by Jack July
Cody tracked and reported the movements of the 1500-strong Drina Corp as they raped, murdered and pillaged their way into Srebrenica. He requested help, but his handlers told him the Dutch UN troops would protect the refugees. The refugees, twenty-five thousand of them, tried running for the town of Potocari, where the Dutch UN base was located.
The Dutch fired a few token warning shots and sent up a few flares, but the Serbs ignored them. Instead, they unloaded bulldozers and began digging large holes on the outskirts of town. Mass graves, as it turned out. Cody was horrified as he helplessly watched the savage murders of men, women and children, the open, public rapes of women and young girls, sometimes very young. Men of all ages were executed en masse; the bulldozers pushed their bodies into the holes and covered them with dirt, then dug new holes nearby.
The Dutch UN troops did nothing. They stood and watched.
Cody pegged his satellite radio over and over, describing what was happening and begging for help. Eventually his contacts got tired of listening to him and simply stopped replying. Cody found his breaking point that day. He picked up his pack, turned around and ran, not away from an enemy but from the explosions, the gunshots, the screams and the horror.
He ran for what seemed like hours, until he collapsed in a small meadow. He sat and sobbed. The visions in his head could not be outrun. They would not leave. After some time, he realized that off in the distance, beyond the trees, a small plume of smoke was rising. Deciding anything was better than suffering alone, he crept up to investigate. It was a young Bosnian man, little more than a boy, cooking a rabbit over a small fire. He was humming. At his side lay a vintage WWI bolt-action rifle. It was an antique piece, but it looked oiled and clean.
Cody stepped into the clearing. The boy reached for his rifle, eyes wide. Cody raised his hands. “Friend. American friend.”
The boy’s face lit up in a huge smile. In English, he said, “American? The Americans are here! They have come to save us!”
Cody frowned and shook his head and said, “No, I’m sorry, it’s just me.”
The boy’s eyes grew even wider. “Then you are Rambo, just like Rambo, we fight.” He reached for his rifle and said again, “We fight, we will kill the Serbs.”
Cody sighed and shook his head. He tried speaking to the boy with the Croatian and Serbian dialects and pidgins he’d picked up. He took a shot with French as well. Ultimately, he tried sticking with a dialect as close to the boy’s language as he could remember while the boy tried to speak English.
“I’m no Rambo. Rambo is a movie. It is not real, do you understand?”
“One American same as 50 Serbs!” He raised his hands over his head, miming Rocky’s championship cheer.
“No, it’s not true,” said Cody, shaking his head.
At last, he managed to convince the boy he was no superhero. They sat on a downed tree and the boy offered him a rabbit leg. He took it. “What’s your name, son?”
The boy stood up proudly. “Cabri, Juka Cabri.” He held out his hand.
Cody shook his hand. “Cody Harrick, peace to you.”
“Peace to you,” replied the boy.
“Where is your family?”
“Dead.” Juka scowled, possibly to avoid crying.
“All of them?” asked Cody sympathetically.
“Yes,” replied Juka. “I am last Cabri, last of my family.”
They sat stripping the meat from the rabbit. Juka sucked the marrow from the bones. It was clear he didn’t eat often enough. Cody decided to get him out of there. He had contacts just past the Balkan battlegrounds to the west, where pitched battles were raging during Operation Summer. It would be tricky, but he figured he could get the two of them through. He told Juka to pack, he would take him to freedom.
Juka refused. Cody all but begged him. He knew better than most the strength and size of the Drina Corp, not to mention the death squads that roamed the countryside. The kid wouldn’t last long. Finally Cody snapped. “Look, you’re coming with me. You’re not going to die here alone.”
Juka smiled. “I’m not alone. You need soldiers, I get them for you. Wait here, wait here.” He picked up his rifle and ran into the woods on the other side of the clearing.
Watching him go, Cody sighed, then retrieved his radio. It was time to call his handlers anyway. They demanded a new report. “It got hot. I extracted myself.”
“Boss says get back in. He needs to know what’s going on.”
“Roger that.” Cody clicked off.
Off in the distance, he heard the sounds of war like distant thunder. He couldn’t watch anymore. He thought about quitting, just going home. Part of him wanted to help, but how? He knew a little about small unit tactics and guerrilla warfare, but he had never actually killed anyone. He never even came close. He felt his eyes drooping. It had been a long day. Maybe he’d just decide in the morning. He propped himself up against a tree and nodded off.
A few hours later, he was awakened by a stick poking him in the chest. Juka stood grinning down at him, backed by a dozen or so young men and boys. All were armed with firearms even older than Juka’s rifle, or with some sort of knife or sharp farm implement. A man in his late twenties squatted in front of Cody and said, “I am Farid, Farid Ganic.” He spoke perfect English with a hint of an American Southern accent.
Cody stood up and looked at each of them. Little more than boys, he thought. “Farid, is it?” Cody asked.
“Yes,” replied Farid.
“Where did you learn English?”
“The University in Srebrenica, then North Carolina. I attended Duke University Medical School,” Farid said proudly.
Cody was impressed. This might be useful. “Are you a doctor?”
