Page 42 of The Devil's Ransom

Pushka said, “Leave the trunk here. Follow me.”

Branko did as he asked, and they crossed the iron railing designed to corral the tourists, entering a tunnel of stone that led away from the main chamber. Pushka ducked his head, the ceiling getting lower and lower, finally entering another chamber that allowed him to stand up. Branko flicked his headlamp around and saw water bottles and cigarette butts.

“This isn’t going to work. Clearly, people climb that railing and explore. We can’t leave it here. I thought you said it was secret?”

“This isn’t it. If I smoked here, I’d have been found either by smell or sight.”

He went left, got down on his belly, and crawled through one of the myriad holes in the side of the cave, disappearing into the darkness. Branko followed and eventually found himself in another chamber, this one much smaller, forcing him to crouch, with a natural chimney showing the starlight above.

Pushka said, “Nobody comes here. There are plenty of tunnels like you just crawled through, but all of them end up in a dead end, where getting back out is hard as shit. I know from experience. This is the only one that ends up in an open chamber, and as far as I know, I’m the only one who’s found it. Outside of cavemen, I guess.”

Branko looked around and saw no signs of human presence. He said, “Does it flood? Like in a heavy rain?”

“No. Some dripping down that chimney, but it’s higher than the lake level. Even when the main chamber floods with, like, a foot of water, this one is always dry. Take it from me. I used it plenty of times.”

An hour later they’d pushed and pulled the trunk into the small chamber. Branko checked the AirTag, saw it functioning, and then checked the signal all the way out. The tag worked on Bluetooth, and he lost the signal just outside of the main chamber, but—with the location—it was enough for someone from Andrei’s organization to find it. The AirTag was crowdsourced with anyone who owned an iPhone with Bluetooth enabled, and every time someone explored the larger chamber with an iPhone, that trunk would register without them even knowing. With a battery that lasted a year, he was comfortable that it was safe.

They’d traveled back to the apartment in Zagreb and had crashed, exhausted. Now, the next morning, Pushka was still surly. In fact, he seemed more aggravated than he had the night before, when he was lugging the trunk to the cave.

Pushka repeated, “I do computer work. I’m not Andrei’s personal servant. There are plenty of people who want my skills. My back is killing me, and my knuckles are scraped raw from last night.”

Branko bristled, saying, “You won’t have to do anything like that again. It’s not like I control everything. Maybe next time, you can fly to Liechtenstein for an update. Leave me here to drink beer and do nothing while getting paid.”

Pushka backed down, saying, “Buy me lunch and we’ll call it even. But I’d really like to know when the next attack is happening. That last one got us zero. I’ve heard absolutely nothing from the target. I think they’re going to suck it up.”

“They might, but it’s irrelevant. With that trunk, I got us the money to keep working even if they don’t pay. I know the next target, I’m just waiting on the gateway. When we get it, we go operational again. I’m thinking the place in Split.”

“What’s the target?”

Branko gave him a sly look and said, “That’s a secret. Andrei’s orders. But it’s big. Biggest one we’ve ever hit.”

Pushka grinned and said, “You owe me for this.”

Branko turned back to the computer, saying, “I told you, I’m paying for lunch.” He clicked on his email and brightened, saying, “I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“You want to go out tonight? Get someone else to pay for it?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Remember I told you about that guy from Afghanistan I met in Liechtenstein?”

“Yeah. The one who looked like he’d hiked to the house? That one?”

“Yeah. He was a good dude. I gave him my burner email. He’s in town and wants to party.”

Chapter24

Brett tapped into the website Creed had provided and we got a blurry mess, like looking at something through glasses smeared with Vaseline. After a second it cleared up, as if the camera were waking from a slumber and shaking its head to focus.

He said, “Looks like Creed’s little backup attempt is working out. At least we have a view down the hall.”

I leaned over his shoulder and saw the door of one Branko Markovic. Or at least the door that Creedsaidwas his. Creed had never let me down before, but then again, he’d never been working with the shoestring computers like he was now due to the ransomware. He’d built an emergency backup out of old tools, and that’s all we had.

We’d packed up our dig site tents and tools and met the aircraft at the Bokhtar airfield in the final hours of darkness, everyone happy to be exfiltrating successfully. Amena was ecstatic to see us, and the pilots were ready to get home. I didn’t say a word until we were in the air, but I knew my team was suspecting something when I spent about ten minutes in the cockpit giving the flight crew new directions.

We were in the air for about thirty minutes before I gave them the new mission, waiting until we were out of Tajikistan airspace. They were understandably a little confused, since we were also transporting a terrorist with a blindfold across his eyes and sound-canceling earphones on his head, bound and stuffed in the back of the plane, along with Jahn and his niece, who were expecting to land in the United States.

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