by S L Shelton
“There are a couple of things you need to know,” I said quietly.
“Okay. Shoot,” he said as he kneeled down next to me.
“The vehicles that pulled up a while ago. There were eight more Serbs in them.”
“Damn.” Temple said, craning his neck up to look out the window. “We saw the vehicles,” he said, pointing up to the ceiling.
Satellite. I understood his meaning.
“But Russian built porticos were designed to hide entry and exit from above.”
Temple looked at Marsh, prompting Marsh to squat down next to us.
“Bad odds. That brings the total to seventeen bad guys,” Marsh said as he leaned forward on his rifle.
I quickly interjected. “Maybe not.” They looked at me, ready to hear more. “The five Russians may be assets,” I said.
“Explain,” Temple said, leaning closer so I didn’t have to speak so loudly.
“See that big Russian on the corner?” I asked, pointing out the window. “The one with all the bruises on his face?”
Temple nodded.
“That’s Daniil. Nice guy. A little slow, but faithful. We bumped into him back at the mill.”
Marsh and Temple’s eyebrows went up in unison.
“Kathrin and I sat him down and had a little talk with him. The Russian boss has a brother in Amsterdam. He’s the one who killed Majmun. I called the brother, Elvis, and let him talk to Daniil. When we let him go, he came back here, and the Serbs reinforced my propaganda by beating him more.”
“Risky,” Marsh said, suddenly looking very nervous.
“Agreed. But if we play it right, at the very least we might be able to get the Russians to sit out the fight,” I replied confidently—though actual confidence was nowhere in sight.
Marsh and Temple looked at each other for a beat before Marsh turned back and looked at me. “He sounds like CIA to me, John…are you sure he’s not one of yours?” he asked with a grin.
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“That still leaves twelve.” John said.
“Eleven,” I corrected, pointing at the lump on the floor.
“Right,” he said as a ripple of agitation danced across his face. “Better. But we should try to whittle it down a bit more before we move in force.”
“In force” was what worried me. I needed to inject some non-violence into this discussion.
“Let me try to get the Russians either out of the picture or on our side,” I said firmly, as if I had a say in it.
“I don’t like it, boss,” I heard SB say from across the room.
“I tend to agree with you on this one, Nick.” John replied.
Nick, I thought, making a mental note. “If I can get Daniil over here without him seeing you, I can let him know it’s going down. Maybe we can figure out how they stand. If nothing else, it’ll give you a clearer picture of what we’re up against.”
John thought about that for a moment. Then he clicked a button on his glove, activating his throat mic. “Papa, this is Momma. Over.”
“Go for Papa,” I heard through his earpiece.
“Monkey Wrench informs five Rusky bad guys may be assets. Instruction. Over,” he said quietly.
There was a long pause and then I heard a different voice. “Momma. This is Papa actual. You’re on the ground. It’s your call.”
John exchanged a look with Lt. Marsh, who shrugged. “Papa—will advise. Out,” John said before looking at me for several long beats, measuring my face for something that might help him make a decision.
“Okay, Scott. You’ve got one chance to get them on board, either out of the fight or in the fight on our side. No hesitation, no waffling, no time to decide. One chance,” John said with a serious warning tone to his voice. “If it doesn’t go your way, we have to take the Russians out first since you’ve clued them in…and then the Serbs.”
I nodded and began to stand when something occurred to me. “Why are the Serbs celebrating?”
John paused a second, trying to decide if he should tell me. “Jovanovich was released.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Everything I’ve ever heard about how the US deals with terrorists suddenly turned upside down. My flow chart started self-filling, answers were starting to pour into my head. “I didn’t think we did that kind of thing,” I said as the lines and connections danced in visual hallucination across my eyes.
“We don’t…usually,” John said as a new expression of agitation tugged for a split second at the corner of his eyes. “But the deputy mission chief pushed hard at State to exert pressure on The Hague.”
