The Old Bridge Page 8

  They walked back to Marco’s black Lexus 4x4, which he had parked nearby. Boris opened the trunk and put his sweater inside, noticing that Marco had a guitar case in there.

  “Are you playing again?” Boris asked, as he eased himself into the passenger seat.

  “A little. But the instrument in that particular case plays a different type of tune, if you see what I mean.”

  “What is it then?” Boris said.

  Marco put on his sunglasses before answering. “It’s a Zastava M76 guitar. Plus several rounds of ammunition.”

  Boris nodded. “I see. Very unobtrusive. Where do you keep that? Not at home, I assume?”

  “No. At the unit in Split, along with the other guns and ammo.”

  “Of course.”

  Boris remembered that Marco owned an industrial unit in a run-down area of Split, near the main railway station, that he used as a storage and transit base for some of the weaponry they moved in and out of the country.

  Then Marco said, “What about a beer on Marshal Tito Street?”

  Boris raised his eyebrows. “Yes, sure. Near the old school?”

  “Yes. I go every time I come here,” Marco said. “It kind of helps.”

  “I’ve not been there for a long time,” Boris said.

  “Well, it might help you too,” Marco said.

  He started the car and nosed it out of the Old Town along Onešćukova Street and then swung northward onto Bulevar, the divided highway running parallel to the river that had formed part of the front line during the war.

  “How did it go with Mustafa yesterday, then?” Marco asked.

  “To be honest,” Boris said, “It was a rubber-stamping exercise. He’s a keen buyer. So we need to get the order together for next Friday night at Sinj, and he’s got an Antonov An-72 that he’ll fly in there to pick it all up.”

  Marco nodded. “You’re doing a good job of keeping him happy.” He paused. “Do you ever think about moving back here? It’s lower risk than it used to be, and if you weren’t so tied up with that TV job, you’d be able to do more on these arms deals, where the real money is. And I need to tell you as a friend, London media life is making you fat.”

  Boris smiled, despite the insult. Marco was right about that. He’d been as skinny as a broom handle when he lived in Mostar.

  “I sometimes wonder about moving back,” Boris said. “But my job is a bit like a drug. You get a taste of it, a big interview that makes a headline because the person says something he or she shouldn’t, and there’s massive follow-up. Anyway, it’s what I do; I’m a journalist. I’m not doing it for the money. I’ve found something I’m good at. I don’t know why—maybe its the foreign thing, the accent, that makes me look and sound a bit naïve—but people say things to me on camera that they don’t say to other interviewers. That’s the trick.”

  Marco shook his head. “What would the English call you? A Jekyll and Hyde, I think.”

  Another smile crossed Boris’s face. “Maybe. I like the double life, though. Thing is, when you don’t have any family, you feel like you’ve got to make your mark, do something that people can recognize you for. I don’t have kids, no wife. I mean, all right, I have a girlfriend in London, but it’s not the same.”

  After a short distance Marco crossed a bridge to the eastern side, into a built-up area, past hotels, banks, shops, and the famous Karagöz Bey Mosque with its towering minaret.

  “These days this town feels like a place I kind of know, but don’t really know these days,” Boris said. A bit like a metaphor for himself, he thought.

  “Do you still think of yourself as a Bosnian Croat?” Marco asked.

  Boris half laughed. He wasn’t even sure how to answer. In many ways he still felt very much Bosnian Croat, almost passionately so. But geography, language, and the significant physical changes that time had wrought on him over the years sometimes meant he viewed his former self in the third person, as if he was on the outside looking in.

  They turned onto Marshal Tito Street, the busy arterial road that ran almost the full length of Mostar, parallel to the Neretva River on the eastern side of the city.

  When he came to a long derelict stone building on the corner of Alice Rizikala Street, Marco slowed the car to a crawl and stared at it, as did Boris.

  They could see now that the stone facade remained, but the interior had been largely removed, including the roof. It appeared to be undergoing preparations for renovation. Builders’ fences encircled the property.

