Deep Black Read online

  One small group of prisoners had been kept behind; maybe twenty young girls with their arms outstretched, clutching at each other. Their bodies jerked with sobs as one final victim was added to their number.

  This time I felt a surge of adrenalin and my heart thumped painfully in my chest. I might not have recognized Zina’s face, but there was no mistaking my red ski jacket.

  7

  Beardilocks gobbed off at the blanket that covered the door, then climbed into his Landcruiser and followed the rest of the vehicles down the track. It looked like he’d got what he wanted. The group of girls was brought to the two trucks. I lay there willing the Serbs to kick Zina faster towards the fucking things.

  I was wrong: not all of them were going to the trucks. Five were being kept back.

  Serbs closed in on them. Two girls, no older than sixteen, were pulled away from the others and frogmarched towards the office block. Their legs slipped and slid in the mud as they tried to resist.

  I got my binos on Zina. She was being held outside the building with another two girls. She didn’t cry as she watched the trucks disappear down the track; she wasn’t even looking frightened. She stood there with the kind of dignity I’d never had, or that I’d lost years ago doing this sort of shit.

  There were screams from upstairs. Both girls had been dragged to the third floor. One was hanging out of a window-frame, her blouse stripped off, arms flailing. She turned her head, screaming and begging, her body jerking as the first Serb pushed himself into her. The other girl was getting punched and kicked for resisting.

  I time-checked: three minutes to go.

  Another loud scream from the third floor. I swung the binos up in time to see the first girl’s body land on top of one of Mladic’s 4x4s, mangled by one of the .50 cals. She didn’t move again.

  Mladic pushed his way through the blanket covering the door and strode over to the new vehicle, pointing animatedly at the blood running down the side panels.

  Get back in that fucking building!

  The bottle-washers scurried around; two jumped on to the flatbed and dragged the body away. Seconds later another appeared with a bucket of water and a cloth.

  Two Serbs poked their heads through the upstairs window and Mladic laid into them, pointing at the state of the wagon as he disappeared back inside. Thank fuck for that.

  Over the last few months, I’d seen women’s bodies hanging from trees as the Serbs advanced. Suicide was often a whole lot better than survival.

  Thirty seconds to go. I got my head down below the lip of the shell scrape, fingers in my ears, and started counting.

  Five, four, three. I braced myself.

  Two, one. Nothing. I counted another five seconds. Maybe I’d got my timings wrong. I checked my watch. Spot on. Maybe it was the LTD. I got my head up and checked. It whined gently. The red light was still illuminated. I checked the cap was still up – everything was right.

  The target was designated. Where the fuck was the Paveway?

  8

  Two minutes passed, and still nothing.

  I hit the pressle and her voice was waiting for me. ‘Blue Shark Echo, radio check.’

  I spoke quietly, I didn’t whisper. Whispering always comes over as mush on the net, and in any case you always do it louder than you think; it’s better just to keep your voice really low and constant. ‘Blue Shark Echo. OK, I’m OK. What’s happening? There’s no strike. No strike, over.’

  ‘That’s a no strike, no strike.’ It was like she was taking an order at McDonald’s. ‘Wait out. Wait out.’

  She obviously didn’t know what was happening either, but I couldn’t wait long for an answer. I needed to conserve battery power on the LTD in case I was going to have to stay here and redesignate.

  The pause was taking too long. It was six minutes now since the attack should have happened. Renewed screams and cries for help came from the office block. The voice sounded different. The girl must have been replaced.

  I was just about to hit the pressle again when she came back on. ‘Blue Shark Echo, Blue Shark Echo? Wait out, wait out.’

  This wasn’t good enough. ‘Do I still designate? Do I have a platform?’

  All she did was repeat, ‘Wait out.’

  What was I supposed to do? I kept the LTD running. Why the fuck couldn’t Sarajevo get their act together?

  I caught a blur of red in my peripheral vision and swung the binos.

  9

  Almost simultaneously, there was a yell from the right of my field of view. Zina was making a break for it. The remaining girl outside was on her knees, hands outstretched, screaming out to her. The Serbs just laughed and nonchalantly unslung their weapons from their shoulders. Their fun was just beginning.

  I silently willed the Paveway to come tumbling out of the sky.

  Zina scrambled across the open ground, slipping and sliding in the mud. The ski jacket was suddenly a sentence of death: it was going to make an easy target in the gloom.

  Zina tripped and fell into a large puddle, then scrambled to her feet, face and hair dripping, and carried on running. She switched direction, making for the treeline. She was heading straight towards me.

  The Serbs hadn’t fired a single shot. Maybe she was still too close to them, not enough of a challenge. I could hear them laughing and joking with each other; it looked as if they were trying to work out who was going to have first pop.

  She was getting closer to me. I could hear her sobbing.

  The first shot rang out. It missed. I didn’t see where it landed but I heard the thud somewhere in front of me.

  Zina kept coming. There was another shot. Missed again. More laughter and jeering from the Serbs.

