GORDON STEVENS
Kara’s Game

Dedication

To the real Kara.

And to Mick, Steve, Ken and Jim, on behalf of the people of Maglaj.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Book One: Bosnia … ten months earlier January 1994

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Book Two: seven months later … late August/early September 1994

9

10

11

12

Book Three

13

14

15

Epilogue

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

The sun was orange and the sky was tinged with red. A shepherd’s sky, they had called it in Maglaj in the old days. Blood sky, they had called it after the shelling and sniping had started and the graveyard was full and you were afraid to cross the bridge from the old town to the new. But that was at dusk, when the light was fading and the night was gathering. And now it was only two in the afternoon.

Amsterdam time; the same in Paris and Berlin. Four in the afternoon in Moscow, one in London, and eight in the morning in Washington. The shifts in time zone relevant because of what she had said four hours earlier and what would happen in eight hours’ time.

The sky was deeper, redder. Perhaps those who clung to the old ways and the old traditions would have called it a sign, she thought; perhaps the women would have dipped their heads and hurried the children inside. Only now, because of the shelling and the sniping, they were inside anyway. Except when they went to the food kitchen, but that was a risk in itself.

‘Tell them we’re leaving,’ she told Maeschler.

Somehow he had known, the captain thought. He pulled on the headset and pressed the transmit button on the left side of the control column.

Lufthansa 3216 taking off, the Strike committee in the Cobra room below Downing Street was informed.

Strike One, the political committee: the British Foreign Secretary and the ambassadors of the United States, France and the Federation of Russian States. Strike Two, the intelligence back-up: the Russian and American heads of station in London, the Frenchman from Paris, and Kilpatrick from Riverside. Knowledge of its existence and its machinations on a need-to-know basis, even within the governments represented.

‘So what now?’ Langdon asked. Langdon had been Foreign Secretary for three years.

‘We wait,’ Kilpatrick suggested. Because there’s nothing else we can do, because we don’t know what’s going to happen or where Lufthansa 3216 will go after Amsterdam. Even though the SAS have been at Heathrow since ninety minutes after the hijack.

The images on the monitors at the end of the room changed: BBC first, ITV and CNN two seconds later, the picture on each the same. The Boeing 737 moving slowly, the words NEWS FLASH superimposed over the image, and the reporters describing the event and playing back the conversation which had preceded it.

Lufthansa 3216 moving, the women heard on the transistor radios most of them carried. Lufthansa 3216 leaving Amsterdam …

The demonstration outside the United Nations headquarters in New York had begun with one woman – seventy years old and a survivor of Auschwitz. In London it had been two women outside the St Stephen’s entrance to the House of Commons. Now the area outside the UN building and Parliament Square itself were filled, with similar demonstrations in most European cities.

‘Tower, this is Lufthansa 3216. Ready for takeoff.’

‘3216, cleared for takeoff. Surface wind two two five degrees, eight knots.’

It was two days since Lufthansa 3216, with its hundred and thirty passengers and crew, had been seized. Twenty-eight hours since the leader of the hijack team had issued her demand, and four since she had announced her deadline. Eight hours to that deadline now and four to the emergency session of the United Nations Security Council which would vote on the demand.

‘Lufthansa 3216 …’

‘Go ahead, Tower.’ The words were picked up on VHF airband and transmitted live by the television and radio teams reporting from Schipol. ‘Good luck.’

So what will the captain say, Kilpatrick wondered; how will the captain react? The captain was taking too long to answer, he realized; it wasn’t going to be the captain who answered.

‘Thank you, Amsterdam …’ they all heard her voice.

‘Lufthansa 3216 is airborne,’ the operation commander informed Finn.

The holding room for the assault teams was in a building away from the main terminal complex at Heathrow, the Operations Room was on the floor above, and the hangar to the side was sealed and guarded, the 737 in it and the assault teams practising their approach and entry.

They had come in as soon as the hijack had been reported to Hereford – the advance team flying in in the Agusta 109, nothing about the helicopter to suggest its purpose and nothing about its markings to indicate the identities of the men in the back: the operations officer, the team commander, the assault group commander, the sniper group commander, a signaller, and the operations clerk. The rest of the teams screaming up the motorway in the unmarked Range Rovers and the plain white van with the back-up gear close behind. Nobody seeing them, of course; nobody, except those with a need to know, aware they were here.

‘Which way are they heading?’

‘Nobody’s sure yet.’

Finn stood the teams down, left the hangar, and went to the Operations Room.

Lufthansa 3216 flying north, Strike was informed. Lufthansa 3216 still in Dutch air space.

For one moment she was no longer on the flight deck. For one moment she was back in Bosnia, the snow was on the ground and the cold of winter was tight around her. Flour was fifteen deutschmarks a kilo, the black marketeer next to her was saying. I only have ten – the other man was even more desperate than those around him – my wife and my children are starving, they haven’t eaten for days. Take it or leave it, the black marketeer was telling him. The man was reaching into his coat, pulling out a gun and shooting the black marketeer. What good is fifteen d’marks to you now, he was saying. Was turning away and disappearing into the crowd. One day this would be her, she had thought; one day it would be her lying on the ground or in the snow. A bullet in her head and her blood running down her face.

‘Ask Control for a routeing for London Heathrow,’ she told Maeschler.

She’s asked directions for Heathrow – the whisper spread round the women on The Green, in the middle of Parliament Square. She’s bringing Lufthansa 3216 into London.

Bastard – Langdon turned to the other members of Strike.

You were right – the operation commander nodded as Finn came into the Ops Room. She’s requested a routeing for Heathrow.

She was always going to – Finn helped himself to a coffee and settled at one of the desks.

Because at ten o’clock this morning she actually told us what she was going to do. Not directly, but in the way she specified the deadline in a number of hours – twelve to be precise – rather than as a time. Which means that where she’ll be when the deadline expires, it might not actually be ten o’clock this evening. Therefore she was going to change time zones. Therefore she was coming to Heathrow.

Because Lufthansa 3216 had taken off from Berlin with thirteen metric tonnes of fuel – nine tonnes for the flight plus four reserve. And a Boeing 737 burned fuel at a rate of two and a half tonnes an hour. Which gave a flying time of just over five hours.

The hijack had taken place thirty minutes into the flight, plus the thirty minutes to return back over Berlin. So effectively you were down to four hours. Add Berlin – Paris, where the hijacker had first landed, then Paris – Amsterdam, where the hijacker had flown next, plus the usual in-flight delays and the fact that an aircraft burned more fuel when it was landing and taking off than it did when cruising, and you could knock another two and a half off. So when 3216 had taken off from Amsterdam it had less than ninety minutes’ flying time.

Then run that against the first assumption that the hijacker was going to switch time zones. Throw in a second, that the Amsterdam stop-over was merely an interlude, and that the hijacker was targeting the Big Players – Paris, London, Moscow and Washington. And she was telling you where she was going next.

Paris was out because she’d already been there, and, in any case, it was in the same time zone as Amsterdam. And Moscow and Washington were out because of flight times. Which only left one.

‘Lufthansa 3216. Route direct to Refso.’ The Dutch controller’s English was clipped and precise. ‘Then Lambourne Three Alpha arrival.’ Refso was the reporting point between Dutch and British air space; Lambourne, in Essex, was a navigation beacon on the route into London from Amsterdam, and Lambourne Three Alpha was the standard routeing from the Lambourne beacon into Heathrow. ‘Contact London on one three six decimal five five.’

Maeschler leaned to his right and began to adjust the frequency.

‘Check ATIS first,’ she told him.

Because that will tell us the conditions at Heathrow, including which runway we’re landing on. Which in turn will tell us our route in. And the authorities may not like the way we’re coming in and might try to change it. And if they try, I want to know.

Maeschler glanced at the first officer and dialled up the frequency for Heathrow.

‘This is Heathrow Information Charlie …’ The details were updated every twenty minutes. ‘Runway in use Two Seven Left. Surface wind two six zero, eighteen knots. Overcast at four thousand feet. QNH is one zero one eight.’

So now you know – Maeschler looked back at the woman in the jump seat. And everyone else will also know. Because anyone with the right set can pick up our messages on VHF, and those who can’t can listen to them being played live on radio and television. Which you understood already, of course. Because you planned it as you planned everything.

Pity they didn’t know much about the hijackers, Finn thought. Four of them, from the debriefs of the passengers she’d released. Two men and two women, all heavily armed, though there had been no indication how they had smuggled their weapons on board. But nothing apart from that, not even the names and aliases they were using. Because the hijacker had hacked a pirate programme into the computerized check-in system in Berlin, activated when the computer received confirmation that 3216 was airborne, and wiped all record of the passenger list. Therefore the security people hadn’t been able to check which passengers were genuine, and which were the hijackers travelling under false passports or genuine passports assigned to someone sitting comfortably at home in Bremen or Copenhagen or Manchester.

He topped up the coffee, checked the television monitors against the right-hand wall of the room, and placed the two radios on the desk – one VHF tuned to the frequency 3216 was using, and the other a transistor so that he could listen to the press reports of the progress of 3216, and ipso facto the details the hijackers were receiving.

The Operations Room was silent, almost eerie. Just like one of the RSGs, Finn thought. He’d been down one once, part of an exercise. An attack on a Regional Seat of Government, one of the underground bunkers for use in the event of nuclear war: four levels in a hollowed-out hill in Essex. Everything ready for World War Three – desks and chairs and bunks, even the blankets folded on them and the notepads and pencils perfectly in position. Everything silent as everything was ready and silent in the Ops Room now. Everything waiting, except the Cold War had ended, the threat of the ultimate mushroom over the world had lifted, and the RSG had been decommissioned. Just like the Ops Room until twenty minutes ago. Then somebody had pressed the button: then the hijacker had requested a routeing for Heathrow.

It was one-thirty London time, Lufthansa 3216 over the North Sea. The nerves had gone from her stomach now, and her mind was calm.

… The next time the United Nations lets your people down … She remembered the moment he had told her. The corridor in the hospital, the night dark and freezing, the children crying and the Serb shells thundering outside. Adin somewhere on the front line and little Jovan in the makeshift ward two doors away.

Look down on me this day, she told them both. Pray for me, my husband. Smile at me, my son.

The next time the United Nations stands by and does nothing. She remembered why he had told her …

‘Contact London,’ she instructed Maeschler.

‘London. This is Lufthansa 3216. Approaching Refso.’

Lufthansa 3216 approaching British air space, Strike was informed. About to leave Dutch air space. Now in British air space. Lufthansa 3216 now his problem, Finn thought.

‘Lufthansa 3216.’ They all heard the voice of the British controller. ‘Standard Lambourne Three Alpha arrival for landing runway Two Seven Left.’

‘What does that mean?’ Langdon demanded.

Kilpatrick crossed to the telephones and asked the flight adviser to join them.

Lambourne Three Alpha was the standard arrival route for aircraft coming in from Amsterdam, the adviser informed them. He was settled uncomfortably at the end of the table facing Langdon. Runway Two Seven Left was the standard runway at that time of day for aircraft coming in from Lambourne.

‘Which way do they come in from Lambourne?’ Langdon leaned forward.

‘You mean the route?’

‘Yes.’ Because Lambourne is to the east, Heathrow is to the west, and London is bang in the middle.

‘Up the Thames and over central London.’

‘Over the City? Directly over Westminster, Downing Street, and Parliament?’

‘Yes.’

Lufthansa 3216 approaching the Essex coast, Strike was informed.

‘Lufthansa 3216. Descend when ready to flight level one five zero.’ Descend to fifteen thousand feet.

The air traffic control room was rectangular; low lighting and quiet atmosphere, no smoking and not even soft drinks allowed. The watch supervisor’s desk was at the head of the room; along the left wall were four radar suites, each controlling a sector; another suite on the end wall farthest from the watch supervisor, and four more suites along the other long wall. At each suite were two radar controllers, headsets on and radar screens horizontal on the desk in front of them, the crew chief for the sector standing between them.

The watch supervisor checked the time, left his desk and walked the twenty metres to the third suite on the left. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked the controller in the right-hand seat.

‘Fine,’ Simmons told him.

‘How long can we leave it before we stop everything else?’

Because there are thirty-eight landings and thirty takeoffs every hour at Heathrow at this time of day. Of course we’ll clear a window for 3216, stop all landings and takeoffs. Do it too early, however, and we create chaos; too late and we risk adding to the problems.

‘Twenty minutes window,’ the crew chief told him. ‘As soon as she leaves Lambourne.’

‘Agreed.’

‘3216 over Essex coast,’ Simmons informed them. ‘Two minutes to Lambourne.’

And at Lambourne he would direct 3216 left, so it would pick up the ILS, the Instrument Landing System, which would guide it on to runway Two Seven Left.

‘Lufthansa 3216 approaching the point at which they turn for the run-in to Heathrow,’ the intelligence major informed the Operations Room.

The room was beginning to fill.

So what are you thinking, Finn?

I’m hoping that my assumptions are correct, that’s what I’m thinking. I’m hoping that the plans we laid this morning actually work. I’m hoping the preliminary diversion works, otherwise the press might see us approaching the aircraft and put it out on radio and television. And if they do, the hijackers will hear, and then they’ll be waiting for us.

‘3216 en route for Lambourne,’ the intelligence major updated the Operations Room. ‘Heathrow about to be closed down.’

A Boeing 737 has six doors – that’s what I’m thinking, because that’s what I have to think about. Two at the front, two at the rear, and two emergency doors over the wings. All doors can be opened by handles on the outside. Three toilets where the hijackers might hide: one at front on left, assuming entry is through the front port door, and two at rear. And I’m thinking this, and nothing else, because from now on I can only think of what is relevant for when I go on to Lufthansa 3216 tonight. And I must assume that I’m going on, because otherwise I won’t be prepared. And if I’m not prepared, I’m dead.

‘Hold,’ the watch supervisor told the Clacton crew chief.

‘Hold,’ the crew chief told Simmons.

The supervisor put the phone down, left his desk and hurried to them. ‘We need to re-route.’

Getting tight to do it, they knew. Plus 3216 was running out of fuel.

‘3216 one minute from Lambourne.’ Simmons’s voice was almost mechanical.

‘Why re-route?’ the crew chief asked.

‘Orders.’ The reply was direct rather than blunt. ‘3216 can’t go over central London.’

‘Who says?’

‘Downing Street.’

Oh shit, the crew chief thought. ‘Which rules out a landing from the east. Which means a landing from the west.’

‘That’s what they’ve told us to do.’

‘We can’t.’ Simmons’s eyes were riveted to the solid line against the black of the radar screen, the last details of Lufthansa 3216’s flight pattern trailing in a cone behind it.

‘Why not?’

‘Tail wind from the west is eighteen knots.’ It was the crew chief. ‘Maximum tail wind for a 737 is ten.’

‘3216 thirty seconds from Lambourne.’

The supervisor turned, ran to his desk, and punched the number. ‘This is the watch supervisor at West Drayton. We cannot divert 3216 from its planned course because that would involve a landing from the west, and the tail wind is too strong.’

‘How much too strong?’

‘The maximum permitted wind speed is ten knots and the actual wind speed at the moment is eighteen.’

‘The west approach,’ Langdon told him curtly. ‘Do it.’ Because there’s no way I’ll allow Lufthansa 3216 to fly over central London. No way I’ll allow the bloody hijacker to fly over Westminster when I’m sitting in the Cobra rooms below Downing Street.

‘3216 at Lambourne,’ Simmons said calmly.

The layer of cloud was thin below them. It was time to turn left, she knew, time to angle towards London, pick up the ILS beam, then swing right and follow it up the Thames and into Heathrow. Because that was what Air Traffic Control had instructed the other flights from Amsterdam when she had sat listening to the airband at Heathrow four days before.

‘Lufthansa 3216.’ The voice of the controller sounded different. ‘Turn right on to two eight five for landing on Zero Nine Left.’

Which is not what Control had told the other planes. Which was why she had made the Heathrow check. She sensed the way the first officer froze and Maeschler hesitated.

‘They’re re-routeing us.’ She was still calm, still controlled. The Zastava sub-machine gun was across her lap, the M70 was in the shoulder holster and the grenades were in her pocket. ‘We should be turning left, not right. Any course above two hundred and seventy means we’re going north of the runway.’

‘Correct,’ Maeschler told her.

‘Check ATIS again.’

‘Runway in use is Two Seven Left.’ The details on the automatic message were the same as earlier. ‘Surface wind two six zero, eighteen knots.’

‘Tell Control that,’ she ordered Maeschler. ‘Nothing else, just point out that they’re telling us to land with an eighteen-knot tail wind and the maximum is ten.’

‘Control, this is Lufthansa 3216. Repeat last directions.’

Something was wrong. Finn ignored the other men round him and listened to the exchange.

‘Lufthansa 3216. Turn right on to two eight five for landing on Zero Nine Left.’

‘Control, this is Lufthansa 3216. You originally told me to land from the east on runway Two Seven Left. Now you’re telling me to land from the west on runway Zero Nine Left.’

‘Affirmative, 3216.’

‘But according to ATIS there’s an eighteen-knot tail wind from the west, and the maximum tail wind for a 737 is ten knots.’

There was no reply.

Finn swung in his chair so that he could see the TV monitors. There had been no live pictures of Lufthansa 3216 since the Boeing had left Amsterdam, therefore ITV and CNN were replaying the takeoff from Amsterdam, and the BBC were running a studio discussion: a presenter and what Finn thought of as the inevitable panel of experts.

‘What’s ATIS?’ the presenter asked.

‘Airfield Terminal Information Service,’ the flight consultant told him. ‘It gives the latest airfield report to incoming pilots.’

‘What’s the difference between a tail wind of ten and eighteen knots?’

They stopped talking as Maeschler spoke again.

‘Control, this is Lufthansa 3216. If I follow your instructions and land from the west, the tail wind will mean that I might run out of runway.’

For the second time there was no reply.

‘Is that correct?’ the presenter asked the panel.

‘Yes.’

‘So if they land from the west, they might not make it?’

‘They should make it …’

‘But?’

‘There’s a chance they won’t.’

‘And the authorities are aware of that but are still telling them to do it?’

Be careful, the expert warned himself. Wrong answer and he wouldn’t be invited as an expert again; right answer and he might jeopardize his government contracts. ‘So it would seem,’ he agreed.

What’s happening? one of the sergeants in the police unit supervising the demonstration in Parliament Square asked the woman next to him. Heathrow’s changed the route in, she told him. Heathrow’s told them to land from the west, but the tail wind from the west is above the permitted speed and it means they might run out of runway. Bloody politicians, the policeman said aloud.

‘Control, this is Lufthansa 3216. Be aware we are fuel priority.’ Lufthansa 3216 running out of fuel, they understood. ‘I repeat. Be aware we are fuel priority.’

So what do I say, the radar controller stared at the crew chief, what do I do? ‘She’s turning.’ He picked up the first movement. ‘Repeat. She’s turning.’

‘3216 turning,’ the crew chief told the shift supervisor.

‘Lufthansa 3216 turning,’ the supervisor informed Downing Street.

‘3216 turning left,’ Simmons told the crew chief. ‘Confirm, she’s turning left.’

‘You mean right.’ Because that’s what we told her to do. That’s what we were ordered to tell her.

‘No, I mean left.’

There was nothing on VHF and there should be something. ‘What’s happening?’ the BBC presenter asked the panel.

‘One of two things.’ It was the flight expert again. ‘Either Lufthansa 3216 has turned north. Except that’s what Air Traffic Control instructed, which seems unlikely.’

‘Or?’

‘She’s disregarded Air Traffic Control and turned left, which would be the normal route in. Then she’d head south at an angle till she picks up the ILS beam, turn right, and follow the beam into Heathrow.’

‘Over London?’

‘Yes. Over London.’

‘And as of this moment, all other air traffic into and out of Heathrow has been stopped.’

‘Yes.’

‘So the only plane which will fly over London in the next twenty minutes is Lufthansa 3216?’

‘Yes.’

The cloud was around them. ‘Locking on to ILS,’ Maeschler told her. ‘Beginning final approach.’ The Boeing banked gently to the right, the cloud thinned and the ground was suddenly visible beneath them. The green of the fields below them, the silver of the Thames snaking away from them, and the grey of London in front of them.

…The next time the United Nations lets your people down you must have something the world wants, he had told her … The next time the UN fails you, you must have something which makes the world afraid of you …

CNN, BBC and ITV were all already transmitting pictures from Heathrow, BBC cutting with shots from Parliament Square, and ITV mixing with aerial shots of London from an Aero Spatiale Twin Squirrel jet helicopter.

So what are you thinking, Finn?

I’m thinking that I’m at the top of the ladder. The night’s black as hell around me and the aircraft door is in front of me. Steve to my left, Jim and Ken tight behind; Janner and his team at the rear door, the helicopter hovering over the flight deck of Lufthansa 3216, the ops major counting down and the diversion about to go in. I’m in first, that’s what I’m thinking. I go right, start looking for the hijackers. Steve goes left and checks the flight deck and toilet. Jim covers me and Ken covers Steve.

Although that’s not all I’m thinking.

What do you mean, Finn? What are you really thinking?

‘Lufthansa 3216 is approaching from the east.’ The radio presenter tried to stifle the excitement in his voice. ‘We are receiving reports that Lufthansa 3216 has passed over the Thames flood barrier and is about to fly over the City.’

