Rogue Strike (A Troy Stark Thriller—Book #6), page 21
“So you’re angling again?” Miquel said. “All of this talk, to tell me that you’re angling to get control of El Grupo Especial?”
“I don’t want control of your unit,” Hans said. “I want to destroy it and see it scattered to the winds. It’s an embarrassment. It’s gone on for far too long. I always knew that if given enough rope, you’d hang yourself. What I didn’t realize was you’d hang everyone else, too.”
Miquel sighed. He couldn’t think of much to say.
“Thanks Hans,” he said, and hung up.
He stared into space for a long moment. After a while, he came to realize that he was staring at the doorway to his office. The door was open because that was his policy. He wanted his people to come to him and tell them what was on their minds.
At the moment, big Jan Bakker was standing there. His massive frame took up the entire space. The top of his bald head nearly touched the doorframe.
Jan’s slumped body language said he was tired, but the eyes behind his glasses were still alert and aware.
“Yes, Jan?”
"Miquel, I've been studying satellite imagery of those docks in Belgrade, taken over the past few days. Yesterday evening, another freighter went out of there and headed west along the Sava River. I tracked ship manifests and determined the freighter is called the Voivode. Its ownership is as opaque and complex as the ownership of the docks themselves.”
“What is the ship supposedly carrying?” Miquel said.
“A load of gravel.”
“Where is it now?”
“It has passed into Croatia, and is approaching Zagreb, perhaps 35 kilometers out.”
Miquel breathed. In his mind, he pictured an old river freighter riding low in the water. "Why is it suspicious?"
"It picked up the gravel nearly a week ago at a location on the Danube north of Belgrade. Then it went to that Belgrade dock and stopped there for three days for no apparent reason. With a little effort, I was able to access security video footage from several different businesses along the waterfront, none of which are affiliated with the Bogovic gang, or any associated organizations. Two cameras gave me high resolution video shot from the other side of the river, which I could then freeze and enlarge."
“You hacked this footage,” Miquel said.
It wasn't a question. Why not hack the security systems of private companies esp,ecially ones based in Serbia? El Grupo was being blamed for everything else under the sun at this point. What was one more?
“I thought it was important,” Jan said.
Miquel nodded. “Go on.”
“Something else was loaded onto that ship yesterday morning and afternoon. The video makes this clear. Men don’t load gravel by hand. But they do load crates, and that’s what they were doing.”
Miquel sighed. “Marijuana, probably. Or coffee stolen from a truck.”
Jan raised a finger as if to say he was number one.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve done some thinking about this. Even though the ship they raided today wasn’t carrying the cholera, our original suspicions still hold. Nothing has been disproved. The criminal Bogovic, or people associated with him, still own and run that dock. A notorious Russian and Serbian intelligence operative was still photographed there this morning. A biosciences company with no clear business objectives or activities or ownership structure is still based there, next door to a shadow group of environmentalists. A man associated with that group, using that building as his home address, did die from a severe strain of cholera. All of these facts point in one direction. If we suspected the White Swan, which we did, then we must also suspect the Voivode.”
Through his fog, Miquel could see the logic in all this. Nothing had changed.
Well, one thing had changed.
“No one is going to listen to us,” Miquel said. “We caused an international incident, and no one is going to raid another ship at our request. Anything we ask will be rejected. I just hung up the telephone with Hans Jute. He is trying, once again, to have our mandate revoked and our group disbanded. He is finding more receptive ears this time, for obvious reasons.”
“Agent Stark,” Jan said, without elaborating.
No more detail was needed. Miquel could fill in the blanks easily. Stark had lost Dubois early this morning. A few hours later, with no mandate from anyone, he had gone back in and rescued her. He had murdered an unknown number of men, and set a building on fire, before escaping by helicopter.
Where did he get a helicopter? One was stolen from a radio station. Who flew the helicopter? It couldn't be Stark because he was in the building, killing people.
Stark seemingly had contacts and associations outside of El Grupo that he didn't care to divulge. Miquel had known this all along. You couldn't really hire a former elite soldier and black operative with rumored CIA ties, and not expect him to have contacts.
Stark and Dubois had crossed into western Romania. Dubois was in a hospital there. She was banged up, but alive. They were away from the outbreak in eastern Romania and close to the border with Croatia. They were outside the reach of Serbian authorities and gangsters, at least for the moment.
“Have you spoken with him?” Miquel said.
Jan shook his head. "Not yet. He expressed some frustration with me this morning. I was reluctant to share information with him about Dubois's location for fear that he would attempt to rescue her during the daytime, which he did anyway. I've tried to call him several times since then. He hasn't responded, other than to send brief updates about his situation. My opinion is that he is being a little bit childish."
We may have lost him.
That was always going to be a danger with Stark. At heart, he was a lone wolf. He tended to take enormous risks, usually with his own life. Concerns that other people had, like politics, international relations, bureaucratic decision making, careers and reputations…
These didn’t seem to interest him.
There was always a chance he was going to wander off and go his own way. A man like Stark had many options available to him. He could be gone in the blink of an eye.
