by L. J. Martin
"Finally. Where in Croatia."
"Daddy, daddy, are we there yet daddy?" He laughs. "Why don’t you just sit back and enjoy the view of the Adriatic. It’s a short flight."
My butt no more than hits the seat in the Croatian Airlines commercial flight, when the attendant has a brandy on the rocks in my hand.
"They don’t serve Jack," Pax tells me. "Now relax and enjoy the flight."
"Boat, right?"
"Boat, full of weapons, thanks to our old buddy, Commander Scroder. And we’re being well watched over by Taj, in Malta. He’s our eye in the sky. Everything is handled."
"Yeah, Murphy’s law, I’ll bet."
"Nope. I got it all handled."
"Except Edvin Gashi," I say, and get a bad taste in my mouth every time I think of the prick. "You can shoot him, but shoot him somewhere that it’ll take him a long time to die as I want to draw and quarter the fat fuck then feed him to the hogs."
"Jesus, Reardon, you really don’t like the guy…but I will try and gut shoot him, which will be easy to do as he’s all gut."
Then I get a little more serious. "How many soldiers does the prick have with him?"
"He’s in a main villa overlooking the ocean, he’s got two guest houses…more than eight soldiers hanging around, I’d guess. And they’re bad boys…remnants of an Albanian platoon, all wanted for war crimes in Bosnia. The top dog, Colonel Ditan Bejko, is a helo pilot and would take prisoners up five hundred feet and dump them out just for the hell of it. A real prick. He’s known for wearing a red beret and wearing two chrome six shooters, like General Patton."
"Fuck Gashi, he’s undermanned."
25
Pax digs in his carry on and hands me a file so I can get up to speed. He does tell me we’re landing is Dubrovnik, an incredible ancient seaside fortified city I’ve always wanted to visit.
Lastovo, where we’re headed off the coast a few miles from Dubrovnik, is the main and largest island of a group of forty six. The island cradles the town of Lastovo beneath its four mountains, if a Wyoming boy can consider hills of just over thirteen hundred feet to be mountains. It’s only eighteen square miles with a population of just over seven hundred, plus seasonal tourists.
The population, like most places on the Adriatic, is a mutt mixture as the place changed hands dozens of times since Christianity began—Roman, Venetian, French, Austrian, Ragusian and more—and probably well before. Now it’s Croatian. Tourism is its main economic base. Both hydrofoil and ferry service bring the tourists from mainland cities of Split, Korcula and Hvar, to what’s considered a remote island. The main town is on steep banks overlooking a fertile flat and, unlike most seaside villages faces inland, not toward its harbor. The cover is Holm Oaks and Aleppo Pine, with lots of thick underbrush—good sniper nests abound. And the island has no poisonous snakes, only a few two legged ones and we plan to rid the island of at least one of those, maybe more.
Interestingly, the islands of Lastovo have long been heavily populated with hawks and falcons, and the locals have capitalized on that fact for centuries, supplying Europe and the Near East with birds.
The waters are considered some of the richest in the entire Adriatic, with an abundance of lobster, crayfish, octopus and tons of finned delicacies.
Reading about the place makes me wish I were there for a month of diving and soaking up the sun…and maybe, with luck, some visiting Italian beauties.
But there’s other business at hand.
I feel the pilot ease off on the throttles as I fold up the file and turn to Pax.
"So, we taking a hydrofoil to Lastovo?"
"Nope, an Italian purse seiner, courtesy of Commander Scroder."
"So we’re gonna land among the tourist girls on the white sand beaches…and we’re smelling like mackerel?"
"Doubt if we’ll have time for the ladies. The island is so small no one lands there without everyone knowing they’re there. That’s why we’re going in tonight, by skiff, and, with any luck at all, leaving tomorrow night by skiff."
"It’s a long row back to Italy."
"But not back to the purse seiner, dumb shit."
"Oh, I didn’t figure you’d planned that far ahead, Napoleon."
"Napoleon didn’t too too badly."
"Except he died on an island…let’s try and not emulate the old boy."
"Let’s hope we don’t."
