The Big Breach (27 page)

`I'll go find out,' shouted back the loadie, unstrapping himself to make his way forward to the cockpit. He returned a minute later. `Lightning strike,' he announced. `Pilot says it hit the tail, came down the fuselage, and punched a fist-sized hole out the nose, smashing up some avionics. We've got to divert to Frankfurt.' Roberts and I looked at each other in resignation. It would take another day out of our already tight schedule.

The USAF put us up in their comfortable officer's quarters in their sprawling Ramstein base and we took the first available flight to Sarajevo the next morning. This time we got within ten minutes of Sarajevo and the C-130 had just started its anti-sniper dive towards the runway when the flight was again aborted. A burst of Serbian artillery on the runway shut the airport and we had to retreat again, this time to Zagreb in Croatia.

We finally made it into Sarajevo the next day on board a Russian Ilyushin 72, their pilots taking a more robust view of bombs and bullets than the Americans, and touched down on the heavily guarded Sarajevo runway on a fine autumnal day. We were met on the apron by the affable commander of the four-man British detachment in Sarajevo, Major Ken Lindsay, with his armoured Land Rover. `You've picked a fine day for a visit,' he greeted us. `The sun's shining, we're flush with Fosters and the Serbs have only lobbed five shells at us today.' Originally a truckie in the Australian army, he married the daughter of a senior British cavalry officer, who arranged for his new son-in-law to transfer to the smart King's Royal Hussars cavalry regiment. Lindsay's official job was to ensure that the UNHCR relief deliveries were fairly shared amongst the various distribution stations in Sarajevo. But unofficially he and his team provided transport and lodging for us while in town. `Chuck your kit in the back of the wagon. We'll go for a tour of Sarajevo, then have a few tinnies in the PTT building,' Lindsay ordered cheerfully.

As we drove through the Serb-Muslim front lines into town, past the burnt-out shell of an old T-55 tank, Lindsay pointed out the Sarajevo landmarks. The pock-marked PTT building, the former telecommunications centre which had been commandeered by the UN, was where he and his contingent were based in two cramped rooms. `Ken normally lets me sleep on the floor of his room if I'm staying in Sarajevo,' explained Roberts. `He'll do the same for you as long as you don't snore.'

`And as long as you bring a slab,' added Ken.

`That's the Holiday Inn on the left,' Roberts pointed out a heavily bombed 15-storey building. `I stay there sometimes, but CNN have commandeered all the best rooms, and most of the time there is no water, so it's better to stay in the PTT.' We drove down sniper-alley, the long dual-carriageway linking the airport and PTT building to downtown Sarajevo, and took a whistlestop tour of the main Bosnian government building, the impressive but sadly bombed-out library and the Kosovo hospital.

There was little point in gratuitously risking Serbian snipers' bullets and shells so once Roberts had orientated me, we returned to the safety of the sturdy PTT building. But once dusk had fallen, Angus, Lindsay's NCO, drove us back the three kilometres into town for the handover with DONNE. There was only time for a half-hour meeting, but it was enough for Roberts to introduce me as his successor, extract a CX report and hand over a large carton of Marlboros that DONNE could trade on the burgeoning Sarajevo black market.

`Right, let's get back to the PTT building for some beers with Ken,' Roberts urged eagerly as soon as the debrief was over. `That'll be Angus there.' Sure enough, two headlights were coming towards us and Angus pulled up at the RV bang on time. Roberts climbed into the passenger seat, leaving me to clamber into the back of the vehicle over assorted flak-jackets, helmets and tools. Before pulling the heavy door shut, I had a last glance round; my next trip would be alone and I hoped I would remember the route.

We spent the evening drinking heavily with Lindsay and his detachment, and arose early the next morning, hungover, to take the first flight back to Split. Roberts was due to fly home to London the next afternoon, leaving me in charge. `No time to meet STEENBOX, I'm afraid,' grinned Roberts as we shivered in the dark airport waiting room, `but I'll explain how you get to Tuzla and where to find her.' Roberts was understandably demob happy and I would have to pick up the pieces from scratch after the heavily curtailed handover.

