by Mike Maden
“This doesn’t look friendly,” Jack said, wishing like hell he had his Glock 19 with him.
“Just scare tactics. No worries.”
Unless these are hitters for the Iron Syndicate.
As Aida slipped the van into park, the tall officer crossed over to Jack’s side and the short one approached Aida’s window.
The other police car pulled up behind the van, blocking their escape route, Jack noted, wondering if Aida was thinking about it.
The short cop yanked Aida’s door open and jerked his head, indicating she should get out. The tall cop did the same on Jack’s side and the four of them walked to the back of the van, where the third cop was already standing.
The short cop barked a command and Aida opened the van’s rear doors. He glanced inside. Nothing but two pieces of luggage and a couple cardboard boxes. He ripped them open and found used baby clothes, which he flung out piece by piece like he was searching for something.
Nothing. He tossed the empty boxes back into the van, frustrated.
The short cop turned back to Aida, firing questions at her in Bosanski, starting with her name, which she repeated.
The short cop’s voice got more heated with each one-word answer Aida gave, da or ne—yes or no.
Jack kept his eye on the other two cops, and their hands, touching their weapons. Their eyes shifted back and forth between Aida and him. Something was going down.
Finally, the short cop pulled a photograph from his vest pocket and showed it to Aida. He asked, “Da li znaš Tarika Brkića?” Do you know Tarik Brkić?
“Da. On je mehaničar. Ponekad radi za mene.” Yes. He’s a mechanic. He works for me sometimes.
The short cop nodded, satisfied with her answer. He shifted his gaze over to Jack. He asked Aida a question in her language. Aida translated for Jack.
“He wants to know who you are.”
“Tell him I’m nobody.”
“He won’t like that answer. He wants to know your name.”
Jack hesitated. But what choice did he have at his point?
“Jack Ryan.”
The cop’s eyes shifted to his taller partner standing beside Jack. They exchanged a few words. He turned back to Jack and stuck out a gloved palm. “Pasoš.”
“He wants to see your passport, Jack.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Jack reached for his back pocket. Two pistols snapped up, pointing at his head.
“Hey, fellas. Just doing what the man asked.”
He handed the short cop his passport. The cop flipped it open. Read it. Handed it to the tall cop, who read it, too. He nodded at his short partner and pocketed it.
“I need that back,” Jack said. “It’s private property.”
The short cop told Aida to keep translating. She did.
“He says your name is familiar.”
“It’s a pretty common name where I come from.”
“He wants to know what you’re doing in Bosnia.”
“I’m a tourist.”
“How do you know this woman?”
“She’s my tour guide.” He nodded at the Happy Times! van. “We’re heading back to Sarajevo.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Dubrovnik.”
“What did you do there?”
“Toured the city.”
“Anything else?”
Jack wanted to say something about the unbelievable sex he and Aida had enjoyed but held his tongue. This cop’s fuse was lit. He was angry as hell, and Jack wasn’t giving him what he was looking for. But then again, he was a little prick. Jack shot a glance at Aida, trying to lighten the moment. “You can tell him we ate at a great restaurant.”
Aida frowned but translated it anyway.
The short cop suddenly got in Aida’s face, shouting, “Gdje su te jebene rakete?!”
Aida startled and answered, “Rakete? Nemam pojma o čemu govoriš.”
WHACK!
The cop backhanded Aida across the mouth. She whimpered and clutched her face with her hands.
“Hey!” Jack lunged toward Aida to block another strike, but the two cops next to him each grabbed him hard by his shoulders and yanked him back, shoving their pistols in his face.
The little cop grabbed a fistful of Aida’s hair in his hand and pulled her close, sticking his pistol in her face. In his anger he slipped from Bosnian to the English he had been trying to conceal, “I will only ask you one more time, you Muslim bitch! Where are those—”
Behind them, a horn blared, stuttering and loud. The two cops next to Jack turned around with him still in their grip and saw a cloud of dust billowing on the hill road toward them as another Happy Times! tour van came careening down at full speed. Jack saw Emir at the wheel, pounding the horn with one hand and steering the van straight toward Jack and the two cops with the other.
The two cops raised their pistols to fire.
Jack launched both fists up and back, smashing each cop in the face with the back of his hands. They each got off shots, but the shock of the blows caused them to miss. The blows also loosened their grips on Jack just enough for him to fire his right elbow high into the tall cop’s jaw with a sickening crack. The man dropped his pistol in the dirt and let go of Jack’s collar as he reached for his broken jaw.
As soon as Jack’s elbow struck the tall cop, he twisted right, driving the heel of his right hand into the car cop’s temple, stunning him. Jack rabbit-punched him again with a closed fist just behind the ear until the man and his weapon fell to the ground as Emir skidded to a stop in a flurry of choking dust.
