Casca 44: Balkan Mercenary Read online

  “Could be useful interrogating prisoners,” Lonjic suggested. “I’m willing to bet he’s had experience of that.”

  “Yeah, rubber truncheons and Pentothal. Got any of that here?”

  “One, yes. The other, no. Then there’s de Klerk. Seems a sound type. Reliable.”

  “Hmm, maybe, like Linderroth. That Swede looks capable of handling most of what comes his way.”

  “And what of Mendez or Knai? Both with experience, in very different theaters. All pretty good, according to their reputations.”

  Godan shrugged. “Yeah but with their own issues which could get in the way of the job. What if Mendez comes across British prisoners, or Knai finds out one of the group does drug dealing?”

  “Doubt we’ll find any Brits around here. They’re not getting involved in this little war at the moment. They’re not exactly welcome in Croatia, are they? As for drug dealers, I don’t know if any of the group are into that – but its unlikely. Mercs don’t tend to be drug smugglers. Drug smuggler killers, yes.”

  Godan grunted. “Still, I’d watch those two.”

  “I hear you. They’ll be put in separate teams.”

  “Who are you thinking of making squad leaders then?”

  Lonjic shrugged. “De Klerk and Mendez are the front runners but we’ll see once we get training. I’ll need to get more details from Mandaric about the job too.” He threw the butt of his cigarette onto the ground and stamped it out. “Time to hit the sack. Got a full day tomorrow.”

  “Yup,” Godan agreed. “Daybreak reveille?”

  “You got it.”

  Godan grinned in the dark and followed Lonjic into the hut.

  The following day they got up at dawn, ate breakfast and then kitted up and ran for an hour round and round the compound, all being tested for their endurance. Every so often they were ordered to run, drop, crawl, then get up and jog again, Lonjic leading them. He wasn’t one to stand around and watch – he was the sort to get involved and lead by example. Godan was told to join in too. No passengers.

  After lunch a dust-covered Lonjic was called to the hut, so he turned over firearm drills to Godan. If they didn’t know how to strip an AK-47, by the end of the day they would. Druzic was waiting for him, smartly attired. He looked at Lonjic with an amused glint.

  “Colonel,” Lonjic said, grabbing a pilsner from the small fridge by the table, “my training regimen involves some basic stuff, like getting dirty. Once we’re on the move we won’t be bothered with things like how straight are our trouser creases. Clean uniforms spell recruit in this part of the world. Nobody is pristine, so the sooner these men get used to being dirty, the better. Now, what is it?”

  Druzic’s smile vanished. He dropped a folder onto the table. “Intelligence on Vardaric. This is fresh from army intel HQ.”

  Lonjic flipped the cover open and began scanning the typed papers. “Hmm. Pretty good stuff. Is this reliable?”

  Druzic nodded. “Our agents in Belgrade are well-placed and have a finger on the pulse, which is what you Americans like to say.”

  “I’m not an American,” Lonjic said absently. “Don’t go believing all you hear from Zagreb. Frankly, they know jack shit about me.” He looked up. “They might think they do but believe me, they have absolutely no idea.” He resumed looking at the papers. Vardaric was going to depart from his training camp close to Belgrade in six days and travel by the main road north-west to Eastern Slavonia. They would disembark close to a village that had recently fallen to the Serbian militia and go in to clean it up, or so the information said. What it meant was to shoot all the non-Serbs. They reckoned it would be in seven days the shit would hit the fan. So the ambush would have to be set on the road.

  Six days. That’s all they had. Two would be spent in getting there. That meant they had four days in camp. Not nearly long enough. “Shit,” he breathed out heavily. He looked at Druzic. “You got transportation laid on to get us close to the ambush site?”

  “I have.” He pointed to some large black and white photographs. “Courtesy of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” he said in pretty good German.

  Lonjic picked one up. It was of a tree-covered plain. A road ran past it, and even without a magnifying glass he could see it was the main road from Belgrade to Zagreb. “This is the spot?”

