Hunter

by Chris Allen

  Although they'd left Charly alone most of the day, she had a distinct impression of hurried activity going on outside the entrance to the cave. There was talking and yelling among the guards and plenty of engine noises - comings and goings. It all sounded like preparation, but preparation for what? Something was going on out there. Charly felt drained and could feel herself slowly losing the drive to go on, but she couldn't let that happen.

  Beyond the cave she could see the beautiful azure ocean and as she gazed longingly toward freedom, she felt a calm come upon her. She was suddenly returned to Sunset Hill and the view across Puget Sound to the distant Olympic Mountains. But only for a moment.

  As she fell once again into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing, Charly knew she could not take another day of uncertainty. She could almost hear her father's voice telling her to get back in control.

  If she was to have any chance of survival, she knew she had to be strong.

  Chapter 23

  MALTA

  Morgan edged his way closer to the three men in the midst of their altercation. His Maltese was sketchy at best but there were just enough similarities with English to get him over the line. The argument was over the issue of his, Morgan's, appearance on the boat. The captain and the policeman had been assured that the kidnapping was to be a simple issue: the daughter of a wealthy American businessman was holidaying in the Mediterranean and her abduction would fetch a sizeable ransom. The money would be paid and she would be released unharmed. For their part in it, they would receive a healthy cut. The revelation that she was famous, coupled with the death of at least one of the onboard security men, had changed everything. Now, both the captain and the policeman were agitating for more money. There was no question in their minds that the risks were greater than they had been told. The third man, clearly the point man for the operation, was not happy.

  Morgan could hear plenty of tough talk, but no action. He couldn't afford to waste more time by letting them carry on indefinitely. He needed to find Charlotte-Rose and to do that he needed some answers.

  Morgan stepped from the kitchen into the dark hallway. It was long and narrow, with tiles on the floor, a high ceiling and open arches leading to other rooms. He inched forward with his back against the wall. From directly behind, a door creaked open and a man emerged from a bathroom, lazily tucking his shirt back into his trousers. The two locked eyes.

  Great, thought Morgan, I bet the bastard hasn't even washed his hands.

  Morgan was catapulted into a frenzy of violence.

  Chapter 24

  INTERPOL HEADQUARTERS, LYON, FRANCE

  Deep inside Interpol Headquarters in Lyon, Hermann Braunschweiger was settled securely in Intrepid's Intelligence, Investigations and Communications Section. He had established his own field office within the suite of offices reserved exclusively for the use of field agents when in Lyon. He sat on the edge of a desk and was waiting on the secure line for his call to be directed to his chief, General Davenport, in London.

  "Hermann, good evening."

  "Guten abend, sir," Braunschweiger began, formally. "We've had some interesting developments today." "Let's have it then," Davenport replied.

  "Firstly, when I showed Serifovic the photographs, he referred to the informant, Lazarevic, as Petrovic."

  "Petrovic?" Davenport repeated. "Very interesting."

  "Yes, sir. There was no hesitation, the name just rolled off naturally. As far as the prisoner is concerned, the informant we know as Lazarevic is actually known as Petrovic. It seems your instinct was correct. I've had the intelligence team here working through the files you had forwarded to us, cross-referencing with the Interpol and ICTY databases and they identified," he read from notes, "one Dobrashin Petrovic, a former corporal in the Bosnian Serb Army. Lazarevic is an assumed name, which he must have adopted when he relocated to Albania after the war."

  "So, after all these years, he's been just another one of the dozens of nameless foot soldiers in the file photographs alongside the big fish, like Obrenovic, Serifovic and company," Davenport observed. "But why, if he is so eager to cooperate, has he not disclosed to Interpol the reasons for this adopted pseudonym? What more do you have for me?"

  "Well, I've been running a surveillance team in Albania to monitor the informant, formerly known as Lazarevic. And when you arranged to have him flown to New York, we established a surveillance footprint within his apartment - both vision and sound - during his absence."

  "Excellent. Anything yet?"

