Hunter (20 page)

After nearly two minutes of silence, Petrovic let out a long sigh through shaking hands, his tired face full of betrayal and shame. He raised his eyes to the flickering fluorescent tube and said, "I have a brother, actually a cousin, but we were raised as brothers."

"Explain please?" asked Morgan.

"He is the son of my father's brother. He was orphaned as a baby when his parents were killed in a car accident." He stopped for a moment, recovering the memories and details. "My parents were without children. They adopted him and raised him as their own. Two years later, I was born. Like I said, we were raised as brothers."

"Name and date of birth?" Morgan pressed on. "Vukasin Petrovic," he said. "February 27, 1966." "Where?" asked Morgan.

"What?" said Petrovic absently.

"Where was he born, exactly?"

"Same as my father. Dobanovci, Belgrade, Serbia." "Is he still alive?"

Dobrashin Petrovic's face was back in his hands. A deep, primal groan came from within and manifested itself as a series of short sobs that he struggled to, but eventually did, bring under control.

Morgan asked again: "Is Vukasin Petrovic still alive?" After a sharp intake of cold air, Petrovic answered. "Yes."

EL DJEM, TUNISIA

Under a cloudless, pale blue sky, police officer Youssef Ali Hassan raced through the streets of El Djem, heading north-west. With the red lights flashing and the siren wailing, Youssef pushed the dusty black and white Renault fast through the back streets and alleyways toward Tlesla, Ksour Essaf and onward to the coast. A stream of whitewashed walls, crumbling abandoned homes and lonely sidewalks flashed past, eventually making way for the beginning of endless miles of brown dirt and empty fields, punctuated by pockets of acacia, date palms and desert grass.

Youssef's brow was set with purpose, duty and more than a hint of excitement, on this, his very first important assignment. He was carrying a kidnapped foreigner to the hospital in Mandia for examination and had been ordered by his officer-in-charge to wait with the man until the Securite Publique district director, Colonel Hamba, arrived to collect him. Youssef knew the route to the coast well - he had family in Rejiche - and estimated the trip would take an hour. He thought about how proud his father and mother would be when he would visit them later on his way back to El Djem. Finally, he had a great responsibility.

As the aging Renault finally cleared the city limits, the deep, croaky voice from the back seat interrupted Youssef's dreams of accolade and prestige.

"Officer, could we do without the sirens now?"

"Oh, yes, of course, sir,' Youssef replied, reluctantly flipping the switch that quelled the siren; but he kept the lights flashing overhead.

"Is there any air conditioning? It's very hot back here."

"I'm sorry, sir," said Youssef, slightly embarrassed. "The air conditioner does not work in this car. Are you able to reach the window handle? Otherwise, I could stop and do it for you."

"That's very kind. I can manage."

"How are you feeling now, sir?" asked the young policeman, eager to make a positive, professional impression on the man.

"Fine," the foreigner replied, suddenly dismissive. "Thank you."

Raoul Demaci shifted uncomfortably upon the hot black upholstery of the police car's back seat, grabbed the old window handle on the door he was leaning against and began to crank the window open. It came down in a series of jerky movements, steaming-hot air forcing its way into the car. Eventually, it was as open as it was going to get. It made little difference to the temperature, but did serve to provide sufficient background noise to make conversation impossible.

Demaci preferred it that way. He had too much on his mind to get caught up in mindless chatter with a street cop.

Looking out to the north, the endlessness of the arid Saharan landscape came as a somber reminder of 
his relevance and place in the world. Camels, palm trees, sand and mosques. Little had changed out here in a thousand years. The world continued to turn as generations came and went. How petty and insignificant were the individual ambitions of men. The insatiable desire to conquer, dominate and exploit, so much a part of the primal genetic coding, drove some men, himself included, to do anything in order to succeed; no matter the cost. Was it worth it?

Mentally leaping the tracks to escape that particular express to nowhere good, Demaci turned his mind instead to what was next in store for him. No doubt there would have been plenty of effort expended in searching for him. Where had he been all this time? Who had he been with? What had he been through? Why had he suddenly been released? He expected the full raft of questions by the authorities when he was eventually handed to the senior echelons; especially when they realized who he'd been with at the time of the abduction. Whatever their interest was, once he'd navigated his way through the treacle of their procedures and back-slapping, there was only one person he was focused on being reunited with.

