Specter (5 page)

The chapel had been torn by shell fire and was open to the sky. The icons, the altar, and most of the furniture had been all carried off, either by the original Dominican brothers when they'd fled, or by looters looking for gold or firewood later on. No place to hide ... no place good enough, anyway. He scrambled through a gap in the north wall, vaulted an ironwork fence outside, and scrambled into the chill shadows beneath the trees beyond. The snow lay in patches ... careful not to leave tracks. Where to go? Where to—

In the woods! A snowbank! Plunging into the snow behind a tangle of fallen branches, he lay there, panting hard, trying to control the heart-pounding terror that had propelled him into the forest. God, God, God, who
were
these people? Not Turks, surely . . . as he thought of the Bosnian Muslims. The UN arms blockade still prevented the Muslims from receiving more than a trickle of weapons from outside, and certainly they wouldn't have silenced guns.

What was that? Jankovic was sure he'd seen movement, close by the east side of the monastery's chapel. Holding very still in the snow, scarcely breathing, he watched a patch of darkness moving against darkness. The shape revealed itself against a bare patch of wall dimly illuminated by the glowing sky ... but only for an instant.

Jankovic tried to digest what he'd just seen. The shape had been . . . nightmarishly alien, terrifying, with some kind of harness or vest heavy with equipment, with something like goggles or a camera over its face. A second shadow joined the first. They moved so stealthily, so silently, that Jankovic kept losing sight of them. He wanted to run, but he suppressed the urge, knowing that if he so much as moved, they would see him.

Russian Spetsnaz? The only Russians in Yugoslavia, apart from a UN brigade present solely for cosmetic purposes, were advisors secretly helping the JNA. Americans, then?

Everything he'd been told about the Americans said that they were cowards, afraid to fight save from behind the screen of their near-magical technology. Jankovic's superiors warned almost daily of the danger of American air strikes, impressing on the men the need to capture any downed pilots alive. But ground troops? It seemed impossible.

But as Jankovic lay in the snow, watching the two shadows quartering the grounds behind the monastery, he became convinced that they must be Americans, possibly even their legendary Delta Force. They had so much expensive equipment—personal radios, night-vision goggles, silenced submachine guns—they
must
be Americans, because only Americans could afford that kind of lavish, high-tech gadgetry.

Did their gadgetry include infrared goggles? Could they see him beneath his blanket of snow? Jankovic had worked with Russian IR equipment and knew that his body heat must be glowing as brightly as a bonfire against the cold ground. Even starlight optics allowed some vision at infrared wavelengths. If they saw him ...

But no, the shadows moved within ten meters of his hiding place, giving no evidence of having seen him. Silently, the shadows passed him by, circled the west end of the monastery, and vanished.

Even so, it was several minutes before Jankovic could force trembling legs to support him. He didn't dare head for the road, not when more of the invaders could have an ambush posted there. Instead, he started climbing the mountain behind the monastery. The road angled back across the face of the mountain, perhaps five hundred meters up the slope, and from there it was another three kilometers to a local militia outpost.

There was a radio there, and he'd be able to call for help. This was definitely a job for the JNA, and they would have to work fast to trap these high-tech shadows, before they could make their escape.

Magic and Professor showed up a few minutes later, silently materializing out of the darkness like wraiths. “No trace of that runner, L-T,” Magic said. “He must've decided it was time to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Shit, that son of a bitch's feet won't touch the ground twice before he hits the Bulgarian border,” Doc said, coming up on Murdock from behind. “Skipper? Our spook friend checks out okay. I gave him a one-grain tab of phenobarb to kind of quiet him down, like.”

“Okay, Doc. See to the women, will you?”

Doc's painted face split in a toothy grin. “Hey, my pleasure, Skipper.”

“Cut the crap, Doc. They've just been through hell and they don't need any shit from you.”

The smile vanished. “Aye, aye, sir.”