The Dubrovnik Airport is fifteen clicks from the city, as I see from the window, and as we make our descent looks to be a very modern facility.
"I guess we’re hitchhiking to town?" I ask.
"You doubt me, Kemosabe?"
"If I’m the Lone Ranger, you’re the trusty fuck-up sidekick. And, yes, I doubt you."
"It so happens your savior, Scroder, has a buddy who retired here. Captain Horace Nichols lives on the other side of the city with a dock big enough to cuddle a purse seiner up next to his beautiful cabin cruiser. And he’s picking us up."
"We’re styling," I say. "And I suppose this net boat is loaded with something besides fish?"
"If as promised."
Captain Nichols is well tanned, well into his sixties or early seventies, and still has one hell of a knuckle-busting handshake. With a tight cropped white beard he reminds me of one of my favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway, and his hands are as tough and calloused as the protagonist of The Old Man and the Sea. In moments we’re out of the airport, merely showing a passport, and loaded into Nichols's four-door Jeep Wrangler.
"So," he asks as we pull away from the terminal, "what brings you boys to my fair city?"
I guess Scroder hasn’t exactly filled him in. So I remain tight lipped. "Heard there were lots of beautiful Greek and Italian ladies in the neighborhood."
"Don’t fuck with me, jarhead," he says, and I guess he knows more than I’d thought.
I laugh. "Well, captain, it’s probably better you don’t know."
"That’s what I figured. If you’re in bed with Scroder you’re up to no fucking good. You guys forget whose dock you used and I’ll forget you were ever here."
"Yes, sir. I done forgot and my partner here can’t hardly remember his own name."
"And I’ll bet neither of you is Dick or Alex. Dick Long, Alex Bell, that’s a hoot."
"When you visit the states next time we’ll take you places in Vegas where they know us and our friends intimately."
"You’re on. Now let me point out some of the sights as I don’t imagine you’re hanging around long."
"No, sir," Pax says. "With luck, not long."
Captain Nichols’s place sits up on a hillside a hundred feet above the sea, with a view of the Adriatic and islands to die for, and with no other houses or lights in sight. The highway is a hundred feet above the house, and below it a hundred foot dock extends into the sea. A fifty foot cabin cruiser is tied along one side of the plank pier and a small twenty foot fishing skiff on the other. A dock house or guest cottage—big enough for me to make myself at home for the rest of my days—rests just above the dock.
Nichols parks in under a covered space next to a house made of stone, and hustles us inside, giving instructions, "There’s a bathroom and kitchen and a couple of comfortable sofas in the guest cottage down below. You guys make yourself at home, shower if you want to, eat anything out of the little fridge or cupboards…but don’t fill up. I’ve got a big fat grouper I hooked just yesterday and I’ll be grilling a chunk of it for us tonight. In the meantime I’d appreciate it if you guys would stay out of sight."
"Yes, sir. Mrs. Nichols?" Pax asks.
"Passed last year. It’s just me and the cleaning lady twice a week."
"We’ll lay low," I promise.
"Come up to the main house just after dark."
"Roger that," Pax says, and we hustle down a stone stairway that zees from one landing to another, and make ourselves at home in the cottage.
As Pax plops down on a sofa, he sighs and remarks, "Maybe we should have stayed in the Corp."
"Right,
except we’d most likely both end our careers in the brig, not on a hillside overlooking an azure sea."
"Azure sea? You gonna be a poet when you grow up, or what?"
"Or what. I’m going to study your Gashi file again, while I presume you’re gonna do what you’re best at, sleep."
"My pleasure, file's in my carry on."
"When’s our ride get here?"
"Midnight. I thought you were gonna let me sleep." He flops down.
"That’s when you’re the best company," I say, and go for his rolling bag.
26
It’s always hard for me to eat before an op, but Captain Nichols cooks two-inch thick steaks of pure white flaky grouper, grills corn on the cob with the husks on but filled with garlic and butter, steams a pot of local greens, and ends things up with an apple pie that might have been flown in from some farm lady in South Dakota. But the pie identifies itself as local fare by being slathered in vanilla gelato.
If he weren't so old and hairy faced, I’d be tempted to ask him to marry me.