At the thought of it, a churlish grin tugged at his left cheek.

So, the policeman, Youssef Ali Hassan, and the recently returned abductee, Raoul Demaci, were silent and would remain that way until they arrived in Mah-dia, and while fate had brought these two men together, each performing a pivotal role in the life of the other, their pasts and futures could not have been more different.

TIRANA, ALBANIA

Alex Morgan stood in Skanderbeg Square in the dead center of Tirana, taking a moment to admire the country's monument to fifteenth-century lord and Albanian national hero George Kastrioti Skanderbeg.
Or plain old Skando to his mates,
Morgan thought with a wry smile.

From where he stood, Morgan could see a variety of the city's landmarks: Tirana City Hall, the Palace of Culture and the National Historical Museum, plus a few embassies and hotels. There were people everywhere, locals and tourists moving across the square, stopping to chat, sitting on the grass or generally taking in the surrounds. It was cloudy and, despite the lateness of the afternoon, still warm, verging on hot. Morgan was glad he'd dressed practically: the polo shirt and light chinos were perfect; any more and the humidity would have him sweltering.

Morgan felt the buzz of his sat phone in his pocket. "Morgan," he answered.

"Alex? It's Charly."

"Hey, how are you? Everything OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she mumbled sleepily. There was a pause. "It's nice to hear your voice. I hope it's OK that I rang?"

"Of course it is?" He meant it. His eyes continued to survey his surrounds. It was good to hear her voice too. "Jesus, what time is it over there? Must be early."

"I think it's about 5am," Charly replied. "I can't sleep. Mom's always up early, I can hear her downstairs. I hope she's putting coffee on. What time is it where you are?"

"A little after 2pm," he said, trying not to imagine her lying in bed. "Still doing your self-defense sessions with the marshals?"

"Yeah, of course. I'm totally dangerous."

He heard her laugh and pictured her smiling.

"Hey, Alex, seriously, I have to ask you something." "Go ahead."

"Do you remember the night you were here, I said there was something I wanted to talk to you about, but I completely forgot what it was?"

"Sure, I remember. Don't tell me it's just occurred to you now?'

"Yeah, random, right? Anyway, it's about that
security
guy. The one you arrested."

"Which security guy, Charly? I'm not sure what you mean." Morgan pressed his ear harder against the sat phone. His internal alarm bells were on the verge of going off, he just knew it.

"That muscle guy, the bald one with that awful goatee. You arrested him with those other two animals when you came and got me," she said, suddenly nervous that she hadn't mentioned this earlier. "Oh God, Alex. I thought you knew. I was just so relieved to be safe again and they were all in custody. I thought you knew?' She was distressed.

"Charly, I need you to calm down, OK?" Morgan wasn't sure what he was about to hear but somehow 
he felt like he already knew. "Tell me exactly what you mean.

"OK, OK, I'm sorry." She was collecting herself, he could hear it. "The guy with all the muscles; he was in on the kidnapping, somehow. On the boat, I mean. I don't know how. I think he was posing as Raoul's bodyguard. They seemed to know each other, anyway. One of them was running around telling us all to get below but this guy was somewhere else. I thought he'd been shot, but then he turned up on the pier. He's the bastard who knocked me out when they were getting me into that seaplane."

"And he was posing as Raoul's bodyguard?" Morgan's blood went cold. His mind returned to his examination of the
Florence.
He'd checked the area where the second security guard, apparently Muscles, had gone down but there'd been no blood. Then, there was the round of blank ammunition he'd found on the deck. It was exactly the spot where Charly saw Raoul firing back at the pirates; firing back with blanks?

"Yes," she whispered, terrified that she'd done something very wrong by forgetting this important detail.

"OK, Charly, this is important. I'm going to arrange for one of the US marshals to come in and take a statement from you. They will guide you through everything you can possibly remember about that guy and you need to tell them."

