Gun Metal Heart (19 page)

In the crazily crowded and cacophonous lobby of the hotel, he wended his way between fans, support personnel, and journalists, his eyes scanning for familiar faces. He almost missed her, because she wore a boyish Hawaiian shirt over a rocker T, with a straw porkpie, the brim turned up all around. He was used to seeing her dressed much more skimpily, or not at all.

“
Gatta!
”

Docetti whipped her up, lifting her feet off the carpet, his chest and arms sweat-slick and taut. He kissed her hard. Others in the lobby laughed, and a few snapped cell phone photos.

He broke the kiss and set her down. “You came!”

Daria was a little breathless from the hug and the kiss. “I did.”

“You're here!”

“I am.”

The twenty-year-old couldn't believe his fortune. “You're my good luck charm now! I will find you the best place to watch! When my team takes—”

Daria put both palms on his chest and kissed him quickly. When he'd shut up, she said, “I'm not here to watch.”

His face turned quizzical. “Not watch? But everyone on earth watches!”

Daria shook her head. “No, thanks.”

His eyes grew round. “You are here for love? I cannot!
Gatta!
My heart! Okay, but quickly, and not in my room. We—”

“I'm not here for sex, and I'm not here to watch.”

Docetti blinked several times. “Then what?”

“I'm here to race.”

 

Twenty-Two

Sarajevo

John was of an age that the very mention of the Bosnian city's name evoked a muted sense of loss and fatality, even though he had never been to this region of Central Europe. The four-year-plus siege of Sarajevo had been the longest urban assault in Europe since World War II.

As Diego drove up from the craggy Neretva Valley into the town ringed with hills, John could envision the mortar battery placements and the snipers that made the city a living hell for more than fourteen hundred days.

John must have been focusing intently on the morbid memories, because Diego had to ask him twice, “You okay?”

“Hmm?”

“Seeing ghosts?”

They drove toward the Old Town, or Bascarsija. “Seeing roses.”

The soft dip of his hat brim meant
please explain
. John waited a couple of blocks, then pointed to an odd, rose-colored crater in a sidewalk. “See that? A Sarajevo Rose. A crater in a sidewalk where pedestrians were killed by mortar fire. After the war, they left the craters but filled them in with some kind of red resin. They're called Sarajevo Roses. To remember.”

They began looking for parking.

“I was Army,” the Mexican spoke softly, eyes on the traffic. “Force Recon.”

“Yeah?”

“My problem: I see the value in a siege. See why it makes sense.”

John was silent.

Diego found parking near the famed Latin Bridge. “Not saying it isn't shitty,” he said, and opened his door. “Just saying I understand.”

*   *   *

Zoran Antic was a very small man. He was maybe five-two and cypress thin, with a sharp widow's peak and steel-colored hair. Zoran Antic was an academic, a war veteran, and now a member of Parliament.

He met them at a coffee shop in the Bascarsija and under the shadow of a grand mosque. John had a thimbleful of strong coffee, Turkish style. Antic ordered peppermint tea, and Diego quietly smoked, sitting a bit apart from the other two.

John thanked the Bosnian for seeing them on short notice.

“Sylvia is a friend of mine, a friend of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

“Do I call you professor? Doctor? Delegate?”

Antic's skin seemed stretched over a skull too large for his thin neck. He smiled. “After all these years, you know, I still stop and turn if someone shouts ‘Sergeant.'” He laughed silently, and his twiglike shoulders shook. “But it is a kindness of you to ask. Professor is nice.”

Pedestrians passed: laughing children, beautiful European twenty-somethings, and somber older couples. Most men smoked. Some of the women, but not all of them, wore headscarves.

“A hotel blew up this week in Florence. Some Russians, the Serbian foreign minister, and a number of Italians were killed. You know about this?”

Zoran Antic nodded and blew across the surface of his tea.

John said, “
Skorpjo
.”

The old man's fluttering gestures ceased. He drew eyeglasses from a coat pocket: steel rimmed, perfectly round, and with curved earpieces. They were surprisingly antiquated, even for a man in his seventies. John had a sense that Antic used them as a prop, to buy him time to think.