“Deputy Chief? Miller? How did he manage that?” I asked, squatting back down.
“Miller is in charge. The ambassador’s daughter is a hostage, so he’s stepped aside. The deputy chief—the charge d’affaires—is second in command.” John replied, his flat tone revealing his disapproval.
“When is Jovanovich being released?” I asked, a pattern forming in my head.
John looked at his watch. “He’s already gone. Left more than two hours ago.”
That explains the party, I thought. “How is he leaving the Hague?” I continued.
He hesitated a second, doubt clouding his expression once again before he relented. “There was an old Russian cargo helo waiting on a chopper pad for him just outside the city. Armored SUVs would have convoyed out to the pad and then he would have taken off for destinations unknown,” he replied.
“Do you have tracking on the chopper?” I asked.
“Where is all this leading?” he asked, getting impatient with my data-gathering process.
“We are on an abandoned military airbase out in the country with no active bases anywhere nearby. They chose a cargo helicopter, when a small transport chopper or a jet would be faster and easier to lose on radar,” I said. “How many personnel can it carry?”
John had enough information to keep him interested. “About one hundred including the crew.”
“Do you know of any other movement by the Serb mob?” I asked, speeding up my process, skipping the hand holding for the sake of expediency.
“Movement?” John asked.
“Movement. Abandoned operations, weapons shipments, groups of men moving out of one place and into another, synchronized showering, anything unusual. Movement!” I pushed.
“Prague was cleared out. Not even our informers were left. Most were killed or disappeared,” he replied, swallowing some agitation.
“And what is the arrangement for the return of the hostages?” I asked.
“The same chopper that left with Jovanovich returns with the hostages and lands just outside the Hague,” John replied, showing his frustration with how this was shaking out. “We were pretty pissed off about that, but Miller negotiated the exchange terms. He wouldn’t even take the calls from Langley advising him.”
A noise in John’s earpiece distracted him. “Acknowledged,” he said into his throat mic. He looked up. “We have incoming air traffic.”
A confused look passed across Lt. Marsh’s face. “It’s too soon for the chopper.”
Just then, there was a roar overhead. Everyone looked up in unison. Heavy aircraft. Not a chopper—a plane, I realized.
We looked out the window just in time to see the field landing lights fill the night air with a sheen and the dark shadow of a large, four-engine plane disappear below the roof line of the row of barracks between us and the runway.
“Secondary transport?” Marsh offered.
“I don’t know,” John replied as he stood to get a better angle.
My flow chart flashed before my eyes, and the auto-fill process started again. All the new information coalesced with the arrival of the giant transport plane. New pieces of data suddenly jumped into places that had been blank before: hostages, cargo helicopter, arms dealers, new cargo plane, Miller’s secret, the words “package” and “three more.”
And then there was the new oddity in my head, that voice, which s
imply said, Nuke.
“This is a setup for a terrorist attack,” I said confidently as distress returned to my chest.
All eyes turned to me. “Explain.” John said plainly, open to any explanation for the turn of events.
“How did Jovanovich get caught? Weapons theft?” I asked, leading him down my line of logic.
“He got caught in Bruges. No bombs, no chemical weapons, no bio weapons,” John replied.
“No weapons, no depot?” I asked.
“Captain,” Lt. Marsh interjected. “I was in Gori when the Russians rolled in. They were almost an hour getting to the Georgian base after they bombed it. And one column of Serb vehicles did make it off the base before the tanks started shelling.”
“Gori,” I said to myself.
“Yes,” Marsh replied firmly. “The Russians bombed the shit out of Gori, moved in, and then left three days later. Crazy shit.”
My flowchart popped up new data for me to see.
“Nadiradze,” I said, staring blankly at the floor as my brain pulled some old line of information from an article on the fall of the Soviet Union.
“What?” John asked as Marsh shot me a startled glance.
I looked at John. “Alexander Nadiradze. Father of modern mobile nuclear missile design,” I replied. “He was born in Gori. He worked in Gori.”
