by Young, Tom
Stefan motioned to the other SUV, and three men got out. Dušic looked them over with the eye of an officer sizing up new personnel. All seemed fit; that was good. No middle-age paunches among them, though he knew they had to be middle-aged if they were old enough to have served in the war. The bald-headed one carried the stocky build of a weight lifter. The scar across his cheek looked more like the result of a knife fight in a bar than a combat wound. The second man wore his hair cropped close. Black leather jacket over a black T-shirt. Maybe trying a little too hard to look tough. Thinner than his bald colleague. The third stranger was dressed much like Dušic: conservative blazer with a starched shirt open at the collar. Long gray hair tied at the back of his head.
“Gentlemen,” Stefan said, “this is our paymaster.”
Dušic shook hands with the men, noted their names: Andrei, Nikolas, Yvgeny. “I have not met troops in the field for a long time,” he said. “I feel like a young man again.”
“We will conduct the demonstration farther down the path, away from the road,” Stefan said, “for obvious reasons.” He told the three men to follow him in their vehicle. “Do not drive past the point where I stop,” he added.
Stefan climbed back into his own SUV, and Dušic joined him on the passenger side. A leather rifle case rested on the back seat.
“How well do you know the landowner here?” Dušic asked.
“He is a loyal Serb,” Stefan said. “He gave permission for the demonstration, and he asked no questions. I told him nothing he doesn’t need to know—only to expect a loud noise. He will not allow the local Turks on his property, so we have privacy for this test.” Stefan started the engine and drove down the path. The SUVs rolled by the overgrown, abandoned field on the left, the cornfield on the right. Both fields ended at a line of trees, and the path narrowed as it twisted into the woods. Brambles slapped at Stefan’s windshield. The dense shade darkened the afternoon to near twilight.
“What about these three ruffians?” Dušic asked. “How much do they know?”
“Only that they will join a special operation on behalf of their people. One with a difficult but necessary opening shot.”
Dušic considered that for a moment. Wise of Stefan to hold his tongue for now. He made an excellent aide. But sooner or later these men would need to know the true nature of their mission. Dušic asked himself whether he should tell them today. Perhaps, but only after a little more observation.
“So did you have difficulty putting the device together?” Dušic asked.
“No, it is actually very simple. I want a live demonstration to make sure my procedures were correct. But this is the same system the towel heads have used for years.”
“Very good. We can afford no mistakes when we go operational.”
The woods opened up to more fields, these planted in wheat. The land sloped downward for several hundred meters until the woods began again. Stefan stopped his vehicle, and the other SUV parked behind him.
“You will find field glasses in the glove box,” Stefan said. Dušic opened the compartment and found a fine set of Leupold binoculars. Stefan always valued good optics, Dušic recalled. Dušic had seen his friend use rifle optics to deadly effect. “Look to the left of the path,” Stefan said, “and you will see a metal barrel in the woods.”
Dušic raised the binoculars. He rolled a focus knob, and the blurred image clarified into a crisp vision of bark and leaves. He searched for a moment and found the barrel—the common two-hundred-liter drum used by farmers for their pesticides.
“I see it,” Dušic said.
Stefan rolled down his window, turned his head back toward the other SUV. “Gentlemen,” he called, “I direct your attention to the tree line.” He turned forward again, reached into his coat pocket, and withdrew a cell phone. With his thumb, he entered a number. Then he held his thumb poised over the CALL button. “I don’t have a strong signal out here, but I think it will work. Are you ready, Viktor?”
“Fire,” Dušic said.
Stefan pressed the button. A moment passed in silence as the call went through, bounced through whatever cell towers the signal needed to transit.
The explosion assaulted Dušic’s ears as if the boom came from inside his head. He’d almost forgotten the intensity of an ordnance blast up close. Flame and smoke billowed from where the barrel had rested. The shock wave bounced the soil, made dust erupt from the ground. Branches twisted through the air and fell into the fields.
A few meters from the main explosion, another blast threw rocks and clods into the air. A secondary explosion? Oh, yes, Dušic realized. Not part of Stefan’s device. The first explosion had triggered an old mine.
