They didn’t pursue her boyfriend, at least not straight away. There were other things to take care of, such as tying vines around the young woman’s head and hoisting her up from the forest floor. They used a thick branch to achieve this, and when her legs were about two feet off the ground, they tied vines around her ankles and secured those to trees nearby, ensuring that her body remained still.
That’s when they literally started to gut her. One of the hunters stepped forward and removed a sharp metal like object from a rope slung over his shoulder. He then proceeded to push the object against the woman’s lower abdomen, really ramming it in there. With a quick upward movement, the metal object sliced its way up to the solar plexus region and all the innards came pouring out like a bucketful of gore. I forced myself to look at it, careful not to move the camera away from the action. The organisation would no doubt zoom in on the gruesome scene, quite possibly even slow it down so that the members wouldn’t miss a thing.
They spent an hour mutilating the body before they finally moved on, walking in the direction of the beach and the boyfriend that had managed to escape. And I followed after them, very mindful of what would happen if they ever caught a glimpse of me.
For the next seven hours, I was tailing the hunters around the southern tip of the island. They split up into two groups, which made my job considerably more complicated. Two of them were patrolling the tree line closest to the beach, while the other two focused on the area further inland. They spent half an hour or thereabouts studying the campsite when they eventually found it, going through the contents of the backpacks. But as far as I could tell, they didn’t take anything with them. Maybe they intended to return the following day and grab it then. Apparently catching the guy was more important for the time being. Besides, who was going to take off with their newly acquired stuff anyway?
They then resumed their search. I don’t know if they were able to follow the guy’s spoor, but if they were, they certainly didn’t do a very good job at it because they weren’t able to locate him that day.
A few hours before sundown, they left the area and I was able to take a quick break to get something to eat and notify Dirk of what had happened. Then I spent the remaining hours of daylight trying to pick up the trail of the guy, which I found just before the sun dipped below the horizon. I couldn’t actually see him, but I could see the faint footprints leading to his hiding spot. He had done the right thing and tried to cover his tracks as best as he could by smoothing the sand behind him. But seeing the arrows sink into the tree next to him when he had first crossed path with the natives, and knowing that his girlfriend had been captured, not to mention having to listen to the horrific cries as he ran away, must have shaken him to the bone. And thus he had been sloppy when he made his way across the beach and not taken enough time to do a thorough job. But I knew he was there and I intended to get a visual on him later that evening while wearing my night vision goggles.
The place he had chosen was behind a cluster of boulders right next to the ocean, where he wasn’t visible from the forest. If you only had to hide for a few hours, the spot would have been perfect. But if you had to spend a prolonged period there, it wouldn’t do you any good. There was no natural cover, and after a few hours in the hot daytime sun without any water your brain would start to fry. A good strategy would have been to move to another location after the sun went down, then head back to the campsite, get some water and provisions and find a new location to lay low. But the guy was not an experienced soldier, and he had just witnessed a very traumatic episode, so he remained where he was.
I did get a visual on him, a few hours after sundown, and he was literally hanging onto the boulder for dear life, his face pressed into the rock as if it would somehow make it harder for the natives to spot him.
That night as I settled into my new hiding spot overlooking the cluster of boulders, I knew that he wouldn’t see another sunset. The natives would resume their search the following morning, and they would give him the same treatment that his girlfriend had received. A brutal and very painful death. One part of me felt a tiny bit of sympathy for him, but the other and much more dominant part of my brain felt that he was getting his just dessert. In my opinion child killers deserves no mercy.
I was right about the natives resuming their search the following day. I saw them approach the section of boulders just after nine thirty in the morning. And this time there were a whole lot more of them. I counted seven men on the beach, and I guessed that there were probably more of them scouring the forest. The sight made me slightly apprehensive. At that point I had no idea how good they were at reading spoors and how thorough they would be. If they decided to do a proper search of the entire island, I could find myself in a whole lot of trouble, and I could quite possibly be their third victim.
I tried to brush aside the thoughts and worry about that later on should my fears turn into reality. For now, the only thing I had to focus on was the child killer hiding behind the boulder and his rendezvous with death.
The natives grew in size in my binoculars, and they were now less than a hundred yards away. Very carefully, I pushed the record button on the camera and put the binoculars aside, and prepared myself for what was about to happen next.
They discovered him less than half a minute later, when one of the hunters went behind the big stone. I couldn’t see what happened at that exact moment, but I could see the guy a few seconds later when he jumped into the water, and I could see the spear that came flying after him moments later. The water immediately turned red, and the hunter that had thrown the spear jumped out after him. A struggle ensued, and some of the other hunters joined the fray. One of them pushed the guy’s head under water and held it there until he stopped moving. I guess the whole thing took less than a minute. Then they dragged the guy ashore and started stabbing him with their scythe like weapons up on the beach. The bright sand turned red and the body jerked and twisted every time it was hit.
