by Dana Haynes
She stumbled to her feet, gripped Amira close to her chest. The girl’s entire body shook with sobs and she held her right arm tight against her abdomen.
“Come on,” Jane said, and began circling the smashed truck. “We … come on.”
She was speaking English now, but didn’t realize it. Mohamed understood, and together they led his little sister away from the dead and the injured.
Jane stepped over a smoldering bag in the dirt and part of a human arm still entwined in the shoulder strap. She saw soldiers with UN blue caps waving them forward. She joined the throng, holding the little girl against her side as if to stanch the flow of blood from an imaginary wound. Mohamed clung to her, too.
She’d gone almost thirty steps before her brain registered the arm and smoldering bag in the dirt.
The ratty canvas camera bag with the duct tape around the shoulder strap that she’d come to know so well.
C21
Zagreb
The partners convened over steaks and pomme frites, and a good pinot noir, at a little restaurant off avenue Hebrangova and not far from Finnigan’s favorite weird roadside attraction in all of Southern Europe: the Museum of Broken Relationships. During dinner Finnigan did a thing unusual for him: he kept his smart phone out of his pocket, face down next to his plate, and checked it every few minutes.
“You know why Little Aleksić keeps his business headquartered here, while he’s in Serbia?”
Fiero shook her head.
“The trucks here in Croatia come from every part of Europe. But the trucks we saw there—”
“Cyrillic,” she jumped ahead of him. “Not so international at all. Why?”
“It’s called the Schengen Agreement. I looked it up. Nations within the Schengen Area can travel from country to country without security checks. Free trade for everyone.”
She said, “Croatia is within this Schengen Area and Serbia isn’t?”
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Aleksić keeps his trucks registered here because they can travel anywhere.”
Fiero informed him that Driton Basha was a major in the Kosovo Security Force, proving that the blond playboy, Aleksić, was bringing refugees up through Kosovo. She added that Basha apparently ran some sort of no-Muslims-allowed unit within the KSF, based in the ethnically Serbian and Eastern Orthodox region of the country.
“Kosovo was a Serbian province until it declared independence in 2008,” Finnigan said.
“Serbia took that well, did they?”
“Oh yeah. Sheet cake, balloons …” He checked his phone. “McTavish?”
“He and his boys could be available in two or three weeks if we need them.”
Finnigan squinted in her direction; the sun sparkling off the hotel windows overlooking the avenue. “There’s gonna come a day …”
“… when the opposition hires McTavish before we do. Then we’ll be the ones looking down the barrels of his boys’ rifles. I know, Michael.”
“None of this is personal for him. It’s business. I’m just saying, we shouldn’t ever mistake him for a friend.”
She smiled. “Unlike Ways & Means?”
Finnigan laughed. “I don’t know why ol’ Gunther likes us, but for some creepy reason, he does. I think we’re the equivalent of reality TV for him. He’s living our adventures vicariously by helping fund them.”
“What else did you find out in Belgrade?”
Finnigan laid out the two wallets he’d taken from the soldiers in the alley.
“These are …?”
“They belonged to two of the soldiers on duty in Belgrade.”
She studied her partner for a second, forehead creasing. “You got into a fight with them?”
“I provoked a fight with them so I could get proof about who we’re facing.”
She shrugged. “Not bad.”
The IDs in the wallet listed them as residents of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, and soldiers in the Kosovo Security Force, or KSF. Fiero shook her head in dismay. “By all the saints in heaven. They carried legitimate identification into the field?”
“They didn’t figure they had anything to fear from a nice Irish boy out for a stroll.” Finnigan grinned, eating steak, as he always did, with his fork curved toward him as if he’d just roasted a dead animal over a campfire. He checked his smart phone; set it back down.
Fiero drew her own phone and brought up a Google Earth image, and handed it over. Finnigan manipulated the image—zooming in and pulling out—as his partner spoke.
“KSF Operating Base Šar. I asked Bridget to dig around. It looks like a single unit of KSF Military Intelligence is assigned there. About thirty soldiers, total. The rest of the place is deserted.”
The base itself was shaped like a kidney and hugged a civilian road. It consisted of one major street, with five white, one-story barrack buildings to the east side of the road, plus a two-story building in the middle. “Admin?” Finnigan asked.
“Admin, hospital, and mess.”
To the west of the road sat an exercise yard too green to be real grass, a shooting range, a clay heliport, and a building that appeared to be a post exchange store. The building also featured an array of radio aerials and sweeping radar dishes. To the far south of the base stood a largish garage with jeeps and trucks parked out front, plus three gasoline pumps to the side. That would be the motor pool.
The whole base was barely half a mile long and could have housed three hundred soldiers. “Just thirty guys?” he asked.
Fiero shrugged.
“Okay, as for Ways & Means, he’s going to see if he can figure out who’s buying sex slaves by following the Serbian dinars on the currency market. It’s good. If he gets anywhere, we can maybe locate the buyer, or the brokers. Then pose as buyers ourselves and ask for some kids fresh off the boat.”
Fiero stole a fry off Finnigan’s plate, having finished hers. “That could help us place Aleksić with his victims.”
