The Last Bridge Across Mostar

                    Foreword

With the exception of recognized figures and localities, characters, places and circumstances in this novel are fictional and not intended to represent any person living or dead. Although the 1992-1994 war between Croats and Muslims in Mostar is factual, some dates have been changed. The bridge Stari Most was destroyed on November 9, 1993, rather than in the Spring. Serbia’s war of maps, to control most of the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, orchestrated by President Milosevic, did in fact take place, though his conversations with General Jovanovic herein are fictional.

My interest in the region developed during a 12-year period when my work took me repeatedly through Yugoslavia and much of Eastern Europe. When war broke out, the first-hand reports that came my way moved me deeply. My job was to report the horrendous events occurring in Bosnia, and they occupied my mind and prayers greatly. One morning I awoke and heard my protagonist, Katrina, speaking so clearly that I grabbed a pen and began writing.

BOOK I

Escape from Mostar

The Last Bridge Across Mostar

Prologue

Constantinople, May 28, 1453

Captain Antonio examined the breaches in the massive stone city walls, determined to hold the enemy back for one more day. For seven weeks, the Ottoman Turks’ cannons and bombarding artillery had blasted Christian defenses, probing every weakness, testing their strength until it seemed adversity tore at their souls day and night, purging and refining.

That night it rained. As if by some miraculous decree, the guns quieted and silence filled the city. Frightened women and children packed into Hagia Sophia, Europe’s grandest church, and prayed, kneeling shoulder to shoulder, for what they feared would be the last time. Antonio’s jaw clenched, his nerves taut from the waiting, the reprieve of a day, when he knew disaster would surely come and with it the end of Christendom as they knew it.

For eight centuries, the Turks had schemed to seize Constantinople. Control of the city meant a bridge to the west, power and wealth such as Christians had enjoyed for more than a thousand years. An hour past midnight, Constantinople was as hushed as it had been at daybreak. Shortly thereafter, a terrifying army of battle cries rose from without. Bells of the city clanged as men and women rushed to the walls to stop the attackers.

Thousands of Turkish irregulars armed with swords and bows and arrows scaled the walls and pounded the gates. Captain Antonio ran from one weak spot in the battlement to another, urging his men to fight valiant and hold the enemy back. The irregulars withdrew, to be replaced within minutes by an army of Anatolian Turks.

Antonio thought they had repulsed the second wave, when a Turkish cannon ball struck a vulnerable place in the wall and it tumbled. Three-hundred Turks rushed through the gap. Greek and Roman Christians closed in, formed a brigade and stopped them with their own bodies. Murad II’s elite Janissaries took over. Still the Christians held on, prayed, and held tight a little longer.

When Giustiniani their greatest warrior was struck down, the emperor pleaded that they leave him there. But Giustiniani was carried away and his men followed, leaving the inner gate open for attack. The Turks invaded. Christian soldiers stumbled over one another in their haste to escape.

Antonio’s heart constricted as the Ottoman flag, red, with its moon crescent and star, flapping in the wind, was raised above one of the towers. The metal gates crashed just as he spotted his mother at the church entrance. He tried to reach her--was a yard away when the Turks stormed the sanctuary. "Mother!" he cried as a knife lodged in her chest.

Enraged, he drew his sword, killing five Turks before he was seized and forced to watch the very young, old and crippled of his neighbors butchered. To watch his brother’s tongue cut out, then his eyes. Hate boiled in Antonio and he tasted bile as two Turkish officers argued over possession of his fiancée, tearing the dress off her back and braiding it into a rope to tie her to the winner’s side. He stood rigid, venom coursing through his veins, as his own garments were ripped away, and used to bind his wrists and ankles, before he was chained to the other noblemen and women to be auctioned as slaves.

Huddled in wretched misery with the other captives, Antonio straightened as Murad II and his Moslem holy man passed near and entered the church. His sword hand clenched helplessly as they knelt at the altar and recited in a loud voice. "Only Allah is God! Only Mohammed his most holy prophet!"

