The Old Bridge

by Andrew Turpin

  Vic ignored the jibe. He outlined what he’d heard about Watson’s unusually hands-on approach to the Syrian arms sales, as well as the facilitator payments.

  “We don’t know for certain,” Vic said, “but it’s possible there’s a link between those payments and why he’s also chasing the same set of missing documents from Izetbegović’s office that we are. Maybe if the documents surface, they could prove and therefore threaten the payments.”

  Johnson let the information sink in. “Okay, thanks, Vic. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of things at this end. I’m going to make damn sure he doesn’t get to those documents before I do. I’ll bust a gut to make sure of it. You know, it’s about time someone blew the whistle on Watto. He thinks he’s the Don Corleone of Langley.”

  “Yeah, you’re not the first person to say that, Joe. But you’d be the first to do something about it—and then you’d have to hope you’re not the last.”

  Johnson snorted. “Don’t joke about it. He doesn’t need an excuse, and I’ve been shot at too much lately. There’s something I need you to do, though. When you spoke to me originally about this job, you gave me the name of the CIA man in Split, a guy called Alan Edwards. I haven’t contacted him and don’t intend to if I don’t need to. But it would help to know on which side of the fence he sits. Is he in Watto’s pocket?”

  There was a pause. “I don’t know. Good question. I do know that Watto’s worked with him, but whether he’s put him on the payroll, so to speak, is another question. Leave it with me and I’ll try and find out.”

  “Okay, talk soon. Thanks.” Johnson ended the call.

  “Get the gist of that?” he asked Jayne.

  “Yep, I did,” Jayne said. “And I’ve just had an email from one of my ex-SIS friends in London. They’ve been trying to track down what happened to Franjo Vuković during and after the war here. They think he went to Germany, but after that there’s absolutely no trace. It’s as if he disappeared off the planet.”

  “That’s almost the exact phrase that Aisha used. But the thing is, unless he was killed and someone buried him in a hole somewhere, he would have had to change his identity. And doing that in Germany after the war here wasn’t easy . . . Doing that anywhere in Europe wasn’t easy.”

  Jayne nodded. “No, not easy. Unless, of course he had some high-level assistance in getting false papers, a false passport, and so on.”

  “High-level assistance?” Johnson said. “Maybe from some intelligence service well known to both of us, you mean, like the CIA?”

  Wednesday, July 18, 2012

  Split

  Filip looked slightly disbelieving. “So, we’re in for a game of Russian roulette, then. A minefield. Let me see that map.”

  “Okay—I just want one promise, Filip. There are no scoops, no exclusives. It’s confidential until we have this resolved. Then you can write something afterward,” Johnson said.

  “You’ve got my word on that,” Filip said. He turned the laptop around and scrutinized the Croatian Mine Action Centre map carefully. “Yes, these maps are updated regularly by CROMAC, so as it shows, there will be a lot of live mines there. We’ll need a mine detection expert with us.”

  Johnson tugged at the old bullet wound at the top of his right ear. “Do you know anybody who could do it at short notice, like tomorrow?”

  Filip sat and thought for a while. “There is an ex-Croatian army guy I know who’s good. But whether he’s available, I don’t know.”

  Johnson told Filip to go check and watched him disappear inside his father’s house to make a phone call.

  He turned to Jayne. She had removed the large white dressing on her neck, but still had a flesh-colored bandage covering the stitches that held her wound together. A large wraparound bandage was still taped to her ankle. Meanwhile, the area around his left kidney still ached from the beating he had received in Mostar. They made a good pair, he thought.

  Filip reappeared. “Okay, my man can help us—his nickname’s Mino, for obvious reasons. He doesn’t like his real name to be known, understandably. He can do it tomorrow, if that suits you. But he’s going to charge three thousand US dollars in cash for the day’s work. It’s up to you.”

  Johnson whistled. “Three grand?”

  He raised his eyebrows at Jayne, who nodded. “Probably the going rate,” she said. “We’re not going down the DIY route with this. Charge it to your expenses with Vic.”

