Warriors (9781101621189) (29 page)

Dušic screamed in Serbo-Croatian. Curses and threats, Gold presumed.

Petrov held his pistol on Dušic, but Dušic paid it no mind. With his good hand, he lunged toward the passenger seat where his own weapon had fallen. Webster grabbed him by the arm, and Gold took hold of him by the shirt. Dušic struggled pointlessly. It occurred to Gold that although she'd seen and done much in her career, she'd never put her hands on a war criminal resisting arrest. She pulled with Webster and dragged Dušic out of the car.

Dušic lay on the ground, bleeding from his mangled wrist. He continued spewing curses. Petrov shouted back at him. The inspector gripped his weapon with both hands and kept the muzzle trained on Dušic's head.

“Does he speak English?” Webster asked.

“Some, I think,” Petrov said.

“Tell him he's charged with murder, violations of the Law of Armed Conflict, and crimes against humanity.”

Petrov began speaking in Serbo-Croatian, but Dušic interrupted him.

“Fuck you,” DuÅ¡ic said.

Webster folded his arms. The gesture had an air of completion about it.

“I'll see your ass in The Hague,” Webster said.

•   •   •

PARSON WATCHED A POLICE MEDIC
bandage Dušic's wound. The medic had trouble applying the dressings; the bullet had exploded Dušic's hand and left shredded tendons and muscle that dangled and dripped. The injury looked a lot like some of the blast wounds Parson had seen at the Patriarchate.

Rain began to fall from a leaden sky. Big droplets hit the pavement like pistol rounds, stung Parson's face. He leaned on the police van, clicked the safety on the Vintorez's fire selector, and made no move to get out of the weather.

Gold came toward him. She had blood on her arms from manhandling Dušic. Parson said nothing to her, and she said nothing to him. He liked it that way; he had a lot of thoughts and memories to process right now, and chatter would not have helped. But he appreciated her nearness.

She took the Vintorez by the forward hand guard. Parson gave her the weapon, and she placed it on the hood of the van. Gold put a hand on his chest, placed her other arm around his waist. Her touch flooded Parson with relief like an injection of morphine. Finally she spoke, but only two words.

“Nice shot.”

He pulled her closer, shivered in the cold rain. In the distance he could see a line of harder rain advancing across the fields and hills. It came down in sheets, fell with such force that a mist formed at ground level. Parson watched how vapor seemed to rise up out of the soil. The mist thickened and shifted, obscured the terrain, and swirled among the fog and shadows and ghosts of this tormented land.

TWO YEARS LATER

(THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS)—
Serbian war criminal Viktor Dušic has received a life prison sentence from the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Dušic was convicted on multiple counts of murder of Bosnian Muslims during the 1990s. Witnesses testified that he took part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

He maintained that the court had no authority over him, and he refused to take the stand or even enter a plea. The trial revealed that Dušic and a small band of supporters bombed the Patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church two years ago in an effort to rekindle the Bosnian War.

Orthodox leaders denounced the defendant during testimony that began soon after Dušic's arrest. Though riots and skirmishes had broken out across Bosnia and Serbia, the trial dampened tensions in the region, and an uneasy peace continues to hold.

American attorney Terrence Webster, a veteran of NATO missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, led the prosecution. He accepted no compensation for his services.

“The world hunted down Nazis until they were in their nineties,” Webster said. “We will do the same for those who committed genocide in the Balkans.”

Dušic remains under heavy guard, on a twenty-four-hour suicide watch.

THE WARRIORS

EVEN NOW, WHEN I HEAR
music from the 1990s, it puts me back at Delta Squadron headquarters at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, preparing for a flight into Bosnia or Kosovo. Those Air National Guard missions seemed otherworldly, flying relief supplies to a region where an ethnic group had been targeted for extinction.

This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen anymore. After the Holocaust, the world had said
Never again.
But it turned out the world didn't really mean it. Marshaling the forces to stop what was taking place in the former Yugoslavia took far too long. While thousands died, politicians vied for political advantage. Whether American congressmen supported or opposed action seemed to depend on party affiliation. Academics split hairs over whether it was
really
genocide. (During that time, I worked as a journalist in civilian life, and the discussion reminded me of a macabre newsroom joke about when to use the word “massacre.” Not enough dead? Then here's the lead:
Five people shot to death today narrowly avoided being massacred.
)

While the debate in government halls and academia turned Kafkaesque, the dying on the ground was all too real. Images coming out of the Balkans—civilians shot dead by random sniper fire, prisoners so emaciated their ribs protruded—looked like something from the 1940s, except the pictures came in color, transmitted by satellite.

We flew our C-130s over shelled villages and besieged towns, sometimes delivering food and medicine, sometimes delivering weapons for NATO combat missions. In operations with names like Noble Anvil and Provide Promise, allied military personnel gave their best effort. But that effort came too late for at least a hundred thousand people.

