The Old Bridge

by Andrew Turpin

  Sweat dripped from each of the jowls under Boris’s double chin. He took the map from Marco, scrutinized it, then walked over a ridge and into a natural bowl in the terrain that was roughly circular in shape.

  At the base of the bowl, about eighty meters away, stood a small, low-slung stone barn in a poor state of repair, with a rusted red corrugated iron roof.

  Just to their right, there were traces of what had once been a vehicle track to the barn. Two twin tire tracks fashioned from crushed stone and brick were largely overgrown with bushes. But Boris ignored the track and instead led the way, in a seemingly random fashion, between a few straggly olive trees and clumps of lavender, until they got to the barn.

  The solid oak door stood in contrast to the ramshackle nature of the rest of the building.

  Boris took a set of keys from his pocket and first undid a large main lock, then did likewise with a smaller latch-type lock. The door swung open and they walked in.

  The walls of the barn were just a shell; there were no interior walls, just a rough floor made of square concrete slabs, and no proper ceiling. When Boris looked up he could see straight through the joists to the rafters, to which the corrugated iron sheeting was fixed.

  There were four glazed windows, two at the front and two at the back, with no openings. Four thick iron burglar bars crossed each of the windows.

  “Has your friend Drago finished repairing that safe yet?” Boris asked.

  “He said he’d be finished with it last week,” Marco said. “But then he called me to say he’d be a few more days. He’s done his bit with the welding, but he needs to get his locksmith to refix the combination lock.”

  Boris grunted. “Well, tell him to get a move on. He’s had it for nearly three weeks now. I don’t like leaving the documents here if they’re not in a safe. I want to get it back in here as soon as possible.”

  “That reminds me,” Marco said. “Drago sent me an invoice for the safe repair.” He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Here you go, this is it. Three hundred euros. Actually a damned cheek, given he’s not even finished yet, but we’ll need to pay him in cash. I’ll sort it, but perhaps you can refund me.”

  Boris took the sheet and scanned it. “He sent it to your workshop address? How does he know that—I thought you kept that secret?”

  “Yes, I do. But he knows I’m sometimes there, because his own workshop is just down the road. He just dropped it in by hand, he didn’t post it.”

  “Okay, then,” Boris said. “Thanks. If you can pay him, I’ll pay you.”

  Marco stared at his friend. “I really think you should just keep all those documents in a proper bank vault.”

  “Some of them are in a vault. But I don’t trust the banks, never have, especially not after the raid in Zagreb.”

  It had been a near miss for Boris. Fifteen years earlier, he had been close to opening a safety-deposit box account with one of the large banks in Zagreb. But he had abandoned his plan after its vault had been raided by a gang who took tens of millions of euros worth of jewelry, gold, and cash, as well as valuable documents.

  He had considered storing the documents at his old family holiday cottage in Pobrežje, but had decided against that; it would be too obvious a place to search if anyone ever learned he had possession of them.

  Instead, he had then instead bought the old barn in the wartime minefield, 240 kilometres northwest from Pobrežje, under a false name for a cheap price. Now his documents were split between the barn in Moseć and a bank vault in Dubrovnik. He also had scanned electronic copies stored in his password-protected online Dropbox account.

  “It’s safer this way,” Boris said.

  Marco shook his head. “I don’t think so, especially now that they’re de-mining the area.”

  “Yeah, but by putting our own mines in we get around that, don’t we?”

  Marco shook his head. “Don't know. I don’t like it.”

  Boris ignored him and walked to the wall, then withdrew a small crowbar from a narrow fissure between two stones. He strode to one of the paving stones near the far right-hand corner of the barn.

  He placed the hook of the crowbar under the slab and levered it up until he could get his hands underneath, then slowly heaved it up and pulled it sideways.

  There, under the slab, was a large cavity, roughly a meter square and fifty centimeters deep, lined with sheets of steel that were pocked with rust marks. Four large steel bolts lay loose in the bottom of the cavity, along with a cardboard document box.

