Gun Metal Heart (25 page)

Target-rich environments for a psychotic mercenary, a criminal/terrorist cell, and a fleet of mobile weapons. The perfect place to start looking for trouble.

Outside, the old sheets were still piled in the hall. Daria took the stairs down to the crummy, chairless lobby—no CCTV cameras here, obviously—and stood just inside the door, holding her cell phone in both hands as if texting. The clerk watched her greedily. She stood like that as girls and clients passed by. Inbound, the girls and johns walked up the stairs together. Outbound, they descended the stairs alone. She waited until a Middle Eastern girl about Daria's size entered and trudged slowly up the stairs. Daria noted the clerk taking a phone call. While he was distracted, she tucked away her phone and followed the prostitute up the stairs.

On the third floor the girl rapped on a door, called out a name softly, then waited. After a bit, she unlocked the door and stepped in. She wore an acrylic dress, much of it transparent, and white boots with platforms and chunky heels. She didn't notice that the door did not close behind her as she tossed a worn-down hemp tote onto her bed.

Daria cleared her throat and the girl turned. She eyed Daria. Not warily, but wearily. “What?”

Daria held up a fan of dinars. Based on the girl's looks, she tried Arabic. “I have money.”

The girl responded in Arabic with a Cairene accent. “I can see that. Can you find another girl? I'm dead.”

“I need to borrow some of your clothes.”

The girl yawned, willing herself to stay upright. “For how long?”

“The rest of the day.”

The girl considered it a moment, then spat out a price. It was on the high side. Daria peeled off the bills and tossed them on the girl's bed.

“Why do you want my clothes?”

Daria opted for honesty. “To hunt down a woman in Belgrade and kill her.”

“Oh.” The Saudi girl thought about that. “Twenty percent more if you get blood stains on anything.”

In a world of ever-shifting mores, values, and alliances, Daria had always appreciated the predictable, bottom-line sensibility of your garden-variety prostitute.

*   *   *

Two miles from the bordello, John Broom and Diego drank coffee and ate breakfast rolls that could have doubled as little sandbags in the event of a flood. John had bought new jeans and several generic, solid-colored T-shirts. Diego wore a T-shirt inscribed with the name
Chicharito
under a western-style, short-sleeved plaid shirt, untucked and unbuttoned.

Diego watched a football match on the restaurant's twelve-inch TV and sipped his coffee. He said, “Got a move?”

John chewed his roll. “Visit the U.S. embassy.”

Diego didn't take his eyes off the flickering images. “How come?”

John held up a paper napkin and spat out the ball of indestructible dough. “I know a guy who works there.”

Diego dragged his eyes off the game. He raised his eyebrows a quarter inch.

“I know,” John said. “Coincidences bother me, too. The fact is, as an analyst for the CIA, I worked with State all the time. Those worlds aren't that large. It would be weird if I didn't know at least one person in any of the embassies in the former Yugoslavia.”

Diego turned back to the football game. The sound was off. “How about the guy we were told about?”

“Acting Foreign Minister Dragan Petrovic. Okay, first, I don't know how we get on a foreign minister's calendar, but the guy I know at the U.S. embassy might. Second, what would we say if we met this Petrovic? ‘Good morning, sir. I understand you're connected to a paramilitary death squad that helped kill your predecessor. How 'bout them Mets?'”

Diego nodded, but aimed it at the TV screen.

“We also have to remember: we're here to help Daria. If you know her as well as you claim to, you know she's not sitting around waiting for action. She'll instigate something. We need to be ready to back her play.”

Diego said, “Okay.”

“Also, I want to conduct a threat assessment of Belgrade. Let's assume we're here because of those Flying Monkeys you saw in Florence. If they're here now: Why? Is there a likely target? And if so, who controls the drones? Again: the guy I know at the embassy might give us a lead.”

Diego sipped his coffee and peered at the screen.

John watched him. “Who's winning?”

“Don't know.”

“Who's playing?”

“Don't know.”

“Good match?”

Diego stood and reached for his hat. “Pretty good.
Vamonos güey.
”

*   *   *

The tall blonde waited in the half-finished parking garage near the Stari Grad. This time she waited with Kostic, her contact to the White Scorpions.