“Go on, please.”

“Eyewitness accounts. The scorpion tattoos. They were there to steal weapon technology from an Italian aerospace designer. I don't know why the White Scorpions were in Florence, and I don't know what a gang with no air force wants with aerospace technology. But a friend of ours is risking her life to figure it all out. She's asked us to meet her in Belgrade. If I'm going to help her, I need to know more about this situation.”

As John spoke, Zoran Antic studied him.

“Tell me about this friend.”

“Daria Gibron. She's been a soldier and a spy. Now she's … I'm not sure.” John paused to think of a good word that described Daria. After a moment, he simply shrugged. “She gets involved. She's not a mercenary or a vigilante. She simply can't stand by and do nothing when something needs doing. I can't explain it better than that.”

Antic said, “She sounds heroic.”

“And Daria would be the first to laugh in your face for saying that. Nonetheless, she lived in my country for a while, and it's my opinion she acted heroically and wasn't treated very well by my government. So I aim to help her.”

Zoran Antic nodded, as if weighing all that.

“I am a member of the Bosnian Parliament representing the Illyrian Party. Do you know of us, Mr. Broom?”

“No, sir.”

“Hmm. The Illyrians were here before the Greeks. Before the Romans. The earliest organized society in this part of the world was the Illyrians. My party believes in a spiritual reunification of the region but not a political or military reunification. We don't want Yugoslavia back. But we don't want to be at each other's throats. You understand, yes?”

“I think so, sir.”

Antic leaned forward, his thin neck elongating. “For too many centuries our people have been known as the keepers of grudges. A people who believe in the thousand-year-old feud. During the war,
Skorpjo
was a plague on Bosnia. Horrible, horrible war crimes. That this organization still exists in Serbia is terrible. But…” He raised one arthritic finger for emphasis. “The White Scorpions are not officially part of the Serbian regime today. They have been thoroughly denounced.”

John had produced his Moleskine notepad and pen. He looked up and smiled. “‘Officially?'”

Antic's eyes gleamed behind his round glasses. “Good, Mr. Broom. You pay attention to details. Officially,
Skorpjo
are just hoodlums. But they still carry out orders for some of those in power in Belgrade.”

“Who?”

“I would start by keeping an eye on Dragan Petrovic. A member of the Serbian Parliament.”

John wrote the name phonetically. “I assume this Petrovic would deny any knowledge of
Skorpjo
?”

Antic shrugged and puffed out his lower lip. “Of course! Mr. Petrovic is a man beyond reproach. A statesman, yes? He has impeccable taste, a beautiful wife, three lovely daughters. Such a man would know nothing of these hooligans.”

John spoke fluent Diplomat. “Naturally.”

“And if you were to get to Belgrade to ask him, I'm afraid he would be unavailable. Doubtless, Mr. Petrovic is quite busy these days.”

“Busy?”

The old man nodded gravely. “Dragan Petrovic has been promoted to acting foreign minister of Serbia. After the untimely death of his predecessor. In a hotel in Florence, Italy.”

John sat, his pen hovering over his notepad. Diego grunted, shook his head a little.

John said, “Holy shit … sir.”

Zoran Antic laughed and reached across the table and patted the back of John's hand. “Yes. As you Americans put it so poetically, Mr. Broom. Holy shit indeed.”

Washington, D.C.

The director of the CIA sat in the overstuffed chocolate leather chair in Senator Singer Cavanaugh's office and sipped the senator's coffee. It was 6:00
A.M.

Singer stood leaning on his cane. “The Gang wants to be sure we're getting the full report on this mess in Italy. You understand.”

The director nodded. “Absolutely, Senator.”

The Gang of Nine is the unofficial top echelon of decision makers on Capitol Hill when it comes to military and intelligence issues. They included the ranking Democrat and the ranking Republican in both the House and Senate; Singer Cavanaugh, as chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee; and the ranking Republicans and Democrats of the House Intelligence and Senate Intelligence Committees.

