Deep Black - Andy McNab [88]
Room 115 could have been any room in any chain anywhere in the world. It had been redecorated since the war, but dark-wood veneer was still king. And, just like the old days, I found myself looking straight out on to the wreckage of another burned-out building. Not too far beyond it lay the green slopes of Mount Trebevic, the sky above it a flinty blue.
Before the war, Sarajevans used to escape the city heat by cable car to picnic on the mountainside. Then the Serbs came, and they covered Trebevic in land mines. Either I’d read this or seen it on the Discovery Channel, but I knew that most of it was still off-limits. It was known as ‘the lost mountain’.
Jerry threw his new Istanbul bag on to the bed nearest the door. The canvas holdall was a lot smaller than the one he’d arrived with in Baghdad, that was for sure. His bumbag followed.
I stretched out on the other and thought about finding this Ramzi Salkic guy.
68
At last, Jerry opened his mouth. ‘This may sound crazy, but the stuff Benzil and Rob told you about Nuhanovic – it’s kinda made me even more determined to get these shots. Maybe he really can stop some of the madness.’
I looked down at the burned-out building. ‘That’s worrying. Last time you went off taking pictures in this place it nearly got me killed.’
Jerry looked sheepish. ‘I know, I fucked up majorly. But it was worth it. We got to save someone’s life.’ His expression darkened. ‘Don’t you ever want to know what happened up there in the enclaves?’
Not really. He had tried to tell me enough times nine years ago, on the way back into the city. I’d already known as much about the atrocities as I wanted to. I’d told him to keep it for his grandchildren.
I helped myself to a Coke from the minibar. ‘You went up there because the papers were offering a hundred grand for a picture, right?’ What the fuck? He obviously wanted to tell me, so why not listen? At least he was talking.
‘Yup, a hundred grand. Fuck, I’d have run all the way naked with a rose up my ass for that kind of dough. Soon as we heard, Jason and I got a driver and set off north.
‘That road was seventy-five Ks of Dodge City. Two relief workers driving trucks had been killed a couple of days before on the same stretch. We were kinda hyper.
‘Three miles south of the enclave, we hit a Serb checkpoint. Jason was cool at that sort of stuff. He just pulled out a carton of two hundred and did some trading.
‘The village we came into had been totally fucked, man. I mean, every house had been hit. The Serbs had been pounding these guys for months. It was getting dark and we really started to freak, so we tried the UNHCR.’
I collapsed back on my bed and Jerry sat up on the edge of his to keep eye-contact. His face was alive for what seemed the first time in many days.
‘We found some nurses. A Frenchwoman, Nicole, was in charge. We expected to be fucked off with all the usual shit about UN regulations and journalists, but they were cool.
‘They told us the UN had tried parachuting food and medicine into the place at night. The women and children would hear the chutes open and run outside, waiting for the food to land. It was dark and they had tin cans on sticks with candles burning inside them. The Serbs just picked them off, firing at the lights.’ Jerry shook his head sadly. ‘Fuck, man, there was a story every way you turned.
‘In the morning Jason and I walked down into the village to look at their hardware. These Muslims were fighting back with anything they could get their hands on. Guys were fighting from trenches in gardens, from cellars. They were like ants, everywhere. I got sixteen rolls that morning.
‘Then all hell broke loose. We were walking back up the hill to the house when we started taking incoming. There was this young boy, no more than ten, just staggering about, bleeding and crying. His mother had a huge chunk of shrapnel in her back. The grandmother was trying to help.
‘Jason ran to fetch Nicole while I went to see what I could do. Not much, as it turned out. She was dying.
‘The boy had shrapnel in his