Cautious but simultaneously under pressure from Alex and the customer, they were keen to have an extra pair of hands and burst into a barrage of questions on how we were to get the trucks loaded and away on time as there was a fucking entire warehouse to be moved. Anton was a nasty looking cunt really; he had a crew cut, very tight skin over a hard jawline and enough scars on his body to show he had seen some serious five-yard line action of some description. He caught me looking at his face and explained he had been imprisoned for crimes against the state but then later released and recruited by Alex as a personal runner. He and Gregori had joined Alex in the arms dealing business; they seemed almost pleased and even proud to be working with Alex and there was definitely a strong desire not to let him down. My guess was Alex had personally selected them for their talents from some hellhole prison in Siberia.
We put Evgeny into the recovery position and headed out to the warehouse. Pulling back the hangar-like doors, the Russians were very quick and keen to inform us that some of the transports and containers harboured dangerous chemicals and we needed to wear respirators and protective clothing. It was nothing short of horrific. Amongst the stockpiles of ammunition, light arms and S-300 and Scud missile parts, we started to uncover the unthinkable: stockpiles, literally hundreds, of canisters in ammunition boxes labelled BZ, Substance 78 or EA-2277. Now my time at the NBCD school had just paid off. It was comparable to winning the lottery in military terms. US Army code EA-2277; NATO code BZ; Soviet code Substance 78 is all code for a chemical commonly known as BZ, an odourless military incapacitating agent, a stable white crystalline powder described as a “central nervous system depressant”. It can “disrupt the high integrative functions of memory, problem solving, attention, and comprehension”. A relatively high dose produces toxic delirium, destroying any human ability to perform a military task. This was chemical warfare in a tin, but this hadn’t all come from Russia. Some of this shit was definitely untouched US stock, and there was no way Hugh or I were handling this shit.
Over the next two days and under the cover of darkness in the warehouse, with the help of a well-paid local workforce directed entirely by Alex’s men and the two local guerillas, we coordinated from the safety of Evgeny’s room a careful loading of all the munitions from the warehouse onto 10 articulated trucks. It was all done by hand utilising the Russian NBCD suits in the consignment to protect the workforce. This shipment would never make its destination. Hugh and I would see to that.
Exhausted and completely mentally drained by the whole ordeal, I sat alone with Evgeny who was now sober in his room, waiting for the customer to arrive. It had been nearly a week of organising his shit in order to move the mission along. Fuck, I wanted to kill him right there, but the links were too important. Evgeny was apologetic and pathetic, and even if he was a friend he deserved all that was coming to him by allowing this deal to go through. I asked about Anatoly but he was indignant. Anatoly had refused to be a part of this shipment and had relayed that he was confined to his work in Sarov. They had fallen out and the family was disintegrating under the pressures of international illegal arms deals coupled with their new more demanding customers.
We waited silently for the most part, Evgeny then trying to convince me how this would change our lives; the money was phenomenal this time. I ignored him. I wanted to know how many shipments there had been, where they were going and who the end customer was. Evgeny knew he was in too deep with his father, and I reminded him of how he had dragged me into all of this. I weaselled it out of him, arguing and demanding, playing on his conscience to let me know who the fuck I was dealing with. What had he allowed me and his family to become involved with? Fucking chemical weapons! He sat on the edge of the bed, a disgusting wretch of a man now seeking recourse from the situation because of his health, attempting to gain sympathy from me as a friend to see it from his perspective, the needs of the family, and his father, and the pressures from Moscow to support the Serbians. Then he told me there had been two previous shipments from other warehouses in Romania, heading to the Albanian coast now that Split had been compromised. All were mostly going to Iraq. The small arms and some of the chemicals were being syphoned off into Serbia to pay the way for the bulk of the cargo to make it through to the coast and onto ships destined for Iraq. Chemical and biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction, maybe with the delivery missile components already partly assembled, were what the customer wanted at any cost.
They were here – five Middle Eastern looking guys in the lobby, representatives of the Iraqi people apparently. Plainly dressed unshaven young men, trigger happy, uncompromising emerging leaders of a possible terrorist cell that had grand plans for the future of Iraq, Syria and the wider Muslim world. Fanatics that had greedy minds for recognition within their own circles, wanting to look important to the mighty hammer and sickle that was providing them with a future attempt to wage a war inside a war, with little regard for life. They weren’t here for glory or for honour, just the means to cause death in the most catastrophic way and to receive the widest news coverage possible in the most shocking way conceivable. They wanted nothing more than to have accreditation for assisting a chemical warfare scenario in Europe, using the Bosnian crisis as a testing ground before releasing their new-found weapons on the West in Iraq.
Hugh brought them up to Evgeny’s room, and we greeted them in pidgin English and shared cigarettes, crap coffee and whisky. Evgeny was being an arsehole, trying to make it look as though it was all his own work, attempting to appease and delight them with all the family’s work. They conversed in Arabic, wanting to know who the heck Hugh and I were. There was some nervousness and unease as they hadn’t met anyone except Alex and Evgeny. This was soon overcome by photos and polite conversation as I instructed Evgeny to introduce us and handed him some photographs to grease the way forward in order to complete business and get the trucks rolling. We were all family here and the Arabs were our friends, blah blah blah – underneath, we were seething with anger.
