Gun Metal Heart (2 page)

The windshield was long gone. Ismael hit the pilot's seat with one boot, threw himself forward, out through the missing windshield, his right hand snapping onto a still-firm support post. His grip, plus his momentum, spun him clockwise. He let go in midair and landed deftly outside the aircraft, on the starboard wing.

Damn it!
Daria gritted her teeth.

She dove off the end of the wing, using it like a springboard, and hit the ground. Ahead of her lay an aged, gray barrel of an obstacle: the remains of a Rolls-Royce Deutschland turbofan engine.

She could sprint around it, but that would take time. Daria sprang forward in a headfirst dive, hitting the top of the hot metal with both gloved hands, tucking her bent legs tight against her abdomen, and leapfrogged over it.

The Airbus now was five meters away.

Daria caught blurs of movement from the dumping ground's flag, from the squat African palm trees, from the sagebrush hillsides. Her mind shut out the irrelevant and reached for the stunted forward landing gear of the A-320 and climbed like a monkey through sharp, rusty holes up into the underbelly storage section of the airliner.

It was filthy inside, and rats scampered away from this strange, sweat-drenched alley cat.

Daria duck walked as fast as she could, forward to a service hatch. She used her legs for strength, shoulder to the hatch, and heaved it open.

Ismael Kavlek appeared behind her, through the landing-gear opening.

Daria hauled herself up into the single-aisle fuselage of the airliner, near the nose one. The passenger section gave her almost 150 meters of straight running space, and she dashed aft, leaping over debris where she could. She had spotted a blown-out starboard window, back near the bathrooms.

She heard Ismael's boots behind her and, simultaneously, Mehmet's boots thumped against the roof of the fuselage, over her head.

Daria dove headfirst through the smashed-open window.

Beneath her lay long weeds and rusty, razor-sharp bits of iron. She twisted in midair, landed on one shoulder, the banged-up rib punishing her. She rolled and was up again, as the bigger Turk jumped from atop the plane onto the tail, and from there to the ground.

He landed badly, skidding on his side into the weeds.

Daria caught sight of a Bell helicopter, a bubble-domed dragonfly, Korean War era. She angled for it. She heard Ismael mimic her mad dive through the starboard window and land right where she had.

Mehmet was on his feet, but huffing, and now it was a straightaway foot chase. The longer she could draw this out, the better.

The tail of the Bell was an open-air scaffolding affair, and Daria reached for it like it was a playground monkey bar, swinging beneath it, letting go, arcing five meters in the air, and landing on her feet, running, gasping for air.

The big Mehmet ducked and ran under the tail.

The lighter Ismael grabbed it with one hand and catapulted over it.

She hadn't gained a half second on them.

Daria reached a corridor between two gutted fuselages. She attempted a difficult, full-speed, right-angle turn, caroming off one of the aluminum frames, running full tilt, until her left leg simply gave out, her knee buckling in the turn.

She landed clumsily, face-first in the dirt, her chest taking the brunt of the impact, a mouth full of caked dirt. She tried to stop her momentum, but that only resulted in a tumbling roll that landed her, crumpled, against the gutted fuselage.

Ismael Kavlek rounded the corner but, unlike Daria, didn't try the right-angle turn. He leaped like a dancer, hit the fuselage with his boots, and ran two steps along the wall, literally running sideways parallel with the earth, his momentum defying gravity, until he pivoted in midair and landed, knees bent, in front of her.

Daria sat up against the curved aluminum, unable to catch her breath, chest on fire, now bleeding from her right cheek.

Mehmet Kavlek rounded the corner and, unlike either of them, simply let himself hit the fuselage with his shoulder, bleeding off his momentum. He was moving at only a jog as he reached his brother's side.

Daria squinted up into the white haze at the two men who loomed above her. She realized her hand rested next to a rusted spanner.

Ismael Kavlek grinned down at her. “Did you think—?”

The three of them were so intent on each other that the man in the cowboy hat and dusty boots seemed to appear as if by a conjurer's trick. One second later the butt of a sturdy Colt Python thudded into Mehmet Kavlek's temple and he dropped.

The quiet man turned the gun on Ismael, whose eyes bulged.

