INCEPTION: A Black Flagged Thriller Prequel (The Black Flagged Series) by Steven Konkoly

Author:Steven Konkoly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw, epub
Published: 2018-08-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Marko Resja stood a few meters away from the raised dirt road, swatting flies away from his grimy, sweat-covered face. August drew stifling heat and oppressive humidity to the Balkan Peninsula, rendering the latest Yugoslav offensive even more miserable—if that was even possible.

He raised his well-worn M76 sniper rifle and stared through the scope, scanning the distant road. Marko had been assigned to watch the western road for Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) vehicles, sharing the duty with another relatively new member of Srecko Hadzic’s Panthers. Satisfied that the approach was clear, he shifted the rifle into the crook of his arm and shrugged at his partner—who passed along the “all clear” report through a cheap plastic handheld radio.

Sava wiped his sweaty forehead, leaving a dark spot on his sleeve. His green camouflage uniform was filthy, crusted with light brown mud up to his thighs. Large sweat stains formed odd circular shapes under his armpits and across his chest. The only thing clean about Sava was his assault rifle, which was slung over his left shoulder, freeing him to chain-smoke cigarettes.

Sava’s face disappeared in a cloud of tobacco smoke and reappeared sporting a grin, his crooked yellow teeth contrasting against a thin layer of green and black greasepaint. The face paint had nearly worn away over the past three days, as their unit moved through the hills cleaning out “suspected” bands of KLA resistance. The Panthers had always loosely applied the term suspected, but yesterday’s gruesome discovery in Klecka had changed everything—for the worse.

Regular Yugoslavian security forces had captured a KLA stronghold in Klecka and were led to a makeshift crematorium by a young man who claimed to have been forced to participate in atrocities against kidnapped Serbians. Evidence of scorched human remains was found in the crematorium, and several trenches filled with badly decomposing bodies were uncovered in a nearby orchard.

Word of the discovery spread like wildfire through Serbian units in the foothills, and Marko’s platoon was roused from a deep sleep at three in the morning to prepare for an urgent operation. Any Albanian Kosovar found in these hills was to be treated as confirmed KLA.

Several armored vehicles arrived in the camp shortly after they woke, and transported them to the outskirts of Divjaka, where a mortar team set up in a clearing to the west. Half of the thirty-man platoon was sent to the eastern road on the opposite side of the village, accompanied by M-80 armored personnel carriers. The entire platoon’s focus was a cluster of homes and structures in northern Divjaka, isolated from the main town and only accessible by two roads—which were now blocked by a heavily armed Serbian paramilitary force.

His squad loitered in the western tree line until a crimson sun crept over the eastern hills of the valley, and fingers of deep orange light caught the treetops above them. He could only imagine the terror spreading through the homes in front of them as residents listened to the distant rumble of idling engines—and waited.

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