Shadow Warrior

by Scott, Trevor

  “As a Polizei officer, you have to follow certain rules,” Jake said. “I’m not constrained in that way.”

  She mumbled a derogatory term under her breath in Serbian.

  “Hey, I heard that.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot that I taught you some bad words in Serbian.”

  “Yeah, and I’m still trying to figure out how a young girl knew those words.”

  The afternoon bells clanged in a nearby church. Funny thing, she heard them outside her car and also in the phone.

  “Are you driving here?” Anica asked.

  “Not exactly,” Jake said. “I’m a couple of blocks back from you.”

  She looked into her rearview mirror and saw parking lights go on and off on a dark BMW.

  “Let me help you,” Jake said.

  Did she have a choice now?

  •

  The drive from Riquewihr, France to Konstanz, Germany had been interrupted only a couple of times with banging from the trunk. Then Jake had been forced to get out, open the trunk, and tell the man to settle down or he’d get a bullet in the head.

  Now, they sat back a couple of blocks from the VW Passat, and Jake had just told Anica that he should take the lead talking with Goran Goluža. She had reluctantly agreed.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sirena asked Jake.

  “The higher up the chain you get with these assholes the more dangerous they get,” Jake said. “Anica should not go in there alone.”

  “I know that. I just have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Hand me an additional comm unit for Anica.”

  Sirena pulled a small plastic zip bag from the glove box and handed the ear bud to Jake. “Distress word is?”

  “Posse,” Jake said. “Make sure our Polizei friends know this as well.”

  “Roger that.”

  Jake got out into the light mist and watched Sirena slide behind the driver’s seat. Then he shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, hoping the waterproofing he had put on the leather would hold up.

  He got to Anica’s car and slipped into the passenger seat.

  Anica immediately gave him a strong hug, holding him tight to her body like a child who had been away from a parent for a long time. Then she pulled away a bit and kissed him on both cheeks. “I missed you, Uncle Jake.” She wiped a tear from her right eye.

  “I missed you, too, Anica. You look different.”

  “Older,” she said.

  “You’ll always be that scrawny little kid who knocked on my door, tears in your eyes, asking me for help.”

  “Do you know how hard that was for me?”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “I had watched you come and go for days,” she said. “Always so serious looking. But you held the door for the old woman on the first floor and helped her with her packages. You always had a smile for me. So, I thought I was safe coming to you.”

  “In your circumstances, it must have been hard to trust anyone.”

  She nodded her head and wiped another tear away.

  He pulled out the comm earbud and handed it to her.

  “I have one,” she said.

  “One that failed you in Innsbruck,” he said. “This one is much higher quality. You can use it under water.”

  Anica looked at the ear bud carefully. “This is only used by intelligence agencies. How did you get it?”

  “I know a guy.” He smiled at her.

  “Never mind.” She put the earbud into her right ear. “What’s the range?”

  “Infinite. It runs off your cell phone. All of us are on simultaneously. The best part is our communications are encrypted and stored. So, don’t say anything you don’t want hanging around in the cloud forever.”

  “Good to know,” she said.

  “Alright. You’re live now. Comm check. Testing.” He turned to Anica and said, “Our distress word is Posse. Acknowledge.”

  Sirena did so. Then the two Polizei officers also did so.

  “Testing,” Anica said. She gave Jake a thumbs-up.

  Jake and Anica got out and headed toward the warehouse. The truck that had been unloading into the warehouse passed them and Jake memorized the license number, which he whispered into his comm unit.

  “On it,” Sirena said. “Better yet, Johann?”

  “Passing us now,” Johann said. “Swiss plates. I’ll check on it.”

  They wandered side-by-side toward the door near the loading docks. Jake went in first and was immediately met by a group of desks. Only one was occupied by a pension-aged woman who looked like she could still throw boxes into the back of trucks.

  “What can I do for you?” the woman asked in German.

