11
4 – Souvenirs
Nicolas is the first passenger to arrive.
He takes advantage of it to go to settle down in front of the boat, the back resting against the wall of the cabin, The sailors already work to prepare everything.
A few minutes later, the three men appear and Manolo raises the anchor immediately.
Without taking care of the Frenchman, Jurgen and his accomplices settle down in the cabin.
This one can hear the sound of their voices through the partition.
But, drowned in the darkness, he does not listen to them. He is lost in his thoughts. He remembers his first meeting with them. It was during the first Gulf War and, at that time, he was a captain in the commandos of the French navy.
To weld the armed forces of the various countries of the coalition, the high command had the idea to set up international special units.
About ten of them were so created.
That's how Nicolas was incorporated into naval frogmen's team to whom was allocated a group of dolphins. The idea was that the animal was of use as means of transport to the frogman for travels on important distances in zones where silence had a strategic nature.
The young captain so teamed up with a female as he baptized Cléo. Very fast, the relation between the man and the animal became very narrow. It was at first the big complicity which quickly took an emotional dimension. Nicolas spent a lot of time with Cléo.
In total, about ten naval frogmen from different countries teamed up with cetaceans, so giving birth to a completely operational unit.
Moreover, the first missions were successful.
Another international force was a lot going to make speak about it.
The idea was to set up a squad of commandos of about sixty hardened men, diverse specialists or fighters, capable of infiltrating behind the enemy lines to create the disorder and the destruction there.
It was necessary to entrust this unit to an adventurer leading, real fighter. A name, very fast, was imperative upon all : the colonel Trevor.
This man, young person, sportsman, in athlete's body, had been born for the war. He was living for it. He was breathing it. He WAS the war!
No mission, however difficult it was, did not frighten him. And his service records proved his capacities.
Exceptional leader, in the incontested authority, he was capable of leading to the fight, even the most hesitating.
So he was appointed with an almost unanimous consent. Some, nevertheless, did not appreciate his expeditive methods and, sometimes, inhuman. For him, only the result counted and justified all the rest.
The first missions were almost routine.
To blow up an ammunition stock, to destroy a bridge, to disrupt a provisioning, all these missions were, for him, actions of a disconcerting ease.
One day, the general headquarter gave him a new expedition, which promised to be much more complicated. He had to cross the enemy lines and to find the track of two armoured divisions of the guarding equipped with modern heavy tanks of Soviet manufacturing. Indeed, in spite of the air missions and the satellite cover, the allies did not find the slightest track of them. And, used well, they could establish a formidable weapon which could put in trouble the allied forces.
According to the specialists, the only place where they had been able to be hidden was a mountainous zone of the country.
The geology of places had allowed the creation of numerous holes and caves, among which some were of impressive size.
But, to attack, the top general staff wanted an exact, and only localization. A ground investigation, skillfully orchestrated, could allow to find the good cavities.
The aviation could then, by bombardment, wall up tanks in their hiding place !
The colonel's unit left at the end of the day.
They progressed all night long, silently and without being detected by the opposite forces.
At the crack of dawn, they had almost reached their goal. The important cliffs were in sight.
Then began one exhausting research work. It was necessary, if possible, to find indications of the passage of machines, without being spotted.
It is only at day fall that they were rewarded for their efforts.
A deep valley sank between two high cliffs. A stony way penetrated there because, at the bottom, was a mountain dwellers' village.
Besides, from the beginning of the conflict, a lot of refugees had sheltered there.
Thus, the tracks on the small way were numerous and difficult to decipher.
What drew the attention of the Trevor's unit was that the hard ground of the track was covered by a much softer layer.
Everything seemed to indicate that someone had used a bulldozer or a grader.
Why would he have made it here ? And now ? If it is not to erase the tracks of the passage of vehicles leaving deep imprints, as tanks, for example.
Very fast, Trevor acquired the conviction that armored divisions were in the sector.
It remained only to find them.
But his men were tired and the night practically fallen.
- No need to go to battle completely exhausted. It is better to fight in good conditions, said Trevor to Lieutenant Jurgen, his assistant. If tanks move this night, they will be obliged to pass here. We could not miss them.
« Otherwise, they will be easier to spot tomorrow and we will indicate their position to our aviation.
Jurgen agreed. To penetrate in the narrow pass, when the shadows lengthen and when the darkness confuses everything, would not have been careful.
The night passed. A quiet night, with no problem at all.
The camp had been established in a zone easy to defend.
The successive sentinels, posted all around, had nothing to report.
At this moment, the men were still asleep. Only those of guard were surveying. The day was just dawning.
The east was getting clearer slowly but the shadows were still opaque and masked the details.
This was the moment when everything started.
A commando squad, well trained and obviously knowing the terrain, began its attack.
The sentinels were surprised and quickly submerged. The men, woke up brutally, had difficulties in extricating themselves from their cover.
The confusion was total !
It took only a little moment for Trevor to judge the situation. He gave brief orders, positioned his soldiers who were ready to fight, shook the others.
Very fast, his unit became operational. The fight balanced itself. Soldiers were falling in both camps.
But already, the aggressors dropped out. Once the effect of surprise passed, they preferred not to insist.
They rushed without waiting in the narrow valley and quickly disappeared.
The colonel was mad with rage. He had let himself be surprised and he had excessive losses. Even if he was hard and inflexible, he remained very attentive to the fate of his troops.
Now, he had ten wounded men, of whom three seriously and two deaths.
For him, it was unacceptable because he was going to have to give them up, for lack of being able to transport them.
