Colonel Tucker was in his office for hours before he received a call from the deputy director of operations. In that time he did little more than sit and think, doodling with a pencil on a pad while he tried to sort out the meaning of Ostropaki’s reappearance, and the possible problems that lay ahead.
The obvious inference was that Ostropaki had lied, that the whole operation had been a setup, including “Franko.” Ostropaki must have been working with the drug dealers—if not from the start, then at least for some time. They had colluded to set up this “interdiction” operation in order to mask their real trade routes. It was a shell game. And when the war began to get too close, they shut it down, by “eliminating” first Ostropaki, then “Franko.” The colonel wondered if there had ever been a real “Franko,” or if that was just fiction, too. If so, little wonder that the redoubtable Joe Service had been unable to find this mysterious nonperson.
He got on the computer and logged in to see some files on the operation. He jotted down a column of figures representing drugs seized, along with money, in the various intercepts of this operation. The whole thing had run for more than two years. Counting seizures in ports, on the sea, in Italy, and so on, he came up with a quick rough figure of more than two thousand kilos of heroin and opium, plus upwards of a million dollars in actual cash of various denominations. More than a dozen drug runners had been arrested and prosecuted; others were killed in fleeing, or in violent confrontations. Vehicles were impounded, including boats. All of this with no loss of life to any agents of the DEA, except the “adjunct agents,” Ostropaki and “Franko.”
There was no denying it: the “Pannonian Putsch,” as some DEA wag had dubbed it, invoking the ancient Roman term for those hinterlands of the empire, had been a resounding success. In fact, some had taken to calling it the “Parannoniac Arrest,” playing on the constant atmosphere of distrust and betrayal that had seemed so typical of Balkan dealings.
He wrote PANNONIA in large block letters on his pad, then began to analyze the figures again. Quite a few of those seizures were not verified, merely estimated. This was particularly true of the seizures at sea, where items were frequently cast overboard during chases by coast patrols and/or international police agencies. And there was frequently no real verification that all of the materials seized were analyzed before destruction or being turned over to local authorities—conceivably a large percentage could have been other substances, only resembling a bag of heroin, say.
Quite a few of the people arrested were highly expendable types, either untrustworthy or incompetent, and no loss to the smugglers. There were, in fact, no major figures in the trade arrested and prosecuted. Indeed, the major losses to the campaign were Ostropaki and “Franko.” Even the million-plus dollars dwindled to what might be considered a normal loss in this trade, the cost of doing business.
When looked at with that kind of harshly critical eye, the Pannonian Putsch began to look like a farcical Keystone Kops raid. But the colonel was unconvinced. Any operation could be made to seem a failure. You went up on Route Pack Six, destroyed a SAM site, bombed the railroad, the steel mill, and had a possible MiG kill and the analysts told you the next day it was a wash, hadn’t slowed the Cong at all. Still, they’d known you were there, and you were coming again today, and tonight. Maybe it was a similar run, here. It all depended on Ostropaki.
He noted, incidentally, that one of the more active DEA agents in these interceptions was J. Sanders. She had really gotten her feet wet in this operation, he recalled. It was how she had first come to his attention as a potential recruit to the Lucani.
The phone rang shortly after nine. It was the deputy director’s office, asking for Tucker’s presence. He said he’d be right in. Before he made his way to the DDO’s office, he tore off the sheet of paper he’d been doodling on, to stick it into the shredder. He saw that he had unconsciously overwritten PANNONIA to make PARANNONIAC, and then made bold the letters that spelled PANIC. For some reason, this lightened his spirits.
“Vern, do you remember a fellow named Theo Ostropaki?” the DDO asked when he entered. The DDO was a stocky man who often wore what struck Tucker as a civilian version of marine dress khakis, smartly tailored tan or at least light brown gabardine suits, to go with his ex-marine brush haircut. He was generally genial, though not particularly so this morning.
“Of course you do,” the DDO answered his own question. “Man, that was a sweet operation! We put a real dent in the flow of that pipeline. Well, can you believe it, he’s surfaced! In Brooklyn!”
The colonel managed to look surprised. He listened to the whole account, a hastily paraphrased version of Kravfurt’s report. “What does this suggest to you?” the DDO asked with the shrewd look of a used-car salesman.
“It sounds like the reports of his death were exaggerated,” Tucker said.
