Part V
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
June 8th, 2009
Zurich
The clear and penetrating sound of the phone woke Goran up. He looked at the clock next to his bed and his mood worsened because of the early hour. “Pavicevic,” he growled as he switched on the bedside lamp.
“Mr. Pavicevic, we have a problem sir. One of the teams failed to report twice yesterday. We are trying to locate them but it is impossible,” a very frightened voice informed him.
“Which one?”
“You should better come here, sir. Mr. Mihailovic is with us,” Goran heard the phone went dead and left his bed immediately, the situation oddly reminding him of that night when Milan told him that his brother had been taken by the enemy. 'No, Guntram is in a wedding in Argentina. In the country house and the place is like a bunker,' he reassured himself, but couldn't ease down the growing fear and anxiety creeping into his heart.
He drove to the warehouse where the equipment was stored and the man standing guard opened the door for him. He walked directly to the command room and Milan's face confirmed his worst fears.
“Holgersen failed to report twice, Goran. We are sending one of the local teams to investigate. We alerted Mayer too. He's flying from Rio to Buenos Aires as we speak.”
“Did you try to make contact?”
“All systems are dead. It's a professional job, Goran.”
“How many guards are in the team?”
“Nine people without counting the servants. The last contact we had was from Holgersen himself. He had arrived to the property with Guntram after that wedding and everything was fine.”
“Have you informed the Duke?”
“Not yet. I want confirmation. This looks very bad. The local team should be getting in contact any time soon. It will be a secure line.”
“Put him on the speaker,” Goran said slowly, already certain that the nightmare was returning. 'Not Guntram, God, not him. If something happens to him, I will unleash a hell in this earth that will be nothing compared to yours.”
The time drew on slowly and for the first time in years, Goran lost track of it. He sat and watched his people work in the computers and Milan give some orders in hushed tones, till he approached him again. “Goran, the man just called us. He says it's too big for him.”
“What happened?”
“We are receiving video now,” one of the techs yelled and mumbled “Oh Lord,” paling and looking very sick at the images his screen projected all over his face.
Goran walked and saw that the interior surveillance video cameras were back on and it showed the main living room walls riddled with bullets of a large calibre, machine gun and furniture tattered and scattered over the place. “Show me the other rooms,” Goran ordered coldly and most of them showed the same destruction and large pools or traces of blood as if the attackers had dragged the bodies toward the kitchen. The splats of blood over the walls over the main stairwell showed that the procedure had been done in a hurry.
“Where are the bodies?” one of the younger men wondered softly.
“Do we have images of the outside?” Goran asked and one of the techs answered that he had recovered the connection too.
The sight of the pond, artificially illuminated froze their blood and all of the gasped at the sight of the single square orange large machine abandoned at the lake bank, the monstrous large pipe coming out of its entrails pointing toward the water. Next to it, the bodies of three women and two men, shot in the head, laid in disorder, like discarded broken dolls.
“What the fuck is that?” wondered another technician, pointing at a large rectangular orange machine with a gigantic trunk coming from one of its sides, standing outside the property.
“That's a wood chopper, eight tons if I'm correct,” one of the older men whispered. “But you can't use it with bodies, too much water in them.”
“Not if you freeze them, that's why they didn't bother with the servants. Look, there are some limbs scattered over the lawn.”
“Lord, we are going to make them pay for this,” Milan swore and looked at a petrified Goran, his eyes fixed on the flickering white and black images of the destroyed garden.
“Mr. Pavicevic, the team leader asks for instructions.”
“Call the local police. We have no means to process this place,” Goran said slowly after a long silence. “Touch nothing and only leave one man as the one who discovered the scene.”
“Should we not look for them?” Milan asked in Serb.
“It makes no sense, Milan. They want the body identification process to be a nightmare for us. I don't know if we could be ever find all the pieces.”
“Goran, sit down for a while. Maybe Guntram or Holgersen weren't there. We don't know what happened yet.”
“It's an execution, Milan and we are going to show them all our strength. Have the Boeing ready as soon as possible. We flight tonight at the latest. Prepare two teams and send them to Colombia to await for my orders.”
“Goran, you must be very certain.”
“No, wait. One of the teams should take down objectives 24, 36 and 45 in a notorious way. Objectives 12, 25 and 37 should be buried alive.”
“Even the children?”
“The only good Bosnian is a dead one, Milan. Do it now and you will save the trouble later. Never forget that.”
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