The Code

by Nick Elliott

  Iveta stared at him. ‘A nuclear strike against civilians and NATO troops in the heart of Europe?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Have you any idea who’s behind this? Is it from within the Serbian state, the military, someone else?’ I asked him.

  ‘I cannot say for sure. Most likely it is one of several ultranationalist paramilitary organisations.’

  ‘What’s your best guess?’

  ‘Well, if you asked me which of them has the closest ties with unsanctioned elements within Russian intelligence, then probably a shadowy figure known as the Kirurg, or the Surgeon. His connections would help explain how this weapon was acquired and transported so discreetly. And he is organised enough to pull it off.’

  ‘He’s a qualified surgeon, is he?’

  ‘Well, who knows? He is said to have qualified in Magdeburg during the Communist era.’

  ‘What else do you know about him?’

  ‘You’ve heard of the Black Hand, I presume. Upon its formation in the early nineteen hundreds their objective was the unification of all the southern Slav states into one nation. It was headquartered in Belgrade, financed by the Serbian government and run by the head of Serb military intelligence at the time. Their aim was thwarted by the Habsburgs, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And as I’m sure you know, the Black Hand’s involvement in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the summer of 1914 precipitated the First World War.’

  ‘Yes, but I thought it fell apart after they’d bumped him off.’

  ‘It did, more or less. But remember, the Black Hand was always a secret society so perhaps we should not be surprised if it still exists and has been resuscitated clandestinely. We have several such paramilitary movements in Serbia – the White Eagles for example – with not dissimilar aims. But these people, the Black Hand I mean, are widely rumoured to have support from Russia in the shape of the GRU, unsanctioned or otherwise; hence their ability to get hold of this dreadful weapon. And we must beware lest history should repeat itself.’

  ‘But do you actually know it is them, or are you guessing?’ asked Iveta.

  ‘It is what I have heard. The Surgeon, who is now the self-appointed leader of the Black Hand, is no regular warlord. Apparently he is well educated, a charismatic man, but stays in the shadows. He is enigmatic, but myths and legends often form around such characters so let us not jump to conclusions.’

  ‘But you believe these are the same people who have kidnapped my father?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. And that is enough for now, my young friends. Tomorrow we must travel south to find them.’

  The warm night, the stars, the music, the wine and the company of this charming character had done nothing to lessen the gravity of the situation. We walked back to Aleksandar’s house and with a weary wave Iveta headed for her room.

  ‘She will sleep well,’ said Aleksandar before pouring me a small glass of slivovitz. ‘I couldn’t say this in front of her but you may know that much of the Stasi were headquartered in Magdeburg. They locked up over ten thousand political prisoners there right up until the fall of the GDR and I have heard that the Kirurg helped them develop their “enhanced” interrogation techniques. This is hearsay, but he was involved with the Stasi, that much is known. And by all accounts the Stasi’s interrogation methods were every bit as merciless as those of the Nazis. In any event, he is said to be a very dangerous man: an ultranationalist driven by dreams of a greater Serbia and a fanatical hatred of the Kosovars who themselves, of course, dream of unification to form a greater Albania: once again a threat from Islam. We have many such people with similar nationalistic dreams, and harbouring such hatreds.’

  Chapter 21

  Belgrade - Golija Mountains, Serbia

  13 June 1999

  Early the next morning over breakfast Aleksandar announced his plans. By his reckoning there were only two likely locations from which the missile could be launched: the mountain ranges of Kopaonik or Golija.

  ‘My guess is Golija,’ he said. ‘Kopaonik is very popular with tourists – in winter for the skiing, but in summer too with hikers, even now despite the war. So is Golija, but it is more remote and heavily forested so provides cover. There is a monastery on the northern flank, the Monastery of Ravanica. We should head there first and speak to the monks. They may have seen or heard something.’

  ‘We need to get all this back to the Admiral,’ I said. ‘Including what you told us last night – your theories and your reasons.’

