by Fritz Galt
The fire pursued Mick like a red wall of heat. Only Coleen’s limp body shielded him from the inferno.
Barely escaping the flames, the gunman in the Zhiguli took potshots at policemen who fled the scene.
Several uniformed men fell screaming around Mick. Flames quickly engulfed their bodies.
The car careened crazily after one large pack of police. Mick watched it disappear into a billowing cloud of smoke. Almost instantly, he heard metal smash against a tree. The gunfire stopped.
“Where are you going?” Foster shouted.
“We’re almost there,” Natalie said over her shoulder.
“The embassy’s on fire, too,” Foster said.
“Nothing we can do about it,” Mick said. “Let’s clear out of here.”
They reached daylight at the corner of the mall, and Mick eased Coleen onto the pavement. Natalie knelt down and held her across her lap where she resumed daubing at the wound.
Foster tried to communicate with Coleen, but she wasn’t responding. “Take her back to the apartment. From there you can call a doctor.”
“Where are you going?” Mick asked.
“I have to check on the embassy.”
“We have Marines. They’ll destroy what they have to destroy. Then they’ll leave.”
Mick looked over his shoulder. The conflagration had subsided, leaving scorched earth and individual fires behind. The initial ball of fire had incinerated everything that was sprayed with gasoline. And beyond that, the heat and volatile gas had been strong enough to catch tree bark and buildings on fire.
Charred silhouettes stripped off their clothes and staggered out of the smoke.
Foster shook his head. “What the hell is happening?”
“Look at Coleen,” Natalie said, and gently patted the young Irish woman’s cheeks.
The redhead was beginning to stir. She opened her eyes and reached numbly for her forehead.
Natalie leaned over and tore off the bottom half of her own blouse. That created a wide strip that she could fold into a bandage. She used it as a tight head wrap for Coleen. “I’m sure you’ll have a blinding headache for a few days.”
Foster squatted down beside the victim. “Can you see me? Count my fingers.”
“Nineteen. How’m I doing?”
“Almost perfect, Col. Hang in there and stay alert. The whole center of town is on fire.” He stood up. “I’ve got to get back to the embassy for a secure phone line.”
“Listen,” Mick said. “This isn’t just a local problem. The nationalists are probably staging protests in other countries as well. This is a Yugoslav problem boiling over the borders.”
“That may be true. But someone has to report what just happened.”
Natalie broke into the argument. “This calls for way more than reporting. We’ve got to do something about it. We have to get to Greece.”
Foster looked back at the scorched city.
It had been hard enough to watch the Russian church, the library and the art gallery go up in smoke. Fire now licked out every window on the mall.
“How will we ever get to Greece?” Foster asked in a daze. “We’d have to pass through Macedonian Bulgaria. The only other option is the airport, and that’s probably sealed shut.”
Mick agreed. The airport was typically among the first places seized by revolutionaries or closed by authorities. “Still, the airport’s our only chance.”
He looked at Coleen, who Natalie had helped to her feet. Flexing her fingers and rotating her ankles, she blinked in bewilderment at the devastation around her.
“We’ll explain it later,” he said. “Can you walk?”
She took a few uncertain steps.
“This isn’t going to work,” Natalie said.
“Where are all those damned taxis when you need them?” Mick said in frustration.
A tiny, toy-like car, a sad-looking Trabant that was built in the former East Germany puttered by in a cloud of exhaust. Through the smoke that remained, he saw that it was pulling a gurney. A body was tightly wrapped in a white sheet and tied to the gurney by rope.
All the cars had turned into ambulances.
“This might still work,” Foster said. He reached for his wallet and pulled out several American greenbacks.
The next car to drive past was another tiny Trabant. Foster waved the money, and the car skidded to a halt.
“Taxi?” Foster inquired through the open window.
“Da, taxi.” The driver reached under his seat and produced a taxi sign.
“Good. Aerodrom,” Foster said.
Mick helped the women pile into the back seat. The car had no door handles or window knobs. He crammed in beside them and shut the door by grabbing an ashtray.
Foster jumped in the front seat, and they trundled down the deserted street.
Behind him, Mick watched the city center billowing with the black smoke of revolution. How many conflagrations were raging out of control in the new ring of fire around Yugoslavia?
Lance Pickett paced the blue carpeting of his office and pounded a fist against his chest.
“Heartburn?” Bernie Fletcher asked from the doorway.
“Heart attack,” Lance corrected him. “Macedonian terrorist attacks are going off like neatly timed explosions all across the Balkans.”
It gave Bernie some satisfaction to see his boss suffering for his policy to withdraw from Yugoslavia.
“Except their effect isn’t so neat,” Bernie said. He took a seat and unspooled his legs opposite Lance’s massive desk.
“I especially liked the final ‘Aargh’ over the phone from Sofia,” Lance said.
“Did they get any news out?”
“No. Just a frantically placed call to the Op Center at State. They think it was a Marine. We have no other reports from embassy personnel. We can only hope, since the man had time to place the call on the secure phone, that they didn’t fall victim to a car bomb.”
