CHAPTER 2

The outskirts of Pardubice, Czech Republic, 2011

The radio was playing a cover of a Four Seasons tune from the sixties, “Beggin’.” It was a pretty decent version by Madcon, a Norwegian hip-hop duo. Branislav Poborsky pounded along on his car’s steering wheel as he sang the English words—at least the ones he recognized. The catchy beat gave him a shot of much-needed energy.

He was heading into familiar territory as he drove along the narrow road that snaked through the forest—so lush and dense at this time of year. Each mile racked up on the dash took him that much farther away from Prague. This was all he needed to feel relieved. There was nothing better than a week of vacation with his parents in Pardubice.

True to form, his mother would pamper him with homemade goodies.

“With your demanding job, plus all the stress of living in a big city, I’m sure you’re not eating properly,” she had said to him time and again. “You’re so pale and stick thin. To think you had such chubby red cheeks, like apples, when you were little.”

Just for fun, he would argue a bit, but he didn’t want to get into a full-fledged fight. He would never change her set-in-stone Polish opinions.

His dad, in turn, would subject him to an all-out interrogation. He would want to know everything about his pride and joy’s career. It was the workaholic’s way of staying connected to the demanding world he had left three years earlier. As production director at the Paramo factory, Branislav’s father had provided his family with a more than comfortable lifestyle in communist Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Revolution hadn’t hurt their finances at all—just the opposite. With democracy came unbridled economic liberalism, and foreign investors rushed to a new market that offered excellent growth prospects. Vladek Poborsky had left Paramo and become a consultant for big companies that wanted to locate in the Pardubice region. It was a profitable career change. Vladek was able to buy a luxurious home for his family on the shores of Sec Dam, and because his new line of work was much more leisurely than his old one, he could relax and call himself semiretired.

Branislav couldn’t dream of a better place to forget his distress. His marriage was foundering, and divorce seemed inevitable. Maybe he should have spent less time at his job and more time with his wife, who was herself caught up in a career as a television makeup artist. But in the end, what did it matter? It was obviously too late to dwell on what had gone wrong. He needed to focus on the future. Thank God they didn’t have any kids. That would have made the legal proceedings and emotional recovery a whole lot messier.

Branislav glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. His thick chestnut-brown hair complemented his gray-brown eyes. At the moment, however, he looked much older than his thirty years. His eyelids were drooping, and the five o’clock shadow on his pasty white cheeks was growing darker by the mile. He sighed.

Just as Branislav was fixing his eyes on the road again, something flashed in the mirror. A headlight was looming up from behind. A motorcycle. It came within inches of his bumper before swerving over to pass. Mr. Hot Wheels slowed down a bit and then shot off without any concern for safety.

“Jackass,” Branislav shouted. “You think you’re invincible? You could’ve killed us both. Motocross season hasn’t started yet, dickhead.”

Branislav glanced at the dashboard clock. Another twenty minutes, and he would be at the family manse. In half an hour, he would be enjoying a nice glass of wine, lounging in a comfortable deck chair, and admiring the rippling reflection of the trees on the crystal-clear lake.

A jarring noise from above shook him out of his daydream. He leaned against the steering wheel and stared at the sky through the windshield. Two low-flying helicopters. They were large carriers displaying the Czech Republic colors: white, red, and blue. A smaller aircraft was close behind. It bore the NATO insignia.

Branislav’s journalist instincts kicked in. Something was going on. He had been so intent on getting to his haven, he hadn’t realized that his car was the only one on the road. Sure, he wasn’t driving on a major highway, but to be so completely isolated—with the exception of that crazy motorcyclist—for such a long distance? And what about that biker? Where was he racing off to? Where were those helicopters going? Branislav slowed down and parked on the side of the road. He got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and took out his cell phone. He entered his parents’ number.

The phone rang three times. Then an automated voice responded, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.” He tried calling the newsroom. Again, three rings and the same recorded message. He entered a bunch of other numbers, all yielding the same result.

No other wheels in sight, three military choppers, no way of making calls. Branislav needed to find out what was happening and somehow get hold of his editors. He slid behind the wheel of his car and started driving again.

A mile later, he came to a bend in the road and found himself face-to-face with three police cars. Branislav slammed on his brakes to avoid driving over the spiked traffic strips. Six officers brandished machine guns. Two of them started walking toward him. He got out, grabbed his old light-blue jacket, and went to meet them.

“Hello, officers. What’s going on here?”

He flashed a friendly grin but got no smiles in return.

“This road is closed, sir,” one of them said. “Please turn your car around and leave.”

Branislav glanced over the officers’ shoulders.

“Yes, I can see the road is closed, but could you tell me why?”

“Sorry, sir, we can’t tell you anything. Please return to your vehicle and leave.”

The officers’ all-business demeanor dissuaded him from pulling out his press pass. Branislav figured they were holdovers from the communist days and wouldn’t honor it anyway. And even though they were polite, they were wielding their machine guns a little too nervously for his comfort. No point in sticking around with these guys. He knew other ways to get to his destination.

Branislav nodded and gave them the peace sign as he headed back to his car. He got in and made a U-turn under high surveillance.

As soon as he was out of sight, he parked his car and grabbed his camera. He hung it around his neck and walked into the forest, which he knew better than his mother’s poppy seed cake.

He figured he was three miles from the nearest village. Taking into account the hilly terrain, he estimated that his hike would take a good hour, maybe an hour and a half, considering he had more baggage around the waist than when he was a kid running around these hills. It was late afternoon, but his run-in with the police had piqued his curiosity, and anyway, he knew he could use a little exercise.