  “I am here to speak with Goran Goluža,” Jake said.

  “He is in the warehouse,” the woman said, “but you cannot go in there.”

  “Could you get him for me?”

  Reluctantly, the woman picked up an old flip phone and punched in a programmed number. Then she spoke into the cell phone in Serb.

  Anica touched Jake’s hand and the two of them exchanged a glance. Whispering into Jake’s ear in English, Anica said, “She thinks we’re cops.”

  Jake kissed her on the cheek and said, “You are.”

  The woman flipped her phone closed and set it precisely on her desk. “He will be here soon.”

  “I don’t like this,” Anica said.

  “That makes two of us.” Jake unzipped his jacket for better access to his Glock.

  Jake half expected the Serb to come through the side door to the warehouse with a number of men pointing guns at them. Instead, a man in his mid-sixties came out. The guy had a beer and schnitzel physique, with a red bulbous nose and rosacea spread across puffy cheeks. His gray hair stuck up like he had just had an encounter with high voltage.

  Instead of introducing himself, the warehouse man shifted his head toward an inner office. Jake held the door and watched the glaring eyes of the old woman as he closed it on her. The office looked like the aftermath of a hurricane, with papers scattered everywhere. If it were not for the desk legs, Jake would have been surprised the desk was made of wood.

  Goran Goluža introduced himself in German, shaking each of their hands but lingering a bit too long with Anica. Yeah, this guy had some serious creep factor, Jake thought. Jake and Anica gave fake names.

  The Serb sat behind his desk and Jake moved stacks of paper from two chairs so he and Anica could sit also.

  “What can I do for you?” Goluža asked.

  Jake paused a beat for impact. “We are here because our organization has been infiltrated by the Polizei.”

  Goluža sat up straighter in his chair. “That is impossible. Who sent you?”

  Now Jake had to be careful. He couldn’t just throw lower level names out, even though he didn’t have names of anyone higher up the food chain. Luckily, he had spent some time driving and coming up with a plan.

  “You are an important asset to us,” Jake said.

  That seemed to assuage the Serb.

  Jake continued, “Our man in Strasbourg just had a run-in with some men trying to disrupt our organization.”

  Goluža nodded. “I heard about that. He lost one of his men.”

  “I know,” Jake said. “And now the wine man in Riquewihr is missing.”

  “Pierre. This is the first I have heard of that. What happened?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Jake said. “But there was a lot of blood involved.”

  “Jake,” came a man’s voice in his earpiece. “The truck that just left is owned by a man name Fritz Giger out of Zurich.”

  “Our people in Switzerland are on high alert, Goran,” Jake said.

  “I see,” Goluža said. “Which ones?”

  Thinking quickly, Jake said, “All of them. Zurich, Lucerne, Bern, Geneva.”

  “I would guess that Austria would be equally concerned,” Goluža concluded.

  Jake and Anica shared a glance. She g
ot up quickly, pulled out her Glock, and pointed it at the Serb. Then, in Serbian, she said, “Bogdan Maravich was a Polizei informant. He deserved to die.”

  “That was you?” Goluža asked.

  “Put your hands up on the desk,” Jake demanded in German, his gun now out also.

  Goluža complied, slowly setting his stubby fingers on papers in front of him. “You are the shadow,” he said with great deference.

  “Jake, we have a problem,” came Sirena’s voice in Jake’s ear.

  13

  “What do you have?” Jake asked, which brought a strange look from Goran Goluža behind his desk.

  “Two cars with at least six men,” Sirena said. “Maybe eight.”

  Jake grasped Anica’s arm and whispered, “Time to leave.” Then he pointed his gun at Goluža and said, “You just made a huge error. The organization will not be happy with this.”

  “You mean the Polizei?” Goluža asked, a smirk across his ruddy face.