  Marco parked opposite the two-story stone building. He switched off the engine, and they both sat and stared at the structure in silence for several minutes.

  They didn’t need to speak. Speaking wouldn’t change what had happened.

  During the war, word had gotten back to Boris and his army colleagues that Croats were being chained to the walls, being beaten with truncheons, kicked into unconsciousness, and that women were being raped. Among the Croats there, Boris’s brother, Šimun, and Marco’s father, Niko, had both died horrible deaths at the hands of their Muslim captors in the basement of the building they were looking at now. The image of Šimun’s mutilated body, dumped outside the family’s front door by somebody, was seared forever into the back of Boris’s mind.

  He got out the car, as did Marco, and the two men set off on foot to their usual bar around the corner.

  A group of schoolchildren walked past in single file, laughing and joking with each other, their teacher bringing up the rear. Up on the facade, a carved stone date stamp, 1909, marked the year the old Fourth Primary School building opened.

  “That day I saw Šimun’s body was when I knew my marriage was over, and especially when I heard who gave the orders for it,” Boris said. “I hated them all after that.”

  Some of the guards had been caught and sentenced, but not many. And those that were jailed only got three, four, or five years. What a joke that had been.

  “I’m told they’re going to rebuild this place as the new municipal court building, starting next year,” Marco said. “I hope a better version of justice is handed out when it starts its new life.”

  Marco’s phone beeped. He took it out of his pocket and stopped walking as he checked the incoming message.

  “You coming?” Boris asked.

  “Wait, I just got a message from a friend of mine in Split. A guy called Bruno Pavić—you won’t know him. Says that he was out on his motorbike, dropped into the Hemingway bar in town for a drink, and saw someone we both know in there. Guess who?”

  “No idea.”

  “Filip Simic.”

  “What? He’s in prison,” Boris said.

  “I guess he’s out. Shit, those brothers—you get rid of one and another one pops up. It’s like a Hollywood alien movie.”

  Marco typed a message and pressed send. “I’ve asked him to keep an eye on Filip and stick close to him. He’s good at tailing and following. Had plenty of practice.”

  Boris looked over the river toward the mountains. “He needs to make sure he does. Those two brothers were the only ones who really know enough to cause problems.”

  He paused, then went on, “I know why you did what you did to Petar. But I’m just worried that it might have stirred some shit up unnecessarily. You might now need to double up—with the other brother.”

  Marco grimaced. “You might be right.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tuesday, July 10, 2012

  Split

  Johnson lit his second cigarette of the afternoon and put his feet up on the balcony rail outside his hotel room, which looked out toward Split’s harbor.

  He picked up his phone and checked his emails. There was a new encrypted note from Vic. The two of them had each other’s public and private keys for all the various email addresses they used, so they could encrypt and read each other’s secure messages.

  Doc, the guy you need to speak to is Haris Hasanović, who I understand kept the minutes of many informal meetings involving US offici
als in Sarajevo within Izetbegović’s office. He’s now presumably retired. Last known location Dubrovnik, but we don’t know where exactly. Your job to find out. It’s a starting point. Also, COS in Croatia is Alan Edwards. He’s based in Zagreb but sometimes goes to Split. I’ll send you a text message with his details when I get them. He will help you.

  Vic

  Johnson noted that Vic had sent the email from his CIA address and shook his head. Vic should know to be more careful.

  He decided that Hasanović and whatever secrets he might own could wait a little while. His first job was to get to Mostar and to find Aisha’s family, and from there maybe Franjo, with luck. If Aisha’s father had been an insider in the Izetbegović government, that seemed like the most promising line of inquiry.

  And as for approaching Alan Edwards for assistance, well, he just didn’t have time to waste working out how far to trust the guy. In fact, he was surprised Vic had suggested it. After all, it was Vic who had once given him a framed quote from one of the CIA’s best-known Cold War counterintelligence chiefs, James Jesus Angleton, that he felt summed up the world of espionage. It read, “Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the state.” Johnson had it hanging in his home office.

