by Fritz Galt
The escape from Srebrenica had taken two harrowing days. Each nightfall, he had leaned against a tree, but didn’t sleep. Each morning he had nourished himself with his carefully rationed, but meager, supply of plum brandy.
Warm rays of the sun finally broke over the mountain ridge, and New Mexico’s dry, forested high country basked in the glow of a new day. Mick felt a carefree exuberance take hold. It was why he enjoyed hiking.
Natalie’s flannel sleeves billowed out from her broad, straight shoulders. Five-and-a-half feet tall on her tiptoes, she was a full head shorter than him, but a curvaceous figure used every inch of her compact frame to its advantage. With each step she took, her backpack lurched with a jangle against the small of her back.
No, he had never regretted coming home. It was his decision to leave Alec behind that had nearly destroyed him.
He kept up with her, although breathing grew harder at 10,000 feet. Otherwise, they had adjusted quickly to the high plateau life of northern New Mexico.
Early morning clouds dispersed, unveiling an unlimited blue sky.
“Let’s take another break,” Natalie said between gasps. They were within an hour of the summit.
“Your call.”
She sat on a rock that was blotched and softened by red lichen. As she removed her backpack, Mick walked several paces away, unzipped his fly and spread his feet. Coffee went right through a guy on such a cold day.
After zipping up, he received several wedges of Toblerone and a hunk of French bread, along with a reprimanding glare.
“Sorry. Next time just point me to the nearest outhouse.”
He weighed the food in his hands and smiled at her.
“Bread and chocolate. What more could a guy want?”
Natalie’s full lips parted in what passed for a smile. Then her eyes shifted to one side of him, and the blood seemed to drain from her face.
A familiar voice grumbled over Mick’s shoulder. “You almost hit my shoes.”
Mick closed his eyes. He knew that voice. And that particular sarcasm.
When Mick opened his eyes, Natalie was standing up, staring past him.
Slowly he turned.
A large man stood beside a clump of brush. Wearing a Stetson hat, cowboy boots and aviator sunglasses was Bernie Fletcher, his former station chief in Belgrade.
Logically, Mick expected this might happen someday. But emotionally, it came as a shock.
A dark green helicopter sat among the flowers, like an insect stalking its prey.
“Surprised?” Bernie said.
“Lose the hat.” Mick was not impressed by the John Wayne impersonation.
“Hey. It covers the bald spot.”
“Why are you here?”
Natalie grabbed Mick by the collar and whispered fiercely in his ear. “If he wants you back, you can tell him to shove off this minute, because I’m not going to put myself through another Bosnian War, and I’m through with your undercover crap. If you want to be a spook again, then go right ahead without me. I’m not cut out for that kind of life.”
He searched her eyes. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere. I quit trying to change the world. You know it and he knows it.”
“Does he?”
“Hear me out,” Bernie interrupted. “I’ve got news. Good news and bad.”
Mick eased Natalie’s hand off his collar and linked his fingers in between hers. “We could use some good news.”
Without preface, Bernie said, “We found your brother.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Mick and Natalie stared at each other. Her expression was filled with surprise and elation. Suddenly, a tremendous burden was lifted off his shoulders, like an ammunition belt turning into butterflies. He had been granted a new life.
“Where is he?”
“Yugoslavia,” Bernie said, withholding emotion.
“Safe?”
“As far as we know.”
“Can he come out?”
Bernie frowned. “That’s the bad news. He’s turned. He’s one of them.”
Mick squinted at the farthest snow-capped peak, where he had once climbed with his younger brother. He couldn’t imagine Alec working for anyone but Uncle Sam. Nobody adored the American bastion of freedom more than Alec.
“Did they brainwash him?”
“Don’t know. What we do know, we don’t like.” Bernie took a deep breath. “He’s free and he’s dangerous. We’ve got to stop him.”
Mick cringed. Stopping Alec would be like trying to outsmart a rattlesnake.
“That’s why I’m here.” Bernie dragged the toe of his boot in the dust. “You’re the only one who can stop him.”
Mick shut his eyes and braced for what came next.
“We need you back.”
Chapter 2
Yugoslav President Miroslav Nikic’s phone rang at one of his country estates.
For security, thick velvet drapes were drawn across the tall windows of his office, and only his desk lamp was on. Soft highlights gleamed on the burnished wood of the furniture, floors, and paneling.
One only saw such immaculate, polished luxury in Presidential dwellings. But which one was this?
His smoke-stained fingers stubbed out his Italian cigarillo in a black marble ashtray, and he picked up the phone.
It was Bane Djukanovic, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, reporting. Were it not for his dream of rolling troops into Macedonia, Nikic had little use for the overweight, aggressive career builder.
“Just tell me where we stand,” Nikic said over the phone.
Bane began to list off all he had accomplished. “The military is briefed on our mission. General Andjelic is scaling up for a long-term campaign down south in Macedonia.”
“The campaign won’t take long,” Nikic growled.
“I’m sure it won’t.”
“I want an invasion, not a war.”
“Secondly, Patriarch Savic has scheduled to meet with the Greek Orthodox authorities. He will propose the mutual discrediting of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.”
