Page 69 of Eight Years (The Trident Trilogy 1)

Chapter Thirty-One

Millie

Sarajevo, Bosnia

2019

After being in Sarajevo for only a week, we had a positive sighting of Yusef Hadzic. Our agent, who had been sitting on his sister’s house, saw him leaving there around midnight two nights ago. Unfortunately, our agent had not been able to get to the street fast enough to tail him, but he did get good photographs of him, and we identified him at a one hundred percent match to be Hadzic.

I spent the better part of the morning on the phone with my boss. The higher-ups in D.C. are going nuts. They can’t believe that we found, and then lost, Hadzic. I haven’t slept at all since we located him. I’m trying to put the pieces together of where he went after he left the sister’s house. I’ve already been to her house to interview her, her husband, and her kids. I believe what they told me, that they don’t know where he goes when he leaves their house. He could even be back in Afghanistan by this time.

My eyes are blurry from looking at satellite images and I need some fresh air. I decide to go for a jog. I haven’t talked to Mason since he left my house that morning, but I can hear his voice in my head warning me not to jog alone. I do it anyway. I need to clear my head, and I don’t need anyone distracting me. The guards barely look at me as I leave the embassy’s back gate. I head down a side street and veer off toward the river. As I start to tire out, I realize I’ve probably gotten a little too far out of the city. I’m almost in the foothills of the mountains, and I’m not sure I have the energy to get all the way back to the embassy.

I try to call back to the embassy to get a car to pick me up, but I’m not getting a signal, so I decide to start walking back. My feet hurt and I have a headache. I’m beginning to regret my decision to jog alone. I need some motivation, so I crank up Clapton in my earbuds. Another thing Mason told me not to do. I can hear him in my head. “Turn down the music, Mills. Be aware of your surroundings.”

I miss him. I didn’t think I would, but it’s been hard to focus on anything with him occupying a good portion of my brain. As I’m thinking about how much I’d like to see his face right now, I feel someone grab me from behind. My head is so full of thoughts of Mason that for a split second, I think it’s him. That thought leaves my head completely when I see the gun in my assailant’s hand.

I’m already a step behind, but I react as quickly as my brain lets me. I jab an elbow into the body behind me, and then step down hard on his foot. As the body recoils from me, I turn around to see Yusef Hadzic bent over in front of me. Clapton is still blasting in my ears, making it hard to think. I am miles out of town. There is nowhere to run, no one to hear me yell. Yusef begins to straighten up. My only choice is to fight. I kick him in the face before he straightens up the entire way, causing him to fall back a little farther. I follow him, and try to land a good hard kick to his balls, but he’s recovered enough to grab my foot. I try to shake loose, but he has a good grip and pulls me closer, raising his gun back up and pointing it at my head.

“Let’s stop this nonsense,” he says in Bosnian as he clicks the safety off the gun.

I’m sure he’s about to shoot me. My dad’s face flashes before my eyes. He’s smiling at me, and all I can think is that I’m probably going to see him soon.

Another man gets out of the car behind us. “Yusef, enough! Get her in the car now.” He’s speaking in Pashto. I’ve never seen this man before.

Yusef throws my foot down and roughly grabs my arm, pushing me toward the car. I start to struggle wildly. I want them to kill me here. I’m not getting in the car. The other man comes up behind me and puts a hood over my head. I start fighting even harder. Just shoot me now, and leave my dead body by the road. One of them picks me up and shoves me into the car as I kick and scream.

“Shut up, you whore.” I recognize Yusef’s voice. He slaps my hooded face hard enough to make me fall back against the car door.

The other man, who I think is in the driver’s seat, yells in Pashto, “Yusef! If you hurt her, he will kill you. Don’t touch her again.”

I press myself against the car door, hoping it will open and I will fall out of the moving car. I don’t know what’s ahead of me, so I’d prefer just to die now. The door doesn’t move, but I stay pressed up against it. No one is talking. The car is driving fast, and it feels like we’re starting to climb a steep road. I’m sure we’re headed up into the mountains.

We drive for about an hour before we stop. I try to memorize any sounds I hear. I’ve managed to turn off my cell phone that’s in a hidden pocket in my jogging pants. Hopefully, the battery will stay strong long enough for someone to track my whereabouts. In honesty, I’m not even sure anyone knows that I’ve left the embassy except the guards, and they barely looked at me.

Someone opens my door from the outside and grabs me before I fall out. I think it’s the other man, not Yusef. His hands feel bigger and less aggressive. He starts to lead me down what feels like a dirt path under my feet. I hear some other male voices getting louder as we continue forward. One of them says in Pashto, “Did anyone see you take her?”

Yusef replies no.

The other man who has ahold of my arm says, “Step up.”

I climb up four steps and cross a door threshold. I can tell I’m inside now—the wind has stopped hitting me. The man drops my arm, and pulls off my hood. I’m standing in the middle of a foyer of a mountain cabin. There are steps to my left, and I notice someone walking down them. I turn to see an old man.

“Yasmine,” he says, looking directly at me.

I don’t recognize him as he gets closer. He has a full head of gray hair and a shaggy gray beard. His skin is so wrinkled and worn—it looks like he’s been standing on the sun’s surface for a week straight.

“You don’t recognize me. But, why would you?” He’s speaking in English with a heavy Bosnian accent. “We haven’t seen each other for twenty-five years.”

He gets within a foot of me, and I know I have never seen this face. I’m searching for any clues, but nothing is coming to me.

Yusef comes up behind me and slaps me on the back of the head. “You don’t remember your uncle?”

The man glares at Yusef. “I apologize for Yusef. You are bringing back bad memories for him. Do you know that he was supposed to marry your mother—my sister—before your father raped her?”

It comes to me like a bolt of lightning striking me on the head. This man is Sayid Custovic. My uncle. I stare at him for a good minute without talking. No one has seen him in decades, and I know now that even if they did, no one would recognize him. He has aged at least fifty years from the last picture I’ve seen of him.

“Ah, now I can see in your eyes that you know who I am. I’m afraid the cancer in my body has aged me well beyond my years. You, however, look exactly like your mother did the last time I saw her—young and beautiful. She was about your age when she was murdered.”

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