Specter

13

They left the parking garage in two groups to avoid attracting attention, sticking to side streets where possible and taking separate routes to the hotel. Frazier led Magic and Razor, while Papagos stayed with Murdock. Navigation through the city streets actually proved to be relatively simple, since both the communications antenna above the fairgrounds to the northwest and the huge sports stadium to the east were easily recognizable, easily spotted landmarks.

Murdock and Papagos were delayed only once, waiting for a few minutes in an alley as a police car cruised slowly past on Papaphi Street. They found the Dimitriu without trouble and slipped up the fire escape in back, to find that Frazier, Brown, and Roselli had gotten there just minutes before them, while Sterling, DeWitt, and MacKenzie had arrived with their prisoner nearly an hour earlier.

"So that's Stathis Vlachos," Murdock said.

"I think he may be starting to come around," DeWitt said. "From the size of that lump on the back of his head, I'd say Jaybird damned near took his head off."

"Stepano?" Murdock said, jerking his head toward the room's single small window. "Let's talk. Over here."

"Yes, sir."

Murdock began filling him in on what the SEALs had learned from Nikki in the car, speaking quietly so that if the prisoner was awake, he would not hear. "So he's Macedonian," he concluded. "Or, I should say rather, at least he speaks Macedonian. Don't know how much English he has, but the girl said his Greek wasn't all that good. I think he's from up north."

"I had already wondered about that, Lieutenant," Stepano said, his blue eyes flat and cold. "Judging by what Razor, Scotty, and Magic told me when they came in."

"I'd say this one is in your department."

"Yes." Stepano appeared to be studying the prisoner. They had him on the bed, still tied hand and foot, still wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. He did indeed appear to be coming around, moaning and twisting his head back and forth. "Sir… how rough can we be with him?"

Murdock sighed. "Son, that's a hard one, but I'd have to say you can be as rough as you need to be. We've got to know what he knows about the hijacking. The names of his mysterious friends in the DEA. Where he's from. Who he works for. And we've got to get the goods fast. Solomos is probably turning this city inside out right now looking for us, and we probably don't have more than, oh, let's say, six hours. We might have more, but I don't want to stretch it too close."

"Maybe we can scare it out of him," Roselli said, joining them.

"Maybe," Murdock said. "Unfortunately, folks in this part of the world are used to the idea of torture. This guy couldn't be working for the Greek government and not be aware of what would happen if he got caught."

"Shit," Roselli said. "We're gonna torture the guy?"

"We can't," Murdock said. "Even if we wanted to, we can't." He pointed at the room's nearest inner wall. "These walls are only a little thicker than paper. If he starts screaming, we'll have Solomos and his men breaking down the door ten minutes later. Count on it."

"Is possible that we can use the fact that he is from Yugoslav Macedonia," Stepano said quietly, his accent noticeably thicker as he thought about the problem. "And… he does not know us, know who we are. What we are. I think I see way."

"He's all yours," Murdock said. He signaled to DeWitt, who was standing next to the bed. "Two-Eyes? Take everybody out except two volunteers."

"Me," Roselli said.

"I'll stay," Sterling said.

"Also, I need something," Stepano said. "Perhaps Papagos can get some from hotel desk. Or at all-night drugstore."

Papagos nodded. "Right, then," Murdock said. "Let's get this over with. We don't have much time."

After dispatching Papagos on his errand, they bound the still-groggy Stathis Vlachos to a wooden chair, using the handcuffs they'd taken off Roselli to secure his wrists behind his back, then binding his arms and torso to the chair's straight back with a length of nylon line left over from the evening's activities. Next they pulled off his shorts, then tied his ankles to the chair's rear legs, using more rope to spread his knees apart.

Stepano played the role of chief interrogator with the air of a man used to getting the answers he demanded. Roselli and Sterling carried out his instructions with the solemn air of men participating in some dark and mysterious ritual. Once, when Roselli moved a bit quickly while looping the rope around the legs of the chair, Stepano said, "Slowly, Razor, slowly. We want him to think about this, about what we are doing." Then he'd added something in Macedonian, possibly repeating his words for Vlachos's benefit.

When they were done, the man could move nothing but his head. His legs were spread open and tied, his genitals exposed and vulnerable. Murdock watched full awareness returning to the prisoner's eyes, saw a flash of panic there… replaced almost at once by a dark, urgent watchfulness.

