Page 80 of The Devil's Ransom

Running to a room at the back of the house, Nikita shouted, “No. One was white, the other black. They were coming for you, dumb-ass.”

Nikita returned to the main room and said, “What do you mean, Afghans?”

“They’ve tried to kill me before. It’s why I called Andrei. It’s why you’re here. They’re looking for the treasure.”

“Well, you’d better hope they don’t find it, because you’re dead if they do. Follow me.”

He went to the back of the house again, shoved a display case full of artifacts aside, and opened a window. He pulled out his phone, dialing it and saying, “Get out.”

“What?”

Nikita spoke into the phone for thirty seconds, hung up, and said, “Get your ass out onto that ledge, then drop to the ground. We’re going to have to run to beat them. They’re probably circling this place right now. This house cuts the alleys in half, but that won’t stop them for long.”

“I can’t do that!”

Nikita put the barrel of his pistol into Branko’s face and said, “You get the fuck out of this window or I’m going to split your head open.”

Branko flinched, then crawled out of the window onto a ledge that was barely an inch wide. Nikita said, “Jump. Get off the ledge. We need to go.”

Branko looked below him, saw the stone fifteen feet away, closed his eyes, and dropped, hitting hard enough to slam his skull into the ground. He rolled over holding his head and Nikita dropped like a cat next to him, jerking him to his feet and saying, “Let’s go. Stick close to me. We have maybe a minute to get out of the kill box, and if you cause me to fail, I’ll slaughter you myself.”

They took off running, Nikita dragging him through one alley after another, Branko barely maintaining his balance on the narrow stairway, until they reached the road that circled the island next to the water. Nikita jerked Branko to the left, running north up the blacktop, until they reached the upper end of the town, an ancient bastion that used to guard the harbor towering over them. Nikita glanced around, then ran to two Land Rovers parked in a loading zone, one full of men and the other with only a driver. He opened the door to the empty one and said, “Get your ass in.”

Branko did, and the vehicle left at a high rate of speed, exiting the old town and entering a highway leading to the ferry port. Branko put his hand to the bruise forming on his forehead and said, “What was that all about?”

Nikita leaned around from the front and said, “It’s about trying to save your life. When I give you instructions, you follow them. Who were those men?”

“I have no idea.”

“How did they find you?”

“I... I don’t know. I honestly don’t. Nobody knew about that apartment. Nobody. Not even my men.”

“We’re going to another spot and see what happens. You pay attention to what I say, and you might live to see the sun set.”

Chapter47

By the time we’d finished the reconnaissance of the bed-down site it was after midnight, and it looked like we were going to spend another night without sleep. It had taken us close to three hours to drive from Split to Orebic, and we’d missed the last vehicle ferry to the island. There was one more passenger-only ferry, forcing us to leave the vehicles in long-term parking and hoof it on foot. Not the best thing, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Like all great commando formations, we took a couple of Ubers to the old town of Korcula and started hunting for the phone’s location. I’d found out immediately that the center of old town Korcula was more cloistered than Diocletian’s Palace in Split, with a single paved road circling the village next to the coast and a rat maze of tiny alleys and stairs—lots of stairs. If I’d learned anything at all about Croatia, it was this: if you’re walking, you’re climbing stairs.

I was hoping for another single-entrance Vrbo like we’d hit in Split, but it wasn’t to be. The bed-down was some fancy small hotel crammed between two alleys right on the ring road, with only five rooms, which meant trying to penetrate the lobby and capture Branko was a nonstarter. The phone was still inside, but the geolocation feature had a plus or minus of anywhere from thirty to a hundred feet, meaning we couldn’t precisely pinpoint which room he was in, and no way did I want to crack more than one.

If it had been a large hotel, with four stories and hundreds of rooms, we could have spent a few hours trying to determine the precise location on the inside, as there would be plenty of people coming and going. Once that was done, we’d enter and bash that guy on the head, putting him behind a computer. With only five, and the expense of the stay—guaranteeing concierge services at all hours—it was a good bet that the front desk knew every person staying there and would question us trying to enter. They probably had a dedicated person for every room.

So we were going to have to do it the hard way—box the exits to the hotel and wait on him to leave.

I’d dispatched Jennifer to get us a hotel on the north side of town, a place where we could rack out as we rotated, and possibly take our suspect once we got him. Then we’d started surveillance of the site.

The problem with our technology and the geolocation feature of the phone was that we had to ping it to get a location. It wasn’t like an Uber or Lyft ride, where we could track the driver—or in this case, the phone. All we could get was a geolocation on each ping. So far it was still inside the building, so we knew he was in there, but now we’d have to physically watch until he left.

The hotel was sandwiched between two small alleys left and right of the building, with the lobby entrance on one and a service entrance on the other. There was a terrace restaurant on one end overlooking the ocean, but I didn’t think he’d leap over that unless he was chased, so we set up on the two exits and waited.

It got harder as the night went on, as the crowds of tourists grew less and less, leaving us vulnerable to compromise. We resorted to putting a Bluetooth button camera on the doors, with the surveillance bumper positions finding a spot to sit that was close enoughto see the feed. I stationed myself on the beach wall with a fishing pole I’d found on the ground, hoping to look like I was just a fisherman out early in the morning. I’d left Jennifer in the hotel to coordinate the rotation of the teams and keep in constant contact with the Taskforce, and then we’d begun the painfully boring work of watching and waiting for a chance to bag his ass.

By 5a.m.,acting as the surveillance chief, I’d rotated everyone through the two sites once, letting the folks get a little shut-eye in the hotel room before pulling them back in. I was getting groggy, but knew time was precious. It would’ve been perfect if we could have taken him in the night, but that hadn’t happened, and because of it, I wouldn’t be getting a rotation. I wanted to be on the ground when he left.

At 0605, right before the sun crested the horizon, I had Brett on the lobby entrance and Veep on the service one, Jennifer on the net for control, and Knuckles getting some rack time.

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