The Rendition (37 page)

“The
Kanun
.”

“Right, the
Kanun.
You can never squeeze anything out of them. Klear, I am so tired of your baloney. If I—”

“Jerry, will you shut up and listen? We know where he is going to be in two days.”

“We know they have a big meeting next week in Pristina. We can't grab him there. Pristina's the capital. They'll have soldiers all over the place. Reporters. Klear, you're out of your mind if you're proposing—”

“Before he goes to Pristina, he's going to be holed up in a village out in the west.”

“Which village?”

“We'll need weapons and backup.”

“Who's ‘we'?”

“Buck and me. Who else?”

“No way! Not you two. You and your buddy totally messed up the last time. And that's putting it mildly. You can't expect—”

“Without us it's a nonstarter. Forget the last time. If we still want Nadaj, this is our chance to grab him. But Buck and I have to be in Kosovo within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Our KFOR people in Kosovo are peacekeepers, Klear. Everyone gets hot and bothered whenever the story of one of these renditions leaks to the newspapers. We had a guy stashed in the jail on Bond-steel, and when it leaked out, there was hell to pay. The last I heard the guy's suing the government, if you can believe that.”

“You'll have to work out the details, Jerry.”

“Okay, I'll get back to you. I can't promise anything. I have to talk with some people.”

After giving Jerry the number of our satellite phone, I handed it back to Buck. “Jerry says he needs time to talk with his people. I have an idea that one of them will be the national security adviser.”

As I turned over the engine, Buck said, “Jerry's come a long way from those rabbit warren cubicles we all had in Berlin.”

I nodded. “He certainly has.”

“I hope we're doing the right thing.” Shenlee sounded excited. It was ten o'clock that evening, and I had just picked up the satellite phone.

I looked across the room at Buck and nodded. In less than two seconds, Buck was off the sofa and standing next to me.

As Buck and I silently exchanged high fives, I said, “What's the deal, Jerry?”

“The arrangements are as follows. I assume you guys have wheels. You and Romero drive up to Ramstein. Let's see. What time do you have over there?”

“It's a few minutes after ten.”

“Okay. It'll take you four, five hours to drive up, so I suggest you pack and leave right away. At the gate, you ask for Colonel Butts. He's in base ops. He'll have your paperwork, Klear, and he'll get you guys squared away. They're cutting your flight orders right now, and you'll both be on the way to Pristina tomorrow, the morning rotator flight. In the terminal there'll be a van. They'll handle the KFOR in-processing, take you out to Bondsteel. Out there you ask for Captain Reilly. He's special ops. It seems they've also picked up a rumor about this meeting of Kosovo government people.”

I said, “It sounds important.”

Shenlee sighed. “Kosovo's gonna declare its independence, Klear. I guess I can tell you that much. In June, when the president was in Albania, he let them know we'll recognize Kosovo as a sovereign nation. It's gonna cause a big reaction, believe me. China and Russia are dead set against. But Nadaj can't, under any circumstances, be a member of the new Kosovo government.”

“Why not?”

“What we're looking at is Greater Albania. Albania, Kosovo, and parts of Macedonia will be de facto one country. Whatever happens, we want to cut their ties with al-Qaeda.”

“We're on our way, Jerry.”

“I still don't know exactly when I'll be arriving.”

“You're coming over, Jerry?”

“Yeah. I can't let you guys run wild. And, Klear, I want you to know that we expect you to return to Krautland when this is over. The U.S. government has problems enough. It is not going to aid a fugitive.”

“We look forward to seeing you, Jerry.”

“I'm sure you do. You should know I have tickets for the Kennedy Center for this weekend, a play by Shakespeare. You've thrown another monkey wrench into my life, Klear.”

“Which play is it?”

“I think it's the one with Falstaff. Is that
Hamlet
?”

“I don't think so, Jerry.
Hamlet
has the ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be' guy in it.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

After I'd hung up, I told Buck that Shenlee wanted us to leave right away.

“I can't wait to get back to Kosovo,” Buck said.

