True Faith and Allegiance

“Do they have any idea how many terrorists are in there?” she asked.

Dom shook his head. “No. That is a shitty situation in that hotel, and it will only get worse every minute someone waits around to do something about it. If someone can get in there and begin engaging al-Matari’s people, get the shooting to start again, then the other SWAT teams will have no choice but to move on the scene.”

Adara said, “Then what are we standing around talking about it for? Let’s get in there and get started.”

Dom hesitated and Adara was about to get angry, because she thought he was going to order her to stay behind.

But before she could say anything he said, “I need you with me in there.”

“I know. I just had Clark send schematics on the building to my phone. We can go through what looks like an old drainage system under the hotel — it connects to a building on the east side on Lake Shore.”

Dom was already jogging in that direction, pulling a small light out of his backpack. Adara jogged along with him. “Let’s get wet.”

62

Luca Gabor smelled fresh dirt, wet air. He had no idea where the hell he was or what the hell was going on, but he did not ask. The confusion that began when he was taken from his prison cell at four in the morning morphed into fear when he was blindfolded, cuffed, and led out of the prison and into the back of a van, and this fear kept him silent even now.

And while he had spoken little to the people in the vehicle around him, they had said nothing back to him.

They’d driven for twenty minutes, then he was transferred to another vehicle. He had the impression he was with a new bunch of captors, but they’d said nothing more than the first group, and they drove him around for another twenty minutes.

Then the vehicle stopped, he was led out, and this is when he smelled nature for the first time.

Now he was pushed onto his knees, and he started to fall forward. As he cried out in surprise he was grabbed from behind and held in a kneeling position.

And then the blindfold was pulled from his eyes, he was released, and he blinked away the sweat of fear. It was dark, but he could tell he was somewhere in the woods, because the headlights of a vehicle behind him lit the scene.

A thick tree line was just twenty meters ahead, but right in front of him, a foot from where he knelt, fresh dirt had been dug, a hole two meters long by a meter and a half wide.

Luca looked inside it.

It was shallow, no more than a foot deep. The body of a man wearing a white shirt and a tie lay faceup. Even though the shadows were thick in the hole, Gabor could see there was a bullet wound in the man’s forehead.

In Romanian he screamed, “Shit! Shit! What is this? What am I doing here?”

From right behind him he heard a man speak. “How’s your English, Luca? I hear it used to be good, back when you worked for Romanian intelligence.”

“I… I speak English. What is going on? Who are you? What do you want? I have done nothing to anyone!”

The person behind him moved even closer now. Just behind his ear. His voice was intimidating in its tone and proximity. “I heard you’re a tough guy. But you whine a lot for a tough guy.”

“I… I want to go back to Jilava. Take me back. Now!”

Instead of an answer, Luca Gabor got a boot in the small of his back. He fell face-first into the hole, right next to, and partially on top of, the dead man. His hands cuffed behind him meant he had trouble scooting back off the body.

A flashlight’s beam centered on the corpse next to him. Gabor squinted away the light, but he looked at the body, crammed up next to him in the small shallow grave. The dead man and Gabor’s face were a foot apart.

“You know this guy?”

“No! No, I swear! I’ve never seen him.”

“His name is… was, Dragomir Vasilescu.”

Luca Gabor looked again, then he squinted into the light. “The director of ARTD. I know the name. I did not know him. But… I swear I had nothing to do with anything he might have—”

“Alexandru Dalca paid you a visit.”

Gabor began shaking his head violently, but he heard the sound of the slide on a semiautomatic pistol being racked.

“Before you answer, asshole, know this. Ol’ Drago there didn’t want to talk to me, either. And you see what that got him.”

Luca changed his tune quickly. He wasn’t going to risk his life to defend Alexandru fucking Dalca. “Yes, It’s true. He wanted me to make a connection for him. To get him out of the country. I didn’t know why. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.”

“I know why he wanted to run.” The voice behind the flashlight said. “I was why he wanted to run. He’s a smart guy, after all. What I don’t know is what you told him. You tell me right now, or you end up next to old Drago here for eternity, or until a dog comes by, smells your stench, and drags you off.”

Luca thought about the three million dollars his daughter received this afternoon. He could give up Dalca’s secret, but he could not lose out on so much money. He said, “I didn’t help. I refused.”