by Gennita Low
“Why? You got it good the way you’re set up. Girls and drugs finance the weapons trade, right? And you arm the KLA and whomever you like.” And had used those weapons to kill some of his fellow SEAL brothers. Hawk gestured at the map of Macedonia that was pinned crookedly on one of the walls. “Why would you want to start negotiating with other arms dealers, man? They would just want a piece of your pie.”
Dilaver’s smile was confidential. “Do you know how I get my weapons?”
Yeah, Hawk did, and that was why he was here in this rat’s nest. “Like everyone else, I suppose. Take them off the hands of Russian small-timers.”
The big man laughed. “Nope. Guess again.”
Hawk shrugged. “Fuck, Dilaver, we aren’t playing some fucking Macedonian Trivial Pursuit here. There are black market weapons galore everywhere these days. You have the money; you can buy anything.”
“Yes, but I didn’t buy some of these weapons, you see. They were free.”
Hawk rubbed his chin. “That’s nice but somewhat unbelievable. People don’t just hand you weapons without expecting something back in return.”
“But it’s true, my friend,” Dilaver said with a laugh. He waved his walking stick, pointing it at the ceiling. “They literally fall down from the sky.”
The big man started guffawing, and couldn’t seem to stop.
“Clearly, I’m missing some big joke,” Hawk said wryly. “You’re just dying to tell me, aren’t you?”
Dilaver shook his head. “There you go again, with that odd American talk that doesn’t translate well in Serbian.” He frowned, slowly translating the phrase back into English. “Dying…to…tell. What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you have a secret and you want to share,” Hawk explained, also reverting back to English. “Here’s some more weapon phrases. You’re sitting on a bomb. Or, you’re about to explode. Or, you have a bee in your bonnet, if you’re into skirts.”
Dilaver put out a hand in helpless laughter. “Stop, you’re killing me,” he gasped. Then he laughed again, adding with amusement, “‘Killing me’…I said some stupid American phrase!”
Oh yeah, it was something Hawk dreamed about a lot, especially now, when the kingpin was behaving so damn normal, taking delight in a few slang terms like an eager student. It contrasted with the man Hawk saw beating the living shit out of a young girl a few nights ago because she dared to say no to him. He’d had to walk out of the kafena or risk his cover. That one still haunted his dreams. He wondered whether the image would ever go away.
“Here’s my…bee in my…bonnet,” Dilaver continued, still wheezing with laughter. “Do you know who gives me free weapons? Your government. The United States of America. It’s all in big piles, dropped in shipments to arm the KLA, and I get first pick, of course, since they’re using my territory.”
“Dropped shipments. You mean, like you just said, they are dropped out of the sky?” Hawk pretended to look incredulous. “How can that be? The UN wouldn’t approve, would they?”
Dilaver shrugged. “Your government’s sneaky, Hawk. They negotiated to have the KLA take over what’s left of Yugoslavia, and they make the drops in big crates marked ‘Relief Aid.’ Some of these crates are actually filled with weapons and they’re dropped at specific locations for me.”
“How did they choose you? I mean, do you have a direct line to the U.S. armory?” Hawk affected a cynical look. “Come on, Dilaver. Don’t tell me you’re an agent for the American government.”
“No, you got it backward. I have an agent in the United States. Several, actually.” Dilaver sighed as his amusement subsided. “It’s a long story, and a good one. If I have the time I might even write one of those spy novels, but then of course my aunt will kill me. There’s that word again!”
“Your aunt?” Hawk prompted.
“She’s high-level,” Dilaver told him. “Got the authority to approve shipments or something. Of course, she and her people there are careful, so they only send out certain crates. She told me I can do anything I want with most of the weapons except for a few marked ones. Those are hers. That’s where you come in.”
Hawk knew that there had been a big blowup in D.C. the past year when several very important high-level CIA agents were indicted for selling information. Maybe this tied in somehow. “How?” he asked, getting up from the sofa to get a beer from the refrigerator. He activated a tiny recorder in his wristwatch.
