INCEPTION: A Black Ops Thriller

A prequel to the Black Flagged Series

By Steven Konkoly

Copyright Information

Copyright 2011 by Stribling Media. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact:

stevekonkoly@striblingmedia.com.

Contents

About INCEPTION

PART ONE  Devil’s Bargain  1994

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

PART TWO  The Devil To Pay  1998

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

About INCEPTION

I started writing this novella nearly seven years ago, after publishing the first book in the BLACK FLAGGED series. Readers clamored to know more about Daniel Petrovich, my “not so easy to like at first” main character—and so did I! Like most of my work, I’d stepped off the beaten path with Daniel Petrovich, crafting a new breed of covert operative and black ops program that didn’t fit any of the previously established genre molds.

He wasn’t recruited from Special Forces, law enforcement or any of the alphabet agencies. He isn’t motivated by a sense of undying patriotism or bitter revenge. He’s none of those things. Prior to “volunteering” for the experimental Black Flagged program, Daniel Petrovich was a lot like the rest of us, which is why I think he appealed to so many readers—after they got to know him.

Unlike most “heroes,” there’s no obvious black and white in Petrovich’s world. He sees everything in gray—one of the primary reasons he was selected for the Black Flagged program. Although Petrovich can be a study in contradictions, he’s fiercely loyal to those closest to him. A trait any of us can understand and admire.

INCEPTION is Daniel Petrovich’s origin story. The perfect place for a new reader to start the BLACK FLAGGED series.

PART ONE

Devil’s Bargain

1994

Chapter 1

Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Petrovich stepped out of the safe confines of the ship’s bridge—braced for the worst the storm had to offer. A steady barrage of warm rain lashed his face, propelled by the same high winds responsible for the massive swells tossing his four-thousand-ton warship around like a bathtub toy. He scanned the inky blackness ahead, searching for lights or anything his ship’s radars might have missed. Smaller fishing boats tended to disappear in swells like these, appearing on screen for a second, only to vanish just as quickly. Lost in a sea of false radar echoes created by the waves.

The grated steel deck pushed upward against his legs, like a gently rising elevator. He gripped the slick metal railing next to him and braced for the less forgiving ride down. The ship teetered in the darkness for a moment, angled slightly upward, before dropping abruptly into the trough between waves. A deep, thunderous boom reached the bridge wing, the ship shuddering from the violent impact. Daniel stepped inside the dank bridge moments before a shower of sea spray washed over the space he had just occupied.

He intuitively reached above and snagged the heavy-weather lifeline with both hands, keeping himself upright and stable as the ship rolled drastically to its starboard side. When the ship finally steadied, he started across the bridge for the Furuno radar display. The next major wave was a half minute away, and he wanted to check for suspicious radar hits while the ship was relatively level with the horizon.

Petrovich got halfway across the bridge before the captain started grumbling. He’d almost forgotten about the sad sack of a man curled up in the chair next to the open door.

“Close the damn hatch. And stay off the bridge wing,” said the captain in a raspy voice. “You’re soaking the bridge.”

Not wanting to miss the short opportunity to check the radar, Daniel mumbled something incoherent and continued his short trek.

“Close it now!”

“I need to check—”

“You need to get your eyes out of that scope—and on the water!” said captain. “CIC is watching the radar. Let them do their job. You do yours.”

“Keeping the ship safe is my job,” said Daniel, muttering the rest under his breath. “Especially while you’re curled up like a sack of shit.”

“What was that?” said the captain, straightening in his chair for the first time in hours.

He didn’t begrudge the captain’s seasickness. Two-thirds of the crew was combat ineffective after three days of heavy seas, confined to their berthing areas and vomiting what little food or fluid they managed to swallow. Of the remaining crew, most could barely do their jobs. Everyone was borderline delirious from sleep deprivation. Daniel had been on the bridge since twenty hundred hours (8:00 PM)—seven hours ago—and was unlikely to be relieved until daybreak.

“I asked you a question,” said the captain.

“Boats, close the hatches.”

“Are you sure, sir?” said Petty Officer Blue, the boatswain’s mate of the watch.

“The captain’s sure,” said Daniel. “That’s all that matters, I suppose.”

Boatswain’s Mate Third Class Blue steadied himself against the edge of the chart table. “Aye, aye, sir.”

“You suppose?” said the captain.

Petrovich didn’t respond. He was about done with the captain at this point, having spent more than half of this seemingly endless watch in the driving rain—trying to keep the captain’s ship safe. The combination of darkness, rain and sea spray had rendered his view through the spacious, forward-facing windows utterly useless—and the captain had recalled the forward lookout to the safety of the bridge. Without his trips to the bridge wings, they were effectively blind aside from radar.

His conning officer, an unflappable ensign from southern California, dry-heaved into a plastic bag for a few seconds before pushing back from the bridge console next to him.

“I’ll cover the bridge wings,” he said before clearing his throat. “I could use the fresh air.”

Before Daniel could respond, the captain stumbled out of his chair.

“Nobody is going out there!” he bellowed. “I don’t need anyone falling overboard.”

“Or getting a little water on the bridge,” said Daniel, a little louder than he’d intended.

“I think I’ve had enough of you tonight, Mr. Petrovich.”

The captain wobbled a few steps toward the starboard-side hatch, apparently to close it himself. For a brief moment, the captain’s silhouette centered in the opening, the pitch-blackness outside the bridge perfectly framing it. The sight gave Daniel a devilish thought. Nobody would care if I pushed him through—and over the side.

He cast the oddly enticing thought aside and grabbed the cable above for stability. The next set of swells was due to strike at any moment. Maybe he’ll tumble overboard on his own. Nature has its way.

The ship rose precipitously as it plowed into the first wave, the captain teetering in front of the door. He somehow managed to pull the hatch shut by the time the ship plunged into the trough between waves, but fell to his hands and knees on the deck—before he could pull the watertight lever to seal it. When the ship rolled to starboard, the hatch swung outward, disappearing in the darkness outside the bridge, and the captain lurched partway through the opening.

Petrovich reacted immediately, knowing what would happen next. He’d just grabbed the captain’s belt to yank him back into the bridge when the ship heaved violently and most predictably in the opposite direction—slamming the heavy metal hatch into the captain’s head just before he could pull him to safety. Nature definitely has its way.

Chapter 2

Daniel Petrovich paused outside the executive officer’s cabin, steeling himself for another round of uncomfortable questions. Nobody on board had blamed him for the captain’s accident, but he could predict the direction of the inquiry when the ship returned to Yokosuka Naval Base. Fleet higher-ups would be waiting on the pier—to ask far more direct and insinuating questions.

The Navy didn’t take situations like these lightly. Seasoned warship captains didn’t succumb to seasickness, and if they did, they certainly didn’t reach the point of being combat ineffective for days on end. Seasickness didn’t manifest overnight, and to suggest that Commander Milton had been given command of a ship—despite a history of debilitating seasickness—would not reflect well on the system.

They’d pursue a different angle, desperate to avoid shedding too harsh a light on that failure. Something a little more palatable if the incident went public, like a junior officer with a history of disregarding or resisting orders. A junior officer who had repeatedly ignored orders to close the bridge wing doors, forcing the captain to do it himself—and slip on a deck that should have been dry. The report nearly wrote itself.

He knocked on the open door and nodded at Lieutenant Commander Winters when he looked up from his cluttered desk.

“Come in,” said the exhausted-looking officer. “Grab a seat.”

Figuring he’d head off any further inquisition that could be used against him, Daniel hesitated outside the XO’s cabin.

“Sir? Captain?” said Daniel, unsure what to call him now that Commander Milton had been transported by helicopter to a hospital in South Korea. “Maybe I shouldn’t answer any more questions until I’m represented by a JAG.”

Winters chuckled at the comment, his warm smile returning for the first time in days. He’d always been one of the “good guys” by Daniel’s estimation. Thrust into the unenviable position of supporting and enforcing the policies of a tyrant, while somehow salvaging enough of the crew’s morale to keep the ship running. It was a shame that a new captain would be assigned to the Rodney M. Davis as soon as they returned to Japan. He couldn’t think of a better officer for the job.

“Daniel, take a seat. Seriously,” said Winters, motioning toward the chair in front of his desk. “I’m done asking questions. We all know what happened up there.”

Interesting. Daniel took a cautious step into the cabin.

“Shut the hatch,” said Winters, “so we can talk frankly.”

He pulled the door shut and took a seat. When he was settled in the chair, Winters pushed a thin red TOP SECRET folder across the desk.

“I found this in the captain’s safe,” said Winters. “Have you seen it?”

Petrovich shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t look familiar, sir.”

“Might be your get out of jail free card,” said Winters. “Sorry. Bad choice of words.”

He ignored the file for a moment. “They’re going to crucify me.”

“Crucify is a strong word,” said Winters. “But yeah, my guess is that your naval career won’t survive this.”

Petrovich shook his head. “How did he get this far, sir?”

“Everyone gets seasick to some degree,” said Winters.

“I’m not talking about seasickness, sir. He was unfit for command,” said Daniel.

“Says who? Lieutenant Junior Grade Petrovich?” said Winters. “How long have you been in the fleet? On a ship? A year and a half?”

He turned his attention to the odd file lying in front of him, thinking about Winters’s words. Get out of jail free.

“I have no idea how he got this far, and I’m pretty sure the Navy would like to keep it that way,” said Winters. “Open the file.”

“I don’t have a top secret clearance, sir.”

“Funny. Open the file. Give the message a read. I need an answer before you walk out of here.”

“Answer?” said Daniel, opening the file.

“It’s time sensitive,” said Winters. “The deadline is in a few hours. I’m glad I found it when I did.”

He read the top few lines of the naval message, noting the time and date it was sent and received.

“This is thirty days old,” said Daniel.

Winters raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit, the captain’s deep-sixing of this message perplexed me. Seems like the perfect opportunity to get rid of you.”

He kept reading, not really making any sense of its contents. An entire page dedicated to saying little more than that he’d been selected to participate in a newly created Joint Service Training Program—based on the results of an aptitude test he barely remembered taking. No program description. No useful details at all.

“Apparently—I passed some kind of test,” said Daniel. “Must have aced it.”

Winters chuckled. “I remember this. It was a fleet-wide thing. Every officer under the rank of lieutenant had to report for the exam—no exceptions. The captain blew a gasket when the order came through.”

Petrovich suddenly recalled the day. He’d reported to the base gymnasium, with the rest of the junior officers from his ship, to join hundreds of other officers crowded around hastily assembled card tables, all armed with sharpened number two pencils. When the assessment hit the table in front of him, he’d thought it was a joke. The booklet had been ten times as thick as the SAT he’d taken to get into college.