  “I’m not Polizei, asshole,” Jake said. He moved around the edge of the man’s desk and seriously considered seeing what his new extreme defense ammo would do to a man’s skull. Instead, Jake shifted his Glock to his left hand and nearly simultaneously punched the Serb in the mouth, spinning the man around in his chair, his bulbous head eventually slumping to his morbidly obese trunk.

  “Why did you do that, Jake?” Anica asked, switching to English. “We needed information from him.”

  Jake ignored her as he headed toward the door. “Heading out,” he said to his comm and those outside.

  “They’re heading toward the door,” Sirena warned.

  They got to the outer office and Jake saw that the old woman was gone. She must have gone into the warehouse.

  “This way,” Jake said.

  By the time he opened the door to the warehouse, Jake saw the first man coming through the outer office door. Jake shoved Anica through the warehouse door as he aimed at the armed man. The first man shot at Jake without really aiming, his bullets hitting the wall to his left. But Jake aimed and fired twice. His first bullet struck the man in the throat, and the second round hit the guy just above his left eyebrow.

  Jake rushed into the warehouse now and saw a few workers scurrying away. One bay door was open, so that could be their way out. But then a couple of men appeared and started firing at Anica, who returned fire.

  The two of them hurried behind a high stack of boxes on pallets.

  Now gunfire could be heard outside.

  Jake made sure that Anica had good cover as they exchanged fire with these men.

  “Are you on them?” Jake asked Sirena or Johann or Rolf.

  “We’ve got them cornered out front,” Sirena said. “Two down.”

  “I also got one coming through the front,” Jake said.

  The men at the loading dock peppered their position with a massive salvo of bullets striking the boxes in front of Jake and Anica.

  “How you doing on ammo?” Jake asked Anica.

  “Almost out of the first mag,” she said. “But I have two more spares.”

  “About the same here,” Jake said. “Let me hold them off while you back off and come around behind them. There must be another way out.”

  Anica looked either disturbed or pissed off. “Are you trying to protect me?”

  “Always,” Jake said. “But it’s a sound tactical decision.”

  She nodded agreement and started to head deeper into the warehouse. As she did so, Jake started a slow and steady stream of gunfire, which kept them pinned down below the loading dock. Then the slide on his Glock slid back, indicating he was out. He quickly dropped the old mag and slapped a full one with 17 rounds into the handle and released the slide, jamming a fresh round into the chamber.

  Now he waited for them to make the next move.

  “What’s happening?” Jake asked everyone on the comm.

  More gunfire from outside.

  “Polizei are on their way,” Sirena said.

  Suddenly, the office door opened and Goran Goluža came stumbling out with a gun in his hand. He was followed closely by two other men.

  Now Jake had two sets of targets. They had him pinned down.

  •

  Anica found her way through the tall stacks of pallets toward the back of the warehouse. Here it was much darker than the front area. Occasionally, she would see a worker hunkered down, hiding as best they could behind the pallets.

  She walked with stealth as she made her way through the shadowy extremes of the warehouse. Anica could hear various voices speaking German, and guessed these were the workers as well. Then she saw a door ahead. Looking up to the ceiling, she knew this could not be a door to the outside. It had to be another inner office.

  Stepping softly ahead, Anica thought about the older woman. Is this where she went?

  She saw the gun barrel and instinctively dove to her right just as the shotgun blasted, sending buckshot into a tall pallet behind her. She rolled and aimed at the shooter. Then she fired three shots, dropping the shooter to the concrete floor.

  Anica got up and went to the shooter, kicking the shotgun away from the shriveled hands of the old woman. She focused again on the door to nowhere. Now, as she got closer, she could see that the door had a normal lever handle, but it also had two slide bars reinforcing it. These were not to keep people out of the room. They were to keep something locked inside.

  Through her comm earbud Anica could hear speaking in German and English. She could also hear sirens coming. Her friends with German Polizei were on their way. But there was still a lot of gunfire at the front of the warehouse.