  Boris bent down and picked up the box, flipped the lid open, then shut it again.

  “All okay. Still there,” Boris said. “If your friend Drago gets a move on, we can get the safe put back in this hole, and everything will be secure again.”

  He replaced the box in the cavity and moved the slab back into position.

  “Okay, let’s go and get the real work done,” Boris said.

  He replaced the crowbar in the wall cavity and led the way back out of the barn and up to the ridge, where he stopped next to the pile of boxes containing the land mines.

  Boris looked back toward the barn, then down at the ground. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll put the first one here.”

  He picked up one of the boxes containing the PROM-1 mines and removed a pack. He unwrapped the packaging and took out a dark green bottle-shaped device with a long gray neck and three short prongs at the top.

  “Lethal,” Boris said. “I saw a super-slow-motion film of how these little bastards work in a documentary that came into our studio,” he said to Marco. “At that speed, you could actually see how, when the trip wire’s pulled, the first small charge pushes the mine half a meter up into the air. Then the main explosive goes off and blasts metal around 360 degrees. If you’re within fifty or sixty meters, it’s game over. In real time, it all happens so quickly you can’t see anything.”

  He grimaced, then gingerly handed the device to Marco and picked up a tool with a special blade for digging circular holes. “Have you got the detailed map? We need to mark exactly where we put each one and where the trip wires go, including the distances the wires run so we can find our way in when we need to.”

  Marco nodded and held up a clipboard on which was a large-scale map, with a ring drawn around a cross in the center. He sighed. “I don’t know, this is going to be a lot of damn hard work.”

  “Yes, but it needs to be done.”

  Boris made a mental note to scan in and upload the updated mines map to his Dropbox folder once they had finished.

  Using the circular digging tool, he made a neat circular hole into which he placed the mine, so that only the prongs at the top were visible. Then he carefully pushed a small amount of dust and soil around it so it was scarcely visible.

  Boris undid the two packs containing trip wires. He attached one end of the first wire to the top of the mine and then walked fifteen paces in one direction before fixing the thin wire, now pulled almost taut, to a metal rod that he stuck into the soil. Then he did likewise with the other trip wire in the other direction.

  After that, he returned to the mine and carefully removed the safety collar around the top.

  Boris stood. “One done. That’s covering thirty meters, so I think we’ll need roughly another twenty or so to put a full ring around the rocks. Then we’ll put the PMA-3s near to where the trip wires are tethered. So if by some fluke somebody spots the trip wire for the PROM-1 and tries to pull it out, they’ll get taken out by the PMA-3 instead.”

  “Neat,” Marco said.

  Boris handed the digging tool to Marco. “Here you go, your turn. Just be damn careful with these trip wires.”

  It took them some time to finish the work and move the remaining boxes to Marco’s Lexus. Boris leaned against the back of the car and closed his eyes momentarily. The early afternoon heat was unbearable.

  “That’s a good job done,” Boris said. “We only have a handful of the PROM-1s
left and I think just three PMA-3s. Worked out well. I’m exhausted now. I need a beer.”

  Marco threw the digging tool into the back of his car, and Boris heard him mutter something about how it would’ve been unnecessary if they’d used a bank vault instead.

  “What did you say?” Boris said, turning around.

  “You heard me. But it’s done now, so it doesn’t matter.” Boris gave him an annoyed look.

  Marco’s cell phone beeped. He took it out of his pocket. “I’m surprised we get a signal out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s showing one bar of reception.”

  He read his messages. “Shit, it’s from Tomi. He’s in Dubrovnik. The girl he’s got tailing Johnson’s helper has contacted him to say she saw her picking up Johnson from Dubrovnik Airport this morning. He’s back in town. I think we should head straight down there.”

  Boris paused. “Yes, I think you’re right. We’ll have to. That’s 250 kilometers. Three and a half, maybe four hours, I guess. We just need to make sure the girl tailing him stays there until we arrive then. Does she know what she’s doing?”

