CHAPTER 1 (rewrite)

ONE
Death offered Cheri Mackenzie an invitation that broiling July afternoon in downtown Sarajevo and she did not want it.

“I can’t die today! I’m. . .I’m. . .I’m wearing a thong!” she incoherently thought with closed eyes. “When they recover my body to ship back home, they’ll know I disobeyed the U.S. Navy’s uniform regs. . .“

“Dumkopf!” shouted Colonel Ralf Gutenberg, interrupting her weird rationale. The German officer piloted the white Renault minibus to a screaming skid to avoid hitting a skinny Bosnian boy in the middle of the narrow street. Momentum veered the vehicle toward the crumbled remains of a gray cement building.

Cheri opened one eye to peak through the windshield just as the skinny kid languished off to the side of the road. He raised his fist and half-heartedly shouted something Cheri couldn’t understand, not that she didn’t know any Serbo-Croatian words. She did. Well, at least to politely order a beer and a pizza from the Heineken Bar, located next to the Holiday Inn where she worked and lived in Sarajevo. The insane German driver was her boss and the director of NATO’s Coalition Press Information Centre.

Cheri yelped and braced herself for impact. The minibus skidded to the left and leaned to a screeching stop, but tapped the crumbled building like a mother gently waking a slumbering child. Considering the building was already in ruins, she decided no further damage was possible.
“Thank God,” Cheri mumbled, glancing over her right shoulder where the minibus touched the building. “I’ll take a few seatbelt bruises over a crushed body, any day!”

Ignoring both Cheri and the skinny kid, the colonel shoved the mini-bus back into gear and sped off. The smell of burning rubber punctuated their departure.

Cheri had no idea where they were headed. The colonel told her ten minutes ago to accompany him on a “secret, personal errand,” and since Force Protection rules mandated the buddy system whenever they stepped outside, she was his “Force Protection.” Never mind that she wasn’t issued an M-16 rifle or even a 9mm pistol like other U.S. troops. Nope, as a U.S. Navy journalist her shooting was done with an old 35mm Canon AE-1 camera her father had given her upon graduation from the Defense Information School in Indianapolis 15 years earlier.

The colonel continued his Mario Andretti style of driving, running through broken intersections, dodging torched vehicles abandoned on the streets, and driving by Braille as they bumped through mortar craters, or “Sarajevo rosebuds” as everyone who had been in country more than a week called the deep asphalt pits.

A black and white puppy of no particular breed zipped out in front of the zigzagging vehicle but the German didn’t notice. He was a driven man with a purpose that Cheri was not privy to. He never slowed down, but kept at the manic speed, and barely missed the bewildered puppy. That’s when Cheri decided to focus upward at what was left of the Sarajevo cityscape. She found the mortar hole patterns in the sides of the buildings more comforting than the view from the front windshield.

She had been in country for twenty-seven days so far, with 145 more to go. Although a sailor, she wore the same camouflage uniform as her Army and Marine Corps brothers and sisters. Her job: to take pictures and write about the 53,000 multinational troops working their asses off to force peace onto the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina for NATO’s IFOR Informer. The bi-weekly tabloid, printed in both English and French, was supposed to promote esprit de corps for the peacekeepers. Cheri believed the Ukrainians, Egyptians, Italians, and other troops that didn’t speak English or French just looked at the pictures and saved the newsprint as toilet paper for when they went out on their daily patrols.

“Who came up with the name ‘IFOR – Implementation Forces?” she turned and asked the colonel, figuring if he was talking, perhaps he’d slow down and maybe drive a little bit safer. And if not, a conversation would at least distract her from his hazardous driving. “I mean, just why does NATO use big long words for something that can be said in half the size and then turnaround and use a cutesy acronym?. . .IFOR. . .Implementation Forces. . . Who really uses the word implementation? I don’t think most Americans can even spell the word.”

“I tink your country came up with the name,” Gutenberg replied curtly without looking at her.

Cheri pictured the Joints Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense and President Clinton in the Oval Office drinking dry martinis, smoking Cuban cigars and conducting a verbal contest to come up with these operational names. For the peacekeeping ops in Bosnia, Operation Joint Endeavour won the title. Judging by the British spin the on word endeavor, the Britain’s Prime Minister John Major must have been invited to that particular soiree.

“Sir, just where are we going on this beautiful sunny day, if you don’t mind me asking?” Cheri questioned in the syrupy voice that usually got her what she wanted. Since he called this a “secret, personal” mission, and told her not to bring her camera, her imagination ran wild with possibility. Maybe he had a mistress on the side. . .perhaps he was the ring leader of an underground poker game? Or maybe he was a bootlegger? The German Army had the best in-country supply system. The inventory included German beer, American whiskey, imported perfumes and even blonde Barbie dolls. “Right, Cheri, he’s risking both your lives with his suicide driving to deliver Barbie dolls,” she chided herself.