  But her focus was on this room. She slid the lower bar and hesitated. What could be inside? Anica shoved the upper bar open, and then stopped to consider the handle. As she guessed, she was able to unlock it from her side. Goran Goluža and the old woman were keeping something inside.

  Anica opened the door, her gun pointing inside. Then she noticed a light switch at the edge of the door frame. She flipped the lever and strong overhead lights came on revealing the contents of the room.

  Huddled against the far wall on the floor were at least a dozen people, mostly younger men. But there were also a couple of women. One even had an infant.

  She stayed in the doorframe and said in German, “I am Polizei. You are safe.”

  Nothing. Maybe they didn’t speak German. She repeated the same phrase in English. Still nothing. Then she tried French, and several them seemed to understand this. They could have been North African, she thought. Perhaps Tunisian or Algerian.

  In German now, Anica said into her comm what she had found in a back room of the warehouse.

  This was confirmation of what she sought as part of her infiltration of this organization. The Serbs and others had built an elaborate underground pipeline, smuggling humans through Europe. This was big business, she thought. And, obviously, business was good.

  Jake told her to stay with these people.

  •

  Now Jake had a good idea what Goran Goluža and his organization was doing. At least partially. Trucking was a good place to hide humans as well as contraband. He guessed if the Polizei went through this warehouse carefully, they would find more than just illegal migrants.

  Despite the Polizei arriving out front, they had taken a standoff position—probably until they could get a tactical unit involved. But that didn’t help Jake at this time. He was still in an intense firefight, and the only winner might be the one with the most bullets.

  Without warning, the chubby old Serb came out from behind his hiding spot firing his weapon like a crazy man. At the same time, the other two men provided cover for Goran Goluža by sending a ton of lead into the boxes in front of Jake.

  Aiming carefully, not wanting to kill the old man, Jake fired once at the approaching Serb, hitting the man in the right lower leg. Goran Goluža crumpled to the concrete, his melon hitting the cold surface and knocking him out instantly. With the boss down, the ot
her men started yelling in Serbian.

  Into his comm, Jake said, “Goran Goluža has been shot and wounded.”

  “The Polizei are ready to negotiate,” Sirena said. “At first, they wanted to shoot us, but Rolf and Johann flashed their badges. It was intense for a moment. What’s your status?”

  “I have two douche bags inside here yelling some shit in Serbian,” Jake said. “I only understand the swear words.”

  “Coming your way,” Anica said in Jake’s ear.

  Moments later, Anica came alongside Jake again.

  “What are they saying?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know. I shot Goran Goluža in the leg. Maybe something about that.”

  “Goluža looks dead,” she said.

  “He hit his head when he dropped. What did you find back there?”

  “Migrants. About a dozen. Mostly young men.”

  “What about the old woman?”

  Anica shook her head.

  “Sounded like a shotgun going off,” Jake said.

  “It was. She almost blew my head off.”

  Moments later the SWAT team showed up. With Goran Goluža wounded, none of the Serbs wanted to fall on their swords and die for no good reason. The German Polizei would haul everyone in and sort out the good from the bad and the bad from the really bad. Jake had a feeling those working in the warehouse were complicit if not directly involved. There was no way they could not have known about the people hiding in the back room.

  It took hours for the local Polizei to unravel what had gone down at this warehouse. Luckily, Rolf and Johann had some pull with the Europol organization, which allowed them to scan through the records Goran Goluža kept in his office. Jake wasn’t sure if the Serb would be as anal about recordkeeping as the normal German, but it was likely they would find something.

  With Rolf and Johann taking the lead, Jake and Sirena and Anica had been able to stay out of the deep weeds.

  When the Polizei ran Jake’s Austrian passport, which was real but with the name of his old persona, it was flagged and the Germans were told to let him go. This was still a remnant of what he had done for a former president of Austria, the titular Austrian royal family, and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, headquartered in Vienna. Jake was convinced that Sirena was absolved because she was hot. But in reality, she still had a lot of pull in the CIA and with the Israeli government.