Quest for Vengeance by David Tindell

Author:David Tindell [Tindell, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-03-01T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GROCKA MUNICIPALITY, SERBIA

Novak decided he needed to get some air. Dinner with his guest had not gone well. She’d said barely a word, picked at her food and then, after only twenty minutes, had asked to be excused. Reluctantly, he had acceded, ordering one of his guards to escort her down the hall and make sure she was locked in for the night.

It was too bad, really. A part of him had been hoping that some form of Stockholm Syndrome would set in for her, and she would at least be civil. He knew that a captive showing sympathy for her captors happened in only about eight percent of hostage situations, but he’d held out hope she would be in that minority. Then again, she’d heard him on the phone a few hours before, telling her husband that he had only twenty-four hours to surrender himself to Novak or “steps would be taken.” Sophie Barton-Hayes was nobody’s fool.

It was a cool night, but not so chilly that a drive in his Audi with the top down would be unpleasant. There was a pub a few miles down the road he’d visited once or twice, finding it a pleasant place in which to unwind and escape the never-ending responsibilities that seemed to escalate as time went on. The last time he’d been there, what was it, two months ago? Yes, and that night he’d been chatted up by a lovely young barmaid. What was her name? Senca, or maybe Slavica. Perhaps she’d be there tonight.

He powered down his desktop computer and stood up, stretching. At the door, Viktor took a step inside, always alert to his boss’s movements. “Can I get you anything, sir?”

“Yes,” Novak said. “The keys to my Audi, plus my jacket and driving gloves. The brown leather jacket, the one I got in Prague last month.”

“Right away, sir.”

Two minutes later, Novak was at the front door, slipping into the jacket. “Who’s on duty tonight?” he asked.

“Vladimir and Radovan,” Viktor said.

“What about you?”

The young man gave him a tight grin. “My shift actually ended a half-hour ago, sir. I stayed on to see if I could help you with anything.”

“Thank you, but you can retire,” Novak said. The men stayed in a small barracks a few dozen meters from the main entrance to the estate. Novak had brought five men with him to help guard the woman. Two more were scheduled to arrive in the morning from Belgrade. That would give him eight men, including himself, to deal with the American when he arrived. More than enough.

Novak took the car keys from Viktor and hesitated. “Vladimir, you said?”

“Yes, sir.” Viktor’s expression changed ever so slightly.

Vladimir was a Russian who had been hired by Red Dragon two years earlier, after serving five years on the protective detail of some big shot oligarch in Moscow. The word Novak had gotten was that the man had been cashiered for being too friendly with his principal’s wife, but Novak had taken him

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