The Burgas Affair Read online

  Moshe whispered something to Boaz, the Israeli who appeared to be the one in charge of the delegation. The others seemed to quiet down whenever Boaz spoke. This Boaz was smart, Boyko thought, but he’s a bit overconfident, thinking he has all the answers. Yet, perhaps he could keep the rest of them in line.

  “Also, please check regarding any and all reports of stolen vehicles and robberies in the area,” Zhekov continued. “If someone reports their cat’s gone missing, we need to check that as well.

  “Next, our local bomb squad, commanded by Anton, will work with Eyal, who I understand is an IDF demolitions expert.”

  “Actually, I’m a forensic examiner who specializes in identifying explosives,” Eyal explained.

  “Good,” Zhekov said, again consulting his notes. “We need to know what explosives were used, where they were procured.”

  “Was the bomb made in Bulgaria?” one of the Israelis asked.

  “Exactly,” the commander replied. “We need to know these things.”

  “What about me?” Boyko asked, growing impatient with the pace at which Zhekov was conducting the meeting. He frowned when he saw Kamen smirking at the far end of the table.

  “Boyko, you will work with Ayala,” the commander said.

  This caused Boyko to nearly jump from his chair. “Izveneti?”

  “We speak only English here,” Zhekov said. “Sit down and listen carefully to your assignment. The two of you will try to determine who helped the bomber plan, and prepare for the attack on the bus. I think we’re all in agreement that he must have had accomplices, even if we have not yet established that we’re talking about terrorists.”

  “There could be a local infrastructure which helped him with reconnaissance, and with preparing the bomb,” one of the Israelis suggested.

  “Local infrastructure?” Boyko said. “Here in Bulgaria? Ha!”

  “That’s what you will investigate,” Zhekov replied calmly, unperturbed by Boyko’s interruption. “Your mission, working with Ayala, is to see if there were Bulgarians who assisted the bomber in the days before the attack. This information is vital to our investigation.”

  Watching the Israelis whispering among themselves, Boyko was livid, not only because Zhekov had reprimanded him so openly, but also because the commander had assigned him to partner with a woman.

  Again, he scrutinized the female interloper in the room. She carried such a know-it-all attitude. It would be hell working with her. They would quarrel, disagree where to go, argue whom to question. Working this case with a woman tagging along would prove to be a nightmare. Wait a minute! This was Bulgaria, his home turf. He was the host here; he knew the country. He would set the pace, make the tactical decisions how to proceed. He wouldn’t allow a visitor from overseas to give him orders, and it didn’t matter if the guest was male or female. And as far as her being young, it only made him more confident that he would be the one in charge. After all, he was more experienced in these matters. Putting a woman in her place shouldn’t be too difficult!

  A smile started to form on his face. It would be interesting working with such a beautiful sidekick. With her dark skin, he wondered if she was an Arab. No, how could that be? Did Israel’s security services employ Arabs, and if they did, would they be sent overseas to investigate a bombing in Bulgaria? She was suntanned, perhaps from spending long afternoons at the beaches in Tel Aviv. An image formed in Boyko’s mind of the appealing woman in a bikini. He envisioned her perfect skin, her long legs.

  “Boyko?”

  “What?” Then, embarrassed for the thoughts that had crossed his mind, Boyko coughed. He sat forward to better concentrate on the commander’s summary of the plan of action.

  “There’s a lot of work ahead of us,” Zhekov said, “and much responsibility. Tel Aviv is working on this case full time, and our colleagues in Sofia are busy gathering intelligence as well. The media is hounding us for a quick resolution, and the eyes of the world are watching. But you, my friends, Bulgarians and Israelis working together, are on the ground at the scene of the crime. You are the team that will investigate, interview witnesses, and consider all possibilities until we resolve who was responsible for this horrendous attack. I wish you luck. I wish all of us luck. Now, let’s go and solve this crime.”

