The Bosnian Experience Read online

  The Bosnian Experience

  Book 2 of the Sauwa Catcher Series

  J. E. Higgins

  Mercenary Publishing

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  So what did you think?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by J. E. Higgins

  Prologue

  Following her escape from Ireland, the infamous assassin known as Sauwa Catcher disappeared.

  Before vanishing, the former operative for the Civil Cooperation Bureau, the Apartheid’s international killing machine, had evaded an international manhunt and left a trail of bodies in her wake.

  David O’knomo ─ head of an elite investigative unit for the African National Congress (ANC) charged with bringing in Sauwa Catcher and the rest of her old unit, known as the Dark Chamber, were hard pressed for answers. Had the Angel of Death gone home to her roots? Had she linked up with some group previously connected to the Apartheid regime?

  With limited time, and the police chasing closely behind, it was unlikely her escape had been well organized. Still, for several months she remained a ghost with the team pursuing leads that were, at best, stabs in the dark.

  Then, after months of searching, the British Secret Intelligence Service—known to the world as MI-6—approached South Africa’s National Intelligence Service with recent information that Ms. Catcher was possibly in Bosnia.

  1

  The incoming mortar round exploding alongside the road felt like a gut punch. It was a good distance from the jeep, but the vehicle’s occupants could feel the pounding vibrations. A shower of shrapnel and debris blew into the vehicle as if being poured from a fire hose.

  The blast had lifted the wheels of the vehicle into the air. The jeep crashed back onto the road with a resounding thud, painful to the occupants, front and back.

  Sauwa could scarcely believe her luck.

  Somehow, she had been able to hold onto the roll bar while escaping. It had been, by her loose calculations, the fifth time she had nearly been knocked from the speeding jeep since they had come under attack. She looked down the deep gorge alongside the patch of road they were traveling. It was a long distance straight down with no chance of survival if they swerved into it as they had nearly done a few times already.

  Omery, the driver, had proven quite skillful behind the wheel, navigating both the countless bombed-out holes and broken asphalt on the road, while still managing to swerve and miss the mortar shells that hailed down on them. Omery, a Welsh mercenary, claimed to be an ex-member of the elite Special Boat Service, a Special Forces unit of the Royal British Marine Corps, before setting out on a career as a freelance soldier of fortune.

  Like all the others who served as private soldiers in the conflict, no one really had means to prove or disprove Omery’s identity or resume. One just had to watch and base their conclusions on the person’s abilities in combat.

  Looking back, Sauwa caught sight of the other jeep following closely behind, swerving with all the same aggressive maneuvers but not quite the same precision demonstrated by Omery. Thankfully, the mortar team firing was not very good, and the mercenaries were able to outpace the rounds. But the mortar shells continued raining down in a terrifying orchestra. They shook the ground while raising thick clouds of dust, smoke, and earthly fragments that seemed to consume everything.

  “They’re gonna make strawberry jam out of us!” Raker shouted in a tone mixed with both bitter anger and gut-wrenching fear. “If I live through this, I’ll kill every fucking Serb that crosses my sight.” He snarled to a despondent audience whose attentions were occupied with more pressing issues.

  Sauwa detested Raker, whose name she did not fully know or care about. Another mortar shell blasted near them. The tremor shook the jeep and rattled their bones. Again, they owed their lives to Omery’s catlike reflexes. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor narrowly avoiding the kill range as they zoomed across the danger area.

  Shards of metal flew through the air cutting into their skin as if they were being stung by a swarm of wasps. Their only comfort was the sight of the bushes and trees a hundred feet or so ahead marking the end of the open road and the end of the ambush area.

  Another mortar hit just across the road from them delivering yet another storm of dirt and rocks in their direction. This time, Sauwa inadvertently took in a mouth full of the dusty air. She coughed wildly, striving to clear her throat. She looked back and saw the rest of their squad trying desperately to keep close to their jeep.

  “We’re almost out of it!” Omery shouted, in a feeble attempt to give everyone some confidence. He swerved wildly trying to anticipate the landing spot of the next mortar.

  Gerald, an older American man, was in the front passenger seat. He gritted his teeth as he gripped the side of the front window and clutched the edge of his seat. “This is the fucking Viet Cong all over again!” he screamed as he looked around for some way to fight back against their attackers.

  “Augin, that fucking piece of shit kike fuck!” Raker was shouting again. “He’s the fucker who led us into this mess. Trusting a French leader, we get what we deserve.”

  As usual, his comment went ignored. He had been a Skinhead in Germany, recruited by a Nazi group that was building up units of paramilitaries to assist the Croatians fighting the Serbs. Like most types involved in radical politics and sub-cultures promoting violence and beastly behavior as a way of life, he had arrived with a romantic image of himself being a professional mercenary and leaving the country with a truckload of booty. So far, he had proven only to be an obnoxious loudmouth who grossly overestimated his soldering abilities.

