The Old Bridge Read online

  “No, I’ve decided. I feel a duty toward my brother and to help you. I will come, especially if you’re taking my gun,” Filip said. “What time are you leaving in the morning?”

  “I don’t know, probably early. But really you don’t need to—”

  Filip cut Johnson short. “That’s fine, I’ll be here at seven, and then I’ll just wait and have a coffee if you’re going to be later. In fact, I was going to suggest that I could drive you there in my car. I’ve just bought a Subaru Impreza. It’s a useful car if you’re in a tight spot. It’s quick.”

  Johnson shook his head. “I doubt it. Those Imprezas are loud, obvious cars. What color is it?”

  “Blue.”

  “Look Filip, thanks for the offer, but no. I’m going to stick with the anonymous Astra I’ve rented. Nobody will notice that. Okay?”

  “Okay, fair enough. I’ll see you in the morning then.”

  Filip turned and walked out of the hotel.

  Johnson grimaced at Jayne.

  “I’d really rather not take him,” Jayne said.

  “He might have his uses,” Johnson said. “He knows the region. We’ll just have to manage him carefully.”

  He tucked Filip’s plastic bag under his left arm, picked up Jayne’s suitcase with his right hand, and made his way to the check-in desk.

  Chapter Twelve

  Wednesday, July 11, 2012

  Mostar

  Despite the sharp mountainous road leading from the Bosnian border toward Mostar, a series of motorcyclists overtook Johnson’s car and raced ahead around hairpin corners.

  But Johnson was certain that he saw one rider, clad in black leather, hanging a few hundred yards behind, even when there were opportunities to pass.

  Finally, around two and three-quarter hours after leaving Split, they began the descent from Dobrič into the Neretva River valley and Mostar.

  As they did so, the motorcyclist whom Johnson had noticed accelerated noisily and passed him on a straight section of road.

  Johnson parked outside the hotel he had booked, Muslibegovic House, and looked up to the hills surrounding Mostar on both sides. He tried to imagine mortar shells and sniper fire raining in on the Muslim side of town from Hum Hill, destroying lives, families, homes and businesses for day after day, month after month.

  Muslibegovic House was unmistakably Turkish in origin, all curved arches, ornate wooden window frames, deep pile rugs, and carved ceilings.

  “We’ll drop the bags, then we should walk down to the Old Bridge. We can get lunch there. I want to get a feel for this place,” Johnson said after they collected room keys. He and Jayne made their way to the first floor where their rooms adjoined each other, while Filip went to his second floor room.

  When he was out of sight, Johnson said, “I wasn’t going to say anything in the car, but I’m certain one of those motorcyclists was tailing us. All of them came past us apart from that one. Then he passed us just as we came into Mostar. An anonymous-looking guy, black leather gear, black bike, black helmet. No markings on the bike, which was unusual.”

  “I saw him,” Jayne said. “Yamaha two-seater touring bike with Croatian plates. After he overtook us, he disappeared quickly. Might be nothing, but . . .”

  “He wasn’t a tourist, that’s for sure,” Johnson said.

  After Johnson completed a security check outside the hotel, involving a pretend phone call as cover while surveying the road, the three of them headed down the sloping street toward the river and the bazaar. The pedestrianized Kujundžiluk Street that ran up to the Old Bridge was lined with restored stone shops and houses, plus craft and tourist stalls.

  As they approached the bridge, Jayne carried out another surveillance check which again proved negative. A gale now blew straight down the valley, and they had to work hard against the wind as they walked onto the bridge.

  “What was this place like during the war?” Johnson asked Filip.

  “Hell. That’s all I can say. We, the Croats, were behind the other side of the front line a little distance across there,” Filip said. He pointed to beyond the far riverbank on the west side. “We just fired rockets and bullets at each other for two years. Crazy.”

  They moved into the center of the bridge and stood side by side, hands on the metal railings above the parapet, looking south.

  “So the day the Croats destroyed this bridge, back in what, November ’93, where was the tank that did the damage?” Johnson asked.

