The Old Bridge Page 7

  Watson had long ago given his agent the code name RUNNER for purposes of communication with the very few people who were familiar with this particular operation, and it had nothing to do with the man’s athletic prowess.

  “Friday? Yes, that should be okay. Presumably we’re talking late?”

  “Yes, probably one o’clock in the morning. You just need to close off the roads, keep people away, and keep a lookout.”

  “Okay, we’ll probably do what we did last time—a burst water main. That did the trick. Nobody expects Croatian workmen to move quickly at night. We’ll block the road with vans and put the signs up, so that should give us a good hour or so.” There was a slight pause. “Just to be clear, you think we’re still safe, dealing with RUNNER? It’s been a long time now.”

  “I’ll deal with him as long as it pays. As for safe—it’s as safe as it can be after twenty years. I limit information flows on a need-to-know basis. Might sound odd for someone in my job, but I don’t actually know much about him and I don’t want to. I’ve only met him a handful of times. We keep him off the intelligence radar plus the odd favor, like this Sinj thing, and as long as I get my cut—which I do—it’ll stay that way. You get your cut, I pay EDISON a cut, I pocket the rest, job done. Everyone’s happy. It works.”

  “But about RUNNER,” Edwards said. “What’s his job?”

  “Don't know, really. Like I said, I don’t need to know,” Watson said. “I think some arms wheeling and dealing.”

  “And who’s EDISON?”

  Watson frowned. Why was Edwards suddenly asking questions?

  Lying and deception went with the territory in Watson’s role, as it always had done and he expected always would do. It was something he was quite comfortable with, and he assumed that Edwards took a fair proportion of what he was told with a pinch of salt. But so far he’d hardly told Edwards a single truth. In fact he knew precisely what RUNNER did, apart from arms dealing, and what his alias was. And likewise, he certainly wasn’t going to give EDISON’s identity to Edwards.

  After a few seconds, Edwards broke the silence. “I shouldn’t have asked. Forget I did.”

  “All I’ll tell you,” Watson said, “is EDISON helped me out a lot when we set this whole thing up in ’93, so I owe him for that. He’s doing all right for himself now, and when he gets to where he wants to be, he’ll probably do me a big favor in due course—maybe a nice fat consultancy fee in my retirement in return for whispering useful information in his ear every so often. So I keep him happy. Just as I keep you happy, I hope?”

  “Yeah, it’s good, for a few hours work. Where are you now?” Edwards asked.

  “I’m at home in Wolf Trap,” Watson said. He had lived there for five years. The house was way too big for just him, but given it was only twelve miles from Langley, it worked out fine.

  “How’s things there?” Watson asked.

  “Hot, stinking hot. Temperature’s been up to ninety these past few days. Looking forward to my August break back home, frankly.”

  “I’m sure. Okay, I need to go. Talk to you later.”

  Watson hung up and scanned his surroundings carefully again.

  Then he rang another cell phone number, one that he used very sparingly.

  “EDISON, it’s SILVER here,” Watson began when the call was answered.

  The person he was calling replied curtly, “Yes?”

  “Just to let you know, another shipment’s going out. Not huge but decent enough.”

  “How much?” EDISON asked.

  “Total probably one to two million US. Like I said, not huge, but it’ll keep us ticking,” Watson said.

  “Okay, thanks. Just remember, the stakes are getting higher for me. Got to be damn careful now.”

  Watson gripped the handset. “Yes, I know, don’t worry. It’ll be fine. Talk soon.”

  He hung up. Then he picked up a stone and tossed it into Difficult Run River.

  Bullshit. The stakes are getting higher. Aren’t they for all of us, he thought to himself.

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday, July 8, 2012

  Split

  Johnson climbed a steep iron staircase that wound upward in a spiral inside the bell tower of St. Domnius Cathedral. He had decided that a walk around the city and a spot of sightseeing might help to clear his mind.

  As he hauled himself up to the top, Johnson clung to the handrail. Eventually, he found himself on a stone platform whose carved stone arched windows offered views in all directions across the city of Split.

  The early afternoon sun was baking the city yet again. Looking west from his vantage point, high above the surrounding buildings, he could see Marjan, the green hill where the previous afternoon he had been at Antun’s house.

  Johnson read the leaflet he had picked up at the entrance. The cathedral, situated within the medieval heart of Split, dated back to the seventh century, it said, and formed part of the oldest building in the city, the mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

  He peered through one of the unglazed open windows. There was his hotel, the Luxe, just a short distance out of the walled Diocletian’s Palace area.

  It seemed to him that the broad sweep of history in these parts, particularly the more recent bloody schisms that had savagely broken up the old Yugoslavia, had left deep wounds that were still festering. And not a great deal had improved since he had worked in the region.

  The war from 1991 to 1995 had ripped the country apart, destroying friendships, families, and relationships. Sure, he thought, some—maybe most—of the perpetrators of murder, violence, and torture had been caught, indicted, and sentenced. But not all of them.

  He remembered reading the headlines when the likes of Slobodan Milošević, president of Serbia, Ratko Mladić, head of the Bosnian Serb army, and Radovan Karadžić, president of the Srpska Republic, had been tried in court.

