PART II
1999
CHAPTER ONE
Liz lay next to Bob, one of her legs across his. She lightly rubbed his chest. “You made me feel wonderful,” she said.
“Uh huh.”
“There’s a snake in the bed; it’s about to bite you.”
“Umm,” Bob said.
Liz poked him. “You’re not even listening to me. What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry.” He turned toward her, stroked her thigh. “You know, the Agency ought to hire you as an interrogator.”
“Dammit, Bob. What’s wrong?”
Bob sighed. “I’m worried about the situation in Kosovo.”
“What do you have to do with that mess?”
“You know I can’t say.”
“What can you say?”
“That it’s a mess.”
“You’re just full of useful information,” Liz said, slipping out of bed.
CHAPTER TWO
Bob looked around Jack Cole’s spacious office while he waited for the CIA’s Special Operations Chief – and his long-time friend – to finish the phone call that had interrupted their conversation. He looked at the walls and thought about what could have been hanging there: the Silver Star Jack had earned in Vietnam, the Bronze Star with “V” device, the two Purple Hearts, the citations he’d won in his twenty-some years with the CIA. But there was only one “ego” item in sight: The photo of Jack’s sailboat.
Bob noticed there were more lines in Jack’s face and that his once sandy-blond hair had turned almost completely gray. Jack looked older than his fifty-two years. But the blue eyes were still alert, intelligent.
Jack replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle. “Bob, I don’t have to tell you how important this is,” he said. “You’re the only man in the Agency with the knowledge and experience to pull this off. You speak Serbo-Croatian, you’ve got years of fieldwork, you recruited our agents in Yugoslavia. Besides, as my Covert Operations Chief, you have to do what I tell you to do.”
Bob didn’t reply. Jack was just stating facts.
“The wild card over there is the Serb President,” Jack said. “His only concern is his own political survival. We’re convinced he won’t agree to any settlement involving Kosovo becoming an independent province. All our intelligence reports tell us the man is unstable, a megalomaniac with an insatiable appetite for power. If he isn’t controlled, sooner rather than later, this thing in the Balkans could become a regional disaster.”
“So you want to take out the Serb leader?” Bob asked.
“I wish it were that simple,” Jack said. “Killing the leader of a foreign country is not an option anymore. Not since Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided to handcuff the Agency.”
“I can’t believe any President would sign that legislation.”
Jack nodded. “We’ve got to find a way to limit the Serbs’ capacity to wage war, and maybe get the Serb President indicted for war crimes at the same time.”
“Tall order,” Bob said.
“I want you and your team to come up with a plan I can sell to the Director. I suggest you find a way to dilute the support the Serbs have in the international community. If we make it embarrassing enough for the Serbs’ allies to associate with the Serb President and his henchmen, maybe we can politically and economically isolate the Serbs. Without the Russians, for example, the Serbs’ supply lines will dry up.”
YOU ARE READING
EVIL DEEDS
Mystery / 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...