“We go to Srpska to pick up a Serbian boy and take him to a specialist here in Sarajevo,” he replied firmly, glancing over at Cheri through his thick wire-framed glasses.

Her hazel eyes widened. She preferred the bootlegged Barbie doll theory. “But Colonel Gutenberg, Sarajevo is all Muslim now. They absolutely hate the Serbs and would kill any Serb stupid enough to step on their side of the boundary. What Serb mother would allow a child to visit the Muslim side?” she asked. “What Muslim doctor would do such. . .such a nice thing for a Serb?”

“Dr. Slovic is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in. . .how do you say. . .pro. .prothothesisis. . “

“Prosthetics?” Cheri offered.

“Yes, that’s the type. Dr. Slovic lost a son from stepping on a mine. He deals with it by helping other mine victims, no matter which ethic group, especially children,” the colonel said as they slammed to a stop at an unmarked intersection.

The conversation did seem to tone down the colonel’s erratic driving some, Cheri noticed, so she asked, “So, how did you get involved with this doctor?”

“I do not believe that is your business,” he said. “We are to pick up this 15-year-old boy, Danis, and drive him through the checkpoints to see Dr. Slovic. That’s it.”

Cheri knew that it would be extremely difficult and dangerous for the boy to cross over the International Entity Boundary Line from the Serb side over into the Muslim side. Although the people were encouraged to cross over to hopefully move back into the homes they had fled during the three-year war, it was still dangerous. Serbs dressed as police officers set up illegal checkpoints to stop Muslims who made it across the IEBL. Often, passengers were robbed. Sometimes they were shot or simply disappeared. The same happened to Serbs crossing into Muslim-controlled areas.

The two ethic groups hated each other. Throw in the Bosnian Croats – in which both groups also despised – and there was so much ethnic hatred burning in Bosnia that it would probably take a century to extinguish it.


Cheri’s rambling thoughts traveled to her mouth, a spontaneous characteristic she was born with, which sometimes got her in trouble. “Sir, I’ve been here about a month now, and I still don’t get it. How is it that the three ethic groups all lived peacefully in this city before the war? I mean they went to school together, played on the same soccer teams, got drunk together in the same pubs. . .then they’re suddenly killing each other. What’s missing from this picture?”

“They no longer are communists,” the stout German tersely replied, and added with emphasis, “Simple as that.”

Cheri tried to stifle a snorted giggle. She loved to bait the old German. With his hefty build and always-serious demeanor, he reminded her of the character Sergeant Schultz on the old TV show, Hogan’s Heroes. Looking at his chubby cheeks and hearing his German accent, he was Sergeant Schultz in Cheri’s mind.

“Vat? You think I am funny about this serious subject?”

“No, no, sir!” she protested, but still not quite controlling the urge to laugh. “It’s just that you make it sound so simple. It’s much more complex than that.”

“Vat’s so complex? Tito and communism forced them to get along as one, big happy communist country. Because of you Americans and your dreams of democracy for all, communism failed. Now, there is no Tito, no communism, so there is no one to force them to get along. They fight like squabbling little school children.”

Gutenberg slowed the minibus as they approached the IEBL. Three Italian armored personnel carriers (APCs) – resembling mini-tanks with heavy-duty wheels instead of tracks – were stationed about 20 yards apart alongside the concertina fence that marked the boundary line separating the Muslim side from the Serb side. Popping out of each armored vehicle’s turret was an armed soldier wearing a bored expression and a helmet with rather effeminate black plumes cascading down.

“Leave it to the Italians to add style to their uniforms,” Cheri snickered. “What’s with those graceful black feathers on the helmets?”

“Those are Italy’s elite Bersagliere soldiers,” replied Gutenberg. “I do not quite know the history, but it is tradition. They are highly noticeable because of those pompous black feathers. They do look rather silly, don’t they?” he turned to Cheri and asked. She thought she saw a smile ready to emerge.

“Yes, but I think I like them. I mean, just how many men in the world would still feel manly in uniform while wearing black feathers? The French, perhaps. But you Germans? No way. American soldiers wouldn’t go for it either, tradition or not.”

Gutenberg weaved the minibus through the maze of barbed wire and criss-cross metal barriers that resembled God-sized heavy metal jacks designed to control vehicles at a snail’s pace. When the minibus reached the end of the metal maze, one of the black-feathered Italian soldiers stopped them and approached Colonel Gutenberg’s window. Another plumed, armed soldier walked around the minibus and then looked inside the windows. Despite having IFOR emblazoned on the minibus sides, the first soldier said, ”Badges, pleeze.”

Cheri pulled her IFOR identification card out of the plastic holder inside her right front pocket. It was in one of those clear plastic holder things attached to a long shoelace-type string on it. She chose to carry it in her pocket instead of around her neck because it got tangled up with her camera strap. She did, however, keep her two dog tags – containing her name, Social Security Number, blood type and religion preference – tucked inside the olive green T-shirt. She taped them together just like a seasoned soldier, to prevent the clanging noise they made with movement.