The Old Bridge

by Andrew Turpin

  Boris paused as Marco navigated a roundabout.

  “So, either I drop the story,” he continued, “or we finish him off. It’s the biggest damn story I’ve ever had my hands on. I’ve been sitting on it for years waiting for the right moment and now I’ve got this interview with Spencer. So I’ve got to go for it. There’s no way I’m giving it up or having it ruined by some American investigator.”

  His face flushed a little at the thought of it. “The other problem is Natasha,” Boris said. “I can’t begin to decide about her. To be honest, I think I can frighten her enough to put her back in her box. I’ll threaten Luka. She’ll shut up if she thinks something might happen to him.”

  Marco shrugged. “It’s your call. To me, the whole thing sounds like one big unnecessary risk. You can drop the story, and that’ll be the end of all of this. It’s an ego trip. But you’re not going to listen.”

  Boris knew that there was some truth in what Marco had said. But then again, he’d never experienced the adrenaline rush of breaking a big story on international TV, so he’d never really understand.

  The Lexus pulled into the gated driveway of the house overlooking the Adriatic in Babin Kuk. Marco unlocked the front door and they stepped inside. “Feel like a beer?” Marco asked. “It’s a hot afternoon, I could do with one. Let’s just go and check that our two guests are still safe first.”

  They walked across the hallway of the house, which was at first-floor level, and then down the stairs to the ground floor.

  Boris opened the door of the storage room and leaned against the doorframe. He studied Johnson and Natasha, who were half lying, half sitting, their backs against the wall, hands tied behind them to the pipe, legs trussed in front.

  “You Americans need to learn to keep out of our business in the Balkans,” Boris said to Johnson. “You’ve never understood us and you never will. We’ve been fighting each other here for a thousand years, and we’ll probably still be fighting in another thousand. So when you and your presidents, Clinton, Bush, and all the others, come here thinking you’re going to solve everything, well forget it. You know nothing. You didn’t twenty years ago and you don’t now.”

  Boris walked across the room and spat on the carpet in front of Johnson. “Enjoy your last few hours in Croatia, Mr. Investigator.” He glowered at Natasha. “And when I’ve finished with you, you won’t want to ever cross me again.”

  He walked back upstairs into the kitchen, Marco close behind.

  Boris took two beers out of the fridge and went into the long living room that ran across the front of the house, with spectacular views over the sea through floor-to-ceiling windows. It was stiflingly hot. He opened the three large skylight windows above him, which allowed some slightly cooler air to flow in, then sat in an armchair and placed the beers on a table next to him.

  Two armchairs and the table were the only furniture in the room.

  Marco sat next to him and grinned. “Those two down there must be shitting themselves.” He sat in the other armchair and picked up one of the beers.

  “Yeah, well they won’t need to worry for much longer, so makes no difference.” Boris took a swig from his beer.

  Despite his love of London, Boris was at times quite envious of Marco’s lifestyle in Croatia. The house his friend had bought in Dubrovnik five years earlier had been a good investment. Since then, several new hotels and bars had been opened nearby and prices had rocketed. The location was idyllic, and Boris couldn’t understand why Marco didn’t use it more. He hadn’t even bothered to get the place properly furnished.

  Boris took another long drink of beer, settled back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  Marco was reading a car magazine from the table. “Seen this, about the Jaguar F-Type? They’re launching it next year. I think I might put a deposit down on one when they come out. It’d go well with the Lexus as a fun car for weekends.”

  Boris ignored him. “I want to get everything finalized here tonight. This has dragged on long enough. Johnson’s got to go tonight,” Boris said. He closed his eyes again, his breathing now deeper and steadier.

  As he did so, a loud rattle and a clunk came from the skylight window above them, then a loud hissing sound and a thud as something heavy landed on the red-tiled floor next to Franjo, who opened his eyes at the sound, then jumped like a startled dog.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  In front of him was a large silver aerosol-type canister, which was hissing loudly and throwing out clouds of dense white gas at high volume straight toward him and Marco. It instantly reminded Boris of the fake smoke that his producers sometimes used in his TV studios for atmospheric effect.

