Read THE HEART OF DANGER Online
Authors: Gerald Seymour
Tags: #War Crimes; thriller; mass grave; Library; Kupa; Croatia; Mowatt; Penn; Dorrie;
the hedges and fields and woods of the farm where his father drove
a
tractor. Now he felt inadequate. Penn knew how to strip and clean
and
reassemble a Browning 9mm automatic pistol because that was what he
had
been shown on the two-day firearms course organized for newcomers
into
A Branch. It was fourteen years since he had downed a pigeon with
the
shotgun, and it was seven years since the two-day firearms course.
He
asked if they had a Browning 9mm automatic pistol. The heavy man
swivelled his chair. The telephone was down and the mobile was
switched off. They seemed to strip him with their eyes. The heavy
man
dragged the keys from his pocket that were held to his waist belt
by a
thin chain, reached forward and unlocked the tall wall safe. He was
spilling handguns onto the desk, pistols and revolvers,
short-barrelled
and long-barrelled, with or without silencer attachment, old and new.
When it came, Penn recognized the Browning 9mm automatic pistol, no
silencer. It was pushed towards him, like a toy. He lifted it from the table, held it. It felt strange in his hand, unfamiliar, and
he
tried to hide that. How many rounds of ammunition? He had fired
four
magazines on the two-day course. He said that he would like to take
fifty rounds. Again the mocking. Two hundred US dollars for the
Browning 9mm automatic pistol, one hundred US dollars for the
magazines
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and the ammunition. And twenty-five US dollars each for four RG-42
fragmentation grenades that Ham said he should have. And fifteen
US
dollars for the olive-green backpack that was pulled off the floor,
from among the rubbish. And ten US dollars for webbing and for a
canteen and for a knife. And five US dollars for the boots. Penn
peeled the American dollars off the wad in his wallet. The heavy man
said that he liked to offer a discount, and the discount was five
dollars. Penn didn't smile. Penn handed him the four hundred and
twenty-five dollars. He stood his ground, waited on his receipt.
He
hitched one strap of the backpack over his blazer shoulder so that
it
hung loose against him. He stood in the doorway. "Thank you,
gentlemen. I hope you'll give me a good price when I bring them
back."
Penn was halfway down the corridor between the boxes and crates before
their laughter subsided. The nice girl, Penny, who showed some
respect
for him, brought back the backgrounder sheet she had typed for him.
Henry Carter looked up, smiled at her the way that he thought young
people liked to be smiled at. He thought she was a nice girl because
he had worked with her father, a considerably long time ago, but he
always made the point of asking after her father's health, just to
remind her that he had pedigree. "Still hard at it then, Mr.
Carter?"
He rested from his writing. "Yes, it's rather an interesting one."
"Very interesting, what I've just typed up for you. Will there be
more
for me to type up?" "Tomorrow .. ." He grinned, then whispered,
"Dragon alert .. ." He could see over her shoulder, the return from tea break of the supervisor. The nice girl, Penny, scuttled away
from
him. The file was taking shape now, and he placed her typed work
where
he thought it relevant, near to the start. Good background,
notwithstanding the arguable advantages of hindsight, he thought
always
useful, and the thin biography. Always useful to improve the
understanding of a file. Well, if a future reader of the file did
not
comprehend the situation on the ground, and the prime player's
personality, then it would not be easy to appreciate the quite
dreadful
hazard into which this young fellow proposed to walk. He read back
what he had written.
154
SECTOR NORTH
(Situation as of April/ May 1993.) Sources: Newspapers, Field Station
(Zagreb), Field Station (Belgrade), United Nations Monitors (SIS
personnel), FCO digest. Sector North represents that area closest
to
Zagreb, administered by local paramilitary Serb forces. An armed
camp.
All aspects of civilian life are governed by Territorial Defence
Force
(TDF). No central government, power rests with local warlords.
Local
warlords exercise power of life and death over few remaining Croat
civilians (elderly), and over their own people. Male population has
been mobilized into TDF. Patrols and roadblocks manned at night.
Large
areas of afforestation have been mined. High state of alert amongst
all sections of population fed by local radio (Petrinja and Knin),
constant reports of vigilance required against Croat spies and
saboteurs. Croat S-F (Special Forces) efforts at penetration for
intelligence gathering have most generally ended in failure, even
when
utilizing personnel formerly familiar with topography. Use of high
ground with visibility for defence positions and strong points In
addition to TDF forces there is a major commitment by former JNA
(Yugoslav National Army) on the ground. Under forest cover there
are
sufficient armoured vehicles to punch through to Zagreb, also
substantive artillery and missile positions. Location of JNA and
TDF
forces made next to impossible by restrictions on UNPROFOR movement
inside Sector North. Both paranoid that UNPROFOR provides
intelligence
to Croats, hence severe curtailment on movement. That movement
restricted to a few main roads; all access to front line area is
denied. Security Council tasking cannot be fulfilled by UNPROFOR
units.
UNPROFOR HQ logistics officer (Canadian): "Our operations in Sector North have virtually ceased to have any meaning. No respect now
exists
for the blue flag. It is impossible to function." TDF personnel
frequently drunk, always hostile. No dissent in Sector North to
authority of warlords. To complain is to be beaten, killed,
expelled.