He has a fabulous sound system with speakers on the patio, where he grills and we eat, and I recognize his dinner music.
"Chopin waltzes?" I ask.
He gives me a curious look. "The hell you say, jarhead. I’d have figured you for hard rock."
"Mama tried," I say, with a laugh.
"Good for her. You guys get enough to eat?"
"For a week," Pax offers.
"I’ll wrap up the rest of it and you can take it with you. I don’t imagine you’re heading for any four star hotels."
"No, sir. We’ll be happy to have it. That’s about the best—"
"No lies. My wife did it even better. And she loved Chopin. I could have put on some Sinatra."
"We couldn’t be happier," I say. "I wish there was something we could do—"
"Whatever you’re up to, I’m sure it’s for the good of the good old USA, so I’m happy to do my little part. Just don’t get me thrown in the pokey or out of the country."
"We’re supposed to be back in Italy ASAP, but with cooking like that—."
"You boys head on off to Italy after your business, and before I get caught in the overflow. Let’s hope God is your co-pilot."
"Yes, sir," we both say in unison.
At midnight we’re out on the dock watching the running lights of a trawler get near and Pax flashes some pre-arranged signal with his LED flashlight. The moon is hardly a crescent, so the boat is on us before I can make out that there are three hands forward to help us board. The boat noses up to the end of the dock and we both toss our carry ons aboard. If we weren’t in good shape we would have had trouble swinging aboard as the deck was a full five feet above dock level. I go first and reach back to haul Pax aboard—I’m still not convinced he’s back to normal—and as I do I realize it’s the young Marine, Frank ‘Fang’ Pucherelli, who’s on Pax’s other arm.
We head for the shelter of the wheelhouse and hopefully a cup of coffee and get settled in. I’m not surprised to see three rucksacks, fully packed, in a corner of the wheelhouse.
"Howdy," I say to the guy I presume is the captain, who’s manning the wheel, but he merely nods and ignores us.
We find a seat and I introduce Fang to Pax. Then ask the young Marine, "I thought you were headed home?"
"My mom passed of lung cancer two years ago, and my girlfriend married some dickhead, so I asked Commander Scroder if I could team up with you guys. He said I had to talk to you. I ain’t got nobody else back in Texas, or anywhere else."
I chuckle. "Well, you’re here. You can team up with us for a while. You don’t look like you're ready to exactly kick ass."
"And take names," he says, with conviction. "I joined the Corp for just that, but my enlistment ran out while I was in that frigging stinkin’ dungeon. General Bohanson said I was welcome back in the Corp, and could come in as a sergeant, and could take a couple of months to make up my mind. But I’m of a mind to make some dough and kick some butt…and Scroder says you guys are the place to be."
I have to laugh. "Or to get your ass shot off. You know we sent a good buddy home in a bag right before we made your acquaintance in Mazar?"
"I didn’t know it, but I sent lots of buddies home from the land of the ragheads, so I ain’t no virgin to losing buddies. I wanna get home long enough to get some new front teeth and get some work on this ear stub…then I’m good to go wherever there’s some fuckheads to kill."
"And we ain’t got no retirement program," I say.
"I’ll worry about that in a couple of decades."
I shrug and turn to Pax. "What do you think?"
He shrugs. "Let’s see how it goes." Then he turns to the kid. "This particular one ain’t a paying gig, Pucherelli. This is a revenge gig."
"I got a pocketful of money coming from the Corp. A little over four year's worth. Commander Scroder staked me with a few grand. I didn’t ask what this op paid, I asked if I could help."
I laugh again, and stick out my hand, and he shakes and I’m glad to note with enough strength to get my attention. "Welcome aboard, Marine."
Gashi’s compound is on the lee side of the island, facing East toward the mainland, and by the time we near it what’s left of the moon has fallen below the ridgeline, so the shoreline and the country around is dark as a foot up a donkey’s butt. And I’m glad it is.
The purse seiner anchors two hundred yards from the shoreline, a full click north of Gashi’s place. Pax is on the sat phone to Taj in Malta as the seiner’s crew gets ready to launch a rubber boat that we’ll row to shore.
