Warriors (9781101621189) (24 page)

“Motown Eight-Six, Sarajevo Tower. You are cleared to land. Crash response standing by.”

“Motown copies cleared to land.”

“We better get configured.”

“You're right. Gear down. Before-landing checklist.”

“Gear down.”

Groans and hisses sounded from underneath the airplane. Not the usual soft clunks of landing gear locking into place.

“Left gear's stuck in transit.”

“Try emergency extending it.”

As the pilots spoke, a warning horn blared in the background. Probably proclaiming the obvious, Gold thought. Unsafe landing gear.

“Silence that horn, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The blaring stopped. What seemed like an eternity passed with no more talk from the cockpit. Gold imagined they were consulting an emergency checklist, flipping switches or pulling levers to get the landing gear to work.

“No joy,” someone said.

“Did it move at all?”

“Negative.”

“All right, we got the nose gear down, the right gear down, and the left gear jacked all to hell.”

“That'll pull us off the runway.”

“I know it.”

“Book says it's better to land on the belly.”

Silence for a few seconds. Then a click on the interphone, a heavy sigh, and terse orders.

“All right. We'll bring all the landing gear back up and then we'll emergency extend the nose gear. At least we got that much going for us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gear up.”

More groans and clangs. The noise put Gold in mind of cogs and gears fouled with sand.

“Up and locked. Okay, let's get the nose gear back down.”

“All right. I got the emergency extend handle.”

Long silence, then clanks from beneath the jet. But at least these noises sounded like something that was supposed to be happening.

“Nose gear down. Both main gear up.”

“Okay, tell Sarajevo Tower we're about to fuck up their runway. And tell everybody in the back to stand by for a crash landing and emergency egress.”

“Yes, sir.”

Briefings and instructions followed. The crew would brace for impact, prepare to evacuate the aircraft, pop the slide if necessary.

In the back of Gold's mind, behind the sick worry about Parson and the others, she wondered if she was witnessing the opening of a new Balkan war. To Gold, Dušic's plan had sounded audacious, but he clearly had resources and contacts. And wars had been started by less than the bombing of a holy site. As the Rivet Joint slowed for a crash landing at Sarajevo, Gold remembered that a mere pistol shot in the city below had ignited World War I.

“We're on final,” someone announced. “Touchdown in about one minute.”

Gold watched the linguists and technicians finish stowing loose equipment. Checklists and clipboards went into flight cases and helmet bags. No sense having loose objects flying around on impact. Gold pocketed her pens and notepads.

The engines hushed as the pilots throttled back.

“We're in the flare,” one of the pilots said. “Hold on.”

A metallic scraping came from underneath the jet. The noise sounded awful, but Gold sensed no violent jarring. She'd expected a hard impact, perhaps even the fuselage breaking open. But only some heavy vibration made this landing feel different from any other touchdown.

When the nose came down, the vibration actually eased a bit. Gold remembered the nose gear had extended, so at least that part of the aircraft had rubber rolling under it.

“Good job,” the aircraft commander said. “You're right on centerline.”

Gold felt the plane slow down, and the scraping ended.

“Ground egress,” someone said.

Crew members unbuckled their harnesses, came out of their seats. The engine noise whined down to nothing, and the lights blinked out. Hatches and doors came open. Rays of sunlight beamed into the Rivet Joint's shadowed interior.

Gold followed Irena down an escape slide. She slid down the inflated fabric on her buttocks. When her heels contacted the pavement, her own momentum forced her upright into a running stride. She jogged away from the escape slide to make room for crew members coming behind her.

Firefighters sprayed foam along the underside of the aircraft and over the engines. Their effort amounted to a precaution; Gold saw no fire, not even smoke. Irena hugged two of her crewmates, then embraced Gold.

“That's a first for me,” Irena said.

Gold said nothing. This wasn't her first crash landing, and it wasn't anywhere near her worst. Crew members backslapped and celebrated their escape from injury. She could not share in their mirth. She knew that in Belgrade civilians might have just been burned and torn apart by someone who thought the world had not seen enough war.

