Casca 44: Balkan Mercenary, page 15
Lonjic slid onto the top of the broken wall and sent the entire magazine into the line of men, two of whom were wounded by the grenade. He saw a man get to his knees in the trees and dived out of the way. A hail of bullets smashed into the wall and spat overhead at the point where he had just been.
“That made them mad,” Godan grinned. “You got all four. Nice.”
“Yeah but there’s still others in the trees, including that bastard Vardaric.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll flush the shit out. Stay here.”
“What are you gonna do?” Godan asked in concern.
“Make him mad. Stay out of sight.” The scarred mercenary got to one knee and filled his lungs, keeping out of sight. “Hey, you dickless bastard Vardaric, you know who you’ve got here pinned down?” he yelled.
“What do I care?” the answer came faintly from the trees. “I kill you, I continue on my way.”
“Carlos Romano, that’s who. Remember Panama, you shit? I nearly got you there.”
“What? The fuck you are!”
“Wanna see? Or are you still shitting your pants with fright? You thought you’d gotten away, didn’t you? No chance; I’ve got your number you murdering pile of shit.”
“You lying bastard! You’re making this up.”
“Not a chance; I’ve got a score to settle with you for the Cameron Highlands. I’m gonna cut your balls off and feed them to you before you tell me who paid you for that piece of bravery, you faggot.”
“Fuck you, Romano; your woman squealed like a pig while I raped her before I sent a bullet up her pussy.”
“That’s the only loaded weapon you can use you dickless freak. I’m gonna kill you slowly, you hear me, you dog molester.”
“Fucking hell!” the warlord shouted. “You’ve got a nerve! You’re surrounded, trapped and outgunned. We just wait for darkness, then we’ll come in and finish you off.”
“Big deal, little boy. You go play with the toys daddy bought you for Christmas; that’s about your limit. Night is my time; I’ll come for you and deal with your boyfriends first, then I’ll take my time over killing you. Wait for the dark if you want – you won’t live to see the dawn.”
Godan chuckled. “What a load of crap. You been reading some low quality second hand bookshop novels?”
Lonjic grunted. “If it serves to give him the shits, then it’ll have worked. I don’t care how.”
“You believe that bastard?” Godan jerked his head. “About what he did to your woman in Thailand?” He knew nothing of this; it was the first he’d heard of the incident, but it explained a lot about Lonjic’s manner and past. He’d always kept quiet about his past, and apart from the Panama thing Godan knew very little about the man he knew as Carlos Romano.
“No. He’s just trying to get me annoyed; make me make an irrational move.” Lonjic had a brief flash that went through his memory. His commander Aetius in the time of the Attila campaign had provoked the Hunnish warlord into an unwise move by handing him a flask of urine during their pre-battle parley. It almost made him smile in remembrance at the tale told him by Aetius himself. Time to smile in the future. Now he had to take care of this rabid dog.
“You talk big, you pussy,” Vardaric yelled. “You’ll scream like a girl when I cut you into pieces.”
“Hand me a grenade,” Lonjic held out a hand to Godan. “He’s spouted enough shit for me to work out where he is.”
“You serious?” Godan handed the egg over, glancing into the undergrowth. “That’s one hell of a throw to make!”
“No harm in trying. If it makes him shit his pants so much the better. I’m going to sneak out straight after the explosion so lay down a bit of covering fire. I want their heads down.”
“You maniac,” Godan said, but nodded to Linderroth to help. The two raised their guns from their respective positions. “And then what?”
“Get over the road away from this village,” Lonjic hefted the grenade, assessing the distance. It was a far throw but he knew he could reach him – the problem was to avoid the tree trunks and all. It was virtually impossible but it would serve a purpose. Lonjic was on the hunt. “It’s six miles east or north east to the Sava. Go for it – I’ll meet you in Croatia. This land is Bosniak and so we won’t get any hostile villagers who’ll want to help these bastards. I’ll pull them away to the south-east which should leave you a clear run. That third truck will be back before long so don’t want another lot of the JNA to take on.”
“Alright you crazy fucker, but what if they get you?”
