by Dalton Fury
“Ready,” Miric said without hesitation, the vowels betraying his Slavic heritage.
In the objective of his spotter scope, Raynor noted a faint breeze stirring the tall grass around the target. “Left point three.”
The kid adjusted the rifle, fitting the buttstock securely in the bend of his crooked nose, and then there was another thunderous report. A moment later, the .50 caliber round punched a hole through the target, just left of center on the head of the silhouette.
“Shit,” Raynor muttered, impressed.
“Looks like you’re buying tonight,” Musket crowed. “He always goes for the eyes. That’s why we call him ‘Shiner.’ Black eye, every time.”
“You’re teaching him bad habits. I saw that Kentucky windage.”
“Wasn’t me,” Musket protested.
The young man raised his head, fixing Raynor with his blue-gray eyes. “I know Kentucky. Racing horses, yes? What is Kentucky windage?”
“Compensating for the wind by moving your aimpoint off the target, rather than using the windage knob on your scope,” Raynor explained. “You’ve got precision tools, you should use them.” He paused a beat. “Someone showed you how to do that, right?”
Miric shook his head. “This is how I have always done it.”
“I guess you’re a natural.”
“Natural?” Miric looked back at him sheepishly. “I know this word also, but…”
“It means you’ve got a gift. A natural talent for distance shooting.” Raynor wondered if the kid’s proclivity for aiming at the eyes of his targets had also come naturally.
Probably not.
Unlike the language contractors that worked with most regular army units, Delta terps carried weapons and were expected to know how to use them. That didn’t mean that they were used tactically to storm target objectives or provide cover and support for assault teams, but if the shit hit the fan, the terp would be in as much danger as any of the rest of them. Being able to shout insults at the enemy in their shared dialect wouldn’t do any of them any good. Combat experience was always a plus in the hiring process.
Getting to play with some of the toys in the Delta toy box, like the Barrett, was just a perk of the job.
Shiner had been a shooter long before hiring himself out as an interpreter for NATO forces in his Balkan homeland.
In February of 1992, when Kolt Raynor had been a young platoon leader in the 75th Ranger Regiment and Rasim Miric had probably been ten or eleven years old, the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina passed a referendum for independence from the disintegrating remnants of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The minority Bosnian Serbs—Orthodox Christians—boycotted the referendum, which would have put most of the power in the hands of the Bosnian Muslim majority. Supported by their cousins in neighboring Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs launched a violent bid to establish their own republic.
The resulting war had introduced a new phrase into the common vernacular: ethnic cleansing.
Serbian forces, in a concerted effort to wipe out their hated ancestral enemy, waged indiscriminate war on Bosnians and Croats, using mass murder and systematic rape to erase the Bosnian people from existence. The beleaguered Bosnians had fought back, sometimes using equally brutal tactics, eventually gaining the upper hand in the conflict with assistance from UN peacekeeping forces.
Raynor guessed that at some point during those three bloody years someone had put a rifle in the hands of a young Bosniak named Rasim Miric, and introduced him to the art of long-distance death dealing.
The formal end of the Bosnian conflict in 1995 with the signing of the Dayton Accords had not meant an end to violence in the region. Serbia, under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic, shifted their nationalist ambitions to other territories from the former Yugoslavia—Croatia, Kosovo—and the atrocities on both sides continued racking up.
Now, after nearly a decade of conflict, Milosevic was out of power and in a jail cell, awaiting extradition to the Hague, where he would be tried for crimes against humanity, and Captain Kolt Raynor, fresh out of Delta OTC, was in-country hunting down other war criminals.
As the new kid, Raynor was doing his best to catch up, fit in, and mostly keep his head down. Delta operators—he was still getting used to the idea that he was one of them—were truly the best of the best, which made Raynor feel even more like an average Joe. But his friend—and immediate superior—Major Josh “TJ” Timble assured him that he would catch his stride eventually.
