The Gate Keepers of Kosovo
Frank Scozzari
_
“This is Radio Free Kosovo - Your voice of democracy throughout the Balkans. We come to all of thee, from our soul to your soul, for the soul of Kosovo."
Lieutenant Krisman stared at the small transistor radio sputtering out the fast, high-pitched voice. It sat on a rock in the bright winter sun just beyond the shade of the pine trees. He took one last drag from the cigarette that hung limply from his mouth, shook his head, and flicked the butt at the radio. Turning his eyes back up-canyon, some two hundred yards, he focused on a place between two peaks where a small, white building stood near the top of the ridge. There was a radio tower stretching high above the building into the deep blue Kosovo sky. It was a small, prefabricated steel building, and from this distance it looked like a toy Erector Set.
The two men with him, Bernard, a young Frenchman, and Alec from England, were huddled in the sun trying to stay warm. They had climbed for two hours in the cold before reaching this spot high on the ridge. Despite the crispness of the air, all of them had sweat on their foreheads. Krisman pulled a thermos from his pack, warm with coffee, pressed the edge of it against his cheek, and then drank from it. The radio started crackling again:
“And now a song dedicated to Milosovic, and to all the fine things he's done for this wonderful land. I'm sure Mick had you mind when he wrote it. Ladies and gentleman, the Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Lieutenant Krisman looked over at his two men, Bernard and Alec, and they both glanced back from beneath their powder-blue UN helmets.
"Try raising that idiot again," Krisman said.
Both Bernard and Alec looked at one another.
“Your turn,” said Alec.
“No, your turn,” Bernard came back.
“Come’on ladies.”
Mumbling obscenities in French, Bernard took hold of the Rascal handheld unit and began to speak into the radio, in French.
"English, damn it," Krisman said.
Bernard glared up at Lieutenant Krisman, then began speaking in very poor English with a very heavy French accent; “Hey you, crazy American man. You come in.”
“What?” Lieutenant Krisman snapped the Rascal from Bernard’s hand and began to speak into it: "Radio Kosovo. This is Lieutenant Krisman of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force. Please reply.”
There was no answer at first so Krisman repeated the message.
“He’s ignoring us,” Alec said.
Krisman looked up at the building, glistening white in the sunlight, then at the transistor radio sitting on the rock, waiting for a reply. “You are in imminent danger. I repeat, you are in imminent danger. Please come in."
The music on the transistor radio suddenly ended and the high-pitched voice came on again:
"Now let's talk about impotence, and all those poor assholes out there with blue helmets. Impotence, as defined in the Webster's Dictionary, is powerlessness, sterility, or the inability to engage in sexual intercourse, or the inability to achieve or sustain an erection. Lacking physical strength. Often used in reference to males, it says.
Well, I don’t know about you guys, but as for me, I plan on riding the borrego til’ I die.
And from what they tell me, that may be soon. But that's a whole other story that we'll get back to later in the program.
"Now, as for all you baby-blues out there… How do those guns feel, limp in your hands? Like flaccid skin worms? What good is a weapon of peace if never used? On the other hand, think of all the rapists that you’ve saved by not using it."
Alec took his helmet off and wiped the frost off the top of it. He was still
breathing heavily, steam from his warm breath shot into the air. “He's mocking us, isn’t he?”
“No. Shit.”
“Do we really have to listen to this shit?” Alec asked.
“Do we really have to save this ass?" Bernard asked.
Krisman snapped up the transistor radio and turned the volume knob until it ‘clicked’ off.
He put the Rascal back into Bernard's pack. “It's not him we’re saving,” he said.
“It's the communication equipment?” Bernard asked.
“Bullshit. It's him,” Alec said. “No civilian casualties, especially American civilians.”
“Let's go ladies,” Krisman said.
Bernard and Alec reluctantly slide under their pack straps and began to follow Krisman,
laboring slowly up the ridge.
They climbed steadily for half an hour, up among rock-strewn terrain and through occasional patches of snow. The wind blew hard at times, especially when they came out from between the trees, but when they were in the sun, they could feel its warmth as well. As they gained in elevation, the ridge narrowed and became barren. The bulk of the forest was below them now.
Lieutenant Krisman paused just outside the shade of a small pine tree, huffing. He looked down at his two companions. They were some thirty yards below him. He took the transistor radio from his pack, turned it on, grabbed hold of an overhead tree limb, and hung from it loosely as he listened to the music and waited. Finally, Bernard and Alec, struggling, reached his position and they each found a tree to lean against. Just then the music ended, and the voice came on again:
“Now, on the subject of my imminent health… it is said to be in peril. In fact, it is said my life is in peril. That being the case, let’s make this subject on the visual characteristics of skeletons. Notice how they all look alike? Yeah. Skeletons all look alike. No flesh, no expression. All of that which makes us unique among the living – that’s all gone. I had this conversation once with a skeleton, and it was a trivial one-sided affair. How are you doing today Mr. Skeleton? No response. What beautiful dark eyes you have, Mr. Skeleton. No response. Oh, excuse me, is it Ms. Skeleton? It made me realize it doesn’t matter much, to a skeleton that is, what happens now or tomorrow. Not a hell of a lot. Soon, we'll all be skeletons, the Grateful Dead, like the men of Grenicia, all squeezed into one grave. The point being, all skeletons look alike, and what matters most here is what we do with the living, as we are living. Put your skeletons to good use boys, while they still have flesh and bone of them. Yes, I am speaking to you baby-blues.”