They waited then for several moments, the silence in the room growing heavier. There were two quick knocks at the door, and Papagos entered, carrying a brown paper bag.

"Place it on dresser, please," Stepano said. "Thank you."

Papagos did as he was told, then crossed the room to take his place next to Roselli and Jaybird. Murdock considered ordering him to leave, then decided against it. He had a right to see, to know.

God help us, he thought blackly. We're becoming as bad as the sons of bitches we're fighting.

Stepano stepped closer to the prisoner, leaning over until their faces were inches apart. He smiled, a hard, calculating expression. "Kade e Gospogya Kingston?"

The prisoner snarled something back, bared his teeth, and spat. He was brave, certainly, Murdock was willing to give him that. Murdock couldn't imagine himself spitting in the face of anyone if he'd been in the prisoner's place.

The smile fixed rigidly in place, Stepano pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the spittle off his cheek. "Razor? Gag our friend, please."

Razor tore off a strip from the bedsheet, stepped behind the prisoner, then pulled the cloth taut between the man's teeth, knotting it tightly. Stepano stepped close again, still holding the handkerchief.

Yas sum od Goli Otok," Stepano said, and his voice, though still low, was as hard and as cold as ice. "Razbiram?"

The prisoner's face went death white at the words "Goli Otok," the name, Murdock remembered, of one of the prison islands that Tito's secret police, evidently, had made notorious.

Stepano kept speaking, his voice low, almost gentle as he carefully and neatly twisted his handkerchief into a thick, white rope. Next he looped it beneath the prisoner's genitals, then tied it in a knot, drawing the ends very slowly tight. "Dali ste zheneti, gospodin? Imate li devoyka? Ah! Zhal mi e!"

Throughout all of this, the prisoner's eyes were starting from his head, as wide and as white as the gag in his mouth.

Stepano next crossed the room to the dresser and, careful to keep all of his movements in clear view of the prisoner, slowly produced a can of lighter fluid, the kind used in refillable cigarette lighters. He held it to his ear, shaking it, then nodding approval.

Returning to the prisoner, he showed him the can, uncapped it, then began to pour it, a small dribble at a time, onto the knotted handkerchief. All the while, Stepano kept talking, and four or five times Murdock caught again that dread name of Goli Otok.

Murdock didn't understand the spoken words, but he could certainly imagine what Stepano must be saying… something about this was the way it was done, back at that prison on Goli Otok, and this was what happened to someone Stepano had known. Was the SEAL claiming to be a victim of Tito's torture prison, Murdock wondered, or one of the secret police's torturers? It hardly mattered; the gentle-sounding words coupled with the look on his face as he emptied the last of the lighter fluid onto the skin of the man's penis combined to create an atmosphere of utter and complete madness. The sharp stink of the liquid bit the air. The knotted handkerchief was sopping wet, as was the matted black hair on Vlachos's belly and groin. His genitals lay flaccid in a puddle of the stuff on the chair between his open thighs, and some of it was dripping onto the carpet. He was whimpering through the gag now, a quavering, horrible sound, scarcely human.

When the can was empty, Stepano set it aside, then fished about in his shirt pocket, producing at last a silver cigarette lighter. He held it delicately between thumb and forefinger, so close to the prisoner's face that his eyes crossed as he tried to focus on it.

"Kade e Gospogya Kingston, Vlachos?"

The pitch of Vlachos's whimpering went up an octave, his head thrashing back and forth, his eyes huge. There was blood on the gag now. He'd bitten his lip or tongue.

"if I didn't know better," Papagos said, "I'd swear he's trying to tell us something through that gag."

Deliberately, Stepano flicked the lighter open and struck a spark, keeping the lighter well above the prisoner's groin. Flame danced on the end of the wick, reflected brightly in the terrified mirrors of Vlachos's eyes.

"Jeez, Steponit," Roselli said. "Watch those fumes."

Stepano lowered the flame one inch… two…

"Kade e Gospogya Kingston!"

"You know, Steponit," Papagos said, "in Greece, when you jerk your head up and back, you mean 'no,' but when you turn your head to the side, like he's doing, you mean 'yes.' Is that what you're trying to say, Vlachos? You're trying to say yes, you'll talk?"