“Well in that case I won’t be coming, will I? Don’t wait for me. Get to the river as soon as you can and get the hell to Croatia. You’ll have to swim to get away and the JNA will be watching all the time. I’m sure you’ll make your escape. Good luck!”
Godan nodded and waited with baited breath.
Lonjic pulled the pin and took a deep breath. “Hey, goat fucker, started on your boyfriends yet, or are they too filthy for a prick like you to bugger?” He heard a roar of outrage from the undergrowth, pinpointed the position, and hurled the grenade with all his might, sending it arcing through the air away from the house into the undergrowth. Even as it flew, Godan and Linderroth popped up, guns aiming for the undergrowth.
As they opened up, the grenade went off deep in the trees. Lonjic scuttled to one side, away from the hail of bullets, and leaped over a low ruined wall out of the confines of the house. He ran for the bushes and trees, his gun covering the area before him. The shots from Godan and Linderroth ceased and Lonjic swerved, moving into the area the two mercs had riddled.
Two men appeared from behind a tree and Lonjic shot them out of the way with a calm two-second burst. He flung himself against the tree and looked round, checking left and right. The grenade had exploded to his right, so he scuttled through a clump of bracken and came to a fallen tree and knelt behind it, looking left and right, then ahead. A dying JNA soldier lay twenty feet away, clutching his ruined stomach, blood dribbling out of his mouth.
Three men lay on the other side by some bushes, one saw him, screamed in fright and blasted a whole clip into the air. Lonjic rolled aside and went to the end of the trunk and looked round through the roots. Two of the men were crawling forward, spaced so they could hit the tree from different ends. Lonjic drew out his combat knife and slid back behind cover. He waited, sensing the man was near, and held his breath.
As a dark shape filled his right hand peripheral vision, he lunged forward, knife striking up. The blade sliced through the man’s throat. The man died hard, struggling and kicking but the eternal mercenary had done more than any man’s share of killing in his long life, and knew how to hold his victim close until his life left him. Slowly he sank to the ground with the dead JNA man in an unloved embrace.
The other man was coming round the other end of the dead tree, twenty or thirty feet away, slowly, eyes darting from side to side. Lonjic left his victim propped against the roots and slipped slowly backwards into a clump of bracken. The third man, beyond the tree, couldn’t see him from where he was, but no doubt was watching in case of a break. Anyone appearing would be right in the man’s sights.
Lonjic wondered where the rest of the JNA unit was – they had suffered high casualties and who knows how many were left. What was certain was that they were not very high in morale; they were young conscripts and not trained to the same degree the armies of the NATO forces were, nor the mercenaries come to that. They tended to panic and look to their officers far too much. He’d heard of the poor showing the JNA had suffered in the ten-day war with Slovenia before Milosevic had accepted the small nation’s independence from Yugoslavia. It seemed it wasn’t a minor blip; they were riddled with low quality.
The other soldier was creeping forward, his M70 weaving from side to side. Lonjic was on his belly, his chin touching the soil, eyes looking up through the jagged edges of the bracken leaves. His camouflage jacket blended in superbly with the undergrowth and unless he moved, he was as good as invisible.
“Mihail?” the young soldier whispered urgently. “Where are you?”
He got nothing in reply, and he swallowed, clearly frightened. Lonjic’s grip on the knife tightened as the soldier caught sight of the dead man’s legs sticking out from the root complex of the downed tree. Slowly the soldier approached, his comrade’s waist coming into view and the first of the splashes of blood that had poured from his sliced throat. The soldier gasped as he saw the ugly red stain soaking his dead friend’s jacket. He didn’t need to see the face; he knew he was dead.
He whirled but it was too late. Lonjic was up, knocking the gun aside and sinking his knife deep into his stomach, angling up under the ribs into the heart. Lonjic held him close, a waft of soil, sweat and discharged gun filling the dying man’s senses. Lonjic pulled him to the ground and held him until the life left the young man, then he got to his knees and wiped the blade.
