Deep Black Read Free Page A

bottle-washers were getting busy again. Two were blacking out the ground-floor door-frame and windows with blankets. Then foldaway chairs and trestle tables were dragged out of the 4x4s and taken into the office block, followed by baskets of food and armfuls of wine bottles.
    I couldn’t believe what came out next: a pair of candelabra, complete with candles. It reminded me of the cavalry officers I’d known before I’d joined the Regiment, who’d carry the regimental silver with them in their tanks on major exercises and set the table for dinner as if they were taking a break from the Charge of the Light Brigade. As an infantryman I used to honk about the crap hats and their fancy ways, green with envy as I opened my ration can of sweaty processed cheese.
    Mladic just stood there with his hands on his hips, apparently oblivious to the carnage.
    My new best friend was back on the net. ‘Blue Shark Echo, over.’
    I hit the pressle twice.
    ‘I hear you fives, Blue Shark Echo. You will have a fifteen – that’s one five – minute time to target. Copy?’
    I did. I hit the pressle twice as I watched bundles of firewood being taken into the office. Smoke was soon streaming out of the cracks in the wall. With luck he would just have sat down to eat by the time I started easing the Paveway up his arse.
    I pulled my glove off with my teeth then slowly reached out to the front of the LTD and lifted the little plastic cover from the objective lens. Next I dug around in the breast pocket of my sniper suit for some toilet roll and gave the glass a wipe from the centre outwards to clear it of condensation. Then I eased myself up a little so I could look at the sight picture in the viewfinder. I aimed the crosshairs at the ground floor, on the area of wall between the two covered window-frames. I moved them vertically up, aiming at the point where the first floor hit the front elevation. With nine metres margin of error, I wanted to make sure that there was no chance it would just plough into the ground. Now it didn’t matter if it was nine metres high or left or right, it would still hit.
    It looked as if pre-dinner drinks were about to be served. Mladic headed for the office block, his sidekicks in hot pursuit. The shooting continued as he disappeared inside.
    There was nothing I could do now but wait. I couldn’t afford to call the platform in just yet. He might take it into his head to come outside again with his G and T and go for a wander. With the amount of alcohol, food and candelabra on show there was no rush. Well, there was, but I couldn’t cut corners.
    I gave it ten minutes. Chances were he was staying inside now. I hoped he had seen enough dead bodies for the day.
    I got on the net and hit the pressle five or six times.
    ‘Is that you, Blue Shark Echo? Send again.’
    I hammered the pressle another couple of times.
    She came back. ‘Do you have a designation?’
    Press, press.
    ‘Roger that, confirm you have designation.’
    Press, press.
    ‘Delayed fuse?’
    Press, press.
    ‘Confirm no change to attack profile.’
    I pressed again. The platform was coming in on the same bearing.
    She’d be giving the good news to Sarajevo, and they’d be passing it on to an aircraft orbiting over the Adriatic.
    It was about thirty seconds before she came back. ‘Blue Shark Echo, you have a platform. Time to target plus one five minutes. Five, four, three, two, one, check.’
    I double pressed to acknowledge. That was it. Precisely fifteen minutes from now, the Paveway would make contact. All that was left for me to do was switch on the LTD in eight minutes’ time, make sure I could hear the little motor start up, check the sight picture hadn’t been moved from the building, then splash the fucking thing before ramming both index fingers in my ears and getting my head down.
    I heard shouting and lifted the binos. Beardilocks had swung back into action. He must have torn himself away from the rest of the prisoners,