  Filip pointed south, straight down the river. “You can just about see that hump, on the west side, about a kilometer and a half down there. There’s a few houses on the top of it? That’s Stotina Hill. The tank was there, hidden in an old house, firing through a window.”

  “So what did you think about that?” Johnson asked.

  Filip shrugged. “I’m Croat. This bridge is symbolically Muslim and Ottoman. But it wasn’t necessary to destroy it. This bridge is such a part of this city’s history and heritage. The HVO leaders made a strategic argument, that it would stop the guys on the east side getting to the front line, but that was bullshit.”

  Just as he finished his sentence, there was a faint crack and a high-pitched whining sound next to them, which Johnson heard above the wind.

  After that, things seemed to unfold in slow motion.

  To Johnson’s right, Filip jerked backward and sideways, grabbing his right forearm and lifting it up. A large gash just below his elbow was dripping blood.

  At the same time, Johnson felt dust and debris peppering his exposed skin, emanating from a large chip in the stonework of the parapet in front of them, the clean white of the damaged area contrasting with the dirtier surroundings.

  He knew instantly what had happened.

  “Get down,” Johnson snapped, his voice rising sharply. He pushed Filip down to the cobbled surface of the bridge and simultaneously dropped to the floor. “It’s a gunman, sonofabitch.”

  Jayne also dropped to the ground and all three flattened themselves, Filip now groaning in pain.

  As they did so, another high-pitched whine sounded as another bullet ricocheted off the bridge parapet right above Johnson’s head. More fragments of stone landed on top of him.

  An overweight middle-aged woman, standing nearby with her husband, saw them, then spotted Filip’s bleeding arm and screamed twice loudly.

  She ran toward the western side of the bridge, her body waddling as she struggled to make headway. Her husband hesitated for a fraction of a second, then ran after her.

  Johnson pulled himself tight up behind the three-foot-high parapet. “Crawl that way,” Johnson said, indicating to his left, back toward the eastern side of the bridge.

  Jayne hugged the bottom of the parapet, leading the way, and the bleeding Filip followed her. They crawled on knees and elbows back in the direction they had walked just minutes earlier.

  Johnson, bringing up the rear, could hear Filip groaning and whining every time his wounded arm came in contact with the hard surface, which had raised stone ridges running across it every couple of feet to prevent pedestrians from slipping.

  The trio crawled along the sloping bridge for about fifteen yards before they came to a tall, battered stone house on their right, which gave them some cover from the shots.

  A small group of Japanese tourists, who had been about to cross the bridge, shouted and screamed in confusion. Other pedestrians, possibly locals, inched backward toward the shops. Two younger women sobbed, visibly terrified by the chaos.

  “We need to get out of here, quick,” Johnson said.

  Jayne nodded. She leaned over and examined Filip’s arm. “How is it?” she asked.

  Filip shook his head and clutched his elbow. “Not good. It’s a deep cut. It’s got to be that bastard Marco—again,” he said.

  “We need to get him to a hospital,” Jayne said to Johnson. “He’ll need stitches. I think it was a piece of stone that hit him, not the bullet.”

  Johnson stood, his back flat again
st the wall of the house, and pointed with his thumb toward the west side of the river, just south of the bridge, where there was a piece of derelict land with a dilapidated old stone building covered in ivy and surrounded by trees. “The shots came from that direction,” he said. “So let’s keep going the opposite way.”

  He led them back the way they had come, walking close to the wall of the stone houses, until they reached the crowd of shoppers among the stalls, most of whom had not realized what had occurred just a few yards away.

  He went to a stall that sold head scarves, pointed to a large yellow cotton one and gave the old woman sitting behind the cash desk a ten euro note. She handed it to Filip, a worried expression on her face.

  Johnson wound it tightly around Filip’s forearm, still oozing blood. “Better than nothing, until we can get to the hospital,” Johnson said.

