Nedim, 5, refugee

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

* * * * *

Now (1995)

Robert McCall squinted up at the black dot in the sky.  It grew steadily larger as it approached the lonely runway.  He glanced at his watch.  Four minutes before his expected rendezvous.  By the time it landed and taxied, the plane's arrival would be exactly on schedule.  Say what you would about the Company – and Robert frequently did – they knew how to make the planes run on time.

He looked to his left.  A black van was parked next to his Jaguar.  It had the extended cargo box and no windows.  There was a dent in the passenger-side door, dried mud over the tires, city grime everywhere.  Just another worker's van.  Nothing very noticeable. 

Nothing nearly as attention-grabbing as a hearse.

He looked back towards the approaching plane.  A damp breeze came in off the ocean and he shivered.  It was not cold.  On the last true weekend of summer, the mid-day air was already hot and the humidity was climbing. The sky was oppressively hung with middling-gray clouds that would neither rain nor clear.  Thunder grumbled vaguely in the distance.  

No, Robert knew, it was not cold that made him shiver.  He clasped his hands in front of him and waited.  

The plane landed in a roar of engines and brakes and fumes, slowed to a crawl and turned back towards the tiny metal building that served as a terminal.  Four men – jeans, work shirts, only their short haircuts giving away their true profession – climbed out of the van and waited beside Robert.  No one spoke. 

The plane stopped.  The engines cut, and the field settled into an odd silence, until the sounds of waves and sea birds and traffic and the far-off city asserted themselves again.  A blue-shirted attendant rolled rickety stairs out to the passenger door.  Two more rolled a baggage cart to the cargo door.  The four men from the van followed it.

McCall waited. 

Half a dozen men in dark suits came down the front passenger stairs. Behind them, two men in uniform.  Then two women, the two Robert was here to claim. 

Two of the three.

He walked out to meet them.  Anne Keller walked faster and threw herself weeping into his embrace.  It caught McCall off guard, but he held her tightly.  "There, there," he said.  "Mickey's all right, isn't he?"

She nodded against his shoulder.  Robert could feel her trembling.  He looked up to where Lily stood, a good ten yards off.

Romanov was wearing a faded red baseball cap, with her hair shoved up under it.  No, he realized, that was wrong.  Her hair was short, so short that it barely peeked out from under the cap in jagged bits.  As thin as she was, she looked boyish.  And very, very young.

She also looked blank.

"Mickey's all right?" he repeated over Anne's head.

Lily nodded. 

Annie straightened. "I'm sorry," she said.  "I'm sorry, I just ..."

Robert studied the woman in his arms.  She was much thinner than the last time he'd seen her, and exhaustion was etched on her face.  And something more than that.  Some unbearable grief, something she could not carry alone.  He shifted, tightened his arm around her shoulder.   "Not to worry," he said warmly.  "You're safe now."

The four men carried a heavy wooden box to the back of the van and slid it inside.

"The pictures," Anne said.

"What?"

"The film," she repeated, gesturing towards the van.

"Ah."  Robert understood.  They – likely Lily – had been afraid someone would try to take the film from them, so she'd stuffed it in with the body.  "I'll get it."

He half-expected Romanov to counter his offer, but she remained silent.  He squared his shoulders and walked to the back of the van as they were closing the doors.  "A moment, please," he said simply.

The men shared a look.  Robert didn't know any of them, but they clearly knew who he was. They stepped back, let him climb into the van beside the make-shift coffin.

McCall's hands began to shake. He did not want to do this.  Did not want to undo the cargo straps and open the box and look inside.  But someone had to.  And he had done worse.

With grim quickness, he slipped the buckles open and pushed the lid aside.

Within the larger box was a narrower one, also covered.  Beside it was a zippered black pouch.  Robert grabbed it, felt the film canisters inside.  Good.  He didn't have to view the body at all.  Take the pictures, get out. He reached the pull the lid of the outer box back on.

Then he stopped.  He didn't have to view the body.  But it seemed somehow cowardly not to.  Lily had seen it, and likely Anne, too.  Could he ask them to bear what he had turned away from?  And could he break faith with the woman whose body rested in the box?  Could he turn away from her corpse as too disturbing, too disgusting?

He reached for the inner coffin.  The lid was nailed shut.

With a silent prayer of relief and regret, McCall closed the outer box and stepped from the van.

Anne Keller was still waiting for him, still crying silently.  He put his arm out and gathered her back to his side.  "Is this all of them?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Good."  He did not ask, yet, what was on the film.  Instead he turned and scanned the airfield.  "Where's Lily gone?"

Anne shook her head.  "She was just here."

"Hmm."  He turned to the men with the van.  "Romanov?" he called.

"Gone," one of them answered.

"All right.  Drive carefully."

The man nodded solemnly, and the van pulled away.

"Do you need to go with them?" Anne asked.

"No," Robert answered.  "They'll take care of it.  Her.  The Company is very good at dealing with the dead.  Unfortunately." 

Anne shuddered. 

McCall longed for answers, for information.  He'd been given damnably little.  Control had, in his usual brusque manner, told him only that Nancy Campbell was dead and Keller and Romanov were flying home with her.  That Robert was to recover Anne and her cargo – presumably the film – and await further instructions.  Nothing to explain how the young courier had died, nor why the women with her were so shattered. 

Naturally, nowhere in the brief conversation had the word 'please' been uttered.

And yet, Robert thought, here he was, doing exactly as Control has asked.  No, not asked.  Ordered.

Just like old times.  

He steered Anne towards the Jaguar.  Whatever had happened overseas, she was in no condition to talk about it just yet.  "What you need, my dear, is a hot bath and a good meal."

"What I need," Anne said, with some strength, "is a darkroom."

Robert frowned.  His instructions had not included developing the film.  But then, they hadn't precluded it, either.  And who the hell did Control think he was, to be issuing orders to an agent who had retired years ago?  "As it happens," he answered easily, "I am able to provide all of those things."  He helped her into the car, dropped the film into her lap, and closed her door.    

Circling to the driver's side, Robert glanced back at the airplane.  It was already being fueled for another trip to somewhere.  "Wherever you are, Mickey," he whispered to the sea wind, "keep your bloody head down."

* * * * *

     Terrible reports and pictures are coming in from all over.  Mommy and Daddy won't let me watch TV when the news is on, but you can't hide all the bad things that are happening from us children.  People are worried and sad again.  The blue helmets (actually, they're blue berets) have arrived in Sarajevo.  We're safer now.  And the "kids" [politicians] have retreated from the scene.

     Daddy drove me to the building on the UN peace force command.  He told me that now that the blue flag is flying in Sarajevo we can hope for something better.

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

* * * * *

Then

They were up a tree the first time he saw the cat.

Mickey Kostmayer was ten feet off the ground, with his back to the trunk and his legs resting on a wide branch, and he was half-asleep.  On a branch above him, Lily Romanov was sprawled face-down, her arms and legs dangling over the sides. She looked like some pale, hairless ape. 

Below, something snapped softly across last year's leaves.  It was maybe twenty yards off, on the far side of the trail. 

Mickey sat very still.  They were shielded by this summer's lush green leaves; a casual observer on the trail would never notice them.  He could hear Lily breathing, the slow hiss of deep sleep.  No point in waking her yet.  Whatever it was, it was soft and slow.  One person, maybe two.  Maybe children, as soft as the footfalls were.  Not a Serb patrol.  Not a scavenging band of refugees.  He turned his head slowly so that he could look directly down on the wide trail when they broke cover. 

The sound stopped.  Perhaps they had seen him.  Perhaps they were only watching to be sure the trail was clear.

Kostmayer waited.

They'd been resting for most of an hour.  They'd been climbing for three hours before that.  There were two ways to get to the Muslim enclave of Gorazde:  On the road with the UN convoys, what the locals called the Blue Road, or on foot over the mountain.  The Blue Road was supposed to be safe.  The Serb military and militias were supposed to allow humanitarian aid and observers safe passage.  If you had blond hair and a blue helmet and the correct papers, you could generally pass that way – provided you were with a large-enough convoy.  If you were a Muslim refugee, however, that option was not available.  You climbed the mountain on foot, up the game train through the dense forest, you gathered what aid you could, and you carried it over the mountain again on your back.

And whether your children ate or starved depended almost completely on how often you could make the climb and how much you could carry.

The whole situation, in Mickey's view, was seriously, seriously fucked up. 

It didn't help that he'd seen half a dozen other places – this war and others – where exactly the same thing had happened.

It didn't help, either, that it was a beautiful day.  Early summer, warm sun, cool breeze, miles of shady trees.  Absolutely breathtaking views from every mountain peak.  A challenging climb, if you were doing it for pleasure.  Mickey was trained and fit, with proper footwear.  Except for the threat of being gunned down by roving patrols, it had been a nice hike. 

But the refugees who made this climb to feed their families had none of his advantages.  They were bankers and bricklayers, doctors and accountants.  They wore dress shoes or sneakers or no shoes at all.  Mickey could feel how killing this climb must be for them.

They had passed two unburied bodies and three shallow graves on the way up the mountain.  Lily said there were more.  The refugees made the journey in loose bands, helping each other when they could, but no one would leave his food to carry a dead man off this mountain.

And in the winter...

The footsteps began again. 

From the brush at the far side of the trail, a tailless leopard emerged. 

Not a leopard, Mickey corrected mentally.  There were no leopards here.  It did have the same golden-brown color, the same dark brown spots.  But the thickness of its coat, with a white layer underneath, and the stump that served as its tail were giveaways.  What stood on the trail, looking casually around as if he owned the place, was a Balkan lynx.

The cat turned his head easily and looked up, directly into Mickey's eyes.

For all his years of training, and for all the weapons he carried, there was something deep in Kostmayer's primal soul that screamed, 'Climb higher!  Climb higher!'

He grinned, shrugging off the instinct.  He didn't think the cat could climb.  Or, in any case, that the cat would climb.  Too much fresh meat scattered around on the trail these days; no point killing your own meat.  Although maybe lynx weren't scavengers.  They'd glossed over local wildlife in the briefing. 

The cat sat down on the trail and continued to stare at him.

"Lily," Mickey said, very quietly.

She didn't move, but her breathing changed.  "What?" she answered, at exactly his volume.

"On the trail," he said, his voice reassuring her that it was all right to move.

Lily lifted her head.  "Holy shit."

"Can they climb?" Mickey asked.

"Yes."

"Are they carnivores?"

"Yes."

"Do they scavenge?"

"Probably," Lily answered.  "But we didn't see any evidence on the bodies that he has yet."

"Hmmm."  Mickey moved his hand slowly to the butt of his gun. 

Lily sat up slowly and resettled on her branch.  "He's pretty."

"He's fat," Kostmayer answered.  "I'm not sure that's a good thing."

The lynx stood and stretched.  Then he paced slowly towards them.  His feet were huge, but almost silent on the leaf litter.   He never took his eyes off Mickey.   He walked unhesitatingly to the base of the tree and looked straight up at him. 

"Shit," Mickey breathed.  He thumbed the retaining strap off his handgun. 

Of course, firing a shot up here was likely to bring Serb forces down on them from all directions.

