Through the dirty glass of the office window, he saw the guard commander seated at the trestle table with his head bobbing spasmodically as he struggled to stay awake. Spider pulled the pin on the grenade, and holding it firmly in his grasp, showed it to Rath and the mujahedeen around him.
There was a movement at the front of the next building some distance away, and several Mujahedeen had dropped to their knees in the firing position before they became aware that it was their other group manoeuvring into position.
Reassured, they pressed back on both sides of the door, and Spider lobbed the grenade through a broken pane. Snatching a quick glance through the window before lunging for the door, he saw that the Serbian had heard the grenade strike the floor but was so sleepy that he remained seated and the disturbance did not cause him to react.
The ensuing explosion blasted the window, together with its frame and shards of glass, from the building. The door was thrown open and the men on both sides charged in; those on the right continued straight up the stairs and Spider, with those on the left, burst into the main ground-floor room.
A burst of machine-gun fire into the fallen Serb jerked the body about on the floor. Spider crossed the floor as swiftly as he could to the adjoining room, firing at the darkened doorway. Two lifeless figures sprawled on the floor.
At the sound of firing from above his head, followed by the clatter of heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs, Spider bolted for the door, and the rush of the mujahedeen swept him up as they ran from the building. A second later, the office block appeared to leave the ground in a blaze of brilliant white light. It hung in the air momentarily, complete and whole, before disintegrating. Slabs and chunks of concrete flew in all directions.
A new sound, the cries and wails of the wounded, mingled with the explosions and more Serbs, more than they had expected, streamed from the neighbouring building, firing as they ran towards them. Spider dropped to one knee and fired directly into the body of men. Empty cases splattered on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Rath for the first time since he had thrown the grenade.
Rath quickly changed magazines and continued firing. Silhouetted figures, rapidly moving black cut-outs highlighted against the burning buildings and vehicles, ran helter-skelter without apparent purpose over the yard.
“Look out, Spider! Tank!” Rath roared as he dived, rolling across the yard. The Englishman spun on his knee and saw the massive, ugly shape of a T-72 lumbering towards him. A searchlight mounted on the hull blazed out and cut a swath through the darkness to pinpoint him in its beam. He froze as a 7.62mm machine gun yammered, and he felt the bite of stinging concrete as the first rounds narrowly missed him.
Throwing himself out of the spotlight into the shadow, he heard the screech of tortured stone as the giant tracks chewed their way round to bring the tank’s cyclopean orb to bear on him once more as it followed his flight.
The machine gun continued to fire, and Spider knew fear, as the Afghan on his right seemed to fumble in slow motion with the LAW. The mujahid swung the missile launcher into his shoulder and fired at the tank. The explosive reptile streaked through the thickening billows of burning, black diesel hanging low over the compound towards the squat frog-shaped bulk of the tank.
It missed and streaked unimpeded into the far distance.
Inexplicably, the tank changed direction in a ninety-degree turn and rumbled towards the main gate.
More and more Serbs were joining the fray, and inexorably the Mujahedeen were pushed back. The snarling, metallic cracks of the small-arms fire increased. Several Serbs had formed a breakaway group and veered towards Tadim’s third party on the other side of the road, laying down heavy concentrated fire.
* * * * *
The Afghan’s wayward missile tore into an empty ambulance, awaiting a new clutch assembly, on the maintenance park of NORDBAT.
The Scandinavian unit was a hive of activity stirred into action by weapons fire, some apparently from heavy armaments in the immediate area. Tank engines were revving up, and the mammoth Leopards were already slewing their way onto the main road to Tuzla, which ran past the camp.
The LAW round, fired with apparent malice at a vehicle on site, was the catalyst, if one were needed, that galvanized the Nordbat colonel.
“We are not here to take ‘incoming’,” he snapped at his deputy. As they neared the battle site, the forward tank commander reported that his infrared detector system had picked up hostile tank-aiming systems that were active, and hot barrels indicated tank weaponry in use.
The response from his colonel was short and to the point.
“Fire at will.”
* * * * *
Gradually, the night was dissolving and the attackers regrouped.
The main source of danger to them came from a dark-green M190, a wide low carrier, with two 7.62mm machine guns and a 20mm Hispano-Suiza cannon that had swept around the cluster of buildings. It was now hurtling up and down and across the wide forefront of the plant with the four ports on each side open and fully manned by gunmen spraying bullets at any perceptible movement.
Spider crouched with Rath, who had joined him behind the pyramid of fuel drums, all of which appeared to be full, and wracked his brains for a solution.
The vehicle, which was creating havoc among the mujahedeen and taking a heavy toll, screamed into a sharp semi-circular curve at the end of the yard and rocketed back across the forecourt.
“Rath, do you think you could hit it with the grenade launcher?”
“No problem,”
Spider sprinted across the tarmac in front of the vehicle, which seemed to accelerate at the same time. The driver, at the front left-hand side, swung the heavy carrier to his left to follow Spider, leaving its side exposed.
Rath fired, and the grenade passed through one of the open portholes and exploded inside. The vehicle thrashed, and the front glacis plate buckled violently outwards, then the carrier slewed awkwardly to a halt only a foot away from Spider.
* * * * *
The first round fired by the Nordbat leading tank hit the carrier a second after Rath’s shot. For the first time, the combatants, Mujahedeen and Serb, saw the huge, white shapes of the UN tanks. The destruction of the carrier seemed to provide a signal to the remaining Serbs, and within seconds, they had turned and were streaming across the nearby grass to the rear of the plant and safety.
Tadim bellowed after some of his men who were giving chase. He did not want to lose any more warriors and now, the remaining unmanned tanks were of more importance than the fleeing Serbs.
