The Old Bridge

by Andrew Turpin

  Johnson listened for a moment then shook his head and snorted to himself.

  What kind of justice would it be to let them off just because they were old?

  He turned away from the group, then jumped slightly upon finding himself face-to-face with a thin, dark-haired man.

  “Mr. Johnson?” the man asked in heavily accented English.

  “Yes, hello.” Johnson felt slightly nonplussed at the stranger’s silent approach and proximity.

  “Have you got a minute to speak to me?”

  Johnson ran the back of his hand across his chin. “Sure.”

  “I was listening to your talk today, which was interesting—especially the part about how you go about tracking down war criminals who just disappeared without a trace. I live in Bosnia, in Mostar, and I think the authorities should have made more of an effort to make sure they covered all the allegations.”

  Johnson squinted a little as he weighed the man’s point. “I thought they did a good job here, personally.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, in my view,” Johnson said. He folded his arms. “Well, the international tribunal’s nearly finished processing the 161 people they indicted. And I think the local court in Bosnia’s been effective since it took over war crimes prosecutions after 2005.”

  The man shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes, that’s what you said in your talk. But the truth is, there were people who did things that never came to the authorities’ notice, crimes that they didn’t pursue, so they were never indicted in the first place.”

  Johnson glanced to his right. A couple of people from De Vere’s group were staring at them, as were those from another small group from Sarajevo University, whom he’d briefly spoken to earlier. He turned back to the man.

  “What are you trying to say? And sorry, who are you?”

  “I’m Petar Simic.” He held out his hand and Johnson shook it. “This is your expertise, isn’t it? Hunting war criminals. I had a quick check, so I’ve seen your record. Nazis, right?” he said. “There are things I’d like to discuss that you might be interested in, as an investigator. I’m sure you’re busy here right now, but maybe we could meet somewhere else at another time?”

  Johnson paused and sighed inwardly. It was typical of the kind of approach he had often received over the years in his previous job at the OSI, the US government’s Nazi-hunting organization, before he became self-employed.

  The man was obviously going to tip him off about someone who’d supposedly done something evil and gotten away with it. Virtually always, such leads came to nothing.

  “When and where were you thinking of?” Johnson asked.

  “Tomorrow morning, down in the Stari Grad, the Old Town.” He smiled. “You should see the Old Town if you haven’t done so already. It’s a beautiful, historic place.”

  Johnson thought about it. He had been planning to visit the Old Town the next day anyway, given that he had nothing scheduled. And it might be interesting to chat with a local rather than the usual cluster of international academics.

  “Okay, we can have a quick chat for half an hour,” Johnson said. “Say ten o’clock? Where do you want to meet?”

  “Café right on the harbor, near the boats—Poklisar is its name. Good coffee, okay? Tomorrow at ten, then?”

  Johnson took a step back. “Okay. I hope you’re not wasting my time.” He gave the man a questioning look.

  Petar shook his head. “No, I won’t be wasting it. But you might need plenty of it.” Then he turned and walked away.

  An hour and a half after Petar had left, Johnson drained his fourth Ožujsko of the evening and reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes.

  He lit one, leaned on the bar, and took a deep drag just as the sun finally disappeared over the horizon.

  “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world . . .”

  Johnson jumped upon hearing the low-pitched, gravelly voice, but he knew immediately whom he’d find standing there when he turned around. It was a voice he had known well for more than two-and-a-half decades, ever since his days with the CIA in the sweat and dust of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the late 1980s.

  He pivoted to face a familiar tall, bespectacled figure.

  “Vic! What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Business, I’m afraid, Doc. Sorry, I would have called first but I knew you were here, so I opted for surprise. I got sent here at short notice—only flew in from DC this morning.”

  One of Johnson’s oldest friends from his CIA days, Vic Walter had long ago nicknamed Johnson as “Doc” because of his Ph.D. in history from Freie Universität Berlin.

  “You knew I’d be here?” Johnson said. “Of course, you would. How stupid of me. So, what’s going on? Would you like a beer?”

