Warriors (9781101621189)

by Young, Tom

  “Do your drug cases always get this weird?” Parson asked Cunningham.

  “Not usually,” the OSI agent said. “Most of the time it’s some dumb airman selling pot out of his car. The crime rate in the military is actually lower than in the general population, but we still get a few losers.”

  Cunningham explained how he’d spent more of his career protecting service members than arresting them. On one of his first deployments, the Air Force gave him a tough task: help stop the rocket and grenade attacks launched every night against one of the forward bases in Afghanistan. The QRF teams, the quick reaction force, had killed a few insurgents; one trio of bad guys had gotten vaporized when an Apache gunship caught them on infrared. But the rockets kept coming. An RPG-7 round exploded just outside Cunningham’s hooch one night. He clutched his mattress, rolled it off the bed frame, and took cover under it on the floor, wondering if a Posturepedic would stop shrapnel. At that moment he realized he needed to get creative. The coalition couldn’t just shoot its way out of this problem.

  He noted that every Wednesday and Sunday local merchants set up a market outside the base, selling rugs and junk souvenirs to GIs. Cunningham suspected some of the merchants were scoping out the base for targets. But even if they weren’t actively helping the bad guys, they probably knew the bad guys. Or they knew somebody who knew the bad guys.

  Cunningham made a suggestion to the commander: Tell those merchants no more market days until they give us some names, or at least until those rocket attacks stop. On the days they sold to Americans, the merchants probably made more money than they could earn otherwise in a year. He got the idea from the old watermen back home. Their livelihoods depended on the market for the seafood they caught. No market, no money.

  Money talked. The merchants fingered some Haqqani Network bastards, and a night raid by American and Afghan special ops troops netted twenty terrorists. Twelve captured, eight dead. Half of them came from Pakistan.

  “But even that,” Cunningham said, “seems like simple stuff compared to this.”

  “Webster wants this guy real bad,” Parson said.

  “I do, too,” Cunningham said.

  “I see why,” Irena said. “It’s hard to believe I’ve been listening to the voice responsible for that.” She pointed to the satcom message.

  “He’s responsible for a lot more than that,” Gold said.

  “Damned straight,” Parson said. “Hey, we might have a long night ahead of us. Who wants coffee?”

  “I do, sir,” Irena said.

  “Make it two,” Cunningham said.

  “Three,” Gold said.

  Parson made two trips to the galley. Each time he came back with two foam cups of bitter black coffee. He kept the fourth cup for himself, and did not return to the cockpit. With no more open crew stations available, he stood behind Gold’s seat, sipped from his cup and watched the linguists work. Gold calculated that, at the moment, he cared more about catching bad guys than flying airplanes.

  Irena removed her shoulder straps but kept her lap belt fastened. She slid her seat back a bit, clearly trying to get comfortable and concentrate better. Voices in Serbo-Croatian, Italian, and German flowed through the circuits. Irena showed interest in none of it. But after another hour of flying, suddenly her back stiffened. She turned a volume knob, wrote down the time.

  Gold glanced at Parson, who had also noticed Irena’s posture. Parson smiled. He had told her these airborne linguists were like English setters: You could tell from their body language when they were onto something. She’d thought it a crude comparison, but he was right.

  “I got Dušic on two-alpha,” Irena said on interphone. Then she held up her hand for silence. For several minutes she monitored the call and took notes in Cyrillic. The elegant lettering on her writing pad looked almost like written music.

  But all at once, something broke the spell for Irena. She slapped her pen down onto the pad. She whispered in English, off interphone, “Give me a fucking break.” The skin on her nose wrinkled as if something smelled bad. A sign of disgust, Gold supposed. First time Gold had ever heard Irena swear.

  Irena pressed her interphone switch and said, “All right, he hung up. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”

  “Copy that, Irena,” one of her crewmates said. “We’ll geolocate that signal.”

  “Is he in Belgrade?” Cunningham asked.

  “Negative,” the crewman said, “and I think he’s moving.”

