26 AMERICAN SPYIn Split we met up with two US military special operators who drove over
from Zagreb in a brand-new armored Jeep Cherokee. Over ice-cold Dalma-
tian pivo (beer) that night in the smoke-filled restaurant of the Communist-
chic Hotel Split, we reviewed our plan for entering Sarajevo the next day. We
thought we’d decrease our odds of being shot by inserting our vehicle into
a UN convoy that was scheduled to bring relief supplies to the isolated city,
by way of Mostar and the deadly Mount Igman road. Although we were
now armed, our light weapons and armored Jeep would serve little defensive
purpose against the antiaircraft guns the Serbs might use to attack us.
My own weapon, incidentally, was “illegal” in the eyes of the agency’s
lawyers, who explicitly forbade me to carry a gun in Sarajevo. Every living
creature in Bosnia—not to mention a few dead ones—was armed to the
teeth at the time. It was, after all, a chaotic, war-torn city. Saigon, 1995.
Regardless, the agency’s risk-averse bureaucrats decided they’d rather deal
with a dead officer than chance having to explain why one of their own
shot someone in a war zone.
Not surprisingly, one year later, when agency officers were serving
side by side with thousands of American troops in newly pacified Bosnia,
the lawyers mustered the courage to permit our officers to carry weapons.
After all, by that time, the likelihood that a weapon would ever have to be
used for anything other than plinking pivo bottles was about as low as their
own tolerance for risk.
The final leg of our journey to Sarajevo began when we left Split in the
early morning hours of July 10 for the sleepy farming village of Tarčin, on
the Bosnian-controlled side of Mount Igman. Along the way up the moun-
tain’s dusty back, we heard artillery shells whistling by overhead. There was
also sporadic small-arms and machine-gun fire. This was our first real taste
of the live-fire zone we were about to enter.
On our long drive in, our secret military escorts (dressed in civilian
clothing) were all business. It’s what you’d expect from the best of the best.
Heavily armed, they sat up front, and we sat in back. There wasn’t a lot of
chitchat other than to brief contingency plans (e.g., review the game plan
in the event we were attacked).