War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel (41 page)

“If Kellerman ignites that powder keg,” Tucker said, “all hell could break loose across Europe.”

Painter stood up and leaned on his desk. “And we have twenty-four hours to stop it.”

“That’s impossible,” Frank muttered.

Nora spoke up from the back of the group. “I know how we can do it.”

Everyone turned to her.

She faced the scrutiny without flinching. “Sandy gave us the answer. But it’ll take all of us to pull this off.”

31

October 27, 8:07
A
.
M
. CET

Kraljevo, Serbia

Twelve hours later and half a world away from Trinidad, Tucker bounced along in a new rental SUV. The temperature at this early hour in the southern mountains of Serbia was below freezing as a cold front moved over the Balkan region. The roads were icy and a steady sleet fell from low clouds that had settled over the green peaks of the Dinaric Alps.

“Not exactly the balmy Caribbean, is it?” Frank said from the backseat.

No, it’s not
.

Tucker was driving a polar-white ŠKODA Yeti, a vehicle manufactured by a Czech company and commonly seen in the mountainous regions of Serbia. Ruth Harper had arranged the particular transportation to blend in with the locals, not that their group exactly fit in.

Cleared medically, Jane sat in the front passenger seat, bundled in a thick down coat, while Frank and Nora shared the backseat with Kane between them. The final member of their party—Rex—lay under a tarp in the rear compartment.

The group had landed outside the small town of Kraljevo in southern Serbia, flying overnight aboard yet another private jet, a Bombardier Global Express, which made the leap from Trinidad to Serbia in a single intercontinental bound. Ruth had chosen this remote mountain town and its small regional airport for two reasons.

First, to avoid making the same mistake twice. After blowing two of Tangent’s drones out of the skies, they had to assume Lyon might suspect Tucker and company had survived the assault on Patos Island, and the French soldier might have placed the main airport in Belgrade under watch. An hour ago, they had landed at Kraljevo’s small airport under EU call signs and bearing Greek passports, courtesy of the good folks at Sigma. Still, as a precaution, the group had exited the plane in heavy jackets, their hoods pulled up, with both Rex and Kane in closed crates.

Jane studied a folded map in her lap and brought up the other reason for this choice of location. “The Skaxis Mining complex lies only sixty miles farther into the mountains. To reach it, you’ll want to take a road marked E-761, which heads toward Serbia’s border with Montenegro.”

He nodded.

Last night, Painter had reported an increase in commercial cargo helicopters landing at the sprawling mining complex, along with the arrival of a caravan of trucks. They were all gambling that whatever Kellerman had in store for the region had its base of operations at Skaxis Mining.

In the backseat, Kane let out a jaw-cracking yawn.

I feel you, buddy
.

With time ticking down, Tucker’s group had caught what little sleep they could aboard the jet, though Frank and Nora had spent most of the flight bent with their heads together over a laptop. Even now the two mumbled behind him, speaking in what had to be a foreign language about coding and algorithms.

Much of what was to come depended on those two, especially Nora. She was the one most familiar with Sandy’s work, while Frank offered a sounding board for the young woman. Tucker and Kane were nothing more than glorified bodyguards to get Nora where she needed to be.

Jane rubbed a gloved palm over the window next to her to wipe away some of the steamy moisture. He had wanted to leave Jane behind—both to keep her safe and because a part of him was still angry with her. They had barely spoken a word on the flight here. Even Kane felt the tension, slinking back and forth across the cabin between them as if trying to draw the pack together by sheer will.

In the end, Tucker conceded that he could use Jane’s help. Despite everything, he trusted her more than anyone else, even the Sigma operatives who Ruth had suggested accompany them. Jane had blood in the game, both her own and those of her friends. He also read the haunted look in her eyes whenever she thought no one was staring. He recognized that expression, having seen it often enough in the mirror when his own anxiety and despair flared. Over the years, he had dealt with the core of that pain by trying to right the wrongs around him, to perhaps one day find his center again.

