The camouflage greasepaint had nearly worn away over the past three days, as their unit moved through the hills mopping up “suspected” bands of KLA resistance. The designation “suspected” had always been a loose term among the Panthers, but after yesterday’s gruesome discovery in Klecka, the word had taken on a new meaning. From what he understood, any ethnic Albanian Kosovar found in these hills was now classified as a “suspected” terrorist; the disturbing find outside of Klecka serving to “legitimize” an unofficial policy implemented by Milosevic’s paramilitary nationalists for the past several years.
Regular Yugoslavian forces left behind to secure Klecka had been escorted to a makeshift crematorium, where evidence of scorched human remains were uncovered, along with several trenches filled with badly decomposing bodies in a nearby orchard. A young boy informed the soldiers that the KLA had killed a large group of kidnapped Serbians, ahead of the Yugoslavian offensive. Word of the discovery spread like wildfire through Serbian nationalist paramilitary units in the foothills, and Marko’s platoon was roused from a deep sleep at three in the morning to prepare for an urgent operation.
Several armored vehicles arrived in the camp shortly after they mustered and provided the platoon with transportation to the outskirts of Divjaka, where a mortar team set up in a clearing to the west. Half of the thirty-man platoon drove to the eastern road on the other side of the village, along with a few of the M-80 armored personnel carriers. The entire platoon’s focus was a cluster of homes and structures in northern Divjaka, isolated from the main town, and accessible by two roads, which were now blocked by a heavily armed Serbian paramilitary force.
They loitered in the western tree line until a crimson sun started to creep over the eastern hills of the tight valley, and fingers of deep orange light caught the tops of the trees around them. He could only imagine the terror spreading through the homes in front of them as residents helplessly listened to the distant rumble of idling engines beyond their sight — and waited for the inevitable.
Mortar tubes announced daybreak across the valley, firing a volley of 82mm high explosive rounds at the closest grouping of structures visible along the road. The shells sailed in a high arc and took an eternity to find earth again. When gravity finished its job, the ground behind one of the houses erupted skyward in a light brown cloud, followed by another geyser of dirt from the road. The sharp crunch of the impacts washed through the men, giving rise to a few cheers.
The mortar attack lasted five minutes, as the mortar crew haphazardly fired several more salvos into the village, adjusting their aim to walk the shells through the entire length of the community. Luckily for the inhabitants, the mortar team never focused on the buildings. Only once did they see a shell make a direct hit, sending large wooden chunks of a red roof flew skyward into the dust cloud obscuring the village. This led to a chorus of cheers from the men around him, which he pretended to eagerly join. He felt relieved that the mortar attack had done so little damage, but his solace would be short lived.
Without ceremony, the mortar teams disassembled their equipment and loaded it into the troop compartment of one of the M-80s. The entire detachment of regular army vehicles sped away, leaving his squad with their own odd assortment of AUZ jeeps and SUVs — and a ghastly task.
Nenad Sojic, the platoon’s de facto leader, spoke to his radio operator, a lean, darker-skinned Serb named Goran, and waved the squad over. Through the radio handset, Goran relayed Sojic’s orders to the men positioned on the eastern approach to the village. Without ceremony, Sojic told them that they would search house-to-house for KLA insurgents and weapons caches. Once a house was searched, the inhabitants would be sent to a centralized location for further questioning. Even the most naive members of the platoon knew what that meant.
They walked through the dew-covered fields down the road toward the simple concrete houses. Cool mountain valley air penetrated their thin uniforms, and most of the men still wore the black wool watch caps they had donned while shivering in the middle of the night. The caps would be ditched by mid-morning, as temperatures reached unbearable highs. The jeeps roared to life behind them and soon met up with the soldiers on foot.
When they reached the first set of homes, Marko and Sava were detached to serve as pickets at the western edge of the village. They were tasked to observe the same road the armored personnel carriers used to hastily separate themselves from Marko’s paramilitary comrades — and report any incoming vehicles. They both quickly turned their attention to the road, as doors were forced open and the screaming started. He concentrated on the empty road, as the rest of the squad and the vehicles moved down the road, pushing hesitant villagers ahead of them. Neither of them wanted to look back and acknowledge what was happening.
Marko’s thoughts shifted back into the present, as he tracked a crow flying through the air from the west. The large black bird landed on a crude wooden fence several yards back from the road, joining the several dozen already quietly arrayed along the fence. More crows were perched hidden among the nearby trees. They weren’t intimidated by the soldiers’ presence in Divjaka. They had as much right to be here as the flies, and they were here for the same reason.
“They know something we don’t,” Sava remarked, dragging on his cigarette.
The man had smoked non-stop since they left a Belgrade primary school soccer field three days ago, and he suspected that the young northern Serb must be close to exhausting his supply of cigarettes. All of them must be running low. Marko carried a pack of cheap Serbian smokes to fit in, but he generally never indulged, unless offered. He had always despised the habit, but his trainers at The Ranch had made it clear that he would smoke. Everyone smoked in Serbia, at least casually. He’d grown accustomed to the taste, and no longer minded the acrid smell of tobacco smoke in cramped spaces. Still, the habit did nothing for him, except help him blend into his environment.
Sava grinned nervously, and Marko wondered what he was thinking. He didn’t look or sound too eager to head deeper into the village. He was young and didn’t have the same brutal edge that was common among Hadzic’s veteran Panthers. This thought brought another concern back into focus. His platoon was comprised of too many newbies, several of which had been swapped into the platoon just after last night’s dinner. He was new to the Panther organization and had only been deployed to the field in a large-scale operation twice before, but this structure stuck him as odd.
Hadzic’s field units typically overflowed with hardened paramilitary veterans of the Bosnia conflict, or former Yugoslav military. The process for integration of new recruits was brutal and discouraged most naive youth. Still, they had no shortage of volunteers, and in times of war, the training camps swelled with eager recruits — pushed through to augment roles left behind by combat hungry veterans. This platoon brimmed with newbies, and that concerned him. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew something was off.
His concentration was shattered by the sudden crackle of automatic weapons fire in the distance, as hundreds of crows scattered, briefly drowning out the sound of the guns. Like the crows, Sava reacted instinctively and threw himself onto the ground next to the slightly raised dirt road. He flinched, but stood impassively in the middle of the road, as the volume of gunfire diminished, finally ending with an occasional shot. He hadn’t felt or heard the familiar snap or hiss of bullets passing near him, so he kept his composure. He knew exactly what had happened, and turned his head lazily towards the center of the village. Occasional, single pistol shots started to fill the air, and Sava rose to his feet to rejoin him on the road.