Peering through the rain-spattered windscreen into the darkness, I tried to pick out physical features weakly illuminated by the Discovery headlights and relate them to the map spread on my knee. Silently, I cursed Fowlecrooke for leaving so little time for the handover. Meeting STEENBOX required navigating to Tuzla, 360 km north-east of Split along forest tracks and through two war fronts. It would not have been a straightforward task in daylight, but we had been badly held up by an aid convoy earlier on the route and now darkness and rain were both falling. The narrow, potholed lane traversed a steep valley side. The hillside to the right, densely packed with trees, rose to the clouded skyline. Down to the left, I could just pick out through the trees the glint of the stream on the valley bottom. It could have been any one of hundreds of similar valleys in rugged central Bosnia, but there was something not quite right about it. The road was narrower and the valley contours steeper than those on the map. `Jim, are you sure this is the right road?'

`Yeah,' Jim replied casually from behind the wheel. `Know it like me own bell-end.' Jim was grinning like a kid on a bouncy castle. Nothing ever bothered him. He was a big chunky guy, but serious about his fitness. Down at Divulje he was out running and lifting weights every day. But I wasn't too sure he knew his body parts as well as he thought he did.

Jim lifted on the throttle and changed down a gear, the V8 engine growling as it slowed the heavily laden vehicle. The headlights had picked up a tree trunk, the size of a telegraph pole, which had fallen across the narrow road and we drew to a stop in front of it. `Must have been the storm last night,' Jim announced cheerfully. Without further ado he hopped down from the vehicle and, as if he was trying out for a `world's strongest man' competition, picked up the trunk, staggered with it in his arms for a few yards up the road and threw it in the ditch.

I glanced in the mirror to see the familiar lights of Jon and Baz's underpowered Land Rover crawling up the hill behind us. Reaching down to the stereo I flicked off Jim's tape and grabbed the Motorola from behind the instrument binnacle. `Baz, do you reckon this is the right road?' I asked.

There was a pause while he consulted Jon, before the Motorola hissed back. `Keep yer keks on. Just round the next corner we should come to that burnt-out Scroat village.' Baz sounded confident and as he had done the trip three times with Roberts I trusted his judgement. I put the Motorola down just as Jim clambered back into the vehicle, slapping his hands together to brush away the bark and leaves adhering to them. He clunked the vehicle into first gear and pulled away.

Round the next corner there was no burnt-out Croatian village, just another fallen tree, much bigger than the first. Beyond that, I could see another, then another. Undaunted, Jim prepared to jump out of the vehicle to move them, but I grabbed his arm. `No, this isn't right,' I said. This was not the work of a storm. The trees had been laid across the road for a purpose. `Baz, Jon, turn round immediately, we've taken a wrong turn,' I ordered down the Motorola.

Jim detected the urgency in my voice, and had already launched the Discovery into a three point turn. He'd just got it pointing the other way when Baz squawked on the Motorola `Hey Rich, we've got trouble.'

The comms-wagon was about 100 metres down the road, halfway through the three-point turn. With no power steering Jon must have been cursing trying to get the heavy vehicle turned round, and he'd been too slow to get away from the militiamen. Two were standing over the bonnet, pointing their AK47s directly through the windscreen at Baz. Two more were at the driver's door, perhaps talking to Jon or, worse, trying to force it open. More were at the rear door, peering in through the window at the computers and communication equipment and pulling at the handle. Other shadowy figures were emerging from the woods, making purposefully towards the vehicle, weapons held out menacingly.

There was no time to reply to Baz before our vehicle was also surrounded. The barrels of two AK47s loomed at me through the windscreen, their owners just dark shadows. There was a sharp tap on my side window and, looking round, a pistol gesticulated for me to open up. Trying not to make a sudden movement, I slipped my hand round to feel for the button on the top edge of the door - Jim would have tripped out the central locking when he got out to move the tree. I pushed it down, praying that the unreliable system would work. There was a satisfying clunk as all five doors locked up. The pistol crashed threateningly against the window in response.

