“What is it?” Emilija asks.
“What now? Where am I supposed to find her in all this?”
Afrim steps up beside me, and leans down to pet Rada’s back. “We may not know exactly where she is, but we don’t have Rada’s nose. Elena raised her from the time she was a puppy. Why do you think I brought her along? I’ll bet Rada can track her down.”
I blow out a breath of relief at my brother. “Great idea, Afrim.”
He hunches his shoulders. “Thanks, I try.” Afrim leans down and whispers. “Rada, go. Where’s Elena?”
Rada barks once and then takes off running, sniffing the ground. She leads us down corridor after corridor. There are mildewing gravestones in the walls. Square holes in the ceiling are the only light sources. Finally Rada stops at a crypt slot. It’s about a head taller than she is. She barks and jumps up on her hind legs, clawing at the aging marble.
Over Rada’s barking, I can make out a kicking sound coming from the hollow stone.
“Good girl,” I tell her, as I feel some combination of relief and fear that this might not be what it looks like. “Now, how the hell do we get this marble plate off?”
Afrim kneels and inspects the cast-iron bolts meant to hold the faceplate on. “Look. These bolts just come off. Unscrew them and we’ll have her out.”
I kneel and unscrew all the bolts. In less than a minute, the plate is loose.
There is another kick. The faceplate falls off the wall. I jump back and look into the tomb. For the first time, I feel like my life has been saved without someone else having to sacrifice theirs.
Elena is there, dirty and intertwined with the bones of a dead body, but gloriously intact.
I finally can breathe again. I help her out of the tomb and take her in my arms. “Are you okay? Thank God you’re alive. I was so worried.”
“I’m weak, but otherwise I think I’m fine. Thanks for coming after me. How did the four of you manage to find me, wherever here is?”
Afrim steps up. “Watson tried to throw us off the trail. But Ayoub, of all people, saw you getting taken down into this crypt. Once we got here, Rada was able to smell her way right to you.”
“There’s more,” Emilija says. “The attack that Farage mentioned is real, but Daesh isn’t thinking small. They’re going to attack the EU institutions.”
“Yeah, I know. Watson told me. He was talking on the phone with Emilija’s dad, wherever he is in hiding. Whatever Farage’s deal is with Daesh, Watson and your dad are working together with them, too.”
Emilija fingers her jeans’ pocket, as she frowns. “They were going to kill Hristijan and his entire family. Daesh attacked the residence after you left.”
I see Elena take in a breath, like the news shakes her more than getting kidnapped.
“Don’t worry, your uncle’s family got away,” I reassure her.
Elena shakes her head and then laughs. She looks up from where she’s being held in my arms and says, “Do I need to tell any of you how weird it is that the three of you, my dog and a ten-year-old can find out all this but the police can’t? Seriously, this is way out of whack.”
“Tell me about it,” Emilija replies. “To think that only a couple of months ago we were just college students worried about Saint V’s Day and now defending Europe and its capital is up to us.”
“Any ideas for our next move?” Elena asks, still looking up at me.
Emilija purses her lips and looks at the two of us slyly. “I was able to uncover that the attacks are going to occur, but Daesh will need some way of telling their fighters where and when to meet to stage it. I think that I can find it, but to do that I’m going to need my laptop.”
“Fine then,” Elena says, as if she hasn’t spent the last twelve hours getting tasered and sealed in a crypt. “Let’s do it.”
Emilija looks over at me and Elena and arches an eyebrow. “There’s no need for all of us to go back to the residence. Elena, you rest here. It’s better that Watson and everyone think you’re out of commission.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Elena says as she stands up.
Then Emilija looks at me. “Drago and I will go for the laptop. We need to have a conversation.”
***
Emilija and I walk toward the Croatian residence. It is surrounded by police. I walk up to one of the officers and show him my registry attestation. Emilija shows him hers as she says, “I would like to retrieve some of my property that was in the residence when we were attacked.”
The officer looks at our IDs and then waves for us to come under the cordon. We walk up to the bombed-out entrance and go inside. The power is still off. The elevator isn’t working. We have to take the stairs up to the fifth floor.
I start up the first flight of stairs. Emilija turns to me and asks me something that I probably should have been expecting. “So, tell me, outright, you do have feelings for Elena, don’t you? Strong ones.”
“What? Why would you ask something like that?” I try to cover, more out of habit, obligation, than anything.
“The way you reacted when she disappeared. Especially given how you treated me after Trepča, if that had been me, would your reaction have been the same?”
I catch myself hesitating a second too late. “Of course it would have been.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
I drop what by this point I have to admit is an act. “Okay, maybe it wouldn’t have been. But it isn’t like I planned this to hurt you or just didn’t care about you. It was just the opposite. I didn’t want to like her. I told myself that I didn’t. I totally wasn’t expecting that when Elena went missing it would feel like someone reached in and pulled out part of myself.”
“So you do like her.”
“I like you both, but for different reasons. It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t sound that way from this end.”