  “Yes, I’m told she does.” Marco said.

  Boris swore loudly again. “That didn’t last long. He must have been in the States only a couple of days. I don’t like this at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Monday, July 16, 2012

  Pobrežje village, near Dubrovnik

  The new paved road, dynamited and carved out of the steep rock cliff, twisted in a series of hairpin bends high above the bay of Gruž, where the late evening sun reflected off the shimmering Adriatic.

  Two of the three cruise ships that Johnson had seen earlier that afternoon at the port were still there, way below them, but now looked like toy boats at their moorings.

  As Johnson drove the car around the next sharp turn, a moped came into view as it navigated the corner below him; the low-lying sun glinting off the rider’s helmet.

  “It’s a few more kilometers up here,” Jayne said.

  “Okay,” said Johnson. “They must have upgraded the road to Pobrežje since Aisha was last up here. She said it was a rough single-track road with passing places.”

  They were now climbing high into the hills surrounding Dubrovnik.

  In his mirror he again glimpsed the moped behind him, but it disappeared from view as he rounded another hairpin.

  They passed a yellow sign marked Pobrežje, then a couple of run-down houses on the left. “This place isn’t even a village,” Jayne said.

  “There’s a row of pine trees up front,” Johnson said. “Five of them, behind that old stone wall on the next hairpin. That must be it.”

  He pulled over to the side of the road some distance before the bend and waited for a few minutes, glancing occasionally in his rearview mirror to see if the moped rider was going to come back into view.

  It was probably an unnecessary precaution, he told himself, but the rider had a similar white helmet to that of the woman he had noticed near the harbormaster’s office after talking to Natasha.

  But the moped didn’t reappear. So Johnson restarted the engine and drove the remaining short distance to the bend, where he parked on a piece of rough ground.

  The road cut left around the hairpin, but ahead of them, leading behind the pine trees, lay an unpaved single-track lane.

  Johnson reached underneath the driver’s seat and took out Filip’s Beretta that Jayne had kept while he was in New York.

  He dropped the magazine and racked the slide to make sure there were no live rounds in the chamber, then made sure the magazine was full, reinserted it and checked the safety catch. He pushed the gun into his waistband and let his shirt hang over it.

  Jayne unzipped her small backpack and pushed it toward him, its flaps hanging open. He saw a Walther lying inside. “

  “Where did you get that gun?” Johnson asked.

  “A contact in Dubrovnik. An old SIS agent who I used to deal with years ago when I was working here. I got in touch with him while you were in New York. He gave me a few other bits and pieces as well, stuff that might be useful to me while I’m here.”

  Johnson got out of the car. “I don’t think you’ll need it up here somehow. But that said, there was a moped tailing us for most of the way up. It disappeared just before we stopped.”

  “Maybe someone just coming home from work.”

  “Maybe. It must have turned off the road, but I don't know where. I just thought it was odd.”

  Johnson walked several steps back down the road and stood, watching and listening for a minute or two. There was no sign of any movement.

  He rejoined Jayne. “Okay, let’s take a walk,” Johnson said.

  They moved up the side of the road and started down the lane, which had tall grass growing in the strip between the two tire tracks on each side. Clearly it hadn’t been used much recently.

  Johnson’s phone vibrated in his pocket as a message arrived. He took out his phone and read it. “It’s Filip, wanting to know how we’re getting on. He’s still in Split. Not much use to us there, is he?”

  Jayne grunted in response. It was now half past eight, and the sun had almost set over the Adriatic to their right. A glittering yellow path of gold ran all the way from the horizon to the shore.

  There was a long paddock to the left, with grass that looked as though it hadn’t been cut at all that summer. A few ducks waddled around near a pond in the center that was almost dried up.

  Ahead of them was a high stone wall, and to its right was open gate that the lane passed through. A long wooden ladder was leaning against the wall.

