Kitabı oku: «Kara’s Game», sayfa 3

‘Eat up.’ She wiped the bread round the bowl and made Jovan eat, spooned the beans into her own mouth and heard the swoosh.

Mortar, MacFarlane registered automatically. Incoming. An hour later than normal, but still more or less in line with the usual pattern.

Kara grabbed Jovan and pushed him under the bed, slid beside him.

Impact two hundred metres away, near the river bank of the old town – MacFarlane registered the fact automatically and entered it in his log.

Kara felt Jovan trembling and held him tight. Half an hour, perhaps an hour of hell, then it would be over till tomorrow.

Thirty seconds gone – MacFarlane didn’t need to check his watch. Almost a minute, closing on two. Incoming – he heard the whine, then the sound of impact. New town again, somewhere near the radio station. He waited another two minutes, perhaps slightly longer.

The incoming shell sounded like an express train. They’re trying to make us afraid, Kara told herself; they’ve allowed us to settle into a routine, now they’re changing it. The walls shook slightly as the round landed.

Old town, MacFarlane confirmed.

The half-hour stretched to forty-five minutes, then to an hour, an hour and a half, the shells and mortars still landing.

The Norwegian handed him a mug of tea, hot and sweet, and crouched beside him.

‘What’s up?’

‘Not sure.’

The Chetniks were preparing for an attack, Kara suddenly thought. Please God, help Adin waiting among the mines and the snow and the ice of the front, please God save him.

It was six in the evening, three hours into the darkness of the winter night and the shells and mortars were falling now with a nightmarish regularity. Time to file his latest report. MacFarlane picked up the handset and squeezed the grip.

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta. Over.’

Zero was the code for base, and base was in the radio room on the ground floor of the white-painted schoolhouse which now formed the Operations Centre in the BritBat – British Battalion – barracks just outside Vitez, fifty kilometres away. Vitez itself was one of the places the United Nations modestly called a hot spot: Croats laying siege to the Muslims in Old Vitez, and themselves surrounded by more Muslim forces in the hills outside.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero. Send. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. As at eighteen hundred hours.’ His report going through Vitez to the monitoring centre in Sarajevo then to the politicians and the generals. ‘Eighty ceasefire violations, all incoming.’ He lumped the mortar and shells together. ‘Forty small-arms violations.’ Which was as accurate as he and his team could be. He split the message. ‘Roger so far. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

Message received so far.

‘Four One Delta. Pattern of shelling appears to have changed. Maglaj old and new town under constant shelling for past two hours. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. Roger. Out.’

Another shell landed fifty metres away. ‘Bit close,’ he suggested. The ceiling shook again, they ignored it and opened the ration packs.

Kara was still hungry and her nerves were beginning to fray. She held the boy tight and began to tell him his favourite story. Another round struck the old town, not that she could tell when the noise and vibration of one round ended and the next began. This can’t go on all night, she tried to convince herself. The room was getting cold again, and the candle had died an hour ago. She crept out, flinching in anticipation of the next shell, felt in the black till she stumbled against the dresser, then found and lit another candle and placed it on the table. Then she pulled Jovan’s mattress under the double bed, helped the boy wriggle on to it, and covered him with blankets. The shell landed a hundred metres away and she felt the shock, almost dived back under the bed and felt the plaster fall from the ceiling. Sometime this has to stop, she told herself, sometime the war has to end. Be all right, she prayed to her husband. Don’t die. Don’t let us die.

It was ten in the evening, six hours since the bombardment had begun.

‘In Vienna negotiations are going well and the ceasefire is holding.’ MacFarlane and the others huddled round the table and listened to the news on the BBC World Service. ‘All sides have stated their positions, and the Bosnian Serb leader has emphasized once again that he believes peace is possible.’

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta.’ MacFarlane called Vitez on the net.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero.’

‘Four One Delta. Update on Maglaj. The shelling is continuing. One hundred and twenty ceasefire violations in past four hours. Shelling has not stopped, repeat, has not stopped, since last report. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. Roger. Out.’

They made themselves hot chocolate from the ration packs, and rolled out the sleeping bags on the camp cots.

