The Beaten Zone

By TNM Mykytiuk

“The Beaten Zone”
A promise to a dying spy...
An old vendetta...
A priceless treasure...
In May of 1943, German paratroops attack the small Bosnian town of Drvar, hunting the Yugoslav general, Josep Brez Tito. But, as leutnant Willie Moltke discovers, there is more hidden in Drvar than the partisan commander.
54 years later, Rena Moore, the granddaughter of British secret agent Captain Simon Moore is on a quest to fulfill her dying grandfather’s wish to return a religious artifact, looted by the Nazis during WWII, to its rightful guardians. Rena enlists the aid of marine salvage operator and part time security consultant Cole Samson. They become trapped in a deadly mix of political and criminal intrigue orchestrated by the mysterious Tibor. Old enemies clash when Moltke returns to claim the prize that slipped through his fingers during the battle for Drvar. Can Cole and Rena escape the “Beaten Zone” with their lives

• Language: English
• Publisher: TNM Mykytiuk
• Release date: Sep 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311757562

Book preview

The Beaten Zone

By T.N.M. Mykytiuk

Licensing Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This book may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Forward Beaten Zone (noun) : the elliptical ground area struck by the fire of automatic weapons or by artillery projectiles http://www.merriam webster.com/dictionary/beatenzone.

The Beaten Zone is a work of fiction woven around some real events. As the military historians out there know, Operation Rosselsprung, the German attack on Drvar to capture Tito, actually occurred. I have based the social and political turmoil described in Drvar during the late 1990s, as the civil war ended, on my experiences in Bosnia. However, the characters in this story, other than historical figures like Tito, are all fictitious. As a writer, I have taken some liberties with geography and the location of Tito’s Cave to tell this story as it should be told. The map of the Drvar region is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Map of the Drvar Region

Table of Contents

FORWARD

Map of the Drvar Region

CHAPTER ONE -Tito

CHAPTER TWO- Indiana Jones

CHAPTER THREE-The Team Assembles

CHAPTER FOUR-Another Fire!

CHAPTER FIVE-Budapest

CHAPTER SIX-The Wolf Returns

CHAPTER SEVEN- A Visit to the Deputy Mayor

CHAPTER EIGHT-Josep

CHAPTER NINE- The Cave

CHAPTER TEN-Roll On 24

CHAPTER ELEVEN-Night Patrol

CHAPTER TWELVE-A Drink at the Café Boom Boom

CHAPTER THIRTEEN-Trapped!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN-The Mill

CHAPTER FIFTEEN-Rendezvous

CHAPTER SIXTEEN-Freedom

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN-An Ultimatum

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-An Unexpected Visitor

CHAPTER NINETEEN-Chaos

CHAPTER TWENTY-The Chalice

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE- Uneasy Partners

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO- The break

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE-Success?

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR-Cross Roads

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chapter 1

(May 1943)

The Luftwaffe glider, buffeted by wind and prop wash, swayed like a long wooden kite tail as it cut through the sky. Lieutenant William Moltke stood, confident, in the narrow space behind the pilot, bracing himself against a bulkhead with his knees for balance. Willie was tall and lean, with sharp blue eyes set in refined Nordic features. A shock of blonde hair, covered by his paratroop helmet, completed the classic Aryan ideal.

Equipment check! he said, raising his voice above the groan of the Junkers 52 towing them toward their landing zone. A wave of movement surged through the ranks of camouflage-clad men lining the aircraft’s interior as they tightened straps on combat harnesses, snapped ammunition pouches closed, and inspected assault rifles.

Five minutes to zero hour! He shouted to his platoon sergeant, Ernst Weber. The seasoned veteran of countless battles nodded back from his position in the rear of the glider. There was nothing more to say. The men were ready to go. The plan was set. Now, if they could just land, without anti-aircraft and small arms fire tearing them to pieces, they would be all right. Their fight was on the ground. It was their element. Ground meant a man could move or take cover, attack or defend, impose his will on the enemy. Until then, chance ruled. Their canvas and wooden albatross would plummet earthward, powerless, once cut loose from the workhorse keeping it aloft.