“I don’t need wild supposition. I need facts, and I need them fast, because unlike you, I don’t have the ability to magically look into that plane and see a terrorist attack!”
“I think you’ll find that one or more tactical warheads just landed on this airfield,” I replied, jumping to the conclusion my flowchart had just come up with.
There was a pause as everyone absorbed that information, but they weren’t moving fast enough for my tastes so I decided to push them along a little more. “Cargo chopper, mystery cargo plane, Bosnian Serb war criminal and arms dealer in Gori, window shopping at a base during a bombing campaign, now being released and coming here,” I said and then paused, letting the pieces come together in John’s head. I could tell by the look on his face he wasn’t convinced. “Where is Deputy Miller?”
“What? What difference does that make?” he replied incredulously.
Marsh looked at John again. “The CIA officer in charge of the Gori detail was ‘Miller,’” he said, as belief started shaping his responses.
“The Deputy Chief used to be CIA,” John acknowledged quietly. “We worked with the same station chief.”
“He set up the boat tour, he negotiated the return of Jovanovich, he may have been in Gori. Where is he now? I’ll bet you a steak dinner he’s not in The Hague,” I said forcefully, feigning more confidence in my theory than I actually had.
A light of understanding clicked in John’s eyes. He depressed the switch on his throat mic. “Papa, this is Momma. Request location Tulip. Over.”
“Momma, Papa. Verify, request location Tulip Actual? Over.” Came the voice.
“Papa. Negative. Tulip Junior. Over.”
There was a pause and then a different voice came over the headset. “Momma. This is Papa actual. Why the hell do you need to know that?” There was frustration in the voice.
“Sir, no time to explain. Is he in the crib?”
No communication protocols now. I’ve got him, I thought.
“Momma. Negative. Tulip is en route home,” the gruff voice relayed.
Eyebrows raised, all heads were up, and a look of shock washed over John’s face. Miller was on his way back to the States.
“Papa, this is Momma. Do you get a hot read from the air traffic just arrived this location. Over,” John continued, now seemingly on board with my theory.
There was a long pause. “Negative, Momma. But there is a blind spot approximately two meters by four meters that’s not even allowing ground heat to show. You’ve got something shielded down there. Over.”
“Son of a bitch,” John muttered and then clicked his mic open. “Crow, this is Momma. Do you have eyes on aircraft? “
“Momma, Crow. Affirmative. Duce and half exiting aircraft with twelve new Tangos,” came the reply. A two and a half ton truck.
“Crow. What’s on the duce? Over.”
“Momma, it’s a Metal box. It fills the back.” John looked at me, and then to Lt. Marsh. “I hate to say this guys, but I think the hostages just became secondary.”
The blood drained from my face. I could feel it hit my feet like boiling water. The weight of that statement reminded me why I didn’t want to help the CIA to begin with.
Oh, you really fucked up now, Scott Wolfe.
“You can’t do that. They’re tied together,” I said desperately.
“The rules just changed, son,” he said impatiently, clearly not used to a voice of dissent in the field.
“Bullshit,” I said, snapping him out of command mode long enough to speak. “The cargo chopper is coming here. They are going to load the hostages and that box. I’ll bet you anything a Russian is going to be flying it, and he hasn’t been let in on the plan. If we get to the Russians, this whole thing turns around.”
John lifted his head and looked out the window toward the runway before glancing across the compound. When he lowered himself back to a knee he looked at me and snarled, “Find your Russian. Get him in here now, or we take the field.”
I looked at the unconscious Serb on the floor. “Strip him out of his clothes,” I said as I started undressing. We were about the same size, or at least close enough not to be noticed in the dark. John handed me a small radio, throat mic, earpiece, and a 9mm pistol with a silencer. “Do you know how to use this?” he asked.
“Sure! I’ve used radios before,” I said sarcastically, but I took both items, tucking the pistol into the holster that came off the Serb.
