Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) (19 page)
Read Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) Online
Authors: Joseph Badal
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue, #Espionage
“Greg Davis,” Bob said, introducing himself to the driver, using his code name. “What do I call you?”
“Yanni will do.”
Bob hefted the briefcase over the seat onto the floor in back and slid the case partway under the back seat. Then he looked closely at Yanni, who had one of those nondescript faces that would allow him to hide in a crowd. His dark hair and olive complexion would help him to pass as a native in almost any of the Balkan or Mediterranean countries.
“What’s our destination?” Yanni asked.
“The Kosovo border with Albania.”
“Don’t lose them, Zoran,” Stefan growled at the driver, a Buddha-shaped thirty-year-old with a shaved head, large belly, and powerful arms and legs. He’d been a member of Stefan’s gang for ten years. Like all of the members of the gang, Zoran was
Rom
, a Gypsy.
Zulkar, seated behind forty-five-year-old Zoran, was Stefan’s assassin – the man Stefan had counted on for nearly two decades to do his dirty work. He had murdered a dozen men on Stefan’s orders. He had jet-black hair, mustache and goatee. He looked like a Tartar, with chiseled cheekbones and narrow, slanted, angry gray eyes.
Kukoch, next to Zulkar in the back seat, wore his trademark beret, which covered his unruly straw-like blond hair. Tall and lanky, twenty-four-year-old Kukoch was fundamentally a non-violent thief who ran Stefan’s black market operations.
“Where are these guys going?” Kukoch said in his grating high-pitched voice, sounding like fingernails screeching on a blackboard. The son of an old Gypsy confederate of Stefan’s, Kukoch had the body of a weightlifter and a head that was too small for his body. His nickname was Peahead, but no one outside the gang had the nerve to call him that. “What’s the plan, Stefan?” Kukoch asked.
Stefan hesitated a moment before answering. Finally, he said, under his breath, “
Koke per koke.”
“What do you mean, ‘a head for a head’?” Zoran asked. “Is this about revenge?”
Stefan glared at Zoran’s profile. “It will be my only reward in this matter. Whatever the men in that Range Rover might have on them is yours. You can split up the spoils. But the passenger is mine.”
Bob and Yanni’s documents – and a hundred dollar bill – got them through each of the six checkpoints they encountered on the way to the Albanian border.
They continued south, the rain finally letting up when they approached a checkpoint near Pec.
Yanni pulled the car onto the road shoulder one hundred yards short of the checkpoint. He peered through the windshield at the four armed men standing in the middle of the road, in front of a barrier. They were highlighted by the Range Rover’s headlights and two floodlights mounted on the guard shack behind the barrier. “I don’t like the looks of this,” Yanni said. “These men look more like bandits than Serb Army regulars.”
Bob patted the bulge of currency in his jacket. “They’re all bandits. Hopefully, our cash will make the difference.”
“You’re the boss,” Yanni answered. He pulled off the shoulder, drove up to the checkpoint, and rolled down his window. Two men armed with automatic weapons approached, one on each side of the car.
The man on the driver’s side spoke to Yanni in Serbo-Croatian.
“Where are you going?”
“My friend here is a Canadian reporter. We’re driving into Kosovo. He wants to follow up on reports the KLA is killing Serb residents there.”
While the guard considered Yanni’s answer, the second one tapped on Bob’s window with the muzzle of his weapon, then made a downward motion with it to indicate he should roll down the window.
Stefan and his crew had been having an easier time of it at the checkpoints. He carried a VIP pass General Karadjic had given Miriana. The bearer could travel anywhere in Yugoslavia.
When Stefan saw the sign announcing the guard station just ahead at Pec, then saw the Range Rover stopped at the checkpoint, he told Zoran to pull off the road. He got out and walked ahead, staying close to the trees bordering the rutted pavement. The Range Rover’s taillights glowed brightly in the night. Two armed guards bracketed the car. Another two guards stood ten yards away, in front of the vehicle. Then Stefan saw those two split up and go to the sides of the pull the driver and Danforth out of the vehicle. They paired up with the two other guards and began manhandling Danforth and his companion.
Stefan cursed under his breath. “Shit! They’ll kill him.”
By the time Bob was dragged from the Range Rover, he knew he and Yanni were in real trouble. The guards wore a motley assortment of clothing – Serb Army fatigue jackets over a variety of shirts and sweaters and jeans. Two had military campaign caps; the other two wore blue NATO forces baseball caps. They apparently wore whatever they found or stole. They were nothing but bandits.
“Who’s your leader?” Bob asked in English as the bandits dragged him off to the side of the road.
One of the bandits shouted something that Bob thought might be Serbo-Croatian and the other man released Bob’s arm and jabbed the butt of his rifle into Bob’s side. Bob sagged to the ground and groaned, despite his resolve to not show any weakness to these hoodlums.
