by Gregg Loomis
In front and to his right, Semitz’s right hand held the pistol grip of a readily recognizable Benelli M1014 short barreled shotgun from which a trail of acrid-smelling smoke wafted. With his left, he was reaching into the driver’s seat. The seat back prevented Lang from seeing what he was reaching for.
“A shotgun?” Lang asked quizzically. “How the hell did you . . .?”
Semitz gave him a brief glance. “Get it into the country? The diplomatic pouch is a wonderful thing. But that’s not our problem.”
Using the seat back to leverage himself up, Lang peered over it. Rogers was curled into the fetal position in a rapidly spreading pool of crimson.
“Is he . . .?” Lang asked.
“He’s alive but he won’t be for long if we don’t get him to a hospital.”
“Easier said than done. There’s the matter of a government customs official’s brains all over his duty station, not to mention possession of a weapon and a few other charges the Bosnians might come up with.”
Semitz was trying to stuff something, perhaps his ripped-off shirt tail into a wound Lang could not see from his angle. “Fuck ‘em! That guy in the booth was no more Bosnian than I am. He’s Asian, probably North Korean. The real customs guy is off somewhere, counting what he got paid to take a walk.”
“And the other one, the guy in the booth across the road?”
“Didn’t get a good look at him. He took off running just when the shooting started.”
Lang got out of the car and opened the hatch-like rear door. “We’ll take the problems as they come. Help me move him into the back, try and stop the bleeding while I drive.”
Semitz and Lang somehow wrestled a moaning Rogers into the compartment behind the Audi’s rear seats. Lang heard the sucking, wheezing sound of a man with a chest wound. Without medical attention, it was a tossup whether Rogers would bleed out or drown in his own blood.
Lang put the car in gear and drove off.
Semitz had been thinking. “You know there’s another set of customs just down the road.”
A sentence, not a question.
“Any chance the US Navy can come to the rescue, send a chopper to get us out of this mess, not to mention saving Rogers’ life?” Lang was hoping more than asking.
Semitz shook his head. “ ’Fraid not. Nearest friendly military of any kind is Caserma Del Din, Italy. In the Veneto, 173rd Airborne. Take a chopper over two hours to get here, never mind invading a sovereign country’s air space. We’re pretty much on our own.”
Lang had anticipated the unlikelihood of an extraction. He said nothing.
By now, the Audi’s rear compartment looked as though it had been used to butcher cattle or pigs, something that hardly would go unnoticed by the customs officials at the far side of the ‘neck,’ not to mention a badly-wounded man, obviously shot, and the remnants of the Audi’s shattered driver’s window. Lang hadn’t checked for bullet holes in the coachwork.
Anyway he sliced it, he was less than optimistic about the next stop. They were on their own, alright.
33.
Directorate X
Sluznha Uneshny Razvedki (SUV)
Yasenervo 11 Kolpachny
Moscow
Minutes Later
The SVR RF, Russia’s espionage agency, is located in a campus not unlike the United States’ CIA. Also similar, it is in a wooded area, the Yasenevo District of Moscow that could be compared to the Langley suburb of McLean, Virginia. The agency itself is composed of a number of directorates, each with its own specialty. Directorate X’s is scientific and technical spying.
Deputy Director Eduard Avalov was studying the dispatch fresh from communications. A native Georgian, he had departed South Ossetia with his brothers and sisters during the separatist fighting of 1993. His abilities in scientific matters at Moscow State University had not gone unnoticed by the apparatchiks of the Ministry of Education.
In a country where over half the population spends at least some time at the tertiary education level, academic achievement, particularly in those sciences with potential military application, is frequently rewarded with government employment. So it had been with Avalov. He had shortened his name from the less-pronounceable and very Georgian Avalishvili, become a vocal supporter of Yeltsin during the constitutional crisis and then of Putin when he replaced Yeltsin.
In short, he knew which side of the political bread had the butter on it, a prerequisite to rising in the bureaucracy of the Russian government.
