Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) (22 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 Serb Special Forces team leader was getting nervous. Captain Slobodan Bromidivic had heard much about General Karadjic from other army officers. Eccentric and brutal, they said. Egotistical. Even depraved. The General’s shouts in the darkness only reinforced what Bromidivic had heard about the man. At first, he hadn’t the nerve to interrupt the General in whatever he was doing down the hill with the Gypsy woman. But after there had been no shouts or other sounds for several minutes, Bromidivic took one of his men and descended the hill. He focused his flashlight ahead, but saw no sign of General Karadjic or the woman.
“Here,” his man suddenly yelled. “Over here.”
The beams of their flashlights shone on a syringe lying on the ground and the General’s campaign cap. Several sets of fresh bootprints in damp earth led down a path through the bushes. The general and the Gypsy had disappeared.
Lieutenant Garcia moved his team as fast as possible toward the extraction point back across the Albania border. Four men at a time carried the limp Serb general.
They retraced the route they’d taken into Kosovo. Garcia breathed a little easier when they recrossed the fence line, putting them back inside Albania.
“We should be safer here in Albania,” he told Messina. “I’m hoping the Serbs – If they’re following us – won’t want to risk capture in Albania.”
Miriana had never been more frightened. She’d run down the hillside and crawled under a bush at the bottom. When the soldiers ran past, carrying Karadjic, she’d followed them as fast as she could, blood pounding in her throat, her lungs burning. She knew her only hope was getting away from the Serbs. Once they realized the general was missing, they would suspect her of being involved. After all, it was she who told the general where he needed to go to void the prophecy. The sudden lightening of the sky, with the moon escaping from behind clouds, allowed her to catch periodic glimpses of the men from a distance, so even though she couldn’t match their pace, she could at least follow their route.
The Serb team, unencumbered by the dead weight of General Karadjic, raced down through the thick bushes at breakneck speed. At the bottom of the hill, Bromidivic led them into a meadow a foot deep in lush grass and wildflowers. His flashlight revealed a trail trampled in the grass. The Serbs followed it to the apparent crossing point at the fence. A sign was attached to one of the barbwire strands: Albania. Bromidivic and his men didn’t hesitate; they crossed into foreign territory.
Bromidivic knew his career – and perhaps his survival – depended on rescuing the General.
Zoran tied Bob’s arms behind his back while Kukoch tied a gag around his mouth. Zoran then searched Bob, removing his wallet and the money belt, and handed both to Stefan.
Bob wondered how Stefan knew his real name. Had he been compromised? But by whom? A double agent?
They walked through the forest, Stefan and Kukoch ahead of Bob, Zoran and Zulkar behind. They reached the barbwire fence marking the Albanian border. The fence had been knocked down; dirt covered the wire strands. Stefan led the way, marching purposefully into Albania. When they were a hundred meters past the border, Stefan called a halt.
Bob sat on the ground and stared at him, trying to figure out who the man was. He appeared to be about seventy, with snow-white hair and dark skin like thick parchment. Too old, Bob thought, to be traipsing through the forests of Serbia and Albania – or any forests. The man’s eyes seemed to burn like pieces of black coal. When he looked at him, Bob felt as though he’d seen the face of something evil.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Stefan hissed in English.
Bob averted his eyes. There was no point in antagonizing the man.
Stefan walked to where Bob sat and planted a boot in Bob’s chest, forcing him backwards. Then he stomped him in the stomach. Bob writhed on the damp, spongy earth and gasped for breath, a wave of nausea hitting him. Stefan knelt, straddling Bob, and ripped the gag from Bob’s mouth. He leaned forward, just inches from Bob’s face. Bob could smell the man’s sour breath.
“You don’t recognize me, do you, Danforth?” Stefan said. “Well, I never forgot you. You have been branded in my memory all these years. You and Georgios Makris.” Stefan exhaled a growl. “I never would have known who you were if you hadn’t done that press conference after you returned to Greece.”
