Deep Black

9

Almost simultaneously, there was a yell from the right of my field of view. Zina was making a break for it. The remaining girl outside was on her knees, hands outstretched, screaming out to her. The Serbs just laughed and nonchalantly unslung their weapons from their shoulders. Their fun was just beginning.

I silently willed the Paveway to come tumbling out of the sky.

Zina scrambled across the open ground, slipping and sliding in the mud. The ski jacket was suddenly a sentence of death: it was going to make an easy target in the gloom.

Zina tripped and fell into a large puddle, then scrambled to her feet, face and hair dripping, and carried on running. She switched direction, making for the treeline. She was heading straight towards me.

The Serbs hadn’t fired a single shot. Maybe she was still too close to them, not enough of a challenge. I could hear them laughing and joking with each other; it looked as if they were trying to work out who was going to have first pop.

She was getting closer to me. I could hear her sobbing.

The first shot rang out. It missed. I didn’t see where it landed but I heard the thud somewhere in front of me.

Zina kept coming. There was another shot. Missed again. More laughter and jeering from the Serbs.

There was another shot, then another. They pounded into the mud in front of the hide. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the LTD took a hit. Zina was no more than ten metres from me now, five. Then she saw me. Confused, she stopped, looked around, started to run again. There was another shot. She took it in the back and fell directly in front of me. Mud splashed through the cam net on to my face.

She managed to raise herself on her elbows and tried to crawl the last few feet towards me, her eyes begging me for help. I couldn’t do anything but look back at her, hoping the next round would kill her and stop the pain before she compromised me. Another couple of rounds rang out in quick succession. She jerked forwards, almost landing in the hide. She gave a whimper, then a gasp. Blood trickled from her mouth into the mud just a few feet in front of me. The entry wounds in her back steamed in the cold air.

I heard clapping and a few mocking cheers. Someone had won the bet.

I wondered how long it would take them to stop the backslapping and come to check her out. All it would take was one of Mladic’s boys getting busy with his binos.

I didn’t move an inch. I felt her lifeless gaze bore into me.

There were no sounds of feet splashing through the mud towards me, just more laughter from the Serbs and more screaming from the girl in the upstairs room 217 metres away.

Another shot was fired and Zina’s body jolted as she took the round. Good; it looked like they were going to save themselves the journey.

Then I realized one of her legs was splayed across the LTD’s line of sight.

I couldn’t hold the LTD: it had to be braced firmly on the tripod. I checked the field of vision to the right of the shell scrape, thinking I might be able to re-site it, but there were too many bumps in the ground. It had to stay where it was.

Besides, I’d run out of time.

I would have to clear the body.