The Skorpion Directive Part 14

"La nebbia di guerra, Micah . . ." Micah . . ." said Brancati. said Brancati.

"Fog of war? Maybe. In the beginning, it tore me up. I couldn't cope with it. Got so bad, I had to pop an Ativan whenever I thought of it. So after a while I just . . . stopped thinking about it. I closed it off, sealed it shut, buried it deep. n.o.body else wanted to talk about it either, sure as h.e.l.l not the bra.s.s at CENTCOM or the Pentagon. So we didn't. Not ever."

"And what is there to say?" asked Brancati, who had his own demons in the cellar. "What is the use of raising the dead?"

"Someone has raised the dead," said Veronika, but not unkindly. "This Smoke person, do you think he could have been there at Podujevo?" has raised the dead," said Veronika, but not unkindly. "This Smoke person, do you think he could have been there at Podujevo?"

"Yes. In fact, I'm almost certain he was. But that doesn't explain how he knew I was there too. It was a black op. We were never officially there."

"You may have a traitor," said Brancati. "In your house."

"Yes."

"Do you think the man you fought in my apartment was one of these Skorpions?" asked Veronika.

"I think he probably was. We made a real project out of them. Killed and wounded fifty, sixty of them, in hot little engagements all around northern Kosovo."

"Did you take part in any of the war crimes investigations afterward?" asked Brancati.

"No. Not that any of the bra.s.s would have wanted me anywhere around those trials, not after what we did to the people in that mosque. Right after the Kosovo war, I got seconded to the CIA. My operational area s.h.i.+fted to London, and at that time our chief interest was in terror finance. I remember hearing something about a group of Skorpions being tried this year, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. I didn't really like to think about the Kosovo war at all. I did do some work for the Agency in Pristina a while back, trying to deal with ex-KLA involved in the drugs-for-weapons trade."

"Are these Skorpions still active active ?" Veronika asked. ?" Veronika asked.

"Yes," put in Brancati. "Back in the late nineties, there were only a few, five hundred or less. But now-the war in Kosovo never really ended-much of the criminal enterprise in Italy is done by ex-Skorpions, Serbs and Croats working to fund the new KLA so they can take Kosovo back. Galan did a study for me last year. He reached an estimate of over a thousand current members of the Skorpions and related KLA-"

"A thousand thousand?" asked Veronika.

"Galan did a study for you? Does it still exist?"

"Yes. I have a copy on file at the office."

"Did it include head shots of KLA people?"

"Yes. Hundreds of them. Galan was very thorough. And he had good contacts all over the Balkans."

"We need to look at those. Can you send us the file? You've got my e-mail?"

"I do. I will," he said, looking at his watch. "It's almost dawn. We should look at the other material."

Veronika opened the second file, another Word doc.u.ment, this one t.i.tled DALTON TWO: -KERCH NEWSENGLISH VERSION:

KERCH CHARTER CRAFT SEIZED BY RUSSIAN GUNBOAT.

Ukrainian officials have filed a formal protest with the Russian government this week after a private tour boat owned by a local Kerch man was boarded and seized in Ukrainian waters by a Russian patrol boat. The boat, called the Blue Nile Blue Nile, was carrying several Ukrainian couples on a sunset-and-dinner cruise around the coast of Kerch when the Russian boat gave chase and intercepted the Blue Nile Blue Nile within sight of Kerch harbor, according to Captain Bogdan Davit, Chief of the Kerch Constabulary. The pa.s.sengers were forced to off-load into inflatable rafts and left to make their way to sh.o.r.e as the gunboat took the charter craft under tow and left Ukrainian waters. within sight of Kerch harbor, according to Captain Bogdan Davit, Chief of the Kerch Constabulary. The pa.s.sengers were forced to off-load into inflatable rafts and left to make their way to sh.o.r.e as the gunboat took the charter craft under tow and left Ukrainian waters.The Blue Nile Blue Nile is a sixty-foot private craft valued at two million American dollars and was owned and operated as a charter cruise by a Kerch-based businessman named Dobri Levka. is a sixty-foot private craft valued at two million American dollars and was owned and operated as a charter cruise by a Kerch-based businessman named Dobri Levka.So far the Russian authorities have refused to cooperate with the Ukrainians, saying only that Dobri Levka, a Croatian citizen, was arrested for "violations of Russian sovereignty" and that he is being held at an undisclosed location pending an official hearing.Tensions between Russia and the Ukraine have increased dramatically since the natural-gas embargo imposed by Russia on the Ukraine a year ago, as well as the decision by the U.S. President to remove missile defense bases from Eastern Europe at the insistence of Putin.

