47. Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter forty-seven
Captain Zeqiri edged to the ramshackle metal wall surrounding the scrapyard, took a knee, and there he waited. He let his eyes and ears adjust to the shadows and the sounds of nature, to the deep pools of blackness, and the gentle whisper of the wind through the leaning towers of junk.
Sergeant Besnik settled into a crouch a few yards away, leaving enough space between them that a single sniper would not be able to pick them both off within seconds.
These were hard men who had survived the house to house fighting of the Kosovo war and they knew how quickly a squad of soldiers could be killed by a belt-fed machine gun or a well-trained sniper.
Zeqiri eyed the dark landscape of piled junk, searching for movement. A rodent the size of a small cat scurried through the maze of trash at the foot of a hill, and cockroaches skittered among the ruins, but he caught no sign of his quarry.
Besnik intently studied the scene before them, then he caught Zeqiri’s eye, gave a shrug and shook his head, signaling that he didn’t see anything either.
Walking right into a trap, Zeqiri told himself. And yet, it was a trap he had to walk into. The American already knew too much. He bared his teeth in a silent growl of frustration.
Sweat greased his skin and loosened his grip on the rifle. Wind rustled in the long grass. The world seemed preternaturally still.
As a soldier, as a commander of men, Zeqiri knew that sometimes one simply had to walk toward death.
It would not be the first time in his career he had ordered his men into the line of fire, hopefully it would be the last. He was just about to move when he picked up a faint distant clank, like someone had unwittingly kicked an empty tin can in the darkness.
It was so soft, Zeqiri wasn’t even sure he’d actually heard it over the sound of the wind and his own heartbeat. He turned back to Besnik who nodded and silently jabbed a finger north and west, toward the center of the scrapyard.
***
Mehmet and Stafa had passed the perimeter fence, moving from mound to mound, bent at the waist with their weapons tucked tight to their shoulders. They had come in from the north, sweeping south, going slow, alert for any hint of danger.
Mehmet had let Stafa take the lead. As they worked their way from cover to cover, he would move short distances while Stafa, always overeager, pushed to cover more ground.
During the war, Mehmet had lived when others died because he’d been smart enough to be a part of the battle without ever putting himself front and center.
They say fortune favors the bold, but in Mehmet’s experience, the bold usually end up with a sucking chest wound.
Let hard chargers like Stafa have all the glory, Mehmet was interested in going home with all his limbs at the end of the day.
He stood with his shoulder to a wall of impacted cars, there must be twenty of them all smashed together into a precarious tower, peeking at the silent hills of rusting metal.
They should have had night vision for a job like this.
Mehmet could barely make out the empty lanes between the trash heaps in the darkness.
But when they’d hatched this scheme, none of them expected to be fighting gun battles with American agents in the middle of the night.
In fact, according to the Captain, the whole thing was going to be simple. A few months to acquire the materials, a few months for the doctor to run his tests, and then they’d all be rich. The guns were just a precaution.
Only it hadn’t turned out that way. First there had been the prosecutor.
Doctor Kadare had insisted they deal with him.
Then there had been the reporter and her husband.
And of course, the village. Mehmet had known they would test the virus, he had known people would die.
He’d thought he was okay with that. Getting married and having a children had apparently changed him.
Made him soft. He had done his part, but he didn’t like it.
In fact, he’d secretly started to wonder if the money was worth it.
Is it worth your soul?
He didn’t have an answer to that, but raising two girls was an expensive proposition in the modern world. Mehmet wanted to give his children a better future, and that meant university. Maybe university in American. That cost money.
A soft clank caught his attention. He straightened up. His head cocked to the left. He turned to Stafa, put a hand to his ear, then pointed in the direction he thought he’d heard the noise.
Stafa, now in his fifties with bad eyes and bad ears, nodded and moved in that direction.
***
“There it is again,” Sergeant Besnik whispered.
Zeqiri nodded. He definitely heard something. Goodman was here somewhere, moving among the piles, trying to stay silent.
They had worked their way into the junkyard, moving quietly. Zeqiri felt like someone had set the world on broil. He was slicked with sweat. His damp shirt clung to his back.