One left. He picked up his M70 and slid to the edge of the tree and peered round. It had been five minutes since he’d burst into the undergrowth. He was certain the JNA troops here were down to about seven or eight at the most. There had been around thirty when they’d attacked; Godan had taken out six and they’d lost twelve in the attack on the house, and another five here. That was twenty-three lost. There can’t be more than seven including Vardaric left.
Darkness was falling now. His four remaining men should have slipped past by now. Godan would lead Toloba, Linderroth and Mendez to safety unless bad luck got them. Lonjic cared little about reaching safety himself. Vardaric wasn’t going to escape this time. A shot smashed close to his head and he ducked back hastily. He heard voices. So there were a few there. He had no grenades and only two clips left, plus his knife. Oh, and his pistol. He slipped away from the tree and circled wide, making sure there was plenty of thick undergrowth between him and the JNA troops. He ought to pick up clips from the ones he’d killed. He looked around.
Vardaric wasn’t much of a tactician, and the raw troops wouldn’t know how to deal with the situation. They may even shoot one another in the dark. Lonjic knew that anyone he met was an enemy and so he had a huge advantage. He was now to the north-east of the last known position of Vardaric and maybe fifty yards away. He would creep forward, and get as close as he could to them. He hadn’t seen the lieutenant as yet, so maybe he had gone with the other truck to dispose of the bodies. He had at least ten with him. Best to deal with the situation now before that lot came back.
The land was soft underfoot, a mixture of soil and long-dead leaves from countless autumns. He trod carefully, not wishing to crunch any twig under his heavy boots. He paused, down on one knee, and peered through the fading light. He was certain the three figures up ahead were soldiers. He waited. One moved, talking in a low voice to his comrade.
Three. Four others at the most elsewhere. He picked out a thick tree to the left and slid up to it and looked again. The land was level except to the left where it dropped. That was his approach, below their line of sight and below any horizon. The light was stronger to the west anyway, so approaching from the east meant the JNA were more outlined against any light that remained while he would be in darkness.
He crept sideways, his eyes firmly fixed on the position of the three men. It looked like they had a fallen log acting as cover and were waiting for him to conveniently approach from that direction. No chance. He put his M70 down and gripped his knife tightly. This would be fast and brutal.
He scuttled across the ground, climbing slightly, and came at the prone men like some horrid creature from the realms of terror. One swung round, hearing the last few sliding paces as Lonjic pushed his feet through the topsoil and his eyes widened in shock. Even as his mouth opened to shout, Lonjic’s knife plunged into his throat, opening it up. Wrenching the blade free Lonjic hurled himself at the second who was rolling onto his side, the M70 in his hands coming round.
The eternal mercenary hit the man across the neck, chest and hip, smashing him onto the ground hard. The knife plunged once, deep into the soldier’s chest, then again. The third screamed and blasted away, spraying the air with a deadly hail of bullets. Lonjic was struck across the shoulder and grunted in pain, then staggered the last three feet at the desperately reloading man and took him under the sternum, slicing in deep. The solider stared at Lonjic in agony, the whites of his eyes filling Lonjic’s vision, before he crumpled to the ground.
“Bastard!” a Serbian voice yelled from the right.
Another solider had come running to investigate the shots. Lonjic sank to his knees, dropping the knife. Pain filled him. The JNA soldier yelled that he’d found the pig responsible and had him covered. Lonjic’s hand closed around the butt of his CZ-99 and he wrenched it free of its holster. The soldier realized too late the danger and went to gun the kneeling man down but two 9mm parabellum rounds tore into his chest, flinging him back into a growth of bracken.
Lonjic staggered to his feet and stumbled back towards his M70. Pounding feet from behind alerted him and two men came bursting into the clearing. “You!” Vardaric exclaimed, recognizing him in the near darkness. He pushed the soldier with him. “Kill him!”
As the JNA man steadied himself Lonjic drilled him through the heart with another shot, pitching the soldier back onto the soil. Vardaric, despite being armed himself, screamed and threw himself to one side. Lonjic’s two shots meant for him passed harmlessly into the woods.
