Blood Trust

TWENTY

NIGHT HAD passed its zenith. More stars appeared as the highest peaks of the Korab mountains shredded the clouds to ribbons. Dolna Zhelino was far behind. So were Arian Xhafa’s dead guerillas. Thatë’s men had found a satellite phone on one of the corpses, but it was unclear whether the man had communicated with his headquarters during the firefight.

“We have to make the assumption that Xhafa knows a force is on its way to attack him,” Thatë said.

They all agreed. They were camped on the narrow rolling plateau of the final ridge beyond which lay the outskirts of Tetovo, its lights flickering indistinctly through the black mesh of trees.

Paull looked at the kid. “Do you know what happened to the American unit sent to eliminate Arian Xhafa?”

“They were annihilated,” Thatë said. “I was in D.C. at the time, but these men told me. The American soldiers were killed within minutes. They didn’t get within ten miles of Xhafa’s headquarters.”

“Fuck me. So they’re dead, every one of them.” Paull gave Jack a sharp look. “How the hell could these guerillas destroy a heavily armed SKOPES unit in a matter of minutes? Christ, this situation gets worse by the second.”

Jack felt it imperative to move on. “Have you been to Xhafa’s stronghold?”

Thatë nodded. “All too briefly. I was made. I had to get the fuck out of there.”

“Tail between your legs.” Paull nodded. “No wonder you’re so hot to go back there.”

“How many men?” Jack asked, to ease the tension.

“Twenty to twenty-five.” Thatë shrugged. “His is a decentralized system, like the Muslim terrorists. The bulk of his men are deployed, some in other countries arranging deals, receiving payments, or overseeing smuggling shipments. The cadre in and around the stronghold are personal bodyguards, the fiercest fighters.”

“The Praetorian Guard,” Paull muttered.

An owl hooted and there was a flurry of wings overhead, a soft cry, and then a small spray of blood as the owl carried off its prey.

“A fantastic hunter, the owl,” Thatë said. “Its wings make no sound. That’s how we will be.” He indicated Paull with his chin. “Did your people give you a way in?”

Paull nodded, spread out the plastic-covered map, and lit it up with a penlight. The beam was powerful but didn’t spread. He traced the path with his finger. Xhafa’s stronghold was in the northeastern section of Tetovo, at the summit of a small rise.

“Do you have a problem with this section of the route?” Paull’s voice was a challenge.

Thatë shook his head.

“The stronghold itself,” Jack began.

“It’s a stone structure of approximately fifty-two-hundred square feet,” Paull said before the kid could answer. Once again, he was showing off the expertise of the American clandestine services. “No basement because in that area the bedrock is so hard it’s apparently not worth the effort. There are two entrances, front and rear, and, here, on the west side, is what appears to be a soccer field, presumably to help keep the men in shape when they aren’t on a killing spree.”

“The intel comes from satellite imaging.” Jack looked at Thatë. “Accurate?”

“Oh, it’s accurate,” the kid said, and Paull looked smug. “As far as it goes.”

Paull scowled. “Meaning?”

“Xhafa’s stronghold is actually a school. The soccer field is for the students.”

“Sonuvabitch.”

“It gets worse,” Thatë said. “The students are orphans. They live there.”

Another silence settled over the group. They stared through the trees at the lights of Tetovo. Somewhere out there Xhafa and his men were waiting for them.

“Well, that neutralizes our rockets and other middle-range weaponry,” Paull said sourly.

“Not necessarily,” Alli interjected.

They all turned to stare at her.

“We’ve got to get the children out of the school,” she said.

“One of us needs to come up with a real plan,” Paull said, pointedly ignoring her.

Jack held up a hand. “Wait a minute, Alli may be on to something.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Jack busied himself clearing away debris and drawing a map for himself in the dirt. Because he himself was drawing it, he could better visualize the terrain and how to navigate it. He stared at what he had created for some minutes.

“What if we split up into two groups? Dennis, you and I and Alli will form a traditional frontal assault.”

“But Xhafa will be expecting that,” Thatë said.

“Precisely,” Jack said. “But what we’ll put up won’t be an assault at all. It will be a diversion under cover of which, Thatë, you and your men will silently take out the rear guard, infiltrate the schoolhouse, round up the kids, and herd them out of there. Once the building’s clear, we can move in on both fronts.”

Paull rubbed his chin. “It sounds good.”

“Yeah, except it won’t work.” Thatë looked at them. “The kids are taught to be scared shitless of anyone who isn’t in Xhafa’s cadre. They’ll never willingly come with us.”

“They might,” Alli said, “if they see me.”

Jack reacted immediately. “Now just a minute—!”

“No.” Thatë was nodding vigorously. “Alli’s got it locked in. She doesn’t look all that much older than the students, who range more or less from eight to seventeen. When they see her with us, they’re likely not to bolt, especially if she talks to them.”

