FROM A MILE AWAY, Parson could see backup had arrived too late. Blue lights flashed from police cars and ambulances. No civilian vehicles, though the first cops on the scene had reported finding a van and SUVs. Dušic and his band of scumbags must have outgunned the police and escaped. The emergency vehicles sat parked near an ancient stone barn in the middle of the Bosnian countryside. Parson wondered about the police officers who had encountered Dušic here. If they’d died, what had been their last thoughts? After bullets tore your flesh and bone, what went through your mind as you looked out over such a pastoral setting?
“Damn it,” Dragan said. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.” Then he spoke in Serbo-Croatian, and the vehicle turned onto the farm path.
Guys like Dragan, Cunningham, and me should be coming to a place like this to hunt and smoke cigars, Parson thought, not to sort through a firefight’s aftermath. We should carry shotguns for partridges instead of high-powered rifles for men.
The two vehicles carrying Dragan’s team stopped alongside the path, well away from the police cars and ambulances. Even before Parson left the van, he could surmise what had happened. Bullet holes pocked two of the cars; blood smeared one of the open doors. Two bodies lay across the front seat of the nearest car. A third policeman had died at the other shot-up vehicle. One of the dead officers still gripped the receiver of an assault rifle. Shell casings littered the ground; these men had gone down fighting.
They must have taken fire from the barn, Parson concluded. The angle of bullet strikes on the cars told him, much the way gouges on the ground might tell him the angle of a crashed plane. These poor guys never had a chance. Their enemies had opened up on them from behind the impenetrable cover of stone walls, while the officers’ only protection had been their cars. Most high-powered rifle ammunition could pierce anything on a car except the engine block unless the car was armored. These cars clearly were not.
“I see they tried the only thing that might have worked,” Dragan said.
“What’s that?” Cunningham asked.
Dragan pointed to a tear gas launcher in the grass next to the cars. “They’d have had to put tear gas through one of the windows,” he said, “but the bad guys probably had them too pinned down to get off an accurate shot.”
Parson ached for the dead policemen. All three looked too young to have played any role in the Bosnian War. In those days, Serbian police committed atrocities, but he hoped these guys were different. Maybe they’d thought like Dragan, working for a better future instead of nursing grudges from the past.
Like many war veterans, Parson often thought about returning to places where he’d fought, and Bosnia was his first combat zone. But he’d wanted to see Bosnia in a secure peace, not under threat of a new war. To visit an old battle site gone quiet might bring tranquillity to a warrior, reassure the warrior that despite all the horrors of the world, life’s broad currents tended toward the good. But for Parson, a war that wouldn’t ever quite go away brought the opposite effect.
Dragan and the other officers examined the scene, taking photographs and writing notes. Investigators wearing latex gloves picked through the evidence. One of them inserted a pencil into the open end of an expended cartridge, lifted the empty brass, and dropped it into a plastic bag.
Inside the barn, Parson found more investigators looking over a fourth body. The dead man had been shot in the arm and in the side of the head. Flies buzzed around the corpse and landed in the blood congealing on straw that covered the floor.
Cunningham came into the barn with Dragan, and Dragan spoke with the other officers in their native language. They conversed in the hushed tones one might use at a funeral.
“Looks like they executed that guy after he got wounded,” Cunningham said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Parson said. “So what are these police doing now?”
“They’ll gather all the evidence they can. Pictures, fingerprints, blood samples. We can look around right here and see pretty well what happened. But if their system is anything like ours, a prosecutor will have to reconstruct the scene in a courtroom.”
“If there’s ever a trial,” Parson said.
“Yeah,” Cunningham said, “these sons of bitches seem like the type to go out shooting and take as many cops with them as they can.”
“That would disappoint Webster. I think he really wants Dušic tried for war crimes.”
“I wish somebody would just blow his ass away.”
You gotta like a tough cop, Parson thought, as long as he’s tough only on people who deserve it. Cunningham’s attitude seemed about right for a coastal country boy from a place called Dare County.
Dragan continued his conversation with the local Bosnian Serb officers. Now they spoke in more animated tones, as if they were debating some point. Parson wondered how much Dragan had told them about Dušic’s intentions to embroil them all in a new war, and to spark that war by murdering their own clergy. Parson also wondered how these Serb cops felt about the recent past. Did they want truth commissions and war crimes trials to sweep away all the denial? Or did they take comfort in denial, in dismissing genocide as the collateral damage to be expected in any war? Judging by their rapid-fire words and hand gestures, they had differing opinions on whatever they were discussing.
