Author’s note: I would like to thank brickroad16 for coming up with the basic idea for Sarah's mission in this chapter, and for giving me the kind permission to use it. This was a FANTASTIC chapter to write.
Radomir Bogdanović.
Stefan Cvijić.
Vladimir Hakopian.
Zoran Klisara.
Boris Panić.
Milan Popović.
Aleksandar Tesla.
Svetozar Vukićević.
The list played over and over in Sarah’s head. She was in Belgrade, posing as Natalia Tupolev, photojournalist for the Russian newspaper Pravda.
In reality, she was there to find all eight men on her list – six ethnic Serbs, one ethnic Armenian, and one ethnic Croatian, all members of the Yugoslavian parliament gone wild in plotting to overthrow the government – and make sure that they all met an early and unfortunate demise.
After what she had perceived as her failure in Iraq, she had quickly asked for another assignment to try to prove herself. The administration, seeing her mission in Iraq as having been hugely successful, was more than happy to allow Director Graham to send her on this particularly sensitive assignment.
With what was left of Yugoslavia creeping closer and closer to splitting in half and becoming the countries of Montenegro and Serbia, the United States was very interested in ensuring that the Serbian half might want to become a democratic country, and an ally of the US. America needed all the help she could get in what had become a very unpopular war in three short months, and the administration was happy to turn to Serbia.
But right here, right now, Sarah had to make sure that these eight men disappeared for good. The first one was about to meet his demise.
Aleksandar Tesla. Liked to say that he was a distant relative of Nikola Tesla, electrical pioneer. This claim was doubted by many, but given the loss of records in the civil war of the 1990s, there was really no way to refute him.
He was also a pedophile. Sarah had seen pictures of him with pre-adolescent boys that had made her skin crawl and had, on one occasion, made her vomit. However, not only was he a pedophile, but he was one of the group of eight men which considered themselves the new coming of the Nazi party, or as they called themselves, the New Serbian Party.
Tesla was their voice. A skilled public speaker, he made sure that all the people of Serbia knew of the coming revolution, in which the master race would rise up and take Europe once more. His continued existence was not in the best interest of Yugoslavia, or by extension, the United States.
Like almost any other major city in the world, Belgrade had Starbucks. Tesla was currently inside of one, ordering some ultra-expensive, ultra-sugary, ultra-fatty coffee drink. He came outside, sipping on it, and got into his Mercedes SLK. He turned the key –
Sarah could feel the heat of the explosion from where she sat, a block away. The SLK ripped itself apart into millions of tiny pieces, the sound and shockwave reaching Sarah a moment later.
As soon as the fireball receded, Sarah’s cover took over. Camera up, she took off running toward the scene.
Radomir Bogdanović.
Stefan Cvijić.
Vladimir Hakopian.
Zoran Klisara.
Boris Panić.
Milan Popović.
Svetozar Vukićević.
Zoran Klisara was not as easy a mark to get to. He had immigrated from Croatia as a young boy, and now, as the owner and proprietor of Charlie’s Grill – “The best American food in Europe!”, they proclaimed – he was constantly surrounded by people.
Sarah’s instructions were clear. As little collateral damage as possible.
Blowing Klisara up was out of the question.
So she improvised.
“Charlie’s Grill, the best American food in Europe!”, she was greeted in English.
In heavily accented English, she said, “You speak Russian?”
“Da,” she heard back.
“Excellent,” she replied in Russian. “My name is Natalia Tupolev. I’m withPravda newspaper. I’ve heard that you have a reputation for having the best American food in Europe, and I was hoping to drop by and have dinner there, so I can do a little write-up for Pravda.”
She heard the host gasp. “Uh, just a moment please.”
There was a ring on the line, and then the phone was picked up again. “This is Zoran Klisara.”
“Mr. Klisara,” Sarah said, again in Russian, “my name is Natalia Tupolev.”
She went through the whole spiel again, and could practically hear the dollar signs registering in Klisara’s brain as she spoke. When she finished, he said, “Absolutely, Ms. Tupolev. We would love to have you come in. Would tomorrow night at 7:00 work?”
“Indeed,” she replied. “I look forward to it.”