“The proctors told us we had to answer every question, or possibly face disciplinary action,” said Daniel, stifling a laugh. “I thought that was bullshit until I opened the booklet. The first page was a letter from the Chief of Naval Operations, stressing the importance of taking the test seriously, and the negative ramifications of breezing through the answers. I was still half tempted to Charlie-out the answer sheet, until I perused the following pages. Whoever put that test together was dead serious.”

“What do you mean?” said Winters.

“Let’s just say that they didn’t leave any wiggle room. You couldn’t just randomly fill in the circles—if you believed they’d analyze the results and follow through on disciplinary action.”

“Sounds like you had some doubt about their ability to follow through?”

“Am I that transparent, sir?” said Daniel.

“Predictable—when it comes to this kind of stuff,” said Winters. “Did you take the test seriously?”

“Not at first,” said Daniel. “I mean—seriously—they’re going to discipline us for blowing off some kind of bullshit psychological assessment? I didn’t think so.”

“But you must have taken it seriously,” said Winters. “I can’t imagine they made this offer to very many participants.”

“The questions were kind of addictive. Bizarre. Unconnected at first glance. There was just something about it,” said Daniel. “Six hours flew by. I barely touched the box lunch they brought in.”

Winters rubbed his chin, examining Daniel thoughtfully. “Sounds like this suited you, somehow.”

“I guess,” said Daniel, finding himself unable to stop thinking about a test he had completely forgotten.

He scanned the message again, focusing on its most intriguing aspect. Upon accepting the offer, via return message, he would be immediately detached from his present command, regardless of the command’s operational commitments. “New assignment and reporting instructions will follow shortly thereafter and shall be executed without delay.”

He looked up at Winters. “If I accept this, I’m no longer a member of the ship’s crew? As of that moment?”

“The moment we send the message,” said Winters. “That’s my interpretation.”

“Have you ever heard of this Joint Service Training Program?”

“No. I did a little research and came up with nothing.”

“Could be some kind of suicide squad for all I know,” said Daniel, breaking into a nervous laugh.

“I’m sure it’s not a suicide squad,” said Winters. “My guess is it’s some kind of think tank. Something brand new. Maybe a career path. Maybe not. They’re always coming up with new crap.”

Despite the mundane-sounding name, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something different. The finality surrounding its acceptance terms was unique. Bizarre might be a better description. What kind of program had the power to execute the immediate detachment of an officer from their duties? A part of him embraced the freedom it promised. The rest was justifiably wary.

“You really think I’m screwed when we get back to Japan?”

“How many times did Commander Milton order you to shut the bridge wing hatches that night?” said Winters.

“Twice. Prior to the accident,” said Daniel. “And he promptly passed out in the captain’s chair shortly after each request.”

“Each—order. Not request.”

“I kept the hatches open so I could maintain the best possible situational awareness under the circumstances.”

“You purposefully ignored the captain’s orders?”

“He was incapacitated,” said Daniel.

“According to whom? A junior officer repeatedly written up for insubordination?”

Petrovich rubbed his face for a few moments. “It’s not like he can answer for himself.”

Given the sickening thud of the impact, he presumed that their former captain would never wake up. His body had gone instantly slack from the violent blow to the top of his head. He’d remained catatonic as they loaded him in the helicopter.

“I’m just being realistic,” said Winters, reaching across the desk and tapping the message with his hand. “I think this is worth a shot.”

“But what the hell is it?”

“It’s not an administrative hearing or court-martial back in Japan,” said Winters. “Followed by an other-than-honorable discharge from the Navy.”

“I should have pushed him over the side a year ago when I had the chance,” said Daniel.

Winters cocked his head, the look of compassion replaced by puzzlement and a thin veil of anger—possibly fear.

“That’s way over the line. I’ve gone to bat for you more times than I can count,” said Winters.

Before Daniel could respond, Winters continued, rising out of his seat. “And the insubordination started long before your parents’ accident. You brought it with you when you reported.”

“I never played the dead-parents card, sir,” said Daniel.

He really hadn’t. The car crash that had instantly killed his father and left his mother barely clinging to life had happened while his ship had been in transit across the Indian Ocean. By the time the ship reached its next scheduled port, inside the Arabian Gulf, his mother had passed away.

He flew back to Chicago from Bahrain to attend the side-by-side funeral—because that was what everyone expected him to do. He hadn’t seen the point of returning. Not because of any stoic philosophy decrying attachment to the flesh and bones of his parents. He simply saw them as gone. Passed on to wherever. He remembered them fondly—with love—but that was the end of it.

“Yeah. Well, I had to play it a number of times on your behalf,” said Winters. “To keep the captain from drop-kicking you out of the Navy.”

“I was out of line,” said Daniel. “Sorry.”

“You’re accepting these orders. I can’t protect you from yourself anymore,” said Winters. “They’re going to piss you off, on purpose, during the inquiry. If you mouth off about wanting to push the captain over the side, they’ll throw you in prison.”

“I just wish I knew what I was getting into,” said Daniel.

“Some kind of shore duty. Can’t be worse than the shit-show Seventh Fleet has planned for us when we get back.”

Chapter 3

The situation was far worse than he imagined. The moment he stepped off the bus, Daniel knew he’d made a serious mistake. Not that he hadn’t strongly suspected the same six hours earlier when he’d reluctantly stepped on it. The bus had been outfitted with blackout passenger windows and a thick, impenetrable curtain drawn across the front—to keep them from deducing their final destination. He should have walked off the bus at that point, but he took a seat, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

Already half full with similarly uneasy-looking young men, the bus made eleven more stops to pick up the rest of the “volunteers.” Travel time between stops was minimal, suggesting that the bus hadn’t travelled far by the time the last of twenty-seven recruits had taken a seat. They’d been purposefully scattered among the hotels next to Denver International Airport, though for all he knew, the bus could have returned to the same hotel to pick up each successive passenger. He had no concept of location or direction after a few minutes on the bus.

The bus had most likely backtracked to the Best Western Inn at least once, possibly twice. The number of hotels he’d observed the night before didn’t match the number of candidates. Given the procedure he’d been required to follow this morning, it made sense that the bus returned a few times to each hotel.

He’d been instructed to be in his room by seven in the morning, packed and ready to go. Daniel grabbed an early breakfast in the lobby, casually scanning the faces that had joined him as soon as the buffet line opened. Nobody stood out as another possible program candidate. Then again, neither did he. Average height and build. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Nothing remarkable about him.

A solid knock had echoed through his hotel room at seven o’clock sharp. A severe-looking man, at least ten years his senior, checked his identification and directed him to the bus—barely saying a word. When they reached the bus, he was told to “take an empty seat and don’t talk to anyone. Your identities are classified from each other.”

What the hell kind of program didn’t allow you to talk to the other participants? So many red flags, but here he was—getting off the bus.

As Daniel’s feet hit the dusty ground next to the bus, every one of those red flags came into crisp focus. The bus had deposited them in the middle of nowhere. All he could say for certain was that they were in the foothills of a mountain range. Not a single structure or sign of human life was visible from the drop-off point.

He made his way along the side of the bus to the luggage storage compartment, along with several other candidates. Most of them muttered curses, having reached the same conclusion. They’d made a big mistake. A booming voice startled them.

“You won’t need your bags! Line up over here to grab your backpack. It has everything you’ll need for the next four months.”

Daniel searched for the source of the voice through the mob of candidates passing by. A rock-solid, middle-aged man dressed in woodland camouflage emerged from the young pine trees next to the bus. He pointed toward a line of olive drab, military-style rucksacks at the far edge of the clearing.

“Get your packs and form up in two even rows. We’re hiking out of here in five minutes. Hope you took the hiking boot recommendation seriously,” said the man, waiting a few seconds for his orders to sink in. “Let’s get moving! Base camp is fifteen miles from here. I’d like to get there before the sun goes down. I don’t need any of you twisting an ankle in the dark. Read the instruction card on your backpack.”

Daniel involuntarily glanced at his feet. He’d taken the recommendation seriously and purchased a top-shelf pair of hiking boots—but he hadn’t broken them in. He’d spent most of the past three days in transit just to reach Denver in time for the bus pickup. Aside from taking a few laps around REI prior to purchasing them, this morning had been the first time they’d spent any serious time on his feet. Fifteen miles? His feet would be in bad shape by mile five. Wrecked by mile ten. None of this made sense.

He remained in place as the group hustled toward the backpacks. Daniel had no intention of marching to “base camp,” whatever that was. When the group cleared, he started for the bus door, which closed before he reached it. Before he could protest, the oversized motor coach lurched forward, kicking up a long cloud of dust and disappearing through a break in the trees that surrounded the clearing.

“Something wrong?”

He turned to face the soldier in camouflage, who had already closed most of the distance between them. Daniel had no rational reason to be afraid of him, but the man looked like the kind of guy that resolved disputes with his hands. On top of that, he wore no insignia on his uniform. No insignia gave him the impression that this program wasn’t a standard military arrangement—governed by military law and the consequences of violating it. This was something entirely different, and he wanted no part of it.

“The bus left without me,” said Daniel.

“It’ll be back,” said the man.

“Then I’ll wait for it,” said Daniel, looking around the small clearing. “I can tell this isn’t the program for me.”

“You haven’t been here two minutes.”

“I have a pretty good instinct for these things. I have no clue what’s going on here, but I can almost guarantee it’s not for me,” said Daniel. “When does the bus return?”

“Four months.”

“That’s funny,” said Daniel, pausing long enough for the man to laugh or give him any sign he was kidding. “Seriously. I want out of here.”

“The only way out of here at this point is to walk out.”

“Fine,” said Daniel, glancing toward the rest of the group. “I assume it’s okay if I borrow one of your packs—since you drove off with mine.”

The man shook his head, the barest vestige of a grin forming. “They pleaded with me to keep you off the roster,” said the man. “Begged me. But I needed to see for myself. Maybe they were right.”

Daniel found himself momentarily at a loss for words. What the hell was he talking about?

“Give me four months. When the bus returns, nobody will stop you from leaving.”

“Who are they?” said Daniel.

“What do you mean?”

“Who pleaded with you to keep me off the roster?”

The man put his hands on his hips and smirked. “The mental health professionals and program consultants that helped me create the test you took several months ago—and interpret the results. They said you’d be perfect for the program, but…”

“But what?” said Daniel.

“This,” said the man, shrugging his shoulders. “Not even two minutes off the bus, and you’re already causing problems. I have to give them credit. They told me this would happen. It’s kind of scary how accurately they can predict behavior given the right tools.”

“They predicted I’d have a problem with being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, without my luggage, to be told I was hiking fifteen miles to some base camp—where I’d spend the next four months?” said Daniel. “How do I get one of their jobs?”

