by Dana Haynes
The Scots mercenary, Brodie McTavish, brought two men with whom the partners had worked before and one they hadn’t. The newcomer was an Italian, wiry, sunburned, and stoic, with a crew cut and a tattoo of Venus on a half shell filling the inside of his right forearm. “This is Bianchi,” the big Scotsman boomed, once everyone was safely ensconced in the old farmhouse. “He speaks Serbian, which, I’m told, is what most of the soldiers in the KSF speak. Bianchi, this here is Katalin. She’s the shot-caller on this thing. You follow?”
The Italian nodded in her general direction but didn’t make eye contact. Finnigan studied the newcomer, thinking possibly he was just shy—or maybe he just didn’t like the idea of a woman issuing the orders. Finnigan decided it was the latter.
Fiero stood a bit apart, as was her poker-player’s preference. She’d dressed in black and leather and was wearing her sunglasses, arms folded under her breasts, leaning against a rough-hewn wall with the sole of one boot against the rough pine, her knee thrust forward.
Exactly the same body language and wardrobe as the day Finnigan met her in Crimea.
McTavish continued the introductions. “This is Michael Finnigan. He’s a civilian, an’ he’s a cop, and he’s a taxpayer. Which makes him an honest man. Pay him no heed if he starts to pontificate regarding the sanctity of human life. But if he spots trouble: stop, drop, and roll. D’you follow me?”
Again, the Italian just nodded a bit to his left, more or less toward Finnigan.
The Scotsman turned to the partners, fixing both of them—one at a time—with a serious eye. “Bianchi’s done a few jobs with me. He’s fine in a fight.”
That was good enough for the partners. Fine in a fight being the highest praise possible from Brodie McTavish.
The other two they knew.
Lo Kwan was a tough little fighter from Hong Kong who liked knives for close-up work and explosives for the rest. After one memorable job, he also had gotten flamingly drunk in an Egyptian bar and ended up dancing the night away with Fiero, who towered over him. Lo, it turned out, was an outstanding ballroom dancer.
Fekadu, an Ethiopian, was a sniper. He liked long-distance work and had the vision, daylight or night, of a falcon. He didn’t talk much to Finnigan, but he’d spent a couple of long-haul flights in unregistered Hercules aircraft quizzing Katalin Fiero Dahar about her mother’s religion and her own lack of faith. He had purchased a copy of the Koran for her after one particularly fierce firefight in Oslo. Fiero put up with it because a good sniper is worth his weight in guilt.
Finnigan recovered slowly from the bear hug he’d received from Brodie McTavish, then asked how the hell he’d gotten a team together so fast. Fiero had called him only twenty-four hours earlier.
“The surveyors we was escorting around Sudan turned out to be pussies, them.” McTavish hawked up a gob and spat it into the cold fireplace. “They heard a single gunshot, a quarter kilometer from a base camp. Some fucker firin’ straight into the air, and what did they do? Pissed themselves and demanded we return ’em to Djibouti tout suite. It was babysitting duty, anyhow. Only so much backgammon I can play with Lo Kwan before I want to pinch his fackin’ head off.”
Finnigan said, “How do you know it was some fucker firing straight into the air and not trouble?”
McTavish belched a laugh. “Cause the fucker was me, wasn’t it! Scared off the punters, let us take a real job instead. An’ here we are.”
Finnigan and Fiero exchanged smiles.
Finnigan distributed coffee and sandwiches for everyone, then showed them the stack of photocopies he’d brought. “A unit of the Kosovo Security Force is kidnapping Syrian refugees coming up through the Greek Corridor. They take children and sell them, either to brothels or to private buyers. They work out of this joint.”
He distributed aerial photos of KSF Operating Base Šar, kidney-shaped and bisected by its single road, which curved around a few buildings. To the east of the road, five white, one-story barrack buildings stood end-to-end, along with the two-story admin building. To the west of the road, they could see the exercise yard, shooting range, heliport, garage, and the combination PX and communications/radar. Finnigan had the layout memorized by now.
