by Brad Taylor
When they came up empty, we’d gone back in and placed a wireless keylogger on the system. A simple device that was inserted between the USB port and the USB plug of the keyboard, it would transmit everything that someone typed on the keyboard, along with a screen shot of what he or she was looking at, to a collection device just outside the office. We’d dialed into the collection device through the cell network, allowing us to see the activity in real time.
It was a lot of effort for potentially very little payback, but we were out of options and grasping at straws. Until now, because it looked like it might have worked.
“Retro. Get in here.”
I leaned the monitor back so he could see it. “Looks like someone’s filing a flight plan.”
“Where to?”
“Budapest, supposedly. Wonder if that’s where he’s really going?”
“We could slap a beacon on it.”
I tried to see the downside, but short of never seeing the beacon again, I couldn’t find one. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Give Buckshot a call. Tell him to get his ass out to the tarmac.”
“How much time’s he got?”
“Hang on, the time of departure and tail number’s coming up.”
Thirty seconds later, the information appeared on our screen, scrolling across letter by letter, eerily looking like a ghost was typing.
“Damn,” I said. “He’s leaving in the next three hours. With preflight, Buckshot’s got about thirty to forty-five minutes. Get him moving.”
Retro relayed the information, while whoever was at the computer submitted the flight plan and began typing a short e-mail. It was random bullshit, with nothing that raised my eyebrows. Eventually, he closed out of that as well, leaving us nothing to do but wait. Twenty-two minutes later, my phone rang.
“Pike, it’s Jennifer. Buckshot’s prepping the Diamondback down on the tarmac, but we’ve got a little problem. There are two planes with the tail number you sent.”
“Two? Of the same kind?”
“Nope. One’s a Casa 212, the other’s a Twin Otter.”
The duplicate numbers were going to force me to make a choice, but at least now we knew something shady was going on. We were on to something.
“Take the Twin Otter. It’s got better range. If they’re transporting our cargo, that’s what they’ll use.”
“Okay. Just so I’m sure — you want Buckshot to diamond the Twin Otter?”
I went back and forth in my mind, knowing if I was wrong, there was no way to correct it once the pilot showed up. I looked at Retro. He was a big help. He shrugged with his hands in the air.
I said, “Yeah. That’s it.”
Jennifer called back a short time later telling me the beacon was emplaced and that they were going to hang around to see which plane left. Minutes after that, she called to kick me in the gut.
“Pike, the Casa’s rolling toward the runway.”
Fuck me. These guys are the luckiest bastards alive.
“All right… wait until he’s airborne, then retrieve the beacon.”
As soon as I hung up, Retro said, “Wrong plane?”
“Yeah. Story of my life. Is there anything else on that e-mail he sent?”
“Not really. It’s a bunch of ‘how’s it going’ stuff. The only thing mentioned is something called the Drenica Group.”
“Get it to the Taskforce, along with the e-mail addresses. Hopefully, it ends up being some sort of front import-export company. Tell ’em to get us an address, preferably in Budapest.”
By the time we got an answer, Jennifer had returned with the other two guys. We read the screen together, the information not at all what I expected:
Drenica Group: An Albanian organized crime cabal.
* Named after the Drenica region of central Kosovo, where it was formed.
* Tightly interwoven with the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK-KLA), a radical Muslim extremist group formed to counter Serbian aggression in the 1990s.
* Through KLA connections, some indicators of interface with other Muslim extremist groups, such as al Qaeda.
* Primarily known for their ruthlessness, both with law enforcement as well as with other factions that threaten their territory or perceived business expansion opportunities.
* Connected with organized crime in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Bulgaria.
* Cells worldwide, to include New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, and London.
* Primarily concerned with the distribution of heroin. Potentially on track to become the number one wholesaler of heroin worldwide.
* Secondary efforts include white slavery, prostitution, arms trafficking, and extortion.
“So,” Buckshot said, “our terrorists are into drugs as well? What’re we going to do with this information? Look up organized crime in the local phone book?”
“I was thinking of making them come to us.” I smiled at Jennifer.
“What?” she said. “Why are you looking at me?”
“How’d you feel about becoming a prostitute?”
43
I watched Decoy crank his binoculars to their highest power. “Wow, she’s got a great rack. I heard about her when she was going through Assessment, but nobody ever said what a hammer she was. We should’ve had her dress like this the whole time. I’m getting a tent pole just sitting here.”
Jesus. Am I going to have to listen to this shit all night?
Our rental van was parked in a seedy area of Prague, in the closest thing we could find to a red-light district. I’d had Jennifer dress up like a tart and tossed her out onto the street, with the plan being that we’d piss off some other hooker enough to call her boss. According to the Taskforce intel weenies, the Albanians owned all the prostitution here, so that should pique someone’s interest.
When he showed up to chase Jennifer away, Decoy and I would confront him, tying him up in a little argument while Buckshot and Retro beaconed his car during the commotion.
Maybe get some damn use out of the Diamondback.