They were going at it with an aggressiveness that I found hard to fathom. They really hated the guy, and they really wanted to kill him. And the only crime he was guilty of in their eyes was coming ashore on their island. They continued for another couple of minutes, and by that stage the guy was truly dead. His body looked like a big piece of flesh that had been dipped in a tub of red dye. Parts of the skin had been peeled away from his muscles, and I could see right down to the bone.
When they were done, another very unnerving thing happened. One of the hunters all of a sudden ran toward my hiding spot. I felt my blood go cold, and I had to will myself to lay still. There was no way that he could have seen me. Then when he was about twenty yards away, he came to an abrupt stop and raised his hands in the air. His upper body was covered in the victim’s blood, and he had a feral look on his face, as if he had ingested some very potent drugs. The bow in his hand was looking extremely menacing, and I hoped that he wasn’t about to fire one of those arrows in my direction.
Luckily he didn’t, but he started shouting and screaming and hopping up and down. I’ve often thought later on that he must have suspected that there were other unwanted people on the island, and that it was his way of letting them know that they were next. This routine went on for another few minutes, before he turned around and walked back to the others.
The episode had really shaken me up and I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. When I opened them again, I could see the natives were in the process of dragging the guy by the legs further up on the beach. Unfortunately his head was turned in my direction and I was able to see his face. His mouth was wide open, as were his eyes, and he reminded me of a dead fish, staring stupidly into the distance. It was a horrendous way to die, even though he himself had committed a horrendous crime. Maybe god, that is if he actually exists, would have mercy on his soul and take him into his fold. But even if that didn’t happen and he was sent straight down to hell, it couldn’t be much worse than what he had gone through for the last minute of his life.
I swam out of the lagoon, attached my aqua lung, flippers and weight belt, and continued another mile out from the shore. There I signalled with my flashlight and guided the Zodiac to my position. I had survived my mission yet again and earned my completion fee. Now all I wanted to do was to relax for a few weeks, recharge my batteries and try to get the terrible things I’d seen on that Island out of my system. I couldn’t wait to return to civilisation and live like a normal person for a while.
Grozny
I promised that I’d tell you about two of the missions I went on during my time in Fear Inc, and that’s a promise I intend to keep. This second mission was literally the polar opposite of the first one. It took place in Grozny in Chechnya during the height of the winter, and thus it was a bitterly cold experience. On one day the temperature actually dipped down to fifteen degrees below zero. And unlike on North Sentinel Island which was sparsely populated, in Grozny there were people all over the place. Civilians trying to flee, Russian troops and Chechen paramilitaries, who to everyone’s surprise actually ended up slaughtering the Russian invaders.
The battle of Grozny has been described as hell on earth by the soldiers who were there, and I think it’s a very fitting description. In the seven days that I was there, more than ten thousand people lost their lives, including several thousand Russian soldiers on New Year’s Eve alone.
The Grozny assignment also stands out in my memory given that it was at the early stages of my career with Fear Inc. It was also among the ones that I was feeling very apprehensive about before starting on it.
We had flown into Tbilisi, Georgia on the twenty eight of December 1994, and the plan was for me to slip across the border to Russia, and from there make my way up to Grozny a couple of hundred miles further northeast. The corporation had through its extensive sources learned of the Russians’ plan to invade, and they were keen to have an employee on the ground when it happened.
After arriving in Tbilisi, we made our way to a tiny village called Tsdo on the Georgian military highway about seventy miles north of the Georgian capital way up in the Caucasus Mountains. Because of the steep terrain, this was the only point where we could slip across the border into Russia.
As we drove into the village late in the afternoon, I gazed over at Dirk and shook my head.
“If we stop here, we’ll stand out like elephants in Piccadilly Circus. Half of the people here are probably Russians spies, and you can bet your arse that they’ll report our presence to their superiors.”
“We’re not stopping here,” Dirk said. “We’re going to drive through the village and meet up with our contact a few miles further on. When we get there, you’ll jump straight into the back of his truck and hide in a secret compartment.”
Dirk gave me an appraising look and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Listen Mike, crossing the border will be a breeze compared to the rest of the mission. It’s late in the evening, and I’m guessing that the border guards are pissed out of their brains by now. Our contact will slip them a few packs of cigarettes and they’ll wave the truck through like it was Yeltsin himself driving it.”
I nodded, but wasn’t feeling nearly as confident. If they decided to do a thorough search, the mission would be over before it had even started, and I would most likely spend time in a Russian prison. Not a very tempting prospect.
By the time we met up with the truck, it was already dark. I quickly opened the door of the Jeep we were sitting in and threw my backpack in the back of the truck and followed after it. I could hear Alexi, the driver and Dirk talk together for a few minutes before the Jeep turned around and disappeared. A few moments later the truck started moving, and I was on my way toward the border, ready to be smuggled across.
