In the blood a thriller, p.30
In the Blood: A Thriller, page 30
part #5 of Terminal List Series
“You Donovan?” he asked. “I get call that say you need delivery.”
Reece reluctantly took the offered cold, weak, and clammy hand.
“I Luka,” the man said in broken English. “You like my car?”
“I do,” Reece replied. “Datsun?”
“Yeah, man. Chicks dig it. Just don’t tell wife.” He laughed.
“Good tip,” Reece said.
“What happen?” he asked, pointing at the cuts and bruises on his new acquaintance’s face.
“It’s why I need your delivery,” Reece said.
“I like this guy,” Luka said, pointing at Reece. “You funny.”
“Only around Datsuns. What do you have for me?”
“I told you need bang-bang. Quick. Long distance,” Luka said, mimicking a rifle shot toward the ocean. “And pistol. A quiet one.”
“That’s right.”
“Come,” Luka said, motioning toward the rear of the vehicle with his head. “Luka find you good deal.”
Reece followed the arms dealer to the trunk of the car, looking up at the hill above them.
Should have done this from high ground.
Luka popped the trunk and pulled back a blanket to reveal two rifles and a pistol.
“What you think?”
Reece looked at the three weapons. Each one was older than the vehicle in which they had arrived.
“Is this thing a time machine?” Reece asked.
“What you mean?”
“May I?” Reece asked.
“Yes. Yes.”
Reece reached in and pulled out a 7.62x54R M1891 (M91) Mosin-Nagant.
“Who am I? Simo Häyhä?” Reece whispered.
“What?” Luka asked.
“Never mind.”
Reece pulled back the bolt on a rifle built around 1900. A round did not eject from the chamber and the five-round internal magazine was empty. He examined the iron sights and noted the Russian Imperial Crest and Finnish markings.
Battlefield pickup, Reece thought, wondering who in the Russian and Finnish armies had pressed the trigger over its lifetime.
“You like?” Luka asked.
Without answering, Reece returned it to the trunk and picked up a rifle with which he was intimately familiar, the Dragunov.
Officially the SVD-63, denoting the year it was accepted for use in the Soviet military, it was a unique blend of dark machined metal with wood furniture and skeletonized stock topped with a PSO-1M2 4x24 optic with an illuminated reticle. The semiautomatic gas-operated rifle used the 7.62x54R round fed from a ten-round magazine. Reece had studied the rifle in depth when he had been part of a training element sent to Uzbekistan to teach a sniper course to their Spetsnaz. He remembered thinking it would be a good idea not to teach them too well, lest he or any of his Teammates end up in their sights on a future battlefield. The “snipers” he ended up teaching were actually “designated marksmen.” Reece found that the SVD only ended up extending the range of the more common AK by a couple of hundred yards once he put one through the paces.
Almost seventy years old.
“Ah, sexy, yes?” Luka said, undulating his hips with a huge smile on his face.
Reece pushed the safety lever down and pulled the charging handle to the rear, locking it back on its empty magazine.
“Got rounds for these?” Reece asked.
“Rounds?”
“Cartridges.”
“Cartridges? Bullets? Oh yeah, I got bullets,” Luka said, reaching into the trunk and pulling out a cardboard box. He shook it. Reece could hear rounds rattling around.
Reece took the box, opened it, and inspected the cartridges. They were certainly not all from the same lot, but they appeared to be the correct caliber.
“They will work, yes?” Luka asked.
“They will,” Reece said. He returned it to the trunk and removed a revolver from a worn leather holster.
“You like, yes?” Luka said.
Reece had handled and fired a Nagant M1895 revolver, but it had been a long time. Thomas Reece had taken one off a Soviet military advisor that his MACV-SOG reconnaissance team had killed in an ambush in Laos in 1971. He wasn’t supposed to take it home. His team wasn’t officially supposed to be in Laos either.
Most revolvers are designed with a gap between the cylinder holding the cartridges and the barrel, which allows high-pressure gases to escape after the shot is fired, resulting in noise from what is essentially a small explosion. This also makes them impossible to suppress. The seven-shot Nagant revolver was different in that it incorporated a gas seal, moving the cylinder forward and creating a seal that trapped the gases in the chamber when the shot was fired. This allowed the Nagant to be effectively used with a suppressor. A crude homemade version was screwed onto the end of the barrel.
A star with what looked like an arrow was engraved on the left side of the frame just above the wood grip. “1941” was engraved underneath it, which meant it was the double-action model, the single-action-only model having been discontinued in 1918. This particular revolver did not have a swing-out cylinder, so he swiveled the loading gate down, twisted the end of the ejection rod, rotated it toward him, and pushed it back to remove a cartridge. He turned it over to examine it. The 7.62x38R was distinctive in that the bullet was seated below the mouth of the casing, which appeared to be made of brass or copper-washed steel, indicating they were probably of Soviet origin. When fired the brass would expand, blocking any gases that might escape back toward the cylinder.