"Yes, of course. I'm so sorry, Alex. I feel like an idiot."

"There's nothing to be sorry about," he reassured 
her. "You've been through a hell of a lot. It takes time for the mind to catch up on certain details that are buried after a traumatic event. We'll sort this out."

"Thank you," she said. "Thanks for being so understanding."

"Hey, nothing to thank me for. Now, do me a favor and give the marshals every single thing you can remember. No matter how petty it may seem."

After some more reassurances, they said goodbye. Morgan didn't have time to devote to that issue right now, but he knew that it was significant and needed to be followed up immediately.

He dialed a number on his sat phone.

"jawohi?"

"Key, it's Alex. I need you to follow up on something. It's urgent."

"Go ahead."

Two minutes later, Morgan had completed his call to the Key. He'd given every detail Charly had provided and would now step back and leave it with him. There was nothing more he could do from here. He had to focus on the task at hand.

"One more thing, Alex," said the Key.

"Yes, mate?"

"Petrovic, the brother," he began. "My Serbian is a little rusty so I looked it up."

"Yeah." Morgan wondered where the big guy was going with this. "You looked up what, exactly?"

"Vukasin Petrovic," answered the Key. "The name Vukasin is Serbian for wolf."

There was a long silence as Morgan considered the possible breakthrough. Could it be that obvious?

"Morgan, listen, you leave this to me. That was just meant to be FYI. I'll get Mila to check it out. I'll brief you when you get back."

"OK, Key," he said. "You may be onto something. Great work, mate. Talk soon."

Finally, a glimmer.

Checking the time, Morgan moved away from the monument and chose a position diagonally opposite the spot where the meet was scheduled to take place. He made sure he had a clear visual of the area and the approaches to it, adjusted his Ray-Ban Wayfarers, pulled a well-worn black baseball cap down, found a bench and waited. To anybody walking by he looked just like any other man, probably a foreigner on a break, enjoying the late afternoon warm weather.

Morgan was following the threads that led from Dobrashin Petrovic - formerly known as Durad Lazarevic aka Interpol's star informant - straight back into the bowels of the Serbian mafia machinery. Or so he hoped.

When Intrepid uncovered that Petrovic was his actual identity and that he'd been a soldier in the Bosnian Serb Army serving under Drago during the war, a spotlight immediately fell upon the information he'd provided to the Interpol case officer in Tirana regarding Milivoj Serifovic, not to mention his motives. The fact that his deposition led to the arrest and delivery of Serifovic to the ICTY certainly added weight to his legitimacy and supported his claim that it was the increased reward that had brought him out of hiding. Adopting the false identity of Durad Lazarevic, he claimed, was to protect himself from retribution. But none of that was holding water any more. His act
ive participation in the kidnapping of Charlotte-Rose Fleming had changed everything. At that point, Do-brashin Petrovies raison d'etre had become very gray. It was Morgan's job to make it black and white.

What was clear was that he was a double agent, on the payroll of the Serbian mafia. The challenge now was to determine just how involved he was and with whom.

The paucity of information regarding how Petrovic had actually made himself known to Interpol Tirana in the first place had alarm bells clanging back in London, and now the attention was directed to Petrovic's Interpol case officer, Lorenc Gjoka.

Davenport had done everything but kick over furniture in his office after discovering there'd been almost no due diligence conducted by Interpol before Intrepid was given the green light to arrest Serifovic. The possibility that the arrest had been part of someone else's grand plan, potentially even a factional power play within the Serbian mafia, had almost sent the general into a fit. Morgan recalled his last, very clear mission brief from his chief. It was the only time Morgan had ever heard the old man utter an expletive.

"Whoever his case officer was, I want a microscope over every aspect of his miserable life, from the day he was born until right fucking now. If there's any possible chance that he's linked to the Wolf or the
Zmajevi,
or whoever these bloody animals are, then stay with him and don't come back until you have him and Dragoslav Obrenovic in chains."