  “Okay,” Johnson said. “Tell Mino we’ll go with that. We start early tomorrow. I’m assuming he’s trustworthy, and I hope you haven’t told him exactly what we’re looking for.”

  “No, I’ve not given him any details, and he’s rock solid,” Filip said. “He’ll get us through, don’t worry.”

  Wednesday, July 18, 2012

  Split

  Alan Edwards pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his bald head and casually slipped a brown envelope across the counter of the Go-Cro car rental office. “See if that makes a difference,” he said to the office manager, who wore a name badge that read Mate Glavas.

  He swiftly slit the envelope open and peered inside, then closed it again. Then Mate carefully scanned the customer waiting area. Only one other person was there, and he was engrossed in a newspaper.

  “Okay, just give me a minute,” Mate said. He sat at his computer and tapped away for a few minutes.

  Then he stood and returned to the counter. “It’s a gray Opel Astra,” he said in a low voice. “Right now, according to my GPS monitor, it’s parked on Marasovića Street, about half way up. You’re in luck—that’s not far from here. I’ll write down the registration number for you.”

  Mate scribbled on a piece of paper and pushed it across the counter.

  “Like I said, we haven’t had this conversation,” Edwards said. “You’ve been very helpful.” He nodded and walked out.

  Edwards breathed a sigh of relief. After a day spent trawling around various car rental company offices in Split city center and at the airport, he had almost lost patience. He would have put money on an American using one of the big international chains, Hertz or Avis, so he’d placed them at the top of his list.

  But no. He’d tried all of them. Instead, Johnson appeared to have opted for the smallest outfit, a two men and a dog operation with a fleet of just twenty vehicles, the company’s website told him. Go-Cro had been the second to last on the list that Edwards had compiled.

  The CIA man jumped into his black Audi and accelerated along Split’s seafront toward Marjan, the hill overlooking the city at the western end.

  Five minutes later, Edwards was making his way up Marasovića Street. “Gotcha,” he muttered to himself when he spotted the Astra.

  He pulled over underneath the shadow of a tree, waited five minutes, then got out of the car and wandered up the road. While bending down to tie a shoelace, he managed to place a small magnetic GPS tracking device under the chassis of the rented Astra.

  Then he returned to his Audi and settled down to wait.

  Wednesday, July 18, 2012

  London

  Boris sat in the departure lounge at Heathrow Airport and flipped open his laptop. His plan was to make a few notes to send to David Rowlands confirming his intentions, at least in outline form, for the Spencer interview.

  He checked his watch. He had forty-five minutes before his flight to Split. Time to write the email and then slip into the bar for a quick gin and tonic.

  Boris started to type and then realized he already had some outline notes that he had put into his work Dropbox account for access anywhere.

  He logged onto the work account and downloaded the notes. Then he remembered he also needed to upload the revised minefield map from his laptop to Dropbox for safekeeping, so he logged onto his personal account.

  He dragged the revised map into the folder marked Moseć. Just as he was about to log off again, he realized he also needed to update the accompanying Word file with brief instructions on how to negotiate the pathway throu
gh the minefield and to the barn. He had written the document over a year earlier and hadn’t touched it since.

  He was about to click on the document to edit it, but then something about the list of files caught his eye.

  Alongside the title of the Word document, the next column read Last opened on 17/7/2012 00:43 AM.

  Boris read and reread it, just to make sure. Then he opened the document. Nothing had changed.

  But someone had clearly opened it. And it wasn’t him. Who the hell?

  Boris swore under his breath.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thursday, July 19, 2012

  Moseć

  “Middle of nowhere,” Johnson said as he braked to a halt. “Four miles of single-track road and one house. Not a single car.”

  “Welcome to Šibenik-Knin County,” Filip said. They were high in the hills overlooking a plain on one side and a valley on the other. The ground was parched and rocky, with only a handful of larger trees.

  Johnson examined the minefield map that he had printed out. “This is it, no doubt about it.”

