by Dana Haynes
They flew to Tel Aviv.
The Fly By was a bar near the airport; the kind of place that looked like either health officials had recently shut it down, or they should have. It was the Israeli equivalent of a biker bar. Only instead of bikers, it catered to mercenary soldiers.
Which meant the Fly By was among Tel Aviv’s most profitable watering holes.
Fiero had been there several times and was greeted by silent nods and a few raised glasses. The Fly By might have been a place where everybody knows your name, but the soldier-for-hire business isn’t keen on using people’s names in public.
She told the Ethiopian girl behind the bar that she was there for Jones. She was directed to a private nook behind the room with the pool tables. The nook was large enough for only two booths, and one was empty. The space stank of stale beer and fried food. She entered, waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.
Brodie McTavish stood and crushed Fiero with a bear hug, literally lifting her boots off the grimy floor. He stood six-six and was built like a Chevy engine block, with a full beard and a tangled mane of hair.
“Jay-sus, but it’s you!” he bellowed. “You look a sight!”
They sat and McTavish poured her a glass of cheap, yellow beer. He smacked her on the shoulder with a hand the size of a tetherball. Fiero half suspected she’d have a bruise come morning.
“It’s good to see you, an’ that’s a fact. How’ve you been?”
“Good,” she said. “Maisie?”
He puffed up his chest at the mention of his daughter. “Accepted into a nursing program in Aberdeen!”
“She’s twelve!” Fiero laughed.
“She’s eighteen if she’s a day. But it’s true she sat on your lap in a few bars worse than this hellhole.”
They talked about family and about cohorts. They toasted those who’d died—a longer list than either liked to admit. McTavish had served in the Royal Dragoon Guards, an armored cavalry regiment of Her Majesty’s Army, and had gone into the gun-for-hire business almost two decades earlier. That made him a rare kind of mercenary—the kind in his fifties. He’d plied his trade throughout Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and South America. And, for the past three years, Brodie McTavish and his band of criminals had been on retainer with St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking.
One night, over pitchers of rum drinks in a Jamaican dive in Paris, Judge Betancourt’s aide-de-camp, Shan Greyson, had asked about the wisdom of employing a feckless gunhand whose loyalty could be bought on the open market. A very drunk Michael Finnigan had explained it like this: “They say that if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. I’m a cop. I’m a really good investigator. Katalin’s a spook. She has a gift for getting into anywhere and getting anyone to say anything. But sometimes, we’re gonna need big guys with an absence of morals and lots of guns. Or, put it another way: we’re gonna need hammers. Because not every problem is a nail, but sure as shit, some are.”
Now, in the Fly By bar outside Tel Aviv, Fiero made sure they had the alcove to themselves, then leaned in close to the big Scotsman with the Viking beard and crazy hair.
“Any luck tracking down that name?”
He drained his glass and refilled it from the pitcher. “Driton Basha. Aye. Don’t know him, but I found some men who do.”
“And …?”
“Kosovo.” McTavish pronounced it as three distinct words with three very long vowels, like he was practicing an alien tongue. Klingon, maybe. “Flyspeck nation in the auld country of Yugo-fuck-yourself. Has its own military these days. Kosovo Security Force. Replaced the Blue Helmets of KFOR.”
Fiero knew the reference. International troops under the banner of the United Nations—the so-called Blue Helmets—had been stationed in the former Yugoslavia since the 1990s. In UN parlance, they’d been known as the Kosovo Force, or KFOR.
“What do you know about him?”
“Major. Corrupt bastard. Lining his own pockets, of course, but the pockets of his men, too, so they’re fiercely loyal to him. S’posed to be a good feckin’ soldier. From what I hear.”
“We think he’s part of an underground railroad kidnapping Middle Eastern children and selling them to brothels. But one thing doesn’t track … Kosovo’s a Muslim country, isn’t it? You’d think they’d find someone else to abuse.”
“It’s split,” McTavish said. “Country’s got Islam, got Catholicism, got Eastern Orthodox, yeah? The northern region of the country is ethnically Serbian. This Basha, he runs an elite unit out of Operating Base Šar, which is in that Serbian region. And his unit’s entirely Eastern Ortho. There’s a faction in the government wanted it that way. Not everyone’s happy about it, but there it is.”
McTavish paused to glug his beer and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. He managed not to emote any moral outrage at the concept of child prostitution. He earned a living selling his gunhand, which made it problematic to be judgmental of others.
“What should I know about the Kosovo Security Force?” Fiero asked.
“As good an’ as bad as any man’s army. Train some damn good soldiers. Major Basha’s unit, I’m reliably told, is stocked with good fighters, with good discipline. Ye’ll not be facing weekend warriors with the likes of them. Go up against Basha, and ye’ll see some true soldiers.”
Fiero considered the situation. She sipped her beer. It was vile, warm, and flat. McTavish drained and refilled his again.
“Are your men available?”
“Will be. Heading to the Sudan tomorrow. Hired to get some petroleum boffins in an’ out of the Nuba Mountains.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Won’t need luck.” He flashed a smile and two gold teeth. “Won’t turn it down, it comes my way. But I never count on it.”
