The Russian Deception

CHAPTER 16

"How much farther?" Nick asked.

They had been driving for about ten minutes and had reached the edge of the town. The houses here were older, rundown. They passed a wooden cart being pulled by a donkey along the side of the road.

"Just a few minutes now," Viktor said. "It's up there, around that curve."

The road climbed ahead of them and curved off behind an old church that was in tumbled ruins. They came around the turn. Two cars placed in a V blocked the road ahead. From somewhere behind the abandoned church, two more cars appeared. They came up fast behind the VW and boxed it in. Men got out of all four cars. They wore black balaclavas.

"Shit," Lamont said.

"I would advise not doing anything stupid," Viktor said.

There was a gun in his hand, an ugly Makarov. He held it to Selena's head.

The men from the other cars pulled open the doors. Two of them carried Kalashnikov assault rifles, the ever-popular AK-47. The leader had a pistol.

"Get out," the leader said.

"Do as he says," Nick said to the others.

The leader was a big man, bigger than Nick. He wore a thick leather jacket, a knitted scarf and a woolen cap. His hands were raw and red from the cold. The cold didn't seem to affect his grip on the pistol he pointed at Nick. He gestured with it.

"Hands behind your back. You will come with us."

"We're an accredited news team," Nick said. "You are making a mistake."

"Shut up," the leader said. "Tie their hands. Put the hoods on them."

Harsh hands pulled Nick's arms behind his back and cinched a plastic tie around his wrists. Then a rough sack of burlap was pulled down over his head. It stank of cow dung and ammonia. Hands went through his pockets and took the satellite phone and his wallet. He was pushed forward and stumbled to his knees in the snow. Someone yanked him upright and shoved him into the back of a car.

Nick couldn't see what was happening with the others. He heard car doors slam. The engine started and the car began moving. Under the sack he could see nothing. He could hardly breathe through the choking fumes of the burlap.

I guess we found our terrorists, he thought.

After what he estimated was half an hour, the car slowed and turned. They bumped over a rough road for several minutes and came to a stop. Work hardened hands pulled him from the car. Someone took his arm and pulled him along. His boots crunched in snow. He heard the others stumbling along behind.

A door opened and he was pulled into a warm space. Someone pushed him down onto a hard chair and yanked off the burlap hood. He blinked at the sudden light and looked around.

The room was large, the walls made of wood. Overhead, exposed wooden joists held up a steep, peaked roof. A stone fireplace took up one end of the room, radiating heat from a roaring fire. Mounted animal heads hung on the walls, dusty trophies of hunts long past. The windows were covered so that no one could see in or out. They were in a hunting lodge somewhere in the mountains. For all Nick knew, they could be in Macedonia or Albania.

Ronnie, Lamont and Selena sat on a hard wooden bench nearby. Nick's hands were still cinched tight behind his back. He couldn't feel his fingers.

A thin man wearing a black leather jacket and a black leather cap came into the room from the back of the building. He wasn't wearing a ski mask. Pale blue eyes studied Nick from under heavy, black eyebrows. His face was sallow and tired looking, unsmiling, with bloodless lips tightly compressed under a thin, black mustache. He wore a large pistol in a military style holster on his belt. The man looked as though he'd stepped from a photograph taken during the days of the Russian Revolution.

"You are the leader?" he said to Nick. He spoke English well, with an American accent.

Probably educated in the states, Nick thought. Up north somewhere.

"I am," Nick said. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"My name is Josef."

Josef pulled up a chair and sat down across from Nick.

"As to what we want, it is more about what you want. You were asking questions in the market about what happened in the capital. About who people thought was responsible, who set off the bomb. Is this not true?"

"Sure it's true. That's our job, to ask questions. The bombing is big news. Everybody wants to know more about what happened and who's behind it."

"We are the Macedonian Patriotic Front. You have heard of us?" Josef asked.

Another damned terrorist group, Nick thought.

"No."

"Our goal is the removal of the current regime by any means necessary."

"Are you the ones behind the bombing?"

"No. That is one of the reasons we decided to invite you here."

Nick laughed. "Some invitation. Why didn't you just ask?"

"Because you need to understand the seriousness of the invitation," Josef said, "and because we want to make sure someone listens to our demands."

"You have my attention," Nick said. "Consider us invited. You still haven't told me why we're here."

Josef took out a knife and began cleaning his nails.

"Mitreski calls us terrorists but we are patriots. You are here to present our message to the world. We want everyone to know the truth."