‘Two-hour shifts,’ MacFarlane told them. ‘Three men sleeping and one on duty for the shell count.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry, the ceasefire violation count.’ Because we’re UN, therefore we don’t deal in anything as simple as shells and mortars.

Good man, MacFarlane, they understood, good leader. Kept you going when you might be inclined to wonder what the hell you were doing in a place like this.

‘I’ll do the first shift to midnight, Paul next, then Sven and Pierre.’ Which meant that, theoretically at least, he would have to do another shift, beginning at six, but he was in charge and they would all be awake by then anyway. If they slept.

It was getting cold now, despite the Helly Hansen fleeces and Norgies – Norwegian semi-fleece army shirts – and thermals they were wearing. The Tilley lamp popped and died, and the black enveloped him. Another shell landed. Range a hundred and fifty metres, nothing to worry about. He switched on the mag light, refilled the lamp with kerosene, and lit it again. The night was quiet, only the sounds of breathing as the others slept or tried to sleep, only the constant crash of another round hitting another building. So the night’s quiet, he thought. It was midnight. He updated the shell count, shook Umbegi’s shoulder, took off his boots, and climbed into his sleeping bag.

At two in the morning he heard Anderssen replace Umbegi. In the past two hours there had been another sixty-two violations. He had lain awake and counted them, known the others were doing the same. At four Belan replaced Anderssen. Another fifty-eight rounds. There was no point sleeping any more, no point pretending to sleep, because no one was. He climbed out of the bag and put on his boots. Umbegi was making a brew. Umbegi was a good man. When the shit hit the fan, because the shit was going to hit the fan, Umbegi was the one he’d have at his shoulder. Christ, they were all good men.

Today he was going to die, he suddenly thought. Calmly and clearly and soberly. Today he and his men would meet their Maker.

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta. Over.’ He took the mug from Umbegi and called Vitez. Not that the peacemakers and the pen-pushers would know, because they would still be asleep.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. One hundred and twenty-seven ceasefire violations in the past four hours, all incoming. A total of three hundred and seventy-two in the past twelve hours, all incoming. Over.’

‘Zero. Last report already sent to HQ.’ Which was good, MacFarlane thought, because it meant the guys in Vitez were with him, supporting him, knew the trouble he was in and the bigger trouble which was about to engulf him. ‘Will send latest immediately.’ Even though the bureaucrats wouldn’t read it for another four hours.

‘Four One Delta. Roger. Out.’

The formal end of the message, no more communication.

‘Cheers, mate,’ the man in the room in the Ops Centre told him. ‘Keep your head down. See you for breakfast.’

‘Thanks, mate.’

It was six in the morning, the shells still falling like express trains. The room was cold and Jovan was shivering, crying slightly. Kara left whatever protection the bed gave them, lit a candle, placed it on the table, then relit the fire, watching the flames flicker then gather strength. I’m hungry: she saw it in her son’s eyes. Tried to kindle the mental strength to reply.

It was seven o’clock, almost eight, the day outside getting light and the shells still raining down. Sometimes close, sometimes on to the new town on the other side of the river. Part of her mind telling her that soon the Chetniks on the hills would launch their morning burst of shellfire on the town, and that after that the shelling would stop, and then her only worry would be crossing the bridge to the food kitchens on the other side. Another part of her brain reminding her that the first thought was illogical, because the Chetniks had been shelling Maglaj all night and weren’t going to stop now.

In Vienna the peace negotiators would be assembling; in Vienna the limos would be drawing up outside whatever hotel they were using and the politicians would be hurrying in, the newsmen clustered round them like bees round honey, anxious for every word they spoke. Most of the newsmen swallowing any line the politicians told them. MacFarlane logged the next round and waited for the next.

This is crazy – he glanced at the faces of the others. They were soldiers, but here they were sitting in a house in a town being shelled and in which people were dying, yet they could do nothing about it. Partly because they were unarmed, in line with the agreement on the placement of UN military observers, but mainly because it was not their job. Not even the job of the United Nations, with its battalions of soldiers present in the country under the UNPROFOR plan, and with the naval power off the coast and the air strike capacity waiting on the runways in Italy. Because they were bound by their own rules of engagement. Or, and more accurately, their rules on non-engagement.

