"You want to know how we are doing? You want to see the morale of the Yugoslav Army? Come with me and I will show you. I will take you to our base. You can talk to anyone you want. But we have to leave right now. You will be gone for two days."
The man speaking is named David. Bearded, friendly, he is wearing a green army uniform, replete with knife, pistol, belt filled with ammunition, and two grenades draped across his chest. An olive green knit handkerchief is tied around his head.
David has come down from the surrounding hills to the inaccurately named Grand Hotel in Pristina, accompanied by two young colleagues. He has come to give the telephone number of his first wife to some army people in the media centre.
During the next few days David will be fighting in a KLA stronghold in the Drenitza region near Pristina. He may be killed, he says matter-of-factly, and would just like the centre to have a contact number. He leans back in his chair as he speaks, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle across his knees.
"Reporters write all kinds of things, but they have not seen us in action. Why don't they come to the front?" he asks.
It is explained to David that the Yugoslav government will not allow journalists to travel with its army, or even allow them to wander around Kosovo unescorted. Even the recent UN humanitarian mission was denied access to many places in the name of "safety", according to the director, Sergio. A few of the handful of journalists now in Kosovo, huddling inside the hotel, are here without official permission and wonder each day whether they will be thrown out.
Any unescorted journeys through the province are done without permission and could result in expulsion. Besides, there are police and military checkpoints every few miles.
David smiles. "Don't worry. I will get you through the checkpoints. I will protect you as best I can. I want you to see what we are doing. And I promise I will not try and make sex on you." With about 10 minutes notice, and those very questionable assurances, we set off. The only conditions that David sets, and later the commander of his unit reiterates, is that I should not reveal the exact location of the base camp, and that I avoid using real names. Thus, all the names in this story, other than David's, who has agreed to the use of his name, are pseudonyms.
The vehicle we travel in is a regular commercial van, white. Sasha and Romi, David's colleagues, are Russian volunteers. David is a volunteer from Israeli. They describe themselves as professional soldiers who have joined the Serbs to fight against Muslim fundamentalism, which is what they believe is at the core of the ethnic Albanians' campaign for independence.
"I am fighting for my religion," says David. He has converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is closely allied to the Serbian Orthodox Church, a powerful force in Serbian society.
Our first stop outside the city is to pick up beer and raca from a truck selling alcohol on a side street in a residential neighbourhood. Alcohol has been banned in Kosovo for the last weeks but it is plentiful, like most things here, on the black market.
Thus armed, we travel up mountain roads as dusk falls. We are now in KLA sniper territory and it is unfortunately here that a tyre blows. David is anxious, puts his head on the steering wheel and takes a few minutes to think.
Sasha runs down the empty road in search of help. Sitting in a white van parked on an empty road in KLA territory lends a sitting duck feeling to the already tense atmosphere.
David urges me out of the van. We scurry across the road to a tree on sloping ground. It is almost dark.
"You are part of this tree, do you understand? There may be shooting. If we are killed, do not move until it is light."
I obey, although after a week in Pristina where the bombing and shooting is abundant, I am finding this a bit melodramatic.
Sasha soon returns with six blue uniformed paramilitary police officers who are stationed in a nearby home. This is both good and bad news: good, because they will help change the tyre; bad, because the police are among the most brutal and inflexible forces here. A cargo consisting of a contraband Irishwoman, much less a journalist, will be bad news indeed. My current attire of Yugoslav army jacket and beret will only go so far.
David leans into the van. "You are a Russian prostitute. Don't say a word. I am sorry. This is war."
After three hours, and much heaving the tyre and broken wheel have been repaired. The Yugoslav policemen have been kind and gentle, putting a blanket over me in the cold night and laughing with David and friends. The three-fingered Serbian salute is shared by all and the van again takes off.
It is too late and too dangerous to return to the main base. Instead, we stop at an abandoned house some 5km away from it. It is near 11 p.m. This is another of the burned out Albanian homes the Yugoslav army now uses to house soldiers and supplies and munitions. This one has been thoroughly ransacked and burned and is devoid of almost everything. On the second floor, a piece of foam is spread across the floor. A wood stove stands in the middle of the room.
There is no glass in the open window, as is typical in many of the Albanian brick houses. Army blankets are tacked across the open windows. As a fire heats the room, Sasha nails wood across the door. It is a clear night and the NATO planes are flying low. We hear bombs fall quite close. As this is territory filled with KLA, and there is no one to guard the house, all three men sleep on their backs with their Kalashnikovs across their chests. With the concern that the fire from the stove is a signal to NATO planes, and with the sound of machine-gun fire nearby, it is a long cold night.
At dawn, we arrive at the base camp. It is a revelation. There are three red-tiled roof and red-brick houses set on a hill. They were glorious homes in their time, which is to say only two months ago. Their occupants must have been middle-class.
The main house, three stories high, is set in the middle of several acres of land overlooking a glorious panorama of rolling green hills. A bed of exotic purple lavender and yellow orchids is thriving. A tangle of roses on a vine wends its way along the front terrace and is just about to bloom. Chickens wander around, and there are a few cows grazing. You might be in parts of Co Cork.
Inside the main house there are about 10 soldiers. There are another 20 or so in adjacent houses. Over the next day, other soldiers travelling on foot and in cars stop for food, beer and chat.
It reinforces what I have seen before and perhaps the thing that is most apparent in Kosovo now: the line between civilian neighbourhoods and military encampments has vanished. Serb neighbourhoods, Albanian villages and Yugoslav Army barracks are all one and the same.
NATO assertions about bomb targets being strictly military sites are as disingenuous as are Serbian authorities' claims that those same targets were purely civilian. Everyone here knows the truth. And the fact is the people here have had no say in the matter. When the army takes up residence in your neighbourhood, places a tank or two in your garden, you have no say. If you are a Serb, you may welcome it in support of your country. If you are Albanian, you surely do not. But either way, no one is querying your opinion.
We have arrived in time for breakfast, a hearty serving of fresh eggs and cooked meat. Serbian music is blaring from a tape player that is attached to a car battery. There is no electricity, but a wood stove emblazoned with "Donated by the UNHCR" is keeping the place cozy and cooking the food. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees logo is also on floor mats and boxes of soap.
By 8 a.m., the soldiers will be on the second bottle of raca. A fair amount of beer has been consumed.
Today they are planning the areas they must "clean" in the next few days. This base has a problem. On one side of the three-house compound is a forest, which is teeming with schiptars (the derogatory Serb name for Albanians). On the other side, is a tall white house that is also filled with snipers. The compound is between the two. Signs of gunfire are evident; the second-storey satellite dish is riddled with bullet holes.
Last night, says a blond-haired solder named Vuk, the house was attacked. But the soldiers returned fire and kept them away. The unit captain is a 6ft 4ins crew-cut blond man, severely handsome.
"I have been fighting for 10 years," he says wearily. "Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia. We are not criminals. We are only killing terrorists."
I walk outside to look at the landscape. A small group of skinny young men in dirty clothes are crouched underneath the staircase and I see them for the first time. Some look as young as 14 and there are a few old men too.
They look sick and terrified. David yells at them and they retreat to a dark room beneath the staircase. I peer in. The space is about 20 feet long by 10 feet wide.
Who are they?
"They are schiptars. Terrorists," David says proudly.
I stutter and ask if they are prisoners.
"Yes. We have 49 of them here," he says.
I realise I have stumbled upon more than a simple army camp.
In her next instalment of A Week in Kosovo, Elaine Lafferty will tell the story of the 49 prisoners - who they were, why they were held under the stairs by Serb soldiers and what they had to say for themselves.