by Mike Maden
Aida stood and turned the laptop around so that Jack could see it.
“Do you know what you’re looking at?”
Jack leaned forward as far as the duct tape would allow, squinting his eyes. “I dunno. The Depeche Mode concert?”
“It’s a live video feed from our drone, flying high over the Olympic soccer stadium, hosting the Orthodox Renewal. All of those people down there are crowding in like sardines in order to receive the blessings of their priests. Well, we have another blessing in store for them.” She checked her watch. “In exactly forty-two minutes, they’re all going to die.”
“Just like those innocent people killed on that plane?”
“Oh, no. These Serbs will suffer much, much more than they did.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I tried to explain it to you, Jack. But you’re too American to understand.” She pocketed her burner phone.
“I can’t believe you killed those people.”
She giggled coyly. “Me? I didn’t. Emir is the one who pulled the trigger.”
“But you ordered him to, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“To kill me.”
“I had to. You became a loose end.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I shouldn’t think so. Especially since you’re responsible for all of them dying.”
“Kill him now, and let’s go,” Emir said, stepping back into the room. “The commander is waiting for us.”
“You mean Brkić, don’t you?” Jack asked.
WHACK!
Emir backhanded Jack. “Shut your mouth. You are not worthy to speak his name.” Emir pulled his chromed pistol out of his waistband and pointed it at Jack.
Aida laid her hand on the barrel and pushed it down. “Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for? Kill him now! He treated you like his whore.” He raised his gun back up.
“Not yet. I want him to see history unfold before his eyes, and to know the part he played in starting World War Three. And then he can die.”
Emir smiled at the thought. “Sure, why not?”
“Good. You stay here with him. I’m going to the site. When it’s done, blow his brains out, then come.”
She kissed Emir on the forehead and headed for the door. The small Bosniak was visibly shaken by the kiss, as if a thousand volts of electricity had been shot through his body. His resolve stiffened.
Aida stopped and turned, a dark shadow framed in the doorway, the blazing sun behind her.
“You Americans sicken me. Ignorant. Arrogant. Naive. You are all fools. But you, Jack Ryan, are the biggest fool of all.” She laughed as she headed for her van.
Emir brayed like a mule.
The Volkswagen’s engine fired up outside, spitting gravel as it sped away.
60
Emir pulled up a chair and sat in it, still a safe distance away from Jack’s long reach, even though he couldn’t do much reaching at the moment.
Jack glanced at the laptop. A countdown clock was running.
Forty minutes remaining.
What the hell am I going to do?
“You know she played you, too, right?”
Emir frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re never going to see her again.”
Emir sneered as he shook his head. “You don’t know anything, do you?”
“I know she’s a lying bitch.”
“Watch your mouth, Ryan.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Soon you won’t be saying anything to anybody.”
“And you’re okay with this? Mass murder?”
“Murder? They are infidels who have butchered my people for centuries. They slaughtered my family in the last war. Therefore, this is not murder. It is holy justice.”
“I thought you belonged to the religion of peace.”
Emir nodded. “When all men are Muslims, there will be peace. But until then”—his back stiffened—“there will be jihad.”
“Except you guys kill more of each other than we do.”
Emir spat on the floor. “The days of the filthy Shia are numbered.”
“Until you clowns can figure out how to invent something useful like an internal combustion engine or a telephone, I wouldn’t sweat trying to run the planet.”
Emir wasn’t biting. “Pathetic.”
Time to step it up.
Jack turned his attention back toward the laptop. “Another forty minutes of this? Don’t you have Netflix or something?”
“Always with the jokes, you Americans. But this is no joke. This is how the world you know ends in fire and blood.”
“That’s stupid. There isn’t going to be a World War Three.”
“It is the truth.”
“How? A bunch of Serbs get killed. So what? Who cares? That’s like a bunch of dead ragheads—”
WHACK!
Emir backhanded Jack again.
Just like Jack hoped he would.
“Watch your mouth, Ryan. Or you’ll watch that screen without any teeth in your ugly head.”
Jack shook off the sting. “Enlighten me, shit-for-brains.”
Emir stood over Jack. “You Americans don’t know history. You don’t know anything! Except your filthy rap music and pornography.”
“Don’t knock ’em if you haven’t tried ’em.” Jack shifted beneath the stranglehold of duct tape.
Emir raised his hand to strike again and Jack shut his eyes, wincing, preparing for the blow.
Emir stayed his hand and laughed. “Not so tough now, eh?”
“Take off this tape and I’ll show you.”
Emir’s eyes flared with hatred. He turned his back to watch the screen.
Being ignored wasn’t part of Jack’s plan. He tried another tack.
“Okay, so enlighten me. How does killing Serbs start World War Three?”
Emir turned back around. “Commander Brkić has thought of everything. We will claim responsibility for the strike, the Russians will invade, and NATO will fight Russia.”
“What kind of strike? A bomb? Chemicals? Biologics?”
“None of your business. Just watch—and pray.”