“I’m sorry,” I stutter, as I realize that made me sound like a meathead. “That didn’t come out quite the way I meant it. There are some things in my past that neither you or Elena know about, that I don’t want you to know,” I try to explain, without explaining.
We reach the glass-strewn living room and walk over to the hallway past Hristijan’s office. Emilija goes into Elena’s room and gets her laptop.
“Is it true, what I heard? That she likes you, too?” Emilija says as she comes out.
“What? Who told you that? Afrim?”
“No. Hristijan’s chatterbox daughter. Never underestimate the little fly on the wall.”
I sigh, the wind taken out of my sails. “I don’t know how she feels anymore. There was this one time where she tried to ask me out, but I’m not sure it really meant anything. Part of me is convinced that she couldn’t really like someone like me. I have the same thing with you sometimes.”
“So you are just settling for me. Why? If you like each other what is stopping you?”
I can’t break it to Emilija. Eventually I settle for, “A lot of things.”
“Look, you don’t have to worry about me. I have plenty to keep me busy. With my dad on the run, I’m going to have to look after his legitimate company back in Sweden.” She says the words but there is an edge to her voice.
A current of worry shoots up my spine. “Don’t say that. I like being with you; it feels like I’m finally repaying a debt.”
She pauses and looks at me, curious. “A debt to who? You don’t owe me anything, Drago.”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t talk about it.” I blow out an annoyed breath. “Look, can we please focus on stopping Daesh from attacking the EU and deal with our relationship later?”
“I think we might need to ask if there will be one to talk about later,” she snaps.
She walks past me, back under the police cordon.
“Emilija, wait!” I call after her, feeling like I have let her down. I call after her again but she doesn’t turn around, like she will never really forgive me.
Se
venteen:
The Takedown
Elena
Emilija announces where the pre-attack rally is going to take place. “Well, it looks like we’re in for a little revisit to your old stomping grounds,” she tells Drago, Afrim and me.
We sit against the painted, wood-paneled wall of A la Morte Subite, a traditional beer hall near the city center. Emilija has her computer in front of her.
She goes on, explaining what Daesh is planning. “Apparently the Gare Maritime is where the fighters are going to gather for a secret rally before their attack and then board the vans with the weapons that are going to converge on Schuman.”
Drago shakes his head. “The same building where we used to live, again. The cops probably aren’t watching it because of Lucija’s ruse that let us keep our house. It can’t be a coincidence. Al-Qadir is toying with us.”
Afrim blows out a breath. “Drago, Avdi said that he had to cut a deal with al-Qadir to get us out of Kosovo. What if he has to participate in something like this? I know you don’t like Avdi, but if we try and stop the attack, we wouldn’t be the only ones at risk. He might be, too.”
“I know that, but if stopping an attack as large as this is at stake, then we’ve got to do something. We can take a page from their book and wear balaclavas if it makes you feel better.”
A note of worry enters my voice. “Wait a minute, they’re still having the rally? I thought that Hristijan and his family got away.”
Emilija shakes her head. “I know. It doesn’t look like they changed their schedule, though I’m not seeing any indications that Hristijan’s family got captured. Maybe they captured someone else. I’m sure it doesn’t take a lot to qualify as a traitor to Islam in Daesh’s eyes. Their rally is tomorrow at ten in the morning, right in broad daylight. After that, they are going to get transported to Schuman in unmarked vans.”
“Great. Any idea on how the four of us are going to stop this horde?” Drago asks.
I hunch my shoulders. “If this is like the gathering that we rescued Afrim from, then the leadership of the Belgian chapter of Daesh and some high-up British co-conspirators—I’m still not sure if Watson and Farage are working together, or not—will be there. If we can expose those connections and the source of the funding then the fighters should turn against their leaders—and once it hits the media, so should the Brexiteers.”
Emilija puts on a small smile. “If their vans are new enough, they’re computers on wheels. I know how to weaponize them.”
I turn to Drago and Afrim. “Well, you used to live there. Any ideas on your end?”
Drago starts talking with his brother and together they work out a strategy.
When we’re done I stand to pay for our beers. We’re about to leave when someone walks in the entrance, I recognize him out of the corner of my eye, despite his scarred-up face. I do a double take. It’s Tone, of all people. I expect him to look down his nose at us but instead he looks right at me, with something that isn’t scorn and might even be remorse. I walk over to him.
He speaks softly. “Hi, Maršal Elena. I was passing by, saw you and thought I’d check in. There’s something I want to say to you and your friends.”
“Um, sure,” I say, confused.
We walk back over to our table. Drago bristles. I put up a hand.
“Hold your horses. Tone says he has something to say to us. From how he’s acting I don’t think it’s going to be insulting, for once.”
Tone nods, almost imperceptibly. Drago nods his own begrudging assent.
Tone takes a deep breath. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry for how I treated you. If I hadn’t cheated you, I probably wouldn’t have gotten disfigured like this. It made me realize I was treating you badly just because I thought I was better than you, because of who my uncle is, and because, well, I’m Slovene and you’re refugees from Kosovo. Now I realize that anyone can be a target, no matter who they think they are.”
