by Andy McNab
‘What do you think, Nick?’ Jerry crawled to the bottom of the rocks. ‘They still there?’
‘You’re welcome to take a look.’
I slid down alongside him and put my lips to his ear. ‘Keep that weapon of yours handy and watch Nasir. He’s fucked off with us. We need to look out for each other.’
‘Ramzi! Ramzi!’ The gravelly voice from the cave mouth was now calm and controlled. Whatever it was saying, I liked it even less than when it was in mocking mode.
I moved back up to Nasir. Way in the distance, I could see a 4x4 making its way along the track. I watched it disappear off to our right. Salkic joined us. As Nasir filled him in, the look in his eyes told me all I needed to know.
‘Your sister?’
The radio crackled in his pocket. I made out a gravel-voiced ‘Ramzi! Ramzi!’ Then Salkic pressed the button and spoke. I couldn’t see that he was crying, but I could hear it. He was doing his best to make sure that whoever was at the other end couldn’t do the same.
Nasir mumbled away to himself, then started to rant at no one in particular.
Benzil’s eyes widened again. ‘What is it, Ramzi? What do they want?’
‘To know where Hasan is.’
Before I could say anything, a piercing scream echoed round the cave. Nasir ripped the radio from Salkic’s hands and cracked it against the rock, but the screams and begging continued from just beyond the cave mouth.
Salkic lay with his arms over his head to try to block out the world. I knew exactly how he felt.
Nasir scrambled over the rocks and ran towards the light.
‘For fuck’s sake!’
I picked up my AK and started after him, flicking the safety down to full automatic. He might want to kill me once this was over, but I needed him alive if we were going to have a chance of getting out of there first. He kept left, weapon in the shoulder, oblivious to me behind him.
Fifteen metres to go and the moans and cries outside were drowned by the crunching of our feet on the rock chips. I checked safety again.
We only made it another five metres before another barrel appeared in front of us and fired a long burst into the cave. Nasir stood his ground and got some rounds down as I moved to his right and joined in.
Nasir didn’t need any shouting at. We were on autopilot. He turned on the spot, ran back a few paces, stopped, turned and fired. I followed suit as we fired and manoeuvred back to safety. I could taste the cordite as empty cases clinked off the walls.
I turned for the last time to see Nasir and Jerry firing from the rocks. As I ran and hurled myself over the pile between them, I could feel the pressure waves of Nasir’s AK against my face as they covered me in.
Everything fell silent, apart from the hissing of my barrel as I put it on the ground and it made contact with a puddle. Nasir slapped me on the shoulder as we both climbed back up to our vantage-point. It seemed as if I was in his good books at last, but I wouldn’t stop watching my back.
We kept our eyes on the entrance as we both changed mags. I only had thirteen rounds left; I fed them all into one mag.
I heard a whimper then a shout behind me, and took a moment to work out where it came from. Nasir shook his head and pleaded with Salkic. The Motorola had survived his attempt to destroy it, and Salkic wanted to listen. His sister was sobbing, but defiant.
Salkic tried to mutter a few words of comfort but ended up in tears. His tormentor mocked and jeered as her sobs turned into rhythmic cries of pain.
Nasir ripped the radio from Salkic’s hands, hurled it to the ground and stamped on it, but it brought them only a few seconds’ respite. We could hear her outside, closer now, and Salkic retreated into a dark place of his own as his sister’s agony filtered into the cave. ‘She told me to be strong, and I will be,’ he murmured to himself. ‘The most important thing is protecting Hasan.’
Nasir sparked up, shouting at the top of his voice. If my guess was right, it had less to do with anger than drowning sound.
We all went quiet, apart from Nasir, who carried on trying to keep the cries at bay.
83
Everything went quiet. No more screams, no more shouts, not even from Nasir. Benzil insisted he did his share and went on stag above us, muttering a quiet prayer to himself.
Unless our call was taken seriously and SFOR appeared, night was going to be our only hope. I checked Baby-G: 11:14. If we could hold out until dark, we might be able to break out and make a run for it, especially if the cloud cover held.
‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’
Benzil was no longer praying: he was in shock.
Nasir was the first one up the rocks to join him. I was close behind.
The silhouette swayed in the cave mouth, then staggered a couple of steps to one side. Nasir could not suppress a gasp of anguish.
Salkic and Jerry came up to join us, just as the girl started to stagger in our direction, like a drunk coming down an alley. She lost her balance and bounced against the wall. Nasir pulled his weapon up into the aim as she called out for her brother. ‘Ramzi? Ramzi?’
One hand now against the wall for balance, she took a few more unsteady steps and groaned. Nasir still had his AK up, butt in the shoulder. Tears streamed down his face as he begged Salkic. They argued, and Nasir handed him the weapon.
Like me, Jerry didn’t need a translation. Either before or after the rape, she would have been drugged, then rigged up with explosive. It had happened all the time during the war. Mothers were rigged up and pushed back towards the trenches where their sons, husbands and fathers were holding the line. Serbs or Muslims, it didn’t matter, each side was as bad as the other. Now it looked as if the guys outside had decided that if Salkic wasn’t going to give Nuhanovic away, there was no point keeping him alive. Then again, maybe they just wanted to see how he’d react, and have a bit of fun.
She was no more than twenty metres from us and something needed to happen. But this was family shit and I was keeping well out of it. One of them would have to drop her.
Jerry dragged Benzil down to explain the score as Salkic begged her to stop, choking on his tears. Nasir joined in, but her only response was to hold out her arms, lose her balance and fall to her knees.
Now would be a good time: she was a static target. It would be a cleaner kill.
Salkic’s eyes were on Nasir’s, begging his brother-in-law for help. He couldn’t raise his arms.
Benzil had just worked it out. ‘Oh, God, he is telling him to shoot her . . .’
Salkic finally lifted the weapon into the aim as she tottered to her feet, calling out to him like a child. ‘Ramzi . . . Ramzi . . .’
Nasir urged him on, but the stock just collapsed off his shoulder. Nasir turned his attention to his sister-in-law, pleading with her to stop.
She came a few steps closer. In the gloom, I could see that her nightgown was ripped and she was covered with blood. She was totally spaced out.
I couldn’t see a line behind her.
Maybe she wasn’t rigged up. Maybe this really was just their idea of a good day out.
Nasir screamed at her. The sound reverberated round the cave and she stumbled against the wall, disoriented. She took another couple of steps. I still couldn’t see a line.
Salkic brought the AK into the aim again but it wasn’t going to happen.
She continued to stumble forwards. This had to be done or we’d all be dead.
Fuck this. I got my butt in the shoulder and pushed the safety all the way down to single shot. All the shouting and screaming around me became background noise.
I lined up the rear- and foresight so they were centre mass of her head. She’d be dead before she heard the round fired.
There was a shot from my right and some of the back of her head slapped against the wall.
I turned. Jerry had the 9mm up in the aim.
She was on the ground, but still moving. Nasir grabbed Salkic, pulling him behind the rock pile. The flat tops might detonate her now she
was down.
Jerry fired again but his tears and shaking hand got in the way of his aim.
He didn’t miss with his third round. Her body quivered, she gave a low moan, then nothing. I scrambled over, grabbed Jerry, and we joined the others behind the mound.
He took fast, shallow breaths; his whole body was shaking. I eased the weapon out of his hands, applied safe, and put it into his pocket.
We waited, but there was no explosion, only Salkic’s chilling sobs of grief. I wished there had been. It would have made us all feel a lot better to know Jerry had done the right thing.
There was a chorus of laughter and catcalls from the lip of the cave. Nasir held Salkic’s head into his chest. His eyes drilled into me. Benzil crawled back up the rocks.
Salkic pushed Nasir away, dug under his shirt and pulled out the two keys. He handed them to me, fingers caked with mud.