He folds up the phone and sidles up next to me. "Gashi, or someone, was on his computer up until eleven o’clock, so we’re sure he’s still in residence. Taj says he’s the only one who’s used that computer since we started tracking it, and the keystroke pattern indicates it’s him. And the bad ass two gun beret wearing prick is with him." Pax smiles with only one corner of his mouth. "Besides ruining your health, there’s another good reason not to get to be a big fat fuck."
"What’s that?" I ask.
"You make a hell of a target and an easy ID from far away thru a sniper scope."
"True dat, but I’d like to hear him squeal and beg for his mama. Odds are he made you and your people suffer and I don’t want the prick to die quick. Way too good for him."
Pax nods. "No ‘odds are’ about it. I never told you but when I was trapped in that friggin’ pile of office crap I heard one of my guys crying for help. That’s the worst I’ve felt in my life…. Of course I thought I was about to die, so I felt pretty damn bad about that as well. I've got lots more ladies to pleasure."
"Right, Lothario. Let’s see how it plays out. We’ll have three hours before dawn to recon the place."
I turn to Fang who’s nearby. "Pardner, you’re gonna guard our escape route while we recon the compound and probably set up a sniper nest. Can you handle that?"
"If that’s the best duty you got, I can. I’d rather get in the middle of things."
"You may be, should we come at a run, and odds are we will. If we don’t have a way off this piss ant island, we’re dead meat. So you got an important mission."
"The boat will be there waiting for you or I’ll be cold meat."
"Roger that," I say, and am gaining confidence in the kid.
We’ve all three changed into the Afghani camo BDUs by the time we reach our destination.
Fang drops into the Zodiac first and he stands by while I steady Pax and he drops down, then I hand him our stores. One of the Russian grenade launchers and a back pack with a dozen grenades, the remaining .416 Barrett with its night vision scope, three M5s, six thirty round clips for each, .40 cal Glock sidearms with spare clips, helmets with night vision, our battle rattle with LED lights, mace, grenades and one canister of tear gas each. We have radios with wireless ear buds, cell phones with numbers pre-loaded, and two sat phones. We each carry a few energy bars and a canteen, although it’s said there’s quite a bit
of water at various spots on the island.
I’ve got ten feet of det cord, a half pound of simex, and both a timed and cell phone activated detonator.
As we’re rowing to shore we explain to Fang why we’re just a little more than irritated with Gashi and why he and any of his soldiers are well beyond pity.
It’s time.
27
We find a tight little cove with twenty-five feet of vertical cliff surrounding its hundred foot width. We unload and get our gear above the high tide line, then pull the Zodiac up under an overhanging portion of the cliff. Our escape vehicle is well hidden and we discover what we thought was merely a wind or water cave is much deeper, but the access is only a man’s body width. We leave the boat outside and string seaweed across it so you’d have to be on top of it to recognize it as a Zodiac.
A steep ravine gets us half way to the top and roots of some oaks and pines give Pax and I hand and foot holds to get the rest of the way. We’ve carried a line with us and drop it down to Fang, He ties off the rest of our gear, and we drag it up, and lastly, him. We leave him the Russian grenade launcher, happy to note he needs no instruction, along with his battle rattle and M5. Moving up the mountain another hundred feet or so we find a ridge spot where he can set up. If what I surmise with my night vision is true he'll have a two hundred yard field of fire both north and south.
I’m 'Raider One', Pax is 'Raider Two', and I tell him his call sign is 'Home'. "Boring," he says.
So I suggest calling him 'Sniper', and he smiles.
We start to move away, and he stops me. "What're our rules of engagement?"
"If you hear us engage, then your rule is kill any fucker other than us who’s heading your way and carrying a weapon. If you feel threatened by numbers, use the grenade launcher. Just remember how fucking handsome I am and how butt ugly Pax is…so no friendly fire, please. We’ll keep you posted on the radio, so don’t go to sleep. And if we’re not back by three PM, then haul ass…it’s every man for himself. The trawler is standing by three miles offshore, but if we don’t check with him every two hours, he’s hauling ass for Pescara…home."
