Page 85 of The Devil's Ransom

Then a phone rang.

Shakor heard it and said, “Whose cell is that?”

Drago looked at Bogdan, and they both shook their head. Shakor went to the stairwell and the sound got louder. He ran down it, flopped the body over, and found a smartphone. He ran back up the stairs, held it in Drago’s face, and said, “Answer this.”

Drago took it, but before he could hit the talk button, Shakor snatched it away from him, saying, “Wait a minute. You’re supposed to be in Split.”

He turned to Bogdan and said, “You talk.”

Bogdan hit the call button and began speaking in Serbian. Shakor smacked him in the head, then snatched the phone, putting his hand over the microphone, saying, “Speak English.”

“You want me to speak English? He’ll know something’s going on.”

Shakor paced a bit, then said, “Is it Branko?”

Bogdan hesitated, then said, “Yes, it’s him, and the longer you hold that phone, the more he’s going to wonder what’s going on.”

Shakor handed the phone back and said, “You’d better not tell him what’s waiting here.”

Bogdan nodded, but Shakor realized he had no control now. No idea what he was saying, and he knew that Bogdan would do whatever it took to live.

Then he had an idea. Yes, he was Taliban, but he’d also lived in the West. He understood technology.

Bogdan started talking and Shakor put a gun to his head, saying, “Tell him to hold on, because someone is at the door. Tell him that now.”

Bogdan did, then put the phone on mute, looking at Shakor, saying, “What is this about?”

Shakor pulled out his own smartphone, put it on a voice recording, and said, “Keep talking, but when it’s done, I’m going to translate it. If you scare him off, I will skin you alive.”

Chapter49

We reconsolidated at the hotel and did a quick after-action review. The bottom line was that nobody knew anything more than what we’d seen. There was a guy with a suppressed weapon in a country that didn’t even allow firearms, which meant he was something other than just a friend helping a friend. Something else was going on, but I’ll be damned if I knew what it was. All I knew was that the longer we stayed, the farther away he got.

We packed up and I called the Taskforce for a ping, getting one right in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, telling me they were on a ferry. Which was fine with me. He could run, but he couldn’t hide.

We fled the hotel as fast as we could, going down to the ferry terminal. I spent thirty minutes tapping my foot, knowing that those guys were on the boat before ours, feeling like I was onThe Amazing Race. Eventually our ferry appeared, and we headed across the water, running to our cars when it docked just like a contestant on the TV show.

We started driving to the mainland, and I called the Taskforce to ping the phone again. Creed was probably in bed, but someone was monitoring the phone, because Taskforce operations were 24/7. I got a guy I didn’t know, saying things that would cause him to die a slow death.

“Pike, I’ve been told to hold up on the next ping.”

Incredulous, I said, “Who is this?”

“Hey, I’m just the guy manning the net right now. I have my orders just like you do.”

I gritted my teeth, saying, “Where’s Creed?”

“He’s asleep. I was given my orders after he left.”

“By who?”

“George Wolffe.”

I looked at my watch and knew it was closing in on two in the morning there. Wolffe wasn’t around to fix this.

I said, “You had better give me that ping right now or pray that I die in a plane crash coming home.”

Jennifer glanced at me in alarm, and I shook my head, telling her to keep driving. A new voice came on, and I recognized it. Why George Wolffe was inside Taskforce headquarters at this hour was beyond me.

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