by Dana Haynes
But the language at Operating Base Šar was exclusively Serbian, and the faith—real or convenient—was Eastern Orthodox. The unit featured only thirty men, and those thirty were loyal to a quiet faction within the government that had sided with the Serbs and with the Bosnian Serbs during the civil war.
Driton Basha sat at his desk in the administration building, listening to men marching down the base’s only road as he winnowed down the pile of horseshit in the in-basket, when a thundering boom made his door shake. Captain Stevan Sorak always knocked as if trying to beat out a fire.
“Come!”
Sorak entered smartly. He was a handsome man, not large, with sandy red hair and a clean cheek and jaw—the kind of man who can skip a shave some mornings and no one’s the wiser. He was a favorite of the ladies, and the barracks were always filled with tales of his conquests. He stood at parade rest while his major scribbled his signature on forms he had no intention of reading.
“News on the product?” Basha asked.
“I’ve got Akil Krasniqi on the Macedonian border. We should be hearing soon. Also, I heard back from Tel Aviv. This McTavish is a merc, like we’d heard. He works for anyone with a checkbook.”
Basha glowered up from the paperwork. “Did you hear about Belgrade?”
“No, sir?”
“An American was asking questions about Aleksić and his office tower. Two of our men went to find him. He took a cricket bat to them. One man with a broken knee, one with broken ribs. The American took their wallets.”
Basha waited.
His captain turned beet red, his hands on his hips. “Holy shit.”
“Yes. Holy shit indeed, Captain.”
“They were carrying ID in the field?”
Basha nodded.
“When they get back here, they’ll think back on the broken knee and broken ribs as the good old days. I’ll ream them both new assholes.”
“Good.”
Captain Sorak frowned. “Are they sure it was an American? A cricket bat doesn’t seem likely.”
Basha waved it off. “Yes, they’re sure he’s American. No, I’m not sure it was a cricket bat. I was told a bat. What do we know about the Scotsman? Does he work for the Americans?”
“Possibly, sir. One of my men said McTavish is known to work for some bounty hunters, who may or may not be Americans. I’ll look into it.”
“Good.”
“Is Aleksić going to be a problem, sir?”
Basha snorted an unkind laugh. “The party boy is a problem for sure, Captain. I’ve never met a weaker man in my life. But we need him.”
He glanced at the paperwork in front of him, then snorted again, lifted it wholesale, and dumped it back into the in-box.
“Aleksić has been useful because of his contacts. If Americans are hunting him, maybe he’ll be good for something else, too.”
C23
Paris, France
The plan came together quickly.
Ways & Means found a corrupt attorney in Paris who was moving Serbian dinars—a commodity not widely traded in France. The attorney had alleged ties to French organized crime.
Fiero contacted her old friends in Spanish Intelligence, at the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, and was informed that a wardrobe could be outfitted for her in a matter of hours. In the parlance of European intelligence circles, a wardrobe is a false identify, fully papered, that can be crafted to meet an agent’s specific needs—in this case, a discredited Spanish attorney representing a rich buyer with a craving for illegal sexual conquests.
Once Fiero informed the higher-ups in the CNI about the target they were chasing, everyone agreed to move heaven and earth to help her. The grand majority of their resources were tied up fighting militant Islamists these days. They couldn’t spare any agents—France wouldn’t have permitted it anyway—but they were only too happy to help St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking take down an international human trafficking ring.
Wearing the online wardrobe of Solicitor Elisabet Falcón of Madrid, Fiero set up a meeting with a go-between in Amboise, France, a small town in the Loire Valley.
On board the de Havilland, Lachlan Sumner used the PA system to let his bosses know he was about to put them down on the Loire River outside Tours, France. Finnigan buckled in and made contact with their unofficial liaison with the International Criminal Court, Shan Greyson, to let him know that they’d reached the next link in the chain connecting Lazar Aleksić and the trafficking ring.
Amboise was a picturesque little village overlooking the Loire, with a castle looming over a bridge across the river, and a pedestrian-friendly main street of peak-roofed houses that stretched perpendicular to the river, with awnings over every shop and restaurant, and madly overstuffed flower baskets on every upper-floor balcony. To Fiero’s eye, it looked like a Disney soundstage version of a Loire Valley town and not a real place.
There’d been no argument about which of the partners would wear the wardrobe of Spanish Intelligence. Finnigan’s language skills weren’t stellar. Fiero had once observed, even his English isn’t all that good.
Fiero dressed for the part in a fitted black jacket and pencil skirt, low heels, white blouse, and pearls around her neck and in her earlobes. She parted her hair in the middle, Spanish-style, and put it up in a chignon that clung to her long neck. She carried an expensive satchel of the creamiest nutmeg brown leather. She looked every inch the professional Madrileña.
The meeting was set for a coffee shop only two blocks from a home once owned by Leonardo da Vinci. The person she was meeting was Guy Lacazette, a private investigator in the employ of a solicitor from Paris.