“CNN reports massive demonstrations in various southwestern Bulgarian cities overnight,” Bernie said. “We’re trying to get through to the Bulgarian Ambassador. And, needless to say, we haven’t heard from Mick Pierce.”
“Reports are filtering in from other countries.” Lance unfurled some cables he had rolled up in his back pocket and slammed them one by one on his desk. “Marseilles reports a chilling reenactment of the Macedonian Nationalist assassination of King Maximillian in 1912. Nicosia reports a Serbian freighter has been blown out of the Mediterranean. In Skopje, the Serbian Cultural Council building was firebombed. In Thessaloniki, Macedonian nationalists smashed government buildings. A locker bomb blew up some poor woman and her kids in Athens. Then there are these reports from Tanjug.” He pointed to a stack of printouts from the Yugoslav news agency.
“I’m getting the picture.” Bernie bobbed his knees up and down. “Someone’s fanning the flames of Macedonian nationalism.”
“Mr. Fletcher.” Lance sat on the edge of his desk and leaned forward confidentially. “We’ve not only got to get rid of Alec Pierce. We’ve got to take care of Mick. Mick knows too much and he might go off the reservation, just like his brother.”
“Mick’s a different case,” Bernie said. “You know what he’s like. Good, solid material.”
“Mick hasn’t gotten out of there as we requested. If the public learns that we had any prior knowledge of these terrorist attacks, the Congress will nail our butts to the wall.”
“Exactly what do you propose?” Bernie asked, his voice strained with fatigue and vexation at his boss.
“Kill ’em. Kill ’em both.”
Bernie gulped. “And who do you think can do such a thing? You’ve sucked all our assets out of the country.”
“I’m looking at you, Mr. Fletcher.”
Chapter 33
Mick’s taxi pulled up to Sofia’s airport.
A crowd pressed up against the terminal, demanding to be let in. Meanwhile, a jet revved its engines as it prepared to take off. The n
oise on the runway only served to increase everyone’s anxiety.
“Drive around the building for a better view,” Mick ordered in Serbian. The driver understood. He pulled up to a chain link fence that enclosed the airfield. Bulgarian Air Force jets were lined up on the tarmac, pilots testing their controls. They were in position and ready to go. All they needed was a mission.
Against an overcast sky, Mick could make out lights in the control tower. Two passenger planes, one Czech and one Bulgarian, sat at the terminal. Their fuselage windows showed that their cabins were dark.
Two T-34 Soviet tanks squatted at the base of the control tower, facing the airfield and the lush cornfields that lay beyond. With the airport placed under military control, martial law and curfews would be next. All transportation into and out of the country would likely come to an abrupt halt. It already seemed impossible to escape.
Mick jumped out of the car. He stretched his back and turned to Natalie, who crawled out beside him.
“We need to get back into Serbia,” he said. “I don’t care what the cost. That’s the only place where we can put the screws to Bane and stop this madness.”
“Serbia? Are you out of your mind?”
He read fear behind that confrontational glare. Her fair blue eyes were pleading. But she was fighting the inevitable.
She turned away to the wind-swept airfield.
He also faced the west with dread. Yugoslavia was like a horrible hurricane that sucked up all sense and reason. He could barely hear her words above the jet taking off.
“How would we even get back?”
Just then, two black Mercedes bearing JNA military plates flashed by. He shouted, “I’ve got it.”
“Got what?”
“We just found our ticket back.”
“Have a nice trip,” she muttered.
He ordered everybody back into the car.
“Follow those Yugoslav cars.”
The driver reversed gear and plowed into a clump of uncut grass. Then he pulled onto the airport access road and headed back to the terminal.
The two sleek cars stopped at the crowded terminal entrance. Two senior Yugoslav Army officers stepped out of the lead car and stared, mystified, at the sight.
Apparently spread thin around the city, Bulgarian soldiers were unavailable to protect the airport. People beat their luggage against the front of the building. Some had managed to crack the glass. Suddenly, a door shattered. Shouting and pointing, men forced their families and parents through the opening.
Mick’s taxi pulled up to the lead Mercedes. “Dobar dan,” he said, startling the two officers. Good day.
He extended a hand through the window with a smile. Thrown off guard, they shook it.
“I’m Inspector Stojanovic with the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” he continued in a Belgrade drawl. “It seems we have the same problem.”
“Clearly,” the senior of the two, a colonel, responded with a grim smile.
“Don’t you have friends in the Bulgarian military?” Mick asked.
The two officers laughed. “Without telephones, we’re like everyone else.”
“I see the problem,” Mick said. “I need to get to Belgrade myself.”
“It looks like you’ll have to drive.”
“The borders may be closed,” he said.
“We can get through,” the colonel assured him.
Mick stepped out of the Trabant, from which the faces of two women and Foster turned to them for hope.
“This taxi won’t get me anywhere,” he said. “And look at the sad peasants I’m riding with.”
The colonel laughed. “Maybe you can ride with us. I’ll clear it with the chief.”
He led the other man back to the other Mercedes. A side window slid down with motorized ease. Mick saw a green shoulder board with three stars. The men conferred.
Mick leaned into the taxi. “They might give me a lift. I might have to leave you behind.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Natalie said, and scrambled out of the car. “You aren’t going by yourself.”
