by Dana Haynes
“Miloš Aleksić, ma’am,” Finnigan said. “And Major Driton Basha, who’s the muscle behind all this. They want payback. They’re gonna target you.”
“And Shan?”
“Shan’s only important as a link to you, ma’am. He’s not a prosecutor. He didn’t sentence anyone. And he didn’t drop the hammer on the trafficking operation out of Kosovo. So if they’ve got him, we figure it’s to get to you.”
“My security detail is among the finest in the world.”
“Yes,” Fiero said. “And Shan knows exactly how they work. He knows protocol and procedure. He knows how to slip people in to see you and how to keep people out.”
“Ah.” The judge nodded, eyes watery and pale behind her thick lenses. “So, ultimately, you think I’m in danger. And Shan is beyond saving?”
Finnigan said, “I’m sorry. Miloš Aleksić is no idiot. They’re not planning on holding Shan for a year or more, to force you to come up with a not-guilty verdict. This isn’t a hostage situation. Aleksić needed him to get to you.”
She said, “I see. But again, I have security people. I have so many I cannot keep track of their names. If you wish to join my protection detail, I could talk to—”
But she stopped as the partners exchanged glances. She realized that Finnigan looked more than a little uneasy.
The judge said, simply, “Ah.”
Fiero said, “We don’t want to step between you and the men who are after you. We want to eliminate them before they get the chance to act.”
“I cannot sanction violence against—”
“Your Honor,” she cut in. “Respectfully, you’ve never sanctioned anything we do.”
Finnigan sat, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, facing the jurist, looking her right in the eye. Waiting.
Fiero leaned back against the wall, arms folded under her breasts, the stiletto heel of one shoe up against the wallpaper. Waiting.
They neither wanted nor needed the judge to sanction what came next.
They just needed her to say she wouldn’t interfere.
The room was quiet for a time. The security panes kept out ambient noise. An antique grandfather clock tocked. The sun shone through the window, dappling the well-trod old rugs.
The partners waited.
“Saint Nicholas,” the judge said, addressing her green blotter and her gnarled hand with its translucent skin. “He was a Turk. The Bishop of … Myra, I believe? Fourth Century. Long before he took on the personification of Christmas, he was the patron saint of merchants and brewers; of pawnbrokers and archers; and of thieves.”
Finnigan turned in his chair and smiled back at Fiero, who shook her head and smiled, too. Judge Hélene Betancourt was the first person they’d met who connected the name of the company to its origin.
Fiero said, “The patron saint of the necessary. That’s right.”
The judge gingerly removed her glasses. Without them, she was blind.
Like justice.
She said, “The necessary.”
Fiero said, “That’s right.”
The judge slid her glasses back on. “Do what you must.”
C59
Major Driton Basha stood in the den of Miloš Aleksić’s North Sea Coast home, a tumbler of scotch in his hand. He wore a raincoat because he always assumed it would be raining in the Netherlands. It wasn’t.
The diplomat’s huge desktop computer monitor displayed live coverage of the Belgrade crisis, courtesy of Sky News. The images flowed one into another …
Lazar Aleksić, shirtless, barefoot, and handcuffed, being escorted by police toward a cruiser. His three-hundred-dollar haircut with its red-blond highlights made him look venal, young, and ridiculously wealthy. No crime lord, he—more Justin Bieber than Whitey Bulger.
The young British journalist who’d apparently been working undercover to infiltrate the trafficking network. She’d appeared on every news show in America and Europe over the past forty-eight hours, the hero of the day and the media’s newest sensation.
The three young, innocent, and put-upon refugees rescued from Ragusa Logistics in Belgrade, with their big eyes and victimized demeanor. His hatred for them flared white-hot. Their older brothers and their fathers were doubtless radicalized Muslims, as they themselves one day would be. They fooled the world at large, but not Basha.
The sixteen refugees mysteriously delivered to the American embassy—and the American media—in Sarajevo.
