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  Chapter 8

  Jasmin slept soundly and awakened around 6:00 AM. He reached under his pillow for his gun and examined it. Then he placed the gun on the bed stand.

  Before getting up, Jasmin sniffed the new bed sheets and burst into laughter.

  Sometimes, a professor would spend the night in another city at the flop house, if they had a morning class at that campus the next day.

  For the Banja Luka campus, the administration told Jasmin to buy new bed sheets. Well, in fact, he did. He put the new sheets on his bed while he placed his old, grimy dirty sheets on the bed in the flop house. Then he turned in the receipt to the university administration, so he could be reimbursed.

  A professor who taught economics complained to the administration.

  Jasmin chuckled under his breath. Didn't the professor know Jasmin was the university president's war buddy? Didn't the professors know the drivers were number two in the organization while the professors were dead last? They viewed the professors lower than the custodians who cleaned the classrooms and bathrooms.

  Sometimes the drivers would play games on the professors and observe their responses. The dirty bed sheets were another game to play on those whiny, crybaby professors.

  Jasmin walked to the window and glanced outside. Clouds filled the sky and hid the sun while the wind blew drifts of snow across the land.

  Usually, Jasmin picked up the professors at 7 a.m. and drove them from Tuzla to Banja Luka. The trip would take four hours for a typical driver, but Jasmin shaved down his time to two and half hours as he raced along the dangerous, mountainous roads in the Balkan Mountains. Around each breakneck curve, the centrifugal force tossed the professors around in the back seat like a sack of potatoes.

  However, today, all the professors were on winter break, so he wouldn’t be traveling to Banja Luka today. Today, he had errands to do.

  Then Jasmin headed for the mirror. He slicked his gray hair back with an old comb with several chipped teeth. Then he changed out of his camouflage pants into his driver's uniform, a brown khakis and a hazel dress shirt, with the university’s emblem stitched on the shirt’s left shoulder.

  Then he slipped on his shoulder gun holster that hung under his arm and retrieved his gun.

  He took a last look at himself in the mirror and stuck his thumb up. Then he headed downstairs to get some coffee and a cherry pastry roll.