“Our inauguration is not a victory celebration, Mr. Chief Justice,” Thorn went on. “We’ve just been given an important job to do — nothing more, nothing less. There’s nothing to celebrate. I’m disrupting my family life, putting my dreams and aspirations on hold, and opening myself to all sorts of public scrutiny, doubt, and danger — all to do the people’s business. I see no reason to celebrate anything but the peaceful transition of power in the world’s greatest democracy. If anyone should celebrate, it’s the voters who chose to exercise their right to choose their form of government and to choose who should lead it. As for me, I’ll get right to work.”
Chief Justice Thompson could say nothing else. He held out his hand, and Thorn shook it warmly. Thorn and Busick shook a few more hands, and to cheers and chants of “Thorn, Busick! Thorn, Busick! “ led their families forward to the White House and marched into history.
Prizren, Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Usratta mozhna! That cowardly bastard did not even have the guts to attend his own swearing-in!” Chief Captain Ljubisa Susic, chief of the Prizren Federal Police Force, Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, laughed at the television with glee. He prided himself on his excellent knowledge of Russian, especially obscenities. “At a time when the eyes of the whole world are upon him, he decides to hide in the White House and play with his vice president’s meat pole, on igrayit z dun’kay kulakovay!”
Susic was in his office, staying late so he could watch the satellite TV broadcast available only in the headquarters building. Here in his office he had peace and quiet, the television picture was reliable and relatively clear, he had maraschino — strong, expensive Serbian cherry brandy — and he had his pistol, which he was required to carry while on the base but forbidden to carry outside. That was another example of the idiotic rules he had to follow because of the NATO occupation of Kosovo: he could carry a weapon when he was surrounded by a hundred heavily armed guards, but when he was on his own outside the headquarters compound, he had to be unarmed for fear of inciting unrest and fear in the civilian population — most of whom would gladly put a bullet in his head or a knife in his back.
Prizren, in the southern section of the southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, was the headquarters of KFOR MNB (S), or Kosovo Force, Multi-National Brigade — South, the NATO-sponsored, United Nation sanctioned peacekeeping force composed of fifty thousand troops from twenty-eight nations around the world, including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Russia. KFOR was set up to patrol Kosovo and attempt to minimize any more ethnic confrontations while the world community tried to find a solution for the problems associated with the disintegration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
And there were plenty of problems. There was a Republic of Kosovo provisional government, sanctioned and even funded by the United Nations, which was scheduled to become the de facto government of the semi-autonomous republic in.less than four years. No longer illegal, the Kosovo Liberation Army was more active than ever, with a force now estimated at more than fifty thousand men, equaling the size of the NATO, United Nations, and Russian peacekeeping forces combined. The KLA was supposed to have disarmed years ago, but that had never taken place — in fact, they were now reported to have heavy weapons such as antitank rockets and man-portable antiaircraft missiles, supplied by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim nations.
The KLA advertised itself as the heart of the soon-to-be independent nation of Kosovo’s self-defense force. It wasn’t true in the least. The KLA was composed mainly of ethnic Albanians, mostly Muslim, and clearly did not treat all Kosovo residents alike. They hated ethnic Serbs and Orthodox Christians, but also discriminated against any foreigner and most other ethnic minorities inside Kosovo, such as gypsies, Romanians, Italians, Jews, and Greeks. Although not sanctioned by the United Nations or NATO, KLA soldiers had begun wearing uniforms and carrying weapons, touting itself as the one and only authentic native Kosovar police force.
In the meantime, Kosovo was still a province of Serbia, supposedly subject to Serbian and Yugoslavian federal law. Susic had the unfortunate task of trying to enforce the laws in a region where lawlessness was the rule rather than the exception. Prizren Airport was still operated by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a national and international airport, and it had to be secured and operated in accordance with Yugoslavian and International Civil Aeronautics Organization law. Its radar installations, power generators, communications links, satellite earth stations, warehouses, and fuel storage depots were also essential to Yugoslavian sovereignty and commerce. No one in NATO or the United Nations had offered to do any of these tasks for Yugoslavia. But the KLA was making that mission almost impossible.
The NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo was in complete shambles. NATO allies Italy and Germany still had peacekeepers in-country, but were constantly squabbling over their role: Italy, with its eastern bases overloaded and closer to the fighting, wanted a much lower-profile presence; Germany, fearful of losing dominance over European affairs, wanted a much more active role, including stationing troops in Serbia itself. Greece and Turkey, NATO allies but longtime Mediterranean rivals, had virtually no role in peacekeeping operations, and it was thought that was the best option. Russia also wanted to reassert its presence and authority in eastern European affairs by supporting its Slavic cousins, counterbalancing Germany’s threat.
And then there was the United States of America, the biggest question mark of all. What would the new president do? He was such an enigma that few analysts, American or foreign, could hazard a guess. The United States had twice as many peacekeepers stationed in or around Kosovo as all the other participants combined, easily outgunning both Germany and Russia. But this relegated them to the role of baby-sitter or referee. The Americans seemed less concerned with keeping peace in Kosovo than with reducing hostilities between European powers.
“This new president is either a nut or a coward,” Susic added. The television on the all-news channel showed thousands of people outside the American Capitol milling around, as if undecided about what they should do. “Look at them — standing around with their thumbs up their asses, because their New Age retro-hippie president is back hiding in the safety of the White House.” Other remote camera shots showed presidential advisors — not yet Cabinet members, because the United States Senate had not confirmed them — arriving at the White House to confer with the President. “How embarrassing. Do you not think so, Comrade Colonel?”
“Do not underestimate this man, Captain,” Colonel Gregor Kazakov said, draining his up of brandy, which Susic immediately refilled. “He has the strength of his convictions — he is not a political animal like the others. Never confuse a soft-spoken nature with weakness.”
Susic nodded thoughtfully. If Kazakov thought so … Kazakov was a great soldier, an extraordinarily brave and resourceful warrior. Gregor Kazakov was the commander of the Russian Federation’s four-thousand-man Kosovo peacekeeping mission, charged with trying to maintain order in the Russian sector of this explosive Yugoslavian republic.
He was a hero to Susic because he had exhibited something relatively rare and unusual in a Russian military officer — initiative. It was Gregor Kazakov, then just a major, who, in June of 1999, upon secret orders from Moscow, had taken elements of his famed 331 Airborne battalion in two Antonov-12 transports low-level at night through the dark, forbidding Bosnian highlands, and then parachuted 120 elite Russian commandos, two armored personnel carriers, man-portable antiaircraft weapons, and a few days’ worth of ammunition and supplies onto Pristina Airport, thus yanking away the key position in Kosovo right out from under NATO’s confused, uncoordinated noses. The Russian paratroopers had captured the airport with complete surprise and no resistance. The entire operation, from tasking order to last man on the drop zone, had taken less than twelve hours — again, amazingly fast and efficient for any Russian military maneuver. A small company of British paratroopers, sent in as an advance team to set up for incoming NATO supply flights, had been politely but firmly rolled out of bed by their Russian counterparts and ordered to evacuate the airport.