Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) (20 page)
Read Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) Online
Authors: Joseph Badal
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue, #Espionage
The USS
Nassau
plowed through high seas at the northern end of the Ionian Sea. Lightning streaked while thunderheads rolled overhead. The decks had been awash with heavy rain for hours.
The
Nassau
ran due north toward the Strait of Otranto on a course that would put her halfway between the Albanian coast and the boot heel of the Italian peninsula. From there she would turn forty-five degrees toward Albania. As part of a three-ship Amphibious Ready Group from Amphibious Squadron 4 (PHIBRON 4), she carried, in addition to her regular crew, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC), Special Operations Capable, under the command of Colonel Dell Taylor.
Commodore Frank Petty, gray-haired commander of PHIBRON 4, paced in front of two men seated in the briefing room – Taylor and Lieutenant Commander Ernest Crowley, Operations Officer (N-3) for PHIBRON 4. The
Nassau’s
30-by-15-foot briefing room resembled a miniature movie theater, with twenty-four plush chairs in six rows facing a raised platform. A podium was fastened securely in the middle of the platform. Maps and a blackboard hung on the wall behind the podium.
Petty, as thin and hard as an iron rail, stepped behind the podium and placed his palms on it. He glared at the other men. “I have to tell you both, I don’t think much of this cowboy mission. It stinks of CIA.”
Taylor and Crowley nodded, but remained silent.
“We’re putting those young men in harm’s way with inadequate intelligence,” Petty continued. “Any captured Marines will be executed as spies – after a show trial. If this thing turns into a clusterfuck, you can bet the spooks won’t be anywhere around to share the blame.”
Taylor shrugged. “What the hell choice do we have, Frank?” he asked.
“I know, I know.”
Petty walked over to a corner table and pressed a buzzer. An ensign entered the room almost immediately.
“Williams, find Lieutenant Garcia,” Petty barked at the young officer. “Bring him here ASAP.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Ensign Williams replied. He turned sharply on his heels and left the room.
Taylor got up from his chair to study the map hanging on the wall behind Petty. Acid began to flow in his stomach and backed up into his throat. He opened the bottle of antacid he always kept in reach and took a swig. He hated to think what the combination of after-dinner stomach acid and pre-action adrenaline was doing to his insides.
There was a knock on the door. A Marine lieutenant entered the room and came to attention.
“Lieutenant Garcia reporting as ordered, sir.” His face was a stone mask.
Taylor strode over to Garcia. “At ease, Lieutenant Garcia. Take a seat” He pointed at a chair in the front row, then sat next to Garcia.
“It’s time for you to earn the big bucks Uncle Sam pays you,” Commodore Petty said, his gaze directed to Garcia. “As the Force Recon Direct Action Platoon Leader, you’re about to find out why your platoon is assigned to this Marine Expeditionary Unit.”
“Yes, sir,” Garcia said.
“Major Crowley, why don’t you get started?” Taylor said, leaning against the podium.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Crowley got up and walked briskly to the wall map. He grabbed a pointer propped in a corner of the room and tapped at the map. “This shows the land mass defined by the Adriatic, Black, Aegean, and Ionian Seas. Lieutenant, this mission has interest at the highest levels. You’re going to do grunt work for some very important people. Our information is that there will be a CIA observer near the target area.”
Crowley tapped at the map again. “Here’s where your platoon’s going. You and your fourteen Marines will take off at 0200 hours tomorrow in an MV-22 Osprey we have had deployed just for this mission. You’ll be inserted into Albania at its border with Kosovo, near the Drin River. You’ll have two AH-1W Super Cobras to provide fire support for the insertion.”
“Yes, sir,” Garcia said. “Glad to have those bad boys along.”
“At 0330 hours,” Taylor continued, “you will cross the border into Kosovo and take up positions on this ridgeline, just southwest of the city of Djakovica. A Serb general by the name of Antonin Karadjic will be on that ridge. Right here, on hill 652. At 0500, your team will move to capture Karadjic. You’ll take Karadjic five miles west to your extraction point – here.” Another rap with the pointer. “You must be at this point by 0800 hours. Sharp.”
Garcia sat as though frozen, studying the map. “A lot of distance to cover in a short time, Colonel,” he said. “Over pretty rough, steep terrain. And this rain will slow us down.”
“It’s the best we can do, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Miriana hurried through the maze of narrow streets on the outskirts of Belgrade. She carried a large straw bag against her chest and scurried along as fast as the slippery pavement allowed. Rain had been falling for hours.
Damn Karadjic for continually changing the location of their meetings, she thought. Following his directions, she turned a corner onto Kondraki Lane. A black sedan sat at the corner. A man jumped out from behind the wheel, opened the back door, and waited for Miriana to slide inside. He then slammed the door shut, got back in the car, and drove for fifteen minutes, continually checking his rearview mirror. The last few minutes of the drive took them down narrow residential lanes with three-story row houses facing each other. The space between the facing houses was so narrow cars had to park on the sidewalks to leave a single lane clear.
Finally, the man eased to a stop in front of a row house. “He’s inside,” the driver barked. He let Miriana deal with her door.
She got out of the car and looked first left, then right. The street seemed deserted, except for a man seated in a car a couple doors down the street. She would never have noticed the man if she hadn’t seen the red glow of a cigarette inside the car. Karadjic’s bodyguard, she thought. She climbed the steps to the front door and knocked.