Moltke checked his own equipment. Two days earlier, he and his brother officers had been sitting in a briefing room at the Zagreb Aerodrome, listening with rapt attention as their battalion commander outlined his plan. The small Bosnian village of Drvar was the key to the fate of the partisan resistance in Yugoslavia. It housed the headquarters of Josep Brez Tito, the wily commander of the underground network of guerrillas and terrorists battling German efforts to seize the Balkans as a secure southern route to the sea. Troops of the 1st Airborne Regiment would swoop down in a pre-dawn attack and seize Drvar to capture or kill Tito, while armoured units attacked from Bos Grahovo in the south to cut off the partisan’s escape routes. As part of Group Panther, Moltke’s objective was the cave burrowed deep in the rocky hills overlooking the village that Intelligence indicated was the site of Tito’s command post and living quarters. During the final mission brief this morning, Willie’s men received pictures of the Yugoslav General to aid in capturing him before he could escape in the confusion of battle.

The Junkers’ throaty growl, changing pitch as it climbed, was replaced by the wind as the glider unhooked and drifted downward. Through the fish eye of a small port window, Moltke saw a green valley cut with a whiplash of road, and an orange parasol of tracer rounds rising up from the ground below.

They were ready. Word had come in the night; a dark figure, muffled knocks on the door, words with double meanings whispered in the darkness, and then the shadow was gone. The Germans, like all the conquering heroes before them, faced a legion of hostile eyes that watched the movement of troop vehicles with a guarded intensity, and sharp ears that listened for information to pass on to the partisan army; information that could be used against the iron fist gripping their land.

Inside the cave, two men worked in silence, checking pre-positioned explosive charges set in a narrow fissure along the roof, crimping primer cord, and connecting detonators.

Hurry, Drago. I hear the planes. We don’t have much time and we’ve already taken longer than we should have. The short stocky man checked a pocket watch with a cracked lens in the feeble, yellow light of lantern resting on a rock ledge. It’s almost morning. Those bastards will be jumping in pretty soon

Easy, Zadar, this sort of work takes time, skill. You should know. We don’t want to do the German army any favors and finish ourselves off before they get a chance. Besides, I’m almost done. All we have to do now is hook up the electric firing point and we can bring down the whole mountain. Drago looked at his companion’s face, a goblin in the lantern light, and laughed. What’s the matter, Zadar, do you want to live forever? The tall, thin man’s fingers moved with skill and confidence born of experience. They had done this many times before, preparing the cave housing Tito’s headquarters for destruction if they had to withdraw back into the hills, and then defusing the detonators once the threat had passed. The cave ended in a subterranean passage underneath the mountains that formed Tito’s escape route from the valley. The explosives would seal the tunnel behind him, cutting off any pursuit. Maybe the general will blow the cave today, just for some fireworks to celebrate his birthday, said Drago.

There’ll be enough fireworks today from the Germans, Zadar replied. He took a last look at his watch, dropped it into the pocket of his trousers, and snuffed out the lantern.

A thin line of gray light seeped into the deep recess of the cavern as the pair of engineers moved forward. It was first light, and with it came the roar of aircraft, high above the village, mixed with chattering automatic weapons. The attack had begun. The headquarters within the cave sparked into life; staff officers crowded alongside wireless operators, scribbling notes on bits of paper, trying to patch the shreds of battle into a coherent picture from the radio traffic.

Zadar, said Drago. Go back to the main detonator. I’ll meet you there. I’m going to go see what’s going on outside. Don’t blow the cave without me. Do you understand?

Zadar threw his comrade a hasty glance, nodded, and scurried back into the darkness, re-lighting the lantern as he ran. The light bounced off the walls in an erratic strobe as he disappeared into the gloom. Drago hurried towards the entrance. The battle outside grew more frenzied, and shouts of men in combat joined the angry sputter of small arms fire.

Willie’s mission had been a disaster. The guerrillas were waiting for them to fall into the trap and he and his men had obliged. Operational security was impossible in a country where anybody passing you in the street, or slouched over a vegetable stall in some filthy market, could be the enemy. Partisan guns had opened up as the gliders began their sharp arc towards the landing zones. Whistling burrs of lead had torn through the fuselage, spraying wood and metal splinters throughout the interior and ripping into the backs of troops lining the port side.

Moltke fell to the floor as the aircraft hit the ground and slid to a halt. The pilot was dead, killed by the stream of gunfire that had engulfed them on descent. Around him, men hurried through the fore and aft doors on both sides of the glider, fleeing the deadly target for the cover. Moltke jumped to his feet and flung himself through the nearest exit. He landed hard on the course meadow grass and tried to orient himself. The sun seeped over the ridge of hills to his front, revealing a small opening in the hillside. That was where they had to go! East! Soldiers spread out around him, crouching and kneeling, their MP 34s shuddering in their hands as they fired at flickers of muzzle flash ringing the valley. The staccato of machine pistols joined the heavier thud of the MG 42 machine gun.