  Further down the tree there were police commanders, generals, and ordinary soldiers like Filip who had been brought to justice, representing all facets of the ethnic divides whose fault lines ran through the entire Balkan region.

  But how many others are still out there, guilty but unpunished? And where are they now? America? Britain? Australia? Canada?

  That was what interested him—what had always interested him.

  Johnson moved to the other side of the bell tower and gazed out over the harbor. Hundreds of passengers were disembarking from a cruise ship to go on sightseeing tours and shopping expeditions in and around the Old Town—doubtless a large number of them were fellow Americans.

  But behind the tourism facade, old battles were clearly still being fought, though not with tanks and rocket launchers. Johnson himself was already a witness to the fact that blood was still being spilt. And there was the threat of more to come.

  Johnson sat on the stone parapet and stared out across the Adriatic.

  A young couple who had been kissing in the corner finished taking photographs of each other. It reminded Johnson of him and his late wife Kathy in the early days, before they were married and before the children came along. He offered to take a picture of the couple together, which they gratefully accepted. They posed, arms wrapped around each other, in front of the window, which faced out to sea; then they eagerly examined the results of Johnson’s handiwork on the camera screen. They seemed happy and thanked Johnson profusely before starting the descent down the staircase to ground level.

  Johnson was left by himself. He had his own camera in his bag, a high-quality Olympus OM-D E-M5, which he had bought only a couple of months earlier as a lighter alternative to his Canon 5D SLR. Normally, he would have taken the opportunity to frame a few photographs of the city from such a vantage point. But now he had other things on his mind.

  He took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, smoking it slowly as he watched the tourists sitting at café tables far below him. Waiters clad in smart white shirts and black waistcoats scurried between them and delivered drinks and food.

&n
bsp; As he smoked, Johnson clicked onto the recording of the conversation he’d had with Petar prior to the shooting, and pressed play.

  “ . . . Franjo, Marco, and Filip were responsible for quite a lot of those deaths, no doubt about it . . . They must have murdered dozens. When I first knew Franjo and Marco, they were quite happy to live alongside Muslims. Franjo was even married to one. But they changed massively—really seemed to hate them in the end . . . ”

  He rewound certain parts of the conversation and listened again.

  His mind was made up.

  When he had finished the cigarette, he took out his phone and made an encrypted call to Vic Walter, who was now back home in Washington, DC. He answered on the third ring, and Johnson spoke before Vic could open his mouth.

  “Vic, it’s Joe.”

  After a pause a gravelly voice came on at the other end of the line. “Doc, I’m sure you remembered it’s only seven o’clock in the morning here. Where are you?”

  “I’m in Split. Sorry, yes, I did know it was early. I’m just checking in with you.”

  “Right.”

  “There have been a few developments at this end. Listen to this. You remember I mentioned that guy who approached me just before you met me in Dubrovnik?” Johnson asked.

  “Vaguely.”

  “Well, I’m sitting drinking coffee with him the next day in the Old Town, and he’s telling me an interesting tale about an acquaintance of his, Franjo Vuković, who’s apparently got away with various war crimes that he believes need investigating. Then he gets a text, disappears to the restrooms, and gets his head blown off.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Right in the café. Bullet through the head. Then I met the dead guy’s brother here in Split. He just got back from serving a sixteen-year sentence for war crimes and already wants to avenge his brother.”

  There was a slight chuckle, which Vic swiftly stifled. “So what are you trying to tell me—the job’s interesting enough to accept?”

  “Well, listen to this . . . ”

  Johnson went on to tell Vic in greater detail what had happened in Dubrovnik and then the previous day in Split.

  “But this is where things get intriguing,” Johnson said. “I then learn that Franjo’s father-in-law was high up in Izetbegović’s government. The same Izetbegović who was close to Clinton.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes. I’m thinking it might be a starting point in terms of what you want me to do here—the documents you need,” Johnson said. “I’ll need to check it out further. At the very least, it might be a line into the government at that time.”

  “Okay, sounds worth looking at,” Vic said. “And I should tell you that there’s a large success bonus in it for whoever finds those documents. I’m expecting to get the name of another person who used to work in Izetbegović’s office at that time, which would give you two leads.”

  “Right,” Johnson said, “and as for your orders for this job, have you learned any more about who originally issued them to the director and why?”

  “No,” Vic said. “And I never said anybody issued them to the director, just that they came from his office.”

  Johnson decided that Vic’s no probably meant yes.

  “So just how high up the political ladder are we talking? Nosebleed level, or just plain old vertigo?” he asked.

  “High. No more questions.”

  There was a long silence. A group of four, two men and two women, all in their twenties, emerged at the top of the stairs in the bell tower and immediately took out their cameras.

  Johnson clearly heard Vic rustling something and then a slight slurp. He could almost picture him as he unfolded his newspaper and sipped his coffee.

  “You do realize that the kids are going to kill me, don’t you?” Johnson asked. “We were meant to be going to Castine for a few days break this coming weekend. I was on a suspended sentence six months ago after I was away for a good while on the last job. This time I’ll definitely be behind bars.”