“No. I left before I finished school. I came back to help.”
He looked at each one again and shook his head. Cody was not one to go against fate. “Okay, I’ll help. Farid, make sure they understand. They must listen to me and do exactly what I say. I think I have an idea for how we can help the Bosnian Army.” Silently, he prayed, God, please don’t let me get these kids killed.
They packed up and walked west toward Serbia for a day and a half, picking up more refugees here and there. They found a secluded place for a semi-permanent camp, and then Cody began teaching them rudimentary small unit tactics and the basics of guerrilla warfare. They listened, then worked hard; he could not ask for more dedicated soldiers.
Late in the evenings, Cody spoke about how uncontrolled emotions like rage and vengeance would defeat them. They needed to be controlled and disciplined, look out for each other, and stick to the mission and the plans they would carefully lay out. Three weeks later, they found their first target.
Their ultimate goal was to disrupt supply lines in any way they could. That required weapons, ammunition and warm clothing; it was nearly fall and already a chill was in the air. They also needed as much food and clean water as they could carry. And they needed to start small.
The target they found fit the bill: two utility cross-country military vehicles, basically SUVs; eight soldiers, two of them officers. Juka stood to the side of the road and flagged them down. They nearly drove past. Juka, in desperation, grabbed a rock and threw it, smashing the windshield. That got their attention, but Juka had been chosen because he was fast. He did a one-eighty and darted into the woods, two soldiers in hot pursuit.
With the vehicles stopped and their drivers distracted, Cody’s plan worked perfectly. The Serbs had the weaponry advantage, but they weren’t particularly disciplined. He stepped out, pointing his sidearm at the officer in charge. Nearby, his men appeared out of the woods, surrounding the vehicles. They outnumbered the Serbs by nearly three to one; the Serbs surrendered in seconds. While the Bosnians secured the vehicles and weapons, Juka returned with the soldiers that had chased him and three of his men who were caught in Juka’s t
rap.
The officers seemed more annoyed than afraid. Apparently they assumed this was just a routine bandit hit along a normally secure route. The young Bosnians treated them like animals. They ordered the soldiers to strip, then took their clothes and boots along with weapons and ammunition. The humiliated Serbians threatened them, told them they were dead. The young Bosnians ignored it and continued scavenging. At last, the vehicles and prisoners had been stripped of anything the guerrillas might need, and the mood changed. Farid lined the soldiers up along the road over a ditch, hands over their heads. Cody nodded to Farid, who motioned to the others. The Bosnians lined up in front of the Serbs and raised their rifles. Some of the Serbs started whimpering; one of the officers sank to his knees. Farid gave the command to fire.
Before the bodies hit the ground, a cheer went up. Cody yelled. “NO!” When the young men turned to look, he said it again. “NO!”
Cody stalked over to the row of dead bodies and pointed. “YOU CELEBRATE THIS?! YOU CELEBRATE DEATH?! IS THIS WHO YOU ARE?!”
He paused so Farid could translate, though he was confident the Bosnians got it just through his tone. “I saw the Serbs laugh as they raped, tortured and murdered your people. Is that you? IS THAT ALL YOU ARE NOW?” He glared at each of them in turn.
“Each of these soldiers had a family, just like yours. Each wanted to live, just like you do. This is war. It’s not revenge. It’s not murder. It’s war. There is no joy in war. Someday you may celebrate your success in battle, but I will not tolerate you celebrating death!”
He looked at each of them once again, searching for shame, searching for humanity. Soon he glimpsed it here and there. Good, he thought. “Do you think God is pleased with you? Do you? He may forgive you, but make no mistake--he is not pleased! Pray for forgiveness. Then pray for his hand to help free your nation!”
Cody looked at Farid and could see a little smile. He knew he had made his point. He motioned at the dead again. “You are better than them. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be here to help you. Now let’s go.”
Truth be told, Cody didn’t really care how they dealt with the Serbs. He would not have minded a little torture on his own part after what he’d seen. But his goal, his larger purpose, was to instill discipline. Soldiers who could not discipline themselves in war were useless.
Cody was uninterested in creating more monsters, which allowing atrocities would certainly do. He prayed he could return these young men to the world someday. He prayed for them to have a life after the Serbs were defeated. Over the weeks, he had grown fond of them. Cody would give them the opportunity to fight, the opportunity to be successful, and then, God willing, he would get them out of there.
Months later, the group had nearly tripled to 35 well-equipped, skilled fighting men who had easily taken down several small convoys. Cody abandoned his satellite phone, chucking it in a pond. He figured they would write him off for dead, and he had no plans to return before he finished anyway. His guerrillas began to get a reputation among the Serbs, who called them the Ghosts.
Very few Serbs survived their attacks. However, there are always mistakes. The few who lived and made it back to their bases whispered about a seven-foot-tall American giant and his horde of Bosnian murderers.
NATO and American intelligence also heard about them. Most analysts dismissed it as folklore or perhaps a few Bosnian rebels successfully getting a bit of revenge, at first.
The Ghosts ambushed their first Serbian death squad, then found another when they went out hunting. This did not surprise Cody. He knew it was only a matter of time before it happened. Meanwhile, he kept them on the move.