"Whose truth? Yours? Why would I believe a bunch of thugs who grab me and my friends and put a sack on my head?"

Josef gestured with the knife. "Would you have come otherwise? The hoods were necessary to keep you from knowing where we are."

Nick couldn't feel his hands behind his back. The plastic ties had cut off the circulation.

"If you want me to listen to you, you'll have to stop treating us like prisoners. Cut the ties on our hands. Consider it a goodwill gesture."

Josef gave him a careful look. "Give me your word you will not cause trouble. My men are nervous and some of them don't like Americans. There could be an accident. You understand?"

"Do it, Nick," Selena said. "It's the only way we're going to get the story."

"You should listen to her," Josef said.

"All right. I give you my word. No trouble. Now cut these damn ties before my hands fall off."

Josef said something and one of his men came forward and cut the plastic ties around Nick's wrists. Nick brought his hands around front. The skin was dead white and he could feel nothing at all. His fingers were useless.

"My friends, too."

"Be careful," Josef said. "A false move would be a very bad thing for you to do."

"I heard you the first time," Nick said.

Josef motioned and the same man who had cut Nick's ties went behind Selena and cut hers. Then he went to Lamont and Ronnie. When he was done, he stepped back and leveled his AK at them.

"I'm listening," Nick said.

"We support the 11 October movement," Josef said. "That alone should convince you that we are not the ones who tried to kill Todorovski."

"If you didn't do it, who did?"

"The Russians."

Nick was surprised. He hadn't expected that. "Why do you think it was them?"

"That pig Mitreski gets his instructions from Moscow. You saw how many people came to the square to hear Todorovski speak. Macedonia is on the verge of a color revolution that will sweep Mitreski from office and put Todorovski in his place. Mitreski knows it and so does everybody else. I know Todorovski. He is a true patriot and he fears the Russian bear. He will be a strong ally for the West. The Russians are worried about him."

"That doesn't prove they tried to kill him," Nick said.

"We know it was them because we have someone within Mitreski's circle. During the last week Mitreski has been in daily contact with Moscow. The Kremlin is unhappy about Todorovski. Mitreski has asked for new military supplies. He has been discussing the coming revolution and requested assistance. Moscow regards Todorovski as the voice of the resistance."

"What kind of assistance does Mitreski want besides weapons?"

"Volunteers. Fighters to uphold his regime. The excuse is the stability of the Macedonian state and internal threats to our Slavic heritage. "

Russia had long considered itself the protector of Slavic culture and Orthodox Christianity in the Balkans. Moscow's obsession with the area had been evident during the Yugoslavian wars when the Serbs acted as surrogates for Russian ambition. But this wasn't the 90s. Things were different now. The planes were faster, the missiles more deadly, the rhetoric more rigid. Everything had become much more dangerous. With Orlov established in the Kremlin, Russian paranoia was higher than ever.

"Like in the Ukraine," Nick said.

"Yes."

"Shit. That would complicate things."

"You begin to see," Josef said.

Feeling was coming back to Nick's hands. He waited for the pain he knew would come. A little longer tied like that and he might've lost a finger or two.

"When we left Skopje, Mitreski was sending troops toward the Albanian border," Nick said.

"He thinks war with Albania will divert the people's attention. He's wrong. We will fight to defend our homeland if we have to but it will not change anything. Mitreski must go. There is still time before war begins, but not much. You must tell the West that Mitreski is conspiring with Moscow to provoke war with Albania and use it as an excuse to retain power against the popular will."

Nick's hands began to burn as the blood came back with a vengeance. They felt like they were on fire.

"If the Russians want Todorovski out of the way they'll try again," he said.

"It will be difficult. He's been warned now and has surrounded himself with protection."

"What you have told me cannot be verified."

"I can only tell you that it is the truth," Josef said.

"It will be disputed."

Josef shrugged. "I can't help that. Do you believe me?"

Nick looked at him and saw a man who believed what he was saying. Something about him seemed authentic. He had freed up their hands, something the terrorists Nick had known would never do. Cutting them free spoke to Josef's nature. For Josef at least, the story was true.

"Oddly enough, I do," Nick said. "What you said makes a lot of sense, as much sense as any other explanation."

"You will tell the story?"

"I'll do my best," Nick said.

As soon as I can get hold of Harker.

"Then we're done here. My men will take you back to your car. You must wear the hoods one more time."

"We need our phones and belongings back."

Josef said something and one of the men brought their belongings to them. He gave another order and once again the suffocating hood was slipped over Nick's head.