  He smiled. ‘Already done. I sent him a full report by fax after you had gone to bed. I told him where we were heading so he’ll know where to look for us.’

  He seemed to be thinking of everything.

  We arrived in the late afternoon, drawing up beside a fortified gate, part of a circular wall that enclosed the monastery’s various chapels and residences. We’d got out of Aleksandar’s ageing Saab, stretching after the non-stop eight-hour journey when a black-robed monk with a white beard down to his chest emerged through a small door set within the main gate. As Aleksandar engaged him in conversation Iveta and I moved away from the heat into the shade cast by the wall.

  ‘I am so anxious,’ she sighed. ‘How do we know we are in the right place? They could be anywhere. It is like searching for a pin in a haystack.’

  ‘If anyone can find them it’s this guy,’ I said, to offer her some hope. But we both knew Aleksandar’s plans were based only on a hunch that Pristina was the target and that we were looking in the right place for the missile, and for Valdis.

  He walked over to us, the monk trailing behind him. ‘He is Father Jovan. He says they have seen nothing, but he will ask some of the shepherds who come down from the mountain in the evenings for their supper in the monastery. He has asked us to join him and his brothers inside.’

  ‘I don’t want to waste time here!’ Iveta suddenly exploded. ‘How do we know they are even on this mountain, or whether this old man or the shepherds can find them?’

  ‘I understand your impatience, my dear, but have a little faith. My instincts rarely fail me.’ From the moment we’d met him Aleksandar had exuded a calm confidence which reassured even me, but Iveta was getting more and more edgy, and I could understand why. What had not been said, but what we were all wondering, was whether Valdis had been broken? Was he still alive, even?

  We followed the monk through the gate and into a courtyard shaded by the high surrounding walls and lines of tall, slender cypress trees. From somewhere within came the sound of chanting. The place provided an occasional refuge for hikers and we were assured we were not intruding. ‘They’ve asked for a donation too,’ said Aleksandar, ‘towards the upkeep. The Orthodox Church is short of funds nowadays, apparently.’

  We were shown to our cells and told of the monastery’s routine, which we were asked to respect. We washed, rested for an hour, then gathered in the courtyard.

  ‘The shepherds usually arrive shortly after nightfall,’ said Aleksandar, ‘so we have an hour or so. We can talk to them as we eat together.’

  Iveta was even more impatient by now. ‘We should be searching the mountain now.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he’s right. The shepherds know these hills and will know who comes and goes.’

  The first shepherd arrived as night was falling, just as Father Jovan had predicted. He had seen no sign of a military convoy, and so it was with the second old fellow. They were eager to talk among themselves and we left them to it, eating our food at a separate table. We finished the pljeskavica, the Balkan version of a hamburger topped with a form of cream made from sheep’s milk. This was washed down with jugs of the monks’ own wine, which was rough and welcome.

  It was almost midnight when the third man came down from the hills. He was younger than the other two, in his early forties, and displayed a nervous energy. He immediately began regaling Father Jovan with a story. Aleksandar listened, then got up and walked over to where the two men were conversing. It was obvious that th
e shepherd had seen something out of the ordinary and was giving his account unbidden. After a while Aleksandar returned to where we were sitting, visibly excited.

  ‘We are in luck! His name is Falkon. He’s been watching the convoy since it arrived. The transporter, covered in tarpaulins, has been positioned on the southern flank of Jankov Kamen, the highest peak in this range. They would have travelled through the night and arrived this afternoon along with a support vehicle – a Zastava army truck – a group including drivers and a commander; and another man, not in uniform. They have set up camp. They’re dressed in battle fatigues and wearing black berets. It’s heavily forested up there and he was able to get close enough to see that their tunics carried a badge showing a skull and crossbones. That was the insignia of the Black Hand. It’s the byname of Ujedinjenje ili Smrt, meaning Union or Death.’

  ‘Death to whom? Do they mean do or die themselves, or death to those who resist?’ I asked.

  ‘The latter. And so this confirms our suspicions.’