  The jeep jerked sharply again as it weaved to the side. A mortar shell whistled and screamed as it cut through the air. It flew just past them, the velocity of the displaced air was enough to sting Sauwa’s face. Behind them, the second jeep exploded in a fiery blast. The driver had not moved fast enough, and the jeep caught the mortar straight on. It ripped the vehicle virtually in two before dissolving into a ball of flames.

  She looked on in horror watching for any sign of survivors, a human body diving from the fiery caldron, or waves or shouts that indicated someone was still alive. She saw nothing. Perhaps it was all for the best. There would have been little she could do to rescue someone under a blanket of exploding ordinance.

  With bitter relief, they reached the trees. The lone jeep left the open road and the kill zone. A high wall of hills gave them ample protection. They were now directly below their attackers who could no longer see them or get a good angle to fire.

  Safe for the moment, half their team left dead behind them, they drove on, slumped in their seats, eyes forward, the adrenaline rush receding.

  The base camp was abuzz when the team drove through the security checkpoint. Two pimple-faced young men met the jeep decked out in some cheap movie version of freedom fighter combat apparel, camouflage field jackets over civilian T-shirts dep
icting the logos of popular western rock bands, black combat boots under cargo pants or jeans. The two young men couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen and couldn’t speak a word of English. Raker’s loose understanding of Croatian allowed him to explain enough to gain entry to the fortified camp.

  The camp housed the regional headquarters of the Croatian Defense Council, Hrvatsko Vijece Obrane (HVO). It also was the hub for all new recruits, both foreign and local, to come, be placed, and receive orders.

  With the same masterful skill demonstrated on the road, Omery navigated the jeep past the disorderly gauntlet of vehicles, people, and piles of what were once homes and buildings. Finally, they came to the half-destroyed structure of what had been an old Catholic church. It now served as the office of Colonel Milvuj Trajic.

  Tired, stumbling drunkenly, the team exited the vehicle.

  As she hit the ground, Sauwa took a few moments to regain her bearings. The long journey over broken roads, coupled with the continuing roller coaster of being bounced around by exploding mortars, had discombobulated her.

  Hearing some childish giggling, she looked over to see a group of teenage boys standing across the way. They were looking back at her with devilish smiles gathered tightly around a young man wearing a pair of sunglasses and a red military beret. He was standing with them smugly acting like he was a famous celebrity. Indeed, he was. He looked back at her smirking as if he had shared an intimate secret with her no one else knew. The young man, who everyone called Smokes, had the uncanny privilege of knowing what the mysterious South African woman looked like under her combat fatigues.

  Since arriving at the camp, Sauwa had been the sexual interest of most of the pubescent boys who saw her athletic body and exotic foreign features as enticing. Annoyed, she had found an elderly woman who earned her money running a makeshift laundry business. The woman allowed Sauwa to use her house facilities to wash in to save her from having to dodge her male comrades in their own shower areas.

  It wasn’t long before the local teenagers found out about her washroom. Smokes had been the only one brave enough to climb in through a slightly open window and sneak into the bathroom. For a good five minutes, hidden behind a pile of dirty clothes, he watched as she turned washing herself under the rusting shower faucet. Normally, an alert and thorough professional, she was tired and had let her guard down in the sanctuary of the woman’s home. And in doing so had failed to notice the young intruder right away.

  When she did see him, the response was to grab her Makarov pistol sitting close at hand. She fired several shots in the boy’s direction, loud enough for all the boys hanging outside to hear it and confirm to everyone that their young compatriot had indeed completed his mission.

  Since then, the few others who had dared to follow their compatriot’s act had come away with nothing to show for their troubles but enduring battle scars of the young woman’s wrath. This left Smokes the hero, as the only one of the group to successfully see her in the buff. The story never got old. Every time they saw her, the hormonal youngsters would gather around tightly and listen to their friend describe everything underneath her clothing as they looked her up and down with glee.

  Retrieving her weapon and Bergen from the back of the jeep, Sauwa shrugged off her little fan club and followed the rest of her team inside the church.

  Sliding her way through the half broken, oak doors, she was met by the overpowering stench of male body odor, recently exploded ordinance of some sort and the charred remains of what had once been people.

  “We were attacked recently.” A large bear-like man, sitting behind a warped folding table functioning as his desk, explained the recent destruction in the camp as the mercenaries entered. “Obviously.”

  Colonel Milvuj Trajic, or Rommel as his men affectionately referred to him, looked more the part of a soldier than most of his men. ”The Serbs are trying to re-establish themselves in this area.” He frowned. His uniform consisted of a dark green and black camouflage like most Eastern European militaries. Unlike his men, his uniform was also complete from the outer garments to the brown T-shirt underneath. It made him look more professional, which made it easier for the foreign professionals that augmented the Croatian forces to take him seriously.