“I don’t speak Macedonian,” Alli said.

“No problem. The older students speak English. They’ll translate for the younger ones.” Thatë saw the look on Jack’s face. “This is by far our best shot to get Xhafa, trust me.”

Jack glared at him. “I’m not exposing Alli to such a risk.”

Thatë shrugged. “Then there will be collateral damage.”

“There will be no collateral damage,” Jack said slowly and deliberately.

“Then Xhafa’s cleverness has stymied us,” Paull said. “Our mission—”

“I know what our mission is,” Jack said tightly, “and it doesn’t include subjecting Alli to this level of extreme risk. She needs to be where I can keep an eye on her.”

“Fine,” Thatë said. “But with you or without you I’m leading my men in.”

“Not if I kill you first.”

It seemed, then, that all the weapons came to bear at once.

“Men,” Alli said disgustedly. She stood up. “Did any of you testosterone machines think about asking me? It was my idea, I like it.” She turned to Jack. “It’s a good plan, or as good as we’re going to get. I’m going in with Thatë.” She held out a hand. “Now give me the iPod and earphones.”

The kid looked into Jack’s surprised face and laughed. “Fucking piece of work, ain’t she?”

THE TWO groups decided to take different routes, so Thatë and his men, with Alli in tow, headed out before Jack and Paull, who would take the route outlined by the satellite intel. Each group had a sat phone for coordinating their assault—one Thatë’s men had, the other that had been confiscated in the firefight at Dolna Zhelino.

Before he left, Thatë went over the topography Jack and Paull would encounter, seemingly leaving out no detail. Jack was grateful to him, but he was also terribly apprehensive as he watched Alli, amid Thatë’s band of Kazanskaya thugs, vanish all too quickly into the dark.

“Another insane scheme that’s dependent on whether or not we can trust that kid,” Paull said as he hefted his assault rifle. He checked to make sure the magazine was fully loaded. “Talk about a delicate balance.”

Jack stood brooding. Then they set off, following the path laid out for them by the geotechs at the DoD.

ALLI WAS aware of the tension in the men as one is aware of the electricity in the air during a lightning storm. The stars were very clear above them, winking in and out as gaps in the trees presented themselves and then closed. No one spoke, for which she was grateful. After last year, one of the things she had done to help her overcome her grief was to learn Russian from the Rosetta Stone program. She was astonished at how effortlessly she picked up the language, and she suspected that she’d be able to learn most any language with similar ease. She recognized root words almost instantly, and making sense of the grammar allowed large chunks of phrases to slot into her rapidly expanding understanding.

Oddly, she felt comfortable among these thugs. They didn’t resent her or think she was a freak. On the contrary, they understood her function in the plan—a function none of them could fill, and which might very well lead to victory. She felt like their little sister; she felt as if she belonged, as if she had been born to the wrong parents in the wrong country. Now and again, her nostrils flared. She smelled Russia on them; she liked that smell.

For one hundred minutes, they moved silently without incident. By that time, the forest had given way to plowed fields with the occasional stone barn, then the farms were stamped out by a jumble of houses. Then the paved streets began and, along with them, the gridlike order imposed by all gatherings of human habitation, whether they be villages, towns, or cities.

The men grew more cautious and, for a time, their progress was slowed as they took more and more frequent detours to avoid the citizens of Tetovo. Skirting the town proper, they moved northwest with the intention of looping around and coming upon the stronghold from the north.

Of course, there were obstacles to that route—knots of Xhafa’s guerillas strategically placed along the perimeter of Tetovo. But guard duty was inherently boring. Night after night, peering into the flickering darkness could cause the attention of even the staunchest fanatic to occasionally waver. There was no antidote for this boredom, Thatë had explained to her when they had begun their trek, and it was this inattention he proposed to exploit.

The first to present themselves to Thatë’s men were three guerillas. He kept Alli beside him as he used hand signals. Three of his men nodded and melted into the darkness. They returned soon enough with trophies: AK-47s, daggers, and a satellite phone. Not a sound had been uttered. The band moved on. Alli saw the three guerillas sprawled on the ground, their throats slit. Their blood glittered black in the starlight.

“THERE HE is.”

Paull’s whisper came to Jack along with the other night noises.

“We could go around him,” Jack pointed out.

“We can’t go around them all.”

They were crouched in the protection of a clump of underbrush. The guerilla was outlined against the starlight. To his right was a ridge, black as a pit. To his left were lights at the outskirts of Tetovo.

Paull scrambled off and Jack put down his assault rifle, shrugged off his backpack and camouflage jacket. Then he ducked out into the starlight, came around a bend and, seeing the guerilla, continued on.

The guerilla, for his part, came immediately alert and brought his AK-47 down to the ready position.