Except there was a way, of course.

Sure, it would mean bending the rules; sure it would assume that Thorne, the British general in charge of UNPROFOR, would understand not just what MacFarlane was asking but why he was asking it; that Thorne could get the necessary go-ahead from his political masters at the United Nations. But at least he could try. At least he could leave this place with a clean conscience.

He checked his watch and counted in the next rounds.

‘Mummy,’ Kara heard her son’s voice. ‘It’s hurting.’

‘What’s hurting, my little one?’ There were tears on his face. She took his head in her hands and held him against her.

‘My tummy.’

‘Let’s see.’ The boy was hungry, just as she was hungry. Which meant that she would have to risk the bridge again, except that today she couldn’t because of the shelling. She opened his coat, pulled up the layers of sweater and shirt, and rubbed his stomach gently. ‘Better now?’ she asked.

The shell was close to the house. Please may Adin come home today, because if he doesn’t we’ll die. But please may Adin not try to come home today, because if he does the shells will kill him.

It was ten o’clock, the mortars and artillery shells still falling around them. ‘Discussion time.’ MacFarlane gathered his team round the table. ‘It is my intention to inform General Thorne that at some time in the near future I may have to consider requesting him to call in an air strike.’ The Tilley lamp was on the table, slightly off centre, the light illuminating their faces and the rest of the room in darkness. ‘Comments on that line of action?’

‘What reason will you give?’ It was Anderssen, the Norwegian.

Because we all know that air strikes can only be called in under highly specific guidelines. And those guidelines exclude the protection of people like the poor sods dying outside.

The noise from the street was almost deafening, the walls reverberating and plaster falling from the ceiling.

‘What I’ll say is that we are confined to our operating base and therefore cannot properly fulfil our role as military monitors. That if we attempt to, one or all of us will certainly be killed. That if we try to withdraw we’ll also probably be killed, and that if we stay inside we still run a major risk.’

‘What about the people?’ Because that’s what we’re really talking about here.

‘The people are a moral issue. I’m dealing with a technical situation relating to UNPROFOR personnel.’

‘Because that’s the only way you stand a chance of calling in an air strike?’ The Norwegian was looking straight at him.

Wonder what happened to the woman and kid on the bridge – MacFarlane sipped his coffee. Wonder if they’re dead yet, and if not, how long it will be before they are. ‘As I said at the beginning, it is my intention to inform General Thorne that at some time in the near future I may have to consider requesting him to call in an air strike.’ He looked at them for confirmation.

‘Air strike,’ Umbegi said simply.

‘Agreed,’ said the Norwegian and the Belgian, almost together.

‘Timetable?’ Anderssen asked. Christ, it was daytime, but the temperature seems to be going down rather than up.

‘We can’t move, therefore Thorne will have to send in a couple of FACs.’ Forward Air Controllers. ‘Presumably they’d come in tonight.’ Two teams, one each side of the valley because it was impossible from one side to get line of vision on all the positions which would be necessary to laser-guide the attack planes on to their targets. ‘Which means that the earliest an air strike could be launched would be tomorrow.’ Which was a long way off, but better than never. ‘Agreed?’ he asked them.

‘Agreed.’

Two radio nets had been assigned them. The first, HF through Vitez, was so-called all-informed, in line with the standard system of communication where line of sight was a problem, and the second was direct to Thorne via a satellite.

MacFarlane ignored the first and chose the second.

‘Zeus. This is Lear. Over.’

‘Lear. This is Zeus.’

Thorne’s signaller was never further than a room from the general; he travelled in the general’s armoured Range Rover when Thorne went by road, and in the general’s helicopter when Thorne went by air.

An UNMO team wouldn’t be coming through on the direct net unless it was urgent, he understood. ‘Better get The Boss,’ he told the man apparently relaxed in the hardbacked chair next to him. The man left the office, nodded at the second man positioned in the corridor, knocked on the door of the conference room and went in without being told to enter.

The coffee cups were on the table; some of the men present wore combat uniform and the others civilian suits: Thorne in discussion with his military commanders and the representatives of his political masters.

‘Lear on the secure net,’ the minder whispered to Thorne.

