Specter (38 page)

Burning vehicles. Half of the motorized regiment must be in flames by now, stretched along the road from here halfway back to Ohrid. The air stank of burning rubber and diesel fumes and other, less pleasant smells.

The last of the American helicopters rose steadily above the walls, a huge, ominous black insect silhouetted against the glowing sky. It hovered there a moment as though sniffing the air, searching for any last, lingering survivors like Jankovic. Then it nodded, as though convinced the job was done, swung to the right, and with a droning flutter of its rotors, headed off toward the east.

With the last helicopter gone, the sounds of the battlefield rose all around him—the crackle of fires, the shouts of men calling to one another in the woods, and most horribly, the piercing shrieks of men in agony, the cries for
voda
—water—the moanings and pleadings of the dying.

Some minutes ago, Jankovic had been astonished to find that he was unhurt. He'd continued to lie there in the snow, however, unmoving, convinced that the Americans would see him if he so much as twitched. Now that they were gone, he slowly stood up.

The major who'd put him under arrest lay nearby. Jankovic recognized him by the uniform; his head was missing.

Jankovic staggered back down the access road, coming at last to the intersection with the coast road along the lake. North, burning vehicles littered the highway. He could see other soldiers, other survivors, moving among the wrecks, helping the wounded or simply wandering about in a shell-shocked daze.

What now?

The accumulated horror hit him in that moment, and Jankovic was violently sick, vomiting into a ditch on the side of the road. When he pulled himself erect again, he felt a little better.

He also knew what he had to do.

Only Solidarity Can Save the Serbs. The hell with that. Andonov Jankovic had had enough of war. He was sick of a bullying and inefficient army, sick of power-hungry and manipulative politicians and officers, sick of rape squads and ethnic cleansing and concentration camps and a war that long ago had lost any point, any vestige of the holy righteousness he'd once thought it possessed.

He'd had enough.

North on the coast road was Ohrid. The survivors of the JNA units at Gorazamak would be rallying there.

South, the coast road wound along the lake to the border with Albania. A side road split off to the left, wound up over the mountains, and eventually rejoined M26, the main road between Ohrid and the southern city of Bitola. From Bitola, it was a short twelve-kilometer walk to the Greek border.

The jeep he'd seen earlier, the one scoured by a booby-trap blast, was still sitting nearby, its engine still idling. It would let him stay ahead of the military police at least as far as the main road. After that, he could find some civilian clothes, maybe find a farmer who'd be willing to smuggle him across the border. Anyway, things were going to be hellishly confused in this corner of Macedonia, while the Serb military tried to figure out just what had hit them.

Yes, he would go to Greece. And after that?

Jankovic bore the Americans no ill will. Mihajlovic had provoked them by holding their people hostage; the Americans had struck back with overwhelming and devastating might. He was sure now the commandos had been Americans. No other nation on Earth had such magical technology.

Or such warriors.

That was it. Once he'd reached Greece, Andonov Jankovic would look for an American consulate. There would be one at Salonika.

He wondered if they allowed Serbians to become citizens of the United States of America. . . .