“On what grounds?”
“Our patriarch hasn’t worked that out yet.”
Nikic was silent. Bane wasn’t capable of thinking things through.
“Third, our Minister of Information is gearing up to broadcast anti-Macedonian propaganda.”
“Such as?”
“Old news footage of Macedonian terrorism.”
“That isn’t enough to stir up our people. Old news won’t make Serbian mothers send their sons into battle. We need a cause.”
“Perhaps a legal angle?”
“I need more than a court case. I want tears shed, people beating their chests. I want to feel my country tugging at my heartstrings.”
“How about more propaganda?”
“This requires more than words. We need truth. Think big. Put your best people on it. Talk to your cohorts in the mafija. I don’t care who we use. The military needs an opening, the Church needs justification and the press needs a story. Go and find that story. And if you can’t find it, make it up.”
“I have somebody in mind who can stir up the people.”
“I don’t want to know who he is. I don’t want to know what he does. And mark you, I don’t want anyone to know about this conversation.”
“It never happened.”
“I want to wake up one morning and feel proud of sending my troops into action. And one more thing. Foreign spies are making me nervous.” The West had many missions in town, constantly monitoring his government’s activities. “I don’t want their meddling in this. What can we do about it?”
“We know the CIA chief. We’ve been tracking him in and out of the country, to and from his house. We even record him farting in his toilet.”
“Is he declared?”
“No. His name is Bernard Fletcher, officially a political officer.”
“Well, the Americans could cause trouble. I want you to increase surveillance on
them.”
“Don’t worry, sir. You’ll own Macedonia by the end of the summer.”
“I’m not a patient man,” President Nikic said. He threw the phone down and stared into the darkness.
Maybe another month spent captive in his own country, fixed in the crosshairs of international sanctions, might not prove so dull after all.
He leaned back, licked his parched lips, and imagined himself striding heroically over moist, virgin Macedonian soil.
Mick Pierce stood in his colleague’s office doorway, shell-shocked and weary.
Before the Bosnian fiasco had destroyed his life, Mick had been a talented spy for the American government. But Lance Pickett, his former college roommate, had avoided pitfalls such as Bosnia. Instead, Lance made it big behind a desk. Made it all the way to Director of Operations, the cloak-and-dagger arm of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mick looked around Lance’s oak-paneled office and compared it with their dormitory room at Annapolis, twenty years earlier. There was a certain similarity in neatness. Lance had a first-rate mind and a cautious approach to life, probably due to his great-great-grandfather’s legendary blunder at Gettysburg, namely following Lee’s orders. Lance had made a career of prudence.
Conversely, Mick was a man of decisive action. And consequently, he had never been comfortable in official Washington.
He shuffled his feet and cracked his knuckles.
Lance looked up from his desk. “It’s you. Welcome back on board.”
“You’ve got to convince me first.”
Lance stood up. “No, first we convince the boss.”
“You mean Natalie? I just dropped her off at State.”
“No, I mean our boss.”
“You mean your boss,” Mick corrected. He glanced down at the New Mexican dust that still powdered his clothes.
“You look fine,” Lance tried to assure him.
“How about a quick bite first.” He and Natalie had last chowed down on an overnight military transport, and he had missed breakfast while shuttling back and forth across the Potomac.
“No time for that.” And Lance was out of the office. “Follow me. I know a back route.”
“Is there at least a Coke machine?”
He led Mick past the elevator and up a stairwell where he bounded up the stairs three steps at a time.
“Slow down,” Mick said between breaths. “At least tell me what you’re cooking up.”
“You’ve got a compelling story. I want you to tell it to the Director.”
“What compelling story?”
Lance stopped to explain. “Our over-extended assets in East Europe; in this case, the Yugoslavia account. I’m a cautious guy, Mick. I think we need to divest in that part of the world. Congress is all over our tails to slash the budget, and we can’t afford to botch up more business in Europe’s back yard.”
“I didn’t know that was my story.”
“C’mon.” Lance launched up the final flight of stairs. “You have a first-hand account of how we bungled Bosnia.”
Mick leapt the last few stairs and spun Lance around. “We didn’t bungle anything. The fact is, we never lifted a finger. Yeah, blame the Agency. That knee-jerk reaction pisses me off. Whenever there’s trouble brewing in the world, why are Americans so quick to blame ourselves?”
“I’m not aware we do.”
“Politicians choose sides. Journalists dig into our involvement. We look for a scapegoat, and we always end up pointing a finger at ourselves. Can’t someone else be the bad guy for once?”
“I don’t care who the bad guy is, as long as the finger doesn’t point at this building.” Lance swung the door open to the top floor.
Mick stomped onto an Oriental carpet. He had rarely ventured above the impersonal, white-painted corridors where CIA drones labored away.
He kept his mouth shut as they advanced to the wood-paneled office of Hugh Gutman, Director of the CIA.
Gutman was a former senator with an enormous ego and an appetite to match. He had arrived at the top of the food chain by seconding a lot of motions and thanking a lot of members. Now he held a deli sandwich in his paws. “Mind if I indulge in an early lunch while we talk?”
“If you must, sir.” Mick’s stomach growled at the aroma of hot pastrami on rye.
