Unsung warrior box set, p.57
Unsung Warrior Box Set, page 57
part #1 of Unsung Warrior Series
“It was all new, back then, and I believe the Serbs had been setting the place up as a forward base in advance of the war. That Slobodan Milosevic was a sly dog. The Serbian president played the West like a card shark whenever he could get a military advantage out of it, and this air base is the sort of trick he would pull.
“We couldn’t let a forward base like that stand, but when the KLA rolled in to destroy it we didn’t find anything except the civilian population. Work must have stopped while the construction crews were needed somewhere else. Then we discovered the civilian population was no more than Serb refugees from the war. They were living in the prefab huts they’d stumbled upon, and the dozen houses scattered nearby.”
Maric listened in silence. This information was a start. Then he told Shehu about Behar Sallaku and Mirjana Horvat, Marko’s sister and her man, and the way they seemed to have disappeared without a trace.
“There should be cell phone coverage at Boluka,” said Maric, “according to the intel I pulled out of the Kosovo government’s data base, but I haven’t been able to talk to anyone who works in the area. All we get when we try Mirjana’s cell phone number is an ‘out of area or switched off’ response.”
That was one of the reason’s Maric had taken the case. Marko was never out of touch with his sister. They were all that was left of their family after the wars in the Balkans. Behar had a bit of a wild side, but he checked in with his family occasionally, and he was an electrician, so he always had work. He seemed to be proud of his new woman, and there was a child on the way. It seemed strange there had been no word from him either.
“You came to Kosovo to look for two civilians?” said Shehu, his bushy eyebrows rising alarmingly. The question was clear. Elite forces didn’t have anything else to do these days?
“We look after our own,” said Maric firmly. He hesitated, then decided to speak. “As I said earlier, no one knows I’m here. The special forces connection is the woman’s brother.
“Which I can’t give you any information about,” he continued, as Shehu went to open his mouth. It was standard practice for all special forces to remain incognito as much as possible, wearing a balaclava or other form of disguise if they were in the public eye. That way a terrorist group couldn’t track down a soldier’s off duty place of residence, or next of kin.
Shehu called in the two men by the front door, and a discussion began in earnest. Maric listened to the Albanian bouncing back and forth with some intensity. His words must have touched the men, perhaps the desire to help a family rather than act from some political agenda.
Eventually Shehu sent the two men back to the front door, and the others went back to watching the approaches to the farmhouse again.
“This is what we think happened,” said Shehu diffidently.
“At the best it’s informed guesswork, at the worst it tells you about our overactive imaginations after the wars.” He looked across the table, and Maric nodded encouragingly.
“Those hangars and those huts are still there, at the end of a dead-end road, so they’d make a great base for someone up to no good. The north part of Kosovo gets little in the way of policing, because there are too many tensions between the Serbs and Albanians who remain in the area. There are no judges and no courts here, so justice has reverted to a, how shall we say, rather feudal form.
“The Serbian army stays on the other side of the 5km demilitarized zone at their border, and the recently created Kosovo army is small and stays out of the north as well.”
“In other words it’s a great place to move drugs, guns or slaves in from the rest of the world, before trafficking them through EU borders,” said Maric.
Shehu nodded. “Boluka was abandoned the last I heard,” continued the commander, “so if someone has taken it over then a lot of things would need bringing up to a minimum standard.
“They might have bought a building with three-phase power in Trevaske, or tapped into the lines around the village illegally. Once they’d done that it wouldn’t be hard to use existing power lines to feed power through to the old air base.”
“Which is why they would need Behar, the electrician,” said Maric, as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.
“And a lot of others like him,” said Shehu. “Some trades people, but also a group of workers who would put in long days and keep their mouths shut.”
“Why would Behar have bought into this?” said Maric. “He was about to be a family man.”
Shehu looked at him like he was naive.
“Trapping people into slavery is far too common around here,” he said grimly. “Take away the rule of law, and some disgusting people rise to the top of the food chain. I think Behar’s new family responsibilities led him into this.”
“He saw an ad for an electrician,” said Maric, as he caught on, “somewhere respectable, and thought it was a Godsend. Housing provided I bet. Then there was extra money if he took a more isolated jobs inland, and that seemed okay.
“Somewhere in the contract there would have been a confidentiality clause, which didn’t bother him too much. But it only took a few months before it was clear his family were hostage to him keeping his mouth shut and carrying on. Goddamn, that is a nasty way of taking advantage of human nature!”
“Cell phone coverage is good through the north,” said Shehu, “rebuilt after the war. And cell phone coverage would have been part of Behar’s initial contract. But once a tower goes down in the middle of nowhere, and an armed gang scares the repair crew away, Kosovo Telecoms would put it in the too hard basket.”
“And that’s when the workforce notices there are a lot of heavies around the village now,” said Maric, “with guns, and the trap is complete.”
“Just saying this is possible,” said Shehu. “Trying to give you something to go on, that’s all.”