“Major Driton Basha’s unit has the run of the place, and they’re only thirty guys deep,” Finnigan said.
“They sleep here.” Fiero stepped away from the wall and pointed to the first two of the five barrack buildings. “Buildings Four and Five appear to be empty. From what we can tell, someone’s staying in Building Three, and food gets delivered.”
Lo Kwan picked up one of the photocopies. “These aren’t Google Earth. These are US Milsat images.”
“We have an employee who can get her hands on anything.” Finnigan made it sound like no big deal but, to be honest, he and Fiero also had been stunned by the images Bridget Sumner had scrounged up for them.
Bianchi sipped his coffee. “US military satellite images. Are you CIA?”
Finnigan said, “Do we look like CIA?”
The Italian sighed into his cup. “They never do.”
“They’re not,” McTavish slapped the man on the shoulder. “St. Nicholas is old mates. I know ’em.”
Bianchi looked confused. “Which one’s St. Nicholas?”
Finnigan said, “Long story.” He turned back to the photos splayed around the kitchen table. He picked one out—a grainy, distant shot of a man with gray hair clipped close to his skull, with a bull’s neck and a bony jaw. “This is Driton Basha. Major, Kosovo Security Force. He’s in charge.”
Finnigan pointed to another of the satellite photos. “This is his base. It’s forty miles from Pristina, and a hundred and forty miles from the next regular army base.”
Fekadu, the Ethiopian, scratched his head. “How do you know the traffickers are here?”
“We grabbed one of these schmucks in France, two days ago. He led us here.”
McTavish said, “How?”
“Tracker in a phone I gave him. Another tracker sewn into the hem of his jacket. The phone’s also jinxed to send audio signals even when nobody’s making a call. The guy we released is there.”
“As well as victims,” Fiero added.
“Yeah. We taped a conversation we got off the phone. Our office manager had it translated. They just got a supply of victims from the Macedonian border. The kids were transported up here. Probably in Barracks Three, right in the middle of the camp, here. They’ll be moved out by truck at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. Destination: Belgrade.”
McTavish checked his diver’s watch. It was going on 5:00 p.m. local time. “Tight.”
Fiero nodded from behind her opaque sunglasses.
Fekadu pointed to one of the high-res photocopies. “Easier to hit the truck when it gets away from the camp?”
“Don’t think so.” Finnigan pointed as well. “They get out of camp and, two minutes later, they’re on a heavily congested highway to Serbia. It’s filled with military and civilian vehicles. It’d be a nightmare. It also puts too many civilians in the crosshairs.”
The quiet Italian gave a small shrug. The partners ignored him.
“Here’s the tough part,” Finnigan said. “We want to separate the vics from the soldiers at the base camp. But we don’t want them to warn their CO, Major Basha, who’s up in Belgrade with the guy who runs the organized-crime end of this thing.”
Lo Kwan cast him a scowl. “No time for reconnaissance. Outmanned, outgunned, on their home turf. And you want it done quiet?”
Fiero said, “Well, initially we wanted a team that could pull this off poorly and loudly, but they were busy. We had to settle for you.”
McTavish howled with laughter. Bianchi scowled. McTavish noticed and tapped him on the shoulder.
“’Fore you ask, lad, St. Nicholas has paid the freight. In full. Plus bonus money for taking on a feckin’ army base, thank
you very much. So that’s that, and that’s all that’s that. You follow? What’s left is the deed itself. Then it’s rum and true religion.”
Fekadu said, “Rules of engagement?”
Fiero spoke, again from outside the cluster, with her eyes hidden by the shades, her shoulders and the sole of one boot against the wall. “This lot signed on to be soldiers for their country, and instead are making a fortune stealing children and selling them to monsters. They called the tune. They don’t get to be picky about how we play it.”
“Yeah, but …” Finnigan jumped in. “If we can do this quiet and stealthy, that’s better. That’s preferred.”
After that, the mercs peppered them with questions. “Number of refugees in the camp?”
Finnigan shrugged. “Unknown.”
“Transport?”
“Figured we’d use theirs.”
“What do we do when we have them?”