  “No.” Druzic pointed to a side road heading north. “Here, on the road to the town of Sid. It’s in Serbia so they won’t expect an ambush there. They’ll be much warier once they cross the border. The land around is, as you can see, farmland. Plenty of cover due to the crops like corn, but in another week or so it’ll be cut, so now is the best time. You haven’t many places to conceal yourself along the road, but here is the best place. It’s not too far from the border, and you can hide in the undergrowth and machine gun them from safety. They will be like rats in a trap.”

  “Sounds too damned easy,” Lonjic commented. He put the photo down and picked up a map. It was of the region, showing crudely drawn crayon lines on it. “I take it these are the latest front lines?”

  “Red for Serbia, blue for Croatia. It’s fluid, so it can change from day to day.”

  “UN dispositions?”

  “None there. They know better than to get involved. They’d get their balls shot off.” Druzic nodded at a list. “Known members of the Vardaric force.”

  Lonjic glanced down it. There were thirty names. “I know three or four of these. Criminals. They’re terrorists. What the hell are they doing here?”

  Druzic bared his teeth. “They do not care who they use – better they get sadists and criminals to carry out their orders; that way they can always say no Serb was involved in any slaughter. They are quite cynical in how they go about this.”

  Lonjic nodded slowly. What was that old saying he’d heard more than once? War is legalized murder. Well, it certainly looked that way judging by who was listed on the piece of paper he was holding. “How many does Vardaric have?”

  “Fifty. Armed with JNA weaponry.”

  “Heavy stuff?”

  “Apart from a couple of mortars, machine guns and anti-tank launchers – no.”

  “I want some ordnance. If we’re going to carry out an ambush, then I want the ordnance to go with it.”

  “You won’t have German-made equipment; that’d give away we equipped you.”

  “You’ve got shitloads of JNA stuff washing about,” Lonjic looked at the Croat. “Don’t try to fool me, Colonel. You lot took the stuff off them when Croatia decided to go independent. I want Zastava M70 assault rifles, a machine-gun – give me a Zastava M84; they’re pretty good, and a couple of anti-tank rocket launchers – the M80 Zoljas will do. They’re light and easily portable, and we don’t have to lump them around the countryside once they’re used. You can get them; I want them here yesterday.”

  Druzic nodded. “Very well. Anything more?”

  “Yes. What is our route in and out? If we hit them then the Serbs will be on us like a ton of bricks. I don’t want to have to fight my way out of Eastern Slavonia with the entire JNA on my ass.”

  “The Hungarian border is not too far to the north.”

  “And too damned obvious. I want a route out south.”

  “To where? Bosnia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you mad? What of the Serbian-run areas there? Eastern Bosnia is not going to be welcoming to you. Also may I add Bosnia is still part of Yugoslavia, so Milosevic still says what goes there.”

  “We need to get out of Croatia – the way back to Croat lines won’t be possible so I want cover and a clear run to safety. West is too dangerous – that’s through a war zone. North is likewise too dangerous, because that’s the way everyone would expect us to go and the Hungarians will have closed the border. East is insane – right into Serbian lands? No thanks. So, south. Bosnia. Look, I know a little about the situation there. Yes, the Serbs have much of the north and east, but the rest is either Croatian or Bosniak in ethnic composition. Also the geogr
aphy works for us; mountains, cover, we can sneak over the border without any difficulty and make out way across into the central plateau. Once there we should be safe and get to Sarajevo and a flight home.”

  “The border with Bosnia is the River Sava, so I don’t think you can ‘sneak’ over there! And you’ll have to find a friendly Bosnian village – not many of those close to the Serbian border. I think your Bosnian escape route too risky.”

  Lonjic sighed. “Very well, Colonel. Let’s consider your plan. Shall we call it Plan A? You lay on a getaway truck along that road you pointed out. Where do you think you can take us? Towards the Croatian frontier? The JNA is in the middle of an offensive there – you seriously think we can drive through a damned war front?”

  Druzic shrugged. “The truck will be fitted out with JNA insignia, the driver and two other men dressed as JNA soldiers. There will be uniforms for you once you get there. Leave it to us to get you back to our soil.”

  “Look, I don’t want to labor the point, but I’d be happier to have a Plan B. Set up a route for us to get to a friendly village in Bosnia. If your Plan A goes up in smoke, I’d be happier relying on a backup.”