He looked at Coleen, fighting for consciousness in the back seat, her blood-soaked bandanna askew on her head.
He turned to Foster. “Take care of her, will you? She saved my life at the Romanian border.”
“Mick, be realistic,” Foster said. “They’ll find you out.”
“They haven’t so far. Besides, the Yugoslav Army doesn’t know the first thing about their secret police.”
One of the men returned to Mick. “I must ask you a question. What are you doing in Sofia? Are you here on business?”
“Of course I’m here on business. I’ve been tracking that American bastard who shot several of our border guards at the Iron Gates Dam.”
“Did you find him?”
“He’s still at large, and I have to report back. Look, I have an assistant. Do you have room for two of us?”
The man looked at Natalie standing soot-faced with a torn shirt. Perhaps because of her exposed bellybutton, the general poked his large, baby face out the window and motioned for her to come to his car.
The colonel saluted his superior, and said to Mick, “She’ll ride with him.”
“Great. What route do we take?”
“Straight out of here to Dimitrovgrad.”
“Then let’s go.”
Mick shoved Natalie into the back of the second Mercedes before she could protest.
Then he leaned through the taxi’s rear door where Foster had slid in beside Coleen. “Will she make it?”
“Sure, but I don’t like separating like this.”
“We have no choice. One of us has to get to Belgrade and coordinate a response to all this.”
Foster nodded and turned to comfort Coleen.
Alec Pierce and Terry Whitcomb strolled in the shade of palm trees along Kavalla’s seafront promenade. The pedestrian street meandered up to wharves before it snaked behind commercial fisheries.
White-hulled trawlers pulled into the bay heavy with the morning’s catch. Meanwhile, bikini-clad women lathered on sun block as the motorboats they adorned plowed out for another day’s adventure.
Alec’s attention turned to one motorboat that moved against the current of pleasure boats. At first she was a dot on the eastern horizon, but within minutes she veered in a wide turn, cut her speed and washed up sideways against the pier.
A stout-armed helmsman wearing a green bandanna lassoed a piling, stepped ashore and made the boat fast.
As Alec approached the distant boat, he could see the man speaking anxiously to a harbor captain.
Meanwhile, an amusing ritual took place at the entrance to a car ferry. An overloaded car pulled up to the gangplank and came to a stop in a swirl of dust. Greek music blared from its open windows. Several peasant women slowly piled out.
A corpulent man in a fishing hat, gray suit and LA Gear running shoes pulled the trunk open. He handed heavy bags to the women, perhaps supplies for the islands. Then they trudged up the gangplank while he danced to the music, his arms outstretched, his heels kicking up dust against the back of his pants.
“Busy day at the harbor,” Alec said.
“It’s a sea-faring nation,” Terry said. “Those women must work on some island.”
“Schedule says it’s going to Thassos.”
“Then it’ll go right past Mt. Athos. Should we take it?”
“We could, but we’d still have to get onto Athos somehow.”
As they drew closer, Alec returned his attention to the man with the motorboat. He spoke English and was placing a call to the Pelican Hotel.
“That’s our hotel,” Alec said. “I wonder if that’s him.”
He led Terry up the short pier to eavesdrop.
“…then could I leave a message for Mr. Hammer?”
Alec stepped up. “Why don’t you leave a message with me?”
The man set the phone down. “Alec?”
“Scott Powers, I presume?”
“This is Terry Whitcomb, American Center Director, Skopje.”
“Scott Powers, Thessaloniki. How come we never met before?”
“Maybe because the north has taken up all my attention these past few years.”
“Yeah. We were copied on all of Belgrade’s cables. Isn’t there a communications shack in Macedonia?”
“It’s new. Maybe you’re not on the list.”
“Probably for the better,” Scott said with a laugh. “Now that our embassy in Belgrade is closed, I don’t hear anything. In fact, I’m a little in the dark about all the bombings and demonstrations last night.”
“What bombings and demonstrations?” Alec said. He looked at Terry.
They hadn’t read the newspaper that morning, as they had been consumed by more personal activities.
Scott stared at the pair in disbelief. Then he looked around for some open space. “Let’s take a stroll.”
Gerard Vaillant took two UN investigators into a soundproof room at the French Embassy in Belgrade. The mild-mannered American lawyers fingered the airtight doorframe with interest.
Gerard couldn’t believe who the War Crimes Tribunal had sent to Belgrade. These men acted as if they were on hiatus from their law practice in Santa Barbara.
“We do have seats in here. Please take one.”
Both men sat down and took out yellow legal pads.
“I’m sorry,” Gerard said, and straightened his cravat. “No notes. What I tell you this morning only leaves this room in your heads.”
“This had better be good,” the younger of the two lawyers said. “We usually avoid diplomats.”
Gerard chose to ignore the comment. “Like you, we have been attempting to acquire evidence of war crimes against President Nikic. As you know, he moves around a lot and works behind closed doors with a tight group. Nobody has been able to infiltrate the Presidential Palace or his many villas to document his actions.”
“Those aren’t our methods, but I hear that from other embassies,” the older man said.