KVSPARROW: A Shadow Wars Novel Read online

Chapter Three

  The long drive from Athens combined with the tour of the city and the little dust up with my would be muggers had left me pretty tired. The Jack also helped and I slept well and late. Upon rising I secured my room, putting my laptop, passport and other documents into the small Pelican case I carried for this purpose. I took a few standard precautions against tampering and casual theft, double checked that I was sterile and headed out. I knew better than to trust hotel safes. I’d been part of operations in other places that involved suborning hotel employees and knew the relative value of the security offered by the Grand. I hadn’t yet drawn attention to myself so the point was moot; however I preferred to rely on my own devices in this instance. Leaving the case and its contents in my car was also out. The car was parked in the hotel lot, easily observed by anyone interested and subject to theft of either the vehicle itself or, more likely, its contents. The room was the best option, at least until the situation was clarified a bit.

  I left the hotel wearing clothing I had purchased during my time in Greece. Nothing easily attributable to an American; mostly Levi’s, a few t-shirts and sport shirts by European manufacturers, German suede ankle boots and an Italian leather jacket. The idea was to not look like an American and while clothing helped, posture, body language and attitude made the real difference. I set myself back into the Euro mode, walking with one hand in my jacket pocket, strolling rather than walking with a purpose and without the self-absorption frequently characteristic of Americans. I wasn’t trying so much to disguise myself as to not stand out. I looked like a reasonable facsimile of a middle aged, middle class European, someone in a hard trade, construction contractor maybe, but certainly not an all too obvious American. Being invisible isn’t about not being seen…it’s about not being recognized as significant. Give people a pigeon hole in which to put you, especially if it plays to a prejudice, and you’re most of the way there.

  My path upon leaving the hotel took me downhill toward the stadium. It had been repaired and looked good from the distance, much better than the half burned out shell I remembered. I slipped into a covered shopping mall that stood between the stadium and the Grand and spent a little time window shopping while checking for obvious surveillance. Finding none, I took a seat in a small café, ordered coffee and burek for breakfast and spent the time waiting for my food planning out the day’s activities. My first priority was to determine what I could and should do before drawing attention to myself by making contact with KVSPARROW. Right now it was highly unlikely that the opposition had any idea that I existed or was in Pristina. Once I began to act, the likelihood of them becoming aware increased and there were some things I needed to do while I had less concerns about surveillance and hostile actions. These included checking out the ambush site and HANNA’s living quarters (Gashi lived with several family members so a visit there would raise my profile unnecessarily without the expectation of any real benefit). Both were long shots, unlikely to yield anything significant. Still, it was possible that there was information which wasn’t included in the reports and which I could use. You don’t know what you don’t know. I also needed to use the established comms to arrange a meet with KVSPARROW. I wanted to find a good place for the meet first, one which let me scope out the site for hostile surveillance well in advance of the meet itself. I’d also need to locate a static observation point from which to observe others arriving or traversing the meet site in time to assess their potential as a threat. I had to assume that KVSPARROW would be either under the control of a hostile element or else hostile themself and being able to observe any preparations for direct action against me was a very basic first step to survival. While I was here based upon the hope that KVSPARROW was genuine and not hostile, acting on that assumption was a good way to get dead ahead of schedule. That made finding a good meet site the most important thing I would do all day.

  Once I drained the last of the coffee and left enough Euros to cover the bill and a small tip (Europeans tip small, Americans large. If one is trying to be mistaken for another nationality or to not be noticed, these details count) I headed to a taxi stand at the front of the shopping center. Using taxis in a city crawling with them meant I had disposable transportation, wasn’t tied to a vehicle which in turn could be tied to me and gave me options driving myself around did not provide. I took the cab at the back of the line, something you can’t do in many places, and asked the driver to head for Germia Park. He grunted and headed out into the chaotic traffic. Fortunately for me he wasn’t the chatty type and the ride went smoothly despite the lousy road surfaces, congestion and the general attitude of our fellow travelers that traffic laws were really just suggestions. I’d thought Kosovo traffic very bad back in the day but after spending time in the Middle East and especially in Afghanistan I knew it wasn’t really bad at all. Not law abiding by any means but not the complete free for all of say, Kabul. I had the driver drop me off near the middle of the park. The day was nice for fall, clear and sunny, and there were a fair amount of people picnicking, wandering aimlessly, playing pickup soccer (yeah, yeah, football to you Euro types) and just sitting and watching everyone else. People watching was a national sport but it made counter surveillance a bit more difficult. My arrival attracted a small amount of attention from a few people near the drop off point but they soon returned to their affairs when I failed to be interesting.