‘We have first pictures of Lufthansa 3216,’ the voice of the ITV presenter was suddenly urgent, suddenly dramatic, the monitor showing the shot from the Twin Squirrel, the Boeing slightly below it.

Christ she’s low, Finn thought. The television images were almost unreal – the empty runways at Heathrow, the people in Parliament Square, their faces turned up and their eyes searching the sky to the east. The aerial shot from the helicopter of Lufthansa 3216 tracking up the river.

Docklands was below her, Tower Bridge in front then suddenly below, and Westminster and Big Ben drawing her in as if she was on a piece of string.

Finn glanced at the BBC pictures from Westminster – the sky empty in the background and the Palace of Westminster in front, Big Ben to the right and the Churchill statue to the left.

‘Lufthansa 3216, this is Heathrow Tower.’

‘Heathrow Tower, this is Lufthansa 3216.’ Maeschler, the captain, husband of a beautiful wife and father of two pretty children – the papers had found out and published a family photograph. Maeschler the hero who’d landed 3216 at Schipol even though the authorities had tried to stop him.

‘3216, you are cleared to land.’

There was a slight delay.

‘Thank you, Heathrow Tower.’ Not the captain this time.

It’s not the critic who counts … she remembered the words he had quoted at her, remembered again the corridor of the hospital. The doctors white with exhaustion, the nurses dropping with fatigue, and the United Nations still doing nothing to stop the shells falling on them. It’s not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better …

‘I can see Lufthansa 3216 …’ The radio reporter had slipped through the police cordon and was standing on Westminster Bridge. ‘Lufthansa 3216 is coming up the Thames towards me …’ The Boeing was suddenly in shot on the pictures from Parliament Square, suddenly approaching Westminster. Passing over Parliament and framed for one incredible moment between Big Ben and the Churchill statue.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, he had told her … Who strives valiantly and spends himself in a worthy cause … Who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly …

What had he said the motto was?

Who Dares Wins.

Finn left the building and stood on the tarmac looking east. Heathrow was like a ghost around him, the skies and runways empty.

So what are you really thinking, Finn?

You know what I’m thinking.

Tell me anyway.

I’m thinking about a winter night behind the lines in Bosnia. I’m thinking about how the United Nations blew Kev and Geordie John to Kingdom Come that night. How Janner and Max only survived because someone who didn’t know them risked everything to save them, even though she didn’t have to. I’m thinking about how I told her that I owed, that the regiment owed, and that none of us would ever forget. Because if you can’t help those who help you and yours, then who can you help? If you can’t be loyal to those who are loyal to you and yours, then who or what the hell can you be loyal to?

In the sky to the east he saw the first flash from the wing lights of the Boeing.

But that’s not all you’re thinking, is it, Finn?

No, it’s not all I’m thinking.

So what else, Finn?

I’m thinking about the other thing I said to her that night. About how I told her that the West would never help her people unless her people had something the West wanted. I’m thinking about what I said her people should do next time the United Nations let them down.

But there’s something else, isn’t there, Finn?

Okay, there’s something else.

So what is it, Finn?

You want to know? You really want to know?

Yeah, Finn. I really want to know.

I’m thinking that it’s her on Lufthansa 3216. Except it can’t be her, because she’s dead. But the hijacker on Lufthansa 3216 is doing exactly what I told her to do.

The Boeing was over the outer marker, over the approach lights. Next time the UN lets your people down, he’d told her …

The Boeing was over the lead-in lights, over the runway threshold. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, he’d said …

The tyres thumped on the tarmac. As long as the cause was a worthy cause, and the journey was just and right …

Hers was a worthy cause, which was why he’d told her. Hers was a just and righteous journey, otherwise he would not have set her upon it. Time to do it, she thought, time to take it to the last stage. Time to do what he’d told her, the way he’d told her. Change it all, he’d said; change the rules, the game, change everything.

Kara’s Rules. Kara’s Game.

Thanks, Finn.

Book One

Bosnia … ten months earlier January 1994

1

The bridge was the problem. Because that was where the snipers were waiting for you. And you had to cross because you were on one side and the food was on the other.

Please God, may they not be waiting today. Please God, may they not get me. Because today my husband is on the front line, and because he’s on the front line, probably only three hundred metres from the bridge, he cannot go for the food while I look after our son. Therefore I have to go, even though the food will only be a bowl of beans and a slice of dry bread. I cannot wait because my son has not eaten for two days and is crying with the pain. Because we have been under siege since August, and now it’s January. And the nights are long and dark and the days are so cold I sometimes think I’m going to die, and the shells have been falling on my dear sweet pretty little town for as long as I can remember. Therefore I have to go for food. But because my husband is on the front line, waiting for the next attack, there is no one to look after my son. So I have to take my precious little Jovan with me. Because unless he eats soon he will die. But in trying to reach the food the two of us might die anyway.

Therefore, when I reach the bridge and begin to run across it, I will pray that the sniper who killed old man Samir yesterday and little Lejla the day before, is looking the other way, or moving position as the snipers do, or warming his fingers round a mug of hot coffee, or glancing up and downing a slivovic.

Therefore when I begin to run across the bridge I will hold my little Jovan in my left arm, so that my body will be between him and the sniper. And when I try to make it back across the bridge I will hold Jovan on my right, so that I am again between him and the sniper. Please God, protect me. Please God, may the shells not fall again until I and my little son are safely home.

Dear God, why did you decree that I should be born a Bosnian? Dear God, why have you allowed the warmongers to tear my country and my people apart? Dear God, why have you decreed that the governments of the world do nothing; that the United Nations should stand back and allow this carnage?

She made sure the coat was wrapped tightly round the boy, that his gloves were on his hands and the scarf round his head, and pulled on her own coat and boots. Even though it was mid-morning the room was dark – just the glimmer from the makeshift candle on the table. They had lived in the semi-basement since the siege had started and the shells had begun falling. At first, and in the heat of summer, herself and Adin in the double bed and Jovan in his next to them. Now, in the cold, the three of them slept together. When Adin was not on the front line defending the town. Two days at the front and one off – that was the way the men fought now. Not just the soldiers but everyone. Sometimes she woke at night – when, that was, she was able to sleep – and imagined him staring into the black, the wire to the land mines clutched in his hand for the moment the enemy tried to storm the town.

She opened the door and checked outside. The snow was frozen hard, the sky was a deep grey, and the sound of small-arms fire rattled in the distance, at the head of the valley where the men were positioned. It was the usual pattern – shelling for an hour as the winter night broke into day, a handful of shells in the middle of the few hours of light, then a last barrage as the light left them. Always the snipers in the middle, though, like the tripwires in no man’s land.

She lifted the boy in her arms, picked up the tin pan and lid, went outside, and closed the door. There was one other person in what had once been a street, scurrying as she herself was already scurrying, scarf wrapped round her head and tin container clutched in her hand. She nodded at the other woman and hurried after her, feet slipping on the ice and the air almost freezing her lungs.

The boy’s face was already white with cold, and the houses around her were shell-damaged and wasted. Some families had moved, of course: across the bridge to the new town, but the new town was already packed with refugees.

Maglaj – pronounced Maglai – was nestled on either side of the river which had once flowed gently down the valley between the pine-covered hills rising to the west, north and east. Across the bridge, on the west side, was the new town with the shops and the school. On the east was the old quarter, its streets narrow and winding, the minaret of the mosque rising above the red-tiled roofs, and the cluster of more modern houses in the trees beyond.

She and Adin had come here eight years ago, after they both graduated from the University of Sarajevo, she in languages and he in chemistry. Until the conflict he had worked in the paper factory, just down the valley to the south of the new town, and she had taught in the school, on the northern edge. For three years they had dreamed of the day they would have a child, had almost despaired. Even now she remembered the morning the doctor had told her she was pregnant, even now she remembered how she had left school early and gone to the paper factory because she could not wait till evening for Adin to know.

The small-arms fire stopped, abruptly and without warning, and she froze, knew that the shelling was about to descend on them again, that she’d got it wrong. The rattle began again and she hurried on, her feet slipping on the ice which covered the bricks and the rubble, till she came to the last group of houses before the bridge.

The river was some seventy metres wide, and the bridge which spanned it rose slightly in the centre, so that from where she now stood she couldn’t see the other end. The people were huddled in a line in the shelter of the wall, thin and tired and cold like herself. Only one other with a child, and all carrying shiny tin pots with the lids firmly on.

She held the boy against her and stood at the end.

‘Sniper?’ she asked.

‘Sniper,’ the man at the front nodded. He was rocking backwards and forwards, as if gathering momentum, as if winding up his courage. As if the fraction of a second he would save when he launched himself from the cover of the building would save his life.

Don’t worry, she whispered to Jovan, soon we’ll have food.

Going in ten, the man told them.

Go with him, go with a group, and she might have cover. But go in a group and the sniper might take more notice. Go and she and the boy might die, don’t go and the boy would starve.

Going in five, the man in front muttered, perhaps to them all, perhaps just to himself.

Give the boy to someone else and offer to get their food for them, she thought. That way she might be killed but the boy would live. Except that if she made it across and couldn’t get back, if the snipers pinned them down or the artillery destroyed the bridge, then she might never see him again. Then she couldn’t protect him, feed him, make sure he at least survived.

Going in three, the man’s lips moved, no sound coming out. The morning was suddenly colder. Going in two.

It was almost time to move, Valeschov thought; he’d been in this position too long, any longer and the other side might spot him and send their own sniper to target him. In five minutes he’d pull back, skirt behind the trees to the other position, grab something warm on the way. The metal was almost frozen to the skin of his cheek and his finger was stiff with cold. He checked that the settings on the telescopic sight were as he had set them when he had zeroed the rifle two hours earlier, and settled again. No movement on the bridge for the past fifteen minutes anyway, so perhaps they weren’t crossing today. More likely they knew he was there, though, more likely they were gathered in a huddle in the shelter of the last building of the old town waiting for someone to be the first. He thought about pulling back his cuff and checking his watch, and decided it was too cold. Mid-morning, he knew anyway, feeding time at the refugee centre. Regular as clockwork. So someone would be breaking soon, because otherwise they wouldn’t eat.

Going in one, the man at the front said. The stubble on his face was grey and his coat was torn.

Go with him, she decided, but make sure she was to his left, use him as protection. Except that was why he was counting, because he was hoping someone would go with him, and if they did he would run to the left so that whoever went with him had to go to the right, between him and the sniper.

‘Now.’ He launched himself forward.

She was moving, the boy clasped tight to her left side and the pan in her right hand. She was past the others and alongside the man, then suddenly clear of the protection of the building, suddenly on the bridge.

To her right the man froze in fear.

Time for it, MacFarlane thought.

MacFarlane didn’t like it here. Okay, so the position gave them a good view across the bridge to Maglaj old town, and the building against which they’d parked was on the north side of the street and therefore protected them from incoming fire. But two, three times a day, sometimes more, it crucified MacFarlane to see the people crossing the bridge and being taken out by a sniper.

He pulled the parka tight against his light blue United Nations helmet, and checked the time. Eleven hundred hours, so everything should be quiet for the next four, except for the two or three shells they’d throw over round midday to keep everyone on their toes. The standard thirty artillery rounds this morning – he’d reported in as usual half an hour ago. Plus, he assumed, the usual thirty-five to forty this afternoon.

The jeep, parked in the lee of the houses, was white, with the letters UN distinctive on both sides as well as the bonnet, plus the words VOYNI PASMATRACI, Military Observer, on the front and back of the vehicle. There were four of them in the team: MacFarlane himself from Canada, Umbegi from Nigeria, Anderssen from Norway, and Belan from Belgium. They’d come in two days ago, when the various factions had agreed the ceasefire, been delayed slightly because the two sides had taken their time clearing the minefields from the road. Because Maglaj and Tesanj, fifteen kilometres away, were a so-called Muslim pocket isolated like an island in the Serb-held area to the north of the main front line. The sort of area the Serbs would seek to overrun prior to any final agreement.

And because there was a possibility of an agreement, there was another round of so-called peace negotiations under way in Vienna, and to give those negotiations a chance the two sides had declared a ceasefire. And as their contribution to the sham the United Nations was putting out its usual UN-speak. The situation in Maglaj remains at levels consistent with previous days. Except Maglaj was still under fire, but that was par for the course.

Perhaps the politicians were right, though. Perhaps another clutch of dead this morning didn’t matter any more, perhaps another handful of women and kids in the makeshift morgue this afternoon really was insignificant in the greater order of things.

Goddamn Bosnia.

In front of him the bridge stretched in a curve to the shattered remains of the old town; above him the sky cleared slightly. Christ it was cold, fifteen under and every sign of falling.

‘Cigarette?’ The Nigerian offered him a Winston.

‘Here goes.’ It was Anderssen, the Norwegian.

MacFarlane saw the figure on the bridge, the head first as the figure came up the slight curve, then the shoulders, then the body.

The woman was tucked low and running hard, the scarf round her head was coming loose and the food can was flapping in her right hand. Her feet were sliding slightly on the ice, so that she was off balance, and her left arm was clutched round something. ‘Christ.’ It was meant to be a thought but came out as an exclamation. ‘She’s carrying a kid.’ In her left arm, so that she was protecting it with her body. Sniper in position up to fifteen minutes ago, he remembered, please God may the bastard be taking a drink or moving position. Sometimes the men in the hills sprayed a machine gun arc across the bridge, sometimes a haphazard burst of rifle fire. Sometimes, if the man on duty was a pro, one single well-aimed shot. Then the figure would crumple and the bastard would wait to see if anyone came to help them, if anyone tried to pull them to safety. And then the bastards in the hills would play their little game, just as everyone played their games in the Balkans. Sometimes allow the body to be hauled away, sometimes use it as a bait to take out those brave or foolish enough to help.

Don’t slip, he willed the woman, just don’t slow down.

She was halfway across, her breath rasping and her legs beginning to slow. No sniper shot so far, thank God, no single sharp sound, no body stumbling and collapsing. She was three-quarters of the way over. He could see her face and make out her age. Late twenties, black hair and good-looking, the child a boy, probably four years old.

Thirty metres behind her another group appeared like puppets.

Time to get them later, Valeschov decided, time to wait for them to come back with their little saucepans of food. Because then they’d be moving slower, because then they’d be terrified of spilling anything.

The woman came off the bridge and slowed by the jeep.

Her lungs were screaming and her head was pounding. Thank God there’d been no sniper today, thank God she and Jovan had made it. She glanced at the soldiers by the UN vehicle and hurried up the street, keeping to the right for the protection the buildings offered. Before the war this had been the main area of Maglaj, now the shop fronts were boarded and the buildings around and behind them were pockmarked with holes.

The street was almost empty, only a few like herself scuttling for the food kitchen, and it was beginning to snow again, the first flakes settling like feathers. She glanced up at the sky, unsure whether she was looking at the snow or searching for incoming shells, then hurried across and disappeared into the side streets on the southern side.

The food itself – by which she meant the boiled beans and bread which was now their staple diet – was prepared in a kitchen beneath the radio station, and served in the school fifty metres away which the local Red Cross had taken over.

She turned the last corner, between the ruins of the houses. The line of people was five deep, the inside layer pressed against the wall and the outer layers packed against them, either for warmth or protection or both. She followed the queue round the corner, and round the next, then back along the third wall till she was almost at the front again. Today it would take hours, she understood, today she might not get the boy back across the bridge before the shells the Chetniks threw over at midday. She joined the end of the line, making sure she stood in the middle, and held the boy tight, smiling at him and whispering him a story. At least they were able to join the queue, at least she had a ration card which entitled her and Adin and Jovan to the food.

The queue shuffled slowly, someone occasionally pushing, but most of the men and women too exhausted to do anything other than wait. God it was cold – she shuffled forward another two paces and stamped her feet in a vain attempt to shake the numbness from her toes.

‘You okay?’ She tucked her head against the boy and smiled at him again.

‘Okay.’

They reached the first corner, seemed to stand an eternity before they reached the next, even longer before they turned along the front wall and edged towards the steps and door into the school.

There had been no midday shells so far, so perhaps the Chetniks were letting them off today, perhaps there really was a ceasefire, perhaps the peace talks in Vienna really were achieving something.

They were inside at last, along the lime-green corridor and into the room at the other end. The wooden tables were on the left, the vats of soup on them and the helpers behind them, one woman checking the ration cards and stamping the backs with the date so no one would get double rations, and the others ladling the liquid and cutting the bread. The room seemed packed and cold, people milling with their soup cans, a few seeking a space to eat but most leaving. The floor was running wet and the smell of the beans hung in the air.

She felt in her coat pocket, pulled out the three ration cards, and showed them to the first woman.

Kadira Isak – the woman read her name. Adin and Jovan Isak. ‘Where’s your husband?’ she asked.

‘At the front,’ Kara explained. ‘He’s due back this afternoon.’

‘So you didn’t get his food yesterday?’ The woman checked the back of the card.

‘No, because he was on the front line yesterday.’ And therefore, although the boy and I could have done with his share, it would have deprived someone else.

The woman nodded, stamped the three cards to indicate they had received their food for that day, and nodded for them to move forward.

The beans were bubbling in the vat. Another woman ladled her two helpings, and the third passed her two slices of rough white bread.

‘Three helpings,’ she told them. ‘My husband’s back from the front today.’

The beans were white, without taste. She smiled her thanks, jammed the lid firmly on, put the bread in the plastic bag she’d carried in her pocket, and left. Outside it was snowing slightly more heavily. Thank God there was no sniper today, thank God she wouldn’t have to run across the bridge.

MacFarlane saw her coming. It was funny how you remembered certain people, certain faces. Perhaps it was the child she was carrying or the way she was carrying him, perhaps the way she’d run across the bridge earlier. He smiled at her as she passed and watched as she approached the bridge.

Any more snow and he’d begin losing visibility, Valeschov thought. Christ it was cold. He held the Dragunov carefully, so it did not touch his face. A couple of hours to go, then he’d be off to the village two kilometres away for forty-eight hours’ R and R. He peered down the sights and picked up the bridge. There were two places where the targets were soft and easy: the first was the bridge and the second was the street running from the school into the new town, parallel to the river and some hundred metres from it. Sniper Alley the locals would call it, and if they didn’t they should.

No midday shelling today, so something was up. Not that they’d tell him, he’d be the last to know. Probably leave him up here to freeze his balls off unless he made sure they remembered him. The snow was heavier and the darkness was closing in, even though it was still early afternoon. He flicked the safety on and blew the snowflakes away from the sights. Christ it was even colder. He settled again and picked up the bridge. Someone was about to cross – it was strange how you could pick it up, almost smell the fear. Which direction, though, old town to new, or new town to old? Probably the latter.

New town to old – he saw the figure. Go for the first and not get lined up properly, or wait and hope there was a second? Perhaps just let off a few rounds and laugh at the way the bastards danced.

Thank God there was no sniper, Kara thought, thank God she didn’t have to risk spilling the soup. She called it soup because it sounded better; when she and Jovan got home perhaps she’d add a few herbs she’d saved from the summer, make it taste better, at least make it taste of something. God she was cold, God how little Jovan’s face was white and stiff. Please may Adin be okay, please may he make it home tonight.

Somebody didn’t know he was there – Valeschov flicked off the safety. Somebody was walking rather than running across the bridge. Somebody liked playing Russian roulette. Perhaps he’d take them in one, perhaps he’d put a shot near them first, scare the shit out of them before he finished them off.

The river below her was grey and the sky above was lost in the snow. Why wasn’t she running, she suddenly thought; why hadn’t she waited to cross the bridge with a group? At least Jovan was on her right, away from where the snipers normally were. Run, she told herself. Don’t run, because if you do you’ll lose your nerve for ever. What the hell are you talking about – she came back at herself. You’re on the bridge and even though there’s no sniper you’re in the open and exposed.

Take them now, Valeschov decided, it was too cold to be frigging about.

The swirl of snow closed round her, so she could no longer see even the end of the bridge. On the hillside above, Valeschov heard the crunch of footsteps behind him and turned.

‘We’re pulling out.’ The sergeant was wrapped against the cold, his face barely visible. ‘They’re sending up the big stuff.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’ Valeschov flicked on the safety and eased himself up. ‘Another hour and I’d have been a bloody snowman.’

Something was wrong. There had been no shells at midday, and no small-arms rounds that afternoon.

It was ten minutes to the time the Serbs on the hills above Maglaj began their late afternoon barrage – thirty rounds over a one-hour period, then more or less silence for the night.

MacFarlane swung the Nissan in a tight circle, drove to the dilapidated building next to the bank midway between the radio station and the school, and went to the ground floor of the block where the UNMO team had established its base.

The room was six metres by five, low ceiling and sparse furniture. The sleeping bags and American camp cots were against one wall, food and cooking items against a second, and a table and chairs in the centre. The windows were boarded against shrapnel, and the radio handset was on the table, coaxial wires running to the HF set mounted in the vehicle so they didn’t have to go outside to speak to Vitez.

Umbegi brewed a tea and they waited.

Jovan’s hands and face were cold. Kara closed the door, lit the candle, sat him by the stove and rubbed a semblance of warmth back into him. The semi-basement in which they now lived was crowded: the stove in the centre of the rear wall, the double bed to the right, which they also used as a sofa, and Jovan’s smaller bed – which he no longer slept in – to the left, the table in the middle with the wooden chairs round it, and the dresser against the left wall, on it the family photographs and the radio (connected to the bike, which you had to pedal to get the power). The only other furniture was an armchair to the left of the door.