  "No, nothing yet, and he is definitely covering his tracks. He doesn't make any calls from the house or meet anybody there, or even send emails from his PC. But he has been seen traveling by bus to one of the old suburbs developed by the Communists back in the fifties. It's an area similar to where he is living now, lower socio-economic, but it is on the other side of Tirana. Lots of concrete, lots of crime, not so many trees.

  "We don't have a confirmed apartment number yet - it's only a matter of time before we do - but we do know the building. Most importantly, since returning from New York, he has met with a man in the grounds of the building. They've met three times so far. Their conversations are conducted innocently enough, walking around the buildings in a close huddle. We've yet to confirm the identity of the other man, as he's been dressed in dark clothing designed to obscure his features — a heavy coat, woolen hat pulled down around his ears and dark glasses. But we do know that he is tall, taller than Lazarevic, and appears to be of medium build."

  "And contact with this man has occurred only since his return from New York?"

  "Yes, sir." Braunschweiger fell silent, allowing Davenport to consider the information.

  "Very well," Davenport replied after a moment. "I've asked Commander Sutherland to follow up on the Bordeaux end of this business and, as you know, Major Morgan is currently in Malta. I have a sense that your respective paths will cross eventually. So, keep at it. Get back to Albania and get as much together as you can on this development with Lazarevic and his new friend."

  Chapter 25

  MALTA

  The man came at Morgan in two paces.

  Morgan spun around and went in low, getting a bead on his assailant as he turned. He was about Morgan's size, a bit younger, with the dark, deep-set eyes and prominent cheekbones of Central Europe. Serbian, Morgan guessed.

  "Don't you guys flush?" Morgan quipped as the first blows fell. There was no reply. The hallway was just 3 feet wide and the confined, unlit space reduced the contest to a bar brawl. Both men hammered in hard and fast, punches and blocks in a constant stream. The young Serb swung at Morgan with a wild haymaker but missed, momentum carrying his body through the movement, exposing his entire right flank. Morgan responded with a driving left-handed blow to the jaw followed by a right-handed uppercut to the face. There was an eruption of blood from the smashed mouth and nose. The Serb slumped to the floor.

  "What the fuck?" A clamor of voices exploded from the room ahead. All three leapt to their feet and piled haphazardly into the hallway, only to find Morgan coming at them. Morgan knew his best chance was to maximize the advantage of the narrow space and take them one on one.

  The first man in, the captain of the Florence, struck out clumsily. A glancing blow slid across the corner of Morgan's jaw, barely making contact. Morgan hit back hard, deflecting the captain with both hands, flat-palmed, slamming him against the wall, following with a downward kick to the side of his leg. The knee crumpled under the impact and the captain screamed in tortured agony. Morgan hammered the advantage with a short, sharp punch to the side of the neck. The captain fell to the floor.

  Almost simultaneously, the second man, the one the other two had come to see, attacked. He was big and heavy with thick, greasy, black hair and a thick goatee. Stumbling over the slumped, semi-conscious bodies of the captain and the young Serb, he set upon Morgan with a tall wooden stool. After taking down the captain, Morgan was still recovering his stance and couldn't block the attack in time. He
took the full force of the heavy wooden legs across his right shoulder and back. The impact threw him forward against the wall. He tripped and hit the hard hallway tiles face first. Bigger than Morgan, but overweight rather than muscled, the man maintained the attack. From the floor in the midst of the affray, Morgan noted a tattoo just visible beneath the sweat-soaked armhole of the man's filthy singlet.

  "Spijun!" the man accused — spy. Another Serb, Morgan noted. The big Serbian, now holding the stool by the legs, swung the rounded seat high above his head, and brought it crashing down, straight for Morgan. Morgan's hands fired upward and caught the stool just above his head. Gripping the stool with both hands, Morgan lifted his knees back and drove his feet forward with all his strength. His heels impacted with the shins of the big Serb, already off-balance, just below the knees. The man let out a cry of pain that reverberated through the terrace, but his knees did not buckle. Instead, pain contorting his face, he teetered like a column about to topple. Morgan pulled suddenly against the stool and the movement brought the big Serb crashing to the floor. Morgan launched from the ground just in time to avoid the fall and crab-walked his hands up the wall until he was back on his feet.

