by James Bruno
Though amiable, there was an edge to his voice and a tautness in his smile. Thompson grilled the Ohioan. Had he met the Brankos? Did he know where they were now? Did he know anyone who’d had contact with them? What would he do if he found them? How could he be sure that they had attacked the Suleijmanovics?
“Then you know of them?” Gallatin asked.
“Well, no. Never heard of them. But…we want to be aware whenever any of the political refugees we bring into the country commit serious crimes. Bad PR. We may need to adjust policy. The NSC aide gesticulated nervously, his eyes were wide.
Gallatin crossed his arms and looked at Thompson coldly. There was an awkward silence.
Lisa sensed his skepticism. “So, er, can the White House ask for the low-down on those guys?” she asked.
“No.” Thompson’s reply was a little too quick and final. “I mean, it’s a State Department internal thing. Probably nothing behind it. My advice, Mr. Gallatin: go home. Take care of your girl. You’re barking up trees — the wrong trees.”
“Thanks but no thanks.” Gallatin got up to leave.
“But if you do turn up anything, give me a call.” Thompson proffered one of his cards. “I’d be glad to…to be of help…if I can.” He left Lisa’s office.
Gallatin reached for the door. “Thanks for trying, Miss Valko.” He nodded a polite farewell.
“Wait!” Lisa said a bit too eagerly. She felt for this man, a strong man, but also vulnerable. She contrasted his devotion to his daughter with the workaholics of the nation’s capital, the bureaucrats, politicians and attorneys who virtually abandoned their families in their singleminded quest to reach the top. Had she been so removed from her roots that she had forgotten what real people were like?
She scribbled something on a yellow message slip. “Here. This man sits in on our meetings on Bosnia and other hot topics. I can’t say that I really know him. But, give him a call. He may be able to help you.”
Gallatin took the piece of paper. Win Ferret, Refugee Admissions, State Dept., it read.
“You may think I’m nuts, Miss Val—”
“Call me Lisa.”
“Lisa. Everybody else does. But it’s my little girl. I have to start somewhere.” His eyes welled up.
For that brief moment Lisa felt very human, very womanly. The press guidances, briefing papers, phone calls dwarfed in significance in that moment. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she wanted to help this man. She scribbled another note and handed it to him, her eyes fixed on his face. “I’m only a workabee, but if I can help, call.”
For the first time since he arrived in Washington, Gallatin had connected with somebody.
Tulliver had a splitting headache. Big policy disconnects, he could handle. Iraq going down the tubes? Political meltdown in Saudi Arabia? Assassination of an allied leader? He knew exactly how to manage such crises. Alert Fennimore, the President, cabinet heads. Call meetings. Consult allies and Congress.
It was the blips on the screen, the stones in the shoe that threw him off, ate up valuable time, detracted from the Big Picture.
“What?!” Tulliver demanded impatiently of Haley. He gulped down a tall glass of fizzing bromo.
“CHASM. We’ve got a problem.”
“Then fix it, goddamn it.” Tulliver warily eyed a six-inch stack of memos he had yet to read in advance of a briefing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee only two hours hence.
“It’s not that easy. Two Croats, named Branko, have hit the road. They’re out of control. On a killing spree.” He related what he knew of the Minneapolis B&B massacre as well as of the Suleijmanovic killings.
“Can’t you bring them back in? What do we pay those frigging CHASM coordinators for anyhow?”
“This one’s an old guy, Glassman. Out in Cleveland. He’s the dean of the coordinators, the most senior and very effective. But he’s given up on these two. Says we’re letting in too many psychotics. He’s threatening to quit the program.”
Tulliver let out a long breath. He was ready to seek a solution but even more eager just to get rid of the problem. “These guys are on the lam and dangerous?”
“Yes. If they’re not stopped, they’ll be caught and the cover will be blown. CHASM will be front page news.”
“Okay, okay.” Tulliver rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“There’s more,” Haley said.
“I feared there would be,” Tulliver growled. His headache felt like ground zero at the Nevada nuclear testing range on a busy day.