  There was another shot, then another. They pounded into the mud in front of the hide. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the LTD took a hit. Zina was no more than ten metres from me now, five. Then she saw me. Confused, she stopped, looked around, started to run again. There was another shot. She took it in the back and fell directly in front of me. Mud splashed through the cam net on to my face.

  She managed to raise herself on her elbows and tried to crawl the last few feet towards me, her eyes begging me for help. I couldn’t do anything but look back at her, hoping the next round would kill her and stop the pain before she compromised me. Another couple of rounds rang out in quick succession. She jerked forwards, almost landing in the hide. She gave a whimper, then a gasp. Blood trickled from her mouth into the mud just a few feet in front of me. The entry wounds in her back steamed in the cold air.

  I heard clapping and a few mocking cheers. Someone had won the bet.

  I wondered how long it would take them to stop the backslapping and come to check her out. All it would take was one of Mladic’s boys getting busy with his binos.

  I didn’t move an inch. I felt her lifeless gaze bore into me.

  There were no sounds of feet splashing through the mud towards me, just more laughter from the Serbs and more screaming from the girl in the upstairs room 217 metres away.

  Another shot was fired and Zina’s body jolted as she took the round. Good; it looked like they were going to save themselves the journey.

  Then I realized one of her legs was splayed across the LTD’s line of sight.

  I couldn’t hold the LTD: it had to be braced firmly on the tripod. I checked the field of vision to the right of the shell scrape, thinking I might be able to re-site it, but there were too many bumps in the ground. It had to stay where it was.

  Besides, I’d run out of time.

  I would have to clear the body.

  10

  I kept very still in case they were watching her, ready to take another pop. But I had to get my head up. The target had to be splashed. I raised my head millimetre by millimetre, and looked over the lip of the shell scrape.

  Zina’s blood had stopped steaming in front of me and was already congealing in the mud. Her leg was still blocking the line of sight of the LTD.

&nbs
p; The Serbs’ attention was back on the three surviving girls, two on the third floor and one still outside. Now was my chance.

  I crawled out of the rear of the hide as the cries of anguish and despair continued from the top window. Taking care not to disturb the cam net, I inched forward to the left of the hide. Camouflage wasn’t a problem: the sniper suit was already caked with mud.

  After five feet of crawling I was able to reach Zina’s leg with an outstretched hand and pull it towards me. Her skin was still warm. I had to be careful now: too much movement and one of Mladic’s boys might notice a difference in the body’s position, even if it seemed they had other things on their minds.

  I crawled back into the hide and checked the viewfinder. The LTD had a clear line of sight once again on to the target.

  The exertion had warmed me a little, but now I was static again the cold renewed its attack. I picked up the binos.

  The last girl was being dragged into the building. Mladic stood in the doorway, his ugly fat face creased in a grin. I longed to plant a high-velocity round right in the middle of his greasy forehead. After a while he turned and went back inside. Maybe it was time to push his way to the front of the queue.

  There was nothing I could do but wait as the girls’ screams and sobs rattled around the building. What the fuck was happening? Where the fuck was that platform?

  I checked the viewfinder once more, but I had a sinking feeling deep in my guts. Who was I trying to kid? The strike wasn’t going to happen. Mladic and the rest of his bastards were going to get away with this. And they were going to live to do it another day.

  Zina’s eyes stared back at me. They were no longer clear and bright, just vacant and drab like everything else around her.

  Fuck the Firm, fuck Mladic. I should have called in the Paveway as soon as she’d turned up.

  11

  Washington DC

  Thursday, 2 October 2003

  ‘Fuck it, that was over nine years ago. It’s all history now.’

  Ezra sat back in his chair and studied me with one of those serious yet deeply understanding looks they probably teach at shrink school.

  I shifted slightly in my own chair and the leather squeaked. I let my gaze wander along the wood-panelled walls, past the pictures and framed certificates. Ezra would probably say this was me looking for a way out, but I knew there wouldn’t be one for another twenty minutes at least. I ended up staring through the window at the Arlington Memorial Bridge, fifteen floors down and a couple of blocks away.

  ‘Was that the first time you felt betrayed?’

  I looked at him across the low coffee-table. There was nothing on it but a box of tissues. In case I ever wanted to burst out crying, I supposed.

  Ezra was maybe seventy, seventy-five, something like that. His hair was like a steel-grey helmet, and although the rest of his face had aged, his eyes sparkled as much as they probably had when he was thirty and knocking women shrinks senseless at conferences in Vienna. For all I knew he still was.

  Why was he still working? Why hadn’t he retired? I’d wanted to ask him that ever since I started with him nine months ago, but these sessions were strictly about me. He’d never tell me anything about himself. All I knew about him was that he was the one who got lumbered with the fruits who worked for George and needed sorting out.

  He raised an eyebrow to prompt my answer. I was well used to his repertoire of body signals by now.

  ‘Betrayed? No. Shit happens. It was more a turning point in how I thought about them. So many deaths, so many of them kids. Especially Zina. It’s just, well . . .’ I paused and looked back out towards the bridge. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’

  He didn’t believe me and I heard myself filling the silence. ‘Three hours I waited there. All that time, calling on the net, trying to find out what the fuck was happening. Meanwhile, Mladic filled his face, had his afters and left. And all that time his boys were upstairs with the girls. When I finally got back to Sarajevo I didn’t even get told why the job was cancelled. Just to wind my neck in and hang around the hotel for the next one. Which never happened.’