  Jayne stared over the bridge. As she did so, carried on the wind from the other side of the river, came the faint but unmistakable sound of a large motorcycle engine starting up and revving loudly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wednesday, July 11, 2012

  New York City

  “I just got the lighting plot from Tim. We’ve a lot of moving lights and other specials to rig because he wants plenty of color for this show,” Aisha Delić said.

  She turned the diagram on her laptop screen toward the others. “I just want to get the equipment list finalized so we can get the gear out of the storeroom and start rigging the extra lamps and other stuff.”

  She glanced around the dimmer room next to the studio, buried deep in the bowels of the CBA television studio complex, set back just off 34th Street, near Penn Station.

  The four TV lighting electricians sitting around the table groaned, virtually in unison. “You’re joking? We’ve got all that to rig?” one of them said. “We’re not going to have much time to put all that in.”

  “Yeah, it’s got to be done. At least we’ll be doing our part, but it’s a bit like trying to polish a chunk of cow shit,” Aisha said. “I mean, from what I’ve seen, this Alumni Brain Quiz show looks a bit of a flop. Who wants to see a quiz between university alumni teams? Unless they get someone famous on, a few celebs, it’s a nonstarter.”

  Everyone laughed. “You nailed it there, Aisha,” said Olly West, who had joined CBA on the same day as she had, nine years earlier.

  “What I’d like to do is use the kit we have to the maximum for this show,” Aisha said. “I want to impress Tim. If we try and utilize some of the moving lights, we might be able to create a bit of atmosphere. That’s what this thing is lacking, based on the pilots I’ve seen so far. I can program some fancy cues to happen every time a contestant gets a question wrong, for instance. That would really make the person the center of everybody’s attention, you know what I mean?”

  Tim Burroughs, the lighting director, had criticized Aisha during the last show on which they had worked together, and she was keen to rectify that this time.

  “Okay, guys, I think we’ve got it covered for now. Let’s get a move on. If there’s any kit missing let me know,” said Steve Abrahams, the charge hand for the Alumni Brain Quiz show. “Otherwise, go get some lunch.”

  The group headed for the door. Aisha wandered into the newsroom further down the corridor, where the monitors all showed the extended lunchtime CBA news and current affairs program.

  She stood and watched for a while.

  For the third time in the previous ten days, the lead item on the news was Patrick Spencer’s comments on immigration, race, and religion, a theme he had returned to in all of his speeches. The speaker of the House’s focus remained on Muslim immigrants in particular.

  “Not again,” Aisha said to the news producer, Alice Munro, who stood by the door, also watching the segment. “This guy is cranking up the volume. He needs to be taken down a few notches.”

  “Yes, I know,” Alice said. “It’s an embarrassment. There’s talk that he might be coming in here to do an interview at some point soon, with a British TV interviewer. I’ll be making sure I’m off duty that day.”

  “Me too,” said Aisha. “I can’t stand the guy. Is he really coming here?”

  “Apparently so.”

  Aisha listened as the TV anchor continued his report.

  “Spencer’s latest comments regarding the immigration of people from countries where Islam is the dominant religion and the steps he would like taken to stop it are already provoking a fierce reaction right across America,” the presenter said. “Two Muslim-Americans were killed in separate attacks, one by youths wielding hammers, the other by a man with a handgun. Four others were seriously injured after a man opened fire with a shotgun outside a mosque in the Bosnian-dominated suburb of Bevo Mill in St. Louis, Missouri, which has a large population of Bosnian immigrants, many of whom are Muslims.

  “Spencer’s speeches, together with these incidents, have resulted in protest marches in St. Louis. Protesters have issued a statement that argues that Patrick Spencer is deliberately trying to stoke tension to provoke unrest and to bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence and alienation that will force the federal government into action.”

  As the report continued, Aisha turned toward Alice. “I lived in St. Louis for several years after I moved to the States from Bosnia. That was where I did my broadcast engineering training. There was never any trouble down there.”

  She walked away shaking her head, then a thought struck her. She took her phone out of her pocket and called an old friend, Nikola, in St. Louis, with whom she had worked at the Fox KTVI TV station a decade and a half earlier.

