Gun Metal Heart (27 page)

“Yes!” The blonde squeezed Daria's thigh. “I got it in Brussels, but on sale for … wait for it … five hundred euros!”

Daria said, “Oh, my God!”

“I know! Right?”

Daria looked down at herself and noted round, white adhesive bandages on the insides of her elbows and the insides of her knees. Beneath the bandages were something the general size and shape of macaroni noodles.

She tested her wrist restraints. The cuffs were tight enough to hold her but not tight enough to cut off circulation.

“I've longed to meet you, honey bunch. That shit you pulled with the Ulster Irish in Los Angeles? That was golden! Also: Calendar? Wow.”

The blonde's intelligence was unsettlingly precise. Daria glanced around the darkened warehouse, trying not to think about the adhesive pads on her elbows and knees.

“Calendar?”

Viorica glanced over her shoulder at the Slav hitters. She spoke, but more softly. “He was good. He was my competition. We were always up for the same contracts. Not for nothing, but your putting him out of the game was most appreciated.”

Daria had learned to pay attention to what people didn't say just as much as what they
did
say. It was impressive that Viorica knew about the incidents in Los Angeles and Montana. But they were hardly Daria's most recent adventure.

She took a shot in the dark. “And of course you know Asher Sahar.”

The transformation was dramatic, despite being slow. The blonde's smile evaporated, the sparkle in those unsettling silver eyes dimmed.

She reached out and touched Daria's jaw gently with one knuckle. “Not as well as you,” she whispered.

It was possible for the strange woman to know that Daria had stopped Asher Sahar's plot last November. But it was exceedingly unlikely she could have known that Daria and Asher had been orphans together in the Gaza Strip and were the only true family either had ever known.

The list of people who could have told Viorica all this was short.

Asher Sahar was on the list.

A heaviness seemed to invade the woman's lovely face. Her shoulders slumped under the jacket. But snap! The effect disappeared just like that, like a soap bubble popping or a conjurer's cards whisked away.

“Good times!”

The flex-cuffs around her ankles kept Daria's legs apart. They also allowed her to raise her legs straight up about six inches. Daria did so now, using her right hand to hitch up her right boot, then her left hand to hitch her left boot. She shook her head, black hair flying. She said, “Do I look all right? This next part's dramatic, I assume.”

The blonde levered herself to her full height; considerable in the studded boots with four-inch heels. “Yummy. Kostic?”

The men behind her were
Skorpjo
for sure. Both were thick-necked, thick-bellied thugs; soldiers gone to seed. Both wore the white forearm tattoos. One was large and the other was damned large. The first held the cobbled-together power strip. He motioned toward his own elbows, and again Daria was reminded of the round adhesives on her joints.

“Squibs. Yes?” the mustached man said.

“Dunno that word, love.”

Viorica said, “For Christ's sake, she's never even seen
The Birds
. Explain it to her.” She switched to Serbian and turned to the large, laconic man. “Lazarevic, get the other one, please.”

The silent mammoth rumbled out of the room.

The man with the mustache sucked down the last of a cigarette, dropped it, and ground it out with his heel. His shirt was flecked with ash. “You enjoy American movies? Bruce Willis, hero, is running. Always. Bad guys fire bullets. But they don't hit Bruce Willis. They hit walls, they hit street.”

There was something rehearsed about the speech. Daria paid attention with only a portion of her mind. She also willed herself to forget about the connection between Viorica and Asher. She considered the power strip that had been lashed-up to make a remote control. Getting that out of the big man's hands seemed like priority number one.

“You have interrogation before, the Major say. You are tough. You don't talk. But there?” He mimed touching the inside of his own elbow, where the adhesives pinched Daria's skin. “Bruce Willis is not dodging bullets. There are no bullets.” He waggled the long, narrow electric device in his right hand. “Squib. Small bomb. Goes boom in movie, it looks—”

“Got it. Thank you. We had another word for them in Shin Bet. We used them when we faked a hit. They … sorry.” She rolled her eyes. “How rude of me. You were going somewhere with that. Please.”