Eventually, Dragan broke away from the conversation. He kneeled by the policeman’s body, looked into the dead man’s face. Parson noticed the equipment on Dragan’s belt: the magazine cases made of ballistic nylon, the mini-flashlight holder, the clip of the folding knife. Though Dragan worked in civilian clothes, he and the uniformed officer fallen before him wore similar tools of the trade. Parson could imagine the bond Dragan must feel with this officer. Cops hated nothing worse than cop killers. If you wanted policemen to give up their vacations, to come in on overtime, to devote all their resources and put aside all their differences in an effort to take you down, just kill one of their fellow officers. The principle held true all over the world.
• • •
DUŠIC AND STEFAN STOPPED at three service stations before they found one with a working public telephone. Little need of public phones anymore, since everyone carried a cell. But now that Dušic knew cell phones betrayed his location, he and his team would not use cells until the day of the bombing. Stefan had rigged the explosives with a cell phone detonator, and Dušic did not want to make him reconfigure the bomb at this late stage. Stefan would turn on the phone only after he’d driven the bomb into place, and the meddling Americans probably would not have enough time to pinpoint the signal. With some luck, Dušic might tilt the odds in his favor. Especially if he could take care of that damned airplane.
He paid cash for a phone card in the service station, then stood in the phone booth with the receiver cradled on his shoulder. He made calls to airports all over the region, but no one among his contacts with air freight companies had seen a suspicious aircraft. Dušic didn’t know exactly what the plane would look like, though he guessed a large multiengine jet, either unmarked or with U.S. Air Force identification. More than likely the plane carried an unusual number of antennas.
Dušic, about to give up, decided to place one more call. He did not trust the freight companies in Sarajevo; they hired too many Muslims and Croats. But many years ago, when he’d first started his business, he’d sold a rifle to a loyal Serb who drove a jet fuel truck in Sarajevo. They had traded war stories and lamented the war’s outcome. The man hated Muslims as much as Dušic, and he hated Americans even more. That womanizing bumpkin Bill Clinton, he’d said, had robbed the Serbs of sure victory. What was that patriot’s name?
Bratislav. Of course. A name that meant “brother of glory.” Bratislav would be years older now. Did he still work for the same aviation services company? Only one way to find out.
Dušic dialed information and jotted down the number for Aero Drina. He thought for a moment, considered his tactics. He would ask for Bratislav by name, and he’d talk to no one else. If the man wasn’t there, Dušic would drop this idea. But it was worth at least one more try.
On the third ring, a woman answered. “Aero Drina. How may I help you?”
“May I speak to Bratislav?” Dušic asked. “I am an old friend.”
“He is in the break room. I must put you on hold. May I tell him who is calling?”
Dušic smiled. Nothing like steady employment. “I am Darko,” he lied.
“One moment, please.”
After what felt like a long wait, Dušic heard a click on the other end, and a voice said, “This is Bratislav Stekic. But I do not remember any Darko.”
“Perhaps the receptionist misunderstood,” Dušic said. “My name is Viktor. You may not recall, but I sold you a Mauser many years ago. We talked of the war.”
Bratislav paused. “Hmm, yes. I still have that rifle. Yes, I do remember you, Viktor. I have taken many red stag with that weapon.”
“Very good, my friend. I hope my product has served you well.”
“Indeed, it has.”
“I am glad. But that is not why I called. May I ask you a question in the strictest confidence? As one old warrior to another.”
“Certainly.”
“Have you seen an American military aircraft at Sarajevo?”
“I have. A large Boeing has been here for a few days. One with many antennas. It takes off for a while and it comes right back here. I have no idea what it does.”
“It does what Americans have always done, Bratislav. It helps to keep from our people the glory they have earned.”
Bratislav said nothing. Dušic let silence hover for a moment, to see if the man would hang up or become frightened. Many years had passed since Bratislav’s days as a fighter. Did he still have the spirit?
“I am listening, Viktor,” Bratislav said finally. “Are you serving our people in some higher capacity now?”
“Yes, but not the way you are thinking. Would you like to punish the Americans for what they took from us?”
“Very much, Viktor. But how?”
“I understand. You need to know more before you commit. Can we meet today?”
“My shift ends at five. I can see you then.”
“Tell me where.”
Bratislav gave Dušic the address of a pub near the airport. They agreed to meet in the parking area, away from the ears of the patrons inside. When Dušic returned to the van, Stefan asked, “Did you have any luck?”
“Possibly. I never forget a customer, and I found one who might help us give those Americans a bad day.”