"I can't believe we're risking our lives for this fool," Alec mumbled.
Lieutenant Krisman looked at his watch. "If we don't get up there soon, he’ll be right. We'll all be skeletons.”
“Uh?" Bernard uttered.
Krisman looked back at Bernard, then Alec, looking at the two men as though he was looking through them, at their skeletons. Bernard looked down at himself, at his chubby legs. And Alec did the same, glancing down, over his own long, lanky frame. The two men then quickly began to move, with renewed vigor, following Krisman up the ridge.
In twenty minutes they arrived at the ridge-top. They followed a footpath a short distance north to the base of the small widow-less building. The building was made up of only four concert slabs and one heavy, metal door. They walked around the building to make sure all was clear and then positioned themselves in front of the door. Lieutenant Krisman knocked on it.
“It is Lieutenant Krisman from the U.N. Peacekeeping Force,” he announced, puffs of steam bursting from his lips as he spoke.
There was no answer.
He pounded again. “Hello, this is Lieutenant Krisman of the U.N.”
There was still no answer. He placed his ear against the door and he could hear music inside. He looked back at the other two men. They heard it too. Then there was a noise from the roof-top. Looking up they saw a long, reddish-haired, bearded man peering down at them.
“What do you want?” the man asked sharply. It was the same high-pitched voice they heard on the radio.
“I am Lieutenant Krisman from the U.N. Protection Force. We have evacuation orders for this station and are here to escort you down. Are you Peter Mann?”
“Maybe,” the red-bearded man replied. “Maybe not.”
“We have good information that this Station is an immediate target of Serb forces,” Lieutenant Krisman continued.
“Immediate?”
Krisman looked at his watch. “Could be anytime now.” He looked back at his two companions who stood nervously behind him, rifles facing barrel down. They were both still breathing heavily from the climb.
“Yes, I am Peter Mann,” the bearded man said. “Hold on a minute.”
Mann disappeared behind the roofline and in twenty seconds the heavy, metal door jarred open. Peter Mann stood there with an automatic pistol low at his side.
“Greetings,” he said.
He motioned for the three men to enter, which they did. Inside they found a makeshift radio room; a chaotic mess of jumbled radio boxes and wires everywhere, duck-taped to one another, duck-taped to the walls and duck-taped to the ceiling pipes. A small bench against the far wall was loaded with electronic equipment and had a swivel chair up against it. On the console was a vintage, desk-top microphone. There were empty, two-liter, plastic Dr Pepper bottles scattered on the floor and Krisman’s eyes followed a line of them into the half-shadowed corner, were stood a young woman. Her full, wavy light brown hair was illuminated by light coming down through a ceiling hatch, through which an iron ladder led to the roof.
“This is Monika,” Mann said.
Lieutenant Krisman nodded a gentle ‘hello’ while he continued surveying the room. “We are short on time,” he said. “Please gather your things. You have five minutes.”
“It won’t be necessary,” Mann said.
Krisman looked up at Mann.
“We’re not leaving,” Mann said.
“Let me clarify, this station is targeted for destruction and we are here to escort you down. It’s not a matter of choice.”
“Sorry,” Mann replied, “We can’t leave.”
“You have five minutes,” Krisman said, scanning the room for a knapsack. “Take what you need. I can give you five minutes only.” His two soldiers stood behind him just inside the doorway, with rifles down.
“Sorry, I’m not going to do that,” Mann said.
“You have to do that.”
“I’m telling you we won’t leave.”
Krisman stopped what he was doing and looked at Mann. “Staying is not an option.”
“Why not?”
“The U.N. doesn’t want dead civilians, dead Americans, that includes you.”
“Dead civilians?” Mann’s high-pitched voice went faster. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“Come on, get your stuff.”
“Please leave now,” Mann replied.
“This is a military operation. We wouldn’t be up here if it wasn’t something serious.”
“There’s a war on, ya know,” Alec added from his position behind Krisman. He took a step forward and raised the barrel of his rifle.
Mann looked back at Monika, nervously. He had dealt with U.N. soldiers before and did not particularly like them, nor trust them. In his mind, they were nothing more than blind bombardiers following orders without conscience or knowledge of their impact. It was surely the case now, Mann thought. They who could not execute their own cause were going to decide his fate? It was not the Serbs who targeted him, he thought, it was the U.N. who wanted to quiet his political tongue, because they despised the truth and the way in which he delivered it. He had no faith in the U.N., nor these men who represented it. They were too political to do any good, and he’d be damned if he’d allow their politics to decide his fate now.
“Sorry,” he said. “We cannot leave. And you must go!”
Without warning, Mann snapped the pistol up from his side and leveled it at Krisman’s chest. Just as quickly, Bernard and Alec’s rifle barrels jerked up from their sides and locked in on Mann’s chest.
“It’s okay boys,” Krisman said calmly, waving his hand back at them. He walked slowly over to the radio console, eyeing Mann cautiously. Mann’s gun barrel followed him. “There are eighty-millimeter Howitzers out there,” Krisman said, “just beyond the river. Sometime soon, maybe in an hour, maybe in five minutes, this place is going to be obliterated. You leave now or we all die soon.”
“How do I know that’s true?”