Dirt and bits of wood rained down on the SUVs. Something hard clanged off the hood, left a small dent. A fragment of shrapnel, perhaps.
“Damn it,” Stefan said.
“Excellent,” Dušic said. “And you gave your farmer friend a bit more ground to cultivate safely.”
“That was one artillery round,” Stefan said. “For the operation, I will wire several rounds in parallel. This will make the explosion much more powerful.”
“Very good,” Dušic said. He opened his door and stepped out. The air smelled of explosives and freshly turned soil. The three recruits emerged from their vehicle. They seemed properly impressed, but one of them, the blazer-clad man named Yvgeny, looked worried.
“You wish us to set off a bomb like this?” he asked.
“Yes, but do not concern yourself,” Dušic said. “I will not ask you to die like some wild-eyed Muslim fanatic. Your task is dangerous, to be sure. But not a suicide mission.”
Yvgeny nodded, looked toward the blackened and torn trees. Stefan pulled his rifle case from the back seat.
“I do not get to practice much anymore,” Stefan said. “There is no sense wasting a trip out to the country.” He uncased a scoped, bolt-action Sako and placed it across the hood. Stefan ducked back into the vehicle and retrieved an empty slivovitz bottle. The sight disappointed Dušic a little. Stefan had too much of a taste for that plum brandy.
The old sniper trotted down the hill toward the blast site, keeping to the field free of mines. He hunted around for something on the ground, picked up three fist-size stones. These he arranged to form a crude base, and on the stones he placed the bottle.
When he returned to his truck, he wiped away some of the dirt that had fallen onto the hood. Stefan hoisted his rifle and racked the bolt to chamber a round.
“What caliber is that?” Dušic asked.
“It is a .308,” Stefan said. He leaned on the hood, using the vehicle as a rest. Sighted through the scope, clicked off the safety. Sighted again, exhaled, held his breath. Pressed the trigger.
The crack of the Sako sounded puny after the earlier explosion. But the .308 made a formidable weapon, especially in Stefan’s hands. The bottle disintegrated in a spray of shards. So years and drink had not yet robbed him of his skill. Dušic had seen Stefan’s rifles and ruthlessness in action many times.
“Very good, my friend,” Dušic said.
Stefan opened the bolt, and the empty brass flipped to the ground. He closed the bolt on a fresh cartridge.
All these things made Dušic feel invigorated. To rejoin his war comrade. To see men under his command, testing military skills and equipment. To breathe fresh air in the field. And to look ahead to the greatest mission of his life. He decided to go ahead and brief the recruits.
“We will finish what we began years ago,” Dušic said. “We will take this land—all of it—for our people.”
The recruits looked puzzled, as Dušic knew they would. One of them, Nikolas, said, “How can we do this with so few?”
“A fine question,” Dušic said. “We entice others to join us. Not just the most ardent patriots like yourselves, but all Serbs, even the armed forces of the Belgrade government. After
your mission, Greater Serbia will rise up. And this time we will win. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the Americans. The British have made drastic cuts in their military. NATO will not stop us again.”
Dušic discussed how NATO and the Americans had imposed the Dayton Accords, which set up a tripartite Bosnian presidency: one Muslim, one Croat, one Serb. A mongrel state with a mongrel government. Hardly better than foreign occupation.
“So what is our mission?” Nikolas asked.
“You will light the spark,” Dušic said. “Bear with me as I explain. At first, you may find your task disagreeable. But you will begin a chain of events that will rid us of the Turks forever.”
Dušic outlined his plan for a false-flag operation: a bombing that would appear the work of Muslim terrorists. The Serbian Orthodox Church’s Holy Assembly of Bishops met twice a year. The next meeting would take place just weeks from now in Belgrade, at the Patriarchate. If a car bomb killed some of the bishops and destroyed the Patriarchate, the attack would ignite a new war in the Balkans. Correct an error of history. Complete the job these men had started as young soldiers.
