So, a few Decembers ago (2006), Tessa and I were returning to Montenegro when our flight was diverted from Belgrade to Nish, in southern Serbia, due to heavy fog. More than a few tales hang on that, but today's concerns the nine-hour taxi ride home in the middle of the night through Serbia and into Montenegro, across mountains on narrow two-lane roads through numerous little towns.
Usually, local cops leave diplomats alone on the highways - no upside, and your superiors may get upset that you were bothering someone who a) you can't ticket or arrest anyway; and b) has an in with the Minister of the Interior (equivalent to a US Attorney General). And since diplomats' cars have very distinctive diplomatic plates, ignorance ("I didn't know he was a diplomat") is no excuse.
Usually.
It's different when you are riding in an ordinary Ford Mondeo taxi. And it's the middle of the night, And the traffic cops are bored out of their minds with no traffic to flag over (well, wave a "lollypop"* at). But an ordinary taxi? Hey, cops don't need (to make up) a reason to stop a car in the Balkans (or most of Europe) - no Fourth Amendment.
So, we got waved over, asked for IDs: the driver shows his license, and we pull out diplomatic passports, with entry stamps and residence visas. All is good, so after a couple of minutes, we're rolling.
And get stopped 20 minutes later, next small town, same drill.
And again 20 minutes after that. This time the cop (who I figure was let into the fun little game of "let's harass the American diplomat while pretending it's all coincidence" after a radio call from the previous stops) wants to see our luggage, "since the stamps say you just flew into Serbia from France, you must have luggage." Ok, says I, but I want to watch your search (to make sure the cop neither adds nor subtracts from what's there). He agrees.
Recall the taxi is Ford Mondeo, a mid-size hatchback I've never ridden in before (it's not sold in the US). It's about 1 am, we've been riding for about four hours in the taxi, we got up about 6 am the previous day - tired, and just want to go home to Podgorica. Not play games with bored Serbian cops in the cold alongside a highway somewhere near Raska (I think), not far from Kosovo.
I look into the hatch alongside the cop, pick my head up - and slam it into the edge of the hatch. Blood instantly pours off my scalp, onto to my face, into my eyes, cakes in my beard. (Scalp wounds LOOK nasty as heck.) The cop hears the thud, looks at me - even in the dim light of the street lamp, he goes pale. "Uh-oh. Even if I can defend the stop as random, I don't think I can defend injuring or killing a foreign diplomat. Not even an American." Or at least - "think of the paperwork!" The cop quickly - very quickly - lets us go.
And for the rest of the way to the border, another 90 minutes or so - not a single bored cop flags us over to lighten his night. And border immigration and customs waves us through, post-haste.
* See, e.g., http://italianintrigues.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-lollipop-guild.html
No comments:
Post a Comment