  I headed up the road, named for Dr. Shpetim Robaj, toward the main bulk of Germia Hill. The open stretch of grass that made up most of the park was to my right, the community swimming pool behind me about a half mile back. HANNA and Gashi had been killed further up this road, deep in the woods in a lay by where the road surface was no longer paved. The road ran to the top of an outcrop of the main mountain where a small military installation had stood for the last fifty years or so. It also looped around the east side of Pristina and eventually dropped back down into the city, becoming Isa Kastroti when it reached the built up area. There were numerous lay bys and small pull offs which were used by young lovers lacking a place of their own. Seeing a vehicle parked in one, especially at night, was not unusual and the common etiquette was to pass by or pull back out and look for another place yourself if you’d pulled in. The area held some old bunker complexes as well as a lot of unexploded ordinance (UXO). Various organized crime groups as well as some disorganized local youths used the bunkers and other secluded spots as staging areas and party houses away from prying eyes. Of course, bumping into someone or something you weren’t meant to see could still be hazardous as could spontaneous criminal activity but since the area was heavily used by ordinary citizens seeking privacy away from the city and its prying eyes, even the criminals normally left people alone. If one kept to the main road or very near it and wasn’t out in the middle of the night, it was a relatively safe area. During the day it was rarely a problem. I was counting on that to permit me to examine the ambush site without being noticed by anyone else.

  Just walking up the road and into the forest wasn’t on the cards though. It would be noticed by people in the park and in the Germia Café, the restaurant at the upper end of the park, to say nothing of those who would drive by now and then as they used the road as a way around the congestion of the city center. I also wanted, with a reflexive controlled paranoia, to be sure I was alone so I cut across the narrow grassy area just below the Germia Cafe and entered the woods on the side opposite the road. There was a well-worn path here, one used by strollers and runners. I’d pounded out my share of miles on it back in the day and knew the tree cover to be good and the path to afford a number of opportunities to slip unseen into the deeper woods. After walking back downhill a short while and determining that no one had crossed from the road after me, I made use of one such opening and headed into the forest. I was quickly lost within its quiet and as I made my way southeast and uphill it was easy to ascertain that I was alone.

  The distance as the crow flies from where I left the park to where the ambush had taken place
was about a mile and a half. In real terms it was pretty much uphill (and down and up a whole lot of small ravines caused by water run off) busting brush all the way. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the area wasn’t still marked as full of UXO, mostly cluster bomb munitions from the 1999-2000 era. I knew they were there because I’d both seen a few and seen the results when careless smugglers found them. I had taken the chance of encountering them before in order to get into a position and did so again, albeit with a little less nonchalance as my experience with explosives was enhanced after six years in Afghanistan. Still, this route offered me the most secure approach, one I could be fairly certain no one else would have used and one which meant I could examine the site without anyone else knowing I’d been there.

  I was using a small Garmin wrist mounted GPS to navigate and came upon the ambush site without seeing or hearing anyone. The area was a small pull off surrounded by bushes and saplings at the extreme crest of the hill over which ran the back road to Pristina. The area was pretty much torn up now, bushes crushed, saplings uprooted and everything churned up by the teams of police and forensic specialists which had responded. The Kosovo Police Service (KPS) had some good officers among the bad and the European mission to support them meant they had a lot of well-trained experts to assist. The end result was a very complete documentation of the scene which had been included in the DIA file. All I could see on the ground was a few strips of crime scene tape but using my memory of the report and seeing how the terrain had been before large vehicles were parked there for hours on end, I began to piece it together.

  HANNA and Gashi had been parked facing in, rear of the vehicle, a VW Golf, to the road. There had been a slight bend which hid their location from the headlights and sight of passing vehicles. The shooters had approached from the road, spread out into a short crescent and then opened up from about twenty feet away. This was where the bend occurred and could have meant they wanted to shoot before being spotted, maybe just that this was close enough. The Golf could not move forward as there were several larger saplings in front of it as well as a steep drop of about fifteen feet into one of the innumerable run off ravines. Shell casings from at least four separate AKs had been found as well as four casings from a Tokarev TT 33. These last were beside the rear driver’s side indicating the shots were fired from beside the driver’s window. Footprints in the soil indicated several pairs of shoes, two slick soled like dress shoes, one an athletic shoe, type not yet determined. The road itself was too torn up by the time the forensics team arrived to yield anything close to tire marks. The bottom line was that someone walked up on HANNA and Gashi and snuffed them, quickly, efficiently and without hesitation. They then walked away without opening the car doors or, so far as had been determined, doing anything else.