"Try him again," Miquel said. "We can explain our situation to him. Perhaps he will see the logic in your reasoning and take this on."
“Agent Dubois is not operational,” Jan said.
Miquel nodded. Another wave of relief washed over him. This one was profound. Not only was Dubois still alive, she wasn’t able to accompany Stark on another mission.
“I know.”
Jan looked down at Miquel for several seconds. Jan’s emotions, if there were any, were impossible to read. More than anything, Jan was a thinker, not a feeler, and his brain worked startlingly fast. Miquel imagined that he was thinking through the operation, processing everything it would entail, and calculating the odds that it might succeed.
“The request is that Agent Stark raid the ship by himself?” Jan said.
“Yes.”
“Is it an official mission of El Grupo Especial?”
Miquel nodded. “Yes, of course. I am authorizing it. Agent Stark, if he chooses to accept the mission, will carry it out, but I will be the one responsible.”
My career is over anyway.
“Will this be the end of us?” Jan said.
Miquel didn’t feel bad about the question. They had done good things here. And all things, especially good things, came to an end.
“Yes,” he said. “I believe so.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
5:05 pm Eastern European Time (4:05 Central European Time)
An outdoor cafe
Victory Square
Timisoara, Romania
“I’ll tell you the truth,” Alex said. “He likes you being here.”
They were under a large white awning in a row of similar cafes. There were portable fireplaces keeping the little dining areas warm. Troy was sitting with his back to the wall of the building, watching the action out on the plaza.
Across from them was a long park with a paved promenade up the middle of it. On the other side of the park was another street of majestic hundred-year-old buildings. At one end of the plaza was a large Eastern Orthodox cathedral. At the other end was an old theatre or maybe a symphony hall. It was a very nice plaza, and probably a nice city. It was where the anti-communist revolution had started in 1989.
Troy was wearing a full black beard that Alex had scrounged up from somewhere. It was affixed to Troy’s face with glue. He was also wearing wraparound yellow sunglasses, though the day was mostly over. Whatever sunlight that had been hidden behind the clouds was now fading entirely. He finished the look with a green wool cap pulled down nearly to his eyes.
He was wearing a lime fleece pullover, brown wool pants, and the kind of boots yuppies would buy from J Crew or LL Bean. The idea was to make him look like a tourist. Whether it was working or not was anyone’s guess.
People were looking for Troy, there was no doubt about that. He was feeling a little paranoid at the moment. The beard was silly and intrusive, and there was no way he was going to try to eat with it on. But he could drink beer, and that's what he was doing.
“This has been one of the longest days of my life,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.”
Alex nodded and gestured at the waitress for two more beers. "I get that. And I think he probably gets it too. But you've done a lot with this job. You've probably saved thousands of lives. You've cracked open some networks and brought in a treasure trove of intel - more than you know. Although they don't say your name publicly, you're practically a Hero of the Revolution in China. You might have single-handedly saved that relationship. You couldn't have done any of this if you weren't with Interpol."
This was the first time Troy and Alex had ever gone out together socially. It was the first time they had ever really talked about anything. Maybe the ice was breaking between them, maybe it wasn’t.
Troy had just asked Alex what Missing Persons would think about bringing Troy back to the United States.
This mission had gone completely belly-up. If it had only been a waste of time, that would be one thing. But Dubois had nearly been killed. She was admitted to a hospital here in Timisoara, and he couldn't see her. There were tight restrictions because of the cholera outbreak, which was well to the east and hadn't reached here at all. The staff had told him to come back tonight. Maybe then they could let him in.
There were a lot of dead people in Romania and Moldova. If it was a terrorist attack, the terrorists seemed to have gotten away with it. The ship he and Dubois had watched being loaded this morning was carrying typical gangster swag - phones and DVDs and fake Cuban cigars. A war nearly broke out when the ship was raided. Street protests were ongoing, and would probably last all night.
Troy sighed. He was tired.
“I don’t think this agency is going to exist anymore,” he said. “Grupo Especial? I think it’s a goner, probably in the next couple of days.”
The woman came and slid two more glasses of beer onto the table without saying a word. She was wearing a paper mask on her face. Many of the people walking around in the plaza were wearing masks.
Troy and Alex were not wearing masks. They were drinking beer. The beer was helping with the pain in Troy’s chest. When he first got hit with those bullets, he almost couldn’t breathe. An hour later, there was a sharp pain in both spots. Now there was a dull thump.
Alex was chain smoking cigarettes, lighting the next one with the embers of the last. He was using a coaster as an ashtray. It was the only evidence that he was under stress. Otherwise, he seemed calm, even placid.
“I’m going to be on the street,” Troy said. “Hat in hand.”
Alex shrugged. “I say ride it out. See what happens. You never know.”
Even if El Grupo survived, that wasn’t the only issue.
“I don’t want Dubois participating in these missions anymore.”
Alex sipped his beer and smiled.
“Talk to her.”
“I have.”
“And?”
Troy shook his head. He nearly laughed.
“It’s gone about as well as you might expect.”
