Authors: Andy McNab
We passed the UN compound. Lines of white Land Rovers and Land Cruisers were parked outside a square block of concrete and glass. This part of the main had bristled with steel hedgehogs, X-shaped obstacles, placed in the road to prevent the Serb army’s two hundred and fifty or so tanks screaming into the city. Sometimes I’d been able to hear them revving from down town. The hedgehogs hadn’t been the only obstacles you had to try to avoid as you drove towards the airport. There was also any amount of falling concrete, burnt-out vehicles and, now and again, a body or two.
About a K ahead, a bombed-out tower block – what had been the parliament building – loomed above the city centre.
‘Nearly there, Sunny Side Up.’
Jerry said it as I thought it.
I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t heard that saying for nearly ten years.
We hadn’t talked about Rob and Benzil at all. But then, there wasn’t a lot to say.
The taxi pulled up outside the large yellow cube with a Holiday Inn sign. Last time I was here the ground had been covered with snow, and its nickname was born. It still looked much the same, just a whole lot quieter than when four thousand shells and mortar rounds a day were raining down on the city. To me, it brought back good memories of great chips, and sometimes even sausages when they were on the menu. At least until a sniper got the cook on his way to work one day.
67
The Holiday Inn had been forced to close before the war because it was bankrupt, but as all the other hotels in the city were bombed out one by one, it reopened. Even though the prices rose higher and higher the longer the siege went on, it was never short of guests. It didn’t seem to matter that its upper floors were constantly hammered by Serb artillery, rocket and mortar fire: just like the Palestine, it existed to make cash, and it remained the HQ and doss-house for the world’s media.
Sometimes the power was on, sometimes it was off. Sometimes the rooms were freezing cold, sometimes they were too hot. Whatever, it had to be the only hotel in the world where the most expensive rooms were those without a view. The golden rule of survival was: if you see the sniper, the sniper sees you, and he wouldn’t necessarily be a Serb. This war had attracted weirdos from all over: the neo-Nazis, anyone else who didn’t like Muslims, and the ones who just liked killing people. They all came for a bit of war tourism, were escorted into fire positions on the high ground, and had a crack at anything that moved. There was even some avant-garde Russian writer caught on camera, sniping into the city.
The Firm’s operations room above the café was about twenty minutes’ walk away – in peace time – but as much as two or three hours during the siege if the snipers were active and people were backed up on the street corners, waiting for the courage to make a run for it.
When we checked in, the guys behind the desk took our passports as security, just like in the old days. I’d always hated that. I always wondered if it was going to be the last time I’d see it.
The décor hadn’t changed much: still lots of grey ersatz marble covering just about every surface. Even the reception staff still behaved as if a smile of welcome would get them carted off to the gulags.
The Holiday Inn was a lot quieter now that no one was getting shot at and no artillery shells were landing in the lobby, but just as busy. I wondered if it was still a haunt for journalists. Probably not. Sarajevo wasn’t that sort of place any more. There were new wars, new stories. Most of the people milling around looked as if they were here on business. Germans and Turks on cells headed for the lifts, wheeling their smart carry-ons behind them.
A coffee area covered most of the ground floor, with square leather-and-chrome chairs huddled round low tables. In the far corner, the coffee-cum-drinks bar was trying hard to look like a large tent with a stripy canopy above the cappuccino machines and bottles of whisky. The hotel was hollow in the middle. All the rooms were built around the outside walls, so the ten-floor atrium looked like the inside of a state penitentiary. It reminded me of a trip I’d taken to Alcatraz with Kelly.
We got into the lift and pressed for the first floor. Jerry and I were sharing a double this time. The only available singles were on the top couple of floors.
Jerry was still in his own world as we got out and followed the landing. He had to start talking soon.
Room 115 could have been any room in any chain anywhere in the world. It had been redecorated since the war, but dark-wood veneer was still king. And, just like the old days, I found myself looking straight out on to the wreckage of another burned-out building. Not too far beyond it lay the green slopes of Mount Trebevic, the sky above it a flinty blue.
Before the war, Sarajevans used to escape the city heat by cable car to picnic on the mountainside. Then the Serbs came, and they covered Trebevic in land mines. Either I’d read this or seen it on the Discovery Channel, but I knew that most of it was still off-limits. It was known as ‘the lost mountain’.
Jerry threw his new Istanbul bag on to the bed nearest the door. The canvas holdall was a lot smaller than the one he’d arrived with in Baghdad, that was for sure. His bumbag followed.
I stretched out on the other and thought about finding this Ramzi Salkic guy.
68
At last, Jerry opened his mouth. ‘This may sound crazy, but the stuff Benzil and Rob told you about Nuhanovic – it’s kinda made me even more determined to get these shots. Maybe he really can stop some of the madness.’
I looked down at the burned-out building. ‘That’s worrying. Last time you went off taking pictures in this place it nearly got me killed.’
Jerry looked sheepish. ‘I know, I fucked up majorly. But it was worth it. We got to save someone’s life.’ His expression darkened. ‘Don’t you ever want to know what happened up there in the enclaves?’
Not really. He had tried to tell me enough times nine years ago, on the way back into the city. I’d already known as much about the atrocities as I wanted to. I’d told him to keep it for his grandchildren.
I helped myself to a Coke from the minibar. ‘You went up there because the papers were offering a hundred grand for a picture, right?’ What the fuck? He obviously wanted to tell me, so why not listen? At least he was talking.
‘Yup, a hundred grand. Fuck, I’d have run all the way naked with a rose up my ass for that kind of dough. Soon as we heard, Jason and I got a driver and set off north.
‘That road was seventy-five Ks of Dodge City. Two relief workers driving trucks had been killed a couple of days before on the same stretch. We were kinda hyper.
