The Old Bridge Read online

  “Right,” Johnson said. “Sixteen years, so he’s due out this year then?”

  “Yes, correct.”

  “When is he out?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Johnson blinked. “Tomorrow? You mean he’s being released tomorrow?”

  “Correct. He’ll be back here tomorrow night, I hope, if he can get his flight arranged.” Antun sighed. “Then I’ll have to tell him about Petar. And then he’ll want revenge, because he’ll know who did it, just as I know who did it. And I’ll have to try and calm him down, but I won’t really want to. But I can’t see him go straight back to jail, so I’ll have to.”

  Johnson paused. “There is another way. I understand he’s going to be angry but there are different types of revenge. Look, I’m a war crimes investigator. I worked as a Nazi hunter in the United States for a long time, and I have my own private business now. Let me speak to Filip when he arrives. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done, but there’s no harm in talking.”

  The old man considered the suggestion. “Yes, come back here later next week, then.”

  “I can’t. I’m due to leave for Istanbul on Monday morning, and then I head back home to the US on Monday night. So it will have to be tomorrow night or not at all.”

  The old man sipped his coffee, picked up the joint that was smoldering in the tray, knocked off a long trail of ash, and took a deep drag.

  They sat in silence for a minute or two as Johnson waited for an answer.

  “Okay, tomorrow night then,” Antun said.

  Just as he spoke, a loud chime sounded from within the house.

  “Who the hell can that be?” Antun said, turning around. “I’m just going to have a look at the security video screen.” He got up and disappeared into the house.

  A few seconds later there was a loud exclamation from inside the house.

  “My God!” Antun shouted in Croatian.

  Johnson wasn’t sure what to do. Was the old man all right?

  Then Antun’s words floated through to the patio. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow or Monday.”

  Is Filip here now?

  After a few moments he walked through to the hallway, where he saw Antun embracing a younger man. Johnson didn’t need to be told that this was indeed Filip Simic. He was almost a clone of his father.

  “They brought forward my release by three days,” Filip said in Croatian. “They said it was something to do with new arrivals and—” He stopped when he saw Johnson. “Who the hell’s this?” He broke away from hugging Antun.

  Probably the last thing Filip wanted after sixteen years in prison was some stranger in his father’s house on his return, Johnson thought.

  “It’s okay, Filip, it’s okay. He’s an American guy,” Antun said in Croatian. Then he switched to English and introduced Johnson to his son. “He’s an investigator. He speaks some Croatian, but let’s use English. I was chatting with him. He was with Petar when . . .” Antun’s voice trailed away.

  “When what?” Filip asked.

  “Come, let’s go and sit through there.” Antun motioned Filip and Johnson to the kitchen table and sat down. Filip scowled at Johnson and remained standing.

  “Come on, tell me. What’s happened to Petar?” Filip demanded.

  It didn’t look as though his years in prison had been kind to Filip, Johnson thought. Although his features were very much like his father and his brother’s, his hair was grayer than Petar’s had been; his face was red, his cheeks lined and punctuated with small broken blood vessels, which Johnson thought to be a sign of high blood pressure. His nose angled a few degrees to the right, and a front tooth was missing, leaving a black gap.

  “It’s . . . he’s been shot. It happened on Thursday, in Dubrovnik, in the Stari Grad,” Antun said.

  “What? Is he—”

  “He’s gone, Filip.”

  “No! No, no . . . ”

  His shoulders shook, and then he sobbed.

  It appeared to be a dry sob, but it gathered momentum. He sat down, put his head between his knees and held his forehead with both hands, his whole body trembling. His father stood and put a hand on his shoulder. Johnson could only watch in silence.

  Eventually, the sobbing subsided. Filip finally raised his head and glared at Johnson.

  “What happened?” Filip asked. “Who did this?”

  It was Antun who spoke first. “When it happened, he was in a café, telling Mr. Johnson here, who is a war crimes investigator, about Franjo and Marco, what happened in the ’90s and how you ended up in prison and they didn’t.”

