by John Ringo
“What in the hell was Traskel thinking?” the President snapped. “Did he think that Mike wouldn’t find out where the girl had gone?”
“It’s possible, Mr. President, that he was unaware,” Pierson pointed out. “We don’t know that the senator was a client.”
“He traveled to Eastern Europe during the same time frame,” the national security advisor pointed out. Her normally dark face was gray with anger.
“So did three other senators from his party,” the secretary of defense pointed out. “And two from yours, Mr. President. So did their families. And it was a very open trip.”
“At the taxpayers’ expense,” the President said angrily.
“Actually, Mr. President, it was paid for by a special interest group,” the secretary of defense replied. “The International Association for Women’s Rights. Apparently they hadn’t anticipated how… interested the congressmen and senators would be in the subject; there are quite a few confidential reports on the trip. Much went on that would be rather—”
“That if the American public got wind of it would cause a firestorm,” the national security advisor said with a sigh.
“I’m thinking less of the senator than of his son,” the secretary said musingly. “He had an entire report all of his own.”
“If we even hint about this…” the President said.
“We can’t do a thing,” his chief of staff said. “We need those reports to stay absolutely confidential. If there’s even a hint that anything about that trip came from our party, it would blast back on us, hard.”
“And in the meantime, we continue to just let it happen,” the national security advisor said, coldly.
“You know the problems with stopping it,” the President pointed out. “The pressures are too high for us to do more than spit in the wind. And we’ve got other fish to fry, like stopping terrorists from attacking the United States. In the meantime, it goes on. And, no, I don’t like that. Do you think I wouldn’t stop it if I could?”
“No, sir,” the NSA said, sighing. “It just, sorry, pisses me off.”
“Well, I suspect that this one operation is going to get stopped,” the secretary of defense said, smiling. “And stopped hard.”
* * *
“What are we going to do with Endar?” Adams asked.
The question of what to do with three bodies was the current topic of discussion. Two of them were easy. There are a million ways to get rid of a body, some of which even worked if you didn’t want it discovered. However, all of them were a bit cold for one of your own troops. And repatriating the body was out of the question.
“We’re going to take a little side trip,” Mike said. “There are some nice beaches down on the Adriatic coast and I think the girls are due for a break.”
“We’re just going to cart a body around for the next few days?” Adams asked, aghast.
“Look,” Mike said. “We’re carrying eight girls who look as if they’re intended for immoral purposes, over sixty weapons, body armor, night vision goggles, entry tools, bugging tools, hacking tools and at least six remaining kilos of explosive. What’s a couple of bodies to add to that?”
“Smell?” Adams asked.
“Get some dry ice.”
* * *
Yarok scanned through the computer records, looking for he knew not what.
He’d told Dejti that the group was American special operations, but he still wasn’t sure. The methods were the same; if he had to guess he’d say SEAL by the entry patterns and the way the groups moved, based on the few remaining eyewitnesses. But there was no reason he could find that an American special operations unit would attack the Albanians. Quite the opposite, in fact, given some of the videos in Dejti’s hands.
He’d nosed around Chisinau, a bastard city in his opinion, and some of Yuri’s associates had mentioned a group of Americans that had also been nosing around. They supposedly had Georgian girls they were taking to a “special auction” in Montenegro. The also had more muscle than was normal, at least fifteen or twenty Georgians.
The database he was looking at was from Interpol, a listing of potential security threats in and around the EU zone. The problem was, there were so many he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. The group might not have even been Georgian, but he was concentrating there. But between the Ossetian separatist movements and the Chechnyans…
He stopped in his perusal and backed up a page. There was a note in the database about a new Georgian militia with American training. A mountain infantry group called the Keldara.
“An American using the name of Michael Jenkins has begun to form a new militia in the Georgian mountains. Said militia has engaged with Chechnyan terrorist groups twice. Equipped with light small arms, the group has undergone training with five or more Western special operations trainers. Results of training unknown.”
There was a picture of “Jenkins” and he matched the description of the American in Chisinau. Of course, so did half the men in the world. But Yarok copied it off the database and mailed it to his men in Timisoara to show to the witnesses from the club.
He briefly considered simply turning the information over to the Romanian authorities. They’d put the word out through Interpol and that would certainly inconvenience this “Jenkins” character. But it wouldn’t fulfill his mission, which was to put the man in an unmarked grave.
However, Interpol also kept a database of people using hotels. It was slow to update, but it might give him an idea where Jenkins was going…
* * *
The girls liked the hotel.
The Hotel Caesaria was on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro, a narrow strip of land that included the cities of Kotor and Perast. The town of Zelenika, which was where the hotel was located, could barely count as a town, much less a city. There was a straggle of old houses, a small market and a wharf to support the primary local industry: small boat fishing. The majority of the boats looked as if they’d been constructed in the time of the Argonauts. They were open “caiques,” lightly built wooden dories originally designed for one or two men to row them or to use small sails. Their only concession to the twenty-first century was the addition of small diesel motors. The fishermen would generally leave in the afternoon, go out in to the reefs that choked the area, lay down gill nets with gourd floats, then pick them up the next morning, starting usually at dawn.
