The Rendition (38 page)

I looked at Reilly. “I'll go over the wall—”

“No, no,” Shenlee said. “Not you, Klear.”

“I know what Nadaj looks like, Jerry.”

Looking at Reilly, Shenlee said, “I'll go over with three guys from the A-team. I know what Nadaj looks like. I've seen his pictures.”

“I know him personally,” I said. “I think it'll be safer if I—”

“Come off it, Klear. You and Romero man the perimeter.” Shenlee looked at Reilly. “That's the way we're gonna do it.”

Shenlee outranked us all, or at least he was acting as if he did. In any case, we all knew better than to argue with someone from the NSC, who at every opportunity was throwing around his association with the deputy secretary of defense.

Our next stop was the supply shack, which quickly turned into a beehive of activity. We were joined by Reilly's A-team men drawing weapons and the equipment we'd need for our little mission. Since it looked as if Buck and I would be manning the perimeter, we were each issued an M-16 and an M-4 automatic. We checked out flashlights, compasses, gloves, and radios. Shenlee needed special shoes, a rope, some climbing hooks, and got himself an M-4.

It would have been nice to have a Humvee along, but since we were supposed to be civilians we had no choice but to ride in vans. All told, we were seventeen men. We left Camp Bondsteel in four vehicles at three-minute intervals beginning at a few minutes after 1630. Kosovo's roads are primitive, and Pec was over sixty miles distant from Bond-steel. We had a rendezvous point on a road less than two miles from the house where we hoped we'd finally find Ramush Nadaj.

Color me pessimistic, but as we rode, I couldn't help wondering whether this attempt to grab Nadaj was going to be any more successful than the last one—and whether it wasn't going to turn into another colossal disaster.

* * *

Jerry Shenlee shook his head. “No, Klear, you're wrong.” We had reached the rendezvous point, a quiet clearing on a side road, and I had just finished telling Shenlee that I should be accompanying Captain Reilly's three A-team members and going over the wall to get Nadaj.

“I have an idea this might work out better, Jerry, if I—”

“Relax, Klear. Leave this one to the professionals. It's gonna be a piece of cake, believe me.” Before I could say anything more, Shenlee said, “You're rusty. That's why you're nervous.”

I wasn't nervous, but I knew there wasn't any sense arguing with Jerry. It was already dark, and Reilly called me and Buck over to the van where he had a map spread out on the seat, which he was reading with a pencil flashlight.

“From here on, we go by foot,” he said. “Your job is to cover the far side of the house. Over here there's a small stream, which runs out of the big river here. You can get your bearings from that. You shouldn't have any problem finding the wall.” When Buck asked Reilly where he would be, he said, “I'm going to be with the munitions team. When the people inside the wall give us the word, we set off the explosive. We have a couple of five-pound satchels. It'll be just enough to make a hole in the wall for the men to come through. When they're out, we radio you guys. We rendezvous back here.”

We nodded. Although I had an idea that, like me, Buck would have liked to be with the people going over the wall, he was a good soldier and didn't say anything. Shenlee was running the show.

The Gold Dust Twins' reputation wasn't anything like it once was.

Buck and I set off in the direction of the house, going through the woods and staying off the road. After forty minutes of slogging, we reached a clearing on the far side of which I could see a ten-foot-high wall.

“That's it,” Buck said. The wall was about a hundred feet away. “Whoever lives there doesn't want unannounced visitors.”

Pointing to my right, I said, “The gate should be in that direction.” When Buck nodded, we headed off in the other direction, moving along the perimeter of the woods and doing our best to keep out of sight.

When we'd circled the house, we kept going until we reached the
stream that Reilly had mentioned. On this side, the woods were thicker and extended all the way to the wall. Buck stationed himself about sixty feet from the stream. On the far side, two more of our guys would have come from the other direction and, by now, have taken up positions on the perimeter. We had the place surrounded.

When I checked in on the radio, Reilly said, “They're over the wall. So far, so good.”