At the beginning of the siege they had boarded the windows with planks and moved the rest of the furniture to the floor above, leaving the top level empty … At the beginning the water and electricity had stopped almost immediately, so now they made their own candles and got their water from the well in the garden … At the beginning …

How long ago that was.

Jovan was playing on the double bed with the wooden toys Adin had made him. Kara knelt in front of the stove, opened the fire door, and added a little more wood. Not too much – even though every summer she and Adin made sure they had enough for the winter she was careful now, unsure how long winter would last. The boy’s eyes stared at her through the halo of light round the wick of the candle. She poured his share of the beans into a saucepan, then half of her own. Perhaps it was caution, perhaps premonition, that she saved the rest. Then she cut half a potato and half a carrot into cubes and put them in. It was a luxury, but today they should celebrate; this afternoon Adin would be home from the front, even if only for a few hours, and today there had been no sniper waiting for her to cross the bridge.

Please God, may Adin be safe. Please may he really come home tonight. Please God, may this crazy war soon be over.

Outside it was dark.

At midday there had been no shells, and by now there should have been the late afternoon blitz, reminding them that the Serbs, the Chetniks as she called them, were on the hills above Maglaj and controlling everything that happened in it.

Perhaps that was it for today, Kara realized she was praying; perhaps the Chetniks had run out of shells, perhaps they were going away. Perhaps there really was a ceasefire.

Crazy war – the thought was more conscious this time.

First the Serbs had attacked the Croats and Muslims. Then, just under a year ago, the Croats had changed sides, and were now fighting with rather than against the Serbs. So villages and towns and areas were split. But even that was logical compared with what was really happening. Take the small pocket containing Maglaj and, fifteen kilometres to the north, Tesanj. The pocket was an island, isolated in Serb-held territory, with the main front line with Muslim-held Bosnia to the south. On the west, north and east sides of the pocket the Serbs were attacking them; to the south the attack was coming from a combined Serb and Croat army. But in Tesanj the local Croats and Muslims were fighting side by side against the Serbs.

Even the term Muslim was misleading. At first the world called me a Yugoslav, she remembered telling an aid worker once; then it called me a Bosnian, and now it calls me a Muslim. But I’ve never been inside a mosque, don’t even know how to pray. My mother’s mother, my grandmother, who lives in Travnik, is a Croat. And my husband’s grandfather, after whom we named our son, was a Serb.

She thought she heard the whine of the first shell or mortar, and froze. Braced herself for the impact then relaxed again. If there was such a word or notion as relaxing any more.

Don’t look at the photograph, she told herself, because it will only make you cry. Because of all those in the photograph apart from her and Adin and Jovan, only her Croat grandmother in Travnik was definitely alive. The others – her parents, Adin’s parents, their brothers and their sisters – had either been killed or had vanished in the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs or the bitter bloodletting between Croats and Muslims. Or perhaps they were alive, perhaps they had made it out and were in a refugee camp somewhere. Perhaps one day they would see each other again, take another photograph of the family happy and at peace with itself and the world.

Sometimes it was as if the West had abandoned her, had totally and cynically forgotten about her and the likes of her.

Forget it, she told herself; just concentrate on surviving today, don’t even think about tomorrow.

She made herself kneel again in front of the stove, made herself stir the beans. Made herself laugh at little Jovan as she poured his share into the small round plastic bowl, then poured the smaller portion she had allowed herself and broke a piece of bread for him.

Occasionally someone remembered, of course, occasionally a little aid got through.

The first time was before the siege proper had started. They had still been cut off and under fire, but some British soldiers had come. The Cheshires, she remembered the name of the regiment. Then there was the man with a beard from the UNHCR. And after that, when the days were short and dark and the cold and hunger were seeping into them all, the planes had come over and dropped food packages on to the town, but the wind had taken the food on to the hillsides. That night the people had gone out with torches, Adin among them, to search for the oh-so-precious packages. Even now she could remember standing in the doorway, little Jovan in her arms, pointing out the lights among the trees and laughing because it was like Christmas, seeing the lights moving in the dark as the people looked. Then the Chetniks had started to shell the wood, and the lights had scattered like fireflies on a summer night, and one by one had gone out as people ran or died.

There had been one more time the aid had come.

Adin was at home, so she had gone alone for the pan of beans. Had crossed the bridge and was scuttling towards the school when she had seen them. Four soldiers, but not as she had seen soldiers before. Not riding in tanks or jeeps like other soldiers, or like the UN monitors who’d come in to cover the so-called ceasefire. Combat clothes but no helmets or berets, big packs on their backs, radios on them, and all carrying guns. Always walking, always carrying everything they had with them. Always moving quickly.

The next day she had seen them again. Had heard them speak and spoken to them. And because she had spoken to them in English, because at university she had studied English, she always remembered them as English rather than British.

And because there was no one else, she had interpreted for them. Had picked up the word laser, and interpreted to the Red Cross about the planes and the food drops. That night, and for several nights after, the soldiers had disappeared into the woods; that night and for several nights after, the planes had come over and dropped the food exactly where the soldiers told them to. And the people had eaten. Then the soldiers had gone, and she had never known how they had come to Maglaj or how they had left or even who they were. Except that once she had asked them, and they had told her, but even then she had not understood.

‘Eat up.’ She wiped the bread round the bowl and made Jovan eat, spooned the beans into her own mouth and heard the swoosh.

Mortar, MacFarlane registered automatically. Incoming. An hour later than normal, but still more or less in line with the usual pattern.

Kara grabbed Jovan and pushed him under the bed, slid beside him.

Impact two hundred metres away, near the river bank of the old town – MacFarlane registered the fact automatically and entered it in his log.

Kara felt Jovan trembling and held him tight. Half an hour, perhaps an hour of hell, then it would be over till tomorrow.

Thirty seconds gone – MacFarlane didn’t need to check his watch. Almost a minute, closing on two. Incoming – he heard the whine, then the sound of impact. New town again, somewhere near the radio station. He waited another two minutes, perhaps slightly longer.

The incoming shell sounded like an express train. They’re trying to make us afraid, Kara told herself; they’ve allowed us to settle into a routine, now they’re changing it. The walls shook slightly as the round landed.

Old town, MacFarlane confirmed.

The half-hour stretched to forty-five minutes, then to an hour, an hour and a half, the shells and mortars still landing.

The Norwegian handed him a mug of tea, hot and sweet, and crouched beside him.

‘What’s up?’

‘Not sure.’

The Chetniks were preparing for an attack, Kara suddenly thought. Please God, help Adin waiting among the mines and the snow and the ice of the front, please God save him.

It was six in the evening, three hours into the darkness of the winter night and the shells and mortars were falling now with a nightmarish regularity. Time to file his latest report. MacFarlane picked up the handset and squeezed the grip.

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta. Over.’

Zero was the code for base, and base was in the radio room on the ground floor of the white-painted schoolhouse which now formed the Operations Centre in the BritBat – British Battalion – barracks just outside Vitez, fifty kilometres away. Vitez itself was one of the places the United Nations modestly called a hot spot: Croats laying siege to the Muslims in Old Vitez, and themselves surrounded by more Muslim forces in the hills outside.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero. Send. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. As at eighteen hundred hours.’ His report going through Vitez to the monitoring centre in Sarajevo then to the politicians and the generals. ‘Eighty ceasefire violations, all incoming.’ He lumped the mortar and shells together. ‘Forty small-arms violations.’ Which was as accurate as he and his team could be. He split the message. ‘Roger so far. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

Message received so far.

‘Four One Delta. Pattern of shelling appears to have changed. Maglaj old and new town under constant shelling for past two hours. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. Roger. Out.’

Another shell landed fifty metres away. ‘Bit close,’ he suggested. The ceiling shook again, they ignored it and opened the ration packs.

Kara was still hungry and her nerves were beginning to fray. She held the boy tight and began to tell him his favourite story. Another round struck the old town, not that she could tell when the noise and vibration of one round ended and the next began. This can’t go on all night, she tried to convince herself. The room was getting cold again, and the candle had died an hour ago. She crept out, flinching in anticipation of the next shell, felt in the black till she stumbled against the dresser, then found and lit another candle and placed it on the table. Then she pulled Jovan’s mattress under the double bed, helped the boy wriggle on to it, and covered him with blankets. The shell landed a hundred metres away and she felt the shock, almost dived back under the bed and felt the plaster fall from the ceiling. Sometime this has to stop, she told herself, sometime the war has to end. Be all right, she prayed to her husband. Don’t die. Don’t let us die.

It was ten in the evening, six hours since the bombardment had begun.

‘In Vienna negotiations are going well and the ceasefire is holding.’ MacFarlane and the others huddled round the table and listened to the news on the BBC World Service. ‘All sides have stated their positions, and the Bosnian Serb leader has emphasized once again that he believes peace is possible.’

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta.’ MacFarlane called Vitez on the net.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero.’

‘Four One Delta. Update on Maglaj. The shelling is continuing. One hundred and twenty ceasefire violations in past four hours. Shelling has not stopped, repeat, has not stopped, since last report. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. Roger. Out.’

They made themselves hot chocolate from the ration packs, and rolled out the sleeping bags on the camp cots.

‘Two-hour shifts,’ MacFarlane told them. ‘Three men sleeping and one on duty for the shell count.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry, the ceasefire violation count.’ Because we’re UN, therefore we don’t deal in anything as simple as shells and mortars.

Good man, MacFarlane, they understood, good leader. Kept you going when you might be inclined to wonder what the hell you were doing in a place like this.

‘I’ll do the first shift to midnight, Paul next, then Sven and Pierre.’ Which meant that, theoretically at least, he would have to do another shift, beginning at six, but he was in charge and they would all be awake by then anyway. If they slept.

It was getting cold now, despite the Helly Hansen fleeces and Norgies – Norwegian semi-fleece army shirts – and thermals they were wearing. The Tilley lamp popped and died, and the black enveloped him. Another shell landed. Range a hundred and fifty metres, nothing to worry about. He switched on the mag light, refilled the lamp with kerosene, and lit it again. The night was quiet, only the sounds of breathing as the others slept or tried to sleep, only the constant crash of another round hitting another building. So the night’s quiet, he thought. It was midnight. He updated the shell count, shook Umbegi’s shoulder, took off his boots, and climbed into his sleeping bag.

At two in the morning he heard Anderssen replace Umbegi. In the past two hours there had been another sixty-two violations. He had lain awake and counted them, known the others were doing the same. At four Belan replaced Anderssen. Another fifty-eight rounds. There was no point sleeping any more, no point pretending to sleep, because no one was. He climbed out of the bag and put on his boots. Umbegi was making a brew. Umbegi was a good man. When the shit hit the fan, because the shit was going to hit the fan, Umbegi was the one he’d have at his shoulder. Christ, they were all good men.

Today he was going to die, he suddenly thought. Calmly and clearly and soberly. Today he and his men would meet their Maker.

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta. Over.’ He took the mug from Umbegi and called Vitez. Not that the peacemakers and the pen-pushers would know, because they would still be asleep.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. One hundred and twenty-seven ceasefire violations in the past four hours, all incoming. A total of three hundred and seventy-two in the past twelve hours, all incoming. Over.’

‘Zero. Last report already sent to HQ.’ Which was good, MacFarlane thought, because it meant the guys in Vitez were with him, supporting him, knew the trouble he was in and the bigger trouble which was about to engulf him. ‘Will send latest immediately.’ Even though the bureaucrats wouldn’t read it for another four hours.

‘Four One Delta. Roger. Out.’

The formal end of the message, no more communication.

‘Cheers, mate,’ the man in the room in the Ops Centre told him. ‘Keep your head down. See you for breakfast.’

‘Thanks, mate.’

It was six in the morning, the shells still falling like express trains. The room was cold and Jovan was shivering, crying slightly. Kara left whatever protection the bed gave them, lit a candle, placed it on the table, then relit the fire, watching the flames flicker then gather strength. I’m hungry: she saw it in her son’s eyes. Tried to kindle the mental strength to reply.

It was seven o’clock, almost eight, the day outside getting light and the shells still raining down. Sometimes close, sometimes on to the new town on the other side of the river. Part of her mind telling her that soon the Chetniks on the hills would launch their morning burst of shellfire on the town, and that after that the shelling would stop, and then her only worry would be crossing the bridge to the food kitchens on the other side. Another part of her brain reminding her that the first thought was illogical, because the Chetniks had been shelling Maglaj all night and weren’t going to stop now.

In Vienna the peace negotiators would be assembling; in Vienna the limos would be drawing up outside whatever hotel they were using and the politicians would be hurrying in, the newsmen clustered round them like bees round honey, anxious for every word they spoke. Most of the newsmen swallowing any line the politicians told them. MacFarlane logged the next round and waited for the next.

This is crazy – he glanced at the faces of the others. They were soldiers, but here they were sitting in a house in a town being shelled and in which people were dying, yet they could do nothing about it. Partly because they were unarmed, in line with the agreement on the placement of UN military observers, but mainly because it was not their job. Not even the job of the United Nations, with its battalions of soldiers present in the country under the UNPROFOR plan, and with the naval power off the coast and the air strike capacity waiting on the runways in Italy. Because they were bound by their own rules of engagement. Or, and more accurately, their rules on non-engagement.

Except there was a way, of course.

Sure, it would mean bending the rules; sure it would assume that Thorne, the British general in charge of UNPROFOR, would understand not just what MacFarlane was asking but why he was asking it; that Thorne could get the necessary go-ahead from his political masters at the United Nations. But at least he could try. At least he could leave this place with a clean conscience.

He checked his watch and counted in the next rounds.

‘Mummy,’ Kara heard her son’s voice. ‘It’s hurting.’

‘What’s hurting, my little one?’ There were tears on his face. She took his head in her hands and held him against her.

‘My tummy.’

‘Let’s see.’ The boy was hungry, just as she was hungry. Which meant that she would have to risk the bridge again, except that today she couldn’t because of the shelling. She opened his coat, pulled up the layers of sweater and shirt, and rubbed his stomach gently. ‘Better now?’ she asked.

The shell was close to the house. Please may Adin come home today, because if he doesn’t we’ll die. But please may Adin not try to come home today, because if he does the shells will kill him.

It was ten o’clock, the mortars and artillery shells still falling around them. ‘Discussion time.’ MacFarlane gathered his team round the table. ‘It is my intention to inform General Thorne that at some time in the near future I may have to consider requesting him to call in an air strike.’ The Tilley lamp was on the table, slightly off centre, the light illuminating their faces and the rest of the room in darkness. ‘Comments on that line of action?’

‘What reason will you give?’ It was Anderssen, the Norwegian.

Because we all know that air strikes can only be called in under highly specific guidelines. And those guidelines exclude the protection of people like the poor sods dying outside.

The noise from the street was almost deafening, the walls reverberating and plaster falling from the ceiling.

‘What I’ll say is that we are confined to our operating base and therefore cannot properly fulfil our role as military monitors. That if we attempt to, one or all of us will certainly be killed. That if we try to withdraw we’ll also probably be killed, and that if we stay inside we still run a major risk.’

‘What about the people?’ Because that’s what we’re really talking about here.

‘The people are a moral issue. I’m dealing with a technical situation relating to UNPROFOR personnel.’

‘Because that’s the only way you stand a chance of calling in an air strike?’ The Norwegian was looking straight at him.

Wonder what happened to the woman and kid on the bridge – MacFarlane sipped his coffee. Wonder if they’re dead yet, and if not, how long it will be before they are. ‘As I said at the beginning, it is my intention to inform General Thorne that at some time in the near future I may have to consider requesting him to call in an air strike.’ He looked at them for confirmation.

‘Air strike,’ Umbegi said simply.

‘Agreed,’ said the Norwegian and the Belgian, almost together.

‘Timetable?’ Anderssen asked. Christ, it was daytime, but the temperature seems to be going down rather than up.

‘We can’t move, therefore Thorne will have to send in a couple of FACs.’ Forward Air Controllers. ‘Presumably they’d come in tonight.’ Two teams, one each side of the valley because it was impossible from one side to get line of vision on all the positions which would be necessary to laser-guide the attack planes on to their targets. ‘Which means that the earliest an air strike could be launched would be tomorrow.’ Which was a long way off, but better than never. ‘Agreed?’ he asked them.

‘Agreed.’

Two radio nets had been assigned them. The first, HF through Vitez, was so-called all-informed, in line with the standard system of communication where line of sight was a problem, and the second was direct to Thorne via a satellite.

MacFarlane ignored the first and chose the second.

‘Zeus. This is Lear. Over.’

‘Lear. This is Zeus.’

Thorne’s signaller was never further than a room from the general; he travelled in the general’s armoured Range Rover when Thorne went by road, and in the general’s helicopter when Thorne went by air.

An UNMO team wouldn’t be coming through on the direct net unless it was urgent, he understood. ‘Better get The Boss,’ he told the man apparently relaxed in the hardbacked chair next to him. The man left the office, nodded at the second man positioned in the corridor, knocked on the door of the conference room and went in without being told to enter.

The coffee cups were on the table; some of the men present wore combat uniform and the others civilian suits: Thorne in discussion with his military commanders and the representatives of his political masters.

‘Lear on the secure net,’ the minder whispered to Thorne.

In a way Thorne had expected it.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’

The general was early fifties, tall and apparently slim build. He left the conference room, crossed to the office being used by his signaller, and waited till the man who was his constant shadow closed the door.

‘Lear. This is Zeus. Send. Over.’

‘Lear. Sitrep. The situation in Maglaj is becoming serious. I feel I should warn you that I may request an air strike. Over.’

‘Zeus. I read your reports overnight. Justification? Over.’

Because we both know the UN prefers to sit on its butt rather than risk upsetting anyone’s apple cart. And because we both understand the narrowness of the restrictions placed on such action.

‘Lear. Shelling has been continuous for the past eighteen hours. We are confined to our base, but even if we do not leave it I am approaching the position where I can no longer guarantee the safety of my men. Over.’

‘Zeus. How bad is it, Tom?’ Thorne broke the formality. ‘Over.’

‘Lear. The worst I’ve seen, and about to go downhill fast. Over.’

‘Zeus. The UN will request a stop to firing immediately. Decision on an FAC in two hours. Over.’

Which meant that Thorne would send his men in, MacFarlane understood. And once they were in position, and assuming the onslaught on Maglaj didn’t abate, Thorne would request an air strike.

‘Lear. Thank you. Over.’

‘Zeus. Keep in touch. Out.’

He would brief the meeting on the development – already Thorne was working out how he would play it. But before that he would task Fielding. And while the politicians were busy pointing out the diplomatic implications and nuances and repercussions, Fielding would already be tasking Finn and Janner.

2

The room was on the first floor of the anonymous block on the left of the main gate of the British headquarters at Split. Half a kilometre away in one direction was the airport servicing this part of the Dalmatian coast, half a kilometre in another were the pebble beaches and what in summer were the clear blue waters of the Adriatic. Now the islands of Brac and Hvar hung like ghosts in the winter fog, and the damp mixed with the cold.

The eight bunks were along one wall, and the television set was in the corner. Finn slumped in an armchair and watched the news coverage of the peace talks in Vienna on the feed from the British Forces Television service, some of the other seven men with whom he shared the room also watching. Finn was early thirties, strong upper body and a little over six feet tall. Like the others he was dressed in camouflage fatigues, their packs and weapons by the bunks. Already that morning they had worked out in the makeshift gym on the ground floor.

According to a UN spokesperson, the ceasefire in Bosnia was holding, the report was saying. The images from the Vienna hotel where the latest talks were being held showed the politicians going in and coming out, and the international negotiators smiling and talking about the possibility of a breakthrough. The images from London were slightly different: the British Foreign Secretary commenting on the possibility of peace but being careful in the way he always was. The reporter was summing up the mood in Vienna that morning, quoting direct from the Bosnian Serb delegates. Where the hell have you been for the past year and a half? Finn thought. The politicos have said the same thing a hundred times before and each time they were lying, so why the hell should we believe them this time?

Fielding came in. He was in his late thirties, with the air of physical fitness and strength which exuded from all of them.

‘We’re on standby.’ The relaxation in the room snapped tight. ‘Briefing in five minutes.’

Fielding’s room was one along. The floor was wood, the walls a dull yellow, and the rumble of a UN transport taking off for Zagreb shook the ceiling slightly. There were two maps on the table: the HQ BritFor current situation map, and the Director General of Military Survey town map of Maglaj and the countryside immediately surrounding.

‘Patrol Orders.’

Fielding followed the standard pattern:

Task, beginning with a summary of the operation.

‘Maglaj. The UNMO team there reports that the town has been under continual bombardment since sixteen hundred yesterday. The UNMO team leader has spoken to The Boss, and warned that he may have to request an air strike in order to protect his people. The UNMO boys can’t move from their shelter. The Boss wants an FAC in tonight to assess the situation in case he decides to go for an air strike.’

He ran through the other items under the task heading: country, politics, method of entry, role or target, approximate timings and durations.

He moved to the second heading.

Ground: description of area, enemy and own locations, boundaries, landmarks, minefields, entry RV and LZ – rendezvous and landing zones.

‘You know the area,’ he told the teams. Because they’d been in Bosnia two months and had familiarized themselves with the terrain. Even so he maintained the standard routine.

Met report: weather, moon phase, first and last light. Situation: the area of the operation, enemy forces and friendly forces. Civilians: restrictions, curfews, food situation.

They went through the details on the maps.