"Nah," Roselli said. "He's just shaking his head no, like he doesn't want a light."

Vlachos's reply was a shrill, muffled unintelligibility, but it was clear enough what he was trying to say. "Roselli," Murdock snapped. "The gag."

The gag came off and Vlachos launched into a torrent of words, sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Macedonian. Papagos stood beside Murdock, trying unsuccessfully to keep pace with a running translation.

"He says he and four of his friends with the Enomenai… ah, the United Macedonian Struggle… infiltrated the DEA… something, something… he's speaking Macedonian now. I don't… okay, the idea was to take the plane to Skopje. The plane… the crew, they're all at Skopje. The women… ah, the congresswoman and her people… they're taking them off some place. Ah can't catch that. 'Ohridsko Ezero Gorica Gora… Gorazamak.."

"That's Lake Ohrid," Stepano said. "Gorica is a village on the shores of Lake Ohrid. Gorazamak is an Ottoman fortress nearby."

"Thank you, Mister Travel Guide," Sterling said.

"He's still speaking Macedonian now," Papagos said. "I'm not getting this at all."

"It is Serbo-Croatian," Stepano said. "Not Macedonian, He's saying… he's saying the Congresswoman and her staff were supposed to be taken off the plane and transported to this castle."

"Taking the most important hostages off someplace safe," Roselli said. "Someplace where we or Delta Force can't get at them."

"There's no such place," Jaybird said.

Vlachos was continuing to talk, the words tumbling out so quickly the prisoner began to stutter, his eyes still fixed on that horrible yellow flame wavering atop Stepano's cigarette lighter.

"He says that there was list of demands, due to be delivered to the American embassy in Athens tomorrow… ah, later today, rather. We were to recognize Macedonia as including both Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia. Statement of principle, he says. We were to recognize EMA as the legitimate representatives of united Macedonia. This… this is crazy, Lieutenant. What he is saying, we would never do."

"Since when are terrorists considered sane? In any case, he's not telling us the whole story."

"Eh?"

Murdock locked eyes with the prisoner. "Mr. Vlachos here is not Macedonian. Or if he is, he's not working for Macedonian independence."

"What then, Boss?" Papagos asked.

"What's his word for 'Serbian'?"

"Srpska."

The prisoner jumped at that word as though he'd been jabbed. Eyes wide, he looked back and forth, from one SEAL's face to another.

"Tell him we know he's Srpska."

Stepano's words prompted another torrent from Vlachos, who was watching the cigarette lighter again as though his life depended on his fixed concentration. When he stopped talking, Stepano appeared to be considering what he'd said. Then he flicked his hand, snapping the lighter shut. The prisoner slumped back in the chair, eyes closed, sweat beading his forehead.

"I think you have found something, Lieutenant," Stepano said. "Something important. Our friend here is not EMA, but he has been working closely with EMA cells in both Macedonias for a long time. As you guessed, he is Serbian… a Bosnian Serb, actually. His real name is Vlacovic, not Greek Vlachos."

"How the hell did you know that, L-T?" Roselli asked.

"Our L-T's a mind reader," Sterling said.

"Nope. It was just a guess, but an educated one. Earlier, when we were talking to Nikki? She said that Vlachos called Muslims 'Turks' and indicated that he didn't care much for them. That sounded like something a Bosnian Serb would say, not a Macedonia Slav who's spent most of his life hating Serbs."

"That's stretching things a bit, ain't it, Skipper?" Papagos asked. "Lots of folks in this part of the world don't like Muslims. Especially Greeks. They hate the Turks."

"Exactly. Which means they tend to identify Turks specifically with Turkey nowadays, not with all Muslims. At least, that was my read on it. And when Stepano said he'd started speaking Serbo-Croatian…" He shrugged.

Stepano nodded. "You guess right, sir. He is a Serb. Says he's a potpukovnik — that's lieutenant colonel in Yugoslav Army."

"What the hell interest does Serbia have in Kingston?" Roselli asked.

"And why are the Serbs helping an outfit dedicated to Macedonia unity?" Sterling added. "I thought the Macedonians wanted rid of them."

"Politics and strange bedfellows, Jaybird," Murdock said folding his arms. "Actually, now that I think about it…"

"Whatcha thinking, Skipper?"