  ‘Can he guide us to the camp? Is he reliable?’

  ‘For a fee, yes he can, and yes I believe he is reliable. He’s a Vlach. They’ve been practising transhumance in these ranges for centuries – bringing their flocks up to the summer pastures in late spring, then moving them back to their lowland villages for the winter. They are family-owned flocks of two or three hundred sheep, run by a man and his wife or a man and his brother or nephew, not the huge pastoral groups of the old days.’

  I looked at Falkon as Aleksandar spoke. He was a rough-looking character, short and square-shouldered, strong with a broad brow, a bony nose and sharp eyes. As I observed him he returned my stare with one of his own: challenging and a little belligerent. I wouldn’t have wanted to get on the wrong side of him.

  ‘The Vlachs speak a language closely related to Latin and to today’s Romanian. I can barely understand a word but he also speaks Serbo-Croat well, and a very little English too.’

  ‘And did you tell him they plan to attack Pristina?’

  ‘He’s uneducated of course, but not stupid. Vlachs don’t harbour the same grudge against the Kosovars as I’m afraid my countrymen do. He was genuinely angry when I told him what we believe is happening, and that the Black Hand are involved. Of course he knows about them and their role in Serbian history. He will help us. Oh, and he wanted to know who you were. Were you the woman’s husband, he asked, and were you in charge? I told him no, you weren’t, but yes you were in charge.’

  ‘Okay. So then what?’ I asked, as much to myself as to him. ‘We’re not just going to walk up the mountain and ask them to call it off, are we? Are you, Iveta, me and him going to take them on? What are our chances?’

  We were on our own. Our Nokias were useless up here, and the monastery had no phone of any description.

  ‘These, my friend, are reasonable questions. We have twenty-four hours. We have no outside help to call on, but the stakes are too high and time is too short to turn our backs on this now. It could be that we have to make sacrifices, perhaps the ultimate sacrifice if it means our lives in exchange for those 200,000 in Pristina. We are placing ourselves in harm’s way.’

  Chapter 22

  Mount Jankov Kamen, Golija Range, Southern Serbia

  14-15 June 1999

  We rose at dawn and after a meagre breakfast prepared by the monks, and with rucksacks Aleksandar had brought with him containing thick winter sweaters, headed on foot into the hills following our guide, Falkon. He had stayed overnight in the monastery and now strode ahead of us. Soon we were climbing up through heavily shaded beech woods, the earth thick with their fallen leaves from the winter. The ground rose steeply now. Iveta was fit and well rested making light work of the climb. Like her, I was wearing trainers barely suitable for the conditions, but when I saw the old opanci sandals Falkon was wearing I considered myself well off. Aleksandar was struggling and we had to stop every fifteen minutes or so to wait for him to catch up. Along the way we drank from cold mountain streams and ate wedges of crusty bread with sheep’s cheese that the monks had provided.

  Eventually the beech woods gave way to pines, the strong scent of their resin heavy in the mounting heat. We sweated, and rested for short periods on soft beds of pine needles. From time to time we could look down and see the monastery far below. Above us eagles circled effortlessly on the thermals, their cries a persistent exchange of kwits and kees. We were in a dreamlike pastoral Arcadia, yet there was little joy to it, only a sense of foreboding.

  We climbed on until, as darkness was falling, we reached a sloping alpine meadow carpeted in wild flowers on the far edge of which was the shepherds’ camp: a gathering of huts, or bačija as Falkon called them. As we approached, an older man emerged from one of them. It was much colder now. We were over 1,800 metres above sea level and he wore a voluminous cape of thick black hair topped by a strange, conical-shaped felt hat. He was introduced to us as Falkon’s father. He was accompanied by two enormous dogs wearing collars ringed with three inch-long steel spikes. These beasts were guard dogs used not to round up but to protect the flock. They were used too by the Serb police, and increasingly as domestic pets by macho city boys. The spiked collars protected their throats from attack by wolves that roamed these mountains. The dogs barked aggressively, though more in greeting than belligerence, Falkon insisted.

