One Rough Man (41 page)

Booting up the M4, he typed a jubilant message, giving Bakr the details of the meeting, including the fact that he might not get any further message in the next twenty-four hours. He reassured Bakr that he would attempt to locate an Internet café, but that the M4 would probably not link up with the satellite.

As he leaned back with a sense of satisfaction, Sayyidd’s reflections on his meeting with Walid were interrupted by a growling in his stomach. He didn’t bother to shut down the computer, since he would be gone less than forty-five minutes and wanted to see Bakr’s reply as soon as he returned.

 

 

ABSENTLY LOOKING AT THE MENU ON THE TABLE, I was running through our next potential steps when Jennifer found me and sat down with a big grin on her face.

“Told you—you’re a natural,” I said.

“It was really sort of fun. I could get into doing that stuff.”

“Well, that’s good to hear, because I’m pretty sure you’re going to get another chance at it.”

I gave her a rundown of what I knew, telling her that we needed to figure out, before we did anything else, whether the other terrorist was with his partner. In the end, we had to have positive proof these idiots had a weapon of mass destruction, or, equally, that they did not, which might mean breaking into their room. I couldn’t risk that unless I knew the room was empty, and knocking on the door wasn’t a preferred technique.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Any idea how the two of us can maintain 24/7 surveillance on this place?”

“You’re asking me? Why? You’re the expert.”

“Hey, I told you this wasn’t rocket science.” I glanced out the window. “I have some ideas, but I don’t have a monopoly on smarts. If you—”

I saw the terrorist leave the hostel across the street.

Jennifer said, “What? What is it?”

“The guy you followed is on the move.”

“Already?” Jennifer leaned over trying to see out the window.

“Shit, he’s headed this way,” I said.

I looked around for another exit, but we were out of luck. Short of running through the kitchen, the front door was the only way in or out. I saw the man halfway across the street and moving with a purpose directly toward our restaurant.

“He’s coming in. Hide your face.”

Jennifer picked up a menu and pretended to read it. I did the same, but my angle was horrible. At least Jennifer had her back to the guy. I was facing the entrance with the small menu the only thing hiding my features. I heard the front door open and tried to become invisible. I waited for some indication that he had walked deeper into the restaurant but heard nothing.
Why’s he standing at the entrance? Move, dammit. Go to the bar.
The bell on the front door chimed again. Without lowering the menu, I glanced back out the window, seeing someone running toward the hostel. With a start, I realized it was the terrorist.

“Shit! We’re burned! We need to stop him before he gets to his buddy!”

I raced past a group of startled patrons and flew out the door. I ran as hard as I could, slowly closing the distance. I saw him look back, fear etched into his face. He put on a final burst of speed, taking the steps to the hostel three at a time. He blasted through the front door, bowling over a couple at the entrance.

I came through the entrance right behind him, in time to see him fling open a stairwell door. I followed, a flight-and-half of stairs behind, then narrowed it to one flight. I heard him open the door above me. I reached the fourth floor and exited the stairwell, catching a glimpse of a man entering a room midway down the hall. I had no idea if it was the terrorist or not, but had no other options. I took off at a dead sprint.

I reached the door just as it was slammed shut, jamming my foot in the opening and letting it bounce harmlessly against the sole of my boot. Drawing back, I threw my full weight against the door, causing it to explode inward, flinging whoever was behind it against the wall.

I followed the open door into the room and recognized the terrorist on the floor. I reached out to grab him, but he scrambled away, putting the bed between us.

For a split second, we just stared at each other in a standoff, both of us panting. I saw the look of fear on his face turn to determination. I moved into a fighting crouch, preparing for the assault that was coming.

It never came.

Instead he shouted, “
Allahu Akhbar!,”
then turned and launched himself headfirst out of the window, shattering the glass with his momentum. The scream continued for four long floors, growing fainter, like a passing train whistle, until it was abruptly cut off when his body impacted the street below.

