by Chris Allen
"Roger, this is Five. Sitting across the grounds to the north. I have a clear view of them both."
"Acknowledged," Braunschweiger replied. He remotely manipulated a CCTV camera on the other side of the city, which had been covertly installed under the eaves of an apartment building just 50 yards away from the second location. He brought the lens around to target the two men: Lazarevic, and the man they referred to simply as his new friend. Herman Braunschweiger's dark eyes darted between the live footage from the CCTV camera, the stored visuals that had been captured over the past few days, and the images Dave Sutherland had just sent through from Bordeaux. But this was now moot. He knew in his gut it was the same man.
"Dave, are you still there?"
"Go ahead," replied Sutherland.
"This is definitely Lazarevic's friend. It has to be," Braunschweiger replied, the words underwritten with the conviction of experience. "His height, clothes, the attempt to obscure his features; they're all consistent with what we've captured here in Tirana during his meetings with Lazarevic. But it's the body language, the movements and gestures, his manner of walking. Those are the things that are confirming it for me."
"Great, man," said Sutherland. "I'll keep at it for a while and see what else I can come up with. Let me know if you need a spare pair of hands down there. Speaking of which, have you heard anything from Alex?"
"No, nothing."
"No problem. If I know Morgan, he'll have everything under control ... eventually."
Chapter 27
MALTA
With a single, long and agonizing attempt for air, Alex Morgan snapped back to consciousness. The taste of blood and bile stung at the back of his parched throat. A matted fringe of dark brown hair clung to his bloodied brow, his face hurt like hell and was caked in sweat and blood. One eye was closing over. Falling in and out of consciousness, shallow breathing barely sustaining him, Morgan couldn't see or move. Everything was black as pitch and he was overwhelmed by the stink of petrol and exhaust fumes.
He was bound, gagged and folded into the trunk of a car.
The rag that was jammed into his mouth was feral beyond words. It tasted of oil and muck and was causing him to choke and retch relentlessly while he struggled for oxygen. Instinctively recalling his resistance-to-interrogation training, Morgan focused on control: breathing through his nose, moderating his heart rate and suppressing the reflex to choke. Slowly but surely he regained composure, reminding his body that he was back in charge. With his breathing regulated, albeit under pressure, he turned his attention to the source of the problem. The gag had been poorly applied and was loose; a godsend. Whoever had done it was inexperienced, using only a single piece of material. They'd hurriedly pushed a large wad of it deep into his mouth and then tied the ends off behind the back of his neck. Slowly, patiently, still breathing only through his nose, Morgan began an awkward chewing motion, pushing the fabric forward with his tongue. Fighting the impulse to throw up with each attempt, he worked hard to dislodge the blood-sodden strip of material from his mouth. After five excruciating minutes, he spat the last edges of the filthy rag free and sucked in a huge lungful of hot, polluted air.
Clear of the gag, Morgan began an inventory of his body; specifically, what was working and what wasn't. He was lying on his right side, facing the rear of the car. His head felt like it had split open. A serious headache pounded away and he felt like he might have a couple of damaged ribs. The pain he was experiencing just trying to breathe was a sure sign of that. Jesus! They'd only just come good after his last assignment in Malfajiri.
His internal assessment turned to the extremities. Morgan's wrists were strapped tightly behind him with duct tape and his ankles were in the same state. The trunk was so confining that his knees were bent up to his chest, making it impossible for him to stretch out or get any leverage or even respite from the claustrophobic effect of the space. He returned to his regimen: control the breathing, control the breathing.
Judging by the erratic sway, the vehicle had been floating when it stopped abruptly with a huge clamor of metal upon metal, followed by a grinding, hydraulic sound. Morgan was thrown backward. His head hit hard. He fought the temptation to curse. The swaying continued for a few more moments and then all but stopped. Christ! Think, damn it. Where the fuck am I?