Antonio turned aside, bitterly refusing to weep now that the grandest edifice in Christendom had become a mosque and Constantinople, the new Turkish capital.

He prayed, instead, that Christian hatred for the Turks would never die...that their malice would reach down through time and avenge them for this day.

1

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mostar, Winter 1992

The Kosovo Liberation Army(KLA)soldier slipped in through the American mission’s side door and cast a last glance over his shoulder before hastily looking for a hiding place. "Holy Father," he prayed, "help us win this war." Despite the winter chill that lingered into spring, perspiration snaked down his back and beaded under his arms. He suspected they had followed him from the cathedral in Pazaric. The small icon taped to his chest seemed to burn a hole through his flesh the entire morning. Its redemption meant everything to Kosovo’s survival. If it were as valuable as he believed, the revenues from its sale would go a long way toward purchasing arms for the KLA. Without funds they didn’t stand a chance against the Serbs.

His gaze roamed the small whitewashed room, comfortably furnished with several upholstered chairs, two old sofas and a piano, a dark pine desk in the corner. Envy coiled within, as he pictured the preacher Winslow, his wife and grown children there sharing their day. How different life was for these Americans, who came to teach others what they did not know themselves.

From a once wealthy and respected family, the KLA soldier had seen his father beaten to death in the streets by the Serbs. He couldn’t count the times his own life had almost been forfeited. Death was a given, but his life must count for freedom, which meant war, an army and the money to equip it.

He tried to shake off the feeling that what he did was sacrilege as he hid the icon, which his contact for its sale would later retrieve. His back to the door, he scanned the room to ensure it was as he found it. Then he walked away, turning into a narrow alley. Without warning, the blade of an unseen assailant in the shadows plunged into his back. He gasped and fell, one hand outstretched.

His love’s sherry brown eyes smiled at him, her oval face moving near to kiss his lips, silken black curls touching his brow. His beautiful, young wife, a widow just as he’d foretold. But there was no comfort in the thought.

Fifteen-year-old Rachel entered the mission family room and crossed over to the piano with a grimace. She missed America, missed her friends. Her parents John and Ellen were wonderful but Rachel wished they didn’t have to be missionaries, that she and her sisters Shelly and Andi could have stayed home.

She felt sorry for the orphans and didn’t mind helping them. But she couldn’t understand why the natives there didn’t want to take care of their children. They were always hurting each other. Yesterday she’d seen a man shot in the streets. It scared her.

What if they murdered her dad and mom? Then she and her sisters would be orphans. What would happen to them, left with people who didn’t take care of their own children? It would be up to her. How could she count on the Winslows when they might be killed, too?

She rummaged through the piano bench for her music, then glanced up, noticing one of the stones on the fireplace wall had come loose. Curious, she crossed to it, jiggling the stone from its resting place.

Andi dashed into the room. "You’re supposed to be practicing."

"Shh. Come see what I found."

Andi wrinkled her nose. "It’s just an old picture of the Madonna. They have those for sale everywhere, even the train stations."

"Look at the gold frame it’s in. It must be worth a lot of money."

"Bet you anything it’s imitation, see that dirty old ribbon it’s hung on."

Rachel stared at the small picture cupped in her palm, feeling undecided. There was something exquisite about its rendering of the Madonna that moved her, no matter what Andi said. She dusted off the ribbon and slipped it around her neck, tucking the small memento inside her shirt. She’d ask her mother or Aunt Katrina about it later.

2

Katrina Winslow knew a bittersweet pain as memories on replay paraded past--her artist mother handing her a mug of coffee, her dad’s blue eyes twinkling at her across the breakfast table in response to some teasing remark her computer guru brother Giles had made. It was hard to believe they were gone--after giving so much of themselves.