“Heh, heh,” the DDO said, with no joy. “I believe I’ve heard that one. But beyond that?”
“Our assumptions of Ostropaki’s role may have to be reevaluated,” Tucker said.
“Your assumptions,” the DDO amended. “But, what the hell, you had to draw reasonable conclusions from inadequate intelligence—your own intelligence, I might add.” He was being generous, not actually kicking butt.
Tucker listened closely, trying to read any nuances here. He reminded himself of the panic inherent in paranoiac. The DDO, he realized, was more concerned to establish firmly who was responsible for this debacle than to seriously examine the merits of the operation. Tucker could not detect any suspicion in the DDO’s remarks that he thought his actions had been other than inept.
“Sir,” Tucker said, eschewing any familiarity by not using his superior’s first name, although they were on good terms, “I take full responsibility. I’ve got to admit, it looks like we—I—accepted too readily Ostropaki’s evasions and explanations. But if you’ll allow me a word of caution here … sometimes in the morning mist the ducks look a lot like the decoys.”
The DDO liked that metaphor. He narrowed his eyes with a little half smile, perhaps recalling some morning in the blind. He opened a desk drawer and took out a large black cigar. “Care for one?” he said. “They’re not Havanas, but good chewers, Honduran. No?” He put the cigar in his mouth and began to chew, gently. “Okay, Vern, I take your point. Why don’t you get up there to Brooklyn and see which of these ducks can fly? It looks a little murky right now, but no need to panic. Hell, we may end up giving this guy a medal. But if it plays out like it sounds, it’s your mess. I’m going to let you clean it up.”
There was a slight emphasis on those closing words. Tucker relaxed. The DDO would be happy if all this could be explained in some defensible way. And if not, even a familiar plot line might suffice: it wasn’t as if the community was unfamiliar with the sad story of a contract agent who had played a double game. Happened all the time. The manly thing to do was own up to a mistake and then sweep it under the carpet.
The DDO even rehearsed the well-known scenario: Ostropaki had allowed them to snatch a few shipments, diversions, so that the real shipments got through. The “real dent in the flow” was instantly reduced to a paltry leak. The best deal might be to find out if Ostropaki could be turned again, give them a real handle on the main villains. That would get Ostropaki out of the country, away from congressional oversight committees and possible publicity of their failure.
“The NYPD’s task force is going to pick him up the minute he shows his face,” the DDO said. “They’re happy to cooperate. It was our coup that identified him. They’ll want some quid pro quo, of course. I’m counting on you to handle this with discretion, give them something, but don’t let them see that our faces are red. Don’t be arrogant, Vern. We can’t just hustle this guy off to some safe house. It’s got to be done in plain sight, with them looking on. Think you can handle that?”
That was a nasty swipe. As much as to say, You blew it, you bungler. Now make us look good.
“I’ll get on it right away, sir.”
In fact, the shuttle got him from National to La Guardia a little after eleven o’clock. Ten minutes later, Max Kravfurt was driving him to a rendezvous with a Detective Porter, in Brooklyn.
“How are you getting along with Barnes, Max?” the colonel asked, as they drove.
He listened with interest to Kravfurt’s cautiously worded complaints about bureaucratic pusillanimity. Tucker wanted to hear genuine gripes, not sour grapes. He had sounded Kravfurt out in the past on this and found him a potential candidate for the Lucani. Now was a good time to audition Kravfurt’s song, to hear if he at least got all the notes right.
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it, Max,” he said. “We’re in this together. You should have seen me kissing the cardinal’s ring about an hour ago. What a desk jockey!”
Kravfurt was eager to yodel. He immediately launched into an aria about an operation he’d been on a few months earlier.
“Are we talking about that Congressman Heller sting?” the colonel asked at one point, interrupting the diatribe. “I didn’t know you were involved in that. Who else was on the case?”
“It was a cousin of mine who tipped me,” Kravfurt assured him. “We grew up in the same neighborhood as Heller. Mike knew him better than I did. He called me, said Heller was living pretty rich, new cars, a house in Florida, shtupping some kid half his age, a dancer at Tori’s. Twenty-year marriage crashing. Worse, he’s hanging out with some old neighborhood mopes. Well, you know a congressman: he’s got backers, they throw him stock tips, pad his campaign fund—he’s bound to be doing all right. But it was more than that. These are mob guys, dealers, he’s hanging with. They’re cutting him into the distribution end, and Heller’s into the coke himself. He was making an ass of himself.