The situation was awkward rather than desperate. Thankfully most of the soldiers were clean shaven, so they were not from the Afghan Mujahideen group that was known to be operating in the area and who would not hesitate to execute infidels. Our lives were probably not in danger - even the worst Bosnian militia groups were unlikely to murder UNPROFOR soldiers as it would lead to severe retribution. But I was worried about the vehicles and equipment. Only a few weeks earlier a group of French journalists had been ambushed a few kilometres from this spot, ordered out of their Land Cruiser at gunpoint and left at the side of the road as their ambushers drove away in the new vehicle. It would be a disaster if the same thing happened to us. Losing the Discovery and comms-wagon would be bad enough but the KALEX HF comms equipment, though outdated, was still classified `TOP SECRET'. Still, I thought to myself with a weak smile, they would be in for a nasty surprise if they tried opening my briefcase. The metal box that contained the encryption OTPs and other classified material had an inbuilt incendiary device that would destroy the contents with a satisfying bang if it were opened incorrectly. I hoped that they would not get that far.

Grabbing the Motorola I got on to Baz. `Don't get out of the vehicle at all costs,' I shouted.

`Gotcha,' Baz replied, not as cockily as before.

The pistol banged against the side window again and an order was barked in Bosanski. Stooping slightly so that the pistol owner's blackened face was visible, I shrugged and held up my hands. `I don't understand. Ich verstehe nicht. Je ne comprends pas,' I replied, cursing for the umpteenth time how ridiculous it was for personnel to send me on a posting of this nature lacking even rudimentary language training. The voice barked out again and a rifle butt smashed into the right headlight, breaking the lens. I got the message and reached for the steering column stalk to flick out the remaining light.

The voice barked out again, so I dropped the window a crack, hoping that it would be taken as a gesture of conciliation. `How can I help?' I asked feebly in English. The voice screamed again, more aggressively this time, and the vehicle rocked as he pulled hard on the door handle. Other soldiers tried to force open the rear door too. Winding down the window another half-inch, I tried to identify myself. `UNPROFOR, UNPROFOR. British soldiers,' I said, holding my United Nations ID card up against the window.

Meanwhile, I could hear that Jim was also getting an interview, though his inquisitor spoke a few words of English, and I glanced across. `Manchester United,' the face uttered proudly, grinning into Jim's window. `Bryan Robson,' the face beamed even more broadly, giving a thumbs up.

Jim, a fan of Liverpool, swallowed his pride. `Yeah. Man United. Very good, best team in the world.' He gave a thumbs-up sign and the face grinned with appreciation.

But the voice in my window, which I took to be the commander's, snapped out another order and I turned away from Jim as the soldiers milling around the front of the vehicle sprung forward, the windscreen bristling menacingly with AK47s. My eyes were getting accustomed to the dark now that the headlights were out and I could make out the faces peering down the barrels at us. They looked tired and pissed off. The commander barked another order and the sound of 7.62mm rounds slotting into the AK47's breaches sent my stomach churning. The young soldier in front of me slipped the safety catch down on to the first notch - automatic fire on the AK47. His face was no longer pissed off, but tense and frightened. I resigned myself to losing the vehicles and turned to Jim to give the signal to get out.

But Jim had other ideas. Smiling like a teddy bear on a grand day out, he reached down the side of the transmission tunnel and pulled his Browning from its holster. Like John Wayne in the OK Corral preparing for a final showdown, he pointed it skywards, paused for a second, then with his left hand pulled back the slider, driving a round into the barrel. `What the fuck are you doing? Put that down!' I gasped.

`Nah, they're just bluffing,' Jim replied. `Watch . . .' The Manchester United supporter's weary face cracked into a smile, then a smirk, then an infectious giggle, as Jim waved the pistol at him. `See, they're more scared than we are.' One by one, the tension in the other faces ranged against us lifted and the barrels drooped as the laughter spread at Jim's grossly disproportionate response. The commander alongside me shouted something in Bosanski as he sensed the mirth on the other side of the vehicle, but nobody paid any attention. A moment later he realised that he'd lost face amongst his undisciplined rabble and, turning away angrily from me, skulked off back up the road.