“Mick Pierce used to work in Operations in Yugoslavia, Hugh. He’s the man whose brother just turned up.”
“Ah yes. The dead peacekeepers,” Gutman said accusingly, and tossed a glance at the New York Times, which lay on his desk. A gory photo on the front page showed a UN helmet lying beside a soldier with his throat slit.
“When did you leave us?” Gutman asked, and sank his teeth into his sandwich.
“One glorious day two years ago.”
“And what’s up in old Yu-go-slav-ia these days?” His slobbery, North Carolina drawl savored every syllable of the country’s name.
“I wouldn’t know, sir. It’s ancient history to me.”
“I’d like to call in Bernie on this one, Hugh,” Lance said theatrically.
Gutman nodded.
Lance leaned over Gutman’s phone and pressed the intercom. “Send in Bernie, please.”
A moment later, Bernie Fletcher appeared in the doorway. No longer wearing the cowboy duds, he was just another balding bureaucrat in Washington.
He crossed the room to stand by Lance’s side.
“This is Bernard Fletcher,” Lance told Gutman. “Chief of Station in Belgrade.”
Then he turned to Bernie.
“Hugh was wondering what’s going on in old Yugoslavia these days.”
Gutman paused over his sandwich and waited for a response.
“Things seem to be looking up,” Bernie said. “Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia all countries in the former Yugoslavia are complying with their international commitments and obligations. They haven’t exchanged bullets in months. Maybe it’s time to lift the sanctions.”
Lance had coached Bernie well.
“Still have sanctions, eh?”
“Still in place,” Lance said. “Since way back, when Serbia supplied weapons to their compatriots in Bosnia.”
“Ah yes, Serbia and Bosnia,” Gutman said.
He heaved to his feet and staggered over to a wall map of the world.
When he looked upward, the skin wrinkled on the back of his head. The former Yugoslavia was a large swath of land extending from Italy in the west to Greece in the south. The region looked like a patchwork quilt from the colors of new countries.
“What do you make of the dead peacekeepers?” he said.
Lance indicated the photo in the Times.
“That’s just business as usual in the Balkans,” Bernie said brightly.
Mick had trouble keeping his mouth shut. Lance was hoping Gutman would buy the line. But why did Gutman have the picture on his desk?
“Maybe it’s time to pull out of there, Hugh,” Lance said, gently revealing his true goal. “With all that satellite hardware you’ve purchased lately, it’s getting damned impossible to fund these long-term and speculative projects.”
Bernie took the cue. “We might start by closing down some of our covert operations in Belgrade.” He looked at Lance, got a nod of approval, and continued. “We’re trying to stop the Yugoslavs from laundering German marks in direct contravention of economic sanctions. As you might recall, it’s called Operation Rinse Cycle, sir.”
“What the hell kind of a name is that?”
“Your office thought it clever at the time.”
“Aw, Jesus Christ.” Gutman wiped his chin. “Why didn’t we pull everybody out years ago?”
“S.O.P.,” Lance stepped in. “Standard Operating Procedure. When we cut all high-level ties with the regime, we drew down most of the embassy. We’ve been operating on a shoestring with only a Chargé, a handful of Marines, one political officer, one economics officer, one administrator, a doctor and Bernie.”
“We’ve been
there too long.” He pulled a memo off his desk. “The Secretary of State has issued this new directive. We’re shutting down the embassy. So burn the files and send our people home. Ship them off to East Timor if you must.”
Lance and Bernie exchanged celebratory smiles.
“Now, what are we doing about Mick’s brother?” He picked up a container of potato salad.
“If you’ll allow me, Hugh.” Lance reached for a remote control on a nearby coffee table.
With the touch of a finger, the lights dimmed. Another button sent the drapes sliding shut.
Several buttons later, the wall map rolled up and a projection screen took its place. Three color beams shot out of a device onto the screen.
“How have you enjoyed New Mexico?”
Natalie studied the formidable looking Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Eastern Europe.
Why did the press office send her over to the political section? And why would this guy care about her personal life?
She decided to play it cool. “It’s a nice state.”
“Want to get back into action?”
“Exactly what kind of action do you have in mind?”
“How does Belgrade sound?”
“I think I saw that coming,” she said without batting an eye.
“Listen. CIA tells me your husband’s in bad shape. Ruined by the Bosnian War.”
She hesitated. Okay, this guy was truly entering illegal territory, bringing up family matters in the context of a job. “That’s none of your business. Besides, he’s not damaged goods. Just a little pissed off like I am right now.”
The man was unfazed. “My contacts over at Langley tell me they need to reactivate him. Sounds like he needs some reactivating.”
“You’re skating on thin ice, sir.”
Before she considered filing an Equal Opportunity complaint, she had to understand what the man was telling her. And what he said made a lot of sense. She had long since concluded that hiding out in the mountains wasn’t helping Mick much. Now, with Alec’s resurrection, there was no way she could restrain her husband, who had always been overprotective of his younger brother. But why was the guy approaching her in this manner?
“What’s this really all about?” she asked. “You and the CIA wouldn’t go to all this trouble just to help my husband.”