At the moment that political sense was in a quandary. According to the dispatch, some weeks ago some as yet unknown arm of the government had sent a pair of former Spetsnaz buli to London to obtain a certain object sold at auction to an American named Lang Reilly. They had made such a botch of it that only the Russian Army’s renown lack of subtlety could have been responsible for sending two special forces types to do a diplomat’s job. Either that or someone in the Kremlin had seriously underestimated the American, Reilly, and his wife. Even in the self-serving, stilted language of someone trying to excuse a complete failure, it was obvious this had been what the British would describe as a total balls up.
And balls ups were a certain path to the political Gulags, manning small, inconsequential posts somewhere east of the Urals where the winter temperature made Moscow’s seem temperate by comparison. Deputy assistant minister of turnip and potato production in a small Siberian village’s Office of the Ministry of Agriculture came to mind.
Now the Director himself was informing Avalov of an intercepted communication from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Rome embassy, one the few in or close to the Balkans. Until relatively recently, the North Koreans’ national paranoia had prevented any European diplomatic mission other than in the ever-neutral Sweden. Even so, most of the ones now dealt more with administration of aid programs than diplomatic measures.
Avalov, like most Russians, including the government, believed the North Koreans were both real and potential trouble makers in northern Asia. In 2007, Russia joined the UN Resolution condemning the North Korean’s continuing of nuclear testing, an act the Democratic Peoples Republic--or at least its leader--viewed as perfidious at best and downright hostile at worst. The relationship was still strained.
Russia regarded the people of the northern half of the peninsular--or at least their one-man leadership--as border-line insane, someone who might well precipitate a nuclear war over some perceived insult. Also, the country’s only real ally was another Peoples Republic, this one China.
The Sino-Russian relationship had improved greatly after the fall of the Soviet Union. They had initiated a number of mutual projects and were even accepting each other’s currency for the other’s merchandise. One, and perhaps the largest area of mistrust, was China’s failure to keep a firm hand on its client state, North Korea. Russia suspected China tolerated if not encouraged the possibly deadly lunatic antics of its smaller neighbor to enhance its own stature when it could occasionally restore a semblance of rationality to the chubby little nerd who appeared to use a soup bowl to measure the trim of his hair. True or not, Russia did not feel it could rely on China’s good graces to get the Koreans to share whatever they learned nor to refrain from using that knowledge to precipitate one more crisis.
In short, if the Democratic Peoples’ Republic was going to be prevented from putting newly discovered scientific data to ill use, Russia was going it alone.
Politics, though, was not the subject of the hijacked message. An unspecified number of men from The Peoples’ Democratic Republic’s Reconnaissance General Bureau had tracked down one Langford Reilly, presumably the same Langford Reilly who had bested the Russians sent to London.
The intelligence directorate specialist behind the message Avalov held speculated that whatever the North Koreans wanted with Reilly was pretty much what the Russians wanted. There was one disturbing detail that made no sense: The Koreans’ mission was to find out exactly what object Reilly had purchased and wha
t function it had served. For a nation whose foreign policy defined isolation if not xenophobia, why did they care? Other than less-than-subtle efforts to reunite the peninsula by force or otherwise, this was the first instance of which Avalov was aware in which North Korea showed interest in the affairs of other countries.
No sense at all. Unless the Koreans had somehow gotten their hands on it.
And if that were the case, Russia needed to forget the item itself and concentrate on Reilly. Or rather on making sure he didn’t enlighten the Koreans.
There was only one way to guarantee his silence.
But first, watch closely, see what the North Koreans might do
Avalov sat down in front of the monitor of his Elektronika BK and input Croatia.
Exactly where might Mr. Reilly be?
There were any number of ways to find out.
34.
Highway A 1
Bosnia-Herzegovina
“You have an iPad?” Lang asked over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the snake-like road.
Semitz was in the Audi’s rear compartment, doing what he could to minister to Rogers. “Yeah. Why?”
“You have a service than can access the Internet without wifi?”
“AT&T. Why? This isn’t a time to be conducting a survey or something.”