Someone began arguing with Josef. He wasn't speaking English. Nick couldn't understand what was being said but Selena would know. He thought it might be Viktor speaking. Josef's reply was flat and hard. There were more harsh words. The door opened and then slammed behind someone leaving.

Nick heard Josef's voice. "If you see me again it will be after the revolution has been accomplished," he said in English. "Goodbye, American."

Someone took Nick's arm and led him outside. After the warmth of the room the outside was cold and raw. He was put in the back seat of a car. After the hard chair it felt luxurious. He felt Selena settle next to him. Lamont and Ronnie were in a second car.

The car started and they began to move. She took his hand and leaned close and whispered. He could just make out the words.

"Someone didn't want to let us go. That's what Josef was arguing about. I think there's trouble."

Nick squeezed her hand.

They drove for a little while and then turned onto a rough dirt road, following tracks in the snow. The car came to a stop. Nick resisted the urge to pull off the hood. The car door was yanked open.

"Get out." The voice was Viktor's. It wasn't friendly.

"Ditch the hood," Nick said.

He pulled the sack off his head and threw it on the floor of the car. Selena's followed. They had stopped in the middle of a snow covered clearing in the woods. The second car was right behind them. Lamont and Ronnie were getting out. They had taken off their hoods as well. One of Josef's men was pointing his rifle at them. A second man was looking at them as if he didn't quite understand what was happening.

Nick opened his door and got out. Viktor stood off to the side. He had an AK pointed at them. He was too far away to disarm without getting shot.

"What's the problem, Viktor?" Nick asked.

Lamont and Ronnie came up and stood next to Nick and Selena.

"Maybe you should have paid him what he asked," Lamont said.

"You are the problem," Viktor said.

Nick's ear was beginning to itch and burn. He reached up to scratch it.

"Let me guess. You're Mitreski's spy. Everything Josef is planning is already going to fail."

The third man said something angry to Viktor. Viktor swung his rifle around and fired a quick three round burst. Then he turned on the other and shot him as well before he could react.

"Whoa," Lamont said.

The white snow turned red around the bodies. Viktor brought the gun to bear on them again.

"Maybe you used up all your ammo," Nick said.

Viktor laughed. "There are more than twenty rounds left. More than enough."

He gestured with the rifle at Ronnie and Lamont. "You and you. Pick those two up and put them in the first car. Don't try for a weapon or I will kill you."

They did as he said, first one body, then the other. They put both dead men in the front seats.

"Close the doors. Good. Now come back over here."

They came back and stood next to Nick.

"You're making a mistake," Nick said.

"I don't think so."

"So Josef was right? The Russians are behind this?"

"Mitreski is simply preserving order," Viktor said. "The Russians are helping us keep our country from becoming another puppet of the West."

"Oh," Selena said. "I see. You would rather be Moscow's puppet instead."

"The time when America could tell everyone what to do is over."

"What about the Macedonians who want a new government?" Selena asked.

"There are always troublemakers, people who don't understand what is good for them."

He raised the rifle. "Get in the car with my former comrades. All of you."

Ronnie fell to his knees and held up his hands, pleading. "Please don't kill us. We can help you."

Viktor sneered at him. "Help me? Look at you. You can't even help yourself. Stand up. Die like a man."

"No, no, please."

Ronnie ducked his head. His hand moved up behind his neck and there was a sudden glint of steel in the air. His throwing knife buried itself under Viktor's chin.

Viktor stumbled and choked, blood spurting out the front of his throat. He grasped at the knife with his left hand. His right hand with the rifle dropped away and the gun fired into the ground. Viktor fell onto his back, pawing at the knife. His feet twitched in the snow and then he was still.

Ronnie stood up and brushed snow from his knees.

"I forgot about that little sticker you keep back there," Lamont said.

"Most people miss it if they do a search," Ronnie said.

"No, no, please? Where did you get that line?" Nick said. "Out of a grade B movie?"

"Hey, it worked didn't it? What do you want, an Oscar performance?"

Selena went to Ronnie and kissed him on the cheek. "I thought you were great."

Ronnie blushed.

Nick turned on his satellite phone and held it up.

"No signal. Let's get out of here," he said. "I'm cold."

"Let me get my knife," Ronnie said.

He went over to Viktor's body and pulled out the blade. He wiped the blood off on Viktor's jacket and looked down at the body. The friendly smile of the helpful guide was gone, replaced by a contorted grimace of death.

"We never did get that coffee he promised," Lamont said.