He and the cat stared at each other for ninety seconds.  Then the lynx shook himself indignantly, lifted his leg, and pissed copiously on the tree trunk.

With a final shake, and without a backward glance, the lynx ambled back into the forest.

Lily began to giggle.

Kostmayer threw his head back and laughed out loud.

* * * * *

Now

Lily Romanov waited in the shade of the tin shed until the vehicles were gone.  There were still people milling around, other passengers, airstrip people, but they didn't know her, so they didn't matter.  When the van and the black Jaguar were out of sight down the gravel road, she stepped out of hiding and started to walk.

She didn't know exactly where she was going.  Across the road, into the scrub woods, was as far as her thoughts had taken her.  Away from people who knew her.  Away from the cushiony leather seats of Robert's car, away from his calm and sympathetic voice, away from his comforting arms.  Away from his pale green eyes ...

No, those weren't McCall's eyes.  They were someone else's, and he was already far away.

Further away than she could grasp.

Beyond the thin stand of trees was an empty factory.  There was a chain-link fence, high and rusty.  Lily scaled it easily, dropped lightly onto the broken concrete that had been the employee parking lot.  Trash and leaves gathered in piles against the fence, driven by some long-ago wind.  Dandelions pushed up through the cracks in the pavement and bloomed ridiculously yellow against their gray world.  She bent to pick one.  When was the last time she'd picked a dandelion?  Years on years.  She brushed her finger across the top, looked at the bright yellow pollen on her fingertip.  There were explosives that color.  Then she tucked her thumb under the flower's head.  "Mama had a baby," she chanted softly, "and the head popped off." 

She flicked her thumbnail and watched the blossom fly off the stem. 

Pale green eyes.  Head popped off.

Lily looked around.  She couldn't stay here.  Too open, too exposed.  Too damn many trees.  She needed to move.

She walked along the fence towards the far side, the bigger road.  The air smelled of old rain and rusting metal.  The broken concrete in the dull daylight, the hulking silent building to her left, the half-assed trees that would neither grow nor die.  She'd been here before.  Any minute another shell would come whistling down off the mountain ...

She looked to her right.  There was no mountain.  Only flat, the river, and then the city. 

A small plane buzzed onto the airfield and dropped out of sight. 

Lily paused, orienting. 

She couldn't very well walk back to Manhattan.  She should have gone with Robert, or in the van ... no.  No.  And why couldn't she walk home?  She'd walked a hell of a lot further.  And there would be no shells off the mountain.  She could walk right through the middle of the vast parking lot and no mortar would fall, no sniper would fire ...

She took one step towards the wide open space.  Then she retreated again to the shadow of the fence. 

She'd been here before.  Not in the Balkans, but in Tennessee. 

She wanted the sun to go down.  She wanted the darkness to hide in.

She stuck close to the fence, and she began to walk.

* * * * *

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

* * * * *

Then

His name was Pavle Racz.  He was a small dark man of middle years and striking looks.  Though he shared a table with six other men, he rarely spoke.

He was also a JNA captain.

"Ah, hell," Lily said.  "Are you sure that's him?"

"I'm sure," Harley answered.  "If you got the name right, he's the guy."  He took a sip of his tea.  It was lukewarm and pale; the leaves had probably been used three times already. 

"What do we want him for?" Nancy Campbell asked.

Lily shrugged.  "We just want him."

"We just work here," Mickey interpreted.

"Exactly."

They looked casually across the half-empty coffee house to where their target sat.  His tea was significantly darker than theirs was.  Naturally, the army officers got the best of everything. 

"No play here," Gage said quietly.

"No," Romanov agreed.  "We need him alone."

Kostmayer shifted.  "Can we drop him in a bag?"

Lily shrugged.

"You know," Harley said, exasperated, "just a little more information would be awfully useful right about now."

"If I had it, I'd give it to you," Lily promised. "All I know is that Jason Masur wants him in New York.  In one piece."

The men sighed in unison disgust.

"Isn't he Control's boss?" Nancy asked.

"He likes to think so," Mickey snarled.

"This guy must be really important, then."

"Don't bet on it," Lily answered. 

The four sat in silence again.  "So what do we do?" Nancy finally asked, too eagerly.

"We wait," Kostmayer pronounced.

"Just wait?"

"Yes."

"And watch," Harley added.  "Catch him alone and let Lily talk to him."

"Why me?"  Lily asked.  

Gage raised one eyebrow.  "Because he's a man.  And you, angel, can talk any man into anything."

The courier shrugged.  "That's true."

They sipped their tepid tea and waited.

The Serbs left an hour later.  The spies lingered briefly, haggling over the check.  When they reached the street, all the other officers were gone.  Racz was sitting on a bench at the bus stop.

The buses had not run regularly for a year.

The agents paused on the sidewalk, milling around like their casual date was breaking up.  "If they made us," Harley warned, "this could be a trap."

"One way to find out," Lily answered gamely.  She walked across the street and dropped onto the bench next to him.

The officer glanced at her, then looked away.  "When Tito was in charge, the buses always ran on time."

"And now they don't run at all," Lily answered. 

"Did Jason send you?"

"Yes."

The man stood up, then looked back at her expectantly.  "What took you so fucking long?"

* * * * *

     The soldiers ordered us out of our house and then burned it down.  After that, they took us to the train, where they ordered all the men to lie down on the ground.

     From the group, they chose the ones they were going to kill.  They picked my uncle and a neighbor!  Then they machine-gunned them to death.  After that, the soldiers put the women in the front cars of the train and the men in the back.  As the train started moving, they disconnected the back cars and took them men off and to the camps.  I saw it all!

     Now I can't sleep.  I try to forget, but it doesn't work.  I have such difficulty feeling anything anymore.

Alik, 13, refugee

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

* * * * *

Then

Anne Keller was crunched in the middle of the truck's seat, between the driver and a TV reporter.  They were both large men, and though she knew their presence gave her only a false sense of security, she was glad for it.

It was the third time she'd made the trip from the border to Sarajevo, on the UN-protected highway, with a UN-protected convoy of press and humanitarian aid.  The first time had been terrifying.  Now it was less frightening, but far more depressing.

More buildings along the route had been destroyed.  What had been a beautiful mosque the month before was now a debris-filled crater.  What had been a tall, elegant office building was now two brick walls blackened by fire.  The lovely trees that had lined the road were vanishing, first the lower branches, then the higher branches, then the trunks themselves.  People were using them for firewood.

There was a field that had been full of sheep the first time she traveled to Sarajevo.  She had marveled at how placid they seemed, how very ordinary in the middle of an extraordinary situation.  Two big goats had been with them, guarding the herd from dogs and other predators.  Now the sheep were gone and the goats were rotting heaps near the fence.

There was gunfire from the hills on both sides of them.  Anne was glad the truck had a bad muffler; it drowned out the smaller shots and let her pretend the louder sounds weren't happening.

It would be nothing for a bullet to smash through the windshield and kill her driver.  Or the reporter next to her.  Or her.  Accident of war.  Nothing for the truck to be hit by a mortar or run over a landmine. 

There were soldiers with the convoy, of course, soldiers from half a dozen countries, all in blue helmets.  But they looked nervous and under-armed. 

It was Friday.  She'd been supposed to make the trip on Wednesday.  But as she'd packed her gear in the pre-dawn, Lily Romanov had come to her door with a message.  "Mickey wants you to wait until Friday."

Anne had waited.  The Wednesday convoy been ambushed, gunmen on both sides of the road firing into the trucks.  Six people were injured, one critically.

There hadn't been a warning this morning, so maybe they were safe.

Or maybe Mickey just couldn't get a warning out to her.

It was cheating, Anne knew, that she had special warnings, special Company protection that covered her.  If the reporter next to her got shot, it might take days to get him out; if it happened to her, she was fairly sure the Company would sweep in and rescue her.  All unofficial and off the books, of course, but that wouldn't make her flight home any slower.  She had an unfair advantage.

Of course, if the truck hit a landmine, that advantage didn't mean much either.

False security, she mused.  Like the big guys on either side of her. 

But it was better than no security at all.

* * * * *

     Strangely enough, watching it day after day the war teaches you to get used to blood, you are forced to cope with it.  After a certain point (which comes very quickly) you realize that people are dying in great numbers and bodies simply pile up like an abstract number on the surface of your mind.  In order to survive, you become cruel.  You are touched only if you knew the person who died, because in order to comprehend the reality of death you need to identify it, to get acquainted with it, to personalize it.  Otherwise, you feel the pain but it is vague and diffuse, as if you are wearing metal armor that is too tight.

     What one cannot escape are images of innocence: children's faces, a puppy wandering among the charred remains of village houses, a lying dead newborn kitten in a muddy field with its little head strangely twisted, a lost shoe on a sidewalk.  On Christmas Day the television reports a particularly fierce attack on the town of Karlovac, some forty kilometers from Zagreb.  First the camera showed a distant view of it, with clouds of smoke and dust rising above the rooftops.  Then the camera closed in on a street of half-ruined houses and of soldiers picking up a wounded person – so far, it was a fairly average war report unlikely to change the rhythm of one's pulse.  Only when the camera zoomed in on a little house with two smoldering black holes for windows, did I feel as if I'd been punched in the stomach.  It was a particularly fine day and the burned shell of the house stood outlined against a deep blue winter sky.  A little further on, in front of the house, was a clothes line with a man's freshly washed white shirt and women's underwear on it.  I could imagine a woman, only a short time ago, standing outside hanging it there.  As she returned to the house the bomb fell and everything was over in an instant.  The house was in ruins, the people inside had probably been killed.  Yet, the shirt and underwear were dangling in a light wind, as if the woman would return at any moment to collect it – clean, dry, smelling of the north wind and distant snow-capped mountains.  This was a picture of death itself.

Slavenka Drakulić

The Balkan Express – Fragments from the Other Side of the War 

* * * * *

Now

On the bridge, without warning, Anne Keller said, "We got married." 

McCall glanced away from traffic for a moment.  "What?"

"Mickey and I.  We got married.  Yesterday.  Two days ago."

"Oh."  Robert frowned over the steering wheel.  His hands were inexplicably damp.  "Well ... congratulations are in order, then."

"He doesn't think he's coming home, does he?"

Robert looked over at her again.  She'd stopped crying.  She was calm now, still.  Sad.  "Of course he does," he said, with great confidence.  He patted her knee.  "Of course he does.  I think ..." he paused as a red sports car cut him off "... I think it's probably just a matter of protection."

"Protection?"

"For you.  These pictures ..." He gestured to the bag of film in her lap.  "I gather they're quite provocative."  Anne nodded.  "As the wife of an agent, you see, you're easier for the Company to protect.  To gets its arms around, as it were."

She didn't believe him.  "We got married before the pictures were taken." 

Robert grimaced.  It hadn't been a very good explanation, but he'd hoped it would stand for a moment or two.  "He's been in love with you for a very long time."

Anne nodded.  "I know.  But I still feel like ..." She sighed and looked out the window.  "The pictures."

"We'll be there soon."  Robert reached out and adjusted the car's air conditioner.  He felt quite suddenly chilled to the bone.