Morgan set to extracting himself from the bindings. No matter what was planned for him, he had to have his hands and feet free the moment the vehicle stopped and the trunk opened. Whatever happened after that was up to him.
The vehicle started moving again, slowly at first. Other engines nearby began to rev and horns were resounding through a closed-in area. The vehicle he was in gathered speed and bounced over a ramp. The swaying sensation was gone now and the vehicle was back on a steady surface. Had he just left a ferry?
With painstakingly deliberate movements, so as not to draw the attention of the driver, Morgan quietly contorted his body to bring his arms around from the back to the front. Within the trunk it was almost impossible but he had to make it happen. There was no other option.
Reaching down as far as he could, dangerously running the risk of dislocating both shoulders, he pulled his wrists painfully around his buttocks and the edges of his boots until they were in front of his body once again. Then he felt for the tactical folding knife he kept concealed inside his left boot. It was an M16-14ZSF tactical knife with a folding Tanto blade. Mike Fredericks had given it to him while he was recovering onboard the USS Kearsarge and it was a memento of their experiences in the Malfajiri evacuation. Rummaging blindly, he found it. There! It had been missed by his captors. They'd been so busy trying to bundle him into the car without anyone hearing or seeing them that they'd botched the search. Fumbling in the dark, Morgan pulled the knife from the boot and opened the blade. Spinning it back around in his hands with the tip facing upward and the razor-sharp cutting edge facing out, Morgan began the steady process of slashing through the thick, taped bindings on his wrists.
It was slow and hard going and with every stop, bump and turn in the road, the tip of the blade stabbed into the flesh of his wrists or the cutting edge slashed at his fingertips. More than once he dropped it and lost precious time in retrieving and repositioning it. Eventually, Morgan had cut through enough to pull his wrists clear. He drew in a long, much-needed breath and stretched his arms out as much as he could, flexing his fingers and bending his elbows, feeling the blood flowing again.
He brought his left hand up close to his eyes and read the time from the luminous hands of the Tag Heuer: 3pm.
His mind raced through options for where he was being taken. He considered the time that had elapsed since he'd entered the house in Lija and the fact that he'd traveled over water and was now back on land. The image of a map of Malta formed in his mind's eye and Morgan studied it intently. Then it came to him. The ferry had to be the Gozo Channel ferry, connecting the main island of Malta to the northern island of Gozo. From memory, the trip across the channel took about half an hour. So, they'd left Malta via the Cirkewwa Ferry Terminal and were now on Gozo. What the hell were they doing on Gozo?
One thing was certain, the island wasn't that big. So, whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen soon.
Morgan bent his aching body again and with the knife firmly in his hand he began slashing at the duct tape binding his ankles.
Chapter 28
INTREPID HQ, BROADWAY, LONDON
"What do you have for me, Ms Haddad? Good news, I hope?"
"Well, it's certainly not bad news, not yet, at any rate," Ms Haddad began, pushing a thick curl of long raven hair behind her ear. She fixed big brown eyes upon the general. "We've been able to gather the financials and some background on Mr Raoul Demaci. He's Montenegrin, has a personal fortune estimated at six million euros and if liquidated, with other shared interests - mostly real estate - his personal fortune could rise in excess of fifteen million euros."
"Go on," said Davenport.
"Wel
l, there isn't a great deal more. Yes, I've trawled the Interpol and Europol databases, as well as the relevant security services, and have managed to find corroborating evidence of his financials and his businesses - he's made his money through long-haul transportation, trucks and shipping and so on, across Europe mainly - but there isn't much available on him personally."
"How so?"
Jamila Haddad, Mila to her friends, was executive officer, or XO, to the director general of Intrepid. She was Davenport's go-to person for anything and everything intelligence, criminal profiling or research related. A Lebanese Muslim, Mila had earned a Bachelor of Arts in Arabic Language and Literature at the American University of Beirut and a Masters in Criminology from the University of Toronto. When Davenport had recruited her on the recommendation of a colleague in The Hague, she'd been a research assistant to a judge of the International Criminal Court. Still only in her late twenties, Mila possessed a highly disciplined, analytical mind complemented by an innate ability to think boldly outside the square. She had worked for the general for just a year, but already Davenport considered her indispensable.