Before I could assimilate what had happened, I heard someone else at the door and whirled around, seeing Jennifer, out of breath from her run. She looked around the empty room, then at me.

“Where’d he go?”

B
akr exited the back of a pickup at the end of a rutted dirt drive leading to a crumbling two-story farmhouse. He thanked the driver for the lift, staring at the house as the man drove away. The people here and in the surrounding hills existed at the poverty level, barely scraping a living out of the hardscrabble ground. The residence was built entirely of stone and had been frequently patched with homemade masonry, with the residue of a past fire visible. Moving listlessly about in a pen next to the farmhouse were a couple of skinny goats and a small flock of chickens, all digging in the dirt to find a bit of greenery that had long since been eaten.

It had taken Bakr the better part of the day to track down Juka’s residence, and he still wasn’t sure this was it. Before walking up to the house, Bakr reviewed in his mind the tale he would spin to obtain Juka’s help. Bakr had learned of Juka’s existence through a Chechen who had come to Iraq to glean IED techniques that he could take back to his fight against the Russian invaders of his homeland.

Bakr knew that Juka was a supporter of Muslim causes, but not because of the religion. That just happened to be the common denominator between himself and others like him. Before the summer of 1995, it was unlikely that Juka had even considered his religion as something that defined him. In July of that year, the Serbian army had surrounded Juka’s town of Srebrenica and set about on an orgy of violence, wantonly killing men, raping women, and burning everything touched by a Muslim hand.

Bakr knew he would need to play on Juka’s emotion of Muslim unity, steering clear of any mention of Al Qaeda and the Great Satan. Far from wanting to harm the United States, Juka actually liked America, since it was American airpower, under the guise of NATO, that had come screaming in to punish the Serbians when the truth of Srebrenica reached the world. It disgusted Bakr, but he was sure that Juka didn’t hold America to blame. Because of this, Juka would have to be handled carefully.

Bakr rapped on the rough-hewn door, hearing movement on the other side.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

Bakr was unsure about the man before him. His face held deep wrinkles, made more pronounced by the dirt ground into the crevices, his eyes sunken with large black circles underneath. The age fit, but Bakr had expected more of a sense of purpose, a little more fire in the person he was seeking. What he saw was a man stooped by a lifetime of eking out a living from the ground, not a man steeled by a lifetime of fighting.

“Yes, I’m looking for a Bosnian named Juka. I’m on my way to Chechnya, and I was told by a friend that he may be able to help me.”

Bakr watched the man go through a small transformation. He straightened up, giving Bakr a penetrating stare with pale blue eyes, apparently measuring his mettle with the gaze alone. He leaned against the doorjamb, now projecting a sense of confidence where before there had only been defeat.

“Really? And what would this friend’s name be?”

“Milan Petrovic. He knew I was coming this way, and asked for me to pick up some things for him en route to Chechnya. Things that a Bosnian named Juka Merdanovic could provide.”

The man stepped away from the door, holding his arm open in a gesture of welcome. “I am Juka. I’m at the service of any man befriended by Milan. Come inside and tell me how I may help.”

 

 

AN HOUR LATER, Bakr stepped out of Juka’s decrepit Lada in front of his hotel in downtown Tuzla, carrying a small wooden box, a gift from Juka.

“Milan will be forever grateful for your attention to his wishes,” Bakr said.

Juka waved his hands, washing away the compliment. “I’m the one who will forever be grateful to Milan. I owe him my life. Beyond that, he’s taking up arms to protect his people. Helping you help him is a small measure, and I’m glad to do it.”

Juka leaned over to the open window.

“If you have any trouble finding the house, or getting in, call this number.”

He handed Bakr a scrap of paper with a Bosnian international number written on it.

“The phone is located in a clean house near the one with the supplies you need. Nobody will answer, but the messages are checked every day. Don’t say who you are. Just tell them what you need. It’ll be provided.”