‘Three miles south of the enclave, we hit a Serb checkpoint. Jason was cool at that sort of stuff. He just pulled out a carton of two hundred and did some trading.
‘The village we came into had been totally fucked, man. I mean, every house had been hit. The Serbs had been pounding these guys for months. It was getting dark and we really started to freak, so we tried the UNHCR.’
I collapsed back on my bed and Jerry sat up on the edge of his to keep eye-contact. His face was alive for what seemed the first time in many days.
‘We found some nurses. A Frenchwoman, Nicole, was in charge. We expected to be fucked off with all the usual shit about UN regulations and journalists, but they were cool.
‘They told us the UN had tried parachuting food and medicine into the place at night. The women and children would hear the chutes open and run outside, waiting for the food to land. It was dark and they had tin cans on sticks with candles burning inside them. The Serbs just picked them off, firing at the lights.’ Jerry shook his head sadly. ‘Fuck, man, there was a story every way you turned.
‘In the morning Jason and I walked down into the village to look at their hardware. These Muslims were fighting back with anything they could get their hands on. Guys were fighting from trenches in gardens, from cellars. They were like ants, everywhere. I got sixteen rolls that morning.
‘Then all hell broke loose. We were walking back up the hill to the house when we started taking incoming. There was this young boy, no more than ten, just staggering about, bleeding and crying. His mother had a huge chunk of shrapnel in her back. The grandmother was trying to help.
‘Jason ran to fetch Nicole while I went to see what I could do. Not much, as it turned out. She was dying.
‘The boy had shrapnel in his hand. Nicole and her team did what they could for the two of them, but even I knew the mother needed surgery, and fast. Nicole wanted to take her to the UN base a couple of Ks away down the road. We had a vehicle, they didn’t. How could we just stand by and do nothing?
‘We got to the house, carrying the woman between us. The driver was up for it so we threw the back seats down and got her in. Jason and I got in with her; the kid and the grandmother sat in the front.
‘We’d only driven a mile or two out of the village when we ran into a Serb patrol. They told us to turn back – this lot were all of “fighting age”, even the grandmother. Luckily there was one carton of cigarettes left, and Jason did the deal.
‘Within half an hour, we were at the base. The boy’s name was Fikret, and he wanted to play for Manchester United when he grew up. He was a good kid.’
By now the empty Coke can was resting on my chest. His voice faded, and I turned to see him staring at the floor. ‘That it?’
‘The doctor said the mother’s only chance was to get to a proper hospital. She’d have to be evacuated in one of their APCs, but Fikret and the grandmother couldn’t travel in the APC as they weren’t wounded. UN regulations. Fuck that. He could have allowed them to travel if he’d had the balls.
‘I didn’t have the heart to tell Fikret. He was busy. His mother was swinging in and out of consciousness, and he was holding her hands, stroking her hair.
‘The APC turned up, and that UN fuck still wouldn’t let them travel with her. I gave him a hug. He cried on my shoulder for a bit, then he got himself together and explained what was happening to the grandmother.
‘As soon as the APC had left, we were all escorted off the base. We couldn’t drive them back to the village because we had nothing left to trade if we ran into the Serbs again. He knew that, and just took his grandmother’s hand and headed home. My last shot was of their backs as they walked up the road.’
I threw the Coke can at the waste-bin and just clipped its edge. In the old days I’d have lobbed it to the nearest Muslim so he could make a hand grenade. It seemed a waste of metal to follow UN regulations and crush it so that I didn’t break the arms embargo. ‘And that’s when you picked me up?’
‘Yup. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but I need to say thanks for saving my life.’
‘Thank-you accepted.’
He smiled. ‘I know you don’t mean it, but it makes me feel better. You want a coffee or something? I’ll go down.’
Jerry strapped on his bumbag. One of the downsides of being a photo man is the kit always has to be with you.
‘Yeah, why not? Frothy, no sugar.’
I watched him leave, and as the door closed behind him my eyes were drawn to the emergency-information sheet pinned to the back of it. I got up and studied the diagrams, but none of them seemed to show me what to do if I needed to run away from people armed with AKs. I dug around for my room card and went out on to the landing.
The coffee area was hidden under its stripy canvas canopy, but Jerry hadn’t got there yet. He was pacing up and down just outside the main doors, the Thuraya against his cheek. He wasn’t just testing for a signal, he was talking. The conversation ended and he disappeared under the tent.
I was back on my bed, channel-hopping for CNN or BBC World, when he came back with a cup and saucer in each hand. His coffee was black, with several sachets of sugar sitting in the saucer.
‘You sure that’s healthy?’
‘Few extra calories never hurt anyone.’ He handed me mine.
‘I meant all that phoning. You’re going to end up with a brain tumour.’
‘Just a quick one to DC. He’s got nothing new.’
It was eleven forty-three. The second prayer of the day was some time after midday. Times changed, depending on where you were in the world and daylight saving, all that sort of stuff. ‘Maybe we could make Zuhr?’
Jerry called down to Reception. They’d know prayer times, which would probably be in the papers anyway. Even if we missed the Salkic guy this time round, we could hang about, have a brew and something to eat, and try again during Asr.
Jerry got off the phone as I checked my bumbag. ‘One twenty. Plenty of time.’
We tuned the TV to a German soap with Serbo-Croat subtitles, put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and headed for the lifts.
I looked down into the atrium. A group of five American troops were sitting by the coffee shop, getting into their brews and cigarettes. In this part of the world, they wore green BDUs and were part of SFOR. They’d probably been stationed in Germany before being posted here, and counted themselves lucky. Going by the size of them, they had a KFC at the camp gate that only sold family buckets. They didn’t look like their lean and mean mates who were getting the good news in Baghdad.
69
The air was crisp outside, just cold enough to see a little vapour as we breathed. We were going to need coats.