The crossing was surprisingly easy, and looking back at it now, I suspect that the border guards had been bribed. None of them bothered to inspect the vehicle, and after a couple of minutes we were moving again. The secret compartment I was hiding inside, a fake wall measuring two by six feet was just big enough for me to lay flat on my back. It was uncomfortable, but I stayed there for the rest of the journey that ended in Nesterovskaya, just before the Chechen border, three hours later.
“We’re here,” Alexi said. He had parked the truck outside a ramshackle house on the outskirts of town.
I crawled out of the fake compartment and jumped out of the truck. I was feeling rather stiff and sore after having to endure the rough terrain, and I was glad it was all over.
It was dark outside, but the snow on the ground reflected the ambient light enough for me to take in my surroundings. I could see an old car parked next to the house, and I could see Alexi pointing at it.
“That’s the car we’ll be driving to get to the border,” he said. “We’ll be following one of the backroads. It shouldn’t take us more than ten, fifteen minutes. After that you’re on your own. Good luck my friend, because you’re going to need it. The Russians are really running amok on the other side, and they’re not distinguishing between civilian and military targets.”
He flashed me a smile. “I don’t know if you’re crazy, brave or just ignorant. The way things are at the moment, there is no way I would cross that border.”
I gazed out toward the east where my final destination was located.
“Is the border guarded?”
Alexi shook his head.
“No, not the road that we’ll be following. It’s more of a path than a road to be quite honest.”
I nodded and we got inside the car, and after a twenty minute ride through the forest, we were less than fifty yards away from the border. The city of Grozny was still another thirty five miles away, and I would have to walk to get there.
I grabbed my backpack, thanked Alexi and got out. Then I remained where I was for another five minutes, as I watched the car turn around and make its way back to Nesterovskaya.
Crossing into Chechnya was easy, and there weren’t any Russian or Chechen paramilitaries waiting on the other side to apprehend me. I had walked about a hundred yards south of the path before I crossed the border, and I was walking through a forest, which by all appearances was deserted. I stayed in the forest for about an hour, before heading northeast, across the numerous fields that dotted the area. In the distance I could see Russian troops and temporary camps. I felt exposed out in the open, but it couldn’t be helped. I was determined to reach the forest on the southern outskirts of Grozny before sunset, and thus I had to press on. I walked all night and passed a few towns along the way, but didn’t really see any people, just the occasional Russian camps, which I gave a wide berth. As I drew closer to Grozny, I began to hear gunfire and I could hear bombs going off. And just before the sun rose in the east, I entered the forest south of the city. It was the twenty ninth of December 1994, two days before the bloodbath started.
The forest covered a tiny mountain, and I made my way up to the top where I was awarded with a panoramic view of the city. I had already been given my instructions, but before I continued in to the city itself, I gave Dirk a call on my satellite phone.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m in the forest at the southern end, and I’m about to enter the city itself.”
“That’s good Mike. I want you to start moving immediately. Our sources tell us that the Russians are about to surround the place, making it impossible for anyone to get in or out. Give me another call when yo
u’re set up in the city. That’s all for now. Good luck buddy.”
I told him that I would, placed the phone in my backpack and began walking again. I should be able to make it into the city centre within a couple of hours.
There were people out and about on the streets, but I recognised the tension immediately. The feeling that something very bad was about to happen. Several towns and cities in the country had been attacked since the Russians invaded in early December, and I got the distinct impression that the inhabitants felt that it was their turn next. There were fighter jets flying overhead, and in the distance I could hear explosions and gunfire. There were also Chechen soldiers in the city itself firing at the planes flying overhead.
I should probably tell you a little bit about my cover, which was the only reason I was able to move around freely in the city. It was a joint decision made by myself and Dirk, and to be truthful it was really the only cover available to me. It was also the only cover that would explain why I was running around with a camera, filming all the fighting that took place there during my stay in the city. I was pretending to be a freelance journalist for the BBC, specialising in reporting from conflict zones all over the world. Everything had been thought of, and I had all the official looking documentation to back up the story. And the disguise worked perfectly, and it did in fact save me from being set upon by Chechen paramilitaries on numerous occasions. Even soldiers fighting in a bloody battle find the thought of their actions being eternalised on tape flattering.
The first two nights I spent in a hotel in the city centre. Most of the foreign journalists in town stayed there, but I avoided them as best as I could. There was no need to blow my cover, which would have happened if I started socialising with them. I got up early and spent the days walking around in the various neighbourhoods of the city, observing the eerie feeling that permeated everything. That however changed on New Year’s Eve. That’s when all hell broke loose.
Fear Incorporated Page 3