“They told me everyone in the class would grab a pack—except you. I’d say their jobs are safe.”

Daniel shifted his gaze to the men donning backpacks. Aside from a few reluctant faces, most of them looked eager to get on with whatever lay ahead.

“So. What’s my problem?” said Daniel. “My primary flaw?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a flaw,” he said.

“It’s obviously not a desirable trait, based on your team’s recommendation.”

“In your previous job, I’d consider a near pathological aversion to authority to be a serious detractor,” he said. “Frankly, I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did. Based on your profile, the military is the last place I’d expect to find you—but here you are.”

“I needed the scholarship. Northwestern is expensive,” said Daniel, letting out a quick laugh.

The hardened soldier shook his head. “Always cracking jokes, too.”

“You probably should have listened to your experts.”

“I felt compelled to take a chance based on the rest of your profile, and your so-called flaw can be a strength under the right circumstances,” he said. “Give me four months. Worst-case scenario? You leave here in the best shape of your life with an honorable discharge and four months of back pay in your pocket. Tax-free.”

“What’s the best-case scenario?”

“You move forward in the program,” he said. “And I collect about five hundred dollars in bets.”

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me what the program entails?”

The man shook his head before answering, “Ask me again in four months.”

“Some kind of suicide squad?”

“Depends on your perspective,” he said.

Daniel squinted. “All right. You’ve piqued my curiosity. Again. I suppose this entire encounter was scripted by the shrinks for optimal impact on my personality type?”

“What can I say? They have some serious job security,” he said before checking his watch. “Tick-tock, Mr. Petrovich. I’m serious about not getting stuck on the trail after dark.”

Daniel took off for the line of backpacks, kneeling in front of the last one on the ground and reading the laminated card attached to its left shoulder strap.

Petrovich, D. You are to refer to yourself as Marko Resja from this point forward. Zero exceptions.

“Four fucking months,” said Daniel before shouldering the pack and joining the rest of his class.

Chapter 4

Daniel recognized the dry, rambling arroyo from their initial hike to base camp. It had looked different then, flush with water from the distant, surrounding snowcaps. Those were gone, too. A lot of things had changed in four months.

He followed the runner in front of him, careful with every step. Trail running required intense concentration, especially out here. Without the ankle support of the hiking boots he had come to rely on in the rugged terrain, rolling an ankle on a rut or stone was a distinct threat.

Three of his classmates had been pushed back to a later training date due to simple injuries incurred running or hiking. One had taken a fall on a long run just four days ago. Daniel had no intention of getting this far only to start over again. Not if today was the final day of the four-month conditioning phase. Daniel was ready to move on to whatever came next.

The line of runners ahead of him snaked past the arroyo, headed toward the clearing where the bus had originally dropped them off—unless he’d completely lost his sense of direction at some point on the run. It wouldn’t be the first time the instructors pulled a fast one on them, running them in circles. He kept pushing ahead, confident in his new body. Four months of rigorous physical conditioning had transformed him.

A few minutes later, they broke through a thick stand of trees into what looked like the original clearing. The instructor leading the run stopped in the middle and signaled for them to circle up. Daniel slowed his pace, taking a quick sip from the CamelBak hose attached to his shoulder. Winded—but not wiped out—from the brisk pace of the run, he took a knee in front of the instructor and waited for the rest of the class to emerge from the trail. The last runner through the trees was one of the instructors, who spoke into a handheld radio when he stopped behind them.

None of the instructors or staff had divulged their names to this point. The trainees used the names they had been given the day they arrived in this very spot, and simply referred to anyone outside of the class as “instructor.” Daniel, or Marko, as he’d more and more come to think of himself, didn’t know the real name of anyone he’d spent time with in training. He wasn’t sure if it was some kind of mind game or would serve an actual purpose. In fact, he knew nothing more about the program today than he had the moment he’d stepped off the bus four months ago.

“Anyone recognize this place?” said the instructor in front of them.

Before they could answer, a motor coach drove into the clearing and pulled up next to them. When the door opened, the lead program instructor stepped off the bus and surveyed the group with a neutral face.

“I’m gonna make this short and sweet,” he said. “If you still don’t think my program is for you, this bus is your ticket out. No judgments. No hard feelings. No big deal. An honorable discharge from the military, four months of back pay, and a nondisclosure agreement await you at the other end of this bus ride. Any takers?”

Daniel shook his head with the rest of the group, but a big part of him wanted to get on that bus and put all of this behind him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that staying here was a devil’s bargain. They clearly weren’t headed for desk jobs. Their training suggested something entirely different. Rifle and pistol marksmanship, extreme outdoor survival, hand-to-hand combat, edged-weapons combat, land navigation—just to name a few. It suggested something hazardous. His gaze shifted to the open bus door for a few moments.

“No takers?” said the lead instructor. “Last chance. And I do mean last chance. When the doors behind me close, you’re committed to the program.”

He let the words sink in long enough for a few hands to go up.

“How long is the program?” asked one of the trainees.

“I can’t disclose the exact length,” he said. “Mainly because I don’t know how long it will take to train each of you.”

“Another four months?”

The instructor laughed. “Oh, no. We’re not talking months. We’re talking years.”

“Four years?”

“I hope not,” he said. “But if that’s what it takes.”

Half of the group started muttering, looks of doubt flashing everywhere. Oddly enough, the prospect of spending four more years under these conditions appealed to Daniel. He’d never felt better physically or emotionally. The strict and busy training regimen had been the perfect distraction from the real world. Maybe that was the devil’s bargain in his case.

“I’m just being as straightforward as possible before you sign on the dotted line, so to speak,” said the lead instructor.

“Can you give us any indication of what the program entails?” said another trainee.

“As soon as that bus drives away, I’d be happy to give you the details.”

A few of the trainees shook their heads.

“I need to know what I’m getting into beyond the training,” said the student.

“Hazardous duty. Difficult duty. You’ll mainly work alone. Life as you knew it—before stepping off that bus four months ago—will cease to exist.”

“That’s it?”

“The program is extremely classified,” said the instructor. “Top secret—Special Access Program. Unacknowledged. In other words, none of this exists or ever happened.”

“I can’t do that,” said the trainee.

“Neither can I,” stated another.

“What happens if we don’t get on that bus and decide to bail on the program tomorrow?” said someone behind Daniel.

“I highly advise against doing that. The moment I share any further information regarding the program, you become a critical liability to its success—and I won’t let anything stand in the way of the program’s success.”

Any thoughts he had of standing up and walking onto that bus died with the instructor’s less than subtle threat. Daniel got the distinct impression that he was already a critical liability.

“If you have any doubts about your commitment moving forward, I strongly suggest you get on that bus.”

Six trainees took him up on the offer. He shook their hands and thanked them for their time, patting them on the shoulder as they boarded the motor coach. As the bus pulled away, Daniel couldn’t shake the feeling that six men had just signed their own death warrants. When the bus disappeared from sight, the instructor turned to the remaining trainees.

“Does anyone here know who I am?”

Two hands went up. Seriously? And they never said a word during the four months?

“I figured a few of the Army guys might know,” he said. “For the rest of you, I’m General Terrence Sanderson. A little over two years ago, I was the commanding officer of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. For you Navy and Air Force guys, that’s Delta Force.”

The general took a knee in front of them, his face a little less severe than usual. “When I said this would be hazardous, difficult duty, I wasn’t exactly being truthful. It’s going to be far worse. You’re going to face insurmountable odds right away, but you’ll be ready. I estimate it’s going to take three to four years to prepare you for your first assignments, but when that training is finished—you’ll be ready for the worst anyone can throw at you. Welcome to the Black Flagged program.”

Nice try. All they got in the first official speech was the name of the program and the name of the lead instructor. Not exactly the kind of information-sharing session he had hoped for. Daniel raised his hand.

“You’re still here?” said Sanderson.

“Was there a choice?”

The two of them shared a knowing glance that cemented Daniel’s worst suspicions. Getting on that bus had been a one-way ticket to a shallow grave. He lowered his hand.

“No questions?” said Sanderson.

He shrugged his shoulders. What was the point? The program had swallowed him whole and wouldn’t spit him out until it was finished with him. His only hope of surviving to the bitter end was to double down on the devil’s bargain—and embrace what General Terrence Sanderson offered.

PART TWO

The Devil To Pay

1998

Chapter 5

Marko Resja turned the ancient, rattling sedan off the two-lane paved road, onto the rough dirt road that would eventually deposit him in Babus, the small ethnic Serbian village where the real Marko had been born twenty-seven years ago. That version of Marko had been sent by his parents to live with an aunt and uncle in Milwaukee when he was thirteen—to keep him alive.

A Serbian nationalist group based in the Uroshevac municipality had recruited Marko shortly after his thirteenth birthday, taking him away on most weekends for paramilitary training south of Lipjan, where a large pocket of Serbians had created a safe haven deep inside Kosovo. The Resjas understood what the future held for their son, and for the residents of Babus. Nothing good would come of their son’s involvement in a group stirring up more and more trouble within a predominantly Albanian municipality—for either Marko or their isolated village.

What the Resjas couldn’t know at that point, fourteen years ago, was that their sacrifice would have no impact on the future. Their son would die of a drug overdose thirteen years later, just a few months after Kosovo Liberation Army forces swept through Babus, burning its homes and transporting most of its ethnic Serbian population to a concentration camp in Lapusnik—creating a near perfect opportunity for General Sanderson’s version of Marko Resja to “rise from the ashes.”

The road to Babus weaved through gently rolling hills and short stretches of forest before connecting with a vast patchwork of small farms—each separated by crumbling stone walls. Decrepit-looking, one-story homes dotted the farms; rusty tractors and collapsed barns were strewn across the properties like long-forgotten artifacts.

Upon his arrival at the outskirts of Babus, a stray dog with matted fur emerged from the trees south of the village, slinking cautiously toward his car. The dog represented the first sign of life he detected on the dirt road to the village, aside from the crows perched on the farm rooftops along the way.

Marko parked the car and glanced over his shoulder at the road he’d just travelled. He watched the approach for close to a minute before opening the car door and stepping outside into the brisk spring air. The dog lay still in a wild patch of grass thirty feet away, watching him intently.

He shut the car door, having to put his hip into it a few times before it held in place. The rust-spotted Zastava Koral had been a gift from his handler last night, after clearing him to make the journey south. Marko had spent the past month in Subotica, a sizable city on the border with Hungary, where he’d posed as a recent graduate of Novi Sad University’s technology school—looking for work.

The temporary cover, far from the zealous, prying nationalistic eyes in Belgrade, gave him the opportunity to test his Serbian immersion training, under close observation. Apparently, he’d passed with flying colors. Marko’s handler had been waiting for him in his one-bedroom apartment last night, with the keys to this junker and the pistol tucked into his belt.

