by Dana Haynes
Lieutenant Krasniqi waited until they were past the second barrier and picking up speed. He reholstered his weapon and shouldered his way through the hatch, back to the cab.
Jane squeezed Amira’s shoulder very tight. The girl trembled.
“I want Mohamed. Where’s Mohamed?”
“I know, love.” She let her fingertips trace the pulpy edge of the girl’s forearm cast. “Amira? Do you still have the phone I gave you?”
They were wasting time and everyone on the team knew it.
The stolen Ragusa truck and the Bosnian laundry truck pulled into a broken-down warehouse. Bianchi got out and cut through a chain to open the gate, and the trucks rumbled over pitted tarmac that had broken up into large chunks, like a melting ice cap, between seas of reedy grass. Fiero and Fekadu, who spoke Arabic, assured the children that the stop was necessary, and Fekadu escorted the children, two by two and by gender, to a locked and darkened water closet to relieve themselves by the glow of flashlights.
Nobody could help the Afghan children to understand, but Mohamed Bakour took it upon himself to keep them calm.
The St. Nicholas partners gathered with McTavish’s mercenaries around the hood of the laundry truck to go over the situation. Finnigan said, “Our contact was supposed to have clerks of the International Criminal Court, and UN observers, at the Serbian border. They were to take the kids and get them safe. But also, get them on camera; start building a case against the guys running this shit-show.”
“No contact?” McTavish fussed with his massive beard. The partners shook their heads.
“We have to assume the worst,” Finnigan said. “Our contact is compromised, and we’re working illegally in Kosovo without a lifeline. The border is off limits. At least, as far as these kids are concerned.”
McTavish made a sword of his hand and thrust it westward. “Then we get them out the way we got in: overland into Bosnia, into Sarajevo.”
Finnigan considered the plan. “Taking out the cell tower and the radio tower at the base only bought us so much time. We can get these sixteen kids out the way you say, but not the three who left in the first truck. So we split up. McTavish and the guys get these kids to Sarajevo. Get them to the US embassy there. We’ll go after the others in Belgrade.”
“And Lazar Aleksić,” Fiero added.
“Most definitely.”
It was agreed. Fekadu would switch to the big truck, with Lo Kwan driving. They’d reverse course and take the goat trails back over the hills, just as they’d entered. But it was already going on 0400 hours, and they wanted to get across before the sun rose. Time wasn’t their friend.
Mohamed was bringing the final group of Afghan boys back from the bathroom. Fiero nodded him over and explained the plan. “Your job is to keep the youths calm on the drive to Sarajevo,” she said.
And he replied, simply, “I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t. I need you to—”
“I’m coming with you.”
She looked him sternly in the eye. “Mohamed, you have to be the man now. I need you—”
“No.” He didn’t sound scared or angry. Only resolute. He maintained eye contact and his emotions. “My father and mother might be in Turkey. Or Greece. I don’t know, and they do not know where we are. My sister is in the hands of monsters. I am the only family left who can save Amira. And when we reach her, I’m the one she’ll listen to and believe. You’ll just be more Westerners with more guns.”
Fiero opened her mouth to counter and Mohamed didn’t wait.
“You need me to be a man? In my family, right now, I am the man.”
Finnigan circled the laundry truck but kept his distance. He pretended to watch the stars.
Fiero rose and turned to him. “He’s coming with us.”
C51
Belgrade
The smaller Ragusa Logistics truck carrying the kidnapped Muslims joined the E75 heading north, making great time in the predawn hours, and rolled into the city, turning off the freeway virtually within sight of the great Eastern Orthodox Temple of Saint Sava. The morning traffic was still light, with only service trucks and a few cars on the streets. Lieutenant Krasniqi allowed himself to drift to sleep intermittently, secure in the knowledge that the three urchins in back wouldn’t make any trouble. The soldiers had made this run often enough that they had become inured to the danger.