“Roger.” I passed the news along to Buck.

I knew Shenlee's team would be proceeding slowly, and I wondered what they'd find at the house. They had bolt cutters, a large fire axe and a hooley, which is a crowbar specially designed for prying doors open.

The next thing we expected to hear was the explosive charge going off, which would be our signal to head back toward the rendezvous point. Five minutes went by without anything happening. Six minutes. Seven minutes. From where I was, I couldn't see Buck, so when I heard something, I thought the sound might have been him moving in my direction.

It took a couple of seconds before I realized someone was scrambling over the wall at a point twenty yards beyond where I was posted. I wondered whether Buck had heard the noise. Moving quickly, I made my way quietly along the wall. Thirty feet ahead of me I saw a black silhouette. Whoever it was, he was going fast. He was already over the wall and in the woods before I reached the point where he'd climbed over.

He'd disappeared into the woods with a minimum of commotion—and I wondered whether it was someone I knew.

A minute later, Buck appeared. When he flashed me a questioning look, I shrugged my shoulders, then pointed in the direction the guy had gone.

“He came over the wall real fast. I'd like to know who it was.”

Then we heard the bang, which meant that Shenlee and his team had Nadaj and were now outside the compound.

If Buck and I had any thoughts about trying to find whoever was out in the woods, they were superseded by the knowledge that we had to get back to the rendezvous point.

We headed off in the direction we came. It took a half hour to make it back to the meeting place. We were the last ones.

“It's about time,” Shenlee said. “What took you so damn long?”

“You got him?” Buck asked.

“Let's get going,” Shenlee said.

Reilly pointed toward the van. “We gave him something to help him sleep.”

Unable to control my curiosity, I slid open the door to have a look. The prisoner's hands were shackled, and he was unconscious on the floor of the van.

“For God's sakes, Klear,” Shenlee shouted. “Can we get started?”

“I think we have a slight problem.” When Reilly asked what it was, I said, “This guy isn't Nadaj.”

Needless to say, my announcement caused Shenlee to go ballistic. After he'd finished telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about, I said, “I know what Nadaj looks like, Jerry. That's not Nadaj.”

“You're sure?” Reilly said.

“Positive.” Like Nadaj, this individual had a beard, but the resemblance ended there. He had gray hair and appeared at least ten years older.

Looking at Shenlee, Reilly asked him what happened at the house. “We surprised them,” Shenlee said. “We could see in from outside the house. There were three of them, two men and a woman. I figured this had to be him—”

I said, “I have an idea what might have happened. Nadaj was on the premises but, for whatever reason, was somewhere else at the moment you people arrived. When he saw what was happening, he made tracks.”

I explained to Reilly and Shenlee that Buck and I saw someone going over the wall at the rear of the compound.

“What do we do now?” Reilly asked.

“Give Buck and me a van and one of the maps. If we're lucky, we might locate him before he gets back to his people.”

Reilly looked uncertainly toward Shenlee.

“No way,” Shenlee said. “No way I let these two out of my sight.”

Ignoring Shenlee, I pointed to the van with the prisoner. “Whoever this individual is, take him back. If he's the local Mafia chief, kidnapping him will only cause problems. Buck and I'll try and locate Nadaj.”

Reilly nodded, and ordered his men out of the van. Looking back at me, he said, “We're on our way back to Bondsteel. You and Romero can catch up with us there.”

Ignoring Shenlee, who was still squawking to Reilly and threatening to have him busted back to E-1, I climbed into the van and turned over the engine. Thirty seconds later, with Buck in the passenger seat, we were on the road.

The first problem was to locate a road that would take us in the general direction we wanted to go. Buck had the map spread out on his knees and was trying to read it with the help of his compass and a pencil flash that he had in his mouth. It was already close to 2200.

I said, “If it was Nadaj who went over the wall, he'll want to get back to Pristina.”

After a while, Buck got a fix on where we were. “There's what looks like a road leading toward Klina. Just keep going in this direction.”