Besnik narrowed his eyes and pointed. “That way, I think.”
Zeqiri turned in the direction Besnik had indicated and eased around a low hill of foul-smelling garbage teeming with cockroaches and buzzing flies. The smell was enough to make his eyes water.
They were close to the center of the junkyard now. Zeqiri kept glancing up at the crane, hoping for a signal of some kind from Osmani. He’d have a good view of the entire complex from there, but the sharpshooter was keeping quiet and staying hidden. That was his job, after all.
Another soft rustle, clothing maybe, filtered to Zeqiri through the mounds. They were definitely getting closer. Zeqiri moved in a crouch, his weapon leading the way, eyes open wide for targets.
He spied movement and nearly pulled the trigger, before realizing he had caught sight of Stafa and Mehmet creeping amid the lanes of decaying appliances.
There was another soft clank and a gentle shifting noise, and still it was nearly impossible to tell which direction it had come from.
An evil thought occurred to Zeqiri. Maybe this wasn’t a trap at all. Maybe it was a diversion. Maybe the American knew the location of the lab and he’d lured Zeqiri and his men here to make sure the doctor was alone.
Should they go back?
Zeqiri chewed his tongue while he worked through the options.
He put his back against an old refrigerator.
Besnik hunkered next to him. Stafa and Mehmet were directly across from them with a narrow open space between where the piles of trash formed an intersection of sorts.
Zeqiri gazed around at the silent lanes.
Nothing. He made up his mind to return to the lab when something flashed.
The sudden brilliance bloomed like ghost fire in the dark junkyard. The light winked out just as quickly. It had come from the middle of the intersection.
Zeqiri raised his rifle to his shoulder and scanned his surroundings. Something lay in the weeds in the open space, something electronic. He expected an ambush, but where would it come from? He glanced again at the crane.
No sign from Osmani.
Zeqiri turned back to the intersection, narrowing his eyes. He waited but nothing happened. After what felt like an interminable stretch of time, he finally silently ordered Besnik into the open.
“Go check it out.”
Besnik hesitated.
“Go check it out, sergeant.”
Besnik pushed away from the refrigerator, creeping into the open lanes. He scooped up something from the ground.
“Xanders phone.”
Zeqiri rose up and went to Besnik’s side. The sergeant held Xanders mobile phone. It had received a text which was still displayed on the screen but the message was simply an ellipsis.
Wind cooled the slick of perspiration on Zeqiri’s neck.
At the same time, he heard a gentle creak followed by a hollow clank, like an empty tin can.
His eyes narrowed. He searched the area and found a simple metal sheet, dented and rust covered, attached to a stick by way of duct tape.
The rusting square stuck up like a flag from a nearby pile of junk, small enough to go mostly unnoticed among the shoulders of refuse scattered throughout the yard.
Tied to the base of the stick was a small empty oilcan.
Every time the wind blew the tin flag shifted, turning the stick and rope to tug at the can, causing it to rattle.
Not much, just enough to sound like someone moving stealthily among the debris.
Zeqiri’s heart sank. A cold fist of dread wrapped around his heart. He was a dead man. He started to raise his weapon, certain of an ambush, when he spotted the car dangling from the crane arm.
The flag and tin can had positioned his men directly under two and a half tons of steel.
There was a loud mechanical clonk. The crane arm shuddered open, releasing the old automobile in its gasp. The car did a midair tumble as it started to plummet.
“Scatter!” Zeqiri shouted.
That much metal comes down fast and hard. The vehicle slammed to the earth with bone jarring force, shaking the ground, sending waves of dust and dirt flying in all directions.
Zeqiri just managed to leap clear, throwing himself to the ground and rolling. Sergeant Besnik was not so lucky. The hapless sergeant had just enough time to crane his neck back. His eyes went wide and his mouth stretched in a silent scream before he disappeared under the metallic hulk.
The thunderous impact had shorted out Zeqiri’s hearing.
He had a high pitched ringing in his ears.
His eyes were full of dust, causing them to tear up and see double.
He coughed. It felt like someone had stuffed his mouth with dry cake batter.
He had to clear his throat before he could yell, “He’s in the crane. Kill him!”