by Mike Maden
“Humor me.”
“Well, I took a gander at TIDE. She isn’t listed there.”
“How the hell did you break into TIDE?” Gerry couldn’t believe it. The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment was one of the most highly classified databases in the intelligence community, shared by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and every other alphabet agency he could think of.
“I’d rather not say. But it’s what you hire me to do.”
“You’re right. So, what did you find in your other searches besides TIDE?”
“Nothing to write home about. She always came up squeaky clean. She’s some sort of a consultant. Lots of international travel, lots of airline and hotel miles, mostly in Europe. I checked her tax records. She has a steady income, but with irregular bumps. Some kind of bonus structure is my guess.”
“You got her tax records?”
Gavin shrugged. “Sure. No big deal.”
“Did you find out her favorite brand of toothpaste?”
Gavin frowned and pulled up a screen on his tablet. “I didn’t realize you needed that. Let me see if I can find it.”
“I’m joking, son. Sorry to interrupt your train of thought. Please continue.”
“So, I started digging into the consulting firm she works for. Again, clean, nothing unusual or suspicious, except that the firm sometimes billed for work with one particular company with a Jersey office.”
“You mean the state, or the country?”
“The country.”
“A banking haven,” Gerry said. “One of the Ten Dwarfs.”
“Exactly. So I dug a little further on that and got the names of the board of directors of that Jersey company, and one of them is a British citizen. Well, I have access to an MI6 back door you probably shouldn’t know about. It turns out that this director fellow is suspected of being somehow connected to an organization known as the Iron Syndicate.”
Gerry frowned. “What the hell is the Iron Syndicate?”
Gavin shrugged. “Can’t say exactly. MI6 was referencing it in regards to Afghan heroin, Libyan MANPADS, and human trafficking in Malawi. But they didn’t have anything else.”
“Holy cow. A global criminal enterprise that large and I’ve never even heard of it.”
“I kept digging around but couldn’t find anything else. CIA, DIA—all dead ends. So I put some bots together a couple hours ago and sent them off into the Net on their own to bird-dog this thing. They haven’t turned up anything yet, but I hope to get something by the end of day.”
“‘Hope’? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“That’s what’s freaking me out. These Iron Syndicate guys are good at hiding secrets. Like, government-level good.”
“You think this Iron Syndicate is a foreign agency?”
“Not really. More like a private outfit would be my guess. But given the quality of the OPSEC—”
Gerry sat up. “Rogue foreign intel officers?”
“Rogue or retired. Or both.”
“What would connect heroin, arms, and human trafficking?”
“Money,” Gavin said. “It’s all lucrative stuff. That’s why I think it’s private enterprise, not some kind of government-sanctioned thing.”
“You ‘think’—but you’re not certain?”
“Intel agencies have done the same kind of thing, even worse. So I can’t be sure.”
“You’re right. We can’t be. But Jack’s still connected to this somehow, through Elena Iliescu.”
“Yeah. She wanted to kill him.”
“A personal vendetta? Or a hired hit for the Iron Syndicate?”
Gavin scrolled through his iPad again. “I mean, judging by her travel schedule and her income stream, I’d say she was definitely a professional hitter.”
“Hired to hit Jack?”
“Again, I can’t be sure at this point. But I broke into her cell network, and of course I have access to Jack’s.”
Gavin pulled up a screen with a video graphic and slid the iPad over to Gerry.
“Jack said the cops told him she’d driven in from Trieste, so I tracked her cell phone starting the day Jack was in London, eleven days ago. You can see her movement around Trieste, and, by the time stamp, you can see she picked up and headed to Ljubljana the day after Jack left London.”
Gavin reached across the desk and swiped the screen for Gerry, pulling up a new video.
“And here you can see Jack’s cell pinging in the city, and hers. Notice how closely she stays next to him—got within a hundred feet of him a couple times.”
“So she was definitely tracking him,” Gerry said.
“No question.”
“And she followed him up to—where was it?”
“Kozjak Falls. And actually, she got there ahead of him by about two hours. Here.” Gavin picked up the tablet and scrolled to another page and showed him.
Gerry examined the tablet. “She knew where he was going.”
“Maybe she tapped a phone or got a bug planted somewhere. But it wasn’t an accident she bumped into Jack up there.” Gavin cleared his throat. “Perfect place for a hit, especially if she planned on beheading him. I mean, not that I’ve ever done that sort of thing.”
Gerry leaned back in his chair, flipping through Gavin’s tablet. “The place is pretty remote.” He studied a police photo of the crime scene: picnic bench, ice chest, bone saw. “Let’s assume you’re right and this woman was hired to kill Jack. We need to find out why.”
“She would know.”
“And she isn’t talking, at least not officially.” Gerry sat up and reached for his laptop. “Maybe it’s time to arrange an unofficial chat with Ms. Iliescu. Find out more about the Iron Syndicate, and why they ordered a hit on Jack.”
“Should we call the Feds in on this?”
“No, we don’t have proof of anything yet to give them, and we’re still just making educated guesses. Besides, they’re going to want to know my intel sources, and neither of us wants that.”