The harsh response from the prime minister of the Republic of Kosovo in Pristina, condemning Basha’s unit and naming the major himself. Basha’s mug shot—his proud service ID photo—had appeared countless times on Sky News and, he supposed, the other networks.
The image of KSF regulars taking command of Operating Base Šar, while military police arrested Basha’s own people and herded them into a prison truck.
Still photos and archival video of Miloš Aleksić, director of the Levant Group of the UN High Commission for Refugees. The photo of Miloš looking regal, rich, and untouchable, was accompanied by his written statement, denying any knowledge of the alleged trafficking scandal, and his decision—his principled decision—to step down temporarily from the Levant Group. The man in the photo, and in the video footage, contrasted markedly to the unconscious drunk who sprawled, fully dressed, across his bed, on the upper floor of this very house.
The Sky News images began their carousel of shame yet again.
Basha blinked, wondering if he were seeing them for the fourth or fifth time. His wrist cramped, and he glanced down to notice the tumbler of scotch and melted ice water in his hand. He didn’t remember pouring the drink; he hadn’t tasted it. He stepped aside and set it down on a credenza. The glass and the liquor were room temperature.
Marija Aleksić spoke from behind him. “These are trying times, Major.”
He spun, surprised. She wore a pale-purple cardigan with a carved ivory silhouette stickpin and a long skirt over sensible shoes. Her hair was perfectly coiffed. Basha stared at her as if she’d sprouted stone wings.
“Trying times?” His voice dripped with incredulity.
She studied Sky News on the desktop monitor for a moment, then turned to him. “Yes.”
Basha couldn’t help himself—he barked the broken-glass laugh of a man on the edge of a breakdown. “Jesus. Trying?”
She watched him a moment. She said, “You are an excellent soldier, Driton.”
The segue surprised him. “I … ah, thank you.”
“This is a time for strength. For conviction. I’m counting on you.”
“I don’t see what we—”
“Driton.” She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t show any overt emotion. “General Tito was warned, time and time again, to excise the cancer of Islam from the heart of Yugoslavia. He didn’t listen. I rejoiced when Slobodan Milošević rose to power. God knows he tried to rid the Balkans of the Muslims. You, a Kosovar, stood with your Serbian brethren. You were one of his trusted aides. The work you did—in Goražde, in Srebrenica—should have been celebrated by all of our people. As it was, and is, by some of us yet today.”
Basha opened his mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“The Christian world has learned nothing from the Gulf Wars, the Afghan war, the Arab Spring, the rise of al-Qaeda and ISIS. The Christian world, and Europe specifically, remain mired in a weakling philosophy. We wear the stain of victimhood. Soldiers, such as yourself, are our only bulwark. Our only defense.”
Basha blinked. “Thank you. I’ve … ah, I appreciate your patronage, ma’am. I … may not have been the mentor for Lazar that you’d hoped for, but—”
“Lazar is weak and stupid,” Marija Aleksić said, again with no specific emotional tint to her words. She might have been describing an art-exhibit opening. “I’ve known that since he was a child. Mil
oš coddled him. Emasculated him with his cars and his flashy clothing. Buying him friends and whores. I had hoped he would come of age—a mother must hope, Driton. But it didn’t happen. Now we need to look to the future.”
The major glanced toward the loop of news on the monitor, then back to her. “Ma’am?”
Marija looked that way, too. She stood with one foot a bit ahead of the other and angled ever so slightly, with her hands in front of her, one palm up, one palm down, held lightly together. Driton Basha imagined that there were finishing schools that taught society women to stand like that. Just as boot camps teach soldiers to stand at attention.
Basha discovered that he was standing at attention, as he would have in the presence of a superior officer. He didn’t remember assuming the position.
“They have played—will play—this story incessantly and forever,” Marija said. “Until a new story overtakes it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned to him again. “Then we need to create that new story, Driton. That new narrative.”
“Ah … ma’am?”