Daria grabbed the spanner and grunted, throwing it with her waning strength. It slammed into the raised arm of the newcomer, his aim shifting 10 degrees, and the .45 boomed, the bullet missing Ismael by inches, the sound deafening, echoing and reechoing back at them through the jungle of metal skeletons.

“
MercifulGodWhatInHell
…” Ismael yelped in Turkish.

Daria sprang to her feet, hoping to fake any remaining strength. Once up, she peered up into the ragged face of the newcomer.

“What th— You!”

The quiet man looked at her. If his arm hurt from being hit by a wrench, he didn't show it.

“Diego?”

Mehmet, on the ground, groaned.

The flat-planed face took in the three people. He turned back to Daria and nodded.

Daria huffed for air. One hand stole to the badly bruised rib under her left arm. “What—the hell—are you doing?!”

“Saving you.”

She began to see red. “
Saving me? Sav—”
She ground her teeth. “Diego, you idiot! You almost killed this man!”

The quiet man mulled that for a second. He still hadn't lowered his Colt. “Yeah.”

Daria wiped sweat from her eyes, tried to calm her beating heart. “Put away the gun. Do it now.”

He did.

“I'm going to ask you again: What are you doing here?”

The man called Diego said, “I'm here to hire you.”

 

Two

Belgrade, Serbia

Dragan Petrovic had three meetings slated before noon.

He was on a committee that was hammering out a trade deal with Hungary regarding winter wheat. He was meeting with two ministers from the Pristina region regarding assigning more border officers to the road crossings into Bosnia. And he was part of the team crafting a bid for a European wine expo. It was going to be one of those days in the marble halls of the Serbian Parliament.

But before Petrovic did any of it, even before he got a chance to polish his wing tips or tie his tie, he was called upon to resolve a crisis inside his three-story Tudor home.

His eldest daughter, Sofija, had her driver's permit and wanted to drive to Novi Sad with her girlfriends. There were many things in Novi Sad to draw the attention of a gaggle of sixteen-year-old girls. All of them involved boys.

This, of course, led to an apocalyptic meltdown by Ana, the middle daughter, who suffered inequities the likes of which the writers of the Old Testament never imagined. The very idea of her sister driving to Novi Sad was a calamity of national importance. Then again, the same could be said of three events each day.

The youngest daughter, Ljubica, recently had discovered football. A ragamuffin with perpetually skinned knees and grass stains around her cherubic grin, she rarely spoke more than twenty words per day to her father. Which was fine by Dragan.

The member of Parliament did his level best to placate daughters number one and two, without countermanding his wife, Adrijana. He considered himself a decent father; certainly better than the abusive drunk he, himself, had run away from at the age of nine. He had found a surprising level of joy in helping to raise daughters. It was like gardening: he always assumed he'd hate it until he actually tried it.

Adrijana helped with his tie and Dragan checked the contents of his ubiquitous attaché case. He had everything he'd need for the day. His wife—lovely and lithe at forty—cast a critical eye over his suit and pronounced him acceptable for governing Serbia. As if any living soul could govern Serbia! They air-kissed at the door to their home.

Teodore, Dragan Petrovic's driver-bodyguard, had the armored Escalade waiting in front of the house. One of Teodore's soldiers would ride ahead on a motorcycle, eyes peeled for trouble.

Dragan sat in the back and read the London
Times
and
Le Monde
, translated on his iPad. Outside the smoked windows Belgrade looked dusty and dry, the citizens struggling to get started on another long, hot July day.

The SUV swung powerfully onto the bustling Kneza Milosa, wending deftly around the slower traffic. The neighborhood leading up to the Parliament building was embassy row.

Teodore took this route every morning. And, as every morning, Dragan Petrovic subconsciously looked up from his e-reader to observe the smashed edifice of the old Chinese Embassy as they passed by.

The building stood tall and devastated. Half of the building lay to the north of a side street, the other half to the south. No windows remained. The Americans had bombed the embassy in 1999. The rockets had landed at night. Five JDAM missiles, fired from the U.S. 509th bomber wing. Three missiles had landed on the north side of avenue Nemanjina, two on the south side.