  Druzic pursed his lips. “Very well, your plan has merit. I’ll arrange an access route. There’ll be a few places you can go to in safety. We have sympathizers and agents all over the region, but don’t try to get there with half the JNA chasing you.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind. So, transport. Truck to the front line, yes?”

  “We will drive you and your men there, yes.”

  Lonjic leaned over the table and surveyed the map. This job was being put together very quickly indeed. But there again the movement of Vardaric and his group dictated that; they would probably only get the one shot at him. Once it was known the Croats were after him specifically he would be doubly protected and sent to a safer location. There was also the fact they could only get at him in one or two places, and the need to get to the ambush point in just a few days meant there would be only one reasonable place they could do the job.

  There was another matter that drove the timetable. There could be a leak at any time. Maybe the Serbs had an agent in place in the camp. If Lonjic was in charge of military intelligence he’d’ve made sure of that. The Croats had spies in Belgrade, so it was a reasonable supposition that the Serbs were informed of the merc group. They would be seeking to find out more about them. Who they were and what did they intend doing? He wondered if there was one of their number amongst his group. He’d find out in time he guessed.

  He called the men in later that morning after Druzic had delivered the ordnance. On the central table rested an array of guns. Lonjic spread the men round the table and nodded at the row of gleaming weapons. “Here’s what we’re going to use on the job. Yugoslav produced weaponry, used by both sides, so nobody is going to question what we’re carrying and it won’t stand out like a sore thumb.”

  He picked up the nearest assault rifle, one very similar to the world familiar AK47. “Gentlemen, some of you may know this model intimately, but for all your benefit, this is the Zastava AP M70 B2.” He showed them the weapon, with its wooden stock, hand grip and fore-grip. The clip underneath had the expected curved shape to it. “Air cooled, and these three slots in the fore grip here identify it as different from the AK47. These are part of the cooling process.” He pointed to the wooden sections. “Teak.” He then tapped the clip. “Thirty rounds of 7.62mm. The entire thing weighs eight and a bit pounds – that’s three point seven kilos,” he looked at them and the European members in particular grinned. “It’s just over three feet in length – ninety-four centimeters – and fires at a rate of 620 a minute. Any questions?”

  “Selective fire?” Knai asked.

  “Yes,” Lonjic pointed to a metal slide button on the right hand side. “R for rapid fire, J for semi-automatic. The R stands for rafalna, J for jedinačna. It’s a gas-operated rotating bolt action. Break it down very much like the AK.” He passed it round to the group who all took a close look at it, and cocked and un-cocked the weapon with a satisfying click.

  The eternal mercenary then picked up a stubby looking steel pistol. “A pretty new weapon this, the Zastava CZ-99. Came in last year. Fifteen round magazine, 9mm parabellum. It weighs under a kilo. Effective up to fifty meters. Or so I’m told.” He grinned and put the pistol down. He pointed to a tripod-mounted black painted steel machine gun with a wooden stock. “This is our heavy weapon, the Zastava M-84 gas-operated, air-cooled, belt-fed and fully automatic shoulder fired machine gun.”

  “Looks like the Soviet PK,” Toloba observed.

  “It’s a copy, with the stock being the only difference. You’re the man I want to operate this. You look capable of carrying it without any discomfort. You happy using it?”

  Toloba leaned over and examined it closely. He pulled a face and nodded. “Weight?”

  Lonjic thought for a moment. He’d been reading up the previous evening. “Eight point eight kilos. Same caliber as the M70. Belt-fed as I said – the belts are 100 rounds. It fires around 700 rounds a minute.”

  “No problem, I’ll take it, yes.”

  Lonjic nodded and pointed to the last objects on the table. “Two Zolja M80 recoilless single-use rocket launchers. Weighs three kilos, shoots a 64mm rocket, range around 220 meters. This is to take out the first and last truck of the convoy. Shoot once then throw them away. Trifunovic, you and Linderroth will use these. Get familiar with the feel of them.”

  On the floor was a canvas bag with a number of heavy lumps bulging in it. “Claymore mines. No introduction. De Klerk has the overall command of these but we’re all to carry a couple each. They’ll be used at the ambush site.” He looked at the men. None looked as if they needed any more lessons on the weapons. He nodded in satisfaction.