Jack stopped several feet in front of the guerilla and said, “Më falni, unë jam I humbur.” Excuse me, I’m lost.

“Ju jeni shqiptare?” the guerilla asked with a good deal of suspicion. You’re Albanian?

“Lindur dhe rritur atje, por e biznesit tim është këtu.” Born and raised there, but my business is here.

The guerilla nodded. “Ku jeni drejtuar?” Where are you headed?

“Ozomiste.”

The guerilla laughed. “Ju mori një kthesë shumë të gabuar, shoku im.” You took a very wrong turn, my friend.

He pointed to the east, a direction behind Jack. As he did so, Paull, stealing up behind him, jerked his chin up, exposing the neck, which he slit. The guerilla’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slid to the ground.

Ten minutes later, after spotting and skirting two groups of guerillas, they came within sight of the schoolhouse and began to set up shop.

“You’ll have to watch out for those groups,” Paull said. “Once we start firing, they’re bound to be drawn to this spot.”

“I’ll be ready.” Jack pulled out the shoulder rocket launcher and loaded it.

When Paull was set up, he called Thatë to give him the signal to go ahead. Then he manned the machine gun he’d set on its tripod and waited for Thatë’s call.

THE MOMENT Thatë got off the sat phone, he signaled his men forward. They spread out in a rough semicircle as they slipped through the trees. Keeping to the shadows, they approached the rear of the schoolhouse. Along the way, five of Xhafa’s men were overpowered and killed without them opening their mouths. There were more in the woods, of this Thatë had no doubt, which was why he now widened the cordon of his men. He had only six men, plus Alli, but he was ready to pit any one of them against two or even three of the guerillas.

There was another knot of guerillas lounging around the back door, talking and telling jokes. Two of them were dozing. Thatë signaled his men, then unhooked Alli’s backpack and took her assault rifle from her. She unbuttoned her shirt and pushed the waistband of her trousers lower around her narrow hips, exposing her midriff.

“How’s this?”

He fluttered his hand back and forth. “It will have to do.” Then, in response to her scowl, he gave her a big grin.

“You’ll do fine. Don’t worry, okay?” he whispered. “We have your back.”

She nodded.

“Are you frightened?”

“I think so.” In fact, her heart seemed about to explode through her chest.

He laughed soundlessly. “That’s the right answer. So am I.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Time.”

Alli appeared in the light, weaving slightly. The guerillas saw her and she began to sing “Gimme Shelter.” She was close to them, under their scrutiny and their guns when she got to the chorus.

“‘War, children, it’s just a shot away, shot away…’”

Just as Thatë predicted, their eyes were on her opened blouse, not her face, and certainly not on the grupperovka soldiers creeping up on either side of them. Alli was completely terrified, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth so that the sound broke off abruptly. Not that the guerillas cared. Young girls were their thing and she fit the bill of fare to a T.

Alli knew what she had to do; she and Thatë had gone over it during a short break in the trek while his men had surveilled the area just ahead. She now had to do it. She recalled with perfect clarity the Ukranian mistress Milla Tamirova and her dungeon with its restraint chair that had brought back with a sickening rush her week at the mercy of Morgan Herr. Something inside her quailed and tried to shrivel up. But she wouldn’t let it; she was stronger than that now. The guerillas’ eyes burned into her pale flesh. The inner halves of her breasts were exposed, moving as she approached them. She walked as Milla Tamirova walked, putting one boot directly in front of the other so that her hips and buttocks swayed gently back and forth.

She was close enough to them now to smile, her white, even teeth shining in the light of the bare bulb above the door. She kept her lips slightly open. She had moistened them just before she had stepped into the light.

And then something odd—and thrilling—happened. Their very stares, which had terrified her a moment before, buoyed her. Their eyes caressed her, moving over one body part after another. They weren’t repulsed; on the contrary, naked lust suffused their faces, warming her, fueling her. Emma had made her feel beautiful. But now, for the first time, she realized that her childlike body was not connected to the womanly power inside her. This was the moment of her final flowering into womanhood, the moment when all childhood things were left behind, when she saw who and what she could become.

Finding her voice, she began to sing again. The guerillas licked their lips seconds before they died. She watched them with a curious dispassion as the light went out of their eyes, and she shivered, suddenly cold.

“Fucking beautiful,” Thatë said. He called Paull and gave him the all clear.

As soon as the chatter of machine-gun fire bit into the night, he led his men into the school.

Alli followed him, feeling like a shell sucked up in a powerful undertow.

THREE OF Thatë’s men had been killed by the time the kid brought her face-to-face with the orphans. Until that moment, he had kept her safe in the rear guard, guarded by two of his grupperovka foot soldiers. But she had heard the sounds of fierce fighting, cries, and grunts as the forces met head on. She recognized all three of the dead men as she was led past them, and felt a slight tugging at her heart, shocked by how young they were.

