Bosnian Inferno
Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS lead a civilian population out of war-ravaged Bosnia to safety?Bosnia, 1993. A small army of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, formed to defend the isolated mountain town of Zavik and under the command of Reeve, a renegade Briton, has begun mounting raids further afield in search of food, fuel and medical supplies.All sides in the civil war are enraged by its exploits; even UN mediators recognize the need for its suppression. But there are only two people Reeve will listen to: his ex-wife, and an ex-comrade in the SAS. The latter is willing to lead a team into Zavik; the former has first to be found – she is either trapped in Sarajevo or imprisoned in a Serbian concentration camp.Rescuing her is only the beginning. The SAS team will then have to traverse the mountainous war zone and force their way into the besieged town. This will be difficult enough. Fighting their way out of the war-ravaged territory with a convoy of the sick, the old and the very young will be next to impossible.
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Bosnian Inferno
DAVID MONNERY
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1994
Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1994
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs © Collaboration JS / Arcangel Images (soldier); Archive Holdings Inc. / Getty Images (background)
David Monnery asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008155216
Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155223
Version: 2015-11-05
Zavik, 17 July 1992
The knock on the door was loud enough to wake the dead, and John Reeve had little doubt what it meant. âI have to go now,â he told his son, putting the book to one side. The boy must have read the seriousness of the situation on his fatherâs face because he didnât object. Reeve kissed him lightly on the forehead and hurried down the new wooden staircase heâd just finished installing in his parents-in-lawâs house.
Ekrem Abdic had already opened the door to admit the others. There were four of them: Tijanic, Bobetko, Cehajic and Filipovic. One Serb, one Croat and two Muslims. Reeve knew which was which, but only because he had talked to them, visited their homes. If he had met them as strangers on the street, wearing the same jeans and T-shirts they were wearing now, he would have had no idea. The dark Tijanic looked more like a stereotypical Muslim than the blond Filipovic, whose father taught children the Koran at the townâs mosque.
âTheyâre here,â Tijanic said without preamble.
As if to verify the statement, a gunshot sounded in the distance, and then another.
âHow many of them are there?â Reeve asked, reclaiming the Kalashnikov from where it had been hanging on the wall, out of reach of the children.
âI counted twenty-seven, so far. One transit van and three cars, all jammed full.â
âLetâs go,â Reeve said. He stopped in the doorway. âNo partisan heroics,â he told his seventy-year-old father-in-law. âIf it looks like weâve failed, just take the kids and head for Zilovice.â
The old man nodded. âGood luck,â he said.
The four men emerged into the early dusk, the town of Zavik spread beneath them. The sun had fallen behind the far wall of the valley, but the light it had left behind cast a meagre glow across the steep, terracotta-tiled roofs. The thought of the kids and their grandparents struggling up the mountain behind the town produced a sinking feeling in Reeveâs stomach.
At least it was summer. A light breeze was blowing down the valley but the dayâs heat still clung to the narrow streets. In the distance they could hear a man shouting through a megaphone.
âThey are all in the town square,â Cehajic told Reeve.
âHow many townspeople have gone over to them?â
âThe five who disappeared this morning, but no more that we know of.â
They were only about a hundred yards from the square now, and Reeve led them down the darker side of the street in single file. The voice grew louder, more hectoring. The leader of the intruders was demanding that all weapons and cars be brought to the square immediately, and that anyone found defying this order would have their house burnt to the ground.
Reeve smiled grimly at the reference to weapons. As far as he knew there had been only about seven working guns in the town before the Serbs arrived, and his group was carrying five of them. Two others were in the hands of Muslim ex-partisans like his father-in-law, and they intended defending their own homes and families to the death.
The five men reached the rear of the building earmarked for their observation post, and filed in across the yard and up the rickety steps at the back. The old couple who lived there waved them through to the front room, where latticed windows overlooked the town square. Once this room would have housed a harem, and its windows had been designed so that the women could look out without being seen. As such, they served Reeveâs current purpose admirably.