* * * * *

     BOREDOM!!!  SHOOTING!!!  SHELLING!!!  PEOPLE BEING KILLED!!  DESPAIR!!!  HUNGER!!!  MISERY!!!  FEAR!!!

     That's my life!  The life of an innocent eleven-year-old schoolgirl!  A schoolgirl without a school, without the fun and excitement of school.  A child without games, without friends, without the sun, without birds, without nature, without fruit, without chocolate or sweets, with just a little powdered milk.  In short, a child without a childhood.  A wartime child.  I realize now that I am really living though a war, I am witnessing an ugly, disgusting war.  I and thousands of other children in this town that is being destroyed, that is crying, weeping, seeking help, but getting none.  God, will this ever stop, will I ever be a schoolgirl again, will I ever enjoy my childhood again?  I once heard that childhood is the most wonderful time of your life.  And it is.  I loved it, and now an ugly war is taking it all away from me.  Why?  I feel sad.  I feel like crying.  I am crying.

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

* * * * *

Then

Lily Romanov waited in the shadows. 

No one paid any attention to her.  Everyone waited in the shadows now.  Waited until the sniper fire subsided, or until they worked up sufficient courage to dart across the street under it.  Waited until they guessed the sniper was taking a piss or lighting a cigarette, and then taking up their life with both hands and running.

While she watched, a man of middle years made the hazardous crossing with a plastic jug of water in each hand.  He moved awkwardly, bent at the waist; she knew from his neighbors that he had a hernia.  A simple matter to treat, in any hospital in the civilized world.

Sarajevo had long-since ceased to be part of the civilized world.

And yet, while she waited, a vision of civilization appeared: A man in a tuxedo, white tie and tails, strode from a nearby building, carrying a chair with one hand, a cello with the other.

Lily rolled up on her toes. It was too bizarre to be true, and yet there he was.  The fabled Cellist of Sarajevo settled his chair in the dusty crater left by a mortar round, flipped his tails with practiced ease, and drew his cello's neck lovingly against his shoulder.  He did not look around for the sniper bullets.  After a moment of thought, he began to play.

The city, for as far as the sound of the strings reached, went silent.  The sniper stopped.

The music rose, sad and sweet, from the crater.  I know that music, Lily thought, but she could not name it.  She took the small tape recorder from her coat pocket, flipped it on and held it loosely at her side. 

Across the street, she saw a women creep from a side door with a small child beside her.  They stopped at the edge of the shadow, and the woman crouched next to the child, hugging him and urging him to listen.  The child began to cry, but his hands reached towards the cellist.

The piece ended.  The cellist bowed his head for a moment, then stood, took his chair and his instrument, and went calmly back inside.

The mother and child also went inside.  Another woman raced across the open street.  The sniper shot at her, but the bullet plinked off the concrete a few feet behind her. Lily Romanov waited. 

Two hours passed before the man, in dull gray street clothes, left his building again.  He slid along the sidewalk in shadow, turned at the next corner, probably to go wait in the bread line.

Lily waited still, counting to a thousand, and then she moved.  The lock on the front of the building was broken.  The lock on his apartment door scarcely slowed her down.  It had been a beautiful apartment once, with grand picture windows looking out over the street.  The windows had long-since been shattered; plastic waved ineffectively over them.  She moved along the back wall of the room into the safe hallway, then into his bedroom. 

The cello stood alone in the corner of the room, alone, silent, brave.  Lily reached and touched its varnished shoulder in a gentle caress.  Suddenly, unexpectedly, she was weeping.  She brushed at the tears, then let them fall.  They seemed right.  

She moved swiftly, dropped her pack onto the bed, opened the bottom compartment, and retrieved a slender white bag.  Scott and Becky had given it to her at their wedding, and she had hauled it all over the God-forsaken Balkans without knowing or questioning why.

Lily slid the packet of new strings under the pillow of the Cellist.  Then she smoothed the pillow down, brushing her tears from the old linen, and quickly left the apartment.

* * * * *

PRAYER OF HOPE - READER 1

From "The Cellist of Sarajevo" by Paul Sullivan [Adapted]

     In May of 1992, a bakery in Sarajevo which happened to have a supply of flour was making bread and distributing it to the starving, war-shattered people. At 4 PM a long line stretched into the street. Suddenly, a shell fell directly into the middle of the line, killing 22 people outright and splattering blood and gore over the entire area.

     A hundred yards away lived a 37-year-old man named Vedran Smailovic. Before the war he had been principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera Company—a distinguished and civilized job.

     When he saw the massacre outside his window, he was pushed beyond his capacity to endure anymore. Driven by his anguish, he decided he had to take action, so did the only thing he could. He made music.

     Every day thereafter, at 4 PM precisely, Mr. Smailovic would put on his full, formal concert attire, and walk out of his apartment into the midst of the battle raging around him. He would place a little camp stool in the middle of the bomb craters, and play a concert to the abandoned streets, while bombs dropped and bullets flew all around him.

     Day after day, he made his courageous stand for human dignity, for civilization, for compassion, and for peace. As though protected by a divine shield, he was never hurt, though his darkest hour came when, [as he took a little walk] to stretch his legs, his cello was shelled and destroyed where he had been sitting.

"Prayer of Hope"

George Van Grieken, FSC

* * * * *

Then

When the line at the buffet table finally slowed to a trickle, Becky Baker loaded up a plate for herself and sank wearily into a chair next to her husband.

Scott was still dressed in black.  The orchestra had abandoned formalwear after the third stop on the tour, both for convenience and because the dry cleaner had lost or stolen half their tuxes.  Now he wore a black t-shirt and pants.  He was still damp with drying sweat.

"Did you get enough to eat?" Becky worried.  His plate was still half-full, which was unlike him.

"It's my second," Scott assured her.  "Eat."

She took a mouthful of eggs and glanced around.  The buffet was still fine.  The crowd was beginning to thin as musicians and dancers and crew got their fill and headed up to their hotel rooms, either to shower or just to fall into bed.  Some of the name stars would be out at fancy restaurants or clubs, of course, but most of the road company just wanted to come back to the hotel, eat and collapse.  "How was the show tonight?"

"Same as always."  He ran his hand through his blond hair.  It was limp with sweat.  "Donny broke a string."

"That's bad."

"We managed.  The pit was hot as hell."

"I can tell," Becky said, playfully fanning away from her nose.

"Gee, thanks." 

One of the dancers, a tiny Hispanic girl, came over and gave Becky a kiss on the cheek.  "Thank you for breakfast, chica.  It was delicious."

Becky grinned, blushing.  "Get some sleep, Rosa."

"On my way."

When she was out of earshot, Scott said, "At least I smell better than her."

"She works harder than you do."

He made a face.  "I'm not letting you hang with the dancers any more.  They teach you bad things."  But he leaned to kiss her anyhow.

"Don't you two have a room for that?" a woman asked disdainfully.

They broke from the clinch and looked behind, expecting another company member.  Instead, they found Lily Romanov.

"Hey!" Scott said.  He stood up to embrace her, hesitated.  "I smell bad."

"So do I," Lily replied, hugging him anyhow.  She turned from him and hugged Becky as well.  "How've you been?"

"You look hungry," Becky said.  "Let me get you a plate."

"Thanks, I'll just keep this one."  Lily gestured to the plate that she'd set on the table next to them.  It was loaded with food. "Your security isn't very good.  They just let me wander in."

"You looked like you needed a good meal," Scott answered. "Eat."

"I like you people.  You keep trying to feed me."  Lily smiled and began to eat with one hand.  With the other, she reached into her pocket and brought out a miniature tape recorder.  "I have a musical trivia question for you."

"For me?"

"Yeah, for you."  She clicked the recorder on.  The tape quality was terrible, scratchy.  Then the notes of a single cello began to rise from it.  Even on the tiny recorder, the music's quality was obvious.  "What is this?"

"It's a cello," Scott said.

Lily sighed.  Then she picked up a spoon and rapped him lightly between the eyes with it.  "I know it's a cello.  I saw it.  What's the musical piece?"

Scott listened, puzzled, and shook his head.  "I've heard it, but ... did you come all the way to Berlin to ask me this?"

"No.  I came all the way to Berlin to get a decent meal," the spy answered, with her mouth full.  "But I need to know what this is.  It's driving me nuts."

The musician listened again.  The music was flowing, graceful.  In a minor key. Lyric.  He couldn't place it.  Not one of the major composers.  Something odd, something curious about it.  It was music with a story, somehow.  He just couldn't remember what it was. 

He looked around the room.  Joe Bradley, the concertmaster, was just getting up.  "Hey, Joe.  Can you listen to this?"

Bradley came over.  He looked at Lily curiously for a moment, then remembered where he'd seen her before.  "You're Scott's step-mother, right?" he said by way of greeting.

Lily smiled easily.  "No, unfortunately we called it off."

"Oh.  I'm sorry to hear that."  His eyes lit up.

Scott winced.  If his friend only knew.  "Joe, what's this piece of music?"  He took the recorder and rewound the tape.

"Sounds like crap," Bradley said.

"It was all I had," Lily apologized.

Bradley eyed her again, and Scott could see the violinist seeing past the beautiful woman now, to the fact that she was thin and ragged and fairly dirty. 

Then the music caught his attention.  "Oooh," he said slowly.  "That." 

"I know I've heard it before," Lily said.  "But I can't remember where."

Bradley nodded.  "Sure.  Space: 1999."  They looked at him blankly.  "The TV show?"  He sighed. "Sci-fi is lost on the young.  It's Albinoni."

Scott slapped the table.  "That's it. The Dresden piece.  "

"The what?" Becky asked.

"The library in Dresden was bombed during World War II," Lily explained.  "They found pieces of this music, scattered."  She nodded in satisfaction.  "That's it."

"'Adagio in G Minor,'" Bradley supplied.  "What's so important about it?" 

Lily stuffed a small link sausage into her mouth and chewed swiftly as she tucked her little cassette recorder away.  Then she brought out a folded newspaper clipping and handed it to Scott.  "Here," she said.  "Thanks for breakfast. And the strings."

She picked up two more sausages with her bare fingers and was gone before they could protest.

Gingerly, Scott unfolded the paper and the three of them bent over the story of the Cellist of Sarajevo.

* * * * * 

Control's secretary answered the phone on the second ring.  "Webster Expediting."

"It's Romanov," Lily said.  "Is he there?"

"He's out of town," Sue answered promptly.  "He's expected back tomorrow morning."

There was a moment of silence.  The secretary could hear traffic in the background, heavy trucks and speeding cars.  Then the courier said, "Okay.  Thanks."

"Where are y…"

The phone was already dead.  As she put it down, it rang again in her hand.  She snatched it up.  "Web…"

"It's me," Control barked.  "Have you heard from Romanov?"

Sue shook her head.  It was creepy, the way he did that, and he did it all the time.  "She just called."

"Where is she?"

"She didn't say.  And she hung up on me."

There was an instant of pause, in which the secretary could picture Control's eyes going too narrow, too hard.  "What about McCall?"

"Not a word."

An exasperate sigh.  "All right," he said gruffly.  "If Romanov calls again, get a location."