In a way Thorne had expected it.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’

The general was early fifties, tall and apparently slim build. He left the conference room, crossed to the office being used by his signaller, and waited till the man who was his constant shadow closed the door.

‘Lear. This is Zeus. Send. Over.’

‘Lear. Sitrep. The situation in Maglaj is becoming serious. I feel I should warn you that I may request an air strike. Over.’

‘Zeus. I read your reports overnight. Justification? Over.’

Because we both know the UN prefers to sit on its butt rather than risk upsetting anyone’s apple cart. And because we both understand the narrowness of the restrictions placed on such action.

‘Lear. Shelling has been continuous for the past eighteen hours. We are confined to our base, but even if we do not leave it I am approaching the position where I can no longer guarantee the safety of my men. Over.’

‘Zeus. How bad is it, Tom?’ Thorne broke the formality. ‘Over.’

‘Lear. The worst I’ve seen, and about to go downhill fast. Over.’

‘Zeus. The UN will request a stop to firing immediately. Decision on an FAC in two hours. Over.’

Which meant that Thorne would send his men in, MacFarlane understood. And once they were in position, and assuming the onslaught on Maglaj didn’t abate, Thorne would request an air strike.

‘Lear. Thank you. Over.’

‘Zeus. Keep in touch. Out.’

He would brief the meeting on the development – already Thorne was working out how he would play it. But before that he would task Fielding. And while the politicians were busy pointing out the diplomatic implications and nuances and repercussions, Fielding would already be tasking Finn and Janner.

2

The room was on the first floor of the anonymous block on the left of the main gate of the British headquarters at Split. Half a kilometre away in one direction was the airport servicing this part of the Dalmatian coast, half a kilometre in another were the pebble beaches and what in summer were the clear blue waters of the Adriatic. Now the islands of Brac and Hvar hung like ghosts in the winter fog, and the damp mixed with the cold.

The eight bunks were along one wall, and the television set was in the corner. Finn slumped in an armchair and watched the news coverage of the peace talks in Vienna on the feed from the British Forces Television service, some of the other seven men with whom he shared the room also watching. Finn was early thirties, strong upper body and a little over six feet tall. Like the others he was dressed in camouflage fatigues, their packs and weapons by the bunks. Already that morning they had worked out in the makeshift gym on the ground floor.

According to a UN spokesperson, the ceasefire in Bosnia was holding, the report was saying. The images from the Vienna hotel where the latest talks were being held showed the politicians going in and coming out, and the international negotiators smiling and talking about the possibility of a breakthrough. The images from London were slightly different: the British Foreign Secretary commenting on the possibility of peace but being careful in the way he always was. The reporter was summing up the mood in Vienna that morning, quoting direct from the Bosnian Serb delegates. Where the hell have you been for the past year and a half? Finn thought. The politicos have said the same thing a hundred times before and each time they were lying, so why the hell should we believe them this time?

Fielding came in. He was in his late thirties, with the air of physical fitness and strength which exuded from all of them.

‘We’re on standby.’ The relaxation in the room snapped tight. ‘Briefing in five minutes.’

Fielding’s room was one along. The floor was wood, the walls a dull yellow, and the rumble of a UN transport taking off for Zagreb shook the ceiling slightly. There were two maps on the table: the HQ BritFor current situation map, and the Director General of Military Survey town map of Maglaj and the countryside immediately surrounding.

‘Patrol Orders.’

Fielding followed the standard pattern:

Task, beginning with a summary of the operation.

‘Maglaj. The UNMO team there reports that the town has been under continual bombardment since sixteen hundred yesterday. The UNMO team leader has spoken to The Boss, and warned that he may have to request an air strike in order to protect his people. The UNMO boys can’t move from their shelter. The Boss wants an FAC in tonight to assess the situation in case he decides to go for an air strike.’

He ran through the other items under the task heading: country, politics, method of entry, role or target, approximate timings and durations.

He moved to the second heading.

Ground: description of area, enemy and own locations, boundaries, landmarks, minefields, entry RV and LZ – rendezvous and landing zones.

‘You know the area,’ he told the teams. Because they’d been in Bosnia two months and had familiarized themselves with the terrain. Even so he maintained the standard routine.