The short cop knelt in the dirt in front of Aida, clutching his ball sack, blood trickling out of his nose.
Aida pointed the gun at him. She was breathing heavily, but her hands were steady.
Jack turned in time to see the tall cop lunging for his weapon. Jack kicked his face like a soccer ball. The man’s head snapped back. Knocked out cold, he collapsed in the dirt.
Without hesitating, Jack turned and launched another brutal kick at the other cop, who was reaching for his own weapon in the dirt.
He wasn’t as lucky as his friend.
Jack’s foot cracked the cartilage in the man’s nose and broke his top front teeth. The man shrieked in pain and clutched his mouth, blood gushing between his fingers.
Emir grabbed both pistols out of the dirt and stepped over to Aida. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course. I’m fine.”
“Me, too. Thanks for asking,” Jack said, pulling the MP5 off the tall cop and retrieving his passport from the man’s pocket. “Who are these jokers?”
“Serb Mafia,” Aida said. “Trying to steal the medical supplies.” She spat at the kneeling cop. “Pigs.”
Jack patted down the unconscious cop. “This guy doesn’t have any identity papers.”
Emir pointed at the other downed officer. “Neither does this one.”
Aida barked a command at the short officer, who shook his head. “None of these assholes do,” she said. “Believe me, they’re not cops.”
“We should call the real cops,” Jack said.
Aida shook her head, her eyes still sighting down the barrel of the gun toward the short cop, now glowering at her. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
She shot him a confused look. “What if the police impound my van? I can’t risk it.”
The medical supplies, Jack remembered. Crap. Smuggled in illegally, but desperately needed by the clinic.
“What do we do with these guys, then? We can’t just let them go.”
He noticed Aida still hadn’t lowered her weapon, and Emir still held two loaded pistols in his hands. “And we sure as hell can’t shoot them.”
“I have an idea,” Emir said, shoving the pistols into his waistban
d. “You and Jack go on ahead, and I’ll follow. In ten minutes, I’ll pull over and call the police. We don’t want to be here when anybody shows up.” He looked at Jack. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
Aida added, “Get some rope and some duct tape. We don’t want them leaving before the police arrive.”
“I’ll take care of everything,” Emir said.
“But call an ambulance, too,” Jack said. “They’re gonna need it.”
51
Why was Emir following us?” Jack asked. He drove the van.
Aida was still shaking from the encounter. She lit a cigarette to calm her nerves. It was the first time Jack had seen her smoke.
“I don’t know. I told him to stay away.”
“So why didn’t he?”
“He’s in love with me. Has been since we were kids.”
“I hope he didn’t see—”
She waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t want to think about it.” She took another drag.
“So who was that guy in the photo? Brkić?” Jack asked.
“He’s family. He married one of my mother’s cousins, years ago. As a favor, I use him to work on my vehicles sometimes.”
“And what was the cop asking you about? He was pretty pissed off.”
Aida shook her head. “He wanted to know why we had not paid our protection money.”
“Did you owe him protection money?”
Aida blew out a cloud of blue smoke, ignoring the question. The open window whisked it away. “You know they were going to kill us.” She flicked the butt out the window. “Fucking Serbs.”
She turned to Jack. Her eyes were wet. She put her hands to her face. “I was so scared.”
Jack’s cage got rattled, too. He was deathly allergic to lead, especially the kind thrown at him at high velocity. He laid a hand on her head and stroked her thick hair.
“It’s okay now. You’re safe.”
She glanced up through her tears. “Am I?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“You frightened me, Jack.” She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs.
“Why?”
“I saw what you did to those men. What kind of financial analyst knows how to fight like that?”
“I’ve been training in martial arts for a long time—”
“Bullshit, Jack. The way you handled yourself? No. What you did back there you don’t learn in judo classes. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“I just wanted to protect you.”
“Who are you, Jack?”
“I’m just a guy who can throw a punch.”
She sighed, turned her face toward her window, and closed her eyes.
They rode along in silence the rest of the way, Jack following the prompts of the GPS tracker. He kept running the day’s events over in his mind. He wished he spoke the language. There were a few English cognates, for sure, but they spoke so fast he could hardly pick out the words. Drugs? Guns? Money? He just didn’t know.
The only word he thought he heard clearly was rakete. He supposed it must have meant “racket,” like Mafia rackets.
Whatever it was, that Serb Mafia “cop” was sure pissed about it.
* * *
—
Emir pulled over twenty minutes later, after tying up the fake cops and shutting their mouths with duct tape. He picked up the phone and dialed a number, but not for an ambulance.
“Why are you calling me?” Brkić asked.
“We have a problem.” Emir explained the situation.
“I’ll take care of it. You make sure you keep an eye on Aida.”
“There’s something else you need to know.”