“A guy by the name of Gallatin, Maichael Gallatin, has been snooping around the edges. Our agent controlling the investigation in Minneapolis found him poking around the place the Brankos destroyed. And now he’s here in Washington. Called on Lisa Valko. Buckwheat met him. Sent up this memo.” Haley handed Tulliver the memo, plus a file on Gallatin, complete with a glossy eight-by-ten photo.
Tulliver flipped through it and skimmed the memo. Watch him. Keep the fucker out. And that goes for any other asshole samaritans out there. This is too important, too much at stake. And I don’t need to remind you that your career, as well as mine, is riding on keeping things under control. Got it?”
“Loud and clear,” Haley answered. “And the Brankos?” he added.
Tulliver took a deep breath. “Recall them, for crying out loud. Just do it!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two bullets in the brain. One through the temple to destroy the “thinking” part of the organ; the other in the lower rear portion to eliminate motor abilities. Even if the Brankos’ hearts and lungs continued miraculously to function, they would become mere human vegetables taking up space in some publicly funded asylum at great cost to the taxpayers. No, Horst Fechtmann would see to it that the taxpayers would foot the bill for a quick autopsy and pauper’s burial only. And a short-lived homicide investigation that would go nowhere.
It would be the easiest fifty grand he had ever made, Fechtmann thought as he surveilled the drunken Croatians swaying through the parking lot of the Sundance Motel, each propped up on the shoulder of a whore. Fechtmann’s major concern was that their loud singing and cursing would attract undue attention. In “wet affairs,” the first lesson was that stealth was everything. Stille gleicht Tod — silence equals death — the Stasi had instructed its agents. Go in quick and clean. Drop your targets in minimal time. Slither away leaving no trace.
Harrison Avenue, a commercial strip which traversed Butte, included the kind of generic suburbia that blighted America’s towns and cities everywhere. McDonalds-KFC-Dunkin’ Donuts-Mattressland-Speedy Oil Change. Perfect cover for a killer. Anonymity. No mutually reliant neighbors to keep an eye on things for the commonweal. Stepping out of the American century, economic conglomerization and fear of one another have yielded sterile commercial wastelands that, paradoxically, have become the natural stalking grounds of urban predators, be they convenience store marauders, serial killers, or ex-East German hitmen for hire.
Fechtmann remained in the driver’s seat of his rented Mailbu, parked in the rear of the motel parking lot near the dumpsters, until the Brankos and their dates had turned the corner to the stairway of the cinderblock structure. The poorly lit parking lot was devoid of people. The rush of traffic on Harrison fronting the motel made highly unlikely any driver ID’ing any individual, much less one lurking in the dark shadows behind the Sun Dance.
Fechtmann glanced briefly at his reflection in the rearview mirror. The zinc eyes looking back at him told him it was just another mission, albeit not in the service of the state. After the Wall came down, Fechtmann became an instant capitalist. Have gun. Will travel. For the right price, eliminate an opponent through the services of a tried and true professional. His ear-length blonde strands were becoming increasingly gray. He pushed them back with his fingers. After he had built up a retirement cache that would guarantee him a comfortable life for the next thirty-to-forty years of his life, Fechtmann would quit, perhaps open a cozy restaurant in the Florida
Keys, live the life of the immigrant who’d cashed in on the American Dream. After all, there was no Stasi pension in the offing. No secret police 401(k) to draw from.
He pulled the 7.62mm silent pistol from its shoulder holster inside his black bomber jacket and deftly released the safety catch on its side. The Russian-made weapon was his favorite for such operations. Holding six rounds and weighing a mere 700 grams, the only sound it generated was a pop like that of an air gun, trapping the noise and smoke inside the cartridge case. Yet a round could penetrate a quarter-inch of steel at twenty-five meters. Devilishly lethal, yet quiet. Stille gleicht Tod.