Bakr took the number and waved good-bye, watching the Lada jerk forward, belching smoke. Juka had served his purpose. He had given him the location of a safe house on the northern side of Sarajevo. Inside this house were all the necessary components to fabricate any type of explosive device he desired. Bakr hadn’t needed to prove his Chechnya credentials or state his requirements at all. Juka had taken it on faith that he was there on behalf of Milan, and had stated that Bakr could take anything he wished from the house. At one point in the conversation, while describing the inventory of the house, he stood up.

“I have just the thing for you. Something special that I don’t keep in the house in Sarajevo. In fact, it’s the only one I have ever seen.”

Leaving Bakr alone in the rustic den, he rummaged around in a hall closet, returning with a wooden box. Inside was a wireless remote detonation device. Covered in Cyrillic lettering on the outside, it was small, with the receiver about half the size of a pack of cigarettes, and the transmitter slightly larger than a baby dill pickle. It was a state-of-the-art device used to clandestinely fire explosives from a distance. How Juka had ended up with it was anybody’s guess.

While Bakr was happy with the option to remotely fire the weapon from up to two hundred meters away, he knew the detonator’s true benefits lay in its channel-hopping capability and the fact that it used a separate signal for both arming and detonating.

Having played the IED game extensively in Iraq, Bakr understood that these features would defeat the average countermeasure employed against radio-controlled improvised explosive devices. Known as a “jammer,” the countermeasure basically broadcast a louder signal than the IED transmitter, preventing the receiver from getting the command to detonate, thus “jamming” it. A simple concept, it was analogous to a person listening to a radio station in the middle of nowhere. One second, the channel’s putting out country music, the next Gothic rock, as the radio itself relayed whichever signal was strongest. The IED jammer worked the same way. It blasted out huge amounts of white noise on the transmitter’s frequency, preventing the receiver from hearing the command to detonate.

The channel-hopping feature on Juka’s device meant that the transmitter and receiver, synchronized together, frenetically hopped frequencies from the moment it was turned on, never transmitting on the same frequency for more than a millisecond. This ensured that the average jammer wouldn’t be able to defeat it, as it wouldn’t be able to sufficiently track which frequency the detonator was using, and thus couldn’t override the signal. The second feature, the separate signals used for arming and detonation, meant that the weapon wouldn’t be inadvertently set off by someone opening his garage or playing with a remote-controlled airplane. In order for the device to explode, it would take one signal, linked to a security code, to arm the bomb, and another, also linked to a code, to detonate it.

Juka had placed the detonator reverently in Bakr’s hands, beginning to fidget once he realized that he had given it away. He made Bakr promise that he would save it for use on a special target, using all of the other mundane detonators he would find in the Sarajevo safe house for everyday terrorist attacks.

Opening the door to his hotel room, Bakr grinned at the memory. Yes, he would save this detonator for a special occasion. The perfect occasion. Placing the detonator on the nightstand, he went to the Internet café to check on the meeting with Walid.

Opening the latest message, it appeared that Sayyidd had done everything he had asked, and more, giving him a little guilt over his previous thoughts about his partner. He was a little concerned by the lack of e-mail contact in the next twenty-four hours, but seeing that this e-mail had arrived within the last hour, he was sure Sayyidd would check his account one more time before leaving, and reply. He typed a quick response, describing his successful meeting with Juka. He hit send, finally beginning to accept that everything was working out.

J
ennifer asked again, “Where is he?”

I ran to the window, the broken glass crackling under my feet like popcorn.

“He jumped out the fucking window.”

“He jumped? Are you sure he—”

“No, I didn’t throw him out. As much as I would have liked to, I’d have to be the Incredible Hulk to chuck his ass out the window from across the room.”

I saw a crowd gathering around the broken body, most looking down, but some looking up at my location, the drapes swinging gently in the breeze providing an instant point of reference. I snapped my head back before they saw me.

“We have about one minute before we’ll be asked a lot of questions. Start packing up his stuff. We’ll look at it back in the hotel.”