"Dobri Levka," said Brancati. "I know that name."

"Yes, you do. Levka was a Croatian freelancer Mandy Pownall and I picked up last year on Santorini. The kid was working for the other side. The Russians had a cell operating out of an office building in Istanbul, their cover was trade and commerce. Levka was supposed to help take Mandy and me out of the picture. We changed his mind."

The hotel room in Fira, six hundred feet above the Aegean, at night, a storm rattling the windows, and Dalton with a pistol up against Levka's forehead, Levka waiting for the round, Dalton for some reason unwilling to pull the trigger, Levka's brazen offer: "Instead of kill me, you hire me!"

"Hire you?"

"I got no job here now. You hire me, I work for you. You man who kills much, got that look, no offendings. So maybe you make more bodies later. With handy service of Dobri Levka, you don't have to bust big fat dead men around place all by self, ruin good suit like you got."

Dalton had to smile at the memory.

The kid had real sand. Levka was the kind of knocked-around, hardscrabble roustabout you tended to find along the fringes of chronic war zones. Like a true mercenary, Levka was ready to take the round if he had to-the fortunes of war, and no hard feelings-but he had also been nimble and nervy enough to try to talk himself out of that bullet if given half a chance.

"Levka kept his word. He knew the people we were up against. He helped us out in Istanbul. Levka and I took Lujac's Riva away from the KGB and drove it all the way to Kerch, chasing the Russians. After Kerch, Mandy and I went to Langley to help Cather out of a fix, and Levka got Lujac's Riva."

"One more file," said Veronika. "Called Dalton Three."

"Open it," said Dalton.

It turned out to be a scanned-in note, in a rough scrawl, with a short typed message attached.

"Who's Piotr Kirikoff ?" asked Veronika.

"He was the Russian FSB officer who was running the ring we took apart in Istanbul last winter. We nearly caught him in Kerch. He got out two hours before we got there. He murdered a Navy corpsman and a Latvian woman. We found their bodies in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a clinic in Kerch. They had been beaten to death."

"So this was Galan's urgent message to you," said Brancati. "Why didn't he come to me first?"

"He said nothing to you?"

Brancati shook his head.

"No. He simply asked for a week's leave, said he was going to Vienna on some business. He was a private man. I thought he might be meeting someone, a contact. He had a very strict sense of tradecraft, and, as he says, he did not like to talk unless he had something useful to talk about. His methods were his own. He was like an oyster, and I have never attempted to pry him open. And he said nothing about being 'watched.' "

Micah, this note came from my contact in Istanbul who received it by hand from a woman named Irina Kuldic. My contact confirmed that Irina Kuldic was listed among those who were forced off Dobri Levka's boat and that the woman he met was that same woman. I tried to contact Irina Kuldic through Captain Bogdan Davit in Kerch but believe I have only triggered some annoying attention from Kirikoff's people. Of course I am taking appropriate measures. As the warning is to you and the circ.u.mstances are urgent, I will deliver it in person in Vienna.

I leave these items by way of insurance in case things go amiss. Also here is attached a drawing which I have come across several times on a few KLA and Skorpion websites.

It means nothing to me but may mean something to you as a military man. Perhaps a Skorpion unit insignia of some kind?I have not told Allessio of this contact yet since there is not very much useful to say but perhaps you will be able to enlighten us. I hope that if you are reading this melodramatic communication I am standing next to you and Allessio and we are having many gla.s.ses of vino bianco. But if not then I am not sorry to put down my tools for a nice long rest.

Your friend Issadore G.

"If he had, what would you have done?"

"I would have given him an escort, or even put him in the a.r.s.enale, if the threat was serious."

"Either way, he wouldn't have been able to go to Vienna and talk to me."

Brancati's lined face looked suddenly much older.

"True. And he would also be alive. Basta Basta. It is done. What will you do now?"

"Finish what Galan started. Find Irina Kuldic."

"How?" asked Veronika.

"I know the cop quoted in the article, Bogdan Davit. We'll start with him, see where it goes."

"But he's in Kerch Kerch, isn't he?"

Dalton caught the hesitation in her tone, saw the uncertainty in her expression, and was not at all surprised.