"Another guess, Nick." But Murdock was excited now. He was right. He had to be. "Okay. Here's the way I see it. The EMA has been working against Greece for some time now. They have independence for northern Macedonia. What they want now is to shake Greek Macedonia free from Greece. Right?"

"Affirmative," Roselli said. "You're thinking the EMA is trying to make trouble between the U.S. and Greece."

"That's part of it. More than that, though, what do you think we would do once we found out that our congresswoman's flight was hijacked to Skopje?"

"Hell," Sterling said. "Delta Force would go in and kick ass."

"Exactly. Whose ass?"

"Christ!" Papagos said. "The EMA isn't that large. They must have most of their best people guarding the aircraft!"

"Delta Force goes into Skopje. Typical aircraft hostage rescue, just like Entebbe. The EMA never knows what hits them and probably loses every shooter guarding the hostages. Delta also gets enough intel from prisoners or from captured records or from debriefs of the hostages that they're able to nail all or most of the EMA's top people, probably within a few months. Hell, Serbian intelligence might even lend a hand, pass on a few files, a few names, whatever is necessary."

"And when the dust settles, there is no more United Macedonian Struggle," Stepano said.

"Sheesh," Roselli said. "That's twisted!"

"Ever heard of Byzantine politics, Razor?" Papagos asked. "Welcome to the land that spawned it."

"Oh, it gets even twistier, I imagine," Murdock continued. "Imagine Delta's surprise when they take down that aircraft and find that Ms. Kingston and her staff aren't there? There are recriminations. There's that trouble between Washington and Athens you mentioned, Razor. We find out the hijackers were infiltrators in the elite DEA. Sloppy, sloppy. And after that… I wonder what would have been next." He eyed Vlachos speculatively. "Maybe the Serbians holding Kingston at this castle threaten to kill the hostages one by one unless we abandon our support for Macedonia? That seems kind of blunt. I doubt they'd be quite that crude. Maybe instead they play it real cute and 'find' Kingston and her staff. They could claim they pulled off the hostage rescue of the century. That would make our efforts look pretty dumb and encourage us not to meddle in Balkan politics. Maybe they would claim we owed them a big one, and win some concessions from us in Bosnia or in their unresolved claims to Macedonia at the UN. Or maybe they just figure it would make us look bad and them look good to the world community at large, a colossal public-relations ploy."

"I like the double-cross aspect," Papagos said. "The Serbs get what they want from us, while we wipe out the EMA for them and take the heat from the Greeks. Slick."

"Wait a minute," Jaybird said. "All of that assumes that we found out enough to be able to launch an assault on the Skopje airfield in the first place. They couldn't know we'd pick up enough intel to make a hostage rescue even a possibility."

"Sure they would," Murdock said cheerfully. "After Solomos and the DEA finally got around to picking up Eleni Trahanatzis and working him over in one of their basement cells."

"Fuck… me," Roselli said, the words soft.

"Why else would Trahanatzis's bank account be so obvious?" Murdock asked. "Kind of stupid, putting all that money in an account where Greek intelligence would spot it right off. I imagine Vlachos here, or Vlacovic, or whatever the hell his name is, has been playing Trahanatzis like a Stradivarius, setting him up for the fall. Solomos probably got the word from someone higher up 'Hands off until Vlachos is out of the way.' He only moved tonight because he thought we were going to screw things up."

"So once Vlachos is out of the way, Solomos and his Keystone Cops move in," Sterling said. "They take Trahanatzis apart a piece at a time until he tells them that the EMA is holding the American congressperson at Skopje. They pass that to Delta, and Delta moves in. Yeah, it fits. God help me, it fits!"

"You know, this is a pretty big, pretty complicated plan," Roselli said. He grabbed Vlachos by his hair and pulled his head back. "I don't think lover-boy here came up with it on his own, do you?"

"Ask him who he's working for," Murdock said.

Stepano barked a question. The prisoner sagged farther down against the ropes. Once he'd been broken, all of the fight appeared to have drained from him.

"Da," the man said. "Brigadni Djeneral Vuk Mihajlovic."

"Well, well," Roselli said. "Our friend from TV."

"Ask him how far the JNA is involved in this," Murdock said. "I want to know just what we're up against, and you can tell him that if he doesn't tell us the precise truth, he can kiss his balls good-bye."