“I developed the whole case, me and Aaron. Then what happens? When I set up the buy, Heller sends some hood Aaron remembered from that LaGuardia case, doesn’t show himself. We brought in that babe that worked on the Franko stuff overseas, Jamala Sanders—you remember her?”
“Sanders? Sure. Why her?” the colonel said.
“She can look black,” Kravfurt said. “Plays it real good. And she hasn’t been seen around here. Anyway, she’s the buyer. When Heller doesn’t show, she pitches a monumental bitch, takes a hike. Smart gal. So we go through the whole thing again. Aaron tells Heller that she got spooked, something about the contact. She thought he was a rat, maybe working off a rap for the feds. Heller says that’s bullshit. Anyway, to make a long story short, he finally agrees to meet her himself. We had a man with a long lens, got photos, tapes, the coke, marked money he deposits in his own bank account, the whole schmear.”
“So what happened? How did Heller walk?”
“Politics,” Kravfurt said, a clear, pure note of disgust. “Somebody owed somebody. All I know is Barnes calls me and Aaron in, says the evidence was tainted. We’re transferred to another case. Lucky we weren’t sent to another division, even fired. We’d messed the whole thing up. Heller quits Congress, pleads bad health. That was the deal they worked with him, obviously. He’s down in Florida, now, free as a bird.”
This was the sort of thing that the colonel wanted. He could check it out with Jammie. The sooner the better. But first, Ostropaki.
Detective Porter and his assistant, Detective Cook, met them in a coffee shop on Flatbush Avenue. Some NYPD undercover cops were watching the house. It was an apartment building, actually, an older place just a few blocks away. A number of Muslims lived in the building, Albanians. Ostropaki could be staying with any of them. They couldn’t be sure which apartment. The plan was to wait for him to come out. As soon as he tried to drive anywhere he could be pulled over for some real or imagined violation. Then Porter and Cook would be called in. Ostropaki would be taken to the precinct. Tucker could talk to him there. If necessary, some coke could be “found” in the Ostropaki car.
“That won’t be necessary,” the colonel said. “We’ve got legitimate reasons to ask him questions about operations outside the country. But if you want to …”
Porter and Cook could wait on that, they said. They’d like to see what came out. “Hell, with any luck,” Cook chimed in, “the guy will be making another delivery.”
They all went for a drive-by, to look at the house. It was an ordinary brick building, three stories, no elevator. Four apartments on each floor, but from what the undercover guys had seen, it looked like a couple of hundred people lived there, Porter told them. Well, maybe not that many, but many more than one would expect. Could be a violation of housing ordinances—a dozen apartments converted into two dozen, or more. Almost bound to be. Foreign types coming and going more or less constantly. Nobody seemed to work. Women in shawls, men in funny hats.
The four men returned to the diner to wait, chatting, talking shop. Tucker was anxious to get away, not only from the detectives but from Max. He wanted to call Jammie, find out what was going down in Montana. He had a feeling that Joe would be able to wrap that up. Maybe the thing to do was simply go back to the Manhattan office with Kravfurt, since Ostropaki didn’t show any sign of moving. He and Max could always be called when the pickup occurred. The only thing was, he wanted to be on the spot, in case Ostropaki began to talk. Tucker wanted him to talk, but not too freely. He wanted to get Jammie back, now. Let Joe do his thing.
About one, the watchers called in. An unexpected type had shown up at the apartment house, in a cab. A burly man in a black suit, carrying a briefcase. He’d gone into the house.
“A delivery!” Cook declared. “Mr. Big! Let’s go in.”
“Mr. Big?” Porter laughed. “We don’t have a make on him. We don’t know which apartment he went into. Maybe he has nothing to do with our delivery boy. We’d never get a warrant on that.”
“A burly guy, in his sixties?” Cook said. “We give him an ID! Sounds like Boomie Karns,” he said.
They amused themselves trying to attach a name and face to this “burly” visitor. About forty minutes passed, and Tucker began to think that he could reasonably plead a lunch date. He had a feeling that if Ostropaki had been up all night, he might not be going out, if at all, before late afternoon. By now, he thought, Jammie and Joe had probably taken care of Bazok. He was anxious to know.
