Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

I read him his rights and asked him if he understood.

He didn’t reply.

“Did you hear me? Do you understand your rights?”

“I heard you.”

Conklin and Diano hoisted Petrović to his feet and moved him toward the front door. He squirmed and resisted, asking, “Where are you taking me?”

I was happy to tell him.

“SFO international airport, Mr. Petrović. Your connecting flight to Sarajevo leaves at nine.”

He struggled as he was marched out the front door and under the awning to the curb, wrenching his body around as he was forced into the CIA’s armored SUV.

He protested, “You can’t deport me. I’ve done nothing. ”

I answered him with my face six inches from his: “We have nothing but testimony from eyewitnesses and physical evidence that you raped Carly Myers.”

“How many times do I have to say, I don’t know this woman.”

Conklin said, “You were sloppy. Or hasty, Mr. P. You left physical evidence inside your victim. We’ve got you by the short hair.”

Chapter 114

We couldn’t just go home after the takedown.

The team that brought down Slobodan Petrović stood out in the darkening street, adrenaline pumping, watching the taillights dwindle as the CIA’s armored Land Rover took the monster away. We were high on success but still unresolved. Until Petrović was off US soil, the shouting would have to wait.

Jacobi said, “I’m starving. Anyone else?”

He led us back into the restaurant and had waiters push three tables together at the middle of the room. The waitstaff looked freaked out, but they complied, and after all of the Feds and cops took seats, they brought menus.

One of the waiters leaned down to talk to me. He was young, in his early twenties, the name Christopher engraved on the tag on his jacket.

Christopher asked, “Is Mr. Branko coming back?”

“No. Probably not.”

“Mr. Vladic didn’t come in today. Is he in trouble, too?”

“I can’t say,” I told the waiter.

“What’s going to happen to the restaurant? To us?”

I told him that I didn’t know.

He said, “They’re going to jail, huh? No loss. They’re both scumbags.”

“They are. But we’re good for the bill,” I told him.

“If not, what am I gonna do? Call the cops?”

He winked, added, “Don’t worry about it,” then attended to Jacobi, who said, “What’s good here?”

We all laughed, ordered steak and wine and side dishes, and before the food came, Jacobi called the mayor. He gave him a breakdown of the events, then set the phone down in the middle of the table so we could hear the mayor in a rare happy moment.

“I’ll hold a press conference tomorrow,” said the mayor. “The city is grateful to every one of you.”

Rich called Cindy and told her to get out to the airport and track down the next outbound flight to Sarajevo. A moment later Joe got an email from the lab.

Joe showed me his phone. Clapper had written that Vladic’s Escalade had paint clinging to the broken headlight socket that matched the Tesla Anna had been driving the day she was abducted.

I said to Joe, “If Vladic is indicted for kidnapping, he’ll be deported, right? I swear if he confesses to killing Denny Lopez, I’ll throw him a farewell party with champagne and a live DJ.”

Joe pulled me close and we grinned at each other. He said, “Not getting ahead of ourselves, are we, Blondie?”

“I can wish, can’t I?”

Meanwhile, in real time, a dozen toasts were made with Tony’s wine: to Claire, to the cops who’d located the Jag and the Escalade, and to the fire and rescue workers who’d saved Anna and Susan. Glasses were raised to Joe and Diano, Conklin and me, for leading the charge and bringing it all home.

No one was left out.

Steinmetz clinked his glass with a spoon and announced that working with the SFPD had been an honor and a pleasure. Jacobi returned the favor.

Conklin’s phone rang, and after he kissed it, he told us the good news.

“Cindy watched Petrović board the plane under guard. She says she kept her eyes on it until it broke the sound barrier.”

Cindy was indomitable.

And after Rich made the announcement, the shouting commenced.

Petrović was gone.

From all that we knew about his recent past and his wartime history, it was a dead cert that Petrović’s sentence would be reinstated and that he’d spend the rest of his life in a cement box of a cell inside a maximum-security prison.

We whooped and yelled and hugged people sitting next to us, even those we hadn’t known before tonight. I texted Yuki and Claire, and they both arrived at Tony’s in time for coffee and chocolate pie.

It was a wonderful, unforgettable finale to our hard and dangerous work.

We’d done it. Case closed.

We couldn’t have known it then, but five years later, when we seldom thought about him at all, Slobodan Petrović would appeal his sentence at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

He’d worked a deal once before.

It would be unbearable, unjust, if he did it again.

Epilogue

Chapter 115

Joe and I stood with Anna outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the building’s glass walls shielding us from the slashing rain.

Three years before, Anna had moved to Spokane to get away from the searing memories of her time in San Francisco. Although we’d been in touch, we hadn’t seen her since.

Anna looked older now and more vulnerable. She was wearing a hooded raincoat, but the hood couldn’t hide the tears in her eyes. When we hugged, I felt her shivering.

I was afraid for her. Soon she would be testifying to the tribunal, telling them about Petrović’s crimes against her and her family in Djoba. She couldn’t tell them about San Francisco, but I knew full well how much she’d suffered when Petrović brutalized her yet again.

I couldn’t imagine how she’d gathered the courage to confront Petrović now.

Joe gripped her shoulders and said, “We’re with you, Anna.”

“I know. I’m glad.”

The doors to the courthouse slid open, and the crowd of reporters and survivors and onlookers rushed through the entrance into the main hall like a pack of wet dogs.

Ushers directed us, sending witnesses to the main courtroom, and spectators and the press to the gallery, an elevated viewing room separated from the courtroom by a wall of bulletproof glass. When we entered the observation room, I saw rows of theater-style seats rising toward the rear of the room, giving a high-bleachers view down on the court proceedings.

Joe and I sat in the fifth tier, where we had a full view of the courtroom. It was the size of a college lecture hall, high ceilinged and austere. The judges’ wood-paneled benches were centered on the wall opposite the glass barrier. Similar paneled benches, one for the defense, the other for the prosecution, were at right angles to the judges’ benches.

As we watched, Anna and her attorneys entered the main chamber. Anna had shed her coat. She was wearing a subtle plaid suit with a white blouse, and her chestnut hair was cut to shoulder length. There was no sign of the tears or the tremors I’d seen just a few minutes before. As I watched, she pulled her hair back behind her ears, plainly showing the burn scar on her face.

I clapped on my headphones and listened to the court officer’s speech regarding the proceedings and the rules of decorum. He spoke in English, but his speech was translated into any of six official languages at the touch of a switch.

He called the court to order, and we were asked to rise.

A hundred people in the gallery and another fifty in the courtroom got to their feet as the judges arrived through a side door. Nine men and women, wearing dark-blue robes with royal-blue trim and stiff white jabots at their throats, took their seats at the benches.