by Andy McNab
I hit the send button. This close to the target, I couldn’t risk speech.
I kept on hitting it, maybe six or seven times, before a soft American female voice came through the earpiece. That was a pleasant change: last time it had been a hard-nosed guy with the kind of East Coast accent that took no prisoners.
‘Blue Shark Echo? Radio check.’
I hit the pressle twice. She would get squelch into her headphones.
She came back on, very quiet, very slow. ‘That’s OK, strength five, Blue Shark Echo. Do you have a target?’
I hit the pressle twice.
‘Roger, Blue Shark Echo. Stand by.’
AWACS would be telling Sarajevo I had the principal. The whole detect, decide, destroy system was being bypassed because the decision to destroy had already been taken. All Sarajevo had to do was authorize the aircraft to stand to.
Because this job was known only to about a dozen people, there was no way the command set-up could have operated from the UN safe zone at Sarajevo airport. Instead, they were in an office above a café in the city, probably huddling under the table right now as another Serb artillery bombardment rattled their windows.
Maybe an American pilot on one of the carriers was striding to an aircraft. Very soon he or she would be circling above the Adriatic, waiting for the call to make their approach to target. Maybe it was a Brit Tornado based in Italy, less than the distance from London to Scotland but a whole different world away. The crew wouldn’t even have time to get comfortable before they’d be heading home for hot coffee and a video. I didn’t have a clue, but it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t going to hear the aircraft, let alone see it.
I was waiting for her to come back and tell me a time to target. I just hoped that Mladic stayed static long enough. On the last job, time to target had been fifteen minutes.
The bottle-washers were getting busy again. Two were blacking out the ground-floor door-frame and windows with blankets. Then foldaway chairs and trestle tables were dragged out of the 4x4s and taken into the office block, followed by baskets of food and armfuls of wine bottles.
I couldn’t believe what came out next: a pair of candelabra, complete with candles. It reminded me of the cavalry officers I’d known before I’d joined the Regiment, who’d carry the regimental silver with them in their tanks on major exercises and set the table for dinner as if they were taking a break from the Charge of the Light Brigade. As an infantryman I used to honk about the crap hats and their fancy ways, green with envy as I opened my ration can of sweaty processed cheese.
Mladic just stood there with his hands on his hips, apparently oblivious to the carnage.
My new best friend was back on the net. ‘Blue Shark Echo, over.’
I hit the pressle twice.
‘I hear you fives, Blue Shark Echo. You will have a fifteen – that’s one five – minute time to target. Copy?’
I did. I hit the pressle twice as I watched bundles of firewood being taken into the office. Smoke was soon streaming out of the cracks in the wall. With luck he would just have sat down to eat by the time I started easing the Paveway up his arse.
I pulled my glove off with my teeth then slowly reached out to the front of the LTD and lifted the little plastic cover from the objective lens. Next I dug around in the breast pocket of my sniper suit for some toilet roll and gave the glass a wipe from the centre outwards to clear it of condensation. Then I eased myself up a little so I could look at the sight picture in the viewfinder. I aimed the crosshairs at the ground floor, on the area of wall between the two covered window-frames. I moved them vertically up, aiming at the point where the first floor hit the front elevation. With nine metres margin of error, I wanted to make sure that there was no chance it would just plough into the ground. Now it didn’t matter if it was nine metres high or left or right, it would still hit.
It looked as if pre-dinner drinks were about to be served. Mladic headed for the office block, his sidekicks in hot pursuit. The shooting continued as he disappeared inside.
There was nothing I could do now but wait. I couldn’t afford to call the platform in just yet. He might take it into his head to come outside again with his G and T and go for a wander. With the amount of alcohol, food and candelabra on show there was no rush. Well, there was, but I couldn’t cut corners.
I gave it ten minutes. Chances were he was staying inside now. I hoped he had seen enough dead bodies for the day.
I got on the net and hit the pressle five or six times.
‘Is that you, Blue Shark Echo? Send again.’
I hammered the pressle another couple of times.
She came back. ‘Do you have a designation?’
Press, press.
‘Roger that, confirm you have designation.’
Press, press.
‘Delayed fuse?’
Press, press.
‘Confirm no change to attack profile.’
I pressed again. The platform was coming in on the same bearing.
She’d be giving the good news to Sarajevo, and they’d be passing it on to an aircraft orbiting over the Adriatic.
It was about thirty seconds before she came back. ‘Blue Shark Echo, you have a platform. Time to target plus one five minutes. Five, four, three, two, one, check.’
I double pressed to acknowledge. That was it. Precisely fifteen minutes from now, the Paveway would make contact. All that was left for me to do was switch on the LTD in eight minutes’ time, make sure I could hear the little motor start up, check the sight picture hadn’t been moved from the building, then splash the fucking thing before ramming both index fingers in my ears and getting my head down.
I heard shouting and lifted the binos. Beardilocks had swung back into action. He must have torn himself away from the rest of the prisoners, because he was now at the door of the building, remonstrating with a guard. Not many seconds later, the blanket across the door was pulled aside. Mladic appeared, his features contorted by rage.