  This wasn’t all Falkon had to say. ‘He says it’s not just wolves they protect against,’ explained Aleksandar. ‘There are sheep rustlers in the mountains too. They come up here in big pickup trucks. If they encounter the dogs they’ll shoot them.’

  ‘And what if they encounter the shepherds?’

  Aleksandar translated my question and Falkon glared over at me as he answered in English: ‘We shoot them. Then we cut their throats.’ As if I needed an explanation he drew a finger across his. ‘We kill seven of them in one night last year. Put them in back of pickup and take them down to Novi Pazar. Leave them on the street. No trouble since.’ I was simultaneously horrified and reassured.

  After we’d rested and devoured bowls of fried noodles prepared for us by the family matriarch, we took off again, guided by Falkon and heading to the higher ground where he’d seen the transporter the previous day. Falkon and I carried old SKS carbines, semi-automatic and each with a twenty-round magazine that his father had handed to us. His younger brother, Ilijan, had wanted to join us but his wife resisted. She’d given birth to their first child only weeks before and wanted him at home.

  It was three in the morning of the 15th when we reached the summit of Jankov Kamen. The day of the battle’s anniversary. A rain storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, had blown in unannounced from the north, soaking us and turning the rutted track we were on into a slippery morass made worse by the trenches the heavy transporter had gouged out when it had come this way. The squall passed clearing the sky but leaving the ground saturated and the trees, and us, dripping.

  Now, we looked down from the summit onto the mountain’s southern flank where, lit by the moonlight and protruding from a clearing in the pine trees, we could make out the sharp-nosed missile pointing south towards Kosovo, towards Pristina, the capital city that we now knew was its target. It looked incongruous and sinister in the ethereal beauty of that silvery setting. The fickle mountain winds had swung round now to blow from the south. It brought with it the smell of a fire we could see smoking in the centre of the camp. And it carried the sound of voices too – murmurings punctuated by the occasional outburst of shouting and laughter. One man was fanning the fire, trying to coax the damp wood into flames. I wondered whether they’d been drinking, and if so how heavily. Enough to make them careless? I got the answer when another one stood over the fire and poured a bottle of something onto it. A moment later it caught and flames leapt high into the night. The two men jumped backwards, roaring with laughter.

  ‘That is high-proof stuff they’ve been drinking to go up like that,’ whispered Aleksandar.

  We’d co
me up here to retrieve Valdis. By rescuing him we would be able to prevent the missile’s launch. No Valdis meant no PAL code, and no launch. We’d more or less ruled out any attempt at negotiating with the Surgeon and his Black Hand gang. They had to be neutralised we’d decided, by whatever means available. Between us we had the advantage of height and the element of surprise. But little else. We could see we were outnumbered, and they would have superior weaponry against our carbines. They had Valdis as a hostage to bargain with too.

  Aleksandar had briefed Falkon following what he and I had discussed the previous evening. Now we were here we had to decide how best to implement our hastily conceived and theoretical assault plan. With hindsight it was foolhardy to have thought we had much chance in the first place. The stakes were too high. But we couldn’t do nothing, and we had no means of calling in help from the outside world; none of which made it any less irksome when our sketchy plan went so wrong. But who could blame Iveta for what she did? We’d been there for ten minutes, watching, assessing the situation. Aleksandar was scanning the camp through an old pair of field glasses he’d brought with him. Suddenly he whispered harshly: ‘My God, is that him? Your father? He’s tied to a chair. Sweet Jesus, they’re not putting him in the fire!’

  Before I could reach for the glasses Iveta grabbed them, focusing on the scene below. Then, throwing them aside, she broke cover taking off down the steep slope towards the camp, slipping in the mud, her arms flailing.

  I reached down and picked up the glasses from where she’d dropped them. Now I watched as she rushed towards the camp where her father was struggling, the chair on its side and Valdis tied to it, lying half in and half out of the fire. And she was already halfway down the slope.