Carpathian (36 page)

Jack opened his door and examined the room before stepping inside. He had warned his team to check their rooms very carefully, as he would not put it past the Russian mobster to bug his guests’ rooms. Jack knew the criminal mind and eavesdropping was always a profitable move in most cases.

Collins skipped moving his luggage in until he looked at every wall socket, light socket, and even checked the headboard. On his way to check the window frame he caught sight of the castle above. The lights cast eerily moving shapes and shadows in tints of purple and blues on the giant stone blocks that made up the construction. As he looked on his eyes moved up the road toward the pass. Of course he couldn’t see anything but he could imagine the hard life anyone who lived in the pass faced year in and year out. His eyes traveled back to the now empty Castle Dracula as it waited for its grand opening in just two nights.

There was a light knock upon his door. He went to the door and looked through the peephole and saw the top of Sarah’s head. He opened the thick door and allowed her to quickly step inside.

Sarah had changed into an evening dress of blue with a low neckline. She smiled and entered his room holding her high heels. She faced Collins and then dropped her shoes onto the expensive carpet.

“Is it against Army regulations for a colonel to zip up a lieutenant’s dress?” she asked as she turned around to expose her back and the open zipper.

Jack smiled and relaxed for the first time. He reached out and took Sarah by her shoulders.

“As a matter of fact it most assuredly is against Army regs, Lieutenant, but at the moment I’m a criminal on vacation and am also a sordid and salty character.” He slipped his hands under the dress’s two straps and pulled them free of her shoulders allowing the dress to slip from her body. He turned Sarah toward him and kissed her.

“Besides, for the next hour the U.S. Army can go—”

“At ease, Colonel,” Sarah whispered as she pulled Jack’s head down and kissed him—the maneuver successfully quieted her commanding officer and stilled his insults to the Army for at least the immediate future.

And for the next hour Castle Dracula—the nightclub, the Patinas Pass, and Alice Hamilton’s Little Red Riding Hood tale along with her Lost Tribes of Israel theory—all were temporarily placed on hold as Jack concentrated solely on the woman he knew he loved in the most desperate of ways.

*   *   *

Marko stood at the front of the hotel and was watching the guests as they milled about laughing and pointing at every piece of exquisite artwork along the walls, on pedestals and easels, all placed around the immense lobby. Most were probably scheming how to steal some of the artwork from the man who had invited them there.

Marko’s attire was all black. The shirt he wore was collarless and was buttoned to the top. The black satin vest and even blacker shirt gleamed in the false light of the front portico. The black head scarf was neatly tied in the back just over the foot-long ponytail. The goatee was freshly trimmed and his gold jewelry prominently displayed from his ears to his wrists. His larger Gypsy friends from the other villages were similarly dressed. The six men stood for a moment watching the guests wander the lobby through the twenty-foot-high plate glass windows. The Gypsy men brought many of the guests to a stop as they noticed the strangely dressed group in the exotic and a bit disturbing, peasant clothing.

Marko stepped across the threshold of the hotel he had financed though his theft of his tribe’s heritage. It was now time to reap some of the benefits of that shameful act.

Gina Louvinski saw the six men as they entered the lobby. The dark-haired man with the intense look was familiar. She had seen him interact with Zallas from time to time and it seemed to her that this man was not frightened of the Russian one iota. She watched as one of the hotel’s manager-on-duty staff approached the men as cautiously as he could and with a distasteful look on his face cleared his throat. Gina shook her head and then started forward to stop the trouble she was about to witness.

“May I help you gentlemen?” the shift manager asked Marko, who stood in front of his men.

The Gypsy looked at the manager irritably. “No, you may not.”

“Gentlemen, do you have an invitation in your possession for this weekend’s festivities?”

“No,” Marko said as he faced the shift manager with a dead sort of smile that faded long before it hit the black-mascara-lined eyes.