Marko scanned the village, immediately concluding it had been a mistake to come here. Not a dangerous mistake, but rather a waste of time. The homes lining the road had been gutted by fire, black scorch marks evident on the concrete above the empty windows and doorways. A few badly damaged and partially intact wood roofs had withstood the flames, but the houses beneath them betrayed no signs of occupancy. Babus was dead—just like the people who had once lived here.

He walked deeper into the village, a faint campfire smell invading his nostrils by the time he had made it halfway through the ghost town. Unable to locate the source, he concluded that the smell had to be a leftover from the burned houses, a persistent reminder of what had happened here close to a year ago. Still, he remained alert to the possibility that someone lurked nearby.

He glanced over his shoulder at the dog, making sure it had kept its distance—which it had. The scrawny creature wasn’t a physical threat, but the last thing he needed out here was a dog bite. Treatment for infection or rabies could be hours away, even longer for a young Serbian man travelling alone in Kosovo.

The dog turned its head to the left, toward a sound undetectable by Marko’s ears. He faced the direction of the possible threat and eased his hand along his right thigh to the compact semiautomatic pistol tucked into the rear waistline of his pants. A faint whistle echoed through the village a few seconds later, followed by an urgent call—in Serbian.

“Sima, Sima, where are you? Come here!”

The voice sounded old, putting him at ease, though he kept his hand firmly wrapped around the pistol’s grip. A jumpy old man with an AK-74 could end his mission just as quickly as anyone.

“Sima!” repeated the voice.

The dog responded, dashing toward the gap between two of the burned houses on Marko’s right. Before the dog reached the gap, a disheveled, middle-aged man dressed in filthy clothes emerged, a wooden crutch buried under one of his armpits. Aside from the crutch, which he heavily favored, the man appeared unarmed.

“Sima, I told you—” he started before noticing Marko. “Please. Please don’t hurt me. I’m just a wandering old man. I don’t live here.”

The man started to hobble away, the dog following closely.

Marko held both of his hands up. “I’m not here to hurt you. I grew up here!”

When the man stopped, Marko walked in his direction, keeping his hands above his head to alleviate the man’s fears. He could put the pistol hidden behind his back into action within a fraction of a second if necessary.

“I left when I was thirteen!” said Marko. “My parents sent me to live with my aunt and uncle in the U.S.”

“Marko?” said the man, turning to face him.

Shit. Had Sanderson’s people missed a close relative? The dossier on the real Marko Resja had been extensive, provided by the aunt and uncle, who had every reason to help Sanderson place a deep-cover operative in their former homeland. Two million reasons, to be exact, and a very detailed agreement outlining what would happen to them if they ever disclosed the details of the arrangement.

“Yes. Yes,” he said. “I’m Marko Resja. My parents were—”

“Petar and Katarina,” said the man, lowering his head a few inches. “They’re gone, my friend. They were taken away almost a year ago, with everyone else. Nobody has returned.”

“What happened here?”

“You don’t know?”

Marko shook his head. “No. I ran into some trouble back in the U.S. and needed to leave for a while. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

The weathered man walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Your parents were smart to send you away. A storm has been brewing here for decades.”

“Storm?”

“Between our people and the Albanians,” said the man. “Kosovar militia came through here and rounded up everyone. They burned the houses and killed any of the men who had received Panther training. The rest were sent away to a detention camp in Lapusnik. Outside of Glogovac. Your parents were sent to that camp.”

“Are they still there?” said Marko, pulling away.

The man’s grip remained firm, keeping him in place. “My son, there’s nothing you can do to help them,” he said. “Even if they were still alive, which is doubtful, we’re deep in enemy territory here—and that area is heavily guarded.”

“Somebody has to try,” he said, yanking free of the man. “Hasn’t anyone tried?”

“It’s complicated,” said the man. “And the Kosovo Liberation Army is stronger than we anticipated.”

“We?” said Marko. “Who exactly are you?”

“Bogdan Jukovich,” he said, offering a handshake. “I used to live here. I still do—but I stay hidden in the woods. My little friend here got away from me. I knew your parents well. We all did. They were good people.”

“I always resented them for sending me away,” said Marko, surveying the destroyed village. “I guess they had the right idea.”

“They did,” said Bogdan. “The rest of us should have listened. I lost my brother and his son when they came.”

“You’re not married?” said Marko.

Bogdan shrugged his shoulders. “My wife passed years ago. We never had children.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” said Marko.

“No need to apologize,” said Bogdan.

“How did you survive this?” said Marko, looking around.

“I was in Uroshevac buying a radio for my nephew’s birthday when the Kosovars came. By the time I had managed to hitch a ride back to the top of the road leading here, and walked back—it was over. Actually, it had ended hours before, or they would have probably run me down on the way out.”

“You don’t have to tell me—”

“Yes. I do,” said Bogdan. “I saw the smoke from a few miles out and ran the rest of the way. My nephew, Sasha, lay dead in a shallow grave, with six other men. My brother and his wife—along with everyone else—had been taken.”

Tears streamed down Bogdan’s cheeks.

“I’m very sorry,” said Marko, sincerely meaning it.

Sanderson’s people hadn’t adequately prepared him for this aspect of the mission. He’d “rehearsed” his own emotional reactions to hearing the tragic story of his parents’ abduction, but the role-playing had never come close to simulating the intense sorrow and anger that Bogdan radiated. They stood in silence for a long time, Marko feigning the quiet rage he’d rehearsed for hours in the mirror and in front of General Sanderson’s people.

“Why did you stay?” said Marko.

“I’ve lived here my entire life,” he said, swallowing hard. “I wasn’t ready to leave. What will you do now?”

“I don’t know,” said Marko. “I can’t go back to the U.S. for a while. I had a little problem with one of my sergeants—and just walked away. I’d be thrown in jail.”

“You were in the military?”

“Army,” said Marko.

“You’re a deserter?” said Bogdan, with a slightly accusatory tone.

“I didn’t have a choice,” said Marko. “I’m not going to jail for giving a drunken wife beater a taste of his own medicine. Somebody had to do something. I just hit him a little too hard—and he didn’t wake up.”

Bogdan considered him for a moment. “What did you do in the Army?”

“Infantry,” said Marko. “Then sniper school.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “Any good?”

“I graduated,” said Marko. “Which makes me pretty damn good.”

“I think you should take a trip up to Lipjan,” he said. “To meet a few people I’ve come to know over the past year. They can help you come to terms with what happened to your parents—by putting your Army skills to use. If you’re interested in that kind of thing.”

He took care not to jump at the offer. If Bogdan Jukovich had the kind of connections he hinted at, he’d also have the judgment and perception to sniff out a fraud.

“I don’t know,” said Marko hesitantly. “Sounds like I might be better off taking my chances back in the U.S.”

Bogdan laughed heartily, patting him on the shoulder. “You’re a smart young man. Yes. Your best bet would be to get as far away from this place as humanly possible. Unless—”

Marko took the bait, figuring it had been dangled in front of him long enough. “Unless?”

“You want to make a difference?” said Bogdan. “Make things right for the people of Babus, and everywhere? This wasn’t an isolated attack.”

“Who do we talk to?” said Marko. “And I’m not promising anything.”

“We drive up to Lipjan. It’s not far. There’s a protected enclave south of the city,” said Bogdan. “We can find the right people there.”

“Sima sits in the backseat,” said Marko.

“Don’t worry about Sima,” said Bogdan. “He only bites Kosovars.”

Chapter 6

The thin, semitransparent curtain briefly obscured the target area again, drawing his eye off the scope. In his haste to set up for the shot, he’d neglected to secure the long drapery, which fluttered freely in the cool breeze pouring through the open window. A steady thumping against the bathroom door reminded him why he’d fallen so far behind schedule.

Intelligence provided by Bogdan’s contacts assured him that this fourth-floor apartment would be empty at this time, the family long gone for work and school. Either the intel had been wrong, or he’d broken into one of the adjacent apartments. Regardless of who was to blame, Marko had spent nearly his entire ten-minute preparation window gagging and tying a frantic mother and her two inconsolable children to the exposed plumbing in the cramped bathroom.

He turned his attention back to the scope, finding the front door that would momentarily yield his first kill of the day. Actually, it would be the first kill of his career. A thought he had pushed so far back in his mind that it barely surfaced until now. He shoved it aside again and concentrated on the shot.

Three hundred and twenty yards—and a light, variable crosswind that wouldn’t make a difference against the rifle’s heavy 7.92X57mm Mauser bullet. An easy shot with the M76 sniper rifle. The same type of rifle he’d used extensively in training for more than three years. He took a deep breath and steadied the chevron reticle on Colonel Besnik Lami’s front door.

According to the same local Serbian intelligence sources that had put him nine minutes behind schedule, Besnik Lami walked out of his front door promptly every day, without fail, at 7:30. He kissed his wife and daughter on the porch stoop and walked down a long stone walkway to his car, which he’d then drive into the forest north of Lapusnik—forty kilometers away.

Unknown to his neighbors, Besnik Lami was the camp commandant of a rudimentary detention camp built by the Kosovo Liberation Army to imprison and eliminate the local Serbian population.

At 7:32, the door opened, and Besnik Lami, an impressively large man dressed in civilian clothes, stepped outside, pausing momentarily to kiss his wife and daughter in the doorway. Marko kept the reticle center mass on Lami’s chest as he strolled casually toward the wrought-iron gate at the front of his property. When Lami stopped to unlatch the gate, Marko applied pressure to the trigger—until the rifle bit into his shoulder.

The brutish-looking Kosovar dropped to his knees on the far side of the gate, clutching at his chest. Marko centered the reticle and fired again, not bothering to assess the second shot. He couldn’t miss at this range, and the first bullet had most likely inflicted a mortal wound. The second had undoubtedly sealed the deal. Marko rolled off the flimsy kitchen table he’d pushed against the window, sprinting for the door. Besnik Lami was the first of two planned targets for this morning.

He hit the stairwell at full speed, reaching the ground floor within seconds. Once in the alley behind the apartment building, he shouldered his rifle and took off down the alley. The four-hundred-yard trip through a maze of tight streets and shadowy alleys brought him past several bystanders, who didn’t give him more than a passing look. Serious- looking men flashing rifles on the streets had become a part of daily life in Kosovo.

When Marko ducked into the alley that led to his next sniper position, he dug into one of his jacket pockets and removed a small shaped explosive charge. He wouldn’t have time to fiddle with the building lock. The window of opportunity to hit his second target was already almost nonexistent. Any delay would kill what little chance he had of pulling it off.