“Trust me, it’s true.”
“Why would the Serbs want me dead?”
“Maybe they don’t like what you have to say?” Alec said with a grin.
Krisman picked up the old desktop microphone from the bench and studied it.
“I have fought a war with that microphone,” Mann said, “more so then all your guns.”
Krisman turned the microphone over, examining it as if to say, this is a gun?
“Maybe?” he replied, as if to answer himself.
“Listen,” Alec said. “We walked all the way up here to save your ass.”
“I don’t want to be saved,” Mann came back, his high-pitched voice fluttering now.
“This is bullshit,” Bernard said in his heavy French accent.
“We are under orders to bring you down,” Krisman said flatly.
Mann did not answer.
“So what are we going to do about this?” Krisman asked. “Are we all going to just stand around looking at each other?”
Mann stiffened his arm. Krisman smirked.
“Take him,” Krisman said.
As Bernard and Alec advanced, Mann, whose gun was still pointed straight at Krisman’s chest, raised it to Krisman’s head.
Bernard and Alec hesitated.
“Go!” Krisman ordered impatiently. “He won’t shoot.”
As they moved in, Mann, who was shaking now, turned the gun inward to his own chest.
“Hold it!” Krisman shouted.
Bernard and Alec froze.
Mann quickly shifted the gun up to his head, adjusting the barrel squarely against his temple in dramatic fashion. “Take your baby blue helmets off my mountain or I’ll shoot myself and you’ll have a lot of explaining to do!”
“I don’t think he’ll shoot,” said Alec. “Not that I give a rat’s ass.”
“Yeah, let him do it,” Bernard said. “Let him blow his brains out!”
Krisman frowned.
Now what?
As Krisman mulled the situation, the irony dawned in his head. Here they were, two Americans in a faraway country, high on a ridge, soon to be obliterated in a shower of shells, ready to kill one another! The man they had come to save was threatening to take his own life. You cannot save a man who doesn’t want to be saved anymore than you can you save a country that does not want to find salvation.
“Stay then,” Krisman said abruptly. He turned back to Alec and Bernard and said, “Put your guns down.”
Alec and Bernard exchanged doubtful glances.
“It’s okay,” Krisman assured.
Reluctantly, the two soldiers lowered their barrels.
Mann did not believe. He remained with gun raised.
Krisman looked over at Monika. The young woman had remained painfully quiet in the corner through all of this. The way the light was coming down on her and reflecting off her golden hair she looked like a Botticelli on a wall in the Louvre. “Let us take the woman,” he said.
Mann paused, but seeing the gun barrels lowered, hearing the sincerity in Krisman’s voice, and weighing the fact that there were no other options, he dropped his gun to his side and nodded his head. He made a subdued, solemn-like walk over to Monika and gently brushed the hair back from her face. He whispered something softly in her ear, speaking in a Slavic language unfamiliar to Krisman. A moment passed and she began to cry and Mann took her in his arms and held her, and she held him, locking herself to him. It took a couple of minutes, and nearly a fight, before Bernard and Alec could pry her away. She had finally given up, exhausted and beaten, and with Mann’s urging, she gathered a few items and was escorted outside by Bernard and Alec.
Krisman remained alone in the building with Mann. “Martyrism is not an American trait,” he said. “Why don’t you come down with us?”
“Why don’t you throw away that blue helmet and join me? It is here that this war will be won or lost.”
“You think very mighty of yourself.”
“Not of myself. Of the power of free speech.”
Krisman’s eyes flashed down to the desktop microphone. With one finger he gently pushed it until it tipped over backward on the bench.
“More powerful than all our rifles?”
“More powerful than ten-thousand rifles,” Mann replied.
Lieutenant Krisman adjusted the strap on his helmet and walked to the door, pausing before exiting.
“You’re full of shit, Mann,” he said. “Skeletons don't look alike. I've seen them, at the gravesites in Sarajevo, in the burnt-out homes of Herzegovina, on the roadside beneath a bridge near Dubrovnik. Some are missing parts, some have cracked and broken ribs, and some have chunks of skull missing. You’re full of shit, Mann. Skeletons don’t look alike.”
Peter Mann, a man of many words, now looked back in silence.
“Having your skeleton blasted to smithereens,” Krisman continued. “A hell of a'lotta good that does, uh? Keeping your skeleton in one piece is the object of this game."
***
With that, they were gone, heading down the ridge, descending fast to the tree-line. At one point Bernard pulled the transistor radio from his pack, turned it on, and held it in his hand as they walked. They all listened.
“It is a funny thing,” the squeaky voice on the radio said. “They call themselves ‘Peacekeepers’ even in a land that has no peace. They claim to be the ‘Protection Force’ but cannot protect anyone, not even themselves. And they say they are “United Nations’ in a country un-united. They are Pharisees, I say. The hypocrites of the new millennium.”
“He’s talking about us?” Alec asked, then realizing he was, he said: “Why didn’t you let him blow his head off?”
“We are saving his woman,” Bernard said. “He should be grateful for that at least, if nothing more.”
“Let Freedom Ring,” the voice on the radio continued. “You, the people of Kosovo. You are the gatekeepers. You are the arms of freedom, the arms that hold the torch. So long as you are here, so long as you are willing to fight, the gates of freedom remain open, for you and for all of Kosovo.”
