20
Last night’s train ride to Paris, a stay in a nameless airport hotel, and the early flight from the madness that was Charles de Gaulle was a blur. During it, though, Jason had finished both the book and material Momma had furnished. If he had entertained any doubts as to the urgency of his mission, he did so no longer.
But, before he could complete the task, there were a number of questions that needed answering, questions that were a stream of consciousness as he walked along one of the dozen new concourses added to what had been a Russian-built terminal, the massive, ugly, if utilitarian, architecture common to most former Soviet states. Communist Gothic, Jason called it. Other Russian influence also lingered: The escalator from the second to bottom floor was out of service.
Setting down his only bag in front of the Air France counter, he waited while the single clerk listened to a stocky, elderly woman. Head covered by a scarf, her tone was angry, a complaint even if Jason couldn’t understand the language, though it sounded like Russian. From her gestures, it became clear her luggage had taken an excursion of its own. Despite the clerk’s polite replies, frustration was in her tone as she tried to point the angry woman to wherever victims of misdirected baggage went.
Jason checked his watch. He had been standing here nearly five minutes. Not a great deal of time, but more than enough to give a potential attacker an opportunity to set a trap. Not having to wait at baggage carousels was the reason he never checked a bag.
Finally, the old woman either understood that lost luggage was not to be found at the ticket counter, gave up, or decided to vent her anger elsewhere. The clerk, a young woman with blunt-cut dark hair, gave Jason a radiant smile.
“Thank you for your patience,” she said in accented English. “It was the babuška’s first flight, bags not arrive.” She shrugged. “Or, more likely, her kutija,” She made a rectangle with her hands. “What is the English?”
“Box?”
“Yes, box. Many Russians come here because is little cost, particularly the older ones, never travel more than a few kilometers from their village. Now that they are retiring from government… how you say?’
“Government work? Government service?”
“Yes. They have retire and now are no government restriction on travel like when Communist rule. They come, but do not own such thing as real suitbox.”
“Suitcase?”
“Yes, suitcase. They never own, put clothes in cardboard box, tie with string. Sometimes not so good, string break. Plane land, baggage hold full of loose clothes.”
“I can see that might be a problem,” Jason said, turning to scan the area for anything out of the ordinary, anything suspicious. “I’m Jason Peters. I think you have a package for me.”
Her face clouded in confusion for an instant, then brightened, “Yes! A man… what is the English?”
“Courier?”
She shook her head. “DHL delivery.”
“OK, DHL. There’s something here for me?”
She disappeared behind the counter, returning with the bright red-and-yellow package of the delivery company. After he produced his passport for inspection, she handed it across the counter.
“It is heavy!” she observed.
“Books,” Jason explained as he lifted the parcel.
He assumed the “Dobro jutro!” she called after him as he headed toward the mens’ room was Croatian for something akin to “have a good day.”
Regrettably, he had made other plans.
Inside a stall, he tore open the cardboard. Momma had fulfilled his wish list: Passport bearing an unflattering picture, American Express and Capitol One Visa cards, all bearing the name of one George R. Simmons. A driver’s license gave Mr. Simmons’s address as P Street in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC. Three wallet-size photos of two chubby cheeked children filled out the identity packet. A .40-caliber Glock with two fully loaded clips and belt holster were next. Jason pressed the magazine release, slid it from the butt of the pistol, and noted with approval it was also full. Cocking the pistol, he slipped it into the holster and clipped the holster to his belt at the small of his back before he dropped the extra clips into his pocket. Next, he removed a knife, one he had designed himself. He took it from its scabbard to check the titanium blade. Ten inches in length, it was only half an inch wide with a razor-sharp edge on both sides. Ideal for stabbing or slashing with minimum risk of getting entangled in bone or entrails. He returned it to its scabbard, strapped it onto his right calf, and pulled his trouser leg over it. He turned the open end of the package downward and shook it. An enveloped floated to the stall’s floor, the last of the box’s contents.
Inside was a single piece of paper on which were Momma’s neat block letters:
Herka Kerjck
Budačka ulica 16
Gospić, Lika
She has been contacted and is expecting you.
He memorized the name and address and consigned the shredded paper to the toilet.
He then went to a booth to exchange his euros for kuna, the local currency. Seven and a half was a slightly better exchange rate than he had expected. Once again, he took careful stock of his surroundings as he pretended to focus on counting the money before exiting the terminal to join a line of people waiting for cabs. What was it about the town that made waiting for a taxi at the airport make a similar wait at, say, La Guardia, seem nonexistent? Nearly twenty minutes later, he was in a cab, riding the ten kilometers into the city. He gave the cabby the rail station as his destination and sat back to enjoy the view.
Zagreb could have been any Eastern European city — Prague, Vienna — with its white stone buildings and red tile roofs. Bright blue trams clattered along tracks in the middle of main streets. Like those other cities, it, too, was in the plain of a river, the Sava. The cab darted from a very modern highway into narrow cobblestone streets. Shops and eating establishments dominated the first floors with living quarters upstairs. Ahead, the twin towers of the fourteenth-century Cathedral of the Assumption and its colorful mosaic roof, depicting the coats of arms of two of the church’s early patrons, dominated the skyline.
The curbs of the street were lined with cars, mostly of the claustrophobically small European variety. But the streets were filled with more economic transportation, bicycles and scooters. Jason knew Americans liked to whine about high gas prices, but they paid roughly a third of what their European cousins did.
The cab emerged onto a large, grassy square, Tomislavov Trg, where a statue of Croatia’s first king showed his back to a large, Greek revival building with rococo ornamentation below a widow’s walk at the top of its peaked roof. The rail station, obviously predating the featureless, massive Communist buildings. Kiosks selling food, cigarettes, magazines, and other items that might be of interest to train passengers ringed the entrance.
Unsure if his driver spoke English since, unlike Western Europe, many cabbies there did not, Jason pointed to an open spot at the curb just vacated by another cab. “There.”