  The abrupt manner in which Zhekov brought the meeting to an end was typical, so similar to how he concluded the many briefings Boyko had attended during his years on the Burgas police force. Yet now, the commander’s statements sounded like the pointless slogans of a political campaign. Zhekov’s words served no purpose other than to inflate his already overblown ego.

  Boyko stood up and saw the Israeli woman staring at him from across the table. He blushed slightly, trying to dismiss the imagined images of her scantily clad body from his mind. He shook hands with his former colleagues, pointedly avoiding Kamen. Much work lay ahead. He hoped that both he and the task force were ready for the challenge.

  5

  The midnight hour had long passed by the time Boyko showed up at his unkempt one-room apartment on the second floor of an aging tenement building not far from the city center. The apartment he still kept despite his transfer to a new job in Sofia. The apartment that he had purchased long ago in the wake of his failed marriage. He flicked the switch; the naked bulb in the ceiling grudgingly offered some light on the situation, and the situation was not good. Dirty clothes were everywhere—on the unmade bed, on the floor near the bathroom, on the chair next to the small kitchen table where he ate his meals. The tabletop itself was hidden under a pile of newspapers and old papers; the sink was filled with unwashed dishes from the morning, and from the day before. Hardly a home to be proud of.

  Boyko ignored the mess and headed to the noisy refrigerator. He opened the door and stepped back when confronted with a foul odor emanating from within. No, he wasn’t that hungry after all. What he needed was a drink.

  He searched in the cupboards above the sink, but all he came across were empty bottles. Hadn’t he saved some premium whiskey especially for a night like this? No, that was gone. All gone.

  A lone bottle of rakia rested on the counter. Faithful rakia, the Bulgarian national drink. When no imported whisky was available to wash away his sorrows, there was always rakia.

  He poured himself a shot of the high-proof alcohol and downed it in one gulp. Then he poured another. Now what he needed was a cigarette.

  Tossing dirty underwear to the floor, Boyko sat down hard and rested his elbows on yesterday’s news. And he wondered what he was getting into.

  Why did this have to happen here, in Burgas of all places? Why couldn’t the bombing have taken place in some other country, like Romania for example? Terrorist attack—that’s what the Israelis were calling it. Terror, of all things, and on his native soil! The seriousness of the case threatened to overwhelm him. He took another drink.

  Dealing with bombs on buses was not in the job description when he joined SANS. He had assumed the state agency would provide him with a comfy office, a secretary. That his most serious concern would be how often to liaison with diplomats. How to deal with their parking tickets. How to assist the security teams when dignitaries arrived in Bulgaria. Never had he considered the possibility that he would be required to combat “intelligence gathering on behalf of alien forces,” as defined in the SANS charter. That he would need to fight the “endangerment of the sovereignty.” That it would be his duty to safeguard the “territorial integrity of the State and the unity of the Nation.”

  No, that was not at all what he had expected. He had expected an easy life. Yet upon taking the position in Sofia, he had not consulted with foreign diplomats even once! And much to his dismay, he didn’t have an attractive assistant to deliver coffee and croissants at his beck and call. Instead, a few months after assuming his new position he had been relocated to the agency’s Burgas office, back to familiar territory he had escaped in hopes of furthering his career. And here he was being forced to interact again wit
h his former colleagues. He knew he faced many sleepless nights in his lousy one-room flat.

  He downed another glass of the stiff rakia.

  You are always at work.

  His ex-wife was talking to him again, messing with his mind. Somehow, she always managed to enter his head when he was feeling sorry for himself. Perhaps she came along the moment rakia was poured and the potent drink filtered through his system. He wanted to smack her, to chase away the bad memories of their unhappy life together. But he couldn’t see her. She wasn’t here at all, yet she was taunting him with her sassy sarcasm.

  You do not see what is important in life. You are a loser, Boyko Stanchev, and that’s because you don’t value what is near and dear to you.

  “Stay away from me!” Boyko shouted out loud, causing a moth to waver in its orbit around the room’s lone light. “Stay away from me, now!” he repeated.

  He could see her face. Memories twisted her features, making them ugly and distorted. At one time, he had found her so attractive that he couldn’t think of anyone else. So attractive that he became jealous whenever he imagined other men looking at her.