“My aunt mentioned that conference before, you see, and that there’ll be some big-time dealers who would love to get their hands on these special weapons. She said there’s some problem moving them from her end right now and she might need my help.” Dilaver settled back comfortably in the sofa, nodding his head when Hawk offered to bring him a bottle. “Anyway, you have links through Stefan and others. Must be fate to have met you, huh?”
Fate. Hawk didn’t want to discuss fate with a man like Dilaver. He didn’t want to be here drinking a beer and shooting the breeze at all. Something ugly and dark reared its head inside him lately whenever Dilaver and he talked about certain things—like friendship and fate, for instance. Those subjects reminded him of his best friend and teammates; those things bonded him to his SEAL brothers. Not to a man like Dilaver.
He was going to need an outlet for all this violence growing inside. Soon.
“Ja sam gladna,” he said softly.
“Yes, I am, too. Let’s go eat. We’ll talk more about your future over a good meal.”
“Come on, Amber, tell me what he did. I’m dying here.”
Amber looked up from the rows of figures she was trying to add up. “Will you quit pestering me? I haven’t been able to get these numbers right for fifteen minutes now.”
Lily finished drying her hair with a towel as she headed to the refrigerator. “Well, tell me! I promise I’ll leave you in peace after you give me the details.”
“Nope.”
“Aw…come on. You’re not still mad, are you?” Lily poured some orange juice into a glass, then pulled out a bottle of champagne.
“Isn’t it a bit early for a mimosa?” Amber asked as she watched her friend adding the alcohol into her drink. “And yes, I’m still mad at you. I can’t believe you let a man into my room. What kind of friend are you?”
Lily took a big sip, licking her lips. “It’s never too early for a mimosa,” she declared, then took another gulp. She toasted Amber with the glass. “The man had you over his shoulder and he looked so intimidating.”
“Yeah, right.”
Lily fluttered her eyelashes. “He did. He was tall and handsome, Amber. I mean, really, really good-looking handsome.” She patted her heart. “I figure I did you a favor.”
Amber put down her pencil and gave Lily a wide-eyed stare. “How do you know he wouldn’t have hurt me?” She still couldn’t believe that her friend had stood by while that man carried her unconscious body into her own room. She wouldn’t have done that. But she wasn’t Lily, who tended to enjoy sick jokes. “The man had his hands up my skirt!”
She was still angry at the way she had lost that fight. She hadn’t even felt him in the office at all. The knowledge that she had the safe open and it could have been anyone was a sobering thought, but Lily had shrugged it off as if it were nothing.
“Well, you were armed. Besides, you’ve seen him naked. Tit for tat and all that.”
“So have you. Are you going to let him see you naked, too?”
Lily shrugged, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind, but I have a feeling Hawk was more interested in you last night.”
“Oh, so you’re on a first-name basis with him now?” Amber shook her head in disbelief. “How long was this conversation you had with him?”
“Oh no. You aren’t getting any details from me till you tell me what else he did. He found your weapons and put them on the bed to let you know he could have done more. What else? I know he did something else because you were cursing up a storm in the bathroom this m
orning. Come on, give!”
Amber let out a sigh. She studied Lily, who was finishing up her mimosa. Champagne and orange juice in the morning. In her fake kimono dressing gown, jet-black hair still damp and uncombed, amusement lighting up those big eyes, she looked a bit like an imp out on some mischievous errand. Only Lily would see humor in such a moment.
She supposed she sort of deserved it. She had hurt the man’s pride. Part of her gave Hawk McMillan thumbs-up for his method of revenge. He had said in the instant message that the next time they met, he was going to make a point.
Well, point taken. He showed that he could be as devious as she.
“Okay,” Amber said. She stood up and lifted her skirt.
Lily put down her empty glass and walked over to the table, her eyes riveted on Amber’s thigh. “Ho-ly snakes!” she murmured. “He wrote you a…what is that? A dirty message? 5MW/MTL/PF/18/69 and signed, Hot Stuff. He called himself Hot Stuff?”
