by Parker Bilal
Makana’s train of thought was brought to a halt by a man jostling deliberately past him. He turned to look, and noticed for the first time that there was a staircase in the right-hand recess. The prayers were ending and people were making their way out again as Makana eased his way across the interior to the far side of the mosque.
White marble stairs led down into the shadows. With a casual glance around in case of watchers, Makana descended into the gloom to find himself in a dark passage. When his eyes adjusted he could make out enough to follow it, one hand on the wall. It brought him to a storage room of some kind. It was damp and warm here. Makana came to a halt.
Ahead lay only darkness. Behind him he could still see the light filtering down the staircase from above. A sound made him turn back towards the dark.
‘Hello?’
He started to step forward and then stopped abruptly when a powerful torch beam came on, blinding him. The light was broken by vertical striations that he realised were the bars of a heavy iron grille that sealed off an arch. A voice spoke in Arabic.
‘Step closer. I want to be sure.’
With one hand held up against the glare, Makana could make out a large stooping figure.
‘Ayman Nizari?’
‘Are you Makana?’
‘Maybe you could lower the light a little bit.’
There was a moment’s hesitation and then the light went out completely.
‘Don’t come any closer.’
‘I’m here because you asked me to come,’ Makana said slowly. ‘You don’t have anything to fear from me.’
‘You came alone?’
‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’ The other man’s breathing came in quick, nervous stabs, and Makana felt the need to reassure him.
‘It’s not safe for me,’ said Nizari.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ said Makana. ‘To take you somewhere safe.’
‘They tried to kill me.’
‘I know, in Spain.’
‘They want to take me in. Who knows what they would have done to me if they had succeeded.’
‘Well, luckily they didn’t.’ Makana placed a hand on the iron gate and gently pulled and then pushed. It didn’t budge. It must be locked or bolted.
‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’
‘You sent for me, remember? The boy who brought me the message, has he been watching the café? Is that why you didn’t show up?’
‘It’s not safe.’ Nizari’s voice dropped, and for a moment Makana wondered if he was speaking to someone else. ‘They are watching.’
‘Who are they? Who is watching?’ In the darkness, Makana had the sense that he was trying to catch a sprite, something not flesh at all, that might vanish at any moment.
‘How do I know you are who you say you are?’ Nizari repeated.
‘You asked for me to come from Cairo, remember? I don’t even know why you asked for me, but here I am.’
The light clicked on again, momentarily blinding Makana before the beam was aimed at the ground. In the diffuse glow he saw the glint of spectacles. Nizari’s face was puffy, the flesh sagging with age and sprinkled with grey stubble. He wore a tracksuit and new trainers and might have been a football coach gone to seed. A rim of scruffy bristles crowned his head. The dishevelled appearance might express his being on the run and in fear of his life, but there was something in his eyes that didn’t fit. He gripped the bars tightly, the torch beam wavering like a nervous halo.
‘Tell me the name of Chief Haroun’s wife.’
‘I’m here to help you.’
‘Just answer the question!’ Ayman Nizari’s voice cracked in a strangled squeak.
With every exchange Makana felt his concern growing. Nizari looked like a man out of his depth. Not surprising, perhaps, considering what he had been through recently.
‘He used to joke that he could never marry a woman unless she had the same name as his mother. He did exactly that. His wife always joked that he thought he was married to his mother.’ Makana fell silent. Nizari was already waving him to stop.
‘You’ve come alone?’
‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘Why do you keep answering questions with more questions?’
‘I’m alone.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Nizari swung the torch beam into the far corners of the cellar, as if looking for something. He rubbed a hand nervously over his face. ‘I want money.’
‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’
‘I’m not interested in what was,’ snapped Nizari. ‘Consider it a token of faith. Two million dollars. Either that or I go elsewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘What?’
‘Where will you go?’
‘Never mind that, just tell them!’ Nizari’s state of panic was rising. He stepped backwards, dissolving into the shadows. Makana’s hand tightened on the iron bars.
‘Wait. How do I find you again?’
‘If they agree to the money, you go back to the restaurant. The same time. If they don’t agree, don’t bother coming.’
‘Wait a moment. Can’t we discuss this?’