Then the word came: Ostropaki was on the move. The detectives took their car, Tucker rode with Kravfurt. The cops had allowed Ostropaki to get well away from the house but stopped him before he got on the freeway. The cops had pulled him over on a side street.
“Thanks, guys,” Porter told the uniforms as he approached Ostropaki’s car. “We’ll take him. Get this car towed. We’ll want a thorough search of it.”
The colonel and Kravfurt watched from their car. “That’s him, all right,” Tucker said. They followed the detectives to the precinct. The detectives had Ostropaki in an interrogation room when the colonel and Kravfurt entered.
“Colonel!” Ostropaki said. He looked relieved. He smiled and stood up to hold out his hand. But the colonel ignored it, giving him a cold look. Ostropaki, chastened, sat down again.
The colonel took a chair across the table from Ostropaki. A tape recorder sat on the table, but not turned on. The colonel knew that they were being recorded, however. This was a delicate moment.
Tucker gestured at the tape machine and asked Porter, “How does this work?” Porter showed him. Tucker turned on the machine and gave the date, the time, the place, then identified himself and those present. Ostropaki watched quietly.
“The subject is known to me as Theodore Ostropaki,” the colonel said. “Is that your correct name? Please speak up. Give us your nationality and date of entry to the United States, how you arrived …”
Ostropaki was very cooperative. He had entered two days earlier, was visiting friends and professional contacts. He gave the address of the apartment and the names of the friends. They were Albanian immigrants. He worked for an international refugee organization and was here to provide information about missing relatives, that sort of thing. It all sounded quite legitimate and reasonable. The colonel had his passport. It had been issued by the Albanian government, where he now resided. The date on it was a week old.
The colonel asked him about that. Ostropaki explained that he had been a refugee himself. He’d been caught in the outbreak of hostilities in Kosovo and had fled with people who protected him, to Albania. There, for many reasons, he began to involve himself in the refugee problem. Ultimately, he went to work for the agency that had helped him. He hadn’t needed a passport before this, his first trip out of the country.
“What did you do in Kosovo?” the colonel asked.
“I was sales representative for a large firm in Athens,” Ostropaki said. “Building supplies. I traveled all over … Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia. I have very good languages, you see. I speak Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Romanian …” He went on, describing this good, well-paying job. He seemed calm, as if he knew that all this was a mere formality and soon he would be allowed to return to his friends.
“Where were you going just now?” the colonel asked.
“Breakfast,” Ostropaki said. “I was up late last night and slept in.”
“What were you doing last night?” the colonel asked.
“I had to meet a man whose family is still in Serbia,” Ostropaki said. “He works what he calls a graveyard shift? In Serbia he was surgeon, here he is emergency-room technician at a hospital in Manhattan—I think he operates the machines that say if one is still alive, something like that. I delivered to him some letters from his family. He has an uncle in Albania, at one of the camps, waiting to return to Serbia.” He gave the man’s name and where he worked.
The colonel looked up at Porter, who nodded to Cook, who left the room, obviously to check on this alleged hospital technician. This was not going as they’d expected. Every one of the officers in the room had the dull feeling that the man just described would turn out to be a solid witness for Ostropaki. The colonel, however, felt his spirits lift.
“I was hoping to see you, while I am here, just a few days,” Ostropaki said to the colonel. “You were so”—he hesitated, then found the right word—“amiable, when we met in—”
Before he could say “Athens,” the colonel reached over and punched the stop button on the recorder. He got up and went outside. Porter and Kravfurt followed.
“Well, that’s a loser,” Tucker said in the hall, with a rueful look on his face. “We interviewed him in Athens a couple of years back, thinking he might be a useful correspondent, since he traveled to Serbia quite a bit. Then we lost track of him. Nothing came of it.”
“That was your interest?” Porter said.
“It looked different,” the colonel said. “There was always the possibility that he might have contacts with the Zivkovic group, in Serbia. But now, it sounds to me like someone set him up. What do you think?”
“Why would someone set him up?” Kravfurt said.
“Who knows? Maybe to discredit him with this refugee organization,” the colonel said. “It could have been some internal dispute. These people are notoriously divided among themselves. One faction opposes another, and they’re all engaged in the same cause! Or it could have been some Serb group that found out about Ostropaki’s mission, got some inside information on this meeting with the doctor, or whatever he is.”