“Ah, my little Gypsy is here,” Karadjic exclaimed after opening the door. He rubbed his hands together. The General was grossly overweight, with beady eyes and a bloated face. Miriana thought again that he looked
like an apple with pencils stuck in it for arms and legs.
The musty odor of the place told her the building had not been occupied in awhile. Even the strong smell of Karadjic’s cigar couldn’t hide that fact. There was no furniture in the front room.
Karadjic led her through the front room to a first-floor room furnished with nothing but a small, square table and four straight-backed chairs. Just another safe house the General would use once or twice, then abandon for another. He sat in one of the chairs and propped one of his legs on another. A cigar smoldered in an ashtray on the table. Karadjic lifted a tea glass filled with a cloudy, off-white liquid. “Would you like to join me, little Miriana? This is very fine
raki
.”
“No thank you, General,” Miriana said primly. “Alcohol and telling the future are not good companions.” Her father drank the stuff. She couldn’t stand the taste or odor.
“Ah, of course,” the General said. “We mustn’t do anything to taint the spirits.”
Miriana put her bag on one of the empty chairs. She took a bottle of water, a shawl, a candle and candleholder, and matches from the bag. She set the candle in the holder and lit it. When enough wax had dripped from the candle to fix it in place, she walked to the wall near the door and turned off the room’s overhead light. Moving across the room to the front room’s single window, she gripped the two curtains. She hesitated a moment, stared out at the grim row of houses across the street – now partially obscured by the pouring rain – and closed the curtains. She moved back to the room with the table and took a seat opposite Karadjic.
The General picked up his cigar and tamped out the embers in the ashtray. He put the four inches remaining in his shirt pocket. Then he put down his glass and laid his sausage-fingered hands on the table. His eyes bored into hers.
Without turning her gaze away, Miriana lifted the shawl from the table and draped it over her head and across her shoulders. Then she lifted the water bottle, sipped from it, and sprayed a fine mist at the candle flame through her teeth. The flame sputtered, then revived. Miriana prayed aloud for the protection of the Virgin Mother through the use of Holy Water.
Miriana laid her hands on Karadjic’s and closed her eyes. She fought to hide the revulsion she felt touching the man. They sat silently, without moving for several minutes, just as in all previous sessions.
Then Miriana held up both her hands and threw her head back as though jolted by an electric shock. Her mouth fell wide open and her pupils rolled back so her eyes showed white.
In an eerie, half-howling, half-wailing voice, she droned, “Antonin Karadjic, I see an ebony-black sky.” She paused. Then she shook as though suffering convulsions. The shaking stopped as quickly as it had started. Taking exaggerated breaths, her breasts lifting and falling with the effort, Miriana moaned, “The stars and the moon are dead.” Pause. “I hear the sounds of a million drummers.”
She shuddered, then continued in a quivering voice, “The blackness is coming at me . . . it has a million eyes. Help me! I’m afraid! I see bodies in the dirt.” A moan escaped her lips.
She clutched his hands with all her strength, digging her nails into his flesh. He yelled and jerked his hands away. Miriana shrieked, fell sideways onto the floor, and lay there as though unconscious. Karadjic knocked his chair over, jumping straight up.
Miriana sneaked a look at him with one slitted eye. The brave Serb general, victorious leader of a hundred battles, murderer of tens of thousands, is afraid. What a joke!
Finally, Karadjic reached for his glass of
raki
and knelt next to her. He held the glass under her nose. The strong whiff of alcohol made her cough, but she opened her eyes slowly. Shaking her head as though to clear it of confusion, she sat up on the floor. Karadjic took her arm, helping her off the floor and back into the chair.
“Te . . . tell me, Miriana,” Karadjic said. “Wh . . . what did you see?”
“I have to go, General. I must go home.” She stood and began hurriedly packing her things.
Karadjic shoved her back into the chair. “You’ll tell me what you saw!”
Miriana sighed and clasped her hands to her breast. “I saw nothing but blackness and heard a loud thrumming sound. The blackness came closer and closer, as though it would swallow me. And the closer it came, the louder the noise became. Then the blackness showed itself for what it really was – a mass of flying blackbirds. The sound of their wings became a roar.”
“What happened next?” Karadjic asked, his voice tremulous . . . respectful.
“I saw you being carried across the sky on the blackbirds’ wings. And behind you were thousands of corpses floating on air. Each one carried a sign reading:
Prizla
. They cried out your name. Oh, General! It was awful. Please, let me go.”
Karadjic’s eyes looked ready to pop from his head. White spittle had formed at the corners of his mouth. “Oh my God!” he cried.
“What does it mean, General?” Miriana asked.
Karadjic just waved her question away. He commanded her to continue.
She swept her hair back from her face, looking at him. “The birds flew with you over the land – nothing but burned out buildings, scorched fields, dead forests.”
“What about the bodies you saw?” Karadjic interrupted.
“They floated along after you.” She let this sink in. “You, the birds, and the corpses moved across the sky like storm clouds. Then the birds stopped. You asked the birds, ‘Why have we stopped?’ ”
Karadjic’s eyes were saucers.
“What happened next?”
Miriana paused, lowered her head for effect, then looked back at Karadjic. His lips quivered. His face had gone white. “Then the birds fell on you and consumed your flesh.”
The General shook his head and rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers.
“This is bad, Miriana! You have to help me! What can I do to prevent my death? How can I save myself?”