Arriving at his destination in a dead sprint, he nearly collided with a stooped-over, gray-haired man dressed in a dark, rumpled suit. The white, flat-topped qeleshe perched on his head immediately gave him away as an Albanian, not that Marko needed the iconic national symbol to identify him. Everyone here was Albanian. The man walked slowly down the alley, toward the street, watching him the entire time. Unable to wait for the man to reach the street and disappear, he jammed the explosive charge against the reinforced metal door, between the handle and the door frame.

He yanked the looped cord attached to the detonator, igniting the smoldering fuse. A few seconds later, the charge exploded, warping the door and swinging it outward. By the time Marko peeled off the brick wall to enter the smoke-obscured entry, the old man had started to run down the alley. He momentarily considered shooting him, but pushed the thought aside. The noise would attract too much attention, and Marko should be in and out of the building in less than two minutes.

Having spent longer than he’d hoped finding the stairs, he kicked in the door to the third-floor apartment and proceeded to the street-facing side of the apartment, sweeping his rifle back and forth in case his intelligence had been wrong again. Finding the place empty as promised, he moved rapidly to one of the windows in the family room.

A quick glance through the glass told him he might be too late. Heavily armed men had already started to pour out of the shuttered elementary school, jumping into the dozen or so vehicles jammed in the weed-infested parking lot. He opened the window anyway and took a knee, resting the barrel of the M76 semiautomatic sniper rifle on the sill. A search through the 4X scope didn’t immediately yield his target, who might have already hopped in one of the vehicles. He’d have to pick a new target. Anyone who appeared to be giving orders would do.

Marko decided on a man standing next to a gray pickup truck, barking orders at the men scrambling into the parking lot. His rifle’s trigger was a few pounds of pressure from sending a bullet through the man’s upper back, when a tightly spaced entourage of militia exited the school. He eased off the trigger and shifted his aim to a cluster of men walking together down the school’s front steps. Bingo.

He placed the tip of the reticle’s chevron on Azem Drobuna’s upper sternum, visible just above a guard’s head, and pressed the trigger. Prishtina’s highest-ranking KLA officer stumbled backward, a geyser of blood erupting above the militia squad assigned to protect him. No need—or time—for a second shot. Marko bolted through the apartment door and into the hallway moments before a maelstrom of bullets started to pulverize the apartment behind him.

Smoke from his breaching charge filled the stairs leading to the ground level, forcing him to slow down. Throwing an ankle on these stairs would be a death sentence. He had a hard deadline to reach his extraction point. Briefly distracted by this thought, and his vision partially obscured by the smoke, he didn’t see the armed militant standing just outside the alleyway door.

Marko piled into the man, knocking both of them to the gritty alley pavement. Two more armed men, and the old man he’d earlier spared, stood several feet away, momentarily frozen by his sudden, violent appearance. With his rifle stuck under the Kosovar he’d knocked to the ground, Marko drew the pistol hidden in the small of his back and turned onto his side—rapidly firing three bullets into each of the shocked men.

Before their bodies struck the ground, he swung the pistol toward the militant lying next to him, but the young man had reacted way faster than he’d anticipated. A long knife blade slashed across his forearm, the flashing pain and sudden impact causing him to drop the pistol. He frantically rolled away as the militant reversed his strike, the knife sinking through Marko’s jacket and penetrating his chest at a shallow angle.

Marko grabbed the man’s wrist before he could adjust the knife and drive it between his ribs. With his free hand, he punched the crook of the man’s elbow, which reflexively opened the hand and released the knife. While the man scrambled to grab the blade with his other hand, Marko pulled a short dagger from a concealed ankle sheath in a well-practiced move—and jammed it under the Kosovar’s chin.

He was on his feet and running moments later, having collected two of the AK-74 rifles carried by the KLA operatives. He slung his sniper rifle and one of the assault rifles over his shoulders and cradled the remaining rifle as he sprinted toward his extraction point. He’d almost reached the opposite end of the alleyway when a packed, four-door sedan screeched to a halt on the street in front of him, blocking his exit.

Before any of the armed men inside the vehicle could respond, Marko emptied his rifle’s thirty-round magazine into the car, with a few well-controlled, tightly aimed bursts. He didn’t bother to stop and assess the damage inflicted by the barrage of gunfire he’d unleashed. The sheer amount of blood splattered across the partially intact windows and the tilted heads told him everything he needed to know.

He crossed the street and had almost disappeared into another alley when a gray pickup truck skidded around the nearest corner, the two men standing in its bed pointing in his direction and yelling. When the pickup straightened on the road, pointing straight at him, the men visible above the passenger cab hauled rifles into sight.

Marko fired two short bursts at the men standing in the pickup bed, snapping one of them backward and dropping the other behind the cab. His instinct told him he’d either grazed or entirely missed one of them—not that it would matter. He fired three short bursts into the windshield, mostly targeting the driver.

The pickup truck immediately careened into an adjacent light post, ejecting the front passenger through the bullet-riddled windshield. His body skidded across the hood and tumbled to a stop against the curb several feet in front of the truck, where it lay crumpled at an unnatural angle. Satisfied that the threat had been neutralized, and that no more trouble was inbound, Marko tossed the assault rifle across the street and took off.

When he reached the extraction point, the car that had dropped him off at the first apartment building sped out of a nearby alley, stopping next to him. If the three men inside the vehicle had gunned him down on the sidewalk right now, it wouldn’t have surprised him in the least. He’d just started a small war in Prishtina, which wouldn’t end well for either side.

Killing him here and leaving him to be found by the KLA was probably the Serbians’ best move. They’d eventually trace him to his parents in Babus, and his background in the U.S. They might even conclude he was a lone wolf. He stood there for a long moment, accepting the possibility. It was a risk he had to take. One of many to come.

“Are you going to stand there in plain sight all day?” said the man in the backseat. “It sounds like you started a fucking war out there. Get off the damn street.”

Marko slid next to him in the back, laying the rifle at their feet. They drove for a few minutes until it appeared that they had successfully escaped the KLA response. Serbian police units would respond shortly, driving the Kosovar militia back into hiding.

“Well? Did you take him out?” said the driver.

“I took both of them out,” said Marko.

“Both?”

“I hit Azem Drobuna at the abandoned school a few blocks away.”

“Are you fucking serious?” said the man.

“Very serious,” said Marko. “And he’s very dead.”

“That wasn’t your mission,” said the man next to him.

“It was on the way,” said Marko.

The driver shook his head before breaking into laughter, which spread to the others.

“You’re a crazy motherfucker. You know that, right?” said the driver.

Marko nodded. More than you know. More than I know, apparently.

Chapter 7

Marko Resja stood a few meters away from the raised dirt road, swatting flies away from his grimy, sweat-covered face. August drew stifling heat and oppressive humidity to the Balkan Peninsula, rendering the latest Yugoslav offensive even more miserable—if that was even possible.

He raised his well-worn M76 sniper rifle and stared through the scope, scanning the distant road. Marko had been assigned to watch the western road for Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) vehicles, sharing the duty with another relatively new member of Srecko Hadzic’s Panthers. Satisfied that the approach was clear, he shifted the rifle into the crook of his arm and shrugged at his partner—who passed along the “all clear” report through a cheap plastic handheld radio.

Sava wiped his sweaty forehead, leaving a dark spot on his sleeve. His green camouflage uniform was filthy, crusted with light brown mud up to his thighs. Large sweat stains formed odd circular shapes under his armpits and across his chest. The only thing clean about Sava was his assault rifle, which was slung over his left shoulder, freeing him to chain-smoke cigarettes.

Sava’s face disappeared in a cloud of tobacco smoke and reappeared sporting a grin, his crooked yellow teeth contrasting against a thin layer of green and black greasepaint. The face paint had nearly worn away over the past three days, as their unit moved through the hills cleaning out “suspected” bands of KLA resistance. The Panthers had always loosely applied the term suspected, but yesterday’s gruesome discovery in Klecka had changed everything—for the worse.

Regular Yugoslavian security forces had captured a KLA stronghold in Klecka and were led to a makeshift crematorium by a young man who claimed to have been forced to participate in atrocities against kidnapped Serbians. Evidence of scorched human remains was found in the crematorium, and several trenches filled with badly decomposing bodies were uncovered in a nearby orchard.

Word of the discovery spread like wildfire through Serbian units in the foothills, and Marko’s platoon was roused from a deep sleep at three in the morning to prepare for an urgent operation. Any Albanian Kosovar found in these hills was to be treated as confirmed KLA.

Several armored vehicles arrived in the camp shortly after they woke, and transported them to the outskirts of Divjaka, where a mortar team set up in a clearing to the west. Half of the thirty-man platoon was sent to the eastern road on the opposite side of the village, accompanied by M-80 armored personnel carriers. The entire platoon’s focus was a cluster of homes and structures in northern Divjaka, isolated from the main town and only accessible by two roads—which were now blocked by a heavily armed Serbian paramilitary force.

His squad loitered in the western tree line until a crimson sun crept over the eastern hills of the valley, and fingers of deep orange light caught the treetops above them. He could only imagine the terror spreading through the homes in front of them as residents listened to the distant rumble of idling engines—and waited.

The mortar tubes announced the break of dawn across the valley, firing a volley of 82mm high-explosive shells at the closest grouping of structures visible along the road. The shells sailed in a high arc and took an eternity to find earth again. When gravity finally gave them up, the ground behind one of the houses erupted skyward in a light brown cloud, followed by another geyser of dirt from the road. The sharp crunch of the impacts washed through the men, giving rise to a few cheers. Marko felt relieved that the rounds had missed the homes.

The mortar attack lasted five minutes, as the mortar crew haphazardly sent several more salvos into the village, adjusting their aim to “walk” the shells through the entire length of the community. Luckily for the inhabitants, the mortar team never focused on the buildings. Only once did a shell find a solid target, ejecting large chunks of timber and concrete skyward. Marko had felt relieved that the mortar attack had done so little damage. His solace would be short lived.

The mortar teams disassembled their equipment and loaded it into the troop compartment of one of the M-80s, and the entire detachment of Yugoslav regular army vehicles and soldiers sped away, leaving his squad alone on the outskirts of town—to do the day’s dirty work.

Nenad Sojic, the platoon’s de facto leader, waved the squad over. He told them that they would search house-to-house for KLA insurgents and weapons caches. Once a house was searched, the inhabitants would be sent to a centralized location for further questioning. Even the most naive members of the platoon knew what that meant.

When they reached the first set of homes, Marko and Sava had been detached to serve as pickets along the western edge of the village; tasked to observe the same road the armored personnel carriers had used to hastily separate themselves from Marko’s paramilitary comrades.

Moments before they had reached their assigned observation post, the screaming started. He concentrated on the empty road to the west as the rest of the squad moved down the road behind him, pushing hesitant villagers toward the center of town. Neither of them had wanted to look back and acknowledge what was happening.