    The thought ignited a burning image of the brutal raid they’d died in. She strove to close her mind and forget. Katrina was swept into the past, forced to recall a cold but crisp sunny day. She remembered that, by late afternoon the weather had taken an abrupt turn. Fog rolled into the surrounding mountains, hanging over Mostar like a veil of doom.

    Selfishly she had felt the need to escape the mission for a while, so she went for a walk. In the tramp through the woods she’d struggled with her biological fears: Twenty-seven, unmarried and not likely to meet anyone in Bosnia who would change that.

    How she envied her parents, wanted what they had, someone who loved her--Katrina.

    A man who’d take her in his arms and cherish her. Loneliness chipped away at her contentment. As wonderful as her family was, she yearned for children of her own.

    It had been two years since the Serbian army mounted guns on the hills surrounding Mostar where Katrina and her family lived. Anxiously, they watched as the Croats managed to push the Serbs back into the hills. But from the new vantage point, Serbs blew up six of the city’s seven bridges across the winding Neretva River and continued to bomb Mostar from above. Then they withdrew and fighting broke out between the town’s Muslims and Croats.

    How long, she wondered, before Stari Most the last bridge across the city’s river would be destroyed? Centuries old, the bridge Stari Most was a symbol of this crossroads of cultures, peoples and religions.

    It was Tito’s death in 1980 that brought Yugoslavia once again to the chopping block as provinces fought for independence, resisting Serbia’s massive quest for power and territory. Back in 1917, it was a Bosnian Serb’s assassination of Arch Duke Wilheim Ferdinand II, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire that set off World War I.

    She had no doubt that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s plan for a greater Serbia was at the heart of the problem as he incited Serbia’s mostly Eastern Orthodox population against the predominantly Roman Catholic Croats and the Kosovar and Bosnian Muslims.

    It was time for her to return to Houston and begin rebuilding a life for herself. There, she’d be more likely to meet someone she could learn to care for. Her deepening feelings for Lucien forced her to realize there was no future for her in Bosnia.

    War loomed, too large and too real. It tore at everyone. How could a loving relationship grow in the midst of such hate and animosity? In a place where an arsenal of guilt and betrayal daily crushed love’s innocence. Should the tender buds dare to burst through the cracks of devastation and catch a whiff of survival, the pruning shears of death waylaid, ripping them like shattered corn silk and tossing them to the winds of fate. Katrina wanted security. She needed to go home.

    Excited to share her decision, confident her family would understand, Katrina ran back to the American mission, stopping short at the horrible carnage in the schoolroom.

    "Mother!" she screamed, dropping to her knees and bending over her wounded parent. Sobs tore at her throat, to be shoved back like a dam straining to burst free as she looked around.

    Dear God, Giles’ head lay severed and bloody on the floor. A spear pierced her father’s right eye.

    A cold stunned nausea swamped her swimming senses. Only her mother’s anxious gaze held her together. Katrina reached, wrenching a knife from her mother’s stomach. Her mother’s face turned white and Katrina feared she had killed her. She jerked off her coat, pressing it against the wound to staunch the bleeding. The whiteness faded to grey. Katrina prayed it was a good sign. "What happened?"

    "A raid." Her mother’s beautiful hand weakly clasped Katrina’s. "Go. Quickly...take the children."

    "Shh, I’m going to take care of you."

    "Darling, it’s too late for me. Prom--promise you’ll care for childr...." Her hand fell away and her eyes closed.

    "I promise, Mother. Please don’t give up. You’re going to make it."

    "Run. They’ll be back–-they think we’re spies." She shuddered in pain, her efforts to speak extracting an enormous toll.

    Katrina reeled, unable to comprehend how anyone could believe they were spies.

    Her mother’s lips barely moved as she struggled to speak. Katrina leaned closer to hear the faint thread of words. "God will hel--p you." Her voice gave out. She gasped and her head lolled to the side.

    "Don’t die. Please don’t leave me." She felt the stillness of the mission close in on her. Her mother’s breathing was no more. Katrina clung to her, sobbing, begging and pleading for her to answer.