As they left the freeway and vectored onto the main street of Kneza Miloša, he drew his prepaid cell phone and called the Ragusa building to alert them.
“The garage will be open as you roll up, sir,” the graveyard shift soldier told him.
“Put coffee on. Is the major there?”
“Negative, sir. He flew north. To the Netherlands.”
That was odd. Krasniqi wondered why.
Blue lights began flickering in the rearview mirror. The soldiers glanced back and saw a Belgrade police officer on a motorbike, urging them to pull over.
Krasniqi said, “Hold. We’ll get there shortly,” and hung up.
They pulled over just shy of embassy row. Belgrade was safe territory for the Kosovars, but being this close to so many international diplomats still seemed risky.
The motorcycle officer doffed his helmet and approached on the passenger’s side, which was unusual for a traffic stop.
Krasniqi rolled down his window. “Help you?”
The traffic cop looked more than a little ill, even under the harsh early morning streetlights. “I need you to stay here, sir.”
“You really don’t. We’re fully permitted.”
The kid—he was all of twenty-three, Krasniqi thought—wet his lips. “I’m sorry, sir. I just got orders to detain your vehicle. Please stay inside the vehicle. Please turn off the engine and remain here.”
Krasniqi smiled benevolently. “Do you know Inspector Marco Petrovic? In your Major Crimes Division? Check with him. He’ll see you done right.”
Krasniqi was confident. The inspector’s palm had been well greased for exactly this reason.
The traffic cop said, “I am under orders from Inspector Petrovic. Please remain in your vehicle.”
He walked back to his motorcycle.
The corporal looked at his lieutenant, then cast a glance back toward the rear of the truck.
It was a hell of a cargo to sit with, this close to the embassies of the world.
Jane could hear the police officer speaking outside the truck, but the words were muffled, and she didn’t speak the language. She knew they were in a major city because the ambient urban noises had become evident over the past several minutes. She wasn’t even sure the man speaking outside the truck was a cop.
But she suspected he was.
Thanks to the phone call she’d made with the last of the charge left in the mobile hidden in Amira’s arm cast.
C52
Podujevo, Kosovo
A French long-haul truck driver pulled into a rest stop just shy of the Serbian border. He would have liked to have made it through before dawn, but the demands of his bladder were not to be denied.
He relieved himself and stepped out of the bathroom and found a woman leaning against the cinder block with only her shoulder blades and the sole of one boot touching the rough wall. She was at least five-ten, with pitch-black hair worn down. She was dressed in black canvas trousers with many pockets, like a soldier, and a black T-backed undershirt.
“I need a lift into Serbia,” she said, picking French—the truck driver didn’t know how she’d tumbled onto his nationality.
He humphed. “Well, I need five hundred euros and a blow job.”
She said, “Done,” and disconnected herself from the wall by shoving with her foot. She produced a wad of euros and stuffed them into his hand. “Shall we?”
He led her around to the parking area. A bit after five in the morning,
and it was mostly empty. As they drew abreast of his big, Russian-made truck-and-trailer rig, he spotted a gangly boy in ripped jeans and a grimy hooded sweatshirt. Also, a wiry man with messy hair and several-days’ growth of beard. He, too, wore fatigue pants, boots, and a black T-shirt. He grinned in the manner of congenital idiots and Americans.
The trucker said, “What’s this?”
“My lover,” the tall woman gestured to the smiling man. “We’re running away to Belgrade. Papa doesn’t like him.”
“Your papa may be on to something there.”
“Would another five hundred euros help?” She handed him another wad of money, then reached up for the passenger-side handle and climbed up on the wheel covering. She turned to the smiling man.
“Oh, darling. Our driver would like a blow job. D’you mind?”
The trucker sighed wearily. “Comédienne …”
The St. Nicholas team and Mohamed sat in back, cross-legged among boxes of auto parts. They’d shown the French driver more stacks of euros and felt confident he’d get them across the border.