Benzil carried on praying above us as Salkic talked me through the approach to Nuhanovic’s house, explained the whole security set-up. His voice was measured, almost robotic. ‘I am now going to do the two things I wish most: protect Hasan and avenge my sister.’
Benzil protested. ‘Enough people have died. Please, let’s wait for SFOR.’
Salkic was scarily calm. ‘I do not fear joining my sister in paradise, if it is God’s will.’
Jerry and I exchanged a glance. More of that fatalist shit.
He told Nasir exactly what he had told us, and by the tone of the exchange Nasir wanted to go with him. Salkic wouldn’t hear of it. Nasir had to stay with us. They embraced each other, then he nodded to each of us in turn and got to his feet. Hollering and shouting at the flat tops, he started down the cave.
He reached his sister and knelt down. His shoulders shook as he stroked what was left of her head.
Very gently, he turned her on to her stomach. Please, let there be a rig on her. I couldn’t see anything. Salkic was in the way.
Then I heard the rasp of gaffer-tape. Nasir muttered in Serbo-Croat, but I got the gist. I watched as Salkic removed three egg-shaped hand grenades from her back. A string was attached to the middle one. The way she’d fallen must have prevented them detonating it.
‘Jerry, she was rigged.’
Nasir looked at him and nodded. It wouldn’t be much consolation, but he’d done the right thing.
Jerry looked stunned. Nothing had registered with him, one way or the other. He was probably still rerunning her death in his head video.
Salkic had much the same expression as he wrapped a grenade in each of his hands and pulled out the pins. Then he scooped her into his arms. Leaning back to take her weight, he began to stagger towards the daylight.
We watched him all the way to the end of the cave, where he took a couple of steps to his right and disappeared.
84
We all froze. Would they drop him on sight?
Maybe ten seconds later we knew the answer. The first of the grenades kicked off, then the second. I was up and running before the echoes had stopped. I could only hope Nasir was close behind. Fuck knows what I was going to do if I found myself alone when I got out into the open. I’d just have to make the best of the confusion and take on whoever was left moving.
There was no time for anything fancy: just butt into the shoulder, a deep breath and out into the grey light.
I swung right and immediately saw movers – two, three, I couldn’t be sure. Smoke hung low around the impact points.
I double-tapped into centre mass of a crawling flat top. A burst from behind me knocked another off his feet. Nasir was with me.
There was more firing behind us and to the right. Single shots, 9mm. Jerry was taking on the scabbed-up 4x4. The body at the wheel jerked and slumped. It was Goatee, the blood-drenched Motorola still in his hand.
I ran past Salkic. He was lying next to his sister: he must have dropped her and thrown the grenades at the wagon, then got dropped himself. He looked as though he might still be alive, but I didn’t check: there was a runner down in the low ground beyond the 4x4, maybe a hundred and fifty metres away. I sat with my back against a wheel, brought my legs up, shoved my elbows into the sides of my knees to make a platform for the weapon, rammed it into my shoulder and took aim.
My first shot missed. Nasir knelt alongside me as I took aim again. His first round went high. The guy was nearly two hundred metres away now, following the line of the valley. I took two big breaths to oxygenate myself, squeezed first pressure and held the foresight about three body-widths behind him. One more breath, let it out, hold . . . I moved the foresight past him to the left until it was one body-width in front, then took up second pressure. The butt kicked back into my shoulder and this time he went down. His screams took a while to reach us. I watched for a moment as his legs thrashed on the ground. I could have given him one more but, fuck it, I might need the round.
Nasir raised his head suddenly and searched the sky. I heard it too: the throbbing of rotor blades.
I checked for Jerry. He was kneeling by Salkic, and it looked like the two of them were having some kind of profound moment. There wasn’t time for that shit. He’d been sliced up by strands of steel-wire shrapnel from the grenades. He was in a bad way, but he was alive.
‘Jerry, go and get Benzil!’
He looked up and shook his head. ‘Wait.’
‘No, now – no time! The fucking heli – go get him out!’