  But this wasn’t fake smoke.

  A second smoking canister flew through the next skylight window, nearer to the door, also throwing out white gas.

  Boris leapt to his feet. “Shit, shit, tear gas. Quick, get out of here,” he shouted.

  But Marco was already clutching his face. “Aaargh, my eyes,” he yelled.

  Then the gas from the second canister caught Boris in the face. He instantly felt an agonizing sting in his eyes, which automatically closed up; then as he breathed in again, the gas reached the back of his throat. He felt his mouth and his airways immediately start to tighten, causing him to gulp in more air and making things worse. Within seconds he felt as if he was drowning.

  Marco staggered into Boris, who had now completely lost his sight. He felt suddenly dizzy and fell onto the floor. As he fell, his foot flicked sideways and caught Marco’s ankle, causing his friend to also trip over.

  Both of them lay on the floor just a couple of meters away from the two canisters, which continued to spew white smoke. By now the room was full of gas.

  Boris tried to crawl toward the door, but an uncontrollable, rapidly rising nausea in his stomach overwhelmed him. He retched and threw up violently over a red Persian rug that lay in front of the armchairs.

  His throat felt like it was on fire, his sinuses burned, and his eyes streamed water. He could see virtually nothing, but he heard Marco also loudly vomiting next to him.

  Then came the sound of a sharp and extremely loud explosion from the floor below.

  Saturday, July 21, 2012

  Dubrovnik

  Johnson could hear the muffled sound, coming down through the floor, of two men talking in subdued tones in the room directly above. Presumably it was Franjo and Marco.

  But suddenly there were two loud thuds as objects fell onto the floor above him, followed by a few shouts and a scream, and then a large thump on the floor, followed by another.

  A minute or so later, through the wall immediately to his right, Johnson heard an explosion so loud it hurt his eardrums. He heard a crash as something heavy fell to the floor, and a vibration ran through him.

  What the hell’s going on?

  Seconds later, Jayne opened the door of the room, strode over to Johnson without saying a word and, using a Swiss army knife, cut the cords that held his wrists and feet. Then she cut the duct tape that was wound around his head and removed the piece of cloth in his mouth.

  “Jayne, thank God. What—”

  “Ask the questions later. Let’s go,” she snapped.

  Johnson struggled to stand, his leg muscles failing to obey the instructions he was trying to send to them after hours tied in one position.

  Jayne bent down and freed Natasha, who seemed utterly shell-shocked and barely able to move. She stood, but Johnson could see deep indentations in her ankles where the bindings had dug into her flesh.

  “Come on, up, let’s go,” Jayne said, more urgently now.

  Johnson picked up the plastic bag containing his phone and followed Jayne.

  She led the way out the door, and along the lower hallway where Johnson saw the wooden external door lying flat on the floor, its single pane of glass shattered, hinges broken. The plasterboard next to the door was also smashed and had burn marks close to ground level.

  Natasha ho
bbled behind him, struggling to keep up.

  “We need to run. Just try,” Jayne said. “I’ve knocked those guys on their asses with tear gas grenades, but we haven’t got long before it wears off. Five minutes, ten maximum. Let’s go.”

  She led the way across some wooden decking, down a short flight of steps, past a thick clump of bushes and pine trees onto a concrete pathway that ran parallel to the sea, which lay a few yards below them over some rocks.

  A number of tourists, some just wearing bikinis and swimming shorts, licked ice creams and held their children’s hands as they strolled past. Surely, some of them must have heard the explosion when Jayne had blown in the door just minutes earlier, Johnson thought. But none of them appeared concerned.

  Jayne turned right. “The Neptun is only about five minutes this way,” she said. “If we run, we’ll be there by the time those guys can breathe again.”

  She broke into a jog. Johnson did likewise while Natasha, whining with pain, fell in behind them.

  They had gone no more than a hundred or so yards when it hit Johnson.