Memories of George Makris, his friendship and his death, were never far from Bob’s thoughts. His mind whirled back in time and raced through the short time he had spent with George: their journey into Bulgaria to rescue Michael, the gun battle in the Bulgarian orphanage . . ..
“Figured it out yet?” Stefan asked, raising his voice. “No? That night in the orphanage in Bulgaria? You killed a young man that night. You–”
“Radko!” Bob gasped. “Stefan Radko!”
“Right, Danforth. Stefan Radko. You killed my only son, Gregorie. You’re a dead man,” Stefan said, his spittle striking Bob’s face. “I could have killed you a hundred times tonight, but I waited. I wanted to find out what you were up to. But I don’t care anymore. I’m going to enjoy making your death slow and painful.” He pulled a knife from his boot – the knife he’d used to kill Yanni – and drove it into Bob’s left shoulder.
Bob screamed and reflexively brought his knees up into Radko’s back, sending him sprawling. Bob struggled to his feet, his hands still tied behind his back, the knife blade imbedded in his shoulder. Blood ran warm from his shoulder down his chest.
SPETZNAZ team leader Bromidivic heard a man scream followed by men shouting. He raised his hand in the air, bringing his team to an immediate halt, and then waved them to the ground while listening for more sounds.
“What the hell!” Corporal Yaurie whispered to Sergeant Messina. “Sounded like somebody got killed.”
“Get him!” Stefan yelled to Zoran and Zulkar, who were standing ten yards away, seemingly fascinated by the conversation between Radko and Bob.
Bob ran for the nearby trees. He stumbled, nearly falling, but regained his balance and ran on. But he’d gone only fifty yards when Kukoch stepped from behind a tree in front of him. Bob charged, lowering his good shoulder to hit Kukoch in the middle of the chest and drive him back against the tree. Kukoch’s head cracked against the tree trunk. Bob ran deeper into the woods.
Sergeant Messina pointed at Corporals Yaurie and Wright and motioned for them to follow him. They went along a narrow path toward where they thought the scream and shouts had come from.
After several hundred yards, Messina heard the sounds of several people crashing through the undergrowth. He placed Yaurie along the trail and whispered, “First one through is yours.” Then he turned to Wright with a silencing finger at his lips. “You’ve got the second one through.” Pointing, he directed the young Marine to take cover in the bushes twenty yards down the path, then hid opposite Wright, behind a Volkswagen-sized boulder. He would take down any and all people who might be with the first two that passed his position.
Zoran and Zulkar were gaining on Danforth. But then their quarry disappeared around a boulder. They rushed after the man. As they moved around the boulder, two uniformed men confronted them. Before they knew what had happened, they were disarmed. Then all went dark.
Messina and Wright searched the two men’s pockets, taking their wallets and weapons. Then they moved back up the path to where Yaurie had taken down the first man through.
“Jeez,” Messina said. “This guy’s a mess.” He pointed at the knife hilt protruding from the man’s shoulder. Then he noticed the man’s hands were tied at his back. Messina pulled a wallet from the man’s pocket and found photo identification. He took out a flashlight and pointed it at the ID: Gregory Davis. “Sonofabitch!” he said in a barely audible voice after checking all the credentials, “This guy’s Canadian. A reporter.”
“Where’d
he
come from?” Wright whispered.
Messina pulled a plastic packet from a pocket, tore off the edge with his teeth and shook out a large, sterile bandage. While Wright clamped a hand over the man’s mouth to stifle the moan he knew would come, Messina pulled the knife out of the man’s shoulder. Then he spread open the man’s jacket and shirt and pressed the bandage over the wound. Then he put the torn and bloody shirt and jacket back into place, and hefted the wounded man over his shoulder. He headed back toward the rest of the team, Wright and Yaurie following.
Stefan, leading a wobbly Kukoch in a search for Zoran, Zulkar, and Danforth, stopped for a moment to get his bearings.
“Zoran! Zulkar! Where are you?” Kukoch yelled.
Stefan grabbed Kukoch’s throat and hoarsely whispered, “Shut up, you damned fool.”