He could not deny Jane the chance to do the same.

She needed to see this through.

In the end, with the timeline this narrow, Ruth had agreed—after a brief argument—to allow Tucker’s group to head into enemy territory as an advanced surgical strike team. She had flown back to DC to arrange for a backup to follow Tucker’s group into the field. She was also coordinating with Painter to deal with Pruitt Kellerman.

So for now the group was on its own.

Tucker glanced to Nora in the rearview mirror. He could see the weight on her shoulders, from the shadows under her eyes to the slump in her back. But there remained a steady determination in her face, to exact revenge for the woman she loved by wielding the sword Sandy had left for her.

Even now Nora clutched Sandy’s thumb drive in her fist.

Sandy had perfected Turing’s algorithms and stored her results on that bit of electronics, allowing Nora and Frank to outfit Rex with those improved algorithms. Doing so had already helped them stay one foot ahead in all of this—but to take down everything from here would require accessing the last remaining file on the thumb drive, Sandy’s masterwork in reverse engineering.

Tucker pictured the file he had seen a few days back—and its name.

L
OBOTOMY
.

The file held the key to dismantling anything that bore a copy of Sandy’s original work, especially the AI cores of the drones. The code was capable of stripping the brains out of the warcraft, turning them into scrap metal. The team had considered using Rex as a delivery system, but the tiny drone’s capabilities were too limited. Rex could at best commandeer
one
drone, like he had done back at White Sands. To take out an entire fleet would require delivering Sandy’s code into the master control unit of the operation, where it could be broadcast far and wide. In order to accomplish that feat, they would first need to reach Kellerman’s local command center.

With that objective in mind, Tucker headed higher into the mountains, all too aware of the region’s history. He had heard stories from senior Rangers who had served both covertly and openly during the Kosovo War, stories of mass graves, of entire villages razed, of women raped and mutilated, of concentration camps that rivaled those of Nazi Germany. And though that war had ended almost two decades ago, the tensions in the region remained.

How could Kellerman even think of throwing a lighted match into this powder keg?

5:02
A
.
M
. EDT

Smith Island, Maryland

“
Are you getting cold feet again, Mr. President?”

Pruitt stifled a yawn as he took this early morning video call from the Serbian president, Marco Davidovic. The sun had yet to rise on the East Coast, but Pruitt had already been awake for the past hour. Too much was at stake for anything to go wrong today.

Davidovic leaned closer to the screen, revealing a nervous sheen to his pale skin, which highlighted the dark circles under his eyes. From the fireplace in the background, it appeared the president was calling from his private office at his palace in Belgrade.

“Not at all,” Davidovic said haltingly. “I just wanted to make sure all was in order. I will play my part as scripted, but I am putting much at risk.”

“As I am,” Pruitt countered, keeping his voice even, suppressing his irritation. He didn’t need the Serbian president second-guessing him, especially at this late stage. He just needed the bastard to sit in his palace and continue to swill that sickeningly sweet plum brandy of his.

Was that too much to ask?

“We’re fully on schedule at the border,” Pruitt assured the president. “At sundown, operations will commence—and by dawn, you’ll have your revenge upon Montenegro, while gaining the enduring love of your people.”

And I will possess the mineral rights to hundreds of square miles of land rich in rare-earth elements
.

“You have nothing to worry about, Marco,” Pruitt said in a firm, confident voice.

Davidovic nodded and leaned back. “Good. Then there will be no need to speak of this again . . . at least not for a while.”

We shouldn’t even be speaking now
.

Still, Pruitt kept a smile fixed to his face until the call ended, then he scowled and reached for his phone. He dialed Rafael Lyon.

“Give me an update,” he demanded as the secure connection was made.

“All is in order on the ground,” Lyon reported. “We’re running a final systems’ check on the fleet. But so far everything is green-lit to go.”

As Lyon filled in more details and answered several more questions, the man’s voice grew irritated, a mirror to Pruitt’s own frustration a moment ago. Like Pruitt, the soldier didn’t appreciate being second-guessed.