"It's unusual for a person to have made that much money and not have any visibility,' she replied. "I mean, he has a small presence online but not much."
"I would have thought that normal, particularly in that part of the world. Not every culture is as obsessed as ours with maintaining a public profile on the bloody internet."
"I agree with that, sir. But I'd still expect to find more. Investments, business associations, trading history, government listings; there's usually something to dig into when getting a background together. There's not even a photo of him anywhere online and his passport mug shot tells us nothing; the way it's been taken, well, it could just about be anybody. Whatever the story, he's too elusive for my liking."
"Very well, keep digging. If Mr Demaci has anything to hide, I'm sure you'll find it. Now, any more on this Lazarevic creature?"
"That line of enquiry has become significantly more enticing." A wide smile of genuine pleasure illuminated her fine features. "I was searching through your old files from Bosnia for whatever I could find on Corporal Dobrashin Petrovic - aka the informant, Durad Lazarevic - and I came across some handwritten notes you'd made on a case file back in 1994." Mila moved forward to the edge of Davenport's desk and laid open a tattered military folder, heavy with pages and the smell of old paper left in storage for too many years. With long, slender fingers, she traced her way to a place on a page and turned the file around for the general to see. "You've made these notes throughout this section, almost as an aside, mostly just question marks or `who?' and so on." She continued to run through the pages, pointing out the general's red scrawl. "But then there's this word Vuk' . Which, I took to be Serbian and discovered that it means—"
"Wolf," Davenport said.
"Exactly," she replied eagerly. "It appears throughout the next thirty pages, whenever there's a reference to the unexplained deaths you were investigating. Not the mass murders. Your red scratchings were only made in relation to single unexplained murders: civilians mostly, but there were also some members of the Bosnian Serb Army, which is interesting. It seems you extracted this wolf reference as the common denominator through a number of witness statements you'd taken. But, as far as your notes are concerned, there was nothing to corroborate a connection or any sort of lead."
"My God," Davenport said, almost to himself. He was squinting through his glasses at the red-inked scribbles he'd left upon the pages sixteen years before. "How on earth did you find all this?"
"Because you asked me to," she replied matter-of-factly. "But this is where it gets interesting. Here's where you were onto something." She leant down closer to the pages and flipped through a couple until she found what she was after. "Look at that."
In his own handwriting, in aged red ink, staring back at him beneath a perfectly manicured fingernail, he read: Vuk: Serb enforcer?
"It's coming back to me now," he said softly, easing the file closer and pulling his glasses down to the end of his nose. "We believed there was an enforcer at work, killing people, particularly Bosniaks suspected of collaborating with the Serbs who, for whatever reason, had outlived their usefulness. About the same time, we discovered that a number of officers of the Bosnian Serb Army were also being killed, mostly captains and majors, the odd colonel or two. In those cases we suspected that the murdered men had not been cooperating with the senior leadership. Not toeing the party line, as it were. Hence, my suspicion that an unidentified enforcer was at work."
In that moment, Davenport was transported back all those years. He'd recently been allotted to the Army Legal Services Branch of the Adjutant-General's Corps, fresh from his medical retirement from the Special Air Service, after a long process of rehabilitation resulting from a bomb blast injury during the first Gulf War. While he'd completed his law degree many years earlier, his unprecedented success in Army Legal was as much a consequence of his gut instinct - borne of a soldier's experience - as his formal education. It was a combination that saw him rocket to the top of the corps, retiring as director general of Army Legal Services before he was headhunted to raise and lead Intrepid.
Returning to the file, he scoured the pages, flicking through them impatiently. The familiarity of his own words and deductions came flooding back.