“Agreed. So what makes you think she’ll talk to us?”
“Assuming she is a pro, that means she’s been hired by somebody for a chunk of cash. By not filing charges against Jack, she might be sending a signal that she’s looking for more money.”
Gerry woke up his computer and pulled up a list of phone numbers. “On the other hand, she failed her assignment, and that means she’s in trouble with her employers, so my guess is she might be looking for protection. Either way, I know just the guy who can suss it out.”
Gerry dialed a number, then held up a finger toward Gavin. “Excuse me for one second.”
“Of course.” Gavin’s eyes drifted to the photographs of the ex-senator posing with presidents, kings, movie stars, and business titans over the years. The most prominent one featured Gerry and President Ryan, close friends for many years and cofounders of The Campus and Hendley Associates.
A few rings later, someone picked up on the other end.
“Dom? It’s Gerry. I have an assignment for you. Might make a nice little vacation for you and Adara—and Midas, too, come to think of it. I’ll set up a conference call from my end and fill in the details.”
Gerry hung up and turned to Gavin. “Nice work, Gav. I’ll keep you in the loop. In the meantime, keep digging around for whatever you can find on this Iron Syndicate.”
“If the syndicate knows she failed her hit, you know they’ll send somebody else for Jack.”
“I told Jack that, but he says he’s got something to finish before he can come back where we can keep an eye on him.”
Gavin frowned with worry. “The fact we’ve never heard of these Iron Syndicate people makes me extremely nervous.”
“I’m worried, too. That’s why we’ve got to find out what’s really going on and who’s behind it.”
25
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Jack met the apartment owners briefly, a charming young Bosniak couple, both high school teachers, who showed him around the spotless two-bedroom apartment decked out in IKEA furniture and local art. They left him a set of keys and a couple maps, along with a small pot full of dark, rich ground beans and instructions on how to brew a cup of Bosnian coffee.
This was his first Airbnb rental, and he was extremely pleased. Half the price of a hotel, and twice as nice. The only bummer was that the building’s garbage chute was located on the third-floor landing across from his front door. Fortunately, the smell didn’t reach inside the apartment.
Jack changed into shorts and a linen flannel shirt and headed out, pulling on a pair of Oakleys against the bright sun. He was famished, but fortunately, his first “Aida” target worked at a restaurant with great TripAdvisor reviews in the Turkish part of the Old Town. It was about a ten-minute walk from his place. He was looking forward to stretching his legs and seeing Sarajevo up close and personal, and the part of town where he was headed was a pedestrian zone.
A few blocks from his apartment, he crossed the Latin Bridge heading north, stopping at the traffic light just as a battered trolley car came screeching to a halt. He glanced across the street and saw the sign on the building and it suddenly hit him. This was the street corner where Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in 1914.
It was a dope slap, for sure.
Jack had studied World War I in high school. He’d watched the grainy film footage of soldiers swarming out of their trenches through barbed wire and mortar fire and into no-man’s-land only to be machine-gunned down by the thousands, or gassed, or blown apart by concentrated artillery fire. Millions of soldiers and civilians were butchered in a war that served no purpose other than to lay the foundations for the next one, an even bloodier affair. All of that carnage that laid waste to an entire generation, all triggered by the pistol shots of a Bosnian Serb nationalist fired here.
Right here.
The assassination was one of the most historically significant events in the past two hundred years: the Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, the rise of the United States as a world power, the beginning of the end of the British Empire. Those fatal gunshots also gave rise to Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Hitler. The whole world crumbled in the earthquake that was the Great War, and this place was the epicenter, where it all originated.
It was practically hallowed ground, wasn’t it?
But as Jack glanced around, all he saw were locals marching off to work with cell phones stuck in their ears, frustrated car drivers, a couple old-timers shuffling aimlessly along, teenagers lugging book bags. Their faces were heavy with frustration or fear, or numbed with boredom and fatigue. Just everyday people, trudging through history as casually as they would through a shabby shopping mall.
The light turned green and Jack crossed with a woman who tossed her smoldering cigarette onto the street, maybe right at the place where nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip stood and pulled the trigger. To these people, it was all so ordinary and familiar. How could that be?
Jack stepped onto the curb and stood in front of the museum commemorating the terrible event. It was just a single room, occupying the bottom floor of a three-story building standing on the corner. He found a plain, simple inscription in Bosanski and English on an unremarkable stone slab on the museum’s outer wall:
FROM THIS PLACE ON 28 JUNE 1914 GAVRILO PRINCIP ASSASSINATED THE HEIR TO THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN THRONE FRANZ FERDINAND AND HIS WIFE SOFIA.
That was it?
Unbelievable, Jack thought. He’d seen Chevrolet ads with more emotion. It seemed as if the city was hardly trying to remember this tragedy. Or they were trying to ignore it. Maybe they didn’t want to be blamed for all the inconsolable suffering and death that followed.
Jack was suddenly as depressed as he was confused.
He was tempted to check out the museum, but his gurgling stomach told him to wait until some other time. Jack turned and walked north. With any luck, he’d find the girl and a good meal all at the same time.