  Walking through the scene, playing out the events in my mind’s eye, I could see nothing to add to what was already reported. I hadn’t really expected to do so. It’s only in the movies that you return to a scene already carefully combed for clues by experts and find a matchbook from an obscure bar frequented by left handed Bulgarians when your main suspect is a left handed Bulgarian. Still, the map is not the terrain and time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted. I didn’t consider this a waste as it confirmed my knowledge base, allowed me to assess the skills of the folks with whom I’d be dealing and showed me they were not after anything but a kill. This last was important although I couldn’t yet say how. But this kind of decisive action usually indicates that the actor is confident that they know all they need to know which raised the question of why they felt this to be true and how they gained that knowledge. It was certainly something I’d need to attempt to clarify when I met with KVSPARROW. Setting up that meet was the next priority on my list and the second reason why a visit to Germia wasn’t a waste of time.

  Poking around the woods of Germia had been more than just a visit to a crime scene. It had also been a way for me to evaluate the area as a possible location for the meet with KVSPARROW. I needed a vantage point I could be reasonably sure would permit me to see anyone coming a long way off as well as afford me a way to escape from the meet if things went sideways. In walking through and near the park I’d seen and remembered a place that I thought would foot the bill. I made my way back down the hill, fingers crossed, and hit the trail without incident. Following it down toward the swimming pool I left the cover of the trees when the trail reached the pool complex.

  The pool was closed for the season and the small parking lot was almost empty. There was an overflow area on a slight rise of ground behind the pool and to my left as I approached downhill. Beyond that the hill of Germia rose toward its crest which featured the ambush site and the road running around Pristina. This area was backed by the trees of the Germia forest and opened into a valley farther away toward the main part of the city. No one would be coming through the forest at night, not without light and noise as the threat of UXO would force them to be careful. The various incarnations of the mafia had already cleared several trails which they used to move through the UXO areas and they were extremely loath to depart from them, especially at night. That meant that if the meet location was the overflow lot, I’d be able to easily observe the approaches from the main street, the valley to the south and the rest of Germia Park. I’d have to watch for anyone coming down the path I’d just walked, as it wound through trees until almost at the lot, but the other approaches were either in the woods or in the open. It would be possible for someone to sneak through the forest but they’d have to be very careful and quiet. I was willing to bet the opposition didn’t have that level of skill.

  Especially if I set up first someplace other than where they would expect me to be. With that in mind, I dropped back off the rear of the little rise and re-entered the woods in order to find a place on higher elevation where I could observe the overflow lot and the approaches while still using the concealment of the trees. What I wanted was a spot where I could see anyone setting up to ambush the overflow lot. By using it as the rendezvous location, I was setting the meet in a place any local would recognize as a good one with clear views of the approaches to the lot. If I then dropped back even further, uphill and in the deeper woods, I could watch for anyone trying to set up to interdict our activity. If there was no one, the meet would occur. If I saw anything suspicious, I’d abort and simply wait them out. If the meet took place and someone then approached I’d again abort and we’d attempt to evade through whatever avenue was open with the woods being the last resort.

  I cast about for a while before finding a knob situated above and to the south of the overflow lot. There I could see the likely spots from which one would set up to watch the overflow lot from the woods edge as well as the approaches to the lot along the road and both trails. This would do. I then scouted for a way out uphill, hoping to not need it but wanting to have some idea of where to go in the dark if I needed to unass the area in haste. Last of all I dropped down to the lot again, trying to look like a guy who had just taken a leak behind a tree and walked down the trail toward the valley to confirm its contours in my mind. That left only making contact with KVSPARROW, something that required an internet connection. I caught a taxi cruising near the pool parking lot and headed back into Pristina.