Satisfied that there appeared to be no unexpected supernumeraries buzzing around, Morgan moved around to the north-eastern corner of the park and 
took up the agreed position on the low white wall, with his back to the monument, facing the Ethem Bey mosque, the government buildings and the clock tower on the other side of the street. As planned, he put his day sack down upon the wall to his left, indicating to his contact that the coast was clear. If he'd placed the day sack to his right, it would indicate that they'd been compromised and the meet would be aborted.

Bang on schedule, his contact arrived. Moving in from the south, she stopped just short of Morgan, feigning the delight of an aunt catching her first glimpse of a much-favored nephew after an extended separation.

"My dear boy," she said. Both hands came up to her face and a broad smile shone through the shutters. "It's so nice to see you."

Morgan immediately stood, leant forward and gave his faux aunt a warm hug and peck on the cheek.

"How are you, Aunty?" he said. "Mum says hi."

The approach had been agreed well in advance of the meet. It was simple and appropriate given their respective ages. Above all, it was totally normal.

After exchanging obvious pleasantries and Aunty taking a let-me-look-at-you moment, they sat down on the wall and fell into comfortable, familiar conversation. A few minutes in and they changed tack.

"Therese St Marie," she said. "Pleased to meet you."

"Alex Morgan," he replied.

Therese was in her early fifties; her accent made her Belgian, he thought. Her long hair, which she wore tied back into a ponytail, was naturally auburn and she liked to keep it that way. Her dress was casual, 
loose fitting to the ground. Underneath it she wore ankle boots. She had dark brown eyes, a fair complexion and a warm, genuine smile.

It was not common practice for the paths of agents and surveillance crews to cross out in the open, far from it. But time was against them today and things had to get done. Besides, the moment this meeting was over, Therese St Marie was booked on the next flight out of Albania.

Therese was one of Intrepid's most experienced covert surveillance operatives. A couple of weeks ago she'd been leading the crew supporting Hermann Braunschweiger's operation across the other side of the city. Their work had been critical to the success of the operation that resulted in Charly's rescue. This time, Therese and her team had been covering the movements of the Interpol case officer who first brought Dobrashin Petrovic in from the cold.

"So, what do you have for me?" asked Morgan.

"Our man is Mr Lorenc Gjoka." She pronounced it perfectly - Morgan knew he'd struggle with it. "He's an ethnic Albanian, in his mid-fifties and married with a couple of young adult children. A small man, a little under 5-and-a-half feet tall in the old currency. Fair-skinned and bald on top but consistent with the vanity of many older, conservative men, he insists on preserving a ridiculously fat ribbon of gray hair around the sides and back of his head - all that he has left. At least he's resisted the comb over." They both laughed as she continued: "He walks very quickly, always forward and up on his toes; trying to get himself more height, you know. His hands are small like a child's and he constantly rubs them together. Other than that, 
there are no particularly remarkable physical attributes. Due to his size he is very easy to lose track of in a crowd, which he uses to his advantage. Unprofessional of me to say but he's a slippery little weasel. So, you must be on your toes, too."

"Got it," Morgan said. He liked her style. "When can I expect to see him?"

"He's due out of his office soon. The Interpol Tirana office is five minutes' walk from here, but don't worry. He leaves at precisely 4.45pm every Friday afternoon. He has an apartment with his wife here in the city and normally he dutifully goes home to her every night after work; but not on Fridays. Today he'll walk across this square at approximately 4.50pm and get into his car, that old white Mercedes back there." She gave an almost imperceptible nod behind her. "You parked where I told you?"

Morgan nodded. It was also close by.

"Good. He moves the Mercedes there during the lunch hour to avoid the peak-hour traffic crush near his office. As soon as he gets into that car he heads straight out of town to a chateau. He has a mistress, a local woman. All we know is that the chateau is hers, and it's just outside a small town called Petrele, fifteen kilometers due south of the city along the E852 route."

"OK, great," he said. "Got any pics of this guy?"

"I'll send some to your phone," she replied. "Other than that, it's up to you. Once I leave here, the team will begin a staggered withdrawal from this task. We're all leaving Albania tonight, so you'll be on your own. You'll receive a call shortly from Amir, a member of my team. Amir will hand over to you by phone 
when the target is here in the square and when you confirm with Amir that you have eyes-on. Clear?" Morgan nodded.