‘The towns of Maglaj and Tesanj, fifteen kilometres to the north-west, are in a pocket surrounded by Serb forces to the west, north and east and by combined Serb and Croat forces to the south. Maglaj is in two halves, the old and new towns, divided by a river.’

They focused on the town map of Maglaj: the sweep of the river and the position of the Serb guns, then Fielding moved to the next heading of the briefing.

‘Mission. To locate and identify any Serb artillery, tanks and armour, and to mark it for air strike.’ He repeated the mission, then moved on to the next heading. Execution: general outline, entry and return; RV and LUP procedures – rendezvous point and lying up position. Exit phase, RVs and passwords.

Finn and Janner and their patrols would fly by helicopter to a forward position at the British Battalion base near Vitez. They would wait there for final briefings, plus the green light for insertion. At last light they would chopper the fifty kilometres to the Maglaj pocket. Both patrols would be dropped at the same time, Finn would then take his patrol to the hills on the west of the town, and Janner would take his to the east. The two groups would establish the positions of the guns or tanks shelling the town, and guide the attack planes in by laser if Thorne requested an air strike and the UN approved it.

‘This is a hard routine patrol,’ Fielding told them. Therefore there would be no cooking, because cooking might give their positions to the opposition. They would only take food which they could eat cold: tins of stew, beans, sausages, plus Mars bars.

They moved to the last heading.

Logistics and communications: arms and ammunition, dress and equipment, rations, special equipment including LTM – laser target markers – and medical packs.

‘Any questions?’

‘Why two patrols?’ Finn asked.

‘According to the UNMO team not all the firing positions can be observed from one side of the valley.’

‘What are the chances of an air strike?’ Janner this time. Which is to say, what are the odds we’re going to freeze for nothing?

‘Has to be a first sometime,’ Fielding told him noncommittally.

They went into the details of the helicopter drop-offs and the OPs.

In an ideal world the drop would be at least five kilometres from where they would establish themselves, because helicopters could be seen and heard, therefore shouldn’t land anywhere near where they were headed. Therefore the helicopter would drop them in the middle of the pocket, midway between Maglaj and Tesanj.

‘What else do we know about Maglaj?’

‘Ian Morris took a patrol in two months ago, organized some food drops. His sitrep’s already on the way.’ Sitrep – situation report. ‘You’ll have it before you leave Vitez tonight.’

They returned to their own room, the two teams splitting and Finn and Janner going through their own patrol orders, this time in more detail, each man in the patrol asking questions and throwing in ideas as he saw fit.

An hour later the two teams carried their bergens on to the side of the helicopter landing site and crouched as the Sea King pilot ran through his pre-flight checks, then started the engines. The rotor blades were winding up and rain was falling. Each man was armed with his favourite weapons – Sig Sauers, Heckler and Kochs, Remington pump action shotguns, reduced and fitted with folding butts. In the bergens each carried spare ammunition, ration packs – non-essential items or those they didn’t like discarded – and spare winter clothing. Satcom sets, for communication with Thorne and/or Split via Hereford; hand-held ground-to-air sets for communication with the pilots of the fighter team should an air strike be authorized; and mobiles in case the teams needed to talk to each other. Which was unusual, but which Finn and Janner had decided upon. Laser target markers and spares. Each man carrying his own medi-pack, plus two syrettes of morphine, name tag and wristwatch on parachute cord round the neck. Name tags because it wasn’t a deniable operation.

‘Okay,’ the pilot told the load master. ‘Bring them in.’

The load master jerked his thumbs up, and the two teams moved forward, ducking under what the pilot called the disc, the solid metal cutter of the rotor blades. The door was on the right-hand side, seats opposite it and the rest of the interior stripped bare. They climbed up and sat down, bergens in front of them and weapons on their laps. The loadie clanged the door shut, and the pilot lifted the Sea King off the tarmac, running forward to build air speed, then rising and banking slightly. Behind them the bleak grey of the Adriatic disappeared in the mist and the snow of Middle Bosnia beckoned from the hills in front.

It was eleven in the morning. Time to run the gauntlet of the bridge, time to try to reach the food kitchen. Except that today she wouldn’t, because today the shells were still falling. On the hillside above Maglaj, Kara heard the soft boom of the gun and steeled herself in the silence as the shell rose on its trajectory, then she heard the sound of the express train as it descended, and the thump of the explosion somewhere in the new town.

‘Mummy, my tummy’s hurting again.’ Jovan’s eyes looked at her from beneath the bed.

She kissed him and told him that soon they would eat. She should go outside and get wood, she knew, should fetch more water from the well. At least she had the food she hadn’t eaten yesterday, plus the portion she had brought home for her husband. She diced the two halves of the potato and carrot left from the day before, put them into the pan of beans, and put the pan on the stove.

They would eat first then she would go outside, because by then the shelling might have stopped.

The room was cold, despite the stove. She knelt by the boy and stroked his face. At least his cheeks and his forehead were warm – she would remember the moment later. At least he wasn’t as cold as she feared he might be.

The ground below was cold and hard and bleak.

From Split the Sea King flew east then north-east over the coastal area of Croatia, more or less following the aid supply route codenamed Circle at an altitude of four thousand feet, then picking up Route Triangle, crossing the front line into the Muslim-held area of Bosnia, and skirting the Croat-held pocket defined by the three towns of Novi Travnik, Vitez and Busovaca.

Fifty minutes after leaving the coast, the Sea King dropped on to the LZ, the helicopter landing zone, on the edge of the British Battalion camp near Vitez, the roar of the rotors drowning the sniper fire from the Muslim forces in the ring of hills round the camp and the Croats in the village.

The camp was some two hundred metres square, circled by a perimeter fence of razor wire and dissected by an internal road running north – south. To the south was the parking area for the white-painted APCs; to the north, protected by sangars and clustered tightly round the two-storey former school which now served as the Operations Centre, were the kitchens, dining block and sleeping units. The ground was a sea of mud, the ridges at the sides of the road and walkways frozen hard, and the camp seemed empty; the only movement was at the main gate as a pair of Warriors turned off the road.

Snow was falling and the temperature was below freezing. Welcome to Middle Bosnia, Finn thought. The loadie opened the door, the two patrols grabbed their weapons and bergens and followed the captain who had been waiting for them into the Operations Centre.

The building sounded hollow, footsteps in the gloom and voices echoing. The room they had been assigned was on the first floor. It was just after midday. They locked the equipment in the room then the others went to the cookhouse while Finn was taken to meet the base’s commanding officer.

‘Welcome to BritBat.’ The Coldstream commander had done similar liaison jobs in Northern Ireland. ‘Gather you’re just using us for bed and breakfast. Anything you need …’

Finn thanked him and went to the cookhouse. The room was large, serving hatches on the right, and filled with tables, one area partitioned off for officers. Even here the men – and occasional woman – carried their personal weapons, mostly SA-80s, though some officers wore Brownings, either on their belts or in shoulder holsters. On the right of the door was a table, manned by a private, with a book for visitors and guests. Finn ignored it, picked up an aluminium food dish and plastic cutlery, joined the line at the hatches, and helped himself to a large portion of roast chicken and vegetables. It would be the last hot meal for some time; in the OPs they would eat cold, not even the smallest spark of a flame or heater to alert anyone to their presence. The hall was busy and the tables crowded. He joined the others, ate without speaking, then returned to the room in the Operations Centre.

For the next hour they pored over the map of Maglaj, confirming the drop points with the helicopter team, then working out the grid references of the locations where they would site their OPs. For the hour after that they checked and re-checked their equipment: radios and radio frequencies; spare batteries; laser equipment and PNGs – passive night goggles. Emergency plans in and out if either group ran into trouble.

Fielding flew in at three-thirty. The last briefing began in the room in the Operations Centre ten minutes later. Outside the light was fading fast and the snow was still falling.

‘It’s on,’ he told them. ‘You go at seventeen hundred hours.’ They hunched round the table, coffee in plastic cups. ‘The Boss will wait for your sitreps before he decides whether or not to request an air strike.’

‘Latest UNMO report?’ Janner asked.

‘Maglaj is still under constant shelling. By constant they mean a shell every two to three minutes.’

‘You said Ian Morris took a patrol in in November?’

‘A ground team to laser in aid drops.’ Fielding took the file from his day sack. ‘Nothing much to help you.’ He gave them the report anyway. Outside the snow had stopped and the sky had begun to clear.

Finn skimmed the report and handed it to Janner. ‘The local interpreter, any way we can use her?’

‘Probably not. With any luck you won’t need to go anywhere near the town.’

It was four-thirty, the dark suddenly closing in outside. They checked the equipment again, and confirmed again the radio frequencies on which they would be transmitting. It was fifteen minutes to five. On the LZ on the edge of the camp the Sea King pilot began his pre-flight checks. In low and fast tonight, himself and the other crew wearing night viewing gear, get the hell out as quickly as they could. The load master was outside, looking at him. He held up one finger – engine one starting. Two fingers – engine two. Both engines running. He ran through his cockpit checks then swivelled his fingers at the loadie, saw the thumbs up – all clear left and right. He released the rotor brake and the blades began to turn. In the shadows at the edge of the LZ the eight men appeared, bergens on their backs and weapons in their hands, thin white suits over their combat clothes – not pure white, because pure white stood out in the snow, but off-white and smudged with paint, tape round their weapons to break the shapes.

The load master jumped back in, waited for the pilot’s order, then gave a thumbs up to the group to come forward. The sky above was clear, the first stars showing, though it was still too early for the quarter moon. The two patrols came forward, moving quickly, climbed in and sat on the seats opposite the door, bergens on their backs, weapons across their laps, and PNGs on their heads. The loadie gave Finn a helmet with built-in communications so he could hear the conversations between pilot and crew. Finn pulled off the PNG and put it on. The Sea King was in darkness, no interior or exterior lights. The loadie closed the door, and the Sea King rose from the ice and disappeared into the black. Flying south, away from the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket, then turning west then east on a deception course.

Land on or near the gravel road between Maglaj and Tesanj – Finn rehearsed the procedure again. Door already open. Land, then out fast, the cab hardly touching the ground, the pilot pulling away the second the last man was out. Maintain position, see what the opposition was up to, then separate, his patrol moving off first, then Janner’s. Patrol order, guns carried in the ready position and with safeties off, and the countryside varying shades of green in the night viewing goggles.

They had been airborne thirty minutes, were flying low now, the sides of the valleys above them.

‘Two minutes,’ the pilot told the load master.

Two minutes – the loadie held two fingers up. Finn took off the helmet and put the PNG back on. In the cockpit the pilot and navigator were leaning forward, eyes straining for the changes in terrain. Behind them the loadie pulled open the door and leaned out, also checking.

‘Radio mast one thousand metres at two o’clock.’ The navigator to the pilot.

‘Factory chimney two hundred metres at nine o’clock.’ The loadie.

‘Give them the one minute,’ the pilot told the load master. The loadie swung back in and held up one finger.

‘Confirm location,’ the pilot asked the navigator.

‘Location confirmed.’ The navigator was still staring ahead.

‘Thirty seconds,’ the pilot told them. The rotors were thudding and the wind was gusting through the open door.

‘Tail clear,’ the loadie told the pilot.

The Sea King descended fast and hard.

Stand by – the loadie swung half in and mouthed the words at them.

The wheels hit the ground. ‘Out,’ the pilot told the load master. The loadie turned. Go – he mouthed at them. Go – his thumbs up told them. They were already moving past him, Finn’s team first, then Janner’s. Fanning to the sides of the Sea King in an all-round defence and looking for the enemy, looking for the trap. The blades were screaming above them and the snow was swirling round them. The Sea King lifted off into the blackness. Good cab, Finn thought, good driver. He rose, Ken and Steve and Jim rising with him, nodded to Janner, and began the walk in.

Two of his team were beginning to crack and MacFarlane’s own nerves were stretched beyond what he had ever before experienced. If this is what the shelling was doing to them, then God only knew what it was doing to the civilians who weren’t supposed to be used to this sort of thing.

The UNMO team were still in their base, crouched over coffee and cigarettes.

At around three in the morning there had been a slight lull in the express trains of the artillery shells and the spiralling screaming of the mortars. At six the intensity had picked up again, at seven he had filed his latest situation report via the HF channel through the radio net at Vitez. At eight, as the new day mixed from black to grey to the cold light of winter, he had spoken on the secure line to General Thorne, informing him of the situation, reporting that his team were under severe pressure, and asking whether there had been any Serbian response to the United Nations request of the previous day.

There had been no response, he was informed. FAC teams were in position, however. Thorne was waiting for their assessment, plus confirmation that the offending gun positions had been identified. Once this was received, and if the bombardment had not stopped or the Serbs had not responded, then an air strike request would be formally submitted.

Jovan was still asleep. Kara checked that he was as warm as he could be, and crawled from beneath the bed. Her head thumped with pain and she felt sick and exhausted. In the sky over Maglaj she heard the sound of another express train. Please God, may it end today, please God, may Adin come home. Please may she and her son and her husband come through all this alive and together.

Yesterday she and Jovan had finished the beans, so today she would have to run the gauntlet of the bridge and the shells. Either that or she would have to dig into the supplies of potatoes and carrots she and Adin had grown last summer; but the sacks were already almost empty and the winter was not even half over. She pulled on an extra coat, laced up her boots, waited until another shell had fallen, and went outside. The cold took her breath away. She had two minutes before the next shell, she told herself, three if she was lucky. She grabbed a handful of wood from under the cover at the side of the garden, went back inside, and dumped it by the stove. Wait till after the next shell, she reminded herself. Get on with it, she thought; she had been cowering under the fear of the shells for too long. She went outside again. The bucket by the well was frozen to the ground; she kicked it loose, dropped it down the shaft, and heard the clank as it struck the ice. She pulled it up and dropped it again, heard the ice crack and felt the bucket fill. Heard the whine of the mortar in the sky and knew she should have waited. Froze like the water had frozen then heard the thump in the new town.

When she went back inside Jovan was looking at her. She kissed him and lit the stove. Tonight she shouldn’t let the fire go out, she told herself; she had enough wood to keep it in. And if she ran out she could collect more from the woods on the hillsides above the house. Except that the woods might be mined – she wasn’t sure, but Adin had told her to be careful, not to go anywhere near them. So she couldn’t go to the woods, but she could salvage some scraps from the remnants of the houses down the road, as long as someone else hadn’t beaten her to it.

‘Mummy,’ Jovan’s eyes were large and staring. ‘My tummy’s hurting again.’

‘Where?’ She held him in her arms and felt his forehead. The skin was warm and slightly clammy, not cold as it should have been. She pressed his stomach carefully and gently, and felt the relief when he did not jerk in pain. Probably stomach cramp because he was hungry, she thought. She moved her hand slightly, to the right of his stomach and slightly down, and pressed again, felt him recoil in pain. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told him, told herself. ‘It’ll be all right after I’ve made us something to eat.’ In the sky above she heard the next shell.

‘Location confirmed?’ Finn asked Steve.

‘Confirmed.’

Christ it was cold, but they wouldn’t be here long. And they’d got themselves a good position. Hadn’t been able to dig in, of course, but they hadn’t expected to. Instead they’d found themselves an OP under the lower branches of some trees, which gave them at least some protection from the weather, plus having direct line of sight to the gun positions at the head of the valley and on the other side. Two of them up front and two at the rear covering them.

‘Zero, this is Charlie Two One. Over.’

‘Charlie Two One, this is Zero. Roger. Over.’

Finn spoke the details of his report and the grid references of the targets into the mike of the radio, then pressed the activate button. The computerized set scrambled the message and transmitted it on burst – fifteen seconds of report condensed into a micro-second, no possibility of it being intercepted, and no indication they were there.

‘Zero. Roger. Out.’

His position could have been better, Janner was aware. They’d made it in easily enough, established the grid references of the gun emplacements and confirmed they were in direct line of vision for the lasers. But that was the problem: the ground on his side of the valley didn’t allow for a base and a good OP. So the base was in a small indentation along a contour, from which he couldn’t see the opposition but where the opposition couldn’t see him, and the OP was fifty metres further forward on a slight lip, the two men in it lying motionless and the two behind covering them. The men in the forward position not able to move, but that was standard, except the ground behind the opposition emplacements was marginally higher than the OP, so the opposition was looking down on it and therefore able to see it. But only if they were looking, and they wouldn’t be, because there was no reason to. The only time the opposition would know would be after the air strike, then the guns would be dealt with anyway. So there were no problems.

He contacted base, sent his report, then opened a can of cold beans and began to eat. Hard routine patrol, Fielding had said. Bloody right, Janner thought. Only six hours of light left, though, then he and Max could creep back and join Geordie John and Kev.

Poor bastards, he thought as another round struck the town in the valley below. The barrage was virtually nonstop now. Rather be here than there.

The call to MacFarlane was on the secure net.

‘Update?’ Thorne asked him.

‘Ceasefire violations continuing at a rate of one round every two to three minutes, all incoming.’ MacFarlane was also deliberately official.

‘State of UNMO team?’ Thorne asked.

‘UNMO team in serious danger. Four shells have landed near UNMO position in past hour.’ Four among the many that were still falling. ‘There is a possibility that UNMO team is being targeted. If no response has been received from yesterday’s approach to Bosnian Serbs, I formally request an air strike to protect lives of United Nations Military Observers.’

‘Request being lodged immediately.’

So in two and a half hours, the time it took to process the request, the jets could be airborne from their bases in Italy. Thirty minutes’ flying time, forty maximum; so by one-thirty, two at the latest, the jets could be over Maglaj and silencing the guns.

‘Thank you.’

‘Confirm you are visual with targets,’ Thorne requested Finn and Janner via Hereford.

Confirmed, they both told him.

‘Request for air strike being lodged now. Aircraft on RS 10’ – a readiness state of ten minutes, which meant that the aircraft could be airborne within ten minutes of being scrambled. ‘Aircraft call sign Thunder One.’

Assuming the UN sanction the action.

Jovan was slightly hotter. Kara wiped his forehead and talked to him about what they would do when the summer came and how he and she and his father would walk in the hills and pick the berries and the apples.

The shells and the mortars were still coming in. ‘Roof of UNMO building has just received a direct hit,’ MacFarlane reported on the secure net.

‘Serbian authorities have been informed of request for air strike,’ he was informed. ‘UN procedures in operation. Thunder One on cockpit readiness.’ The pilot in the cockpit and the engines running.

Perhaps he had become accustomed to the sound of the shelling, Janner thought, perhaps it was the temperature. The air cut through his lungs and the cold crept into his body. Two hours to go, he told himself, two hours before the Jaguar zipped over the valley and bombed the shit out of the bastards shelling the town. Two hours before he and Max could crawl out of the OP and join the others in the base position. Not that the base was any warmer than the OP, not that they would risk heating any food there.

It was all a game, of course. The Serbs were calling the UN bluff by not responding to the request to stop the shelling, and in just under two hours now the UN would call the Serbian bluff by taking out the guns in the hills.

The sky was a thin blue and the temperature was plummeting. God how he wanted something hot, Finn thought. Ninety minutes to go before the air strike. The Boss would have talked to both the UN and NATO by now, and the wheels would be rumbling, the pilots already briefed.

Jovan was going to vomit. Kara knew by the way he was holding his stomach and clenching his jaw. She held him in her lap, the bowl in her hand. Probably the food, she told herself, probably because she had put too much potato and carrot in, and he wasn’t used to it. The jet of liquid shot from his mouth. ‘It’s all right, my little one.’ She wiped the saliva from his lips. ‘Now you’ll feel better.’

The air strike was sixty minutes away, assuming the UN procedure took two and a half hours. ‘Another round near UNMO HQ,’ MacFarlane reported. ‘Constant incoming, no cessation.’

‘AWACS in position.’ The Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft sitting high above them. ‘Thunder One on sling shot.’ The Jaguar waiting at the end of the runway.

The sky and the air had the awesome clarity of winter. ‘Forty-five minutes,’ Janner whispered, half to himself and half to Max. ‘Wonder whether Belgrade’s told the bastards on the guns.’

Jovan’s temperature was rising, the sweat was breaking on his forehead and his breathing was slightly shallow. ‘Where’s it hurting?’ Kara asked him. She undid his coat and gently felt his stomach, then his abdomen, to the right and lower. ‘There, Mummy.’ He jerked away in pain.

Thirty minutes to go – Janner counted down.

‘Mission approved,’ he and Finn were informed on the secure net. ‘Confirm laser coding.’ To ensure that the pilot received the correct target positioning.

‘Charlie Two Two. Laser coding confirmed. Over.’ Janner on burst, the transmission lasting a millisecond.

‘Charlie Two One. Confirmed. Over.’ Finn.

The guns pounded again

‘Thunder One airborne,’ the FAC and UNMO teams were informed.

‘Confirm you are still in danger,’ MacFarlane was requested.

‘Confirmed.’

So what was she going to do? Kara held Jovan close and rocked him gently. Try to get him to the medical centre in Maglaj new town, which would mean running the risk of the snipers in the daylight and the guns even in the dark? Or stay here and pray the fever didn’t develop and the pain went away?

The guns were still pounding.

‘Thunder One over Adriatic,’ the FAC and UNMO teams were informed. ‘Thunder One crossing coast. Thunder One over Bosnian air space.’

‘Magic Five Five.’ The Jaguar pilot to the communications AWACS. ‘This is Thunder One entering the area.’

‘Roger, Thunder One. This is Magic Five Five. You are cleared to contact Charlie Two One and Charlie Two Two.’