Raynor had spent his first week shadowing Musket and the other operators as they drove around, conducting route reconnaissance, servicing safe houses throughout the region, and mostly just killing time while they waited for Karadzik or one of the other assholes on the list to come up for air. Busting plates on the range was as good a way to blow off steam as any. Raynor was just about to take his turn behind the Barrett when TJ came over to let him know that they’d gotten a source hit.
“Source 3263 swears the Rat is crossing into Bosnia tonight and heading to his sister’s house in Bijeljina.”
“How many vehicles?” Kolt asked, already formulating a plan in his head.
“Unknown as yet, and I’m not requesting execute authority without better intel.”
“C’mon, TJ, how actionable does it have to be?” Kolt asked as he motioned TJ away from the firing line and out of hearing range of the others. “How long have we been after this douche bag?”
“I hear ya, Kolt,” TJ said resignedly. “Work some concepts of ops with your troop and we’ll see what shakes out.”
“Good enough, TJ, we’re on it,” Kolt said.
* * *
Ratko Mladic, former commander of the 9th Corps of the Yugoslav People’s Army and code-named “The Rat” by the Joint Special Operations Command, was the architect of the four-year-long siege of Sarajevo and the subsequent massacre of more than eight thousand young men and boys in the UN-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica in 1995. He was also number one with a bullet on the hit list for the CIA-led Balkan Task Force.
The agency had been tracking his movements, mostly with aircraft—RC-135 “Rivet Joint” and U2 spy planes, and MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles—occasionally supplemented by human intelligence assets on the ground. Despite changing his location every few days, intel analysts poring over the data usually knew Mladic’s approximate location to within a twenty-mile radius. When they were able to pinpoint an exact location, which had happened several times over the four years they had been tracking him, forward-deployed operators from Delta or SEAL Team Six—whoever was up to bat that week—headed out, ready to pounce.
There had been no shortage of opportunities to roll up Mladic and the other war criminals. TJ had told Raynor that he had stopped counting how many times they’d gotten kitted up only to be told to stand down at the last moment.
It wasn’t a failure on the ground that was holding them back, but a lack of political will. Exposing Serb complicity in hiding the war criminals would complicate enforcement of the Dayton Accords, and strain relations with Russia. It was all political bullshit, but that was the nature of the job. Odds were this would be another dry hump, but like a gambler feeding nickels into a slot machine, Raynor clung to the hope that this time they would hit the jackpot.
HUMINT had fingered Mladic’s sister’s house as a possible target location years earlier, and on at least two occasions, the actionable intel wasn’t received until after the Rat had come and gone. The intel on Mladic’s location may have been spotty over the years, but in those same years the details on that house had filled the target folder.
A team of CIA officers and sources had picked up Mladic crossing over the Drina river from Serbia. They confirmed two dark four-door sedans separated by roughly thirty seconds passing each checkpoint until they reached the outskirts of Bijeljina. After conferring with the agency spook who was waiting a mile up the road, Raynor and his team of assaulters headed into the woods, accompanied by Miric—the
terp—and Rascal—the squadron communicator.
It was just after 2200 and although the assaulters relied on their ANVS-9 night-vision devices to get them to within sight of the objective, the lights were still on inside. The house was lit up like a beacon.
Not ideal conditions for a raid, Raynor knew, but the mission was to capture the Rat, not to kill him, and waiting until the lights went out and the family reunion celebration had ended was the smart assault option. He grabbed the mic to the satellite radio from Rascal. “Wrangler Zero-Two, this is Hunter One-One. We’re set. Request execute authority. Over.”
There was a brief lag before the reply came back from the safe house in Tuzla where TJ was monitoring the mission. “Hunter Zero-One, sitrep on the target environmentals. Over.”
“Inside lights on, two sedans, two SUVs in driveway, over.”
There was a momentary pause, then TJ came back with, “Two sedans and two SUVs? Over.”
Raynor looked again, even though there was no need. He lowered the handset. “Hey, Musket, you see four vehicles down there, right?”
“Roger that.”
Raynor hit the push-to-talk. “Affirmative, over.”
“Stand by, over,” TJ said.