“Try Google. Does Bosnia-Herzegovina have an extradition treaty with Croatia?”
After a full minute of silence: “No, they don’t. At least as of 2009. But why . . .? Oh shit! You’re planning . . .”
“Here is what I have in mind--” Lang explained.
Moments later, the Audi approached another small plaza of custom booths and came to a stop in front of one adjacent to the north-bound lane. Unlike the previous stop, a car was parked behind each booth: A battered Peugot 106 and a time-worn VW Bug. Lang had seen a number of both in Dubrovnik and found it easy to believe the vehicles belonged to local customs officials.
As the Audi stopped, Lang watched the face of the uniformed man behind the glass go from curious to horrified as his eyes went from what Lang guessed was the bullet pocked coachwork to the shattered side window to Rogers in the rear compartment.
“He’s badly hurt,” Lang explained, getting out of the car.
Little or no chance the man understood English but he needed to keep his attention as Semitz opened the hatchback and crawled out.
Lang waited until the customs/immigration man exited the booth, his attention riveted on the stricken figure in the back of the Audi. As though choreographed, Lang stepped behind him, pinning his arms to his back just as Semitz relieved him of the weapon in the holster on his belt, one Lang recognized as a the diminutive Zastava semi-automatic pistol Yugoslavian police and military had used before the country broke up.
“Best hurry,” Lang suggested. “His buddy on the southbound lane is probably already on the line calling for backup.”
With some effort, the two Americans men shoved their victim back into the booth. Semitz held him still, Zastava against his temple while Lang took brief stock of the small shack’s interior. He saw a phone and reached for it.
“123 is the 911 for an ambulance,” he announced, pushing the keyboard.
“That something you just happened to know or a wild guess?” Semitz asked.
For an answer, Lang pointed to a tattered sign above the mount for the phone. A cartoonish figure of a policeman, whistle in mouth, a medical cross and the outline of flames were above their respective numbers, 122, 123, 124.
“Can you get Rogers out of the car while I call 1-2-3?”
“Out of the car? You plan to leave him here?”
“Unless you have a better idea. He’s not going to last the hour or so to Split and I’d prefer not to be wandering around Neum, looking for a hospital while the buddies of our friend here hunt us down.”
“Maybe but to just leave him?”
Lang had his index finger in the old-fashioned rotary dial of the phone. There was a ring tone and a voice he didn’t understand. He let the phone dangle on its cord. “The emergency service can trace this call and they’ll get here a lot sooner than we could find them.”
Removing the customs official’s belt, he lashed the terrified man to a chair, the only furniture other than a stand-up desk built into one side of the structure.
Semitz had his doubts. “That’s not going to hold him very long.”
“Doesn’t have to. Just long enough to make Rogers as comfortable as we can before we get the hell out of Dodge City.”
Lang heard the pulsating serene as they crossed back into Croatia. “Hope that is an ambulance.”
In the passenger seat, Semitz nodded. “Me too.”
“By the way, Mr. Hertz isn’t going to be all that happy to get his Audi back bloodstained and full of bullet holes. I doubt whatever insurance you and Rogers took out covers any of it.”
“Perils of the trade. By the time the rental car folks figure out their customer doesn’t really exist, I expect we’ll both be back in the U S of A.”
“Doesn’t exist?”
Semitz shook his head slowly. “C’mon Reilly! The Office did a background check on you! You trying to tell me you boys at the Agency printed first-class passports for a dozen different countries and never used homemade drivers’ licenses and bogus credit cards?”
Lang didn’t answer; he just smiled.
35.
Split, Croatia
Ninety-Six Minutes Later
If Dubrovnik seemed unlived in, Split was exactly the opposite. The contemporary town funneled traffic toward the quay from which craft ranging from rowboats to ocean liners could be seen. Small boats scurried like water spiders between the dock and larger ships. Crowds strolled the edge of the harbor.
Semitz pulled the Audi into an angled parking slot and cut the ignition. “OK, Reilly, end of the line.”