Stefan would handle the bombing itself. The recruits would rake survivors with automatic-weapons fire while shouting “Allah-hu akbar!” Do not worry so much about accuracy, Dušic advised. The shouts carried more importance than the bullets.
The recruits stared at him. None spoke.
“You may love the church,” Dušic said. “I understand. But you must understand that though God is eternal, religion is a human institution. A frail, finite construction of man’s own making. And the symbols of that religion can serve our ultimate goals.”
The recruit named Yvgeny stood trembling. He advanced toward Dušic, shook his finger in Dušic’s face.
“This is madness!” Yvgeny shouted. “I thought you wanted us to kill Turks. But you tell us to murder our own clergy?”
Dušic felt a flash of anger rise within him. Who did this impudent ruffian think he was? In the old days, no razvodnik would have dared speak to him this way.
“You mind your tongue,” Dušic said. “You may take a few days to get your mind around your task. But from here on, there is no turning back. You are now under my command.”
“I take no commands from a psychopath,” Yvgeny said. “This meeting is over.”
Dušic gazed into the distance, stared at the trees. He had known this could happen—to enlist some poor fool unable to see the big picture. Someone whose sentimentality dulled his wits. And someone who, by his lack of vision, posed a security risk. But good officers planned for such contingencies. And so Dušic had.
“You are right,” Dušic said.
“What?” Yvgeny asked.
“This meeting is over,” Dušic said. “For you.”
Dušic drew his CZ 99 from under his coat. Leveled the handgun at Yvgeny’s torso. Pulled the trigger.
The blast, the recoil, felt good in Dušic’s hand. A hollow-point slug tore into Yvgeny’s shoulder, spun him to his left and to the ground. Dušic’s pistol skills had grown rusty; his bullet had failed to inflict a fatal wound. Yvgeny lay on his stomach, moaning. Blood pumped from the exit wound, flowed scarlet across the man’s torn blazer, and darkened to burgundy when it dripped into the soil. Chips of bone floated in the blood, fragments of the shoulder blade.
Dušic held the sidearm pointed downward at his victim, inhaled the aroma of pistol smoke. Considered whether to administer a coup de grâce to the head. No, he thought, drag this out a little. Create the most vivid impression possible for the remaining razvodniks.
Yvgeny turned over. Smaller entrance wound, Dušic noted, but still messy. The wounded recruit pleaded to his comrades.
“Do not let this man kill me!” he said. “Stop him.”
“None of you move,” Dušic said, waving his sidearm. “Let this simpleton’s fate serve as a lesson to you. I will tolerate no insubordination, no breaches of security.”
Yvgeny struggled to his knees, then scrambled to his feet and ran. Dušic fired again. The round hit the man in the arm. Yvgeny screamed and kept running.
“Damn my poor aim,” Dušic said. And now the simpleton was getting out of pistol range. Dušic turned to his friend. “Stefan,” he said, “if you please.”
Stefan shouldered his rifle. Aimed in the offhand position for just a moment. Fired.
Yvgeny’s head flew apart in a spray of pink. The corpse dropped into the field. Like Stefan’s best work of old, Dušic thought. The target utterly motionless now, dead before the shot’s echo ever registered. The two other recruits gaped. Sweat beaded on Andrei’s face, though the air felt cool. Nikolas inhaled and exhaled as if each breath required thought and effort. Message received, evidently.
“Find shovels,” Dušic ordered. “Bury him.”
7
IN THE BASE COMMANDER’S OFFICE, Parson and Gold briefed Webster and the OSI agent on the interviews with the Afghan ground crew. As Parson recounted the discussions, he felt he’d fallen short. The interviews seemed to raise more questions than they answered. But, to Parson’s surprise, Cunningham appeared pleased.
“So we want to keep a closer eye on those boys,” the OSI agent said.
“Sorry we can’t tell you more,” Parson said.
“No,” Cunningham said, “you guys did good. You might have spooked them if you’d pushed any harder.”