Dušic told Stefan about Bratislav, and he gave him the address. A few hours later Stefan parked outside a pub called Knez Lazar. Music pulsed from the place, some pop tune too modern for Dušic to recognize. The smell of cooked meat, along with garlic and onions, wafted from the kitchen vents. Cevapcici, Dušic guessed. Sausages without casings, grilled over a fire. The pub seemed a hangout for airport workers. Men and women, some still in the duty clothing of baggage handlers, mechanics, and ramp coordinators, entered the building. Without knowing their names, Dušic could not tell which were Muslim, Croat, or Serb. He wondered how much intermingling went on. The thought made him want to vomit. He felt he was about to give a great gift to the Serbs among them. The rest could go to hell.
Bratislav had said he drove an old Zastava Koral. Perhaps the years since he bought his rifle had not turned out prosperous for him. Unfortunate, but something Dušic could turn to advantage. Thirty thousand euros might mean a lot to a man who could not afford a decent car. Maybe enough to bolster his courage, if need be.
Right on time, a battered Koral sputtered into the parking lot. One of the fenders had rusted through, and the tailpipe hung by strands of wire. The car belched blue smoke until its driver shut it down.
Just as Dušic never forgot customers, he never forgot faces. But when Bratislav emerged from his rattletrap, Dušic barely recognized him. The man’s jowls had swollen with weight gain; his mustache and hair had grown bushier and gone gray. His paunch drooped over his belt. He pulled himself up from the car as if the effort hurt. Maybe Bratislav had once scaled mountains in pursuit of stag, but not recently. No matter. The task to which Dušic would set him required a bit of cunning, but not strength.
Dušic stepped out of the van and waved. His old customer smiled, met him in the middle of the parking area. A handshake showed Bratislav’s grip still firm.
“So, what have you done all this time, Viktor?” Bratislav asked. “Still selling guns?”
“To different kinds of buyers now. But yes, I remain in the weapons business.”
“How may I serve you?”
Dušic liked this sort of talk. Respectful and to the point. Perhaps somewhere under the rolls of fat and the sagging skin, remnants of a professional soldier still existed.
“I command a mission that could avenge all the wrongs done to our people in the 1990s,” Dušic said. “For your own protection, I will tell you no more than that. But Americans stand in my way now as they stood in our way back then.”
“My nephew was killed by a NATO bomb,” Bratislav said. “They did so much worse than merely stand in my way.”
“Then you need no convincing of the need to punish their continued interference.”
“None.”
“And I will make it worth your while. Let me show you something.”
The more Dušic talked with Bratislav, the more he liked him. Money or fear could motivate the weak. Bratislav, apparently, responded to higher callings. Yet Dušic would gladly pay him if he succeeded.
In the back of the van, Bratislav gaped at the store of weapons. Dušic opened a plastic case and revealed a pair of fragmentation grenades.
“Do you remember these?” Dušic asked.
“I have used one or two.”
“These are yours, if you choose to help me. I need you to take care of that damned American jet.”
“Not really the weapon for that, Viktor.”
“True enough. But my options are temporarily limited.”
Dušic explained that he would love to blow that Yankee airplane out of the sky and kill every meddler aboard. But he would settle for merely disabling the plane. Bratislav could use a technique employed by low-budget terrorists all over the world. The method involved pulling the retaining pin on the grenade, then either wrapping the lever with thin tape or placing the grenade inside a foam or plastic cup. In time, the lever would force its way through the tape or cup, and the grenade would detonate. A poor man’s delayed-fuse bomb.
“Very imprecise, Viktor. Without experimentation, we cannot know when the grenades will explode.”
“An inelegant solution, I admit. But for this, we do not need precision. I do not even care if the grenades explode on the ground or in the air. If you bring down the plane, so much the better. But even if you only rupture tires, it will ground the Americans, delay them.”
“You wish me to plant these aboard the jet?”
“Yes. Whenever you can, but preferably three days from now. Will you help me?”
Bratislav stared into the distance for several seconds. “I will,” he said. Dušic noted that he did not ask how much he would get paid.
“It is a pleasure to know you, Bratislav. But now to details. Can you get these grenades through security? I assume you must pass through some sort of checkpoint on your way to work.”
“Yes, but the security agents are accustomed to seeing me. They have X-ray, but my toolbox is always filled with metal objects. Some agents hardly look at the screen.”
“Very good, very good.” Dušic slapped his old customer on the back. “You need a new car, my friend. If you succeed, you can get that and more.” Dušic wrote out a check, tore it in half, and explained his method of payment. Bratislav gasped when he saw the amount, and he did not complain about having to wait for the other half.