AFTER THE BOOM
came a beat of silence. The blast had hit Parson like a kick to both sides of his head, and it left his ears stunned and deadened. Yet in the quiet he could sense the siss of grit settling to the pavement, the world falling back into place.

Then the screams began. Not words but formless cries of agony. People in mind-bending pain. People finding mangled tissue where arms and legs used to be. People who could see their own bones or internal organs.

The priest Parson had carried away from the Patriarchate put his hands together and began to pray, sitting on the ground in torn vestments. The old cleric seemed reasonably safe. Parson ran toward what was left of the Patriarchate.

He found a scene that brought his worst memories to reality, only magnified. Corpses and pieces of corpses lay coated in dust. The wounded crawled and writhed. A priest young enough to have no gray in his beard sat armless amid the rubble. He rocked back and forth slightly, made a keening sound through his clenched jaw. Blood poured from both stumps.

Parson fought the urge to panic, forced himself to think. Where were the medical kits? In the mobile command post, maybe. He ran to the CP, yanked open the door. No police officers inside. Good. Maybe they'd escaped injury and were now searching for survivors, treating wounded. Apparently the cops had already called for help; down the street, a helicopter was landing, dust swirling under its rotors.

In the CP, Parson found a first-aid kit. He could not read the lettering but recognized the red cross on the cover. He sprinted back to the injured priest and ripped open the first-aid kit.

He could see the kit was meant for minor injuries. It contained small adhesive bandages, a tube of ointment. One little roll of gauze. Nearly useless. Parson unrolled the gauze and wrapped it around the priest's left stump, the one bleeding the most profusely.

Blood soaked the gauze and poured right through it, smeared Parson's hands. The priest stared straight ahead and never made eye contact. Parson tried to find a pressure point under what remained of the upper arm. He squeezed hard over the stump; blood sponged through his fingers. The priest's eyelids fluttered, and the man fell backward. Bleeding out, Parson knew. He lost his grip on the stump, shifted around on his knees, groped for the pressure point again. Now blood and dirt coated his hands in a wine-colored slurry. A life was flowing away between his fingers; lives were flowing away all around him.

“Dragan!” Parson shouted. “Cunningham!”

No one answered. Parson had last seen Dragan running into the Patriarchate. The building now sat ripped open and smoking, its facade and front walls torn away. He held little hope that Dragan remained alive, and he had no idea about Cunningham.

From the helicopter that had touched down on the street, a crewman ran toward Parson. A medic, apparently. The man carried a pack of gear, and in a pouch on his uniform he wore a pair of medical shears. He never took off his flight helmet.

The medic kneeled beside Parson, shouted in Serbo-Croatian. Parson let go of the priest's wound and allowed the medic to do his job.

Smoke and dust still drifted from the ruined Patriarchate, though the flames had gone out. A fire truck blared onto Kralja Petra. Firefighters descended from their rig and ran into what remained of the building. Survivors began to mill through the broken masonry. Some appeared uninjured, others bloody and burned. Parson stood up and started looking for Dragan and Cunningham.

He felt a deep personal failure. He had known when and where this would happen. Serbian and American agencies had known when and where this would happen. And yet they couldn't prevent it. Parson wondered what was wrong with him, what was wrong with his country and his world. They couldn't stop one nut job bent on war even when they knew his plans?

He felt that same sense of futility he'd known back in the 1990s. The same frustration when he'd land in Germany after a Bosnia mission and, still in a sweat-damp flight suit, slump behind the wheel of his Mustang at Ramstein. With the top down he'd tear along the autobahn at ninety miles an hour, blasting the Gin Blossoms on his CD player as if guitar riffs and speed could clear his mind of the horrors that lay just a few hours of flying time behind him.

Now the horrors lay all around him.

A burst of gunfire spat from somewhere across the street. Parson turned toward the sound. He saw Cunningham running down Kralja Petra, pistol drawn. The OSI agent raced toward a car where a gunman had taken cover. The gunman popped up from behind the vehicle and fired another burst from his AK. The bullets missed Cunningham, who ducked behind another car. Serbian police officers also converged on the gunman.