“Don’t tell me to pray, you satanic little fuck.”
WHACK!
Jack didn’t wince that time, despite the welt forming beneath his beard.
“Shit, dude. That almost hurt. You hit like my little sister, only not as hard.”
WHACK!
“C’mon, you little goat fucker. That’s the best you got?” Jack roared with laughter. “No wonder you could never close the deal with Aida.” He shook his head, grinning. “Man, that girl sure liked to—”
“Shut up!” Emir drew his big semiauto Colt and pointed it at Jack. “Time to die!”
“Oh, no, no, no, little fella. Aida said you had to wait until after the big show before you pulled that trigger.”
“Pray to Allah he will accept you into His Paradise, infidel.” Emir racked the slide. The heavy .45-caliber bullet already in the chamber ejected, bouncing on the floorboards.
“You dropped one, chief.”
“No worries, Jack. Plenty more where that came from.”
“I don’t think a pissant like you can kill a man like me face-to-face.”
“You’re about to find out.” Emir flicked off the safety.
“Sure, fire a rocket launcher, kill a bunch of strangers up in the sky. But up close and personal? Eye to eye? You don’t have the balls.”
Emir stepped closer, staring hard into Jack’s eyes. “Just watch.”
“See? You’re afraid to get close. I mean . . . real close.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Are yo
u sure? How would you know if you were?”
Emir glanced behind Jack’s back, checking his restraints. Then he stepped around behind the chair, keeping the gun pointed at Jack’s head. He pulled at the duct tape and shook it hard to make sure Jack was still secured.
He was.
“See, dipshit? I’m not dangerous. I’m tied up like a sacrificial lamb. But this little lamb’s got way bigger balls than you. Just ask Aida—”
WHACK!
Emir smacked Jack’s skull with the barrel of the pistol. Lights flashed in Jack’s eyes, like he’d been hit in the head with a steel brick, which he had.
Jack shook it off with a laugh. “Fuck you, douchebag. Get it over with!”
Emir stepped up and shoved the pistol in Jack’s face, an inch from his nose.
Jack stared straight up the barrel, from the bladed front sight back through the square notch on the rear sight, all the way to Emir’s raging eyes. The barrel trembled.
“Put it against my forehead, you little shit. Put it hard against my skull, if you have the guts. Then pull the trigger. But I bet you can’t. You’re too weak.”
Emir jammed the barrel against Jack’s forehead.
Jack felt the barrel’s cold, smooth crown pressing into his skin. He pushed back harder. Emir’s arm stiffened.
Jack’s eyes bored into Emir’s, his bearded face twisted into a smug, satisfied grin.
“That’s better,” Jack said. “You want that barrel nice and tight against my skull so the gun doesn’t flip back and crack you in the face when it fires.”
Emir’s grin faded.
Something was wrong. What was the American up to?
Jack shoved his head forward, grabbing Emir’s attention. “What the fuck are you waiting for, pussy? Your period?”
Rage flashed over Emir’s face, but then it faded, giving way to a slow, wide grin.
His finger squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
Frowning with confusion, Emir pulled the gun back to check it, racking in another round and—
OOMPH!
Jack launched his boot into the Bosniak’s ball sack, crushing his testicles with the devastating kick. Emir dropped the gun, bent over, and grabbed his crotch.
Jack lunged up in a half squat as Emir bent over, driving his frontal dome, the hardest part of his skull, straight into Emir’s nose, breaking it with a sickening crack and a gusher of blood.
Standing in a half crouch and still tied to the chair, Jack turned sideways and threw his entire body weight against the much smaller man. Emir lost his footing and stumbled to the floor. Jack turned and kicked the pistol, sending it skittering across the rough-hewn boards, then turned back around and kicked as hard as he could at Emir’s head.
The toe of his boot struck home with a nauseating crunch. Emir howled with pain as he clutched his face, balling himself up to prevent another boot strike to his skull.
Just what Jack wanted.
Jack raised his size-fourteen foot as high as he could and stomped the side of Emir’s head, driving it into the floor. He stomped again and again and again.
Emir flailed widely, kicking at Jack but missing, blinded by pain and his own gushing blood slicking the wooden floor like an oil spill.
Emir tucked one arm under his head to cushion it against the floor and the other on top to protect his ear, now partially torn off from the repeated boot strikes.
So Jack kicked him in the face again.
Kicked him so hard that Emir’s head snapped back, collapsing the fragile anterior nasal spine just below his nose and smashing his brain hard against his skull, knocking him out.
Jack raised his foot one more time to deliver a killing blow to Emir’s exposed neck, but he hesitated. He couldn’t kill a helpless, unconscious man, no matter how miserable a human being he was. Chances were he was going to die anyway.
Emir was God’s problem now.
Jack lowered his foot. He stood in his tortured half crouch over the bleeding figure, gasping for air, the duct tape still tying him to the chair like a crooked crucifix, but he hardly felt it for the adrenaline dump still surging through his blood.