Local population characterized by extreme brutality and hardness,
155
a
historical legacy. Were buffer population implanted by Hapsburg
empire
to block Ottoman expansion succeeded. Topography is rolling hills,
heavily wooded, small villages surrounded by farms, few roads.
Offers
potential for incursion by trained S-F, but difficulties as listed
above mitigate severely against non-skilled personnel. Summary: A
man
trap for the uninitiated. Area of extreme danger. He had the words of
the file, and the photographs, and in the morning he would have the
large-scale map. The light was slackening outside. He understood.
He
would not have claimed any particular credit for his understanding,
but
he felt the events were within his experience. Been there, done it,
seen it, hadn't he? No, not to this squalid little corner, not to
this
exact place, but he had been to other armed and fortified front lines,
and he had pushed young men, with quite a firm shove, into such man
traps of suspicion and hostility. It was because he understood that
the memories seeped back. So many yean before .. . He did not think
these young men, dull and ordinary and boring, went because they were
brave. He thought they went because of their fear of personal failure
.. . Old men such as Henry Carter, senior men, experienced men, men
who
had never done it themselves, went to these front lines that were
armed
and fortified and gave a young chap a pretty firm shove, then went
back
to a hotel or a safe house villa to hang around, stooge around, wait
to
see if they made it out of Iraq or East Germany or Czechoslovakia
or
Iran ... An awfully long time ago. But they were all sharp in his
mind, all the young men. All of them dragged to the cliff edge.
Extraordinary, but they all seemed to go willingly. He stood,
stretched. He took the fax message that he had written earlier to
the
supervisor. He asked for it to be sent, and he believed that his
smile
was gracious. The memories came close. Too often the memories that would be carried to the grave hustled into the mind of the old desk
warrior. Standing on the safe side of the fence with the minefields
and the tripwires and the self-firing guns, and hearing the
156
explosions
and the shrill German shouts, seeing Johnny Donoghue leave the young
woman who was living and her father who was dead, watching Johnny
climb
the bucking bloody wire. The memories, standing and seeing and
watching, were not erased. Sharpest of the memories, neatly
condensed
for an addendum to his file, was the late supper of cold cuts of meat
and spiced cheese and gassy beer, served by an impatient landlord
in
the Helmstedt hotel. Johnny, lovely young man, bottling his emotion
in
silence. Such dignity .. . and he had been on the safe side and did
not know how to communicate with Johnny, and the two of them toying
with the food .. . he felt so humble. In the morning they had caught
the flight from Hanover back to Heathrow, parted with a limp
handshake.
Before the next Christmas he had sent a card to Johnny, but it was
not
replied to. He had never again seen Johnny, lovely young man. He
had
used him, and the memories, damn them, did not mist. Back at his
desk,
he thought of the place, Sector North, as a man trap They were in
a
wood. It was the middle of the day and the sun dappled down through
the early leaves on the birches. Ham had quit the bullshit. Penn
asked questions about his Karen and his Dawn. There was a softness
in
Ham's voice and he'd lost the obscenities and the swagger. It was
later that Ham had gotten round to talking about the rudiments, what
could be told in a couple of hours, of survival movement behind enemy
lines. There was a cordon around the village, as tight a line as
the
men from Salika could draw. Eighteen of them made the line, covering
with their guns the open fields around the village. It was like a
rabbit shoot. Eighteen men to watch the fields between Rosenovici
and
the stream and the road and the woods on the higher ground. They
had
whistles, and each man in the cordon line, when he was in the position
given him, blasted his arrival. Some had the new AK47 assault rifles
and some had the hunting rifles with the long accuracy barrels that
had
been handed down from their fathers, and some had shotguns. Branko,
the postman, waited on the road that led to Rosenovici from the bridge
157
for all the whistle blasts. With him were his constant companions:
the
gravedigger, Stevo, and the carpenter, Milo. They were the dogs that
would go in and flush the rabbit, and the postman chuckled, some
goddamn rabbit, some goddamn claws on that rabbit, and he looked slyly
across at the carpenter and the raw lines on the carpenter's cheeks.
It
was a bright morning, good for sport. He heard Milan's shout. Milan
was on the high ground above the village. They went forward, three
of
them, with the dog bounding ahead. He could see Milan, past the tower
of the church that was broken, and Branko waved his handkerchief to
show that he had heard, that they were moving. Milan should have
been
with them. It had been the postman's idea to ask Milan to bring the
dog. He'd thought the idea clever, because he had reckoned that if
Milan brought the dog then Milan would be with them among the ruins
of
Rosenovici. Something had to shake the man out of his morose misery.
And the dog would know where to look, the postman reckoned. Milan
had
said that they could take the dog, that he would control the cordon
line. The dog led them into each building. They watched each house,
put the dog in, then followed the dog, always the dog went first.
They
searched each building. It was necessary to be careful because the
fire and the dynamite had weakened the floor boards and brought down
the rafter beams. He had known those who had lived in each house
because he had come there each day, way back, with the letters from
the
kids who were away at the colleges in Belgrade and Zagreb, and the
letters with the stamps of Australia and America. The postman felt
nothing bad, because they had been, all of them, goddamn Ustase.
They
were the people who would have come into Salika at night, with knives,
and with fire, no doubting. They would have done what their
grandparents, the original goddamn Ustase, had done, killed and
burned.
He felt nothing bad, and did not understand why Milan, the best, felt