The former frogman remembered his father teaching him about the pistol’s history before they shot it together for the first time, when Reece was in high school. What had stood out to the younger Reece was that Czar Nicholas II was a proponent of the Léon Nagant–designed pistol because it held more rounds than other revolvers, which he equated to an advantage on the field of battle. That the gas-seal design increased muzzle velocity was also appealing to the Russian Imperial Court. It was approved as the issued sidearm of the Russian Army. In an ironic twist of fate, the same pistol that the last emperor of Russia championed was also used to execute him, his wife, and their children after the Bolsheviks took power.
Reece reinserted the cartridge into the revolver and pushed the loading gate back into place.
“Is this ammo subsonic?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it quiet?”
“Ah, yes, subsonic. Very quiet.”
“Is there a place we can go confirm that and sight these in?” Reece asked.
“This is Montenegro. Of course, but it will cost you.”
“Add it to my tab. There is something else.”
“Oh?”
“How would you like to stay in Hotel Palata Venezia for a few days?”
“What?”
“Enjoy yourself. Stay in my room.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stay at the hotel. Explore your city. But carry this phone with you everywhere you go,” Reece said, handing his personal phone to the arms dealer. “Keep it on. Keep it charged.”
“You want someone to think I am you?”
“That’s right.”
“And what if there is physical surveillance?” Luka asked, his English making a sudden improvement. “If you failed to notice, I may have an extra layer or two.” Luka grabbed the considerable girth around his midsection to accentuate his point.
“Oh, there is physical surveillance, but we are going to take care of that in a few minutes.”
“So that’s it? Just drive around town and stay at the hotel?”
“There is one other thing.”
“And what is that?”
“In four days, I want you to drive to the village of Provalija. Do you know where that is?”
“I know it. Almost a four-hour drive.”
“When you get there, pull over and text this number,” Reece said, handing him a piece of scrap paper with a U.S. cell phone number on it. “Text: ‘I’m going in. I’ll call you when it’s over.’ Then I want you to take a hammer or a rock and smash the phone until it’s unrecognizable.”
“And then?”
“Then drive home. Take the pieces with you and throw them in the garbage somewhere along the route.”
“That’s it?” Luka asked again.
“That’s it.”
“And what do I get for this service?”
“A few days at the Palata Venezia. Enjoy it. Bring your girlfriend, your wife, maybe both.”
Luka laughed.
“I’ll do it,” he said, already thinking of the days in bed with one of his girlfriends and figuring out what he would tell his wife. “But it is going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“My time is valuable. It’s going to cost you twenty thousand euros.”
“Done,” Reece said.
Quickly backpedaling, knowing he should have asked for more, the man looked at Reece’s wrist. “And that watch.”
Reece looked down at his father’s stainless-steel Rolex Submariner.
“Sorry.”
“We get the knockoffs here,” the man said. “All the girls know how to spot a fake.”
“I see,” Reece said.
“Watch and twenty thousand euros or no deal.”
“How about this?” Reece offered. “Twenty-five thousand euros and when I get back to the States, I’ll send you a Submariner.”
The arms dealer eyed the man before him.
“There is no risk to you,” Reece continued. “Walk and drive around town. In four days, drive to Provalija. Text the number I gave you and destroy the phone. Then get back to your girlfriend. Easy money.”
“Usually I’m the one saying ‘easy money’ and it never is. That makes me question.”
“Good point,” Reece conceded. “Thirty thousand and a watch.”
“You have yourself a deal,” Luka said, sticking out his hand.
“And Luka, if I find out you don’t send that text, I’ll remove you from the face of the earth.”
Luka swallowed.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Just want us to understand one another,” Reece said. “Oh, I’m also going to need a car, preferably an old one.”
Reece looked at the Datsun.
Luka’s frown turned to a smile.
“Have I got a deal for you, American.”
“I’m sure you do. Now, let’s go deal with my surveillance.”
CHAPTER 72
JOVAN KUJOVIĆ LOOKED DOWN at his Samsung Galaxy. He loved playing Starblind but he needed to ensure his target had not moved, so he swiped it away and checked the map. A red dot marked the position of the man he had been hired to tail.
What is he doing down there? Maybe he’s swimming?
He looked to be in good shape, so that was a possibility.
Kujović had parked his car just off the road and was alternating between his video game and the job he had been hired to do.
As a courier for the Nikšić Mob, he assisted the more senior members of the gang with smuggling drugs from Albania into Montenegro. They also dabbled in moving weapons and stolen luxury vehicles into Albania, in partnership with the Albanian Mafia, but it was the drugs that were the most profitable, especially heroin and cocaine. As a low-level courier, he had supplied a mysterious Syrian man with blond Russian girls and would occasionally run an errand for him. He always requested girls who could speak English. The Syrian paid well and sometimes Kujović could get a piece of the action when returning the girls to one of the brothels the Nikšić Mob ran in the city. It wasn’t a bad arrangement.
When the Syrian had tasked him with this mission, he was not in a position to say no. The cash was good but more than that, the Syrian made him nervous. He was afraid to say no.
Soon he would complete his task and deliver the message.
