Appointment In Baghdad

The Executioner pushed himself up from his prone position, weapon at the ready. He shuffled backward across the street, his eyes scanning the restaurant and alley for even the slightest hint of hostile movement. He made it across the street and onto the sidewalk, then turned and sprinted down a small side street, putting solid cover between himself and the battlefield.

The CIA would be unhappy about a back door source into the People’s Republic CCI being shot to pieces, but Bolan could legitimately argue that it hadn’t been his fault. Gangsters killed off one another on a frequent basis. The higher the profits at stake, the more likely violence became.

Jigsaw Liu worked a dangerous profession but Bolan didn’t believe in coincidences. It was a very real likelihood that Liu had been silenced because of him, which meant his mission was compromised from the very beginning.

The Executioner would be leaving Hong Kong with unanswered questions.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Bolan took a commercial flight into Zagreb International Airport.

He navigated the transglobal route with an almost mechanical competency. Weapons and identification were dumped with the CIA in Hong Kong after he made one report to the case officer and a second one to Stony Man. A layover in Manila was followed by a connecting flight to Bangkok, Thailand. In Thailand he destroyed his papers and obtained new ones from a dead drop in an airport locker.

Under his new papers he flew out of Bangkok and into Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There he noticed a marked increase in Westerners in both the airport and on his own flight to Izmir, Turkey.

In Izmir, Bolan used a safehouse to shift identities once again while he waited during a four-hour layover for a flight into Zagreb on Turkish Airlines. At the safehouse he was able to utilize secure communications to catch up on the progress Encizo and James had made so far. After a nap and a shower, Bolan was in the air to Croatia.

As the plane veered into its runway approach, Bolan was able to see the gleaming ribbon of the Sava river just to the south of the city. Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, was situated between the southern slopes of the Medvednica Mountains and the north bank of the Sava river. The commercial flight touched down and Bolan was able to sail through customs with his immaculate paperwork and only a small carry-on to check.

Outside the modern terminal Calvin James and Rafael Encizo waited for him in the passenger pickup area. The two Stony Man commandos greeted Bolan like old friends and the three “representatives” of North American International climbed into their waiting Ford Excursion.

“That beard’s coming in nice,” Calvin James said with a smile.

“Thanks. It itches like hell,” Bolan replied. “You wait, once we finish dealing with Mirjana you’ll get your chance.”

After sliding into the shotgun seat, Bolan saw immediately that the Excursion was a diplomatic special, possibly left over from the days of violence in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. Such a vehicle would be outfitted with upgraded communications, executive armor, a more powerful engine than factory stock and concealed compartments for prohibited equipment such as weapons or surveillance devices.

Encizo pulled the big SUV into traffic and headed northwest out of the village of Pleso toward the congestion of Slavonska-Držićeva Avenue some fourteen kilometers away.

“How was you flight, Mack?” Encizo asked from behind the vehicle’s steering wheel.

The stocky, square-faced Cuban commando was an experienced underwater warfare specialist and urban operator who had cut his teeth in anti-Castro actions before joining the Stony Man team.

“Good enough, though I was feeling about as incognito as a circus clown on some of my flights out of Hong Kong.”

James snorted his laughter from the backseat. “Hell, try being us being here if you want difficulty blending in.”

Bolan smiled and nodded. Such problems had been a consideration when he’d chosen how to staff the operation. While he’d almost picked others from Phoenix Force, Bolan had finally decided that what was a hindrance for the minor action in Croatia would become an advantage once the team reached Baghdad.

“You have trouble with Mirjana because of that?” Bolan asked.

Encizo shook his head. “No, he bought it completely that we were purchasing agents for North American International. We played up the whole running-wild-on-an-expense-account thing.”

“Sounds like you had more success than I did,” Bolan noted. In precise, clipped details he ran down the events that had unfolded in Hong Kong and Jigsaw Liu’s final words.

Encizo let out a long, low whistle as Bolan finished describing what had happened in the Hong Kong pit.

“Scimitar’s a lie?” James asked. “Does that make sense?”

“Only in context,” Bolan said. “Unfortunately, we don’t understand that context.”