They had to move forward, to the cave; otherwise, they would die here. Around him, amid the bitter reek of cordite, the rest of Group Panther swarmed towards their objectives, dull figures against a verdant landscape. What madness, war, he thought. One day, this slaughter will end, and on a warm summer evening, he will drink a cold beer on the veranda of a quiet Gasthaus, a beautiful woman by his side, safe from the random death that followed him on every mission…but not today. Today, he would greet the butcher once again, and shake that bastard reaper’s cold hand.

Drago picked his way through the bramble and brush lining the pathway to the cave. Thorns tore at his skin, but he ignored them, concentrating on the thud of gunfire and sharp crack of grenades echoing along the valley. The gliders were scattered across the valley. Some pointed towards the cave; others had landed near the houses of the different allied missions fighting alongside the partisans, integrating their guerrilla battles into the overall war effort. It looked like the Yugoslavs were holding their own against the mottled figures spilling across the valley. Mortars burst among the scattering German troops, flattening small groups of men as they moved towards the cave. For a moment, he admired the courage and discipline of these tenacious men who fought hard for a battlefield they didn’t want, in a land they despised; but only for a moment, and the feeling gave way to hatred surpassing all other emotions. More troops, more foreigners, come to fill our graveyards and empty our cupboards, he thought. May the devil take them all. He retraced his steps back to the cave. There was no way he would get through the valley alive. He’d hoped to reach the English special agent’s house near the centre of the village and talk to the man about what lay hidden in the cave. They alone shared the secret.

The German paratroopers continued to gain ground despite fierce fire from the guerillas. Drago was certain they would destroy the cave today. Tito would not risk capture. The partisans’ advantage of surprise had since been lost, reducing the fight to the basic tenets of warfare, man against man, courage against courage, and luck against luck. Drago raced up the path, slippery with morning dew. Tito would be on the front lines leading his troops. When the situation became too tenuous, he would remove himself to another safe haven in a different part of the country. The partisan army would follow. It would splinter away, reorganize, and continue the war. As long as the leader survived, the struggle survived.

As he reached the top, bullets shattered the rocks above him, showering him with rough shards of stone. He heard the thump of enemy mortar shells impacting nearby. The Germans were bringing down fire onto the cave, covering their approach with a blanket of high explosive and white phosphorus smoke. He jumped into a trench adjacent to the opening. Its occupants, a young girl named Rena and an old man he didn’t recognize, were firing at the gray figures darting from cover to cover below. Rena greeted him as he tumbled in.

Hey Drago, are you through playing with your dynamite, and ready to lend a hand out here? she shouted. Rena was a slight girl of 17, reckless with youth, who joined the cause a year earlier. She was clad in the hodge-podge uniform of the resistance: Italian army tunic, German breeches, and boots, with an olive drab wedge cap, red star proudly displayed, perched on her head in a jaunty angle. Rena handled the radio traffic in the command post. It was unusual for her to be in combat.

You are crazy to be enjoying this so much. Don’t you know you can get killed playing this rough? he said. What’s going on up here? Why aren’t you inside at the radio?

Tito has come back here. We can hold the Germans for a while, but we received reports that some Panzer units are already moving up this way from Bos Grahovo in the south. If they link up with these paratroopers, we’re done for. HQ is preparing to move. Every spare rifle is needed to defend the cave until the commander can escape.

If the General was withdrawing, Drago’s place was at the firing point. He jumped from the trench as Rena and her companion fired streams of lead into the advancing enemy.

As Drago entered the tunnel he saw Tito, lean, calm, and confident, ever the leader, vanish into the depths of the cave accompanied by his protection party. He was about to follow when he was lifted off his feet and hurled to the ground, breathless. As he lay on his side gasping, the air around him filled with dust and acrid smoke. Zadar! The stupid bastard blew the demolitions without him. Tito would escape, but what of the Englishman’s box, the box Drago had hidden deep in the cave, it contents more important even than Tito? The combat engineer rested his head on the cool earth. Pain burned down his thigh. He touched his upper leg, and his hand came away red. He lay on his back looking up at the deep blue sky auguring the warm spring day to come. The sky began to dissolve, evaporating into a pattern of blue dots like newsprint, the gaps between the dots growing larger and darker until all he saw was black.