Parson had thought the attack was over, but here was a straggler, still deadly. Cunningham and the other officers now faced a cornered shooter armed with an automatic weapon.

Parson dropped flat to the ground. Without a firearm, he could do little but make himself a difficult target.

Behind a concrete barrier placed near what had been the Patriarchate entrance, a policeman ejected a spent magazine from his rifle. Slammed in another. When he raised himself to fire at the gunman, the officer caught rounds in the upper body. He slumped behind the barrier, bleeding.

Parson could see Cunningham bobbing and weaving behind a car. The OSI agent appeared to be sizing up the situation while making the best use of cover. And the situation looked like a stalemate. The gunman had a commanding view of the scene. He might pick off several more people before running out of ammunition. Parson feared casualties would mount until the police could get heavier weaponry into place.

Cunningham did not wait for that. Holding his Beretta with both hands, he charged from behind the car. The gunman swung his rifle to fire. But before the man could shoot, Cunningham dived for the street. He hit the ground on his right shoulder and slid, gun pointed. With his eyes now at ground level, Cunningham must have had a good view of the shooter's feet and ankles. The OSI agent began to fire.

The move impressed the hell out of Parson. If you couldn't shoot to kill, shoot to wound.

The gunman screamed and fell to the pavement. But he held on to his weapon with one hand as he writhed on the ground. Bullets sprayed under cars and up into the air.

A Serbian officer broke from cover and ran toward the gunman. Parson saw the policeman stand over the attacker and pump several rounds into him with a handgun. The man's body jerked with each shot. The AK fell silent.

Thinking to congratulate Cunningham on his bold move, Parson got up. The OSI agent still lay on the ground.

Blood pooled around him.

Fingers of ice clawed at Parson's guts. He ran toward Cunningham. Kneeled beside him. The flight medic from the helicopter caught up.

Cunningham's eyes were open but did not register recognition when they turned to Parson. The agent held one hand to a bullet wound through the neck. Blood slicked his fingers. Blood ran across the pavement. His handgun lay on the ground beside him, still cocked and ready to fire again.

The medic moved Cunningham's hand out of the way and placed a compress to the wound. The agent's leg jerked spasmodically.

Cunningham moved his lips as if trying to speak, but no sound came out. He sighed; Parson heard the outbreath. No inbreath.

The medic felt for a pulse, began chest compressions. Felt for a pulse again. Placed the heels of his hands back onto Cunningham's chest, resumed the compressions. After a few minutes it became clear the medic was just going through the motions.

Parson leaned down and clicked the safety on Cunningham's weapon so the gun wouldn't fire. Then he pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut. “Son of a bitch, man, I'm sorry,” he said. “I am so fucking sorry.” He hadn't known the OSI agent well, but he'd grown fond of the guy. Parson had helped teach Cunningham to care about this part of the world. Now that had gotten him killed.

That feeling of impotence came back full force. The bombing, the deaths and injuries around him, seemed to mock him, to mark defeat. If the war here wasn't finished, if some people wanted so much to resume the killing, who was he to think he could stop it? In an Air Force officer's course, he'd once read that in more than three thousand years of recorded history, fewer than three hundred years had passed without war anywhere. Peace now seemed like a distant valley on the back side of a ridge you could see through your scope, but you knew it was too far to walk.

Around him, the noises of destruction assaulted his ears. Sirens and screams. Dragan emerged from the shattered building, helping a policeman carry a wounded cleric. At least Dragan had survived.

Someone turned off the siren. The screams trailed off as the injured grew weaker, passed out, or died. The helicopter lifted off, taking wounded to a hospital.

A funereal quiet took hold. Mist drifted from an overcast sky. The trees along Kralja Petra stood silent until a breeze gave them voice.

•   •   •

DUÅ IC HAD STEFAN STOP
the Aventador at a home on the edge of a village outside Novi Sad. The house looked like the dwelling of a country gentleman. Manicured shrubbery highlighted the front garden. The outbuilding behind the house could have served as a stable for horses, though no animals grazed in the adjoining paddock.

“Who lives here?” Stefan asked.