Marko’s thoughts shifted to the present, a crow drawing his attention. The large black bird landed on a crude wooden fence several yards back from the road, joining the several dozen already quietly arrayed along the fence. More crows sat along the road leading toward the houses, not the least bit intimidated by the soldiers in Divjaka.

“They know something we don’t,” Sava remarked, nervously dragging on his cigarette.

“Probably not their first time,” said Marko.

He suspected that the young Serb’s supply of cigarettes must be nearly exhausted. Sava had smoked nonstop since they left a Belgrade primary school soccer field three days ago. Marko carried a pack of cheap Serbian smokes to fit in, but he rarely indulged unless offered. He had always despised the habit, but his trainers at the Ranch had made it clear that he would have to smoke to fit in. Everyone smoked in Serbia—at least casually.

When the time came, he’d offer Sava the unopened pack, mostly to calm the kid down. Marko had no idea how the kid would respond to nicotine withdrawal out here, and he didn’t want to find out. Sava didn’t possess any of the brutal edge required to survive in this environment. Hadzic’s veteran Panthers would eat him alive if he showed signs of cracking under pressure.

That line of thinking brought another concern back into focus. His platoon was comprised of too many newbies, who had been swapped into the platoon just after last night’s dinner. He was new to the Panther organization and had only been deployed to the field in a large-scale operation once before, but this structure struck him as odd.

Hadzic’s field units typically overflowed with hardened paramilitary veterans of the Bosnia conflict, or former Yugoslav military. Limited logistical support prevented a full unit deployment, so the vast majority of the field slots went to combat-hungry veterans. A platoon brimming with newbies didn’t feel right.

The sudden crackle of automatic weapons fire scattered the crows, their screeches briefly drowning out the sound of the guns. Like the crows, Sava reacted instinctively, throwing himself to the ground next to the raised dirt road. Marko flinched, but stood impassively in the middle of the road as the volume of distant gunfire diminished. He knew exactly what had happened, and turned his head lazily towards the center of the village. Sporadic, single pistol shots rang out as Sava rose to his feet to rejoin him on the road.

“I’m glad Nenad stuck us out here,” said Sava.

Before Marko could reply, Sava’s radio crackled, and their brief respite from the madness was over. They had been recalled to the village center.

Chapter 8

Marko jogged down the uneven dirt road, careful to avoid the shallow craters created by the mortar impacts. All of the doors in the village had been left open, which gave the village a frightening aura. Like it had been abandoned years ago. When they reached the village center, Marko spotted a group of women and children huddled under a tree, guarded by a soldier.

A group of Panthers blocked their approach, instructing them to leave their weapons stacked against one of the few jeeps the Panthers had brought into the field. He jogged over to the mud-covered vehicle and scanned the scene beyond its hood. A dozen or so Panthers, all newbies, stood in front of a long trench. A few of them shook their heads while others spit into the ditch.

“Fucking burial duty. Wonderful,” said Sava.

“It’s typical for new guys,” said Marko, lying to the newbie.

He hadn’t seen any shovels among the men standing in front of the long pit. Whatever was in the works would undoubtedly be a “critical point,” as the Black Flag psychologists termed it. They had prepared him for moments like these, characterizing the different types and their significance.

From what he could tell, this looked like a “terminal critical point.” He would either rise from the dust as a trusted member of the Panthers, or he would die in the pit along with the rest of the villagers. No aspect of General Sanderson’s training program could truly prepare him for what would transpire in the next few moments. He was on his own to make a split-second decision.

If he lined up with the rest of the men, he would have to trust his chances to a gamble he had taken a few weeks ago. A little insurance policy that might save his life. Might being the operative term. His other option was to put his training to work and fight his way out of here. Half of the group was unarmed, leaving about a dozen hardened Panthers in his way.

With several loaded assault rifles at his immediate disposal along the jeep, he could sling two of them over his shoulder and start cutting down the armed Panthers with a third. The odds were in his favor, given his capabilities.

He glanced up at one of the men who had ordered him to put his weapon against the jeep. The man’s greasepaint camouflage had recently been reapplied, neutralizing his expression—but his eyes gave Marko pause. They were cold and alert. He would have to make his decision immediately.

Fuck it. He decided to trust his instincts and go with the gamble. The payoff would secure his status among the Panthers, which was his mission. He swallowed shallowly and followed Sava around the jeep, never taking his eyes off the hardened soldier escorting them.

A growing buzz hit his ears when they approached the pit, causing him to slow.

“Get with the rest of them,” someone barked from behind, and he continued forward.

Marko caught his first look into the shallow trench and fought the urge to gag. He betrayed no emotion as the full scope of the atrocity materialized—and the source of the buzzing sound became apparent. Thousands of flies swarmed over freshly slaughtered corpses, drawn to the stench of involuntarily voided bowels and fresh blood.

He turned away from the massacre and faced the members of the same firing squad that had put all of the village’s men into the hastily dug mass grave. One of the newbies called out to the platoon commander, who was busy talking into a radio headset.

“Hey, Nenad! How about the guys with the easy jobs on the road bury this garbage?” he said, pointing toward Marko and Sava.

“How about you shut the fuck up!” said a stocky Serb crouched near one of the jeeps.

The man’s bravado disappeared, and he melted back into the dozen or so men standing around in front of the trench. Marko took in the scene. Nobody was pointing weapons in their direction, but he could see the looks passing surreptitiously back and forth. He located some shovels nearby, which were caked with dirt and had probably been recently used by the slaughtered Kosovars to dig their own grave.

This was definitely not a burial detail. This was either some kind of sick initiation, or something entirely different. Either way, he wondered if he had made a mistake. His eyes found the nearest M90 assault rifle, and he did the calculations, casually looking around. He could put a knife through the owner’s throat and get the rifle, but his chances beyond that were grim.

The sound of vehicles broke his concentration, and everyone’s heads turned toward two black Range Rovers kicking up a storm of dust to the east. The armed Panthers straighten themselves up, and some even attempted to brush the dirt and mud from their uniforms. It was a good sign for Marko, confirmed when Nenad Sojic and his radio operator jogged to the road to meet the easily recognizable vehicles.

He might survive the day, but only if Radovan Grahovac, Hadzic’s security chief, decided to indulge in his patented sadism for a few minutes before putting them all into the ditch. He was oddly optimistic. Radovan didn’t stray too far from Belgrade without the promise of some entertainment.

Chapter 9

The Range Rover doors opened simultaneously, disgorging their lethal cargo. Serious, brutal-looking men dressed in pressed camouflage uniforms formed a loose perimeter around the imposing man who had emerged from the front passenger door of the lead vehicle. Radovan Grahovac stood in the middle of the heavily armed crew, surveying the village and nodding in agreement with Nenad Sojic, who gestured toward the mass grave at Marko’s feet.

Marko scanned the security detail as Radovan’s group approached the pit, his heart sinking when he couldn’t find Andrija Brujic. Without Brujic, he was a dead man. His attention briefly drifted to the closest assault rifle. If he could get the rifle and find cover within a few seconds, he might be able to survive.

He killed the idea just as quickly. Radovan’s entourage was comprised of special operations types who had worked together for years. Marko could handle them alone, with the element of surprise, but in this scenario, their presence negated any serious chance of survival. He’d started to slide toward the nearest armed Panther when Andrija Brujic emerged from the far side of one of the Range Rovers. His odds of survival had just radically improved.

As Radovan’s entourage approached, Nenad Sojic, their de facto platoon commander, issued orders to Marko’s group.

“Turn around and face the pit!”

Marko turned toward the putrid atrocity a few feet away, along with most of the group. A few hesitated, possibly sensing what was in store for them, and one of the men, a particularly overzealous Nationalist named Vukasin Mokric, refused to follow Nenad’s abrupt order.

Nenad issued an order directed at the platoon, and Marko heard the metallic sounds of several rifles being put into an immediate ready state. Rounds chambered and safeties disengaged. He didn’t have to look back to know that these rifles were now aimed at their backs, or possibly Vuk’s face.

“What the fuck is going on here? If this is some kind of initiation joke, I’m already fucking initiated. Get those rifles out of my face, motherfuckers,” said Vukasin.

The platoon commander ordered him to turn around, and Marko heard a few of the soldiers reinforce the command.

“Nenad, this is fucking bullshit. I joined this group to fuck and kill these pieces of shit. Not to be treated like a dog,” he persisted.

Two pistol shots ended Vuk’s protest, his body hitting the ground a few moments later.

“Fuck with Mr. Hadzic’s money, and you get treated like a rabid dog. No better than the scum rotting in the pit at your feet,” said Radovan Grahovac.

Nobody moved or said a word.

“Less than a week ago, a large sum of money disappeared from one of Mihail Kunac’s safe houses. This money was on its way to Mr. Hadzic when someone broke into the safe house, killing Kunac and the guard responsible for watching the money,” Radovan said.

“I arrived with a small group to personally collect this money no more than thirty minutes later! Kunac and the poor shit assigned to watch the money were still fucking warm when we got there. Trust me when I tell you that explaining the loss of nearly fifty thousand dollars to Mr. Hadzic—is not a very pleasant experience!”

Fifty-three thousand, two hundred and eighty dollars to be exact.

“I had to front this fucking money to keep my head! I haven’t had a theft like this in over three years—so what’s changed? We bring on a fresh batch of recruits, and I suddenly have a fucking major theft on my hands. I want this money back, and one of you knows exactly where to find it! Someone better start talking, or every one of you will end up in that pit…blamed for the worst massacre in recent history.”

Time stood still, the air silent for several seconds, until another gunshot shattered the quiet, startling all of them. A warm spray hit the left side of Marko’s face. He gauged the moment, deciding to let one more person die before making his play. He guessed that the chance of Radovan shooting someone immediately adjacent to the previous victim was highly unlikely. He should be safe from the next bullet. Marko figured the next one to be killed would be the first person to open their mouth. A high-risk gamble—that paid off instantly.

“Mr. Grahovac, I wasn’t even in Belgrade when this—”

A sudden gunshot completed the kid’s sentence, and another body tumbled into the pit, disturbing the flies.

“I’ll kill every one of you until I figure out who did this,” he said, heading back toward Marko.

At this point, he understood that Radovan had no intention of sparing any of them. Radovan apparently had no idea who stole the money, and based on the fact that he had killed three people who might have committed the crime, it was clear that he didn’t care. Marko guessed that this public stunt was designed to seal his legend as the most ruthless, unforgiving security boss in Serbia.

If he couldn’t punish the actual thief, he could send a clear message that stealing would result in random, murderous consequences. Sensing that his time was drawing rapidly to an end, Marko muttered something purposely undecipherable. He made it quick, with an air of confidence that he prayed would spare him an instant bullet to the back of the head.