“And what about the other matter?” Pruitt asked.

“It’s not a concern,” Lyon said, his irritation turning to anger. “After Trinidad, we’ve had no further sightings of the others. I have eyes and ears throughout the airport in Belgrade, even Sarajevo. Nothing.”

Lyon seemed to think these assurances would put Pruitt at ease.

Far from it
.

Pruitt began to pace his office. Over the years, he had learned that the
unknown
was far more dangerous than the
known
.

“Sir, they’re likely all dead,” Lyon said. “And in a few hours it won’t make a difference.”

Pruitt wasn’t satisfied with this answer.

First, Davidovic gets cold feet . . . now this lingering threat hanging over our heads
.

He saw only one way to deal with both situations at once.

“We’re moving up the timetable,” Pruitt decided. “It’s no longer set for sundown.”

Lyon was silent for a breath, but he took the change of plans in stride, ever the good soldier. “Then when?”

Pruitt calculated the time change in his head. In Serbia, it was just past ten o’clock in the morning. “Noon . . . make it noon your time.”

“Understood.”

As the call ended, Pruitt clutched the phone, feeling more relaxed and confident.

No one can stop this now . . .

10:18
A
.
M
. CET

Brodarevo, Serbia

Tucker trundled their SUV over a bridge. It had taken them more than two hours to cross the sixty miles of winding mountain roads, challenging the Czech vehicle’s four-wheel-drive capabilities in the ice and rain. But at least the clouds had begun to clear, showing streaks of blue through the dark gray overcast.

“Where are we?” Frank asked as they cleared the bridge.

“According to the map, that was the River Lim,” Jane noted, “which would make that the village of Brodarevo ahead.”

She pointed to a road marker, as if proving her case, but the sign was inscribed in indecipherable Serbian Cyrillic and could mean anything.

Let’s hope Jane’s navigation is correct
.

As a precaution, they had disabled the SUV’s GPS, so it couldn’t be tracked. But now he wondered if that was the wisest choice. On the way here, they had driven through countless towns and villages, all of which seemed to be made up of a hodgepodge of consonants. It would be easy to get lost with one wrong turn.

Still, the route up into the mountains had been strangely idyllic, with stacked stone bridges fording bubbling creeks and sod-roofed farmhouses with split-rail fences. They had also passed pieces of Serbia’s history, like a Byzantine monastery tucked away in a lush valley and a medieval mosque perched atop a ridgeline, its slender minarets silhouetted against the stormy horizon.

Even the quaint village of Brodarevo, like many of the other alpine hamlets, was composed of a mishmash of picturesque houses with terra-cotta roofs and whitewashed facades. The inhabitants paid them no heed as they drove past, save for the occasional wave or smile.

“Skaxis Mining should be another four miles to the northwest,” Jane reported, “in the mountains above a place called Kamena Gora, which hugs the Serbian border.”

As they left the town, she directed them along a winding road, which offered glimpses of boulder-choked ravines and moss-covered cliffs. After a couple of miles, the road changed from blacktop to gravel. Over the next ridge, the trail snaked down into a valley bisected by a narrow gorge roiling with white water.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Nora asked.

Jane remained worrisomely silent, poring over the map and occasionally glancing up. As they rose again out of the gorge, Tucker spotted a scatter of red-tiled roofs in the distance, with stone chimneys trickling smoke. The village ahead was mostly obscured by forest, with the homes climbing the mountainside in a series of tiers.

“Could that be Kamena Gora?” he asked.

“I think so.” She pointed to the valley on the opposite side. “If I’m right, somewhere over there should be Serbia’s border with Montenegro.”

“And where’s Skaxis Mining?” he asked.

She swung her arm back over the village to the mountain on this side. “In that direction.” She took out a set of binoculars and searched. “I can almost make out the scar of a quarry up there. Skaxis Mining covers over fifty square miles of those mountains.”