Hunter

by Chris Allen

  When he reached the doorway and looked outside, everything was in darkness. The exterior light had been switched off and the big black van was gone. There was no sign of life. Gjoka took a first tentative step forward out into the unknown when the toe of his shoe caught on something and he fell. Both arms instinctively shot forward to break his fall, the suitcase and gun tumbling from his grip. As he fell, his knees landed on something soft and he realized that it was another body.

  On the edge of a complete meltdown, Gjoka scuttled away from the body of the last baldy. He located his suitcase, dragged it over to his Mercedes and shoved it in the back seat. As the interior light came on he saw that the keys were still in the ignition. Thank God.

  He turned around and tried in vain to find the gun but soon gave up. In a second he was seated behind the wheel and the engine was running. It was then that Gjoka broke down. His face fell into his hands and his shoulders shook as he sobbed.

  Minutes later Gjoka was beginning to recover his composure when a set of headlights appeared behind him, filling the interior of the Mercedes in brilliant white light. 'No! No!' he cried, but then, just as he thought all hope was lost, the lights from the car behind him showed him exactly where his gun had fallen. It was less than 5 feet from his door, his only chance. Gjoka thrust the door open and lunged for it.

  On all fours, he was scrambling across the gravel when the cold pressure of a gun barrel was rammed into the cleft beneath his ear. Gjoka knew exactly what it was. His hand froze in its last-ditch effort to reach the automatic and he came back onto his haunches, hands in the air in supplication.

  "On your feet, Gjoka," said a rough, tired voice. The gun didn't budge from beneath Gjoka's ear as he slowly stood. "Turn and face your car."

  Gjoka found himself completely under the man's control. His arms were pulled behind his back, plasti-cuffs fitted tightly around his wrists and he was dragged by the scruff of the neck to the back of the house.

  "What are you going to do? Are you going to kill me? Please—"

  "Shut up, you sniveling little turd," the voice barked harshly. "I need to find my boots."

  Gjoka fell silent and did exactly as he was told.

  PART FOUR

  A WOLF IN SHEEP'S

  CLOTHING

  Chapter 67

  INTREPID HQ, BROADWAY, LONDON

  "I've just heard from him, sir;' Mila Haddad replied, walking into Davenport's office. She sat down in front of his desk. He looked tired already - it was only midday.

  "And?"

  "Early this morning he handed Mr Gjoka over to the internal investigations team at Interpol Headquarters in Tirana; even waited with Gjoka personally until the team arrived from Lyon. And—" she consulted the general's wall clock, "—they're an hour ahead of us in Tirana, so it's about 1pm over there. I expect he's about to meet with senior members of the Albanian State Police regarding the wash-up over last night's incident at Petrele. Then he's booked on a flight to Seattle late this afternoon. He's going to follow up with Ms Fleming regarding her report that a possible association exists between her male companion, Mr Demaci, and the Serbian gunman, the third man, who was arrested in Tirana alongside Ivan Simovic and Dobrashin Petrovie.."

  "I see," said Davenport. "Why didn't we know about this connection earlier?"

  "Well, I believe the concussion she suffered when she was being forced upon that seaplane, along with the very real possibility of post traumatic stress, resulted in short-term memory loss; very common, under the circumstances. She's had no option but to piece it all together as it returns to her."

  "Very well," Davenport replied gruffly but his eyes betrayed the deep-seated concern and affection he held for his goddaughter.

  "Ms Fleming reported seeing the Serbian gunman posing as a bodyguard aboard the Florence, and then again later when she was being relocated via seaplane to Albania. Unfortunately, there's still no word on the whereabouts of Mr Demaci."

  "Very well. Hopefully, Interpol internal investigations will manage to extract some useful information from Mr Gjoka; something we can actually make use of," Davenport replied. "Anything more from Morgan?"

  "He did say that he could do with some leave; asked me to put in a good word." She smiled.