“You have a traitor on your security detail. Someone with very expensive taste.”

Radovan rushed up behind him and growled into his ear, “What did you say, thief?”

“One of your guards is wearing a really expensive watch. I’ve seen similar watches, I think, in Berlin—while fucking around at a very expensive mall. I noticed it on him when you came by the assembly area two days ago. He was inspecting some of our weapons, and I got a close-up look,” he whispered.

Radovan remained silent the longest few seconds of Marko’s life.

“Which guard?” he demanded.

“Can I point to him?” Marko said.

“Yes, but if you’re fucking with me, I’ll kill you with one of those shovels,” he said.

Marko quickly located Andrija Brujic, who looked amused by Marko’s desperate plea. Brujic adjusted the brim of his camouflage cap and pinched his flattened nose. When Marko raised his hand and pointed at Brujic, the cocky smile vanished—and a confused panic settled over the man.

“Andrija, roll up your sleeves,” Radovan said.

When Brujic hesitated, Radovan grew impatient.

“Roll up your fucking sleeves!” he screamed.

“But I didn’t buy—”

“Wrestle that fuck to the ground!” he ordered, spurring several members of the platoon to grab Brujic’s arms and pin him down.

They ripped his sleeves open far enough to expose a thick, shiny watch on his left wrist.

“I want to see that watch,” said Radovan.

One of the men stripped the piece from Brujic’s wrist and tossed it to Radovan, who took a few seconds to inspect it. Brujic broke the silence, which might or might not have made a difference in the outcome of his fate.

“He’s the one who gave it to me! He said it was a fake that he stole from some shithead in the Zemun market. This is a fucking setup! Can’t you see that?”

Although he never actually said it, the tone suggested he meant to add “you stupid fuck” to the end of the sentence.

When several of the Panthers chuckled at Brujic’s statement, Marko knew the man was as good as dead.

“Mr…?” said Radovan, looking to Marko to finish his sentence.

“Resja. Marko Resja, sir.”

Radovan turned to Brujic. “Mr. Resja gave you this watch, in an attempt to frame you?”

The laughter from the platoon grew, Radovan’s tone implying that Brujic’s story was nonsense.

“Yes! He gave it to me a few days ago. Out of the blue. He’s trying to pull some shit on us. The watch is a fake. I don’t have money to buy expensive watches,” he said.

“But you have money to eat in expensive restaurants?”

“That’s different. I wasn’t paying. It was that whore from the—”

A solid kick to the face from Radovan’s black, spit-polished combat boot silenced his desperate plea.

“Haul him to his feet and shut him the fuck up,” he said.

While the men struggled to get Brujic to his feet, Radovan tossed the watch to Resja.

“That’s a twenty-eight-thousand-dollar Rolex Cosmograph. I own two just like it. I could use a keen eye like yours on my security detail,” he said.

Twenty-six thousand eight hundred and ninety-five dollars to be precise. Arranged through an exclusive jeweler at the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden in Berlin. Paid for, in advance of pickup, by General Sanderson.

Marko gave the watch back to Radovan, who accepted it without hesitating.

“What happens to him?” Marko asked, speaking above Brujic’s duct-tape-muffled screams.

“He goes into the pit with the rest of them after Nenad’s crew works him over,” he replied, turning to the platoon leader.

“Give him the special treatment reserved exclusively for Kosovar whore queens…and get rid of that shit over there. What the fuck are you keeping them around for?” he demanded, nodding at the huddled women and children.

“We wanted to save them for you and your men,” Nenad replied.

“Get rid of them, and get out of here. I want this wrapped up in thirty minutes.”

“Grab your rifle, and hop in the rear vehicle. You smell like donkey shit,” said Radovan.

When Marko returned with his rifle, Radovan and his entourage were already on their way to the Range Rovers, forcing him to sprint to catch up with them. Radovan glanced over his shoulder when they reached the vehicles.

“Sniper, eh? Any good?” he said.

Nenad, who stood a few feet away, answered the question for Marko. “One of the best I’ve seen in a while, sir. He was the shooter in Prishtina.”

“I heard about that,” said Radovan. “Impressive work. I’d like to hear the details later.”

“Of course, sir.”

When Radovan turned toward his SUV, Nenad grabbed Marko’s shoulder. “Don’t embarrass us, Resja.”

Marko nodded before climbing into the backseat of the rear SUV. The rich smell of leather penetrated the stench he had choked on for the entire three-day field operation, easing him into the next phase of his mission.

“Fuck, man. You do smell like shit. Crack the windows,” said the man in the front passenger seat.

“Bojan,” the burly guard next to Marko said, extending his hand.

“Marko. What’s going to happen to them?” he said.

“Who?”

“The newbies,” said Marko.

“They’re going into the pit…where they belong,” he said. “Mr. Grahovac doesn’t like witnesses he can’t trust.”

Marko stared out of the window at Sava, who looked slightly relaxed despite the fact that they hadn’t been allowed to face away from the pit. He was glad that the Range Rover’s tinted windows hid his face. If Sava locked eyes with him for even a moment, the boy would know that he was as good as dead. He just hoped they made it quick for him. As the SUV slowly rolled away from the center of the village, Marko turned his thoughts inward, seeking a momentary reprieve from the insanity he had just witnessed—and somehow escaped. His journey through hell had just begun.

Chapter 10

Marko Resja peered cautiously over the top of the jagged stone wall, scanning the lodge’s covered porch with powerful binoculars. Through the driving downpour, he counted four men. Perfect. With the entire external security team in one place, approaching unseen shouldn’t be a problem.

Marko had arrived at the forest perimeter an hour earlier, hampered by the same relentless rainfall that had kept NATO aircraft at bay for more than a week. The distant roar of high-altitude jets rumbled through the dark clouds, a grim reminder that NATO pilots had started testing Belgrade’s air defense network—impatient for the weather to clear over the northern Balkan Peninsula.

He stared at the wavering pine forest for a moment before turning his attention back to the lodge. The two-story, modern, stone and beam structure looked sturdy enough to withstand an artillery attack. A similarly constructed one-story garage stood between him and the house, partially obscuring his view of the main structure.

Srecko Hadzic, leader of the paramilitary Serbian Panther crime syndicate, had built the lodge for the sole purpose of hiding his brother, Pavle. Rumors of NATO commando teams operating within Serbian borders had taken root among upper-level leadership, raising paranoia to near panic levels, and Hadzic probably feared Pavle’s capture more than his own at this point.

Marko took one more look over the top of the wall just to make sure all four men were still on the porch. The bright orange glow of cigarettes and shifting of shadows under the roof confirmed his assessment. He didn’t expect any of them to emerge from their cozy shelter, but he had to keep in mind that these men were all current or former Serbian Special Operations types. Despite the overindulgences often associated with paramilitary security details, all of these men had been handpicked for their competence. Three more had accompanied Radovan Grahovac, Hadzic’s chief of security, into the lodge to meet with Pavle, bringing the total to seven.

They had arrived dressed in civilian clothes, which suggested that the crew might head north for a night of prostitutes and drinking along the banks of the Danube River in Novi Sad. Despite their casual dress, however, each man carried a compact assault rifle and a pistol. Under normal circumstances, this was not a crew he would mess with, but today was different.

Satisfied that all four men were still in the same place, he picked up a long black duffel bag and ran to a position along the perimeter wall that was completely obscured from the porch by the garage. Based on his observations from two previous reconnaissance trips, he knew that Radovan wouldn’t stay more than ten minutes. There was little time to waste.

From his new vantage point, he glanced over the wall and saw one of two dark blue Range Rovers that had deposited Radovan and his heavily armed security detail. The other Range Rover was parked several meters behind the first, hidden from his view by the garage.

Marko kneeled low and wrestled a Serbian-made assault rifle out of the waterproof bag, extending the weapon’s foldable shoulder stock. Placing the weapon against the rocks, he reached back into the bag for one of two detachable ammunition drums and swiftly attached it to the weapon. The second seventy-five-round drum disappeared in his hip satchel.

Beyond the high-capacity ammunition drums, he carried four thirty-round magazines in quick-access pouches on his combat vest—nestled among four stun grenades. He screwed a one-foot-long suppressor to the rifle’s threaded barrel and chambered a round—glancing over the wall to make sure Radovan hadn’t emerged from the house. Clear. The final item he removed from the bag was a gray aluminum ice-climbing axe, which he attached low on the side of his vest. Marko was ready.

Gripping the rifle with his left hand, he pushed off one of the sturdier-looking rocks with his other hand and vaulted the rock wall. Splashing down in ankle-high water, Marko slogged through the thick mud to reach the left corner of the garage, where he could keep a closer eye on the security detail.

The rain intensified for a minute, pummeling him with sheets of rain. Despite having been exposed to the frigid early spring downpour for nearly two hours, he didn’t feel cold. Under his paramilitary camouflage outfit, Marko wore an insulated, waterproof jumpsuit. Certainly not standard issue for elite Serbian commandos, or even the most pampered members of Hadzic’s paramilitary forces. Nothing in Marko’s equipment load-out was standard paramilitary issue. General Sanderson had no intention of taking any chances with spotty gear. Not today.

A car door slammed, and Marko peeked around the corner of the garage. One of the men threw a lit cigarette into the front yard, while another man talked excitedly into a small handheld radio. Showtime.

Marko released the weapon’s safety and pulled a rain-soaked black ski mask over his face. Peering cautiously around the corner, he watched the men scramble off the porch. When they vanished from sight, he moved rapidly down the unobserved side of the garage to the front corner and risked another look. As expected, the lead SUV was already loaded with Radovan and the three men who had accompanied him into the lodge. The four commandos from the porch jogged toward the rear SUV.

Engaging a trancelike mindset, he stepped into the open and aimed at the last man in the group. With the weapon’s reflex sight centered on the man’s upper back, he pulled the trigger and discharged a short burst. The automatic rifle bucked hard against his shoulder, but he kept the muzzle rise under control and repeated the process to eliminate the remaining guards.

**

Radovan sat impatiently in the front passenger seat of his Range Rover, listening to the rain hammering the truck’s thick metal roof. He hated these trips and absolutely despised handing their hard-earned cash over to Hadzic’s “gangbanger worshiping” brother, Pavle. Radovan was a committed ultranationalist and had no tolerance for the newly arrived American “gangsta” music that had penetrated the Belgrade club scene. When Radovan hit the town, which he frequently did, Belgrade went hip-hop free. Nobody risked incurring the security chief’s wrath.

“Why the fuck are we not out of here already?” he yelled at the rain-blurred windshield.