Marija inhaled deeply, as if stirring herself to take on some simple but onerous chore. “You have access to more of these Muslims?”
He thought about it a moment, and remembered driving to the garage on the outskirts of Belgrade, and to the Quonset hut with four Iraqis who were too old for the trafficking operation. “Yes ma’am.”
She might have been reading his mind. “Not children. I mean, older Muslims.”
Basha colored. “Ma’am, about that. We—”
“Oh, I don’t judge you on the … commodity you sold, Driton. The stain of radical Islam brought these ills upon the Muslim people. They got no less than they deserved. But right now, I think we need some of the refugees. Some older refugees. If you follow me.”
And, in truth, he started to. “We have some of the bastards stashed away in Italy, just across from the Slovenian border. Four of them. They’re probably eighteen to twenty, I’d guess. We’d planned to sell them to a factory owner in Bratislava who needed laborers and wouldn’t ask too many questions.”
“Get them back, if you can.”
“Ma’am.” Basha nodded.
“You are going to create a new narrative, Driton. An attack by Europe’s Islamist foes on a beloved institution. Thus reminding everyone of who has been truly victimized in this world. And to remind everyone of the face of evil.”
“That …” he drifted a moment, then caught the current. “Yes. Yes, that would work. I see where you’re heading with this.”
Marija Aleksić turned to the monitor and the news cycle again. “If we strike correctly, and quickly, we can eliminate this silly cow of a judge. The Belgrade case will go before someone who isn’t on a fanatical holy crusade. Someone with a reasonable understanding of the threat Europe faces, and must face united. And we shall leave behind a few dead terrorists. With a few of those dreadful suicide vests, perhaps?”
Basha stood tall. “Ma’am.”
C60
The Netherlands
Finnigan said, “Can you sail a boat?”
Lachlan Sumner sneered. “I’m from New Zealand, mate.”
Finnigan took that to mean yes.
Bridget Sumner leased them a thirty-foot Pearson with a fiberglass monohull and a cranky old diesel inboard that needed care, feeding, and heavenly intervention. But the stubborn old boat was laid out well enough for short-handed sailing, and Fiero admitted to how she’d crewed the Med on a competitive yacht.
Lachlan and the partners pushed the boat up the North Sea coast, Fiero wearing a bikini top, cutoff jeans, and deck shoes, while Finnigan sat aft with cargo shorts, a baseball cap pulled low, and sunglasses with a cloth loop around his neck. They used an open beer cooler and a magazine to hide a Nikon on a tripod and a 300 mm lens. They sailed north past the Aleksić’s UFO-shaped house, then south again. In the afternoon they made the two-way run again, each time switching off how they were dressed and who had the helm and the camera, in case they were observed by the security detail at the house.
Bridget got them a half-timbered cottage near Katwijk aan Zee, in the province of South Holland. There was a good chance that the Aleksić security detail would be checking rental property, so they bought the place outright with well-laundered money provided by Ways & Means in Varenna. The money trail was professionally obscured. He paid for the sailboat, too, adding, “If she were to sink in the North Sea, that wouldn’t be the worst outcome in the world.”
The partners never asked whose money the banker was laundering. Ignorance is bliss.
Between surveillance runs, Finnigan rumbled around the cottage’s kitchen, cooking to relieve stress. He enjoyed cooking more than eating, truth be told. And he was pretty sure that Fiero was the only Spanish woman on earth who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, boil water.
They sent Lachlan Sumner to Amsterdam to serve as a liaison to Judge Betancourt, not telling him that they had no intention of contacting the judge ever again. But the ruse put Lachlan in a safe place, in the event they were rumbled.
Finnigan and Fiero hadn’t even discussed calling in Brodie McTavish and his mercenaries. They were planning on breaking into a home of a high-ranking UN official, all in the heart of the European capital. McTavish would never put his men into such a situation, and the partners would never ask him to.
