Blood Trust (33 page)

“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.

*   *   *

T
HE 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.

*   *   *

T
HREE 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.”

*   *   *

J
ACK 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.

T
WENTY
-
ONE

M
IDDLE
B
AY
Bancorp was one of those newly minted powerhouse regional banks that came through the recent CDO and mortgage-backed securities meltdown relatively unscathed. In fact, at the depths of the recession, its prescient CEO, M. Bob Evrette, snapped up three failing regionals for ten cents on the dollar, more or less, in the process making himself both rich and a local hero for saving so many jobs.

There was a price to pay, as there always was: Like many great leaders, M. Bob Evrette was afflicted with hubris. In short, within the space of twenty months, Middle Bay became a victim of its own success. It grew too fast, outstripping not its resources but the expertise of its managers. Evrette had thrust it into the heady arena where the really big boys played, and even he wasn’t up to navigating it.

At that point, perhaps six months ago, Henry Holt Carson had stepped in and made Evrette an offer he couldn’t in all conscience refuse. For one reason or another, Middle Bay had been on Carson’s radar screen for some time. Carson had built his fortune on knowing the right time to make an acquisition and when to sell it. Six months ago Middle Bay was ripe for the plucking. He set up one meeting with Evrette, where the merger with InterPublic Bancorp was proposed, then a dinner, where the deal was struck, and, finally, a weekend at the hunting lodge, where, over a brace of buckshot-riddled ducks, the deal was finalized.

Middle Bay boasted over twenty branches in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland, but its main branch resided at Twentieth and K Streets NW, in a florid building of white granite blocks so massive they’d give even Hercules palpitations.

“I spoke to M. Bob Evrette himself,” Naomi said as they got out of the car and trotted up the steps that rose between two rows of immense Corinthian columns.

“What do
you
call him, Pete? He’s a friend of yours, right?”