The Land Cruiser produced one last passenger, with a phone clamped to his ear. He concluded his conversation and strode briskly toward the man pushing the trolley, giving instructions as he went. This, thought Carver, must be Darko. He was certainly the man in charge. Vermulen, meanwhile, brought up the rear, doing his best to maintain an upright, dignified posture as he walked with his captor’s gun pressed into the small of his back.
Carver watched as two shaven-headed men emerged from one of the offices to meet the little procession. They were wearing shades, with ear-pieces in their ears, the unmistakable look of private security goons who want to pretend they’re U.S. Secret Service. Their jackets bulged with the clear presence of weapons. The goons watched as the line of men, plus the cart, made their way in. Then they closed the door and stood outside it, arms folded like nightclub bouncers, doing their best to look menacing.
Wankers, thought Carver to himself. But the men had given him an idea. From the moment that Jaworski told him to stay out of this “domestic matter,” he had assumed that the Americans were planning some kind of stunt to recover the bomb and take out McCabe, Vermulen, and anyone else who got in the way. But he wasn’t going to sit around with his thumb up his arse, waiting for the Seventh Cavalry to ride to the rescue. He’d let McCabe get away from him once, and it wouldn’t happen again. That much he’d decided back at the roadblock. He’d also known, in principle, what he wanted to do.
Now he’d worked out precisely how he was going to do it.
94
The three Black Hawk helicopters flew due south from Tuzla, the pilots pushing their performance to the limit, covering seventy-five miles in a little over twenty minutes, before they turned southeast toward the border. They crossed from Bosnia into Montenegro just south of Foča and followed the Tara River southeast toward the airport at Slatina. The helicopters hugged the valley floors, skimming the treetops, hurdling power lines, and skirting the edge of the hills and mountains of that craggy terrain, avoiding towns and villages like night creatures shying from human contact. Kady Jones was in the third aircraft, with the explosive-ordnance-disposal team. She’d been talking to the team leader, agreeing on the protocols under which they would examine and, if necessary, deal with any bomb they found, when their pilot cut in.
“Okay, folks-we’re into hostile territory. This is where it gets interesting.”
In the White House Situation Room, Ted Jaworski let out a cry of triumph: “Gotcha, you bastard!”
Within the past quarter-hour, an MQ-1 Predator drone from the Tuzla Air Base had arrived over Slatina and begun broadcasting real-time infrared imagery, via the ground-control station at Tuzla, back to the United States. It had spotted the helicopter’s arrival, and then the vivid flare of light as the hangar blast doors opened to admit it. Now that they knew where McCabe was hidden, the mission had become a lot simpler. Within minutes, an army general was in contact with Dave Gretsch, in the lead Black Hawk, updating his orders. Meanwhile, U.S. Air Force officers were readying fighter squadrons across the Balkan theater of operations and the Middle East to intercept and destroy McCabe’s plane, in the event that it took off before the Black Hawks reached Pristina, no matter where in the region it was heading.
When the general had finished with Gretsch, Jaworski got on the line.
“Major, this is Ted Jaworski, from the Agency. Just wanted to inform you that the Brits may have a man inside the airport facility where you will be deploying. He was tasked to get inside, but we don’t know if he made it. The man’s name is Carver. He’s kind of unofficial, not on any list. So don’t hurt him if you can manage it. But it’s no big deal if you do. Take it from me-he won’t be missed.”
95
Carver walked across the underground hangar thinking, At last, I’m doing my job. After all that had happened, he was back to what he understood: drifting imperceptibly into the lives of very bad people, removing them from the planet, then slipping away again.
The different groups of people scattered about the hangar played right into his hands. Darko’s militiamen mingled with Yugoslav Air Force personnel, while McCabe’s bodyguards looked on, and mechanics and air crew went about their business. No one noticed, still less cared about, Carver.
He’d ripped the two CD player earphones apart and stuck one of them in his ear, letting the wire run down inside his shirt. He was back in his civilian clothes, shades on his face, his gun stuck in the waistband of his trousers, the fisherman’s bag slung over a shoulder. He could be anyone.
His luck just kept getting better. There was a mechanic standing on a ladder at the rear of McCabe’s plane, with his head and shoulders inside the rear equipment bay, pouring hydraulic fluid from a plastic jerry can. Carver stood at the bottom of the ladder and called up, “Hey you!”
The mechanic turned and looked down at him with a puzzled frown.
Carver held up a hand.
“Hold on there,” he said, making the other man wait while he held a finger up to his earpiece, as if trying to hear over the noise in the hangar, then spoke into the wristband of his shirt. “Uh-huh, yeah, I’m on it… I’m there right now… Yeah, I’ll do that. Out.”
He looked back up the ladder.
“Okay now-you speak English?”
The man shook his head.
“Right, well, see if you understand this… You”-He pointed at the mechanic-“off the plane.” He jerked his finger down toward the hangar floor, then repeated the motion, clearly indicating the man should get off the ladder.
The mechanic stayed where he was, uncertain how to respond.
Carver gave a theatrical sigh of irritation.
“All right, then… Plane…” Now he gestured at the aircraft. “American. Me”-he tapped his own chest-“American.”
Could a Serb who couldn’t speak English tell the difference between a real American accent and a bad English fake? Carver would have to hope not.
He repeated his little mantra: “Plane American, me American,” then added, “Me go into plane. You… off the plane.”
The mechanic looked at him, puffed his cheeks, exhaled heavily, then shrugged. He didn’t need to say a word to convey his message: He thought Carver was a jerk, but he couldn’t be bothered even to attempt to argue with him. He climbed down off the ladder.
“Here, I’ll take that,” said Carver, taking the jerry can from the man’s hand.
He went up the ladder into the bay. Laying his bag on the fuselage floor, he finished topping off the hydraulic accumulator. Then he got out his tools: a wrench to loosen the connections of the hot-air pipes, and a wire cutter to strip as much plastic insulation as possible off the wiring bundles in the same. He wasn’t going to hand McCabe another lifeline. This plane was going down hard. And just to underline the point, he left the jerry can, still half filled with inflammable fluid, its top unscrewed, in the equipment bay when he closed up and left.
He made his way back to the truck, sorely tempted just to put that Serb uniform back on and drive out the way he had come, get out before anyone even knew he’d been there. The urge to stay, though, was stronger. He wanted to see McCabe get on the plane, watch it as it roared down the runway, follow its path into the sky. This time he had absolute confidence in the work he’d done. The aircraft was a death trap. The moment the pilot switched on the jets, its fate was assured. He just needed to know that his prey was aboard.