The orphans were huddled in one darkened classroom. Before she stepped into the doorway, she handed Thatë her assault rifle.

He offered a handgun. “Don’t go in there unarmed.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “They need to trust me.”

As she stepped into the room, she sensed the orphans shrinking back, and knew she had been right to come in without a weapon. Then, as they saw her, expressions of surprise and perhaps curiosity bloomed on their faces.

“I don’t speak Macedonian,” she said. “Which of you speak English?”

There was a rustling of bodies. Then a voice from the rear said, “English?”

A young girl pushed her way to the front of the group. She was delicate, her porcelain beauty all the more potent for it. But there was a tigerish look to her eyes and this made Alli wary.

“You are English?”

“American,” Alli said. And then, because there was no time and, really, no other way to state it: “There is danger here. These people are bad.”

“I know,” the porcelain girl said.

One of the other girls behind her said, “They are our teachers.”

Alli, hearing the fear in the girl’s voice, thought about Morgan Herr, who had claimed to be her teacher. “Yes, but they’re teaching you only what they want you to know. They’re making sure that when you grow up you’ll be just like them—terrorists, smugglers, and murderers. I’ll take you to a better place, where you’ll be free to make up your own minds about what you want and don’t want.”

There was a brief silence, and Alli decided to concentrate on the porcelain girl.

“My name is Alli Carson.”

“Edon.” The porcelain girl looked into her eyes. “Edon Kraja.”

Arieta’s sister! A thrill of elation and foreboding ran down Alli’s spine.

The rest of the children remained stone-faced. Assessing their continuing hesitation, Alli held up Emma’s iPod. “Michael Jackson. ‘Thriller.’”

A smile split Edon’s face. “Michael Jackson. Really?”

Alli nodded.

“We’re not allowed to listen to Michael Jackson,” Edon said. “No American music.”

“Where I’m going to take you, you can listen to any kind of music you want.”

Fitting the earbuds to the iPod, Alli scrolled down to the track she wanted and pressed Play. She offered the earbuds to the girl, who cringed back until Alli put one of the earbuds in her own ear. When she offered the other one, the girl took it and hesitantly put it into her ear.

Her grin returned. “Michael Jackson,” she said. “‘Thriller.’”

Alli began to mimic the dance in Jackson’s video and, as Edon hesitantly joined her, the other orphans crowded around. Alli passed the earbuds to a couple of the closest kids.

“Okay, Edon, we have to go. Now. You must tell everyone.”

She did as Alli asked. Alli took back the iPod and earbuds as, like an inverted version of the Pied Piper, she led the orphans out of their personal rat-infested Hamelin.

When they were safely away, hidden in shadows of the trees, Edon turned to Alli.

“Thank you,” she said, “from all of us, even the ones too young to yet understand.” She burst into tears.

Alli put her arm around Edon’s shoulders. “That’s all right. You’re free now.”

“Yes, I,” Edon said through her tears. “But my sister Liridona is not.”

JACK WAS forced to begin his rear-guard action sooner than he had expected. No matter, he had plenty of ammo and convenient cover. He took out three of Xhafa’s guerillas before they fell back, regrouped, and came at him from both sides. Behind him, he could hear the continuous roar of the machine gun. The sound calmed him. Paull had his back.

As the two groups of guerillas began to converge on him, guided by his shots, he crab-walked straight ahead, into a dense copse of trees. Turning around, he fired into their flank, mowing down half of them before they could adjust and return fire. By that time, he had climbed up into one of the trees. Lying out on a thick branch, he brought them into his gun sight, picking them off as they scrambled futilely for cover.

Dropping down, he went from man to man, checking them for breath or pulse. Finding none, he turned back to where Paull was continuing his fusillade. It was then that he felt the cool breath on his cheek.

“Dad.”

He felt death coming from behind him and darted to his right. The knife blade slashed through cloth and skin just above his hip bone. If he hadn’t moved, the thrust would have punctured his liver. Stepping into the attack, he whirled and, cocking his elbow, slammed it into his assailant’s throat. The guerilla staggered back, gasping, and Jack drove the butt of his assault rifle into the man’s nose. Blood and cartilage whipped through the air, and the butt whacked the side of the guerilla’s head so hard his neck snapped.

Leaping over the corpse, he joined Paull just in time to pick up the phone. He listened to Thatë’s voice, cut the connection, and said, “The kids are out.”

Paull did not let up the volleying for even an instant. “You know what to do,” he said.

Jack picked up the shoulder rocket launcher he had previously loaded, took aim at the school through the launcher’s telescopic sight, and yelled, “Fire in the hole!” just before he pressed the trigger.

The night exploded into white light and a tremendous thunderclap that resounded throughout all of Tetovo.