He pointed to where a pair of large ships with ten foot or higher lettering proclaimed “BlueLine” and in smaller figures, “www.blueline-ferries.com.” Forward was a yellow smiley face larger than most helicopter pads. “There’s your transportation.” Reaching into the car’s glove compartment, he removed an envelope and handed it to Lang. “And here’s your e-ticket and reservation. Got you an inside cabin, no windows. Figured that would be more secure. Boarding begins at 18:30 local, departure at 20:30. Bon voyage.”
He got out of the car.
“You’re just going to leave it here?” Lang asked.
“How smart would it be to turn it in blood soaked and bullet riddled?”
Then he mingled with the milling crowd and was swallowed by it.
Lang checked his watch. He had more than enough time to explore and replace the articles he had left in the Dubrovnik Hilton in his hasty departure. The city, he found, would be the dream of any advocate of recycling. Lang had visited the ruined but still magnificent summer villa of the Roman emperor Hadrian north of Rome and the crumbling site of Tiberius’s bisexual debauchery atop the Isle of Capri. Here in Split, the Third Century emperor Diocletian had built his palace. The outer walls abutted the quay, which teemed with people and shops past the point where automotive traffic was not allowed. The entrance facing the harbor was a barrel vaulted tunnel lined with small kiosks selling jewelry and souvenirs. During Medieval times, people had built houses in what had been the courtyard, seeking the protection of high walls from a parade of invading Goths, Ottomans, Venetians, and a host of others. Many of the structures were now high-end stores, bars, restaurants, and boutique hotels. The emperor’s mausoleum had become the local cathedral. The streets were narrow, twisting and paved, Lang guessed, with the original Roman cobblestones.
In a series of shops, he purchased an extra shirt, underwear, and a pair of khaki slacks a trifle long. He declined the proprietor’s offer to take up the cuffs while Lang waited. Apparently inured to the strange ways of foreigners, the shop keeper shrugged and stuffed the goods into a bag before thanking Lang for his patronage. Next, he entered u
nder the green cross that Europeans associate with apothecaries, pharmacies, chemists, or, in this case, apoteca, where he replaced toothbrush and razor, hoping the Croatian labeled tube he bought contained toothpaste. In the next block, he acquired a small shoulder bag, not because he actually needed it (the bag from the clothing store would suffice nicely) but because a passenger embarking on an overnight ferry with no baggage was likely to draw attention.
He wandered into Pjaca Square overseen by the thirteenth century Romanesque bell tower of St. Domnius, now topping the mausoleum of the emperor visible over the roof tops. Lang took a seat at an open-air eatery, and an attractive young woman appeared as by magic, menu in hand.
“Do you speak English?”
Her smile widened. “Of course. It is taught beginning in what you would call first grade.”
His face must have betrayed his relief because she continued in near accentless English, “One cannot get a decent job in most places in Croatia unless you are fluent.”
That said a lot, Lang supposed, about the prospects the Balkans, or at least Croatia, saw for a relationship with America.
“I’d like a beer, whatever is Croatian.”
“The most popular is Vukovabsko pivo.”
Lang suddenly realized he had not eaten since the hotel’s breakfast buffet. The few bites of the inedible Dubrovnik mystery burger hardly counted. The memory brought pangs of hunger. “Then, that’s what I’ll have. And maybe something to eat, a sandwich or something?”
“Topli serduici? It’s a heated sandwich.”
At this point Lang didn’t care if it were frozen. He could cheerfully eat anything. Well, almost. His travels had shown him some of the more disgusting items some people put between slices of bread and pronounced edible when no rational human would touch the ingredients otherwise. The burger in Dubrovnik was a recent example. The memory of a meal in a private home in Sardinia a few years ago was all too clear. Casu matzo, or the “living cheese” between slices of warm Sardinian bread, so called because it was, in fact, alive, swarming with maggots whose excretions supposedly gave the Percornio a special flavor. Lang never verified the theory. He had abandoned his writhing lunch on his plate.