Damn, he hadn't meant to snap at Doc. The guy had a wild rep with the ladies on liberty, but on duty he was always strictly professional, except for his sometimes quirky sense of humor.

The aftereffects of the firefight, and the fact that one of the bad guys had escaped, had Murdock on edge. He hurried over to where Mac was sitting on the ground with the CIA man. Squatting next to him, Murdock tried to give a reassuring smile, an expression that he knew well could not be all that reassuring delivered through all of this camo face paint.

“You're Gypsy?”

The man seemed to be trying to focus on Murdock. His glasses were still blood-smeared. “Uh ...
ya sam
Gypsy,” the man said. “You ... you Nomad?”

That was the proper recognition code, Gypsy and Nomad, sign and countersign. “I'm Nomad.”

The man gestured vaguely at the jeep. “Papers, in there.”

They found what they'd come for on the floor of the jeep, a briefcase bulging with typewritten papers. Not originals; from the look of them, they'd have been stamped secret if they were. They appeared to be carefully compiled lists of troops, regular forces and militias, personnel rosters, TO&E breakdowns, headquarters sites, SAM positions, artillery placements . . . .

“You use,
ne?
” Gypsy said as Murdock carefully clicked the briefcase shut. “You send jets, kill many Christians, kill many Chetnik bastards,
da?
”

Murdock looked back at the monastery and at the bodies littering the ground. “Kill many Christians,” he said, his voice hard.
“Da. ”

The Mi-8 transport helicopter descended toward the clearing, a broad stretch of open and relatively level ground on the otherwise thickly forested mountainside that had been the site of a logging operation several years earlier. Several vehicles had been lined up to either side of the roadway, their headlights illuminating the touchdown point.

Brigadni Djeneral
Vuk Mihajlovic remained in his seat as the helicopter touched down, a crew member slid open the cabin door on the right side, and his aides and bodyguards clambered out into the night. He didn't like flying, especially at night, and especially as parts shortages and wear and tear claimed more and more of the aging aircraft purchased years ago from the then-Soviet Union. Still, it was the only way a brigade general could maintain personal control of his command, and this time it sounded as though he'd happened upon a special piece of luck.

JNA helicopters in Bosnia tended to fly only short hops nowadays, sticking to hair-raising, low-level flights through mountain passes and valleys just in case NATO or the Americans decided to enforce their ludicrous and arbitrary no-fly-zone decrees. Mihajlovic had been en route from Kotor to the headquarters of his Third Regiment in the hills outside Dubrovnik when the Mi-8's pilot had picked up an urgent radio call from Checkpoint Orandzasta. Normally, he would have ordered the pilot to ignore the signal, but the caller had used a code phrase that indicated he was a JNA advisor with the militias. He'd then reported an ambush on Bosnian-Serb forces that he claimed had been launched by American commandos.

That
seemed unlikely. Almost certainly, what the caller had blundered into was a raid by one or another of the anti-Serb militias, probably Croats with the paramilitary HOS, the so-called Croatian Defense Army. There was almost nothing left of the Bosnian Muslin forces, not enough to have caused the slaughter the JNA advisor was screaming about over the radio.

In any case, since Mihajlovic happened to be in the area, it wouldn't hurt to stop and find out what was going on. Mihajlovic was a hands-on type of commander, Russian-trained, popular with his troops. It wouldn't hurt to check on the man's story, especially if the Croats were up to something unpleasant. A commando raid against the naval base at Kotor was a definite possibility, as were guerrilla-style raids against the Serbian supply lines through the mountains above Dubrovnik.

Careful not to give the appearance of unseemly haste, he unbuckled from his jump seat and stepped out of the helicopter. With head bent to avoid the still-turning rotors, he walked toward the building nearby, a decrepit-looking shack that had been the office for the lumbering company here and that now served as Checkpoint Orange.