"I never did get the opportunity to get to the bottom of this. Back then, hunting the bigger fish became the priority of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Rightly so, of course. Still, it meant that distractions such as my speculation over a rogue killer engaged by the Serb generals to do their dirty work fell to the bottom of the pile."
"Well, I think you were onto something then that may be even more important to us today." Mila reached forward and, turning the pages, pointed to a name Davenport had underlined with a question mark above it. "One of the names you suspected of being the enforcer was Corporal Dobrashin Petrovic."
"And now," Davenport hissed, "he's Interpol's star bloody informant."
Chapter 29
GOZO, MALTA
"There, bitch, take it and wash yourself."
The boss stood over her as one of his lackeys placed a large pail of seawater on the ground. A second dropped soap and a towel. Charly looked up at them, her piercing blue eyes defiant. Despite the exhaustion, exposure to the elements, the fear and abuse, Charlotte-Rose had regained her composure and sense of self. She was not going to spend her last days or moments as a victim. She was stronger than that; much stronger. Her fire had returned. Her parents hadn't brought her up to give in, no matter how dire the circumstances. Lying there, as she had been before they'd roused her, Charly had resolved to stand her ground. It was the only way.
"Hand me that soap and towel and get out," she said as she stood. Her eyes drew level with the boss. "And get me some proper clothes. You mentioned a deal. That means you're just the babysitter. So, whatever's going on, you better start taking care of me!"
The boss leapt forward, frothing with anger. His arm was raised, his hand clenched into a tight fist. Charly didn't budge. Her rebelliousness checked his momentum.
Their eyes locked in seething conflict. One army pitted against another. But this time, the fortunes of the underdog, out-gunned, out-maneuvered and on the verge of defeat, had turned. Tenacity had taken on brutality and was holding ground.
"Get - me - some - fucking - clothes!" Charly demanded.
The boss, hysterical with anger, pushed his face so close to hers that his rancid breath assailed her. Spit sprayed across her fair cheeks as his breathing raged through jagged rows of clenched yellow teeth. The knuckles of his fist, still high above, showed white through the flesh of his shaking brown hand.
"Boss, no!" cried one of the lackeys, worried. "They'll be here soon."
Their eyes remained locked, neither willing to withdraw back to neutral territory.
Finally, the fist relaxed and slowly dropped to his side. A thi
n attempt at a smile split his pitted face and he sneered and then laughed. The lackeys joined in. Charly remained unmoved.
"Bitch, your little journey is just getting started," he said knowingly. "Be ready to move in half an hour. We will come for you." Then, without taking his eyes from her, he added, "Friggieri, give her the clothes."
The same man who had brought in the soap and towel disappeared outside and returned with clean clothes for Charly: an oversized pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, sweater and pair of loafers. Much better than what they'd kept her in over the past days. He dropped them near her and grabbed the boss by the arm to lead him away. At first the boss balked at the attempt to move him but then, thinking better of it, spat on the ground at her feet and stormed out of the cave.
When they had finally left her alone, Charly's knees buckled and she fell to the ground, shaking. The adrenalin overload finally got the better of her.
In the distance she could hear an aircraft engine.
It was getting closer.
Chapter 30
Morgan felt every bump, pothole and divot in the road. Despite having barely enough room in the trunk of the car for his rib cage to expand and contract, he had spent the best part of the last half an hour feeling as though he was stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine.
He was still monitoring the vehicle's movement and judging by the number of times they'd had to slow down for turns and to pull over so larger vehicles could get past and the fact that there'd been many more left turns than right, he surmised that they'd traveled mostly narrow sealed roads, heading west. The last ten minutes had been over rough, unsealed roads, hence the spin cycle. Given that they were on Malta's northernmost island, Gozo, the route suggested that they'd avoided Gozo's major population center, Victoria, and were out near the coast somewhere.