"Maybe it'll be different now," Alex said. "Beat downs and near-death experiences tend to concentrate the mind."
Alex didn’t say torture. Troy was thankful for that.
Troy’s satellite phone began to ring again. It was sitting on the table, just to his right. He had set it to vibrate, and every fifteen or twenty minutes, it started up again.
Okay. He was ready.
“You mind if I take this?”
Alex half-shrugged, half shook his head. He was non-committal.
Troy picked it up and put it to his ear.
“Yeah.”
It was Jan Bakker and Miquel Castro-Ruiz. They were at headquarters. They had Troy on speaker-phone. He listened to them speak for a long moment. El Grupo was dead in the water. No one would listen to them, possibly ever again. No one would honor a request from them. But there was a new possibility that Jan had uncovered, something that had to be investigated.
If it turned out to be real, and they did nothing to stop it, how could they ever forgive themselves?
Troy thought about Jan. The guy was smart. Troy had trouble remembering another time when Jan had been this far wrong. Jan was mostly never wrong, not even a little bit.
The ship they raided was a decoy.
“All right,” Troy said. “Let me think about it for a few minutes.”
He hung up the phone and looked across the table at Alex. Alex was lighting another cigarette, using the butt from the last one. Once it was fully lit, he breathed in deeply, then exhaled a long stream of smoke. He took a sip of his beer.
“Those things are gonna kill you,” Troy said.
Alex nodded. “I know.” He gestured with his head at the phone. “What’s the story?”
“There’s another ship,” Troy said. “They think it’s the real one, with the real bad guys on board. They’re tracking it by satellite. They want to double down on today’s disaster. They’re hoping I’ll go check it out.”
“Where is it?” Alex said.
“Croatia, on the Sava River. Almost to Zagreb. A couple of hours southeast of there.”
Alex seemed to do some calculations in his head. "Once we get the chopper back and fueled, we can be there in two and a half hours, maybe two if we push. But that's the far edge of the Yoyo's range. It'll be full dark when we get there, and we'll be running on fumes."
Troy shrugged. “I was a Navy SEAL. I enjoy night swimming.”
“I know,” Alex said. “Personally, I’m going to try to stay out of the water.”
“Where’s the chopper?”
Alex was already standing. He tossed some cash onto the table, then pinned it there with an empty beer glass. “It’s not far. But we’ll need to drive out there.”
Troy looked out at the plaza. There were a few cars parked along the side street.
“Plenty of cars to steal,” he said.
Alex smiled. “Stark, I like the way you think.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
5:20 pm Central European Time (6:20 pm Eastern European Time)
Aboard the freighter Voivode
The Sava River
Southeast of Zagreb, Croatia
“In the end, everyone will have to go,” the tall man said.
The archangels were in a meeting with God himself, Viktor Laskov. He was the one now planning to get rid of his entire crew.
After their stop at the home of Prins Gekkenhuis, Michael and Uriel had wasted a couple of nights in Amsterdam, enjoying the charms of the local pub culture and the red light district. They had flown to Zagreb yesterday evening, and had spent today waiting to rendezvous with this freighter.
Laskov had been a busy man. He had caused a catastrophe in Romania and Moldova, exactly as he said he would. He had flown to Belgrade, smuggled materials for another catastrophe aboard this ship, and had sent the ship here, exactly as he said he would, exactly when he said he would.
He was remarkably good at logistics, this Laskov. Michael was impressed.
“Not ourselves, though?” Michael said, and smiled.
He meant the comment in jest, but you never could tell with the Laskov types. Sometimes, when they decided to erase everyone, they meant absolutely everyone.
Laskov seemed confused. Perhaps the point was lost in translation.
“Not your…” he said, trailing off.
“We can’t be expected to kill ourselves,” Uriel said helpfully. “Can we?”
It was curious, listening and watching Uriel talk about murder. He was good at killing, no doubt, though his stronger suit might be technology. He was tall and slim, with a bland face and a heavily receding hairline. He looked like a young accountant who had become prematurely middle-aged. His hands and feet were lightning-fast.
Now Laskov smiled. He let out a small sound of mirth.
“No. Of course not.”
“Who, then?” Michael said.
The three men were inside a stateroom of sorts, with a single-person bed on metal posts, a wooden dresser and table, a narrow closet with no door, and a couple of chairs. Laskov was the only one sitting. The ceiling in here was low, and Laskov was tall enough that his head would probably scrape it.
"There are ten," Laskov said. "There are two groups of four men each, what we call environmental commandos. They are good men from all over the world, the types who engage in water cannon battles with whaling ships on the high seas. You've probably seen them loading the zodiacs."
Michael and Uriel both nodded.
“Yes,” Michael said.
The freighter was tied up at an isolated network of deepwater concrete docks 10 kilometers outside the city. The docks were in what would be a grassy, swampy area during summer, not far from the main motorway. There were no lights, and no obvious way to reach the docks from land, save a long icy footpath from a parking lot more than a kilometer away. The docks had either been abandoned by their original owner or were built by smugglers in the first place.
