Gun Metal Heart (15 page)

Singer said, “Edward? It's me. Need to speak to the president. Sorry: right now. It's about this thing in Florence.”

Daria came back
. “John! Find out who controls the drones! Get to Serbia! I can't—
”

The line died.

 

Eighteen

Thirty thousand feet above sea level

John Broom always felt it was worth the money to fly business class. The extra legroom made all the difference.

This made his journey from North Carolina to Bologna, Italy, a little out of the ordinary. He was traveling in the cargo hold of a Hercules C-130 transport, thanks to a favor from a man known as the Viking. His seat was a canvas cot that folded down from the bare metal concave hull. He wore jeans and new hiking boots and a fleece-lined Hebrew Union College hooded sweatshirt under a waterproof, winter-weight coat. It was still July outside the Hercules, but inside it was Santa's workshop.

John had been lying on his side, his messenger bag turned into a pillow. He ached from the cold, and he hadn't been able to doze for more than a few stolen minutes. He sat up and groaned. The cargo hold was forty feet long and jammed with crates. The crates were unmarked, which meant they were filled with contraband.

John muttered, “John the Smuggler.” His breath misted.

He peered through the frost-limned hatchway window. The sun was rising, lending a golden glow to the leading edge of the huge wing and both massive, barrel-shaped Allison T-56 turboprop engines.

He looked down. They were over land. John didn't know which country, and he wasn't sure which continent. Europe? Northern Africa?

He felt adrift. He had rarely been so out of his element.

It had been three days since anyone had heard from Daria Gibron.

Three days since a suspected terrorist organization (or organizations) had used highly sophisticated electronics to track Daria's phone calls. They apparently had tracked her with both a cell phone and, later, a landline phone at a bookstore that subsequently was fired upon and set ablaze.

Daria was a gifted urban fighter. She knew how to run. She knew how to hide. If the enemy was tracking her, that meant they knew the number she had called. They knew John's name.

John peered at his watch in the cargo hold's gloom. It was two and a half days since the U.S. State Department had declared the attack on the Hotel Criterion a terrorist incident. It was, in the parlance of State, a Black Swan Event: unpredicted but with huge international repercussions. It was being likened to the terrorist attacks on Spain and London.

Two and a half days since the CIA had taken operational control of the investigation. Two days since Daria Gibron had been positively ID'd by a CCTV camera at a Bancomat ATM a block from the hotel. Two days since her presence had galvanized the anti–Daria Gibron contingent at Langley, effectively freezing out any hope of an independent investigation by the Senate-House Joint Intelligence Committee.

A day and a half since John Broom had contacted the international criminal known as the Viking.

A day since John had resigned from the staff of Senator Singer Cavanaugh.

John—cold, exhausted, unshaven, and thirty thousand feet over God knows where—was unemployed.

Belgrade, Serbia

Dragan Petrovic stood just inside the door to the office of the Serbian foreign minister. The office was opulent and warmly adorned with Swedish furniture and hunting prints. The desk was mammoth and boxy and currently empty of all paper. The wall behind the desk offered a cluster of framed diplomas and photographs of smiling children and a cherubic wife. The diplomas and children and wife weren't his.

Dragan Petrovic jammed his thick fists into his trouser pockets and stood, feet shoulder-length apart, as he often had stood on the factory floor during his Community Party days, or when watching his paramilitary troops march past him during the war.

A soft rap on the doorframe behind him alerted him that he was not alone. Dragan turned at the waist, without moving his feet, to find Veljko Tadic, chief of staff to the prime minister, standing behind him.

“Veljko.”

The soft, slight, round man patted Dragan Petrovic on the shoulder. “Not the way I always envisioned you in this office.”

Dragan took a step to his right so the chief of staff could fully enter. Veljko did, but only half a step, and peered around the office as if it were a museum exhibition.

“Josef was a great man. A great foreign minister. He understood the nuances of the past.”

Dragan didn't know what that meant. But he nodded.

“He was a personal friend, you know. Maria and I had him to the house several times. He and Alena came up to the lake with us last summer.”

Dragan did know all that. His intelligence assets were considerable.