Maric reached a long arm over the table and patted the old battalion commander on the shoulder. “And you have, my friend. Local knowledge is always the best knowledge. I’ll change this picture around as I find out more.”
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” said Shehu, with Maric joining in toward the end of the old saying. Both men chuckled.
Maric now had a place to start, and an understanding of what he was probably up against. It was decided that one of Shehu’s men would take him by back roads to Revatske, and then he was on his own.
He wouldn’t contact Juric and his two friends just yet, because he didn’t have enough intel to make any firm decisions. But he hoped the men were getting into superb shape, and Yukovic was fixing the gaps in their training.
He had a feeling he was going to need a lot of support on this one.
CHAPTER 10
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In the end it was Stanley who drove Maric to Revatske. The place was spread out, like most of the villages, and didn’t have a center. There were no shops, and no food outlets.
Maric was in old farming clothes now, rustled up by Shehu and possibly belonging to his son. The son must have been tall. Maric’s military equipment was stored in two old suitcases in the back of the van. Inquisitive eyes would have found nothing out of the ordinary about the van, or its occupants.
The short drive from Drin on the main road to the turn off to Revatske had been on tar seal, but the rest of the trip had been on bumpy, unrelenting gravel roads. Maric had noticed a village half the size of Revatske, back on the tar seal before they turned off, that had some shops. That made sense. It was a place that had some through traffic.
The van crossed the river Iber soon after it turned off the main road, and had instantly been transported back a hundred years. Maric saw the evidence of old world farming methods all about him. He kind of liked it.
Shehu turned back toward the Iber after Maric had seen Revatske, and bumped down a dirt road that turned off just before the bridge. It led to a slightly better cross road, and that took them past the road that had once led to Boluka. It was emphatically blocked off, with large signs declaring that road works were in progress.
Backing up the claim was a very large truck, and a bulldozer, both parked on the side of the road further in. They looked uncared for, and to Maric’s eyes hadn’t been driven in months. Of more concern was the shack at the side of the road, and the booth in front of it.
Someone was reading what looked like a magazine behind the glass front of the booth, and Shehu idled the van steadily past the end of the road without drawing attention to the vehicle. So, thought Maric, a permanently manned presence on the only way in. Someone really didn’t want people to visit Boluka.
Bodies required effort to get rid of, and people started asking questions about sudden disappearances. It was better to stop the problem before it began. It looked like Maric was in the right area for a clandestine operation.
Shehu continued down the cross road, and circled around through other roads to take them back to Revatske. He turned and looked at Maric as they approached the village for the second time, and lifted his bushy eyebrows. Where did Maric want to be let off?
“Coming in toward the road works, but from the opposite side this time,” said Maric. “If that’s okay.”
Shehu grimaced, more from finding a spot to turn around than anything Maric had said. He wrestled the van through the 180 and headed back the way they’d come. When they were a klick short of the road work signs, Maric had Shehu deposit him on the side of the road. There was no one around, and he donned his military attire quickly. Once he was fully suited up, he left the suitcases behind.
“There’s a long slope here that will take me to the ridge running along this side of Boluka,” he said, looking at a survey map on his cell phone. There was still service here, but he would bet anything it vanished as soon as he dropped over the ridge toward the village. He had a detailed paper version of the area as a back up to his cell.
Shehu reached out of the van window and shook Maric’s hand.
“Sorry we couldn’t be of more help,” he said, referring to himself and the men left from his old battalion. Maric gave his head a quick shake and smiled. The old commander had done enough. It was time for the next generation of warriors to try and put the world to rights. Then he was gone.
Maric jogged into the trees, and slowed to a steady climb when he was out of sight. His research on the area proved to be accurate. The trees were mostly oak and beech. There was deer sign in the occasional clearing, and he kept an eye out for bear and pigs. Generally animals left him alone in the wild. They sensed he was as much part of the surroundings as they were.
The ground was still soft underfoot, but summer wasn’t far away. That was good. Maric had no idea how long the mission was going to take, and he didn’t want to be rushed by weather. Once he reached the top of the ridge he walked along it until he could see buildings in the valley. He was on the west side of the village, and he carefully noted the points of the compass and the position of the village in the valley. His internal map would take over from here.
Then he stopped for a break and a bite to eat, before he carried on along the ridge. At some stage he would make a complete circuit of the valley, staying inside the treeline, but he was soon drawn to an interesting feature of the landscape.
There was a track at the far end of the valley, though it was four-wheel drive only, and it was being regularly used. It didn’t take him long to cover the distance. Maric concealed his equipment in the undergrowth, and jogged through the forest beside it to see where it went.
After an hour of steady effort he found the far end. The track opened into the back of a farm, and then traveled down a long slope to a gate that opened onto another gravel road. The farm was overgrown, and looked deserted. The valley that followed the road in either direction looked similarly bereft of any recent attention. So, this was how the gang in the valley was getting people and goods in and out without drawing attention to them.
By the time Maric got back to the valley it was late afternoon. There was just time to finish a circuit of the area, staying up in the trees, before darkness descended. He had to hurry to collect his equipment and set up a camp. It was in a knot of ridges to the east of the valley.