  Johnson resisted the temptation to jump in and give his firsthand version of the conversation he had with Petar as he watched shock, then understanding, cross Filip’s face.

  “Those bastards,” Filip’s eyes snapped to Johnson.

  “You listen to me. It was Marco that did this,” Antun said, rapping both palms down on the table in front of him. It was a statement that did not invite contradiction.

  “Petar spoke to me about Marco,” Johnson said. “I was interested, from a professional point of view, because that’s my job: tracing war criminals, among others. And I was planning to get some more information from Petar, to try and decide whether the whole thing was worth investigating, when he was killed.”

  “Of course it’s worth investigating,” Filip said.

  Johnson leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table, then cupped his chin in his hands. “I have to confess, I didn’t give the police everything when I gave my statement. As I explained to your father, I didn’t tell them that Petar asked me to look into Marco because I didn’t want to spook him and have him disappear.”

  “You damn well should have told the police,” Filip said, his voice rising. “They are useless, but maybe you’ve got something vital that could help them. Did you not see anything, anyone suspicious?”

  Johnson pressed his lips together. “Actually, yes, I did. Petar received a text message, then not long afterward went to the men’s room, inside the café. A minute later, I saw a man walk quickly from the restrooms and leave the café. But I didn’t get a good look at his face. And I didn’t remember it at the time, honestly. It was only later when I was thinking through what had happened that it came to me.”

  There was a short silence and Johnson sensed both men’s mood.

  “You’re right,” Johnson said. “I need to tell the police this. Listen, I’ll do that when I return to Dubrovnik. Even if it makes Marco run.”

  That seemed to satisfy Filip and Antun, who sat back in their chairs.

  “I’d better go and let you and your father grieve in peace,” Johnson said. “You probably have a lot to talk about, especially given what’s just happened. I could come back tomorrow.”

  “No, I can handle it,” Filip said. “I’m used to it, living here. Actually, you can stay. You might be of use to me. There’s probably quite a bit more to it than what Petar told you.”

  He scanned Johnson up and down. “There are things I could tell you. But I’m going to have to check you out first before giving you the whole lot, okay?”

  Johnson had to consciously stop his eyebrows from rising. The guy had some nerve given he’d just finished a long stretch in prison.

  “Okay,” Johnson said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” He told Filip that his story was on his website, that he was an investigator who specialized in tracking down people who had gone off the radar—cases about which the police weren’t necessarily interested. He said he had a special interest in war crimes because of his background as a Nazi hunter for the US government, in its Office of Special Investigations, prior to starting his own business in 2006. He just needed someone to pay for his time.

  “And before the Nazi hunting job?” Filip asked.

  Johnson decided to be vague. “Before that I worked for the US Government. I did a stint in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

  Filip pressed the palms of his hands together, visibly thinking.
“I’ve just done sixteen years in Wakefield Prison.”

  Johnson nodded.

  “Now, I did something wrong,” Filip said. “It led to the deaths of quite a few Bosnians. I’ve regretted what happened, and I’ve paid a price for that. I’m not going to discuss it any further, so don’t ask,” Filip said. “But these other guys, Franjo and Marco, committed worse crimes, killed a lot more—I think at least forty based on what they said at the time—and they’ve got off completely free. You can accuse me of being bitter, but I don’t care. They should be in jail. Franjo, especially. They tortured Bosnians at a concentration camp, the Heliodrom, near Mostar, every day for months while they were working there. They did indescribable things. Starved them and broke fingers, arms, legs, left them without water, made them drink urine.”

  “Yes, your brother told me about the Heliodrom,” Johnson said.

  Antun tapped the table with his fingers. “There might be one lead worth chasing up. Wasn’t Franjo married at that time, to a Muslim girl? But it didn’t last long. I believe they broke up when the war started.”