Fiero contacted Monsieur Lacazette at the last minute and asked if the meeting could be moved one building down from the coffee shop, to a storefront now vacant and with signs in the window advertising it for sale. It was the kind of move a person made in order to foil a police sting operation. It made Fiero appear to be fearful of a setup.
Bridget had contacted the real estate agent the night before and had paid a hefty sum for the opportunity to set up in the closed shop for that Thursday morning. With no sale imminent, the agent had readily agreed.
C24
Amboise, France
Guy Lacazette had hated almost everything about his time in the French Army. But the year and a half he’d spent under the United Nations banner as part of KFOR, or the Kosovo Forces, had proven profitable. That’s where he’d met Captain Stevan Sorak.
Lacazette was a thickly built man with slicked-back hair and a widow’s peak, who always looked like he was one sideways glance away from taking offense and throwing a punch. He arrived for the meeting at 7:00 a.m., an hour early, and peered into the little shop, cupping his hands over the for-let sign in the window. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered down Place Michel-Debré, the main north-south pedestrian street, walking under the shadow of the royal château, enjoying the slow pace of the hilly little town nudged up against the verdant Loire River. He scanned windows and rooftops as he sauntered. He watched for lurkers. Satisfied, he returned to the shop and jiggled the doorknob. The door creaked open.
He walked the ground floor—it had been a confectionary shop, barely twenty paces by twenty paces—and found nothing amiss. The power was off, but he didn’t want to be shining any lights, anyway. He located the door to the second floor—unlocked. He ran up the stairs, hands on the butt of his .32, and found a space with the exact same dimensions as the shop below, but empty except for dust and one rolled-up old
carpet.
He walked back downstairs and waited.
Fiero, dressed as Señora Elisabet Falcón, arrived fifteen minutes before their appointment and slipped in furtively. She wore a somber suit and low heels. She’d spotted Lacazette but pretended she hadn’t, and took the opportunity to look startled when he spoke from the shadows. “You’re early.”
She jumped, let the strap of her stylish bag slip off her shoulder. She caught it with her elbow, looking off-balance. She put a hand to her heart. “You’re … ah, I’m the person who contacted you.”
She spoke Spanish and Lacazette replied in French. “I know who you are. Sit down.” He indicated two chairs; the only two that weren’t upside down and atop tables.
“I don’t speak French, I’m afraid. Could we …?”
“You’re in France,” he said, stepping up to one of the chairs and pulling it out. He sat.
“Do you speak English, perhaps?”
He shrugged.
Fiero sat, her bag by her heels. She placed a leather-bound pad and a capped pen on the table before her, then appeared to reconsider and slid them both away. “Thank you for seeing me,” she said in English.
His eyes raked her form.
She cleared her throat. “I represent a man … a person. This person owns a sort of club in … a city in Spain. This person is looking for a specific kind of employee.”
Lacazette dug a packet of filtered Gauloises and a book of matches out of his jacket pocket. He lit up and huffed a laugh. “Employee?”
She blushed. “Well, no. Not, ah, employees in the sense of … This person is looking for a … commodity.”
“For his club.”
“I didn’t say it was a he.”
Lacazette smiled with the cigarette between his lips. “You did, actually. So. Attorney, are you?”
“Yes. My client is looking for—”
“Still? An attorney?”
She paused. “Señor … sir?”
“It’s monsieur, love. And you’re still an attorney, are you?” He smiled.
As Elisabet Falcón, she blushed and shifted in her chair. Fiero’s former maestro in Spanish Intelligence, Hugo Llorente, had assured her that this private investigator had bribed a clerk to get access to the cover story. The cover was designed to make Fiero look desperate: it included a conviction for bribing a judge and her temporary disbarment. It would put her in a weakened position for negotiating, which is where Fiero liked her opponent to be; she was counting on that false sense of security.
Lacazette drew on his cigarette, burning it down to the filter. He tapped another out of the packet, held one in each hand, and used the burning one to light the next. He dropped the butt by the feet of his chair.
Fiero said, “That unfortunate misunderstanding has nothing to do with my client’s needs. Can we talk business? I am told you have arranged for this commodity—”
“Not employee?” He grinned and winked. “Want to make sure I’m clear about this.”
“Ah, no. This commodity, for other clubs?”
He nodded.
“I may take that as a yes?”
“Not cheap,” he said and picked tobacco off his tongue.
“Of course not.”
He drew smoke, let it waft out through his nostrils. “Fifty thousand euros.”
“That is quite a lot of money.”
“Is it?”
She moistened her lips and shifted in her chair. “It is, monsieur.”
“The price is the price.”
“Ah. Is there a discount for quantity?”
He said, “The price is the price.”
“Perhaps a twenty percent discount for a dozen? That doesn’t seem—”
Lacazette’s hand froze, the cigarette an inch from his lips. “A dozen?”
“For now, yes. To begin with, I mean. We are talking a great deal of money. More than half a million euros. A discount doesn’t seem out of the question.”
Lacazette’s brain reeled. He’d been brokering the sale of these filthy little immigrants for over a year now. The largest sale he’d brokered was for three of the vermin! A dozen? For now?