She wore skinny black denim jeans, boots with tall heels, and a white V-neck tank under a black jersey jacket. She leaned against the side of her stolen Volkswagen and smiled at the
Skorpjo
hitter.

Kostic nodded, then made eye contact with both of the snipers waiting overhead, at three and nine o'clock, hiding behind never-used cement parking bumpers on the open second story of the garage. He reached for his lapel mic and spoke to the men on roving patrol outside. He listened to their responses, then checked the Makarov auto in his shoulder holster to confirm he'd chambered a round. That done, he nodded back at the blonde.

She said, “Okay. The five best rock anthems of all time, involving cars. Ready … go.”

Kostic blinked at her. “I'm sorry? I don't…”

The acting foreign minister's gleaming black Escalade and motorcycle outrider appeared. The tall blonde said, “Never mind.”

The Escalade driver stepped out and, once again, the woman calling herself Major Arcana climbed into the SUV.

“Minister.”

Dragan Petrovic wore a gray suit and a sky blue tie. He held himself with the posture of a man whom God would pick to lead other men.

“Where are we, ‘Major'?”

She said, “Your drones have arrived. They have completed their first reconnaissance sortie over Belgrade. No sign of the Gibron woman.”

Petrovic took a second to remember who “the Gibron woman” was. “The American from the hotel in Florence?”

“Not American. But yes.”

“She no longer is a factor in this, I understand.”

The blonde smiled languidly. “Oh, she's a factor.”

Petrovic glanced at the concave curve of her lower abdomen. The low-rise jeans didn't quite touch her skin there, and he glimpsed scarlet panties.

He forced his mind back on course. “The Ameri— this woman. Gibron. I received a report that she was spotted heading into France.”

“And I received a report that the meek shall inherit the earth.” She shrugged. “Guess we'll see.”

Dragan Petrovic waved this off as irrelevant. He glanced at his gold-inlaid watch. “The drones and the command-and-control truck—you've seen them?”

“Yes.”

“Then we are ready for the next phase?”

“In twenty-four hours.”

“This is the critical phase. I warn you—”

The blonde reached out to touch his thigh. Petrovic froze—surprised to be interrupted in midsentence; surprised by the familiarity of the physical contact.

“Let's not fall back on cliché, Mr. Acting Foreign Minister. We are at war. Every phase is critical. May I ask: What is the target?”

Petrovic willed his heart to slow down. He could still feel the point on his thigh where her hand had rested, ever so briefly. He steadied his eyes, his vision well away from her tightly bundled midriff.

He recited an address on avenue Kneza Milosa.

The woman smiled, and it somehow made the swirling silver light in her eyes glisten. “The U.S. ambassador's residence.”

Petrovic's face betrayed his surprise. “How did you know?”

“I made a bet with myself about likely targets. The residence made my top-three list. It makes sense, given how close as it is to the old Chinese embassy. Or what's left of it, I should say.”

Dragan Petrovic was not pleased but found himself preening a bit nonetheless. “You understand the symmetry of it? Good. I appreciate that.”

“Thank you, Minister.”

She looked into his eyes and smiled. The moment held. Then, appearing a bit flustered, she reached for the car door handle. “We'll be there, sir. On time. You have my word.”

“And you have the unofficial gratitude of a besieged nation.”

The blonde slipped out of the SUV. Before she could close the door, he leaned toward her to maintain eye contact. “And Major? You have my gratitude as well.”

She smiled and bowed her head slowly in acknowledgment. “Once the mission is accomplished, perhaps we could discuss this further.”

Dragan Petrovic said, “Oh, we will.”

*   *   *

The strange woman closed the car door, and Teodore, Petrovic's driver, climbed back in. Petrovic's mobile vibrated. He checked the readout. It was his personal assistant.

“Yes?”

“The last details are being hammered out, Minister. The conference is on.”

Petrovic smiled. He made a swirling motion with one upturned finger and Teodore turned over the engine.

“You're sure?”

“Yes, sir. The delegate from Bosnia-Herzegovina was the last to confirm. But we're ready.”

