Jake turned up the block and could see the small sign for the Balkan Haus Restaurant. He contemplated how he wanted to deal with this man. Jake knew that if he came across too harsh the man would shut down out of pride and spite. After all, the man had once been an officer in the former Yugoslav Army, before morphing into the Serbian Army. Vesna Banduka had never been linked to war crimes like so many others from the Balkan War, but Jake knew that he had probably filtered a lot of money out of those countries—at least enough to start his restaurant.
As Jake got closer to the restaurant, he unzipped his leather jacket a little more and kept his eyes open for any possible danger.
In the past, Banduka had at least two men standing by out front, but there were no men in view tonight.
Jake went inside and the locals all turned to check him out. But the place seemed to have lost whatever charm it had back in the day, and only a few people were eating. More sat at the bar drinking beer, and some of these could have been Banduka’s men.
Moving to the end of the bar, Jake ordered a beer and waited as he assessed those at the bar. Most looked to be older, in their fifties, except for one man at the far end who was perhaps thirty. And this man took a special interest in Jake.
Once Jake’s beer came, he paid and look a long sip, ignoring the others at the bar.
The bartender wiped off some moisture close to Jake, so he took the opportunity to ask the man in German, “Does Vesna Banduka still own this place?”
The bartender’s eyes shifted toward some of the others at the bar. Finally, he said, “Who wants to know?”
“I do.”
“And you are?”
“Tell him Jake Adams wants a word with him.”
The bar was small enough for everyone sitting there to hear their conversation. When Jake said his real name, a couple of them shifted their glance at Jake, including the younger man.
Without saying a word, the bartender left to a back room.
The young man finished his beer and came around toward Jake. Something was familiar about him, but Jake wasn’t entirely sure who he might be.
The man stopped a bit too close to Jake and asked, “You are Jake Adams?” His English, infused with a Slavic accent, wasn’t perfect.
Turning to the young man, Jake said, “Who the fuck are you?” As he kept his eye on the younger man, Jake assessed potential strike-points.
The guy went through a series of Serbian swear words, which were the only thing Jake understood in that language.
Then, as the young man wound up to swing his thick fist at him, Jake snapped a quick back fist with his middle knuckle catching the youngster solidly in the throat. The strike wasn’t enough to collapse the man’s trachea, but sturdy enough to put the man on his knees gasping for air.
“Jake Adams,” came a voice from the back entrance. “Please do not permanently damage my nephew.”
Jake glanced back and saw Vesna Banduka, or a reasonable facsimile of the man. The man had aged, and not so much chronologically as through the horror of disease. This once tall, strong man was now hunched over, gray, and leaning on a wooden cane.
Banduka shifted his head toward the back room and started shuffling off.
Yeah, the guy could barely walk. But Jake followed closely, keeping his eyes open for others at the bar who might follow them. None did.
Once inside his back office, Banduka settled gently into an old wooden swivel desk chair. A blow-up donut squeaked as he sat his decimated frame.
Jake stood out in front of the man’s desk, showing as much deference to the old man as possible.
“Please, sit,” Banduka said. “But before you do, could you pour me another glass of Scotch? Pour yourself one as well.”
He wasn’t a huge Scotch drinker. But this was 18-year-old Glenlivet, and cost about a hundred bucks a fifth. So, Jake poured them each a healthy dose of medicine before taking his seat across from the old Serbian Army officer.
“What kind of cancer?” Jake asked.
“Take your pick,” Banduka said, and then took a sip of his single malt. “Started in the ass and spread to every inch of my body.”
Hell of a way to go, Jake thought. “Sorry to hear that.”
The old guy shrugged. “I should have been dead twenty years ago during that damn war. Anything after that was easy time.” Banduka hesitated long enough to sip more Scotch and size up Jake with expressive eyes. “I’ll have to let my nephew know that he almost got his ass kicked by a legend in the spy game.”
“Maybe it will keep him alive a little longer,” Jake said, and then tried his Scotch for the first time. He imagined it was exquisite, but he still preferred a good aged rum. “You might tell him that we got this gray hair by sticking around long enough to know some shit.”
Banduka smiled and his frail body squeaked as if he had let out a fart. But it was probably just the blow-up donut. “What do they say in English? He’s dumber than a box of rocks. I never did understand some of the English idioms.”
The two of them stared at each other for a moment, with each taking a long sip of their drinks. Jake liked to let these awkward meetings play out in time, without an obvious flow. Although Banduka had a Slavic slur to his words, his English was nearly flawless due to his education in Scotland.
“I can imagine why you are here,” Banduka said.
Jake said nothing. Let the man guess, he thought.
“This has to do with the disappearance of Anica Senka,” Banduka said.
Jake tried not to respond non-verbally. Then he said, “You remember her?”
“Of course. What happened to her family was a tragedy.”
“I appreciate your help in the matter back then,” Jake said.
“I did nothing, Jake. It was all you.”
Not entirely true. Jake was sure that Banduka had been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of Anica’s relative. The one who had tried to rape the young woman. Although Jake had beaten the man senseless and turned him over to the local Polizei, somehow the man had been released under a strange bail system. Then the guy had probably ended up in the bottom of the Inn River.