  "He can take bloody leave when he's finished doing what I sent him off to do,' Davenport replied gruffly. "I've read the operations update on Morgan's activities in Petrele last night, sounds like he's damn lucky to be alive. Make sure he gets appropriate cooperation from the local authorities; and when I say appropriate, I mean maximum. Let me know immediately if there are any problems."

  "Of course, sir,' Mila replied. She got the impression that the piece of Iraqi shrapnel embedded in the general's right knee during Desert Storm was giving him more than a little grief this morning. He was unusually tetchy.

  "Now, XO, I need you to ensure that I am absolutely up to date on everything we currently have relating to the hunt for Drago Obrenovic. Let's start with the murder of Judge de Villepin. My recollection of Commander Sutherland's last report from France was that the French authorities had no luck in identifying any suspects. By the way, where is Commander Sutherland?" he asked. "I don't recall hearing from him lately."

  "He's currently in the United States. You sent him off to do field trials of some new equipment the US Special Forces are using."

  "Of course, must have slipped my mind,' Davenport said. "Lucky I have you to keep me on track."

  "You'll recall we had him wrap up in France, sir,' she answered. "He'd exhausted every avenue with the French police and Interpol Paris has now taken point on that. Although Commander Sutherland did manage to cut through some bureaucratic red tape and, let's just say, secured some digital surveillance footage that may come in handy."

  Davenport's eyebrows raised. "If not secured, what else would we call it?"

  "I believe the word he used was pilfered, sir;' she said, holding back a smirk.

  "God forbid,' said the general.

  Mrs Jolley entered with a tray. Davenport took the opportunity to stand and stretch his leg. He struggled as he left his chair and Mila had to stop herself from leaping to his aid. Of course, Margaret Jolley, who had been the general's personal assistant for many years, knew better than to even consider offering help. Instead, she proceeded to set the tray down between them on the general's desk, pouring green tea for Mila and coffee for Davenport. Noting Mila's thanks, she quietly withdrew and closed the door behind her.

  Davenport was pacing the room slowly, deep in thought. With great courtesy, Mila continued to peruse her notes and drink tea, outwardly unperturbed by the general's brief absence from the desk, inwardly wishing there was something she could do for her boss. After a few moments he returned, resumed his seat awkwardly and took up his coffee; black, two sugars.

  "Please keep a steady watching brief on the de Vil-lepin investigation, XO. That one will eventually come back to us, I'm sure of it."

  "Of course, sir," Mila replied.

  "Now, do you have anything further regarding the Wolf?"

  "There's a fair bit going on, sir. Where would you like to start?"

  "Let me see where I'm up to and perhaps you can take over from there," he began. "If I recall correctly, during their interrogation of Dobrashin Petrovic, Major Morgan and Hauptmann Braunschweiger discovered that Mr Petrovic has a brother or, more accurately, a cousin, by the name of Vukasin, Vukasin Petrovic; which you have subsequently confirmed through the Serbian births and deaths registry. And as we've previously discussed, and Mr Braunschweiger has more recently identified, both the Serbian word Vuk and the name Vukasin translate to wolf. How am I going so far?"

  "Perfectly," Mila answered.

  "As yet we do not know the whereabouts of, nor do we have any way of definitively identifying, Vukasin Petrovk. However, he has, in absentia, been escalated to the top of our list of candidates for the Wolf?"

  "That's correct," Mila replied. "Based on Major Morgan's assessment of the conversation h
e observed between Mr Gjoka and Drago's son at Petrele last night, it is the Wolf who has been pulling the strings from the outset. During the conversation, Gjoka referred to the Wolf's brother, Dobrashin, being in custody along with Ivan Simovic. This alone confirms Vukasin Petrovic as the Wolf. Later in the conversation, Gjoka blamed the Wolf and his brother, Dobrash-in Petrovic, for the plan that resulted in the Serifovic arrest in Corfu. Gjoka claimed that he was innocent of any betrayal or wrongdoing against Serifovic. He said that the Wolf had convinced him it was what Drago wanted. I suspect that the Wolf had also convinced his younger brother to do it in order to collect the reward, which they would split later. But it was much bigger than that."

  There was a long silence as Davenport considered it all.