Mohamed closed his eyes—it was a wonder he’d stayed awake, given the past week of his life. Finnigan, speaking English, nonetheless kept his voice low. “We’re too late.”
“I know.”
“Blowing the comms tower delayed them calling out for help. But as soon as a single one of them drives into range of the next cell tower, they’ll call Aleksić, and he’ll have the kids killed. Including You-Know-Who’s sister.”
Fiero knew her partner liked to think out loud to sort the facts in his own head, so she let him prattle on.
“If they had a satphone at the base, they wouldn’t even need to get to a cell tower.”
She nodded.
The truck hit a bump, and Mohamed’s eyes shot open, glaring around. Fight or flight. Finnigan offered him a stick of gum and an easy smile.
They rode in silence. Mohamed’s eyes dropped again and he rested his head on one of the boxes.
Finnigan said, “Mission one is to rescue the kids. Mission two is to get the evidence for a conviction.”
Fiero closed her eyes and also rested her head back on the box.
“We are not—not—going to Belgrade to assassinate Lazar Aleksić,” Finnigan spoke softly.
Fiero nodded to the youth half asleep next to them. “Tell him that.”
“Okay.” Finnigan leaned forward and tapped the kid on the knee. Mohamed raised his head and opened his eyes.
“Translate for me.”
Fiero said, “This isn’t—”
“Please.”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“Mohamed. I’m Michael. This is Katalin.”
Fiero translated.
“I’m a police officer. Katalin is a soldier. But the good kind; not like the guys who kidnapped you.”
The boy listened to the near-instantaneous translation and nodded. “Can you save Amira? And Jinan?”
Fiero repeated the question in English.
Finnigan kept his eyes locked on the kid. “Maybe. I’m not gonna lie to you; it won’t be easy. We’ll try as hard as we can. If we don’t, we’ll arrest the men responsible and we’ll make sure they go to prison.”
He was speaking to the boy, for sure, but also to his partner.
Mohamed frowned. “If these people hurt my sister, I want them to die.”
“Yeah, I get that. Sure. But I’m a policeman and Katalin is a soldier,” he repeated. “We can mete out justice, not vengeance. Only God can do that. And God would want us to do our best, and to be true to our calling. You understand?”
Mohamed spoke. After a moment, Fiero said, “Yes, I understand. But I don’t like it.”
And Finnigan knew she wasn’t just translating.
“I know,” he said. To them both.
C53
Belgrade
Inspector Marco Petrovic of the Belgrade Police Department’s Special Crimes Division believed that the worst ways to wake up were (a) with a gun pointed at you, (b) with your wife in some other man’s bed, and (c) with calls from the media.
Possibly, he’d switch b and c. It was close.
He’d received word from his night watch commanders that the Irish Times had called saying one of their freelance journalists had uncovered a plot by Kosovar soldiers to sell underage refugees on the slave market in Belgrade. Worse, the reporter was actually with some of the victims, and some of the smugglers, and reporting in real time from the Serbian capital.
After the Times called, Reuters called. Then Al Jazeera. Then Sky News. Then the BBC. The time between each call was diminishing, so that they essentially were tying up every phone line on the night shift of police headquarters.
Petrovic told his officers to stall and lie. He wasn’t exactly the Napoleon of media strategies; it was the best option he could come up with at five in the morning.
He dressed and put on his coat and waddled out to the backyard, digging through his pile of firewood for a sealed sandwich bag and a disposable mobile phone that he wanted his wife never to find. He called his contact at Ragusa Logistics, in the mostly finished office building on Kneza Miloša. He got some wet-behind-the-ears junior officer, who was under orders to work with Petrovic whenever he called. After all, Petrovic kept all of the cops away from Lazar Aleksić, and had since the kid arrived on the scene a few years earlier.
“Do you have a truck coming in from Kosovo?” he demanded.
“Ah … yes, sir.”
