Unsung Warrior Box Set, page 60
part #1 of Unsung Warrior Series
“Not mention you, not mention hunters, not mention anything. But they voolaanteer. You want?”
Maric looked the men over. They stood stiffly at attention. Both looked haggard, a lot older than their forty something years. One had an old knife wound on the side of his neck, and a mass of scar tissue on the back of one hand. They were hard men, lean and dangerous.
Maric had seen this before. It was the aftermath of years of hard guerrilla fighting when they were younger. They were men who couldn’t live a normal life now.
They would have lost family, and much of their extended family, in the Balkan wars. They saw their own lives as pointless, and would volunteer for anything that provided a bit of excitement. They would also volunteer doubly quick if it gave them a chance to kill Serbs.
They would be a valuable asset, but only if they could be relied upon to follow commands. Especially commands given in the thick of the fighting, when their blood was up. Maric decided he would give the two men a chance, and nodded to Domi. Then he motioned them roughly to one side. The first thing they had to learn was to follow commands. He would talk to them later, and Gjoni could translate for him.
Maric took the opportunity to take a closer look around the hunter’s camp while he was there. He was pleased at the steps they’d taken to keep the camp, and themselves, hidden from observers.
Everything was stored inside the cave, out of sight, and Maric was taken to the back wall and shown through into another cave. It opened onto the top of the ridge through a winding shaft. There were back ways out of the cave system as well, and the men all knew the escapes routes they could take. They were pleased with his interest in their safety, and his approval of their efforts brought smiles to many faces.
When Maric talked to the two new volunteers, through Gjoni, he was pleased with their responses. The bottom line was they only got to be part of a squad again if they did as they were told. They were adamant they could live with that. When he was finished with them, he asked Domi if the two men could stay with the hunters until tomorrow. It wasn’t a problem.
Maric and two of the three Croatian special forces soldiers were working at their base camp the next morning when the third soldier slipped in beside them. Maric had been pushing them hard to develop better forest skills, and their ghosting abilities were improving daily.
“You’ll want to see this,” said Novak, pointing toward the village. The four of them used Croatian when the hunters weren’t around, and Maric’s fluency in his adopted language was coming along nicely. He grunted, and put a home-made detonator on the ground. It sat beside others that had already been completed. He would come back to his work later.
When Maric and Novak reached the treeline above the village, Novak focused his military nocular on the end of the barn. Maric followed suit with a Gray Ops version of the same thing.
Down low and hidden by empty drums, where it couldn’t be seen unless from a distance, was a sign. It consisted of five wooden sticks of the same length. Beside them was a crudely fashioned letter ‘P’ made out of three more.
“Fifth Brigade, Popovic,” said Maric, under his breath, and Novak nodded. The sticks had been there no more than half an hour, and that meant Vinski and Dea wanted to talk. Maric scanned the village more closely, and saw half a dozen heavily armed men standing guard. Only one of them was anywhere near the barn, though.
It looked like Popovic didn’t have a lot of military grunt left, and Maric was fairly certain his reinforcements hadn’t arrived yet.
“Nothing at SC1?” he asked, and Novak shook his head. Spy Cam 1 warned of anything coming down the closed road from the Revatske side of the village. The special forces men had brought a lot of specialist equipment with them, and Maric hadn’t asked where it came from.
If the Croatian Special Forces armory was a bit light at the moment, he figured Sergeant Major Yukovic knew about it. And if he didn’t, Maric wasn’t going to ask where the equipment came from. Don’t start asking questions unless you can deal with the answers.
Spy Cam 1 had been one of Juric’s set ups. The special forces soldier had set up several more in strategic places, and it saved posting guards around their camp or keeping an eye on the village. Gentle chimes sounded at the camp if the AI that ran the cams figured something was too big, or moving too fast, to be a rabbit.
Maric talked the situation over with his special forces team. Strategy was part of their training, so this was good for them. Intel was always worth gaining, so going to see Vinski and Dea was a high priority.
The men decided what they would do if Maric got into trouble, or was captured. There would be no heroic rescue attempts, and they were to play the larger game. Special force were well trained in interrogation and escape. Maric was on his own. He would find his own way home.
Then he was in the valley, a shadow that eased down the same fold he had utilized the first time. Finally, he worked his way through the cows toward the barn.
“Dobro jutro,’ he said quietly in Croatian, as he entered the barn. Dea looked up, and smiled. It was indeed a good morning, already warm. The day before had been overcast and cold.
Vinski had taken up his usual position by the gap in the wall, ready to warn of anyone approaching the barn.
“You have some news for me?” said Maric, sitting on the wooden box beside her, as she continued milking. She nodded, and spoke steadily as Maric strained to make sure he was getting all of her Croatian.
She told him there were a lot of people in the village who would like to help, if Maric showed them how. She had asked some general questions about being in captivity, and what the villagers would do to be free. Maric was careful not to show his growing alarm. People didn’t realize how obvious a supposedly innocent question was.
At least it had been Dea doing the asking. A woman’s mannerisms were more subtle than a man’s. The armed soldiers around the village would be watching the village men more closely than the women, thinking the men more of a threat.