“Thank you,” Drago replies, guardedly.
Tone goes on. “I’ve heard the rumors about how you discovered the ties between Daesh and that factory in Kosovo. It’s a damn shame that the Americans are insisting that they be kept under wraps. My uncle told me that they’ve been covering things up since the nineties. Anyway, I wanted you to know that if you need anything from me, I’m here. I want to stop Daesh and I want you to do it. Promise me you’ll get back at them.”
“We sure will,” I tell him. “In fact, that’s just what we were planning to do.”
“Good luck, guys.” Tone looks at his shoes as he leaves.
“Well, that was random,” says Afrim.
I raise my eyebrows at and look back at the rest of my team, feeling a new sort of motivation and disbelief. If we could manage to turn Tone into an ally then we can do anything.
“All right, guys,” I tell them, “we’ve got a good plan. We’re going to spend one last night in the Gare Maritime. Now let’s head to the Brico on the Avenue de la Couronne to pick up the rope and supplies we need. We’re going to come at this whole thing from the top down.
Afrim
Emilija walks up next to me as we enter the Gare Maritime.
“Hey, can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
I hesitate. I think I know what this is about, and I don’t want to rat Drago out, even though part of me thinks it might be the best thing for him, now that he is finally coming to terms with how he feels about Elena.
“Um, sure, what about?”
“Your brother,” she whispers.
I call ahead to Drago and Elena. “The two of you go on ahead. We’ll only be a few minutes.”
Drago shoots me a glare. He takes Elena by the arm and escorts her up the stairs, probably because she looks exhausted. Elena knows the way.
They go out of sight, and I hope out of earshot. Drago would probably shut me down in five seconds, if he could hear me.
Emilija looks at me pointedly. “When I first started to suspect that Drago liked both Elena and me, I felt kind of cheated; I thought I knew him and he turned out to be a playboy all the while. But that’s not it, is it? That isn’t how Drago is. There is something more that he doesn’t want to tell me. When I confronted him earlier today, he started talking about repaying a debt, but wouldn’t go into any more detail. Something happened to him that I don’t know about, during the war in Kosovo, didn’t it?”
I hesitate again, wondering what is best for my older brother. I go with, “Drago doesn’t like me telling people about it.”
“Too bad for Drago, then. Either you tell me or I am just going to go ahead and assume that your brother is a shameless meathead and end it right there.”
I sigh, grab her by the arm and lead her over to the side of the Gare Maritime’s cavernous space, where our voices won’t echo.
I make my decision. “Fine. You called my brother a meathead, but honestly nothing could be further from the truth. He hasn’t really, you know, been with anyone since…” I trail off.
Emilija inches her head forward at me. “Since what?”
I look down at the floor. “Since Jelenka.”
Emilija is silent for a moment. “Who is Jelenka?”
I don’t respond at first.
Emilija cocks her head to the side, her wavy brown hair swishing slightly around her shoulder blades. Her eyes narrow. “She died, didn’t she?”
I nod.
“The same way I almost did at Trepča?”
I nod again, still looking at the ground. “Almost.” I tell her how Jelenka died, taking her own life when Drago refused an order from al-Qadir to shoot her in cold blood.
Then I go on. “I don’t really know how it started; Drago always tried to keep me sheltered from the war. But, when he was fighting in Kosovo with the Liberation Army, he and Jelenka met somehow, even though they were on opposite sides. She was a Serb refugee from Croatia. I don’t know exactly how far it went, or how long it had been going on for, but I do know that, in my brother’s own weird and broo
ding way, he loved her. When she sacrificed herself to save him and me, Drago was never sure whether it was to put him through more pain, or because she loved him, too.”
Emilija takes in a breath. “That’s horrible.”
I shake my head. “I think my brother sometimes forgets that I watched her die, too. I saw them together at the end. I heard what she said. I don’t have any proof, of course, but I think Jelenka wanted him to be happy.”
“So what does this have to do with me?” Emilija asks.
“Put simply, I think you remind Drago of Jelenka. I think he still loves her and he feels some obligation to you because of it.” I pause for a moment. “I hope this doesn’t make you too mad at him.”
Not giving much of a tell either way, she brings a knuckle to her lips. “And Elena?”
“If I know my brother, and I’d like to think that I do pretty well, to him, Elena is the next Jelenka waiting to happen. He says he doesn’t like her, but I think that’s because she gives him hope. He is just afraid to hope again.”
Emilija looks at the floor, then at the rest of the Gare Maritime. Squaring her shoulders, like she’s come to some kind of a decision, Emilija turns her back to me and starts walking over the abandoned train station’s floor.
I start after her. “Emilija, I didn’t tell you about what I’m pretty sure is one of the most traumatic events in my brother’s life so you could chew him out.”
She doesn’t turn around as she walks. There is this weird, sad sort of edge in her voice. “Don’t worry. But your brother is about to get a serious talking-to from two very important women in his life, whether or not he wants one.”
I screw up my face. “You mean you and Elena?”
Battling Brexit Page 19