  He looked at his watch. Jayne’s flight from London was due into Split in two hours. In the meantime, Johnson had a meeting with Filip in a café in the Old Town area of Split.

  Johnson finished his cigarette, picked up his wallet and phone, and headed out the door.

  He took a left out of the Hotel Luxe toward the harbor, then cut through the impossibly narrow stone streets of the Diocletian’s Palace, the vertiginous walls of the buildings on each side almost blocking out the light. Mindful of the situation, he then spent half an hour on a surveillance detection route, involving several sharp turns down narrow alleys and cuts through boutiques and cafés.

  Finally, sure he wasn’t being followed, he slipped into Figa, a small coffee and food bar tucked away on the corner of two alleyways within the Old Town. Soft cushions were piled on outdoor seats where a few tourists sat and wrote postcards or clicked through photographs on their cameras.

  Once in the dimly lit interior, adhering to the instructions in a text message received from Filip, he sat at a wooden table at the back of the restaurant, ordered an orange juice and waited. Five minutes later, Filip appeared in the doorway. Johnson could only hope that he had also taken suitable surveillance detection measures, but he doubted it.

  Filip ordered an espresso and sat down.

  “Think we should be okay in here,” Filip said. “I didn’t want to sit outside, given what happened to Petar. You never know.”

  “You’re right to be worried,” Johnson said. “You were safer in jail. Are you getting adjusted to civilian life again?”

  “Slowly. It’s a little weird, being able to make my own decisions about where I go, what I do again. Just about got the hang of my phone though.” He attempted a smile. “And are you getting used to the culture around here? It’s still a bit combustible at times.”

  “Combustible’s one word for it,” Johnson said. “This whole region feels a bit like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.”

  Filip nodded. “Anyway, enough of that shit. You want a cigarette?”

  Johnson nodded. “Yes, might help.”

  Filip took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then offered one to Johnson and took one himself. He clicked his lighter and lit first his own cigarette then Johnson’s. Both men took deep drags.

  “I’ve got one or two small bits of information that might help you,” Filip said. “Are you going to Mostar?”

  “Yes, I was thinking of going tomorrow or the day after,” Johnson said. “I’ve got a colleague coming in from London who’s meeting me here tonight. We’ll be working together.”

  “Okay,” Filip said. “I, or we, need to find Franjo, if he’s still alive. I think your starting point should be Aisha’s family—what’s left of it. I’ve no idea where she is, but I remembered there was a family in Mostar who her family was very close to—Terzić, that was their name. They all lived on Drage Palavstre Street, just off Marshal Tito Street, which is the main road in eastern Mostar. I knew them a bit too. Speak to the old man Terzić. I think his first name is Omar. He was friendly with Aisha’s father.”

  “Good. That sounds like a starting point,” Johnson said. Maybe Filip would be useful to him.

  “No problem. Another thing. Have you got a gun?”

  Johnson was taken aback by the sudden question. “I came here by plane, not in an Arab dhow or something. So no.”

  Filip ignored the attempted joke. “But you know how to handle one?”

  Johnson furrowed his brow. “You could say that.”

  Filip blew a long stream of smoke in the direction of the bar and then knocked the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. He glanced out the window. “I’ll see what I can get. Those two guys Franjo and Marco . . . you’ll need to be careful. The Balkans is a black place.”

  Tuesday, July 10, 2012

  Split Airport

  Jayne gave Johnson a lengthy hug and a quick hello kiss on the lips, then swung her suitcase into the trunk of the gray Opel Astra sedan. She stood back and studied the car, which Johnson had rented from an independent outlet not far from his hotel an hour earlier.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve gone for the anonymous option. What’s Go-Cro?” she asked, glancing at the large sticker in the car’s rear window.