He turned his head and leaned over the center console to check on the rear security team. Through the wide back window of the Range Rover’s gate, he noted a figure sliding down the right side of the rear SUV, but never had a chance to form much more of an impression about the situation. Several steel-jacketed bullets ripped through the commando seated behind him, showering the cabin in aerosolized gore.

Radovan was immediately hit by two of the bullets that passed unhindered through the guard’s throat. One struck him in the upper left shoulder, where it stayed, and the other ricocheted off the metal headrest post and grazed the right side of his neck. The windshield in front of Radovan crumbled as he instinctively grabbed for the short-barreled assault rifle that rested between his right leg and the door. Before his hand completed the twelve-inch journey, the front passenger door erupted in a fusillade of torn plastic, metal fragments, and safety glass. His hand never touched the rifle.

**

Against all odds, the driver, Jorji, survived the seemingly endless hail of bullets. He was hit several times, but knew that he was not critically wounded. When the first bullets passed through the SUV, Jorji twisted his body to the right, pressing down on the center console, trying to present the lowest possible target to his attackers. This was not the first time he had been attacked in a vehicle, and his previous experience kept him alive a little longer than the rest of the Range Rover’s occupants.

Several bullets pierced the back of his seat and tore into the top left side of his body, shredding muscle and tendon from his left hip all the way up to his shoulder. The extensive muscle damage along his entire left side kept him locked in place over the center console, with his face nearly buried in Radovan’s lap. No matter how hard he tried, he could not sit up, which was another reason that he was still alive.

**

Marko dropped to the soaked gravel near the front left tire of the Range Rover and rolled over onto his left side, which gave him easy access to the hip satchel containing the second ammunition drum. The gun’s barrel sizzled as the rain struck the dangerously overheated metal. A hundred thoughts and stimuli flashed through his brain, which were immediately prioritized and processed for his use. His trance reduced useless distractions like emotion, hesitation or fear, and enhanced his focus on the highly specialized skills required to survive.

“Reload weapon” was at the very top of the list. His weapon wasn’t empty, but he knew that seventy-five rounds didn’t last very long at the rate he had fired. In the flash of a synapse, “driver still alive” was also broadcasted, and his eyes narrowed. He had fired long bursts into each passenger as he moved counterclockwise around the SUV. After targeting the rear right guard and Radovan, he’d fired a lengthy burst at the driver through the rear right door window. Marko knew the bullets had passed through the seat and connected with the driver, but the man’s demise was not conclusive, and he knew it.

He detached the drum magazine and threw it out of the way. The second drum was out of the satchel and attached to the light machine gun in a blur of his hands. Marko raised his body into a low crouch, keeping well below the window, and fired a sustained burst through the center of the front driver door.

**

The silence felt like an eternity to Jorji, but he knew his lifespan was now measured in seconds unless he could take the offensive. Jorji lifted his head up far enough out of Radovan’s blood-soaked lap to catch sight of the assault rifle jammed against the door by Radovan’s leg. Jorji knew this was his only hope. His only weapon, a small semiautomatic pistol, was jammed under his right armpit in a concealed holster, and he couldn’t lift his body to free it. Not that it would have mattered if he could. Jorji was left-handed, and a bullet had passed through the back of his left elbow, rendering his arm useless. He strained to slide his right arm free, and his hand managed to reach the rifle just as several bullets punctured the driver door and put an end to any hope that he might survive.

**

Peering through the shattered driver’s side window, Marko saw a figure slumped over Radovan’s lap. The man was shredded and bloodied, but his death was still far from conclusive. A quick trigger pull removed any doubt that Radovan’s security team was finished.

He backed against the house and absorbed the scene. The carnage resembled a well-executed, coordinated ambush. Riddled by bullets on all four sides, most of the vehicle’s safety glass lay shattered on the packed gravel. Since he’d fired from nearly every angle around the SUV, the pattern of 5.45mm shell casings suggested multiple attackers.

Even better, two of the guards from the rear SUV had fallen on top of each other. He’d stuff one of them into the trunk of the luxury Mercedes in the garage and dump the car into one of the lakes near Belgrade. The absence of a junior member of Radovan’s inner sanctum would lead Hadzic to suspect that this was an inside job.

Marko decided to skip any further house surveillance. He had done a mixed job of keeping the noise level down, and didn’t want to waste time if Pavle’s bodyguards had been alerted.

The suppressor had performed as advertised, ensuring that the automatic weapon would not draw anyone’s attention over the rainstorm, but the Range Rover had been a different story. He was not at all satisfied with the noise created by the bullets that struck the SUV’s heavy steel frame. To Marko, it had sounded like multiple low-speed fender benders.

He tried the doorknob, hoping for a break, but it didn’t turn. Wasting no time, Marko reached into his hip satchel and removed an object that resembled a small plastic explosive charge. He pressed it firmly between the doorknob and door trim before pulling a small plastic device out of a pouch on his vest and sliding it upward along the door from the first small charge. The device’s LED turned green about two feet above the doorknob, where he placed a second charge from his vest against the trim. With the two charges in place, Marko pulled a small cotter pin on each of the homemade devices and pressed himself flush against the stone side of the lodge.

In rapid succession, each device ignited and burned intensely for several seconds. The thermite packages created very little noise, but generated an incredible amount of smoke—usually on both sides of the door. He pushed firmly on the heavy oak door, which gave way now that the locks had melted. Holding his breath, Marko stepped into the house. The caustic smoke obscured his vision and burned his eyes momentarily, but he immediately recognized that he was on a small landing. Several stairs led up into the house through an enclosed stairwell that separated the entrance from the main house, keeping him out of sight.

A hardcore rap song thumped in the background, easing any fears that his attack had been compromised. A Serbian-accented “yeah, motherfucka!” confirmed they were too preoccupied to have noticed his entry.

He eased up the stairs and peeked around the corner. Floor-to-ceiling windows, split by a dark gray slate fireplace and chimney, rose to the timber-framed ceiling. Pavle’s men gathered around a rustic, dark wooden coffee table, which was centered on the fireplace and littered with a pile of mixed currency. A dimmed chandelier hung low over the coffee table, attached to the ceiling by a thick black chain.

Marko spotted Pavle immediately. Paralyzed from the waist down, Hadzic’s brother was confined to a wheelchair. Facing the fireplace, both of Pavle’s outstretched arms embraced the deep hip-hop beat with a slow, synchronized wave—each hand holding a thick stack of American bills.

He assessed the bodyguards. A large, stocky man in a black turtleneck sweater and brown jacket stood in front of Pavle, bouncing up and down completely out of rhythm. The second bodyguard sat on a dark, rich leather couch to the left of the table, rolling what Marko assumed to be a joint. He didn’t detect any obvious weapons.

Ready to make his move, he took the time to touch the razor-sharp edges on both the front and back of the climbing axe. The axe would provoke the final outrage. The inevitable civil war between two of Slobodan Milosevic’s largest paramilitary groups would tear Belgrade apart from the inside, giving Marko the cover he needed to tie up the rest of his loose ends. For the first time in several years, he felt hopeful.

His time in this shithole of a region had reached an end, and he intended to walk away with a little more than just the satisfaction of a job well done. Pavle held the key to his brother’s vast criminal fortune, which would soon belong to the United States government—minus a finder’s fee.

*****

I sincerely hope you enjoyed INCEPTION, a prequel to the USA Today bestselling BLACK FLAGGED series.

Daniel Petrovich, aka Marko Resja, is just one of many unforgettable characters in this “gritty, high-octane series exploring the serpentine links between international covert operations and government agency politics.”

CONTINUE THE BLACK FLAGGED SERIES WITH BOOK ONE

OR

GRAB THE SPECIALLY PRICED BOX SET (BOOKS 1-3) FOR A LIMITED TIME!

Work by Steven Konkoly

The Black Flagged Series—Black Ops/Political thrillers

“Daniel Petrovich, the most lethal operative created by the Department of Defense’s Black Flag Program, protects a secret buried in the deepest vaults of the Pentagon. A secret that is about to unravel his life.”

ALPHA: A Black Ops Thriller (Book 1)

REDUX: A Black Ops Thriller (Book 2)

APEX: A Black Ops Thriller (Book 3)

VEKTOR: A Black Ops Thriller (Book 4)

OMEGA: A Black Ops Thriller (Book 5)

COVENANT: A Black Ops Thriller (Book 4.5)—Novella

The Zulu Virus Chronicles—Bioweapons/post-apocalyptic thrillers

“Something sinister has arrived in America’s heartland. Within twenty-four hours, complete strangers from different walks of life will be forced to join together to survive the living nightmare that has been unleashed.”

Hot Zone (Book 1)

Kill Box (Book 2)

Fire Storm (Book 3)

Fractured State Series—Near-future black ops thriller

“2035. A sinister conspiracy unravels. A state on the verge of secession. A man on the run with his family.”

Fractured State (Book 1)

Rogue State (Book 2)

The Perseid Collapse Series—Post-apocalyptic/dystopian thrillers

“2019. Six years after the Jakarta Pandemic, life is back to normal for Alex Fletcher and most Americans. Not for long.”

The Jakarta Pandemic (Prequel)

The Perseid Collapse (Book 1)

Event Horizon (Book 2)

Point of Crisis (Book 3)

Dispatches (Book 4)

About the Author

Steven graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1993, receiving a bachelor of science in English literature. He served the next eight years on active duty, traveling the world as a naval officer assigned to various Navy and Marine Corps units. His extensive journey spanned the globe, including a two-year tour of duty in Japan and travel to more than twenty countries throughout Asia and the Middle East.

From enforcing United Nations sanctions against Iraq as a maritime boarding officer in the Arabian Gulf, to directing aircraft bombing runs and naval gunfire strikes as a Forward Air Controller (FAC) assigned to a specialized Marine Corps unit, Steven’s “in-house” experience with a wide range of regular and elite military units brings a unique authenticity to his thrillers.

He lives with his family in central Indiana, where he still wakes up at “zero dark thirty” to write for most of the day. When “off duty,” he spends as much time as possible outdoors or travelling with his family—and dog.

Steven is the bestselling author of ten novels and several novellas, including a commissioned trilogy of novellas based on the popular Wayward Pines series. His canon of work includes the popular Black Flagged series, a gritty, no-holds-barred covert operations and espionage saga; the Perseid Collapse series, a post-apocalyptic thriller epic chronicling the events surrounding an inconceivable attack on the United States; and the Fractured State series, a near future, dystopian thriller trilogy set in the drought-ravaged southwest.

He is an active member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) organizations.

You can contact Steven directly by email (stevekonkoly@striblingmedia.com) or through his blog (www.stevenkonkoly.com).

Table of Contents

About INCEPTION

PART ONE Devil’s Bargain 1994

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

PART TWO The Devil To Pay 1998

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author