“Do you remember Captain Bradic, the field surgeon?” DuÅ¡ic said.

“Vaguely.”

“He patched up many of our men. Bradic has gone into private practice, and he seems to have done well for himself. Go knock on his door. Tell him as little as possible.”

Dušic's leg hurt worse now; the injury had stiffened. Apart from bringing medical kits, he had not arranged for treating wounds in this operation. To recruit a doctor or medic might have been a good idea, but Dušic had opted for maximum security. The more people who knew his plans, the greater the risk of a security breach.

A good judgment, he decided. The operation had succeeded. He longed to turn on a news broadcast, to hear reports of the explosion. More importantly, he wanted to hear reactions to it. Would Serbs see it as a Muslim act of war? Would they mobilize? Would the old paramilitary units form up again? He would find out soon enough.

Bradic came to the door. Dušic watched him conversing with Stefan. The doctor looked troubled. How much had Stefan told him, and had Stefan explained it in the proper way? No matter. Dušic remembered the old field surgeon as a patriot; the doctor knew all too well the bloody results of Muslim perfidy.

Stefan and Bradic came down to the car. “Viktor, you old warrior,” Bradic said. “Let me help you into the house. What have the Turks done to you?”

The Turks? Very good; let him think that. Operational security.

“I have a leg wound,” DuÅ¡ic said. “I need a hospital, but in my line of work, I try to stay off the radar.”

“Very wise, Lieutenant. I only wish President Karadžic and General Mladic could have remained off the radar.”

“Indeed.”

“I have no general anesthetic in the house, but I can deaden your leg locally and fix you up if the damage is not severe.”

Dušic levered himself out of the car, using the old Mauser as a crutch. The doctor frowned when he saw the rifle and the RPG launcher but he said nothing. Dušic put his arms around Bradic and Stefan, and the two men helped him up the steps and into the house.

Bradic had set up one room with an examination table and medicine cabinets. Perhaps there he ministered to family members and villagers, apart from his work at the hospital in Novi Sad. The doctor put on surgical gloves and unwrapped the bandages over Dušic's calf. Dušic winced as the dressing, sticky with drying blood, came off his leg. Bradic adjusted his glasses and looked at the wound.

“You are lucky,” Bradic said. “The bullet could have hit bone.” Bradic uncapped two hypodermic needles. “I am going to give you an antibiotic and an anesthetic.”

“Before you begin,” DuÅ¡ic said, “may we park the car behind your house?”

“Ah, yes,” Bradic said, “in the barn.”

“Stefan, if you please. And bring the gear inside.”

Stefan went out the front door. While he was gone, the doctor gave Dušic two injections.

“Do you have family, Bradic?” DuÅ¡ic asked.

“My daughter is away at school. My wife died in the war.”

“I am very sorry. When?”

“In 1999, when the bombs hit Novi Sad.”

Dušic remembered the time well. When the Muslims in Kosovo—by all rights a Serbian province—dared to declare a separate state, Serbs moved with vengeance. The Americans interfered again, bombing targets in Belgrade, Novi Sad, and other locations to stop the righteous ethnic cleansing. The West divided its record of meddling into what it called the Bosnian War, the Kosovo War, the Croatian War, and so on. But to Dušic, it was all one long conflict. An unfinished conflict.

Stefan came back inside. “You may not wish to watch this procedure,” Bradic said. “There is tea in my kitchen. You may make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, sir. Ah, do you have anything stronger?”

“Scotch whisky in the far left cabinet.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Dušic shook his head, but Stefan did not see the gesture. Perhaps Stefan wished to drink to celebrate success, though the look on his face did not seem celebratory. The act was done now; Dušic hoped his friend could keep his mind on the big picture.

The doctor began to scrape at the wound with a scalpel. Dušic felt no pain; his leg seemed a slab of cold meat. But he sensed the abrading and pulling.

“So tell me how you suffered this gunshot wound,” Bradic said. “Your friend was unclear.”

“It is better that you do not know the details. But our struggle against the Turks continues, and it will reach new heights. In fact, we will need a man of your skills once more.”