Furthermore, his mission was not finished yet because he had not still localized the tank divisions and, from now on, he was spotted. His presence was known and he had to expect to see enemy troops unfurling, determined to neutralize his unit.
- Collect everything, we go away, he says suddenly ! Our wounded soldiers who can follow come with us, the others stay here, hoping that they will be quickly found and looked after by our enemies.
« As for us, we have a new mission to be filled. Those who played us this dirty trick will pay for it !
He took out of his bag a map and satellite photos.
- Look, he says to his executives, clustered around him, this valley is a dead end. Our aggressors threw themselves into a place of which they can go out only by here.
« We are going to chase after them and to find them. I make it a personal matter !
When he was in that state, nobody was trying to discuss with the colonel.
That is why everybody obeyed.
The column started, preceded by a few hundred meters by a group of scouts, to avoid any new surprise.
The valley was not very long and, soon, it widened, giving way in a kind of vast circus, in which was the village mentioned on the map.
Trevor arrested his soldiers and called his team leaders to him.
- The bastards whom we pursue can be only in hiding somewhere in this village. We are going to go to dislodge them.
« We are going to take a stand all around the group of houses and we shall attack from all the directions at the same time.
- How are we going to identify our aggressors right between all that people ? There are the villagers and those from below who came to take refuge here, asked one of his non-commissioned officers.
- Who speaks of identifying them, retorted Trevor, looking up and down his interlocutor with a bad look. We have no time to lose ! Kill everybody moves.
- But, there are women, children, old men, so many innocent people who are for nothing there, added another one.
- I don't care, says Trevor. Those who killed my soldiers are there. They are going to pay, somehow or other. I gave an order and it is formal !
- I refuse to execute it, retorted his last interlocutor. I am not here to massacre civilians. Lock the village, OK ! Execute those who attacked us, OK ! But no more ! I am not a criminal.
- And you believe that those who are certainly already on our heels are going to leave the necessary time to you to find the real enemies ?
« Well, that's enough, now join your men ! And no discussion !
- Sorry, colonel, I shall not go, insisted the non-commissioned officer !
- Such an attitude, in wartime, constitutes a treason, and it must be punished as such.
Saying it, Trevor took out his gun and fired.
The man collapsed immediately, dead.
- Other remarks, says Trevor ?
A heavy silence answered him.
- Well, he added, the problem is resolved. Let's go there.
The attack began very quickly, the massacre was total. The "cleaning" of the village was fast… and definitive.
Nevertheless, everything did not take place as Trevor had planned him.
What he did not know was that a NGO had installed a medical unit, to help the populations which took refuge shielded from the fights.
The person in charge, an English doctor, filmed the massacre and rushed to transmit it through a satellite link.
The transfer was executed quickly and discreetly.
When Trevor appeared in front of him, everything was settled.
The meeting between the two men was more than tense, the doctor reproaching his action to the officer.
- I had no choice, said the colonel. Rebels had taken refuge here and I had to dislodge them.
- Ah yes, says the surgeon ?
« This small child was a fighter ? And this old woman also
With each new question, he showed a corpse lying on the ground.
- I have no account to return you, concludes Trevor.
Without a word furthermore, he greeted and turned away.
- We leave, he shouted ! Gathering on the other side of the village !
No way, in fact, to go back down the path taken on arrival.
He had thus decided to go towards the bottom of the circus and to ask to be got back by helicopter.
The answer which reached him was not of the satisfactoriest.
- No available copter. Not before tomorrow. Try to hold to there or return by your own means.
- We do not move, we wait for you, answered the colonel.
Wanting to know if prosecutors arrived and their exact position, he sent a group of scouts advance in the valley. If they met nothing, one of them would come to prevent him and they would leave all there.
Looking forward to the report, the colonel made fit out defensive positions, to avoid any surprise.
Late in the afternoon, the scouts returned. Enemy troops were approaching.
To try to pass in force looked uncertain, with risks of important losses.
Given their speed of movement, opposing troops would not be there before the end of the afternoon of the following day.
Trevor would thus have time enough to make evacuate his troops.
He also learnt that his scouts had located an important entrance of caves of great dimensions, very hard to see because very well dissimulated.
The sought tanks had to be there.
At 4 : 00 pm, the next day, while the enemy units of intervention had not reached the destroyed village yet, helicopters proceeded to the evacuation of the commando squad.
During all the return trip, the colonel did not loosen teeth.
He ruminated his failure. Not only because he had not totally filled his mission, even if he knew more or less where were hidden the armoured regiments, but, above all, because he had been surprised and had lost some of his troops.
And that, he did not forgive himself.
What he did not know either, it is that an unpleasant surprise waited for him upon his arrival at the base.
The images taken by the doctor had been relieved, these last 48 hours, by one of his friends and broadcast on all the major media of the planet.
The horror and the indignation had seized the peoples and their governments.
The scandal was at its peak : allied troops massacred innocent civilians.
All the member countries of the coalition demanded immediate and exemplary penalties.
So when Trevor and his men got off the helicopters, they were immediately disarmed and placed under arrest.
The colonel was charged himself for war crime. He would be summoned, soon, in front of a martial court, and, very probably, condemned.
As for his men, they would be questioned one by one then returned to their country of origin, which would rule on the penalty to be applied.
For the moment, they were locked into a camp kept by the military police.
By subterfuge means, Lieutenant Jurgen managed to know, by the sentinels, the approximate place where his boss was locked and in how long he would be judged.
From the next night, he managed to escape with the majority of his troops, some refusing to continue the adventure.
Once rearmed, he did not have any difficulty to release his superior.
In the early hours, all the troop had disappeared.
The researches to localize and neutralize it were vain.
It seemed to have disappeared !