Krisman said nothing. He only looked back occasionally at the small white building perched up on the ridge, expecting it to vanish anytime.
They hurried now, making quick time downhill over the same terrain it had taken them twice as long to climb.
It came very quickly, in a sudden flash. Two laser-guided munitions streaked out of the blue, Kosovo sky like lightening bolts, hitting the building and burying it momentarily in a white cloud of smoke. Krisman turned in time to see the building engulfed in a hot flame. When the smoke settled, the building and the radio tower were gone.
The sound of the blast, delayed in reaching them, now echoed down the canyon. The three men exchanged glances, knowing the certainty of what it meant. The transistor radio in Bernard’s pack spewed out a steady hum. As Bernard switched it off, Monika crumbled to her knees crying. She remained there for half an hour with Bernard and Alec consoling before she was able to get up and move again. Even then, and only with their help, was she able to move down the mountain, sometimes having to be dragged, or having to stop frequently as her legs would occasionally give out. Finally they reached the place where their Hummer was parked, hidden in a grove of pines.
* * *
Six weeks had passed since the radio station and been eradicated from the ridge top, and it was now early spring. Alec, Bernard and Lieutenant Krisman sat high on a hilltop in the tall grass among some small purple and yellow flowers, watching a wave of refugees flood across the border into Montenegro. From there many would join the long refugee trail north through Hungary to Western Europe. They had dropped Monika off at a NATO Red Cross outpost near Vitomirica three weeks earlier with hopes she would be reunited with family, if she had any left. Krisman left a letter in English explaining the circumstances of how they had found her and asking for assistance in her care, although he knew, she was just one among many. She had been quiet as they traveled, rarely speaking, and only then to herself in her native tongue. She had seen many things, Krisman knew. Things that would make anyone quiet, things not meant to be seen by a person so pure of heart. It was etched in Krisman’s mind, an image of her sitting on a dirt embankment in Subotica, her hair drooping down, her face lifeless, tears glistening on her cheeks. She had cried spontaneously and often, and when she waited for the aid worker to examine her, she collapsed in a pool of tears. Krisman knew, any pureness left in her heart, if not already, by then had been wiped out.
The sun was shinning warmly on them now, and the three men sat relaxing, taking in the warmth upon their shoulders as they watched the thousands of people make the border crossing below. Bernard lay flat on the green earth, his chin on his folded arms with a blade of grass sticking from his mouth. The other two men were also resting and watching, Krisman with both arms back and palms planted outward on the ground, and Alec sitting with his legs crossed, elbows on his knees, and binoculars to his face.
It was quite a spectacle, a mass of humanity, people of all kinds, children, grandparents, families together, and families apart, carrying everything they owned, some reuniting, some rejoicing, some downtrodden and completely broken, many just happy to be out of harms way. From their position high on the hilltop, the hoards of people, with the many vibrant colors of Albanian quilts, cargo bags, and garments of all shades, appeared like a mosaic – a colorful tapestry – flowing like a river of life.
All the colors lead into one, Krisman thought. It is the color of life. It was good to see the living again, to see people with hope again.
As Alec watched the mass migration through the magnification of the binoculars, he could see with great detail the many faces of mothers, and daughters, and children, and grandmothers; faces drawn from war, some hollow with death, yet others elated with freedom.
“Hey! Look at that! There!” he suddenly cried out.
He pointed into the crowd with an outstretched finger. The other two turned and looked in the direction he pointed. He took another look through the binoculars. “Check it out,” he said, handing the binoculars to Lieutenant Krisman while still pointing with his finger.
Krisman took the binoculars and peered through them. He was quiet at first. Then he saw her, Monika, pushing her way through the crowd, against the flow. He watched, curiously, as she struggled upstream. He followed with the glasses ahead of her path, maybe twenty yards ahead, and he saw another person heading downstream with equal determination. The two of them were cutting diagonally against the flow of people, toward one another.
He focused in. “I’ll be damned,” he blurted out.
Hard to believe, he thought. It’s Peter Mann! Somehow the son-of-a-bitch had gotten out!
Lieutenant Krisman adjusted the binoculars, bringing them sharply into focus. He could see Mann clearly now, carrying a very large pack, swollen at the sides like a pregnant porcupine with many wires hanging out and an antenna strapped to the back. He watched as Mann fought through the crowd, and Monika doing likewise, each knifing their way toward one another.
The other two soldiers had stood up now, astonished by this enlightening development, and were staring out in the direction Krisman was viewing.
Krisman handed the binoculars to Bernard, pointing in the direction he should look. Bernard put them up to his face, adjusting them.
“Shit!” Bernard cried out as he focused in on Mann. It was like seeing a ghost. He should be dead! “Let Freedom Ring,” he said with his heavy French accent.
Below, Peter Mann stretched tall above the crowd to see Monika, now only ten yards away, waving her hand high so he could see her. By the time Krisman had the binoculars back to his face, the two were embraced. Mann lifted Monika off her feet and whirled her around, parting the crowd. Then the crowd consumed them, quickly, and like two twigs in a river they were swept away in the current of people.
“All the colors lead into one,” Krisman mumbled to himself.
“What?” Bernard asked.
But Krisman did not reply. He just kept watching them through the binoculars, watching them as they vanished in the crowd, blending in among the collage of colorful Albanian quilts, garments, and cargo bags, flowing on across the border into Montenegro.