  That afternoon he took notes from Godan as to how the men were doing. The two squads were decided. The first, led by Mendez, included Trifunovic, Baja and Linderroth. The other squad, led by de Klerk, had Rrallos, Toloba and Knai.

  Now all that remained was for the final briefing, fine-tune the tactics, have the escape route finally decided and they would be off at dark in four days. He hoped nobody would guess who they were and where they were going.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The day broke gradually, the deep blue of the sky slowly lightening as the morning grew. Lonjic peered through his glasses at the road lying below them. The thickly grown silver birch trees that grew all round them hid them from view, and their camouflage uniforms blended them perfectly into the woodland.

  The frontier was not far ahead. Smoke wreathed a burning village off to the north, one of the first casualties in the offensive of the JNA in this part of Croatia. The main thrust of the axis was north-west towards Vinkovci, but the Croats were digging in there and not letting anyone past. That was the HQ of the Vinkovci army group and their commander wasn’t going anywhere fast.

  Here, to the south of the main thrust, there were just a few towns and villages of little importance. One brigade, the 131st, was tasked to hold this section of the front and they were easily doing that. The Serb militia and the JNA had bigger fish to fry. They weren’t too concerned about their southern flank – there was little danger the 131st had the offensive capability for a start.

  Lonjic scanned the countryside. Thick growths of birch, the occasional straight road, flat farmland and a collection of buildings here and there. The sky was a huge blue arc, and only the occasional buzzard or other bird broke the monotony. A few MiG21s had flown overhead an hour or so to provide air support for the units trying to batter their way onwards towards Vukovar, but it seemed the thinly spread and badly equipped HVO – the Croatian army – was holding its own at the moment.

  The whole damned war was being fought between two sides with few resources to get it over with any time soon. Lonjic looked left and right. A few trucks had come past a short while back but now the road was empty. He waved A squad over and Mendez scuttled across and
plunged into the undergrowth on the other side, Baja quickly on his heels. Linderroth followed and knelt just in the undergrowth facing back the way he’d come, and Trifunovic came last, gliding smoothly into cover.

  Another quick look and Lonjic followed, B squad in his wake. Godan brought up drag. Once over they spread out, one to either side, Trifunovic taking up point, and Rrallos drag. Lonjic sweated in his jacket. The heat of the summer lay on him like a blanket and he longed for a cold beer, or a long dip in a luxurious bath, preferably with an attentive Krista seeing to his needs.

  Dismissing the sensual woman out of his mind, he came alongside Trifunovic who was crouched behind the bole of a thick tree peering ahead. The Croat nodded towards an APC slewed across their path in a clearing. There were a few burned-out buildings around and the smell of the conflagration was still thick in the air.

  Lonjic nodded and waved A squad to the left, B squad to the right while he and Godan kept center. Mendez and de Klerk led their respective groups wide and then in, approaching from left and right. Lonjic had studied the scene thoroughly by now. The APC seemed a wreck, and the buildings destroyed. No bodies were in sight but that meant nothing.

  “Right,” he said softly to Godan, “let’s go.” Using one to cover the other, they leapfrogged from one piece of cover to the next. A tree, a fence, thick shrub. The APC was a Russian-made BTR-50, the classic boat-shaped type, and had the top hatches open. Now it could be seen how it had died. Anti-tank hit, smashing in the driver’s compartment. What had happened to the man there was open to the imagination. No point in looking – it was likely the victim was still there in pieces. It smelt like it.

  All hatches open, it had been abandoned. The buildings opposite were shattered, bullet riddled and blown apart. The JNA had certainly taken retribution for the wrecked vehicle on whoever had done the deed. The bodies were still there, at least the Croats were. The Serbs or JNA personnel would have been taken away for burial.

  They spread out again and made a perimeter cordon while Lonjic and Godan discussed the situation. “This is Serb-held territory alright – if the Croats had held on their dead wouldn’t be here rotting. We’ve gotten through alright; that’s what I needed to know. So, how far’s the ambush spot?”