  “What did he say?” Gold asked.

  “He was talking about some kind of operation,” Irena said, “but I couldn’t tell much about it.”

  “You heard something that pissed you off,” Parson said.

  “Yes, sir. He started talking about poetry. And he quoted from The Mountain Wreath.”

  Irena told them The Mountain Wreath was a classic Serbian epic from the 1800s. She also said present-day hard-line nationalists read it as a celebration of ethnic cleansing. Dušic had quoted some favorite lines:

  May God strike you, loathsome degenerates,

  why do we need the Turk’s faith among us?

  “But the poet was writing about a tribal way of life that doesn’t exist anymore,” Irena said. “That story is an artifact, not a manual for anything we need to do now.”

  “Sounds like the way the Confederate flag gets misused,” Cunningham said. “The Stars and Bars should just stand for a bygone era, but dumbasses use it as a symbol of modern hate.”

  “Exactly, sir,” Irena said. “I never made that connection before, but you’re right.”

  Gold could see that Irena took pride in the Serbian language and Serbian literature, and took offense when that literature got used for a twisted purpose. But Irena didn’t take more time to talk about old poems. The young linguist spent several minutes conversing on interphone with some of her crewmates. Gold had learned that the people who sat in forward crew stations were not language specialists but electronic warfare officers called Ravens. Irena spoke with the Ravens about where those cell phone signals originated.

  “Sir, did you say he was not in Belgrade?” Irena asked.

  “That’s right, Irena,” the Raven answered. “And here’s something else: That new phone number, the Stefan guy, is coming up in the same location.”

  “They’re riding together?”

  “I think so.”

  “Damn, you guys are scary,” Parson said.

  “If I ever have a girlfriend who flies on one of these planes,” Cunningham said, “I sure won’t cheat on her.”

  Irena smiled, but she never took her eyes off her console and notepad. “All right,” she said, “if they call anybody else, we’ll have even more clues.”

  The buzz on the interphone and monitoring circuits settled down for a while. Parson went for more coffee. The brewed stuff had run out; this time he came back with cups of hot water and packets of Nescafé. The packets bore a company website with a dot-UK address. At some point this crew must have stocked up supplies at a British base.

  Gold ripped open the packet, poured the instant coffee into the hot water. As she stirred with a plastic straw, she noticed Irena sit up straight.

  “She’s on point again,” Parson whispered.

  “I got another call,” Irena said on interphone. She wrote down the time, adjusted a volume control.

  “It’s that Stefan number,” the Raven said.

  “Roger that,” Irena said. She made more notes in Serbo-Croatian. She stopped writing and leaned back in her seat. Whatever she’d heard drained the color from her face. The lividity of Irena’s skin reminded Gold of expressions she’d seen in Afghanistan. People looked that way when frightened.

  She picked up her pen again, and now she wrote in English: HOLY ASSEMBLY OF BISHOPS. PATRIARCHATE. A few lines down she added another phrase: CAR BOMB.

  22
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  PARSON SAT IN WHEN IRENA briefed Dragan and other Serbian and Bosnian law officers about the call she’d intercepted. The group converged at the Sarajevo Holiday Inn. Cunningham and Webster also joined the meeting. As Irena and the lawmen spoke, a lot of things that hadn’t made sense to Parson suddenly fit a deadly pattern. Dušic probably had a connection with the church burnings and resulting riots. The fires had reopened wounds only just starting to heal. With small-time arson, the arms dealer had effectively piled up kegs of gunpowder for a big-time explosion. The attack on the Holy Assembly of Bishops would light the match.

  “Dušic is pretty cagey,” Dragan said. “How did you get all this?”

  “Not from Dušic himself,” Irena said. “Most of it came from a conversation Stefan had with one of the worker bees. Razvodniks, as Dušic calls them.”

  “Privates,” Dragan said. “Yeah, sounds like something an old Serb officer might say.”

  “Stefan sounded drunk. Maybe that’s why he got sloppy with OPSEC.”

  “Thank God he did.”