  He slipped the Astra back into gear and drove slowly up a track that led off the road, the car’s undercarriage catching occasionally on the uneven surface, and then parked next to some trees. Mino followed in a blue Jeep.

  Johnson put his Beretta inside his belt, got out, and approached Mino, a barrel-chested man with a deep tan who wore a long-sleeved checkered shirt.

  “We’ll need to work as quickly as we can, but safely of course,” Johnson said. “There’s also a risk we could end up with company, given the way things have gone on this trip so far.”

  There came a series of loud, deep-throated barks from the rear of the Jeep. “That’s my vital piece of equipment—Slobodan,” Mino said. “It’s his job to get us through the minefield today. You’d better go and make friends.” He handed Johnson two doggie treats.

  “A dog? Is he safe?” Johnson said.

  Mino nodded. “Of course.”

  Johnson walked around the back of the car and opened the trunk. An enormous German shepherd jumped out, grabbed the treats off Johnson’s outstretched hand, and immediately sniffed his crotch.

  “Hello, boy,” Johnson said. He started stroking the dog’s ears.

  Jayne walked around the back of the Jeep, and Slobodan repeated his crotch-sniffing routine. Johnson laughed. “That’s a better option than mine.”

  Mino, who also had a gun in a holster at his waist, said, “Slobber’s my best. He was trained in South Africa, and I’ve had him for a year now. He’s a machine once he gets going—absolutely loves this job.”

  He reached into the back of the Jeep and removed a cardboard box, which he handed to Johnson. He gave Jayne another box and threw a backpack over his shoulders. “I’ll go up front. You carry these and Filip will be the rear gunner, just in case.”

  Mino took the maps and printed instructions out of Johnson’s hand and studied them. Then he rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing muscly forearms. “Just a few words on safety. You all need to follow precisely where I walk so we’ll move slowly. Concentrate hard. If you somehow find that you’ve strayed off the path I’m setting, don’t move, stand still, and call to me. I’ll come and get you back on track. If that happens, it’s important that you all stand still. If you’ve any doubts, just ask me. Okay?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Mino said.

  He led the way down a faintly marked path, with Slobodan in front of him in a red harness on a lead, nose to the ground. “Most dogs get confused in high-risk areas like this if there are too many mines. They like to keep it simple and sniff one at a time. But Slobber here doesn’t have that problem. He concentrates well.”

  Johnson followed him, with Jayne and Filip behind.

  “Footprints here—see? Someone’s been through not too long ago,” Mino said. He pointed to a series of large bootprints in the dust. They passed some more trees and approached a ridge.

  Suddenly, Slobodan stopped dead and sat. He looked at his master.

  “Uh-oh, what have we here,” Mino said. He stepped forward and carefully surveyed the ground in front of them, looking right and left.

  Mino took a treat from his pocket and gave it to Slobodan. Then he got down on his haunches and continued to look. “Bastards,” he said in a low tone. Then he pointed to the base of a bush to his left. “See it?”

  After staring for several seconds, Johnson saw, sticking slightly above the ground, a three-pronged fin shape. Mino edged closer and pointed again for the benefit of the others.

  Then Johnson also saw a minutely fine trip wire that ran from the top of the mine at shin height across the path and into some bushes. It would have been almost impossible to spot without the early warning given by Slobodan.

  “I see it—just,” Johnson nodded.

  “The shitheads have put down PROM-1s,” Mino said. “Can you believe it? They’re nasty little bastards. If we’d walked through that trip wire, we’d be crows meat by now. They’re a nightmare to disarm, so I’m not going to even try. I’m going to find where the trip wire goes and remove it.”

  Johnson gave a slight involuntary shiver. He knew about PROM-1s from his time in the region in 1999.

  Mino turned off the path at right angles, then inched his way with Slobodan leading as he followed the trip wire. Then Slobodan suddenly stopped and sat again.

