by J E Higgins
Along the way, they bartered for more fuel and supplies. When they broke into materials meant for trade on the black market, Oleg protested. “Those would have brought a good price.”
“Which will count for nothing if you never reach your destination,” Sauwa pointed out.
“You may as well take food out of the mouths of our children,” Oleg whined, then whined again to Smolesk in Croatian.
Smolesk snorted and turned away. With no audience to listen, Oleg was left to mourn his loss of profit in silence.
When they reached the city of Ploce, a town of about ten thousand people, that sat on the Adriatic Sea, it felt as if they had once again gone back in time. The city lay just a few kilometers north of where the river fed into the sea. In the distance, the city presented a spectacular view. It was well preserved having seen little damage from the war that had been waged only two years before. Far from being the pinnacle of their journey, it represented the culture and heritage of Croatian society that the guerrillas took so much pride in.
“I have a cousin who lives here,” Oleg beamed, his bad mood discarded. “I want to track him down and see if he can arrange a better means of travel into Montenegro.”
“If you can, that would be great,” Sauwa replied. “I really wasn’t looking forward to attempting to move flat bottom boats down the coastline.” She had initially assumed the worst case would be to take the river boats out to sea but stay close to the shoreline. Even then, it would be a long shot for the boats to make it without confronting some other serious difficulty.
At the mouth of the river, they moored the boats.
“Stay here and guard the equipment,” Oleg ordered his men ─ the Croatian vocabulary familiar enough for Sauwa to understand.
He and Sauwa left for the city. To avoid scaring the locals or draw attention to themselves, they left their rifles behind. They tucked their pistols into their waistbands hidden under their over-sized shirts to distort any outlines the guns might have created.
Confident they looked nothing out of the ordinary, they trekked the short distance across an open field and around a couple of small rolling hills. Initially, Sauwa was apprehensive about coming with him; she couldn’t understand the language very well at all and looked nothing like a Croatian. She capitulated only after Oleg persisted stating she would be a benefit.
The journey through the town was a pleasant one. The villagers went about their daily affairs and paid no attention to them. It was as if they had no idea a genocidal war was raging just over the border. The town was small and compact, the buildings nuzzled tightly together. It was divided by the river fed by the sea that the guerrillas had used. On the other side were the residential homes and buildings with smatterings of small businesses. A marina full of boats lined the seaside. On the other side lay the large shipping port that accommodated the cargo ships entering their harbor every day.
The two strolled the narrow roadways viewing shops and stores full of merchandise and produce. It had been a long time since either of them had seen such a display, which was a stark change from the hard world they had just come from. Oleg addressed anyone who engaged them with a warm smile and friendly greeting which made it easy for Sauwa to be overlooked and dismissed.
They made their way through town, then strolled down a row of apartment buildings a block from the marina with spectacular views of the sea.
“This is it,” Oleg said in front of the fourth building along the tidy lane.
The entrance opened to a long, dark hallway running the length of the building with doors lining both sides. Two steps into the hall, a figure emerged and slowly walked into the light. Oleg’s eyes widened as he recognized the figure and suddenly leaped toward the man throwing his arms around him in a friendly embrace. When Oleg released him, the tall, lanky man leaned against the wall as they traded greetings. This must be the cousin. The stringy man was in a pair of grey sweat bottoms and a flimsy, white buttoned shirt covering his malnourished frame.
Sauwa looked down the hall confirming the cousin was alone.
“Sauwa, meet Victor,” Oleg switched to English, his cheeks flushed from the exuberant exchange.
Victor, maintaining his grin, waved the two guerrillas further inside the building. Oleg followed behind without hesitation, while Sauwa fell in last, pulse raised, guarded. She fingered her pistol and darted her eyes from side to side ready for any signs of a trap.
They walked a short distance down a small, dimly lit hallway then up a narrow flight of stairs. The two men spoke continuously. Trying to get a feel for what was happening, Sauwa listened. All around her were the sounds of other tenants echoing from behind the doors.
It wasn’t just her survival instincts that made her uneasy about this meeting. She didn’t like the setup. It was strange that, with no prior warning, this cousin should be so conveniently there to meet them, especially given he lived on the top floor.
Along the way, other tenants appeared in doorways and in the stairwell. They cringed and backed away at the sight of Victor.
She had seen this condition many times in her past dealings with the black market. The countries may be different but the setup was usually the same. And, like those other times, everything about the situation told Sauwa to be leery.
Oleg paid no attention as he happily carried on with his cousin.
Reaching the top floor, Victor led them to the far end of the hallway, dove his hand into his pocket, produced a key, and unlocked the door. Sauwa followed the men inside, remaining alert and cautious, and keeping her distance.
Neither man seemed to notice her behavior.
The room looked like a prison cell with drab, grey concrete walls and a poorly carpeted floor. It was decorated with mismatched western furnishings that looked both expensive and gaudy against the dreary eastern bloc, communist construction.
Sauwa strolled to one corner of the living room, a position where she had a full view of all entry points and windows. She leaned casually against a solid wall so no one could sneak up behind her.