Jake finished his drink and set the cup on the edge of the large wooden desk. He needed to get to the point, but he didn’t want to rush a dying man.
“Please pour more,” Banduka said. “This could be my last bottle.”
The man was probably close to telling the truth, so Jake poured more for the both of them. Then he settled back into his chair and said, “Why do you think I’m here about Anica?”
“Because she came to me last week,” Banduka explained. “She has transformed from a skinny little kid into a stunning beauty.”
“And what did she want from you?”
“The same thing you probably want. But at the time I didn’t give it to her.”
“Yeah. What was that?”
“A name.”
“Of who?”
“You have to understand, Jake. Things have changed in Innsbruck.”
He had an idea where this might be going. “Why didn’t you help her?”
“I did. I gave her the name of a contact who might be able to help her.”
“Bogdan Maravich,” Jake said.
“Yes. The man killed on the bridge with her that night. Before she went into the river.”
“That’s some help you gave her,” Jake said callously.
“She was Polizei.”
“Is Polizei.”
“Right.” The old Serb hesitated long enough to suck down a healthy dose of his medicinal Scotch. Then he said, “I had no idea there was a hit going down. You have to understand that things have changed here.”
“Stop telling me that it has changed and tell me how it’s changed,” Jake said.
The old Serb’s head flopped up and down like a bobble head, as if his neck wasn’t strong enough to hold up his skull. “They are brutal. With no honor.”
Jake thought the same could have been said about the old Balk
an officers who escaped or survived that war. “Who are they?”
“After I put Anica in touch with Bogdan Maravich, and what happened on that bridge, I had my people look into the situation.” The old guy, nearly out of breath, tried to pull some oxygen from Scotch.
“And what did they find?” Jake asked.
“Anica was on to something,” Banduka said. “It’s not just Serbs involved. It’s a consortium of bad guys. The newly arrived.”
“From the immigrant community?”
Banduka nodded his head. “I don’t know who runs it, what they are into, or how widespread this goes.”
“But Anica was obviously on to something,” Jake surmised.
“Yes. The Austrian government is like most of the other governments in Europe. They are finally coming to the realization that they have made a mistake letting people into their country. People they can’t possibly scrutinize properly. Refugee status used to mean something. Not anymore. People have been let into these countries who should have been thrown in jail. Many were in jail. And these dictators emptied their cells, shoved healthy young men onto boats, and gave them a one-way ticket to Italy or Greece. Then those countries mostly had enough sense to give them a one-way bus ride north.”
Jake knew all too well about that practice. He had seen it happen first-hand in Italy when he lived in Calabria. Was that what this was all about? “What can you give me? Anything at all that can help me find Anica.”
Trying to catch his breath with more Scotch, Banduka finally said, “Look into a man named Zoran Petrovic. A former Serbian soldier. A sergeant.”
“Is he from Innsbruck?” Jake asked.
“He used to be here. But he is wanted for a number of crimes and has moved to Strasbourg.”
Crap. This could be serious, Jake thought. Strasbourg, France was a cesspool of radical assholes. “You don’t happen to have an address.”
“Afraid not.”
Jake finished his drink and set his glass onto the desk again. Then he got up and started for the door, but was stopped when the old Serb called to him.
“Jake.”
Turning, Jake said, “I’m sorry. Thank you for the information.”
The old guy smiled. “No, I was just going to say that the Tirol Polizei have a term in their crime statistics named after you.”
He waited for the punchline.
“The Adams Affect,” Banduka explained. “You see, since you left, violent crime in the city has gone down significantly. Now you are back and people are shooting up the streets again. Maybe you should stay away for the good of all Innsbruckers.”
Jake simply smiled and left the dying man to himself. He walked out and got a wide birth from those men at the bar, including the man who had gotten struck in the throat.
He wandered down the street toward their car near the main train station, thinking about what he had just been told. Under normal conditions, Jake wouldn’t have taken the old Serb’s word for it, but the guy was dying and Jake didn’t think he was lying. He took out his phone and typed in the name Zoran Petrovic to a contact of his within the Carlos Gomez organization. This man was a former officer with INTERPOL. If anyone had anything on Petrovic, this guy would know about it. Now he had to decide who else he would give this name. If anyone.
5
Strasbourg, France
Anica Senka was alone and confused in this French city on the edge of Germany on the west bank of the Rhine River. She wandered through the square in front of the Strasbourg Cathedral, where the sound of drums beating blended with the cacophony of protest chants from the seemingly disenchanted youth who blended with the newly arrived rabble.
It was nearly ten p.m. She had gotten to Strasbourg two days ago, after traveling from Innsbruck. An old friend had let her use her older Passat, which had no GPS tracking on-board. Earlier that evening her phone had signaled her that someone was in her apartment, which sent a live video to her smartphone and saved a copy into the cloud. That turned out to be Johann Gruber, her old partner. She still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong with her comm that night on the Innbrucke Bridge, forcing her to jump into the freezing waters of the Inn River. It was only by luck that she had not died of exposure that night. Then, shortly after Johann had gotten to her apartment, the motion sensor had gone off again. And this time an old friend had appeared in her apartment—Jake Adams. Uncle Jake, as she called him. What was he doing there? Maybe she could ask him some day.