I attempted to make conversation and asked for a photo with our new friends, so that we could show Erik and Anatoly. They were un-obliging, squirming as Evgeny made it a big deal. His father would want us to be friends as this was a huge business transaction, a success and new partnership. Not a chance, they were not having any of it. I said I would speak to Anatoly to invite them to the apartment in Dubai to celebrate once the cargo had reached its destination; they smiled and agreed to consider it. But then talking amongst themselves they entertained and discussed a possible future meeting in the desert in Saudi, to get their friend Owen to set up a camp in the desert so they would be in complete control, away from all eyes and any outside interference. It sounded like they wanted a meeting of some description, to enable a continuation of business arrangements and finances without the need for too much future interaction between the parties.
They smiled and looked at me and Hugh as they conversed, unaware of our ability to understand Arabic. They wanted us gone now. They wanted to take it from here with just Evgeny riding with them to Valjevo. They would pay Alex in Srebrenica once the cargo had been tested. Evgeny relayed their requirements. We smiled and shook hands and I wished Evgeny a safe trip. Hugh had my back as we exited the hotel with that heightened realisation of being watched and possibly seconds away from being shot in the back, not sure if we had won their confidence in any way at all or raised their suspicions in some way. My heart beating out of control I was fucking angry beyond all belief. Hugh slammed the truck into reverse and we were off to rendezvous with the team. There was uncontrolled laughter for a moment and then we fucking looked at each other and realised what we had to do.
Meeting the team in the hills was a fucking relief. We were still laughing but a bit shaken by the last few hours. I had thought we had reached the end of the line because the Arabs weren’t keen on our participation at any level with the transport, and the whole situation had changed. The disconnect from the Arabs was a possible signifi
cant loss of intel and it had really felt like they were prepared to eliminate us at the hotel. However, time to move forward – the guys were well set up and Hugh explained how he had rigged all the trucks up with explosives. The chemicals were all on two trucks, and only the cabs on those rigged with shaped charges. We didn’t want to release any of the BZ into the atmosphere, so would need to separate those trucks from the convoy somehow. We got underway to intercept the convoy, with Hugh diverting to call in all the intel to the NATO commanders and Paul waiting in the Adriatic.
The team and I were off, max chat/full speed, to an interception point on the route Hugh had managed to copy from the Russians at the hotel. Valjevo is about a five-hour drive on a good day with good transportation. We had a great advantage now: the trucks rigged with explosives, the route confirmed and a green light to eliminate the fucking lot. It was silence in the jeep, just concentration and the smell of gun oil on my fingers from cleaning my sidearm and assault rifle. I was rigged, full kit, webbing, weapons, grenades, rifle, anticipation, excitement, nerves, hatred and determination bottled inside, carbonised ready to be released at the right moment.
Evgeny had royally pissed me off, drunk, useless bastard, betraying his family, claiming glory and respect from the Arabs, dealing in chemical weapons, lying to me and now riding to victory with his pockets stuffed with money from a death deal. My anger was at 110%. Breathing deeply now, I was trying to control the software of my brain in order to control my body’s hardware, sweating and swearing under my breath. Cheesy punched me in the arm and said I was with him on this one and to be ready to undertake a final reconnoitre of the intersection before the convoy arrived.
We arrived in a long narrow valley with steep hills, perfect for cover and escape. The eastern end of the valley ran into another valley which saw the river part in two directions to their individual sources upstream. Near the eastern end, mainly on the steep slopes of the hill, was a long, bent, narrow ribbon of woodland, planted to connect one end of the valley to the other. This is where the road passed over a bridge and was perfect for the detonation of the explosives on the transports. Baz would give sniper support from the woodland position. Hugh would conduct all the detonations in a sequence to facilitate elimination of all the transports but safeguarding the chemical trucks. This strip of woodland was not remarkable in any way, but simply a copse hanging on a steep bank from where I would position myself with Cheesy to erase Evgeny from the Steering Group list.
Waiting is a discipline; it’s so easy to get distracted, lose focus or concentration. The whole enigma of being an intelligence operative is the ability to decode the target in every way, befriend the target, understand it and its needs, desires, goals and most importantly its fears. You need to be patient with the target, it needs to feel confident, relaxed and eventually dependent upon you. Once the DNA has been unravelled you simply have to wait until the target makes the mistake or the move you knew was coming because you planted that seed, idea or task in their mind. It is in the setting of these codes within your adversary and in your building of their trust that allows you to break them when they least expect it. Because they don’t fear what they have planned or organised, the unexpected strength and surprise summoned to destroy them is completely overwhelming, terrifyingly quick and remarkably accurate.