The men plopped down on the plush, Italian sofa and continued conversing, oblivious to everything else.
Neither man noticed her reaching under her shirt to slip her pistol into her hand and proceed to move it behind her back. The room was small enough she would have little time to react should a threat present itself. She wanted to limit the number of obstructions between her and her weapon should it be needed.
Changing positions, she found a more advantageous spot in another corner near the windows. From there, she was able to view the area outside.
The room, the furnishings, the reactions of the tenants ─ as she took in details, a picture came together, and Sauwa’s hand on her pistol began to relax.
Victor was a smuggler, possibly more, but a breed of man with whom she was familiar. She had crossed paths with many criminal types of all shapes and sizes ─ an image of the charming Banker, from her job in Dublin, sprang to mind ─ and she knew what motivated them, knew how to deal with them.
While Banker had mixed a bit of style into his nefarious dealings, Victor oozed. More importantly, from everything she saw in the room, discretion was not something he practiced. He would be someone known to the authorities. If that were the case, she worried their arrival at this place would have piqued the interest of the local gendarmes.
She peered outside again—careful to stay out of view—and scoped out the surroundings below. If the police were keeping an eye on Victor and had an interest in his associations, they would likely have some sort of visual surveillance.
The small plaza across the street, wedged between two grey concrete buildings, offered no good places for a long-term surveillance mission. Sauwa’s next concern was the pedestrians walking below. She directed her focus on anyone who stopped for any period of time, or who took up a position where, if they looked up at Victor’s apartment windows, might be able to see anything. No one looked to be taking an interest in Victor.
&nbs
p; The conversation concluded with the cousins embracing each other warmly. Victor led his cousin and Sauwa to the door. They said their goodbyes one more time before Oleg nodded his head toward the hallway, beckoning Sauwa to follow him. She did so, sliding her pistol under her flannel shirt to conceal it. She turned to Victor, smiled and kept walking backward keeping her eyes on him until she was out in the hall and the door had shut leaving her alone with Oleg.
Oleg jaunted down the stairs, exuberant. Sauwa managed to keep pace as she stuffed her weapon back into her belt and pulled her shirt back over it.
Outside, Oleg was all smiles. “I knew my cousin could help us,” he stated triumphantly. “He has a boat that can accommodate our load and carry all of us. He is familiar with the place we need to go and has the means of reaching out to the people Marko wants us to get in touch with. This will make it easier for us since we won’t have to be alone in a foreign place trying to deal with all this business.”
From what she had seen, Victor had the ability to make grand promises. The man was clearly an operator. Whether he cared for any cause not involving a profit was doubtful.
She had not been privy to the discussion and was not in the mood to place her trust in a sleazy stranger based solely on a blood tie. On the other hand, in light of their limited options, she had to admit they wouldn’t be much better off if they chose to undertake the mission alone. With boats ill-suited for coastal waters, going to a place none of them knew, and dealing in a world they were not versed in, Victor presented a possible solution, for better or worse.
Sauwa and Oleg made their way back to the boats, circumnavigating the village, zig-zagging their line of travel over the hills and fields and setting in among shrubbery in a modified hasty ambush to see if they were being followed.
When they arrived back at the boats, they found the rest of team lazing about oblivious to the world. No one had even noticed their approach until Sauwa and Oleg were upon them.
Oleg ─ arms waving, chest puffed out ─ recounted the results of the expedition to the group amidst whoops and cheers.
Sauwa took a seat on the grass and watched the small celebration. For them, it was an achievement: medical supplies and much-needed material for their people back home. For her, it was nearing the end of one life and once again entering a world of uncertainty.
26
Evening was approaching when the boats once more were launched into the last leg of the river and made their way out to sea. As if he were a general leading his men in battle, Oleg was at the front of the boat propped up on one knee peering at the water ahead. In the distance to the north, the lights from Ploce harbor winked over the guarding hills. The waves of the sea belted the sides of the boats spraying the hapless occupants.
Flashlights guided their way. Though the water was not rough, it was choppy, causing the boats to separate from one another. Using the oars, the guerrillas worked to stay together, so the boats would not get lost or go unspotted by Oleg’s contact.
She had asked Oleg what he knew of the Croatian coastal security in this area. Given they were emerging from the mouth of a river that ran through most of Bosnia and lower Croatia, she assumed this area would receive some degree of attention from the authorities.
Oleg brushed her off. Victor had assured him local law enforcement was an inconsequential threat. She didn’t think Victor was the best intelligence source, but she had learned ─ while with the CCB ─ you often had to work with the resources available to you. For the guerrillas, Victor’s connections were it.
That didn’t stop her from scanning for security patrols.
They had been out in open water less than a half hour when they saw a circle of lights from a boat some distance away. Oleg picked up one of the larger flashlights and flicked it on and off in the direction of the vessel. At first, it looked as if the boat had missed them or was not inclined to acknowledge them. Then a larger light flashed brightly in their direction. Soon the vessel was moving their way.