The air filled with a weird, throbbing hush now that the heavy machine guns and grenade launchers were silent. The sky lightened. A new dawn was beginning.
Spider grabbed Rath’s arm. He had already thrown his own weapon to one side. He snatched Rath’s weapon from his grasp and threw it.
“Let’s get back to the convoy before this lot start taking names.”
Rath needed no encouragement.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The trucks rolled along on the final lap to Tuzla. They slowed as they entered the heavy palls of smoke that were only now dispersing and swirling across the road from the burning coke plant. The lead driver, once clear of the wrecked installation, saw the solidly filled profile of Tuzla visible against the dawn sky.
Even in better times, Tuzla, named after the Turkish word for its prime commodity, salt, had been a gritty mining and manufacturing city, with drab high-rise apartments.
That morning before the sun rose, thick fog blanketed the town and its surrounds. A clinging yellow haze of pollution, only slightly ameliorated since the war had halted the manufacture of chemicals, textiles and paper, seemed held in place by the surrounding hills. It hung over the city, making the air acrid. The unaccustomed eyes of the drivers watered. Their noses and throats felt raw.
Spider knew that deadly verges filled with lurking landmines bound the approach roads to the city, like many of the roads in Bosnia. Deep p
otholes left by Serb shells that had rained down almost continuously for four years of war pockmarked the narrow strips of asphalt. Before long, the convoy reached the slip road that led to the UNHCR depot.
In the town itself, most buildings carried the scars of the shelling. Plastic covered some of the open ragged sores; others had only bed sheets. In addition to the damage caused by the Serbs, the years of indiscriminate mining of the salt beneath the city and the lack of shoring up in the disused shafts had caused widespread subsidence. Many of the dwellings had tilted or sunk and were too dangerous to inhabit, due to the regular and progressive collapsing of subterranean burrows. Several hours after the convoy had unloaded the supplies into the wide low warehouses, the drivers were shuttled in the convoy jeep in parties of six to the Hotel Tuzla. The hot water that was available was too sparse for a reasonable shower, so the drivers made do with a most welcome strip-down wash. Before long, they stretched out on the beds to enjoy their first night’s sleep for what seemed an eternity, but in reality had been only four, albeit seemingly endless, days.
No one made the bar that night. The first they saw of each other was at breakfast, sparse and scanty as it was.
* * * * *
Both men were silent as they took their drinks to a table and sat down. The café was quiet, and only one of the Muslim waitresses was present.
The trip back down country had been uneventful compared with the run to Tuzla. It had taken only a day. Their debriefing at the UNHCR depot by the Head of Station had been brief but not pleasant. The loss of lives and vehicles marred the relative success of the operation. The Head of Station seemed sceptical about certain elements of Spider’s report.
He had decided beforehand that there were specific issues that he would avoid. As the possibility did exist that the authorities might implicate him in the weapon smuggling, once known, he made no mention of the illicit cargo. He was determined to say nothing about the contraband, at least until he had spoken with Cheatham.
At this stage, he could not be sure that Cheatham was involved, although the man’s absence did point to some degree of connection.
“What now?” asked Rath.
Spider shrugged.
“We could carry on here. We have the vehicles, the people and the accommodation, and UNHCR will probably be ferrying supplies up-country for a while yet. Though, personally, I’d rather move on.”
Rath stared at him, his face devoid of all expression.
“I was thinking more about our personal situation and where we stand now.”
Spider got up, unsmiling and impassive.
“I like to believe that I’m a logical man. In my opinion, after all that has happened over the past few days, we gain nothing by continuing the Belfast saga. I don’t know if you have a reason to think otherwise, but for me it is over.”
Rath looked down at his beer, then raised his glass to drink. His gaze when it returned to meet Spider’s was contemplative. He nodded.
“There are a couple of things I need to do. For one, I need to go back to Frankfurt on a personal matter. And some unfinished business needs to be closed out with my previous employers.”
He stood and extended his hand. Spider took it.
“I’ve got some unfinished business too, which I think you have an interest in as well.” He watched Rath closely, and then saw his erstwhile enemy grin wolfishly.
“Cheatham,” the Removal Man said.
Both lifted their glasses, touched them together briefly and then drained them to seal the new accord.
###
Endnotes and Author Website
After a long career in the British Army and a stint working in Europe for the U.S. government, in late 1993 the author left Frankfurt. He accepted an offer from an old friend to be the on-the-road manager of a convoy organisation in the Balkans. Sponsored by the German government who provided the vehicles, but under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the group, initially based near Zagreb and making runs, despite hostile activity, to Bihac, Cazin and other locations in the north, was moved south to Metkovic to facilitate runs into Bosnia to supply Zenica, Sarajevo, Tuzla, etc. The author, acting as leader of the convoy, determined the route to be used and whether it turned back or continued when faced with ‘difficulties’.
The Tuzla Run is based on rumours, experiences, folklore and myths which abounded during the early 90's and, unbelievably, the truth. The best snipers were said to be female, there was scuttlebutt that contraband weapons were in the supply pipeline, ‘tribute’ was definitely paid by the UN to the Serbs for unhindered passage, the Croatians did extract a 25% or more levy from the Bosnians, and all three groups changed allegiances to each other virtually on a daily basis. Hundreds of foreign mercenaries were in action, including British, and definitely Moslems from the Middle and Far East. There was an Army in the north, comprised of Moslems, which fought alongside the Serbs against the Bosnians under the command of Fikret Abdic.
That is the background of The Tuzla Run.
Connect with Robert Davidson online at http://authorbobdavidson.com
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