Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) (40 page)
Read Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) Online
Authors: Joseph Badal
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue, #Espionage
As Vitas drove out of the old convenience store’s parking lot, he noticed that the woman was regaining consciousness. Her head bobbed back and forth, as though moving to strains of music only she could hear. He grabbed her arm and shook her. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Please let me go,” she pleaded.
“Maybe I will. What is your name?”
“Doris Fineberg.”
“I think maybe it is a good idea to let you go, Doris.”
“Really?” she said. Color began to return to her cheeks.
“That is what I said.”
He turned into a wooded park-like area and stopped at a little clearing that contained a picnic table and a stone barbecue pit.
“Can I go now?” Doris pleaded, suddenly finding her voice.
“Here is the deal, Doris. I get out of the car and walk around to your side. You wait until I open the door, then you get out. You run until you no longer can see the car. I will then drive away. You walk until you find a telephone somewhere. Call your husband. Or call the police.”
“No, no, I won’t call the police,” Doris said. “I promise.” Her eyes widened in alarm.
He patted her shoulder. “Do not lie to me, Doris. Besides, it will not matter if you call the police. I will be far away by then.” Vitas slid out of the car seat and walked stiffly around to the passenger side
.
It took him a long time. But she waited, like a stupid sheep
.
He opened her door and helped her out.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what? I stole your car, beat you, and scared you to death. And now I am going to kill you.”
Vitas watched her mouth open in silent shock when he drove the knife blade into her stomach. He jerked it upward until it struck her sternum. She clutched his knifehand while he let her sink to the ground.
What an idiot! She could have run away, Vitas thought, grinning down at the woman. With this leg, there is no way I could have caught her
.
Vitas felt the slipperiness of her blood on his hand. A familiar thrill ran through him.
Two hours after nightfall, Vitas stepped from the blackness of the shuttered store’s doorway and approached the car that had stopped a few meters away. He opened the car door. “Right on time,” Vitas said, clumsily lowering himself into the passenger seat of Paulus’ car.
“Jesus! What happened to you? There’s blood all over your pants and shirt. Your hands.”
“What do they say in America? All in a day’s work, Paulus, all in a day’s work.”
The ride to the safehouse took fifteen minutes. As soon as they were inside, Vitas ordered Paulus to bring the first-aid kit into the kitchen.
Paulus knelt on the linoleum floor and raised Vitas’ trouser leg. His hand shot to his mouth and he gagged.
“What’s wrong, Paulus?” Vitas asked. “My wounds making you lightheaded?”
“Holy shit!” Paulus said, looking down at the scabby wounds and seeping blood on Vitas’ leg. “Who did this to you?” he asked, while he rose from the floor and fell into a kitchen chair.
“What difference does it make? Just clean it up.”
“You need a doctor.”
“I’ll see a doctor when I get to Yugoslavia. Just do it!”
PART IV
1999
Michael entered the 82nd Airborne’s Macedonian Headquarters tent, walked up to Colonel Sweeney’s desk, and came to attention. “Permission to speak freely, sir,” he said.
“Permission granted, Captain.”
“With all due respect, Colonel, what’s going on? Why doesn’t my unit ever go out on patrol? Have I screwed up?”
Sweeney ran his hands over his face and then through his hair. “Sit down, Mike. No, you haven’t screwed up; you’re doing a great job. The reason you and your men haven’t been doing patrols has nothing to do with your performance. It’s because the Pentagon ordered me to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“I don’t either, Michael. Not completely, anyway. Apparently someone from the CIA called General Hightower over at the Joint Chiefs and demanded you be rotated back to the States. They worked out a compromise. You’re to be kept away from the Yugoslav border. I’ve got no choice. Orders are orders.”
Michael felt betrayed. He never would have believed his father would do such a thing. “This stinks, Colonel,” he said. “What do I tell my men? Hell, what do I tell the other company commanders?”
“Nothing. You tell them absolutely nothing.”
“Stefan, we must leave,” Vanja said. She heard the fear in her own voice and regretted it. Stefan hated weakness, especially when displayed by his own family members. “The Serb Army is moving this way. It’s all over the television.”
Stefan turned his head and gave Vanja a blank stare. Then he looked back at the television.
