Andrew Gross - Reckless

“I’m pulling off for a second,” he said. “I can’t take the chance she’ll spot us following her.”

He slowed onto the side of the dirt road and threw the car into park. Hauck reached into the back and took out a pair of binoculars from his canvas bag. Focusing, he made a wide sweep of the hills. About a mile ahead, he spotted the Opel climbing a steep ridge and, following its path and the valley beyond, came upon the outline of a dwelling, the brightness of a red tiled roof.

Naomi asked, “What do you see?”

The Opel drove down the road and came to a stop in front of the white, red-roofed farmhouse.

“I think I see pay dirt,” Hauck replied.

They drove past the ridge and left the car hidden behind a cluster of trees where it wouldn’t be spotted. Hauck grabbed the bag and took the binocs, some bottled water, a Nikon camera, and his Sig 9 mm, just in case.

“You’re sure you’re up for this?” he asked Naomi one last time, a little playfulness behind it. “Desk detail is over.”

She tied her hair in a ponytail and zipped her Windbreaker. “Let me know if I go too fast for you,” she answered.

They decided to climb the adjoining ridge and look over the house Maria Radisovic had driven up to. Naomi strapped on her government-issue Colt.

“You even recall how to use that thing?” Hauck asked with a teasing grin.

“I think I can still conjure up the image,” Naomi said, locking in the magazine and brushing past him.

The terrain up the hill was steep, with tall grasses that led to a drier brush as they climbed above the trees. The sun had come out and made the climb hot. And steep. Hauck felt a little out of breath. His leg throbbed a bit, still stiff from the bullet in the thigh he’d taken eighteen months ago.

Naomi, leading the way, never even slowed.

They finally made it to the top. They kneeled down on a rock and looked over the ridge Maria Radisovic had driven up to.

“Look!” Hauck pointed to a stucco farmhouse. Some animal pens built along a sloping hillside, maybe for sheep or oxen, but no sign of any livestock around. An earthen well dug along the side of the house.

White smoke rose from the chimney.

“Someone’s there.”

A black Audi was parked along the side of the house in back, almost hidden from view.

The cargo hatch open, Maria Radisovic’s Opel was pulled up in front.

Hauck peered through the binoculars. She had unpacked the car and gone inside. He guessed he was gazing at an abandoned farm. Maybe in the family or something they had rented. He muttered to Naomi, “What would you be thinking about why an elderly women needs to bring stuff way out in the sticks like this? Food. Booze. Tobacco.”

“I’d be thinking maybe it’s for someone she wants to hide,” Naomi said, watching over the ridge.

They had to wait a few minutes. Fifteen or twenty. The sun made it hot up there, and they opened up some water.

Finally, the front door of the farmhouse opened back up.

Maria came out first. She was followed by a figure Hauck recognized instantly. He zoomed in with the binoculars. The man was dressed in a blue plaid shirt, rumpled pants, and leather work boots. He was heavyset and broad shouldered. He looked like any anonymous worker from the town.

Except that Hauck saw his face.

“And I’d be thinking you’re right,” he said, rolling over and passing the binoculars to Naomi. “Agent Blum, say hi to Dani Thibault.” He grinned triumphantly.

Inside the farmhouse, Dani Thibault was going crazy.

He’d been cooped up at the old family farm for a week, unable to communicate with anyone, nervous to even show his face in town, even though he’d hadn’t been there for fifteen years. He was virtually in prison, yet he knew he had to remain there, at least for a while, until things calmed down.

He went out for a smoke and looked around the foggy valley. It was a perfect hiding spot. He was in one of the most remote mountain regions in Europe, and having driven through the EU from Paris under an identity no one could trace, there was no way anyone would have tracked him here. He was sure he had gotten out before anyone would have known he was missing. He had communicated only through a private e-mail address with his mother. Franko Kostavic had disappeared fifteen years ago. And if it did somehow come out, if some old-timer recognized his face and put it together, in his family’s old village, surrounded by friends who felt the same way, he would be celebrated as a hero for what he’d done in the war, not turned in.

But it wasn’t the police or the U.S. government he was primarily worried about. No…

On his way there, in Germany, he had stopped and e-mailed the man who had recruited him at a designated cyber address. Thibault wrote that the trail of money he had received and recordings he had made of their communications were in the secure possession of a lawyer in Switzerland with instructions to share it with the U.S. government should Thibault not be around to call in and instruct him not to every six months. A simple plan, he had to admit, but a safe one. All he wanted was his freedom in return for what he had done. His silence was guaranteed.

Ultimately, Thibault knew, there were places he could go where no one would ever find him and new aliases he could adopt. Just like he had done before. He possessed all the funds he would ever need. He knew how to sniff out people, vulnerable people. The instinct came to him like the scent of a hare to a hound.

His only regret was that he couldn’t get even with Merrill. To make her pay for her betrayal. That was driving him nuts. She was a horny little bitch and his only amusement now was the knowledge that he had let free urges from deep inside her she would not so easily satisfy with someone else.

Unfortunately, the thought of her brought his own physical urges to the surface. Up there, what prospects could there be? Filthy barmaids or mountainous old farmer’s wives. He was used to having the most desirable women in the world. Maybe he would go into Novi Pazar. No one knew him there. There were places he could go. Women found him instantly attractive. He knew he radiated something mysterious to them, a side he had played up his whole life. Using women had never been a difficult thing for him.

The stupid old Bahraini had said it. It was his dick that would get him into trouble.

Yes, he was going crazy there. So be it, Thibault thought. He stared up at the hills. It was like he felt someone watching him, but he knew that was impossible. They’d held in secrets for centuries.

He stamped out his cigarette. His was just one more.

They watched Thibault for another day from the same hillside, perched high on the ridge. Naomi snapped several photos. Thibault. His car. Its plates. She sent them immediately back to Washington.

They deliberated about what to do.

Thibault never strayed far from the cottage. Once or twice he came out for a smoke or to bring in wood from a shack, as the nights were still cool. Once he took a short walk along a nearby brook. The next day, Maria Radisovic came back around noon. This time Hauck and Naomi were there ahead of her. She brought along a suitcase that seemed stuffed with clothes, and Thibault came out of the farmhouse and took it in for her. He puffed on a cigar and stamped it into the ground. Before going in, he gazed around the secluded valley-almost directly at the spot where he and Naomi were located, making Hauck duck back. It was almost as if Thibault had sensed someone was watching him.

Then he went back inside.

The options they faced were complicated. They could arrest Thibault themselves, but that would mean bringing in the Serbian police. Anything else would be unlawful. Which no one wanted. That would only create a public legal battle over extradition. Without a formal treaty and with local lawyers dragging it out, a thing like that could go on forever. And once the government became aware Thibault was actually Kostavic, who knew how that would play out? They might lose whatever negotiating leverage they had.