  Vic nodded, and Johnson signaled to the barman for two more beers.

  Vic scratched his graying temple. “I was given a job a couple of days ago and thought of you straightaway. So I called your home and your sister said you’d gone to Dubrovnik for a conference. Bit of a coincidence, as that was where I was heading. Is Amy watching your kids?”

  “Yes, Amy always steps in for me if I’m away on business. But now I’m intrigued,” Johnson said. “You thought of me? Why? And what are you doing here, anyway?”

  The barman put two bottles on the bar in front of Johnson.

  “Well, I thought of you because I need someone to subcontract out to.” Vic grinned. “It’s actually an old Yugoslav issue, a Balkan job. That’s why I’m here. I might need your help with something a little delicate. And I needed to be in Dubrovnik for a meeting at the port. The counterparty refused to fly to DC, so I had no choice but to travel. But it worked out in the end, with you being here anyway.”

  “So, what’s the story?” Johnson asked.

  Vic perched his angular frame on one of the black-leather-covered barstools and sipped his beer. “Well, I’ve been asked, on the quiet, to do what you might call a tidying up job. And I thought it was a job that’s right up your street.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Vic grinned. “Okay, you remember who was in the hot seat at the White House during the Bosnian civil war twenty years ago?”

  Johnson didn’t need reminding. “Hillary’s dear husband Bill.”

  “Correct, it was Clinton. And you might also remember that Bill had a tough time because his policies toward Bosnia went against the grain. They were different than those of other Western European leaders.”

  Again, Johnson knew about that—he’d just talked about it earlier with De Vere. Clinton had taken some flak because he supported the Muslims during that war, whereas the French, British, and Germans were all far more cautious.

  “The story is,” Vic said, “that there was a sheaf of documents relating to Bill’s policies toward Bosnia that the Bosnian government in Sarajevo had. Bill’s people requested the documents be destroyed. This was when the Bosnian president was Alija Izetbegović.”

  “Okay,” Johnson said, wondering where this was going.

  Vic sipped his beer. “Izetbegović’s office had promised to destroy the documents,” he said, “but later admitted they’d gone missing and the foreign ministry couldn’t find them. Or so the office said. And they hadn’t been seen since, so people forgot about them.” He leaned forward. “But I was called up a couple of weeks ago and asked if I could try and track them down.”

  Johnson lit another cigarette. “So why were you asked to track them down? And who’s doing the asking and how high up?”

  Vic averted his gaze from Johnson and looked out over the Adriatic. Then he said, “I’m not sure why. And the request came indirectly, so I’m not sure of who made it, either.”

  Johnson avoided the temptation to roll his eyes. It was typical CIA doublespeak.

  “Okay,” Vic said, “the truth is, the request came out of the director’s office, I can tell you that much. But on the quiet.”

  All right, so it was critical,
Johnson thought.

  “Right, so spit it out. What do you want?”

  Vic leaned back. “Well, I’ve had clearance to use someone who’s not CIA, at least not currently, who’s independent but trustworthy, who can try and find these docs. It would be harder for us internally to cover it for a whole load of reasons that I won’t bore you with.”

  He gave Johnson a look, head lowered, from beneath his eyebrows. “You know what I mean?”

  Johnson snorted. He knew exactly what Vic meant. There was no point in even replying. The bottom line was, as often was the case in the Agency, they needed someone who was deniable.

  Vic read his expression and shrugged. “I could employ you as an anonymous contractor. It won’t be an easy job—a needle in a haystack. But we’ve got to give it a go so we can at least say we gave it our best shot.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What d’you think?”

  Johnson shook his head. He did need to find another major job or project to work on, although he wasn’t going to admit that to Vic. Time was moving on, and he definitely didn’t want to go back to hometown searches for lost people. He wanted it to be something really worthwhile.

  However, working with the Agency again?

