“That’s one of them,” Wilson said, nodding. “Also Mercedes. But if the nuke is stuck in an engine cavity, the engine isn’t running. So we’re looking for a big truck with an engine that’s not running?”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Mike said. “Major, what do you have?”
“There was the proverbial little old lady,” the major said, pulling out a pad. “One Branca Obilic, eighty-three. She’s lived in this area since, as she put it, the good old days when Tito was in charge. Never been run out, not even by the war. Was a refugee for a few days and came back. One hard-nosed bitch of a Serb, too; she only talked to us because nobody else would listen to her. But she knew something different was going on here and kept an eye on it. She said that about two days after the van turned up, and it was never moved, a large white truck pulled into the warehouse. It was here for about three hours, maybe more, but she’s sure of at least three hours. That was three days ago. It was an odd vehicle. It had a tractor front end but a short rear with doors on the side and back. Personnel doors on the side and double doors on the back. We’ve got the description out to IFOR, the Bosnian police and Interpol. It shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“Yes it will,” Mike said, frowning.
“It’s a pretty unusual vehicle,” Forester protested. “There can’t be many vehicles like that in Bosnia. Europe for that matter.”
“What you just described is a press van,” Mike said, sighing. “There are thousands of them in Europe. And if we start stopping all of them, somebody is going to figure out what is going on.”
“Shit,” Forester said, angrily. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You’ve been too close to the problem,” Mike said, thinking. “Okay, but what is the engine? Generator.”
“There’s one of those in those press vans,” Wilson said, nodding. “Good call.”
“Okay,” Mike said thoughtfully. “They put the nuke in the engine, holding it in place with the bars, then poured hot lead around it? That doesn’t make sense.”
“There are some bits of stainless steel around, too,” Wilson said. “I’d wondered what those were. They must have enclosed it in a sleeve, then poured the lead around it.”
“That is going to make it a bitch to disarm,” Forester said.
“Nicht scheiss,” Mike replied. “No shit. What’s going on in Europe right now?” he asked rhetorically.
“There’s always something being covered by the press,” Northcote said, shrugging.
“Any American officials going to a summit?” Mike asked. “Anything like that?”
“The G-8 meeting in Zurich!” Forester said, slapping his forehead. “Shit, that’s in a week!”
“Could be that,” Mike said. “Let’s not get too tightly focused. But it’s a good beginning. We need to start looking at potential targets and make it clear what we’re dealing with. The nuke is in play and prepped.” He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the time. “Okay, I’m going to go find someplace that has a TV. Is there… well… a ‘real’ hotel in town?”
“Not really,” Northcote said. “Not something like a Hilton or whatever. There are some in Sarajevo.”
“Okay,” Mike said, sighing. “Northcote, get somebody coming up with a target list. But I’m going to go watch TV in Sarajevo and try to go on hunch. It’s been working so far.”
He keyed his cell phone and punched in the number the pilot had given him.
“We’re going to Sarajevo next,” Mike said. “Just a hop. We’ll probably be going somewhere after that.”
Mike walked out of the warehouse thoughtfully, then down to the brothel.
“You again,” Kovacic said. The brothel was in full swing and Mike could see several military uniforms in the room.
“We need to talk,” Mike replied, putting his hand on the man’s arm and leading him to the back rooms.
“I want to buy Magdelena,” Mike said when they’d entered his cluttered office. Apparently running a brothel was like any business, because most of the clutter was paper and there was a computer on the desk.
“You won’t be able to take her out of the country,” Kovacic said, frowning.
“Yeah, I will,” Mike replied. “Trust me.”
“And she is very expensive,” the pimp added. “I had to pay very much for her.”
“How expensive?”
“Fifty thousand euros,” Kovacic replied.
“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it,” Mike said, laughing. “I can buy a girl just as good in Eagle Market for five thousand. And younger. I’ll give you ten.”
After a good bit of dickering, with Kovacic referring to Magdelena as his daughter and Mike threatening to leave twice, they got the price down to twenty-five thousand euros.
“Fine, fine.” Mike sighed, lifting his bag onto the desk and dipping into it. “Go tell her to get ready to leave.”
When Magdelena came in the room, her eyes widened in fear at the sight of him. Which wasn’t anywhere near where he was going, but it would work for the time being. She was carrying a small duffel bag and the hand holding the strap on her shoulder twitched nervously.
“Here you go,” Mike said, pointing to a pile of mixed dollars and euros. “The dollar is over the euro at the moment, but I went with even so you’re a bit ahead.”
Kovacic pulled some of the notes out at random and checked them for counterfeit, then pulled apart a couple of the bundles and started counting.
“Can we go?” Mike asked. “I have a plane to catch.”
“I suppose,” Kovacic said, frowning at the pile. “You were planning on buying girl?”
“No,” Mike replied. “I tend to carry a good bit of cash on me. It’s not as if anyone was going to take it. They can feel free to try.” He took Magdelena’s hand and led her out of the office and out of the brothel to the street, then looked around for a taxi.
“Magdelena, I treated you horribly,” Mike said, not sure if the girl was understanding what he said or not. “I can’t take that back, but I can try to improve things for you. I won’t do what I did to you again. But you have to promise me not to try to run away. Not right now. If you want to leave once we’re out of Bosnia, you can. But if you stick with me, I’ll try to do the right thing by you.”
“Where we go?” Magdelena asked, confused.
“Right now, Sarajevo,” Mike said. “I need a hotel with a decent TV connection.”
He finally managed to get a taxi and directed it to the airport. Once there he went to the plane and was pleased and surprised to find that the pilot had gotten there before him.
“We’ve completed preflight,” Hardesty told him, nodding as Mike stepped to the plane with Magdelena’s hand still in his. “Pick up a girlfriend?”
“Something like that,” Mike replied. “I saw a TV in the plane. Can it get satellite?”
“Of course,” Hardesty said, as he boarded. “Use the remote for channel changing. Anything from the Playboy channel to CNN.”
“CNN is what I’m interested in,” Mike said. He settled Magdelena, her eyes wide at the sight of the plane, in one of the rear seats, then sat down opposite the large TV mounted in the rear bulkhead. He keyed it on as the plane’s engines began to whine and had found Headline News, Fox and Skynews by the time the plane was finished taxiing. His interest was Europe, and Skynews had more about Europe than Fox or Headline News. He switched around, looking for current updates.
“I need an Internet connection,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose you have a laptop with an Internet connection on it, do you, honey?” he asked rhetorically.