  "So, the Wolf does exist," he said finally. "It seems we were working our way inevitably toward him from the very beginning. Even as far back as my service in Bosnia all those years ago, which you uncovered, XO; how extraordinary. What was it that Morgan referred to it as in his report?"

  "A management restructure, Balkans style." She smiled. "The Wolf's objective is to seize total control of the Serbian mafia by systematically clearing the decks of the old guard. Ascending to the position of chief of the Zmajevi, via a bloodless coup, avoids a direct challenge against Drago."

  "No better way to ensure solidarity across their various factions than by unifying them in the hatred of a shared enemy."

  "The ICTY."

  "Precisely,' Davenport said, with a tinge of respect for the strategy behind it all. "It's both incredibly infuriating and brilliant at the same time. Do we have any way of linking the Wolf to the arrests of Karadzic, Mladic or Hadzic? That would be worth pursuing."

  "Not yet, but we'll keep looking into that," she said. "So, where is Mr Braunschweiger at the moment staying on the Petrovic brothers?"

  "Yes, sir. He's still in Berlin debriefing with the German authorities over the interrogation of Dobrashin Petrovic, and arranging for him to be moved to The Hague. He'll continue to investigate Vukasin Petrovic; specifically anything that can categorically prove him, from an evidentiary perspective, to be the Wolf."

  "Unfortunately," Davenport said, "without a known location for Vukasin Petrovic, or even a current physical identification of him, it seems all we've done is add another name to our list of fugitives."

  "Not necessarily, sir," Mila offered cautiously.

  "You have something?" he asked eagerly.

  "It's more of an idea at present," she began. "I've been intrigued by the connection of the Serbian name Vukasin meaning wolf and the criminal persona he may have adopted and, it seems, at the very least actively cultivated in his guise as the Wolf."

  "Yes,' he replied. "But, it's not such a stretch for him to have become notorious under his own name." "Not necessarily, sir,' she said, not to be put off.

  "While Vukasin is actually quite a common name in the Balkans, not everyone called Vukasin goes around beating their chests, passing themselves off as the great and noble wolf. No, I think we need to explore the possibility that there's more to the psychology of the man."

  "OK, XO, you have my attention." Davenport poured more coffee for himself and tea for Mila as she continued.

  "Knowing what we know about the Wolf, he presents all the classic tendencies of the narcissist: self-obsessed, ambitious, delusional, manipulative; with no compunction about using others to get what he wants. Of course, we also know that narcissists are incredibly fragile and sensitive creatures, prone to erratic swings in behavior: jealousy, insecurity, rejection and so on. And while there's no proven cause of narcissistic behavior, historical or environmental factors can play a part."

  Mila stopped for a moment, drank some tea and collected her thoughts. The general remained absolutely silent.

  "I mean, imagine this scenario, sir: a very young boy suddenly loses both parents in a tragic accident. He is then adopted by relatives who can't have children, who take him under their wing purely out of a sense of familial obligation. When the boy eventually becomes established and secure within his new family, he's derailed again when the adoptive parents unexpectedly have a child of their own. It's not a great stretch to surmise that a deep-seated fear of rejection may have sent the over-compensatory characteristics of the narcissist - self-obsession, competitiveness, a predisposition to creating fantasies and so on - into overdrive."

  "I see," Davenport replied. "But is that enough to have triggered the levels of unrestrained violence that we are associating with this creature? These homicidal tendencies, multiple executions and so on. How on earth has he managed to last this long and avoid detection?"

  "I would say the Balkans War was the ultimate catalyst. It gave Vukasin Petrovic the perfect environment to vent his anger and frustration while being supported, even encouraged, by the military leadership. With the appropriate guidance, a mentor, he would have been ideal 'enforcer' material."

  "Drago," said Davenport.

  "It seems that way, sir. But this is just my unqualified observation. In all honesty, confirming any of it would require formal assessment of the subject by an experienced professional. And, of course, for that to happen, we have to catch him first."