“This is Radio Free Kosovo - Your voice of democracy throughout the Balkans. We come to all of thee, from our soul to your soul, for the soul of Kosovo."
Lieutenant Krisman stared at the small transistor radio sputtering out the fast, high-pitched voice. It sat on a rock in the bright winter sun just beyond the shade of the pine trees. He took one last drag from the cigarette that hung limply from his mouth, shook his head, and flicked the butt at the radio. Turning his eyes back up-canyon, some two hundred yards, he focused on a place between two peaks where a small, white building stood near the top of the ridge. There was a radio tower stretching high above the building into the deep blue Kosovo sky. It was a small, prefabricated steel building, and from this distance it looked like a toy Erector Set.
The two men with him, Bernard, a young Frenchman, and Alec from England, were huddled in the sun trying to stay warm. They had climbed for two hours in the cold before reaching this spot high on the ridge. Despite the crispness of the air, all of them had sweat on their foreheads. Krisman pulled a thermos from his pack, warm with coffee, pressed the edge of it against his cheek, and then drank from it. The radio started crackling again:
“And now a song dedicated to Milosovic, and to all the fine things he's done for this wonderful land. I'm sure Mick had you mind when he wrote it. Ladies and gentleman, the Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Lieutenant Krisman looked over at his two men, Bernard and Alec, and they both glanced back from beneath their powder-blue UN helmets.
"Try raising that idiot again," Krisman said.
Both Bernard and Alec looked at one another.
“Your turn,” said Alec.
“No, your turn,” Bernard came back.
“Come’on ladies.”
Mumbling obscenities in French, Bernard took hold of the Rascal handheld unit and began to speak into the radio, in French.
"English, damn it," Krisman said.
Bernard glared up at Lieutenant Krisman, then began speaking in very poor English with a very heavy French accent; “Hey you, crazy American man. You come in.”
“What?” Lieutenant Krisman snapped the Rascal from Bernard’s hand and began to speak into it: "Radio Kosovo. This is Lieutenant Krisman of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force. Please reply.”
There was no answer at first so Krisman repeated the message.
“He’s ignoring us,” Alec said.
Krisman looked up at the building, glistening white in the sunlight, then at the transistor radio sitting on the rock, waiting for a reply. “You are in imminent danger. I repeat, you are in imminent danger. Please come in."
The music on the transistor radio suddenly ended and the high-pitched voice came on again:
"Now let's talk about impotence, and all those poor assholes out there with blue helmets. Impotence, as defined in the Webster's Dictionary, is powerlessness, sterility, or the inability to engage in sexual intercourse, or the inability to achieve or sustain an erection. Lacking physical strength. Often used in reference to males, it says.
Well, I don’t know about you guys, but as for me, I plan on riding the borrego til’ I die.
And from what they tell me, that may be soon. But that's a whole other story that we'll get back to later in the program.
"Now, as for all you baby-blues out there… How do those guns feel, limp in your hands? Like flaccid skin worms? What good is a weapon of peace if never used? On the other hand, think of all the rapists that you’ve saved by not using it."
Alec took his helmet off and wiped the frost off the top of it. He was still
breathing heavily, steam from his warm breath shot into the air. “He's mocking us, isn’t he?”
“No. Shit.”
“Do we really have to listen to this shit?” Alec asked.
“Do we really have to save this ass?" Bernard asked.
Krisman snapped up the transistor radio and turned the volume knob until it ‘clicked’ off.
He put the Rascal back into Bernard's pack. “It's not him we’re saving,” he said.
“It's the communication equipment?” Bernard asked.
“Bullshit. It's him,” Alec said. “No civilian casualties, especially American civilians.”
“Let's go ladies,” Krisman said.
Bernard and Alec reluctantly slide under their pack straps and began to follow Krisman,
laboring slowly up the ridge.
They climbed steadily for half an hour, up among rock-strewn terrain and through occasional patches of snow. The wind blew hard at times, especially when they came out from between the trees, but when they were in the sun, they could feel its warmth as well. As they gained in elevation, the ridge narrowed and became barren. The bulk of the forest was below them now.
Lieutenant Krisman paused just outside the shade of a small pine tree, huffing. He looked down at his two companions. They were some thirty yards below him. He took the transistor radio from his pack, turned it on, grabbed hold of an overhead tree limb, and hung from it loosely as he listened to the music and waited. Finally, Bernard and Alec, struggling, reached his position and they each found a tree to lean against. Just then the music ended, and the voice came on again:
“Now, on the subject of my imminent health… it is said to be in peril. In fact, it is said my life is in peril. That being the case, let’s make this subject on the visual characteristics of skeletons. Notice how they all look alike? Yeah. Skeletons all look alike. No flesh, no expression. All of that which makes us unique among the living – that’s all gone. I had this conversation once with a skeleton, and it was a trivial one-sided affair. How are you doing today Mr. Skeleton? No response. What beautiful dark eyes you have, Mr. Skeleton. No response. Oh, excuse me, is it Ms. Skeleton? It made me realize it doesn’t matter much, to a skeleton that is, what happens now or tomorrow. Not a hell of a lot. Soon, we'll all be skeletons, the Grateful Dead, like the men of Grenicia, all squeezed into one grave. The point being, all skeletons look alike, and what matters most here is what we do with the living, as we are living. Put your skeletons to good use boys, while they still have flesh and bone of them. Yes, I am speaking to you baby-blues.”