"You want to tell me something, Veronika."

She looked back and forth from Brancati to Dalton, her eyes filling. Then she looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting together so hard her knuckles were whitening.

Without looking up at either man, she said, "I don't want to just . . . desert you . . . I just . . . If you go to Kerch, isn't that what they-Kirikoff, these horrible Skorpions-will expect you to do? Won't they be waiting for you? For us?"

"Unlikely. They have no way of knowing what Galan left behind. The proof of that is that he carved it into his own flesh in the last minutes of his life, the one secret he managed to take with him. I'm certain they won't be expecting us in Kerch."

"But that's how we got into trouble in Vienna," she said with some heat. "You were predictable predictable. Can't you just . . . let somebody else somebody else do this? For once? For do this? For once? For me me ? Somebody from your government. This is ? Somebody from your government. This is their their problem too, isn't it? They are always talking about fighting the big terror. Let them go fight this one without us! Why can't we just stay here, you and I? In Venice. Maybe Major Brancati can give us some protection while we figure out a safer way to . . . Micah, I problem too, isn't it? They are always talking about fighting the big terror. Let them go fight this one without us! Why can't we just stay here, you and I? In Venice. Maybe Major Brancati can give us some protection while we figure out a safer way to . . . Micah, I cannot cannot go to Kerch." go to Kerch."

Dalton was not surprised. She was a brave young woman, but there was a limit to anyone's nerve.

"I understand. It's not like in the movies, is it? But if you don't go with me, Veronika, you'll have to stay with Brancati. Stay close. Until it's over. I can't operate if I'm worried about you all the time. You understand? Allessio, you can do this?"

"Yes," said Brancati with a formal bow. "The last time, with Cora Vasari, she insisted to move about the world and was therefore shot in the courtyard of the Uffizi. This I will not allow to happen again. You, Miss Miklas, may not move about in the world. On this, there can be no discussion. I have a guest suite in the a.r.s.enale. Micah has stayed there himself. It is very secure. A fortress. With a pretty view across the lagoon to the Isola di San Michele. No one can reach you there. On this, I give my word. You remember these rooms, Micah?"

"I do," he said. "You'll be safe there, Veronika, if you do what Allessio asks. Will you promise to do that?"

Veronika was quiet for a while longer. She looked up at him, put out a hand, and he took it. It was cold as ice.

"Please, Micah . . . stay. Here. With me."

Dalton shook his head, a softer look in his eyes.

"I wish I could, Veronika. I wish that very much. I'm not sure you wish it as much as you think you do."

Podujevo, she was thinking. she was thinking. All those children, burned alive, the women dying in torment, their hair streaming flames, the flesh blackening, cooking off the bones . . . All those children, burned alive, the women dying in torment, their hair streaming flames, the flesh blackening, cooking off the bones . . .

Dalton watched her face for a time, seeing what was there and hating the burned man for showing it to her, even as he felt a strange combination of shame and burning resentment, some of it directed at Veronika. Judgment was easy. War was not.

"But if you stay, Veronika, there is something important you can do. Can you contact your friend Jurgen Stodt? See if he can find out anything about that name on the work file? Would you do that?"

"Yes, I will. Micah, I can help, even from here. I can contact Jurgen, and Nenia. Maybe I can find out what Verwandtschaft Verwandtschaft means. I'm so sorry, Micah. I wish I were more like you. But I'm not. It's all just too . . . ugly." means. I'm so sorry, Micah. I wish I were more like you. But I'm not. It's all just too . . . ugly."

"I know," he said, kissing her on the cheek. "I know."

Florida FRONT BEACH ROAD AND HUTCHINSON, PANAMA CITY BEACH, 9:00 P.M. LOCAL TIME.

A blood-warm, coal-black ocean, sounding like rolling thunder under the starless sky, was cras.h.i.+ng into the sand beaches that ran for hundreds of miles along Florida's Gulf Coast, every curving mile of beach-front lit up like a string of glowing pearls.