  “So you’re going to do the job?”

  Johnson pursed his lips. “Will I regret it?”

  “Probably. The Balkans is a bitch’s brew.”

  After a few more minutes of banter with Vic, Johnson ended the call and sighed. Now to tell his children. He descended the staircase to the bottom of the tower, went into a small white stone courtyard, and dialed again.

  After he had explained that he’d be gone a little while for work, his fifteen-year-old daughter, Carrie, said, “Dad, come on, you promised you’d fly home Monday evening after your Istanbul meeting. I was really looking forward to that trip to Castine. And Peter was too. He told me.”

  “I know. I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to earn some money to keep you two going with iPhones and computers and so on. You’re not cheap to run, you kids,” Johnson said. He gritted his teeth as he said it.

  “But you can get work in the States, can’t you, Dad?” Carrie asked.

  In theory, he could, Johnson conceded, and the plan had been to head back after his visit to Istanbul. But now he was canceling that trip as well, he explained, hoping his daughter would understand.

  “I’m really sorry, Carrie. I hate disappointing both of you. But we’ll fix up another weekend soon. Castine won’t disappear, you know.” He paused. “The thing is, you’re old enough to know what my passion is, what I need to do, and that’s bringing these war criminals to justice. Quite apart from the money, I just have to do it. You’ll be the same in a few years, when you find something you really need to do.”

  He walked in small circles around the courtyard, his phone clamped to his left ear. There was silence at the other end of the line, broken eventually by the sound of the family’s chocolate-brown Labrador, Cocoa, barking in the background. Johnson could hear Peter trying to quiet him.

  “Okay, Dad,” Carrie said. “As long as you don’t start smoking again.”

  Johnson laughed. “I’m trying, I’m trying. I hardly ever do these days. Definitely not at home. Only when I’m away, the occasional one.”

  He was keenly aware he needed to set a good example for his kids, especially given that he had been a single dad since his wife, Kathy, had died of cancer in October 2005, at the age of only forty-six. But sometimes temptation still got the better of him, especially when he was feeling stressed.

  Johnson said, “I’ve brought my running shoes here with me. I might go for a run tomorrow morning. Are you going to athletics club this week?”

  “Guess so. Will Aunty Amy take me then, if you’re not going to be back? I guess we’ll be staying with her?”

  Johnson breathed a sigh of relief. He could tell from her tone that Carrie had accepted the situation. They would be fine with Amy, who didn’t have any children of her own. She and her husband, Don Wilde, loved looking after his two.

  “Yes, I’ve texted her,” Johnson said. “She knows what’s going on, so she’ll stay with you guys until I’m back. Don’t worry.”

  He chatted with Carrie for a few more minutes, then spoke for a shorter time to Peter, who was always much more monosyllabic than his fifteen-year-old sister. He too was disappointed but was less vocal about it.

  After he had finished the call, Johnson sat down on a stone ledge in the shade.

  It was difficult, trying to resolve what he called the trilemma of balancing his responsibilities as a single dad with his passion for his work and the need to earn enough money to keep the family afloat.

  He thought back to one of his mother’s favorite sayings when he was a kid: “Come on, Joe boy, don’t give up.”

  The words had drifted in the back of his mind for years and kept him going, even more so since his mother had died in 2001. Helena, a Polish-Jewish concentration camp survivor, had been an inspiration at many critical moments over the years, when he needed some fire in his belly to push forward, especially when it came to matters of justice.

  He started to write a text message.

 
; Jayne, confirming I’m going to do this Balkans job. Feel free to join anytime you wish. Currently in Split. May head to Mostar soon.

  He pressed send, then stood and started walking toward his hotel, which was a few hundred yards away.

  Johnson had reached the lobby when a reply from Jayne beeped on his phone.

  Will see you Tuesday late afternoon. Really looking forward to teaming up again xox.

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  Sunday, July 8, 2012

  Mostar

  “If you’re an architect, yes, I agree, you’d say this bridge is beautiful. But symbolically, it makes me want to vomit,” Boris said. He stood on the central apex of Mostar’s Old Bridge and stared down at the waters of the Neretva River that meandered beneath him.

  As was their habit whenever he and Marco got together for one of their occasional reunions in their former hometown of Mostar, they lingered on the bridge for a few minutes. Boris had driven there from Split that morning to join his old friend.

  He grasped the iron safety railings that ran the length of the white stone structure and glanced down the sloping cobbled approach from the Muslim side of the river to the east. Its medieval center consisted of stone houses and shops, all tiny windows, crooked doors, and misshapen roofs.

  Then he glanced at the western, traditionally Bosnian Croat side, where the banks of the river were lined with an array of cafés and restaurants, their outdoor terraces full of tourists who sipped afternoon lattes and took photographs.

  They might have rebuilt the bridge and joined up east and west again physically, but in terms of relations between the two sides, this had changed little. He faced Marco. “It would’ve been more truthful, more honest, to have left these stones lying in the river.”

  Boris spat over the parapet into the river far below. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a beer somewhere away from these noisy tourists.”