  “That’s a good point,” Filip said. “He was married to a girl called . . . oh, what was her name. Aisha, that’s it. Aisha Delić. And she had a gorgeous friend who was a Croat called Ana Dukić, whom I was completely obsessed with when I was about nineteen. I chased after her for months, and eventually we, um, got together. Then we fell out in a major way. It was very bitter. We haven’t spoken since.”

  He smiled. “See, in those days before the war, we all used to mix together much more, drink together more, sleep together much more. Church or mosque, it didn’t really matter. And when we fought, it was over women, not religion. It was a different country then.”

  Filip pointed at Johnson. “You should try and find Aisha.”

  “So where is Aisha now?” Johnson asked.

  “As far as I know she went to America,” Filip said. “That was the last I heard of her, but that was before I went into Wakefield, in another lifetime.”

  “And her father, Erol, was high up in the government, I remember,” Antun said. “He had some sort of secret job. He worked for Izetbegović in Sarajevo.”

  Johnson raised his eyebrows. Izetbegović, the former Bosnian Muslim president, who had been close to Bill Clinton. This was getting increasingly interesting.

  Johnson sat upright. “So this guy Franjo was married to the daughter of one of Izetbegović’s henchmen. It sounds like a tangled web.”

  “Yes, it was,” Filip said. “Look, you’re a war crimes investigator. Well, maybe you’ve arrived at exactly the right time. I’d actually really like you to find these two murderers, Franjo and Marco, especially given what’s happened to Petar.”

  Johnson nodded. “You could definitely help me. Would you be free to do that? What are your plans now?”

  Filip averted his eyes. “I’ve been thinking about it the last few years while I’ve been in prison. I was a journalist before the war—that’s how I knew Franjo. We trained together. Then like everybody, we joined the army, and everything fell away. It’s been a long time, but I could go back to doing that. Maybe as a freelancer. My English is good, and there’s a lot to write about in this part of the world. But I also have a few things I worked on before prison, business ventures around here. I’ve still got a lot of contacts. Don’t worry, I’d be able to pay you.”

  Filip’s phone pinged as a text message arrived. He took the phone from his pocket and stabbed at the screen. “Dammit, these phones are hard to get used to. First thing I bought when I got out. Didn’t see too many of them in prison, apart from the odd one someone smuggled in,” Filip said.

  “Do you need some help?” Johnson offered.

  “No, no, it’s okay, I’ll sort it out. Just a message from a business contact.” Filip pocketed his phone. “Maybe we could work together? I could help you, you help me. You might need some local knowledge around here, yes?”

  Johnson struggled to keep his face neutral. That didn’t sound like a good idea.

  “Maybe,” Johnson said. “We can discuss it.”

  Filip leaned toward Johnson and looked him in the eye. “Okay. And now, just tell me what you need for us to nail these bastards.”

  Chapter Seven

  Saturday, July 7, 2012

  Split

  The man calling himself Stefan strode over the smooth concrete quayside, the blue-green waters of Split’s marina to his left offsetting the array of bleached white yachts.

  He glanced at his watch. Right on time, he thought, as he continued toward a clutch of large yachts at the far end of the concrete pier.

  Stefan, with neatly clipped receding dark hair and stubble covering his fleshy face, stopped in front of the third boat, a long, sleek Sunseeker.

  Standing on the deck was a swarthy man with a rather straggly black beard, flecked with gray, who wore dark glasses. He raised his hand in greeting, but didn’t smile. “Hello, Stefan. Come on board.”

  Stefan stepped heavily onto the gangplank, which creaked under his weight. He walked past two Jet Skis that were mounted on a hydraulic pulley system at the back of the boat and shook hands with his host, Mustafa Asan.

  “This makes a change from the Hilton,” Stefan said in slightly accented but fluent English.

  “Yes, we’re having a break from Ankara for a few weeks,” Mustafa said. He led the way into a teak-lined cabin, carefully closed the door, then extracted a bottle of champagne from a silver wine bucket, and poured it slowly into two flutes. He handed one to his guest.

