Gavin yawned on the other end of the line. “I was just hot-dropping my frigate through a wormhole.”
“Excuse me?”
“EVE Online, dude. You should play.”
“Thanks for calling, Gav. You got my e-mail, I take it?”
“Sure did. Sorry that other list didn’t work out. There were some real cuties. Any chance you at least got a date or two out of it?”
Jack laughed. “Not exactly why I’m here. But thanks anyway. So, do you think you can pull another list together for me?”
“Won’t be a problem, but it will take a little while. I remember culling out a bunch of candidates from the original search because I was only looking for blondes. Shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes, maybe less.”
“Wow. That fast?”
“We aim to please.”
“Shoot that to me as soon as you can. And thanks again. I really do appreciate it.”
“It’s for your mom, dude. No problem.”
Gavin hung up and Jack pocketed his phone. That was really good news, Jack thought. But it also meant he needed to get back to his place. He’d have to do his sightseeing some other time, and his ćevapi would have to wait.
He turned and headed back for the Latin Bridge. It was a good thing there wasn’t a tollbooth at this crosswalk, otherwise he’d be paying a fortune. It just proved how good the Airbnb apartment’s location was.
Jack kept an eye out for the man in the Ray-Bans in his peripheral vision but didn’t pick anyone up as he sped past knots of tourists and locals checking out the fruits and vegetables at an outdoor stand.
He turned off the main street and onto a narrower one, then left again onto the street facing his building, past a bar where two old men smoked cigarettes and drank beer in the sunshine. He turned the next corner into the little alleyway leading to the parking lot that fronted his entrance and turned sharply again and slammed his back against the wall of his building.
Listening.
The soft clop of leather soles on concrete stuttered nearer. A suit coat turned the corner—
Jack grabbed the heavily muscled man by the lapels and spun him around in a one-eighty, like a ballroom swing. The man’s wide back slammed into the concrete wall and he oofed as he hit, his Ray-Bans clattering to the ground.
“Who the hell—” But Jack was cut short by an unexpected elbow punch to his chest. It was weak because the man had no momentum behind the thrust, but it was hard enough to knock Jack’s grip loose.
But before the man could throw another punch, Jack was already in counterattack mode, returning the favor of an elbow strike, but this one fired straight into the man’s pockmarked face.
The man howled as the cartilage in his nose broke, gushing blood onto his shirt.
Jack pulled his arm back to launch a devastating strike with his right fist when a pistol racked behind his ear.
Oh, shit.
28
NEAR THE ITALY–SLOVENIA BORDER
The Italian customs officer boarded the Gulfstream 550 in the FBO hangar at the Trieste airport, and after a cursory inspection stamped passports and wished everyone a good stay in his country.
Dominic “Dom” Caruso, Adara Sherman, and Bartosz “Midas” Jankowski deplaned without luggage. The director of transportation, Lisanne Robertson, a former Marine and the newest member of The Campus team, stayed behind, in keeping with her role as security for the plane and crew, though nobody believed that the sleepy port city posed much of a threat to anybody on this operation.
The three Americans picked up the rental van that Lisanne had arranged, and headed for Nova Gorica, just thirty minutes across the border. The Trieste airport was the closet one in the region to the small Slovenian city. Paradoxically, the quickest route was also the longest, according to the GPS, but even that “highway” was only a two-lane through mostly flat farm country, heading toward the mountains. They passed through a customs station without issue and arrived at the police directorate complex in Nova Gorica in less than an hour.
Gerry Hendley put Dom in the lead for this particular mission, though he had fewer years in the field as an operative than Midas, a retired U.S. Army Ranger colonel. Not that the rock-jawed snake eater couldn’t break down an Iraqi insurgent or a Taliban fighter in a field interrogation under combat conditions, but as an FBI agent seconded to The Campus, Dom had the superior experience and qualifications to conduct a softer, civilian investigation. Normally, Gerry would have sent Ding Chavez or John Clark to head up an operation like this, but the two of them were in Pretoria, South Africa, on a consult with the “Recces”—the South African Special Forces Brigade. Dom was glad for the chance to show his leadership skills.
The goal today was to first meet Detective Oblak and discuss Jack’s case and, after gaining his confidence, persuade him to arrange a meeting with Elena Iliescu to try to get her to open up about the attack and her possible connection to the Iron Syndicate.
Dom suggested Midas wait in the van while he and Adara made the first attempt. Two people, one a woman, would appear less threatening than three in a room.
A frosted-haired woman in a gray jumpsuit and wearing a photo badge sat behind the small security desk in the lobby, focused intently on her computer screen. Dom approached her with a big, friendly smile.
Dober dan—Good morning—were the only two words of Slovenian that Dom spoke, and he’d picked that up from Google Translate only ten minutes ago. He’d found over the years that just saying hello in the local language broke the ice, especially with overworked bureaucrats.
The middle-aged woman glanced up from her screen with a sour look on her face, like somebody had double-dipped a chip in her guacamole.
“Dober dan.”
