Deep Black

85

A second helicopter appeared about half an hour after the first, probably to ferry in more troops and pick up the bodies. The pilot landed about a hundred metres from the cave but didn’t close down. The wind had picked up, hurling rain in all directions; he’d keep the rotor blades turning in case the thing didn’t restart.

We listened to it for at least twenty minutes while the clearing party was at work. They were German, by the sound of it. One or two yodelled into the cave just to hear the echo. A couple ventured further inside, but nowhere like all the way to the back. Maybe they didn’t like the dark; maybe they didn’t like the idea of stepping on any mines or booby traps. About the only bit of luck we’d had in the last twenty-four hours was not tripping any of that shit ourselves.

I gave Jerry a shake the moment the heli had lifted off. ‘Better go and get that wagon while we still have the chance.’

When we got to the cave mouth, I had to laugh. The 4x4 had been cordoned off with blue and white scene-of-crime tape; it was practically gift-wrapped in the stuff. Some of the empty shell cases even had little flags stuck into the mud beside them.

The smile soon wiped itself off my face as we left the efficient German crime scene behind us. According to Salkic, the vehicle he’d have used to take us to Nuhanovic was parked in the biggest of the barns at the ambush site. The wind was bitterly cold and sliced into every millimetre of my exposed wet skin. I kept my arms tight against my sides and pulled up the collar of my coat to conserve as much warmth as I could. If I had to move my head I’d turn my whole body. I didn’t want the slightest bit of wind or freezing rain down my neck.

We’d been going no more than twenty when I turned to check on Jerry and my foot slipped. I went down, and as my knees hit the rock they felt like they were on fire. I hoped I hadn’t smashed a kneecap, but there was fuck all I could do about it. Black cloud cover was more or less total now. No wonder the heli pilot hadn’t wanted to hang around.

Twenty more, and the wind was driving freezing rain straight into our faces. My eyes were streaming. All we could do was keep our heads down.

I stopped for Jerry. He shuffled up alongside me and stood so close that his breath merged with mine as it got whipped away by the wind.

The closer we got to the ridge, the stronger the gusts became. The ambient temperature was low enough as it was, but the wind-chill took it close to freezing. I was beginning to feel light-headed.

I realized I was suffering from the first stages of hypothermia. We needed to get out of the wind and we needed to get off the hill.

When we finally got to the top, the wind was so strong it nearly knocked me over. And what I saw through the sheets of rain down in the valley nearly finished the job.

Acrane was lifting the Audis on to the back of a low-loader. SFOR troops swarmed around the wreckage of the truck, and they didn’t look in as much of a hurry as I’d have liked. We couldn’t go down there, but we had to get out of this fucking wind and rain. We had to go back to the cave.

We turned back uphill, leg muscles stinging as they tried to keep us moving. I made it to the top first, and looked down. Things this side of the valley weren’t much better.

Jerry drew level with me. ‘What’s wrong?’

I motioned him down beside me and pointed. Three sets of headlights were closing in on the cave. They were probably going to pick up the 4x4, and maybe stick some more flags around the place. Whatever, we couldn’t get back to the cave.

Jerry knew it too. ‘What now?’

‘Stay up here and get out of the wind. Soon as they leave, we go for the wagon. If it’s still there. . .’

We moved back the way we’d come. The rain made it almost impossible to see the farm and SFOR boys now, but that wasn’t altogether a bad thing. Just like with the snipers during the siege, if we couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see us.

We ended up in what looked and smelt like an old sheep hollow, worn away over the centuries. But if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for us. We wrapped ourselves around each other, our faces just inches apart, trying to share what little body heat we had left.

Lifting my head, I couldn’t see anything down in the valley now, just solid walls of rain. It came down so hard it felt like we were being attacked by a swarm of ice-cold bees.

‘We’ll wait until they’ve gone – or last light.’ My throat was dry and rasping. I was wet, cold and hungry. What wouldn’t I have given right now for a toasted cheese sandwich and a mug of monkey tea under the duvet, stretched out on the settee in front of the Discovery Channel?

Jerry’s head moved, which I took to be a nod.

As the minutes ticked by, the ground itself seemed to become colder and soggier. I could feel his body warmth at the points where he was making contact with me, but the rest of me was freezing. Every time he fidgeted to get comfortable, I could feel the cold attack the newly exposed area. At least we were in cover. It’s a psychological thing: get up against or under something and you begin to imagine you’re a bit warmer. You’re not, of course: you just think you are.

The wind howled against the lip of the hollow. The downpour was getting well into its stride, bouncing off my PVC coat like one long drum-roll.