The Old Bridge

by Andrew Turpin

  Still wearing the dust- and mud-covered clothes from the minefield expedition, he sipped his coffee and passed the papers to Filip.

  “I’ve got the gist of these, but can you translate all the detail?” Johnson asked him.

  The bundle consisted of several dozen slightly yellowed papers, nearly all of which were official documents, on Ministry of Foreign Affairs notepaper. Many of them were dog-eared and bound together with pieces of string running through holes punched in the left margins. Most were typewritten memos, although a few were roughly handwritten. A couple were in some form of shorthand.

  Johnson pointed to one handwritten document, headed IRAN. “Let’s do this note first.”

  Filip placed it on the table. “It’s from someone in Izetbegović’s foreign ministry. Looks like briefing notes or something.” He began to read out loud.

  Army ill-equipped vs. Karadžić, Serbs.

  Arms from Tehran—go.

  USG/POTUS will not interfere with flights. Unofficial

  CONFIDENTIAL—against UN/US policy.

  Johnson leaned forward. “So weapons were coming in from Iran to help Izetbegović and his Muslim government? From Iran? My God.”

  He paused. “And it basically says that Bill Clinton’s crew gave them the green light, behind the scenes. Is that right?”

  Filip nodded. “Yes, it sounds like a tacit go-ahead. There’s another list detailing various weapons—automatic rifles and ammunition, antitank missiles, land mines, and other gear—with prices. And there’s a final note: it says Izetbegović okay to all.”

  Johnson shook his head. He was certain that if the US had opposed such a transaction with Iran, it wouldn’t have happened. That would be the same Iran that, if he recalled correctly, Clinton once described as a state sponsor of terrorism. He knew that Clinton had given Iran a tongue lashing for sending arms to terrorist organizations, including Hamas on the West Bank.

  “I don’t believe this. It sounds like Clinton told the Bosnians and the Croatians he didn’t have a problem with them importing weapons from Iran?” Johnson asked.

  “The White House just looked the other way, according to this,” Filip said.

  Johnson nodded. “That figures. They would never put that kind of thing down on paper.”

  Jayne tapped her fingers on the table. “I can see why that CIA guy was after these documents. They must be petrified of this lot getting into the public domain. The Washington Post would have a complete bloody party with these.”

  Filip picked up another sheet, this time typewritten. It was from the Bosnian ambassador in Iran and detailed how he and the Croatian ambassador, who was also working in Iran and was also a Muslim, had arranged to create a pipeline that enabled the delivery of weapons and heavy artillery from Iran to Bosnia through Croatia.

  Filip turned over the page. “Listen. This states that there were a number of people in both Croatia and Bosnia who facilitated the delivery of the weapons. And in the absence of cash payments, they were given clearance to take a portion of the weapons delivered.”

  “Go on,” Johnson said. “Does it name them?”

  “No, but it does say that these payments to individuals ranged in value between two and three million dollars each. Oh, wait a minute, it says there were eight individuals involved.”

  Johnson stood up, his hands on his hips. “Between two and three million dollars,” he repeated slowly. “I’m just wondering whether our friends Franjo and Marco were among the recipients of this arrangement. There has to be some closely linked reason why they’ve been keeping these documents under such close guard? Does it say what these individuals did in return for the payments?”

  Filip shrugged. “Doesn’t say exactly. Facilitated the delivery, whatever that means. But a note at the bottom says that according to information received from Erol Delić, these eight people were suspected of removing far more weapons than the quota value allocated to them. They were thought to have creamed off as much as 30 to 50 percent of the total amount. So, basically, those bastards have filled their boots.”

  He glanced at Johnson. “Might explain how Marco made his money. And it might add another nail to his coffin if police catch up with him over Petar’s murder.”

  Johnson tugged at his chin. “Yes, it certainly would. Interesting. Well, if that’s the case, we can perhaps do our bit to pile on the evidence. I’d say if that kind of arrangement had been agreed, with payments of that size in the shape of weapons, it might also have been noted by the Bosnian spooks. They had people at high levels in every ministry, every government office, I know that.”

  He knew from his time in Bosnia previously that the government and military intelligence organizations were unlikely to have let that slip through without recording who had benefited. They were quite scrupulous over that type of thing. He made a mental note to check in with his old intelligence service contacts.

  Filip continued to read. “This goes on to say that an unnamed US Pentagon defense adviser requested that all written documents referencing Clinton or other White House officials should be destroyed because of the implications. It says there are more details in appendix C, and in brackets is the word mujahideen. But there’s no appendix C to this document.”

  He pointed to an identical stamp on the front of several documents over which someone had scribbled a signature. “See that stamp? It says ‘Urgent: Shred Immediately.’ The person who signed them is Haris Hasanović, foreign ministry secretary.”

  “Haris Hasanović?” Johnson said. “That man again.”

  Filip turned over to the last page in the pile, which was a single handwritten sheet. “This is an odd one,” he said. “It refers to additional documents which are held in a safe-deposit box at the Dubrovnik branch of an Austrian bank. And it names the keyholder.”