"I can't believe we're risking our lives for this fool," Alec mumbled.
Lieutenant Krisman looked at his watch. "If we don't get up there soon, he’ll be right. We'll all be skeletons.”
“Uh?" Bernard uttered.
Krisman looked back at Bernard, then Alec, looking at the two men as though he was looking through them, at their skeletons. Bernard looked down at himself, at his chubby legs. And Alec did the same, glancing down, over his own long, lanky frame. The two men then quickly began to move, with renewed vigor, following Krisman up the ridge.
In twenty minutes they arrived at the ridge-top. They followed a footpath a short distance north to the base of the small widow-less building. The building was made up of only four concert slabs and one heavy, metal door. They walked around the building to make sure all was clear and then positioned themselves in front of the door. Lieutenant Krisman knocked on it.
“It is Lieutenant Krisman from the U.N. Peacekeeping Force,” he announced, puffs of steam bursting from his lips as he spoke.
There was no answer.
He pounded again. “Hello, this is Lieutenant Krisman of the U.N.”
There was still no answer. He placed his ear against the door and he could hear music inside. He looked back at the other two men. They heard it too. Then there was a noise from the roof-top. Looking up they saw a long, reddish-haired, bearded man peering down at them.
“What do you want?” the man asked sharply. It was the same high-pitched voice they heard on the radio.
“I am Lieutenant Krisman from the U.N. Protection Force. We have evacuation orders for this station and are here to escort you down. Are you Peter Mann?”
“Maybe,” the red-bearded man replied. “Maybe not.”
“We have good information that this Station is an immediate target of Serb forces,” Lieutenant Krisman continued.
“Immediate?”
Krisman looked at his watch. “Could be anytime now.” He looked back at his two companions who stood nervously behind him, rifles facing barrel down. They were both still breathing heavily from the climb.
“Yes, I am Peter Mann,” the bearded man said. “Hold on a minute.”
Mann disappeared behind the roofline and in twenty seconds the heavy, metal door jarred open. Peter Mann stood there with an automatic pistol low at his side.
“Greetings,” he said.
He motioned for the three men to enter, which they did. Inside they found a makeshift radio room; a chaotic mess of jumbled radio boxes and wires everywhere, duck-taped to one another, duck-taped to the walls and duck-taped to the ceiling pipes. A small bench against the far wall was loaded with electronic equipment and had a swivel chair up against it. On the console was a vintage, desk-top microphone. There were empty, two-liter, plastic Dr Pepper bottles scattered on the floor and Krisman’s eyes followed a line of them into the half-shadowed corner, were stood a young woman. Her full, wavy light brown hair was illuminated by light coming down through a ceiling hatch, through which an iron ladder led to the roof.
“This is Monika,” Mann said.
Lieutenant Krisman nodded a gentle ‘hello’ while he continued surveying the room. “We are short on time,” he said. “Please gather your things. You have five minutes.”
“It won’t be necessary,” Mann said.
Krisman looked up at Mann.
“We’re not leaving,” Mann said.
“Let me clarify, this station is targeted for destruction and we are here to escort you down. It’s not a matter of choice.”
“Sorry,” Mann replied, “We can’t leave.”
“You have five minutes,” Krisman said, scanning the room for a knapsack. “Take what you need. I can give you five minutes only.” His two soldiers stood behind him just inside the doorway, with rifles down.
“Sorry, I’m not going to do that,” Mann said.
“You have to do that.”
“I’m telling you we won’t leave.”
Krisman stopped what he was doing and looked at Mann. “Staying is not an option.”
“Why not?”
“The U.N. doesn’t want dead civilians, dead Americans, that includes you.”
“Dead civilians?” Mann’s high-pitched voice went faster. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“Come on, get your stuff.”
“Please leave now,” Mann replied.
“This is a military operation. We wouldn’t be up here if it wasn’t something serious.”
“There’s a war on, ya know,” Alec added from his position behind Krisman. He took a step forward and raised the barrel of his rifle.
Mann looked back at Monika, nervously. He had dealt with U.N. soldiers before and did not particularly like them, nor trust them. In his mind, they were nothing more than blind bombardiers following orders without conscience or knowledge of their impact. It was surely the case now, Mann thought. They who could not execute their own cause were going to decide his fate? It was not the Serbs who targeted him, he thought, it was the U.N. who wanted to quiet his political tongue, because they despised the truth and the way in which he delivered it. He had no faith in the U.N., nor these men who represented it. They were too political to do any good, and he’d be damned if he’d allow their politics to decide his fate now.
“Sorry,” he said. “We cannot leave. And you must go!”
Without warning, Mann snapped the pistol up from his side and leveled it at Krisman’s chest. Just as quickly, Bernard and Alec’s rifle barrels jerked up from their sides and locked in on Mann’s chest.
“It’s okay boys,” Krisman said calmly, waving his hand back at them. He walked slowly over to the radio console, eyeing Mann cautiously. Mann’s gun barrel followed him. “There are eighty-millimeter Howitzers out there,” Krisman said, “just beyond the river. Sometime soon, maybe in an hour, maybe in five minutes, this place is going to be obliterated. You leave now or we all die soon.”
“How do I know that’s true?”
“Trust me, it’s true.”