  No sooner was he back up than a heavy punch, a king hit, caught him across the back of the head. It sent him careening headfirst into the opposite wall. He fought against the onset of unconsciousness and pushed himself back, bleary eyed, turning to address the attack of the final man, the policeman, who had somehow managed to outflank Morgan. In fact, while Morgan had fought the others, the policeman had left the terrace and come back in via the same window Morgan had climbed through.

  As Morgan was turning to take on the policeman, the two Serbs recovered and set upon him again, pinning both arms behind him. The policeman seized the initiative and laid into Morgan's torso, blow after blow. But Morgan was unrelenting. Using the Serbs for ballast, he lifted his feet from the ground and kicked with everything he had straight at the policeman's chest. The impact was shattering; the heart bore the brunt of it. Gasping for breath, the policeman was thrown awkwardly backward. Sliding down the wall, his head hit the tiles with a crack.

  Morgan used the momentum of the attack in his favor. He lifted his feet again, allowing his full 200 pounds to become a deadweight, dropping to the floor. Stunned, the Serbs looked at each other, puzzled. Morgan, both hands on the tiles, spun his legs in a fast 180-degree arc, scooping the legs from under the young Serb, bringing him once again to the ground. As the man fell, Morgan drove an elbow straight into his face. He hit the wall with a dull thud.

  Morgan's attention turned to the big Serb, but a pulverizing blow from a cosh struck him just behind the ear. Darkness drifted over him. The big Serb followed through by kicking and stomping on Morgan repeatedly. In no time the Intrepid agent was unconscious.

  *

  "Quickly, you useless fuck, find his gun and strap him," barked the big Serb at the younger man, still recovering. "We'll take him with us."

  The big Serb walked back into the room where he had been arguing with the cop and the captain of the Florence. He went to a drawer and removed a 9mm automatic. Rummaging deeper into the back of the drawer he found a silencer and returned to the hall. He watched impatiently as the young Serb took Morgan's gun, the SIG Sauer P226, and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans.

  "Drag him in there and strap him, then bring the car around the back. And hurry, we don't have much fucking time?"

  Without a word, the younger man obeyed.

  In the hallway, the cop was out cold and the captain was moaning in agony, his knee shattered by Morgan's assault. Standing over them dispassionately, the big Serb slowly, deliberately, screwed the silencer firmly into place.

  "You two pieces of shit should have taken your money," he sneered at the captain.

  "But, we—" the captain began.

  "And kept your mouths fucking shut. Instead you bring trouble to me. This guy—" his black eyes flicked toward Morgan, "—is probably fucking Interpol."

  The captain was whimpering now, imploring the man for mercy. The big Serb dragged a tired hand across his face and hair, let out a thoroughly disinterested sigh and shot the captain and the policeman dead. As the blood from their fatal head wounds began to drain across the tiles, he returned to the sitting room, grabbed Morgan's limp body by the collar of his jacket and dragged him into the rat-infested alleyway through a side door.

  Chapter 26

  TIRANA, ALBANIA

  Hermann Braunschweiger sat uncomfortably in the back of a nondescript van parked on the outskirts of the city of Tirana, Albania's capital. Stuffed inside the vehicle, he barely had room to move. His knees sat high above a benchtop where computer keyboards, telephones, radios and joysticks for the surveillance cameras were arranged. If he extended to his full seated height, the top of his head nudged the van's high ceiling. Normally the back of the van would comfortably accommodate three people. With Hermann in the back, that number reduced to two.

  "I'm with our man now," came a whispered voice over the radio. "We're on the bus, approaching the second location."

  "Thank you, Four," replied Braunschweiger. "Let me know when I can switch to a visual covering that second location."