  “What’s the key holder’s name?” Johnson asked.

  “It just says Luka.”

  “Luka?” Johnson said. He jerked up. “Did you say Luka?”

  Thursday, July 19, 2012

  Split

  Before leaving Split, Johnson wrote two encrypted emails. One went to his old Bosnian intelligence contact, Darko Beganović, whose job now came under the Intelligence-Security Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other was to Bogdan Novak, now at the Military Security and Intelligence Agency in Zagreb.

  Both emails asked the same question. Was there anything in the files of either organization that might corroborate and confirm the importation of arms into Bosnia and Croatia from Iran during 1992 and 1993?

  In particular, Johnson asked, was there anything that might confirm whether two individuals, Franjo Vuković and Marco Lukić, had been among those rewarded for facilitating such transfers by being allowed to skim off a proportion of the weapons?

  Johnson added in the emails that it would be worth checking locations such as the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb, where the Zbirka Dokumentacije o Ratu u BiH— the “Collection of Documents on the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina,”—were housed.

  Both archives had proved useful to him in the past. They had been relocated from Split to Zagreb after the war and included a large number of HVO records. In addition, Darko, he thought, might be able to worm his way into the top-secret classified files at the Ministry of Defense archives in Sarajevo.

  To Johnson’s relief, Darko replied almost immediately.

  Hi Joe, good to hear from you. And good that someone’s finally investigating the free-for-all that took place when the stream of aircraft carrying arms from Iran started arriving in the ’90s. It was like kids in a sweet shop at that time. I promise I’ll get onto this for you as soon as I can. Good luck with it! Darko.

  Twenty minutes later, Johnson was at the wheel of his Astra, Jayne in the passenger seat, accelerating onto the highway that led south to Dubrovnik.

  “There’s something about that Natasha woman,” Johnson said. “She gives me a password that gets me into Franjo’s Dropbox account—and what is it? Luka. Then we get a bundl
e of documents with a note about more documents in a safe-deposit box, and who’s got the key? Someone called Luka,” Johnson said.

  They had left Filip behind in Split, as he said he needed to see his lawyer to resolve some paperwork relating to his release from prison.

  “It’s a pity we don’t have someone to tail Filip, frankly. I’m still worried about his intentions toward Marco,” Johnson said.

  Jayne reclined in her seat. “Agreed, but we don’t have the resources, so that’s it.” She paused. “How about if, first thing tomorrow, when Natasha’s gone off to work, we pay a visit to her house. Check it out.”

  “Yes, that’s not a bad call,” Johnson said. “From my meetings with her, I don’t think we’re going to make more headway by a direct approach. She was pretty reluctant, even if she did help. Also, we don’t have much time. Once Franjo realizes those documents are missing, he’s going to be after us—along with Marco, I’m sure.”

  Johnson glanced over his shoulder at the pack of papers sitting on the seat behind him and pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator.

  Thursday, July 19, 2012

  Astoria

  Aisha sat on a mat at the back of the mosque with her friend Adela and listened intently as the imam got into the meat of his speech.

  “The enemies of Allah are plentiful, especially in this country, but there is one more than most who has been in the public eye recently,” he told the rows of men and women who had turned up for Thursday evening prayers.

  “I don’t want to name names,” he said, “but he seems keen to label all Muslims as terrorists. You all know whom I’m talking about. Well, this is what I say. It’s the role of Muslims to accept peaceful offerings, peaceful thoughts, and peaceful actions when others offer them to us.”

  The imam paused and thumped the side of the wooden minbar from which he was preaching. “But when our families, our communities, our faith, and our Allah comes under attack, then it is our role to fight back and to fight back hard.”

  There were several murmurs among those sitting on the floor in front of him. People were shaking their heads.

  Aisha and Adela exchanged glances. The mosque, just off 31st Avenue in the middle of Astoria, was fuller than normal, Adela had told Aisha.

  The imam continued: “If they want to call us Muslim terrorists, then fine—let’s show them what Muslim terrorists really are. Let’s be good Muslims and be good terrorists. You might as individuals think you are all unremarkable people—but you’re not. You are worthy, fine Muslims who can become great in the eyes of Allah. Go, do it.”

  Two men near the front suddenly got up and walked out. One of them called back over his shoulder as he left. “You’re wrong. You’ll give us all a bad name with that talk. It’s not what Allah wants us to be.”

  Several others rose and followed them out.

  Aisha’s immediate thought was that they were right. And furthermore, the imam was taking a considerable risk, given that the FBI and police were known to have cultivated informers in some mosques.

  But the imam seemed unworried, and his talk continued for another half an hour in a similar vein. By the end, only about a third of the original congregation remained. Aisha noticed that many of those who remained frequently muttered to their companions and shook their heads at some of the rhetoric. In her experience, that was a fair reflection of the views of the Muslim community in which she was involved. The vast majority, like her, were against violence.

  At the end Adela said, “See, I told you it would be worth coming along. Inspirational, isn’t it? Makes you feel proud to be a Muslim in the face of that spite that Spencer keeps throwing in our direction.”