“For the love of Jesus, do you know how much shit is hitting the fan right this second?”
The youth said, “Ah … No sir. No, I … shit, sir?”
“By Joseph and Blessed Mary! Get the truck to your building. Do it now! I’m on my way. Who’s in charge there?”
“Lieutenant Krasniqi, sir.”
“Have him meet me there. And son …?”
“Sir?”
“Tell your lieutenant that, if he’s ever felt a shortage of assholes, not to worry. He’s about to get himself a brand-new one.”
The French trucker dropped the partners and Mohamed off at an Autogrill on the Serbian side, took his money, and resumed his route.
Finnigan spied a couple of guys dressed as highway construction workers park a Jeep Wrangler near the children’s play structure and head into the restaurant. “That looks juicy.”
“I’ll explain to Mohamed that the nice police officer likes to steal cars.”
Finnigan waggled his finger at Mohamed but spoke to Fiero. “Steal a car for a man, and he’ll drive for a day. But teach a man to steal a car, and he’ll drive for life.”
They drove the Wrangler into Belgrade just as their watches hit 6:00 a.m. Mohamed eyed the big city with fear in his eyes. “We have to find Amira in this?”
“We know where she is,” Fiero told him and turned to Finnigan. “Remember our friend Agon Llumnica, from France? I found him at the barracks with the refugees.”
“Poor dumb bastard,” Finnigan said.
“We had a heart-to-heart. He says to say hi.” She smiled. “He said the front doors of the office tower are chained, and the only access is through the parking garage. The elevators are controlled by soldiers on the penthouse level.”
Finnigan nodded. They both knew that the lieutenant and his three hostages had at least an hour head start on them by now. The chances of getting to the hostages in time—in that tower—were diminishing quickly.
He pulled the Jeep off the highway and headed toward the office tower, Fiero riding shotgun, and Mohamed in back.
“Slowly,” she said. “I want to see how many guards they—”
“Amira!”
Mohamed almost ripped open the rear door and leaped out of the moving vehicle. Fiero restrained him.
A BMW X5 sat outside the Ragusa Logistics buildin
g with police flashers embedded in the grille, the engine running. Three men stood around the vehicle; two who looked like soldiers were being yelled at by an obese civilian with a magnificent mustache. In the back of the SUV, three young people sat shoulder-to-shoulder: a boy and two girls.
“It’s Amira and Jane! You found them!”
Finnigan said, “Shhhh …” and kept rolling.
Fiero watched the scene as they drove past. The big man with the medicine-ball belly had a finger in the face of the lead soldier, chewing him out. The three Middle Eastern youths sat in the back of the SUV, looking petrified. The few pedestrians out at that hour were giving the melee a wide berth.
“How the hell did we make up so much time?” Finnigan wondered, hitting his turn indicator and drifting to his left.
“No idea. But gift horses …”
“So, Aleksić has bent cops. That was predictable.” He pulled into an alley perpendicular with the main drag. He knew this alley well; he’d taken a baseball bat to two soldiers here, not long ago.
“We have to go back!” Mohamed wailed.
“We will,” Fiero calmed him. “Mohamed, we have to do this smart. Yes? Those men have guns, and they have your sister.”
The boy was all but bouncing in his seat.
Finnigan took the next left, routing them back in the direction they’d come. The next alley over would dump out onto Kneza Miloša again. Finnigan said, “Translate, will you?”
He took the next left and slowed to a halt.
“Kid, climb out here. Run up to that corner, okay? There could be more bad guys, and I need you to alert us if you see them. Here …” He drew his cell and held it over his shoulder. Mohamed reached for it. “Speed Dial Number One is Katalin. You know how to use it?”
“Of course,” he told the woman translating.
“Good. Go.”
He climbed out and dashed, all knees and elbows, toward the street ahead of them.
“Good kid,” Finnigan said, and threw the Jeep into gear. They slow-rolled forward.