Then several men seemed to explode out of the ground. They were covered with brush and wore camouflage clothing. One man pulled Stefan away from Kukoch and threw him facedown to the ground. Damp earth clogged Stefan’s nostrils and mouth. He found it difficult to breathe. He felt a rifle muzzle jabbed against the back of his head.
“
Ko si ti sa jebani?
(Who the fuck are you?)” a voice asked in Serbo-Croatian.
Stefan recognized the Belgrade accent. They’d fallen into the hands of a Serb Army or militia unit. Think! he told himself. He turned his head slightly to look at the man standing over him.
“We’re Serb citizens following an American spy.”
The man jerked his rifle back as though to smash it into Stefan’s back. “You’re fucking Gypsies,” he said.
“Yes, yes,” Stefan said, spitting pieces of dirt from his mouth. “But it’s true about the spy.”
“Where is this spy?” the Serb said.
“He was headed in this direction,” Stefan said, pointing his arm straight ahead.
“How do you know he was a spy?”
“If you’ll let me up, I’ll explain it to you.”
The man grunted and stepped back a pace.
Stefan took that as permission to sit up. He again spit dirt from his mouth and quickly picked more out of his nostrils. He looked around and saw he was ringed by a group of Serb soldiers. Kukoch was sprawled on the ground, apparently unconscious.
Stefan adjusted his ski jacket, as though to straighten it after being tossed to the ground. He was really making sure Danforth’s money belt was secure. Then he said, “The spy claimed to be a Canadian reporter. But he had night-vision goggles and a GPS. Pretty fancy stuff for a reporter. There was another man with him, but he died.”
“What do you mean ‘died’?”
“We killed him when he tried to run away. But we couldn’t stop the other one. The spy.”
The uniformed man bit his own thumbnail while staring at Stefan. “Who appointed you Spy Catcher?”
Stefan now saw the man wore Serb Army officer insignia. Stefan gave him his most innocent look. “Captain, we are all citizens of Yugoslavia. We consider it our duty to protect the motherland.”
The officer hawked phlegm from his throat and spat at Stefan’s feet. He turned away. “Sergeant, take six men. Go around this clearing. See if you can find a sign anyone else has been through here.” Then he took the Gypsies’ wallets and pulled out their IDs, reading them in the light of the first rays of the rising sun.
Lying in high meadow grass, Lieutenant Garcia turned his wrist toward the slivers of light provided by the sunrise: 0738. He checked his GPS and confirmed they were at the extraction point – with time to spare. He crawled over to General Karadjic. The sedative had begun to wear off and the man was stirring. “Knock him out,” Garcia ordered.
The Marine guarding Karadjic opened a plastic bag, removed a chloroform-soaked cloth, and covered the Serb general’s face with it.
Garcia crawled over to the now conscious Canadian reporter. “How ya feeling?”
“A lot better than when those Gypsies were about to slice and dice me.”
“I’d love to hear your story, Mr. Davis, but I don’t have the time right now.”
“Listen, Lieutenant, my name isn’t Davis, it’s Danforth. Bob Danforth. I’m CIA. Those damn Gypsies messed up my plan to act as an observer of your mission. I was supposed to watch your snatching of Karadjic from a hilltop in Kosovo, just across from the Albanian border. I hope you’ve got room for one more passenger on the helicopter I know you’re waiting for.”
Garcia smiled and patted Bob’s good shoulder. “Hang in there. We’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes.”
Miriana laid flat on top of a knoll and looked down at the Americans. They’d stopped, hidden in tall grass, in a mist-shrouded meadow about one hundred meters away. Then movement far off to the right suddenly caught her eye. In the glare of the rising sun, she saw a line of men in Serb Army uniforms filing into the edge of the meadow. At first, Miriana thought they were all soldiers, but the way one of them moved caused her to look more closely. Yes, one of the men walked stiffly – like an old man. Only four men wore uniforms. She guessed they were some of the soldiers from Karadjic’s helicopter. But they were too far off and the mist too thick for her to see them clearly. She wondered where the rest of the Serb squad had gone.