‘Charlie Two One. This is Thunder One. Radio check.’

Thank God, Finn and Janner thought.

‘Roger, Thunder One. This is Charlie Two One. Loud and clear.’

‘Charlie Two Two. This is Thunder One. Radio check.’

‘Roger, Thunder One. This is Charlie Two Two. Loud and clear. Check position.’

‘This is Thunder One. Now thirty miles south of Maglaj.’ The Jaguar travelling at a mile every six seconds and losing altitude for the run-in.

‘Roger, confirm target position,’ Janner requested.

The first target – Janner’s target – was camouflaged in a yard at the side of two houses, both empty except for the gun crews.

‘Target as briefed.’

‘Okay, Thunder One.’ Janner switched on the laser marker. ‘Lima on.’

The pilot saw the cross in the HUD, the head-up display, the L to the right indicating the laser was operating. He checked the code and selected the rocket on the weapons panel.

Four miles and twenty-four seconds out. Cross and L in HUD – he checked automatically. Everything okay.

Can’t see target but I can see buildings, he thought.

The ground was a hundred feet below and he was following the course of the valley.

Three miles and eighteen seconds out.

I can see two buildings where the target should be, he thought.

Two miles and twelve seconds.

I can’t see any guns. I can only see two houses.

One mile and six seconds.

Kara heard the thunder. What is it, Jovan asked. I don’t know, she told him.

‘Aborting run. No target in sight. I can only see two houses.’ He was already a mile past the target.

‘Yeah,’ he heard the man on the ground. ‘The guns are camouflaged in a yard to your left of the houses.’ And you should have known that, because it was on my report. Except somewhere along the line somebody forgot to tell you.

‘Okay, Charlie Two Two. Coming round again. With you in forty seconds.’

‘Okay, Thunder One. Lima on.’

In the winter light, the sun glinted on the laser sight.

‘Thunder One. This is Magic Five Five.’ The command and control AWACS. ‘Are you task complete?’

The Jaguar was five miles and thirty seconds from the target.

‘Negative, Magic Five Five. This is Thunder One. Will be in thirty seconds.’

‘Thunder. This is Magic. Abort. Abort.’

The Jaguar was four miles and twenty-four seconds out.

Christ, the pilot thought. ‘Magic, confirm mission abort and reason.’ Because someone – somehow – might be playing silly buggers.

Three miles and eighteen seconds.

At the head of the valley the sun glinted again on the laser sights.

‘Thunder One. This is Magic Five Five. You are to abort. I time authenticate Whisky Juliet.’

Each operation was coded for such a situation, the code changed every two minutes. The pilot checked the authentication code. ‘Confirm reason for abort,’ he asked.

Two miles and twelve seconds out.

‘Thunder One. This is Magic Controller. Just fucking abort.’ Meaning how the hell do I know?

One mile and six seconds.

In the house Kara heard the thunder again. Listen, she told Jovan. The planes are coming to stop the guns. The planes are coming to save us.

‘Charlie Two One and Two. This is Thunder One.’ The Jaguar was past the target and climbing hard above the hills to the north.

What the hell is this? Janner wondered.

What the hell’s going on? Finn almost swore.

‘Bad news. Just been told to abort the mission.’

‘Why?’

‘Sorry. Have to exit area. Good luck.’

Because the negotiators in Vienna have said they were on the verge of a breakthrough, so do nothing to rock the boat, Janner thought. He waited for the next salvo from the hills. One minute, two, three.

The guns have stopped, Kara thought. We’re going to live, going to survive. Adin’s coming home and little Jovan will be okay. Nine minutes since the last rounds, ten. Suddenly fifteen, twenty. The planes have done it, Kara whispered to Jovan: the United Nations have saved us. The blue of the sky had turned to purple and the purple was deepening into black, the first stars above them. Told you we could handle it, Janner knew the negotiators in Vienna would be telling each other, told you we could call their bluff. Kara held Jovan in her arms. Almost laughing, almost crying, not sure which but not caring.

The twilight was gone and the night was cold and hard, the silence hanging over the valley and the stars in the sky above it. They had already eaten today, Kara told her son, but tonight they would eat again, tonight they would celebrate. Then the fire in his forehead would cool and the pain in his stomach would go away.

The moon was coming up, pale and ghostly.

‘In light of Serbian ceasefire at Maglaj, UN has ordered no further air action, therefore withdraw immediately,’ Finn and Janner were told. ‘UN have also decreed chopper pick-ups in Maglaj – Tesanj pocket might be deemed provocative, therefore patrol back through lines.’

‘Get something inside us before we go,’ Finn told his team. They took out the ration packs and opened the tins. Shone the torches on the map and plotted the route out.

‘Time to go.’ Janner’s team confirmed the exfiltration and began to leave, Janner leading and the team strung at five-yard intervals behind him.

Jovan’s temperature was suddenly soaring. The sweat was running from him and she could barely hear his breathing. ‘Is it hurting again?’ Kara asked him. ‘Where’s it hurting?’ She undid his coat and felt his stomach, then his abdomen, to the right and lower. ‘There, Mummy.’ He was crying now, clinging to her, the fever burning. At least the shelling was over, at least she could get him to the doctor in Maglaj new town. At least at night the sniper wouldn’t be waiting for her to cross the bridge. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she told him. Please come home soon, she prayed to her husband, please be all right. She lifted the boy carefully and dressed him in his warmest clothes and coat. The night was dark now, but there was no time to wait till morning. She pulled on her own coat and scarf. What about Adin, what about if her husband came home that night? She hugged the boy again then sat at the table and began to write a note.

The thunder came from nowhere, the whine of the mortar and the express train of the shell. Oh no, she almost screamed. Not the shelling again. Not on the town. Not when she had to get Jovan to hospital.

Mortar, incoming – Janner heard the whine. ‘Down,’ he was shouting, already hitting the ground himself.

The mortar landed fifty metres away. Another shell was coming in, striking the ground a hundred metres down the slope. The bastards weren’t going for the town, they were going for him. He and the others were up and moving, fast but orderly, running for the slight dip where they had established the base, the dip that might give them some protection. More crumps, suddenly more whines. The dip was fifty metres away, they were slipping on the ice, crashing into the branches of the trees. The mortars were landing again, closer this time. He heard the whine then saw the flash in front.

Oh Christ, he was aware he was thinking coldly and calmly, oh no. Not Kev, not Geordie John. The bodies were catapulting in the air, the earth and ice showering over him and the shrapnel hitting him. Oh Christ not me. The pain was somewhere on his face, somewhere in his chest, somewhere round his legs. Another mortar round was coming in. Head down and pray, he told himself, then check the others and get to the bunker. If he could find the others, if he could move.

The round hit the ground twenty metres from him and he felt the shock, waited two seconds then looked up. Max was on the ground five metres in front of him, moving slightly and moaning. At least he assumed it was Max, because Kev and Geordie John had been in front when the first round took them out. He half stood, made sure his legs weren’t giving way, and shuffled forward. ‘Legs have gone,’ Max told him. ‘Bit fucked up. Can’t move.’ Another round was coming in. Janner ignored it, unstrapped Max’s bergen and grabbed his shoulder, tried to lift him, pull him. Tried to move him whichever way he could. It’ll hurt like hell, old friend, he didn’t need to say, but no option. Move if you can, he didn’t need to tell Max, give me all the help you can.

The pain in his chest was gone, his body was suddenly numb, but his legs were holding. He was pulling, hauling. The dip in the ground ten metres from him, five metres, another round coming in and Max trying to walk, trying to get to his own shattered knees and help them both. Janner passed something, cold and bloody, realized it was Kev. Another round was coming in. This is the one, this time they’ve got us. He jerked Max forward and they slid into the dip.

‘Maglaj ceasefire broken,’ MacFarlane reported on both nets.

‘Friendly forces under enemy fire,’ Finn informed Hereford. ‘Repeat. Friendly forces under enemy fire.’ The other men in the patrol were checking the locations of the offending mortar and artillery piece. ‘Serbs deliberately targeting Charlie Two Two.’

It was too late to call an air strike, the bloody decision-makers at the UN would be too busy wining and dining to make any decisions. Only one thing to do and one way to do it. Only one way of stopping the guns shelling the men on the other side of the valley.

‘You have the positions?’ he asked the others.

‘Not moved since we targeted them earlier.’

‘Charlie One to Charlie Two.’ He used the motorola. ‘Charlie One to Charlie Two. Over.’

‘Charlie Two receiving.’ Janner was on the floor of the dip, Max half across him and blood everywhere.

‘Charlie One. What are you like?’

‘Two missing, presumed dead. Rest of patrol in minimal cover. One injured, I’m also wounded.’

‘You can walk?’

‘I can try.’

‘Give me twenty minutes.’ Which was a bloody eternity. ‘When they stop shelling, get as far out as you can. Romeo Victor is a group of houses over the ridge.’ He gave Janner the co-ordinates.

Romeo Victor – RV – rendezvous point.

‘Got that,’ Janner told him.

‘Oboe Oboe,’ Finn told Hereford. ‘Bringing out own wounded.’ No code ranked above OO. When an SAS patrol signalled Oboe Oboe everything but everything stopped. ‘Repeat. Oboe Oboe. Bringing out own wounded. Hot extraction. Landing site not secure.’ He gave them the details. ‘Will confirm co-ordinates. Radio silence from this point. Repeat. Radio silence.’ Because where we’re going and what we’re going to do, we don’t want anyone knowing. Because if they do then we’re dead as well.

Time to forget the UN. Time to ignore the rules. Time to cut throats.

‘Okay, let’s do it.’

The shells and mortars were falling on the town again. Falling on somewhere else as well, somewhere in the hills, which she couldn’t understand. But falling on the town again. Kara heard the thuds and felt the vibrations. Please God no, she prayed. Please God tell me what to do. Unless I get Jovan to the doctor’s he’s going to die, but if I try he’ll be killed anyway.

‘Finn and the boys are on the way,’ Janner told Max. ‘Be out of here soon.’ He waited till the next round exploded then looked out of the hollow, shouted for Kev and Geordie John. Kept shouting for thirty seconds then ducked inside again as another round exploded.

Kev’s body – assuming it was Kev – was ten metres away. It would be dangerous, but Kev would have done the same for him. Just enough time to get out and check if Kev had a pulse, if Kev was alive. So what would he do if he was? One he might be able to get to the RV, two no. And what about Geordie John? ‘Be back,’ he told Max. He waited till the next round exploded, slid out of the hollow and pulled himself along the ground. Pull Kev back in, which might be difficult, or waste time finding the pulse? Half Kev’s head was missing, Kev hadn’t even known what hit him. Geordie John presumably the same. Janner rolled back and tumbled into the hollow as the next round landed.

The bridge across the river, a kilometre and a half from the town, was thin and rickety, and swinging slightly in the night, the snow ghostly in the PNGs. The river beneath was cold and grey and running fast, but the bridge itself might be wired. Finn knelt and felt carefully around and under the first sections, the others covering him from the shadows. There were no wires. He nodded and ran across, allowing for the swing of the bridge, then slipped into the dark and covered the next man. There was no cold now, just the adrenalin. The last man came over and they turned up the slope.

The sites were a hundred metres apart, the support huts fifty metres back from them. Himself and Steve to take the first, Finn indicated, Ken and Jim to deal with the second. Knife job, no noise. Because if the guns simply stopped firing the soldiers in the back-up hut might think the gunners on duty had received a change of order, whereas if there was small-arms fire they might investigate. The guns were still pounding. One minute – they set their watches on count down.

Twenty minutes, Finn had said, therefore five minutes to go. The bastards had his range now and were pounding the shells in. ‘You ready?’ Janner asked Max. He’d discarded almost everything, destroyed the radios. Four minutes to go. ‘It’s going to hurt like buggery,’ he told Max, ‘but it’s the only way.’ It’s going to hurt me as well, because I don’t know where my head is going and the pain is in my legs again and my chest feels like it doesn’t exist.

He ducked as the next round came in.

‘Ready, Max?’

Christ, Max was a mess, his legs hanging disjointed and his face and body mangled as hell.

‘Ready, Janner.’

He half-lifted Max so that his body was across his shoulders and Max could still carry his Heckler, still use it if he needed, and began counting since the last round. A minute between rounds now, never more than a minute and twenty seconds. In the distance the other guns and mortars pounded the town. Thirty seconds since the last round. Forty-five. Minute gone. He waited for the next incoming round. Finn would have done it. Finn and the boys wouldn’t let him down. One minute twenty, one thirty.

Go – he heard himself shout, heard himself scream.

He was out of the bunker and trying to run. Max bouncing on his shoulders and telling him he was okay. Up the slope of the hill fifty metres, then turn along the contour line – he had worked it out on the map, knew exactly what he had to do, drummed it into his head so he would do it automatically. Christ, Max was heavy. Christ, his legs and his chest and his head were suddenly hurting. He was running slower now, little more than a stagger. Control it, he told himself, keep it calm and measured, just get up the first fifty metres and you’re okay. Still no incoming rounds, still the wonderful blissful silence. Except for the pounding in his head and the heavy metallic rasping in his lungs. Thanks, Finn, thanks, lads. He turned right, along the hillside, the woods green in the night sights and his feet slipping on the ice.

‘You okay?’ he asked the man on his back. ‘Okay,’ Max told him. The rounds going into the town were like echoes in his head, the trees around him and the slope of the hillside making it difficult to move. He was walking now, holding on to the instructions Finn had given him and the directions he had instilled into his brain. Can’t be far now, halfway there already, probably more. He was no longer walking, was on his knees, forcing himself forward. Bit like selection: when you think you’ve had it, that’s the point you start really going. Bit like counter-interrogation: get your story fixed in your head and stick to it. So he was going well, going great guns, was getting there.

He was bent forward now, was on his hands and knees, the pain tearing at his chest and the ice and trees cutting into him. Don’t think about it, don’t think about anything. Just keep going. Finn and the lads will be waiting at the RV, and the chopper will already be airborne. Nice pint of beer at the end, nice fag to go with it. He was crying now, on his face and his front, reaching forward with one hand and grabbing anything, pulling himself and Max on, Heckler still in the other hand. Doing well, doing great, you old bugger. Christ he must have passed the RV point a hundred years ago. He reached forward again and grabbed the tree stump, pulled himself and Max up to it, lifted his face from the ice and reached forward again, felt for the next thing he could, pulled himself forward again. Tell Max to mind his legs on the stump, part of his mind warned him, tell Max to keep his legs clear.

The shelling on the town was continuing but the shelling on the hillside had stopped. Jovan’s fever was burning now, his breathing shallow and his lips moving, as if he was praying. Kara knelt by him and wiped his face and hands. Don’t worry, she told him, everything will be all right soon; you’ll be okay soon. She wet the flannel and held it against his lips. Heard the scream.

Like an animal caught in a trap. Like a fox when its leg is torn off. Except that it wasn’t an animal. It was a man.

Someone’s hurt – her mind was numb with the cold and the shelling and the shock. Someone’s been hit by a shell. Except there hadn’t been a shell before the scream. Her mind was still numb. It’s all right, she told Jovan, everything is fine. She dipped the flannel into the water again and cooled his face again.

Adin – it came out of the darkness, out of the black. Adin was outside. Adin had left the front line and was coming home. Adin was hurt, was trying to reach her and Jovan even though he was wounded.

Not Adin, it couldn’t be Adin, because Adin wouldn’t come that way. But could she take the risk …

She smiled at the boy and kissed him. ‘I’m going to get something.’ She wiped his forehead again. ‘I’ll be back in two minutes to tell you a story.’

She pulled on her coat and laced her boots. Made sure Jovan was comfortable and opened the door, slipped through it and closed it quickly so as not to let the cold in. Crouched in the dark and listened for the sound, listened for her husband.

‘Sorry, Janner.’ Max’s voice shuddered as his body was shuddering.

‘All right, Max. No probs. Almost there.’ The shells were coming in again, falling on the old town, falling near them. He was hardly moving now. One hand, the hand with the gun, trying to reach out and the other holding Max’s wrist and trying to pull him. The night sights were getting in the way, but he and Max needed them to see where they were going. Fuck me, part of his mind was saying, the places you take me. Ten green bottles, part of his brain was singing as he had sung with his wife during the last stages of labour when their first child had been born. Ten green bottles hanging on the wall, and if one green bottle should accidentally fall. You’re losing it, Janner; stop thinking about Jude, stop thinking about the kids. Because if you do you’re finished, you’re on the way out. The shrapnel was cutting through his chest now and the shells were bursting round him, his head was down and his face was scraping on the ice. You’re making it, he told himself. Just keep it up, just keep going.

The shell was coming in. He heard it explode. Heard the other explosion which it detonated. Oh Christ, he thought. Oh Jesus bloody Christ. I’m in a minefield.

Kara heard Adin, saw Adin. Dark and black against the snow and the ice. The shells and the noise and the hell pounding down on him, pounding down on them both. She was lying on the ground, wriggling forward trying to protect herself from the bombs and the guns. Adin, she whispered, no noise coming out. It’s me, Adin; please move, Adin. Don’t be dead, Adin. The shell was coming in, close to them. She ignored it, ignored everything.

Saw him.

Christ the pain in his head and his legs and his chest. Forget the pain, pain only exists when you acknowledge it. Got to get to the lads, can’t let the lads down after all they did so you could get this far, can’t let Max down. Christ the bloody awful fucking pain. Don’t give up, don’t give up now, don’t ever give up. Because you’re regiment, because you’re a Cornishman. Almost there now, Max. Almost made it.

He saw her.

Oh God – she felt the fresh fear. Not Adin, not anyone she knew. Not even a man. The shape in front of her was black and red, no face, especially no eyes. Just the face of something from another world staring at her.

Christ – he was reacting automatically, instinctively. Heckler coming up and finger on trigger.

The fear still froze her. Froze her body and her mind. Why no face, the panic screamed at her; why no eyes?

Janner’s finger was easing on the trigger, mind and body functioning instinctively.

She understood why she couldn’t see a face, why she couldn’t see the eyes. She had seen someone like this before, seen four men like this before. Except then they had been helping her, then they had been disappearing into the woods at night, then the planes had flown over and the food had parachuted down.

‘Ian …’ she remembered the leader’s name. ‘English?’ she asked. ‘Aid,’ she said. ‘Food drops?’

Except that it wasn’t Ian. Except that the man two metres from her was wounded and in pain. And the man behind him, the man he was carrying, was even more badly injured.

‘English?’ she asked again, her voice almost lost in the fear.

The eyes looking at him were wide with fright and the face framed green in the PNG was a woman’s.

‘English?’ Janner heard the words again. ‘Food drop?’

Ian Morris took a patrol in to organize a food drop – part of his brain pulled out of the numbness. Ian Morris had an interpreter – he remembered the briefing. A woman, not sure where she lived because she met them at their operating base.

‘English,’ he said. ‘Friend of Ian’s. Help me.’ The voice seemed distant, as if it was no longer his. ‘Two of us. Can’t move any more.’ It was as if the night was still and silent, as if the rounds were not falling round and on them. Got to trust her, got to trust someone. He took the pressure off the trigger and stretched out his hand towards her.

Their fingers touched, palms sliding across each other. Hers cold with ice and fear, his red and slimed in blood. She held his wrist, he hers, grip clamped like a vice. He tried to help, tried to pull himself and Max forward.

‘Minefield,’ he told her.

Oh God – she remembered what Adin had said, remembered the different explosions as she had left the house, as if the shells had detonated something else in the woods.

She let go his hand and he knew she was going to leave him. Can’t blame her, a distant part of his brain told him. On her own and she might make it back; her and one of them and the chances were falling; her and two and they were all dead.

Another shell landed thirty metres away.

‘You have a knife?’ she asked. What am I doing, she thought. Why am I doing it?

What the hell did she want a knife for? Janner let go Max’s arm, felt in his belt, and gave her the knife. ‘Don’t move,’ she told him. Christ – he understood why she wanted the knife and what she was going to do.

Slowly, carefully, she eased the tip of the knife into the ground, pressed it through the ice. Repeated the procedure. Made sure the area between her and Janner was clear. Then she turned and edged up the track made by her knees and hands.

There were no mines, she began to think; perhaps Adin was wrong; perhaps they hadn’t been laid. There were no mines, part of Janner’s brain told him; he’d been wrong about the different explosion. He saw the moment she froze. Sensed – split second before – the metallic contact as the tip of the knife struck something. Leave us, part of him wanted to tell her, save yourself. Except save herself and he was finished. Why was she doing this, she wondered; why was she risking her life when Jovan was sick less than a hundred metres away? She marked the location of the contact with her scarf and moved past it, suddenly rigid with fear and almost unable to move. Came to the place where the animal tracks were all along the route, and therefore where she was safe. Except that animals were lighter than men. She turned and crept back to the two men.

‘Can’t move both of you.’ She ducked as another round came in. ‘I’ll take you, come back for the other.’

Can’t abandon Max, Janner thought. And if she takes one, no way she’s coming back for a second. ‘Can’t leave Max,’ he told her.

‘I’ll take Max and come back for you.’

No way she would come back, he understood, but no way he could get Max out by himself. No way he and Max would get out without her. And if she got Max out then he might just make it by himself.

‘Okay.’