  The taxi driver wanted to chat and I strung him along with a story of being a Canadian journalist here to cover the recent problems on the Serbian border. I asked his opinion and pretended to take notes as he rattled on. Asking inquisitive people for their opinions on anything controversial, be it politics, religion or what have you, is an excellent way to divert attention if it’s merely a casual rather than professional inquiry. People like to tell you what they think and to talk about themselves which makes it fairly easy to turn an inquiry into a rant. The biggest risk is that they will remember you as the nice guy who actually cared what they thought. It wasn’t likely to matter in this case so I un huh’d and ok’d and let him vent until we reached the center of town. I hopped out when we were
stopped in traffic, tossing the driver enough Euros to make him happy even if he didn’t get to finish explaining the massive Serbian conspiracy responsible for 9/11. I went in and out of a few shops, bought a bottle of water, a cell phone and local SIM card and then entered an internet café off UCK Boulevard. The street had been renamed from its former name honoring Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian extremist whose assassination of Archduke Ferdinand plunged Europe into World War One. It was now named in honor of the Kosovo Liberation Army, in Albanian the Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës. According to the file, Gashi hadn’t used this cafe. I therefore felt safe in doing so as it was randomly selected and not likely to have any more than the usual identity theft threats. I bought time at a computer in the far corner and made use of my trusty thumb drive. After clearing the computer of various mal and spyware, I ran a shield program and then logged into the Hotmail account HANNA had set up as the primary comms method.

  I wrote a short message which I saved to Drafts. In it, I wished the unknown KVSPARROW well, hoped they were still interested in a meeting and stated that if so, I would be available the following night at 2200 hours in the overflow lot of the municipal swimming pool in Germia Park. I added that they should come alone, on foot and after having a taxi drop them off below the entrance to the pool. I included my new cell phone number and stated that they should text me when they had arrived. Once they did, I would text to confirm I was present and that the area was clear. If they did not show then this account would be closed and we would have no further contact. I used that wording deliberately, as our main possibilities were both motivated to maintain contact, the Serbian Mafia/Islamists less so than an unknown confederate of Gashi’s. If it was a come on by the Islamists then they really wouldn’t care less about the threat to break contact so long as they could have their action element make the meet and determine if there was a continuing threat to their interests. If it was a confederate, whatever had motivated them to begin contact would presumably also motivate them to want it to continue, as the request by KVSPARROW for a face to face meeting made no sense otherwise.

  When dealing with a source it is important to establish control as soon as possible. This doesn’t mean being unreasonable or overbearing, unless called for when the source is trying to play the handler in an obvious manner. It does however mean that there needs to be from the outset the acknowledgement, tacit or otherwise, that the handler is running things and while the source is providing something of value, he or she is working for the handler. The source is selling, the handler is buying and the customer, in this relationship, must always be right. It takes time and skill to learn how to manage each relationship because, after all is said and done that is what they are, relationships. No two are alike and while some rules apply to all, not all rules apply to some; exceptions abound. Agent handling is both an art and science. I wanted to get this one off to a proper start with me being the conduit for something the source wanted. Assuming, of course, that there really was a source and not just a mafia hit team. Either way my communication had to sound genuine and conform to the norms.

  I’d set the time for the following night, both to give KVSPARROW sufficient time to receive the message and for me to complete my other tasks. There were none of the old hoary tricks like a chalk mark on a designated wall in the comms plan. Electronics have made it much easier to set up a missed call, random phone or email solicitation etc. instead. Or simply regular checks of an email account or bulletin board or discussion board or what have you. The options, assuming connectivity, are endless. The old ways are still good and useful in many situations but creativity in finding new ways to communicate means it is harder to detect that communication. I activated and tested the cell phone and then pulled the battery as protection against the long shot possibility that KVSPARROW or someone they knew could track its location through the phone company towers. That was a chance I’d have to take on the day but I wanted to wait until the absolute last minute which made using the towers to track me rather more difficult as it would require immediate access to phone service data, something they would have difficulty in obtaining. I’d check the Hotmail account later this evening and again in the morning but for now I would have to wait. Since that wasn’t something I much enjoyed, I intended to use the time profitably and have a quick look at HANNA’s living quarters in order to see if there was anything useful to be learned. Most likely there was nothing but I wouldn’t know until I looked. That being established, I wiped the computer, left the internet café and caught a cab trolling up the street.

  A few minutes later I was at the upper end of Dragodan Hill, just below Film City, at Pinocchio, a restaurant I’d enjoyed back in the day. I paid off the cabbie and entered the open lower area before heading up to a balcony overlooking the city. After a short wait, I settled in with a cold Efes and an excellent pizza prosciutto, to review the day so far and plan out my approach to examining HANNA’s home.