“And the others?” The SUV pulled out of the parking garage and embraced the warmth of the July sun as it hit his face and neck.

“The delegates from Montenegro have arrived, sir. The delegates from Croatia and Slovenia were expected by noon.”

That was four of the six republics that made up the former Yugoslavia, if you discount Kosovo, which Serbs do. Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia completed the list.

“The Americans will play host?”

His assistant laughed. “Oh, they leaped at the chance. They have orchestrated quite a media event, I'm told.”

“Superb. And the Bosnian delegate?”

“Zoran Antic. MP from Sarajevo. Of the Illyrian Party. He'll be here.”

*   *   *

The woman calling herself Major Arcana saw Dragan Petrovic answer his cell phone as his SUV roared out of the unfinished garage. She walked back to her stolen Volkswagen, the thick heels of her studded boots clacking. Her man, Kostic, was on his cell phone, too. He flipped it closed as she drew near.

He began to speak but the blonde let one heel skip-pop against the poured cement. The sound whip-cracked in the vast emptiness. She pivoted her hip, shimmied low, ran both hands through her icy locks, and snapped back upright, grinning.

Kostic gaped.

She danced, laughed, then squared her shoulders. “Oh, that was fun!”

Kostic blinked stupidly.

“Speak to me of good news, O Slavic one!”

The soldier lit up a Syrian Alhamra cigarette and sucked down a third of it in one blow. Blue smoke whirled around his squarish head. He did it to buy time until he found his voice.

“One of Lazarevic's guys. A whorehouse just off Trg Republike. A woman matching the description of Gibron checked in for a full night. Just as you predicted.”

The tall blonde shook her head. “If I had a dime for every time I hid in a cathouse … Okay, grab her. Tell the guys to bring at least five good soldiers. Any fewer than that, and she'll make mincemeat out of them. Oh, and tell them I kind of want her alive.”

 

Thirty-Two

When Daria rented the Saudi hooker's clothes, what she meant was the girl's laundry-day clothes: low-slung jeans faded chalky white down the front, with holes exposing one knee and her seat. Daria added a yoga tank and a cropped hoodie that zipped up the front. She did her hair in a loose bun behind her neck, pitch-black tendrils framing her face.

She grabbed her knife but left behind the stolen Glock. She'd be conducting reconnaissance too close to the federal government buildings to carry a firearm. She shrugged on the Florentine backpack.

The central core of the city was a fairly easy walk. The temperature climbed into the eighties, but Daria, born in the desert, tolerated heat better than most. She walked across the street from the Parliament building. It was a muddy gray building, three stories tall with arched windows, second-story columns, and a small dome that dominated the southeast corner. The red, blue, and white Serbian flag flew over the main door. Military guards in fatigues carrying semiautomatic weapons roamed the perimeter.

She studied the building from several angles. She also scanned the sky for hawks and hummingbirds but saw none. She nudged her fingertips into the front pockets of the jeans and stood with her weight on one hip. Parliament looked like a fine target. But…?

She smiled wryly. As one of her Shin Bet handlers had hammered into her: “Focus on the ‘Buts.'”

But … did
Skorpjo
have the drones?

But … did
Skorpjo
answer to Parliament? Or was the organization at odds with Parliament?

But but but … too many unknowns in the equation.

She heard laughter behind her. Three people speaking English with loud, broad Australian accents. Two guys and a girl, all midtwenties. They each had mobile phone cameras and were switching off taking photos, each of the other two.

Daria noticed soldiers on foot, vectoring their way. Daria moved toward the trio and chose a flat Midwestern American accent. “Here. Can I help with that?”

She took one of the phones, and the three Australians posed as the soldiers walked right past them. It was an old surveillance trick: by offering to shoot their photo, Daria morphed from a singleton to part of a youthful foursome. The guard might remember the four of them laughing but wouldn't report a lone female scouting out the Parliament building in his daily logs.

Daria took several shots of the Aussies. The girl giggled and thanked Daria, and they insisted on getting her photo, too. Daria borrowed the girl's large sunglasses and mugged wildly, so even if the vacation photos found their way into the hands of a border guard, Daria wouldn't look terribly much like Daria.