She crawled round him, half-dragged half-carried Max along the track to the point marked by the handkerchief. Don’t touch it, she told herself, make sure he doesn’t. Another shell came in. She eased him round the scarf, made sure his trailing leg didn’t touch it, hauled him clear of the woods and across the neck of open ground to the house. God he was heavy, God she could barely pull him. She opened the door, lifted him inside, and laid him on the floor.

Okay, Janner, he told himself. Nice and steady and you’ll make it. His chest and legs and head were hurting again, and he could barely move. Christ, he couldn’t move. Remember the scarf she put down, remember to be careful when you get there. Except he wasn’t going to get there, wasn’t going to get anywhere. In the sky above he heard another mortar, ducked and flinched as it landed and exploded, felt the tremor as it exploded. Close, he thought; too bloody close. Don’t give up, a voice was telling him, never give up. His legs were trying to stand, his fingers were gripping the ice and his arms were trying to pull him. His body was shuddering and he knew he wasn’t moving. The rounds were coming in again. Fuck, he thought, he was finished, and they hadn’t even launched an air strike against the fucking guns that were trying to kill him. Fuck – the strength was almost gone now. Fuck – he was going to die. One more effort, he told himself, one more try. He stretched out his hand and felt the trembling, felt the shaking. Felt the woman’s hand grab his.

‘Help me,’ she told him.

Didn’t think you were coming back, he almost told her. If a squaddie was doing what she was doing he’d get a DSO, he thought, perhaps an MC. And if it had been in war and witnessed by a superior officer, possibly even the big one, possibly the Victoria Cross. ‘Okay,’ he said.

Even though he was now barely conscious, she noticed, he did not let go of his weapon.

The shells were still falling. They were almost at the scarf, were round it, the trees like ghosts above them and the rounds falling round. This isn’t Bosnia, Janner thought, this isn’t 1994; this is 1914, this is bloody World War One. They were past the scarf and almost at the edge of the woods, were through the garden and stumbling into the house, Jovan’s eyes staring frightened at her. ‘It’s all right,’ Kara told him, told the two men. She moved the table back to allow them more room, knelt by them and tried to help them. Both were badly injured, bones broken and bodies ripped by shrapnel. Oh God how can I help them? Oh God what can I do for them? What about my poor Jovan? Where is my husband?

It’s all right, Janner tried to tell her, someone’s coming for us. The blood frothed at his mouth and he made himself stop crying with the pain. It’s okay, he tried to turn, tried to tell Max. Finn and the lads will be here soon.

She knelt by them and wet their lips, knelt by Jovan and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

The door opened and the two men came in. Guns in their hands, packs on their backs and goggles over their eyes. Moving quickly, closing the door and checking the room.

‘Picked up your trail,’ Finn took off his bergen and knelt by Janner. ‘It’s okay, Ken and Jim are wiping it, chopper’s due in soon.’ He pulled open Janner’s jacket, took the syrettes from the parachute cord round Janner’s neck, and gave him the morphine. First rule, even if the injured man was your best friend. Always use his morphine on him, never your own, because you didn’t know when you yourself might need yours. To his left Steve did the same for Max, then marked the M on his forehead so the medics would know what he’d been given.

‘Minefield,’ Janner struggled to tell Finn.

‘It’s okay,’ Finn calmed him. ‘They know.’

‘The woman saved us,’ Janner tried to tell him. ‘The woman brought us in.’ His voice and breath were slipping. ‘Interpreter for the food drops.’ The morphine was relaxing him. ‘Carried us out through the minefield. Max first. Then came back for me.’

Two more men came. ‘Clean,’ they told Finn. They slipped off their packs and pulled the makeshift stretchers together.

‘Oboe Oboe,’ Finn called Hereford again. ‘Bringing out own casualties.’ He gave Hereford Janner’s and Max’s NAAFI numbers, the codes agreed before, so that Hereford would already be checking blood groups, already getting things rolling. ‘Cas-evac and hot extraction.’ He confirmed the six-figure grid reference. Over the hill and into the valley on the other side. ‘Confirm landing site not, repeat not, secured.’ So the crew would know what they were flying into.

‘Romeo Victor two three four five hours,’ he was told. ‘Cab already airborne. Medics on board.’

‘Moving now.’

Kara held Jovan close against her and watched, body numb and mind bemused, Jovan pouring sweat and jerking in pain, and Kara trying to comfort him. Finn emptied his bergen and gave her the remaining ration packs, the other men doing the same.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

She was still confused, still frightened. Still numb. ‘Kara,’ she told him.

‘You were Ian’s interpreter for the food drops?’

‘Yes.’ The response was a long time coming.

The others laid Janner and Max on the stretchers.

‘We owe you, Kara. Janner and Max and I. And we’ll never forget. Anything you want you have. Anything you need you get.’

‘Take my son with you,’ she asked him. ‘He’s ill, he needs help. He’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do.’

Time to move it, one of the men was telling Finn, time to get going.

‘I’m sorry,’ Finn told her. ‘I can’t.’

Because it’s going to be rough anyway getting to the RV. Because there may not be enough space in the chopper. Because we’d have to take you with us. Because the shit’s going to hit the fan anyway after what we did on the hill to stop the bastards shelling Janner and Max. Because we don’t know what the hell is waiting for us between here and the RV or at the RV itself.

‘You said if there was anything I wanted, anything I needed.’ Her voice was suddenly firmer, suddenly like ice.

He was picking up his end of the makeshift stretcher. ‘Yes.’

‘I asked you for something and you said no.’ The voice colder, stronger.

Oh Christ, Finn thought.

‘I saved yours,’ Kara stood in front of him and stopped him leaving. ‘Now you won’t save mine.’

Because I can’t. Because my sole function at the moment is to save Janner and Max. Because my sole responsibility and my sole allegiance is to them. But you said you owed, he knew the woman would say. Anything I want I can have. Anything I need I get. And all I’ve asked is one small thing, but you’ve refused me.

‘I’ll be back,’ he told her.

Why commit yourself, Finn? Why say that? Why say anything?

‘When?’ She refused to move, refused to let him go. ‘My son is dying, like your people are dying.’ Therefore tomorrow, next week, next month, will be too late.

‘Tonight.’

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Finn.’

‘Don’t let me down, Finn.’

She stood aside and opened the door for him.

3

The room was dark and getting colder. Kara sat at the table and watched the candle flame flicker, knelt by the stove and fed the remaining wood into it. The shells were still falling – somewhere, everywhere – but at least Jovan was sleeping.

It was midnight, closing on one.

The man called Finn would be back soon, because he’d said he would be.

Finn wouldn’t be back, because he didn’t exist and what she thought had happened that night had not happened at all. Except there was blood on the floor where she had laid the two men. So the man called Finn did exist, so he would be back.

Except he had his own to look after. But Finn had promised, and she had believed him.

It was one in the morning, going on two.

She was hungry now, crying now. She knelt by Jovan and felt the fever on his forehead – red hot and burning now. Knelt on the floor and began to wash the blood from it.

It was two in the morning, almost three.

The door opened and the men came in. The ice was frozen in their eyebrows and their faces were grey with cold.

Finn was taking off the strange thing he wore on his head, taking off the pack on his back, putting the gun he carried by the table, then kneeling by the bed and pulling little Jovan out, feeling his brow then his pulse.

Steve was helping her up, telling her she was cold and hungry and asking her why she hadn’t eaten the food they’d left her.

‘What food?’ she asked.

He opened one of the packs, poured the contents into a saucepan, and put the pan on the stove.

Ken was tending Jovan, Finn spreading a map of Maglaj on the table and asking her where the hospital was. Steve took the pan off the stove, poured the stew into a bowl, and gave it to her. ‘Easy, it’ll be hot.’ She took it and smelt the stew, was shaking, crying again.

‘It’s not a hospital, it’s a medical centre.’ She held the bowl of stew tight and showed Finn on the map.

The shells were still falling, the mortars still coming in.

Why did you come back? she asked at last.

Because I said I would, he told her. Any way to the new town other than over the bridge, he asked.

‘No.’ She was numb, confused.

Finn was emptying his bergen, cutting two holes in the bottom. ‘We’ll take three food packs with us, leave the rest for when you get back. You know how to use them now?’

Yes – she was nodding. But we can’t go now, even though little Jovan needs to go. Because the shells and the rockets are falling and we’ll be killed.

‘Warm coat and boots?’ Finn asked her.

‘Yes.’ She began to put them on.

‘Where’s your husband?’

‘At the front.’ She was still numb, still confused. ‘Two days on and one off.’

‘When’s he due back?’

‘He’s already overdue.’

The others were standing, pulling on their bergens.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Adin.’

‘Leave him a note in case you and Jovan are still at the medical centre when he gets here.’

She did as he told her. Tightened the coat round her and laced the boots.

Finn lifted the boy from the floor, wrapped the coat and blankets round him, and slid him into the bergen so that his legs were hanging out of the holes in the bottom. Then he pulled the top over him and strapped the bergen on to his back.

‘Steve in front, Ken looks after Kara. Jim behind. Put this on.’ He gave her Janner’s PNG.

‘Why?’

‘So you can see.’

She put it on and allowed Steve to tighten the straps, looked round and saw the world in shades of green, everything in tunnel vision. What’s going on, part of her mind asked. This is not real, this is not happening.

They were out of the house – suddenly and quickly, no orders. The candle blown out and the door shut. Were going down the hill into the ghost of the old town. A shell was coming in and exploding somewhere to their right. The street and houses and figures of the others were a ghostly green through the ovals of the eyepieces. I don’t believe this, she thought again, I can’t believe this. The moon was up and the houses were like skeletons around them. They were moving in stages, she realized, sheltering in the lee of a building when a shell came in, then running in the lull after it had exploded, Steve in front as Finn had said, Ken grabbing her as she stumbled, Jim just behind them. Soon be there, my son. Soon be safe and well with the doctor looking after you.

They were crouching in the shelter of the last building of the old town, the bridge in front of them and the shells still coming in. Ken had pushed her forward so that she was beside Finn and to his left, Steve and Jim to his right, protecting her and the boy on Finn’s back.

‘Go.’

They ran on to the bridge. She no longer felt the cold. Her heart was pounding and her legs were moving automatically, Ken lifting her slightly so she seemed to be running on air. They were halfway across, almost three-quarters, almost there. In the still of the night she heard the sound of the express train. ‘Down.’ Ken pushed her, the others lying on the ground round her, Finn facing away from her, so that the boy on his back was protected, Steve facing Finn, his back upstream. The shell struck the building forty metres from them, then they were up and running again, suddenly across the bridge and into the comparative safety of the new town. They turned left, exposed now; turned right again. Came to the medical centre, opened the door, and tumbled down to the basement.

The steps were lined with people, mostly refugees but some locals afraid to move, more in the basement room. Staring at them, bewildered and frightened. The doctor recognizing her as she pulled the strange apparatus from her head. Finn knelt and Jim lifted Jovan from the bergen and laid him on the table in the middle of the room. The only light came from two Tilley lamps hanging from the ceiling, the shadows flickering across the walls.

I helped deliver this boy, the woman thought. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked Kara.

Jovan was crying with pain now, almost screaming. ‘Here?’ the doctor asked. She lifted his clothes and placed her hand carefully against his right lower abdomen.

‘Yes.’

Kara felt the relief. ‘Soon be okay.’ She held Jovan’s hand and comforted him, tried to reassure herself.

The doctor looked up. Her face was ashen, partly with fatigue and stress, and partly with what she was about to say. I helped bring him into this world, she thought again, and now I am about to witness his departure from it.

‘I’m sorry.’

What do you mean, you’re sorry? The fragile security Kara had built round her collapsed. Against the wall behind her the four men looked at the doctor.

‘Jovan has appendicitis. If it hasn’t burst already it’s about to.’

‘So?’

‘We’re a medical centre, not a hospital; there’s nothing we can do about it here. The nearest place where Jovan could be treated is Tesanj. We do take patients there, but only at night.’ In the hope of catching the snipers and gunners asleep. And on horseback, because there’s no petrol for the cars. ‘A group left with two people eight hours ago.’ She checked her watch. It was three in the morning, going on four. ‘Perhaps we can try tomorrow night.’ If Jovan’s still alive, which is unlikely, but we can only pray. And if there’s somebody to take him, because even at night it’s dangerous.

Not my little Jovan. Kara reached forward and held his hand, stroked his face. Not after all he’s been through.

He was awake now, his eyes looking at her. The men behind her were getting up, Finn taking out a map and asking the doctor the route; Steve wrapping Jovan again and slipping him into Finn’s bergen; Jim giving the doctor one of the food packs and telling her how it worked, telling her to use it herself, because everyone was hungry but she was the one they all relied on.

Kara realized what they were doing. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she told them.

‘You’ll slow us down.’ Finn pulled the bergen on to his back and picked up his Heckler.

‘I’m still coming with you.’

They left the basement, crouched in the doorway for the next shell, then moved into the street, Maglaj cold and bleak and battered round them, green and stark and unreal in the PNGs. They moved quickly, keeping the height of the buildings between them and the incoming shells and mortars. In the hills it will be a frozen hell, she thought, on the road to Tesanj it would be like going to the Arctic Circle.

They cleared the town, climbing now, Steve in front again and Finn following, Kara tucked into the middle. At least she wasn’t hungry, at least the stew had warmed her. The quarter segment of the moon was above them, the trees ghostly round them and the ground phantom-green with snow and ice. Behind them, and to their right, the sounds of the guns and mortars faded in the dark. At least the road to Tesanj was in the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket, she thought, at least they didn’t have to go through the lines. Just pray that the gunners are asleep or happy on slivovic.

They had been going thirty minutes and she was tiring more than she could have imagined. Two kilometres gone, she told herself, perhaps three. Oh God, the night was running out, oh God, they weren’t going to make it in time. She should have listened to them, shouldn’t have insisted she go with them. Her lungs seared every time she breathed and there was no longer any feeling in her feet.

‘You’re slowing us down,’ she was only half-aware what Finn was telling her. ‘Steve and I will go ahead with Jovan, Ken and Jim will stay with you.’

She tried to reply but they had already left, the two of them running, bergens on their backs and guns held in front of them.

‘Doing well,’ Jim told her. ‘Let’s go.’

The cold was killing her. The road was undulating, dropping then climbing, occasionally they slipped off it and hid in the bushes when someone came the other way, just in case they were Chetniks. She was no longer thinking in terms of hours or minutes or seconds, was thinking only if Finn and Steve would make it to Tesanj in time, was thinking only in terms of putting one foot before the other, making herself go on, making herself stop crying with pain and desperation. Soon it would be getting light, soon they would have to stop because soon the Chetniks in the hills would be able to see them. She was on Ken’s shoulders, not even aware how or when it had happened, Jim carrying Ken’s bergen as well as his own, and the two men still moving quickly. Not running, but not walking, something between. One man moving and the other covering him, then the second moving and the first covering him. Guns at the ready, guns across the chest, and the butt in the shoulder position.

In the distance – not too far in the distance – she heard the sounds of the guns pounding Tesanj. Perhaps they had been there all night and she had been unable to hear them because of the pounding in her ears. Jim was carrying her now, the black gone, fading into grey, and the grey soon mixing into the cold sharp light of a winter morning. They took off the PNGs and came out of the trees, dropped into the edge of the town, Finn and Steve suddenly with them – she wasn’t sure where they had come from. Finn lifted her from Jim’s shoulders and ran with her into the cover of the buildings, took her into the basement of the hospital.

‘Where’s Jovan?’ she asked.

‘In the operating theatre.’

They sat on a bench in one of the corridors and waited.

The hospital was grey concrete and multistorey, though because of the shelling the top floors had been cleared. The corridor was dark and gloomy, the hospital running on an emergency generator, so lighting was restricted to key areas. A doctor hesitated by them, then passed on. In the town outside the streets were empty and the shells and mortars rained down on the buildings.

Another doctor stopped. He was old before his time, his shoulders drooped with fatigue and his eyes were haunted.

‘You’re Jovan’s mother?’

‘Yes.’ She stood up, fists clenched in fear.

‘Jovan’s fine, he’s going to be okay. He was lucky. Another half-hour and he wouldn’t have made it.’

‘Thank you.’ It was all she could say. ‘May I see him?’

‘He’s not come round yet, but of course you can.’

He led her along the corridor and into what now served as a ward. The beds were pushed tight together and the room was packed, a limited amount of lighting. She saw Jovan immediately, saw the others. Oh God, she almost wept. The children were wrapped in bandages, some had legs or parts of legs missing, some arms or parts of arms where their limbs had been blown off by shrapnel or snipers’ bullets. Others had their faces and eyes covered, or their bodies or abdomens bandaged. Some were crying softly, others still frozen in pain or shock or fear. My poor dear Jovan, she thought, yet you were lucky. She knelt by his bedside and held his hand, sensed Finn crouching beside her.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He shook his head and left her, walked along the rows of tightly-packed beds and looked at the other children. When she looked five minutes later he was still in the ward, still standing as if transfixed, still looking at a girl with the sweetest smile in the world and no legs.

For most of that morning she stayed with Jovan. At noon – sometime round noon, she could not be sure – she left the ward and sat hunched with the four men, shared their food with them and the other parents who sat equally anxiously in the corridor. Outside the ice was solid on the streets and the shells continued to fall. What about you, Adin – her husband was never far from her mind – where are you and how are you?

‘Are the others okay?’ she asked.

‘Janner and Max should make it.’ Finn was to her left, both of them sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall. The others were somewhere else in the hospital.

‘What about the men who did the food drops?’ Because I assume you’re the same as they were, though I don’t know what that means.

‘They’re all right. You interpreted for them?’

‘Yes.’

They sat in silence.

‘Remember me to them.’

‘Of course.’

The conversation was almost formal. Any moment she’d offer him coffee, Kara thought, any moment she’d grind the beans and put the coffee on the stove to boil, any moment now she’d pour them each the creamy froth at the top, but still give him the first cup, in the local tradition, because he was her guest.

‘What were you doing in Maglaj?’ she asked. The question was unexpected. Because you weren’t dropping aid – the implication was clear.

‘There was a possibility of an air strike. We came in to locate the guns in the hills and direct the aircraft on to them.’

‘I thought I heard planes.’ Sometime yesterday afternoon, though yesterday was already a lifetime away. ‘So the air strike was to stop the Chetniks shelling the people.’ Perhaps there was hope after all, she remembered she had thought, perhaps there really was a ceasefire.

‘Sort of.’ Finn shifted slightly.

‘But there weren’t any air strikes.’

‘No.’

‘So there will be today?’ Except there can’t be, because you were supposed to locate the positions of the guns in the hills, and you’re here in Tesanj, not Maglaj, even though Tesanj is also being shelled. Even though, officially at least, there’s a ceasefire.

‘No,’ Finn told her. ‘There won’t be.’

‘Why not, if it was to stop the Chetniks shelling the people? They’re still doing it.’

Because it wasn’t to stop the people being killed, Finn didn’t know how to tell her. It was to save UN personnel, even though those personnel might have called in the air strike to save the town.

‘Because the United Nations decided against it.’ He stared at the far wall and thought of Jovan, of the girl with the smile and no legs. ‘Don’t ask me why.’ He hadn’t meant to say it. ‘Because I don’t know why.’ All I know is that we were in position, the Jaguar came in, pulled out of the first run, then was told to abort.

‘My country right or wrong?’ she asked him.

‘I’m just a soldier,’ he told her.

Perhaps he felt guilt, perhaps not.

She left him and went back to Jovan.

It was mid-afternoon, the temperature falling again and the day losing its light. Again she sat hunched with Finn and the others in a corner of the corridor, the shells still falling outside.

You speak English, Finn almost said; so how did someone like you end up in a place like Maglaj?

My husband’s job, she would have told him.

‘Family?’ he asked instead.

‘Adin, my husband, is on the front line.’ She couldn’t remember whether or not she had told him. ‘The rest of his and my families are missing. Perhaps they’re dead, perhaps they’re refugees.’ The statement was a mix of accusation, anger and resignation. ‘The only one I know is still alive is my mother’s mother, my grandmother, who lives in Travnik.’

‘Travnik is a mixed town.’

‘Yes.’ She turned her head slightly, so she was looking at him. ‘She’s a Croat.’ Crazy world, she thought again, crazy war, crazy people. But only because someone else made us so.

She pulled herself up and went into the ward, knelt by Jovan’s bed and stroked his face. ‘Told you everything would be all right,’ she whispered to him as he opened his eyes and tried to smile at her. ‘Told you we’d be okay.’

Finn knelt beside her.

‘When will the war end?’ she asked him. ‘You’re a soldier, you should know. How are we going to win and how long will it take us?’

He stared at her, stared at her son, stared at the shattered limbs and bodies of the other children. At the bed of the girl five metres away a woman doctor pulled the sheet over the still white face and turned away so that the parents would not see her cry.

‘You’ll never win,’ he told Kara. ‘Even if the war ends, which it has to sometime and in some way, you and your people are going to lose.’

‘What about the West and the United Nations?’ she asked. ‘They know we are in the right, they have already said so, so when will they help us, when will they intervene on our behalf?’

‘The West will never intervene on your behalf.’

‘But what about the Gulf? You intervened there. Waged war to save democracy in Kuwait.’

‘Kuwait and the Gulf War wasn’t about democracy. It was about protecting the West’s oil.’

She looked at Jovan again, smiled at him again, watched as he slipped into sleep.

‘But what about people like me, what about fighters like Adin?’

Even though he’s not really a fighter, even though all he does is lie in the mud and ice on the front line and wait to die and pray he’s not going to.

