Free Avenger by Frederick Forsyth

lucky on the last.
    The United Nations had created a military 'peace-keeping' force, the usual lunacy of sending a force to keep the peace where there was no peace to keep, then forbidding them to create the peace, ordering them instead to watch the slaughter without interfering. The military were called UNPROFOR and the British government had supplied a large contingent. It was based at Vitez, just ten miles down the road from Travnik.
    The regiment assigned there in June 1995 was recent; its predecessor had been relieved only two months earlier and the
    Tracker traced the colonel commanding the earlier regiment to a course at Guards depot, Pirbright. He was a mine of information. On the third day after his talk with the Canadian grandfather, the Tracker flew to the Balkans; not straight into Bosnia (impossible) but to the Adriatic resort of Split on the coast of Croatia. His cover story said he was a freelance journalist, which is a useful cover, being completely unprovable either way. But he also included a letter from a major Sunday newspaper asking for a series of articles on the effectiveness of relief aid. Just in case.
    In twenty-four hours in Split, enjoying an unexpected boom as the main jumping-off point for central Bosnia, he had acquired a secondhand but tough off-road and a pistol. Just in case. It was a long, rough drive through the mountains from the coast to Travnik, but he was confident his information was accurate; he would run into no combat zone, and he did not.
    It was a strange combat, the Bosnian civil war. There were rarely any lines, as such, and never a pitched battle. Just a patchwork quilt of mono-ethnic communities living in fear, hundreds of fire-gutted, ethnically 'cleansed' villages and hamlets and, roaming between them, bands of soldiery, mostly belonging to one of the surrounding 'national' armies, but also including groups of mercenaries, freebooters and psychotic para militaries posing as patriots. These were the worst.
    At Travnik, the Tracker met his first reverse. John Slack had left. A friendly soul with Age Concern said he believed the American had joined Feed the Children, a much bigger NGO, and was based in Zagreb. The Tracker spent the night in his sleeping bag in the rear of the 4x4 and left the next day for another gruelling drive north to Zagreb, the Croatian capital. There he found John Slack at the Feed the Children warehouse. He could not be much help.
    "I have no idea what happened, where he went or why," he protested. "Look, man, the Loaves 'n' Fishes operation closed down last month, and he was part of that. He vanished with one of my two brand new Landcruisers; that is, fifty per cent of my transportation.
    "Plus, he took one of my three local Bosnian helpers. Charleston was not best pleased. With peace moves finally in the offing they did not want to start over. I told them there was still a lot to do, but they closed me down. I was lucky to find a billet here."
    "What about the Bosnian?"
    "Fadil? No chance he was behind it all. He was a nice guy. Spent a lot of time grieving for his lost family. If he hated anyone, it was the Serbs, not Americans."
    "Any sign of the money belt?"
    "Now that was stupid. I warned him. It was too much either to leave behind or carry around. But I don't think Fadil would kill him for that."
    "Where were you, John?"
    "That's the point. If I had been there it would never have happened. I'd have vetoed the idea, whatever it was. But I was on a mountain road in south Croatia trying to get a truck with a solid engine block towed to the nearest town. Dumb Swede. Can you imagine driving a truck with an empty oil sump and not noticing?"
    "What did you discover?"
    "When I got back? Well, he had arrived at the compound, let himself in, taken a Landcruiser and driven off. One of the other Bosnians, Ibrahim, saw them both, but they didn't speak. That was four days before I returned. I kept trying his mobile but there was no answer. I went ape shit I