Clearly his mastery of Slovenian wasn’t up to snuff, Dom thought. So much for breaking the ice. He soldiered on.
“We have an appointment to see Detective Oblak.”
“Your identity papers, please.”
Dom and Adara handed over their passports. Dom included his FBI credentials in a separate wallet.
The woman scanned the documents, unimpressed. She handed them back.
“Let me check his log.” Her red-lacquered nails clacked on the keyboard. A screen pulled up. She shook her head.
“Detective Oblak isn’t here.”
Dom stepped closer to the desk. “I’m sorry? There must be some confusion. He’s expecting us.” He wanted to add, “And we’ve traveled over four thousand miles to get here,” but he bit his tongue. Quantico had taught him that little trick. “Keeps an agent from sticking his foot in his yapper,” his training officer had explained.
“He’s not available. He’s out in the field.”
“Perhaps you can call him for us? It’s quite urgent.”
The woman frowned an Are you kidding me? glance over the top of her reading glasses.
Adara smiled. “We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t extremely important.”
The woman sighed, picked up a cordless phone, and dialed. A man’s voice answered on the other end. They chatted in Slovenian. Dom and Adara didn’t understand a word.
The woman’s eyebrows raised. She handed Dom the phone.
“Detective Oblak will speak to you.”
“Thanks.” Dom took the receiver. “This is Dominic Caruso.”
“Mr. Caruso, I’m sorry I missed our appointment in regards to Elena Iliescu. I’m at the hospital right now. Why don’t you come over here and we can discuss the matter further.”
“In the hospital? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Thank you for asking. It’s Elena Iliescu you should be asking about.”
“How is she?”
“She’s quite dead.”
“Dead? How?”
“It’s obvious,” Oblak said in a flat, even voice. “You killed her.”
29
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I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dom said into the phone, glancing over at Adara. She was clearly concerned.
“When your office set the appointment to meet with me to discuss her case, you signed her death warrant.”
“That’s a serious accusation. Like you said, maybe we need to come over there and talk about it.”
“I’ll text you the address, Mr. Caruso. Meet me in the morgue. And please, drive carefully. The roads here are quite dangerous.”
* * *
—
In their respective lines of work, Dom and Adara, a former combat medic, had seen plenty of corpses in their day, many of them in states of ruin so horrific they wouldn’t dare describe them to their civilian friends.
But Elena Iliescu’s lifeless body on the coroner’s slab was pristine. Her firm, toned body was completely intact. Even her breasts were full and round, no doubt the result of skillful plastic surgery.
Rather than dead, she appeared to be just sleeping. Dom swore she’d wake up at any minute.
“The coroner will confirm the cause of death this afternoon, but the attending physician assures me it was heart failure, likely brought on by a catastrophic myocardial infarction. Iliescu was dead at the scene.”
“Where was she when she died?”
“We put her in one of our safe houses, under police protection, as per her request.”
“And I take it no one came in or out of the house?”
“Only the clinic nurse who was called in when Iliescu complained of a minor headache.” At Dom’s skeptical look he added, “We checked her out. That nurse has worked at that clinic for eleven years.”
Adara pointed at the corpse. “She’s in better shape than most Olympic athletes. She can’t be more than thirty-five years old.”
“Thirty-two, according to her passport,” Oblak said.
“A heart attack for a woman this age and in this condition is highly unlikely,” Adara said.
“Which is why you suspect foul play,” Dom said.
Oblak shrugged. “It’s quite a coincidence that about the same time your plane landed in Trieste, this woman was being pronounced dead, don’t you think?”
“Which is why you accused us of killing her.”
“Someone killed her and chose this time to do it. The only independent variable in this equation is you. Something about you coming here resulted in this woman’s death.”
“Well, we sure as hell didn’t tell anybody we were coming. That leaves your people.”
Oblak’s jaw clenched. “And you’re accusing me of divulging your arrival and your intention of meeting with this woman?”
“You, or someone in your office.” Dom wondered if the Iron Syndicate might have had sources inside Oblak’s organization.
Maybe the person was Oblak himself.
“Not possible,” the Slovenian said.
“I wouldn’t expect you to say anything else. But if I’m right, then you know you have a problem inside your department and you’re going to have to deal with it.”
Adara felt the heat rising between these two roosters. She decided to intervene before the feathers started to fly.
“Why do you think anyone would want to kill her?” Adara asked.
Oblak’s rugged mouth broke into a thin smile. “I was hoping you might shed some light on the subject. Who, indeed, would have a motive to want to see her dead, a woman on the verge of filing charges against the man she claimed attacked her?”
“Jack Ryan had nothing to do with this, I assure you,” Dom said. Jack was one of the best guys he knew, and not just because they were cousins.
“Ms. Sherman asked me why anyone would want to kill her. The term of art is ‘motive,’ and right now, the only person on the planet I’m aware of that might have any motive whatsoever is Jack Ryan.”
“You don’t really believe Jack Ryan tried to hurt that woman.”