Like a specter riding a graveyard breeze, Fechtmann whisked across the parking lot and reached the bottom of the stairway just as his targets had reached the top. From the squeals of alcohol-induced laughter and foul language, Fechtmann discerned that the foursome lingered before the hotel room doors, the men no doubt fumbling for their keys. The boisterous voices became muffled with the slamming of the doors.
At the academy, new agents had drummed into their heads the so-called Three G’s: Geduld, Geheim, Geschwind. Patience, Secrecy, Swiftness. Fechtmann would lie in wait, like a black puma eyeing its prey, waiting for the right moment to strike with lightning lethality. He slowly ascended the stairs, every sense alert to every sound, every movement, every smell. At the third level, he paused. It was 2:00 am. No guests stirred. The whoosh of vehicles coursing up and down the interstate provided the only sounds. Three doors before reaching rooms 307 and 308, the Brankos’ rooms, he stopped. Carefully, he reached up and loosened the bulb in a broken corridor sconce, safeguarding his presence in the resultant darkness. He stood in the shadows. When the moans and groans had subsided, he would be ready.
An hour later, the first whore exited 307, followed within minutes by the second from 308. Fechtmann receded into the vending machine room. The women beat a hasty path to their car, started the engine, and sped away. He would wait another twenty minutes.
The cheap aluminum doorknobs with their wobbly locks shimmied open easily with basic lock picks. First, room 308. Fechtmann slipped quickly into the room. His eyes already accustomed to the dark, Fechtmann saw Zlatko sprawled out on the sagging bed, lost to the world in a deep slumber, punctuated by loud snoring.
Fechtmann approached slowly. He hovered over Zlatko like a vengeful god. In a deliberate, measured motion, he brought his weapon down, positioned it a hair-breadth from Zlatko’s left temple. In his mind, he repeated, Geduld, Geheim, Geschwind. A countdown to mortality. Just as he finished the final syllable, Stasi major Fechtmann pulled the double action trigger and winced. Pop. The pillow was instantly covered in blood and gray matter. Zlatko’s face remained that of a sleeping man. With his left hand, Fechtmann carefully turned the dead Croatian’s head. Just above the top cervical vertebra, he fired again, tearing apart the cerebellum.
Methodically, with the stealth and swiftness of a leopard, he repeated the procedure in room 307, ending almost peacefully the life of the horrid man who had wreaked so much havoc on his fellow human beings.
Within ninety seconds, the German was back in his automobile and pulled out into the great anonymity of Interstate Route 15.
Stille gleicht Tod.
The call came at 9:00 that same morning. “Mr. Ferret, two Croatian refugees were murdered in Montana several hours ago. I thought the State Department might want to know.” Glassman then hung up abruptly before Ferret could react. Ferret called back immediately and demanded a full read-out. Reluctantly, the old man related the Brankos’ rampage of terror. “These people you are bringing in. Not like us pioneers. We built your space program, gave you priceless intelligence to use against Moscow in the Cold War. We were cultured. Mr. Ferret, I wish to finally retire, spend more time with my grandchildren. Goodbye.”
“Holy Jesus,” Ferret murmured while seated at his desk in the sterile, sunless office. He shut his eyes and massaged his forehead with his fingertips.
Gerrie, the receptionist, poked her head into Ferret’s cubicle. “Ambassador Goldman wants to see you,” she said, smiling.
White light, not from the overhead fluorescent lamps, but from within him, suffused Ferret’s inner core. Unlike his previous episodes of rage, frustration, repulsion with his work, however, this particular sensation did not induce pain as manifested in the skull-crushing headaches he’d been experiencing. This time, he actually felt a sense of peace as his being was bathed in this strange, warm, white light.
He ambled slowly, as if without purpose, to Goldman’s office.
Brenda Hitz was not having a good week. It had suddenly dawned on her that, at 45, she was unlikely ever to find the right man and lowered her unfocused gaze onto a stack of unread cables.
Goldman remained seated at his desk as Ferret entered the large, but spare office. He attempted a fleeting smile and, after a perfunctory greeting, got up and sat opposite Ferret, who hugged one end of the large leather sofa, as if it were a life preserver in a turbulent sea.