The trek was rougher than he had expected and he cursed his leather loafers, whose smooth soles kept slipping on the roots of hundred-year-old oak trees and mossy stones.

When he finally reached the edge of the forest, he shoved aside the branches blocking his view. About a hundred feet below, a village of pink-and-white houses shimmered in the sun. Their flower-adorned balconies would have been the final touch on any postcard image. But the scene before him was no wish-you-were-here greeting.

The sidewalks were littered with bodies. Men and women were sprawled on the ground in awkward positions. Dotting the landscape were shopping carts filled with produce purchased at markets on the square. Branislav spotted motionless cars on the main street. Drivers and passengers lay lifeless in their metal coffins.

Branislav threw up. He wiped his mouth and steadied himself enough to resume his assessment. Military tanks surrounded the village. Branislav spotted the three helicopters in the middle of a meadow. He forced himself to take another look at the bodies.

Two men in white suits were working their way around the corpses. Carrying large suitcases, they were taking long, slow strides, like astronauts on the moon.

What the hell was going on here? Energized, Branislav removed the lens cap from his camera. This was a story, and he was going to cover it. He focused his camera and began shooting.

“Put down the camera, and slowly put your hands in the air.”

The voice was almost robotic.

“Now!”

The tone didn’t inspire disobedience. Branislav complied, careful of his every move.

“Turn around.”

Branislav did as told, his hands to the sky. In front of him were three men wearing dark uniforms and gas masks. They were pointing machine guns equipped with silencers and laser beams. Nothing close to average military gear.

One of the men approached him and conducted a brusque search of his pockets. He took out Branislav’s wallet and handed it to one of the others, presumably his superior. The latter examined the contents carefully.

“Look, gentlemen, I’m a reporter. What you’re doing is a clear violation of—”

“Shut up, and turn around!”

Branislav complied again.

“I need to know what your end game is here. Believe me, you’ll be in big trouble when my editor reports this to the government.”

Sometimes bluffing worked, Branislav said to himself.

“Shoot him.”

Sometimes it didn’t.

He closed his eyes, steeling himself for what would follow. Surprisingly, his thoughts veered to his soon-to-be ex-wife. Maybe there was still hope for them. Damn it, this was supposed to be a vacation, not his execution at the hands of a special-forces team. He was hoping for a quick bullet in the middle of his skull. A rush of fear-induced adrenaline swept over him. He was burning up, and his legs were like jelly. Why the hell were those bastards taking so long to kill him?

“Your biceps are gonna cramp up if you stay like that, buddy.”

Someone was talking to him…in English?

Branislav turned around and risked opening an eye. He saw the three men lying on the ground. Two of them had slit throats. The third was writhing with a knife in his neck. He spat up blood before stopping dead-cold in an absurd position at the feet of a bald superhuman-sized man. The giant, who was wearing jeans and a green army jacket, leaned over and pulled the impressive serrated blade from his victim’s neck. The stranger was clean-shaven, extremely clean-shaven, no eyebrows even.

“Who… Who are you? What’s this shit mess? Did you kill all three of them? What the hell is going on?” Branislav grilled him in a muddled mix of Czech and English.

“Is that all you want to know?” the giant asked, grinning. He took out a cigar and stuck it between his teeth, then pulled out matches and lit it. “Will you be really pissed off if I don’t answer your questions in order?”

Branislav shook his head and lowered his arms.

“All right. Yeah, I killed those assholes. It was them or you. As for what’s going on here, I want to know as much as you do. And I’m afraid this shit mess is just the first in a long series of shit storms.”

The reporter started to pick up his camera, which had fallen to the ground with the first soldier.

“Sorry, buddy,” Baldy said as he took the camera. “That’s the one thing my services are going to cost you. I need those pics.”

Branislav was about to complain but changed his mind. No news story was worth more than his life. If this dude wanted the photos, they were all his.

Then he remembered his parents.

“My mother and father. They live nearby.”

“Only this village was affected,” the giant answered. “If they were here, they’re dead. If they live somewhere else, especially if they were inside, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“They live about two and a half miles northeast of here, but the only road that goes by—”

“Then relax. They’re fine. Thanks for the cam. I’ll send it back to your paper. Grab your stuff and scoot before any more goons show up. I don’t plan on destroying the entire Czech special forces. I’m going to get my bike and peace out, like you. There’s nothing more either of us can do here.”

“That was you who passed by me earlier, wasn’t it?”

“Yep. An important piece of info, right? You’ll sleep better tonight, I’m sure,” he said with the hint of a smirk. “I slipped into the forest ahead of you. I followed you. Then I followed them as they were following you. Pretty lucky, right? Now hurry up. Oh, and if you want to stay alive, don’t say a word about what you saw here. Got it?”

“Got it,” Branislav responded as he headed back into the forest. After a few steps, he stopped and turned around.

“You didn’t answer one of my questions.”

“Which one?”

“Who are you? I’d like to put a name on the face of the man who saved my neck.”

The stranger took a drag of his cigar and exhaled a puff of smoke.

“Call me Eytan. Oh, you forgot something,” he said, tossing Branislav his wallet.

The bald man grinned, the cigar clamped between his teeth. Branislav returned a hesitant smile and continued walking into the forest.

Eytan watched him disappear and then positioned himself in the spot where the journalist had been taking pictures of the village. He spent a long time observing the scene. In the name of what madness had these people been sacrificed?

The men in protective white suits had multiplied. He squatted and picked up a handful of dirt, then let it slip through his fingers in a thin stream.

“The first in a long series of shit storms.”