Two beds away an orderly wrapped the body of the girl in a sheet and carried her gently away.

‘People like you and Adin will never win,’ Finn told Kara.

‘Why not?’

He shrugged.

‘What about people like you?’ she asked.

‘People like me win because we have power, because of who we are and what we do. So people are afraid of us. Therefore we can win.’

‘What about if you don’t win?’

‘There’s a saying,’ he told her. Perhaps it was a poem, perhaps just a quotation – he couldn’t remember. Why complicate things, he asked himself; why allow himself to be drawn into this maze? ‘It isn’t the critic who counts; it isn’t the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Who, if he wins, knows the triumph of achievement. And who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.’

So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat, he might have added.

So how do you win? she asked. What decides who wins?

His regiment had a motto, he told her.

What’s that, she asked him.

Who Dares Wins.

They left the ward and sat against the wall. The gloom in the corridor was deeper, colder.

‘So how can I win? The next time they bomb Maglaj or Tesanj or somewhere like it, and the West and the United Nations does nothing to stop it, what must I do and what must I have to make the West stop it?’

What can my people do, she meant, what must my people have?

‘Power,’ Finn told her again. ‘The next time you must have something the West wants, or something which makes them afraid of you.’

Outside it was dark and the buildings were like ghosts. He opened a food pack and made them each a tea, broke open a pack and gave her the fruit biscuits inside. In the room to the left someone was sobbing.

‘Why did you come back last night?’ She wrapped her fingers round the mug and tried to massage some warmth back into them.

‘Because I said I would.’

‘That doesn’t answer the question,’ she told him. ‘You were supposed to leave last night, so why didn’t you? Why did you come to the house? Why did you save little Jovan?’

They went again into the ward, stood again by Jovan’s bed and watched him sleeping, went back again to the corridor and joined the others.

‘So now we’re even,’ Kara suggested. Because I saved yours and you saved mine.

In the shadows to the right Steve watched without speaking.

Yet you think you still owe – Kara looked at Finn. Because I saved two of yours and you only saved one of mine. But the one of mine was my only son, therefore I owe you more than you can ever imagine.

‘We came back because you’d done something for us,’ Finn told her. ‘You helped us even though you didn’t have to.’

Therefore we still owe.

‘You’re leaving?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ Because the United Nations have refused to sanction further air strikes. Because everyone else thinks we stayed behind to provide ground cover in case the opposition attacked as the chopper took Janner and Max out. Because we should have been out of here twelve hours ago. Because nobody else knows we’re still here.

Perhaps the guilt was settling again, perhaps it hadn’t lifted.

They went to the ward and stood by Jovan – Kara and the four men. Smiled at him and told him he was a good boy even though he was barely awake and would not have understood them anyway. Then they walked to the corridor and picked up their bergens.

‘Thanks, Jim.’ She shook each of their hands. ‘Thanks, Ken.’ Kissed each of them on the cheek as a sister would kiss them. ‘Thanks, Steve.’ Suddenly and spontaneously. ‘On behalf of little Jovan.’

‘Thanks, Kara,’ they told her. ‘On behalf of Janner and Max.’

She smiled, wiped away the tears.

‘Thanks, Finn.’

‘Thanks, Kara.’

‘Ciao, Finn. See you again sometime.’

‘Sure, Kara. See you again.’

4

London was bleak. No snow or ice, just the incessant drizzle which marked the capital at this time of year.

Langdon’s schedule was even tighter than most days. Breakfast at six – full English, the way he liked to start each morning; briefings at the FCO, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, then the flight to Brussels for the 10.00 AM meeting of European Foreign Secretaries. And after that the rush home for a full day squeezed into late afternoon and evening.

When his driver delivered him to Whitehall there was still an hour of darkness left. His advisers, some of whom would accompany him to Brussels, were waiting in the room outside his own office, the aroma of fresh coffee hanging in the air. He led them through, settled in his favourite chair, accepted a coffee and began the briefing.

‘Bosnia.’ Because Bosnia would top the Brussels agenda, especially with the peace negotiations in Vienna seeming to report some progress.

They went through the overnights, plus the way Langdon should play whatever else the other Foreign Ministers might bring up.

One: the so-called ceasefire, even though it was in name only, and even though the UN had sought to play down violations in case they interfered with the Vienna talks.

Two: the state of siege in the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket and the reason for the UN pulling out the air strike at the last minute.

Three: the reporting of the siege by the press, mainly based on radio messages from the two towns pleading for help.

Four: the presence of the SAS in the area, the deaths of two SAS men and the wounding of two others. Plus the follow-up on how the FCO should play it vis-à-vis the press.

Langdon was in his mid-fifties but fit and tall, with dark hair just beginning to show the first streaks of silver. His background was representative of the new guard elbowing its way to the top at Westminster: Eton, Oxford, the City, twenty years in politics, the last fifteen in government, the last ten in the Cabinet, and the last three as Foreign Secretary.

Balkan Games, he thought. The Serbs, the Croats and the Muslims in one game. The Serbs and the West in another. London, Washington, Moscow and Paris in a third. The United Nations and the governments comprising the Security Council in a fourth, even the games within the UN itself.

And somewhere in the middle the people whom the UN was supposed to help. But if you allowed yourself to think like that then you lost the game before it was even started.

He closed the meeting and was driven to Heathrow.

The night had been long and cold, even in the ward, the occasional shell or mortar falling on the town. Kara had sat by the bed and held Jovan’s hands, told him his favourite stories as he drifted in and out of sleep.

It was seven o’clock in the morning. She was in the corridor, jerking in the half-world between sleep and fear.

‘Hello, Kara.’

She woke and looked up. Was laughing and crying, holding her husband and hugging him. ‘You made it,’ she was asking Adin, telling Adin. ‘You’re alive. You got the note.’

‘How’s Jovan?’ Adin held her tight, kissed her again and again. ‘Where is he, can I see him?’

They stood by Jovan’s bed, stayed an hour till the boy woke and saw his father, then they sat together in the corridor and shared the food, leaning against each other with their backs against the walls. It was going to be all right, she knew: Jovan had pulled through and Adin was alive.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Adin’s arm was round her. ‘Tell me how you got here.’

She told him, though her account at this stage was disjointed and apparently without logic. About how she had heard a scream in the night and thought it was him, how she helped the two injured men and how Finn and the others had come back. How they had carried Jovan to Tesanj and how they had given her their food when they had left.

The shells and mortars echoed outside.

The three of them would stay in Tesanj until Jovan recovered, they decided; then they would return to Maglaj but probably lock up the house, find a basement in the new town so they didn’t have to cross the bridge to get to the food. A basement on the far edge of town where they would be marginally safer.

They left the corridor and went back into the ward, hunched together again by Jovan’s bed and waited till he woke.

The shells and mortars were still falling.

Kara watched as Adin knelt by Jovan and talked and laughed with him, saw the moment Adin’s eyes drifted to the children in the other beds and realized how lucky they were as a family, how others had suffered. Jovan’s eyes closed again. They kissed him and began to return to the corridor. In the next bed a younger boy whimpered with pain; Kara stayed with him and held his hand, stroked his face and talked to him until his own mother came, then she went outside and sat with Adin.

The shells were still falling, sometimes far away, other times closer. Once you became accustomed to them, though, it was strange how you almost ignored them, almost lived with them.

‘Tell me again about Jim and Steve and the others,’ he said.

She had already told him once, now she went through it again in more detail. ‘I love you.’ She slipped her arm round him and kissed him. ‘I wish Finn and the others could have met you.’

It was mid-morning; the shells and mortars were closer now, she thought, almost subconsciously.

The Brussels meeting broke at twelve-thirty for a buffet lunch in an adjoining room. Langdon chose smoked salmon and mineral water, then spent fifteen minutes talking with the French Foreign Minister.

‘Update on Maglaj and Tesanj?’ he asked Nicholls as the meeting reconvened.

‘The situation in the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket remains at levels consistent with previous days,’ Nicholls told him wryly.

Langdon understood the UN-speak, and to show that he understood he laughed.

The stomach pains were gripping her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have eaten so much from the food packs, she thought, even though she had rationed it carefully; perhaps, because she was accustomed to the daily diet of beans and dry bread, she should have rationed it even more stringently. She heard the express train, then the sound as the shell landed. Even closer to the hospital this time, she thought.

The front line was bad, Adin told her, but the men were good and brave. They would definitely move to the new town, they decided, definitely find somewhere where they didn’t have to cross the bridge to reach the food kitchen. Love you, she thought again, told him again. They went to the ward and sat again with Jovan; returned to the corridor and sat against the wall. He didn’t know how afraid she had been when she and Jovan were alone and Jovan was falling ill, she told him; he didn’t know how much safer she felt now he was with her.

She heard the noise again and felt the shuddering, the whole world deafening her and the vibrations shaking her, the express trains coming in and the mortars suddenly whining around them.

‘Oh God.’ She heard someone screaming.

‘Oh no.’ Another voice. ‘They’re shelling the hospital.’

Another express train came in, then another, the whine of a mortar. Someone beside her was lying on the floor, pressing himself down to protect himself from the bombs and the debris. Kara was ignoring the noise and the explosion, was on her feet and running, Adin at her side. The smoke and dust billowed from the door of the ward and the sounds of children screaming came from inside. Another shell was coming in. She ignored it, ignored everything, and pushed into the room. The ceiling had collapsed, there were holes in the walls, and the beds and the children in them were buried under a layer of concrete and brick and plaster. She pulled at the rubble, tried to reach Jovan, more people suddenly beside her and more people trying to dig their children out. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, doctors and nurses.

‘Stop.’

She heard Adin’s voice and froze, almost involuntarily, still in shock.

They all stopped, all looked at him.

‘We have to be organized.’ His voice was calm. ‘We have to do this methodically. That’s the only way of saving the children.’ He took the arms of the woman digging in the rubble next to Kara and helped her step back. The woman had been standing on the leg of a child, Kara realized. ‘Doctors and nurses don’t dig,’ Adin ordered. Doctors and nurses are too important, because we can dig but we can’t do what they can once we’ve got our children out. ‘Three columns going in simultaneously. Make sure we don’t make anything collapse, make sure we’ve got the children in the first beds out before we move to the second.’

The doctors and nurses fell back and the men and women took their place, Kara among them. ‘Three lines behind the diggers to remove the rubble and pass the children out as we get them,’ Adin ordered. ‘Don’t worry, my son’s at the other end.’

The doctors and nurses were running, preparing the rooms which now passed as operating theatres, others hurrying from different parts of the hospital as the news spread. Adin took his place at the front of the line which would reach Jovan’s bed and began to dig, carefully and methodically, began to remove the debris and pass it back, began to burrow his way in towards the child on whom the woman had been standing.

You’re a good man, Adin, Kara thought again. You’re a great man. Please be alive, Jovan, please be okay.

‘Reached the first.’ Adin passed the tortured piece of metal that had once been part of a bed to the man behind him, and burrowed a little deeper. ‘She’s okay.’ His face was grimed with sweat and dust. ‘Passing her down now.’

It’s okay, Jovan, he told his son; I’m here, I’m coming for you. Your mother’s waiting to take you in her arms again and the doctors and nurses are waiting to make you better.

Three places down the line a man edged forward and looked at his daughter, followed the doctors and nurses as they rushed her away.

It’s okay, Jovan, Kara willed her son. Your father’s coming for you, your father’s digging his way in to save you.

‘Second coming out.’ From the column on the left of the ward. ‘Injured. Get a doctor.’

It’s okay, Jovan – it was like a drum in Adin’s head. Coming for you, Jovan. Coming to get you.

Perhaps the shells and mortars were still coming in, perhaps not. Nobody cared, even listened.

It’s okay, Jovan. Your father’s coming, your father will get to you.

‘Third child.’ They all knew by the tone of the voice, all watched as the broken remains were passed back.

Almost there, Jovan, almost reached you. Adin worked methodically, telling people what to do, telling them to be careful, telling them what pieces of debris to move and what to leave in place. Telling those digging to change but never leaving his place at the front of his line.

‘Fourth child, okay.’

Fifth and sixth.

Hang on, Jovan, Kara willed her son. You’re all right, you’re bound to be all right. Your father’s coming. Just hang on till he gets to you.

Seventh.

Soon be your turn, Jovan, soon Adin will get you out.

Adin was below the rubble, burrowing deeper, the top layer moving and someone shifting a beam, making sure it didn’t collapse the delicate fretwork below.

‘Eighth.’

Kara heard Adin’s voice.

Okay now, my son. Your father’s reached you as I told you he would, your father’s saved you because he always would.

She could no longer hear the breathing of the diggers or the anxious whispers of the men and women around her, no longer heard anything.

It’s all right now, Jovan. Your father’s hands are picking you up now, your father is saving you now.

She saw Adin’s head, saw his body, saw the thin little bundle he held in his arms.

Adin’s face was fixed and grey, eyes staring straight ahead and jaw locked. Slowly he stood and turned, looked at her, looked at the bundle in his arms. His face dissolved and the tears streamed down his face. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the man behind him. ‘Have to stop for a moment.’ He walked past the next digger, crying and shaking, still muttering that he was sorry, still apologizing that he could no longer work. Kara stepped forward and stood beside him, looked at the bundle in his arms and stroked the boy’s face, held Adin’s arm and allowed him to carry their son from the ward. A doctor was suddenly with them, a nurse helping. Carefully they took Jovan from Adin and laid him on one of the beds they had placed in the corridor, began examining him, gently but firmly, searched for a pulse, for a flicker of breath. Tried to breathe life into him, tried to inject life into him. Tried to make his heart beat and his lungs breathe.

‘Sorry.’ The doctor stood, did not know what to do, held Adin by his arm and thanked him for what he had done that day. Said he was sorry again.

‘There are others,’ Kara told the doctor and the nurse. ‘If you can no longer help Jovan, you can still help them.’ She knelt and lifted Jovan in her arms, stroked his cheek again and kissed him. Wanted to hold him for ever but gave him instead to his father.

That afternoon they bathed him and laid him in a clean white sheet, placed him with the other children who had died that day, but did not leave him. Sat with him, as the other parents sat with their children, and talked with him for the last time, told him his favourite story and how the summer and the peace would soon come.

That evening, after the dark of night had taken over from the grey of day, offering at least a degree of protection, they walked with the other parents and the doctors and nurses to the cemetery on the hill. As they approached the men finished digging the holes in the rock-hard soil of the winter. Small little holes, Kara thought, small little children.

All so fast now, all so sudden.

Goodbye, my little Jovan – she looked at him again, kissed him again, watched as Adin kissed him then folded the cloth over his face, gave their son back to her for the last time.

They held him, lowered him into the grave, knelt in silence as the imam said the prayers they did not understand.

Nothing else could happen now, she knew; nothing more could be visited upon them.

They trickled the first soil on to the sheet and said goodbye. Then they returned to the hospital, sat in the corridor, and wept.

The grey was coming up and the air was pinched with ice. In the village in the hills to the east of Maglaj, where the surrounding Serb forces withdrew to take their rest and recuperation, the sniper Valeschov left his billet and began the trudge through the snow.

‘Not today,’ his commanding officer told him. ‘You’re needed somewhere else.’

‘Where?’ Valeschov asked.

‘Tesanj.’

London was cold, but at least it had stopped drizzling.

So the Serbs had declared a ceasefire round the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket and he himself had put one across on the Opposition – Langdon sat in the inner sanctum of his office, an adviser on either side, and watched the recording of the early evening news bulletin: the reports from Vienna, his own performance in Brussels that afternoon, plus the live transmission from the House during the bulletin itself.

The schedule that day had been even tighter than he had feared. Brussels had overrun, which had delayed his return to London, so that he had been unable to make his appearance in the House at the customary time. Which had meant that he had made his statement shortly after six. Eight minutes after, to be precise. Or bang in the middle of the BBC TV’s early evening news. So they had gone live on it. Prompted, of course, by the right word in the right ear that the Foreign Secretary had something of interest to say.

So the Serbs had declared a ceasefire, he mused again. Notwithstanding that a ceasefire was already in place, of course. He reached for a sherry. But everything was notwithstanding nowadays.

He should be able to grab a day and a half off this weekend – the thought was in the back of his mind. Even get down to the family home in the West Country. Hilary and Rob and little Sammi were back from Berlin for a flying visit, and he and his wife saw too little of their daughter and granddaughter nowadays.

He sipped the sherry and watched the news bites from Vienna.

‘I think we have a way forward,’ the Bosnian-Serb spokesman told the TV cameras.

‘The latest ceasefire might well give cause for optimism,’ one of the West’s negotiators told the press.

Quite nicely worded, one of Langdon’s advisers commented. Almost gets round the problem of the ceasefire that wasn’t. Almost but not quite.

‘What about the UN refusal to launch an air strike at Maglaj?’ one of the BBC team asked.

‘You could say that the UN decision led to the situation we’re able to report today.’

The report switched to Langdon leaving the Brussels meeting.

‘If the UN and the West had taken firmer action earlier, perhaps the conflict might not have escalated to the present situation?’

‘Perhaps yes, perhaps no,’ he had replied. ‘It’s always easy to be wise, or at least wiser, with hindsight.’

‘What about the reports of a hospital being shelled in Tesanj?’

Langdon had nodded, as if sharing the reporter’s concern. ‘We have received reports of this … At present we’re still trying to get confirmation.’

Wrong time to say that first reports suggested that children had been among the dead, he and his advisers had decided. Wrong time also to take away from the impact of the surprise he had in store at Westminster.

Pity about the kids, of course, but kids were always the victims. And victims were an inevitable price of practically everything.

The bulletin went back to the studio, then live to the House. He leaned forward and paid closer attention.

The Speaker was calling him; he was rising from the front bench and taking his position at the dispatch box.

‘There has been a breach of the original ceasefire, especially in the area of the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket.’ He glanced at the advisers and nodded his approval of the wording they had chosen for him. ‘The renegotiation of the ceasefire, however, is to be welcomed.’

Why not an air strike – the intervention from the Opposition front bench had been predictable. Why not more direct military intervention?

‘The decision whether or not to launch an air strike is the sole prerogative of the United Nations.’ His delivery emphasized the point. ‘It is not the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government.’

He had held up his hand at this point, stopped the heckling from the other side of the House.

‘What is the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government is not only to ensure that its commitment to the United Nations Protection Force is fulfilled, but also to ensure the safety of the British contingent in UNPROFOR.’

One British life is a life too many, the Opposition knew he was going to say, and prepared its response. Why not a more positive position on Bosnia, he knew they would throw at him.

‘I have to tell the House …’ his voice was sombre now ‘… and it is right and proper that the House is the first to know, that there have been a number of British casualties during an incident in the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket.’

Even now, even on television, he could sense the sudden tension, the moment the mood in the chamber swung in his favour.

‘It is my sad duty this afternoon to inform the House that, in a reconnaissance operation ordered by UNPROFOR, and acting in their role as authorized military observers, two members of the Special Air Service have been killed in an incident near the town of Maglaj, and two others seriously injured. The injured men have been flown home and we are in negotiation to retrieve the bodies of the two others.’

Of course it wasn’t quite news; of course the press had been sniffing at the rumour. But he had done what he always did: got his retaliation in first, so that it was the others, rather than himself, who were now on the defensive.

‘I have nothing further to say.’

And then he had sat down. And no one, not even the Opposition front bench, had moved even a finger to ask him another question.

Tesanj was spread below him.

Most people were still keeping away from the areas known to be exposed to rifle fire, those that didn’t still darting furtively between doorways. A few hours of peace, then they’d come out, though.

Valeschov shifted his position slightly and studied the town, fixed in his mind the streets and the places they would be entering and leaving and where, therefore, they would be exposed to him. The food centres, of course, the radio station, the hospital.

All night, after they had returned from the graveyard on the hillside, Kara and Adin had slumped together in the corridor, occasionally talking, though not often, most of the time staring into the black and trying to struggle back from the abyss which engulfed them.

A nurse brought them tea, a mug each, made sure their hands were firmly gripping the handles, sat with them without speaking before she was needed elsewhere.

Perhaps they should have begun the journey back to Maglaj last night, after they had laid little Jovan to rest; perhaps it was right that they had delayed till this morning. There was, after all, a ceasefire, and the shells and mortars had stopped.

They finished the tea, fastened the backpack Adin had brought with him, and began to leave. Thanked the doctors and nurses who were on duty, and asked for their thanks to be passed to those who were resting. Then they left the hospital and stepped into the cold, shuffled rather than walked down the street.

An old couple leaving the hospital – Valeschov targeted them through the crosswires. At least a couple who looked old, but nowadays you couldn’t tell. Range four hundred metres, wind speed not enough to worry about. He followed them, played with them, as they walked down the street. But played with them without them knowing, and that was the problem.

Interesting job, being a sniper, gave you such power. Plus the decision of life and death over them, almost like being God, really. Like being the emperor in the old Roman games, thumb up or thumb down. But for you to have that power people needed to at least know you were there. Only then were they afraid, and that was what gave you the power.

And that was the problem today.

The old couple, for example. Hadn’t been his enemies before the conflict and wouldn’t be after. But they weren’t afraid of him, because they didn’t know he was there. And that irked. He didn’t need to kill them, perhaps didn’t even want to kill them. This morning, anyway, because last night he’d eaten well and slept better than he’d done for days. But unless they knew he was there they weren’t playing the game. Nobody was. And there was only one way people could be persuaded to play the game.