Even though Parson had no experience in law enforcement, he understood that concept because he’d hunted all his life. And it occurred to him this was a little like stalking game. You didn’t blindly tear through the woods after a deer; the prey would just disappear. Sometimes you had to wait and watch. And that’s what Cunningham wanted to do.
“I’d like to think of a way to conduct a little surveillance on that hangar for a while,” Cunningham said.
Parson waited to hear the agent’s plan, but Cunningham said nothing else. So he was open to suggestions, then.
“Anybody got any ideas?” Webster asked. Parson looked over at Gold. She usually did the creative thinking for him, but she seemed to draw a blank this time.
What they needed, Parson figured, was a deer stand. A way to sit still and observe without being observed. Or at least without being observed with suspicion. Parson turned a few thoughts over in his mind, ways to use the resources at hand. Would Webster and Cunningham just think he was crazy? Well, he’d heard of prosecutors and cops doing some pretty offbeat things to catch bad guys. Couldn’t hurt to let them hear what he was thinking. Parson told them his idea.
“Sneaky,” Webster said.
“You should have joined OSI,” Cunningham said.
Gold just half smiled and shook her head.
First, they needed to borrow one of the KC-135s out there on the flight line, along with a crew. Webster called the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. He asked for the director of operations, a full-bird colonel like himself.
“I have an unusual request,” Webster said. After a few minutes of explaining, he added, “No, I’m not kidding.” Then he said, “Let me let you talk to OSI.”
The tone of the conversation seemed to change when Cunningham got on the phone, even though Parson could hear only half the discussion. “No, sir,” Cunningham said, “we don’t need to actually damage the aircraft.” A few seconds later he added, “Thank you, sir.” Then he put Webster back on the line.
The base commander worked out the details with the air refueling control team command post. The tankers at Manas had missions scheduled for today. After the crews returned, they would need proper rest. Parson, Webster, Cunningham, and Gold could have a tanker and crew for one day only, first thing tomorrow.
Better than nothing, Parson figured. When one of the Stratotankers landed just after dusk, he and Gold met the crew at their aircraft. Parson introduced himself to the pilot,
copilot, and boom operator. The KC-135 also carried a flying crew chief—a mechanic assigned to the aircraft, chief of the ground crew that maintained the jet. To Parson, the Air Force’s fliers kept getting younger and younger; all these guys looked about twelve. He remembered the days when he was just like them: fresh out of training, bulletproof, and ready to save the world. All wore slick wings on their name tags. None had enough flying hours to earn the star and wreath that adorned the wings of more experienced aviators. But these kids seemed sharp enough. Their aircraft commander, Hodges, was a captain in his twenties. Hodges chuckled as Parson explained his plan.
“Sounds like an easy day for us,” Hodges said. The tanker pilot’s flight suit bore the patch of the 171st Air Refueling Wing, Pennsylvania Air National Guard. On his left sleeve, over the pen pockets, he wore an unofficial emblem that read NKAWTG. Parson knew that acronym: Nobody Kicks Ass Without Tanker Gas. True enough. He and Gold would not be here now if tankers hadn’t come to their rescue once upon a time.
“Should be pretty simple,” Parson said. “Nothing you haven’t done before.”
“Only in the sim,” Hodges said.
Parson laughed. “Believe me, my boy,” he said. “If you haven’t rejected a takeoff yet, you will.”
“Just don’t burn up my brakes,” the crew chief said.
“Don’t worry, chief,” Hodges said.
“All you guys need to do is make it look good,” Parson said.
He understood the crew chief’s concern. Back when Parson had first begun flying the C-5 Galaxy, he lined up for takeoff one day at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. Loaded heavily with fuel and with armored vehicles bound for Iraq, the Galaxy needed a lot of runway to take off and a lot of runway to stop. When the tower cleared him for takeoff, Parson advanced the throttles until the N1 tapes met the power-setting marker, and the turbines screamed. At first the big jet hardly moved. Then the tons of thrust began to take effect, and the aircraft rolled at walking speed. The C-5 accelerated, and the airspeed indicators came alive. As the jet neared refusal speed, Parson felt the wings start to pick up some of the weight. Almost ready to fly.