“There was an important meeting yesterday,” said Dea, coming to her reason to call him in. “It was between Popovic and a man who was well dressed. His clothes looked expensive, and he had strange rings on his fingers, with symbols on them.”
She had pieced the story together from several villagers who had been there for different parts of it.
Russian mafia, thought Maric. Not always, but probably. The rings were part of the Vory-v-Zakone criminal code in the old Soviet Union. He asked for more details, and she described a black circle with a dot in the middle as the design on one of the rings. Maric nodded. The Orphan. Definitely Russian.
This was almost certainly one of the men who bankrolled Popovic into his present position. It took money to set things up an operation like this in the beginning, but the smuggling would soon have started paying its own way. The trouble was, once the mafia had done Popovic a favor, he would be asked for return favors for the rest of his life. This time, though, Popovic was probably asking for military help.
Dea described the visitor in detail, and it all seemed to fit. Then she tacked on a few notes about Popovic at the end.
“Popovic was much shorter than the other man,” said Dea, “and he might have had a slight limp. My sources couldn’t all confirm this, but two of them were sure he had the outer fingers missing from his left hand. He keeps that hand in his pocket, or folded in against his body, as if he doesn’t want anyone to see it.”
That was interesting, thought Maric, filing the information away. But right now, it looked like Popovic might have some heavy duty reinforcements coming in, courtesy of this meeting. Perhaps Maric and his team had been too good. Popovic might have thought they were many times bigger than they actually were.
He thanked Dea for her help, and repeated his earlier message to Vinski. Please, don’t do anything. Not yet. Just sit tight and act normally. The old KLA captain nodded his head, but Maric could see the frustration behind his eyes.
Back at the camp, Maric talked about the two volunteers, and explained what he wanted to do with them. The special forces soldiers were going to integrate them into their team. The men were surprised. The volunteers weren’t even regular army, and to do something in maybe one or two days . . .
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Maric, “but it’s possible. These men have had years of learning how to be killers. They know tricks you haven’t even heard of yet, they just don’t know how to fit into a modern operation.” There was a long silence.
“Let’s give them a chance,” he continued, “and see what happens. Put them where they can’t get in the way when we’re fighting, if you like. On the other hand, we’re going to give them some of the AK 74s we captured, so don’t waste that firepower.”
Juric reluctantly agreed, and sent Radic across to the hunter’s camp to pick up the two men.
CHAPTER 15
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The surnames of the two new recruits were Cana and Tahirajetj. They were both Kosovans of Albanian extraction. It took a while to get them to understand the concept behind training. They had a ‘kill or be killed’ approach to conflict, and it was a while before they learned to back off when they’d established an advantage.
Maric thought he might have to intervene when Novak stumbled on a rock that dislodged under his foot. Cana bore him to the forest floor in a moment, his hand reaching out for a nearby rock. There was a moment’s internal struggle as Cana tried to overcome his wartime instincts, then he rolled away without trying to bash Novak’s head in. He may or may not have succeeded, but Maric didn’t want his team carrying injuries. He was going to need every one of them in the coming days.
That afternoon the six men loaded up with equipment, and set off from the camp to look more closely at the road in from Revatske. They wanted to know where they could set up fields of fire, and what their best escape routes would be. The two new men showed a hunter’s skills as the single file moved through the forest, but the special force soldiers were close to perfecting the soundless, irregular walk of a creature of the wilds. Maric was pleased with their progress.
The best place for an ambush was at the top of a low rise about a kilometer in from the ‘Road Closed’ signs. That was why Maric avoided it. He took the others down to the start of the road, so they could familiarize themselves with it. The bulldozer and truck were still there, and still unused by the look of them. The booth beside the supposed ‘Road Works’ was deserted now. Maric figured Popovic had lost too many men in the first conflict, and was using what was left to keep a tight control on the village.
Working back towards Boluka from the top of the rise, Maric picked a spot that didn’t look that different to anywhere else. That was why it was ideal, a place that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. It was also far enough into the forest that Popovic’s reinforcements would be less inclined to view it as ambush territory.
The main reason Maric chose it, though, was the steep gully that fell away from the road on one side. The other side rose to a small hill with a shortage of undergrowth around its base. It was an excellent defensive position. If Popovic’s men tried to outflank the ambush, they could be held up on either side without too much trouble.
Then Maric’s team got to work. Domi wasn’t back from the far south of the country yet, so the tall man didn’t know how much of the ‘shopping list’ Domi had been given would be coming back with him. Most of the surprises for the ambush were in that shopping list. Maric had finished making detonators, and that was all he could do.
It was a hard, physical task preparing the site. The men were hacking into roots, and bits of the road, that hadn’t been disturbed for a very long time. Still, they worked steadily through the afternoon. It wasn’t complete when they had finished, either.
Each of the areas they were working on had to look like it hadn’t been disturbed, and sometimes Maric would make them sweep an area several times to get it right. Then he would add or take away twigs and leaves, like some sort of finicky artist, until he was completely satisfied.
