The Burgas Affair Read online

  “After the birth,” she had told him, again and again. “There will be time for everything, after the birth.”

  There was never enough time for anything. Esty followed her husband as he went through the automatic doors into the main arrivals hall of the terminal. Never enough time to relax, never enough time to sleep. Never enough time to enjoy life. She was tired.

  “Hurry up, Esty,” Amit said. “We need to get to the bus.”

  * * *

  “Suitcase here,” Ivan said, pointing at the open doors of the luggage hold. “Poot bags here,” he said, proud to carefully enunciate the words in English, although they came across with a strong Eastern European accent. Was it not correct to pronounce “put” in the same manner as how one pronounced the name of the great Russian leader Putin? Poot. He repeated the instruction to the arriving tourists. “Poot bags here.”

  This would be a demanding group, Ivan thought, as he saw them approach. Israelis. Young couples, some of them teenagers. An older couple, the wife having slight difficulties walking. A pregnant woman trailing behind her husband.

  “Poot bags here,” he repeated.

  The passengers started boarding the bus. The pregnant woman was first in line. She placed one hand carefully on the rail.

  “Can we sit anywhere?” she asked.

  Before Ivan had a chance to state his reply, the woman’s husband came up behind her and answered her question. But the answer came in another language, probably Hebrew. Ivan could only smile. He shook his head sideways, but his mouth was wide with a welcoming smile.

  “We shouldn’t get on?” the pregnant woman asked.

  “Yes, board bus,” Ivan said, again shaking his head from side to side. “Please, to sit on bus.”

  The woman glanced at her husband. “Amit?” When he nodded his head, she labored up the steps into the bus.

  “Poot bags here,” Ivan said to the next passengers.

  One man, tall and thin, wearing plaid shorts and an Adidas T-shirt, his face half hidden under the protruding visor of his baseball cap, tried to push past Ivan with a huge backpack.

  “No, you must to poot bags here,” Ivan said, indicating the luggage hold.

  The man didn’t reply. Instead, he hurried up the steps, stood at the top, and stared at the passengers already seated inside. His baggage bulged behind him, a huge protrusion that resembled a camel’s hump.

  Ivan shrugged. Some Israelis can be so rude, he thought. No matter. He was just glad the passengers were getting on his bus. Soon they would all be on board and he could drive them to the resort hotel. After that, an ice-cold Kamenitza beer would be the fitting conclusion to a long day.

  * * *

  The final communiqué had been three words. “Board the bus.”

  The tall, thin man wondered why he was instructed to board the bus. He had been told to keep as low a profile as possible. Surely the driver, and the other passengers, would notice he was not part of their group. After all, they were Israelis and they had flown together from Tel Aviv. With his fair skin, he didn’t look like the rest of them. They wouldn’t let him get on.

  But his orders were clear and he wasn’t in a position to question them. He pushed past the local driver and climbed into the bus’s interior, eager to drop the backpack onto one of the seats and quickly get off. Then he would simply disappear. He would walk away, without looking back or attracting attention. By the time the bus departed from the lot, his brief appearance among the passengers would have been forgotten. By then, he would have already teamed up with his associates, out of sight. As the bus drove away from the parking lot, away from the Burgas airport, the Arabs would activate the remote-controlled device. It was doubtful they would even hear the blast.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the pregnant woman who obstructed the aisle. She looked at him strangely, recognizing immediately that he didn’t belong. And, she was expecting to be addressed in Hebrew! That was not a language he knew and he had never expected to be talking to the Israeli passengers on the bus. “Excuse me,” he repeated, hoping the forced smile on his face would be sufficient.

  Finally, she moved aside, allowing him to head farther toward the back. His path was blocked again, this time by the man who appeared to be the pregnant woman’s husband.

  The husband barked some words at him. He tried to ignore the angry Israeli. The man shoved him and he backed away from the unexpected assault. It was hard to maneuver with the bulky knapsack on his back.

  “Don’t you understand?” the husband shouted in English. “Why did you push my wife? Can’t you see she’s pregnant? Why are you on this bus? Are you part of our group?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he eased the backpack from his shoulders and dropped it on an empty seat. It was good to put down the heavy weight. He felt the sweat on his back; his forehead was damp as well. This altercation was not part of the plan.

  “Sorry,” he said, hoping the irate husband would back away.

  A dull ringing noise made him look at his backpack. The noise was coming from the mobile phone planted inside. The second mobile phone. The one given to him by the two Arabs. The phone that controlled the bomb! Calling its number would activate the detonator!

  Before he had a chance to react, a wave of intense heat and destruction blasted through the bus. Along with the husband, his pregnant wife, the local bus driver, and some of the other passengers, he was instantly incinerated, never having a chance to comprehend the simple fact that the other men had betrayed him.

  2

  “Where were you when the bomb went off?”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “Was the man who detonated the bomb on the bus?”

  “Stop!” the young Israeli woman cried, raising her hand to fend off the verbal assault of the plainclothes officer confronting her in the stuffy room. “Who are you again?” She gazed at the tall officer with teary eyes, and at the uniformed policeman leading against the wall with his arms crossed. Her confusion and disorientation were quite apparent.