  Johnson and Jayne stopped when they reached the gate. He took the diagram that Aisha had drawn for him from his pocket and examined it. “That must be the house up front there,” he said.

  About a hundred yards further along, just left of the lane, was a large, neglected, two-story stone cottage; chunks of the cement rendering were missing, the walls were cracked, and there were holes in the roof where tiles had fallen off. To the right of the house, next to the lane, a garage had been built against the side wall, and to the left there was an outhouse.

  A framework of rusty scaffolding, with planks at the first-floor level, ran along the front of the property. An old cement mixer stood near the front door, next to a pile of sand.

  “One of the guys at the war crimes conference told me it was around this area where the Yugoslav army, the Serbs, were based when they were bombarding the Croatians in the western areas of Dubrovnik in 1991,” Johnson said.

  “Definitely looks like this house has been in a war zone,” Jayne said.

  They continued walking down the lane until they reached the house. Johnson went over and peered through a window. “Here’s the kitchen. There’s still some equipment in here: a fridge, a microwave. Looks filthy, though.”

  He moved to the next window. “There’s even a TV in there, an old one. I think we should try and get inside, now we’re here. It crossed my mind that if Franjo has chosen to disappear, he might want some sort of bolthole in this country he can use as a base if he does return occasionally. Who knows? This is remote enough to probably tick all his boxes.”

  Jayne walked to the front door and pushed it firmly. “It’s locked. The windows look secure as well.”

  “What about upstairs,” Johnson said. “We could get up on that scaffolding and see if there’s a way in there.”

  He climbed a wooden ladder that was propped against the scaffolding and swung himself onto the planks that were fixed to the metal frame. He checked the road, watching carefully for any sign of movement, then walked the length of the building and tried each window.

  “They’re all secure. Unless . . . oh, hang on, what have we here. I might be able to pry this one open. It looks like a storeroom.” Johnson picked at the window frame with his fingernails but couldn’t get it to open outward. He took a Swiss army knife out of his pocket, flipped a blade open, and worked it into the crack between the frame and the
pane.

  After several minutes, the window finally swung open with a rusty creak. Johnson turned around and looked down at Jayne on the ground. “We’re in. Come up.”

  Jayne nodded. She pulled herself up onto the wooden planks and followed Johnson through the window.

  The room had makeshift shelving on one side, stacked with old paint cans, brushes stiff with dried paint and other decorating equipment. Johnson flicked the light switch by the door and the single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling came on. “Someone’s still paying the electricity bills,” Johnson said and turned the switch off again.

  He walked out of the room, along the upstairs landing, which had bare floorboards, and poked his head into the next room. It was empty apart from a small table on which sat an old computer processor unit with a square, chunky monitor, covered in dust, and next to it a paint-splattered white router box.

  Jayne followed him into the room. “Looks like a museum piece. See if it works,” she said.

  Johnson peered under the desk and turned on the plug switches to the computer and router, then flicked a switch on the side of the machine. A small orange light lit up on the side of the processor, and the monitor began to hum. After half a minute, the screen burst into life.

  “What operating system’s on there?” Jayne asked.

  “It’s got Windows XP . . . old but reliable,” Johnson said.

  “A bit like yourself,” Jayne said.

  The machine finally finished booting up. Johnson checked the hard drive. “There’s nothing on here, only a copy of Microsoft Word, but no documents saved or created, no photos. That’s strange,” Johnson said.

  “Is there a web browser on there? An internet connection?” Jayne said. She looked over Johnson’s shoulder at the screen.

  “Yes, Internet Explorer. And there’s broadband. The router works. That’s odd too—doesn’t look like anyone’s used the machine for years, yet they have a broadband connection. Weird,” Johnson said.

  “Any favorite websites saved, any browsing history?”

  Johnson clicked a couple of times at the top of the screen. “No favorites. Browsing history . . . let’s see, just one. Dropbox. That was accessed February 20, 2008, almost four and a half years ago. That’s it.”