Vanja stepped in front of him and knelt on the carpet. “You’ve been like this since you saw Miriana shot. You have to get over it. You don’t know that she is dead. She could still be alive. Do you want her to learn her father just gave up, that he’s a quitter? You will never know if she’s alive if you let Serb goons kill you.”
Vanja began to cry. She grabbed Stefan’s arm and pressed her head against it. “What’s wrong with you?” she wailed. “If you have no concern for your own life, don’t you care anymore about us?”
Stefan looked at her again, eyes blazing now. “Shut up, woman!”
“No, I won’t shut up,” she screamed, her face crimson. “You’ve bullied me for thirty years. And still I loved you. Well, go ahead and let the Serbs kill you. Attila and I are leaving.”
Vanja stood and rushed away, skirts swirling while she ran out the front door of the little, white-stuccoed house. Attila was in the yard, throwing pebbles at a tree.
“Attila, get the car,” she ordered.
“Wh . . . where is
Babo
, Mama?” the teenager asked in his cracking, pubescent voice.
“He’s not coming. There’s nothing we can do. Now get the car.”
The teenager bowed his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yes, Mama,” he said, before walking around the side of the house.
He looks so much like his father, Vanja thought, tears running down her cheeks.
Just as tall. The same sharp features. But he’s prettier. Softer. The door creaked open behind her. She whirled around, wiping her face with the sleeve of her dress. Stefan’s tall, lean form filled the doorframe
.
Now in his seventies, he was still an imposing figure. He looked at least ten years younger than he was.
As he came toward her, Vanja turned her head to the side, expecting him to strike her. Instead, he put his arms around her and kissed her gently on the forehead. He had never done anything like that outside the privacy of their bedroom, she realized – and rarely even there.
“You’ve been the best woman any man could want,” he said. “You’ve always stood by me. If you’re determined to go, I’ll go with you. Someone has to protect you and Attila.”
Vanja smiled and pressed her body against him. Tears, now of relief, flooded her eyes. Just then, Attila drove up in the Mercedes, jerrycans of gasoline strapped to the car’s roof rack. The boy stopped the car, got out, and gawked wide-eyed at his parents.
Vanja smiled. “What’s wrong, boy? You’ve never seen a man and woman hold each other. Go help your father pack a suitcase.”
The young man smiled. “Yes, Mama.”
Eighteen-year-old Frank Murata walked around his car to the passenger side and opened the door. He tried not to be too obvious, checking out Ellen’s legs when he took her hand and helped her out. Man, does she have great legs, he thought.
Sexual tension was driving him crazy. He tried to control his trembling. It was damned hot out, yet he was shaking as though it was freezing. He kept getting mixed signals from Ellen. One moment he thought she wanted to screw his brains out; the next moment he thought she might scream rape. Catholic girls, he thought. One minute they’re hot for your bod, then they’re thinking about what they’ll have to say in confession.
Ellen Murphy was everything Frank wanted in a girlfriend: tall, blond, athletic, and funny. He was fairly sure she was still a virgin. Takes one to know one, Frank thought. Jeez! Eighteen and still as chaste as a nun.
He led the way through a stand of trees. “Watch out for the poison oak,” he told Ellen, pointing at the waxy leaves of a bush on the side of the path. He knew where he wanted to go. There was a clearing just ahead. It was hidden on three sides from the road that looped through the park. It was too early in the year for many other people to be in the park. He hoped.
They’d just entered the clearing when Ellen said, “Ooh, what’s that smell?”
Frank detected the odor, too. He let go of Ellen’s hand. “Stay here. I’ll check it out. Somebody probably dumped garbage.” He followed the scent trail. It got stronger while he crossed the clearing, passed the picnic table and barbecue pit, and approached the far treeline this side of the park road. The stench was so strong now that Frank took out his handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose. “Why the hell did I have to play the big, brave man?” he murmured, when he suddenly heard scurrying sounds just ahead. His heart seemed to stop and his stomach erupted with the swirling of a million butterflies.
Something lay on the ground a few feet away. It looked white. He took another step forward and then moved to the side, out of the light from the full moon. Moonlight now shone down on the blue-white skin of a mutilated body. Pieces of clothing had been strewn around the corpse and chunks of flesh had been bitten away. Frank’s stomach heaved. He turned to Ellen, but before he could say anything, he vomited down the front of his clothes.