Kostic had expected fear. He'd expected anger, or attempts to free herself, or a quick capitulation and information. He had not expected the dark woman in the chair to so thoroughly underestimate the threat to her limbs.

Viorica said, “The next couple of hours are pivotal. You've been an FBI asset, of course. Also DEA, also ATF. Before all that, you were Shin Bet. And before that, you were IDF. And before
that
, you and Asher ran with … an interesting crowd.
Dick and Jane—Fun With Semtex.
”

Daria's mind reeled. Her poker face abandoned, she allowed the tall blonde to see her shock. Viorica knew things she couldn't possibly know.

“But last year, you were a-hangin' with the CIA. First in Manhattan, then in Paris, then in Milan. The word on the street is: the CIA hates your guts. Which may be the case. Or it might be an elaborate cover to obscure a CIA asset.
Vous
.”

“
Tu
,” Daria corrected, opting for glib to cover her surprise. “You've tied me to a chair. You can use the familiar.”

Viorica laughed. “Here's the kicker. Remember the blond hunk we stumbled into in that livery building in Florence? I hate coincidence. I looked into him. And presto: He's ex-CIA.”

Viorica said, “Ladies and gentlemen: I present Owen Cain Thorson.”

The silent mammoth in the straining polo shirt carried in a metal chair with arms, identical to Daria's chair. A full-grown man sat in it. The mammoth didn't appear to be straining much.

He set the chair down on the floor with a thunk. Daria recognized the blond American, although he had looked better. His hair was dirty, his skin a sickly jaundice. He wore a stretch bandage over his left cheek, and it had grown dirty, yellow, and damp with seepage. His left ear was bandaged and, from the misshapen lump of plaster, some of the ear was missing. From the tautness of his pant leg, Daria knew he wore a wrap around his right thigh. She had shot him there, on his motorcycle in the French village of Romans-sur-Mercellen. It must have been just a glancing wound.

The man wore white round adhesives on the insides of his elbows and knees.

“A
Skorpjo
team caught him sneaking from Italy into Slovenia,” Viorica said. “You and the CIA, you and the CIA. Hmm … See? There's my whole thing with coincidence again.”

Daria said, “Hallo,” to the sickly American. She turned to Viorica. “Sorry. He and I never met before Florence.”

Thorson spoke and sounded drugged. He didn't shout but spoke in a steady, reedy cadence. “I'll kill you. I will kill you. Fucking slut. Fucking terrorist spy bitch. I'll kill you.” The left side of his face didn't move in accordance to the rest, as if he suffered nerve damage from the buzz saw Daria had thrown at him.

Daria said, “Not a fan, I think.”

Viorica tsked. “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”

“What is it you need to know?”

“Is the CIA here in Belgrade? If so, how large a contingent? And what do they know of the plan?”

As she spoke, Thorson did, too. He might not have realized anyone else was talking. His hooded eyes were locked on Daria. “Kill you. Goddamn spy. Syrian. Won' matter. Show 'em. Kill you. Bitch…”

Daria ignored him. “The CIA hates me. I'm involved in your business, first, because you killed a moron named Vince Guzman. A moron whose friend came to me to save him. Second, because I told Dr. Incantada that she'd be safe if she followed my lead, and she died badly.”

“She died quickly,” Viorica corrected. “Which is the most any of us can hope for. And your story doesn't ring true. If I were the CIA and needed an operative on European soil, you're exactly who I'd pick.”

Daria shrugged. “Wish I could help you.”

Viorica started to respond then reached into her back pocket and produced a mobile. It was vibrating. She checked an incoming text. Distracted, she said, “Is the CIA watching the ambassador's residence?”

“Dunno.”

“Well. I have to skedaddle. Kostic?”

She took the hoodlum aside. They moved ten paces away.

The hulking, ever silent Lazarevic turned to watch them.

“Kill you,” Thorson spoke in an emotionless monotone. Daria ignored him and adjusted her boots again. “Can't run. Track you down. Scum. For America. Get you…”

Across the room, Viorica whispered to Kostic, who lit another cigarette. They seemed to be arguing a little. Viorica began to turn away, and Kostic caught her attention one last time.