  “Up to a point. Not what most people in there were thinking, though,” Aisha said.

  Adela shrugged. “That imam’s having a few smaller meetings at his home over the next couple of weeks if you want to come. The discussions get a bit more, um, advanced and practical, in terms of how we can fight the fight, if you know what I mean.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “What I’m saying, Aisha, is that you should come along and see how you can best serve Allah in this community when, like the imam says, we are all coming under attack at the local level and national level.”

  Aisha raised her eyebrows.

  “There will be people at these meetings who will be able and willing to obtain whatever equipment any of those attending require,” Adela said. “They’ll not only obtain the equipment but they will give you all the help and tuition and expertise and encouragement you need if you want to learn how to use it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Yes, Aisha knew what her friend was saying. “So, would you do anything to help this imam’s cause, if someone pushed you?”

  “You know me,” Adela said. “It’s my cause too. It wouldn’t take much. What about you? You weren’t exactly an angel during the war back home, were you? You’ve been there, done that, sort of?”

  An angel? Nobody Aisha knew had been an angel during the war. It was more a question of doing whatever was necessary to keep herself and her family alive. She had lived with the consequences since, though, and tried not to think too much about it; otherwise she tended to sink into bouts of blackness that sometimes continued for weeks at a time. In her mind, the acts of violence she had committed in the distant past had been for personal reasons, not religious. Her family, her neighbors, her friends, and her city had been under attack and she had retaliated.

  “It was war. We all did things,” Aisha said, and averted her eyes. “But at the moment I’ve no interest in going down that route again. I feel strongly that we must do something to counter the poison Spencer spreads, but I don’t want to get involved in violence—not again.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, let me know.”

  They walked out of the mosque and into the lingering summer evening sunshine outside. It was still warm. New Yorkers were milling about in cafés, restaurants, bars, and parks to enjoy one of the best days of the summer so far.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Friday, July 20, 2012

  Dubrovnik

  The one-way street lay high above Dubrovnik’s Old Town, whose red roofs and church towers, all surrounded by colossal stone walls, were laid out below him. Johnson wished he’d brought a decent camera.

  He parked next to a pair of pine trees down the street from the address written on the card that Natasha had given him, put on his sunglasses and his baseball cap, and settled down to wait.

  He turned on the radio and found a local news bulletin in Croatian, of which he could understand enough to make sense of most of the stories. One report was about a man who had been killed by a land mine in the Moseć area the previous day. He had apparently parked his car in a remote area and had gone for a walk through terrain that was clearly marked with warning signs about mines. A farmer had found the body after spotting the man’s car.

  What made Johnson sit up was the final sentence of the report, stating that no identification had been found on the man’s body and efforts were ongoing to find out who it was.

  Who took the wallet? Probably not the farmer.

  Johnson turned the radio off and focused on the house. It was the left one of three that were joined together, wedged onto a small plot set into the hillside. It was built of white-painted brick, narrow at the front, but it went up three stories and stretched back some distance.

  An old stone wall and a pine tree marked the left boundary. Between that and the house was a small terrace with a wooden arbor and trellis, over which sprawled a large vine plant, giving plenty of cover, Johnson noted with relief.

  At about half past eight, he saw a woman emerge from the front door, close it quickly behind her, and descend the steps to street level. It was Natasha.

  She checked her phone, put it in her handbag, and crossed the road to a parking bay, where she climbed into a white Volkswagen Golf. A minute later, she drove up the road and out of sight
.

  Johnson waited another twenty minutes, did several checks up and down the street for any sign of local activity or surveillance, then strode confidently to the house and up the steps.

  For the plan he was about to put into action, he and Jayne had agreed he should go solo. She would remain on standby in a café, and if he didn’t return by half past ten, she would come and track him down.

  Over the years, Johnson had acquired many skills; not all were legal, but they were useful when deployed with a moral motive. At least, that was how he justified their use to himself.

  One of those skills was opening door and window locks.

  Natasha’s front door was a typical modern plastic composite-style affair—solid, yes, when correctly secured. But based on the speed with which she exited the house, Johnson suspected she hadn’t locked it properly with a key but had merely clicked it shut.

  He removed a pair of thin rubber gloves from his pocket, put them on, and tried the door handle. Sure enough, when he pulled it up and down, he could hear the hook bolt mechanism moving inside. It was secure enough to stop a normal person getting in, but not a burglar with a modicum of knowledge.

  Johnson pushed down the handle to disengage the bolt then took out a thin bladed tool from his bag, inserted it between the door and the frame, and wiggled it until the latching bolt pushed back.

  The door swung open.

  Johnson walked in, checked that his handiwork had left no mark on the door or the frame, and clicked the door shut behind him.

  Natasha’s house was immaculately tidy, but the long rug covering the hallway floor was threadbare, and the walls were in need of a lick of paint.

  He moved into the kitchen at the rear of the house. It was clean, but there were no luxury appliances, just a basic microwave and kettle, an old stovetop coffee maker, and a battered old dishwasher. Clearly the harbormaster’s office wasn’t paying her a fortune.