The American made him nervous, too. He looked forward to the day when he would be rid of them both and could get back to moving the drugs that he would occasionally sample. They had enough police and government officials on the payroll to make the threat from law enforcement almost nonexistent. Rival gangs and syndicates were another story.
How long is he going to stay there? Kujović wondered.
He flipped back to the app.
Still by the river.
Even if Kujović’s pistol had been in hand and not in the glove box, he still would not have had time to adjust and move it in the direction of the figure who opened the door and sat down in the passenger seat, a strange-looking revolver with a massive suppressor pointing at his chest.
The American.
“Hands on the wheel. You speak English?”
Kujović quickly put his hands on the wheel, perspiration starting to soak his shirt even in the cooler weather.
“Y-yes,” he stammered.
“Keep your movements slow, Mr. Peugeot.”
Kujović swallowed.
“In case you are familiar with this pistol, you will see the hammer is back in single-action mode, so I don’t have the heavy trigger pull to contend with if I decide to put a bullet through your heart. Understand?”
Kujović nodded enthusiastically.
“Good. Now, tell me why you’ve been following me.”
The Syrian had told him he would end up in this position and that his only job was to relay a message.
He started to speak in Serbo-Croatian.
“English,” Reece said firmly.
“I am just to give you message.”
“What message?”
“From the Syrian man.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s in my pocket. Can I reach?”
“Slowly,” Reece said.
Kujović very deliberately reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it across the center console.
Reece took it and, without taking his eyes from the man across from him, asked, “What is it?”
“It’s a map. To the Syrian’s cabin in Žabljak. He wants to meet you there.”
“When?”
“Five days.”
Reece slid the note into his pocket.
“Anything else?”
“That is it, I swear! Please, don’t kill me. I have a wife, daughters,” the gangster lied.
Reece considered the man next to him. There were very practical reasons to kill him, just as there were practical reasons to let him live. Entanglements with local law enforcement would only hinder his mission to hunt down and put Nizar Kattan in the dirt.
“You caught me on a good day. I’m going to let you live.”
Kujović felt his bladder loosen as his body involuntarily relaxed, his reptilian brain registering that he would live another day.
“Thank you. Thank you, American.”
“Don’t mistake this decision for weakness. If I see you on the battlefield again, I’ll kill you.”
As quickly as he had appeared, the American was gone.
Kujović waited another three hours in his Peugeot before he got the nerve to start the car and drive back to Ulcinj. During that time, he never once looked at his phone.
* * *
Twenty-five miles to the northwest, the weekly ferry from Bari, Italy, was docking in Bar, Montenegro. It made the eleven-hour journey once a week, weather permitting, one of only a few ferry routes to connect Italy with its Balkan neighbors across the Adriatic.
Thick lines were thrown over pylons and the ferry came to rest against the pier. Among the throngs of people disembarking was a man in a wheelchair. He rolled down the gangplank, a small bag in his lap. He waited in line to show his Italian ID card to the customs agent, who entered his information into a database. It came back clean, just as Reece said it would, and he was allowed entry. Without asking for any assistance, he wheeled through the ferry terminal and got into line to catch a taxi.
CHAPTER 73
Dinaric Alps, Montenegro
NIZAR HIT END ON Le Drian’s phone and handed it back. They were sitting in an old Series I Land Rover off a dirt road, surrounded by rocks and trees in the Durmitor mountains.
He had been receiving updates on Reece’s geolocational data in his phone through the Russian Internet Research Agency. The former SEAL had spent the past four days in the Hotel Palata Venezia, hardly leaving his room. Earlier that morning they had received notice that Reece was moving north.
“It is time to get in position. He sent a text to the United States from Provalija and then they lost the signal.”
“He’s close,” Le Drian commented.
“He is, but our decoy is in place with your old phone. He won’t go to the cabin. He will come here. More specifically, he will find a shooting position just below that ridgeline I showed you on your map. He is getting updates on that phone, just as we have been on his. He will find his position, glass until he finds our decoy, and then take his shots. That is where you intercept him.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t then I am across the canyon and will finish the job, sniper to sniper, as it should be. If I don’t find him as he gets into position, I’ll find him when he shoots. If you have not taken him out by then, you will hear the shot and can move to intercept. James Reece is not leaving these mountains alive.”
They exited the vehicle and shouldered their packs. Kattan’s sniper rifle was strapped to the outside, the suppressed VSS Vintorez in his hands. Le Drian held the Yugoslavian Kalashnikov.
“Meet you back here when it’s done,” Le Drian said.
“Bonne chance,” Kattan said.
Good luck in French.
The Syrian continued to surprise the Foreign Legion sergeant.
Le Drian watched as the sniper moved across the dirt road and up a game trail. Before he disappeared into the bush, the Frenchman wondered if there might be another reason he was on the same mountainside as their target.
* * *
Reece studied his map, adjusted his compass, and took a bearing. No GPS on this one. He knew where he was going.
He had been in the mountains for four days, getting to know them, making them his home. The sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the region were now a part of him. The old Dragunov felt natural to him as well. He knew its capabilities and, more importantly, he knew its limitations, essential factors to understand in your rifle, in yourself, and in your enemy.
