“That’s a very small case,” La Bruzca said. “I hope you brought large denominations.”
Hawker pulled out a small set of tools and a pair of electronic devices that looked like testing equipment.
“I brought a down payment,” he explained. “And before you get that, I have to inspect the guidance, warheads, and propulsion.”
La Bruzca nodded as if it was standard procedure. “Of course you do,” he said. “Of course.”
Fifteen minutes later, one of the missiles lay on a cradle. A trio of examination ports had been opened. The two ports near the front revealed the guidance system and the battery pack that powered it. The port near the missile’s tail gave access to the propellant stage.
Hawker tinkered for a moment, visually inspecting the circuit board and the status of the chargeable battery pack. Then he turned to the tail end of the rocket. Holding a magnifier against the yellow, claylike substance that made up the solid fuel of the missile, he switched on a UV light. He studied small sections carefully, squinting and looking closely at what the magnifying glass was revealing.
The longer he looked, the closer La Bruzca and the fifth man came.
Finally, Hawker stood back. He shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” La Bruzca asked.
“How old are these things?”
“Why?” La Bruzca said defensively.
“Because they’re junk,” Hawker said bluntly. “And you know it.”
“These are top-of-the-line American missiles,” La Bruzca said. “Just ask the Iraqis, the Syrians, or the Russians. They’re deadly.”
Hawker stared at La Bruzca. “Were deadly,” he said. “Were.”
“What do you mean?”
The question came from the fifth man, the guard who’d walked him in.
“Someone shafted you,” Hawker said.
“This is a lie,” the fifth man raged, pointing his gun at Hawker.
Hawker glared back at him, wondering how far he could push this without having someone snap. He looked at La Bruzca.
“Did you really get rich by killing all your customers?”
La Bruzca turned to his subordinate. “Put it down,” he said, then turned back to Hawker. “You’d better explain your statement, friend.”
Hawker turned the UV light back on. “See for yourself.”
La Bruzca took the magnifier from Hawker’s hand and held it above the propellant as Hawker angled the light.
“This thing sat in a bunker for years before it disappeared,” Hawker said. “And you and I both know they’ve been hidden for half a decade since then.”
Hawker handed the light to La Bruzca’s associate and then pointed to the section of propellant he’d been studying.
“See those hairline cracks? They’re your problem, or someone’s. The fuel won’t burn evenly. Probably detonate on ignition.”
La Bruzca leaned in closer. He seemed strangely accepting of Hawker’s statement.
“Sorry,” Hawker said. “But the only people this thing’s gonna kill are the ones who launch it.”
As La Bruzca and his man studied the propellant, Hawker turned back to the guidance section. He reached in through the port, using an electrical detector to measure the power supply. He fiddled for a second and then looked at the gauge.
“Guidance looks good. And you seem to have new batteries,” he said. “But those are easy to get. A lot easier than military-grade solid rocket fuel.”
La Bruzca turned back to him, placing the magnifier down as Hawker snapped the power bus back into place and closed the guidance section.
“And if I don’t believe you?”
“Then we disagree,” Hawker said, shrugging. “Doesn’t mean we can’t do business.”
“You have other needs?”
He nodded toward the larger crates. La Bruzca shook his head.
“What about Spiders?” Hawker asked, referencing an Israeli missile.
“I can ask around.”
“You do that,” Hawker said. “The people who hired me will buy anything like that you can get your hands on. British, Israeli, French, even Russian, but nothing Chinese. And the damn things have to work.”
La Bruzca did not appear overly fazed. He nodded, appearing to be calculating something, perhaps considering future profits from sales to Hawker’s friends. He nodded toward the Stinger.
“This should not get out,” he said. A warning to Hawker.
“I’ll give them another reason,” Hawker promised. “But if I was you,” he added, staring hard at La Bruzca, “I’d sell these to someone you don’t want to see again.”
Hawker snapped the briefcase shut. This was the moment of truth. Would they let him leave?
“Till next time,” he said. He was not interested in asking for permission to depart, just in taking it. He turned and began walking across the warehouse floor.
Behind him, La Bruzca and the fifth man discussed something. The words were sharp but whispered, too hard for Hawker to make out.
Hawker kept walking. Trying not to think. Trying not to hope, but silently praying that these men hadn’t noticed his sleight of hand. The door was a long way off.
La Bruzca’s voice rang out. “Wait a minute, friend!” he shouted. “We are not done here.”
Hawker froze. It was not a question. He took a breath and turned.
La Bruzca smiled and rubbed his hands together, then stepped toward Hawker. “Perhaps I can interest you in something else?”
Hawker cocked his head to the side. “Like what?”
La Bruzca smiled generously and for a moment Hawker saw a shopkeeper, a vendor in the market and not an international arms dealer.
“Tell me,” he said. “What exactly are you driving these days?”
CHAPTER 3
A half mile from La Bruzca’s sprawling warehouse, a craggy hill covered in thick trees and exposed gray rock loomed over the valley. Locals called it the Martyr’s Hill, as the dome-shaped rise had been shelled and bombed repeatedly during the Serbo-Croatian War and had been a bloody battleground in the ethnic struggles of this land for a thousand years before that. It stood quietly now, at peace like the rest of this land.
Sitting amid that stillness, huddled under a camouflaged cloak, a man watched from this hill. Pale as bone, with a shaven head, sunken eyes, and the skin on his face stretched and taut, he held up a pair of binoculars, scanning the street in front of the warehouse.
No movement yet, no shooting or shouting. Just as he’d suspected. But no answers, either. And he’d come here in search of answers.
At great expense, this ghost of a man had uncovered the information about La Bruzca and his missiles. He’d leaked it to the right parties and the right parties only. And then he’d come to learn the truth.
With nothing to do but wait, he lowered the binoculars and rubbed at a dark tattoo that marred his neck. It covered a scar where someone had tried to slit his throat eighteen months earlier; a reminder to him that he had enemies on all sides.
Once he’d been a man of power and prestige, carrying a well-known name and a title. Others listened to him, obeyed his orders. But like the man he’d come to watch, the tattooed man had been cast out. Unlike the man below, the world at large would not forgive him his crimes. And that burned the very depths of his soul.
So be it, he thought. To be hated and feared by all was something he could embrace. Far better than a worm begging from the dust. Far better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
Upon leaving the hospital with his neck sewn together, he’d killed the man who cut him. Shot him and then stabbed him with his own knife and left him in the street in front of his house for others to find. It had been a moment of liberation.
During his life the tattooed man had been responsible for dozens of dead. Men, women, even children had died under his watch. Most had been killed collaterally. A few on direct order. But they were distant actions twice removed. At the time he had felt like a king sacrificing pawns. But to avenge himself in person brought a satisfaction and a wave of giddy power.