  “Nothing personal, because you’re an old buddy and I know I owe you a favor,” Johnson said, “but I’m not keen on anything CIA-related. I mean, the organization’s screwed me, fired me, and even last year, when I was trying to track down that old Nazi, that idiot Watto did his best to block me. How he stays in his job at his age is a mystery. Is he still focused on Syria?”

  He was referring to Robert Watson, who had been Johnson’s boss in the CIA as chief of station in Islamabad in the late 1980s.

  “Yeah, Syria’s his baby right now,” Vic said. “He should concentrate on the big picture in his job, but he can’t resist getting into the detail of operations. He’s effectively been heading up Syria since he switched from Special Activities, running the Pakistan drone strikes.”

  Vic walked to the other end of the bar and picked up a small tub of complimentary olives, then returned and put them next to his beer. “You’re right,” he said. “I think they’ll need to retire him soon. He’s sixty-five now. But you don’t need to worry. He’s not involved in this particular project.”

  Johnson gave a wry smile and sipped his beer. Vic was working hard on him this time.

  “The other thing is,” Johnson said. “I can’t stand the Clintons. I don’t like this sort of dynastic thing going on where you’ve got father and son Bush or husband and wife Clinton trying to follow each other into the White House. It’s not healthy.”

  He paused, then said, “Sorry buddy, but you’re going to have to find someone else to do the dirty work on this job.”

  “I’d make it worth your while,” Vic said. “There’s plenty of budget, and if you’re here now anyway for this war crimes conference, it seems like a perfect opportunity. A few days extra in the sun. Kill two birds and all that.”

  Johnson ran a hand through the graying semicircle of short-cropped hair that bordered his extensive bald patch. “The answer’s no. I’ve got a few possible work options at the moment. I just need to check them all out properly. I’m going to grab a few days here, then on to Istanbul on Monday morning for a meeting, then home Monday night. If the Clintons need someone to drag them out of the shit, I’m not the man.”

  Johnson took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled smoothly. “Also, we’re meant to be having a long family weekend break in Castine, north of Portland, at the end of next week. I promised the kids. Amy and her husband are coming along as well. They would all kill me if I don’t make it. We haven’t had a break for ages.”

  “Mmm, a tricky one,” Vic said. He drained his beer bottle.

  There seemed no obvious reason why Vic couldn’t have the job done internally. It seemed fairly routine. Unless there was something Vic wasn’t telling him, which was quite likely and would be rather typical.

  “You know, this is the second time I’ve been propositioned tonight, so to speak,” Johnson said.

  “Oh, yeah, who was the first?” asked Vic.

  “Strange guy, a local, wants to meet me down at the Old Town tomorrow morning. Got something he wants to discuss, wouldn’t say what, but he’d done his homework. He knew I was a war crimes investigator and ex-Nazi hunter. It’ll probably be the usual bullshit, though.”

  Vic raised his eyebrows. “Good luck with that then, Doc. I’m going to have to get moving. I need to make sure I get the late flight back to DC tonight, otherwise I’ll be in trouble.”

  He paused. “If you change your mind about these documents, let me know.”

  Johnson shook his head. “No thanks, not this time, buddy. Appreciate the thought, but it’s not for me.”

  Chapter Two

  Thursday, July 5, 2012

  Dubrovnik

  “I never intended to tell anybody about this, not initially, but times change, thoughts change,” Petar Simic said.

  Just as he had promised, Petar had arrived at Poklisar at ten o’clock. The colorful café was right on the harbor and built next to the imposing stone wall that encircled the Old Town. It was busy at this time in the morning, full of tourists who were either waiting for boats to the various islands surrounding Dubrovnik or stopping off for refreshments after returning.

  “Actually, I’m not comfortable sitting here talking,” Petar said. “There are too many people, and you never know who’s around. Instead of ordering coffee now, why don’t we walk around the city walls for a while, then we can chat as we go? You can do your tourist bit at the same time, then.”

  Johnson, who had been looking forward to a jolt of caffeine, sighed and nodded reluctantly. He put on his sunglasses and stood.