  Her name was Galina, and like Boyko, she had come from a small village in the center of the country to study at a university in Sofia. While he had majored in criminology, she was a biology student. They met at a dance in Studentski Grad, the student campus in the north of the city. He was attracted to her slim, petite figure; to her rich red hair; and to her upturned nose and blue eyes. Her skin was sparkling white, as if she never ventured into the Balkan sunlight. She seemed to enjoy sex as much as he did. Soon, they were an item, and shortly after, they were living together. A small wedding, attended only by family members, came a bit later.

  At least we never had children, Boyko said to himself, wallowing in his alcohol-induced recollections of the woman. Their love quickly faded and their marriage went on the rocks. She didn’t appreciate anything he did. His assignments on the Burgas police force only served to increase her bitterness. While he devoted long hours to his job, first as a street patrolman and later, when promoted to a more respectable position on the detective squad, she worked split shifts as a clerk in a women’s clothing store on Ulitza Slivnitsa. Coming home from work in the evenings never brought him any sort of satisfaction, so he stopped instead at a neighborhood pub to drink with his buddies.

  There had been other women, so many that he couldn’t count them all, nor could he recall their names or their faces. From time to time he found solace in the arms of the Ukrainian prostitutes that roamed the streets not far from the port. A quick handover of Bulgarian lev would purchase a female’s hands, or lips, to help release everything building up inside him. Anything was better than going home to face his wretched wife.

  You are a bastard, Boyko Stanchev. You do not know how to properly treat a woman!

  He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He was glad she had left him. Who knew where she was today. He didn’t care. At least he had been smart enough to keep the tiny apartment after moving to Sofia to work with SANS.

  But now he had other things to think about, with only glasses of rakia to keep him company.

  He thought back to the briefing at the airport, and about his outburst at hearing Zhekov’s words. They were to work with the Israelis. The orders were unacceptable, the situation incomprehensible. The very thought of yielding some of Bulgaria’s sovereign interest in this case and sharing the responsibilities with foreigners sickened him. He had hoped his concerns would be shared by his former colleagues, but Milen and Kamen soaked up Zhekov’s directives like the commander’s faithful lapdogs they were, Boyko thought, laughing to himself. Zhekov had those men on a leash and they would chase whatever bone he threw their way.

  Boyko had a history with each of those men, and the history was not pleasant. He had worked with them during his years on the force; he knew them too well. Zhekov, he could deal with. Boyko was familiar with the commander’s eccentricities and demands. Zhekov was a politician’s policeman, or maybe he was a police officer’s politician. He always seemed to be campaigning for everyone’s support, so it was easy to get on his good side. And you stayed in his good graces as long as you did your job properly. As for Milen and Kamen, they were something else altogether.

  Milen may be a competent-enough detective, Boyko thought, but the only loyalties that man had were to his own career. When working together, Milen had refused to regard Boyko as a true partner. Boyko’s suggestions and theories didn’t count for anything; it was Milen, as senior investigating officer, who determined where they would go, whom they would question, and how they would tackle their cases. With detectives like Milen not offering him any support, Boyko had been happy to quit the force and move to Sofia. He couldn’t wait to leave these inconsiderate assholes behind. Let them flounder in Burgas Bay!

  As for Kamen, Kamen was just plain shit. He didn’t trust Kamen at all. He knew, for a fact, that the short, bothersome man constantly conspired behind his back, secretly working to discredit Boyko whenever and wherever he could. When Boyko took down the most notorious mob boss in Bulgaria, it had been Kamen who sought to belittle the achievement, stating that Boyko’s role in the case had been a minor one. Boyko didn’t deserve the credit he received, Kamen charged. For years, Boyko had tried to ignore the man, but he knew he would never find peace working on the same squad as the bastardly Kamen.

  Well, Milen and Kamen, I’m back! Boyko said to himself. I work for SANS now. We may be working the same case, but the two of you are petty, low-level police detectives while I represent the country’s elite security agency. It is my duty to protect Bulgaria’s sovereignty, while you fight misdemeanors and minor infringements of the law. We’ll see who solves this bombing case!