6
The general’s BDU jacket was off, revealing an olive shirt with rolled-up sleeves. There was a towel in his hand. He combed back what was left of his grey hair and prodded Beardilocks angrily in the chest. The guy stood his ground, calm and collected. It was Mladic who was going apeshit. I was just waiting for him to take the pistol from his belt and discharge it into his head.
Beardilocks’ hat fell into the mud as Mladic struck him, but he didn’t even blink. He had a black skull cap underneath. He was either a very mad mullah or a very brave one.
He took the beasting completely calmly, just wiping the mud off his beard now and again with his right hand as he picked himself off the ground. Mladic was the frustrated one, still hollering and shouting, waving his arms about. His hair had lost its groomed look.
Mladic knocked the bearded man to the ground one final time, then stood, hands on hips, looking down at him. Finally he shouted something to one of the officers and, pointing at the track, disappeared back inside the building.
The officer moved over to a group of soldiers and barked a series of orders. They began to herd the prisoners together on the football pitch. An old woman bent and picked up the ball, cradling it in her arms. The bottle-washers just looked on, smoking, weapons hung loosely over their shoulders.
I got myself ready to hear the .50 cals open up to finish the job quick time.
Instead, something strange happened. Under Serb orders, the survivors started to shuffle back towards the trucks. Beardilocks stood by the door, waving for them to get a move on. Some paused to kiss his muddy hands.
I checked my watch. It was time. Whoever was driving those trucks had better get their foot down. I checked that the spring was holding the green cover on the objective lens in position. There was no need to worry about the sun giving away the hide today. I grabbed a sheet of toilet paper and wiped the lens again. I couldn’t lean forward enough to see the glass; I just had to hope it was clean.
I checked the viewfinder one las
t time, then tightened the adjustment screw on the tripod. It didn’t need it: it just made me feel better. We were set. I pushed the power button and listened for the gentle whine of the electrics. A small red LED told me the target was being splashed.
Just six minutes to go. The platform would be screaming in towards the mountain range now, keeping below the skyline, ready to pull up and lob its load.
I looked back at the building. The last of the trucks was leaving the compound. Two remained. They weren’t needed: their passengers were all lying in the mud. Beardilocks was still by the door, his gaze fixed further inside the factory compound. I followed his line of sight.
One small group of prisoners had been kept behind; maybe twenty young girls with their arms outstretched, clutching at each other. Their bodies jerked with sobs as one final victim was added to their number.
This time I felt a surge of adrenalin and my heart thumped painfully in my chest. I might not have recognized Zina’s face, but there was no mistaking my red ski jacket.
7
Beardilocks gobbed off at the blanket that covered the door, then climbed into his Landcruiser and followed the rest of the vehicles down the track. It looked like he’d got what he wanted. The group of girls was brought to the two trucks. I lay there willing the Serbs to kick Zina faster towards the fucking things.
I was wrong: not all of them were going to the trucks. Five were being kept back.
Serbs closed in on them. Two girls, no older than sixteen, were pulled away from the others and frogmarched towards the office block. Their legs slipped and slid in the mud as they tried to resist.
I got my binos on Zina. She was being held outside the building with another two girls. She didn’t cry as she watched the trucks disappear down the track; she wasn’t even looking frightened. She stood there with the kind of dignity I’d never had, or that I’d lost years ago doing this sort of shit.
There were screams from upstairs. Both girls had been dragged to the third floor. One was hanging out of a window-frame, her blouse stripped off, arms flailing. She turned her head, screaming and begging, her body jerking as the first Serb pushed himself into her. The other girl was getting punched and kicked for resisting.
I time-checked: three minutes to go.
Another loud scream from the third floor. I swung the binos up in time to see the first girl’s body land on top of one of Mladic’s 4x4s, mangled by one of the .50 cals. She didn’t move again.
Mladic pushed his way through the blanket covering the door and strode over to the new vehicle, pointing animatedly at the blood running down the side panels.
Get back in that fucking building!
The bottle-washers scurried around; two jumped on to the flatbed and dragged the body away. Seconds later another appeared with a bucket of water and a cloth.
Two Serbs poked their heads through the upstairs window and Mladic laid into them, pointing at the state of the wagon as he disappeared back inside. Thank fuck for that.
Over the last few months, I’d seen women’s bodies hanging from trees as the Serbs advanced. Suicide was often a whole lot better than survival.
Thirty seconds to go. I got my head down below the lip of the shell scrape, fingers in my ears, and started counting.
Five, four, three. I braced myself.
Two, one. Nothing. I counted another five seconds. Maybe I’d got my timings wrong. I checked my watch. Spot on. Maybe it was the LTD. I got my head up and checked. It whined gently. The red light was still illuminated. I checked the cap was still up – everything was right.
The target was designated. Where the fuck was the Paveway?
8
Two minutes passed, and still nothing.
I hit the pressle and her voice was waiting for me. ‘Blue Shark Echo, radio check.’