Sauwa clutched her rifle. It was too soon to be sure who they had just contacted, and she prepared for a possible gun battle. Within a few meters, the boat became more visible. It was a fair sized, ocean-going commercial fishing boat.
She could hear Smolesk heave a sigh of relief. Apparently, Sauwa was not the only one fearful of this unknown engagement.
The fishing boat pulled up closer. A man stood against the railing of the bow holding an electrical bullhorn, his voice booming. The excited looks of her two comrades suggested there was no longer any doubt who they were dealing with.
Oleg cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back a reply over the noise of the fishing boat’s engine and the lapping waves. It must have been adequate because it garnered a response from the man with the bullhorn. The larger fishing boat moved up tight against them and cut the engine.
With Oleg playing diplomat, Victor skillfully directed the operation of shifting both people and equipment from the humble flat-bottoms to the more formidable sea craft. The two smaller boats were tied to the railing. Given the efficiency, this was not Victor’s first expedition of this sort. Once all the equipment was loaded and the guerrillas on the fishing boat accounted for, Victor gave an order to the crewman steering. The engine of the large craft roared to life, and they were moving again.
The fishing boat crew cracked open ice boxes and offered the guerrillas bottles of beer. The guerrillas grabbed the bottles and drank gratefully. Sauwa remained back taking a spot in the corner. For her, it was far too early to begin celebrating.
The various men comprising the crew appeared to be no different than their employer. Rough and sordid. She fingered the outline of her pistol through the fabric of her shirt as she scanned the rest of the ship. The pistol would be easier to get to than her AK-47 rifle strapped behind her back.
They might be professional pirates, but their skills as combat operators were amateurish. The men in Victor’s employ revealed assorted tell-tale signs about their lack of tactical prowess. One of the men who passed by her had a revolver tucked in a side pocket in his coat. It was visible even in the limited light. As deep as it was buried in the twisty cloth, it would have been impossible to pull out quickly in a critical situation. Likewise, the knife he carried in his belt was a long, serrated model that would have proven equally cumbersome to pull quickly. It was a K-Bar tactical knife that looked more impressive as a combat instrument than it actually was. The man was obviously more show than practical knowledge judging from his arsenal and the way he chose to position it on his body.
Other men mulling around carried themselves in a similar fashion. They were probably criminals, but men with any sort of viable military background they were not. Hopefully, if things did go badly, she could exploit this weakness.
An hour later the door leading to the hull cracked open. Victor emerged, followed by Oleg, who looked haggard. Oleg was breathing hard and appeared to be in a cold sweat.
Sauwa was about to confront him when she saw Victor take his cousin by the shoulders and speak sharply. Oleg nodded at first. Eventually, he took Victor by the forearm, looked at him with a penetrating glare and spoke firmly in return. Victor responded with an abrupt nod before patting his cousin on the shoulder and walking away.
Seizing the moment, Sauwa walked over to her comrade. “Everything okay?”
Oleg looked out onto the water with a thousand-yard stare. “Victor just informed me that he received news that NATO has begun landing their forces in Bosnia. According to him, they have begun seizing the border to control crossings. It looks like we just barely made it out.” He accepted a beer from a passing crew member and took a long pull.
Sauwa felt a cold chill shoot down her spine. If what Oleg said was true, she had just barely escaped capture.
For a time, he stayed quiet, focused on the waves. When he spoke again, his voice contained a tremor. “My cousin says it’s just more death in a life built for death, and I should not let things affect me so much.”
Another drink. He slumped over the railing, his breath wheezing out of him. “War takes everything, doesn’t it? What it doesn’t destroy, it corrupts. And, now it has taken my country with foreign invaders.”
He smiled bitterly and finished the bottle. He reached over and took her by the arm. In the inadequate light, Sauwa thought she saw the glisten of a tear in the corner of one eye. “You’re a good friend,” he said, “and a valuable ally.” He released her arm and walked off, disappearing down the man-way.
Sauwa returned to the corner to watch and think, but not too much. Oleg’s words threatened to call up her own demons, but she couldn’t think about that now. Oleg had told her NATO had landed and was moving to assert control. It wouldn’t be long until they were sending intelligence missions over the border to stem arms trafficking and search for those identified as war criminals. The longer she stayed in the region the more dangerous it became.
A crew member ambled over and dangled a beer in her face. He yammered away in Croatian striking a macho pose to impress her. Sauwa blinked, unresponsive. When the crewman got no encouragement, he wandered off.
Smolesk came and sat beside her. He smiled at her through his bushy mustache and shooed away the next drunk male trying his luck. Thankful, she allowed her head to lean against Smolesk’s burly shoulder. They sat together, saying nothing, long into the night.
The next morning Sauwa awoke with a slightly groggy head. It was punishment for not getting a full night’s sleep.
Sliding from the thin mattress on the metal framed bed, she nearly fell over trying to balance in the lurching boat. She collected her Bergen and slipped her flannel shirt over her cold shoulders. She patted her waist to feel her pistol, then walked by the long row of double-decked beds. Everyone was fast asleep.