Berg unfolded one of the gray chairs, and placed it in front of the computer station on the right side of the room. He turned on both monitors, and nudged the mouse, which activated the sleeping CPU. Within seconds, he stared at a warning screen with the standard CIA disclosures about classified information. He clicked "acknowledge," and was directed to a screen that required a six-digit numeric access code and ten character password, which were both changed monthly. After typing both codes, the computer took a few moments to launch the CIA data interface. He immediately transferred the data interface to both screens, which would give him the ability to conduct two separate searches. He typed "Marko Resja Serbian Paramilitary" into one of the interfaces, and the system began processing the request.
While the CIA database worked searched away, Berg opened his own laptop, and placed it on the workstation, pushing the phone unit out of the way. Keller's typed pages flashed up onto the laptop screen, and he could see that Keller was still furiously adding to the report. The wireless signal connecting the two laptops was still intact, even inside of the communications room, which surprised Berg.
He wasted no time searching through the list of Black Flag operatives for characteristics that would narrow his search. He narrowed the list of eighty names in half by eliminating the obvious. Keller had identified five areas of operation served by the Black Flag program: Serbia, Columbia, Russia, Mexico and Afghanistan, so Berg discarded any Latino or Arabic names. He sorted the remaining list for Serbian names, which would serve as a starting point for comparison to Marko Resja. Six names jumped out at him, but about a dozen more could fit. He eliminated the obvious Russian names.
He chose a different interface imbedded within the CIA database for this search and was directed to the FBI's nationwide database, which contained publicly available information, giving him access to criminal records information. He started a multiple search string with three of six Serbian names, which was the system's limit, and waited. An image flashed on the first screen, and Berg found himself staring at a face he had tried to push out of his memory for the past several years. Marko Resja.
He didn't need to familiarize himself with Resja's file, he just needed the picture for comparison. Files for the first three names appeared on the second screen, each headed by a picture presumably taken for a driver's license. The FBI's sophisticated system would display any confirmed pictures associated with the name, and in most cases, this would be a state license photograph. Berg immediately compared the three images to the picture of Resja. He didn't see any resemblance, so he entered the next three names and waited.
The results appeared within seconds, and Berg felt an adrenaline rush. One of the pictures was a possible match. Daniel Petrovich. He opened the file to look at the rest of the pictures, drawing in a deep breath as eight photos filled the screen. Three of the pictures showed Petrovich in various naval uniforms. The highest rank evident in the pictures was ensign, denoted by single gold bars on his uniform collar. The earliest photograph pictured Petrovich in the Navy's summer white uniform, and had likely been taken immediately after receiving his commission as an officer in the United States Navy. Petrovich looked young and optimistic, very different from the malevolent image staring back at him from the single photograph displayed on the other screen.
Three additional photos had been provided from different state driver’s licenses in Illinois, Massachusetts and California, but evoked no response from Berg. The last picture showed Petrovich in a blue oxford dress shirt, and looked like the most recently taken picture. There was very little trace of Marko Resja in the last image, though it was clear that they were pictures of the same man.
Berg's attention was drawn to one of the photos showing Petrovich in a khaki uniform, standing with his arms crossed, on the steel deck of a warship. Industrial buildings loomed in the background, indicating that the picture had been taken while the ship was docked. Petrovich's dark wavy hair was long and unkempt, pushing the limits of the Navy's loose grooming standards. His face looked weathered and exhausted, staring with hatred at an object out of the camera's view. The expression matched the face of Marko Resja on the other screen. Berg couldn't believe he had stumbled upon this coincidence.
He had dreamed about this moment since March 24th, 2003, when Dejan Kavich testified in the trial of Srecko Hadzic, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, and infamous commander of "The Panthers." The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had already spent two weeks presenting evidence against Hadzic, and would soon convict him of running an organized campaign of genocide in the Kosovar border territories.
Berg had a very personal interest in Hadzic's trial. One of the CIA's long established undercover agents in Serbia had vanished without a trace toward the middle of April in 1999, leaving Berg and the CIA stunned. The disappearance was especially difficult for Berg. He had been assigned to groom the agent for the Serbian assignment in 1991, when she was first assigned to the National Clandestine Service.
A recent graduate from Loyola University in Chicago, Nicole Erak had scored perfect on every aptitude test used to measure a candidate's suitability for clandestine field assignment, and she spoke flawless Serbian. As a first generation Serbian-American, raised in a predominately Serbian suburb of Chicago, near Palos Hill, Illinois, her recruitment was no coincidence. The CIA had a critical shortage of reliable human intelligence flowing from the Balkans, and she was fast tracked for deployment to the rapidly deteriorating region.
Two years after her recruitment by a low profile history professor at Loyola University, Nicole was absorbed into Belgrade's gritty underworld as Zorana Sekulic, where she would emerge hanging on the arms of some of the most notorious men in Europe.
Ten years after seeing Nicole for the last time, Berg was reading transcripts of the trial, still searching for any possible clues about her disappearance, when he came across the testimony of Dejan Kavich, a low level enforcer within Hadzic's Panther organization. Kavich recounted dozens of instances where Hadzic had personally ordered the murder of civilians and suspected Kosovar militants, which was nothing new coming from the long string of witnesses that had turned on Hadzic in exchange for Tribunal leniency. However, the Tribunal prosecutors asked Kavich to repeat the details of an incident that they thought would demonstrate Hadzic's ruthless nature, and this is where Berg's interest peaked.
Kavich described a bloody and hectic week in Belgrade at the beginning of April in 1999, which was nearly the same timeframe associated with Nicole's disappearance. Though NATO jets were still hampered by thick overcast skies, blood flowed on the streets of Belgrade. At the time, Kavich thought that the sudden civil war between two of Serbia's most powerful paramilitary groups was a simple blood feud sparked by the unprovoked murder and mutilation of Hadzic's handicapped brother. His security chief, Radovan Grahovac, had also been killed in the bizarre attack, along with his entire personal security entourage, which suggested that there was more to the event than a simple blood feud.