Moltke’s men pushed forward, scrambling for protection amid dips and folds in the wrinkled ground. If they made it to the tree line at the base of the hill, they could reach the cave under some cover. Weber had gotten the platoon mortar into action, and was laying down a veil of smoke to conceal their movement from the partisans’ guns. Casualties were high. He had lost five men in the glider alone, and escaping the landing zone across an open field had cost another five. Some were dead. Others lay wounded, some trying to self-administer first aid, some hit too bad to care. The platoon couldn’t do much for the casualties until the fire slackened. The faster they captured the cave, the sooner they could care for their comrades, living or dead. He looked around for his radioman and found him lying in a furrow of dirt, firing at flickers of muzzle flash above the tree line.

Schulz! He shouted to the soldier, who had stayed near his side since fleeing the deathtrap of the glider, I need to send a report to company headquarters! His voice strained above the stuttering machineguns.

Yes, sir! As the young man crawled towards him, Moltke heard a wet slap, like someone dropping a melon, and the soldier slumped forward, falling beside him. Moltke turned the prone body over.

Dear Jesus! He whispered. Half of his radioman’s face was missing. The bullet had entered the back of his head, below the helmet, and had come out through his eye. Private Schulz had made his last transmission. Moltke pulled the radio off the dead soldier’s back and slipped it over his shoulders. He looked at the hillside. The cave was a dark smudge against the black rock face. The smudge quivered and then closed like a toothless mouth as an explosion rumbled through the valley. His troops halted in their tracks, weapons poised, eyes wide with surprise. Surprise changed to shock as the partisans launched a sharp counter attack that turned Moltke’s assault into a rout. Machineguns raked the platoon’s flank, creating a lethal atmosphere of lead. Men flattened, trying to press ever deeper into the earth beneath their bellies. Grenades exploded amidst them, quick bright flashes shredding man and turf in a spurt of black smoke. Moltke’s mouth was dry. Sweat leaked into his eyes and he pushed his helmet back on his forehead to get a wider view of the heights. There were partisans in the brush fringing the rock face; dark shapes crouched behind smoking rifles. He had to save his men. The guerrillas had destroyed the cave. There was nothing left to fight for today except, maybe, his life. He looked over to where Weber had set up the platoon mortars.

Up there! He shouted to Weber, pointing to the spot in the tree line where partisans darted within the brush. Weber nodded and gave new orders to the mortar crew. They shifted the tubes and began lobbing their bombs into the brush on Moltke’s left. The mortars exploded in bright eruptions of hurtling dirt clumps. Bullets droned past him, furrowing the grass around him with a hollow, strumming sound, like a discordant guitar string. He was jarred sideways and his left arm blossomed with pain. Blood from a gunshot wound flooded his sleeve. He cradled his shattered limb in his lap, as the air shook with another mortar barrage from Weber’s crews. Willie’s eyes watered. Wood smoke! The brush was beginning to burn. Then Weber was bending over him, his voice faint above the kettledrum pounding in Willie’s temples. Sir, we’ve been ordered to fall back, to the cemetery at the centre of the village. We’re dead if we stay! Moltke nodded in acquiescence. Somebody, it seemed, was still in command. His hand throbbed but he cut through the pain and focused on the new orders. Weber began bandaging his wound with a field dressing.

It’s just a scratch, sir; you’ll be raising a beer stein in no time. He handed Moltke his assault rifle. Let’s go! The brush fire will give us good cover to get the hell out of here!

The graveyard lay at the height of the village. Its solid stone walls provided excellent protection. As part of Rosselsprung, a Panzer unit from Bos Grahovo, south of Drvar, would arrive in the village within two hours of the airborne attack to link up with the paratroopers and close the trap. Now they would be coming to rescue the hunters from their intended prey. If the remnants of Task Force Panther could hold on until the reinforcements arrived, they just might escape with their lives.

Captain Strect, a company commander that Willie recognized, was rallying stragglers and organizing the position’s defense, placing machine guns and troops. Hey! Lieutenant, have your men cover north, between the large tree on the far hill and that barn on your right. Got that? Make sure you cover the alley behind the stables!

Moltke passed his own orders on to Weber and crouched down below the wall. The position dominated all approaches to the cemetery, making it easy to defend. Small groups of survivors trickled in, mauled and bloodied, adding strength to the cemetery’s ad hoc garrison. Willie began to shake, his body burning off the adrenalin that poured into his muscles during the earlier battle.

It was two hours since they had touched down in Drvar and now the attack was in tatters. Willie had lost half of his platoon in the morning’s combat. He spoke with Strecht, trying to gauge what had happened in the valley. The other assault groups had levelled the English mission, he discovered, and burned the house harbouring the Russians. However, the partisans had driven them back, like Willie’s platoon, to the refuge within the stone walls of the cemetery. Nobody had found Tito, dead or alive. The man, the spirit, had vanished. By Strecht’s estimate, the Task Force had taken almost 60 percent casualties.