“These two Croats,” Goldman began. “Seems they got themselves into some real trouble.”
Ferret looked at him incredulously. “That’s a true understatement if I ever heard one. They went on a rampage across the Midwest that would make Attila the Hun proud. In Minneapolis they robbed, tortured, raped and slayed eight vacationers and the grandparent owners of a B&B. They then burned the place to the ground. After that, they went on a robbing binge, knocking over a bunch of convenience stores in South Dakota and Montana. They stole cars, carried out drive-by shootings and beat elderly strollers senseless just for kicks. ‘Some real trouble’ for the Brankos is like saying Hitler inconvenienced Europe.” His voice was shaky, his eyes bulged. He stood up and pointed a finger accusingly at Goldman.
“You are responsible for bringing them here. You and all those other asses who care only about your own careers. And now it’s too late. It’s only a matter of time before the public gets wind of this dirty little trick that their ingenious leaders have sprung on them.”
Goldman jumped out of his chair like a cat on a hot stove.
“Sit down, mister! Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that?! I said, sit down!”
The barrage knocked the emotional wind out of Ferret. He dropped back onto the sofa.
Goldman stood over Ferret, as if he would pounce on him at the slightest move.
“What do you think of JFK?”
Ferret hesitated, was caught off guard. “I don’t get what you mean—”
“I said, what do you think of John Kennedy?”
“The President with the most brains and style in half a century.”
“Of course, you recall his inaugural address. ‘We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.’”
Ferret nodded.
“Freedom doesn’t come cheap. This country has sacrificed over half a million American lives in all battles since the Revolution. But fighting wars is only part of the cost for safeguarding freedom. Sometimes, we have to short ourselves on our moral commitments in order to ensure that our Pax Americana holds firm, that our national security is not threatened.
“This entails compromises, not only with others, but within our national soul. Our alliance with ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin. The Manhattan Project. The Fabio Program to save Europe from itself. Operation Paperclip. Nixon cozying up to Mao. Propping up Diem and those other colonial squirts in Vietnam. Training death squads in Central America, the Tigers in Haiti. Overthrowing Allende. Covert support to anticommunist political parties from Canberra to Calabria. Using robust measures to get vital information from Islamist terrorists at GTMO.” With each example, Goldman’s voice climbed to a crescendo.
“The Phoenix Program. Iran-Contra—” Ferret interjected.
“Enough!!” Goldman shouted.
The office door swung open. It was Brenda Hitz. Behind her office workers who had heard the shouting appeared
cowed, though alert; disconcerted about the commotion from their boss’s office, yet with their ears pricked up, eager to catch a word here and there.
Seeing that no blood had been spilled, she said sheepishly, “I was wondering if…I mean, if something was the matter…”
Goldman collected himself. He took a deep breath, straightened his tie. He put on a stiff smile.
“Everything’s fine. We’re discussing…Uh. Just having a lively debate.”
Ferret, wearing a dour look, stared unblinkingly into space.
Hitz excused herself and shut the door.
Goldman paced back and forth. “When were you promoted last?” he asked.
“Seven years ago.”
“Hmm. You need a promotion. Otherwise, you’re out the door in a year or two. Am I right?”
Ferret remained silent.
“That’s why you took this job. Nothing like getting two cracks at promotion, eh? They give us that because of the unorthodox nature of this program. Not exactly your standard, Foreign Service write-a-cable, attend-a-meeting, gaze-at-your-navel, go-home-to-the-wife-and-kids type of assignment, is it?”
Maintaining a stoic composure, Ferret looked away.
“You need the career. You need the promotion. Because, otherwise, you’re out in the street with a mortgage, two car payments, a wife, a mother, and three kids who one day will want to follow in their daddy’s footsteps to Yale. And your puny little government pension.”
“It’s not just that—”
“Of course, it’s not just that! You’re where the action is! At the vortex of history! Chance to have an impact, be noticed! That’s what every one of us has strived for since we took the oath as junior officers. Why be selling widgets when you can be remaking the map of Europe?”