  “So why don’t you just ask the bishops to postpone their get-together until you catch these bastards?” Parson asked.

  “We did,” Dragan said. “They say they won’t give in to terrorism. And the assembly convenes in three days.”

  So now some war criminal wanted to blow up people of his own faith to relive his glory days, to start a new conflict. Parson lacked Gold’s knowledge of history and religion, but he figured nobody’s religion locked down divine truth. At best, you could just get a far sighting of truth, like a fleeting echo on a radar scope set to max range. Some people, like Gold, found wisdom in their faith. And some found excuses to spill a hell of a lot of blood.

  “Now it comes down to old-school police work,” Webster said. “They just have to find Dušic before the assembly starts.”

  “They have to get him in time,” Irena said.

  “Every cop in Bosnia and Serbia carries a description of Dušic, and of the vehicles registered in his name and in Stefan’s name,” Dragan said. “We’ll need some luck, but maybe that fancy plane of yours can make us some luck.”

  “We’ll do all we can, sir,” Irena said.

  “If they find Dušic,” Cunningham said, “they’ll have murder charges to hang on him now. Even if they can’t prove war crimes, they can put him away for a long time.”

  “I’ll take what I can get,” Webster said.

  “I hope they just shoot his ass,” Cunningham said.

  “I don’t want that. I hope we get him alive. I want him on trial.”

  The cop and the prosecutor, Parson thought. Both wanted wrongs made right, but in different ways. Cunningham preferred to deal with Dušic the way Cunningham’s forebears might have dealt with a boat thief or rapist: slit his throat and feed him to the sharks. Webster wanted a teachable moment for the whole world to see. Either one worked for Parson.

  After the meeting, Parson found Gold in the lobby with the rest of the Rivet Joint crew. They were waiting for Irena. Time to fly.

  Webster looked pleased to see the fliers getting ready to go up on another mission. He folded his arms and smiled. “Fiat justitia, ruat caelum,” he said. Gold raised her eyebrows and nodded; evidently she understood the Latin.

  “Okay,” Parson said, “is that some funky legal term?”

  “A legal maxim, really,” Webster said.

  Gold told Parson the literal meaning: Though the heavens fall, let justice be done.

  • • •

  AT A COLLECTION OF ABANDONED stone farm buildings near Kotorsko, off the E73 motorway in the Serb sector of Bosnia, Dušic and Stefan met their triggermen. Andrei and Nikolas were joined by three other recruits. The three new shooters had served with the White Eagles during the war. One had a missing front tooth. The second wore a full beard. Dušic liked that; the man looked like a damned Muslim. The third had a shaved head shaped like a pistol bullet. None of them officer material, Dušic guessed, but probably up to their task.

  “Gentlemen,” Dušic said, “I trust Stefan has briefed you on your mission.”

  All nodded. “Yes, sir,” Andrei said. Dušic smiled at him.

  “Then you know the most important thing is for you to be heard shouting ‘Allah-hu akbar!’” Dušic said. “I scarcely care if you hit anything. Just spray a lot of bullets and make your voices loud. If you kill a few extra, so much the better. But do leave witnesses.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nikolas said.

  “Your escape from the target area is your responsibility. If you survive and get away, you will do so richer than when you arrived.”

  Dušic reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a checkbook. The gap-toothed man grinned. The others watched intently. Dušic wrote out five checks; Stefan reminded him of the men’s full names. For this transaction Dušic did not worry about secrecy; these checks were drawn on a Swiss bank known for its discretion. He planned to pay the razvodniks not in dinars but in EU currency. He held up the checks for the men to see. Each check paid thirty thousand euros. Gap-tooth stepped forward, hand outstretched, still wearing that stupid grin.

  “Ah-ah,” Dušic said, wagging his finger. He tore the checks in half. Gap-tooth looked crestfallen. Dušic handed out half checks. “If you complete your mission to my satisfaction,” he said, “you will receive the other half. Do not worry about cashing torn checks. This bank has seen taped checks from me before.”

