Andy McNab - Deep Black

The door opened and the waiters were back with glasses of orange juice and a brass washing bowl, jug and hand towels for later on. The AK boys hadn't budged an inch.

The door closed again.

'Hasan?'

He looked up and smiled, and I hoped my chin wasn't dripping gravy. 'What concerns me is that we might be the ones getting killed, because we know where you are.'

He glanced at the door and treated us to the full smile this time.

'They're simply for my protection. I do not kill people.' He took a sip of his coffee. 'Besides, you knew how to get here, and yet you have made no attempt to compromise me. I am happy for us to trust each other.'

He smiled again, but held our gaze for that extra second before continuing. 'When we have spoken about certain things, you will be taken back to Sarajevo.'

He put a piece of bread into his mouth and handed Jerry the paper bag. 'Jerry, I agree with you. I think being on the cover of Time would help me in my work.'

Jerry glanced inside and pulled out two cardboard and plastic disposable cameras, the sort you see waved about on hen nights.

It was as if a switch had been thrown. Suddenly Jerry was in Pulitzer mode. 'There's not enough light in here. Can we improve it?'

Nuhanovic nodded slowly, looking towards the decorative grille. 'I'm sure we can.'

Jerry ripped the cellophane wrapper from the first camera as he checked out the room for light angles or whatever photographers do.

Nuhanovic carried on eating, but I felt his eyes boring into me. The door opened and the two guys came in again, another oil lamp in each hand. Jerry showed them exactly where he wanted them, then adjusted them an inch or two for perfection as the boys chucked some more wood on the fire and left. The AK boys still stared at us from the other side of the door.

Jerry wound the first exposure into place. 'Mind if I move around, try some angles?'

Nuhanovic didn't look up, just nodded and finished chewing. Then, as Jerry began to fine-tune the lamp positions yet again and busy himself with even more photography stuff, he leaned towards me, his elbows on his thighs. 'Nick, I, too, want to talk about what happened in the cement factory. But first, please tell me, why were you there? And what exactly did you see?'

Flashlight bounced around the room as I told him everything, apart from the real reason I'd been there. Instead he got the camera-kit-stolen-and-had-to-hide-when-I-saw-the-trucks-coming version.

Jerry took shot after shot and the camera whined each time like a tiny jet engine.

I talked Nuhanovic along the whole timeline, from the moment I saw vehicles approaching to the moment he had his argument with Mladic. 'There was a group of girls held back after you'd left…'

His eyes never left mine.

'They were raped, systematically. One threw herself out of a third-floor window.'

What I was looking for was confirmation, but I wasn't going to get it just yet. His eyes went down and fixed on the rice. He took a few grains in his fingers and rolled it into a ball. Jerry still buzzed around us like a worker-bee with a mission.

'I found out much later that one of them was called Zina. She was only fifteen. After the other girl jumped, and they scraped her off Mladic's wagon, Zina made a run for it, towards the treeline where I was hiding.'

He watched the ball of rice all the way to his mouth.

'The Serbs just laughed. Some of them were laughing so much they found it hard to come into the aim. When she spotted me, she looked confused. She stopped, looked round at the Serbs, then turned again. I can still see the look on her face. That was when she took a round in the back.

'She fell directly in front of me. So close I felt the mud splash. She crawled towards me, begging with her eyes. And I did nothing to help her as she died. I'll never forget her eyes…'

I ripped some bread and picked up another chunk of meat. 'For a long time, I used to lie awake at night, wondering what she'd be doing now if she was alive. Maybe she'd be a mother, maybe a model. She was a good-looking kid.'

Nuhanovic looked up slowly as he swallowed. Jerry pressed the shutter release and the flash made him blink. For a moment, he looked surprised.

'That's a very moving story, Nick, but one I find somewhat confusing. In fact, I was confused from the moment Ramzi told me about you.

'I had to ask myself, why would a Westerner have been in that part of Bosnia on that particular day? He could only have been a newsman, a soldier, or a spy. I was intrigued. Hence, my invitation.

'And I am still intrigued. You say you were a reporter, but I never saw a report about Mladic murdering Muslims that day. Why is that? No one in that line of business would have failed to exploit such a story. It would have grabbed world headlines.

'But no… no story. I think that is because you are not a reporter, Nick. Which means you must have been there as a soldier, or a spy. But let us not beat about the bush: the distinction between the two is irrelevant.' His eyes never left mine. 'Satisfy my curiosity, Nick. Why were you really there?'

Fuck it, why not? In any case, if I wanted more from him, I had to expect to trade.

I told him why I was there, how I just lay in my hide, waiting for the Paveway to come down on Mladic. 'I felt a lot of guilt for not calling it in sooner. I was haunted by the thought I could have stopped the killing. Lately, I've even been thinking that talking to you about it might help me. You were there, maybe you would have understood.'

Nuhanovic's face was set in a frown. 'Mladic?' He nodded to himself, as if working out the answer to his own question. 'Mladic… but they let him escape.'

I didn't want to talk about fucking Mladic. 'Someone explained to me I don't need forgiveness. I did what I thought was right at the time…'

Nuhanovic stared deeply at me, his lips pursed. 'I agree with your friend. He is very wise.' Then he added, without a flicker of a smile, 'He is obviously not a Serb.'

I lifted a glass of orange juice to my mouth and took a sip. Time to up the ante. 'I'm confused about something, too. Why were all the girls kept behind after everyone else had left? And why were a few of those kept by Mladic after you yourself had gone? Did you know about that?'

'Of course I did.' He seemed angry, but with what or whom I couldn't work out. 'The argument with Mladic was because he wanted me to pay the agreed price for the young women, yet keep some back for his men. We were arguing about cost, not lives. He is an animal. And yet he was allowed to live.'

'You bought the girls off Mladic?'

'The attack on you last night was not about ideology, just money. The Serbs are competitors in the market we both service.'

'Those girls were business?'

'I make no apology for that. What you saw wasn't just about buying those young women, it was also about saving the others. Their mothers, their brothers. That had always been part of every deal. The high prices I paid the Serbs reflected that. Does that disgust you?'

'Surprises me.'

'Some find what will soon be my past a little… unsavoury. But I have saved many lives, including the very ones you could have saved. Mladic and his aggressors murdered many thousands. Five thousand at Srebrenica alone. Now, that disgusts me, Nick.

'And yet the West chose not to kill Mladic that day. They still seem happy for him to be at large. Why would that be, I wonder? I have told them where he is. He's in a monastery in Montenegro. But where are the bombs? Where are your special forces?'

I wanted to deflect his anger. We needed to stay best mates if Jerry and I were going to walk out of here. 'Jerry, you tell him.'

Jerry lowered the camera and explained about the international court. 'Simple as that. Looks like they decided to preserve a few big names to stick in the dock after the war.' He ripped the cellophane off camera two and waited for its flash to get up to speed.