Veljko Tadic sighed a second time. He always seemed to do everything in twos. Dragan expected a second comforting pat on the shoulder.

“The prime minister is grateful that you agreed to step up. More than grateful. Obviously, we can't be without a foreign minister. Not now with the EU talks, and with Greece spiraling into the abyss. There are the Turks, clamoring for more say in Europe. Stability, Dragan. Let that be our watchword now. Yes?”

Dragan intoned the word carefully. “Stability.”

The chief of staff seemed pleased. “I'll let you get settled in, Mister Acting Foreign Minister.”

“Thank you. Tell the PM I'll be at the Cabinet meeting. Three?”

Veljko Tadic checked his watch. “Three thirty, the way the PM's day is running. But shoot for three if you can.”

He turned to exit, paused, and patted Dragan on the shoulder again.

Dragan let the man get five steps into the antechamber before speaking. “Veljko? What was Josef doing in Florence, meeting with Russian military?”

The chief of staff turned back and licked his thick lips. “Ah. Perhaps it would be best if the PM addresses that question?”

“Of course. Three o'clock.”

The chief of staff waddled out.

As soon as he was gone, Dragan closed the office door and pulled out his cell phone. He hit the number one.

“You've reached the offices of
Skorpjo
. We're out plotting world domination and can't come to the phone right now. But your call is important to us. If you leave a—”

“You find this amusing?”

Major Arcana laughed. “I find it a
little
amusing.”

He had no time for her humor. “The package is ready?”

“It's here. It's safe.”

“The Americans?”

She said, “They'll play their part.”

“You're sure?”

“The Americans are nothing if not predictable. Mister Foreign Minister.”

Dragan permitted himself a shallow, off-kilter smile. “Acting Foreign Minister.”

“Thank God someone's
acting.
It's what our country needs.”

Dragan ran a fingertip over the desktop. No dust. He could smell lemon polish. “I don't for a minute believe you're Serbian.”

She said, “Sure of that, are you?”

Dragan was not. Her accent was flawless. “Make the rendezvous.”

“Of course.”

He hung up. He turned on his heels, examining the office.

His office.

*   *   *

The blue-eyed blonde heard Dragan Petrovic hang up and tossed her burner phone onto the bed. She had checked into the Belgrade City Hotel, a little uphill from the train and bus stations, and paid extra for a double room because it had the space for her morning tai chi rituals.

She was not—so far—impressed by Belgrade. She had tried four restaurants since hitting town. The fare tended to begin and end with goulash. She had picked up a lovely college boy last night, a fair-haired art major whose singular ambition in life apparently was to be amiable if uncreative in bed. But that had been last night and now she was bored. It was always like this between operations. The waiting was the worst.

She retrieved the cell phone from the bed and dialed Kostic, the interrogator and her primary link to the penitentiary-bait ruffians she begrudgingly called her team.

When he answered, all she said was, “Daria Gibron.”

She heard Kostic check with his partner, the laconic Lazarevic. “No,” Kostic spoke into the phone. “No sign of the woman.”

“You're sure?”

Kostic snorted. She could hear him fire up his lighter and suck down another Syrian cigarette. “We are sure. The border patrols in Croatia and Slovenia are ours. Everyone is handsomely paid. The smugglers all know what and who we will allow to cross our borders. Lazarevic sent some boys with lighter fluid and set a trucker on fire, just to be sure everyone knows we are serious. This Gibron cannot cross out of Italy. She cannot cross out of Germany. She is no longer a factor in this. I am not worried.”

The blonde thanked him and disconnected.
That's 'cause you ain't read her file, sweetie pie,
she said to herself. She switched the phone from portrait to landscape mode, and typed:
HOW'S TRIX?

Sandpoint, Idaho

Bryan Snow strolled through downtown Sandpoint, a copy of the Bonner County
Daily Bee
under his arm, wearing an Idaho Vandals baseball cap he'd picked up to blend in. He smiled. He whistled. This gig was terrific.

When it was all over, he might just buy a house on Lake Pend Oreille. Or have one built. With a water slide into the lake. And a seaplane. A seaplane would be cool.