  “There you go, Stefan—şerefe, as we say in Turkey, your honor. Cheers.”

  “Şerefe, indeed, thank you,” Stefan said, carefully lowering his frame onto an ornate wooden chair. He gently clinked glasses with Mustafa, who sat opposite. “I’m assuming we can talk securely here. Did you have the boat checked?”

  “Yes of course.”

  “Now, how are things looking at your end?” Stefan asked.

  “Good,” Mustafa said. “The Syrian rebels are taking all the hardware we can give them.”

  Stefan knew that the forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were determined to put up a real fight. Their appetite for both weapons and ammunition was seemingly insatiable.

  He nodded. “We can keep supplying what your people need. What’s on the list?”

  Mustafa reeled off the items. “More Kalashnikovs, more M16s, and ammunition for both of those. Antitank grenades, Milan antitank missiles, detonators, rocket launchers, and surface-to-air missiles—including Stingers if they are available.”

  “No Stingers. They’re almost impossible to get,” Stefan said. “But everything else is not a problem.”

  Mustafa inclined his head, as if expecting that would be the response.

  “We could get it all together by next Friday night,” Stefan said. “If you get a plane into that little airfield at Sinj again, we can load it very quickly.”

  Mustafa nodded. “Yes, that’s fine.” The Turk’s Antonov An-72 aircraft was well suited to the short grass airstrip at Sinj, not far from the border with Bosnia. It allowed for an easy nighttime mission, with a quick exit straight to Saudi Arabia. From there, the aircraft would carry out a drop in the target zone.

  Stefan lit his cigarette. “I’ll have my guys on the ground again. And the Americans will ensure there’s no interference—provided I keep a certain person in their ranks happy.”

  Mustafa shrugged. “I hope keeping that certain person happy doesn’t require too big a cut.”

  “He does well enough but nothing to worry about,” Stefan said.

  Mustafa drained the remains of his champagne and stood up. “I need to get back to work. Real work.”

  Stefan also stood, said his farewells, and strolled back the way he had come an hour earlier, around the marina. After finding a space on a wooden bench, he took both of his cell phones from his pocket. He turned off the “Stefan” pay-as-you-go phone then switched the other phone back on. He needed to
make a quick call before heading to Split’s airport.

  He called a number in the United States.

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday, July 8, 2012

  Wolf Trap, Virginia

  The pathway ran from the back of the expansive gray brick house at the end of Wynhurst Lane to a small summerhouse about ninety yards away, at the end of the garden. Beyond it was thick woodland and Difficult Run River, which curled through the trees.

  Robert Watson, chief of the Near East Division in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, limped past the summerhouse and removed a cheap burner cell phone from his pocket.

  He walked slowly through a gate to the woods and continued along a narrow grassy footpath. Halfway along it, he glanced behind him, then carried on. The early morning sunshine glinted through the trees.

  Once he was near the narrow river, among thick pines, the veteran intelligence officer sat on a small wooden bench, smoothed his mop of white hair, and looked carefully around him. There was no sign of anyone nearby. He was far from certain that his house was free of bugs, and this was as good a place as any to make a confidential call.

  He called a number. It rang several times before someone answered.

  “Hello.”

  “It’s Robert,” Watson said in a gravelly voice.

  “Ah, Robert. What’s happening?” replied Alan Edwards, the CIA’s chief of station in Zagreb.

  The call cut off before Watson could answer. He looked at the reception indicator. Barely one bar.

  Damn phone company, he thought.

  That was the problem with the phones he used for such calls. His encrypted CIA work device had no such issues; his employer had made sure of that. He redialed, and the call went through again but still sounded distant.

  “Sorry, cell phone reception around here is awful. Got cut off. Anyway, I was about to say, I had a call from our man RUNNER, who’s been over your way. He’s been talking to the Turks again. We’ve got another shipment due out of Sinj next Friday night. Can you take care of it?”