Met report: weather, moon phase, first and last light. Situation: the area of the operation, enemy forces and friendly forces. Civilians: restrictions, curfews, food situation.

They went through the details on the maps.

‘The towns of Maglaj and Tesanj, fifteen kilometres to the north-west, are in a pocket surrounded by Serb forces to the west, north and east and by combined Serb and Croat forces to the south. Maglaj is in two halves, the old and new towns, divided by a river.’

They focused on the town map of Maglaj: the sweep of the river and the position of the Serb guns, then Fielding moved to the next heading of the briefing.

‘Mission. To locate and identify any Serb artillery, tanks and armour, and to mark it for air strike.’ He repeated the mission, then moved on to the next heading. Execution: general outline, entry and return; RV and LUP procedures – rendezvous point and lying up position. Exit phase, RVs and passwords.

Finn and Janner and their patrols would fly by helicopter to a forward position at the British Battalion base near Vitez. They would wait there for final briefings, plus the green light for insertion. At last light they would chopper the fifty kilometres to the Maglaj pocket. Both patrols would be dropped at the same time, Finn would then take his patrol to the hills on the west of the town, and Janner would take his to the east. The two groups would establish the positions of the guns or tanks shelling the town, and guide the attack planes in by laser if Thorne requested an air strike and the UN approved it.

‘This is a hard routine patrol,’ Fielding told them. Therefore there would be no cooking, because cooking might give their positions to the opposition. They would only take food which they could eat cold: tins of stew, beans, sausages, plus Mars bars.

They moved to the last heading.

Logistics and communications: arms and ammunition, dress and equipment, rations, special equipment including LTM – laser target markers – and medical packs.

‘Any questions?’

‘Why two patrols?’ Finn asked.

‘According to the UNMO team not all the firing positions can be observed from one side of the valley.’

‘What are the chances of an air strike?’ Janner this time. Which is to say, what are the odds we’re going to freeze for nothing?

‘Has to be a first sometime,’ Fielding told him noncommittally.

They went into the details of the helicopter drop-offs and the OPs.

In an ideal world the drop would be at least five kilometres from where they would establish themselves, because helicopters could be seen and heard, therefore shouldn’t land anywhere near where they were headed. Therefore the helicopter would drop them in the middle of the pocket, midway between Maglaj and Tesanj.

‘What else do we know about Maglaj?’

‘Ian Morris took a patrol in two months ago, organized some food drops. His sitrep’s already on the way.’ Sitrep – situation report. ‘You’ll have it before you leave Vitez tonight.’

They returned to their own room, the two teams splitting and Finn and Janner going through their own patrol orders, this time in more detail, each man in the patrol asking questions and throwing in ideas as he saw fit.

An hour later the two teams carried their bergens on to the side of the helicopter landing site and crouched as the Sea King pilot ran through his pre-flight checks, then started the engines. The rotor blades were winding up and rain was falling. Each man was armed with his favourite weapons – Sig Sauers, Heckler and Kochs, Remington pump action shotguns, reduced and fitted with folding butts. In the bergens each carried spare ammunition, ration packs – non-essential items or those they didn’t like discarded – and spare winter clothing. Satcom sets, for communication with Thorne and/or Split via Hereford; hand-held ground-to-air sets for communication with the pilots of the fighter team should an air strike be authorized; and mobiles in case the teams needed to talk to each other. Which was unusual, but which Finn and Janner had decided upon. Laser target markers and spares. Each man carrying his own medi-pack, plus two syrettes of morphine, name tag and wristwatch on parachute cord round the neck. Name tags because it wasn’t a deniable operation.

‘Okay,’ the pilot told the load master. ‘Bring them in.’

The load master jerked his thumbs up, and the two teams moved forward, ducking under what the pilot called the disc, the solid metal cutter of the rotor blades. The door was on the right-hand side, seats opposite it and the rest of the interior stripped bare. They climbed up and sat down, bergens in front of them and weapons on their laps. The loadie clanged the door shut, and the pilot lifted the Sea King off the tarmac, running forward to build air speed, then rising and banking slightly. Behind them the bleak grey of the Adriatic disappeared in the mist and the snow of Middle Bosnia beckoned from the hills in front.