Encizo steered the Excursion down an off-ramp and exited onto the modern expressway that encircled the city. From the expressway Bolan could look out and see the most notable landmarks of Zagreb’s skyline: the Euro, HOTO and Cibona towers. On the expressway Encizo began to speed toward the northwest corner of Zagreb.

“Well, Mirjana is the real deal,” James said.

“He offer you weapons?” Bolan asked.

“Yep, get this. Once I made my introduction and gave him the information for North American International, he verified our employment with the company through standard channels.”

“Typical.”

“Sure, Gary’s people vouched for us no problem. But then the Croatian government asked for information on the company from the State Department as a ‘diplomatic favor.’ Gary has his network security tied into Stony Man. Aaron said he was able to detect an info-snatch worm originating from the HIS that cracked our cover personnel files and North American International’s authorization package to operate as a private military contract company in Iraq.”

“HIS?” Bolan grunted. “No one told us Mirjana was that well connected.”

The HIS, Hrvatska Izvestajna Sluzba, or Croatian Intelligence Service, was the youngest agency in the former Yugoslavia republic’s espionage community. It had been first commissioned in the winter of 1993 and dealt exclusively with the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence for coordination and dissemination to other branches of the Croat government and intelligence community.

As the majority of information collected by the HIS was utilized through the office of the president and his closest advisers on the cabinet, their involvement with Mirjana was potentially ominous.

“Apparently this is news. Aaron doesn’t want to share what this proves with the DNI because he’s afraid that once the Agency finds out, they’ll call Mirjana off-limits and try to exploit him,” James said.

“Oh, we were here first,” Bolan said. “That crooked Syrian bastard al-Kassar might have a pass for now, but Mirjana is all ours.”

“That’s what Barb says, too,” James agreed. “Hal’s going along with it for now. Part of the confusion is that we aren’t really able to tell where Mirjana pulls his arms from. It isn’t Croatian stocks except in small numbers.”

“I thought he was initially an executive with RH-Alan?” Bolan questioned, referring to the infamous Croatian arms company.

“He was, until 2000. Made his millions off government contracts during the conflicts, then he retired. Most intelligence reports had him figured for getting his supplies through them.”

“Looks like they figured wrong,” Encizo said. “Either way, we can purchase light or heavy infantry weapons, parts for armored personal carriers, including the electronics for cutting-edge systems, night-vision equipment and engineering explosives. He hinted he could go larger, but we really didn’t have a reason to be asking about laser-guided bombs. Still, most of the stocks are not Croatian armed forces mainstays.”

“He didn’t ask why you need black-market weapons with a U.S. government license to operate?”

“We told him there were restrictions we wanted to circumvent on numbers and types of munitions. He saw a sale and greed did the rest.”

Bolan nodded. “Betting on greed usually works.”

“Only to a degree in this case,” James said. “He flatly refused to discuss anything beyond business transactions. If we want information from him, we’re going to have to take it.”

“That’s not a problem,” Bolan said.

K ARL M IRJANA’S SPRAWLING estate sat nestled in a gentle saddle among the foothills of the Medvednica Mountains. In some ways it reminded Bolan of Stony Man Farm, with a large dacha-style main house, attached garages and numerous outbuildings. One of the structures was a luxurious hunting lodge—set at the edge of the estate on the woods leading to the southern slopes of the mountains—where Mirjana was known to conduct his business. A small paved airstrip was set on a patch of level ground on the river side of the estate.

Just beyond the airstrip Mirjana’s property abutted a bend in the river. A two-story yacht was moored to a man-made jetty of boulders that sheltered the craft from the river current.

James and Encizo had done preliminary reconnaissance of the Mirjana estate. The man’s defenses were considerable and appeared left over from the 1995 battles with Serbian forces: ground surveillance microphones, electronic sensors, commercial alarms and land mines along certain approaches.

Mirjana kept a small cadre of former members of the Serbian Special Police Units, the SMJ, as bodyguards. It was at first confusing why a Croatian arms dealer would be using Serbian commandos who had been accused of war crimes against his own people.