  Petar got up and apologized to the hovering waiter, then led the way through an archway. He turned right and took Johnson up a steep stone staircase that led to the pathway around the top of the walls, a formidable barrier to potential invaders that dated back to the fourteenth century. At the top he handed over some money to a man in a kiosk and took two tickets.

  “I’ll pay—consider it me doing my bit for American-Bosnian relations,” Petar said.

  Johnson nodded and followed him onto the walls. Standing sixty feet above the narrow paved streets, Johnson looked down at the Old Town spread out below them. With its red tile roofs, stone bell towers, and tiny cramped houses, it truly looked like a medieval city dragged into the modern age.

  To their left was the harbor, with its ferryboats and milling crowds of camera-wielding tourists. Ahead of them, beyond the city, was the Adriatic. A white haze rose from the horizon and blurred the lines between sea and sky. Johnson turned around. Behind them was a steep hill with a cable car rising to the top.

  Already the heat was stifling, and it was only just after ten o’clock.

  Johnson took his phone out, quickly turned on his voice recorder, and put his phone back into his pocket. Recording conversations was an old habit.

  “Okay, then, tell me what’s on your mind,” Johnson said. He thought Petar was probably in his mid-forties, with his dark hair that was going a little gray. Not much younger than Johnson himself.

  “First, you need to think back to 1992,” Petar said. “I’m a Bosnian-Croat. I grew up in eastern Mostar, which is about 150 kilometers north from here, over the border,” Petar said. “My brother, Filip, me, and a couple of other guys I knew, Franjo Vuković and Marco Lukić, were in the HVO, the Croatian Defence Council, the army. Initially we fought with the Muslims, the Bosniaks, in the Bosnia and Herzegovina army to get rid of the Serbs. But then it all went wrong and we started fighting each other instead toward the end of ’92.”

  Petar took a long drink from a bottle of water he was carrying and explained that things had really started to go downhill with the start of a miniwar within a war, with fighting between the Catholic Croats and the Bosnian Muslims—the Bosniaks.

  “It was vicious,” he
said, “with Mostar right in the thick of it.”

  Johnson listened intently. “So what went on between the two sides then? I did some work in Bosnia and Croatia in 1999, so I’ve heard a few stories, that it wasn’t just straightforward fighting. But tell me in your own words.”

  Petar gave a sardonic laugh. “Not straightforward. That’s one way of putting it. It was bad on both sides. Any prisoners were treated like pigs. Many died, or they were tortured. Franjo, Marco, and Filip were in a unit that spent some of the time looking after Muslims locked up in a concentration camp at the Heliodrom, just south of Mostar.”

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” Petar said. “All the soldiers on both sides were doing this kind of stuff. I did things I wasn’t proud of. But the Heliodrom—that was something else.”

  He explained how at the Heliodrom, which consisted of a three-story prison building and a sports hall, Muslims had been continually beaten up, given little food and water, and were frequently tortured. Many were eventually killed.

  “Here, read this,” Petar said. He reached into his back pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Johnson.

  It was a printout from an amended indictment issued in 2008 against various HVO officers at a war crimes trial conducted at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Johnson flicked through the six pages Petar had given him, many of them annotated with scribbles, underlinings, circles and other marks in red pen.

  He stopped when he saw one particular reference. “Approximately 1,800 Bosnian Muslim civilians were detained by the Herceg-Bosna/HVO forces at the Heliodrom,” it read.

  And then, a little further down, came the damning detail. “The use of Bosnian Muslim detainees held at the Heliodrom in forced labor or as human shields resulted in at least fifty-six Muslim detainees being killed and at least 178 being wounded.”

  Another paragraph, heavily underlined, read, “Many Bosnian Muslims held by the HVO were forced to engage in physical labor, such as building military fortifications, digging trenches, carrying ammunition and retrieving bodies, often in combat and dangerous conditions, which resulted in many Bosnian Muslim detainees being killed or severely wounded.”