  “These guys have done a proper job here,” Mino said. “They’ve mined the ground next to the trip wires as well as the path. That’s a nasty trick. If you follow the trip wire to pull it out at the other end—bang! Okay, we know their tactics now. I can work around that.”

  He carefully stepped around the half-buried mine and slowly pulled out a thin metal pole to which the trip wire for the PROM-1 was attached. Then he walked back to the mine and placed the loose wire on the soil near the visible prongs. “Okay, let’s keep going.”

  They continued another twenty yards to the ridge. An old, decrepit-looking single-story stone barn with a rusty corrugated iron roof was visible at the bottom of a natural bowl in the terrain.

  They had gone only another ten yards when Slobodan stopped dead and sat down again. Mino swore, then went through the same procedure. “Another damn PROM-1.” Again he moved the trip wire out of the way.

  This time, once Johnson, Jayne, and Filip had passed through, Mino carefully replaced the trip wire which led to a mine five yards left of the path. Johnson asked why he had done it.

  Mino pursed his lips. “Security. You said some guys might show up while we’re here. You never know. If they have to disarm one or two of the mines, it’ll slow them down and give us a chance to get out, or at least prepare.” He patted the handgun in the holster at his waist.

  Mino studied the map again, then drew Johnson’s attention to a line on it which marked the edge of the circular ridge that ran around the bowl-like area in front of them.

  “I think the spot we want is that barn. Has to be,” Mino said.

  Jayne folded her arms. “Yes, you’re right. It’ll be in there or nearby. Hopefully that’s not booby-trapped.”

  Mino shrugged. “We’ll go and find out.”

  Johnson stared at the stretch of ground between them and the barn, which was at least seventy yards away. There was certain to be another bundle of mines before they got there. He hoped that Mino and Slobodan continued to work with the same surgical precision as they had done so far.

  Thursday, July 19, 2012

  Moseć

  Edwards walked slowly up the track, following the tire marks left by Johnson’s Opel and the blue Jeep, until the two vehicles came into view, parked behind some trees.

  The Zagreb chief of station placed his hand on the Beretta M9 that was holstered on his belt and surveyed the trail of footprints around the cars until he had worked out where the group had gone.

  There were four sets of prints. One set must belong to Johnson—whom Edwards had seen emerging from the h
ouse on Marasovića Street in Split; he had recognized him from the photograph sent by Robert Watson. Another two must be the woman and the man who had been with Johnson as they left the house. The fourth set must belong to the driver of the Jeep, whose identity Edwards also didn’t know.

  There were also animal prints, unmistakably those of a large dog, which must have been in the back of the blacked-out Jeep.

  Edwards stopped to think. He had taken extensive precautions to avoid being spotted as he tailed Johnson’s Astra out of Split. He knew that Johnson would be watching out for surveillance.

  The Astra had stopped at a service station until the Jeep had arrived. Edwards had parked at a truck stop across the road and had waited until the two vehicles got back on the road again. He had gotten a brief glimpse of the Jeep driver, but had no idea who he was.

  He had trailed them as they continued north for around an hour up the D1 and then the D56 roads until they turned left down a single-track lane.

  After parking, Edwards made his final approach on foot through some bushes. He enjoyed both surveillance and countersurveillance activity, and was equally adept at both. Here, the prints in the dust made his task easy in one respect.

  But his concern mounted after he passed two signs, written in Croatian, which left no doubt as to the main danger in this particular stretch of countryside.

  Both had a skull and crossbones logo within an inverted red triangle with a message underneath that could not be clearer: Ne Prilazite: Na Ovom Područu Je Velika Opasnost Od Mina.

  He had seen similar signs elsewhere in the Balkans and had no need of the Croatian learned in his biweekly classes to know the meaning.

  “Keep Out: Danger From Mines in This Area.”

  Edwards halted. He knew Johnson was trying to find some highly sensitive papers that had been hidden for some time. That was most likely the reason he was now wandering into an extremely dangerous remote minefield.

  Given there were four people to contend with, all presumably armed, and a big dog, the odds were not stacked in Edwards’ favor.