The bandits then dragged him along the ground and into the trees. He heard the other two bandits laughing and Yanni crying out. The bandits were obviously beating him.
Bob tried to relax, to breathe normally. He offered no resistance while the two men hauled him into the woods. They stood him up against a tree. One man aimed his rifle at Bob while the other one leaned his rifle against another tree and searched Bob. He found the money belt and stripped it from around Bob’s waist, and then, laughing, waved it at his partner. He tossed the money belt by his rifle and grabbed a length of rope hanging over a branch.
The bandit looped the rope around Bob’s chest and then around the tree, but suddenly stopped when a voice from the road yelled something, and then Bob heard the sound of a car engine.
The man with the rifle looked over a shoulder toward the road. In that instant, Bob leaped forward, jerking the rope from the hands of one bandit, and lashing out with his foot kicking him in the crotch. The Serb bandit screamed and fell, dropping his weapon and holding his private parts. The other guard came around the tree at him, but Bob snatched the first guard’s rifle from the ground and swung the weapon at the second man’s head. Then he used the rifle to club the other one.
Bob snatched up the money belt and stuffed it inside his jacket, and then ran in a crouch back toward the Range Rover. Over the vehicle’s hood, he saw the other two bandits dragging Yanni into heavy brush on the far side of the road. Fifty yards up the road, a car rolled slowly toward the checkpoint.
Bob saw the bandits dump Yanni in the brush and then move back to the barrier blocking the road. They leveled their rifles at the approaching vehicle, which stopped just feet behind the Range Rover, and moved forward, one on each side, as they had before. Suddenly, the sound of automatic weapons firing shattered the night; muzzle flashes lit up the second car’s interior. The bandits were blown backward and fell to the ground.
The occupants of the car got out and quickly inspected the bodies. They fired bursts from their automatic weapons into the bandits. They then emptied the dead men’s pockets and dragged their bodies into the woods.
Bob gripped the bandit’s rifle and felt the comforting weight of the pistol in his jacket pocket. He had the option of melting back into the forest. But he couldn’t abandon Yanni. He stepped out from behind the Range Rover and shouted, “Do you speak English?”
Three men from the second vehicle pointed their weapons at Bob. He dropped the rifle and raised his arms in the air. “Hold it! I’m a Canadian reporter.”
An elderly man with sharp, hawk-like features stepped forward. “Your papers,” he demanded in English tinged with a mild Slavic accent..
Bob slowly lowered one hand, reached inside his jacket for his Greg Davis passport, and handed it over to the man, who scanned the document in the light from the second car’s headlights and looked back at Bob.
“Greg Davis?” the man said.
“Right!” Bob said.
“What are you doing here?” the man asked.
Despite the man’s accent, his English was flawless. “I’ll answer your questions. But, first, I need help for my friend,” Bob said. “They beat him badly.” He squinted against the glare of the Fiat sedan’s headlights, trying to get a better look at his saviors, while pointing toward where Yanni had been dumped.
The old man nodded and waved at two of his men. He shouted something at them.
They followed Bob into tall grass near the edge of the forest. Bob knelt next to Yanni’s still form. He checked his pulse. “He’s alive,” he said, “but his breathing is shallow. Let’s get him to the car.”
The two men carried Yanni to the back of the Range Rover. Bob climbed in first and helped pull Yanni into the vehicle’s cargo area. Cuts and abrasions showed on Yanni’s face. Blood oozed from his scalp. When Bob touched Yanni’s chest, the man moaned.
”I think he’s got broken ribs,” Bob said. “Maybe internal injuries, too.” He looked over his shoulder out through the open tailgate. “He needs a doctor.”
“There are no doctors around here,” said the hawk-faced man. “We need to get moving. These Serbs will be missed when they fail to report in. Where are the other two guards?”
“Over there, unconscious,” Bob said.
Hawkface looked at Bob and said, “Unconscious? I’m glad to see you reporters know how to defend yourselves.” Then he blurted an order in a language Bob didn’t recognize.
Two of the men moved swiftly in the direction Bob had indicated, where the two unconscious bandits were. Two shots rang out a moment later. Then the men returned.
Bob turned to Hawkface. “Was that necessary?”
The man shrugged and turned away without a word.
Bob’s stomach knotted. He moved back to the Range Rover and covered Yanni with a blanket from the cargo bay. Then he climbed out of the car and closed the tailgate. “What now?” he asked.
“Where are you going?” the leader said in English.
“The Albanian border.”
“We are, too. We can join forces until we get there.”
Bob shrugged. “Okay by me.”
“I’ll ride with you,” the leader said.
“What the hell is Stefan up to?” Kukoch asked Zoran and Zulkar while they followed the Range Rover. “I thought he wanted to kill that guy.”
“How do I know?” Zoran growled. “How can anyone understand what Stefan’s up to?”