"They will pay-"
"Sure." Preacher squeezed the Beretta's trigger twice putting two nice little holes through Bojan's forehead. Killers kill. They don't talk much.
He looked down at his watch to confirm the count in his head was accurate. Twenty-one minutes start to finish from firefight in the Marina to bullets through the head on a low mountain hillside ravine. Just the count he kept in his cranial stopwatch.
He scampered around to his overturned car and kicked in the shattered windshield. He crawled in and reached to grab up his one remaining cell phone. He then headed back up the hill.
On the way up, Lance looked up at the few stars peeking through the clouded sky. His thoughts veered into baby head size. At nearly 36 weeks, that little angel's brain likely weighed a half-pound to 12 ounces. What was that little thing thinking right now? It would be no time at all that he would be able to look into his angel's eyes and see all the wonder of the universe looking back at him.
When he reached the one-lane trail road back up at the top of the hill, he was able to get cell service. He called Wyrick and provided the location of the two wrecked vehicles in the ravine. He then called Andrews in NSA Imaging and thanked him again for the help.
"It looked like there was a chase and then the vehicles went off the road. Dang." Andrews said excitedly.
Preacher smiled. It was pretty cool. "Yep. And Andrews, none of this happened. No one has to know and it is better for you and everyone else if they don't. No report."
The satellite tech got the message.
Preacher then dialed another memorized number. Marta answered on the first ring.
"Done?" She asked in Russian.
"Zakonchennyy." He replied. Finished.
Chapter 29
He still didn't know the why.
From Trieste to Milan to Paris to Toronto to driving across the border back into the good ol' US of A, Lance intermittently worked through it all.
All along the way of the nearly three-day trip back home, he felt a gnawing. Something, some little thing wasn't right here. He missed it.
At the Michigan-Indiana border, he pulled over and made a call using a payphone and one of the 1-800 service lines he and Marta set up for one or two time use. From his screwy computer of a head, he pulled out a memorized international number and dialed.
Twenty seconds later a women speaking Russian answered, "Buhzpol Industries how may I help you?"
"Yes, may I speak to Mr. Volga please? I'll hold." Lance asked in flawless Russian.
"Thank you, please hold."
And here's where it is fun to understand the inner workings of the world's intelligence agencies. The KGB operator who answered for the Buhzpol Industries front transferred the call to another operator for "clearing" purposes.
"Sir, you are holding for Mr. Volga?"
"Yes."
"May I ask your name and the purpose of your call?"
"Please tell Mr. Volga that Mr. Angel is calling. I'll hold to 90 seconds, no longer."
It took 83 seconds for Mr. Volga to come on the line. Lance listened to the chorus and second verse of a Rolling Stones classic about colored doors in his head.
Mr. Volga is better known as Gregor Smelinski. "Mr. Angel, it is nice of you to call." Perfect English.
"My pleasure. Sorry to interrupt your day. Thank you for taking my call so quickly." Lance stuck with Russian. So much easier than Chinese.
"I take it you are no longer in Italy."
"No. I left right after the excitement." No reason to dance around it. "I have been thinking quite a bit. Traveling gives one time to ponder."
"Indeed, I do my best thinking while on trains. What have you been pondering?"
"Trieste, the whole thing. I think I may be wrong in my assessment and I'm hoping you can help clarify several items for me."
Smelinski switched to impeccable German. "Why of course. I believe we owe you a debt of gratitude for stopping that shipment from getting loose. I assume that was your unique handiwork."
"Glad to help. And that's why I'm calling. I left there thinking I had it all figured out. I discovered the moles placed in her operations. Tracked the cargo and stopped that misguided Bosnian Serb smuggler from delivering his package."
"Commendable work. Excellent even. Your mentor must be very proud."
"Don't know. You've probably spoken with him more recently than I. But that's not what's bothering me."
"What it is it then?"
"It was the last thing Bojan said, well really the second to last."
"Yes, go on."
Lance closed his eyes and returned again to the ravine two nights ago and Bojan lying broken and bloody on the roof lining of his overturned Toyota SUV. He watched the man's mouth as he asked, "Who are you?"
No surprise there. It was the next word asked - KGB? Bojan asked Preacher if he was with the KGB.
