CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The two-car caravan bounced over Kosovo’s rutted roads. Most of the paving had worn away, leaving muddy rainwater-filled depressions. Soon the pavement disappeared altogether and the road was nothing more than washboarded, potholed dirt. Worried about jostling Yanni, Bob slowed down and avoided the potholes as best he could.
Bob’s attempts at conversation with the hawk-faced man, Stefan, had met with limited success. So far he’d learned only that he and his men were KLA members, fleeing to Albania to avoid Serb arrest warrants.
“We murdered a Serb general and his aide last week,” Stefan boasted.
Bob had studied piles of intelligence before leaving Langley. There’d been no report of a Serb general being assassinated.
Two miles north of Djakovica, Bob turned to the west and followed another dirt road through dense forest. After five minutes, he stopped the car. The Fiat pulled up behind him. He checked his GPS. They were slightly more than a mile from the Albanian border.
“End of the line,” Bob said, more to himself than to his passenger.
Stefan looked confused at Bob’s use of American slang. “This is as far as I can take the car,” Bob explained. “I’ll have to leave it here.”
“We will go along with you,” Stefan said.
“That’s not necessary,” Bob answered.
The leader shrugged. “You are going in the same direction as we are.”
Bob threat sensors were all on high alert. Stefan and his crew gave him the creeps. “Maybe one of you could stay with my friend,” he said. “I don’t want to leave him alone in the car.”
“Fine,” Stefan said. “But we should move him into the forest, out of sight of any patrol that might come this way.
“Good idea,” Bob said.
Bob grabbed the strap of an infrared night-vision scope from the back of the car and draped it around his neck. Then he and the man named Zulkar carefully pulled Yanni, partially conscious now, from the car. They each shouldered one of Yanni’s arms and began walking toward the treeline. Yanni groaned with each step. Stefan, Zoran, and Kukoch followed.
“Stefan,” Zoran whispered. “Why are we following this man? We can kill him and his friend right here, take their car, and go back home.”
Stefan glared at the man, then ran a hand through his thick white hair. He took Zoran’s arm and pulled him to him. “This guy is no reporter. Yes, I can kill him, but he’s up to something. I want to find out what. Maybe there’s money involved.” He shrugged and let go of Zoran’s arm.
The group moved forty yards into the trees, with Bob and Zulkar half-carrying, half-dragging Yanni. Suddenly, from a clump of trees ahead, came the sound of voices. They all dove to the ground. But the voices did not come any nearer.
“Doesn’t sound like Serbo-Croatian,” Bob said in a hushed voice to Zoran, who lay next to him.
“Albanian. Maybe KLA. They vill shoot us just like the Serbs vould.”
“I thought you were KLA,” Bob said.
Zoran snorted. “What gives you such crazy idea?”
Bob’s pulse rate accelerated. His instincts had already told him these men were “wrong.” He didn’t yet know what he’d gotten himself into, but he knew it was nothing good.
Then the voices stopped. No sounds of movement from the trees. Stefan and Kukoch crawled closer to Bob.
“We need to get away from here,” Stefan said. “We’ll leave your friend here. He’d just slow us down.”
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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...