“Wrap him up in a bow. Hand him over to the judge.”
“I like it.” She wiped her lips with her linen napkin. “Are you ordering dessert?”
“Thinking about it. You?”
“I’m watching my figure.”
“Well, everyone else is watching your figure, so …”
The waiter took their orders: Pie and coffee. And two forks. Finnigan checked his phone. He looked up to see her smiling.
“My old man.”
Their coffee came. “He’s all right?”
Finnigan shrugged. “I think … there’s this district attorney who works on corruption cases. I’ve been asking around a little. The guy might be investigating my dad.”
“I thought your dad wore a tracking bracelet. Anyway, he’s retired.”
Finnigan said, “Yeah.”
Fiero gave him a moment. When he didn’t volunteer more, she changed the subject. “So the soldiers in Belgrade know that an American is running around, asking questions. They know this American can handle himself in a fight.”
“Couldn’t be helped. I—”
She smiled mischievously. “I know. I’m impressed. We know more now than we did before.”
Finnigan told her that he’d already sent along copies of the corporals’ IDs to Shan Greyson. “They’ll start building a case linking Aleksić and the Kosovar soldiers.”
“Then we need to figure out how to lure Aleksić out of his cocoon.”
They finished dining and paid up, then stepped out into the flow of tourists. The night was crisp and both of them wore jackets. They wended their way down toward Ban Jelačić, following the cavalcade of boulevardiers. They got to the Dolac Market, the public farmers market that sat on a rise over the town square. The tables and their white umbrellas were still there, but the food and craft items had long since been stowed for the night. On the historic old stair
s that led down to Jelačić Square, Fiero stopped walking. She sat on the wide stone balustrade and watched tourists flow by. Finnigan sat down next to her, his feet dangling.
He knew what she was struggling with, and he waited. Fiero didn’t share her feelings often. And, he’d noted, she only shared them with him.
“They get robbed of their childhood by bombs and guns,” she said, not making eye contact with him, watching the faces of the passersby. “They lose their families, their schools, their homes. They make it past fanatics and government kill squads. Get to Turkey, get to Greece, get to the Balkans. And then this.”
Fiero, the good soldier, often did a fine job of hiding her outrage. But not always.
“I’m going to walk a bit,” she said. “I’ll see you back at the flat.”
When Finnigan got back to the apartment, his phone vibrated. He recognized the false number: Gunther Kessler, their dark-world banker, asking for a call back. Finnigan used a voice-over-internet site out of Thailand, with a spaghetti of security overlays, and dialed the man back at his hideout in Varenna.
“Michael?” Ways & Means whispered, “I’ve found something that I think you’ll need to see.”
Finnigan caught the nuance: need to see, not want to see. “Something bad?”
“Well, I try not to be judgmental of my fellow man.”
“Sure. Because you’re corrupt absolutely.”
“Thank you. But, ah, there’s within the pale and there’s beyond the pale. And, ah … it’s best if I show you.”
Finnigan waited.
“I was asking around about your Serbian purveyor. A client of mine has a client of his own, who suggested an investment opportunity. I agreed to take a look, thinking it might be of some value to you.”
“Okay.”
“It’s a website, Michael. But it’s encrypted. There’s a video. I cannot be sure, but this client-of-a-client might have used one of those—what’s the Americanism? Nanny-cams, to tape your Serbian making a sales pitch. This client-of-a-client wanted to invest in … this. And thought others might, too.”
Now Finnigan felt nervous. Ways & Means would have invested money in an escape zeppelin for Adolph and Eva if the return on investment had been high enough. Whatever this was, the banker sounded almost nauseated.
He gave Finnigan a website, but not a traditional alias: no www and no dot-whatever suffix. Just a series of digits and periods. He also provided an eighteen-digit password containing letters, numbers, an underscore, and a backslash.
“Michael. After you see this …” Ways & Means hesitated. “… if you need funds for this endeavor, you’ll let me know?”
“Sure. If we do, we can pay you back after we get—”
“No,” the German cut in. “To stop this, if you need funds, you’ll have them. No questions asked. No exceptions. You understand, Michael?”
Finnigan felt his skin prickle. “Sure, man. I understand.”
“Good. Contact me if I can help.”
Ways & Means hung up.
Fiero returned from her walk looking depressed and skittish. She paced the cottage, draping her leather biker jacket carelessly over one chair, swiping her open palms through her hair, knotting her mane up atop her head, only to let it rain back down as an obsidian curtain.
Finnigan handed her a glass of scotch and said, “Sit. Watch this.”
Fiero eyed him a moment, then sat at the dining table. Finnigan poured himself a whiskey, then opened their laptop and carefully input the complicated web address and password.
A video icon arose.
Finnigan hit play and sat back.
The video showed two people talking. They sat on facing couches in an elegantly appointed den, in what appeared to be a private house. Blurred images on the edges of the video suggested the camera had been hidden, possibly on a shelf and surrounded by objects.
One of the men had his back to the camera.