But now she was on the hunt for the next link in what she was referring to as the chain of assholes. First, she had talked with the old dying Serb, Vesna Banduka, who had been less than totally helpful. At least the man had put her in contact with Bogdan Maravich. This man had lost his life in front of her, but not before giving her the name of Zoran Petrovic. This man had not been easy to find, considering he was on the run from the Austrian Polizei and had an INTERPOL Red Notice out on him.
Petrovic was like a cockroach. Which had made it easier for her to find him. Cockroaches lived in the dark, damp recesses of society. And Strasbourg was the perfect breeding ground for those types.
She had to believe that she could be walking into a trap, but that didn’t bother her. Anica had put herself in this position, agreeing to work undercover for her organization and Europol. In the past couple of days, she had been able to research the background of Zoran Petrovic. After a short military career, where he had not officially distinguished himself in any significant way, he had emigrated to Austria during the open-border years, where nearly anyone with a pulse had been let in to her country. She knew that she could not be entirely critical of that policy, since it had also allowed her to come to Austria as a young refugee. But she had assimilated properly, excelling in school and finding her way into the Polizei. Petrovic, on the other hand, had gone in another direction, getting involved in petty crime, which eventually led to more serious larceny, robbery and assault. If she didn’t need him to move up the rung of assholes, she would slap cuffs on the shithead and haul his ass back to Innsbruck. Unfortunately, she needed this man.
Anica had a feeling the man would not be alone, and she saw that her assumption was correct as Petrovic strut across the wide square as if he owned every stone beneath his feet. Two other men followed behind him, and one slipped around behind Anica when the three of them got closer. Petrovic was smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke into the night air in a grand gesture of superiority.
The man was easy to identify from his photograph in the Europol files. Petrovic had only one good eye, his right one. The left eye was glass, the shade of blue not even close to the dull gray of his right eye. His two men could have been locals, but they also had Slavic features.
“You are the woman from Innsbruck,” Petrovic said in German.
The only way Anica could even get a meeting with this man was to impress him in some way. Petrovic obviously knew about the shooting of her contact that night on the Innbrucke Bridge. So, she had used that to her advantage.
“I need to know why your people killed Bogdan,” she said.
“Was he a friend of yours?” Petrovic asked, his good eye undressing her from top to bottom.
She shrugged and moved a bit to her right to make Petrovic turn his head to see her completely. It also let her see the man behind her in her peripheral vision.
“I don’t give a shit about Bogdan,” she said. “He gave me your name just before he was killed. I was just curious why you killed your own man.”
Petrovic shook his head and she thought the man’s fake eye might drop out. “Bogdan was a weak man. Hardly a man at all. He was stealing money from our people.”
“Your people?” she asked.
He seemed to pull back somewhat and bit his lip, as if he had said more than he should have, considering the fact that he might not have fully vetted Anica. How could he? Although she was using her real first name, she had taken on the surname Adler.
Petrovic lit another cigarette and flicked the last of his butt to th
e stone surface. “We are not all Serbs, if that’s what you think.”
In her background legend, she had used her Serbian as a hook to get her in. Which might have been a mistake. But it was a calculated choice.
In Serbian, Anica said, “I don’t give a shit if I work only with Serbs. But I will not work with Muslims.”
Petrovic and his two men laughed at that notion. “That goes without saying, Anica. We should have killed all those bastards during the war. Now they have infested Europe from the Middle East to Africa and even the Balkan states.”
Now came her most important acting job, since she had several friends who were Muslim. Good people who were being lumped in the same category by a few radical jihadists. “I have no use for them either,” she said, sticking to her native Serbian.
Petrovic made an approving face, as his head went up and down. “What do you want from me?”
“You are wanted by the Austrian Polizei and INTERPOL,” she said. “Perhaps you could use my help in your organization.” She had no idea of the full complexity of what these people did, but her briefing had mentioned they were into everything from international drug trafficking to human exploitation.
Petrovic laughed and then with derision said, “What can a girl possibly do for us?”
The man in Anica’s peripheral vision started moving toward her. She considered drawing her weapon, but instead simply waited to see what he had planned for her. When the man reached for her left shoulder, she swiveled her body, grasped the man’s hand and twisted it back, snapped a kick into the man’s right knee and buckling him in pain.
Feeling the approach of the second man, still holding onto the first man’s wrist, she spun around with a high kick, catching the second man with the toe of her boot in the left side of the man’s face, dropping him to the solid surface. With the twisting of the first man’s arm, he was screaming in pain now.
“All right,” Petrovic said in Serbian. “Do not rip his arm off.”
Anica considered a knee to the man’s face, but instead simply took her boot and shove the man onto his back, where he tried to shake feeling back into his limb.
Shadow Warrior Page 3