There were no animal tracks, and no sign that people ever visited the area. It was overgrown with a vine that sprouted profusely from a broad base. It reminded Maric of the supplejack vine, a cane really, that made things difficult in the New Zealand forest. When he had finished setting up his base he was satisfied that his retreat was secure.
It was dark when he set up a gas cooker, well screened from the valley side, and heated his dinner. He reviewed what he’d learned so far as he ate. The huts and hangers were still there, and they were being used for something. The long strip that was going to be a runway was now several paddocks.
There were people coming and going, but not many, and he presumed most of the villagers were working inside the hangers. There were no armed patrols that he could see, but he’d already assumed the workers were held hostage by fear of losing their families.
Several overgrown stands of trees on the outskirts of the village made observation of foot traffic difficult, but they would be good cover if he went in to have a look around. There was a lot of spindly regrowth around the houses, suggesting they hadn’t been used for a long time. Someone had cleared away a number of areas though, and order was slowly being restored to the village.
Maric was about to finish his meal when he began to feel uneasy. He took a moment to work out where the threat was coming from. It was to his right, and a little behind him.
He put his plate down, and settled back against a tree trunk. That should tell the unknown presence that he or she had been spotted. When nothing happened for another minute, Maric thought he might hurry things along a bit.
"You can come out now," he said. "I know you’re there, and I'm unarmed." This was only partly true. He was within reach of several weapons, even though they couldn’t be seen, and there were two blades on his person. One he could reach at his belt, and the other was a small knife sewn into the tongue of his left boot, where it was almost impossible to detect.
“You stink of weapons," came a rough voice from the darkness. Maric figured this was probably true. Once a man had been in the wilderness for a while, and his jungle senses had kicked in, the smell of gun oil was an easy giveaway. Maric had cleaned his rifle and pistol once he’d set up his camp. It was a ritual that always made a new place feel like home.
The man had spoken awkwardly, and Maric guessed English was not his first language. But English was always a good bet as a second tongue everyone spoke.
Maric sighed, and stood up slowly. He took the knife from his belt and placed it on the ground. Then he took off his jacket and shirt, and then his pants, and walked over to the other side of the tiny gas light he had going. Normally he didn’t need it, but there was no moon tonight and a fair bit of cloud cover.
It was a bit over the top, but Maric was trying to make a connection with this guy. He didn't detect any malicious intent from the man, and he could use some local knowledge. There was a chuckle from the darkness.
"Not need all that," said the man, and walked forward into Maric’s little camp. The tall man put his clothes back on, and settled against the same tree trunk as before. He waved a hand around.
“Pick a spot," he said, and picked up his bowl so he could scrape the last of the food out of it.
"You eaten?" he said, and the man nodded.
"Speak Albanian?" said the man, and Maric shook his head. It didn't take long before they worked out that Zeph Domi, for that was the man's name, had a little English and a little Croatian. Unfortunately, there were no other languages in common.
“Why you watch village?” said the man, after a while. Maric managed to convey that he thought some of the workers were being held prisoner inside Boluka.
“Boluka?” said Domi. “That old name. From old time. How you learn?”
Maric didn’t want to give Stanley Shehu’s name, but he got across that he’d been speaking to some old soldiers from the war years.
“What are you doing in the area?” said Maric, but his companion didn’t seem to understand. “Why you come here,” he said next, and pointed to the ground, and then in the direction of the village.
“Hunting,” said Domi. “Not usual this far. Er, this much north. Good deer now, you see marks?”
Maric nodded. He had seen the plentiful deer sign.
“How you find me,” said Maric, and Domi smiled. “You run track, I follow. You come here.”
It made sense. Maric had been after speed, not caution, as he ran the 4WD track. Domi had picked him up then, and been curious.
“Men in village bad,” tried Maric. He was wondering what Domi knew about them.
Domi sneered. “They, they, ‘fif brigid’. Veer bad. Kill people here. Rip people here, in old times.” He waved his arms to encompass maybe the whole of Kosovo.
Maric wondered what the fifth brigade were, if that was the name. He’d read up on the history of the Balkan wars, and the Serbian army had four brigades, plus a special tasks group. There had been no mention of a fifth group. Domi’s intel was a help, but it was raising as many questions as it answered.
“Bad men sometimes chase you?” he hazarded, wondering if Domi feared the gang at Boluka. The hunter sneered again. “No problem. Too fat, too slow. Also, never look. Think are safe in vaaley.”
Too fat, and too slow? What sort of gang was this? Soldiers hiring themselves out as mercenaries kept in shape. Maybe they weren’t as hopeless as Domi was making them sound. If the hunter was spending weeks in the forest at a time, his senses would become far better than theirs. And he looked supremely fit.
The conversation petered out, more from the difficulty of finding the right words than anything else, and the hunter rose to go.
“Talk later?” said Maric, wanting to learn more. Domi shrugged. “Me think about. Learn to stay away from problems. Lose family. Fight and kill. Why?”