“What?”
Emir told the Chechen about that fucking kafir American and his shameful use of Aida. But he added, “The American is leaving soon.”
“The sooner, the better. For Aida’s sake. And yours.”
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Aida had fallen asleep for the last hour of the trip but woke up when they hit massive traffic on the outskirts of town. She yawned and stretched, and glanced at Jack with a smile, brushing her tousled hair out of her eyes like a girl who had been dreaming pleasant dreams.
But her smile dimmed as she suddenly remembered what had happened earlier. Jack could see the gears grinding behind her eyes.
Jack pointed at the GPS. Traffic lines were red everywhere. “What’s going on?”
“These are Serbs coming in for the Orthodox Renewal service day after tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Is it some kind of religious revival?”
Aida shook her head. “It’s all just politics, believe me.”
Jack noticed quite a few national license plates from Serbia in the traffic mix.
“I’m sorry for what happened to us back there, Jack.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Of course it is. I shouldn’t have brought you with me on this run.”
“I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.”
“And I’m sorry for what I said.” She reached out and touched his arm. “I’m not scared of you. I know you’d never do anything to hurt me. I know you would always protect me.”
“Yeah, I would. I’m kinda sweet on you.”
That made her smile.
Jack hated to ruin that smile, but he had to clear the air. “You did pretty well with that cop today, taking him down and stealing his gun.”
“I just kicked the guy in the nuts. Not exactly Bruce Lee stuff like you were doing.”
“You handled his pistol like a pro.”
Aida shrugged. “My father taught me how to use one when I was very young. He said he never wanted me to be a victim.”
“Then he taught you well.”
I wonder who taught him.
“Guns don’t scare me, Jack. People do.”
“Could you have pulled the trigger?”
“I protect the people I love.”
Jack turned toward her. That four-letter word caught his attention.
She smiled impishly. “And I protect the people I’m ‘sweet on,’ too.”
Jack followed the GPS onto the narrow street where his apartment was located. “So, what’s the plan for tonight? Heck, I might even be able to bust out a dance move or two if there’s a club you like.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do anything tonight.”
“But I’m leaving soon.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
She reached up and touched his troubled face. “No, my love. I’m the one who has failed you. I never should have opened up my heart to you. You have your life back in America, and I have my life here in Bosnia. It was a beautiful spontaneous fling. But it’s over now, isn’t it?”
“A fling?”
“What else would you call it?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Were you planning on staying here forever?”
Jack shook his head. She was right. But he said, “You can come to the States with me.” He didn’t pretend to make a play about fund-raising.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but I have my work here.”
“Work that almost got you killed today.”
“It’s nothing new. Someday, things will get better for us.”
“What if they don’t?”
“Then they don’t.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“How can you stop it?”
“Can I at least see you tomorrow?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. A new group of refugees are arriving tomorrow. I need to be at the center.”
“Then I’ll come, to
o.”
“That’s not possible. This group is Syrian. They don’t trust Westerners, especially Americans. I’m sorry.”
She saw the hope dying in his eyes. He looked like a lost little boy. She took pity on him. “But tomorrow night, I can pick you up and take you to my place for a home-cooked meal. I bet you haven’t had one of those in a long time.”
Jack thought about saying, Not since Mom made me dinner with Dad at the White House. But he wasn’t a name-dropper, and he wanted to win the woman over on his own merits, not his folks’. “Sounds great. What time?”
“I’ll pick you up here at five after I finish at the center. Try to stay out of trouble until then, okay?”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
Jack leaned over to kiss her good-bye. Their mouths lingered for a tender moment. He grabbed his suitcase and watched her pull away before heading up to his place.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
52
Jack jogged up the stairs to his apartment only to find a DHL delivery envelope lying against his door. It was addressed to him.
He entered his apartment, kicked off his shoes, and fell into a chair at the small dinette table. He opened the envelope and read the cover letter from Detective Oblak instructing him to sign the enclosed legal documents acknowledging that the case of Elena Iliescu was officially closed and he was no longer considered a suspect, nor did he have any legal standing in Slovenia against her since she was now deceased, et cetera, et cetera. Luckily, everything was written in English as well as in Slovenian. Jack didn’t care about all of that, and he was happy to sign the documents and put it all behind him.
His mind turned back to the fake cops. He wondered why they didn’t bother to carry any identity papers, even fake ones. Real ones would’ve been even better. He chided himself for not grabbing their pictures, retinal scans, and fingerprints with the apps on his phone. But why would he? They were Serbian Mafia, according to Aida. Not foreign operators. The Campus wasn’t a crime-fighting outfit.
Still, something was bugging him. Those three cops were pretty rough customers. They weren’t run-of-the-mill gangster types. Maybe they had service training. If so, Gavin Biery could have found them that way.