The other was only partially in frame. They could see his left leg and left arm up to his shoulder, and occasionally a flash of blond hair. He held a cognac in a magnificent bowl. He made his pitch in English.
Fiero thought she recognized the hair. “Is that Lazar Aleksić?”
“I think so. Listen.”
When the video ended, Finnigan closed the laptop and refilled their glasses.
He waited.
After a while, Fiero said, “So. It’s not just … selling children into … that. This is, somehow, even more vile.”
“Yeah.”
“His pitch …” she was talking to herself, he realized, working it out. “Do I understand this? His pitch is: These children are the sons and daughters of al-Qaeda, or ISIS. So … doing such horrible things to them is, in its way …”
Finnigan drained his glass. “Patriotic. Almost a duty.”
“It’s not enough that they … it’s not just defiling children. It’s about them being Muslim children. It’s …” Her voice faded again.
They drank.
She said, “He wants his pedophiles to feel … good about what they’ve done. To feel … heroic.”
“Striking out against the terrorists by … yeah. That.” Finnigan studied the cast of her jaw, the dark, metallic glint in her eye.
He said, “Look, this doesn’t change the bottom line for us. We knew he was a shit, right? He’s more of a shit than we thought possible. But we’re not going to just kill him. We’re going to gather the evidence, and take it to the International Court.”
Fiero drank her whiskey.
Finnigan said, “Right?”
She sat and drank some more.
Finnigan crafted emails to his parents. He asked his mom about Nicole, wishing that his sister hadn’t written him off after Michael abandoned the NYPD (read, abandoned Dad). He checked the New York Times website, then reread a couple chapters of an old Elmore Leonard before calling it a night. He turned off the light around 1:00 a.m.
Fiero knocked quietly on his door around 1:03 a.m. She walked in, limned from behind by streetlights that shone into the living room window. She wore a faded, stretched-out T-shirt and panties.
She said, “I hate these people.”
“I know.”
She stood for a few more seconds. Finnigan waited.
He said, “We should get some sleep.”
She stepped back out and closed the door behind her.
That didn’t happen often. About twice a year, give or take, Fiero let it be known that she would consider sleeping with Michael.
He knew it was because she’d spent most of her adult life living lies and shooting people. She’d never had a decent, normal relationship. A Spanish spymaster named Hugo Llorente had taken an insanely talented teenager, an athletic academic who’d come to hate terrorists and terrorism, and crafted her into the Oscura Sicaria. And she’d come to accept that as a normal job; a normal part of life.
She knew she was beautiful. Everyone around her had told her that her whole life. And Hugo Llorente of the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia had taught her how to use it; to weaponize it.
With Finnigan, she couldn’t help wondering if sex would make their partnership more … well, normal. Not because she was needy. But because she just didn’t have a base of understanding for how humans interact without weapons.
Finnigan had had about two dozen girlfriends over the years. Sometimes for as long as three months (his personal best). His problem was the exact opposite of hers. He knew that sex between them would change everything. Not immediately. But eventually.
And right then, their partnership was about the only stable thing in his life.
Some of their colleagues assumed they were constant lovers. Some assumed they were far too incompatible to be lovers.
The truth, like most truths, lay somewhere in the middle.
C22
Kosovo Security Force Operating Base Šar,
Gjilan District, Kosovo
Major Driton Basha had an office at an isolated operating base southeast of the capital, Pristina, and on the far side of a long, arid strip of high-desert country. Nobody joins the military because they love paperwork, and venturing into the headquarters building meant taking care of the mountains of details that made up 90 percent of his job. Basha hated it.
The base itself hugged a civilian road. It consisted of one curved street with five one-story barrack buildings to the east of the road, plus an admin building that also held supply, kitchen, and mess. The base also had an exercise yard, a shooting range, a heliport, and a building that housed both the modest post store and a radar station to monitor the nation’s airspace. The whole thing was barely half a mile long but could have housed hundreds of soldiers. As it was, Basha’s unit had the run of the place, and they were only thirty soldiers deep. Four of the five barrack buildings sat completely empty.
The reason for that had to do with politics. And with covert operations.
The composition of the federal government in Kosovo was easy enough for anyone to follow. The country had a prime minister, a first deputy prime minister, and a deputy prime minister. Beyond that lay an assortment of almost twenty lesser ministers overseeing every imaginable portfolio, from finances, to justice, to culture, youth, and sports.
The cabinet included a minister of security force. But it was not she who set up Driton Basha’s exclusive unit at KSF Operating Base Šar. The unit’s mentor was another member of the cabinet; a man with the prime minister’s ear but without a designated portfolio of his own.
And it was that good, gray minister who’d arranged for the creation of a unit from the northern, Serbian-domination region of the country; completely devoid of practicing Muslims. A few of the soldiers at Šar had come from Muslim families, but none of them practiced Islam.
The Republika Kosovo was proud of its reputation for inclusivity and pluralism. Its official languages were Serbian and Albanian. Its 2.2 million people included Serbs and Albanians, of course, but also Bosniaks, Gorani, Turks, and Roma. And it’s acknowledged religions were Catholicism, Islam, and Eastern Orthodoxy.
