Page 1 of One Minute Out

ONE

GORNJI CRNAC, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

The grandfather of six stood on his front porch, a cup of tea in hand as he looked out across the valley at the green hills, thinking of the old days.

They didn’t seem so long ago, but still he often wondered where they had gone.

The warm afternoon tired him, and he considered a nap before dinner. It was something an old man would think to do, and this bothered him a little, because he didn’t really consider himself old.

At seventy-five he was in robust health for his age, but back when he was young he had been truly strong and able physically, as well as a man of great power in his community.

But those days were long past. These days he lived here on this farm, never ever ventured off it, and he questioned if his labors in life had amounted to much of anything at all.

Money was no problem—he had more than he could ever spend—but he often pondered his purpose here on Earth. He’d most definitely had a purpose once, a cause he believed in, but now life amounted to little more than his easy work, his occasional pleasures, and the strict rules he’d adopted to live out his days in quiet and in peace.

Another day here, he told himself, reflecting on both the years and the decisions he’d made in life. Good decisions all, of this he was certain. He was not a man to harbor doubts about his actions.

But he was painfully aware that the decisions he’d made had come with a high cost.

The wet heat hanging in the still air tired him even more. He drank down the dregs of his tea, looking out over the lush green hills, contemplating his existence, and he made the final and resolute decision to go back inside the farmhouse to bed.

The old man’s eyesight was not good, but even if he’d had the vision he’d enjoyed in his prime, he would not have been able to see the sniper across the valley, dressed in a green foliage ghillie suit and lying in thick brush 470 meters away, holding the illuminated reticle of his rifle’s optic steady on the old man’s chest.

The grandfather turned away from the vista before him, oblivious to the danger, and started back for the door to his large farmhouse. He put his hand on the latch, opened it, and stepped inside.

There was no gunshot; only the single crow of a rooster broke the quiet of the valley.

•••

Dammit, Gentry, take the fucking shot already.

My finger comes off the trigger. My eye blinks and retracts from the scope. I thumb the safety, then lower my forehead down into the warm grass next to my weapon’s buttstock.

Dude, you suck.

I get like this. Negative self-talk echoes through my brain when I don’t do what I should do, what I’ve told myself I must do.

The voice is annoying, but the voice is right.

Why didn’t I shoot that asshole when I had the chance? I’ve been lying in this sweltering, bug-infested overwatch for two days, my neck and upper back are killing me, and my mouth tastes like something crawled in there and died—a possibility I can’t really rule out.

I’ve had my target in my twelve-power scope six times so far, and I could have taken him the first time, which would put me in Zagreb or Ljubljana or even Budapest by now. Shaved and fed and showered and safe.

Instead I am right here, caked in thick layers of grime and sweat, lying in the itchy grass, and bitching at myself.

I should be gone, and he should be dead.

Retired Serbian general Ratko Babic may look innocent enough now, living quietly on this farm in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just northwest of the town of Mostar. But I know who he is.

And I know what he did.

The old goat may be up to nothing more nefarious these days than harassing his chickens to lay more eggs, but twenty-five years ago, Ratko Babic was a household name, known the world over as one of the worst human beings on planet Earth.

And for the past quarter century he has paid exactly no price for his actions.

I don’t like that shit.

He’s a war criminal, the perpetrator of acts of genocide, and personally responsible for orchestrating the mass execution of eight thousand men and boys over three days in the summer of 1995.

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