The beacon itself was a satellite feed and would have worked perfectly on an airplane because — by definition — it would always have a view of the sky, but it would probably have some gaps in coverage when used in a car. That was okay, because everything was a trade-off with technology. Hollywood notwithstanding, there were no magic bullets.
The good thing about the Diamondback, and the reason I stuck with it here, was that the battery life would exceed a week, something we might need as we continued to try and figure out where the EFPs had gone. Intermittent gaps for over a week were better than perfect coverage for forty-eight hours.
I watched Jennifer stalk a real prostitute, this one much younger than her. She put her hands on her hips, turning her back to us and apparently giving the young streetwalker a piece of her mind.
“Holy shit,” Decoy said. “I can’t take this. Check out that ass. Man alive, her legs go on forever. Maybe we should have given her a script for a catfight with the other whore.”
I gritted my teeth, watching the real prostitute walk away talking on a cell phone.
Decoy was new to Project Prometheus. Well, new since I’d left. He was a SEAL, like Knuckles, which is probably why Knuckles had hired his chauvinistic ass. He was a little bit of an anomaly in the SEAL world because he’d learned to swim after joining the Navy. Coming from the backwoods of Tennessee, he’d gotten his call sign when his teammates took him on his first-ever duck hunt. At least the first ever where hunger wasn’t the point of the hunt. He’d blasted the first decoy he’d seen floating on the water, thinking it was real. In his mind, the goal was food on the table, not sport.
He had a solid reputation in a gunfight — as well as a solid reputation as a man-whore. Like he was worried he’d be forced to marry some bucktoothed hillbilly, so he was going to bed as many women as he could until that time. And he was apparently pretty good at it, which didn’t help my attitude any.
He said, “Hey, you wouldn’t mind if I t
ried to tap that, would you? I mean, she’s not yours or anything, is she?”
Enough.
I snapped my face an inch from his. “Decoy, you and I are going to have a serious issue if you don’t start showing her some fucking respect.”
He backed up until his head was against the door glass. “Whoa, easy, man. I didn’t know you had a thing with her. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I sputtered for a few seconds, trying to find the right thing to say, finally getting out “That’s not it! She deserves the same respect you’d give a male operator. She’s not ‘mine,’ you ass.”
“Uhh… sure. Whatever you say…” I saw his eyes go wide at something over my shoulder. “Shit! It’s showtime and we’re late!”
A Mercedes had pulled up while we were arguing, and two men were now bearing down on Jennifer and the prostitute. As we piled out of the van, one of the men struck the young prostitute in the face, knocking her to the ground.
The other thug attempted the same thing with Jennifer. She blocked with her left arm, redirecting the energy from his slap outward in a circular motion while she snapped an uppercut to his face. The blow popped his jaw closed with a rifle crack, shattering teeth and dropping him to the ground. We were still fifty feet away, running flat out.
This just got lethal. All because you got jealous at Decoy’s bullshit.
We reached the melee just as the first thug drew his arm back to pile-drive Jennifer. No slap this time. Decoy caught him at the elbow and rotated him backward, flipping him to the ground. I immediately put a knee on his chest and my barrel on his nose. Decoy frisked him, throwing a cheap CZ pistol down the alley and pocketing a cell phone. He then turned to the thug Jennifer had thumped, doing the same thing while the man rolled around holding his bleeding mouth. The man under me screamed in a language I didn’t understand.
I said, “Hey, hold on there, big guy. Calm down. We just didn’t want you to hurt us.”
He looked confused for a moment, then said in broken English, “You will die for this. Let us go now and maybe it will be quick.”
“Wow. That’s my choice? Are you fucking nuts? I’m holding the gun here, asshole.”
He glared at me, signaling he was about to try something. He was brave, I’ll give him that. I pushed the barrel into his eye socket to calm him down.
“Stop it. I don’t want to hurt you. All we were doing was pulling a little scam. We didn’t want to cut into your business. We were just going to do a little fleecing of American tourists. We didn’t know this terrain was owned.”
“You have no idea who you are dealing with. We can reach you in any country on earth. Leave now, and I won’t hunt you down.”
My earpiece clicked twice, telling me that the Diamondback was in place. Time to go.
“Okay, okay. We’re out of here. Sorry for the trouble.”
I backed up, keeping the weapon on his head. Decoy did the same. We pulled abreast of Jennifer.
“Get the van running and bring it around here.”
Jennifer said, “Pike, the prostitute’s coming with us.”
I glared at her for a split second, seeing the young woman cowering behind. “What the hell are you talking about? Go get the van. And leave her here.”
“No. I talked to her before she called those assholes. She’s from France. She was kidnapped.” Jennifer touched my arm. “She’s a sex slave, Pike. There’s no way I’m leaving her here.”
I kept my gun trained on the thugs, knowing we were running out of time.
“Jennifer, I’m really sorry to hear that, but we’re executing a plan. That’s it. We can’t save the world. Just our part of it. Now go get the van.”
“Pike, I can’t. I promised. She’s scared out of her mind, and she asked for my help. If we throw her back now, they might kill her for trying to get away. And the whole point of this thing was to get them to go to a leader. You know taking one of their little slaves would do that.”