“Stand by, over,” Raynor echoed, without keying the mic. Thirty miles away, TJ was waiting for someone at Langley or Foggy Bottom or the Pentagon or maybe even the White House to take his call and give them the green light.
“This is bullshit, man.” Musket shook his head in disgust. “I’m getting blue balls, here.”
He squatted down, letting his suppressed HK MP5 hang from its sling, and dug a can of Skoal from the cargo pocket of his woodland-camo-pattern BDU. After stuffing a pinch of the wintergreen-flavored chewing tobacco in his lower lip, he held the can up, offering it to any takers. Kolt debated it for a moment, having left his pouch of Red Man in Tuzla, and almost took Musket up on his offer, but passed, knowing he’d likely barf his guts out.
He looked around the tight perimeter, sort of making eye contact with all of them in the darkness before admitting, “Could be a long night. Might as well get comfortable.”
“I do not understand,” Miric said, his voice loud enough to earn an immediate shushing from several of the assaulters. He pointed at the house. “He is in there. Mladic, the butcher, is in that house. Why do we just sit here?”
Raynor glanced over at him. “Settle down.”
“It’s politics, kid,” Musket supplied.
“Do you know what he did? At Srebrenica? He … he…” Miric’s jaw worked, raw emotion temporarily robbing him of words.
“We’ll get him,” Raynor said, trying to sound reassuring, evidently with little success. The terp scowled and sank down into a squat on the ground, fidgeting with his Kalashnikov. Raynor leaned closer to Musket. “Is he going to be a problem?”
“Nah, he’s a good kid. Besides, we’ll all be heading back in a few minutes.”
Raynor wasn’t so sure on either count, but let it go, hoping that the other man would be proven definitively wrong about the latter point. He glanced over at Rascal, hopeful, but the communicator just shook his head.
Half an hour ticked by. An hour. Two. The word from the JOC remained the same. Stand by. Kolt’s instincts told him the report of the SUVs on target was probably giving the powers that be fits, and elevating some pencil head’s risk matrix sky high.
“Shit or get off the pot,” Musket said with a scowl. “Face it, boss, they’re not going to give us the go. We should just—”
“Hey,” whispered another of the assaulters. “Somebody is stirring.”
Raynor craned his head around to get a look at the house. The front door had opened and a man had stepped outside. He wore an overcoat and held what Raynor guessed was a Skorpion vz. 61 machine pistol in both hands. The man looked around, and then glanced skyward.
“Little cocksucker must think we have eyes in the sky,” Musket muttered.
The man in the overcoat looked over his shoulder and shouted something into the house. As the first man moved to an SUV parked nearby, more figures emerged from the house. More men with guns.
Except for one.
Mladic looked a lot older and a little thinner than in his file photos, but the Rat’s expression remained as smug and contemptuous as ever.
“They’re leaving,” Raynor said, then grabbed the mic from Rascal. “Wrangler Zero-Two. Target is on the move. We need execute authority. Now. Over.”
The delay was interminable. The answer was exactly what Raynor knew it would be. “Negative, Racer. You do not have execute authority. I’m sorry, brother, but your orders are to stand down.”
Raynor lowered the handset, squeezing it in his fist as if to pulverize it. He could still hear TJ’s voice, sounding tinny as it issued from the speaker. “Racer, did you copy my last?”
Seventy-five meters away, Ratko Mladic and his entourage were about to enter the waiting vehicle.
I could do this, Raynor thought. We could take him. I’ll say we lost the satellite. That I have situational awareness and made the call. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I’ll take the heat. What are they gonna do? Fire me for catching an international war criminal?
He sucked in a deep breath, then let it out.
He wasn’t going to do any of those things, if only because TJ would have his ass.
This was the job he’d signed up for. Not just the Unit, but the army. He was a soldier, had never wanted to be anything else. And soldiers followed orders.
He raised the mic. “Ack—”
“You are letting him go?” Miric hissed.
Raynor turned to Musket, raised a finger to his lips—shut him up!—but before the operator could move to silence the terp, Miric spun around, leveled his AK at the mass of men near the SUV, and pulled the trigger.