  Trust her to home in on the small details, Johnson thought. “Small local rental company,” he replied. He had learned the hard way that BMWs and Audis were not the best choice, and he tried to avoid big international rental firms so that it was harder for anyone trying to track him down.

  While she was looking the car over, he eyed her up and down. Shortish dark hair, tight khaki-green cotton trousers that clung around her slim waist, and a low-cut cream T-shirt.

  She was in good shape, he thought, maybe even a little slimmer than seven months earlier when he’d last seen her. She looked gym-toned and wiry.

  Jayne saw him staring and smiled. “I’ve been cycling quite a lot. I just need to get rid of the British milk-bottle look,” she said. “This sunshine should help. Not too bad given I’ll be fifty-one tomorrow though, hey?”

  He had somehow forgotten her birthday was imminent. There were too many distractions.

  She opened the car door and gave Johnson a once-over. “You’re looking good yourself. But have you packed in the smoking yet?” she asked.

  “I’ve as good as given up. I smoke a bit when I’m away working, but never at home,” Johnson said.

  Johnson enjoyed watching her as she did a 360-degree check around the parking lot before climbing into the passenger seat. He eased himself in behind the steering wheel.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Jayne asked.

  He started the engine and carefully edged the Astra out of the airport and back toward the city center.

  “I thought we’d stay here tonight since it’s now getting into evening, then head to Mostar first thing in the morning,” Johnson said. “I’ve a list of people we need to see there.”

  “Good. Although in my experience of the Balkans, plans are a complete waste of time. I learned to expect the unexpected, and that worked best for me.” She smiled.

  On the way Johnson briefed Jayne on his discussion with Filip and his contacts in Mostar and gave her the background on Marco and Franjo.

  “So this Filip Simic, what’s his story?” Jayne asked.

  “He’s just finished sixteen years in prison for all the shit he carried out during the war, while these other guys, who appear to have done even worse things, have been free as birds. Then there’s the fact that it seems Marco murdered Filip’s little brother. Filip now wants revenge—although I think I’ve convinced him that justice is the best form of that. He also said he wants to set himself up as a freelance journalist, which is apparently what he did before the war
.”

  “If he’s done sixteen years in prison for war crimes, are you sure you’re happy working with him?” Jayne asked.

  Johnson shrugged. “I’m not happy about it, no. But he’s the one with the information we need. I’m trying to be pragmatic about it. My view is that he’s harmless now and might be of use in other ways. For example, he’s getting me the gun I need. The risk is going to come from Franjo and Marco.”

  “Can we trust Filip, though?”

  “Don't know. Probably not. We need to remember, though, that his brother’s been murdered. We have to do anything we can to help.”

  He pulled into the hotel’s parking lot around the corner from the main entrance and they made their way into the lobby.

  Sitting in a chair there was Filip, a sturdy black plastic bag with something bulky inside on his lap. “Delivery for you,” Filip said. He handed the bag to Johnson.

  “This is presumably what I think it is?” Johnson asked.

  “Correct.”

  Johnson discreetly opened the bag and looked inside. An old towel, which Johnson unfolded a little, covered a slightly battle-scarred Beretta. He closed the bag again.

  “Thanks,” Johnson said. “That’ll do the job. This is my friend and colleague Jayne. She’s just arrived from London and is going to help me.”

  Filip shook hands with Jayne. He looked surprised when she greeted him in Serbo-Croat, which Johnson knew she had picked up while working in the Balkans, to add to her fluent French, Spanish, Russian, and German, if he remembered correctly. “Pleased to meet you,” Filip said, regarding her with some respect. “I hope we can all work well together.”

  After a brief pause, Johnson broke in. “We’re off to Mostar in the morning.”

  “Of course,” Filip said, glancing again at Jayne. “Yes, I was just thinking, I really should come along too. You will probably need an interpreter and some local knowledge up there.”

  Jayne shook her head. “I really don’t think that’s necessary. I mean, I can speak the language reasonably fluently.”