  “Shit, the damned documents,” he said. “They’re still in the house. All of them, in that backpack.”

  Jayne stopped running momentarily. “Seriously Joe, you can’t. You just can’t. If those guys happen to come around while you’re in there, you’ll be a dead man. Don’t worry about it. Leave it.”

  She turned and jogged onward.

  They passed the Cave Bar, where Johnson had drunk a beer after the war crimes conference that now seemed so long ago, and continued until they came to a beach bar area to their left and, finally, the Neptun.

  They had only run three-quarters of a mile, Johnson estimated, but Natasha was gasping. She held on to a metal rail outside the rear entrance to the hotel. “Sorry, I’m struggling,” she said.

  Johnson felt relieved to have escaped, but once that emotion had subsided, his mind automatically refocused on the task in hand.

  By the time they reached their third-floor room, Johnson could feel the anxiety building.

  “We can’t let this slip now,” he said. “We’ve got Franjo just down the road, and he’s got the documents we need to nail him. Let’s just think this through.”

  “You mean you didn’t photograph them?” Jayne asked.

  “Yes, I did, actually,” Johnson said, holding up his phone. “All of them. But I need the originals back if we’re going to take him to trial. And Vic wants the originals—he’s not going to be happy with some photos.”

  Jayne stood, hands on her hips. “Just take a breather for a second so we can think. You and Natasha have just been kidnapped. Just take a while to cool off, or try to.”

  “Okay, okay,” Johnson said. “You’re right. And thanks for saving my ass—again. I screwed up badly when we left the bank, like a rookie. I owe you.”

  Jayne gave a thin smile. “I’m sure my turn will come. It works two ways. But I seriously don’t think we should walk near that house where Franjo is right now. If anything, let’s drive and have a look from the road. There’s a car rentals place over the other side of the hotel. I’ve got a Golf waiting on standby—I reserved it just earlier when I found out where you were.”

  Johnson nodded his approval. “Good. Let’s go then. If we could somehow block the gate, we could get the Croatian police in. Though would that work? Do they take a vested interest if it’s a Croatian involved in war crimes from twenty years back?”

  “In my experience from when I worked here, it’ll be difficult,” Jayne said. “It’ll be too complicated for a small-minded local cop. They’ll refer it upward. You’ll get procrastination, delays, red tape. They’ll want to know what we’re doing and won’t like it if we’re seen taking the law here into our own hands—especially if they find out I’ve been throwing tear gas grenades around and blowing in doors. Also, if you get a senior cop involved, you don’t know which side of the conflict they were on during the war. Unless you get lucky, it could make things worse. Frankly, the best bet is to get him outside Croatia, then get the authorities involved. But how we do that, I don’t know.”

  Johnson tugged at his ear. “Yes, that’s true in Franjo’s case. But what about Marco? He’s murdered Petar, and that has to be a local police matter.”

  “I agree. But how do we separate the two? You get the police in to deal with Marco now, then our strategy for Franjo goes out the window.”

  Johnson shrugged. “Fair point. But we don’t even know where Franjo’s based, where he lives,” he said. “And if he does live abroad, what name does he use? Obviously not his real one. It feels like two steps forward, three back. And he’s still got the original documents, after all that work we did.”

  “Let’s go have a look anyway,” Jayne said. “If they’re still there, I’ve got more in my bag of tricks than just those two tear gas grenades and the plastic explosive.”

  “Yes, where did you get that gear?”

  “Same place I got the Walther,” Jayne said. “From one of our old SIS agents in Dubrovnik. He’s a former Croatian Defence Ministry guy. I told you—he’s a useful man to know. His place is like an Aladdin’s cave. I’ve also asked him to do a bit of work and find out where Haris Hasanović lives.”

  Johnson nodded. “That’s useful. Aladdin, eh? Maybe he can rustle up a magic lamp as well. It might come in handy for this job.”

  He eyed Natasha, who was sitting on the couch and looking shellshocked and disoriented. “Are you okay, Natasha?” he said. “I need to apologize to you for the way I bungled things when we left the bank. I put you at serious risk and I’m taking full responsibility for that.”