"Yes, sir."

The phone went dead again.

* * * * * 

     Again there is no electricity, no water, and wild snipers are aiming at workers who have come to repair the broken cables.  Next to the electrical power station, at the fountain, a woman was killed while she tried to fill her buckets. In the parks people lop green branches by the hundreds off the trees.  Looking out my window, I saw a man, well groomed and wearing a neatly ironed white shirt, bend down to pick up a cigarette butt that had lain there God knows how long.  I can imagine what he must have felt like as our eyes met; for a moment, his hand hovered over the butt before he picked it up. 

     Everybody is talking about next winter, that it is approaching, slowly but steadily.  Despair envelops the city since, apparently, there is no way out of this madness.  At the hospital, a thirteen-year-old girl who had lost her right arm and left hand tried to commit suicide.  She didn't succeed – not this time.

Zlatko Dizdarević

Savajevo – A War Journal

* * * * *

Now

McCall was outside his apartment building, trolling for a parking spot, when his phone rang.  He scowled and snapped it up.  "McCall."

"You have the women?"

Robert's scowl deepened.   "Ah, Control, so nice to hear from you," he said with openly false cheerfulness.  "I'm fine, thanks for asking, and you?"

"Robert."

"Anne's with me.  We have the film.  We're going upstairs to develop it now." 

He waited, half-expecting Control to order him not to.  It would just make doing it that much sweeter.  But after a beat, the spymaster said, "Good.  Pick out the best few."

"And then what?" Robert wondered.

"I'm working on something," Control answered vaguely.  "I'll let you know."

"I am not going to suppress these pictures for you, Control."

Control chuckled.  "If I needed them suppressed, old son, I wouldn't have sent you to pick them up.  Where's Lily?"

"She left us at the airstrip."

There was another beat.  "I'll call in two hours," Control said briskly.  "Don't do anything until then."

"I shall wait patiently by my phone," Robert answered dryly.

"Robert?  Stay sharp."

McCall's eyes narrowed.  He wondered what Control had gotten him into, and how deeply.  "I always do."

He put down the phone and looked over at Anne.  "Well."

"He's going to try to bury them, isn't he?"

"The pictures?"  A spot miraculously opened and Robert gunned the Jaguar into it.  "No.  As he so rightly pointed out, if he was, he wouldn't have sent me."

Anne sighed and hugged the bag of film against her chest.  "Oh, Robert ..." she began shakily.

"Shhh," McCall soothed.  He had the very strong feeling that he didn't really want to know what was on that film.  But that wasn't an option. "Let's go inside."

* * * * * 

     This morning a man told me, "From my window I saw a heartrending scene.  My neighbor was killed by a sniper bullet.  For several days we tried in vain to take his body to a cemetery.  Finally, we had to bury him in front of a building.  His friends made a coffin out of a kitchen table and a wooden sign.  They managed to bury him, under sniper fire…."

Zlatko Dizdarević

Savajevo – A War Journal

* * * * *

Then

Lily Romanov adjusted her loose jacket again.  No matter how she wiggled, the bullet-proof vest underneath itched.  It was probably psychological. 

"Are we ready yet?" Stock asked companionably over her radio.

"Nah," Mickey answered.  "The girl's still getting dressed."

"Women!" Stock snorted.

"Kiss my ass," Lily murmured in the general direction of her pick-up mic.

"Tempting," Stock answered immediately.  "When and where?"

Lily sighed.  "I love you, Stock, but I don't think you could handle it."  She looked out of the shadows towards the warehouse.  Half the damn city was in a perpetual black-out, but here, on this street, the lights stayed on.  There was a street lamp right over the door.  She wondered who had been bribed and how much. 

On the other side of the street, at a dark window, a sniper waited.

Mickey said he knew which window.  But there was no way to know for sure – except one.  "I think I'm ready," she sighed.

There was a five-second pause.  Then Kostmayer said quietly, "Good to go."

Stock immediately answered, "Go here."

Lily took a deep breath.  "You know, if he takes the head shot ..."

"He hasn't so far," Mickey answered. 

"Yeah.  I know." 

They'd been watching the sniper for two days.  He shot for the heart, consistently.  And accurately.

"Going," Lily announced.  She stepped out of the shadow and slid along the front of the building.  She moved slowly, looking around as if she expected an attack.  Everybody knew about this warehouse.  Make the sniper believe she thought he'd taken the night off.  Let herself be tense, but not not not look up towards the windows where she knew the sniper probably was.

She made it all the way to the door without incident.  Maybe he really had taken the night off.

Lily turned her back to the possible sniper to study the lock on the door.  It was just a basic padlock, big and clumsy.  She reached into her jacket pocket for her picks.  Get it open and get out of sight before the bastard came b--

The bullet caught her in the center of her back and slammed her face-first into the door. 

"Fuck!" she said as the impact forced all the air from her lungs.   She crumpled and lay absolutely still on the pavement. 

"You okay?" Kostmayer asked from her radio.

"Don't know," Lily muttered.  She couldn't catch her breath enough to form real words.  But the fact that she could talk at all probably meant that she wasn't fatally wounded.  Probably.  Her back hurt like hell in a radiant circle around the hit.  She couldn't tell if the bullet had gone through or not.  "Get him?"

"I got him," Mickey assured her.  "Give him a minute to stick his head up."

That was part of his pattern, too.  He'd get one shot off, then duck down below the window.  He was patient, waiting three or four minutes before he came back up to check his kill.

"You got him, Stocky?" Mickey asked.

"Third from the left, second from the top," Stock answered promptly.

"That's the one.  Hang on, Lil.  We'll get him."

Lily tried to lay still.  Her back hurt.  Her front hurt.  Her nose was bleeding; she could feel the warmth dripping down her face.  The damn door was still locked, the lock swinging tauntingly above her.  And to the north, the refugee camp was silent.

The children had stopped crying two days ago.

She kept her eyes closed and waited.

It hurt to breath.  As the pain in her back faded, she could feel the broken ribs – and there was no doubt they were broken – begin to scream.  What the hell?  Then she remembered the door handle, a slender steel pull.  She'd crunched against it when she got hit.

"Fuck," she said again.

"Wait," Mickey murmured.

Lily's lungs felt heavy, full.  She wondered if her ribs had punctured her lungs.  She wanted to cough.  But the sniper thought she was dead, and dead people did not cough.  To cough now was to invite him to take the head shot to finish her off ...

... but she couldn't help it, she was drowning ...

"Wait," Mickey said again.

Be still, Lily told herself.  Be still, be still, and live. 

... she couldn't breathe, she had to cough ...

Be still.

And then above her two rifles cracked with only a sliver of silence between them.  There was a grunt, and then the sniper's body thudded to the pavement five feet from hers.

Lily rolled to her knees and coughed.  It hurt like a bitch.  She was still on her knees, clutching her ribs, wheezing, when her companions reached her.

"You want some help up?" Kostmayer asked.

"Give me a minute." 

Stock stepped around her and opened the lock.  Then he stooped and gathered her picks for her.  "Nice work."

Romanov sat back on her heels.  "You, too." 

She looked towards the gate.  A handful of refugees had begun to gather there, curious and hopeful.  Lily nodded.  Stock went over and opened the gate's lock, too.

Mickey helped Lily to her feet and steadied her.  "Your nose is bleeding," he observed, handing her a dirty bandana.

"My ribs are smashed to hell," Lily answered.  But upright, she was breathing a little better. 

Kostmayer threw the warehouse door open as Stock returned.  "We're going to get in so much trouble for this."

"Yeah," Lily agreed.  She put her hand on Mickey's shoulder and they moved off slowly, stepping over the dead sniper and ignoring the growing crowd of refugees that began to plunder the warehouse behind them.

* * * * *

     Our own tiresome sniper, we call him "Jovo," was in a playful mood today.  He's really out of his mind.  There he goes!  He just fired another bullet, to shake us up.

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

* * * * *

Then

Lily had her back to the door, but she could tell when Control entered the room just by the way Walker's voice faltered, even before he said, "Sir?"

She glanced over her shoulder.  Her ribs ached at the twisting movement, but she kept it off her face, she thought.  Beside her, Simms rose to his feet.  "Something you need, sir?"

"Something you need," Control answered evenly.  "Someone else to go back to Belgrade.  Miss Romanov will be staying home for a few weeks."

"Why?" Walker demanded.  "We've got ..."

Control strode behind the desk.  With a glance, he both silenced the lieutenant and moved him out of his own chair.  He sat down, sat back, clasped his hands behind his head, the very picture of casual conversation.  "Tell him why."

Lily licked her lips.  "Why?"

"How many broken ribs do you have, Miss Romanov?"

She let out a slow breath with a soft curse.  "Five."

Control nodded.

"You didn't tell us you were injured," Simms said.

"It didn't seem important," Romanov answered.  "I can still work."

The men both looked back at Control.  He studied her for a moment, then sat forward, put his elbows on the desk.  "Tell us about the warehouse," he said.

Simms said, "I gave you the report, Control."

"I read the report, James," Control answered, still without a snap.  "And it was somehow incomplete."  He continued to stare at Lily.

She didn't want to look at him, and she couldn't look away.  She had hoped she could get in and out without him knowing.  He was supposed to be in Washington.  It had been a stupid hope.  The man knew everything, always.

And he was pissed.

Lily sat up straighter, trying to ease the suddenly sharper pain in her half-healed ribs.  "We got a tip that the warehouse was a weapons cache.  We went to check it out, secure it if necessary.  There was a sniper in a building to the north.  We could not approach the warehouse entry."

"No rear door?" Walker asked.

"It backed up the river.  We didn't have a boat available."

He nodded.  "I see."

"Go on," Control prompted. 

"We decided to neutralize the sniper, as per procedure," she continued.  "Kostmayer got a good position on him, and I acted as a decoy to draw him out."

"You put on a vest and went out into the firing range," Control interpreted.  His voice was just discernibly frosty.

"Yes.  He popped up, and Mickey shot him."

"After he got a shot off."

"Well ... yes."  Lily stirred. "But not a good shot."

"It hit you," Control observed dryly.

"It hit the vest.  It knocked me against the door handle.  No big deal."

He raised one elegant eyebrow. "It would have been a damn big deal if he'd taken the head shot."

Lily looked at the desktop.  "But he didn't."

Simms stirred uneasily.  "So you got into the warehouse.  What about the weapons?  It's not in the report."

"There were no weapons," Control predicted.

"There were no weapons," Lily confirmed.  "The tip was bad."

"So you secured the warehouse and left the area," Control continued.

Lily hesitated.  He already knew.  There was no point in lying.  "We ... may have neglected to lock the door behind us."

Control nodded slowly.  "And the warehouse was subsequently looted by inhabitants of a nearby refugee camp."

She blinked innocently.  "Was it?  That's unfortunate.  But really not our problem."

"What was in the warehouse?" Walker asked.  "If it wasn't weapons, what was it?"

"Food," Lily answered.  "The warehouse turned out to be food storage for one of the NGO relief organizations."

"And the NGO is now screaming bloody murder to their favorite senators because you left the door unlocked," Control snarled.  "And the senators are screaming at the DCI, who is screaming at me."