“Wise lad. When are you done in Sudan?”
“Two weeks. Maybe three.”
Fiero reached into the beat-up leather satchel she’d carried into the bar and withdrew a buff envelope so fat that the red drawstring barely reached the metal grommet. She shoved it across the bar. It soaked up spilled beer as it went.
“Don’t take any commissions once you get done with the petroleum boys,” she said. “I’ve a feeling we may need you.”
“We go up against them Kosovo fuckers, we’ll want one an’ a half our regular rates. They got arms, got training, got discipline. Plus, Major Basha’s linin’ their pockets. Gives a man incentive to fight well, that.”
Fiero said, “Done.”
McTavish raised his glass and she raised hers, and his glass slopped over as he caromed them against each other.
She caught a glimpse of a tattoo on McTavish’s bulging biceps. Irrimabo illis non accepere iocus.
Her Latin was rusty, but she was pretty sure it meant: Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
C18
Kosovo
Major Driton Basha had just cleared his own checkpoint, his Jeep rolling into the dusty, flat territory of Kosovo, when his satphone blinked to life. He pulled over and checked the incoming scroll. It was his unit captain, Stevan Sorak.
Basha checked to see if the encryption button was lit up, then responded. “Go.”
“News on the buyers, sir?”
“He said six of one flavor, four of the other.”
Sorak had been with the operation since it started, and there was no need to translate flavor. Lazar Aleksić had lined up buyers for six girls and four boys.
“We’re hearing rumors of suicide bombers on this side of the Aegean,” Sorak said. “It could mean quite the influx of product. You know what they say about blood on the street.”
When there’s blood on the street, there’s profit to be made. “Tell Lieutenant Krasniqi to concentrate on six and four, for now. But yes, round up as many as he likes. We can, ah, bank them. In case anything ha
ppens with our buyers.”
Driton Basha and Stevan Sorak both had concerns about their longtime reliance on Lazar Aleksić. The youth was just too volatile for their tastes.
“Understood. One other thing, sir.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve got some men running the trap lines in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Making sure none of the, ah, stock, gets noticed. You know?”
Basha put the Jeep in gear and pulled back onto the dusty road. “Go on.”
“The men are in Tel Aviv now. Said a merc named McTavish was asking about you.”
“About me?” Alarmed, Basha had never been in Israel.
“Yes, sir.”
“What about me?’
“Dunno, sir. Just inquiring.”
“What do you know about this McTavish?”
“Old-school merc, sir. Worked in every hot spot on the globe. Just a gun-for-hire.”
“A gun-for-hire inquiring about me.”
“Sir.”
Basha considered this news, driving one-handed, chewing his lower lip. He didn’t like it. Not at all.
“Find out all you can about this McTavish. Find out if he’s got regular clients; who his friends are; who he works for.”
“Sir,” Captain Sorak said.
Basha disconnected without a word and underhanded the satphone into the passenger seat.
C19
Belgrade
Finnigan got back to Serbia before Fiero—who had farther to travel—and decided to look into the unfinished high-rise building on Kneza Miloša, where they’d last seen the sleazy boy wonder, Lazar Aleksić, after he’d left the disco. The guards outside the garage entrance and in the lobby suggested that Aleksić and his partners controlled the whole building. That made it of interest.
Belgrade is a working-class city, leaning more toward industry and commerce than tourism. The Stari Grad, or old town itself, featured a lovely cliffside castle, but history buffs looking for crenellated Old World walls, or Roman ruins, or the onion domes of Eastern Orthodoxy, come away disappointed. The iconic images of Old Town Belgrade were McDonald’s, Sephora, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
He again noticed that the trucks all bore Cyrillic advertising and logos; very few seemed to have English or German writing on them. The truck traffic in Croatia, on the other hand, had featured every language in Europe. He went online to figure out why.
Later, he walked a four-block-by-four-block perimeter, with the high-rise in the center, discretely taking cell phone photos from every angle. He stopped at every open door and asked if the proprietors spoke English. If they did, he engaged them in some basic banter, eventually rolling around to the subject of the unfinished building in their neighborhood.
Over the course of a late morning and a full afternoon, Finnigan discovered that the building had been four-fifths finished for well over two years. The signs advertising imminent move-in opportunities had been adjusted several times to keep the dates in the future. People didn’t know for sure why the buildings had remained unfinished, but everyone had an opinion: the Americans, City Hall, Jews, Bosnians, the United Nations, the Russian Mafia, Romanians …
As the afternoon morphed into evening, he picked up a tail. Two guys, both young and both physically fit.
After hitting a mobile-phone shop, Finnigan reversed course and returned to a sporting-goods store he’d walked into hours earlier. The entire front half of the shop was dedicated to soccer. Not surprising in this part of the world. He wandered a bit, finding sections dedicated to outdoor activities such as fishing and archery, plus a section of cricket equipment, then track-and-field wear, and finally, to his surprise, a darkened corner with a short shelf of baseball equipment.
He found a college student behind the checkout counter and asked if he spoke English. The kid stuck a pencil behind his ear, dragged his head out of a biology textbook, and nodded.
