bottle of slivovitz, talking and laughing, probably reminiscing about the good old days of killing and maiming. I looked over at them. Then I sat bolt upright, alarmed, as I saw Dragan walking down the street holding a Kalashnikov. Before I could figure out how to react, he aimed the weapon at the sky, howled like a wounded animal, and fired a whole magazine straight up at the stars. I hadn’t heard the loud, curiously hollow sound of gunfire for a long time.
I told myself I should go. I was getting maudlin and weepy again, but more to the point, drink and guns and ex-soldiers were a bad combination. If ‘soldiers’ was the right word. I suspected that the Mostar Tigers had been one of the Bosnian war’s many highly irregular warlord paramilitary units, not part of any formal army. Which made them even more volatile and dangerous. And even if they fired only at the moon, bullets that go up must eventually come down. I remembered reading somewhere that if they tumbled they would only hit hard enough to bruise, but if they came straight back down they could kill you, “space bullets” the article had called them.
I knew I should go. But I felt about as mobile as the concrete block on which I sat. The beer and slivovitz seemed to have hardened into glue in my joints. I just watched and stared as all fifteen of them linked arms and hoarsely began to sing. Some of them began to weep. They were midway through what I had begun to recognize as the chorus when NATO arrived.
Chapter 5 Broken Bridges
They came from both ends of the street at once, two Jeeps with four blue-helmeted soldiers in each, and both of them pulled up on the side of the street opposite me, stopping perpendicular to one another, headlights crossing right where the group of Tigers stood. The Tigers split off into two groups, one facing each Jeep. It was dark but the headlights and bright rear-mounted searchlights of the Jeeps illuminated the scene clearly and kept the British hidden. The block on which I sat was just far enough away that I remained in darkness.
“Put down your weapon
immediately
,” a crisp British voice demanded. His voice was quickly followed by the Croatian translation.
Dragan bellowed something. I didn’t hear what the NATO translator said, but it certainly didn’t defuse the situation. The doors of the Jeeps opened and the soldiers took up armed positions behind them.
“Go fuck yourself,” Josip said loudly, his English slurred and accented but unfortunately very understandable. “This is our city. Our city. We fought for it, we bled for it, we fucking died for it. Fuck you. Fuck NATO, fuck you. This is our home. Our home. Not your home. Ours. So we, we,” he staggered with the force of his inebriated emotion and just prevented himself from falling, “we will do what we want here. So fuck you, fuck every one of you, fuck your mothers, fuck your sisters, fuck your daughters, fuck yourselves, fuck yourselves up the ass, fuck each other, fuck you, fuck off, eat shit and fucking die.”
I thought it was an impressive display of profanity considering that English was at best his second language. The British leader didn’t seem to share my admiration. “You have ten seconds to put down that Kalashnikov,” he said coolly, “or you will be arrested.”
Josip and the NATO translator raced to convey their versions of that. The threat of their leader’s arrest galvanized the other armed Tigers– half a dozen, it turned out, carried small pistols on their persons – into drawing their weapons. No guns had yet been aimed at the NATO troops, but it seemed like just a matter of time.
The British leader agreed with my estimation: I heard him speak, probably into a radio, and calmly report, “This is second squad. Our situation has escalated. Request backup.”
The searchlight of one of the Jeeps described a slow arc around the street and latched onto me. I shielded my face with my arms
I told myself I should go. I was getting maudlin and weepy again, but more to the point, drink and guns and ex-soldiers were a bad combination. If ‘soldiers’ was the right word. I suspected that the Mostar Tigers had been one of the Bosnian war’s many highly irregular warlord paramilitary units, not part of any formal army. Which made them even more volatile and dangerous. And even if they fired only at the moon, bullets that go up must eventually come down. I remembered reading somewhere that if they tumbled they would only hit hard enough to bruise, but if they came straight back down they could kill you, “space bullets” the article had called them.
I knew I should go. But I felt about as mobile as the concrete block on which I sat. The beer and slivovitz seemed to have hardened into glue in my joints. I just watched and stared as all fifteen of them linked arms and hoarsely began to sing. Some of them began to weep. They were midway through what I had begun to recognize as the chorus when NATO arrived.
Chapter 5 Broken Bridges
They came from both ends of the street at once, two Jeeps with four blue-helmeted soldiers in each, and both of them pulled up on the side of the street opposite me, stopping perpendicular to one another, headlights crossing right where the group of Tigers stood. The Tigers split off into two groups, one facing each Jeep. It was dark but the headlights and bright rear-mounted searchlights of the Jeeps illuminated the scene clearly and kept the British hidden. The block on which I sat was just far enough away that I remained in darkness.
“Put down your weapon
immediately
,” a crisp British voice demanded. His voice was quickly followed by the Croatian translation.
Dragan bellowed something. I didn’t hear what the NATO translator said, but it certainly didn’t defuse the situation. The doors of the Jeeps opened and the soldiers took up armed positions behind them.
“Go fuck yourself,” Josip said loudly, his English slurred and accented but unfortunately very understandable. “This is our city. Our city. We fought for it, we bled for it, we fucking died for it. Fuck you. Fuck NATO, fuck you. This is our home. Our home. Not your home. Ours. So we, we,” he staggered with the force of his inebriated emotion and just prevented himself from falling, “we will do what we want here. So fuck you, fuck every one of you, fuck your mothers, fuck your sisters, fuck your daughters, fuck yourselves, fuck yourselves up the ass, fuck each other, fuck you, fuck off, eat shit and fucking die.”
I thought it was an impressive display of profanity considering that English was at best his second language. The British leader didn’t seem to share my admiration. “You have ten seconds to put down that Kalashnikov,” he said coolly, “or you will be arrested.”
Josip and the NATO translator raced to convey their versions of that. The threat of their leader’s arrest galvanized the other armed Tigers– half a dozen, it turned out, carried small pistols on their persons – into drawing their weapons. No guns had yet been aimed at the NATO troops, but it seemed like just a matter of time.
The British leader agreed with my estimation: I heard him speak, probably into a radio, and calmly report, “This is second squad. Our situation has escalated. Request backup.”
The searchlight of one of the Jeeps described a slow arc around the street and latched onto me. I shielded my face with my arms
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