  "I wouldn't discount your theory so readily, XO," said Davenport. "I concur with what you're saying and I suspect you have some idea about how we might go about catching Mr Petrovic. So, let's have it."

  "It's just a hunch, sir," said Mila, somewhat tentatively, although she was confident she was on the right track. "On the basis of my assessment of Petrovic's narcissistic qualities, and returning to my thoughts about his attachment to the persona created by his name, I believe he has established and used the title Wolf to great effect, a personal brand, if you like. His ego and hunger for power and control would revel in the way the name Wolf would conjure both fear and legend throughout the criminal underworld. In his mind he would be so intrinsically connected with the enigma as to believe it to be true. He is not just wolf by name; he is the Wolf. To that end, I suspect that his ego does not allow him to shed the Wolf title or persona at any time, even when he assumes alternate identities in order to avoid the authorities. I mean, he's obviously a master of deception and every moment that he remains at large, despite the horrendous crimes he has committed right under the noses of the international community, only serves to reinforce his sense of supremacy over others. Ultimately outwitting even the ICTY and Interpol."

  "So, what are you suggesting, XO? What exactly do you mean by him not letting go of the Wolf persona? I don't quite follow."

  "I think it's possibly as straightforward as the names he uses when adopting false identities. Pet-rovic needs to remain, in some fundamental way, connected to his ultimate persona, the Wolf. If we include other names that also mean wolf, we will refine our search parameters and, therein, extend our chances of actually finding him. I'm confident that we'll find him hiding right out in the open, under our very noses, behind a very simple wolf-related alias. I'm going to start by compiling a list of names that mean wolf then take a look at the list of all the names currently associated with our investigations into Obrenovic and the Zmajevi, to see if any red flags pop up. I've already arranged it with Scotland Yard; I need access to their experts and their database."

  "Well, XO, I never would have thought to approach

  it that way, but it definitely warrants every effort," he said. Davenport would never discourage any avenue of investigation that was based on a reasonable and structured argument. "Let me know when you're leaving, I'll wander around with you and catch up with Commissioner Hutton. It'll do my leg some good to get moving."

  Mila Haddad could not have been more pleased with the general's reaction to her theory. She knew that, at his core, he was a man of action who looked for tangible results from his people in all their endeavors. But importantly, she also knew he wasn't closed to any idea that had merit. In fact, she knew that he encouraged everybody in the organisation to think outside the box.

 
; Pleased to be, in a small way, the catalyst of the reinvigorated search for the Wolf, Mila was determined to ensure they left no stone unturned in tracking him down. And, as far as her responsibilities were concerned, she was sure she'd find something that would bring them closer to him. Even if the general did initially think the name angle was a stretch.

  As he always said: Sometimes the simplest things were the key to opening the most complex issues.

  Chapter 68

  OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT DIRECTOR

  HEADQUARTERS SECURITE PUBLIQUE, MAHDIA, TUNISIA

  "Do you realize what you've done?" Hamba barked across the room.

  "I thought I was following your orders, sir," answered Youssef honestly. He was shaking with fear.

  "My orders, Officer Ali Hassan, were for you to ensure that the transcript of my interview with the foreigner Raoul Demaci was on my desk first thing this morning. Nothing more."

  "But it was, sir,' he replied meekly. "I brought it personally at 8am. You weren't here. I sat outside all this time to ensure you received it the moment you returned."

  "Don't you dare take that impertinent tone with me, boy!" Hamba bellowed. "I was investigating the brutal murder of one of my officers; killed last night in the hospital room of the man who is the subject of this very transcript."

  Hamba had Youssef's transcript in his hand and threw it down upon his desk in exasperation. His shoulders slumped. Turning his back to Youssef, he looked out of the window, lighting a cigarette.

  "Now, it appears that Mr Demaci has fled the country." Hamba spoke to the window. "With an accomplice."

  Youssef remained absolutely silent.

  "Who or what on earth coerced you into dispatching a copy of this report direct to headquarters in Tunis?" Hamba asked tiredly, still facing away from Youssef. "Answer me that, Officer Ali Hassan."