Aside from being a restaurateur, Klisara was also an arms dealer. He dealt crap weapons from the former Soviet Union to third world backwaters the world over, and brought top-tier American, French, and Israeli weapons into Yugoslavia. He was currently arming the New Serbian Party for the expected revolution, and it just wouldn’t do to have these people performing wholesale slaughter on ethnic Bosnians and Muslims with American weaponry (or at all, Sarah thought, but she was keeping her opinion to herself).
And so Sarah arrived at Charlie’s Grill the next night at 7:00 PM. She had with her a very simple weapon – a pen with a gas release mechanism. It had been loaded with a vial that contained an extremely deadly nerve agent. All it took to activate the mechanism was a push of the plunger, so Sarah had to be extremely careful with it.
She had to admit, the food was excellent. It was, unquestionably, the best steak she had ever had. In fact, it was better American food than most restaurants in America served.
Toward the end of the meal, she asked if she could speak with Mr. Klisara – she had picked up a copy of his “American cookbook”, and wanted him to sign it. He was more than happy to oblige, and she handed him her pen to use. There was no noise, no visible sign, as the gas release mechanism activated.
As Sarah was leaving, there was quite a ruckus. Mr. Klisara had fallen across a guest’s table and was not moving. Staying true to her role as a journalist, she got out her camera and documented the event fully.
Radomir Bogdanović.
Stefan Cvijić.
Vladimir Hakopian.
Boris Panić.
Milan Popović.
Svetozar Vukićević.
Boris Panić was a very, very bad man. He was believed to have personally ordered the executions of over 50,000 Bosnians and Muslims during the civil war.
And yet, he had somehow escaped the axe that felled Slobodan Milošević and so many others at the Hague. He was now the political power behind the New Serbian Party. He was gaining the support of a large number of right wing politicians, and had proclaimed loudly that Serbia would no longer be a puppet of the East or the West.
That wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing, either, if Panić didn’t do such a convincing imitation of Joseph Goebbels at his worst. Panić had to go.
Sarah had been following him for the last week. She had his routine down to almost a science.
7:30 AM, kiss the wife good-bye. Chauffeur drives him to Parliament.
12:00 PM, lunch with one of the other members of the New Serbian Party.
1:00 PM, quickie with the mistress.
4:30 PM, depart Parliament.
5:00 PM, pick up a hooker.
6:30 PM, dinner.
8:00 PM, back home.
Sarah figured it would be easiest to get him on the drive to Parliament. Wait for a nice day when the windows were open, get him with a silenced sniper rifle from a rooftop along his route.
And so, this particular day in September, the high was already 16 degrees Celsius at 8:00 in the morning. Sarah had foregone a rooftop, instead concealing herself underneath a tarp on top of a tractor trailer parked in a parking lot next to his route.
At 8:02 AM, his BMW 745 went rolling by, slowed by traffic. And sure enough, the back windows were open.
Carefully, Sarah sighted his head in her scope. The rifle was mounted on a swiveling platform so that she could move with him as the car moved.
A light up ahead turned red, and the car came to a stop.
Sarah lined up his left temple in her scope, waited a moment for the wind to calm. As soon as it did, she pulled the trigger –
The bullet impacted his temple just before the chauffeur pressed on the gas to move forward again. The chauffeur didn’t even notice.
Ten minutes later, Sarah was three miles away, the rifle safely stowed under the floorboards in the trunk of her Audi. She heard sirens heading in the direction of Parliament, and as Natalia Tupolev was ever the vigilant journalist, she headed that direction.
Radomir Bogdanović.
Stefan Cvijić.
Vladimir Hakopian.
Milan Popović.
Svetozar Vukićević.
Radomir Bogdanović and Vladimir Hakopian were two very, very bad men. Radomir, who had grown up in Belgrade, and Vladimir, who had immigrated from Armenia when he was five, had been childhood friends. When they were both teenagers, they began to hang out with the wrong people. By the time they were in their mid-twenties, they were both low level enforcers for what passed as the Mob in Yugoslavia.
They were now both essentially dons of the Serbian Mafia, ruling over organized crime in what was left of Yugoslavia with an iron fist. They were especially reviled among the Muslim population of Serbia, having offered members of the military a $1,000 reward for each Muslim that they could verify that they had killed during the “ethnic cleansing” that took place with the civil war.
