Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) (27 page)
Read Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) Online
Authors: Joseph Badal
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue, #Espionage
Bob entered the conference room and searched his colleagues’ faces. Their hangdog looks did not engender confidence in him. He sighed. “You haven’t come up with a thing?” he asked.
“About right, boss,” Tanya Serkovic said. “We followed up on the Bulgarian link, because of the poison pellet business, but we got zip. Our guy at the Bulgarian mission – Tetranoff – looked horrified when I told him what happened. I don’t think he was acting. He swears it wasn’t one of his people.”
“What else?” Bob asked.
“I checked with my contact at the Russian Embassy.
Nada
,” Raymond Gallegos offered.
“How about you, Frank?”
“Nah . . . well, maybe. But it ain’t much.”
Bob had known Frank Reynolds for fifteen years. The man had a habit of understatement. Bob let him proceed at his own pace. Frank didn’t like to be prodded.
“I called Cherkoseff at the electronics store. You remember him, Bob, the Bulgarian agent who defected just before the Iron Curtain fell?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Bob responded, trying his best to contain his impatience.
“Right. Well, he told me that at the time he defected, the Bulgarian Intelligence Service was in turmoil. He said the most common question agents asked each other was ‘If you had to leave Bulgaria, where would you go?’ The hardcore guys said they’d go to Yugoslavia, and some of them did in fact flee there, taking their deadly toys with them, according to Cherkoseff.”
“So our umbrella killer could have been working for the Serbs,” Raymond offered.
“Yeah! Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but who the hell knows?” Frank said.
“Let’s go to work on this,” Bob said. “If–”
A loud knock on the conference room door interrupted him. Then Rosalie Stein entered the room. “Sorry, Mr. Danforth, but I thought you’d want to see these.” She laid a file on the table.
“You look flushed, Ms. Stein. You run all the way up here?” Bob said, smiling, as he opened the file.
“Yes, sir.”
“Shit!” Bob exclaimed, staring at a photograph he pulled from the file.
“What is it, boss?” Raymond asked.
Bob passed the photograph across the table to Raymond. Then he leafed through the rest of the file before skidding the whole thing over. Photographs spilled from it.
Raymond picked them up one at a time, scanned them, and passed them to Tanya.
“Now we know how the Serbs found out about my involvement in Karadjic’s kidnapping,” Bob said. “Even with the mutilation of her face, I’m sure it’s Olga Madanovic hanging at the end of the rope. I personally recruited that poor woman.”
Frank stood up, walked behind Tanya’s chair, and looked over her shoulder. “Who’s the guy hanging next to her?”
A small gasp escaped Tanya’s throat when she looked at the third picture. She took a deep breath and looked at Bob.
“The man in the photograph is Darius Alexandrovic. Serb General Darius Alexandrovic. Olga’s top informant. And the sign reads:
Blackbirds will pick at the flesh of Serbia’s enemies – wherever they are.
”
The sun sliced through a gap in the motel room drapes, waking Vitas. He rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, moving like a bear coming out of hibernation, hunching his shoulders, groaning from the stiffness he felt. He looked at the clock radio. Almost 7 a.m. He reached for the telephone on the bedside table and dialed a number. Paulus Tomavic answered the phone on the third ring.
“What did you find out?” Vitas barked.
“Why are you calling me at home?” Tomavic whispered. “I don’t want my family involved in any of this. You should call me at the Embassy. I told–”
“The red Porsche, Paulus,” Vitas shouted. “Who does it belong to?”
There was a rustle of paper before Tomavic answered. “It’s registered to a U.S. Army officer, Captain Michael Andrew Danforth. Stationed at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, with the 82nd Airborne Division. I heard on television the 82nd received orders to go to Macedonia as part of the NATO Peacekeeping Force.”
“Any other information?”
“According to our intelligence records, Danforth’s father works at the CIA.”
“I know, Paulus,” Vitas said to himself after hanging up the receiver. He rubbed his hands together.
An hour later, Vitas sat in his car down the block from the entrance to Andrews Air Force Base. He was out of the line of sight of the guards and trained his binoculars on the road just outside the gate. It was early morning. He rubbed his erection through the fabric of his pants, thinking about the Gypsy girl. She’d become an obsession. He couldn’t help it.
It was a long shot he would see the girl, but he had to take the chance. Would her nipples become erect when he pinched them? How loud would she scream when he bit them? A chill ran up his spine. He shuddered.
All morning he waited, and half the afternoon. Then a bright red pickup truck came out through the gate. The Gypsy was at the wheel, and she was alone.