Finnigan engaged the Black Harts to help with the surveillance. Sally Blue, the statuesque redhead, oversaw the work. Sally always looked like she’d spent the night in 1938, dancing to Glenn Miller. The memorandum of understanding between St. Nicholas and the Harts was the same as always: the troupe of thieves would help with surveillance before the operation, would make itself scarce during the operation, and was free to steal whatever they could get their hands on after the operation. But Sally had never, and would never, risk her people in anything even remotely violent. That wasn’t their jam.
“You want to break into that joint?” she said, throwing an arm carelessly but also artfully over Finnigan’s shoulder. “That’s a sucker bet.”
Fiero poured her a glass of Spanish red. “Still …” she said with a shrug, and left it at that.
“Your funeral.” Sally hoisted her glass, and the partners did, too. The grifter turned to the schematics of the flying saucer house, which were laid out on the cottage’s dining table and weighted down by the wine bottle and plates of cheese and olives. The seaside house looked like a throwback to hip 1970s architecture, but since being purchased by Miloš Aleksić, the building’s security had been updated, soup to nuts, by a South African firm that handled the upgrade remodeling of banks and overseas embassies.
“It’s the security I’d install if it were my house.”
Fiero said, “Haven’t you stolen all of your houses?”
“Not all of them. Look at this …” She pointed to the blueprints. “This stone wall surrounding the property? It’s rigged with weight sensors. You’d have to go over the wall without touching it. And with three-sixty CC cameras all around the house …” She sipped the crisp, dry red. “Same weight sensors on the roof and the seaside balconies. I thought about suggesting a parachute drop, or parasailing behind that boat of yours. Speaking of which …?”
“Hmm?” Finnigan glanced up. “Oh. You want to steal it when this is done? It’s yours.”
“You’re a doll.” She hip-bumped him and turned back to the schematics. Finnigan could never tell if the Rosalind Russell dialogue was an affectation, or if she naturally spoke like that.
Fiero paced, crossing occasionally to the cottage windows to check their own security. “How would you recommend getting in?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Fiero turned, wine to her lips.
Sally held the gaze a second, then blushed. “If you had to go in, I’d say go heavy. But you know I’m not actually recommending th
at, right? Not in a million years. Having said that: if you absolutely needed to get into that house, I’d bring an armored personnel carrier with a cowcatcher, rocket propelled grenades, and guys with Benellis and balls. ’Cause without all that, you ain’t getting in. Not no way, not no how.”
Finnigan rubbed his neck and lobbed an olive into his mouth. “Our office manager checked the services—cable, groceries, whatever. Nobody delivers anything to the house. The security detail brings in whatever the family needs.”
Sally Blue shook her head. “Surprisingly, they’ve dismissed the usual house guards. They had a contract with Suicide Ride, up till now.”
Fiero frowned. “Suicide Ride?”
But Finnigan knew the reference. “Nickname of Sooner, Slye, and Rydell. A huge, multinational private military contractor, headquartered in Texas. These are the guys who roamed Afghanistan and Iraq before the media and Congress wised up. Former SAS, former IDF, former SEALs.”
Sally nodded. “That’d be them. Full-bore, balls-out badasses. Fortunately, you won’t have to tangle with them. We’ve watched the Suicide Ride dudes pull out the last couple of days.”
Fiero nodded with the hint of a smile. “Military contractors can’t afford to get caught breaking laws in the heart of Europe. It’s why we haven’t called in our own mercenaries.”
Finnigan said, “The Aleksićs want another kind of security, now. The kind that doesn’t mind full-frontal criminality …”
“… no matter where it’s committed.”
Sally Blue smiled as the partners started finishing each other’s sentences, unaware of their own cadence.
“Miloš Aleksić is a UN director, or he was until this week,” Fiero said. “No matter who’s providing house security, they’re the least of our worries. We might—might—get into a firefight with Aleksić’s security detail, and we might even get into the house …”
“… but any attack would draw local police, Dutch military, and UN security forces,” Finnigan finished. “We might fight our way in, but we’d never get out.”