‘You want to see Jovan before we leave?’ Adin suggested. ‘You want to say goodbye to him, tell him we’ll be back?’

Because we will be back, because we’ll never leave him.

They were tight together, holding and supporting each other.

‘Yes,’ Kara told him. ‘I’d like to see Jovan before we leave.’

‘Me, too.’ Adin tried to smile.

The man or the woman, Valeschov wondered. It was like tossing a coin at the start of a football match, see who decided which way they’d play. Nothing personal, of course. Just part of the game. And the one thing he liked was the game. So after he’d killed them, or at least killed one of them, everybody would know he was there. And after that people would play the game again. He moved the rifle slightly, swung from the man to the woman then back to the man. The woman, he decided, and swung back again.

Kara heard the shout and turned. The doctor was standing in the doorway, his white coat flapping slightly and his hand raised to them. ‘Good luck.’

The man – Valeschov changed his mind. He swung the Dragunov and squeezed the trigger.

‘Thank you,’ Kara began to say and heard the crack, flinched and turned. Adin was falling backwards slightly, his fingers clutched at his chest and the pain and fear and bewilderment frozen on his face.

No … she was screaming, no sound coming out. Please God, no.

Adin was already crumpled on the ground. She crouched beside him, held his head in one arm and the hands clutching his chest with the other.

The doctor ran – away from the safety of the door and down the street. Sniper, someone shouted at him and grabbed him into a doorway. ‘It’s all right,’ Kara was whispering to Adin, to herself. ‘The doctor’s coming, soon you’ll be okay.’ He was trying to push her away, trying to tell her to seek shelter. She was pulling him, dragging him across the ice towards a doorway. Someone grabbed her and pulled her inside, someone else hauling Adin behind her and slamming the door shut as the sniper aimed again. The room was dark and cold, the people inside staring at her. The doctor came in through a door at the back and knelt down, pulled Adin’s coat open and checked the entry area in the chest, then nodded to the others to move Kara from the room. She was screaming, protesting; they held her and dragged her out. Only then did the doctor turn Adin over and take off his pack. The back of the coat was shredded and oozing thick blood where the bullet had exited. Christ what a mess, someone whispered. Still a pulse – the doctor checked. ‘Help me get him to the hospital.’ Three of them lifted Adin, and squeezed through the door at the rear, ran through the side streets – two holding his arms and one his legs – and into a door at the side of the hospital.

Kara ran with them, followed them through the door and down the corridor, heard them shouting for people to get out of the way. They turned left then left again, into an operating theatre. The doctor was already giving instructions and a nurse was cutting through Adin’s clothing, more doctors and nurses arriving. One of them took Kara by the shoulder and led her away, closed the door behind her and sat with her. Isn’t this the man who led the digging for the children? another asked. Didn’t he lose his son yesterday?

Stay alive, Kara prayed. The panic swept over her in waves: the cold and the fear and the sudden abyss.

Pulse, the first doctor pleaded; come on, where are you? Not much they could do about the wound anyway, they all knew, hardly anything they could do to counter the internal damage. Doesn’t matter, the doctor whispered to himself. I can do it, we can do it. Come on, my friend, he urged Adin. For Chrissake come on. No pulse – he was still checking for it. Perhaps there hadn’t been anyway, perhaps he’d felt it because he wanted to. Perhaps the pulse he’d felt was the last draining of Adin’s blood from his body.

Don’t leave me, my dear precious husband. Don’t leave me ever, but don’t leave me at the moment I need you the most.

Come on, the doctor was still saying, almost shouting. Don’t die. You haven’t died. You’re okay, you’re going to be okay. For Christ’s sake don’t give up, don’t stop your heart beating or your lungs breathing. For God’s sake help me to help you.

Not you, my wonderful Adin. Not you who was such a good father, such a great man. Not you who gave so much to so many. Who loved the flowers in spring and the snow in winter.

A nurse was still tying the lead surgeon’s face mask, the man bent over Adin. Slowly he stepped back from the operating table, peeled off his gloves, and shook his head.

When they carried Adin Isak to the hillside that night the moon was barely rising over the trees, the dark was as cold as ever, and the hole was already dug. Thin and shallow, because the soil was frozen hard and the men had difficulty breaking it open. Perhaps there’s always a hole, Kara thought; perhaps they’re always ready because there are always bodies to bury.

‘I’d like my husband to lie with his son,’ she told the men who accompanied her. For some reason there was no imam. Perhaps he was elsewhere, perhaps he himself had been killed.

They nodded their understanding and carried the body to the place where she and Adin had knelt the night before, then they laid it down and began to remove the soil from the small grave on the crest of the hill. When they came to the shroud containing Jovan’s body Kara lifted it out and held it while the men made the hole bigger. Then she kissed Adin goodbye and helped lay him in the hole, then Jovan, the father’s arm round the boy, as if they were lying together in the summer fields and looking up at the cloudless blue of the sky.

The moon was above her now, and the night was colder.

She sprinkled the soil back in, carefully and gently, then stood back and waited till the men had filled the hole, placed the wooden memorial at the head, and left her.

The snow was falling again.

From a pocket she took a pencil, and added Adin’s name to the one already on the wood.

Thirty-six hours ago she had everything to live for, she thought. She had a husband and a son, and Jovan was going to live and Adin was alive and well and at her side.

Perhaps she should take the road to Maglaj tonight, perhaps she should wait till morning as she and Adin had waited till morning. But then perhaps the sniper would be waiting for her. Not that it mattered any more or that she cared any longer.

‘Goodbye, my husband. Goodbye, my son.’

She left the graveyard on the hillside and took the road to Maglaj. Her hands were frozen and she could no longer feel her feet. Sometime in the next hours she met a convoy coming the other way – men leading horses carrying wounded and injured to the hospital in Tesanj. Sometime, she was not sure when, she passed the turning and the track – hardly wide enough for goats – over the hill called Bandera. Sometime just after the light came up, she descended from the hills and entered Maglaj.

At ten, an hour before the food kitchen opened, she joined the line already forming outside; at eleven she shuffled in front of the vats containing the beans.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve just come back from the hospital at Tesanj and I don’t have a bowl.’

One of the women serving the beans shrugged, as if the problem was not hers.

‘Did Adin find you?’ another asked. ‘Where’s Jovan?’

‘Adin and Jovan are dead.’

The second woman gave her her own bowl and poured the beans for her, broke the bread for her and led her to a corner where she might be warm. At least where she might be less cold. When she finished the soup Kara thanked the woman, returned the bowl to her, and went outside.

I saw you running across the bridge the other day – the Canadian MacFarlane remembered her, even though in some ways he barely recognized her now. Her face was ashen, her eyes were dead, and she crossed the bridge slowly, almost numbly, as if she was immune to the sniper who might be waiting for her in the hills; as if she was challenging him to shoot her.

The bridge was behind her. She walked in a trance through the rubble of what had once been the old town, and climbed the hill to the house. Stood still and looked at it. Began to cry.

The roof had been blown apart and the walls were sagging, the windows and doors gaping open and the snow falling in.

She went through the garden and pushed her way into what had once been the kitchen. At least she would be able to live here, she told herself, at least this part of the house would be secure.

The furniture was wrecked and ice hung from the ceiling, the holes gaping in it.

She was aware of the cold again now, not aware of her physical actions. Slowly she searched through the rubble, found the tin in which she and Adin kept any deutschmarks they had been able to save; found the photograph of Adin and Jovan which had stood on the dresser, found the remnants of one of the food packs Finn had left them.

She could go to the new town, find a space in a basement and sit there for the rest of the war, sit there for the rest of her life. Her thoughts were as numb and automatic as her movements. Or she could make her way to Travnik, seek out her mother’s mother, her own grandmother, and stay with her. Except that Travnik was thirty kilometres from Zenica, and Zenica was nearly fifty kilometres from Maglaj and two front lines away – one from the Muslim pocket of Maglaj – Tesanj into the surrounding Serb/Croat-controlled countryside, and the second back into the Muslim-held land to the south. But the front lines at the points where she would have to cross might not be active, might not be carefully guarded, might not be mined. Or they might be.

Not that it mattered. Not that anything mattered any more.

She packed the handful of items in a bag, left the house and walked down through the old town and back across the bridge. Either she had been doing things more slowly than she had imagined, or it was getting dark earlier.

The doctor was in the doorway of the medical centre. Sorry about Jovan and Adin, she said; where was Kara going, she asked. Travnik, Kara told her, I have a grandmother who lives there.

The town was a ghost, the doctor thought, Kara was a ghost. Already gone, already finished. Not on her way to join her grandmother in Travnik, because Travnik was eighty kilometres away through two sets of front lines. Kara was on her way to join her husband and her son.

Good luck, she told Kara. God go with you.

Kara thanked her, left Maglaj, and took the road back towards Tesanj. A quarter way along it, just after the light had faded and the night had closed in, she left the road and began the climb up through the snow and ice to the hill called Bandera and the first of the front lines.

5

The unmarked police Audi, two men in the front and one in the rear, was parked where it was always parked at this time of night: near one of the cab ranks on the edge of the Gare du Midi. Sometime tonight they’d score; sometime in the next hours the man in the rear would slip out, arrange to buy some dope – what sort didn’t matter, but headquarters was heavy on crack at the moment – then they’d make the bust.

On the edge of the Gare du Nord, close to the predominantly immigrant quarter, the pimps and hookers went about their business.

On the other side of the city, in the haute de la ville, the Upper Town, the industrialists, the bankers, the diplomats and the Eurocrats attended their functions and passed the evening over cocktails and secret deals.

Brussels.

Eleven at night.

Rue Léopold, one of several named after the nineteenth-century Belgian king, appeared empty, and the night above was black. The road and pavements, with their occasional discreet but expensive boutiques, had just been swept, and the windows of the apartment blocks were curtained. In the past minutes snow had fallen – not heavily, but enough for the first white to have settled on the tarmac of the road and the grey of the pavements.

The lookout was sunk like a shadow in the recess of a doorway fifty metres down the road in the direction from which the car would approach.

The car turned up the street, its Mercedes engine a low rumble – driver and one other in the front, and a third man in the back. The man in the doorway tensed slightly and swept the street. The Mercedes turned right, into the car park below the apartments, the three men glancing round as they descended the ramp. The sound now was different, almost hollow, and the lighting was subdued. The lift was in the far corner, on the left. The driver swung in a circle so that when he stopped by it the Mercedes was facing out, towards his exit point. The door of the lift opened and the next two men appeared. The front passenger and the man in the rear seat left the car and stepped into the lift.

‘Secure,’ the first man whispered in the motorola. The chip of the set had been replaced, the frequency pre-set to one not used in Belgium.

The second Mercedes slipped out of the night and up the street – same model, same colour, same registration number.

Everyone played their games, Abu Sharaf had long known. The Israelis, with their snatch teams or platter bombs or rocket launchers opposite flats or suites where they knew their enemies were plotting against them. The British and the French and the Americans. Plus those who were supposed to be on one’s own side. Even the three men he would meet that night, though in the end they would agree. Because unless they had already decided to agree there would have been no meeting.

He left the car, stepped the two paces to the lift, and was whisked to the third floor.

The politician and the secret policeman were waiting, relaxed and comfortable in the soft luxury of the suite, both smiling and both smartly dressed Western-style. Only the holy man to come, Sharaf thought, but the holy men had kept the world waiting from the time the first man had thought of the first religion.

He shook their hands, accepted the sweet thick coffee an aide offered him, and sat down. The suite had been electronically swept for bugs, and when the meeting began the advisers and minders would leave the room.

‘He’ll be here soon.’ The secret policeman was in his early fifties, the same age as the politician but some ten years older than Sharaf. His suit was smartly cut, and the fold of the lids gave his eyes a slightly hooded appearance.

‘Insh’allah.’ Sharaf sat down. ‘God willing.’

The door opened and the holy man entered, the man Sharaf knew to be his closest adviser on his right, and his minder on his left. Two of the newcomers – the holy man and his adviser – were dressed traditionally, but the minder was wearing a suit.

The holy man was the same age as the politician and the secret policeman. He greeted them, nodded to the aide and minder to leave, then took his place in one of the chairs.

‘The world is once again at an interesting time and place.’ The holy man sat forward slightly and summed up the starting point of their previous discussions, the others allowing him the chairmanship, perhaps because it was his by right, perhaps because he represented the religious rather than the secular, and without the religious the secular which they represented could not develop, or not so easily.

Therefore they allowed him the moment: the politician who played the intrigues of the region with the experience of a juggler, the secret policeman who ruled it with a rod of fear, and the man whom the West would describe as the terrorist mastermind, the new Carlos, the new Abu Nidal.

Of course Sharaf had not always held such importance. Nor was his name generally known to the great public of the East and the West, though he was under no illusions that their intelligence services had him on their computers, and that when the time was right they would try to turn him, or take him out, depending on the secret dealings and hidden agendas of the Middle East. For that reason Sharaf was always careful, even when meeting those he considered his allies. Perhaps especially when meeting those who called themselves his friends.

‘The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire … the agreement between Israel and the Palestinians … the Iran-Iraq conflict and the Gulf War.’

The holy man’s eyes were small and sharp.

‘The new situation in South Africa … the talk of peace in Northern Ireland … the decision by certain states to abandon a certain line of struggle.’

To cease support for what the West called terrorism.

So the world appeared to be at peace. Yet at the same time the world was closer to war than it had ever been.

He sat back and indicated with a wave of his right hand that perhaps it was the politician who would best lead the discussion from that point.

The politician talked for less than thirty seconds then passed the chairmanship to Sharaf. It was the way their meetings always progressed, wreathed in formalities and allusions, just as the smoke from their cigarettes was wreathed above the table.

‘The armed struggle has seen a number of developments over the past decades.’ Another couple of minutes and they would know whether they were in agreement, whether the forces they represented had concurred. ‘In the sixties and seventies the struggle was global. In the eighties it was confined, in the main, to the Middle East.’ Killings and kidnappings, and mainly against the West in the Lebanon. Excluding the Irish, of course, but the Irish were a separate concern anyway. ‘It was therefore agreed at our previous meetings that the time might now be approaching where we should prepare to make that struggle international again.’

He sat back.

The holy man stroked his beard, as if considering what had just been said. To his left the adviser waited, to his left the secret policeman said nothing. ‘So what are you suggesting?’ he asked at last.

‘The setting up of a new organization, its members recruited and trained in line with the new criteria of the present and future.’

Which we all understand, but we also understand we have to endure the formalities.

‘Why new members?’ It was the secret policeman. ‘Why new criteria?’

‘Because other people are already planning using old members.’ Bomb attacks in New York, the killing of Jews in Argentina and the bombing of Jewish targets in London. ‘But they’ll be using Muslims, so in future the West will be looking for Muslims. In future the West will be looking for people whom they think look and act like Muslims.’

‘And where will you find Muslims who don’t look and act in the manner the Great Satan thinks they should?’ It was the holy man.

‘And who have the same motivation of those who fought for us in the past?’ It was the politician.

‘Bosnia.’ Sharaf looked at each of them in turn. ‘Among the dispossessed who have been driven from their homes by ethnic cleansing. Among those who have lost everything and therefore have nothing more to lose and everything to fight for.’

‘And this is in motion?’

‘The plans are laid and the first steps taken.’

But that is all, because that was all I was required to do. Because it was agreed that each of us should fulfil his task before the plan could be finalized. Again it was wrapped in formality and politeness.

‘The religious leaders have agreed,’ the holy man told the meeting. Not all the religious leaders, he had no need to say, simply those who would support the plan anyway.

‘Our leaders as well.’ The politician did not specify which leaders.

‘My people are also prepared.’ The secret policeman played with his Rolex as if it was a set of worry beads.

‘Therefore we should proceed,’ the holy man resumed the chair. ‘Insh’allah,’ he added.

The politician leaned forward, lifted the handset of the telephone, punched the number, waited ten seconds, then spoke.

‘The transfer of funds is approved. Do it now.’

The monies already held on deposit, now about to be transferred electronically to the accounts specified in Switzerland.

He terminated the call and handed the telephone to Sharaf.

He should have anticipated it, Sharaf thought; should have planned for it. But perhaps, on the other hand, it was a symbol of the moment, a sealing of their trust in each other, the first step on the road ahead. Even though such a call was a security risk. Never link one thing to another, he insisted to his aides and operatives; never do or leave anything which might connect one part of one section to another.

He took the telephone and keyed the number in Istanbul.

‘You’re on the morning flight,’ he told Keefer.

When Wolfgang Keefer passed through immigration at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport five hours later, the passport he carried was in the name of Mulhardt. When he left on the Croatia Airlines flight to Split six hours after that, the passport he used was in the name of Lacroix. Contained in the false lining of the Zenith briefcase which was his only luggage, and which he hand-carried on both flights, was the range of press, political and military accreditation which he might need in the weeks he would spend in the war zone of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

It was the way he had led the past fourteen of his thirty-nine years.

Wolfgang Keefer was the second son of a nurse and a lathe operator from the former East German city of Leipzig. Neither at school nor in the Free German Youth had Keefer distinguished himself. It was only during his national service in the Frontier Troops, manning what the East called the Anti-Fascist Barrier and the West referred to as the Berlin Wall, that he had appeared to find a vocation and an inner drive. He had been decorated three times and promoted twice, graduating with distinction at the GMK training school before being recruited into the MfS, the Ministry for State Security, also known as the Stasi. At the MfS headquarters on Normannenstrasse, and in other MfS establishments throughout both East Germany and the other satellite states of the then Communist bloc, he had fulfilled the promise he had demonstrated in the Frontier Troops, before making his final transfer to the unit dealing with the training and support of those whom the East called freedom fighters and the West termed terrorists.

By the time the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, he had attained the rank of colonel. On the actual night the Wall was breached he had been in the Beqa’a valley in the Lebanon; the actual moment he had heard the news he had been squatting at a camp fire, Sharaf at his side. In the weeks that followed, while many of his contemporaries were looking east to the KGB in Moscow, to the people whom they had called the Brothers, Keefer had transferred his loyalty. Not for reasons of ideology or religion, especially not from political commitment, but for the simple reason that this was the life he had grown to love, that that life was now finished in East Germany, and that if a man found a job he liked and at which he excelled, then he should stick with it.

He had returned to his old haunts, of course – except that the city he loved was now called simply Berlin. Had made contact with old friends and colleagues, especially the people he and his new masters might need in the future. Occasionally the men and women from the front line, but more often the technicians, with their specialist skills and equipment.

The 737 dropped out of the cloud and he saw the lights of the airport at Split. The land was grey and washed with snow, and the night had already settled. The terminal was low and long, and the Air Croatia planes parked in front were outnumbered by the helicopters and transports painted with the stark black initials of the United Nations.

Bergmann was waiting for him in the terminal, two Nikons on his shoulder, a false press ID tag round his neck, and the word PRESS on the sides, bonnet and roof of the dilapidated Range Rover outside. Standard appearance for standard photographer in a war zone. To the right a TV crew loaded their silver metal boxes into an armour-plated jeep.

‘Welcome to the war.’ Bergmann shook his hand, tightened the hood of his anorak against the cold, and led Keefer to the Range Rover. ‘Where you heading?’ he asked one of the TV crew. Sarejevo or Travnik, the man replied, possibly Vitez. His face was pinched, either with cold or apprehension. ‘Got some good stuff in Vitez couple of days ago,’ Bergmann told him. ‘We’re back up tomorrow.’

Stasi training was always the best, Keefer thought. Best covers in the world, best men. He slammed the door and Bergmann started the engine. As they left the airport two Sea King helicopters landed in the British army base five hundred yards away.

‘How is it up-country?’

‘Cold with the occasional hot spot.’ Bergmann laughed.

They skirted Split, the hills to their left, the islands of Brac and Hvar on their right already lost in the night, and the snow and a UN convoy in front of them. Everywhere – Zagreb and Split – there seemed to be UN and UNPROFOR. War’s business, Keefer had no need to remind himself.

‘Any hassles?’

‘Press are still getting some.’

‘So it’s better to go as UNPROFOR?’

Bergmann swerved to avoid a pothole. ‘Probably. That way also explains the communication set-up we’ll be carrying.’

‘Any friends around, any Brothers?’

‘Not that I’ve seen.’

The house was on the south side of Split, on the beach and looking west across the bay. The white long-wheelbase Toyota Landcruiser in the garage bore the markings and flags of the UN and UNPROFOR, and jerry cans of fuel, the satcom unit and the metal tins of self-heating food, plus other ration packs, were already loaded.

For an hour that evening, over stew and beer, and looking across the snow-flecked grey of the Adriatic, the two men ran through their itinerary and target areas. The map on the table was an HQ Britfor current situation map, dated the day before. The legend at the bottom showed the main supply routes, the international border of Bosnia-Herzegovina was marked in thick black, and areas of Serbian, Croatian and Muslim activity in red, black and green respectively.

‘So where do we start?’ Keefer asked, as he had asked the last time he had been here, when he and Bergmann had set up the safe house.

‘Any special requirements?’ Bergmann fetched two more beers from the fridge and placed them unopened on the table. ‘You name it, it’s there.’

‘Somewhere where the Muj are involved.’

Because recruitment in areas where the Mujihadeen were fighting would please those in the Middle East who controlled the political and financial purse strings.

‘In that case, Travnik.’ Bergmann indicated the town on the map. ‘There are some Muj in Zenica, but most of them are near Travnik.’

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