The Old Bridge by Andrew Turpin

Author:Andrew Turpin [Turpin, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Write Direction Publishing
Published: 2018-01-16T22:00:00+00:00

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Moseć

Edwards walked slowly up the track, following the tire marks left by Johnson’s Opel and the blue Jeep, until the two vehicles came into view, parked behind some trees.

The Zagreb chief of station placed his hand on the Beretta M9 that was holstered on his belt and surveyed the trail of footprints around the cars until he had worked out where the group had gone.

There were four sets of prints. One set must belong to Johnson—whom Edwards had seen emerging from the house on Marasovića Street in Split; he had recognized him from the photograph sent by Robert Watson. Another two must be the woman and the man who had been with Johnson as they left the house. The fourth set must belong to the driver of the Jeep, whose identity Edwards also didn’t know.

There were also animal prints, unmistakably those of a large dog, which must have been in the back of the blacked-out Jeep.

Edwards stopped to think. He had taken extensive precautions to avoid being spotted as he tailed Johnson’s Astra out of Split. He knew that Johnson would be watching out for surveillance.

The Astra had stopped at a service station until the Jeep had arrived. Edwards had parked at a truck stop across the road and had waited until the two vehicles got back on the road again. He had gotten a brief glimpse of the Jeep driver, but had no idea who he was.

He had trailed them as they continued north for around an hour up the D1 and then the D56 roads until they turned left down a single-track lane.

After parking, Edwards made his final approach on foot through some bushes. He enjoyed both surveillance and countersurveillance activity, and was equally adept at both. Here, the prints in the dust made his task easy in one respect.

But his concern mounted after he passed two signs, written in Croatian, which left no doubt as to the main danger in this particular stretch of countryside.

Both had a skull and crossbones logo within an inverted red triangle with a message underneath that could not be clearer: Ne Prilazite: Na Ovom Područu Je Velika Opasnost Od Mina.

He had seen similar signs elsewhere in the Balkans and had no need of the Croatian learned in his biweekly classes to know the meaning.

“Keep Out: Danger From Mines in This Area.”

Edwards halted. He knew Johnson was trying to find some highly sensitive papers that had been hidden for some time. That was most likely the reason he was now wandering into an extremely dangerous remote minefield.

Given there were four people to contend with, all presumably armed, and a big dog, the odds were not stacked in Edwards’ favor.

But what was it his boss had said?

We can’t afford for anyone to get their hands on those papers . . . There’s a promotion in it for you.

Watson had been very clear that Edwards should do whatever was needed to retrieve those papers.

He stood and scratched his chin. He had been stuck in Zagreb, something of a CIA backwater, for almost three years.

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