Porter seemed to buy it, especially when Cook returned with the news that Ostropaki’s contact was an emergency-room technician at the hospital. Porter was disgusted. He had wasted his day, and his men. “What do you want to do with him?” he asked the colonel.
“I’d like to talk to him some more, see what he knows. He might have some useful information about other people we’re interested in, people who also disappeared during the NATO bombing. But I think it would have to be in a more congenial setting. If by chance he comes out with something of interest, I’ll let you know, of course. In the meantime, perhaps you could run a record check on this ex-surgeon fellow who works at the hospital. Doctors have been known to have drug associations. If that proves questionable, we know where Ostropaki is.”
Porter muttered something derisive and said, “Yeah, take him away. I’ll get a release for his car. Don’t forget to call. You owe us one.”
The colonel ushered Ostropaki out of the precinct station. It had helped that Ostropaki’s rental car had been clean. To Kravfurt, he said, “Theo can take me back to the airport. I’d like to chat with him about his experiences.”
Kravfurt said, “Fine. Don’t forget me, Colonel. This looked like a good thing.”
The colonel assured him that he appreciated being called and said Max could expect to hear from him before long. As soon as Kravfurt had gone and they were driving away, the colonel said to Ostropaki, “Was that you who called?”
“It was a friend of mine. I told him to ask for Kravfurt, because he was with you in Athens, that time.”
“So, Theo,” the colonel said, as they drove toward La Guardia, “how did you manage not to get killed? I thought the Zivkovic people were on to you.”
“Oh, they were. The minute I returned to Belgrade, I was arrested. Vjelko was behind it. He was tight with the regime. They were all in the drug trade. They kept me in a rather nasty jail, questioned me about Franko. But I had nothing to tell them.”
The colonel could tell from his reticence that it had been a painful and humiliating experience, not to say potentially fatal. It was clear that Ostropaki was not eager to talk about it, but it was necessary. The colonel pressed him. The story was a depressingly familiar one of beatings, threats, torture, and terror. Of particular interest was the degree of cooperation between an outright gangster like Zivkovic and the highest reaches of the regime, including the police.
“Finally, they put me in a camp,” Ostropaki said. “I thought they would kill me there. They killed so many. Sometimes, one of Vjelko’s men would come to question me again. One of them, a very bad man named Bazok, was especially crude. He asked me about Franko—did I know him? I didn’t know who he was talking about, I said.
“I think because I was a foreigner it saved me. At last, one of my old construction customers in Belgrade, a friend of mine, heard I was there and began to ask questions. He was important to the government. They drove me into Kosovo in the middle of the night, pushed me out of the car, and told me to start walking. I thought they would shoot me, but they didn’t. I was telling the truth about the refugees, you know.”
“It sounded authentic, anyway,” the colonel said. They found a spot in the US Airways parking lot at La Guardia and walked to the terminal. “Why did you go to such lengths to contact me?”
“Colonel, I am worried about you. I was coming to the United States, anyway, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet with you.”
“You’re worried about me? Why didn’t you just call me?”
“I didn’t think it would be wise. I’ll explain. You remember that we talked once about the difficulties you had with getting your country to carry through on their drug policies? Yes? I thought you were trying to recruit me.”
“Well, as to that … ,” the colonel said, hesitating. “But I did recruit you, on the Franko operation.”
“Yes, but you insisted we keep the Franko connection to ourselves,” Ostropaki said. “I don’t accuse you! You were right to do so, as events proved. The effect was the same. It was better that I not know too much. Do you think we could stop for some coffee? Or are you in a hurry?”
“I have all the time you need,” the colonel said. They bought coffee at a food stand.
“Last week an American woman came to see me, in Tirana,” Ostropaki said. “I had seen her before. She was with some US AID officials then. This time she came alone. She asked me questions about my involvement with the DEA. I didn’t know what to say. She showed me a picture of you. I admitted that I had met you, in Athens. I told her that you had asked me some general questions about Serbia, where I had been, what I had seen.”
This was the genuine Balkan reserve, the colonel thought. Perhaps it was too much to call it paranoia. “Why didn’t you tell her about working for us?”