Bryan Snow was a happy man.

He picked Connie's Cafe and Cocktails, his favorite eatery in town. The sign out front proudly announced
PARKING IN THE REAR
in pink neon.

He sat at a booth and ordered a Sprite. The waitress had started calling him Bryan, having memorized his name from his ATM card. She was quick and polite but not overly so. She didn't force conversation, but she knew he worked at American Citadel. Snow appreciated anyone who did his or her job well.

He felt the phone in his hip pocket vibrate just as the waitress brought his chicken potpie and a side salad with a little metal stand that held oil and vinegar bottles and matching salt and pepper shakers. She refilled his Sprite.

Snow used his fork to break the crust and steam rose out of the pastry. The edges were golden and scalloped. He smelled chicken and herbs.

Todd Brevidge had bitched incessantly about moving the R&D complex to the Idaho panhandle. Snow loved it. Sandpoint was clean, laid-back, and friendly. The views were spectacular. The residents ranged from aging hippies to retired LA County police officers. Snow had taken to attending legion baseball games on his days off. Also to hiking along the stunning Lake Pend Oreille or down south at Lake Coeur d'Alene.

The phone vibrated again. He pulled it out of his pocket and set it next to his plate.

He saw a text message. It read,
HOW'S TRIX?

He sipped his drink, then typed with a single finger, slowly.

ARMY IN CHARGE. TODD
=
APOPLEXY.

He ate. The lettuce, cucumber, and tomato were fresh. The phone on the place mat danced a jig.
SWELL. GIBRON?

M&H IN AIR 24/7.
He didn't spell out Mercutio and Hotspur.
MONITORING CELLS, LANDLINES. AIRLINES, ITALIAN POLICE. NADA.

He dug into the potpie. Succulent.

Vibrate:
NADA-NADA?

He typed:
NADA. GIBRON OFF GRID.

The waitress circled his way. “Your lunch okay, honey?”

The
honey
was cliché, but he liked it. “Sure is!”

She beamed, genuinely pleased. “How's work?”

“Good. Busy, but good.”

“That basement add-on working out okay?”

“Basement…?”

“The one they had excavated. Put three rooms down there? Retro'd the elevator? My uncle Terry worked on it.”

Snow grinned at her, absolutely thrilled. Oh, god! If only that condescending asswipe Brevidge knew that his supersecret lair was the talk of the town!

Snow said, “It's great. Thanks.”

The waitress refilled the Sprite and moved on.

Snow chuckled to himself and ate. Man, he loved this burg. He glanced at the silent phone. After a beat, he typed:
STILL THERE?

Vibrate:
YES.

GOOD NEWS. RIGHT? RE GIBRON.

He waited.

Vibrate:
WE'LL SEE.

*   *   *

Six blocks away, Todd Brevidge hoovered up a generous line of cocaine in his second-story office.

No, wait. Not office. Cubbyhole? Not quite. Ah, yes.
Shithole.
Better.

That snooty, buttoned-down Colonel Olivia Crace had requisitioned Todd's spacious office. She and General Howard Cathcart had huddled after that psychotic fiasco in Florence. When they emerged they informed Cyrus Acton and the other American Citadel board members that some “new truths”—that's how they worded it:
new truths
—had replaced the old ones.

First, Cathcart and Crace would absolutely be touting the advantages of the American Citadel micro air vehicles to the military intelligence black budget boys. If true, the company would be saved.

Second, the powers that be at American Citadel were in it up to their necks when it came to that flaming cluster-fuck in Italy. A Hotspur MAV had annihilated a hotel. Italian police, and then Italian intelligence, estimated sixteen dead, including seven representatives of the Russian military and a member of the Serbian Parliament. Plus, a respected Italian aerospace designer and two of her senior engineers.

Because the American Citadel brass was implicated, it was agreed that Colonel Olivia Crace would take command of the entire R&D offsite facility in Sandpoint for the duration. And the military defined
duration
as the elimination of the Israeli expat, Daria Gibron. That, plus the reacquisition of the woman calling herself Major Arcana. She would have to be eliminated, too.