The Devil's Ransom, page 15
The man next to her looked years younger, but he was also in shape, like he was about to do a CrossFit competition, his lank muscles rippling whenever he moved. Branko realized that neither he nor Pushka would stand a chance with her. She was someone who would never want his flaccid body, even as he probably made more in a week than that punk she was with did in a year.
He said, “She’s a bitch. Look at her. All about the package.”
Pushka was about to respond when he saw two men descend the stairwell. Both were obviously not from Croatia. Both had swarthy complexions, with long black hair and full beards. But the most disconcerting thing was that both zeroed in on their table like a couple of wolves after a wounded deer.
Branko saw his face cloud up and said, “What? What’s the problem?”
He said, “Them.”
The two men stared for a moment longer, and the bigger one seemed to recognize Branko. He came forward, the other trailing behind. They sat down, the bigger man saying, “You’re here for Ahmad Khan, yes?”
Branko said, “Yeah, are you friends of his?”
“Let’s just say we used to be. He won’t be coming tonight. And both of you will be leaving here with me. We have some questions.”
Pushka tensed up and said, “What does that mean?”
“My name is Shakor Hekmatyar. I’m from Afghanistan, and your friend has stolen something of significance, which is now in your hands. We want it back.”
Branko bunched his eyes and said, “What the fuck are you talking about? He said he was coming here for a party night. I don’t know what you’re asking.”
Shakor pulled out a pistol, one that was long in the barrel, with most of it looking much larger than necessary to work the action of the gun, something Branko had only seen in the movies.
Shakor said, “You will tell us where the treasure is. Or you will die. It’s really that simple. Let’s go. Stand up slowly.”
Branko said, “Wait, wait, I think you’ve got us confused with someone else. We don’t know anything about any treasure. We only know Ahmad from previous work. Where is he? He can tell you.”
“He’s dead. And you’re the last trace.”
Branko’s head was spinning. Treasure? From Afghanistan? What the hell?
He said, “Hey, man, let’s talk about this. We both work for Andrei. Maybe we should call him before we start waving guns. Right?”
Shakor lowered his weapon and pulled the trigger, the sound of the bullet firing a muted spit, soon overwhelmed by Pushka screaming and falling out of his chair. Pushka rolled, and then stood up, hobbling as fast as he could to the stairwell exit.
The scene of him falling over generated a little excitement in the bar, but not a lot. Branko looked around, seeing that nobody was really paying any attention to what had just happened. He raised his hands and said, “Okay, okay, whatever you want.”
Shakor put the weapon underneath the table and said, “The treasure. That’s what I want. Where is it? I don’t want to hurt you. I really don’t.”
Branko snatched a bottle off the table and smashed it into Shakor’s head, knocking him out of the chair. He leapt up to escape out the stairwell like Pushka had just done and found himself facing the other man, now holding a knife. He glanced left and right, saw the wall for the balcony, and ran toward it, jumping over as if it was literally a fence separating him from the earth on the other side at the same level.
But he knew that wasn’t true. He fell, the drop longer than he expected, with his mind wondering what the impact would be like.
He hit a table direct center, crushing it and cracking the left ribs of his body. He rolled over on the ground, moaning, hearing the shouting of the people around him. He looked up and saw the second man staring over the balcony wall, fury on his face.
He rolled upright, leapt the small iron railing of the lower terrace, and fell to the earth below. He slid for a few feet in the dirt, saw the alley below, and dove forward, going head over heels until he slid on the street itself. He looked back and saw Shakor and his mate coming over the wall.
He hit the street and began running. He reached the Mlinski Stairs and took them four at a time, crashing into the walls left and right as he barreled down them. He lost his footing and spilled into a courtyard next to the stairs. He rolled over and pulled out his cell phone, dialing Pushka while watching for anyone behind him.
Pushka answered, saying, “What the fuck, man? I’ve been shot!”
“I know, I know. I’m being chased right now. We need to get back to the apartment and clean it out. We have to run.”
“I’m in the apartment, man, and someone’s been here.”
“What’s that mean? What do you mean?”
“Two guys were here. They left the apartment when I entered the hallway.”
“Is the place turned over? Like it was tossed?”
“No. It’s just like we left it. Nothing changed. Man, I’m fucking bleeding out here. I’m fucking shot!”
Even with the world of hurt he was experiencing, Branko knew he needed to get Pushka back into the fold. He couldn’t go back to the apartment, but he didn’t need to with Pushka.
Even as he didn’t believe it, he said, “Pushka, nobody has been into our apartment. There’s a first aid pack in the bathroom. Bandage yourself up and get out. Take the computer with you. The rest is no threat, but get that computer.”
“Are you fucking serious? We just got shot at. What the fuck is going on?”
Branko heard footsteps coming down the stairs and said, “I don’t know, but get out and run.”
“Run where? What the fuck do I do? I don’t do this, man. Where do I go?”
Branko saw a shadow and leapt up, saying, “I don’t know. Jesus. I’ve got people behind me right now. Just get out.”