  “I am Detective Stanchev, Detective Boyko Stanchev.” He was trying to be patient. He understood how difficult this must be for her, but time was of an essence. The circumstances called for quick action. Boyko frowned at the other cop and continued to address the woman. “Can you please answer my questions?”

  “I need to go to the hospital. Can’t you see that I’m bleeding?”

  “It is not serious,” Boyko said, glancing at the small wound on the woman’s arm. “Do you understand me? Perhaps my English is not good enough?”

  “Your English is just fine,” she cried, making a halfhearted effort to wipe the tears from her face. “It’s all such a shock. I need to get back to my friends, to make sure they’re all right.”

  “Your friends are okay,” he assured her. He leaned forward and put his hand gently on her shoulder. “Our questions are very important, very urgent. You must understand. There was an explosion on your bus. We need to find out what happened.”

  “Why you are questioning me? Why won’t you let me see a medic? Why won’t you give me aspirin?” She clutched the bloodied towel tighter against her injured arm.

  “We must question everyone on the flight from Tel Aviv. Someone must have seen something. This is a crime, a terrible crime.”

  “Just a crime? Is that what you think? This was an act of terror. A suicide bombing!”

  “A suicide bombing? Ah, so you did see the man who detonated the bomb? What did he look like?”

  “No, no,” she pleaded. “I didn’t see the man. I didn’t see anything. Please, let me be.” She started to sob again. Then she said, “I demand to speak to someone from my embassy. Bring me the Israeli ambassador and I will answer your questions. This is my right.”

  “We need you to answer our questions,” Boyko repeated.

  “I need to go to the hospital! I need to talk to my ambassador!” she said, lowering her head to the table.

  * * *

  “It is useless.
” It was the first time the shorter officer had spoken up since they began interrogating the Israeli woman. As the two left the small travel agency office converted into an impromptu interrogation room, he spoke to Boyko in Bulgarian. “She will not tell us anything,” he said.

  “She is still in shock,” Boyko replied, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. He thought again about what the Israeli woman had said. This was an act of terror! No, how could that be? A serious crime, yes, but not an act of terror. He withdrew his hand without the smoke he craved and straightened his shoulders. As the policeman he had partnered with walked off, he turned his attention to the chaos around him.

  The cavernous hall was noisy with the anguished cries of passengers who had survived the blast. The most seriously injured had already been evacuated after initial triage, taken away by ambulances that had arrived at an exasperating slow pace. Others, with bleeding limbs, broken bones, and lacerated faces, were being comforted by relatives and loved ones. All flights in and out of Burgas had been canceled; arriving planes were being diverted to Varna up the coast. Outside, the parking lot was cordoned off. Thick smoke billowed from the smoldering remnants of the tour bus. The number of corpses within the wreckage was unclear.

  “Boyko Stanchev, I didn’t think we would meet again so soon.”

  Boyko spun around; his features clouded when he recognized the man addressing him. This was not the time or place to rehash old grudges, yet he couldn’t help but issue a snide remark.

  “Kamen Petrov, you’re the last policeman who should be called upon to investigate a bus bombing. Why aren’t you directing traffic on Ulitza Aleksandrovska?”

  “Very funny,” Kamen replied, brushing lint off a suit jacket too small for his stocky frame. “Did you get anything from that one?” he asked, nodding his head toward the young Israeli woman whom Boyko had just questioned. She was sobbing, barely standing on her feet as a worried boyfriend embraced her at the back of the hall.

  “I do not need to tell you what I learned,” Boyko said, forcing himself to remain calm, to momentarily put aside his animosity for this officer on the local police force. But then, realizing what set them apart, he stood back. “I owe you nothing,” he said.

  “So, why did they call you in?” Kamen taunted him, not hiding his contempt for Boyko. “You’re not really a detective anymore. You should be in Sofia, sitting at your plush desk dealing with diplomats and their multiple parking violations. Are you so high and mighty these days that you’ve forgotten how to question witnesses?”

  There had been a time, just a few years previous, when such a remark would have led Boyko to lash out at Kamen, to strike him so hard that the heavyset officer would suffer the consequences for days. He was filled with loathing for the man. Luckily, they no longer worked together, as Boyko no longer reported to the Burgas police. His career had brought him to a more sophisticated position based in Sofia. The superiority he felt over his former colleague eased his temper.

  Boyko clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. “No one remembers anything helpful,” he said in a neutral voice as he focused on the complexities of the investigation.

  Kamen was about to add something, backtracking from his confrontational tone, but their conversation was cut short by the arrival of an older man with thick gray hair and a wide mustache of the same distinguishing color.

  “Comrades!”

  This was how Commander Ivan Zhekov of the Burgas District Police Directorate regularly addressed his men, Boyko recalled, thinking the salutation had probably been more effective during the country’s Communist days. He shook hands with the commander and shifted to the side, effectively pushing Kamen back against the tiles of the terminal wall.