Lily considered.  At least she knew now how he'd found out.  "When we confirmed there were no weapons, we thought it best to vacate the area immediately."  She nodded to herself.  "Besides, I think the lock was busted."

Control looked at Walker and then at Simms.  "Do you understand what they did?"

Simms nodded slowly.  "They broke into the wrong warehouse, then left it unsecured.  It's a screw-up, sure, but I don't see ..."

"They broke into the right warehouse," Control interrupted.  "They never expected to find weapons there.  Though if pressed I'm sure the whole pack of them can provide the name of their informant.  They knew the warehouse was full of food.  So did the sniper.  So they risked her life," he gestured sharply at Lily, "to draw fire, they took out a sniper, they broke the lock, and they left the relief supplies to be looted.  I know what they did," he snarled.  "What I want to know is why."

He stared at Lily.  The others stared at her, too.  After a long moment she sat up straighter.  "The houses around the refugee camp.  They heard children crying.  All night, every night, children crying.  They complained to the U.N. soldiers that the crying kept them awake.  And then it stopped."

Simms leaned forward.  "The children stopped crying?  Why?"

Control stood up and went behind the chair, gripped the back in both hands.  "They were too weak to cry," he said flatly.

"They were starving to death," Lily said, equally flat.  "The warehouse was full of food, and the children were starving to death."

"Why?" Simms asked.

"They were the wrong religion," Lily said.  "The NGO wouldn't feed them."

"There are channels for addressing those issues," Control snarled.

"It would have taken weeks.  They would have starved in days."

"So you took it on yourselves to correct the situation," Control said.

Lily shifted again.  "We thought there were weapons in the warehouse," she repeated firmly.

"We do not use Company assets for humanitarian missions," Control snapped.  "Do you understand that?  You are not going to get your pretty little head blown off because you don't like some NGO's distribution policies. Is that clear?"

She sat very still.  "So next time we should just let them die?"

There was silence.  Simms glanced at Walker, waiting for the explosion.  It never came.

Control released the chair back and straightened.  "Next time," he said, very precisely, "you advise me, and trust that I will address the situation."

There was an even longer silence.  "Agreed," she finally said, very quietly.

"Good."  He considered her for a moment.  "Stay home until Medical clears you."  He dismissed her with a shake of his head, turned his attention fully to Simms.  "What word are we getting from Gdansk?"

Lily stood and walked out very quietly, without looking back. 

* * * * *

     This is the worst memory in my heart ... I wouldn't want anyone to experience it.  The women and children are being taken away by force to the detention camp.  I can't get the picture out of my head because I've experienced it myself.

Mario, 13, from Dubrovnik

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

* * * * *

They'd laid over outside Berlin for several hours, long enough for Lily to have what was left of her hair treated for lice.  It was easy there, on base; they were used to seeing shady people coming back from the war zone with parasite infestations. 

"What the hell did you cut this with?" the med tech had asked while she combed Lily's hair for nits.

"It itched," Romanov had answered simply.

"I bet." 

That had been the end of the conversation.  Lily had thrown on a baseball cap from the lost and found and gone back to the airstrip.

Now, as she walked out of the warehouse district with no destination in mind, she came to a dismal strip mall.  A laundromat, a bar, a convenience store with bars in the windows, a check-cashing place with even heavier bars.  And a beauty salon.  The sign in the window said they were having a five dollar sale.  Walk-ins welcome.

Lily walked in.

The three beauticians were lounging in front of a fan, smoking and sweating in the steamy little salon.  "Help you?" the largest of them said.

"My boyfriend's kid," Lily said, taking her hat off.

"Holy shit."

"Yeah."  She sighed.  "Can you fix it?"

"Your hair or the kid?"

"The hair," Lily said wearily.  "I'm ditching the boyfriend if he doesn't fix the kid."

"He won't."  The woman lumbered to her feet, gestured to the wash sink.  "I tell you what, a man will never side with you against his own kid, no matter what the little brat does."    

"Yeah," another beautician said.  She was so skinny her collar bones stuck out.  "And God forbid you should ever lay a hand on the little bastard."

"All I did was yell at her and he had a fit," Lily moaned.  She leaned back, moaned again as the hot spray hit her head.  "I'm goin' out drinking tonight."

The ladies started talking, about drinking, about men.  Lily let them run, speaking only as often as she needed to.  It was soothing to hear their voices.  Soothing to have firm, quick hands working through her hair.  The beautician cut quite a lot off the left side; Lily had twisted it before she'd cut it, and the knife had left a sharp angle.  She raised her eyes to the mirror.  It was going to be really short. 

She let her eyes fall to the floor again.  She didn't care.  She just wanted to walk down the street without attracting attention. And to listen, just for a few minutes, to simple, good-natured gossip.

* * * * *

Then

Mark O'Donnell was holding a crap hand, trying to bluff with a pair of sixes, when he died.

They were in a house in Sarajevo, he and his team, still header by Ted Roelen.  Kostmayer was with them, and Jimmy.  They were waiting for supplies and orders.  Romanov was coming in from Berlin.  Chances were good she'd have Nancy with her.

They had scavenged for food first, found three dusty jars of cherry preserves in the cellar, scarfed them down on some of the relief bread, brewed tea from leaves that had already been used too often.  Then they settled in to wait over a few friendly rounds of poker.

Sniper fire sounded from the mountain, with an occasional ricochet or window breaking.  The men paid no attention.  Sniper fire was a fact of life in Sarajevo.  The front of the house had been peppered with bullets.  But they were in the back room, on the side away from the mountain, and the gunfire did not concern them.

Mark said, "I'll raise you ..." and then he froze.  He had his cards in one hand, a stack of chips in the other.  The chips fell first, and then the cards and then Mark leaned slowly forward and his head sank gracefully to the table.

The men with him complained, kidded him.  Urged him to sit up and place his bet like a man. 

Then they saw the hole in the wall behind him. 

Then they saw the hole in his back. 

It had been a blind shot, through a broken window, through two plaster walls, through the heart of a young agent. 

* * * * *

     I was almost positive the war would stop, but today ... Today a shell fell on the park in front of my house, the park where I used to play and sit with my girlfriends.  A lot of people were hurt.  From what I hear Jaca, Jaca's mother, Selma, Nina, our neighbor Dado and who knows how many other people who happened to be there were wounded.  Dado, Jaca and her mother have come home from the hospital, Selma lost a kidney but I don't know how she is, because she's still in the hospital.  AND NINA IS DEAD.  A piece of shrapnel lodged in her brain and she died.  She was such a sweet, nice little girl.  We went to kindergarten together, and we used to play together in the park.  Is it possible I'll never see Nina again?  Nina, an innocent eleven-year-old little girl – the victim of a stupid war.  I feel sad.  I cry and wonder why?  She didn't do anything.  A disgusting war has destroyed a young child's life.  Nina, I'll always remember you as a wonderful little girl.

Zlata Filipovic

Zlata's Diary – A Child's Life in Sarajevo

* * * * *

Then

The black limousine pulled up just as they were bringing the coffin out of the plane's cargo hold. 

Nancy Campbell barely noticed it.  She was watching the coffin, hoping they wouldn't drop it on the way to the van.  There were only four men – shouldn't there be six? – but they were strong, confident.  They moved quickly.

Mark hadn't really been a very big man.

"Nancy."

The courier twirled and looked up into the narrow blue eyes of her boss' boss.  "C-Control."

"You can ride back to the city with me."  He put his hand on her shoulder.  His fingers were long, gentle, but soothing in their strength. 

"I – I can't."

He raised one eyebrow.

"I'm going back with the plane," she explained.  "As soon as it's refueled."

Control shook his head.  "No.  You need to take some time off, Nancy.  I know you and Mark were close.  Give yourself a little time to process what's happened."

As much as she liked his touch at the moment, Nancy made herself pull away from it.  "What happened was that Mark was killed.  And the people that killed him are still over there, and still killing people.  I'm going back."

He studied her for a long moment, not trying to disguise that he was judging her.  Campbell was very aware that it was a close call.  If he said no, she was going back to the city with him, in his car or in his trunk.  If he believed that she could continue, she could be back in Sarajevo by the next day.

The work mattered.  The information, the equipment that she carried, it was important.  It was more important than sitting in her lovely little apartment crying her eyes out because the man she loved had died in a stupid poker game. 

If she could work, she wouldn't have to grieve.  At least not yet.

Control said, "You can't hide from it forever, Nancy."

She jumped, startled by his intuition.  Was she that transparent, or were all agents the same?  But she took a deep breath and shrugged.  "I can hide for a while," she answered. 

He hesitated a moment more, his blue eyes piercing through her as if he could see all her thoughts, all her feelings.  Then he nodded and gestured to the car.  His driver walked over with a fat envelope.  "Get this to Romanov," he said, putting it in her hands.

It felt like cash.  It probably was.  There had been a time when carrying a two-inch stack of bills would have alarmed her.  Now it was an ordinary occurrence. She tucked the money into her pack.  "Thank you."

Control touched her shoulder again.  "Be safe," he said.  Then he turned and strode back to his car.

The van pulled out of the parking lot, and the limo followed.

Nancy Campbell walked slowly, dry-eyed, back to the plane.

* * * * *

     'I'd just picked up my daughter Ivana from her kindergarten and as I walked across the street near my house, on the opposite side I noticed this woman.  She was ordinary looking, blonde, middle-aged and overweight.  She was carrying two plastic bags with some food.  It was late afternoon and I imagined she was heading home from her job in the city.  When she was about to cross the street a grenade hit her directly from somewhere above.  First she was lifted in the air – for a moment it looked as if she was flying – then she landed at my feet.  She lay there motionless with blood coming from what seemed to me like a thousand holes all over her body.  I looked at my daughter.  She stood there, with her eyes open wide with horror.  She didn't look at me, she didn't move or say anything and when I took her in my arms, she was rigid, as if frozen.  The next day we left.'

Slavenka Drakulić

The Balkan Express – Fragments from the Other Side of the War 

* * * * *

Now

It was crowded in the little darkroom, but Anne had asked him to stay.  McCall stuffed himself as far back in the corner as he could.  She didn't need his help; Anne Keller had been a professional photographer years before Robert met her.  But she did need his company.  Whatever was on the film, and in her memories, the young woman could not bear to be alone with it.

It was the least Robert could do.

 He wanted very much to ask about Mickey and about their shotgun wedding.  But Anne was tight-lipped, intent on her work.  It would have to wait.

There had been thirteen rolls of film in the zippered bag.  Each canister was neatly labeled in permanent marker on the lid.  The one Anne Keller had chosen to develop first was marked simply with a big black X.

When the proof sheet went into the last bath, she finally spoke.  "What did Control say about these?"

"That we should wait to hear from him.  But he did promise he wouldn't try to suppress them.  Which means, of course, that they serve his own purpose, somehow."

Anne released a long, shaky breath and switched on the white light.  "Well."

"May I?" Robert asked gently.

She nodded, stepped back.  Robert picked up a glass and reluctantly, curiously, leaned over the proof sheet.

It took three frames for him to realize exactly what he was looking at.  He straightened, looked away.  "Good Lord."