That alone was enough to turn Sarah’s stomach. However, when she learned what their favorite pastime was – pulling teenage girls off the streets and brutally raping them all night long, before throwing them out on the streets at daybreak – she wanted nothing more than to see them suffer for a very long time before they died.
However, that wasn’t practical. So, she went searching.
One day, she encountered two young Muslim girls. They were twins, eighteen, and very pretty. Two years earlier, their older sister had been taken by Bogdanović and Hakopian. She had been found three days later, facedown in the beautiful blue Danube.
She asked the girls how they would like to pay the two men back for what they had done to their sister. The girls informed Sarah that they would like nothing better than to visit the wrath of the Almighty upon the two men.
And so, Sarah had procured two Uzis, with two hundred rounds of ammunition each. She had given them to the girls, and told them to hide them under their clothing. She then drove them to a Charlie’s Grill, where Bogdanović and Hakopian were dining. Sarah told them to wait by the Cadillac Fleetwood limousine in the parking lot.
About fifteen minutes later, Bogdanović and Hakopian exited the restaurant. Needless to say, they were pleased to find their entertainment for that evening waiting for them on the hood of the limousine. With what they thought was smooth talk, they got the girls into the limousine with them. As soon as the doors shut, however…
Sarah heard a muffled cry of “Allahu akbar!” followed by gunfire. A moment later, one of the doors opened, and the two girls got out, running down the street.
Sarah intercepted them two blocks over, and took the guns from them so that they wouldn’t be found by the police. She then drove them back home.
They thanked her for giving them the opportunity to avenge their sister, and said that Allah would surely look upon her with favor. Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell them that she didn’t believe in God anymore.
And then, like the good photojournalist that Natalia Tupolev was, she turned around and drove back to Charlie’s Grill.
Stefan Cvijić.
Milan Popović.
Svetozar Vukićević
The remaining three members of the New Serbian Party were running scared. They were going to be a tough nut to crack. However, Popović was single, which Sarah planned to use to her advantage.
Just not quite yet. She wanted to go after Stefan Cvijić first. A retired colonel, he had a huge amount of sway with the Army, and would probably use that to his advantage in the event of a coup.
He had no particular routine, and had taken to being very paranoid as of late. However, Sarah came up with a fairly imaginative plan to take him down.
Posing as a sewer engineer, she had managed to run three lines up through the sewer – and into his toilet. One was a fiber optic camera, the other was a small hose, and the third was a modified spark plug. They were tiny and painted white so that he would never notice them, flush against the back wall of his toilet.
Through the camera, Sarah learned that he did have one routine. As disgusting as it was, watching him every afternoon did serve its purpose.
One day, about an hour before he got home from work, she uncapped the end of the hose – allowing methane gas to begin flowing from the sewer into his toilet. When he arrived home, she saw him wrinkle his nose through the camera, but he sat down anyway.
“Good-bye, Colonel Cvijić,” she whispered, and activated the spark plug. There was a brief flash, and then her camera went dark.
Leaving the lines where they were, she went about a mile down the sewers before evacuating. When she came out, she could see a plume of smoke rising in the distance. Getting in her rented pickup truck, she drove back to her hotel and cleaned herself up, then, ever the vigilant photojournalist, Natalia Tupolev headed for the scene of the explosion.
Milan Popović.
Svetozar Vukićević
Svetozar Vukićević was a union organizer. He had spent the better part of the last year whipping his constituents into a frenzy over the influx of immigrants into Belgrade, insisting that the New Serb would rise above and create a new master race.
Even before his comrades had begun to drop like flies, he’d been very well protective. Now, though, he might as well have been the President of the United States, for all the protection he had around him.
However, no matter how much protection a man has, he is always still vulnerable somehow. Sarah just had to figure out that “somehow” and exploit it.
The answer turned out to be insanely simple. Through sources, Sarah discovered that Vukićević was deathly allergic to peanuts. He lived in a secured penthouse on the top floor of a high rise – but it didn’t have an isolated HVAC system.
Posing as an HVAC engineer, Sarah went to the roof of the high rise, and figured out which HVAC unit went to the penthouse. Opening it, she reached into her toolbox, pulled out a jar of peanuts, and dumped them into the fan. They splintered as they hit the fan blade, and were then promptly shot directly into the vents for Vukićević’s penthouse.
