Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness. Martin Bell

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СКАЧАТЬ … MORILLON LIES! Stones were lobbed into the stadium. One bounced off a rotor blade.

      ‘… rent-a-crowd isn’t helping matters, and if that’s not bad enough then those two are the icing on the cake!’ Which two? What was Nick on about?

      ‘Which two? What, Nick?’

      ‘The press. Those two!’ He pointed up the steps leading to the clubhouse where two rather subdued civilians, a man and a woman, were standing quietly next to the entrance. ‘… BBC cameraman, Brian Hulls, and she’s Maggie O’Kane from the Guardian …’

      ‘How did they get here? Thought no press on this one!’

      ‘Yeah, well, that was the deal, but they jumped onto the helicopters at Tuzla. Someone must’ve let them on. He filmed all those Serb positions on the Vis feature. They’ve found that on the film, so he’s been arrested for spying, and when we got here she just ran around the HLS like a mad thing interviewing everyone. Serbs went mad and told me to stop her, but every time I turned my back she was off again. So, they’ve arrested her as well.’

      At the far end of the stadium, daubed in black paint across a wall, was a huge skull and crossbones, the old Chetnik symbol, with Sloboda ili Smrt – Freedom or Death – scrawled in uneven foot-high Cyrillic letters. It loomed over us adding a depth of menace to the monotonous chanting, the stone-throwing and the exertions of the prying inspectors. This was rapidly turning into a five-star fuck-up. The only consolation was that three of the French Pumas had made it to Srebrenica.

      ‘And what are these?’ One of the inspectors held up a pair of PNGs.

      ‘Night flying goggles,’ answered Nick.

      ‘Night flying goggles, eh? What do you need those for if you’re flying by day? No! You’re supplying these to the Muslims in Srebrenica. Smuggling!’

      ‘Look! Grenades! They’re smuggling grenades to the Muslims as well!’ another inspector roared triumphantly as he brandished a green cylindrical canister. PNGs were momentarily forgotten … MORION LAZE! … MORION LAZE! … MORION LAZE! … bayed the crowd, tossing even more stones at the aircraft and us.

      ‘It’s marker smoke for marking HLSs,’ protested a crewman to Nick. GRENADES! … GRENADES!… MORILLON LIES! … howled the mob. More stones rattled off the aircraft.

      ‘It’s marker smoke, coloured marker smoke … not grenades,’ stammered Nick.

      ‘Prove it then. Let’s see that it’s smoke!’ ordered the inspector. Nick grabbed the canister, yanked out the pin and hurled the grenade away from the helicopters. It popped dully in mid flight, the lever pinged off and the canister landed fizzing and spluttering. Then it belched out an acrid cloud of green smoke. GRENADE! screamed the crowd.

      ‘Look! Green smoke! Muslim colour! It’s Muslim smoke! It should be red smoke – Serbian colour … proves you’re pro-Muslim!’ roared the inspectors, laughing their heads off and winking at Nick. They were enjoying themselves immensely.

      ‘Mike, for fuck’s sake! Get them to stop throwing stones … pitch is covered in FOD. It’ll be thrown up when we take off !’ George was hugely under-impressed with the proceedings. I grabbed one of the inspectors and urged him to tell the crowd to stop throwing stones. He shrugged his shoulders, ambled off half-heartedly and said something to the crowd, which responded with more hissing, booing and cries of MORION LAZE! It was hopeless. One thing was clear: Zvornik was the dead weight which would sink the day. I forgot about going to Srebrenica and resolved to stay with Nick in the hope of sweet-talking the Serbs before the Pumas reappeared. There was also the problem of Brian Hulls and Maggie O’Kane to resolve. As they hadn’t been carted off perhaps there was still a chance that we might slip them onto the Tuzla-bound Puma. There was just a small group of French soldiers left, one more lift with room for two journalists.

      ‘Nick! Who’s the boss here? Who is actually in charge?’

      Nick was holding his own and they were half way through finishing with the third Sea King. ‘Colonel Pandjic. An air force colonel from Han Pijesak. He’s in one of the offices in the clubhouse. I think he’s had enough of the chaos out here!’

      I climbed the steps to the journalists. ‘You two all right?’ I asked.

      ‘Not really …’ mumbled Hulls, ‘… they’ve arrested us.’

      ‘I’m aware of that. I’m going to try and have a chat with their boss. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.’ The pair of them were pretty uncommunicative.

      ‘No, they’re spies!’ Pandjic was adamant.

      ‘They’re not spies, Colonel. They’re journalists. They’re just doing their jobs.’

      ‘No! They’re spies. We’ve inspected the film and he was filming our positions.’ There wasn’t much I could say to that. That bit of it was true. But it wasn’t spying.

      ‘Look, Colonel, it was a mistake. They shouldn’t have been here. We can just throw them onto the French helicopter and fly them back to Tuzla. You can keep the film.’ It didn’t sound very convincing.

      The Colonel sighed heavily. ‘It’s out of my hands. Pale has ordered me to hold them for questioning. They’ve got no press accreditation here and so an investigation has to be conducted. Sorry.’ I sensed that he’d have loved to be rid of them. He was as much a victim of old-style Communist bureaucracy, secrecy and paranoia as the two journalists. ‘They won’t come to any harm. If they’re innocent they’ll be released. But an investigation must take place.’

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