We left for Kosovo at 1030 hours the following morning in a C-130 that flew out of Ramstein Air Base. Although we ran into some heavy weather halfway down, the sun was shining when we landed in the military airport just outside Pristina. After grabbing our carry-ons from the pile of gear and getting our KFOR paperwork inside the terminal, a van took us to Camp Bondsteel, a sprawling military installation situated not far from the city of Urosevac.

At the gate we were met by an officer who introduced himself as Major Chambers and who told us we had an appointment in the administration building that evening at 1900 hours.

Much of Camp Bondsteel, which is south of Pristina, sits on top of a broad plateau. Kosovo is a rugged country of small mountains, hills, and valleys, and Bondsteel, which is over nine hundred acres, is the largest military installation the United States has built since the days of the Vietnam War. Coming up from Skopje, I'd helicoptered onto the base some years before, but it had looked different back then, not so built up. At that time, we lived in tents and took cold showers.

After we'd stashed our gear in a SEA-hut and gotten some chow, we hiked up to the Administration Section, which is behind a high chain-link fence at the top of a hill and right across the road from the helicopter pad.

Captain Reilly, whom we found in a computer-filled room in the S-2 section, turned out to be a no-nonsense Special Forces officer with a ferocious handshake. He was my height, a shade over six, with an intelligent face and thinning brown hair. Together with Chambers and a
civilian named Silvio, who spoke English with an Albanian accent, we adjourned to Chambers's office.

“We've gotten the word from D.C.” Chambers said as he closed the door. “Someone from the NSC is supposed to show up over here.”

Buck said that would be Jerry Shenlee.

“Normally, we take orders only from SOCOM,” Reilly said. “So I take it they want this Nadaj guy real bad.”

“Very bad,” I said.

“Well, that's what we're here for.” Reilly was referring to the fact that he commanded a Special Forces A-team, which was stationed on Camp Bondsteel but which was there for special ops—not for peacekeeping.

I said that Nadaj would be arriving in Pec the following day.

Chambers nodded. “Sometimes we hear about meetings, but we never know when or where. The KLA is good at keeping secrets.” When he asked Silvio if our information sounded accurate, he shrugged. That wasn't too encouraging.

“We can't just barge in and arrest Nadaj in Pristina,” Chambers said. “There'd be all kinds of diplomatic protests. The word is Kosovo may declare independence as early as next month.”

“That's the problem,” Buck said. “Once Nadaj is part of the new government, he'll be untouchable.”

Chambers frowned. “You say he's staying out near Pec someplace?” We gathered around the map on the wall, and Chambers pointed at Pec. Then he looked at Silvio. “Do you know anyone who grew up out there? Someone you can call?”

Silvio nodded. “Maybe.”

Looking at Buck and me, Chambers said, “This isn't much to go on. How much time do we have?”

“No more than a day.”

“Is Nadaj as bad as they say?” Chambers asked. “From what we hear, you got to meet him firsthand.”

“He could have been more hospitable,” I said.

Back in the SEA-hut with a three-day-old copy of
Stars and Stripes
, I read for ten minutes. By 2230 I was sound asleep.

At 0800 the following morning, Reilly picked us up in a van from in front of the chow hall. When I asked him if he'd heard from Silvio, he said he hadn't.

We drove to the far side of the big installation, finally arriving at an area surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence behind which were a half dozen SEA-huts. The Green Berets kept to themselves. At the gate, which was surrounded by piles of sandbags, a lone sentry saluted and raised the barrier.

“This is where we hang out,” Reilly said, pointing to the compound.

After we'd been there a half hour, a van arrived, and Jerry Shenlee, wearing camouflage fatigues, came scrambling out. Shenlee seemed to know Reilly, so I assumed he'd arrived at Bondsteel sometime during the night.

A minute later, Major Chambers arrived.

“Have we decided yet how we're gonna do it?” Shenlee asked.

Reilly said, “We still haven't pinpointed Nadaj's whereabouts.”

Shenlee frowned. “What's with this Silvio?”

“We're hoping to hear from him anytime now,” Reilly said. “He's always been dependable.”