  Ezra just sat and waited.

  ‘Who knows? Maybe if Zina had held on and not done a runner she’d still be alive. Maybe if I’d called in the Paveway earlier she would have lived, or I would have put her and the others out of their misery. Fuck it – who cares? It’s all in the past.’

  Ezra tilted his head a little to one side. Even through the double-glazing I could hear an aircraft coming out of Ronald Reagan airport just the other side of the Potomac. I watched it lift into the sky, probably rattling the windows of my apartment block as it went.

  ‘Then why talk about it so much these last few weeks, Nick? Why does it always come back to Bosnia?’

  I didn’t have an answer, and I knew by now that he wouldn’t fill the silence himself. If it took the whole fifty minutes, he’d wait.

  In the end I just shrugged. ‘You brought it up.’

  ‘No, Nick, I think you’ll find that you did. But we always get to a certain point and then we stop. Why do you think that happens? It certainly feels to me that there’s a lot more in there you want to let out. Could it be that your psyche is protecting you? Preventing you letting everything you feel come out?’

  I hated it when he played the subconscious card. ‘Listen, I don’t know too much about the psyche shit, but I’ll tell you this: I’ve been thinking about topping myself.’

  ‘Because of Kelly?’

  ‘Because it’s hard to think of reasons why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘You know it wasn’t your fault. You know there was nothing you could have done to save her. So why would you do that?’

  ‘I might as well. She’s gone. What the fuck’s left? Therapy with you twice a week for the next ten years? You might not last that long.’

  I rubbed my fingers into my hair and smelt them. I was waiting for him to ask why I thought I did that. He normally did. Even though I bet he knew the answer.

  He brought his right hand up to his face and stroked his chin. ‘You know, Nick, if you really thought that way, you would have done it by now. I prescribed you enough drugs to open your own pharmacy.’ He pointed at the window. ‘You could try running away if you wanted to, just like Zina did. But the fact is, you continue to come here to carry on with our therapeutic relationship.’

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. ‘I keep telling you, I’m not here for any sort of relationship. I’m here because George sent me. The whole thing is bollocks.’

  It was like water off a duck’s back to him. ‘Why is it bollocks, Nick? It was you who thought therapy might help you cope with Kelly’s death. Isn’t that what all this is about – helping you overcome the trauma of losing her?’

  ‘No, I’m here because George sent me. And everything I’ve said will be reported back to him, won’t it? Maybe he’s listening right now – what the fuck do I know?’

  ‘Nick, you know that isn’t true. How are we going to move forward if there isn’t complete trust between us? You have nothing to fear. I understand the pressures you’re under. I understand the sort of work you’ve been involved with. It’s natural in your business that you would keep everything battened down inside. I’ve been doing this for people just like you since Vietnam, trying to help them overcome those feelings. But we’re going nowhere unless we have complete trust.’ He sat back slowly, giving me time to let it all sink in. The index finger went back to his chin. ‘George understands the pressures and constraints you’re under. He wants you back, fit and able to work.’

  We were going round in circles. We must have had this conversation at least a dozen times. ‘But being here won’t help that, will it? I feel I’m trapped in some kind of Catch 22 situation. If I don’t conform, you’ll keep me here until I admit I have a problem. If I do conform, I’m admitting there’s a problem and I won’t get out.’

  ‘But you must still have some notion that you want to be helped.
You’ve talked about having feelings of loneliness . . .’

  ‘I didn’t ask for help, I only agreed to it because I didn’t know what the fuck else to do. I now realize I should have shut up and got on with my job. People all over the planet have their kids dying on them every day and they still go to work, they still get on with their lives. I should have said nothing and got on with it.’

  Ezra leaned forward. ‘But Kelly didn’t just die, did she, Nick? She was killed – and, what’s more, you were there. It does make a difference.’

  ‘Why? Why does everything have to have a label? You can’t be shy any more, you have to have social phobia. Try hard to succeed and you’ve got a perfectionist complex. Why can’t I just get on with life and go back to work? What are you going to say now, that I’m in denial?’

  He studied me again in that way of his that always got me pissed off. ‘Do you think you’re in denial, Nick?’

  ‘Look, I know I’m fucked up a bit, but what do you expect? Who isn’t? Can’t you be happy with that diagnosis – “fucked up a bit”? You’ve got to be a bit Dagenham to do the job anyway.’

  He raised an eyebrow. They must learn that at shrink school too. ‘Dagenham?’

  I nodded. ‘Two stops short of Barking.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘London joke. On the London Underground, Dagenham is two stations away from Barking. Barking? Barking mad. Dagenham, two stops short of Barking.’

  He sort of got it but decided it was time to close that particular chapter. ‘So, did you see Bang Bang yet?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m not sure it helped. I didn’t become a gibbering wreck or come out crying, if that’s what you’re asking.’