"Mickey said …" Her voice faltered; Anne paused, then began again.  "Mickey said he could get me the most important pictures of my career.  But that I'd never sleep through the night again.  I thought ..." She had to stop again.  "I've been to combat zones, Robert.  I've seen ... a lot of things.  A lot of horrible things.  But this was ... this was ..."

She stopped again, but stood up straighter.  Now that the pictures were actually in front of her, she was coming to terms with what they were.  They were indeed horrible.  They were also, indeed, important. 

She's coming back to herself, Robert thought, and nodded approvingly. 

He understood other things as well.  Control knew full well what was on the film; he had promised not to suppress the pictures.  Yet he had used non-official means of ensuring their safety.  So the release of the pictures would not be an official act of any government entity.  It would not be sanctioned.   

And no doubt there would be portions of the government that would try to stop their release.

There had been stories of a massacre.  Unconfirmed reports, dismissed as hysterical, as war-mongering, as mere rumor.  As fictional justification for a politically unpopular NATO action.  On Anne Keller's film was the proof, unmistakable, undeniable.

"Srebrenica," he murmured.  Resolutely he picked up the glass again.

"There were so many of them," Anne said quietly.  "They just stacked them like ... like lumber.  All these people, like they were nothing."  

Robert nodded.  He boxed up his horror and shoved it into a dark corner of his mind.  When Control called, he would want the pictures that would make the most impact.  The two or three most easy to understand. 

Likely, the ones that would appear on the front page of every leading newspaper in the world tomorrow morning.

And once they were out, politicians and bureaucrats could deny everything until they were blue in the face.  It would make no difference.  The truth, once it was known, could not be unknown.

Control was, by championing these photographs, putting his own very firm hand on the entire peace process.

Robert resented, for an instant, that Control had put him in the middle of it, again, without either consulting or advising him.  If they kicked down the door in search of these pictures, it would be Robert, not Control, who would face them with a gun in his hand. 

But if he had known, he would have agreed without hesitation.  And damn Control for knowing that, too.

"They'd been looking," Anne said.  "All of them, for weeks, for the grave site.  All the stories – they didn't want to believe them, but they had the satellite shots, they went and they looked and they found them."  She gestured to the proof sheet.  "The smell, Robert.  It's been so hot, even in the trees.  And the faces.  They were ... and old men, Robert, grandfathers, and boys, little boys."  She shook her head.  "In Ireland, I saw children killed, but it wasn't like this.  It wasn't ... it shouldn't make a difference, a man sets a bomb and doesn't care who it kills, it's not less horrible, but to just shoot a child, to look at him and shoot him ... they must be some kind of monsters."

McCall shook his head.  "That is the true horror, my dear.  That they're just men.  Monsters would be easy to comprehend.  But men, who were boys once, who have children of their own at home, that men can do something like this ... that is the horror, indeed."

He had scanned to the last row on the sheet.  He stopped suddenly and looked at Anne. 

"I'm sorry," she said, her hands open.  "Don't look at those.  Don't.  I didn't mean to ... Lily yelled and I turned and just kept ... clicking ... I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop."  She was tearful again.  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Robert gathered her in his arms again.  "No, no, now stop.  Don't blame yourself, love.  I know.  I know."

Anne began to cry in earnest.  But it was a good cry, a cleansing cry that was the first steps towards healing.  Robert held her closely, glad that she could cry.  Glad that he could comfort her.

Over her shoulder, he looked at the tiny prints that recorded the last minutes of a young agent's life.

* * * * *

     If you only knew how it feels to have your father in the war.  You flee the misery, but misery follows.  You hear not a word about your father, and one day everything goes black and there is Daddy at the door.  He stays with you a few days and then happiness is gone again.

     My heart, it is pounding like a little clock.  I can hardly write this because my beloved Daddy is once again not here with me.

Zana, 12, refugee from Brcko

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

* * * * *

Then

Lily Romanov dozed lightly.  Her toes were in the surf, and her body – except for a few small areas covered by a minimal black bikini – was toasting in the Florida sun.  She was not getting brown; she had slathered herself with heavy sunscreen, anticipating her return to the war zone.  Nobody in Sarajevo had a tan these days.  But the sun baked her anyhow, the warmth soaking into her very bones, calming her deeply in a way nothing else could. 

She had a paperback on the sand beside her, dog-eared and gritty, a water bottle full of beer, her towel, flip-flops, portable phone. Up the beach, a radio blared static-filled pop songs and a group of bare-chested sailors played football noisily.  They were beautiful men, hard-bodied, glistening, and they played every afternoon to impress her and the gaggle of girls up the beach.  Lily watched them sometimes, but today her eyes were closed behind her sunglasses. 

The pain in her ribs was mainly gone, as long as she didn't move too suddenly or twist too far.  She credited the sun baking as much as the passage of time.  Warm sun, plentiful food, Mexican beer.  No one shooting at her.  

She was on her last day of leave.  Medical had already signed her release.  Tomorrow she would fly back to New York, and then back to the cold and bloody mountains of Europe.  Away from the constant lullaby of the surf, to the nerve-jangling bouts of gun and mortar fire.

She sighed and wriggled her toes deeper in the wet sand.  The waves lapped at her ankles.

The only consolation was that perhaps, perhaps, she would get to spend a few hours with her lover in New York. 

Perhaps.

He had not spoken to her since that day in Walker's office.  He was busy, of course.  But he was also pissed.  There was nothing Lily could do about that. 

Still, she hoped he wouldn't let her leave again without some word, even in anger. 

Her phone rang.

Lily frowned at it.  It was brand-new, Company issued, weighed two-thirds less than her last one had, and cost a thousand dollars, retail.  It didn't work in half the places she'd been in the States, and not at all overseas. 

It rang twice more.  She was on sick leave.  She didn't have to answer it, and she didn't.  After the third ring it stopped.  Lily began to count to herself, wiggling her feet with each second.  One-Sarajevo, Two-Sarajevo, Three - ...

She was at thirteen when the phone rang again.  Lily grinned and picked it up.  "What?"

"No alcoholic beverages allowed on the beach," Control said sternly. 

With her free hand, Lily picked up her water bottle and drank deeply. "It's just water."

"It's Corona, and it's your third.  I thought you were injured."

Lily sat up but resisted the urge to look around.  "I'm all better."

"Good."

"Where are you?"

"Close enough to know your nose is sunburned."

Her pulse raced.  As casually as she could, Lily looked back towards her cottage.  The blinds were closed.  They hadn't been when she left.  "Oh." 

She turned off the phone and quickly gathered her things.

The football sailors yelled to her as she trotted up the beach, but she only waved to them and went on.  Here, she thought.  How could he be here?  The risks were so high ...

... let him worry about the risks.  Trust that he had been careful.  Trust that ...

… could he stay the day?  Could he stay the night?  The long weekend?  Asking way too much ...

Lily stopped with her hand on the door of the cabin.  All the years she had been with this man, and he still made her heart flutter like a hummingbird.  If he could only stay an hour, it didn't matter.  He was here.

She went into the cabin, locked the door behind her and leaned on it.

Control sat at the battered linoleum table, leaning back, his long legs stretched out in front of him.  His tie and jacket were gone, his collar undone, the slender fingers of his right hand wrapped around the neck of her last bottle of beer.  He looked her up and down, not bothering to conceal the lascivious intent in his blue-gray eyes. 

The little cabin was silent, the air still.  The soft scent of heated suntan lotion drifted off her skin. 

Control lifted the bottle and took a long pull on his beer.  Then he put it on the table, without taking his eyes off the woman.  "Well?"

Lily took a deep breath.  "If I get any closer, you're going to leave here reeking of coconut."

He spread his hands.  "That's a chance I'll have to take."

She grinned slowly, dropped her gear at her side, and covered the space between them in four long strides.  Control was on his feet when she got there.  She'd never been able to catch how he moved that fast, and it didn't matter, he was here, she was here, she was all but naked in his arms, and their lips came together as if it was both the first time and the millionth.

When she could bear to pull her mouth away from his, she murmured, "What are you doing here?"

"Haven't seen you for months," Control muttered back, untying the back of her bikini top.  "Thought we could talk.  Have dinner or something."  His hand slid gently across her well-oiled, mostly-mended ribs and upward to cup her bare breast.

"Or something," Lily breathed in agreement, and then they were moving as one towards the bed.

The sun set, the sweat dried on their bodies, and the cabin filled with a cool onshore breeze.  Control sat half-way up to reach the blanket and covered their entwined bodies.

Lily stirred, drowsy.  She rolled over too quickly; the motion caught her and she gasped in pain.  

"I thought you were better," Control said quietly as she settled back.

"I am better.  You should have seen me before."

"I did.  That's why you're here."

She nestled against him.  "Yes, but why are you here?"

"I would have thought that was obvious."

"Ah," she said, amused.  "Just the sex, then.  There are willing women in New York, you know."

"I know," Control agreed.  "But they aren't you."  He rolled up onto his elbow and looked at her.  His eyes were serious and tender all at once.  "I couldn't stand it.  I couldn't stay there, knowing you were here with some football-throwing squids watching that glorious body of yours, knowing you were where you most love to be and I couldn't be here with you.  I couldn't.  Not for one more day."

Lily drew his face down and kissed him tenderly.  They could afford to be tender now, with the most urgent of their passion spent.  "You were careful?"

He smirked.  "I'm always careful."

"I know."  She brushed his cheek and then his forehead, smoothing the lines of displeasure away.  "I know.  But I worry about you."

Control's eyes narrowed. He rolled away, onto his back beside her.  "You worry about me.  That's rich."

"Beloved ..."

"Mark O'Donnell is dead," he announced brusquely. 

Lily rolled onto her side – more carefully this time – to look at him.  "What happened?"

"Sniper," Control answered tightly.  "He was playing cards in what should have been a safe house.  The bullet came through the wall." 

She sighed and put her head down on his chest.  "He was a nice kid."

"He could have been you."  He brought his hand to her head, stroked her hair gently, possessively. 

They were silent for a long time. 

Lily said, very quietly, "I'm sorry.  I know you don't understand."

"I understand everything, Lily.  That's the real horror of it."  His hand strayed down her back, to the invisible place where the sniper's bullet had hit her.  "I understand that you know what it is to be too hungry to cry.  That you couldn't let other children suffer the same way.  Even if it cost you your life."  His hand paused, then stroked her warm skin again.  "And I understand that if it happens again, you'll do the same thing.  And the only way I can stop you, the only way I can protect you ..." He stopped again, kissed the top of her head.  "Just promise me you'll remember they're not the only ones who need you."

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes.  "I won't," she whispered.

Control pushed a strand of hair back from her eyes.  "Whatever you need to do, Lily.  If you promise you'll be careful, you promise you'll come back to me ... whatever you need to do, I'll cover you.  Understand?"

"Thank you."  Her eyes brimmed with tears.  

"But don't make me regret it."

Lily caught his lips again with hers, and with the gentleness of time, they made love again. 

Half-way to dawn, as the tide turned, he showered and dressed in clean clothes and left the silent cabin.