Vardaric scrambled blindly through the undergrowth on all fours. This man Romero or whatever his cursed name was, was becoming the bane of his life. Another shot passing close by spurred him on, gasping and sobbing, through the trees and bushes. The land climbed ahead of him and some primeval instinct made him go in that direction – climb to escape danger.
Lonjic grimaced, picking up his M70. JNA bodies lay everywhere. He turned. The crunching of gears heralded the return of the third truck, full of soldiers. He caught hold of his shoulder and set off after the fleeing warlord. Vardaric wasn’t exactly being quiet about his flight, and Lonjic had a good bearing on him.
He began to run, but not too fast. He kept to clearer ground, and tried to pick out areas of greater darkness. It was virtually night now, and the woods were as dark as they could be. There was cloud, too, that blocked the light from the stars and moon. He wondered how far Vardaric could run. From memory, this wood went up then down and there was a main road at the bottom then another large patch of woodland that ran to the Sava.
Some distance away the four other mercs paused at the crest of a wooded rise. It was pitch black and they had little vision. The shooting off to their right had ceased so now God knows what was going on. Godan sat on a fallen tree trunk and eyed the three others. “We can’t just let him go off on his own. He’s a good man.”
“So what do you propose?” Mendez asked. “We go back?”
“No – but we go right to try to help him. Those JNA troops are fucking useless, but what of that prick Vardaric?”
“You want to go help finish him off? What about those other JNA soldiers? Someone’s going to find the carnage back there and bring the whole damned district down on our heads,” Toloba objected.
“We should help him,” Linderroth said calmly. “He wouldn’t leave us to our fate.”
“You heard his order,” Mendez countered. “We’re to make our way to the Sava. He’ll follow.”
“Or he’ll not be coming,” Godan finished. “He’s a mate of mine back in Oz, and there’s no way I’m going to leave him facing that lot on his own.”
Linderroth cocked his head to the south-east. “I can’t hear anything, so that means either he’s finished them off or they’ve got him. I don’t like the idea of Vardaric still on the loose, especially after what we’ve witnessed.”
Mendez sighed with exasperation. “He wanted us out of here; he said so. We’ll be foolish trying to find one or two men in the dark in this forest!”
Toloba looked around. Lights were visible from the village downhill, faintly seen in the dark. “Looks like the other JNA troops have returned. Plenty of lights back there now. There weren’t many before.”
“That’s settled it in my mind,” Mendez said decisively, standing up. “Now they’ll find the mess we left behind; let’s get out of here.”
“You want to run out on him, then good. You do that,” Linderroth said. “I don’t think we should.”
Toloba grunted, spat on the ground and took a step to the south-east. “I concur. Let’s go find him.”
Godan heaved himself up. “That’s settled then. Come on, spread out, keep within ten paces. We know roughly where he was.”
Mendez threw his arms up in disgust. “Oh you fucking heroes. This won’t end well.” He stamped off to his place in a temper. Linderroth shook his head slowly, then nodded to Godan and Toloba.
The four mercs strung out, with Godan fishing out a small pencil torch. He clipped it to his lapel and switched it on. He guessed there was an hour’s life in the batteries. They had that long to find Lonjic, Vardaric – or both.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lonjic stopped and listened. His ears were pricked, his hunting senses alerted. Vardaric was close, he knew it. The panic-stricken flight had taken him about a hundred meters up the slope. Now he had stopped, and was probably fighting to regain his breath somewhere, listening for the approach of his hunter.
Lonjic’s boot touched a solid object which gave slightly. He bent and felt it. A small rock. Grinning, he picked it up, hefted it, assessed the weight, then lobbed it off to the front and slightly to the right. It crashed into the undergrowth.
Not very far away Vardaric sucked in a deep breath and swung fearfully to his left. His gun came up and weaved from left to right, aiming at the darkness where the sound had come from. He knew it was Romero, or Romain, or whatever his damned name was. Romero he called him, for that was what he’d known him latterly as in Panama. Somehow the devil had killed every one of his men and now was coming for him. He desperately wanted to kill this inhuman thing, but he had a growing dread that he would never be able to.