  “It looks it,” Gerald said. Since the Viet Nam vet was the oldest mercenary, he liked to think of himself as the most seasoned. He tried to play the part when in front of the Croat paymasters, even if the notion was not mutually shared by his mercenary colleagues. Gerald swaggered as he led the remaining members of the squad toward the commander. “Not as bad as when I was in Hue City back in ‘68 though.”

  By the look of the grimacing faces in the room, his comment was not well received.

  “You prevailed, that’s the important thing.” A soft French-accented voice emerged from the back of the room and drew attention.

  The voice belonged to Maurice Augin, a large muscular man dressed in black military fatigues. He moved behind Rommel studying the four mercenaries carefully, pausing for an uncomfortable beat on Gerald. Always the consummate professional, Augin detested unnecessary drama and theatrics which only wasted time and detracted from the more important business. “Where is the rest of your team?”

  “We saw some action out there,” Gerald babbled. “We were caught by the enemy, and I had to lead these youngsters out.”

  The commanders’ bored expressions bordered on irritation. They wanted an answer, not self-adulation or a long-winded speech.

  Sauwa cut off Gerald off. “We got caught by a Serb mortar team on the open highway, and one of the shells caught the other jeep dead on.”

  Rommel and Augin nodded; her answer was sufficient. Her eyes shifted to see Gerald’s pinched face glaring at her. She gave a slight sniff to show her indifference and returned her focus to Augin and Rommel.

  “So we lost Gazzetti, MacMasters, Gilgood, and Dumas.” Augin named off the four men who had unfortunately been in the other jeep. “They will be a great loss to us.” He was remorseful but a professional as he continued with the debriefing. “You were sent to recce the village.”

  Omery spoke up. “We recce’d the perimeter and watched the road and river ways for a few days. The Serbs are doing something...”

  Gerald interrupted. “We’ve seen a steady buzz of Serbian forces in the area. They looked more like they were simply wandering about. You know, just doing simple battlefield circulation of sorts, viewing the river, walking through the village and talking to the troops. We’ve seen a few trucks moving in and out on a regular basis. That’s about it. It was an education for the kids here to get soft training in field craft.”

  “Can you please be more specific?” Rommel asked calmly. He looked sternly at Gerald. Colonel Trajic was an uncommon figure in war. Unlike many of the other military commanders in the makeshift Croatian army, Colonel Trajic had been a commander in the Croatian National Police when the war broke out. That the Yugoslav army had been largely Serbian dominated meant that the Croatians had to virtually build an army in haste and from scratch. This meant making people with little more than a college education into officers with no formal training or previous experience. For a number of foreign professionals, it had proven frustrating having to take orders from inexperienced novices, especially since many of them were not much better than those they were trying to lead.

  Gerald was tongue-tied. Omery shifted his eyes but remained silent.

  Rommel said nothing. He rubbed his face in a vain attempt to mask his exasperation. Augin turned to look at Sauwa. As if being caught up in some sort of hypnosis, she walked over to the commander and produced a plastic zip lock bag encasing a small notebook. Pulling the notebook from the bag, she placed it on the table. “They’re recceing the area as a possible location for a staging point.”

  Augin picked up the notebook and flipped it open. It contained sketches of the village and surrounding area. There were also lists of what rank insignias had been noticed and how many. “Wha
t makes you think it’s being looked at as a staging area?”

  Sauwa continued. “What we saw weren’t local militia or nationalist mercs. They were Serb army by their uniforms and a more professional operational movement. And, they weren’t just junior rankers. There were a couple of senior level officers walking about. They weren’t doing a battlefield circulation. They were checking water depths and looking at housing accommodations, most likely to see how much equipment and personnel they could hide in the area to avoid detection. They were also carrying out long-range patrols and studying the landscape of the surrounding area to determine threat concerns and defensibility.

  “There were a couple of men, definitely foreigners, walking with the Bosnian commanders. They were pointing out various things and seemed to be advising them on some sort of in-depth planning. They wore standard uniforms of the Serbian army, however, their tactical habits and operational knowledge far surpassed the abilities of any Serbian soldier. My guess is Russian, possibly Spetsnaz.”

  The commanders listened attentively. She pointed out several sketches she had made in her notebook. “They had initially set up defensive positions along the road and now had several observation posts up and down the river. The last time we recced the area a month ago, security was light. It was a garrison force of less than a hundred men with just the basic defense positions in key areas around the village. They had a few heavy machine guns but otherwise light armaments only. This time, the security forces had grown to at least four or five hundred. And they weren’t a local village defense force. These guys were vets and battle-hardened. They moved about their posts like they were anticipating an attack. And the weapon systems─we spotted RPG rocket launchers at every defense point guarding the perimeter. The waterways were guarded by fifty caliber machine guns watching either end as well as the main entryway into the village. Truthfully, they’re building the place up to defend against a serious attack.”