Amber shrugged nonchalantly as Lily laughed in rich amusement. She didn’t tell her that she was the one who had called him that. “He thinks he is, I guess,” she said instead.
“How appropriate. I wonder whether he knows that’s our code word for dangerous items?” Lily laughed again. “What does that line mean, do you know?”
5MW/MTL/PF/18/69. Oh yes, Amber knew what it was. She shook her head as she patted her skirt back into place. “Nope.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t telling.”
“It’s your turn to tell,” Amber countered. “You talked to him. What was he like? Oh, stop giving me that lovey-dovey look.”
“He was absolutely mouthwatering.” Lily gave her a thumbs-up. “All in black and looking like some predator as he walked by with you slung like a Barbie doll over his shoulder. And his back was just as nice as his front, too.”
Amber rolled her eyes. “I meant what you two talked about. I don’t need you to describe his physical charms.”
“Oh, I forget. You already felt his physical charms.”
Amber stuck her tongue out at her friend and walked to the refrigerator. Now she wanted a mimosa, too. She had suddenly recalled Hawk’s words to her just before she had passed out. Her legs were around his waist again, just like the other night.
I believe we’ve done this position before.
She poured champagne liberally into her orange juice. Damn that man!
“Isn’t it too early for that much champagne?” drawled Lily.
Amber ignored the dig and took a gulp from the glass. “What did he say?” she asked.
“Nothing, just that this was only a little revenge thing. I could tell he wasn’t going to really harm you.”
“How?”
“Believe me, sweetie. I have been around some really, really rough characters. When they want to harm someone, I know it. I feel it. Hawk McMillan wasn’t giving out those signals last night, although I must say he looked pretty capable of violence. He had a dangerous air about him.”
“Lily, you can’t possibly tell all that from just looking at a man.”
“Oh yes I can. When you look at Dilaver, what do you feel?”
Amber visibly shuddered. Dragan Dilaver gave her the chills. He was a thug with a lot of power, and she had seen what he had done to young girls. Some of those victims had been in her care, after all. Every time she met him, it took all her willpower to keep her fury at bay.
“See? You can feel certain things, Amber,” Lily continued. “Dilaver is a piece of shit. I don’t even have to see what he did to know this. I have only to peek at him from our little office mirror to see that the man was violent and ruthless. And…he wants you, Amber, if you aren’t aware of that.”
She was. It was in Dilaver’s eyes. Naked lust and oily intentions. “That’s why Brad’s presence is getting to be so useful,” she said.
“Brad’s presence can only protect you for so long,” Lily warned. “But he’ll do for now.”
Amber took the chance. “What do you feel when you look at Brad, then? Is he a violent man?” She took another sip of her drink, studying her friend slowly over the glass.
Lily stared back at her challengingly, then shrugged. She adjusted the belt to her dressing gown. “Bradford Sun is a bureaucrat,” she replied quietly. “He doesn’t know violence if it’s staring at him in the face.”
“Oh, I think you’re wrong there,” Amber said, putting the empty glasses in the sink. “He’s dealing with the situations the best way he can at the moment, but I know he’s capable of action when he wants it.”
“And how would you know?”
Lily sounded almost…jealous. Amber hid a small smile. “Because he looks at you and feels your violence toward him, and he’s about to make his move any day now. Tell me, why do you act like that when you’re around him? He’s helping us, you know.”
Lily shrugged again. “I don’t know.” She ran impatient fingers through her hair. “It’s me, I guess. I don’t like bureaucrats. He can just raid those damn places and get Dilaver just like this.” She snapped her fingers. “And he doesn’t.”
Amber leaned over the kitchen counter. She knew there was more to this thing between Brad and Lily than his inability to act the lawman. “Sweetie, his hands are tied. That’s why he’s giving us information when he can. It’s his way of getting some of the girls out of Dilaver’s hands. Now tell me the truth why you’re so pissed off at Brad whenever his name’s mentioned.”