Zelenika was near the opening of a large bay that serviced the boat traffic of both Kotor and Perast. There wasn’t much for either; local trade was highly limited and there wasn’t even a regular ferry service to Dubrovnik, the nearest major city, much less to Italy which was just across the Adriatic. Zelenika was the definition of “backwater.” The hotel was just down the road from the main “town,” near the very tip of the cape that protected the bay.
There were a few beaches but mostly the coastline was too rocky for good swimming. There was, however, enough room for some sunbathing and a small beach by the hotel. Mike had explained to the girls that, as part of their cover, it was important that they looked as if they were just on a trip and getting a little sun. After some pro-forma protests, most of the Keldara had suited up and headed for the beach along with the three “liberated” hookers.
Which left Mike out in a small Lada, looking for a boat. Two, actually.
Zelenika mostly fronted on its excuse for a wharf. The small bay that the city faced was curved in a semi-circle with ancient jetties protecting it from northerly gales. The wharf itself was a seawall that looked as if the original stonework was Roman and had rickety wooden piers jutting out from it. It was backed by a narrow street made of flagstones patched with everything from bricks to concrete to sand. There were a couple of sailboats anchored in the middle of the bay and a few ancient speedboats tied up at the piers. Nets were hung up along the seawall to dry but no fishermen were around when Mike parked his car, removed the distributor to hopefully prevent its theft, and began looking for a bar.
The first stor
efront was a general store. Just checking around, Mike went inside.
There was a woman who looked to be a hundred, and was probably forty, sitting behind the counter watching some show in Serbian. It mostly involved women crying, which was about par for this region. The shelves were filled with some of the worst snack foods Mike had ever seen, and he’d been in plenty of third world stores. For that matter, most of them looked as if their sell-by date was before his birthday and they were covered in dust. He peeked in the two refrigerators and backed away hastily. The contents were mostly local erzatz Coke knock-offs. He’d had one of those during his previous trip through the area and regretted it for days.
As he went out he had to shake his head. There was a postcard rack celebrating the wonders of visiting scenic Zelenika. Most of the postcards were faded to the point of illegibility. He wondered who ever figured this place for a major tourist destination.
The second store was a fish market. From the smell, he was more than willing to pass right by.
The third, however, was what he was looking for. The small restaurant and bar — the distinction was small in places like this — had a few rickety tables out front and a big sign in Serbian that had seen better days. Under it another weathered sign proclaimed that he had found “The Head of the Albanian.”
His kind of place.
Mike sat down at one of the tables, which rocked ferociously on the flagstones of the street, and wondered if he’d get any service.
After staring out at the not-particularly-scenic scene in front of him for about a half an hour, and noting the lack of boat traffic, he saw a man come out from the back wiping his hands on a rather dirty cloth.
“You want drink?” the man said in passable English.
“Wine,” Mike replied. “In the bottle.”
“Carafe,” the man said, slapping the back of his right hand into his left palm in the local signal for “all gone.”
“Carafe, then,” Mike sighed. The alcohol would probably fix whatever was growing in the carafe. “Some bread and fish. As long as it’s not from the place next door.”
“No problem,” the man said, grinning a gap-toothed smile. “Is fresh.”
“Fresh last week, probably,” Mike said.
“Today,” the man replied. “Fishermen come here. I buy their fish. You want prawns?”
“Steamed, if you can,” Mike said, nodding.
The prawns — local shrimp and about half the size of a small lobster — were actually pretty good. They’d be better with drawn butter, but that had never caught on in the Adriatic region. Hell, in the Mediterranean, for that matter. The wine, on the other hand, was paint thinner. Mike ordered tea, hot, which wasn’t exactly awful, and sipped at that.
It was about three PM when the fishermen started to show up. Mostly they headed for their boats and started to load the dried nets into large baskets, then stowed them in the covered forecastles. However, a few stopped into the tavern for a belt before heading out.
When most of the boats were gone, one of the men who was clearly a fisherman remained, morosely sipping at the paint thinner wine.
“No boat?” Mike asked in Russian.
“Is in yard,” the man replied in something that was half Serbian, half Russian. Both were Slavic root languages and hadn’t actually drifted that much. They were about as similar as two types of German. “You fish?”
“I want boat,” Mike replied. “Two. One to buy, one to rent. Where’s yard?”
“Down around corner,” the man said, pointing to the south east. “I show you?”
“And get a cut?” Mike asked, smiling.
“Is good day not to fish,” the man said. “Especially if I get some money anyway.”
* * *
On the east side of the town was another small bay Mike hadn’t suspected was there. There weren’t any piers but there was a narrow strip of sand and rocks where a small boatyard existed.
There were about three caiques in various stages of completion, two more drawn up and being worked on, supposedly, and a few small speedboats. Most of the latter were clearly the worse for wear but two were in decent condition at first glance and one even had an outboard motor mounted.