“A friend who has contacts in high places. He’s actually the bank for this caper. Also the UN. He’s going to have an escort waiting at the Serbian border to get us through.”
“And the Kosovar CO in Belgrade?”
Fiero said, “He’s ours. Everyone else worry about the rescue.”
McTavish laughed. “A lark, then.”
C40
The Hague, Netherlands
Director Miloš Aleksić lived a few kilometers outside the government city on a spit of land overlooking the North Sea. The house was an icon of 1970s architecture, and looked more like an outdated notion of a flying saucer than an actual home. But the view was splendid. It was perched on a rocky outcropping, surrounded by a massive sloping lawn and a formidable stone wall on three sides, with the cliff—and a sheer drop-off—and the North Sea on the fourth side. Curved floor-to-ceiling windows in the UFO building provided about 200 degrees of sea view from every room. And while it appeared to be a two-story building, lower floors and basements had been dug into the hard rock to both anchor the saucer-shaped top floors, and to provide more space within.
The lawn was rolling, a deep, unnatural green, and bisected by a winding driveway paved with crushed white shells that led to a five-car garage.
As his car pulled up to the turnabout before the vast garage, Shan Greyson looked out at the house and its land and said, “Well, I’m here now.”
On the other end of his phone, Judge Hélene Betancourt made a tsk sound. “I’m not sanguine about this at all. It’s going on midnight.”
“I believe you spooked him when you spoke at the opera. He’s fishing, to find out what, if anything, you know. With a bit of luck, we’ll soon know if Aleksić the Elder is aware that Aleksić the Twisted is a trafficker.”
“You know what I say about luck, Shan.”
He promised to be careful and rang off. As he reached for the door handle, Heinrich, his longtime driver, turned in his seat. “I’m with the judge. You yell if there’s trouble.”
Shan knew that Heinrich carried a sidearm. “Trust me. You’ll hear me shriek pathetically if I so much as smell a problem.”
He stepped out and jogged up the steps toward the curvature of the house, securing the middle button of his fitted black jacket. His white shirt was far too crisp for anyone making a midnight call. He had eschewed a tie.
The director’s wife, Marija, answered Shan’s single knock. “Mister, ah …”
“Thomas Shannon Greyson.” He smiled brightly. “Mrs. Aleksić, my deepest apologies for calling at this ungodly hour.”
She simpered. “Oh, not at all, Mr. Grenville. My husband is a night owl. We’ve visitors at all hours. Do, please, come in.”
She escorted Shan to a sunken living room featuring a Japanese-inspired indoor garden with a bamboo waterfall and a stacked-stone fireplace opposite the seaside windows. There’s an avocado-colored organic open space in hell for modernist architects, Shan thought. The lights of oil derricks and cargo ships glistened on the horizon.
“Right in here. Please, make yourself at home, Mr. Greenland. My husband is on a call to America. Won’t be a moment. Would a drink be appropriate at this hour? I can brew tea, of course. You work for that judge, Madame Bonneville, yes? She seems to have it in for Serbians, I understand. Of course, such prejudices date back generations.”
“Judge Betancourt holds the people of all nations in high regard,” he smiled, correcting her name gently, not bothering with his own. “And I’ll have a scotch, if that’s at all possible.”
“I would ask you to help yourself. The bar is just there. I shall let Miloš know you’re here, shall I? Please, please. Sit anywhere.”
She flitted about, adjusting a pillow here, straightening a curtain there.
“Miloš might be under the impression that the judge does not like the Balkan countries, Mr. Greyville. There is, perhaps, a bit of prejudice still to be found in Europe, when it comes to the people of the former Yugoslavia? I hope that I do not offend.”
Shan had made no move toward the wet bar. “Not in the least. Judge Betancourt is quite fond of the former Yugoslavia. She welcomes the diversity that the region brings to the European Union.”
“Pleased to hear it!” The booming voice from the stairs startled him.
