend ... what was his name?"

  "Yuri," Vanner said helpfully. "Hey, boss, there are only a couple of girls in each shipment sent to this Rozaje place. Most of them get sent to other brothels or straight to Albania with notes to check them for breaking and then send them through the pipeline to Italy. I only count ... twenty females in the last six months that went to Rozaje. I've got it on a map; there can't be much of a brothel there; it's tiny."

  "So, Dejti," Mike said, pulling the hammer back. "We're going to talk about Rozaje."

  Once the screams had
died down, Adams reached for the ear. Then he picked up a smaller sledge, held the Albanian's mouth shut by pushing up on his chin and smashed out his teeth.

  "Sorry about that addition, boss," he said, fishing in the whimpering man's mouth. "I didn't want him biting me while I got Nicu's ear out. Guess where I got that idea?"

  "Not a problem," Mike said. "As long as he can talk. So, Dejti, what's the deal with Rozaje."

  "You look for girl," Dejti said. "One girl."

  "That's right, one insignificant little Ukrainian hooker," Mike said. "So what's so important about Rozaje?"

  "If she went to Rozaje, she is dead."

  * * *

  "We will find who did this and kill them," Luan Dejti said, looking around the shattered office. Not much was visible; it was clear that whoever had hit the club had left explosives behind. Those had started a fire and even the police said there was not much evidence. Witnesses had seen some people enter the back rooms, but nobody could identify who they were. Except the dead guards, possibly.

  "They were professionals," Yarok Bezhmel said. Bezhmel was one of the few "made" men in the Albanian mafia who was not an Albanian. The former Spetznaz officer was highly regarded by them, however, for his professional training and total ruthlessness. "The shooting was short and precise, the bombs were precisely placed and whoever took down the guards at the door killed four guards armed with pistols and machine guns with nothing but plastic knives."

  "So, who are they?" Luan asked. "I want their balls. He was my cousin. We cannot just walk away from this."

  "Oh, no," the Russian said, squatting down and picking up a spent cartridge. "Hmm ... American 5.56 for their M-16s and variants. I'd say that, somehow, you have angered the American military my friend. That would explain the precision, at least. I would say that this is the work of American special operations. Their SEALs or even Delta Force. Perhaps one of their quieter groups that works with the CIA or the Defense Department intelligence. Yes, that would be it most likely. Their 'black ops' groups. So, who did you anger in America?"

  "This should not be," Luan said breathlessly. "What have I done?"

  "Perhaps you got the wrong girl," Yarok answered, standing up. "I heard that Yuri in Chisinau has disappeared. A very clean operation, very professional. He did much work with Nicu, no?"