57. Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter fifty-seven
By the time Captain Valmir Zeqiri reached the Palilula district and the derelict group of factories that housed the makeshift virology lab, he was close to a blind rage.
Abandoning his men, men who were almost certainly dead, had seemed like the correct mental math at the time. Now he wasn’t so sure.
He gripped the wheel of the Range Rover with white knuckles as he piloted the narrow lanes between abandoned buildings.
Rubber tires rumbled over sand, gravel and broken glass.
The sound of the engine echoed off cement walls.
Zeqiri had told himself a dozen times to turn the vehicle around, go back to the junkyard, and finish what he’d started.
Mehmet or Stafa might still be alive. After all, Zeqiri hadn’t actually seen them die.
And even if they weren’t, Zeqiri could avenge the deaths of his men. It was the least he could do.
And yet, he’d kept driving, getting madder and madder, until he sat behind the wheel with an ugly snarl on his face. He’d abandoned his men and saved his own skin, but at what cost?
At the end of the day, this whole venture had been about revenge and reward.
Revenge against the Serbs who had persecuted them, and reward for the men who’d fought valiantly against their oppressors.
Now his men were gone. A more cynical, more self-serving person would see this as a blessing.
The untimely deaths of his men meant more money for Zeqiri.
What good was money, what good was wealth, without knowing you had done right by the soldiers who had served under you, and fought bravely, and at the end of the day had given their lives for the cause?
What kind of a captain left his men to die?
Zeqiri growled to himself.
He slotted the Range Rover into a tight corridor that passed between two of the larger buildings, where it would be less likely to be spotted on satellite imagery.
He switched off the engine, got out and gave the side door a kick which left a sizable dent.
But one kick was not enough to vent Zeqiri’s frustration, so he gave the door three more hard boots, warping the fiberglass and chipping paint.
When he’d finished, when his big toe throbbed, he put his back to the SUV and let out a disgusted series of curses, aimed at himself.
A second series of curses were aimed at the American.
Who was the American anyway? Surely the CIA, or FBI, or even the United States military, would have sent more than just one man. They’d have sent a whole team of special operators equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and night vision goggles.
Goodman had been armed with nothing but steely determination and unwarranted optimism. Five against one was long odds, even for a battle-hardened veteran. Yet Goodman had waded in like a prototypical American who’d grown up on too many John Wayne movies. A real cowboy.
Zeqiri closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and promised himself he’d kill Goodman, if it was the last thing he did.
But that would have to wait. Right now, the important thing was the research, and the doctor.
Without knowing who Goodman worked for, Zeqiri had to assume the facility was now compromised and that the doctor, along with all his hard work, was also in danger.
Zeqiri could not allow the United States, or anyone else for that matter, to get their hands on the doctor.
Worse, he couldn’t allow them to get hold of the antidote.
Months of hard work and capital down the drain.
Zeqiri shook his head. Time to get the doctor out of here.
He pushed away from the Range Rover, hurried along the tight passage to a heavy steel door and used the flashlight on his phone to check that the trip wire was still in place.
The beam of light glinted on a slender fishing line.
The captain carefully stepped over the wire and heaved open the door.
Inside, he unconsciously high-stepped over another wire. The entire warehouse was rigged with safety measures. Zeqiri and his team—God rest their souls—had spent so many months sidestepping boobytraps, muscle memory took over and they now did it by force of habit.
Zeqiri paused. The lights were out and, the from the noise level, at least one of the generators had stopped working.
Zeqiri pulled a Sig Sauer holstered at the small of his back.
His head cocked to the side and his brow clinched.
He adjusted his grip on the weapon as he pushed deeper into the darkened warehouse.
He moved quietly along a hall that passed by several unused offices, before turning left and opening onto the main floor where numerous twenty foot shelves and three containers, and a number of old forklifts sat gathering dust. The makeshift virology lab sat in the right-hand corner, obscured from Zeqiri’s view by a modular partition.
To the left were the ramshackle sleeping quarters and living room that the men had cobbled together from old shelving, heavy drapes, and corrugated steel roofing that had been pressed into service as walls for a little privacy.
Between the lab and the living quarters was a large space cluttered with desks, computers, crates of black-market supplies, lockers and personal protective gear, sterilization equipment, cages for lab animals, and several whiteboards with the doctor’s notes scribbled in illegible scrawl.
Even criminal organizations, turns out, needed basic office space.
Especially an organization like this. Beyond all that was a kitchen with everything six men in hiding, along with a dozen unwilling patients, needed to survive.
Osmani had even managed to hook up a covert satellite on the roof, so they had cable.
For months, this place had been a hive of activity. Now the doctor’s lab was dark. There were no stereos blasting music from the living quarters, nobody playing dice, or arguing over a card game. The silence, for Captain Zeqiri, was unnerving.
He heard something clatter off to his right and turned in that direction. He was skirting around the edge of the large modular wall when he came face to face with another figure going the opposite direction in the dark.
Zeqiri brought his gun up. His finger was on the trigger before he recognized the doctor in the faint light coming through high windows.
Doctor Kadare was armed as well. He gripped a nickel-plated revolver in one hand and had a sample case clamped under his other arm. Sweat covered his brow and ran down over his gaunt cheeks in greasy rivulets. He reeled back and nearly fell at the sight of Zeqiri looming up out of the dark.
“It’s me,” Zeqiri said. “It’s me, doctor.”
During the war, he’d known more than one good soldier who’d been mistakenly killed in the dark. He started to lower his weapon but the doctor still had his gleaming steel revolver pointed.
Kadare looked over the Captain’s shoulder. “Where are your men?”
“They’re dead,” Zeqiri said.
“What?” Kadare hissed.
“Goodman killed them.” Zeqiri thrust his chin at the doctor’s revolver. “Want to lower that?”
Kadare looked at the revolver in his hand and—perhaps it was Zeqiri’s imagination—hesitated a fraction of a second too long before dropping the weapon down to his side.
“Going somewhere?” Zeqiri inquired.
“The call from Goodman convinced me we’ve overstayed our welcome here,” Kadare said. “With your men dead, I’m more convinced than ever that it’s time for us to abandon this facility.”
“You weren’t leaving without me, I hope.”
“Captain, I’ve spent the last thirty years of my life languishing in prison,” the doctor said as he shoved the revolver into the waistband of his trousers.
“I’m not about to lose my resolve now. I’ve already contacted the buyer.
In less than…” He checked his watch. “twelve hours we’ll both be very rich men and the Serbs will finally suffer the consequences of their sins. ”
“Music to my ears, Doctor.”
“I’ve already loaded the samples into the van, along with most of my research.”
“Excellent,” said Zeqiri. “You finish loading the van. I’m going to check on our boobytraps and make sure anyone who comes poking around, gets a very nasty surprise.”