The embassy was across the street from the Serbian Parliament building. The Americans had targeted a diplomatic building that was literally a stone's throw from the heart of the people's capitol. The affront had been unthinkable.

The Escalade glided past and Dragan kept his eyes locked on the devastation. He had been among the lawmakers who had lobbied, long and hard, not to tear down the lifeless hulk of a building. Better to leave it standing as a testament to the evil of America. Dragan Petrovic wanted to force his fellow lawmakers to drive past the shrine of Western aggression every single morning.

Most days, the Escalade slowed down to let the minister off in front of Parliament. But today Teodore followed orders and drove straight past the elegant building. The Kawasaki knew the new route and stayed ahead of them. First the motorcycle, then the SUV, turned into the entrance of a half-finished garage. An unmarked Crown Victoria sat in front, two men in civilian clothes and Ray-Bans, watching patiently.

The SUV glided into the inky black interior of the unfinished structure. One other car waited inside: an unremarkable Audi sedan. Teodore parked the Escalade ten meters from the Audi, hauled on the hand brake, unclipped his seat belt, and slid out of the car. As he did, the driver's-side door of the Audi opened. The sedan's interior lights had been disabled.

A woman stepped out of the sedan. She wore her hair pulled tightly back in a chignon. She had chosen a midnight-blue trench coat, finely pressed trousers, and boots with tall heels.

She crossed to the Escalade, her heels echoing in the parking lot. Teodore held open the rear left-side door, and she climbed in to sit next to Dragan Petrovic.

Her hair was so shockingly blond as to be nearly white. Her eyes were a silver blue, the lightest color eyes he had ever seen. And when she smiled, she seemed to light up the interior of the car.

Dragan straightened his cuffs.

“Minister.” He noted that she spoke Serbian with an urban, Beograd accent.

He smiled stiffly. “Major Arcana.”

The blonde nodded and continued to smile.

“Some would find your nom de guerre in poor taste,” Dragan informed her. “I knew the real Arcan. I fought with him in Bosnia and Kosovo. He was a great man; a great military leader.”

“Yes,” the tall woman nodded. Dragan had difficulty placing her age. Late twenties? Early forties? “He also was a bank robber and a car thief and a thug. But some men rise to match the times, yes?”

Dragan ignored the dig against his long-dead friend and fellow freedom fighter. He willed himself to remain calm.

“Can you deliver?” he abruptly asked the smiling blonde.

She nodded. Her hair was held tightly in place; not a strand bobbed as she nodded. Her silvery eyes locked onto his.

“You are sure?”

Again, she nodded. And smiled.

A small leather pouch rested on the floorboard at Dragan's feet. He leaned forward now and retrieved the pouch. It was long and thin, twice the size of a number ten envelope. The flap was held down by a leather thong wrapped around a grommet.

He handed it over. The blonde took it, undid the string, pulled back the flap. She did not count the euros. She did not need to.

She resealed the bag.

“Thank you, Minister. You will hear back from me within three days.”

With that she opened the passenger door of the SUV and climbed out. She strode purposefully across the empty parking structure and got into her Audi.

The car sat, windows darkened, as Minister Dragan Petrovic and his military escort left the unfinished building.

Outside Florence, Italy

The two Serb soldiers had a pretty good idea how long Vince Guzman would stay unconscious after being hit by the Taser. Still, they followed that up with a tranquilizer shot.

They moved him to an abandoned warehouse in Quinto, near Aeroporto Amerigo Vespucci. It was well built and sturdy enough to keep out kids and transients. It also lay under the approach vector for the airport, so the sound of descending jets helped mask noises.

It was dusk, and the road outside the warehouse was little used. Guzman sat in a metal chair, wrists flex-cuffed to the straight arms, ankles to the legs. His head lolled, and he'd drooled on his T-shirt. Adhesive pads were pressed against the insides of both elbows and both knees. All four pads bulged around thin tubes.

The Serbs were called Kostic and Lazarevic. Both had seen military duty and the insides of Yugoslav prisons. Both knew their jobs exquisitely.

Guzman moaned and came around. He raised his head and hissed painfully at the crick in his neck, which came from his head hanging loose for almost two hours.