For a bloated instant, Raynor felt like he was watching a movie—a scene from someone else’s life. Musket was still moving, reaching for the terp.
He wasn’t close enough.
There was a single report, deafening in the still woods, and one of Mladic’s bodyguards went down.
Musket made a grab for Miric, but the interpreter must have glimpsed his approach in the peripheral vision of his nonshooting eye. He sidestepped, and Musket’s arms closed on nothing as he careened past. Miric shifted his rifle again, intent on taking another shot.
Raynor jolted into action, swinging his fist—handset and all—at the terp’s head. He connected solidly and Miric staggered forward, flailing, the rifle still in his hands. Raynor threw his arms wide, letting the sat radio handset fall from his fingers, and tackled Miric to the ground, careful to keep the muzzle of the AK pointed away from the rest of the assaulters, but the damage had already been done.
Mladic’s men had surrounded their boss and were hustling him behind the vehicle for cover, while two of their number sprayed the woods with 7.65mm rounds from their Skorpions. The bullets raked the trees overhead, close enough that Raynor’s men had to duck and cover before returning fire.
But they did return fire.
Raynor might not have been given execute authority, but the rules of engagement permitted lethal force if fired upon. The initiating incident would almost certainly be investigated and dissected in days to come, and Raynor would probably get his ass chewed for not maintaining positive control of the situation, but no one would find fault with his operators for their subsequent actions.
Another of Mladic’s bodyguards dropped, slumping to the ground behind the SUV. There were more sounds, like hammers striking metal, as suppressed fire from the Delta weapons pounded into the exterior of the vehicle and struck the house behind it. The other shooter drew back, but extended his weapon into the open, triggering another burst. Even as he did so, the SUV began moving.
Raynor only caught a glimpse of what was happening. His attention was consumed by Miric. Kolt was straddling the younger man’s back, pinning him to the ground. The terp was thrashing like someone poss
essed, shrieking—almost certainly drawing fire their way—but shutting him up now was a secondary priority to restraining him. Raynor caught Miric’s right hand and twisted the arm around behind his back, pulling it up hard enough that the pain should have left the young man completely immobilized. It didn’t. Miric kept squirming and bucking.
“I got him, boss!” Musket shouted, kneeling beside Raynor. He slapped a zip-tie around Miric’s wrist—the one Raynor was holding.
“I got this,” Raynor managed to say. He was panting, out of breath. “Get on line, on line.”
“Easy, boss, they’re gone. Bugged out.”
Raynor realized that it had been a few seconds since he’d heard any shooting. He rolled off Miric, letting Musket finish the job of binding the hysterical terp. He reached out to Rascal, who intuitively knew to hand him the radio mic. Miric was still shrieking.
“Shut him the fuck up,” Raynor snarled. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out, paused a few seconds, and then did it again, trying to use the discipline of square breathing to damp down the lingering shakiness of adrenaline.
How was he going to explain this clusterfuck?
The terp’s cries were abruptly stifled, but in the relative calm that followed, he heard Musket gasp. “Shit. Somebody get a bandage on that.”
Raynor glanced over and saw Miric, now facing up, with Musket’s brawny arms wrapped around him from behind. A strip of tape covered his mouth, muting his cries, but his mouth was open under the adhesive, shouting into it. And now, Raynor could see why. The left side of Miric’s face was covered in blood, all of which seemed to originate from his eye, which was swollen shut, the skin around it puffed up to the size of a grapefruit. Miric’s screams weren’t cries of rage, but of pain.
* * *
In typical Delta fashion, Raynor was his own harshest critic. TJ was quick to shift blame onto himself, since, as senior officer, he bore the ultimate responsibility for Miric’s actions. That was only partially true. Rasim Miric had rolled with the Unit on several occasions with no indicators that he would freak out on target. Safely back at the safe house, both Racer and TJ took an earful from the Unit commander, of which the key takeaway was: “Shit happens. Don’t let shit happen again.”