I shoved him out of the way and took hold of Salkic’s head, making sure I got eye-to-eye.
Jerry stood up, pumping his arms as he started to run back towards the cave. The Daewoo was still clutched in his hand.
‘Put the fucking safety catch on!’
He stopped, fumbled with the weapon, then disappeared into the cave mouth.
‘Ramzi, listen to me. We’re going to go and hide until SFOR have lifted you, OK? Ramzi, you hear me?’
I shook Salkic’s head gently, trying to get him to listen. ‘You take Benzil and Nasir with you, all right? Jerry and I will take cover until you’ve gone. You understand?’
He did his best to nod. I went and picked up one of the flat-tops’ AKs and took off the magazine. He had no spares either. ‘Nasir, Nasir!’ I pulled him over to me. ‘Ramzi, tell him what’s going on.’
The helicopter was still hidden by cloud, but getting closer. If the cave was well known from the war, they’d be heading straight for us on GPS.
Salkic muttered some more stuff to Nasir and I ran back up the hill, my body wet with sweat.
Benzil was slumped just inside the cave, with Jerry doing his best to keep him going. ‘Benzil, SFOR are coming. You go back with Salkic and Nasir, OK?’
He shook his head. ‘No, no, I must see—’
‘No time. You’ll slow us down. Go back to the city, get sorted out, just lie your arse off about what’s happened. We’ll come for you after we’ve met him. If he wants to see you now, he’ll still want to see you in a few days.’
The rotor blades were getting lower.
Benzil muttered something I couldn’t make out above the din. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Flecks of my saliva splashed on to his cheek. ‘Listen to me! Make up a story. We’ll get back to the city and we’ll find you. Just don’t tell them we’re here, got it?’ I pushed him out towards the entrance. ‘And make sure you square the story with Salkic.’
He didn’t have time to answer. Nasir appeared and started to drag him out. I wanted to thank him for firing at the runner and not me, but there was no time for nods or handshakes. It wasn’t as if we’d become best mates or were now in some sort of brotherhood thing.
I grabbed Jerry and shoved him to the back of the cave to give him the facts of life.
We lay curled up as small as we could behind the rock pile and listened as the heli came into a hover just outside.
85
A second helicopter appeared about half an hour after the first, probably to ferry in more troops and pick up the bodies. The pilot landed about a hundred metres from the cav
e but didn’t close down. The wind had picked up, hurling rain in all directions; he’d keep the rotor blades turning in case the thing didn’t restart.
We listened to it for at least twenty minutes while the clearing party was at work. They were German, by the sound of it. One or two yodelled into the cave just to hear the echo. A couple ventured further inside, but nowhere like all the way to the back. Maybe they didn’t like the dark; maybe they didn’t like the idea of stepping on any mines or booby traps. About the only bit of luck we’d had in the last twenty-four hours was not tripping any of that shit ourselves.
I gave Jerry a shake the moment the heli had lifted off. ‘Better go and get that wagon while we still have the chance.’
When we got to the cave mouth, I had to laugh. The 4x4 had been cordoned off with blue and white scene-of-crime tape; it was practically gift-wrapped in the stuff. Some of the empty shell cases even had little flags stuck into the mud beside them.
The smile soon wiped itself off my face as we left the efficient German crime scene behind us. According to Salkic, the vehicle he’d have used to take us to Nuhanovic was parked in the biggest of the barns at the ambush site. The wind was bitterly cold and sliced into every millimetre of my exposed wet skin. I kept my arms tight against my sides and pulled up the collar of my coat to conserve as much warmth as I could. If I had to move my head I’d turn my whole body. I didn’t want the slightest bit of wind or freezing rain down my neck.
We’d been going no more than twenty when I turned to check on Jerry and my foot slipped. I went down, and as my knees hit the rock they felt like they were on fire. I hoped I hadn’t smashed a kneecap, but there was fuck all I could do about it. Black cloud cover was more or less total now. No wonder the heli pilot hadn’t wanted to hang around.