“Why would the Serbs want me dead?”
“Maybe they don’t like what you have to say?” Alec said with a grin.
Krisman picked up the old desktop microphone from the bench and studied it.
“I have fought a war with that microphone,” Mann said, “more so then all your guns.”
Krisman turned the microphone over, examining it as if to say, this is a gun?
“Maybe?” he replied, as if to answer himself.
“Listen,” Alec said. “We walked all the way up here to save your ass.”
“I don’t want to be saved,” Mann came back, his high-pitched voice fluttering now.
“This is bullshit,” Bernard said in his heavy French accent.
“We are under orders to bring you down,” Krisman said flatly.
Mann did not answer.
“So what are we going to do about this?” Krisman asked. “Are we all going to just stand around looking at each other?”
Mann stiffened his arm. Krisman smirked.
“Take him,” Krisman said.
As Bernard and Alec advanced, Mann, whose gun was still pointed straight at Krisman’s chest, raised it to Krisman’s head.
Bernard and Alec hesitated.
“Go!” Krisman ordered impatiently. “He won’t shoot.”
As they moved in, Mann, who was shaking now, turned the gun inward to his own chest.
“Hold it!” Krisman shouted.
Bernard and Alec froze.
Mann quickly shifted the gun up to his head, adjusting the barrel squarely against his temple in dramatic fashion. “Take your baby blue helmets off my mountain or I’ll shoot myself and you’ll have a lot of explaining to do!”
“I don’t think he’ll shoot,” said Alec. “Not that I give a rat’s ass.”
“Yeah, let him do it,” Bernard said. “Let him blow his brains out!”
Krisman frowned.
Now what?
As Krisman mulled the situation, the irony dawned in his head. Here they were, two Americans in a faraway country, high on a ridge, soon to be obliterated in a shower of shells, ready to kill one another! The man they had come to save was threatening to take his own life. You cannot save a man who doesn’t want to be saved anymore than you can you save a country that does not want to find salvation.
“Stay then,” Krisman said abruptly. He turned back to Alec and Bernard and said, “Put your guns down.”
Alec and Bernard exchanged doubtful glances.
“It’s okay,” Krisman assured.
Reluctantly, the two soldiers lowered their barrels.
Mann did not believe. He remained with gun raised.
Krisman looked over at Monika. The young woman had remained painfully quiet in the corner through all of this. The way the light was coming down on her and reflecting off her golden hair she looked like a Botticelli on a wall in the Louvre. “Let us take the woman,” he said.
Mann paused, but seeing the gun barrels lowered, hearing the sincerity in Krisman’s voice, and weighing the fact that there were no other options, he dropped his gun to his side and nodded his head. He made a subdued, solemn-like walk over to Monika and gently brushed the hair back from her face. He whispered something softly in her ear, speaking in a Slavic language unfamiliar to Krisman. A moment passed and she began to cry and Mann took her in his arms and held her, and she held him, locking herself to him. It took a couple of minutes, and nearly a fight, before Bernard and Alec could pry her away. She had finally given up, exhausted and beaten, and with Mann’s urging, she gathered a few items and was escorted outside by Bernard and Alec.
Krisman remained alone in the building with Mann. “Martyrism is not an American trait,” he said. “Why don’t you come down with us?”
“Why don’t you throw away that blue helmet and join me? It is here that this war will be won or lost.”
“You think very mighty of yourself.”
“Not of myself. Of the power of free speech.”
Krisman’s eyes flashed down to the desktop microphone. With one finger he gently pushed it until it tipped over backward on the bench.
“More powerful than all our rifles?”
“More powerful than ten-thousand rifles,” Mann replied.
Lieutenant Krisman adjusted the strap on his helmet and walked to the door, pausing before exiting.
“You’re full of shit, Mann,” he said. “Skeletons don't look alike. I've seen them, at the gravesites in Sarajevo, in the burnt-out homes of Herzegovina, on the roadside beneath a bridge near Dubrovnik. Some are missing parts, some have cracked and broken ribs, and some have chunks of skull missing. You’re full of shit, Mann. Skeletons don’t look alike.”
Peter Mann, a man of many words, now looked back in silence.
“Having your skeleton blasted to smithereens,” Krisman continued. “A hell of a'lotta good that does, uh? Keeping your skeleton in one piece is the object of this game."
***
With that, they were gone, heading down the ridge, descending fast to the tree-line. At one point Bernard pulled the transistor radio from his pack, turned it on, and held it in his hand as they walked. They all listened.
“It is a funny thing,” the squeaky voice on the radio said. “They call themselves ‘Peacekeepers’ even in a land that has no peace. They claim to be the ‘Protection Force’ but cannot protect anyone, not even themselves. And they say they are “United Nations’ in a country un-united. They are Pharisees, I say. The hypocrites of the new millennium.”
“He’s talking about us?” Alec asked, then realizing he was, he said: “Why didn’t you let him blow his head off?”
“We are saving his woman,” Bernard said. “He should be grateful for that at least, if nothing more.”
“Let Freedom Ring,” the voice on the radio continued. “You, the people of Kosovo. You are the gatekeepers. You are the arms of freedom, the arms that hold the torch. So long as you are here, so long as you are willing to fight, the gates of freedom remain open, for you and for all of Kosovo.”