“I gotta ask: Why baseball? Does anyone play baseball in Serbia?”
The student shrugged. “Some. Not much. We don’t sell shit from that section.”
Finnigan said, “Your lucky day, then.” And handed the kid a wad of Serbian dinars and an aluminum baseball bat.
The staff sergeant on security detail at the Ragusa Logistics tower got a call from a local merchant, saying someone had been asking questions. The merchant had been paid to make this call in the event that anyone came sniffing around.
They weren’t worried about Belgrade Police. Lazar Aleksić had bought and paid for the inspector who ran Belgrade’s Major Crimes Unit.
Anyway, today’s snoop appeared to be American, the merchant said.
The staff sergeant sent down two of his five men on duty: a corporal and a private. The men were dressed as civilians, like everyone on the detail. Major’s orders, while working in Belgrade.
It didn’t take the men long to find the snoop. It was an unshaven guy with wavy hair that hung over his collar. He wasn’t large—maybe five-eight and wiry. They followed him from a sandwich shop to a mobile-phone store, and from there to a sporting-goods outlet. The clerk in the sandwich shop identified the man as an American and described him as friendly and chatty. They’d spoken about nothing in particular.
“Did he ask about the office building over there?” the corporal asked.
“Yes, that, but also lots of things.”
The men got the same story from the mobile-phone place.
When the American didn’t emerge from the sporting-goods store, the soldiers entered and looked around. They checked every aisle. When they didn’t find the man, they asked the long-haired kid behind the counter. The kid had his nose buried in a book, his fingers yellow from highlighter pens. “American? Yeah. A few minutes ago.”
“He left?” the corporal asked.
“I guess. Everyone leaves.”
They asked about a back door and were told there was one, but it was always locked. They checked it out: unlocked and partially open.
They stepped out into an alley. A mountain of broken-down cardboard boxes towered over them. Several old-style, corrugated aluminum garbage cans stood about, half with their lids missing. They could hear the thrum of traffic on Kneza Miloša, fifty meters away.
“You go left. I’ll—”
The corporal’s leg exploded in pain.
He collapsed, blacking out for a moment, coming too with his forehead in a muddy puddle on the ground. His eyes opened to see the private fly into the mountain of cardboard, which created an avalanche, partially covering his body.
Electric pain jolted from his knee up through his hip into his spine. He found that he was holding his knee but didn’t remember doing so.
A pair of legs appeared before his eyes. Plus an American-style baseball bat.
The corporal tried to roll over and the baseball bat disappeared. A flash of pain hit him near his kidney, and his long muscles locked in spasm.
He felt hands on his hips. Felt his gun leave his holster and his wallet leave his trousers.
He blacked out again and, when he opened his eyes, saw the American crouching by the pile of cardboard boxes, deftly disassembling a handgun. The corporal noticed his own broken-down Glock 17 lying in the puddle near his face.
Inhaling felt like trying to swallow tarmac. He lay there, groaning. Even that hurt.
The American crouched, his back to the corporal, and stuffed two wallets in his coat pocket. He used the private’s own shirt to wipe down the baseball bat, then tossed it into one of the garbage cans.
The man stood and sauntered away, with the rolling, bandy-legged strut of a sailor.
The corporal wasn’t sure, but he thought the American was whistling.
C20
Volos, Greece
THESSALY, Greece—A displaced persons camp on the Greek coast north of Athens was rocked Thursday when a suicide bomber deto
nated a vest of explosives at a Red Crescent medical tent. Officials say the death toll stands at fifteen, but is expected to rise. Scores of people were injured; mostly Syrians fleeing the fighting back home …
Jane Koury huddled behind the chassis of an overturned Hyundai truck. The left rear wheel continued to turn, driven by an engine that, miraculously, hadn’t stalled when the vehicle flipped on its side.
She held Mohamed and Amira Bakour tight against her. Both kids were crying, and so was Jane. The ringing in her ears was painful, and rose and fell in waves.
She peered through the thick smoke, looking for Tamer Awad.
At some point, someone yanked on her arm, hard, trying to make her stand. Jane peered up and realized it was Mohamed. The fifteen-year-old stood, holding her arm in both of his small hands.
“We have to go!” he shouted.
The ringing had diminished. Amira stood, too, tears pouring down her cheeks. Jane realized she’d passed out.
“Are … you all right?” she asked.
“There are trucks leaving. We have to go.” The boy tugged at her arm. Jane may have been petite, but he couldn’t budge her from leaning back against the oil-smeared chassis of the truck.
“We … you have cousins here. We need to … where’s Tamer.”
“Jinan!” Mohamed shouted, planted his feet, and yanked.
“Ow!” She started to stand up straight. The earth spun. She fell, shook her head, and began again.
“Where’s Tamer?”
“I don’t know. Jinan, I saw the boy who … the killer. I saw him!”
She stared at Mohamed, who was doing his level best to—as her friends would have said back home—man up.
“The boy with … with the backpack …” She’d seen him, too, heading purposefully into the Red Crescent tent, wearing a quilted jacket too large and warm for the weather.
“I saw him,” Mohamed said. “He wasn’t alone. Jinan, he was with others. Come on!”