“She didn’t offer anything,” Ostropaki said simply. “She didn’t even say she was with the DEA. She never mentioned any specific operations—not a word about Franko, at first. Just asked if I had supplied information or had otherwise assisted the DEA in Serbia. So how could I think that she knew anything, or that I should share what I knew? Besides, she seemed interested in something else. She showed me a photograph of Franko, taken in Kosovo, it appeared. Did I know this man? I told her I didn’t know him. She asked me if I had ever heard of an American agent named Franko Bradovic. From a village named Tsamet, in the mountains. I told her I had driven through Tsamet, once, but I didn’t know this man. Finally, she asked me if I’d ever heard anything about an inner group, within the DEA. Whether you had mentioned such a group.”
“What kind of group?” the colonel asked. “Some ultrasecret agency? A special task force, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” Ostropaki said. He pushed his coffee away with distaste. “That was the sort of thing I asked her. But she said, no, it was not an official group. It was independent agents who had, perhaps, agreed to assist each other in extralegal activities. She didn’t elaborate.”
“Aha!” the colonel said. “Corrupt agents, working with the smugglers, eh?”
“That’s what I assumed,” Ostropaki said. He looked quite neutral, but a little self-conscious.
“Well, there are such agents, as we all know,” the colonel said. “It’s a major problem in drug enforcement. More so than in any other aspect of criminal law—not just undercover agents, but administrators, even prosecutors and judges. It’s the money that’s involved … so much money. But you’re well aware of this; we’ve discussed it.”
“But to have these suspicions raised in the same breath as your name!” Ostropaki said. “It’s outrageous. After all we did, with Franko. Oh, Colonel, that was a beautiful thing. Poor Franko. I felt so bad.”
“Ah, I wanted to ask you about Franko,” the colonel said. “What did you hear about him?”
“Don’t you know?” Ostropaki was saddened to have to tell him that he had heard, from one of his torturers, the monster Bazok, that they had captured Franko. “They lie, of course,” he said, “pretending to know more than they do. But it seems they knew some things about Franko that I didn’t. He was captured with some KLA terrorists, they said. He had resisted their persuasion for a long time, but eventually he told them everything. That’s how they discovered my perfidy.
“I insisted that I didn’t know the man, but this Bazok, he said he knew all about our collaboration. Well, that’s how they talk, of course. But I understood, from what Bazok said, that Franko didn’t get out. This Bazok, even after what I had seen and been through, he made my hair stand on end, describing some of the things that Franko had endured. Still, you know … why did they continue to be so interested?”
“I see what you mean,” the colonel said. “If they had gotten so much information … but I dare say, the rationale given was that they must verify one prisoner’s confessions with another’s.”
“Precisely. But I must ask you, Colonel … please forgive me … but is there anything to this woman’s suspicions? I’m sorry—I’m a man of the world, you understand, a skeptic but not a cynic.” He looked the colonel directly in the eyes.
“None whatsoever,” the colonel said simply. “Quite the reverse.”
“I didn’t believe it for a second,” Ostropaki said. “But I felt that I must hear it from you. Franko affected me very much, you see. He was a good man, a decent man. That is why I contacted you about him. I felt that he was exactly the sort of man you were thinking about, when we spoke in Athens. An idealist. But in this world, in war, especially in the Balkans, an idealist is just … what is the idiom, ‘a fish in a barrel’?”
“That’s … that’s close enough,” the colonel said. “Tell me, what else did this woman have to say about Franko?”
“Nothing. She had the snapshot, but that was all.”
“So you didn’t get the impression that she actually knew anything about him, beyond a name?” the colonel said.
Ostropaki shrugged. “It didn’t seem so.”
“And what was her name?” the colonel asked.
“Sanders. A tall, slim young woman, with frizzy reddish hair. She seemed quite capable. Very efficient, cold. You see why I was worried. I thought I must tell you as soon as I had the opportunity, but privately. So, as there was a task to be done here, I took the chance of being arrested.”
“It was a smart thing to do, but risky.” The colonel glanced at his watch. It was after four. His flight would not leave before seven. In Montana, it would be two in the afternoon.
“This Ms. Sanders,” the colonel said, “she has worked for the DEA, in the past. But I believe she transferred to another agency. What agency did she say she worked for?”
Ostropaki looked thoughtful. “She never really said,” he replied. “She showed me some identification, with a picture, and I think—foolishly it now seems—that I took it to be … well, I’m not sure what I thought. Some U.S. agency. You have so many, with different initials. I’m sorry.”
“This was last week,” the colonel said. “Did she seem to know that you were coming to the States?”