Jack couldn’t believe his luck. Shoving the barrel of the Colt against his skull had pushed the slide back just enough to engage the disconnector, putting the gun out of battery and preventing it from firing. It was a long shot, but the only one he could think of at the time to get out of this jam.
Now he had another problem.
How the hell was he going to get out of this damn chair?
61
Jack turned around and scanned the kitchen.
On the counter was a knife block, but he couldn’t stand up tall enough to reach any of the knife handles. He thought about swinging the chair legs up high enough to sweep the knife block off the counter, but chances were he’d only bang into the cabinets. He didn’t see any other sharp surfaces he could use to cut the duct tape with, either.
But then he remembered he really didn’t need any.
Jack sat back down in his chair and steadied himself. He took a deep breath, leaned back as far as he could within the constraints of the duct tape, then jackknifed his upper torso down toward his knees as sharply as he could.
The duct tape split at the chair edges from the force of his thrust as neatly as if he had ripped it with his fingers.
He stood and shook his body to free himself from the remaining strands of tape, toppling the chair to the floor. He then raised his bound wrists high above his head, palms together, fingertips touching. He thrust his arms down sharply, driving his elbows hard against his sides for additional leverage. The duct tape around his wrists gave way easily, though it tore away the hair on his arms and left a little bit of sticky goo on the face of his iWatch.
He ripped away the remaining shreds of duct tape from his clothing before dashing over to Emir’s motionless body. He felt for a pulse. He found one, barely. He checked for more weapons but found none, save another loaded magazine for the Colt, which he pocketed, along with a set of keys for the Renault and, most important, his own iPhone, which Emir had lifted from him previously.
Jack ran over to the laptop. Nothing had changed, but the countdown timer read just thirty-eight minutes now. He punched in Gavin Biery’s number on his phone. Two rings and Gavin picked up.
“Hey, Jack, are you okay? I heard about that airplane—”
“I’m fine. Look, I need you to run a search for a Volkswagen van owned by a Bosnian tour company called Happy Times!, based out of Sarajevo. It’s the only Volkswagen T5 van in their fleet.”
“You got a plate number by any chance?”
“Sorry, no.”
“What do I do when I find it?”
“It has a working GPS map guide. I need you to locate its GPS signal and track it for me.”
“On it, Jack. Give me a few.” Keys began clicking instantly over the phone.
“Thanks.”
Jack set his phone on the table next to the laptop and put it on speaker. He knew he didn’t have any legal authority to do anything, but if Emir was telling the truth, he had to find a way to stop whatever was about to happen at that stadium, and the only way he was going to do that was to find Aida, and find her fast.
Besides, she had to pay for those people she ordered murdered today.
So did Brkić.
He thought briefly about calling Kolak for assistance or even the local police, but at this point he had no idea whom he could trust. Besides, all of those people died this morning because of him. It was up to him to make things right, not pass off the responsibility to someone else.
He probably needed to read Gerry in on what was happening, but at this point, all Gerry would do was yell at him and tell him to get his ass back to the airport.
“Found it,” Gavin said on the speaker. “I
’m tracking it live.”
“Can you send the track to my phone?”
“Doing it now.”
“Thanks, buddy. Hey, one more thing. I’ve got a laptop I’m staring at. We need to find out what’s on it, and what we’re up against.”
“Send me the local IPv4 address, and I’ll mirror your machine. Is it Windows 10?”
“Yeah. Just give me a sec.” Jack found it easily and read it off to him.
“Thanks, Jack. I’ll take it from here.” Keys starting clacking on the phone speaker again.
“Gav, we need to hustle. How long will it take?”
“Not sure.”
A second later, the cursor arrow moved remotely on the laptop screen. “I’m in, Jack. What am I looking at?”
“A live video feed from a drone looking down at the Olympic soccer stadium in Sarajevo.”
“What’s that countdown counter for?”
“In thirty-seven minutes, that stadium is going to be destroyed. I need you to find out exactly how.”
Gavin pulled up another window remotely. It displayed a video of a middle-aged man in camouflage, holding a short-barreled AKS-74U and sitting in front of a black AQAB battle flag with white Arabic letters that spelled out the shahada. The man’s full, wild red-and-gray beard was offset by a white cloth prayer cap, but it was his milky white eye that drew Jack’s attention.
“This is all in some crazy language, Jack.”
“Bosanski,” Jack said. “Bosnian.”
“I’ll run my AI translator. It’s good at real-time audio.”
More windows popped up as Gavin worked; some were documents, and others were video frames.
“So how long?” Jack asked.
“As long as it takes.”
“I can’t sit around here waiting.”
“Use your iPhone as a local hotspot, connect it to the laptop via Bluetooth, and then I can stay connected to the machine through your phone wherever you need to go. I’ll call you if I find anything.”
“Perfect. I’m going after that GPS locator you sent me. And Gav, don’t breathe a word of this to Gerry. I’ll tell him myself when we know more.”
“Sure thing, Jack. And good luck.”