Lily threw on her shorts and a t-shirt and walked across the dark, cold sand to watch the water again.

* * * * *

Romanov bought herself a Coke from the vending machine outside the laundromat. It was one of the old kind, with the tall narrow door and real glass bottles inside.  She popped the top and slugged down a third of the bottle, relishing the carbonated edge slashing through the dust in her throat.  She considered going into the store for cigarettes. 

A man came out of the store with a six-pack sized paper bag under his arm.  "Hey," he said, slowing as he approached her.

Lily eyed him back.  Maybe forty, Hispanic, jeans, very clean white polo, gray canvas jacket, dusty work boots.  He was cleaner than she was.  "Hey," she answered neutrally.

The man looked around.  "You, uh, you waiting for something?"

"My boyfriend's picking me up."

"Oh."  He nodded, then looked around again.  "He late?"

Lily shrugged.  "So what else is new?"

"Hard to get a ride out here.  Can I drop you somewhere?"

She considered him again.  The jacket intrigued her.  It had to be over eighty degrees out, and he was sweating under it.  Only one reason to wear a jacket like that.  The same reason she had for wearing one.  "You headed out past the docks?"

"To the ferry?  Sure.  Why not?"

"It's not out of your way?"

"No.  Huh-uh."  He gestured towards a small beat-up Dodge.  The windows were all down; no air conditioner.  "Hop in."

Lily took another long swig of her Coke and got into the car.  

The inside of the car was absolutely clean.  Not a personal item of any kind in sight.  Even the trash bag was empty. 

He pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards the river. "So, your boyfriend makes you wait all the time, huh?"

"You have no idea."

"You live around here?"

"Do you?"

The man looked over at her.  "Uh, yeah.  Up that way a ways."  He gestured vaguely with one hand.  "Got a little place.  Nothing fancy, but it's okay."

Lily looked out the window, drank her Coke, and smiled.  Through the haze of the day, through as lost as she felt, this was solid and familiar ground.  She knew exactly where she was, for the first time in a long time.

She nodded, "Yeah, I been to that safe house."

The car swerved, then straightened.  "Pothole," the driver explained lamely.  "I ... what?"

Lily smiled at him. "Safe house.  Up the road.  I've been there.  The upstairs toilet backs up every third time you flush it."

The man formed a protest, then just dropped it and grinned.  "What gave me away?"

"Car's too clean," Lily said.  "Obviously you have to turn it back in.  And the jacket."

He shifted, revealing his gun in a hip holster on his left side.  "I'm sweatin' my ass off," he admitted.  He glanced over at her again. "So, uh, who do you work for?"

"Big Brother."

"Oh."  He thought about that for a moment.  Then he decided to take the chance. "And, uh ... are you off this weekend?"

They rounded a corner and the river appeared beside the road.  Lily shook her head.  "I'm working," she said, with just enough regret.  "You can drop me off at the corner."

"Okay."  He slowed the car, turned into the ferry parking lot.  "Can I get your number, maybe call you some time?"

The car stopped.  Lily slid out, closed the door, and leaned through the open window.  "You're cute," she said.  "And I appreciate the ride.  But it's probably better if you forget you even saw me."

His dark eyes narrowed.  He couldn't tell if she was serious or just brushing him off.  But he shrugged anyhow.  "Have it your way."

"I usually do."  She flashed him a bright smile and stepped back from the car.

The battered Dodge pulled away.  Lily looked towards the ferry dock, where two dozen people milled around.  Then she looked up at the sun.  It was sliding west, but still too high, too hot. 

She'd been out in the light too long.  She wanted it to be dark.

She walked again, not towards the ticket book, but to the maintenance building, with its weed-shrouded walls and comfortable shadows. 

* * * * *

     We have learned that one of our friends has been viciously murdered, simply because he was our colleague.  A paramedic was killed while trying to get across town to help someone whose life depended on his care.  Meanwhile, busloads of children and the doctors accompanying them were being held as bargaining chips in negotiations for the release of seven terrorists from Ilidza.  In the end, the exchange took place.  It has come to seem quite normal and natural, this simultaneous release of a group of panic-stricken children who were trying to escape from hell, and seven criminals who have been showering mortar shells on those same children and their parents.

Zlatko Dizdarević

Savajevo – A War Journal

* * * * *

Then

The farmhouse looked empty, but Kostmayer and Stock approached it carefully anyhow.  They stayed in cover and moved around to the east side, then darted across the narrow yard and up onto the porch, ducking below the window.

No one shot at them. 

Cautiously encouraged, Kostmayer reached only his arm around the doorframe and pushed the wooden door open.

Still no shots fire.  He did a quick peek and retreated.  Shook his head to Stock, who was on the other side of the doorway.  Nothing.

Stock brought his handgun down to waist level and darted inside.  Almost immediately, he called, "Clear."

Mickey ducked in.  The living room was cold and bare.  The furniture was smashed, and only the cushions and stuffing remained.  All the wood was gone.

The men moved quickly, clearing the hallway, the tiny bathroom, a ransacked bedroom, and finally moving into the kitchen.

The old man was sitting in a hard wooden chair, very close to the old wood stove. The fire was long out.  The old man was leaning back.  He had a book in his lap, black leather, probably a Bible.  On top of the book his two boney hands held a small china cup.  It had probably been full of weak tea, but now only a tiny dark puddle of liquid remained.  His eyes were closed as if he were merely napping.  But the shrunken tightness of the skin on his face told them he'd been dead for a week or more.

"Ah, shit," Stock said softly.

Kostmayer sighed.  He moved past the man and opened the cupboards.  There was an old cocoa tin with no lid, half-full of paraffin.  There were two ancient cook books.  There were more cups, old mismatched mugs and plates and bowls.  There were toothpicks.  There was not a single thing to eat.

Old age.  Starvation.  Hypothermia.  Despair.  They had all ganged up on the lonely old man, and he'd sat down with his Bible and his tea and gracefully surrendered. 

Mickey shook his head.  He looked out the kitchen window.  There was a small yard, with what had been flower beds and lush grass, years ago.  To the north was a small barn and a fenced pasture.  At the back of the yard stood a gazebo with an old-fashioned porch swing, both gray with age.  And past them was a spectacular view of the valley below. 

"We should bury him," Mickey said quietly, without looking at the corpse again.

"I suppose," Stock agreed.  "Doesn't look like he has any family to find him."

Kostmayer smirked.  "That, too.  But check out this view."

Stock joined him at the window and whistled softly.  "That's the main road down there."

"Yep.  We cut down three or four trees right at the edge there, we get a perfect snapshot of everything that comes and goes."

Jacob nodded thoughtfully.  "I don't think the old man will mind."

"No.  I don't think so."  Mickey brought out his radio and thumbed it on.  The dial lit up.  "We get a good strong signal here." Satisfied, he turned it off.  

They looked in the basement for shovels, but found only a small one for coal.  The coal bin was completely empty; even the dust had been swept up.  But the coal-burning furnace still looked as if it would work.  "We could burn wood in it," Stock said.

"Yeah.  Let's get the body out first, though," Mickey answered.  "Maybe in the barn."

They left the house and started across the little yard.  As the back door slammed behind them, something banged in the barn. Three sharp raps.

The men instinctively ducked and drew their weapons.  They were closer to the barn than the house; they ran for cover beside the building.

The banging repeated.  It did not sound like gunfight.  More like someone hitting the wooden walls, hard, with some object.

Someone trying to get out.

The banging stopped and there was a low nicker.

The men looked at each other, surprised and relieved.  Then with caution they went through the small door into the barn.

The horse nickered again, urgently.  She was, they quickly verified, the only living creature left in the barn.  She was in a big box stall, brown and anxious and very bony. The stall was filthy; there was no food in evidence, and the water bucket was absolutely dry.

"What the hell," Mickey said under his breath.

Stock reached in and patted the anxious horse.  "We need to get her some water," he said.

"There's a rain barrel up by the house," Kostmayer answered.  He reached over the stall door and grabbed the water bucket.  "I'll get it."

He crossed the yard again, testing the ground beneath his feet.  It had been warmer the past two days; the ground was a little less frozen.  Of course, that would only be the first few inches.  Still, better than nothing.  He looked around.  Under that tree, overlooking the valley?  Pretty, but the roots would be a bitch.  He looked to the other side of the yard.  Low brush, still with a great view.  That would be easier to dig.

There was a thin skin of ice on the rain barrel, but it cracked easily.  He dunked the bucket and headed back.

Stock had brought the horse out to the pasture.  She was nibbling the short brown grass anxiously, but she kept stopping to look towards him. More thirsty than hungry.  He wasn't surprised.  The old man must not have planned on dying, or he wouldn't have left her locked up.

He handed the bucket over the fence to Stock.  The mare immediately crowded against him, trying to get to it.  Stock pushed the bucket back over the fence.  "Are you crazy?"

"What?" Mickey protested.  "She's thirsty."

"I know," Stock answered.  "And if you give her all that water she'll drink it all down and drop dead."

Kostmayer said, "Oh."

The mare was leaning on the fence, trying to push it down, whinnying, desperate for the water she could smell but not quite reach.

Kostmayer said, "Oh," again.  He looked around, but couldn't find anything smaller.  He didn't want to dump the water out; no telling when it would rain again.

The horse was frantic.

He set the bucket down away from the fence, pushed up his sleeves, plunged both hands into the icy water, and cupped up what he could for the horse to drink.  She slurped the trickling water eagerly and then licked his palms, looking for more.

"Good," Stock said.  "You do that.  I'll find another bucket or something."

"Do you know how freaking cold this water is?" Kostmayer complained, bending to scoop up another handful of water. 

Jacob grinned.  "You're a hell of a guy, Mickey."

"Yeah, yeah."  His partner went into the barn.  Kostmayer grinned crookedly at the horse.  "Wait'll I tell him he gets to clean your stall."

* * * * *

     The weather is growing very cold now.  No longer can you hear the singing of the birds, only the sound of the children crying for a lost mother or father, a brother or a sister.

     We are children without a country and without hope.

Dunja, 14, from Belgrade

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

* * * * *

Then

The dining room of the Holiday Inn was crowded with reporters.  They were talking, sometimes interviewing each other on camera.  It was too damn dangerous, this morning, to try interviews on the street.  The snipers were out.

The coffee, for a change, tasted like coffee. 

Anne Keller lingered a long while over her breakfast, because there was nothing else to do.  Finally, bored with her fellow journalists, she decided to go back to her room and see if there was any hot water.  Or any water at all.

Of course, there was not enough electricity to run the elevators. She headed wearily for the stairs.

Inside the stairwell, a woman said, "Took you long enough."

Anne whirled.  Lily Romanov was there, sitting on the steps.  From her posture, she'd been there a while.

"Sorry," Anne said, a little breathless.  "Didn't know you were waiting for me.  Is Mickey all right?"

"He's fine," Lily assured her.  "Wanna go see him?"

"Am I allowed?"

"Well, we didn't really ask permission."  Lily started up the stairs.  "Let's get your gear.  If things go right, you can stay the weekend."

"I shouldn't ask where, should I?"

The spy glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. "Just don't get your hopes up for any romance.  Unless you're willing to go al fresco."