* * *
—
A few blocks up and Jack was formally in the Old Town, his Merrell Moab Ventilators clopping on limestone pavement stones smoothed by three hundred years of foot traffic.
Suddenly the grime of the working-class city behind him was transformed into a Turkish bazaar, the wide streets lined with shops of every kind selling jewelry, clothes, artwork, books, and food.
Lots of food.
And the streets were suddenly crowded, too, mostly tourists. Europeans, certainly, and Asians. But he also saw his first Muslim woman in Sarajevo covered from head to toe, her eyes alone exposed beneath her niqab, walking alongside a bearded Muslim man in Western slacks and a shirt. Were they locals? Tourists? He wasn’t sure.
He passed by the wall of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque with a fountain on the corner where passersby stooped to drink water from a spigot with their cupped hands. Google Maps steered him left, and three minutes later he stood in front of a wrought-iron archway opening into a small courtyard between two buildings with wood tables and bench seating jammed with diners. Small, clear electric lights hung from the branches of trees overhanging the courtyard. Bosnian folk music played on the outdoor speakers, but it could hardly be heard over the laughter and loud, friendly banter of people having a good time.
There wasn’t a breeze of any sort, and Jack felt a small trickle of sweat sliding down his spine as he stood there searching for a place to sit. The tables were crowded with plates of delicious-looking food and glasses full of wine and beer, and quite a few cigarettes. It was a good vibe and obviously a popular place.
He glanced through the open door of the air-conditioned restaurant interior and saw a standing-room-only crowd inside and no empty tables or even a space to stand at the busy bar. Even if Aida was in there, he wouldn’t have the chance to talk to her.
“You want table? Over there,” a waitress said, nodding her ponytailed brunette head toward an empty two-seater in the back of the courtyard while she balanced plates of lamb kebabs and fish. Her left ear was pierced with at least ten small hoops, and tiny blue star tattoos were clustered on her neck.
“Great, thanks. Is Aida Curić here?” Jack asked, but the waitress had turned her back to him and was delivering food to an eager table of hungry young Germans.
Jack made his way carefully through the choreographed chaos of flying waitresses, harried busboys, and shuffling tourists passing in and out of the restaurant. He kept his eye peeled for a pretty blonde with blue eyes. He assumed Aida was a waitress, but maybe she was a cook or tended the bar. Gavin’s notes weren’t that specific. He figured he’d order food and try again to ask whoever his waitress was about her after he ate. It was still early and he couldn’t imagine this Curić woman would bail out of her shift before the dinner crowd got rolling and the tips started dropping, especially if she was a server.
Jack wedged past a bench with a fat Spaniard bulging into the walkway on one side and the gangly legs of a couple tall Finns on the other, then excused himself past three plus-sized women before dropping into the seat behind the small open table he was aiming for. He picked up the menu that was thankfully in English as well as a few other languages, and scanned the selections.
Where the hell was the ćevapi?
The waitress with the ponytail and the fishing tackle on her ear carried bottles of beer wedged between her fingers, dropping them off along the way before reaching Jack’s remote location.
“You decide?” she asked with a harried smile.
“No ćevapi?”
“Not here. Ćevabdžinica Petica Ferhatović is best.”
Jack assumed that was the name of another restaurant. He’d figure it out later. “What’s good here?”
“Sounds good. And your best local beer, too. Please.”
“Okay,” she said as she snatched up his menu and scampered off.
Jack kept scanning the courtyard while waiting for his order, hoping to catch sight of Aida. He was too far back on the patio to see inside the restaurant. A few minutes later, a giant bowl of soup and a cold bottle of Sarajevska beer arrived. He dug into his bowl greedily, savoring the lean, spicy beef that practically melted in his mouth, along with the soft wedges of potato, sweet onions, and crunchy vegetables in the rich, red broth. It was really more like a stew than a soup. He washed it down with the smooth, drinkable lager that tasted especially good and even a little sweet chasing the soup’s mild spices.
By the time he spooned up the last bite of soup his waitress had reappeared with another beer in her hand.
“How’d you know?” Jack asked.
She smiled, her eyes flashing with just a little bit more than professional interest. “You have the look.”
“What look is that? A dumb American?”
“No, just thirsty.” She set the beer down on the table. “Anything else you want, thirsty American?”
“Yeah, maybe you can help me. Is Aida Curić here tonight?”
Her interested smile suddenly faded. “Yes.”
“Do you mind asking her to come over here?”
“She’s busy.”
“It’s important.”
She shrugged, resigned to her disappointment and clearly annoyed. “I will tell her.”
Jack watched her bobbing ponytail disappear into the restaurant. A minute later, a pretty, young blonde appeared, followed by a man with a close-shaved head and a serious addiction to weightlifting and, quite possibly, steroids, to judge from the unnatural shape of his upper body.
The blonde approached his table. The man stood behind her, glowering at Jack over her shoulder. A few heads turned to watch the show unfolding.
The woman’s piercing blue eyes narrowed, and her small mouth curled with a question. “You asked for me?”