“How long have we got to get this right,” said Juric, pausing to wipe sweat from his eyes.
“Another day or two, I think,” said Maric. “Popovic’s reinforcements can’t come through the 5 km non-military zone along the Serbian border, so I’m picking they’ll detour through Montenegro and into Kosovo from there. It’s mountainous terrain, so they will be slow, and then they’ll have to backtrack north-east to get into this part of Kosovo.”
It made him uneasy, just the same. He was relying on Domi, and his ‘shopping list’ from down south. The truck was supposed to be back that night, and if it wasn’t, the team would be running out of time. Maric felt a lot better when Domi, and another of the hunters, came strolling into his camp just on nightfall.
Domi nodded to Cana and Tahirajetj as he came into the camp, and got a brief greeting in return. He was pleased at the way the two men were settling in. They’d been his recommendation. Tahirajetj was now ‘Tahi’, for obvious reasons, and both men had a few clearly visible scrapes and bruises. So had the special force soldiers, for that matter.
Cana was fast becoming an extension of Novak, and Tahi a shadow around Radic. Maric would have liked another week or two to develop the growing bonds between the pairs, but the few days they had would be enough. The close bonds would help to keep the men alive.
The two hunters dropped their packs on the ground, and Domi went through the shopping list as Maric identified each of the contents. They hadn’t got it all, but Maric could work with what was in the packs. Domi passed a slim wad of US notes back, and the tall man thanked him for his efforts.
There was one last thing. The only way into Boluka was through Revatske, assuming Maric was right about Popovic’s reinforcements coming in from the north. Could the hunters watch the roads around Revatske, and give Maric’s team some warning?
Domi said he would discuss the idea with the others. He didn’t see there would be a problem.
The following morning it was time to mike up. Juric had brought the radio equipment in with him, and it was about to become very useful. Cana and Tahi were completely new to the idea, and it took them a while to get used to the throat mikes, and ways of speaking that didn’t produce much in the way of noise.
Maric would also have to mike up one of the hunters – though their role was simply to do what they were told. He would bring them in to join the others during the afternoon, when they would all go back to familiarize themselves with the terrain around the ambush area. But first up it was more hard training for the special forces group. The newcomers were coming along nicely.
The special forces team met the four hunters at the side of the road not far from the ambush area. The two teams sized each other up, and then got to chatting. There was enough in the way of shared languages for a bit of humor, and the swapping of some basic details. Maric left them to it as he and Juric went through one of the packs Domi had brought back.
“What the hell is this?” said Juric, as he pulled a fat, salami-like sausage from the pack.
“What’s it say on the side?” said Maric, pulling out a string of grenades rolled up inside rubber webbing. It was an odd way to pack the weapons.
“Ah, MEICO,” said Juric, and he seemed to know what that meant. Maric lifted his head and looked at him inquiringly.
“Ministry of Defense in Albania,” said Juric. “The Albanian army makes all its own weapons now. They set up the factories as soon as the unrest started in the Balkans.”
Maric was impressed. Quick action by the government that had turned out to be right on the money. That sort of proactive thinking had kept the Albanians out of most of the fighting. On the other hand, security at the factories had to be lax. Domi had picked this stuff up on the black market without any trouble.
“This must be part of the explosives package I asked for,” he said, taking the hefty cylinder from Juric. “I think it’s blasting gelignite, for destroying bridges, and building roads in a hurry.”
“Well, it’s going to blow a helluva hole in something!” said Juric, and Maric had to agree. It was a lot fatter than any sticks of gelignite he had seen before. Then the two men set to work, planting the cylinders in the soft ground prepared the previous day.
Maric set up the detonators while the rest of his fighters went over and over the terrain to fix it in their minds. He got them to run the escape routes several times, checking where they might be open to gunfire from the road. If they got this right they wouldn’t have to worry about being outflanked.
Two of the hunters in Maric’s team got the job of staying on site, not far from the start of the road into Boluka. It was the designated spot for contact with Domi and his men, once they’d spotted Popovic’s reinforcements rolling in.
One of the hunters staying behind was now miked, so Maric would have an instant update if news came in. He didn’t think Popovic’s reinforcements would move at night. They may not come as one column either, but he was being careful. The next day dawned with no sign of the enemy.
A day of waiting followed. Maric didn’t train his team hard, just a few light exercises to get used to the mikes and run through some reflex training. There was an old training maxim that he had found to be true over the years. Relaxing for the last day or two gave the body time to recover from the previous workouts, and it made the soldiers keen to get back into action.
At 5pm that afternoon, with the sun still well above the horizon, he got a call from the hunters. The camp instantly mobilized. It was a day earlier than Maric had expected, and coming on to dusk wasn’t ideal. But special forces trained to be ready in all conditions, and Popovic’s reinforcements would find Maric’s team more than ready.
The ambush was in place for forty minutes before anyone turned off the road from Revatske onto the road into Boluka. There was a fair amount of activity as the wooden barriers signifying road works were removed, and then a number of vehicles headed down the road toward Maric and his team.