Kostic said, “Do not worry. We will find out what she knows. Lazarevic will have a bit of fun with the girl. Me, too. Then we make sure you never hear of her again.”

He winked at Viorica.

And her face lost all of its twisted merriment. “I wouldn't. Were I you.”

Kostic's waited, to see if she were joking.

“I'd watch her. From a distance. I'd keep guns on her. But I wouldn't fuck her. Then again,” she patted the big man on the shoulder. “I'm not the boss of you.”

She turned back to Daria and put on a bright smile. “Any-who … I'm off. Places to be, people to do.”

“Must you go?”

Viorica nodded. “It was a pleasure to finally meet the great Daria Gibron. Take care.
Ciao.
”

She pivoted on one tall heel and strode out of the warehouse. Leaving Daria and the American in the chairs, facing Kostic and Lazarevic.

The Slavs began smiling at each other.

Daria's mind spun.

That
, she mused,
made no sense whatsoever
.

 

Thirty-Four

Allison Duffy, deputy chief of mission for the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, had a to-do list as long as her femur. She'd been working on winnowing it down for the last seven hours, but the list had grown considerably longer in that time. Tick off one item and three more popped up.

Since the ambassador had been reassigned, Allison Duffy was in charge of the embassy for the foreseeable future. And the Tudor-style ambassador's residence, a half-block from the embassy, remained vacant. It was the perfect venue for an informal state affair.

A cocktail party with foreign ministers from the rest of the former Yugoslavia was a huge deal with serious ramifications, for good or ill. Carry it off, and this soiree could set the stage for a new round of formal trade negotiations for the region. Such talks could speed up Serbia's entrance into the European Union and Croatia's entrance into the Euro Zone. Both of which, in turn, could bolster negotiations between Serbia and the newly independent region of Kosovo.

Al Jazeera English would be on hand to film the reception, since any forward motion on peace talks in the Balkans was still considered a big deal within the Islamic world.

Then again, if the cocktail party went poorly, it could set back talks between the Serbs and Kosovars, or between the Serbs and its highly dysfunctional neighbor to the west, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But sometimes a cocktail party is just a cocktail party. They didn't have to gain ground so long as they didn't lose any.

Still, her to-do list did not shrink.

Among the latest, a secure communiqué from the U.S. Department of Defense informing her that a man named Mr. Riordan would be attending. Mr. Riordan was an American businessman with an interest in agriculture.

The encrypted communiqué made a few things perfectly clear by making them perfectly muddy. For instance, by calling the new guest Mr. Riordan, Defense was informing Allison that he was a military officer working under cover. By leaving out his first name, Defense informed her that he was of high rank. By mentioning agriculture, Defense informed her that Mr. Riordan cared about anything other than agriculture.

Great
, Allison thought. She would be saddled with an intelligence officer from the Pentagon.

The other new addition to her to-do list came from Jay Kent, her public affairs counselor. Jay—a genial but lackluster foreign service officer—told her that an old college friend now employed by the Central Intelligence Agency would be attending the cocktail party. Also under a false name.

Another spook
, she thought.
And from a different shop than Mr. Riordan.

Oh, good.

Allison Duffy added to her to-do list:
Check bona fides of Jay's friend w/Langley
.

Then she began the task of worrying about her dress and shoes for the event.

*   *   *

General Howard Cathcart showered and shaved and shined his shoes. He opened the windows in his room at the Belgrade City Hotel to let out the steam. Then he used his attaché case with its secure communications rig to inform Colonel Crace in Sandpoint, Idaho, that he was on the ground.

He also told her that the woman calling herself Major Arcana had left him a bouquet of flowers, a cell phone, and a note telling him to meet her at a cocktail party at the U.S. ambassador's residence.

Cathcart had to admit it was a clever stratagem. No way he could drag his six Special Forces soldiers with him. Not inside a home that was, essentially, embassy grounds.

Cathcart contacted his support personnel back at the Pentagon and arranged to attend the party as a Mr. Riordan.

He would play the blonde's game.