When she’d driven past him, he trailed her for nearly an hour. She seemed lost, doubling back several times, circling around several blocks. Finally, she pulled into a bus depot parking lot, got out of the pickup, and entered the terminal building. Vitas followed her inside, ducking behind a column. From a distance of ten meters, he watched her go to the ticket counter, hand over money to the ticket clerk, and walk to a bench. Thirty minutes later, she boarded a bus for Miami. He raced out to his car and pulled in behind the bus when it drove away.
Michael jumped at the sound of the ringing telephone in his off-base apartment. He grabbed the receiver and sat up on the couch. “Hello,” he said, clearing his throat, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He searched for the remote to the television, found it on the floor in front of the couch, and pressed the power button, shutting off the set.
“Michael, is that you?”
Michael became immediately alert. “Miriana?”
Miriana giggled. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’d be a lot better if I was there . . . with you. But things are going well. The unit is ready to go.”
“I . . . I vish you vere not leaving so soon. Is there chance you could get away for a day?”
Michael smiled to himself. He loved Miriana’s accent. She sounded like Natasha in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series. “No hope of that. I barely get time off at night. Besides, we’re restricted to the Fayetteville area.”
“I knew you vould say that,” Miriana said, giggling again. “I am here in Fayetteville. Can you come to my motel?”
Michael felt a surge of heat go through him; his throat tightened with excitement. “You’re kidding!”
“No, I am not kidding. I am in room 116 at Rebel Inn. I am tired from long bus ride. I am starved. I do not like being alone.” She sounded as though she was scolding him, but then she laughed.
Michael checked his watch. “It’s 9:30; I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He replaced the receiver and made a mad scramble for the bedroom. After changing into a clean shirt and brushing his teeth, he raced out the apartment door, took the steps three at a time to the first floor, ran to his car, and broke several traffic laws while he sped down Persons Avenue, Fayetteville’s main drag. He goosed the Porsche to seventy miles an hour. The brassy lights of the strip joints and fast food restaurants seemed to be one continuous blur. He whipped into the Rebel Inn’s gravel parking lot and skidded to a stop in front of room 116. She opened the door before he could knock.
When the Porsche roared into the parking lot, Vitas knew his hunch had been correct. Two birds instead of one. Killing Danforth’s son would feel just right.
He glared at them while they embraced at the door of her room. When they shut the door, he banged the steering wheel and muttered, “She is mine!”
Vitas opened the car door and hesitated a moment before stepping out onto the loose gravel. He grunted a bear-like sound and stretched his tired frame. Lack of sleep had left him bone-tired. Clenching his hands, he took two paces toward the room, but the door suddenly opened again. He quickly turned his back and just stood there, hoping they wouldn’t notice him. He heard them laugh, the sounds of their feet crunching on the gravel, then the Porsche’s doors opening and closing. A moment later, he heard the throaty tone of the sports car’s engine.
Vitas rushed back to his car and started the engine. The Porsche had turned left out of the parking lot, but by the time Vitas pulled out onto the street, it had disappeared. He exhaled a mighty sigh. He could only hope they would be back. The girl had not taken her suitcase.
He walked to the motel office and paid for a room of his own, purposefully requesting a room on the same side as the girl’s. He would catch a nap while the lovebirds were gone.
The clock-radio alarm went off at eleven-thirty p.m. Fully clothed, except for his shoes, Vitas rolled out of bed and peeked through the purple curtains. The Porsche was not in the lot. He fell back onto his bed and used the remote control to turn on the television. He flipped through the channels until he found CNN, and waited patiently through sports and U.S. national news for coverage of the conflict between the Serbs and NATO. It gave him a rush to think about how the little Balkan country had the whole western world by the balls.
Vitas
listened when the announcer finally updated her viewers on recent events in the Balkans. Then she said, “The United States is sending fourteen more Apache helicopters to Macedonia. The helicopters, along with twenty-four hundred members of the 82nd Airborne Division, will leave for Macedonia on Friday. This will beef up the American commitment of military personnel to well over . . ..”
What a joke! Vitas thought. These dumb-ass Americans never learn. He spat a disgusted curse. Then he chuckled. Idiots! The fucking President of Serbia and his generals must be thrilled to know they can turn on CNN, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and learn about NATO’s war plans. It’s like having a spy in the Pentagon. But better. Vitas laughed out loud. Big belly laughs.
He rose from the bed and again peered out the window. Still no Porsche. He was getting impatient. What if the Danforth kid was screwing Miriana right this moment? His entire body went hot and sweat popped out on his face. He rubbed his crotch and felt the swelling in his pants. It would not be long now. He walked back to the bed, lay down, rubbed his cock, and imagined what he would do with the Gypsy. And, if the Army Captain had been playing with the Gypsy girl’s sweet spot, he would make him pay.