“No. But it was not a secret,” Ostropaki said.
“How long will you remain in the U.S.?” the colonel asked.
“Until the end of the week,” Ostropaki said. “I have to see about some refugees, provide the documentation they need to stay in this country. Here, let me give you my telephone number.”
They exchanged numbers, and the colonel promised to call him before he left and, if possible, to return to New York to see him. He was very grateful to Ostropaki, he told him, and delighted that he had survived. They had feared that he was dead. It was possible that they could work together sometime in the future. But for now—the colonel glanced at his watch—he had to run to catch the shuttle.
He did not catch the shuttle. Anyway, it wouldn’t leave for a couple of hours. But he had to get free of Ostropaki. Instead he went to the operations office, identified himself, and was allowed to use a private telephone. He tried Jammie’s cell-phone number. There was no response—“The party you are trying to reach is either out of range or otherwise unavailable,” said the voice. He really wanted to contact Joe Service, but, of course, Joe had not provided him with any contact number.
He called the DDO’s office and, luckily, caught him before he left for the day. “You were right, sir,” he reported. “We may have to give Ostropaki a medal.” He went on to explain what had happened, but he left out any mention of Ostropaki’s need to contact him, attributing the false betrayal to a rival, as he had with the NYPD. Nor did he mention Jammie Sanders.
“I just wanted to let you know right away, sir,” Tucker said. “I’ll have a full report for you, but I’ve been talking to one of my people, and it looks like I might not get back to Washington this evening.”
The DDO said that was fine, the report could wait. He was obviously pleased.
Next the colonel called Agnes and asked her to run down, if she could, a phone number for Frank Oberavich. While that was in progress, he called Dinah Schwind, in Seattle.
“When you suggested Jamala Sanders for the Butte job,” the colonel asked her, “was that your suggestion, or hers?”
“I didn’t suggest her,” Schwind protested. “You suggested her. Oh, you mean when I told her about the situation? Mmmm, let me think. I guess … well, you could say that she volunteered. Why? What’s happened? Is Joe—”
The colonel cut her off. “Did she ever approach you about the L—about the group? Not by name, necessarily, but about groups like that?”
Dinah had to think. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It was a topic of conversation between us, from … oh, way back. You know, when agents are grumbling about the bureaucracy, the politics…. But if the question is did she ever inquire about my knowledge of the existence of any such group? No, I don’t recall her doing that. When I broached the idea, though, she jumped right on it. I told you that.”
Tucker quickly briefed Schwind on his meeting and conversation with Ostropaki. “Which raises the question,” he said, “what does she want with Joe?”
“Joe?” Dinah said. “Don’t you mean Franko?”
“Well, maybe it’s two questions,” the colonel said. “I was looking at the files on that operation this morning, and I don’t recollect any indication that she knew about Ostropaki. She could have. But she worked only on the receiving end of his intelligence.”
He felt insecure about this telephone conversation, so he didn’t say what he was thinking: his impression was that Jammie hadn’t heard about Franko before she was recruited for this present mission. But Kravfurt seemed to know about Franko, and Sanders had worked with Kravfurt…. Only, what would she have heard beyond the name? Franko was ostensibly a straightforward, unnamed DEA asset, controlled by Ostropaki. It was impossible to know what the extent of scuttlebutt might be among agents.
More to the point: if Sanders was investigating the Lucani, what would be the value to her of Franko?
Dinah was thinking along the same lines. She had reported her conversation with Jammie to the colonel, with some omissions, to spare his feelings. Joe would interest Jammie, she thought now, as a potential weak link in the Lucani organization. Then another thought intruded: what if Jammie’s interest was, in fact, Bazok?
Apparently, the colonel had reached that same point in his thinking. “Bazok?” he suggested, almost idly.
The answer to that hardly needed to be spoken: Bazok would interest Jammie only if she was working for some other group, or agency—say, the international tribunal. Or … Zivkovic. Such a possibility was breathtaking for Schwind.
The colonel seemed to read her mind, three thousand miles away. “It’s not unheard of,” he said. “Theo and I were discussing something along those lines, in a slightly different context.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Presumably she would be known to Bazok.”
The line was silent while they both pursued that thought.
“Here’s a notion,” Tucker said, finally: “Say Bazok was … what’s the term? … a badger bait? Badger hound? You know, the expendable dog one thrusts down the hole—”