“The deputy secretary cares about this,” Shenlee said.

Reilly and Chambers exchanged glances. Jerry and I went all the way back to Berlin in the 1980s, and I was used to his micromanaging style. But I had a feeling Chambers and Reilly weren't too happy about the way he was throwing his weight around. Reilly had fixed up one of the SEA-huts as an office, and we walked over there.

Reilly got his coffee machine going, and we all sat down to wait.

A little over an hour later, Silvio came walking in the door.

“I have good news and bad news,” he said. “What do you want to hear first?”

“The bad news,” I said.

“No one out near Pec's heard anything about Nadaj.”

“What's the good news?” Chambers said.

“The good news is that last week Agim Shala ordered an enormous amount of food from the market in Pec. From the butcher in Pec he ordered sausage and beef.”

“Who is Agim Shala?” Chambers asked.

“The local Mafia chief. The butcher is a friend of my brother-in-law.” When no one responded, Silvio said, “It makes sense that Nadaj would only visit the Mafia chief in the area. I should have thought of that yesterday.”

Taking a seat at the room's computer, Chambers said, “Where is Agim Shala located?”

“Southeast of Pec. He has property between Gornji and Ljesane.”

“We conduct daily flyovers,” Chambers said. “Nadaj doesn't travel alone, I assume.”

“All these guys have an entourage,” Shenlee said.

We watched as Chambers slid a disc into the computer and then began calling up images and pictures taken by satellite and aircraft. “You can't light a cigarette in Kosovo that we don't know about it,” he said at one point. It took a while, but he was finally able to focus on the property he was looking for. Looking over his shoulder, we could see what seemed to be some kind of compound.

“It looks as if a number of vehicles are sitting in an area to the right of the gate, which might mean Mr. Shala has visitors. They weren't there yesterday morning. On the basis of when these were taken, I'd say they arrived sometime yesterday afternoon.”

When I looked at Buck, he arched his eyebrows.

Within seconds, Reilly was on his feet and headed for the door. He'd be putting the A-team on alert. If we were going to try anything this evening, they'd need to be ready.

“The house is right in here,” Silvio said. He was standing in front of a large map of Kosovo on the wall of Reilly's office. “It's three miles south of Pec.”

“What's the area like?” I asked.

“Hilly,” Silvio said. “Lots of trees. As you can see, there are also trees on the property.”

Chambers called us over to have another look at his computer screen. Pointing to the monitor, he said, “These are recon photos of the area. Low-altitude shots, from one of the drones.” As he worked, he was able to enlarge an area on the screen.

What we saw was a detailed picture of a good-sized house taken from the sky. Around the perimeter was a wall. At one end, a road leading out from the city was plainly visible. Silvio pointed at the map. “Here's a gate.”

“I suppose there'll be guards at the gate,” Shenlee said. When Silvio nodded, Shenlee asked how high the wall was.

“I would guess eight or nine feet.”

“How far from the wall to the house?” Buck asked.

“Fifty yards, maybe a little more.”

“A firefight is out of the question,” Reilly said. He had returned a few minutes before. “If we go in, it's to get this Nadaj character. It's not to kill anyone.”

“Something else,” Shenlee said. “No one can know the United States is involved. We have to make it look like a local thing. We deny involvement. We give the responsibility for Nadaj's disappearance to one of the rival factions.”

“Which means we don't wear uniforms,” Reilly said.

Buck asked how many guards they'd have with them.

Chambers said, “Since there are four vehicles, I'd guess at eight to ten. A few will probably have gate guard duty.”

Reilly pointed to the recon photo. “We go over the wall. We've got the equipment. I'd say four guys go in. They make it to the house, grab Nadaj, hustle him back to the wall.”

“How do we get him back over?” Shenlee asked.

Reilly hesitated, then said, “We blow a hole in the wall. That
shouldn't be difficult. Four of our people approach the gate to keep the guards there busy. They say their car conked out. Because he knows the lingo, one of them has to be Silvio. Four other guys stake out the perimeter. Four blast open the wall.”