The trucks were approaching. There is nothing quite like the build-up to a firefight. Months of dull preparation, training, planning, talking, endless talking and more preparation leads to about 10 minutes’ worth of high-octane, intense, adrenaline-fuelled, calmly administered chaos and death. Some of what the team and I did that day was nothing short of nasty, enough to put fear into the devil himself. You simply don’t think about it, targets are just targets, nothing personal, it’s just business. The fact that biological weapons were now in play was to me and the team a game changer; there was no longer any doubt in our minds that the task ahead was justified and totally legal, in so much as these people were absolutely intent on killing millions of innocent civilians.
I could see the black smoke coming out of the lead truck’s vertical exhaust pipe as the revs changed and the driver dropped down a gear as it approached the bridge. The convoy was conveniently close together. I wanted to take my time, feel the moment, take in the satisfaction of stopping this trade of munitions, but also deep down wanting to ensure I remembered this kill. It was like I wanted to record the event in some way mentally, so I could use it as proof that I did some good, at some time in the distant future. Or was it to justify my killing a friend? Not sure. I don’t think anyone could consciously allow this shipment to get through.
Killing on licence is weird. It comes with self-satisfaction, denial, truth, lies, doubt, belief and apprehension all at once. However, all these emotions are held beneath the surface in your subconscious, whilst your conscious mind enjoys releasing the caged animal from within. It can only be released for just a few controlled moments when the adrenaline is running at full flow and you are authorised to actually enjoy it, because for some fucked-up reason killing is legal when you’re holding a piece of paper from a government. Now, that is fucked up if you sit and think about it. It’s this that sets the conditions for the mental cloud to form, a swelling of thoughts and emotions that won’t be realised until much later on in your life. But the first cloud was forming and it would rain, of that there is no doubt. For now, I had to concentrate, let the mental cloud form, ignore it, just do my job and deal with my cloud of conscience later.
The first truck reached the near side of the bridge. It was going to be a moving target, so patience was needed before I could place the crosshairs on Evgeny. It had to be a head shot. I was about to eliminate my third wolf and Russian brother; the thought was there but not enough to interrupt my determination to complete the task. I always felt my heart pumping before the first round was released out of my weapon. It was the release of my anger, frustration, childhood and training, a climax of months of preparational foreplay. It is an utter release when the trigger is squeezed that gives notice to the noise that starts a firefight. Like the starting gun, or the ringside bell, my first shot signalled the beginning of the fight and I was able to take out Evgeny with one high-calibre sniper shot from my L96 7.62, like a single punch to succeed a knockout shot, that passed cleanly through Evgeny and into the driver.
My gunsight blacked out immediately from the explosions that followed. The quick succession of minor shockwaves increased my heart rate but not before Cheesy was tapping me on the right shoulder indicating targets right. Selecting targets, breathe and squeeze. I could hear rapid fire from the team below and from the vicinity of the twisted wreckage but I remained focused. In a firefight now, rounds thumping into nearby ground and cracking through foliage as the targets below fired randomly into the trees around me. Not afraid, I was satisfied they couldn’t see their target and was happy to have a clear line of sight into their tiny soon-to-end confused world. I remained in position within the trees, their falling branches adding to my cover, and took the fight to its conclusion. Silence falls after any exchange, and as I breathed the scent of my spent ammunition my appetite was satisfied.
Baz came over comms with an all clear. Taking my eye away from the scope I could see the chemical truck cargos were intact, cabs obliterated, making for a nice mess for the dustmen to clear and some pretty interesting evidence that needed to be relocated. Never knew where that shit went; the dustmen would come with their support team, bulldozer the mess into the reservoir and tow the chemical trailers away. We never made contact with them; they did their job as we did ours.
We were on the clock now to make the rendezvous point whilst accommodating the request to assess the situation the blue forces in Srebrenica were in. Rapid clean-up, reposition and back on the road. We were soon in the hills near Obadi on the outskirts of Srebrenica and were back under the air cover of 800 NAS from HMS Eagle, which seemed bizzare, a bit of home above us. We approached from the east, the team exhausted from the
past few weeks. For me the long build-up entwined with my own thoughts about Evgeny, his end at my hands and how this would impact the family was fully occupying my mind, which in itself was a tortuous mental-fatigue process. We had almost another two weeks to go before the rendezvous for extraction, and would conduct our reconnaissance and surveillance from higher ground overlooking Srebrenica and the other surrounding villages. Extract would be by black helicopter to a naval platform stationed in the Adriatic, and that day couldn’t come soon enough.
We could not make contact with the NATO UN blue beret forces in Srebrenica and so the team entered the town masquerading as Serbian fighters. The team limited their time to undertake a recce of major buildings in the town and warehouses, trying to identify if there were any weapon dumps or other chemical weapon hoards from previous shipments. There was a heightened sense of tension as Serbian forces continued to build up their presence in the town under the lead of Ratko Mladić, the army general who became known as the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’. The Dutch battalion under the command of NATO was there to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 819 in the Bosnian Muslim territories. But as I later learned, the Bosnian Serb forces, under the control of General Ratko Mladić, were set to take over the town, and the Dutch forces were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. The Serbian forces, under Mladić’s control, then undertook a process of ethnic cleansing leading to the deaths of more than 7,000 men and boys. This was later declared in 2017 as being genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which also convicted General Mladić of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Steering Group Page 31