Lily pushed her hands deeply into her pockets. Her eyes had a startled awareness in them, as if she had suddenly realized something. “Because…” she said slowly, wonder in her voice, “he looks at me like Hawk looked last night. A determined, gonna-take-you-and-make-you-mine look. And I don’t need that right now. I don’t need any man to carry me off over his shoulder.”
Amber stared back speechlessly at her friend.
6
Hawk looked out of the window as the car sped along the streets of Velesta. He had been here only a few days and he already hated this city. They drove past the makeshift billboard on the side of a building.
“Dancers!” It boasted in several languages. “Come Relax with Our Beautiful Dancers.”
There was a reason for the different languages. The advertisements around here weren’t targeting the Macedonians. Everyone was after the NATO soldiers, the peacekeepers around town, who had the cash and the time to spend on women and booze. So everything was sold in German, French, Polish, and English, and the most popular thing being sold in Velesta were girls.
The irony of it hadn’t escaped Hawk. He wasn’t big-headed about it, but he knew that he had been particularly lucky in the gene pool. He had been told most of his life what a good-looking bastard he was and he’d never had trouble getting any woman. There were very few complaints, except sometimes he wondered whether any of the women really cared what he was like inside. Of course, he hadn’t tried to get to know them better, either. Being a Navy SEAL had taken away any chance of that, and by the time an operation was over, so was the relationship. But there was always another woman waiting around the corner.
And here he was in Velesta, Macedonia, a place filled with women from every imaginable country, except that most of them weren’t here of their own free will. Kidnapped. Enslaved. These were terms that were alien to him when it came to getting women. He had never had the need to buy or take any female by force. It had never even crossed his mind that he would spend any time in a brothel looking at half-naked women being forced to please men.
Dragan Dilaver, the man sitting in the back of the car with him, was the last person on earth that Hawk had thought he would be hanging out with for any prolonged period of time. The thug was the antithesis of everything for which Hawk stood; he was a parasite, a bully, a user. It grated to know that Hawk had to walk into any place with this asshole and be regarded as his friend. He could see the fear in the women’s eyes when they looked at him, and he loathed it with a growing, unfamiliar violence that ate at him.
There had never been fear in his women’s eyes before. Or hatred. He had never intimidated a woman in that way before. Perhaps this was some twisted punishment for having it easy with women all his life—now he had hordes of women pretending to like him because they would be beaten if they didn’t act that way.
Dilaver shut his cell phone. “These stupid things won’t stop ringing,” he complained.
“Turn it off.”
“Then how am I suppose to know what’s happening?”
“Dilemma, isn’t it?” Hawk stared at another girlie billboard as the car slowed down at a red light. “Technology can suck you into dependency.”
“Yes. Ten years ago, I didn’t have this piece of crap hanging on the side of my hip, you know? I was out there, armed to the teeth, fighting fucking Serbs and Greeks, joining any side who would pay me, and there was no need for a cell phone to communicate.”
Hawk turned to Dilaver. “So why the need now?”
“I was a mercenary then. I’m a businessman now.” Dilaver let out a sigh. “Now you make me think of the good old days when my life was just about being a soldier. Have you ever been in the army in your country? You look fit enough. Not that I’d recommend that life. No money in it, unless you’re a mercenary.”
“No.”
Hawk didn’t want to compare notes about being a soldier. Dilaver was a mercenary, and therein laid the difference. At least, that was what Hawk told himself. He didn’t kill for money. He went through rigorous training so he could protect his country from harm. And he didn’t abuse power. Yet, he wasn’t naive enough to believe that he was nothing but a tool. All he had to do was look around at the peacekeepers in Velesta. Soldiers, supposedly. Now mere policemen who broke the law by going to the brothels and taking advantage of the women they’d sworn to protect.
“Here we are.”
Hawk already knew where they were, of course. After all, he had been here just the night before. He got out of the car.