He took off running again, reaching Radiceva, and thought about turning north to his apartment to meet Pushka, when two men passed him, both hard-looking, but giving him no attention. It spooked him. They already knew where he lived. He turned south and began jogging, running out of energy, his lungs screaming for air in his dilapidated body, the adrenaline not giving him the boost he needed.
He heard his name shouted behind him and that was all that was required, the adrenaline shooting through him like a bolt of lightning. He ran south until he reached a small archway in a building right up on the street, darting inside of it and racing forward.
He entered a concrete tunnel built decades before he was even born, the dim lights creating shadows throughout, barely illuminating the path ahead, the dampness and moldy smell a familiar feeling.
He knew where it ended, and hoped the people following him had no idea.
Chapter 28
I got the call from Jennifer and looked at Knuckles, saying, “This is going to go bad. Pick it up.”
He said, “Me? What’s that clone thing doing?”
I said, “Four minutes left. What do you have?”
“A bunch of brochures for skin clubs here in Zagreb. Nothing yet. This looks like a penthouse for parties, not a headquarters for an elite hacking cell.”
We kept working the problem, me wondering about Jennifer’s call while the clone device spun along, and then the situation split open like a waterfall.
Veep came on the net saying, “Following Red Head. He’s been shot and he’s coming to you. You have about a minute and a half.”
I said, “What? What did you just say?”
“We had a gunfight here. Red Head’s about to penetrate your building. Get out.”
Knuckles looked at me with the same expression I knew I held. I said, “Pack it up. Let’s go.”
I ripped out the clone device before it was finished, getting an angry alert from the computer I was stealing it from. I clicked on the “okay” button, letting the computer know I’d made a mistake, then watched it return to the home screen.
I said, “You haven’t fucked anything up, have you?”
Knuckles laughed and said, “No more than you.”
“Let’s get out.”
We left the door and went to the stairs, meeting the redhead target running up with a limp, a glaring bit of blood on his leg. We ignored him and kept moving down, me wondering what the hell was going on. I suppose, as the team leader, I could have cut on the net demanding an answer to the debacle, but I knew with my team that I’d get the answer when it was available to give.
Nothing was worse than hearing from some asshole not in the fight demanding to know the situation. But man, I really wanted to.
We reached the entrance to the building, running into Veep. I said, “What the hell is going on?”
He had wild eyes and looked like he thought he’d screwed up. He said, “I have no idea. There were two guys, then a gunshot, then it just went to shit. Jennifer ordered me on Red Head, and I left her. I don’t know what’s going on with her.”
He shook his head and said, “Maybe I should have stayed with her.”
I chuckled and said, “If you had, we’d have been compromised. Red Head would have come in with us still there. Jennifer can take care of herself.”
We walked out into the street, me starting to worry despite what I’d told Veep, and then my little protégé finally came on, and I could tell she was running.
“There’s been a gunfight, our target dropped off the balcony, the two unsubs followed, and I’m behind them. Entering the stairwell.”
She was panting in between the transmissions, telling me without telling me that there was a footrace going on.
I said, “We’ve just left the target building. Are you saying he’s coming here? He’s on the stairwell in between the buildings?”
I heard panting, then, “Yes. Two men want to kill him.”
Shit.
Now I had a decision. I had the information from the apartment, and Lord knows that computer drain would probably break it all open, but this guy was going to get killed in the meantime.
Did I care?
Maybe we should just go up and jack the guy that we’d passed. The Red Head target. He probably knew as much as the one running. But I didn’t have authority for that. We weren’t at Omega. We were at Alpha, and I’d accomplished that mission. As far as the guy on the run, I didn’t have any authority to interdict him, either. According to my orders, he was on his own.
Those thoughts were running through my head in an analytical sphere, but truthfully, I hated bullies. And the men chasing that guy were bullies. I knew it wasn’t the right decision. In fact knew it was the absolute wrong decision. He’d clearly done something against some other element and was now going to pay the price, but it just wasn’t in me.
I looked at Knuckles. He saw my face and said, “So it’s time for the stupid shit?”
I laughed and said, “Leaning that way.”
I started walking toward the exit of the stairwell and saw our target come bolting out, running like he was being chased by a pack of wolves. Which he was. He disappeared in the distance, moving at a pace we couldn’t match unless we were willing to invite compromise for following him.
I said, “We keep on him. Low and slow.”
We started jogging his way and two other men exited, both running flat out, one with a gun in his hand. A suppressed weapon.
Which gave me a little bit of a pause. Using a suppressed weapon inside Croatia was decidedly unique. Hell, having a handgun here was unique. There was something else going on besides a bad gambling debt. Seeing it made my decision.
We reached the stairwell and Jennifer came out, panting. She ran up and said, “Pike, I have no idea what’s going on. What do you want to do?”
That was about the most succinct SITREP I’d ever received.
I watched the clusterfuck go down the street in the dying twilight and said, “We interdict.”
We started running down the street in a group, only seeing the back of the hunters, the black-haired guy out of sight. We saw them run into another archway of a building, and I knew we were not going to get to our target in time. No way was I about to attempt clearing a building.
