Vuk smiled. “Someone was awfully frightened while riding in this car. Very likely his last ride.”

“Well,” Ivo said, “if a pee-stained car is our worst punishment, I’ll take it.”

Vuk laughed. “The boss was mad as hell, wasn’t he. We’re lucky we got off with our skins.”

Ivo nodded. They could laugh now, but last night it had been no laughing matter. Normally Dragovic would shrug off an accident like a pierced radiator, but he’d flown off the handle, raging about the security area like a madman. He was still in a fury over the tire attack, wanting to kill somebody for it, but who? For a few moments Ivo had been ready to piss his own pants, fearing that he and Vuk would end up as surrogate whipping boys.

But then Dragovic had stopped abruptly, almost in midshout, and stalked from the room, leaving Vuk and Ivo—and no doubt many of the others present—shaken and sweaty.

Ivo remembered a sergeant like that in Kosovo. He’d had that same unpredictable, almost psychopathic streak. But at least the Army’s rules and regulations had restrained him somewhat. Dragovic had nothing to hold him back. The rules were all his and he could change them whenever he pleased.

Ivo missed the Army, even though much time was spent sitting around waiting for something to happen or to be told what to do. Mostly he missed the structured existence. He did not miss the fighting.

He still had nightmares about Kosovo. He hadn’t taken part in the cleansing. Never in a thousand lifetimes could he step into a home and shoot everyone in sight. Most of that had been done by the local police and paramilitaries. Some soldiers had participated—Vuk, for one—but most just stood by and let it happen.

That was my sin, Ivo thought. Turning my head. That and looting.

The looting had been so senseless—carrying off televisions with no way to get them back home. Only the officers had access to trucks, and they simply commandeered the most valuable items from the men under them and shipped them home.

The Ivo who left Kosovo was a far cry from the Ivo who had entered that hellish province. The night before boarding the transport out, he’d prayed that he wouldn’t have to kill. But he’d returned with blood on his hands—the blood of a few KLA guerrillas, and civilians as well. But he’d killed civilians only when they’d asked for it.

His unit had been stationed in the area between Gnjilane and Zegra, and no one who was not there could ever understand what it was like. An old woman would hobble by a group of soldiers and, just before turning a corner, toss a hand grenade into their midst.

Sometimes you had to shoot first. Ivo knew fellows who hesitated. They went home in boxes.

Ivo had learned, and he’d returned to Belgrade in one piece. But the pale face and dead baffled eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy he’d shot, an unarmed boy who’d looked like he was armed but was only looking for a handout, had followed Ivo home and stayed with him.