I spoke quietly, I didn’t whisper. Whispering always comes over as mush on the net, and in any case you always do it louder than you think; it’s better just to keep your voice really low and constant. ‘Blue Shark Echo. OK, I’m OK. What’s happening? There’s no strike. No strike, over.’
‘That’s a no strike, no strike.’ It was like she was taking an order at McDonald’s. ‘Wait out. Wait out.’
She obviously didn’t know what was happening either, but I couldn’t wait long for an answer. I needed to conserve battery power on the LTD in case I was going to have to stay here and redesignate.
The pause was taking too long. It was six minutes now since the attack should have happened. Renewed screams and cries for help came from the office block. The voice sounded different. The girl must have been replaced.
I was just about to hit the pressle again when she came back on. ‘Blue Shark Echo, Blue Shark Echo? Wait out, wait out.’
This wasn’t good enough. ‘Do I still designate? Do I have a platform?’
All she did was repeat, ‘Wait out.’
What was I supposed to do? I kept the LTD running. Why the fuck couldn’t Sarajevo get their act together?
I caught a blur of red in my peripheral vision and swung the binos.
9
Almost simultaneously, there was a yell from the right of my field of view. Zina was making a break for it. The remaining girl outside was on her knees, hands outstretched, screaming out to her. The Serbs just laughed and nonchalantly unslung their weapons from their shoulders. Their fun was just beginning.
I silently willed the Paveway to come tumbling out of the sky.
Zina scrambled across the open ground, slipping and sliding in the mud. The ski jacket was suddenly a sentence of death: it was going to make an easy target in the gloom.
Zina tripped and fell into a large puddle, then scrambled to her feet, face and hair dripping, and carried on running. She switched direction, making for the treeline. She was heading straight towards me.
The Serbs hadn’t fired a single shot. Maybe she was still too close to them, not enough of a challenge. I could hear them laughing and joking with each other; it looked as if they were trying to work out who was going to have first pop.
She was getting closer to me. I could hear her sobbing.
The first shot rang out. It missed. I didn’t see where it landed but I heard the thud somewhere in front of me.
Zina kept coming. There was another shot. Missed again. More laughter and jeering from the Serbs.
There was another shot, then another. They pounded into the mud in front of the hide. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the LTD took a hit. Zina was no more than ten metres from me now, five. Then she saw me. Confused, she stopped, looked around, started to run again. There was another shot. She took it in the back and fell directly in front of me. Mud splashed through the cam net on to my face.
She managed to raise herself on her elbows and tried to crawl the last few feet towards me, her eyes begging me for help. I couldn’t do anything but look back at her, hoping the next round would kill her and stop the pain before she compromised me. Another couple of rounds rang out in quick succession. She jerked forwards, almost landing in the hide. She gave a whimper, then a gasp. Blood trickled from her mouth into the mud just a few feet in front of me. The entry wounds in her back steamed in the cold air.
I heard clapping and a few mocking cheers. Someone had won the bet.
I wondered how long it would take them to stop the backslapping and come to check her out. All it would take was one of Mladic’s boys getting busy with his binos.
I didn’t move an inch. I felt her lifeless gaze bore into me.
There were no sounds of feet splashing through the mud towards me, just more laughter from the Serbs and more screaming from the girl in the upstairs room 217 metres away.
Another shot was fired and Zina’s body jolted as she took the round. Good; it looked like they were going to save themselves the journey.
Then I realized one of her legs was splayed across the LTD’s line of sight.
I couldn’t hold the LTD: it had to be braced firmly on the tripod. I che
cked the field of vision to the right of the shell scrape, thinking I might be able to re-site it, but there were too many bumps in the ground. It had to stay where it was.
Besides, I’d run out of time.
I would have to clear the body.
10
I kept very still in case they were watching her, ready to take another pop. But I had to get my head up. The target had to be splashed. I raised my head millimetre by millimetre, and looked over the lip of the shell scrape.
Zina’s blood had stopped steaming in front of me and was already congealing in the mud. Her leg was still blocking the line of sight of the LTD.
The Serbs’ attention was back on the three surviving girls, two on the third floor and one still outside. Now was my chance.
I crawled out of the rear of the hide as the cries of anguish and despair continued from the top window. Taking care not to disturb the cam net, I inched forward to the left of the hide. Camouflage wasn’t a problem: the sniper suit was already caked with mud.
After five feet of crawling I was able to reach Zina’s leg with an outstretched hand and pull it towards me. Her skin was still warm. I had to be careful now: too much movement and one of Mladic’s boys might notice a difference in the body’s position, even if it seemed they had other things on their minds.
I crawled back into the hide and checked the viewfinder. The LTD had a clear line of sight once again on to the target.
The exertion had warmed me a little, but now I was static again the cold renewed its attack. I picked up the binos.
The last girl was being dragged into the building. Mladic stood in the doorway, his ugly fat face creased in a grin. I longed to plant a high-velocity round right in the middle of his greasy forehead. After a while he turned and went back inside. Maybe it was time to push his way to the front of the queue.
There was nothing I could do but wait as the girls’ screams and sobs rattled around the building. What the fuck was happening? Where the fuck was that platform?