Anne had stuck her nose outside that morning.  It was about twenty degrees out.  "I think I went to school with him."

"With Al Fresco?" Lily countered.  "Yeah.  He gets around."

In her hotel room, Anne grabbed her parka and gloves and a change of clothes.  "Cameras?" she asked.

Lily frowned. "Maybe one. Small one.  Expect to have the pictures censured. This isn't a working trip, for you."

"Then what is it?"

"A visit to your boyfriend."

They made their way out of the city on foot, through the woods and into the mountains.  Anne was aware that they were passing very close to the Serbian forces, but Lily seemed unconcerned.  They moved quietly, walking for about an hour.  Then Romanov stopped and sat on a boulder at the side of the trail.  "Sit, rest," she invited.  She rubbed her side ruefully. 

Anne sank wearily onto the rock beside her.  "Are we walking all the way?" she asked.  She was willing, but she wasn't looking forward to it.

"No," Lily promised.  "There's a truck just over that hill.  If it starts.  It usually does."

Keller looked up.  The sun was bright, the sky brilliant blue.  Not a single cloud to hold the warmth.  By night fall it would be frigid. "Why are we waiting?" she asked curiously.

"To see if anyone followed us," Lily answered easily.

"Oh.'"

Romanov brought a water bottle out of her coat and offered Anne some.  "So how've you been?"

"Okay," Anne answered, handing the bottle back.  "I got three front pages and a Newsweek cover so far this year."

"That's great."  Lily drank deeply, then put the bottle away.  "No trouble getting in and out of the city?"

"Not so far.  We ... a group of us got together and uh, befriended one of the military commanders at the other end."

Lily grinned.  "I bet I know just the one.  He's a good guy, mostly, but he's worried about the size of his pension."  She shrugged.  "He'll keep you as safe as anybody."

"That's very reassuring."

Lily stood up.  "Let's go find a truck."

They drove for nearly an hour, up the mountain.  At times the road was flat and smooth, paved.  At others it had been bombed into dirt.  There were two places where the truck slowed to a crawl and Anne grabbed the door handle, sure they were going to stall out and roll back down the mountain right into the city. But Romanov remained unconcerned.  Anne gathered she made this drive often.

In the middle of no where, they pulled off the road.  "Now what?" Anne asked, clambering on shaky legs out of the truck.

"Now we hide the truck," Lily said logically.  She grabbed the trunk of an evergreen branch from the side of the clearing and expertly flipped the greenery over the truck. Anne joined her, and in a matter of minutes the vehicle had mostly disappeared.  Lily ducked under the branches and brought a big mountaineering pack out of the back.  When she had it slung on her shoulders, she brought out two shoulder bags and carried them at her sides, the straps crossed across her chest.

Again she paused and rubbed her ribs.

"Do you want me to carry something?" Anne asked.

"Sure," Lily said, and handed her a much smaller pack.  Then she started across the clearing and into the trees.  If she was injured, it didn't show in the pace she set.

Fifteen minutes of climbing brought them to a narrow road at the crest of the mountain.  Just across it was a small farmhouse with a small barn.  A very skinny brown horse was grazing forlornly on the stubble of grass in the yard. 

"Is she loose?" Anne asked as she followed Lily across the yard.  She could see where the pasture fence had been broken down.

"Hmm?  Oh, the horse.  Yeah.  We were hoping she'd run off and find food on her own, but no luck.  She won't bother you."

The mare lifted her head and gazed at them listlessly, then returned to rooting for grass.

Mickey Kostmayer came out onto the porch.  "Took you long enough."

"Nice to see you, too," Lily grumbled.  She pushed past him into the house and closed the door gently behind her.

Mickey grinned, strode down the steps and took Anne in his arms.  "Hey, stranger.  Welcome to Dead Man's House."

"What a charming name," Anne answered.  She kissed him, at first hesitantly and then more deeply. "Do I even want to know why you call it that?"

"Probably not."  He kissed her again, and then again.  He smelled like a man who'd been living in the woods for a long time.  But he also smelled familiar and wonderful.

They sank onto the bare front steps and kissed some more.  It had been months since they'd been together.  The stubble on his cheeks scratched hers.  "Al fresco," Anne murmured. 

"Hmmm," Mickey murmured against her lips.  "Kinda cold."

"Yeah."

"We could hike out to the truck."

Anne thought about it.  He ran his hand up her back, under her coat, and she shivered.  "I love you, Mickey ..."

"But you're freezing your ass off."

"Um ... yeah."

He chuckled.  "Good.  Me, too.  I mean, not that I'm not willing, if you were really interested ..."

"Oh, sure, make it all my fault."

Kostmayer climbed to his feet, dragged her with him. "Come on inside.  I'll give you the grand tour."

* * * * *

If I were President,

The tanks would be playhouses for the kids.

Boxes of candy would fall from the sky.

The mortars would fire balloons.

And the guns would blossom with flowers.

All the world's children

Would sleep in a peace unbroken

By alerts or by shooting.

The refugees would return to their villages.

And we would start anew.

Roberto, 10, from Pula

I Dream of Peace – Images of war by children of former Yugoslavia

* * * * *

Now

Father Nick Kostmayer was dripping sweat by the time he'd heard his last confession for the day.  He stepped out of the box, tugging at his collar.  He was sinfully grateful there hadn't been many parishioners today; the holiday weekend had begun.  There'd be a lot more next week, with a lot more to confess.  Hopefully it would be cooler.  The confessional felt like a sweatbox.

The sanctuary wasn't much cooler.  Nick walked slowly to the back of the church and out onto the steps, praying for a stray breeze. 

When he saw the boy on the sidewalk in front of the church, he immediately assumed the child was a runaway.  Too young, too beautiful a boy to have been on the streets long, in spite of his ragged clothes.  His mind immediately began to list the social service agencies that might be able to help him get a safe bed for the night.

It was only as he moved down the steps that he began to think he recognized the boy. 

And it wasn't until she said, "Hello, Nick," that he realized the boy was Lily Romanov.

"Lily?"  Nick blurted, half a question.

The woman was standing on the sidewalk with her hands in the pockets of her thin jacket.  Her feet were apart, her weight balanced in a manner that immediately reminded Nick of his brother Mickey.  If she noted the heat that still shimmered off the street she didn't show it.  She might have been standing there a minute or an hour.  Her face was thin and stark white under the fluorescent streetlamp; her head was bare, her hair brutally short. 

He walked down the remaining steps to the sidewalk.  His instinct was to reach for her, but her expression warned him off.  Her eyes were flat, distant; again, much like Mickey.  "How are you?"

She shrugged.  "Okay.  You?"

Nick took a chance and touched her arm.  "Come inside.  I'll get you something cool to drink." 

Lily's eyes moved to the front door of the church.  As Nick watched, she scanned upwards, past the rose-shaped window to the roof, up the steeple to the cross high overhead.  She contemplated the holy symbol without expression, then looked back at Nick.  "No.  Thank you."

A breeze ruffled the trash against the building, and the woman shuddered as if it were cold.  Nick moved closer, trying to shelter her body with his.  The summer heat could not touch her; Lily Romanov was wrapped in the bleak cold of the soul. "God still loves you," Nick said quietly, "even when you're angry with Him."

Lily stared at him.  Their faces were barely inches apart.  The impulse to kiss her flitted across the priest's mind.  It wasn't a sensual desire, only an intense need to reach her somehow.  Even anger would have been better in those eyes than the blank deadness he saw.  Dead pain, so deep it was unbearable.  Nick wanted to look away.  But to do so would be to abandon her to her despair.  He could not be so faithless. 

Belatedly, a sharp fear ran through him.  "Has something happened to Mickey?"

The woman shook her head.  "Not as far as I know.  He's okay."

Father Nick studied her for a long moment.  It wasn't that her eyes were so dead, he realized.  It was that they had long since become accustomed to being dead.  Her cropped hair, her wan face, her clothes, worn, thin, and with the faint scent of days and nights on the street.  "And you?" he asked. 

She barely tipped her head in askance.

"You're not okay," Nick continued.

Gently, Lily stepped away from his touch.     

"I don't know what's happened to you," Nick called after her, "but you need to come in and let someone help you."

The woman almost smiled.  Her gaze panned up to the cross again.  "Mama had a baby," she chanted under her breath.  Then she looked back at Nick.  Her meaning was perfectly clear.  Not even God could help her now.

She turned and walked away. 

"Lily, please ..." Nick called after her. 

The woman turned the corner and was gone.

* * * * *

Then

The front room of the cabin was empty except for piles of gear.  The bedroom had a big mirror from the back of a dresser.  It sat on the floor, alone.  There was nothing else except dust.

The bathroom was tiny and grimy.  There was a bucket of rain water next to the toilet, with a ladle, for token flushing. 

The only room that was warm, and therefore habitable, was the kitchen.  The table was gone, burned before the old man died.  There were two old wooden chairs to one side of the old wood stove, too sturdy to be broken easily into kindling.  On the other side, on the floor, was the mattress off the bed and the cushions off the destroyed couch, heaped with blankets and sleeping bags.  

When Anne Keller arrived, there were three men – Kostmayer, Sterno, and Jacob Stock – manning the post.  They took shifts, two inside warm and rested, one on the gazebo in back, watching the road below. 

As the sun started to set, they all ate lightly from the supplies Lily had hauled in.  Anne understood that the food needed to last a while, and more acutely, that every bite had to come in on someone's shoulders.  She didn't mind; she'd had a huge breakfast.  But she understood now why Mickey seemed lean, why his whole body was hard to the touch.  Lily, too, had dropped some weight that she really couldn't afford to lose.  Even Sterno, who Annie remembered as being quite stout, was visibly thinner.

Bad enough they were getting shot at, she thought, without their having to starve, too.

But nobody complained. 

After dinner and a quick clean-up, Mickey took a shift on the gazebo.  Anne went with him, wrapped in her coat, and they sat and talked and watched the quiet road fade into darkness.  "This is it?" she finally asked.  "This is all you do up here?"

"This is it," he answered.  "I spend a whole lot of time sitting on my ass watching things."

"In between the running and the shooting, of course," Anne said quietly, smiling.

"Well, yeah."

They were quiet for a time, watching the sun set magnificently orange over the far mountain.  For a moment or two they forgot the war and just enjoyed the beauty of the countryside and each other's company.

"I think about you," Mickey said.  "When I'm just sitting like this, watching.  I think about you a lot."

Anne smiled knowingly.  "Clean or dirty?"

"Some of both," he admitted.  "The thing is ..." He stopped and gazed toward the horizon for a long moment.

It was unlike him to be so careful with his words.  Anne slid closer to him and squeezed his hand.  "Mickey?"

He grimaced.  "The thing is, I've been in some fucked-up places, all over the world.  I've seen people turn on their neighbors, I've seen them slit throats over a water well.  But I've never seen anything like this.  Not where it was so wide-spread, not when it lasted so long.  This place is ..."  Mickey shook his head.  "I know you know.  I know you've got the pictures to prove it.  But the places you can't get to, the stuff you don't see ..."

"Mickey, what's wrong?"