I slowed, saying, “We’re done. Whatever is going to happen in that building we don’t want to be a part of. Too many witnesses.”
Jennifer said, “That’s not a building. It’s the Gric Tunnel.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Well, it is a building, but he’s going into the tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
“It’s an old bomb shelter from World War Two. It runs underneath the city. He’s trying to escape using it.”
I should have known that Jennifer would have done a deep dive on the history of Zagreb before we arrived. It’s just what she did, and now it was paying off.
I said, “Where’s it exit? Can we meet them there? Going overground?”
I knew it was a risk, given that he could be killed inside, but it was all I had. There was no way we could chase the killers who were chasing our target in a tunnel.
She looked like she was failing me, saying, “I don’t know. I just know it exists. I didn’t map it out.”
I called Brett and said, “I need to know the exits for the Gric Tunnel, and I need it right now. Google it.”
I turned to the group and said, “We know it goes from east to west.” I pointed to a road past the entrance and said, “Put on your running shoes.”
We took off like we were starting a 10K, passing by parks and houses, the road winding up and down, telling me we were losing the race because I knew the tunnel was a straight shot. Luckily, the target didn’t look like he worked out much, and I hoped he had become winded and was walking now. Unluckily, that could also mean his death.
Brett finally came back, saying, “It’s an old war tunnel. Only been opened since 2016. The tunnel starts at Radiceva and ends at Mesnicka. It’s like a comb, though, with the spine going east and west, and some of the tines going south. There are two exits that end in something called the Art Park, right toward the end at Mesnicka. Two other tines are apparently still blocked off, waiting on reconstruction.”
I slowed to a walk, saying, “Where is that?”
Jennifer had her phone out, saying “It’s right below us. Right here.”
I looked at what she’d pulled up and said, “Okay, if he’s not dead yet, he’s going to exit at one of those places. Jennifer, Veep, you get Mesnicka. Knuckles, we’re going to take the Art Park. Call no matter what. The mission is to break the men chasing him.”
Knuckles said, “You want to let him get away? We might not get a better chance.”
“Yeah, I get that, but we don’t have Omega here. We don’t even know if he’s the ransomware guy yet, but if he is, I don’t want him killed by the assholes following him. Just stop the follow and we’ll figure it out.”
Knuckles grinned and said, “Okay, no Omega, but we’re about to execute something here. How are we going to sell this? If it becomes kinetic?”
I said, “I’m pulling the risk-to-life-or-limb card if someone from the Oversight Council bitches. I can’t plan a capture, but we can always protect the life or limb of someone, and these guys have clearly showed they want to take one or the other.”
Veep said, “ROE?”
I said, “Hostile force. They’re definitely hostile. Interdict with least amount of violence, but if they push the issue, escalate. Remember, at least one of them is armed.”
Jennifer showed us the map on her phone and I said, “Let’s go. Every second means we could miss them.”
Jennifer and Veep took off to the east, running to the final exit, while Knuckles and I started slipping down the slope of the upper town, slinking through alleys and backyards until we ended up at an ancient funicular railroad connecting the upper town to the lower. The Art Park was just to the right of it.
The train was running up and down, but we didn’t have the time to use it to get to the lower level. We started jogging down the stairs next to the rail line, going about halfway down, then jumped the railing, passing between the buildings next to the funicular and running across the slope to the park.
We reached an open space of grass and I slowed, seeing an entrance in the side of the hill that was painted with graffiti. It looked like an old mining tunnel that some kids had decided to decorate, and I knew that was the exit. I said, “That’s the first one. Stage there.”
Knuckles took a knee behind a small tree and I kept going through the park, finding another entrance on the other side of a playground. This one had no graffiti and opened out into the park like a miniature train tunnel, with a concrete façade and two doors swung wide left and right.
I kneeled behind some shrubs, drew my Glock, and waited, breathing heavily, wondering if we’d missed them. I didn’t have to wait long. My earpiece crackled with a call from Knuckles, saying, “Coming now. Coming now.”
I heard shouting over at Knuckles’ exit, then the muted spit of suppressed rounds.
I started running that way, hearing the metronome of Knuckles’ voice on the radio.
“Contact. I say again contact. Target is running and hostiles are shooting.”
He was so calm you’d have thought he was ordering an Uber.
I broke through the playground in time to see the target running by me flat out down the hill, going so fast he lost his footing on the slope, something in his hand flying out as he tumbled. He sprang back up and kept going, disappearing below me. I turned to the threat, seeing two men engaging Knuckles with suppressed weapons, him returning fire. One man dropped and the other raced back into the tunnel, running away.
I reached Knuckles just as he was changing magazines. He jerked to the left when I appeared, whipping his weapon at my head. I said, “Whoa, whoa, it’s me.”
He lowered the pistol and relaxed, saying, “I was going to take one of them out with a physical attack, but they literally came out shooting. The target was running and ducking, and they both had pistols out, firing. I had to take a shot.”
Like I was mad that he’d pulled his weapon.
