Page 92 of The Devil's Ransom

“I’m not! I don’t do anything with ransomware. I just rent stuff.”

Ghulam aimed the barrel of his gun between Bogdan’s eyes and said, “Let’s just kill him and get out of here.”

Shakor thought a minute, then had an idea. He said, “You use Branko’s credit card to rent these places?”

Bogdan nodded his head so fast, Shakor thought it would snap, saying, “Yes, yes. That’s what I do. That’s all I do.”

“Who’s paying the bills?”

“I don’t know. A Russian, but I don’t know who he is.”

“Does Branko have the same card? Same number?”

Bogdan nodded. Shakor said, “Can you see when that card is used?”

He nodded again, now thinking he might live because he had something to offer.

Shakor said, “Get on a computer and pull up that account. Right now.”

Bogdan did, typing like he was late for a deadline.

The account showed the card had been used earlier at a restaurant in Mali Ston, and a recent charge for a cab company, the destination the old town of Dubrovnik. Which wasn’t a lot of help, but it wasn’t nothing.

Shakor said, “Where would he go in the old town? Is there another safehouse?”

Bogdan shrank back and said, “No. This is the only house.”

Shakor raised his weapon and said, “You’d better come up with something better than that, because it’s the only thing keeping you alive.”

Bogdan reloaded the page with shaking fingers, and another purchase magically appeared. It was at a place called the Caffe Bar Buza, which meant nothing to the Afghans in the room.

Shakor looked at the screen, then at Bogdan, saying, “Where is this?”

“The old town. At the top. It’s a bar at the top of the old town.”

Chapter53

We gathered back at the restaurant in Mali Ston, sitting around the table and silently chuckling about what had just happened. We had been suckered in a big way, and while it made me angry, it was our fault for not seeing the layout connection between the two towns of Ston and Mali Ston. Hell, I’d even quizzed Jennifer about the damn fortifications.

Knuckles said, “So the ransomware geek has some skill on his side.”

I said, “Yeah, but we knew that the minute he took a shot at us with a suppressed pistol. If I were to guess, I’d say they’re Russians working for that Andrei guy, protecting the investment. And they’re long gone.”

Knuckles said, “What are we going to do? Call it a day?”

I sighed and said, “That’ll depend on Wolffe, but if I were a betting man, I’d say yes. Last time I talked to him, he said POTUS was looking at a nation-state and didn’t think the risk of us continuing in a foreign country was worth what we’d get out of it even if we did capture Branko.”

Veep said, “What do you think?”

“I think Wolffe believes that POTUS is being risk averse, and because of it he’s only increasing the danger. Ignoring Branko is asking for potential failure against the Valkyrie crew, just like ignoring the clear signs we had before 9/11. And I absolutely agreewith him, but it’s a moot point. We couldn’t get to Branko now if we wanted because we were stupid.”

I slapped the table in disgust, the humor of the situation dissipating. I said, “Iknewthat guy was skilled. I should have predicted he wasn’t just coming here for lunch. I got tunnel focused on some mythical meeting and missed the signs.”

Knuckles said, “We all missed it.” He pulled out the phone he’d found on the table and handed it to me. I took it and said, “I’m starting to build a collection of Branko’s phones. Maybe I’ll open a shop here in Croatia selling used iPhones.”

Veep said, “Hey, we still have his original cloned iPhone, don’t we? I mean he wiped the primary, but we cloned it, right?”

I said, “Yeah?”

---