I looked at Michelle and Kathrin. “Kathrin?” I started, but she cut in before I could even ask.
“I’m in. What do you need?” she asked pointedly.
“Can you switch clothes with Michelle?” I asked.
She didn’t hesitate a second; she was pulling her khaki pants and jacket off and prompting Michelle to do the same. The men in the room all turned their backs abruptly, startled by the sudden strip show.
In a matter of seconds, they had switched outfits and then Kathrin walked over and kneeled next to me. I looked at her hair and then at Michelle’s. The color was close, but Kathrin’s was much longer. She saw what I was looking at and reached up to pull her hair back and tie it up.
“Give me his bottle,” I said to no one in particular.
Nick grabbed it from the floor, took a sip, and then handed it to me.
“You ready?” I asked Kathrin.
“Ja,” she said firmly.
I looked at John, who clicked on his throat mic. “Crow, this is Momma. Friendly in bad guy dress leaving forward position with friendly female. Cover them. Over.”
“Acknowledged,” came the reply, now not only in John’s speaker but in my ear as well.
“Okay. Let’s go,” I said, standing up and placing my arm around Kathrin’s neck as if I were holding her against her will, a bottle of vodka in the other hand. We exited the building and started to walk toward Daniil’s guard position.
“Struggle a little,” I whispered in her ear.
She responded by throwing an elbow into my poor bruised ribs, knocking the wind out of me.
“Not that much!” I snapped. She resumed her wiggling, but dialed it back to something a drunk Serb with bruised ribs could handle.
We walked up to Daniil’s position. The scowl on his face vanished as he recognized me. I reached out drunkenly and handed him my bottle. The others outside the barracks who had been watching and waiting to see if there was to be a fight, resumed their conversations, disappointed that there wasn’t to be a show.
Daniil took a drink. “What are you doing?” he asked, his eyes shifting back and forth nervously.
“The plan is changing fast. I need you over in that buildin
g now. Take Kathrin—gently please—and I’ll follow you back to the building,” I said.
Daniil nodded, took Kathrin around the neck as I had, and walked her back to the building.
I leaned against the corner of the barracks, pretending to take a leak, waiting until he was about halfway there and then I started to follow them after miming shaking and zipping my fly.
I was nearly halfway to the door myself when another of the drunken Serbs approached me from the barracks. He had his own bottle and was weaving toward me…no doubt wanting his turn with the girl. He was speaking to me in Serbian. I didn’t understand anything he was saying.
“Say, ‘Jebi se,’” came Nick’s voice in my earpiece. “It means ‘fuck yourself.’”
I wasn’t sure that was the best course of action to take, but I wasn’t really in a position to argue the point. “Jebi se,” I said gruffly. The Serb responded by grabbing me by my shoulder and giving me a half turn. He immediately recognized that I did not belong there.
My hand went instinctively to the 9mm in my holster, but I had no need for it. There was a squishing sound and my face was sprayed with a mist of warm blood from the man’s throat. Crow got his shot off. The Serb was about to drop, but I quickly reached my arm around his waist in a half stumble and grabbed his bottle with my free hand.
“Say ‘Pijani svinja’ loudly and laugh,” came Nick’s voice in my ear.
“Pijani svinja!” I said loudly and then laughed as I dragged the lifeless Serb through the door of our building.
Daniil was on his knees in the small office where John, Lt. Marsh, and Michelle were. Nick and one of the other men had rifles trained on Daniil’s head.
I walked between Nick and Daniil, helping him to his feet.
“Back off guys. Daniil is going to lose brothers tonight if we don’t help him. He’s here on his own,” I said, trying to make him my friend again.
“I knew you were CIA,” Daniil said, half-smiling.
“No. Not me. Not her,” I said, pointing at Kathrin, “and not her.” Pointing at Michelle. “And not this guy.” I gestured toward the Serb I had dropped just inside the doorway. “But the rest of these guys I can’t vouch for,” I said, smiling.