  Braunschweiger's size made him less than suitable when it came to routine surveillance tasks. He avoided these types of operations, dating right back to when he was in the GSG 9. In fact, he remembered, as if it was only yesterday, one of his instructors observing during surveillance training: "Braunschweiger, no matter where in the world we may put you, you will always look like an enormous iridescent elephant sitting in the corner of a children's playground." He smiled at the memory. On this occasion, however, it was imperative that he was readily available to his team. So, he'd relegated himself to the van while his team, operatives of the Intrepid surveillance unit, conducted the field work across Tirana. Every member of the surveillance team had been deliberately selected on the basis of their physical characteristics and certain personality and behavioral traits that enabled them to blend in, unseen, within any environment. They were what used to be called gray-men and women, because of their ability to operate in the background, unnoticed.

  To Braunschweiger they were his eyes and ears and he knew he'd chosen well.

  Based on Intrepid intelligence on the demographics specific to this area, his team of eight - five men and three women - had faultlessly transfused into the local area. In the past two weeks they had pieced together sufficient information on the informant, Lazarevic, to warrant continued covert coverage of him. Importantly, Milivoj Serifovic's unintentional identification had enabled Intrepid to confirm the informant's true identity as former Bosnian soldier Dobrashin Petrovic. As Petrovic, photographic evidence categorically linked him to Interpol's most wanted, including Serifovic and Intrepid's ultimate prize, Dragoslav "Drago" Obrenovic. Drago was the only long-term fugitive of the ICTY who remained at large.

  While General Davenport had dispatched Alex Morgan to Malta to focus on the kidnapping of Charlotte-Rose, Braunschweiger had been given every available resource to work from the opposite direction, establishing the connection between Lazarevic and Drago. Braunschweiger was absolutely clear on Davenport's position: the kidnapping of Charlotte-Rose Fleming, daughter of ICTY President Madeline Clancy, at the very time when ICTY judges were being targeted - and, so far, one assassinated - was not coincidental. Her safe recovery was fundamental to thwarting a direct and potentially irrevocable attack upon the foundations of international justice.

  His sat phone buzzed in his coat pocket.

  "Braunschweiger," he answered.

  "Hermann, it's Dave Sutherland. You still freezing your ass off in that van?"

  "Yes," he replied stiffly, still not quite used to the lightheartedness of his new colleagues.

  "I still can't believe they've made a van big enough to fit you, man," Sutherland quipped. "Anyway, I've got something here that I'll send through to you. I thought you could cross-check it agains
t your vision of this second guy that's turned up. Stand by."

  Intrepid agent Lieutenant Commander Dave Sutherland, a former US Navy Seal, had been dispatched by General Davenport to work with the French authorities investigating the assassination of Judge Guillaume Rene de Villepin of the ICTY. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the brazen assassin had long since fled France, but following any possible threads that could lead Intrepid to Drago Obrenovic had to be followed.

  Braunschweiger waited in silence until a ping from his secure sat phone told him that the image files from Sutherland had been received. Opening them, he recognized the figure on the screen immediately. He brought the images up on a larger screen within a bank of other screens running live feeds from inside the Lazarevic apartment and outside the building across the city, the second location, where his mysterious contact was accommodated.

  "When and where were these taken?" Braunschweiger said into the phone, his eyes glued to the screen. He urgently tapped commands into the keyboard. A number of almost identical surveillance images taken recently in Tirana flashed onto the other screens.

  "In Bordeaux, during the week before and on the night of Judge de Villepin's murder,' Sutherland answered. "They were taken from CCTV feeds around de Villepin's home. I can't spot anything unusual from the footage I have of the judge eating and going for coffee in town; I'll keep looking. But is this your guy?"

  "Almost certainly," Braunschweiger replied. His radio came back to life.

  "We're off the bus and the friend is waiting near the apartment block now. I'm dropping off here, handing over to Five. You should have visual via CCTV now."

  Into the sat phone Braunschweiger said: "Dave, wait out." Into the radio he said: "Acknowledged, Four. Good work. Make your way back here. Five, are you up?"