“The price is the price. If you care to go elsewhere for this commodity …”
They talked a bit more but Lacazette just sat and smiled and smoked and repeated his words. “The price is the price.”
Fiero let herself look frustrated, as if she had no other options. He shrugged and said, “It’s not as if these little Muslim shits were five-a-penny at Franprix.”
Eventually, she agreed to relay the price to her employer. “We can meet again, the day after tomorrow, at—”
“Call me by noon today,” he said. He tossed the matchbook onto the table, and it bounced against her forearm. “Call with a yes. Then meet me at this address at eight tonight.”
She looked at the address. “What is this place?”
“It’s an office,” he said, and strolled out.
She read the address again. It wasn’t an office, she knew. It was a cottage.
Michael Finnigan was there right now and—as he worded it—casing the joint.
Captain Stevan Sorak of the Kosovo Security Force waited in an empty lot, three blocks from the confectionary shop. He waited and smoked until Guy Lacazette walked around the corner, almost dancing with glee.
Keeping his voice low, Lacazette beamed as he said, “The Spanish bitch offered to buy twelve—twelve!—of the dirty little bastards. For starters! She wanted a discount, like she was buying cheese or something! I told her, ‘The price is the price.’ I have to say, the slut was all but drooling over me. You could see it in her eyes. I’d have had her in two seconds flat. Will, when this is done. Show her a thing or two.”
Stevan Sorak drew a smart phone out of his pocket and showed the investigator an image. “Is this her?”
Lacazette squinted. The image was a little blurry and showed a tall woman in tan-and-olive fatigues, her hair back in a braid. She carried an M16 over one shoulder. Lacazette recognized those cheekbones and the slightly pointed ears.
“Jesus! Yes, but my God, the mouse I met was no soldier! She—”
“When are you meeting her?”
“Eight. At the cottage. She’s to call by noon to confirm. But—”
“Thank you.” Sorak tucked the phone away. “Go back to your hotel. Wait for her to call. I’ll join you in a while.”
When the private investigator was gone, Sorak called on the satellite phone and got Major Driton Basha, still in his office at company HQ, southeast of Pristina.
“The detective identified her. It’s one of the people behind this St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking,” the captain said. “They’re the ones who have hired the Scottish mercenary in the past. They’re allegedly in the marine salvage business, out of Cyprus. But I’m told they’re really bounty hunters.”
The major fumed. “St. Nicholas? What kind of joke is that? Never mind. You know what to do.”
Basha disconnected.
Fiero leaned against the bumper of her rental car in one of the town’s municipal lots. She called and said her client would be willing to pay the six hundred thousand euros for twelve of the commodity. But that she wanted to meet the seller, face-to-face.
She could tell Guy Lacazette had her on speakerphone, which meant someone else was listening in. She and Lacazette agreed to meet at 8:00 p.m. and hung up.
She opened the car door and climbed in, dug her other phone out from underneath the driver’s seat, and called Finnigan.
She said, “We’re not going to lure Lazar Aleksić out of his spider hole, are we.”
“Yeah,” Finnigan said. “I’m getting the same feeling.”
“The cottage?”
He laid out the basics for her.
“Well,” she sighed. “Time to cry havoc, I suppose.”
C25
Every good army has an intelligence wing, and that’s true for the Kosovo Security Forces as well. The research that the brains in Pristina came up with indicated that the fugitive recovery firm was for real. St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking had a reputation and was known to have bagged several well-known criminals.
Captain Stevan Sorak put together a six-man team for the intercept: five of his soldiers from the KSF and the former French soldier turned investigator, Guy Lacazette.
So far, there’d been no sign of the other principal of St. Nicholas, an American, but Sorak assumed the man was lurking about. He also asked about the Scottish mercenary sometimes employed by the Spaniard and the American, but was assured that Brodie McTavish was escorting petroleum engineers through the mountains of South Sudan.
The house in Amboise was perfect for an ambush. It sat atop a belt-high retaining wall. The property sloped abruptly uphill from there and was thick with shrubbery. The house itself wasn’t just set back and elevated, but constructed slightly off-center of the property lines, providing good privacy and making it difficult to see in through the few windows. Sorak’s unit had purchased the property months earlier, assuming that at some point, someone would connect them to their broker, Lacazette, and come snooping. The house, and all of Amboise, had been established earlier that winter as the perfect kill zone.
Sorak suffered from a lack of imagination. He codenamed his team One through Five, plus Lacazette. Sorak’s own call sign was One.
Lacazette’s job was to meet the Spanish woman and to escort her in.
Captain Sorak would be inside the cottage with Soldiers Two and Three.
Soldier Four was stationed in a bakery van, parked across the narrow street and down two doors. He had top-of-the-line surveillance equipment, was monitoring police bands, and could see the only route by which the bounty hunters could approach, either in a vehicle or by foot. The van also stuck out enough that no one could barrel down the lane, going the wrong direction, and catch the team unawares.
Soldier Five stayed back to watch for the approach of Lacazette and the woman and to make sure they wouldn’t be followed.
Sorak bet Soldier Two a hundred euros that they’d get through the whole mission without shots being fired.