Krisman said nothing. He only looked back occasionally at the small white building perched up on the ridge, expecting it to vanish anytime.
They hurried now, making quick time downhill over the same terrain it had taken them twice as long to climb.
It came very quickly, in a sudden flash. Two laser-guided munitions streaked out of the blue, Kosovo sky like lightening bolts, hitting the building and burying it momentarily in a white cloud of smoke. Krisman turned in time to see the building engulfed in a hot flame. When the smoke settled, the building and the radio tower were gone.
The sound of the blast, delayed in reaching them, now echoed down the canyon. The three men exchanged glances, knowing the certainty of what it meant. The transistor radio in Bernard’s pack spewed out a steady hum. As Bernard switched it off, Monika crumbled to her knees crying. She remained there for half an hour with Bernard and Alec consoling before she was able to get up and move again. Even then, and only with their help, was she able to move down the mountain, sometimes having to be dragged, or having to stop frequently as her legs would occasionally give out. Finally they reached the place where their Hummer was parked, hidden in a grove of pines.
* * *
Six weeks had passed since the radio station and been eradicated from the ridge top, and it was now early spring. Alec, Bernard and Lieutenant Krisman sat high on a hilltop in the tall grass among some small purple and yellow flowers, watching a wave of refugees flood across the border into Montenegro. From there many would join the long refugee trail north through Hungary to Western Europe. They had dropped Monika off at a NATO Red Cross outpost near Vitomirica three weeks earlier with hopes she would be reunited with family, if she had any left. Krisman left a letter in English explaining the circumstances of how they had found her and asking for assistance in her care, although he knew, she was just one among many. She had been quiet as they traveled, rarely speaking, and only then to herself in her native tongue. She had seen many things, Krisman knew. Things that would make anyone quiet, things not meant to be seen by a person so pure of heart. It was etched in Krisman’s mind, an image of her sitting on a dirt embankment in Subotica, her hair drooping down, her face lifeless, tears glistening on her cheeks. She had cried spontaneously and often, and when she waited for the aid worker to examine her, she collapsed in a pool of tears. Krisman knew, any pureness left in her heart, if not already, by then had been wiped out.
The sun was shinning warmly on them now, and the three men sat relaxing, taking in the warmth upon their shoulders as they watched the thousands of people make the border crossing below. Bernard lay flat on the green earth, his chin on his folded arms with a blade of grass sticking from his mouth. The other two men were also resting and watching, Krisman with both arms back and palms planted outward on the ground, and Alec sitting with his legs crossed, elbows on his knees, and binoculars to his face.
It was quite a spectacle, a mass of humanity, people of all kinds, children, grandparents, families together, and families apart, carrying everything they owned, some reuniting, some rejoicing, some downtrodden and completely broken, many just happy to be out of harms way. From their position high on the hilltop, the hoards of people, with the many vibrant colors of Albanian quilts, cargo bags, and garments of all shades, appeared like a mosaic – a colorful tapestry – flowing like a river of life.
All the colors lead into one, Krisman thought. It is the color of life. It was good to see the living again, to see people with hope again.
As Alec watched the mass migration through the magnification of the binoculars, he could see with great detail the many faces of mothers, and daughters, and children, and grandmothers; faces drawn from war, some hollow with death, yet others elated with freedom.
“Hey! Look at that! There!” he suddenly cried out.
He pointed into the crowd with an outstretched finger. The other two turned and looked in the direction he pointed. He took another look through the binoculars. “Check it out,” he said, handing the binoculars to Lieutenant Krisman while still pointing with his finger.
Krisman took the binoculars and peered through them. He was quiet at first. Then he saw her, Monika, pushing her way through the crowd, against the flow. He watched, curiously, as she struggled upstream. He followed with the glasses ahead of her path, maybe twenty yards ahead, and he saw another person heading downstream with equal determination. The two of them were cutting diagonally against the flow of people, toward one another.
He focused in. “I’ll be damned,” he blurted out.
Hard to believe, he thought. It’s Peter Mann! Somehow the son-of-a-bitch had gotten out!
Lieutenant Krisman adjusted the binoculars, bringing them sharply into focus. He could see Mann clearly now, carrying a very large pack, swollen at the sides like a pregnant porcupine with many wires hanging out and an antenna strapped to the back. He watched as Mann fought through the crowd, and Monika doing likewise, each knifing their way toward one another.
The other two soldiers had stood up now, astonished by this enlightening development, and were staring out in the direction Krisman was viewing.
Krisman handed the binoculars to Bernard, pointing in the direction he should look. Bernard put them up to his face, adjusting them.
“Shit!” Bernard cried out as he focused in on Mann. It was like seeing a ghost. He should be dead! “Let Freedom Ring,” he said with his heavy French accent.
Below, Peter Mann stretched tall above the crowd to see Monika, now only ten yards away, waving her hand high so he could see her. By the time Krisman had the binoculars back to his face, the two were embraced. Mann lifted Monika off her feet and whirled her around, parting the crowd. Then the crowd consumed them, quickly, and like two twigs in a river they were swept away in the current of people.
“All the colors lead into one,” Krisman mumbled to himself.
“What?” Bernard asked.
But Krisman did not reply. He just kept watching them through the binoculars, watching them as they vanished in the crowd, blending in among the collage of colorful Albanian quilts, garments, and cargo bags, flowing on across the border into Montenegro.