Black Flagged Redux by Steven Konkoly Read Free Book Online Page A

of my dearest friends was granted a provisional release a few weeks ago. Haven't heard a word from him since, of course," Srecko said.
    "Mr. Stanisic hasn't disappeared, as some expected, which is a good thing. Maybe the lawyers can get you the same deal," Josif said.
    "Maybe," he said and hugged his nephew.
    He watched Josif stride toward the door, which buzzed and opened from the inside. He waved one more time at his nephew before the door closed, sealing him off from his only contact with the outside world besides his lawyers. He sat down slowly and removed a crumpled pack of generic cigarettes from the front breast pocket of his wrinkled gray collared shirt. He tapped a cigarette and lit it with a disposable butane lighter retrieved from the back pocket of his threadbare pants. He took a long drag on the cheap tobacco, then exhaled the thick smoke through his nose several seconds later, tapping his free hand on the picture in front of him.
    Staring at the picture of Marko Resja, or whoever he claimed to be now, sitting alongside that supposedly beheaded whore, stoked the deepest embers of his seething rage. He started to feel sick and immediately took another nicotine-filled drag on his cigarette, igniting the tobacco embers in a fierce orange glow that lasted for three seconds. The wave of nicotine filtered through his bloodstream and entered his brain, triggering pleasure receptors, which barely cut into the anger. It gave him a moment of clarity to process a few level thoughts.
    Two years ago, by sheer luck he had stumbled across Resja again. He had been sitting around a large fold-out table on a different floor in the detention center, attending the "release" party of Idriz Dzaferi, one of the Albanian terrorist leaders his paramilitary unit had scoured Kosovo trying to kill. Apparently, the testimony against Dzaferi hadn't been compelling enough for the tribunal to move forward, and once again, Srecko found himself eating cake and "celebrating" someone else's release. As he pushed the tasteless cake around his mouth, his eyes were drawn to the common area's television screen. Two images, side by side, appeared on the CNN feed, and Srecko froze, unable to chew.
    The screen showed a man named Daniel Petrovich, wanted in connection with a string of high profile killings throughout the Washington, D.C., area that included the brutal slaying of a police officer and several military contractors. He disappeared after a spectacular neighborhood shootout with FBI and local police that landed several more law enforcement agents in the hospital. Daniel Petrovich? Srecko knew this man by another name. Marko Resja.
    Srecko still hadn't made the connection between the stolen money and Daniel Petrovich, until he studied the fleeting image of the woman on the screen. Jessica Petrovich. That's when he almost choked on the mouthful of cake still mulling between his clenched jaws. She looked different now, but he knew he was staring at that deceptive snake, Zorana Zekulic. The woman responsible for the theft of his money, or so he had been told…by the man apparently married to her in the United States! The man who had thrown her supposed head down on the ground before him.
    It all made sense to Srecko in those few seconds. Marko Resja's sudden disappearance had been no coincidence. He had engineered the entire thing with the help of that cunt. The theft of over 130 million dollars, leaving him high and dry in Belgrade with a bloodbath on his hands. On May 27, 2005, over cake and fruit punch at the United Nations Detention Unit, he swore to God and the Serbian people that he would see these traitors' heads roll. It gave him a renewed sense of purpose and temporarily lifted him above the fact that he was sitting at a hastily assembled card table amidst two dozen other chubby fifty-year-olds; most of whom had run successful criminal enterprises on the Balkan Peninsula, but now were reduced to eating yellow cake and drinking Kool-Aid like