CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
After hours of waiting in Sweeney’s command post for news of Michael, Jack got a ride back to his hotel. He needed to shower and change. Then he’d return to the Army base. He dragged into the lobby and was walking toward the stairs when a man’s urgent voice called across the lobby: “Mr. Cole!”
Jack turned tired eyes toward the voice and saw the desk clerk beckoning him. What the hell now? He walked over to the man.
“A Mr. Danforth called for you several times,” the clerk said, handing Jack four message slips. “He wants you to call him as soon as possible.”
Jack took the messages and mumbled, “Thanks.” He felt heaviness on his heart like never before while he walked back over to the stairs. How could he tell Bob and Liz about Michael? His body slumped. He looked at his watch. Ten p.m. in Bethesda.
After he reached his room, Jack shucked his shirt and began unlacing a shoe, at the same time holding the telephone receiver to his ear and waiting for the overseas operator to make the connection. The phone rang on the other side of the Atlantic. Please don’t be home, he prayed.
“Hello!” It was Bob, and not Liz, thank God.
“It’s Jack.”
“Jack, I’ve been trying to reach you all day. You’ve got to find Michael and warn him. Miriana’s father is Stefan Radko. Must be the same Radko.”
“Bob, I need to–”
“Let me finish. You know Radko hates my guts because of what happened to his own son. There’s no telling what he’ll do to Michael to get even with me. You’ve got to protect my son. You’ve–”
Jack interrupted. “It’s already too late. The Serbs kidnapped Michael this morning. We’re trying to find him before they get too deep into Yugoslavia. And Radko was involved. He set Michael up.”
Jack waited for Bob to respond, but all he heard was a light buzz over the line. “Bob,” Jack said softly, “did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard,” Bob said, flatly. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it. I’m sor–”
“I’ve got to tell Liz,” Bob said. There was a click, then a dial tone.
Jack forced away his fatigue. He stripped off the rest of his clothes, moving with renewed, anger-fed energy. He took a quick shower, shaved, brushed his teeth. After putting on clean clothes, he rushed downstairs and drove back to the American base.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
When Jack walked back into Sweeney’s command post, the silence in the room told him there’d been no news of Michael.
Sweeney’s face was a steel mask. “Nothing! Not a damn thing,” he told Jack.
“Anyone question Radko?”
“Yeah. The sonofabitch admitted his complicity and seemed proud of it. He told us he at first thought they were just a bunch of farmers, but he figured, after a while, they were Serb soldiers. The bastards killed his son, and he still hasn’t given the slightest indication he’s sorry about what he did.”
The phone rang. Jack noticed everyone in the room watching while Major Krumka, the Intelligence Officer, picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, then handed it to him. “It’s for you,” Krumka said. “NIMA’s got something.”
“Put it on speaker mode,” Jack said. That done, he said loudly, “Cole here. Go ahead.”
“Okay,” said the voice on the line. “We couldn’t see much with the SAR satellite until the sun came up. The last satellite pass went over the Preshevo area ten minutes ago. A couple miles north of the city, we saw a vehicle nose down in a ravine. Another of our satellites – an infrared unit – got a weak heat signature off its engine. With computer enhancement, we picked up U.S. Army insignia. It’s the Jeep your man was driving when he got snatched.”
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EVIL DEEDS
Misteri / ThrillerEvil Deeds is the first in a 4-book series that follows the Danforth family from the kidnapping of their 2-year-old son in Greece in 1971 to present day. The book (and series) is a roller coaster ride of action and suspense. This book, as with all o...