“Highly unlikely. But that’s what we were investigating”—Oblak glanced at Elena’s corpse—“until this happened.” He turned back to Dom. “So tell me, why is an FBI agent getting involved in this case?”
“Officially, this isn’t an FBI case. I just happen to work for them. Jack is a close friend, and he works for another friend of mine, Gerry Hendley. So does Ms. Sherman.”
“Yes, Gerry Hendley. The former senator. Jack Ryan has many good friends, some in very high places.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“And for whatever reason, Elena Iliescu allegedly attacked him, and now she is dead.” Oblak’s eyes bore into Dom’s. “Where does that leave me?”
Up shit creek, Dom thought. Just like me. He’d come all this way to try to find out Elena Iliescu’s connection to the Iron Syndicate, if any, and why they wanted to kill Jack. He was prepared to cajole or bribe her with offers of protection or even cash to get answers, but now she was gone. His only hope at the moment was Oblak.
“Sometimes cases don’t get solved. It’s part of the business.”
“True, but the case isn’t closed yet, is it?” He glanced back down at the corpse. “Such a shame. A beautiful young woman, dead for no apparent reason.”
Dom wasn’t sure how much to confide in the Slovenian detective, particularly in regard to the Iron Syndicate—what little Dom actually knew. But there was something about the way Oblak presented himself. He was definitely not happy that the two of them were standing here with no apparent authority over a corpse that used to be his primary suspect and/or witness to an attempted murder.
Oblak might just be a local cop who resented the hell out of the arrival of an American FBI agent into his jurisdiction. God knows he got that kind of reaction when he encountered insecure or incompetent law enforcement back home, which fortunately wasn’t too often.
Oblak didn’t strike him as either insecure or incompetent, but then again, it was too early to tell. If he wasn’t either of those things, then why did he resent their presence? Was he hiding something? Dom just couldn’t be sure, and a silent exchange with Adara confirmed his own hesitation to divulge Iliescu’s Iron Syndicate connection. Better not tip their hand just yet.
“You said that there was no one you could think of with a motive other than Jack. I can think of two more,” Dom said.
“Enlighten me.”
Dom pointed at the corpse. “The first person is her.”
“You think she killed herself?”
“It’s possible.”
“With what motive?”
“The same as the other suspect.”
“And who might that be?”
“I believe Jack when he said that this woman tried to kill him. Either she was doing it for herself or she was instructed to do so by somebody else.”
“Instructed, or hired,” Adara added.
“So your other suspect is Iliescu’s unknown employer?”
“Logically, those are your only two choices.”
“But I still don’t have a motive for why she would kill herself, or why her employer would order her to kill herself or have someone else kill her.”
“Sure you do. It’s Jack. Or, technically, her failure to kill Jack. If her employer is anything like the Mexican cartels or the Russian Mafia, her failure to execute her mission would result in a far more gruesome death than one she might inflict upon herself. That, or her employer had her killed because she was in your custody and they were afraid she might betray them.” Dom grinned. “But you already thought of all that, didn’t you?”
“We may be a small country of villages, but we don’t raise idiots, Mr. Caruso.”
“Do you have any idea who might have hired her, or who wanted to kill Jack?” Adara asked.
“The only reason why I agreed to meet with you, and allow you to interview her, was to find the answers to both of those qu
estions. My office has limited resources, and unfortunately, we’ve reached a dead end.”
Or you’re trying to find out what we know because you’re on the same payroll as her, Dom thought. And if you are, Detective Oblak, your life is at risk now, too.
But trying to guess Oblak’s motives was a losing game. Dom decided to throw the dice.
“Have you ever heard of the Iron Syndicate?” Dom asked.
Oblak shook his head. “No. What is it?”
Dom was pretty good at catching people lying. But so were most cops. Which was why cops were harder to catch at lying than just about anybody else, even other cops. Maybe Oblak knew more than he was letting on, but there was no way to tell from his body language.
“We don’t know much. It’s an international criminal enterprise. There’s a very weak link between Iliescu and that organization. A friend-of-a-friend kind of thing.”
“I can call my intelligence unit and put in an inquiry. Why would this Iron Syndicate want to kill Jack Ryan?”
“That’s what we came here to ask her about.” Dom looked at the corpse. “And she ain’t talking.”
“My advice to you, then, is to retrace her steps. She told us she had come from Trieste, which we have since confirmed. I can get you her address there.” Oblak pulled up his phone to forward it.
“I don’t want to step on any Italian toes,” Dom said. Italian cops were as touchy as anybody else about outsiders intruding on their turf.
Oblak shrugged. “The coroner is driving up from Ljubljana. That means he won’t be performing the autopsy until later this afternoon. Legally, I’m not required to issue a notice of death to the Italian government until the cause of death is confirmed. Depending on the bloodwork, that might be as late as tomorrow morning.”
Dom’s phone dinged. He checked it. Iliescu’s Trieste address. If they left now, they could be there within the hour. Plenty of time to snoop around the place before the Italian police would even know they’d been there.
Interesting.
“That’s awfully generous of you, Detective.”