  “Kamen, go join your partner and question those two Israelis over there. I want to talk to Boyko alone for a moment,” Zhekov said with an air of authority.

  Kamen scowled but didn’t say a word and hurried off, his hand glued to his ear as he received a radioed update from other policemen.

  “I need a cigarette,” Boyko said.

  “Let’s go outside.”

  Boyko followed Zhekov through the automatic glass doors to the driveway. They stood silent for a moment, staring across the lot as firemen sprayed water at the thick smoke billowing to the sky from a metal frame that previously constituted a bus.

  Boyko cupped his hands and lit up a cigarette. He offered the pack to Zhekov, but the commander dismissed the offer.

  “When did you get here?” Boyko asked.

  “I should be asking you that!” Zhekov replied. “Or, better yet, how did you know to come?”

  “I was listening to the police radio transmissions.”

  “Those frequencies are encrypted,” Zhekov said, but then he dropped the subject. “The situation was chaos, simply chaos,” he told Boyko. “I arrived as quickly as I could. The policemen present were confused, disoriented. Some of the officers were racing toward the burning bus; others were running away. The fire trucks were late in coming. Cars were freely driving in and out of the parking lot and curious bystanders were everywhere, obstructing security operations.”

  Boyko was surprised to hear these words. Zhekov was probably letting off steam. After all, the commander was dealing with an unfamiliar situation, one that was far beyond his experience and expertise. Nothing this serious had ever happened in the Burgas district. There had never been such a bombing in all of Bulgaria.

  “I am a bit surprised to learn that you have been assigned to the investigation,” Zhekov said.

  “Well, by chance I happened to be in Burgas, busy with other obligations. None of your concern. But, now that I am here, I am glad to be on board.”

  A buzz interrupted their conversation. Zhekov adjusted his earpiece to better hear an update from his team. The commander barked some orders in return, directing security personnel to new positions in the parking lot and inside the busy terminal hall. “Get the injured passengers evacuated as quickly as possible,” he shouted. “Shut down the airport and make sure all access roads have been blockaded. We need total lockdown!”

  Boyko was about to say something but then the commander issued one additional order.

  “Keep the press away!” Turning to Boyko, he complained, “The media think they have free passage everywhere. Cameramen, overeager reporters. They showed up in force and are interfering in everything we do.”

  As Zhekov answered the radio again to consult with another of his subordinates, Boyko wondered what his role would be in the investigation. With Zhekov in command, he would need to comply with the senior officer’s authority. It would be just like the old days, Boyko realized, when he took his orders from the commander.

  Unless he felt it better to ignore those orders.

  “Boyko, we must make progress in this investigation, and we need to do it immediately.”

  “Of course,” Boyko started to reply, but something deeper was implied in Zhekov’s statement. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “These are Israelis,” Zhekov said, waving his hand in the general direction of the terminal. “Do you not see? This will be an international incident. Israelis—killed and injured on Bulgarian soil. This is bad, very bad.”

  “Of course, it’s bad.”

  “The Israelis are on their way now, to help with the investigation. Boyko, this one will not simply go away quietly. It’s already all over the news, and it will be in the news for a long time. Until we find out who did this.”

  Boyko stared at the commander, trying hard to comprehend exactly what Zhekov was telling him. Zhekov is getting older, he thought, as he considered the commander’s wrinkled face and growing paunch. What had he heard about the man? Rumors circulating in Sofia suggested that Zhekov was waiting for the right political position to open up and then he would hang up his uniform without a single regret. Zhekov was a likeable enough officer. The two of them went way back to Boyko’s initial days on the Burgas force. Those days, when Boyko served under Zhekov’
s command, were long gone. Now, a bombing at Burgas Airport found them working together again.

  “It is possible, no actually quite likely that the Israelis were the intended victims,” Boyko suggested, puffing on his cigarette.

  “I am not sure what we have here,” Zhekov admitted. “We assume the bomber, whoever he was, targeted the arriving passengers. Why else would he place the bomb on that particular bus? The only other possibility is that he was targeting the driver. We cannot be sure if the bomber knew Israelis were aboard. The Israelis, though, will think otherwise. They will surely believe this incident was directed at them. They already label it an act of terrorism. Ha! No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the bombing and yet the Israelis assume it was a terror attack. And now they are on their way here.”

  Boyko stared into Zhekov’s eyes as if important clues were hidden behind the senior officer’s gray irises. “The Israelis are coming, and they will demand answers,” he said.

  “You’re catching up fast, Boyko. They will ask many questions. Did the bomber know that this particular bus would transport Israeli tourists? Was the bomb on the bus or under the bus? Is the bomber dead or alive? Was the bomb detonated by remote control? Did the bomber have accomplices, or did he act alone? And more important than any other question—who sent the bomber?”

  “The passengers we have questioned—they do not have answers. They hardly remember anything,” Boyko said.

  “We must question everyone. Witnesses inside the terminal and drivers in the parking lot. Someone will remember something. We need to get the answers on our own, without Israeli intervention. It is in our interest to solve this case as quickly as possible. Do you understand this, Boyko?”