60
“Man, that’s a sight to behold now, ain’t it?”
Early morning, East River Park, and a steady stream of joggers was taking the path down from Twenty-third Street to the South Street Seaport and back, under the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges, past the Fulton Fish Market. This was New York City and people were too bound up in themselves to spare a glance for the three men standing by the railings, ignoring the views across the river, watching the girls go by.
“Makes me wish I were thirty years younger,” Waylon McCabe went on as a hot young blonde trotted by, her taut thighs and peachy backside sheathed in black running tights. “Hell, even ten years’d do me.”
He turned to one of the other men, who was balding, his overdeveloped muscles now melting into fat, a brown leather jacket open to reveal a spreading paunch. His name was Clinton Tulane and he had been a military instructor back in the days when McCabe was providing assistance to West African guerrillas. Tulane had helped him out then, just as he’d helped out a whole lot of other people, from Sarajevo to El Salvador. That was how he knew Dusan Darko, though that was not the name under which the man in the black overcoat with the lank, greasy hair had entered the United States. When you were a Serbian warlord, wanted across the Western world for crimes against humanity, it paid to travel incognito.
“You can leave us now, Clint,” said McCabe. “It’s been real good of you to make this introduction. But me ’n’ Mr. Darko here gotta talk business, and it’s kinda private.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tulane, any resentment at his exclusion more than covered by the wad of hundred-dollar bills now nestled in his jacket pocket.
McCabe waited long enough to let Tulane get out of earshot, then fixed his attention on the other man.
“So, Mr. Darko, Clint tells me you’re a man of some influence in your country-is that so?”
Darko shrugged as if to suggest that he was, indeed, influential, but too modest to say so out loud.
“So supposing I wanted to enter your country by air, find a place to land and refuel, pick up a package, and leave without anyone hasslin’ me-you could make that happen?”
“But of course… for a price. You understand, people would need to be paid. But it is possible, certainly.”
“Uh-huh, I get it. And you got men under your command, fightin’ men?”
Darko stood a little straighter.
“My men have fought alongside me for seven years. Against Croats. Against Bosnians. Now against Albanian scum. These men are lions-like the partisans who fought against the Nazis, they cannot be defeated.”
McCabe did his best to keep a straight face. He didn’t need any lessons on fighting from some greasy wop who was second cousin to a Gypsy.
“Well, that’s just fine, Mr. Darko. Let me tell you what I have in mind…”