But Nizari was already gone. Makana shook the grille, scrabbling around for a bolt or some kind of a latch. Even as he did so, he could see the torch beam dwindling and then, as if turning a corner, it blinked out.
Chapter Thirteen
‘How did he seem to you?’ Winslow asked.
Makana sighed. He had decided to let Koçak go and walk back instead. He had crossed the wide square, passing by the old stone walls of the bazaar. The space had been hectic with people hurrying to get home at the end of their day. Buses, cars and yellow dolmuş transit vans hooted frantically as they jockeyed past one another.
His mind absorbed, Makana passed blindly through the turmoil, feeling like a revenant. On the bridge over the Golden Horn he found himself passing countless amateur fishermen. He took up an empty spot and leaned on the railing, smoking a cigarette as he pondered the situation. A huge red flag snapped its white crescent in the breeze. Dozens of fishing lines hung like fine hairs into the water, while their owners viewed the sun with fading hope, worshippers watching the departure of a deity unwilling to grant their wishes. The mobile phone Nadir Sulayman had given him buzzed to announce a message: Tanpinar restaurant. Nevizade Sokak. 9 p.m.
A passing vendor had caught his attention, singing out as he pushed a cart loaded with fresh-baked simit rings. Eating one, Makana had walked thoughtfully up through the steep, winding streets and crumbling buildings of Beyoğlu. The decaying façades still had a touch of nobility. Here was a city of legend, of conquests and intrigues. An imperial city. It lived and breathed the sea. To his right the channel of the Bosporus cut north through the gap between the European continent and the Asian. A man could lose himself in this city without even noticing.
‘I think he’s disturbed,’ Makana said finally.
‘You think he’s lost his mind?’
‘I think we have a big problem on our hands.’
With a telephone card bought from a tobacconist’s along with a fresh supply of Samsun cigarettes, Makana had found this windy corner where a solitary yellow phone booth, scarred and abandoned, was perched. It stood like a relic from another age, a time capsule all but forgotten. The door creaked open with difficulty. He was unsure it would even work, so that the dialling tone, when it came, sounded like something of a miracle.
‘And what’s all this about money?’
‘I think he’s testing us,’ said Makana. ‘Or else he’s stalling, playing for time.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ was the only valid answer. On his walk Makana had thought back time and again over his encounter with the renegade chemist, how to account for his change of heart. He was still in the dark about how Nizari might be surviving. Where was he staying? A hotel? A private apartment? Was he sleeping rough? Whatever his situation, it had him scared and agitate
d, yet instead of being desperate to leave he seemed to want to delay his departure. Perhaps his nerves accounted for it. Someone had tried to abduct him, after all. That would transform a man’s outlook.
‘You have to play him along,’ said Winslow. ‘Whatever happens, he has to believe that we are willing to do whatever he wants to bring him in.’
‘Are you really going to give him that amount of money?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, go to the meeting place and reassure him that he’ll get whatever he needs. Did he mention Abu Hilal?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe not. Anything else to report?’
Makana wanted to talk about his meeting with Marty Shaw, but something deterred him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but until he understood more about where Winslow stood, he felt inclined not to show all his cards.
When Winslow had rung off, Makana once again keyed in the card digits followed by the number in Cairo. It took nine rings before Sami answered.
‘I’m sorry, things are a little crazy right now.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Didn’t you see the news? There was a bomb in Dahab. Reports of thirty people killed and more injured.’
Makana knew Dahab by reputation. It was a laid-back village on the Sinai Peninsula, popular with a certain kind of tourist, the kind that just wanted to smoke a joint and sit on the beach to watch the sunset.
‘The government is trying to tie this to Al Qaeda. People are saying the security services dropped the ball, too busy chasing journalists and political opposition.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.’
‘Well, I’ve been up all night chasing this. Ubay went over there.’ Sami sighed. ‘Seems he has lots of long-haired friends in Dahab. Anyway, how are you getting on?’
‘Hard to say. I met our mystery friend.’
‘Ah, finally. So that’s it, right, you’ll be coming home?’
Makana suppressed a laugh at the word. He wasn’t sure what home even meant any more, but in a way it was true. Where else did he have, after all?