The director leaned forward, elbows on the knees of his Saville Row suit. “As soon as the Agency knows anything, we will pass it on to you. Guaranteed.”

Singer sipped from his own cup. “And you've no word on this Daria Gibron?”

“Not that I've heard. But I think the Mossad is taking point on tracking her down. She was an Israeli intelligence asset originally. The Israelis are looking into what role she may or may not have played in the Florence thing.”

“So when you find out about her…?”

“I will call you, Senator.” The director put extra emphasis on the words
I
and
you
, as opposed to
our agency
and
your office.

Singer said, “Fine, fine. Thank you.” His desk phone rang.

The director stood and handed the older man his cup, buttoning his suit coat. “We appreciate the support we get from you on the Hill, Senator.”

Singer's phone rang again. “Of course. Say hello to Marjorie for me.”

“I will, sir. Oh, she attended the gala that Adair organized for Johns Hopkins last week. Said it was a helluva time. A
helluva
time.”

The phone rang a third time. The director of the CIA glanced toward it.

Singer set down the cups on his desk. “I'll let her know. Thanks again, Bruce.”

“Any time, sir.”

The phone rang a fourth time.

Singer drawled, “You might wanna get that.”

The director blinked. “Senator?”

The phone rang a fifth time.

Singer limped around his desk. “The phone. I think it's for you.”

As he settled himself into the desk chair, the director tentatively reached for the senator's desk phone, paused, then picked it up and identified himself.

“Yes…? Admiral? How the hell … the Pentagon said…? The budget is … A secret hold on
what?
”

The director stood, frozen. Singer used the side of his rough, calloused thumb to open the seam on an envelope and unfold the letter therein. The director listened. His face changed from pink to red to scarlet.

Singer began reading the letter in the envelope.

The director said, “I'll handle it … I said: I'll handle it!”

He slowly hung up the phone.

Singer held the letter in one hand and tapped it with the fingernails of the other. It was cheap paper, the kind found in any store. “Constituent mail. Nothing like it. Here's a woman in Ville Platte wants trees dug up along her street because their roots are raising the sidewalk pavers. But the city says ‘no.' So she writes her senator.”

The director of the CIA clenched his teeth so hard they ached. He withdrew his hand from the receiver and realized it was damp with sweat. He steeled himself, then spoke without separating his teeth. “Gibron was at the hotel. We suspect she was trying to steal an aeronautic prototype. We've examined the bodies and know she didn't die inside. She went to ground, but she's subsequently been spotted hitching a ride to the town of Turin, about six hours ago. IASI will pick her up for questioning. Our Rome station chief is en route, to participate in her interview.”

Singer raised his bushy eyebrows. He had deliberately sat down when the other man was standing, so as not to tower over him. It was a trick Singer had picked up as a prosecutor: make the other guy think he's in the dominant position.

“No kidding! Bruce, that's fine. Thank you.”

The director felt sweat prick his forehead and his upper lip. “That budget line item…”

Singer said, “Which line item?”

“The one…” There was no way he could say,
the black budget line item we didn't think you knew about
. He willed himself to breath. “Nothing, Senator.”

“Anyway, thank you again, Bruce. You're a lifesaver. I'll be sure to tell the president.”

The director chanted to himself
one … two … three …
then cleared his throat. “Thank you, Senator.”

He walked stiffly to the door, moving as if his knees had forgotten how to bend.

Singer returned to reading about the sidewalk-destroying trees of Ville Platte.

*   *   *

It was just 4:00
A.M.
Mountain Time. Colonel Olivia Crace had left the observation area to get some coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. She had no idea how long the day to come would last. The salesman, Todd Brevidge, and the American Citadel board members were nowhere to be seen at that hour.

She avoided the observation lounge and strolled confidently into the control room, rolling up one sleeve of her pale denim shirt.

Bryan Snow and his two in-house pilots blinked up from their screens as she entered the darkened room. One of the pilots had plugged his iPod into the PA system and was pumping out classic Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.