I turned to rip into her and was drawn up short by the fear pulsing out. Her eyes were large, the hands on the girl’s shoulders trembling. But overriding all of that was her expression, an unspoken question of what I stood for.
Shit.
“Go get the van. Before I change my mind.”
I heard her running behind me, the small clicking of her ridiculous high heels sounding dangerous on the cobblestones. Seconds later, she pulled the van up next to us. I waited until everyone was loaded before I jumped in, finding myself face-to-face with the rescued woman. A seventeen-year-old girl shaking in fear. Looking at me as if I was going to save her world.
44
Sitting in the van thirty minutes later, I felt Buckshot staring at me, trying to get my attention without saying anything. I ignored him, keeping my eyes glued to the laptop screen and the beacon track.
When we’d linked back up with him and Retro, they’d both jumped in the van, grinning and laughing about Jennifer’s knockout punch. Right up until they saw the girl. All I’d said was “Don’t ask.”
Since then, I’d pretended to be engrossed in the little blinking icon on the screen. In the back, I could hear Jennifer softly whispering to the girl in French.
One more surprise. I had no idea she knew the language. She was clearly less than fluent but was getting by. Finally, Retro had had enough.
“Is someone going to tell me what the fuck we’re doing with a Czech hooker?”
I said, “Ask Jennifer. It’s her lost puppy.”
Before he could say anything, Jennifer spoke up. “Pike, we have a problem here.”
“No shit. Like where are we going to drop off the girl? Or what the hell was I thinking about?”
She said nothing for a few seconds, letting my comments settle in the van. I knew she was pissed, though, because she crossed her arms across her chest and eyeballed me.
Oh shit. Here it comes. I was used to her ideological rants, but what she said surprised even me.
“No, like we need to go help these girls. All of them.”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious? How?”
“I don’t know, but this girl’s been kept as a slave for over a month. She says there’s about twelve other girls with her. She was supposed to ‘learn her trade’ here before being sold to some pig. The girls come and go all the time at that place. She thinks she’s due to go in a day or two.”
I glanced at the girl and found her staring at me again. A young, black-haired little thing who should have been beautiful, but looked broken instead. Greasy hair and grimy nails, wearing a dress that was filthy. Scared out of her mind. Like my daughter would have looked if this had happened to her. Stop that shit.
“Jennifer, there’s no way we’re going to do anything about the girls. I’m sorry, but that’s it. We don’t have the authority, and we don’t have the means. We’re not the Justice League, for Christ’s sake. This isn’t a comic book. We have our own mission to do.”
Her expression was pleading. “That’s not true, Pike. We are the Justice League. At least the group I wanted to join is. Nobody else can help them. She thinks the police are aware of the place, but they don’t do anything. This is no different than that child you saved in the street. It’s what we do. Isn’t it?”
“No. It is different. You’re talking about altering the entire mission. We have the beacon. We’re just going to track it, then release the girl, like we planned.”
I turned to Decoy for help. I knew he wouldn’t stand for any risk to life, limb, or mission just for some women. Shit, he’d probably stop and ask the Albanians for business tips first.
His face was grim. “I wouldn’t mind dinging these guys up a little bit.”
What the fuck? “Have I entered the twilight zone? You ripped my ass for saving a kid in Cairo, and now you want to risk the entire mission so we can go rescue a bunch of women we don’t even know? We need to find the Arabs. Period.”
The girl, apparently picking up on something I’d said, became animated and
rattled off at Jennifer in French.
Decoy said, “Jennifer translated a little of what the girl’s been through. These fuckers need to die. One way or the other.”
I looked at him with a new understanding. Man-whore’s nothing but an act.
Jennifer spoke. “The girl knows where the Arabs are.”
I exploded. “Jesus Christ! She speaks English? Everyone shut the fuck up. Retro, take her out of the van.”
I waited while they left, building up anger. I was more pissed at myself than anyone else. I’d laughed at the exact same mistakes before, having guys talking in English in front of detainees about operational matters, only to find out the terrorists spoke English as well. Now I’m the jackass….
After the door closed, I said, “I thought she only spoke French?”
Jennifer just shrugged.
I sighed. “Okay, what was that about?”
“She says that an Arab man came to the house she’s held in. Her friend was in the room with them. The friend knows what was said, and because of it, they all think she’s going to get killed.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, so if we save the friend, we get the information?”
“That’s what she said,” Jennifer snapped. “I’m not making it up.”
“Look, we’ve got the beacon. We know that thing works. That’s the reason we came here in the first place, not to rescue a bunch of kids. I’m not going to risk this mission based on a story from a crack whore.”
“She’s not a crack whore!”
I held up my hands, attempting to calm her while imparting some reason. “Jennifer, remember we have absolutely no cover for action here. We’re lucky we got the go-ahead to do some snooping around, but there’s no way we can do something like a building assault. You’re asking me to jeopardize our cover and the Taskforce for something that’s not related to our mission. Let’s use the beacon. Like we planned.”