Tonight, in Panama City Beach, part of a two-hundred-mile-long coastal strip called the Redneck Riviera, the Spring Break crowd was out in full cry, supercharged on dope, meth, ecstasy, vodka coolers, beer, and raging hormones. Thousands and thousands of college kids were cruising back and forth along a meandering oceanside town full of run-down beach bars with names like Coyote Ugly and Dirty d.i.c.k's, neon-trimmed nightclubs called The Big Easy, Shalimar, Pineapple w.i.l.l.y's, bleached-out, wind-beaten fifties-era motels like Sea Haven, Malibu Sh.o.r.es, and The Flamingo, along with fifty or so tattoo parlors, T-s.h.i.+rt and bong shops, and, lately, rows and rows of brand-new pastel-colored condo towers.

The steamy, salt-scented air throbbed like a beaten drum with ba.s.s-heavy hip-hop, and, under that, the guttural snarl of Harleys, the muttering rumble of Escalades and Navigators and Cayennes, all of them stuffed to their moon roofs with red-faced yet pale-skinned tubular college boys with eyebrow piercings, trick facial hair, and shaved skulls, leaning out the windows of their SUVs and bellowing like hungry hogs at the ferret-faced little pop tarts who were stumbling along the sidewalks in stiletto heels and sprayed-on acid-colored sheath dresses. All the frat boys were getting for their efforts, as far as Nikki Turrin could make out, was a series of needle-tipped middle fingers. But, then, the night was still young.

In her rented Town Car, a gleaming black, turtle-shaped battering ram, Nikki was making approximately two miles an hour along Front Beach Road, trying to snake her way through the milling crowds and the migraine-inducing noise, her hands gripped tight on the padded steering wheel, nervously watching the neon lights playing like gasoline flames across the polished hood, the soundproof interior of the car vibrating to the ma.s.sive ba.s.s beat coming from a black Jetta running alongside.

Nikki was also trying to avoid making eye contact with three beer-gutted and very drunk frat boys in baggy T-s.h.i.+rts on the other side of her tinted side window. They were close enough to the window that Nikki could only see the printing on two of their tees: DOES THIS s.h.i.+RT MAKE MY d.i.c.k LOOK TOO BIG? and I'M SORRY, YOU'LL HAVE TO BUY ME ANOTHER BEER BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL b.u.t.t UGLY.

The boys were trying to get her to roll down the gla.s.s and relate and had started thumping on the roof with their fists, the better to emphasize their unique personal charms. Since she had flown into Panama City Airport as Beatrice Gandolfo and was therefore without her company-issued SIG and her NSA badge, she was about to resort to a needle-tipped middle finger of her own when the interior of her car lit up with blue-and-red flickering lights, and she heard the whoop-whoop whoop-whoop of a police siren. of a police siren.

She stopped in the middle of the road and watched as three uniformed patrol cops-two hard-bodied black guys shaped like artillery sh.e.l.ls and a tall, rangy blond woman in a flak vest-bulled into the hog-boy contingent, herding them off the road and out onto the beach dunes, jerking the beer cans out of their hands while backing them up against a hurricane fence.

The blond cop-by her bars, a captain-turned to Nikki, the cop's face a blend of controlled fury and concern. She came over and leaned down to knock on Nikki's driver's-side window.

As Nikki got the window down, the heat, the noise, and the smell of Panama City Beach-old sweat, fresh urine, sea salt, marijuana, and spilled beer-came rolling in like a wave, along with the cop's personal scent, a pleasant mixture of cigarette smoke and some sort of citrus-based cologne. The cop had wide-s.p.a.ced light brown eyes, a turned-up nose, and the ruddy complexion of a surfer. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the din. Her accent was soft and had a lilting cadence, something in it of the Old Dominion.

"Sorry about that, miss. p.i.s.s-drunk little p.e.c.k.e.rwoods. My men will sort 'em out. You okay in there?"

"I am now," said Nikki, smiling. "Thank you, Captain."

The cop patted the window's sill a moment, seeing Nikki's luggage in the backseat, her laptop case beside it, and then giving Nikki a long, appraising look. "You don't look one little bit like these pestilential Spring Breakers, miss."

"No. Stupid of me. I should have phoned ahead."

"You didn't know about Spring Break?"

"No, believe it or not. Actually, I'm here on business. I'm looking for place called the Bali Hai Motel. I think it's on Front Beach Road?"

The cop's face changed, her smile slipping sideways.

"The 'Bali Hai'? You sure about the name?"

"Yes," said Nikki, shuffling through her purse for the note. She found it, tugged it out. "One-six-three-oh-one Front Beach Road. Panama City Beach."

"Are you staying staying there, miss?" there, miss?"

"No. I'm supposed to meet someone there. Business."