The added threat didn't seem to make much of an impression. Vlachos's reply was a barely intelligible mumble.

"He says there are some Serb 'volunteers' helping the EMA. Sounds like ten or twelve shooters, max, guarding the plane at Skopje, some army regulars, some EMA freedom fighters. That castle on lake Ohrid used to be some kind of a tourist attraction, but it's been closed for quite a while. Even the caretakers are gone. He's not sure how many men are up there, but he thinks it's supposed to be ten, maybe twenty, all regular JNA."

"You know," Roselli said, "Mihajlovic might be running things on the Serb side of the border, but he wouldn't have any pull with the Greeks. We must have two higher-ups, Mihajlovic to handle the Serbs, and somebody else with the Greeks… someone who helped plant those EMA infiltrators in the Dimona, someone to protect this bastard until they're ready to sacrifice Trahanatzis. Who would that be anyway?"

"I don't know," Murdock said. "I doubt that this guy knows. Frankly, that's one for the Greeks to worry about. We can pass all of this on to them, but our problem is finding Ms. Kingston."

They questioned Vlachos for another hour, checking answers, digging for inconsistencies, looking for signs that he might be lying about anything, even the smallest detail. Toward the end of the session, he became stubborn again, refusing to say more. Stepano flicked the lighter into flame, spat a Slavic curse, and dropped his hand toward Vlachos's groin.

Vlachos burst into another flood of begging, pleading, desperately ingratiating words as tears streamed down his face. By the time he was through answering the last of the SEALs' questions, Murdock was certain that they'd gotten everything out of him that there was to get.

"God, Stepano," Murdock said quietly after the big SEAL again closed the lighter. "I'm glad you're on our side."

"In this land," Stepano said quietly, "so very much depends on a man's manliness. Like the machismo of Latin America. I did not want to have to threaten him like that."

"Would you have set him on fire?" Roselli asked. "No, don't answer that, Steponit. I don't think I want to know."

"There were moments," Stepano said, staring at the cigarette lighter still clutched in his hand, "when I thought I might. Bog! Mi pomotchi!…"

Tears were running down his face, as well as that of the prisoner. Stepano was trembling, shaking as his rigidly held inner control began to slip. His fists clenched, the muscles in his arms and back bulging as he struggled with what he'd just done.

God, what did Stepano just put himself through? Murdock wondered. He slipped an arm around the Serb's shoulders and squeezed. "It's okay, Stepano. You did good. We got what we needed, right?"

"Y-yes. But I hate this-"

"Me too, my friend."

"This guy," Roselli said, slapping the back of Vlachos's head, "is a thorough-going bastard. Don't worry yourself over a scumbag like him."

"Believe me, Steponit," Papagos said. "What you did to him tonight is nothing compared to what the government security forces would have done. He got off light."

"Greek security'll still get a crack at him," Murdock said.

"We're turning him over to them?" Sterling asked, nodding toward the sobbing, utterly broken man still tied to the chair.

"We can't take him with us," Murdock decided. "We'll leave him tied up and gagged just like he is, and put out a do-not-disturb sign on the door. We can telephone Solomos from the consulate and tell him where he can come pick him UP."

"The consulate?" Roselli asked.

"I have a feeling they'll be able to put us in touch with Captain Beasley," Murdock said. "And we're going to need Delta's help for this one."

"Not to mention a good lawyer," Sterling said. "I'm not sure Solomos is going to let us out of the country after the way we put his tits through the ringer at the waterfront."

"Well," Murdock said, "some of what we picked up here tonight might serve as a peace offering. Look at it this way. We got the information without Solomos's interrogators having to mop up all that blood in their basement. Nice and neat. And if he's smart, he can use it to find the Greek Mr. Big in this plot."

"Shit," Roselli said. "What if Solomos is part of it?"

"I don't think he's that smart, Razor. Come on. Let's get our shit together and get the hell out of Dodge."

Minutes later, as they stepped out of the room, Papagos leaned back in and barked something at Vlachos in Greek. Murdock heard only the muffled groan of a reply.

"What'd you tell him?" Murdock asked.

"Apagoretai to kapeisma," Papagos said, grinning wickedly. "That's 'No smoking.' Until somebody comes in and cleans him up, smoking just might be hazardous to his sex life."