  Stefan opened the back of the van. He passed out the new AK-47s to the razvodniks, along with magazines and boxes of ammunition.

  “Do any of you need instruction on this particular firearm?” Stefan asked. Ever the good NCO.

  “I have used an AK many times, but it has been a while,” Bullet Head said.

  “You will recall that the weapon is very simple,” Stefan said. “First, pull back the bolt and check that the chamber is empty.” The men followed Stefan’s direction; their weapons made shucking and clacking sounds as they opened the chambers.

  “Let the bolt slide forward,” Stefan said. Five bolts snapped closed. “Take your magazine in your left hand and place the upper corner against the opening of the magazine well.” Stefan reached to Bullet Head’s gun, repositioned the magazine. “Like this,” Stefan continued. “Now rock it into place.”

  The men rotated the magazines into position. Dušic heard five nearly simultaneous clicks.

  “That’s it,” Stefan said. “We call this ‘rock-and-lock.’ Do it that way every time, and you will find you can reload quickly even in the dark. So now you must chamber a round. Point your rifles in harmless directions and take them off SAFE.”

  The men stepped apart from one another and trained the barrels at ground or sky. Each found the safety without instruction.

  “Now pull the bolt all the way back, then let the spring return it forward.”

  Dušic watched the men charge their weapons. No one shot himself in the foot, he observed, so perhaps these idiots would do. Maybe two or three might even live to cash their checks. If they survived, he would use them again in bigger operations.

  Stefan briefed the razvodniks on last-minute details of the operation. He showed them a photo of the Patriarchate and pointed out the main entrance, where he hoped to place the car bomb.

  “But remember that circumstances may require me to park elsewhere,” he warned. “Just stay well away from a black Citroën.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nikolas said, “a black Citroën.” The others nodded.

  As Stefan gave the final orders, Dušic gazed out over the countryside. A green meadow stretched before him, and beyond that a forested hillside defined the horizon. A lone hawk wheeled above the trees, circling and hunting for prey. Such a beautiful land. Perhaps that’s what had drawn the ancient Ottomans here: They’d wanted more fertile ground than the dusty hellholes where they belonged. Soon enough, no more mosques wo
uld defile this country. As always, getting out into the field reminded Dušic of younger days, with a platoon to lead and a job to do.

  On the road that wound along the foot of the hill, he saw something that brought him out of his reverie. Two police cars sped along without lights or sirens. They slowed and turned onto the farm path.

  “Get to cover!” Dušic shouted. “Stefan, grab your rifle.” Dušic pulled his CZ 99 from his waistband.

  The razvodniks hesitated. “Is this some kind of test?” Gap-tooth asked.

  “No, it’s not a test, you bloody fool,” Dušic said. “If those police take you now, you will spend the rest of your life in prison. I do not know how they found us.”

  Stefan snatched up his M24 from the back of the van. He directed the men inside a stone barn. They took up firing positions at windows long since robbed of glass.

  “You’re going to earn some of that money right now,” Stefan said.

  The two police cruisers eased up to the farm path. They stopped perhaps a hundred meters from Stefan’s van. Each car carried two men.

  “When do we fire?” Andrei asked.

  “As soon as they get out and you have a clear shot,” Dušic said. “We have no choice.”

  Inside the barn, Dušic took stock of his tactical situation. His team benefited from the defilade of stone walls. The police had no cover but their vehicles, and bullets could penetrate the doors. Dušic’s broad strategic situation was somewhat worse. How in God’s name had they known his location? He would worry about that later.

  The barn smelled of straw and dried manure. A light breeze caressed the grass outside. Dušic analyzed each moment, a field commander once again. He drew binoculars from his pocket and surveyed the scene.

  The driver’s door on one of the cruisers opened. The officer began to step out, but then he crouched behind the door.

  “They see us,” Dušic said. “Hold your fire, but stay ready.”

  The officer behind the car door reached for something. Dušic assumed it was a weapon, but it turned out to be a hand microphone for the cruiser’s public-address system.