  “It’s fine,” Natasha said, her face ashen. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Johnson sat next to her. “You’re not going to be able to go home tonight, unfortunately. But I’m sure you realize that. You can stay here and we’ll figure something out. Just make sure you don’t leave the hotel, okay?”

  “Okay, I get it,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “I did think that if Franjo was going to call your house to speak to Luka on his birthday we could trace the call and trace him,” Johnson said. “But that’s obviously not going to happen now.”

  “I’ve already texted Luka and told him not to come tomorrow,” Natasha said. “I don’t want him caught up in all this. I’ll celebrate his birthday with him another time. He’s going to be very upset, as I am too.”

  Johnson nodded. “I’m really sorry about that, but I do think you’ve done the right thing. That’s sensible.” He told Natasha to wait in the hotel room while he and Jayne went to the car rental office and picked up the Volkswagen Golf she had reserved.

  As soon as she had signed the paperwork, they collected the car, drove back down the road past the Cave Bar, and slowed outside the house where Johnson had been captive.

  The black gate was open.

  “Stop there,” Johnson said.

  He raised himself up in the car seat and poked his head out of the sunroof. “I can just about see the house. They were driving a black Lexus 4x4, but there’s no sign of that. And no sign of our Astra either. They must have gone.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sunday, July 22, 2012

  Dubrovnik

  Johnson had a fitful sleep. He woke at just after two o’clock, then again at four thirty, both times after the same dream: that he was chained to the pipe in the house down the road and that Franjo was slowly choking him by force-feeding him the documents.

  After waking again at six thirty, Johnson gave up and went to make himself a strong coffee. He then sat on the hotel balcony, looking out to sea. He felt frustrated. He’d had a brush with Franjo, but now the man seemed to have disappeared again.

  He was still thinking of his next steps ten minutes later when the door to the other bedroom opened. Jayne appeared, followed by Natasha, who had slept on a sofa bed.

  “Morning, Joe,” Jayne said. “Natasha’s had a thought about how we might find out where Fran
jo is based. And I’ve got something for you as well.”

  Johnson nodded at Natasha. “Hope you managed to get some sleep after all that,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

  “I had some but not enough,” she said. “Listen, I don’t actually know if it’s going to help find out where he is, but I recall Franjo talking about an arms company, based in Sarajevo. They make ammunition, shells, mortars, rockets, that kind of thing. He was very pleased with himself because he had bought shares in it before the war, when the price was low. Then of course it supplied all sides during the war and I assume did well. But afterward, I’ve no idea. I don’t follow these sorts of things.”

  “Do you know what it was called?” Johnson asked.

  “I think it was something like VVM Sustavi. Means VVM Systems. Maybe VMV, I don’t know. You’d have to check it. But I was thinking, if he is a shareholder, maybe they have a record of his details somewhere?”

  “They would have to so they could send him shareholder information, dividends and so on,” Johnson said. “Good thought. Thanks for that, Natasha. You’ve been very helpful—I really appreciate it.”

  “I told you,” Natasha said, “I don’t like Franjo—since the war, I never have. I’ll help how I can.”

  Johnson nodded, took out his phone, and did an internet search. “Here we are, VMM Oružje Sustavi, based in Sarajevo, listed on the Sarajevo Stock Exchange. Would that be it? They make artillery and ammunition, all sorts of stuff.”

  “Yeah, that must be it. Definitely,” Natasha said.

  Johnson frowned. “The thing is, how do we get hold of the shareholder information? I’m certain they wouldn’t disclose it. They only do that for major shareholders with a significant percentage of the stock. We need someone with access to those kinds of financial records. Let me think on it, but let’s park that one for now. Jayne, you mentioned something?”

  “My old SIS friend here in Dubrovnik, Bernard Djokovic, has sent me an address where he believes Hasanović is currently living,” Jayne said. “He got it from someone he knows in the Bosnian government pension fund, an administrator, who has access to their databases. The address is in Split.”