But as we drove, we began to realize our chances of locating the individual, whoever he was, weren't great. If he was smart enough to keep off the roads, we could be passing him by at any time and never know it. Because of the hills and largely unpaved roads, driving in Kosovo is a lot like an extended session on top of a bucking bronc, and I had an idea that the mechanics in the vehicle maintenance shop at Camp Bondsteel spent a lot of time replacing struts and shock absorbers.

We rode up and down a lot of hills before arriving at Klina, a small city in which everything was shut up tight. The moon had disappeared, and the night was pitch black. The city had a main drag, but most of the streets were no wider than alleys and hardly wide enough for the van. I decided to circle around, looking for a primary road that might take us somewhere. We were hoping we'd encounter someone on foot on the road—and that he would turn out to be Ramush Nadaj. But as we drove, we began to realize the chances of anything like that happening were extremely remote.

Without any real knowledge of the area and without any idea of
where I should be going, we continued to drive more or less in circles. I didn't want to say it, but maybe Shenlee had been right. This expedition had all the earmarks of a wild-goose chase.

At some point we halted at the side of the road and spent some time studying the map and trying to figure what direction someone on the run might go. The strain of peering through the windshield into the darkness had made me feel tired, and after nearly two hours I turned the wheel over to Buck. As he drove, I kept my eyes peeled, hoping I might see someone on the road. Eventually, there were streaks of gold light in the sky. We'd been driving for over five hours.

Still later, we encountered a farmer driving a hay wagon drawn by a lone ox. He was the first sign of life, the first indication of a new day. We stayed behind him for five minutes before reaching an intersection where we could pass. Farther on, we passed a couple of cars, both of them ancient jalopies, coming in the opposite direction. Then we turned into a narrow dirt road with a lot of rocks on it. There were trees on both sides. Buck halted the van. We were really in the boondocks.

Although I didn't say anything, I wondered what Buck had in mind. He took another look at the map. Finally, he said, “Does this area look familiar?”

I shook my head. “Should it?”

He turned over the engine. “At the top of this hill is an abandoned mine.”

“How do you know?”

“There's also a shack, assuming it's still there.” With the van's engine working hard, we made it to the top of the hill. My watch said 0630 hours. A weak sun was rising in the east causing the trees to cast long shadows.

For a long moment, Buck and I just sat in the van taking in the scene. Behind the shack was a rugged steep hill thick with brush and scrub pine. Off to our left was a wide rock-filled path, which I assumed led toward the abandoned mine. Some thoughtful person had placed a barrier across the path, a warning to kids and strangers to stay away.

I recognized the shack as the building in which Nadaj and his crew had held me prisoner.

“Yeah,” I said after a moment, “this place is familiar. It turns up regularly in my nightmares, the really bad ones.” I didn't add that in the recurring nightmare I'm looking up out of a coffin when someone slams down the lid and everything goes black.

I said, “I assume you were looking for it.”

“I knew it was around here somewhere. The thought occurred to me that maybe Nadaj might come over here. Hide out for a while until his friends showed up.”

“It's a thought. But if he has a phone, he's probably already let people know where he is. He could be in Pristina by now.”

We climbed out of the van and split up, Buck approaching the shack from one side, me from the other. When I reached the building, I took a careful peek through the window, but didn't see anyone. The place was empty. I signaled to Buck, who came around from the other side. After I'd kicked open the door and with weapons at the ready, we entered the building together.

The interior was pretty much as I remembered it—table, chairs, a couple of cots, a wooden chest that was supposed to serve as an icebox, but was empty of food. On one side was a small closet, which I opened and found empty except for some newspapers and rags piled in the corner.

Then I noticed it: On the table was a small metal ashtray. In the ashtray were cigarette ashes and two squashed butts. In the air was a faint smell of stale tobacco. Buck had smelled it too. He pointed at the ashtray, and I nodded.

We both had the same thought.

“Let's get going,” Buck said, speaking loudly.

“No sense hanging around here,” I said.