He went in the opposite direction of common sense: farther behind the lines, closer to Serbia. He never camped in one place for more than two days. The young Bosnians were growing rugged, stronger, smarter, disciplined and more deadly. One day, they laid a trap for a convoy just on the other side of a bridge, then blew up the bridge to prevent both escape and reinforcements. This attack bagged two TAM150 troop trucks, a Pinzgauer all-terrain vehicle and two black four-door sedans with flags adorning the fenders. Russian flags. The Serbs did not go down easily.
Juka got to play with his favorite toys: M-80 Zolja shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons. The missiles hit the three trucks, disabling them and scattering the wounded troops. The injured Serbs were like turtles without shells. Four Zastava M84 machine guns chattered cutting most of the troops to pieces. The rest of the troops surrendered.
But the Russians would not leave their vehicles. One of the Ghosts pointed an antitank rocket at the lead car. Cody ordered, in Russian that they get out. One man stepped out of the back seat, waving his ID. He smiled with just a hint of sneer and, in Russian, yelled, “Diplomatic immunity!”
Cody nodded. Juka pulled his pistol, aimed it and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed cleanly through the ID before it slammed into the KGB agent’s forehead. That convinced the others that it was time to listen. Cody ordered them lined up and stripped.
So what, he wondered, were the Russians doing here? The men opened the trunk. It was filled with cases and bags marked with the Russian embassy seal-- diplomatic pouches. Cody shrugged. “Open them.” He smiled at the Russians, who looked outraged.
The containers were packed full of American cash and gold bars. Cody smiled at the discovery. Seems the Russians were selling weapons to the Serbs.
Then Cody figured out who he had. The short, fat fellow was Andrey Sergov, the Russian ambassador to Serbia. The others were his assistant and four KGB agents, all stripped to their underwear. Cody had seen the ambassador and at least one of the agents back in Srebrenica, though from a good distance.
The ambassador started by angrily demanding his release. Then he tried bargaining, crying, and finally begging.
In the eyes of Cody and his men, by selling weapons to the Serbs, the Russians might as well have been Serbs. They were all executed.
Assassinating an ambassador, unfortunately, is an act of war. Cody knew that. He also knew that it would take both sides to stop the war. Maybe a little superpower conflict could help bring the whole Serbian-Bosnian mess to a conclusion. At this point, he didn’t really care what that conclusion was, as long as the killing stopped.
But that didn’t happen. Harsh words and threats were exchanged between Moscow and Washington. American intelligence agencies focused more on the Ghosts, figuring out pretty quickly who the seven-foot giant was and what he was doing.
Of course, that’s what they focused on: a rogue agent. The skirt-chasing serial liar of a President didn’t ask the right questions, like why the hell the Russians were there in the first place. He didn’t want to know. It would have forced action he was not prepared to commit to. Instead, he spent his time fighting off multiple accusations of rape and assault from women in his past. And he ordered Cody killed.
Cody could feel it when the hunt started. He did not know that KGB and CIA hit squads had both joined the fray. Teams of American special ops soldiers were scattered everywhere; Cody spent one morning watching them from a mountainside. They were closing in. So he called his men together.
The Ghosts, he said, were done. He was proud of them and they should be proud of themselves. They had done much to help the Bosnians, slowing the Serbs and cutting off at least one source of arms. But now it was time for his guerrillas to live their lives, raise families and honor their family names. He split up the Russian loot among his men and watched several little groups shoulder arms and scatter.
He planned to head toward the sea, find a boat, something. He had to get the others out. Before they could leave, one of Cody’s point men returned in a hurry. A Serb unit had attacked and murdered a carload of Bosnian men. The lone Bosnian woman left was desperately trying to escape. His scout couldn’t reach them himself, but they were close enough that they might be able to save the woman.
The Ghosts knew what to do. T
hree snipers were ready, and a few others came along. At the top of a rise, Cody watched the four Serbs surround the woman, playing a deadly version of Blind Man’s Bluff. The woman fought back like a lioness, more than once drawing blood. They laughed each time, taunting both the woman and their injured comrade, until suddenly, like wolves on a hunt, they tired of playing with their prey and closed in for the kill.
One man pulled his pistol and shot her in the leg. She went down. Another jumped on top of her, tearing at her clothes. That was it. Cody signaled to his best sniper to take the shot. From 150 yards, the soldier’s head disappeared in a pink mist. The attack was so fast the Serbs had no chance to respond. It was over in seconds.
While the men scavenged for supplies, Cody and Farid checked on the woman. She attempted to tear off a sleeve to wrap up her wound. Farid said in Bosnian, “Let me look at that.”
She took a swing at him, growling in English, “Get the fuck away from me.”
Cody gave her a warm smile. “That’s quite a potty mouth you got there. I don’t believe you’re any more Bosnian than I am. Do ya wanna tell me who you are?”
“Officer Harrick, I assume?” she asked. “I am Officer Tatiana Aziz, and I am here to kill you.”
Cody smiled. “So how’s that working out for ya?”