He was met outside the building's front door by two men, both in dirty mismatches of Soviet-style and Yugoslav army uniforms.
“Dobro yutro, ”
he greeted them. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Good morning, Brigade General,” the older of the two men said. “I am Captain Balaban, in command of this post. I—”

“Sir! Senior Sergeant Jankovic,” the other man said, abruptly interrupting the militia officer. “I am a JNA advisor with these people.”

“You are the one who reported an attack,” Mihajlovic said, ignoring Balaban. The militiamen tended to be disorganized and more often than not exaggerated the situation, whatever it was. But the JNA sergeant looked reliable enough.

“Yes, sir. American commandos wiped out a section of Serbian Volunteer Guards not five kilometers from here.”

“And how is it you escaped, Sergeant?”

“The chances of war, General. That ... and I was able to react swiftly when the attack started.” He glanced briefly at Balaban. “The militia handled themselves as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The attackers were almost certainly American commandos. They opened fire suddenly, without warning, when most of our men did not even have their weapons.”

“Um. What makes you think the attackers were Americans?”

“Their equipment, my General.” He went on to describe the attack, and what he had seen of the two commandos, in precise detail. He did not say—and Mihajlovic did not ask—just what the Bosnian militiamen had been doing at the ruined monastery in the first place, other than to mention that the unit had been standing down, with minimal security measures in place. In all probability they'd been engaged in what the JNA high command euphemistically called “pacification,” breaking the stubborn Bosnian-Muslim will to resist, and the Serb general did not care to know too many of the details.

Sometimes, terrible things had to be done to further a cause, to achieve a necessary goal.

When Jankovic had completed his report, Mihajlovic was more than half certain that the sergeant had, indeed, seen Americans ... or at least a contingent of NATO commandos. The description of their uniforms—black coveralls, combat harnesses, low-light goggles, silenced automatic weapons—sounded very much like the British SAS, though there were no reports that any Special Air Service detachments were stationed anywhere near the Adriatic just now. German GSG-9 was another possibility; the Germans had been taking a keen interest in military developments in the Balkans, though they were still unwilling to operate outside of the guidelines set by NATO. Americans? Very possible. Delta Force, Army Rangers ...

But what could Americans be after at a ruined Bosnian monastery? Jankovic had mentioned a civilian who'd driven up moments before the ambush. That could be significant. A curfew was in effect throughout Bosnia and coastal Croatia; a civilian out in the middle of the night, alone at a place that should have been deserted, was extremely suspicious ... and supported Jankovic's contention that the attackers were foreign commandos. “You did not see what became of the civilian,” he said bluntly.

“No, my General. I know only that he was there in the custody of two of my men when the attack began.”

“And the attack took place ...” He consulted his watch. “Just over an hour ago?”

“Yes, sir. I remember looking at my watch when the civilian drove up. It was two-thirty-five.”

“Then these invaders, whoever they are, are still in the area. Come with me, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir. Where are we going?”

“To find these commandos, of course. I would like to know what they find so interesting about a deserted, tumbledown church.”

“L-T?”

“Yeah, Razor.”

“We got the brass policed, L-T,” Roselli said. He'd found the lieutenant standing next to the highway, staring up the mountain, a distracted look on his face. “We're clean.”

“Okay. Get your gear together and let's move. It's time to get the hell out of Dodge!”

Roselli, frankly, wasn't sure what to make of the L-T. He'd thought he'd known the man pretty well; eight months of close, hard training and two combat deployments—one in the Indian Ocean, the other just a few days later at the Iranian naval port at Bandar Abbas—were enough to make brothers out of any two men, whatever the differences in their backgrounds or families. Now, though, he wasn't so sure.

It was, he knew, the way Murdock had gunned down that Serb militiaman, right at the end of the firefight. Oh, the fact of the killing alone wasn't the problem. SEALs, like covert forces tasked with counterinsurgency/counterterrorism worldwide, frequently had to get into tight places and out again without being seen and without jeopardizing the op's success by dragging along prisoners. The written orders for this mission had directed Blue Squad to handle prisoners “according to SOP,” a bit of verbal misdirection that meant they would not be taking prisoners.