It was eleven in the morning. Time to run the gauntlet of the bridge, time to try to reach the food kitchen. Except that today she wouldn’t, because today the shells were still falling. On the hillside above Maglaj, Kara heard the soft boom of the gun and steeled herself in the silence as the shell rose on its trajectory, then she heard the sound of the express train as it descended, and the thump of the explosion somewhere in the new town.

‘Mummy, my tummy’s hurting again.’ Jovan’s eyes looked at her from beneath the bed.

She kissed him and told him that soon they would eat. She should go outside and get wood, she knew, should fetch more water from the well. At least she had the food she hadn’t eaten yesterday, plus the portion she had brought home for her husband. She diced the two halves of the potato and carrot left from the day before, put them into the pan of beans, and put the pan on the stove.

They would eat first then she would go outside, because by then the shelling might have stopped.

The room was cold, despite the stove. She knelt by the boy and stroked his face. At least his cheeks and his forehead were warm – she would remember the moment later. At least he wasn’t as cold as she feared he might be.

The ground below was cold and hard and bleak.

From Split the Sea King flew east then north-east over the coastal area of Croatia, more or less following the aid supply route codenamed Circle at an altitude of four thousand feet, then picking up Route Triangle, crossing the front line into the Muslim-held area of Bosnia, and skirting the Croat-held pocket defined by the three towns of Novi Travnik, Vitez and Busovaca.

Fifty minutes after leaving the coast, the Sea King dropped on to the LZ, the helicopter landing zone, on the edge of the British Battalion camp near Vitez, the roar of the rotors drowning the sniper fire from the Muslim forces in the ring of hills round the camp and the Croats in the village.

The camp was some two hundred metres square, circled by a perimeter fence of razor wire and dissected by an internal road running north – south. To the south was the parking area for the white-painted APCs; to the north, protected by sangars and clustered tightly round the two-storey former school which now served as the Operations Centre, were the kitchens, dining block and sleeping units. The ground was a sea of mud, the ridges at the sides of the road and walkways frozen hard, and the camp seemed empty; the only movement was at the main gate as a pair of Warriors turned off the road.

Snow was falling and the temperature was below freezing. Welcome to Middle Bosnia, Finn thought. The loadie opened the door, the two patrols grabbed their weapons and bergens and followed the captain who had been waiting for them into the Operations Centre.

The building sounded hollow, footsteps in the gloom and voices echoing. The room they had been assigned was on the first floor. It was just after midday. They locked the equipment in the room then the others went to the cookhouse while Finn was taken to meet the base’s commanding officer.

‘Welcome to BritBat.’ The Coldstream commander had done similar liaison jobs in Northern Ireland. ‘Gather you’re just using us for bed and breakfast. Anything you need …’

Finn thanked him and went to the cookhouse. The room was large, serving hatches on the right, and filled with tables, one area partitioned off for officers. Even here the men – and occasional woman – carried their personal weapons, mostly SA-80s, though some officers wore Brownings, either on their belts or in shoulder holsters. On the right of the door was a table, manned by a private, with a book for visitors and guests. Finn ignored it, picked up an aluminium food dish and plastic cutlery, joined the line at the hatches, and helped himself to a large portion of roast chicken and vegetables. It would be the last hot meal for some time; in the OPs they would eat cold, not even the smallest spark of a flame or heater to alert anyone to their presence. The hall was busy and the tables crowded. He joined the others, ate without speaking, then returned to the room in the Operations Centre.

For the next hour they pored over the map of Maglaj, confirming the drop points with the helicopter team, then working out the grid references of the locations where they would site their OPs. For the hour after that they checked and re-checked their equipment: radios and radio frequencies; spare batteries; laser equipment and PNGs – passive night goggles. Emergency plans in and out if either group ran into trouble.

Fielding flew in at three-thirty. The last briefing began in the room in the Operations Centre ten minutes later. Outside the light was fading fast and the snow was still falling.

‘It’s on,’ he told them. ‘You go at seventeen hundred hours.’ They hunched round the table, coffee in plastic cups. ‘The Boss will wait for your sitreps before he decides whether or not to request an air strike.’