We owe those dead, some of whom rest in mass graves, remembrance. Yet the conflict in the former Yugoslavia has become a forgotten war. Perhaps this novel offers a small reminder.

My villain, Viktor Dušic, is entirely fictitious. I know of no Serbian war criminal who became a wealthy arms dealer. But that would have been less outlandish than other events that
did
happen, such as Radovan Karadžic's transformation into an “alternative healer and spiritual explorer.” The real-life Karadžic has published poetry, and the lines attributed to him in
The Warriors
are his own.

The literary masterpiece that Dušic misunderstands,
The Mountain Wreath
, is one of the most important works of the Serbian canon. Published in 1847, it is a play written in folk verse, not a political tract.

My novel's historical references, including the murder of the Bosnian Romeo and Juliet, come right out of the era's headlines. On May 19, 1993, Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic were shot to death on the Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo. According to reports, Ismic and Brkic had dated for years, and they were buried together. She was a Muslim; he was a Christian. In my novel, the character Stefan pulled the trigger. The real gunman has never been identified.

Dušic's flashback to a cruise missile strike by the USS
Normandy
is also based on an actual event. During the Bosnian War, the
Normandy
launched an attack on an air defense control site. As of this writing, she remains in active service.

Through the characters of Dragan and Irena, I hope I have presented the better angels of Serbian culture. To create those characters, I took inspiration from Serbian-Americans I have known, including a favorite college professor and a pilot with whom I shared many enjoyable hours in the cockpit. I believe Dragan and Irena, and the professor and the pilot, represent the vast majority of that proud and storied people.

The Rivet Joint aircraft described in
The Warriors
is real, though my portrayal of its procedures is speculative. The Rivet Joint's true capabilities and methods are classified, and I have never served with the electronic warfare community.

The novel's depiction of Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan is fairly true to life. The American commanders at Manas, like my character Webster, often come from reserve components of the Air Force. I wrote the description of the base's coffee shop from memory, right down to the cat. Who knows? Maybe the cat's still there, sleeping on the lap of some off-duty aviator, providing a moment of calm and normalcy.

As
The Warriors
goes to press, twentieth anniversaries approach for some of the worst events of the Balkan wars. I hope we will take time to reflect on those events, and to consider the costs of turning a blind eye to things we'd rather not face.

 

—
TOM YOUNG

Alexandria, VA

July 2013

While on an Air National Guard mission a few years ago, my crew stopped at a German pub for dinner. We had some time off before resuming our journey to Southwest Asia, and we looked forward to the luxury of a full meal and a good night's sleep. As we waited for our food to arrive, we discussed our civilian job prospects.

I had just been furloughed from a struggling airline, and I mentioned that I had considered flying for a contractor known for taking on some of the government's more unpleasant missions. But, as I told my crewmates, I dropped the idea after my wife, Kristen, weighed in on the subject.

Kristen's pronouncement: “If you fly for that company and the insurgents don't kill you, I will.”

An Army master sergeant and his wife sat at the next table, not taking part in our conversation. But the wife overheard my story, and it must have touched a nerve. She stood up and addressed all the servicemen in the pub.

“That's right!” she said. “You guys listen to your wives. They're why you're still alive.”

She probably overstated the case, but I do know this: My wife is why I'm still an author. I'm always astounded by her talent for taking my manuscript and identifying flaws I can't see, finding ways to sharpen the story. Good editing requires a special genius, and I lucked into a marriage with a bonus.

I also lucked into a working relationship with the best in the business: Putnam publisher and editor-in-chief Neil Nyren, Putnam president Ivan Held, and executive editor Thomas Colgan at Berkley. Thanks are also due to Michael Barson, Sara Minnich, Kate Stark, Chris Nelson, and everyone at Penguin Group. My agent, Michael Carlisle, makes it all possible, along with Lyndsey Blessing, who helps bring my novels to readers overseas.

Without the kindness of author and professor John Casey, these stories would probably not have progressed beyond scribblings in my notebooks and files on my computer. My parents, Bob and Harriett Young, provide endless support and encouragement, with a lot of promotional help thrown in as well. And on each manuscript, I have received good advice from author and editor Barbara Esstman.

From two very different worlds I've been blessed with two important friends and mentors, both of whom helped shape this novel. My old broadcast journalism professor Richard Elam remains a constant friend and adviser. Retired squadron mate Joe Myers, as a pilot and aircraft commander, always brought me home safely. Now he helps keep me safe from technical errors in my copy.

Two other squadron mates, Ryan Hawk and Don Magners, provided valuable background on the duties of an Air Force safety officer. I also owe a word of thanks for input from Mike Land, Liz Lee, Jodie Tighe, and Robert Siegfried.