Miloš Aleksić descended down a curved, open staircase, wearing a cardigan and driving moccasins with his pressed trousers and starched shirt. He’d helped himself to a clean shave, as evidenced by the pink sheen of his under-chin and the whiff of menthol. He shot out a hand to shake. The silver hair over his ears exactly matched his pewter cuff links. Can one wear cuff links with a cardigan? Shan asked himself, and quickly responded: Indeed not.
“If you were walking in the direction of the scotch, kindly bring back two, will you?” Aleksić turned to his wife and bent at the waist to buss her cheek. For a second, she reminded Shan of one of those stackable Russian dolls. “Can’t find my blue shirt, the one from Paris.”
“I know where it is, dear.” She toddled off.
Shan brought a heavy tumbler of good, amber single malt to the director, who took it with a sideways smile. “Damn good of you, Greyson. Shall we?”
He moved the conversation to a dark-brown sofa.
There is a rhythm to the conversation of diplomats. Those not adept in the art can get confused or bored, but Shan was very much the adept. So as he settled into the expensive leather couch, they spoke of the weather and of a recalcitrant American Congress. They spoke of by-elections in England and of the growing clout of the anti-Europe caucus and the Brexit of the UK from the EU. Shan let slip the fact that he recognized the hand of the tailor who’d crafted the suit Aleksić wore to the opera the other night. Aleksić laughed and they told anecdotes of the crotchety, ninety-year-old tailor who had once, it was said, hemmed the trousers of Hermann Göring.
Miloš Aleksić eventually wended his way toward the subject of human trafficking and his assumption that the learned judge knew fully well that the problem of abuse of refugees could be found across the board. Of the various routes now in play for the Middle Eastern flow of refugees, tales of the sex trade were rampant everywhere. As, indeed, they always had been.
“It was true of displaced persons after World War II,” Aleksić said. “It was true of displaced persons when the Iron Curtain rose. It was true during the Prague Spring and in Hungary in fifty-six. And of course it was true when my beloved Yugoslavia fell apart after the death of Tito.”
“Precisely,” Shan said. “Truly a terrible and universal truth. Someone will always exploit those most in need of the world’s protection. It was ever thus.”
Aleksić nodded sagely and repeated the line, as if Shan had coined it himself. “It was ever thus. Exactly. May I …?”
He refilled their glasses from the wet bar. A North Sea squall began to block out the lights of tankers and oil platforms, the weather moving north, or left to right from Shan’s perspective.
/>
“How is your son?”
Aleksić paused over the bottle and the fine, heavy glasses, if only for a second. “My son?”
“Laurent, was it? We met at a fund-raiser for … oh, dear. Don’t remember. Oxfam? Possibly. He’s an entrepreneur, I believe? Businessman?”
Aleksić brought him his refreshed drink. “Lazar, actually. Yes. He works out of Zagreb. Trucking.”
“I adore Zagreb.”
“Cheers.” They tinked glasses and the older man sat again. “Funny you should mention him.”
“Hmm?”
“Lazar. Funny you should mention him. He’s had this idea for the refugees. He’s collecting used dental equipment from the United States and Canada, getting it into the hands of refugee aid agencies in Turkey and Greece.”
“Really? Splendid idea!”
“Apparently, there’s a dire need for dental hygiene for those escaping the wars. Anyway, Lazar saw a need and …” Aleksić waved his glass as if it were a wand. “Voila.”
“Excellent. There are those who doubt Europeans have the entrepreneurial gene, but of course that’s nonsense. Proof positive. Salut.”
“Salut.”
They spoke more, and in the meandering way of diplomats. The conversation was a bit like sailing a boat near, but not too near, a rocky shoal. Aleksić would dip close to the subject—was Judge Betancourt prejudiced against the Slavic people?—without being so gauche as to actually raise the question. And Shan, for his part, steered them toward the harrowing reports of underage trafficking coming out of Serbia. Without, of course, ever pointing any accusing fingers.
Forty minutes later, the men stood at the doorway to the flying saucer house and shook hands vigorously. So good of you … and … grateful for your insight … and … Pleasant journeys … and all the rest. Big smiles. Sage nods.
Shan walked toward his car, smiling to himself.
He thought it likely he had the answer the judge needed.