"All right. You're back," Ronnie said.
"My head hurts."
"Yeah, no kidding. You got hit in the head by something."
"What happened? I think I got in a fight with someone."
"That's one way of putting it," Selena said. "You kicked one of Mitreski's gorillas in the balls. Then someone set off a bomb."
"I don't remember that."
"It will come back. You might have a concussion. Can you stand?"
"Help me up."
Ronnie and Selena each took one side and helped Nick to his feet.
"Man, you look like shit," Lamont said. "There's blood all over the side of your face."
Selena gave him a hard look.
Lamont shrugged. "What?"
"Suits the way I feel," Nick said.
He looked around. The bridge was strewn with articles left behind by the fleeing crowd. There was no sign of the man he'd kicked. In the square, people huddled in clusters around the fountain or around figures lying on the ground. Groans and cries drifted across the river.
Police and paramedics began to cross the bridge. A medic stopped and said something. Selena answered him in the same language. The man went on into the square.
"What did he say?" Nick asked.
"He wanted to know if you're okay."
"We need to figure out what happened. Let's get back to the hotel before somebody starts asking a lot of questions."
The desk clerk looked at Nick's bloodied face as he came in, the one Selena said didn't like reporters. He didn't say anything but Nick thought he saw the trace of a smile.
"Something funny?" he said. The man's face blanched.
"Nick…" Selena put her hand on his arm.
He shook it off. "It's all right."
The four of them went to Nick's room. He went into the bathroom and cleaned the blood off his face. There was a long gash across his forehead, the source of the blood.
"I think we can get away without stitches," Selena said. "I'm going to tape the sides together. First I have to disinfect it. This will sting."
She poured something from a small glass container onto the wound.
"Ow. What the hell is that stuff?"
"Tea tree oil. It comes from Australia. Kills just about everything."
"I believe you. Ow," Nick said again.
She finished cleaning the wound and applied tape.
From the hotel window they could see the aftermath of the bombing. The bridge and square were cordoned off. Several emergency vehicles were parked along the river. Two men in civilian clothes looked through the wreckage of the stage.
"Good thing we made it back here before they closed everything down," Lamont said.
Ronnie walked over to the dresser and turned on the television. "Let's see what the official line is."
"That's a game show," Selena said. "Try a different channel."
Ronnie worked the remote. A newsfeed came on with pictures of the square, the same scene they were watching live through their window. The camera panned in on a serious looking announcer speaking from behind a desk.
Selena translated. "They're calling it a terrorist attack. He says the Ministry of the Interior has received a note claiming responsibility."
"Who did it?" Nick said.
"According to him, a group called the Albanian National Front."
"I never heard of them."
"Oh, oh," Selena said.
"What, oh, oh?"
"The announcer just said that troop movements are reported on the border with Albania. Mitreski has declared a state of emergency. He's imposed a curfew."
"War?" Ronnie asked.
"It sounds like they're getting ready for it." Selena sighed. "The last time this happened NATO stopped it from turning into an all-out conflict but it took months."
"What's the problem with Albania?" Lamont asked.
"It goes back hundreds of years to the time of the Ottoman Empire. Almost a third of the population in Macedonia is Muslim but the rest of the country is Orthodox Christian. The last time they almost had a war it was over working conditions for ethnic Albanians living here. There's a lot of bad blood between the two countries."
"This seems pretty convenient for Mitreski."
"What do you mean, Nick?" Ronnie said.
"That demonstration was about people who want to see Mitreski gone. A lot of them. All of a sudden there's a state of emergency and the country is under the threat of war with Albania."
"You think the government set off that bomb? Their own people were killed."
"I don't think that would bother someone like Mitreski. People in power will do anything when their position is threatened."
"A false flag attack," Selena said.
"It could be. Or it could be what they say it is, a terrorist attack. Either way, things just got a lot more complicated."
"What do we do next?"
"We need more information. I have to talk with Harker."
"What about the mission?"
"Probably changed," Nick said. "We'll see what Harker has to say."
"Maybe she'll tell us to come home," Lamont said.
"Sure she will," Ronnie said. "You been smoking some of those funny cigarettes?"
CHAPTER 11
Elizabeth and Stephanie watched a string of reports about Macedonia on the monitor in Elizabeth's office. Stephanie had deep shadows under her eyes. It hadn't been that long since she'd been shot during an ambush on the Project team. She'd lost the child she was carrying and almost died.
Steph's long brown hair had been cropped short in the hospital. She'd lost a lot of weight. Elizabeth thought it looked good on her but there were better ways to go on a diet. The outer wounds were healing. Elizabeth wasn't sure how long it would take for the ones that didn't show.
"This is a mess," Stephanie said.
"I talked to Nick. Things are really tense in Skopje. The word on the street is that there's going to be a war with Albania. The government is blaming an Albanian terrorist group for the bomb."
"You think that's what really happened?"
"It's always convenient to blame terrorists. It might be a set up by Mitreski, something to divert attention from the 11 October movement."
"A false flag."
"Exactly," Elizabeth said.
"Nothing is what it appears to be anymore." Stephanie's voice was weary.
"It sounds like a typical move. Every leader in that part of Europe is corrupt. I wouldn't trust any of them, no matter what they said. Whoever is behind that explosion just upped the ante in the region. Look at this."
Elizabeth entered a command on her keyboard. The image on the monitor shifted to a live satellite shot over the Balkans and the mountains between Macedonia and Albania. She zoomed in. Military convoys were moving on the highways on both sides of the border, headed toward each other.
"Troop movements," Stephanie said. "They have tanks and artillery with them."
"It didn't take them long, did it?"
"You think they'll start shooting at each other?"
"Not yet. There will be a lot of posturing and accusations going back and forth between Tirana and Skopje before it really heats up. Unless somebody does something stupid. That's always a possibility."
"Are you going to pull the team out?"
"No. Right now they're our best source of intelligence. I want to leave them in place until we get a better idea of what's happening. They're supposed to be reporters. No one will think anything about them asking questions."
"What is it that you want them to find out?"
"Anything they can about whoever set off that bomb. If it exists, sooner or later someone will be willing to talk about them."
"What if they don't discover anything?"
"Then the probability goes up that Mitreski is lying. We have to find out. This has the potential to bring in NATO and the White House needs accurate intelligence. If the group is genuine and they did it, that's one thing. If not, it requires a different response. The Balkans are simmering with old hatreds that can erupt into another war. That would mean intervention on our part."