“This is Drulovic,” the fisherman said, walking up to a man who was bent over a torn-apart diesel. “Drulovic, this is man who wants boats.”
“I need one of those,” Mike said, pointing to the caiques drawn up on the shore. “To buy. And a speedboat to use for a day or so. Both have to work.”
“Those I’m making for people,” Drulovic said, wiping his hands on a cloth. “One of the others, it was Vasa’s. He’s gone. Never paid me. It needs work.”
“Two days,” Mike said. “That’s when I need it. How much?”
“Two thousand euros,” Drulovic said, shrugging.
“Three hundred,” Mike said, automatically.
“You want it working in two days, you give me two thousand euros,” Drulovic said, grinning. “And you give me another three thousand as deposit on other boat. What you going to do with it?”
“Bury somebody,” Mike snapped. “Five hundred for the caique; it only has to work for a couple of hours. And a thousand deposit.”
“A thousand for the caique,” Dulovic said thoughtfully. “A thousand deposit and a hundred to use the other.”
“Done,” Mike replied, dipping in his pocket and pulling out a wad of cash. “Half now, half when I pick it up.”
“You carry a lot of money around,” Drulovic mused as he counted out half the money.
“Very few people are stupid enough to try to steal from me,” Mike replied, handing over the wad of cash. “Otherwise I’ll need to buy another boat.”
Chapter Twenty
“Okay, you are officially nuts,” Adams said as Mike pulled the caique up on the rock-strewn shore of the cove.
Finding the right place for the ceremony had turned out to be the toughest job; coves along the Adriatic that were landable at all tended to have villas. As did this one, the difference being that the owners weren’t home.
Most of the Keldara were gathered on the shore. Endar had been loaded on a bier made of four different woods while the two slavers still rested in the plastic bags that, along with liberal addition of dry ice, had kept the smell down for the last week.
“First the wood,” Mike said. “You got the kerosene?”
“Of course I have the kerosene,” Adams snapped. “And this is going to be visible for miles!”
“By the time anybody gets to the boat, they’re going to be toast,” Mike replied. “Everybody checked out.”
“I even paid the bill.”
“Sawn.”
“Yes, Kildar,” the Keldara team leader said, stepping forward.
“The wood is to be loaded by Tenghiz and Padrec,” Mike said, stepping back. “Then the bodies by Slavic and his team. His weapons are to be laid by Rusudani. You will take the position of Priest of the All Father and sing him to sea.”
“Yes, Kildar,” Sawn said, nodding.
“Before we begin, I will explain,” Mike said, stepping onto the moonlit beach. All lights had been left behind in the vans along with a small security detachment composed mostly of the trainers. “The translation of the song of the wanderers shows that your tribe came, long ago, from among the ranks of seafaring warriors. It was their tradition to send their great warriors who had died in battle to sea. They would shove a specially made boat into the sea and set it afire. We’re going to drive this one out to sea and then set it on fire with Beslan, his weapons and his dead foes. I cannot bring Beslan back to the valley. This is the best choice I can think of.”
“We understand, Kildar,” Sawn replied, nodding. “It is said that even in the days of the Tsar a few of the dead each year, especially the Family seniors, would be burned on the pyre. This is a rite we accept. Thank you.”
“Like I said, best I can do,” Mike answered shrugging. “Lets get started.”
Sawn wasn’t the best
singer among the Keldara, but he was pretty good. And he’d heard the words of the funeral rite, the Keldara funeral rite, enough times to be able to repeat them. Mike wasn’t sure what language they were in; it certainly wasn’t Georgian and he suspected it wasn’t Celtic like the song of the wanderers. The latter was sung each spring by the best voice in the tribe. At the last ceremony McKenzie, the former SAS NCO, had been able to partially translate it as an epic about a wandering group of fighters that had come from the far north and been captured and enslaved, then forced to defend an inhospitable fortress on the edges of the empire. The clues in the song were clear to Mike, who had wondered about some of the oddities of the Keldara and the caravanserai.
The original Keldara had been a group of Norse, and apparently Scot, warriors that had made their way down through the Mediterranean until they encountered the Byzantine Empire. Since they were clearly related to the guards of the Byzantine Emperors, the Varangian guard, they were grouped with a small team of actual Varangians and sent to guard the caravanserai, which at the time was a lucrative income generator on the Silk Road.
Since that time, with influxes of succeeding waves of invaders, their fortunes had fallen even further, leaving them as mere farmers in a lost mountain valley. But the warrior core remained and had been brought out by the training of the American and British soldiers Mike had brought in.
Now, the circle closed. The latest Keldara dead, like their forebearers of old, would be sent out to sea on a wooden boat with the bodies of his foes at his feet and his weapons piled at his head.
It was a hell of a lot better than being dumped in an unmarked grave. And since Mike intended to take the boat to damned near the horizon before lighting it off, there was little chance anyone would notice. Or, given the area, care.
Of course, they’d pulled the ammo. They were going to need it.
Chapter Twenty-One