Why would he do that? If he worked out a deal with Smelinski and the KGB to take out Elena and Voloshyn's operations, why would he ask that? Lance opened his eyes and looked out at the rest stop parking lot and the highway in the near distance. He'd be back on that road in minutes. And for the next 1,500 miles or so, he'd be kicking himself for not figuring this thing out earlier. All he could do now was shake his head and smile. Dang.
"Mr. Angel, the last thing the smuggler said?"
"I just realized, man, can't believe it."
"I'm sorry, not following you." Smelinski was in his office looking out at an inner courtyard within the Lubyanka. He couldn't see Bojan's face asking his question, although he did see photos taken from the scene.
"It wasn't you." Lance shook his head and laughed.
"It wasn't me?" Smelinski's procerus tugged at his eyebrows. Maybe everything he'd heard about Preacher is true. He might just be crazy.
"Here I thought you made the deal with Bojan. He takes out the two networks, you let him believe he is smuggling in a WMD. But I see now that's not what happened."
No reply at the other end. That would be a yes.
"And that means..." Lance hung up by pressing down on the little handset lever on the payphone. He lifted the lever and got the dial tone again. He dialed the 1-800 number he just used to call Moscow and then another number after a series of beeps.
Frank Wyrick answered on the second ring.
"You collected the package, correct?"
"And good morning to you." Wyrick replied.
"Tell me you retrieved the package from that ravine."
"We did. Safe and sound."
"Tell me, is it the real stuff or fake?"
"You really want to know, you sure?" Wyrick asked.
"Yes."
"Early lab results indicate WMD. Most likely sarin."
"Damn."
"You said it. Bad news. She will be extremely pissed to learn you were that close to the stuff."
"If Bojan would have got away with this, hundreds could have died."
"Probably many more. Thousands." Wyrick added. "There you go saving the world again. Can't seem to help yourself."
"Who?" Lance closed his eyes and raced through all of it from phone message to killing Bojan. "Thought it was Smelinski. But that was wrong."
"Your guess is as good, probably much better than mine." Wyrick added.
Lance shook his head again and leaned against the pay phone booth. He didn't want to think about it but had to. "Who else knew about Elena's operations beside you, me, M, Gregor and Papa?"
Wyrick hesitated in his answer. "Only one person I know of."
Preacher nodded his head as he watched cars and trucks and semis pass by on the highway. "Yep. Thinking the same thing. Going to have to do something about that."
Preacher hung up the payphone and stepped back over to the Chevy pickup truck he'd driven from Colorado to Toronto and back. He touched his toes and squatted to stretch his legs and tight back. He should reach Durango sometime tomorrow morning by driving through the night.
Plenty of time to l
ook through a windshield and think about Stuart Braden.
He was the only other person who knew about Elena. That meant all the fun Preacher just had in Trieste was courtesy of the former CIA psychiatrist and deep-cover Chinese mole. If Braden and his bosses in Beijing knowingly facilitated the delivery of a batch of sarin gas to a Bosnian Serb intent on killing as many innocent people as possible, well then, that's a deal breaker.
Someone is going to have to kill Braden.
But that could wait. A baby is on the way back home.
About the Author
So, here is where you read interesting information about Christopher Metcalf. He is married to the beautiful Diana. They have five incredibly bright and good-looking children, and a wonderful grandchild. Most of the family lives in Oklahoma. You can learn more about the author or contact Chris by visiting his website: www.christophermetcalf.com.
Chris really appreciates your time. Thank you for reading The Perfect Instinct: Trieste 48. This story started as an experiment. I tried to write a novel during the National Novel Writing Month in November 2014. I got through 25,000 words of the story and then hit a little wall. Ended up shelving this one and writing The Perfect Patriot the following year. Finally returned to TPI in 2016. This whole story started with the idea of Lance being away from a very pregnant Marta with the two of them connected by a cell phone. Always wanted to write something about Trieste and decided to place this episode there.
If you haven't read the others, The Perfect Candidate is the first book in the Lance Priest series. The Perfect Weapon was the second installment. The Perfect Angel was the third. en el Medio was the first Lance Priest/Preacher episode or short novel. The fourth full novel in the series was The Perfect Patriot.
The very best thing you can do to help an author nowadays is to write a review of the book on Amazon. I hope you will take a couple of minutes and write a review for this book and the others you have read.
Thanks again for your time and for making room in your cranial repository for Lance.
The Perfect Instinct Page 12