Closing her toolbox, Sarah departed the building, and nobody was the wiser.
The next day, there was a small item on the front page of the paper saying that Svetozar Vukićević had been alone in his apartment, and out of nowhere, gone into anaphylactic shock and suffocated. Sarah was disappointed that Natalia Tupolev hadn’t been there to document the event, but she figured that that would’ve been pushing her luck.
Milan Popović.
Milan Popović was the head of the New Serbian Party – its Hitler. He was not an unattractive man, in his late thirties, a poster boy for the “master race” if ever there was one. If that wasn’t bad enough, he had been known as a protégé of Slobodan Milosević, the “Butcher of Belgrade”.
His inclination toward the “master race” something Sarah planned to use to her advantage, because at 5’9”, with blonde hair, blue eyes, a physically fit form, and a 36C-25-37 figure, she could be a poster girl for said “master race”.
She knew that Popović liked women who looked like her – he commonly appeared in tabloids with one of them on his arm.
Sarah just had to become that woman on his arm. And so, it was time to pose as Natalia Tupolev – one last time.
She had spoken to Popović by phone and had gotten him to agree to an interview over dinner. While dressing for the interview, she had to force herself not to conceal any weapons – this was going to be a situation where she was going to have to put her Sparrow School training to the test.
The only weapons she did take were two long and deadly looking hairpins, dipped in ricin. The ricin was surprisingly easy to come by, but she had to remind herself that she WAS in a former Eastern Bloc country, and the Soviet Union was long rumored to have used it in many different applications.
Dinner was surprisingly pleasant, even as Sarah had to force herself not to choke on the knowledge that this man thought that anybody who didn’t look like him should be eliminated. As smooth as a perfect sheet of glass, she had him convinced by the end of dinner that he should take her home to his place – past the security, past the guards.
Once they reached his house, both of them found themselves undressed in fairly short order. Sarah did have one moment of alarm, when Popović decided it would be amusing to use her hairpins as handlebars – but that quickly changed from alarm to disgust and annoyance. However, she didn’t let it disrupt what she was doing.
Using everything she had learned in Monterey, she had Popović in bed before he knew what was going on, and took him to heights of ecstasy that he loudly declared he had never been to before. Then, as he was in the midst of climax, Sarah reached behind her head, removed the hairpins, shook her hair free – and savagely stabbed the hairpins deep into his chest.
The ricin was completely unnecessary, as the hairpin in her right hand penetrated his heart. The final look on his face was one of shock.
Sarah climbed off of him, closed his eyes, and dressed him in his pajamas. With luck, nobody would realize that he was dead for hours to come.
Putting her hair back up with the hairpins, she dressed, and walked out of the house, with nary a peep from a security guard. Driving back to the hotel, she collected her camera, and only her camera, and then drove to Nikola Tesla Airport, where she caught the Aeroflot redeye to Moscow.
Upon arriving in Moscow, she purchased a copy of Pravda – “Ironic,” she muttered as she did so – and saw that Milan Popović was, indeed, very dead. She caught a cab to the American Embassy, walked in the front door, and informed the duty clerk that she had a blue jay delivery.
The clerk called it into the Deputy Chief of Mission, who was downstairs within ten minutes. Sarah was given a place to sleep that night, and the first thing the next morning, she was put on the American Airlines direct flight to Dulles Airport.
Director Graham looked over the photographs. “You did very well, Agent Walker,” he commented.
“I don’t know, sir,” she replied, shaking her head. “I don’t feel like it should’ve taken a month.”
Graham looked at her with curiosity. “Sarah, I don’t understand you sometimes. The fact that you took down eight rogue members of a foreign government in a month’s time, and nobody ever suspected you one bit – that’s unbelievable. It’s unprecedented, unheard of. Not even the Israeli team that went after the 1972 Olympic terrorists worked that fast – and you were by yourself!”
Sarah shrugged. “Just my job, sir.”
Graham nodded. “Just your job, indeed. You should know, Agent Walker, that you’ll be receiving an Intelligence Star for this action. It will be classified, and won’t be made public for twenty-five years, but the intelligence community will know.”
Finally, Sarah cracked a smile. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate the acknowledgment.”
Graham smiled back. “Job well done, Agent Walker. Take a week off, and when you come back, report directly to me. I’ve got another job in mind for you.”