“That is all right, these gentlemen don’t need invitations—they are acquaintances of Mr. Zallas.” Gina turned away from the manager on duty and faced the Gypsy, who only looked at her as if he found her distasteful. His companions though did little to hide their appreciation of the general manager of the Edge of the World Hotel and Resort Casino. “Will you gentlemen be requiring accommodations for your stay?” she asked, praying at the same time they would not be staying overnight, as they were still attracting the strangest and most insulting looks from the real guests of Dmitri Zallas.

“No. Where is the Russian?” Marko asked.

“Mr. Zallas is inside the casino I believe. Would you gentlemen like a draw of chips for play?” She saw the irritated look on the Gypsy’s face. “On the house of course.”

Marko turned and walked away without another word. His followers did the same, only they smiled at her as they passed and those smiles weren’t that friendly. She was glad Zallas had to deal with them and not her.

Outside the moon started its slow climb into the sky, fighting its way above the rocky peaks of the Carpathians.

*   *   *

“Ah, Marko, and accompanied by our friends and neighbors as well! It was so kind of you to join us for our small celebration,” Zallas said, breaking away from the roulette table before the band of Gypsies could join him and his guests. He smiled as he took Marko by the elbow and tried to steer him away from the gamblers, who were watching them with much interest, as most had never laid eyes on a Gypsy before this rather unusual intrusion.

Marko froze to one spot and made Zallas look the fool as he embarrassingly pulled on a stone wall that refused to give. The large-framed Gypsy didn’t budge. The Russian smiled at the gawking guests and then leaned into Marko.

“What are you doing here?” he asked through clenched teeth and a false smile. “You said you weren’t interested in the day-to-day operations of our investment.”

“Remove your hand from me,” Marko said while staring straight ahead. Zallas did as he was told and then looked around smiling and hoping the guests didn’t see the hostility oozing from the dark man standing in the middle of his casino. “I am here to see the end result of that investment.”

“Now that you have seen it you must not come here again, and most assuredly not with your friends. There would be too many questions asked inside capital meeting rooms and that would lead to people that have a high stake in the success of this operation. There will be government eyes here tonight that will report all they see here at the Edge of the World, I assure you.”

Marko smiled for the first time as he turned and faced the Russian. “More eyes than you would ever dare to imagine, Slav. Sharp eyes that see much in the dark.”

Zallas was pretty much fed up with the old Hollywood version of “I’m a scary Gypsy” act and so he stepped up to Marko angrily and began to remind him about the ethnic slur he kept slinging at him.

“I told you not to call me a Slav, I don’t—”

“My friends and I shall tour the property and then I think we will eat. Make sure we are seated and well taken care of.”

“I am not—”

“You are what I always thought you were, Zallas, and this is why I have come to see my operation.” His smile grew as he took in the busy casino. “I mean the fruits of my investment, of course.”

The Russian watched as the six men moved off to snickers and outright hostility from the guests. He saw that the Gypsy ignored the looks and whispered remarks, or just didn’t hear them or heard them but couldn’t understand them.

*   *   *

Five miles to the east of the Edge of the World was the NATO bivouac area. The Romanian army made up the largest contingent at 150 men, just a little over company strength. The U.S. contingent was the second largest with eighty-eight engineers of the elite 82nd Airborne Division. Several other neighboring nations had men attached but for the most part it was an intimate get-to-know-you task that NATO had always loved. The men thus far seemed to enjoy the air and the mountains and not one of them had any doubts as to the falsity of the myths and legends surrounding this absolutely beautiful area of the world. After the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Carpathians were like the Garden of Eden.

“What did you think of those strange ducks that came in on the Black Hawks?”

His partner laughed as he reached behind him and removed a sharp rock from beneath his butt. He tossed the stone into the darkness.

“Tell me, when doesn’t a Black Hawk drop off some strange ducks, including us?”

“Yeah,” the man watching said as he removed his Kevlar helmet and then hefted the small M-14 battle rifle and pulled out the magazine from the receiver and looked inside. “This is the one thing I can’t get used to since we deployed back to the world,” he said shaking his head.

“And what is that?” asked his hole mate as he rummaged to remove more painful rocks under his rear.

“Carrying around blanks instead of hot loads—there’s something basically wrong with that.”