  It was answered after a couple of rings. “Nikola? Hi, it’s Aisha. I just thought I’d give you a call. I was worried after hearing about all the trouble down there.”

  “Aisha, I can’t tell you how awful things are here right now. Have you heard about Ammar and Karim?”

  It was the tone of Nikola’s voice that did it.

  A shock wave went through Aisha, as if she had been hit hard in the stomach. She leaned against the wall in the corridor where she was standing. After a few deep breaths, she managed to say, “No, what is it?”

  There was a pause, then Nikola told her. “They were at that mosque. Ammar was shot and badly wounded, hit in the bowel. He needs emergency surgery tonight. And Karim was also hit. He’s got a punctured lung and is also in the hospital in intensive care. It’s so terrible and I can’t . . .”

  Aisha heard her burst into tears and did likewise; the two of them wept, almost a thousand miles apart, unable to help each other.

  Both Ammar and Karim had been close friends. The four of them had hung out, chatted, cooked food, and attended mosque together. They had all spent a long time living in poverty after arriving from Bosnia in the 1990s, and it had bonded them.

  “Bastards. I don’t believe it,” Aisha said. “I just had a thought that came out of nowhere. I kind of knew there was something happening. I had to give you a call. They never did anything to anybody, those guys. Tell them I’m praying for them. They have to pull through.”

  “Something’s got to be done about all this stuff going on. Spencer is stirring up shit with his speeches on TV. It’s really bad,” Nikola said.

  “I know,” Aisha said. “Someone needs to act, you’re right.” She thumped the wall against which she was leaning. “I haven’t felt so angry since . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  Since the war.

  Five minutes later, after she had finished her call, Aisha texted her friend Adela.

  Hey, about those Tuesday meetings at your mosque. I’d like to come after all. Can you send the specifics?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Wednesday, July 11, 2012

  Mostar

  Boris and Marco walked swiftly through the sliding doors of the Hotel Mepas, a modernistic building that included shopping and cinema complexes.

  “What an almighty screwup that was. How the hell did you miss?” Boris said, without look
ing at his friend as they strode across the sand-colored marble floor.

  A porter nodded at them. “Can I carry that for you, sir?” he asked politely, pointing at the battered guitar case Marco was carrying, which was plastered with music and travel stickers. “You play in a band, sir?”

  “No, you can’t. And yes, I’m in a band,” Marco said, glancing at him.

  “Which one is that, sir?”

  “Guns N’ Roses, an American band,” Marco said without looking back as he continued toward the elevators.

  Boris didn’t laugh. As the elevator doors closed behind them, he pressed the button for the second floor, leaned against the wall, and folded his arms.

  Marco remained silent and stared at the floor until the elevator stopped and the door opened.

  “An odd one. Must have been the wind,” he said as the two of them exited the elevator. “And he ducked below the parapet just as I fired the second shot. The other guy pushed him down.”

  “You’re losing your touch, my friend,” Boris said.

  As soon as they got into the twin room they were sharing, Boris walked straight to the minibar, poured himself a large whiskey and ice, and went out onto the balcony. He lit a cigarette.

  “I’ve spoken to Bruno,” Marco said. “He’s got a friend who lives in Mostar, works as a driver or something. He knows everyone, at least on the eastern side of town. He’s going to put some feelers out to see if he can discover where Simic and the American are staying and keep track of them.”

  “How is it Bruno doesn’t know that? Why didn’t he follow them to their hotel?” Boris asked.

  Marco shrugged. “He said he had a feeling they realized they were being followed so he didn’t want to push his luck. By the way, Bruno’s bike shifts. Nearly threw us both off when I accelerated out of the parking lot. I forgot to ask him which room he’s in. Do you know?”

  “I’ve no idea which room he’s in,” Boris said. “I’m more interested in those three on the bridge. They’re not here to take photos of the architecture, are they? What the hell are they doing? Filip needs to be taken out. But I’m not sure what to do about that American investigator. And who’s that woman with them now?”