Bosnian Inferno

Bosnian Inferno
David Monnery

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS lead a civilian population out of war-ravaged Bosnia to safety?Bosnia, 1993. A small army of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, formed to defend the isolated mountain town of Zavik and under the command of Reeve, a renegade Briton, has begun mounting raids further afield in search of food, fuel and medical supplies.All sides in the civil war are enraged by its exploits; even UN mediators recognize the need for its suppression. But there are only two people Reeve will listen to: his ex-wife, and an ex-comrade in the SAS. The latter is willing to lead a team into Zavik; the former has first to be found – she is either trapped in Sarajevo or imprisoned in a Serbian concentration camp.Rescuing her is only the beginning. The SAS team will then have to traverse the mountainous war zone and force their way into the besieged town. This will be difficult enough. Fighting their way out of the war-ravaged territory with a convoy of the sick, the old and the very young will be next to impossible.

Bosnian Inferno

DAVID MONNERY

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1994

Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1994

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover photographs © Collaboration JS / Arcangel Images (soldier); Archive Holdings Inc. / Getty Images (background)

David Monnery asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008155216

Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155223

Version: 2015-11-05

Contents

Cover (#u71bd7742-ea46-588e-be02-170467d3d84d)

Title Page (#u28782ca6-9fb3-54bf-a456-8e08a145c28f)

Copyright (#ubb1e7ff5-837c-5d75-9fea-a254a1070b89)

Prelude (#u707992ea-9a9e-5dc3-9632-2c8545d38931)

Chapter 1 (#u9357a52c-382b-5d64-a67c-58099e956a36)

Chapter 2 (#u9e75bc54-95a8-5118-8191-8e088a03bdcf)

Chapter 3 (#u3c2c97d1-9620-5be4-be48-4c8d43fcd7d3)

Chapter 4 (#u760d3345-b70b-59ff-b91d-842bd4868c94)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prelude (#uc566587f-f47b-55da-a7c2-242ef5bb2108)

Zavik, 17 July 1992

The knock on the door was loud enough to wake the dead, and John Reeve had little doubt what it meant. ‘I have to go now,’ he told his son, putting the book to one side. The boy must have read the seriousness of the situation on his father’s face because he didn’t object. Reeve kissed him lightly on the forehead and hurried down the new wooden staircase he’d just finished installing in his parents-in-law’s house.

Ekrem Abdic had already opened the door to admit the others. There were four of them: Tijanic, Bobetko, Cehajic and Filipovic. One Serb, one Croat and two Muslims. Reeve knew which was which, but only because he had talked to them, visited their homes. If he had met them as strangers on the street, wearing the same jeans and T-shirts they were wearing now, he would have had no idea. The dark Tijanic looked more like a stereotypical Muslim than the blond Filipovic, whose father taught children the Koran at the town’s mosque.

‘They’re here,’ Tijanic said without preamble.

As if to verify the statement, a gunshot sounded in the distance, and then another.

‘How many of them are there?’ Reeve asked, reclaiming the Kalashnikov from where it had been hanging on the wall, out of reach of the children.