“Well, we can’t go around blasting away at out new allies, can we? Besides, those Romanians to our right over there aren’t commies anymore, we served with them in Afghanistan—the boys are fighters.”

“Yeah, well good for them, why don’t you go ask them if they happen to have any real bullets, smart-ass.”

*   *   *

Alice Hamilton pulled the collar of her green coat tightly around her neck as she looked past the soldiers and their equipment and brought the mountains into sharp focus. She couldn’t believe she was actually here looking up at them. To her mind’s eye the craggy scars of deep-cut rocks and small, time-worn grooves where water had saturated the stone through millions upon millions of years, all still looked beautiful. The scars in the rock reminded Alice of a perpetual covering of white snow and ice that remained year-round.

“Looking at them in the moonlight can almost allow your imagination to truly believe in the legends, can’t they?”

Alice turned and saw Carl Everett standing behind her. He was dressed in a down vest and blue denim work shirt. His boots were a worn civilian brand and his pants Levi’s.

“It didn’t take this view to make a believer out of me, Carl. I’ve seen these mountains a thousand times in my thoughts while never really knowing it was the Carpathians I was looking at. I could never imagine a more beautiful range.” She smiled as she turned back to face the imposing monoliths. “Especially when this old woman claims there be monsters up there,” she said in a mockingly ominous tone.

“Ah, you’re not old,” Carl said hoping Alice took his small joke the right way. She did.

“No, not old, but very much a believer in fairy tales—is that what you’re saying, Mr. Everett?” she asked, turning back and smiling at him.

“Yeah, something like that,” he said as he stepped up behind Alice and placed his thick arm around her and looked with her at her mountains. She placed her hand onto his and they just stood in silence.

“Uh, excuse me, are you Captain Everett?”

Carl and Alice both turned to see a young staff sergeant standing next to them.

“That’s me, Sergeant.”

The camouflaged sergeant handed Everett a piece of paper. As Carl reached for it he saw a lot of activity near where the Romanian army had set up for their maneuvers. To his shock it looked like they were packing up.

“What are the Romanians up to?” Everett asked as he clicked on a small flashlight to read the message.

“They’re leaving, sir. Because of the storm in the south there’s been massive flooding along the Danube and since these boys are engineers they’ve been ordered out to assist in evacuations if it comes to that.”

“What is it?” Alice asked as Carl lowered the note.

“He’s right, the Romanians have been ordered to the south and the 82nd has been directed to return to the air base.”

“That will leave us with no cover.”

“We have to get word to Jack.”

“Sir, we’ve been ordered to leave you with two Humvee transports and twenty men. The rest have to RTB.”

“Damn,” Everett cursed as his eyes roamed toward the top of the mountain. “With no cell connection we only have the Europa satellite link and even that is spotty because Europa will only be overhead twice a day. I’ll get with Will and get a message off to the colonel, by foot if we have to.”

Niles Compton walked up at that moment, hurriedly tucking in his shirt. Everett held the message up for him to see. Compton raised his hand.

“I’ve seen it—any suggestions?”

As they stood there watching, the cover and protection of the United States Army and the soldiers of their new Romanian ally continued to pack up their equipment. Soon several loud engine noises were heard as the large Black Hawks started to spool up. Everett nodded at Alice.

“Niles, we will have a short window in an hour to communicate with Europa, so I suggest we get Mendenhall and have him call Jack on the secure satellite cell and give them the heads-up that we just lost our cover. And be sure to remind everyone that with the weather moving in here this weekend we may even lose the satellite link with Europa.”

“Where are you going?” Niles asked when he saw Everett reach for a small satchel and remove something. It was a handgun and he tucked it in his waistband.

“Charlie Ellenshaw and I are going to mosey over toward the resort and see what we can see. If the last of the 82nd is ordered out we won’t have one bit of cover remaining. So I think we’ll study the lay of the land and how difficult it would be to get past the locals and enter the pass on our own. After all, Alice didn’t come all this way to not see her hard work pay off.” He smiled and nodded at Niles, then turned and left the breaking camp of NATO soldiers.