The survivors repelled a half dozen pitched attacks, before they heard the low grumble of tanks and half-tracks moving up from the south. Weary and dirty faces grinned with relief as Captain Strecht grabbed the radio and passed the coordinates of the cemetery to the commander of the Panzer Grenadier Company leading the formation.

Enemy fire slackened to random shots as the partisans began to slink away, melting into the countryside and their new rendezvous with Tito. Captain Strecht gathered the officers and briefed them on the next move. The troops from Bos Grahovo would cordon the village while the paratroopers searched house to house for cached weapons and guerrillas. The partisans traveled fast and light, so it was likely they would leave their wounded in the care of the villagers. There would be retribution.

Moltke’s wound excluded him from the search. He gave orders to the ever-capable Weber and rested in the shade of an apple tree perched on a small hill surrounded by stone crosses and rock slabs. He watched a section of his men move out. They were good soldiers, all of them. Silently, he wished the patrol luck as they vanished among the first row of houses near the cemetery. Willie lit a cigarette and gazed towards the village. He had lost far too many good men today. Damn these mule-driving farmers who didn’t know when they were beaten.

When the fighting started, Tibor’s mother had sent him to hide in the stable. He had refused, arguing that he was a warrior like his father, and uncle. There would be plenty of time for a ten-year-old boy to fight in some other battle; she had countered. Until then, he was to do what she said. He climbed to the loft of the little shed, and watched the battle outside through a gap among the straw thatches. He waited for the explosions and shooting to end, and for his mother to come for him. Instead, his father had come to the stable, bringing his uncle Drago, blood streaming from his leg.

Quick, Tibor, help me with your uncle! The boy skipped down from the loft and propped himself under the wounded man’s arm. Tibor was short for his age, but daily chores had given him a strength and resiliency beyond his years. Slowly, boy, the man is hurt. Together they eased his uncle onto a pile of straw bundled on the floor. Get some sheets, his father ordered, from inside. Hurry! The boy ran into the house. He snatched a sheet off his bed and returned to the stable. His father changed the dressing on his uncle’s leg and tied a tourniquet. He injected a small sachet of clear liquid into the wounded man’s arm. Drago. Stay here until dark. Then we can move you out. Tibor will stay with you. If you need anything, he will help you. I’m going back to the line. Tibor, watch over him. He is a brave man. He turned and strode out of the small building. It was the last time Tibor saw his father.

The noise in the valley increased and the gunfire drew closer. Tibor resumed his vantage point as his uncle slept. He watched as German soldiers moved into the cemetery across the narrow track behind the stable, ducking below the stone wall and then popping up to fire at the men attacking them. He wondered if his father was part of the fight.

Tibor’s uncle lay on the straw. He stirred, his face, contorted with pain, shiny with sweat. His breathing became more regular once the morphine Tibor’s father had administered took effect. Tibor raced down the narrow ladder and knelt by the wounded man.

Tibor, Drago whispered, you have always been a good boy. Like my son, as well as your father’s. The drug slurred his words. There is something for you… in the cave. Take it if you can…, my godchild. He pulled a folded square of oilcloth from a vest pocket. It was a drawing of the valley with small dots and circles on it. The top margin of the page contained a series of measurements, or directions. Here, boy… a treasure of kings. It’s in the cave… the Englishman’s box. Find him…Tell him.

Tibor looked at the scrap of cloth and laid it on the straw next to his uncle. Uncle Drago, I will get you water. Rest. Father will come back soon. His uncle frightened him. What if he died? What would his father say? He had told the boy to look after him and Uncle Drago was a brave man, deserving Tibor’s care. He heard soldiers moving along the hedgerow behind the stable and peered through a crack in the slat walls. He waited for the German paratroopers, distinctive in their speckled jump smocks to pass. Then he grabbed a metal cup from a shelf beside the door and darted outside. He had to hurry before the enemy returned.

From his vantage point, Moltke could see into the fields and farmyards below the cemetery. He noticed a boy emerge from a straw thatched barn and run to a well in the courtyard. The lad pulled on the rope hanging from the wooden frame with frantic hands, drawing a tin pail of water from the cool depth. Water sloshed over the bucket as he filled his cup, gleaming in the morning light. It was hot and Moltke’s’ mouth was dry. He had slept until the shifting sun stole the slice of shade provided by the apple tree. Now he sipped at his canteen, draining the last dregs, warm and tasteless. Willie rose, favoring his hand, and stepped over the stone wall.