  A sudden bang on Boyko’s front door shook him from his drunken anger. Or was the noise something imagined? It was late, very late. No, there couldn’t be anyone there.

  He rose unsteadily from his seat. He needed to get some sleep. He was to meet that Israeli woman in the morning. He didn’t want to face her with bloodshot eyes.

  He opened the door and gazed into the darkness. The hallway was empty and silent, just as he had assumed would be the case. He began to close the door when something caught his attention. The remains of a dead bird were strewn on the tiled floor. A pigeon of some kind, it made his stomach turn and his eyes began to water.

  The bird had been shot; its feathers were coated with dried blood and guts from a recent encounter with a bullet. A hunter’s bullet. The bird had not been killed in the tenement’s hallways. No, it had been shot earlier and now its limp remains had been thrown with great force at Boyko’s door. Intentionally. Boyko’s head cleared instantly when he understood who had sent him this message. It was a cruelly insane gesture by someone who had it in for him. This connection from his past still constituted a clear threat.

  The dead bird was a warning, a signal from the man whom Boyko knew as the Hunter—an appropriately assigned nickname stated with a capital “h.” The Hunter wanted Boyko to know that his patience was running out, that Boyko’s days of evading him were running short.

  Boyko had assumed he was safe from the Hunter’s vengeance. After all, the man was far away, locked behind bars for many years. Still, here was this damned butchered bird, a bloody message suggesting that payback was at hand.

  Cruel, distressing memories sobered Boyko. That one case, that unforgettable act, had come back to haunt him. This time there would be no escape from his past. Retribution for his transgressions was unavoidable. This time he would need to pay.

  Boyko kicked at the small carcass, sending a trail of entrails, blood, and feathers to splatter against the concrete wall. He swore under his breath. The Hunter was growing impatient.

  6

  The narrow hotel bed was hard and confining, but even if it had been wider and more comfortable, Ayala doubted she would have been able to sleep. Gruesome visions raced through her mind, the horror intensifying wit
h each repetition of the scenes and sounds she had witnessed.

  Smoke pouring from a smoldering bus. The cries of the wounded, the mangled limbs of the dead. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not again! The cruel face of terrorism had once more lashed out to claim Israeli lives. And this time, it had happened on foreign soil. Ayala was painfully familiar with the devastation caused by suicide bombings. So many innocent lives had been taken on the buses of Tel Aviv and in the markets of Jerusalem. And now terrorists had struck at those bound for vacation outside Israel. And in Bulgaria of all places!

  She never imagined that this would be what brought her to Bulgaria after all these years. She had often thought about Bulgaria, imagined visiting its mountains and its seashores. She had wondered what its people would look like and what food they would eat. Yet, visiting Bulgaria had never previously been an option considered; the country was not on her bucket list of travel destinations. Her life was in Tel Aviv.

  It had all changed in an instant. She had been struck dumbfounded staring at her computer screen when the first reports of the bombing began filtering through. The uncensored footage displayed imagery not yet edited for release to the general public. She sat glued to the news when her boss approached her.

  “Ayala, you’re going.”

  It was an instruction, not an invitation she could mull over and accept if the timing was right and the destination suitable. She had been selected to join a team of medics, doctors, social workers, and police officers, and play a role in the investigation. She would work with the Bulgarian police and help get to the bottom of who was behind the terrorist attack. Unlike previous incidents overseas, this time she would not be left observing things from the sidelines.

  It would be her first assignment abroad. She had been to Europe before, but never to the countries in the east once behind the Iron Curtain. She had always assumed that one day she would play a more significant role than her current position, which entailed nothing more taxing than sitting next to a computer screen for hours on end. She had the eyes and ears to spot what was important and felt those talents were wasted in her role as an analyst in an air-conditioned office in Tel Aviv. She was determined to prove herself in the field. The terrorist attack would give her the opportunity to show she was capable of much more.