‘I have a feeling this is not going to be all that straightforward. He seems a little confused.’
‘You’ll find a way. You always do.’
‘You sound like you have more confidence than I do at this point.’ Makana was happy to hear Sami’s voice. It was a relief to be speaking to someone he could trust.
‘You’re too pessimistic. How many times do I have to tell you? Lighten up.’
‘How’s Rania?’
‘Fine, putting on weight like there’s no tomorrow. Seriously, she’s fine, healthy and growing. Everything as it should be.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Tell her I said hello.’
‘I will. Okay, this is what Ubay turned up before he left.’ Makana could hear the clicks from Sami’s keyboard. ‘Ayman Nizari, you wanted to know about contacts in Turkey. We had to go back quite far. It seems that at a certain point he became persona non grata in the academic world. No one would touch him, which is not surprising, given what he was up to.’
‘That would coincide with …’ Makana studied a man who had rounded the corner then abruptly stopped, before turning around and going back the way he came. Too obvious, he decided, if he was tailing him.
‘Well, it would fit with Halabja. Nineteen eighty-eight. A Kurdish village that Saddam Hussein gassed. Five thousand civilians were killed: men, women and children. Maybe you remember, it caused a sensation in the world press.’
Makana didn’t need reminding. He could recall the horrific images. If Nizari had been working on Saddam’s biological weapons programme at the time, he would certainly have been involved. It made him wonder again exactly what kind of a person he was trying to help.
‘And after that he disappears?’
‘Well, almost,’ Sami replied. The rest of the sentence was lost in the buzz and crackle of the line. ‘… a paper together. Published in an academic journal in St Petersburg of all places.’
‘I didn’t get the first part. You’re saying he wrote a paper with a Turkish colleague?’
‘Her name is Hatice Aksoy, she’s a professor at Istanbul university.’
Makana had the sense that he’d just been handed the missing part of the puzzle. This was how Nizari was managing to stay out of sight here: a colleague, one of the few he had left, perhaps. Someone he had collaborated with. His second thought was that if Ubay had managed to find this former colleague, then someone else could do the same, including the Mossad. And no doubt they had better resources than Makana did, which meant that it was only a matter of time before they found the connection to Professor Aksoy, if they hadn’t already.
‘Okay, what about the other name I gave you?’
‘Oh, yes. Sneefliet. Ubay found a nineteenth-century communist activist by the same name, oh and a Metro station in Amsterdam.’
‘That could be mere coincidence, couldn’t it?’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in coincidence.’
‘I’m not sure what I believe in any more,’ said Makana.
‘When do you think you’ll be back?’
‘Right now it looks as though my time here is running out faster than expected.’
‘The way you say that doesn’t sound encouraging,’ said Sami before they said their goodbyes.
Makana ate in a nondescript place where the neon lighting was so bright it made his eyes ache. The service was brisk and indifferent, the clientele mostly young men, stepping inside for a quick snack eaten on their feet, before resuming their journey. He sat close to the wall at a table scratched and scarred by previous customers. A football match was playing on a set above the counter. Two men drinking beer seemed to be the only ones watching it. From time to time they would comment, or grow more animated, leaving at last in a flurry of curses before the final whistle was blown. Makana pushed his plate aside and nursed a cup of tea.
Something about this city disconcerted him. Not for the first time, he had the sense that he was overlooking some key perspective, that fate had something very special in store for him here, and he needed to be ready. The odds had been stacked against him from the start, and the meeting with Nizari that afternoon had not gone to plan. Far from it. His mind kept harking back to the meeting with Marty Shaw at the British Consulate. What had he been hinting at? It seemed entirely possible that Winslow was setting him up in some way, but how and to what end?
Makana was beginning to feel like a goat tethered to a stake, waiting for a lion to appear. Right now the best hope he had was that Nadir Sulayman would hold up his end of the bargain and arrange their transport out of the country. One thing he knew: delightful though it was, Makana had no intention of staying in this city for a moment longer than was necessary.
At the Pera Palas he showered in the marble bathroom. The opulence of it made him uncomfortable and he longed to be back home on the awama. After he had dressed he smoked a cigarette. Strictly speaking, smoking in the room was forbidden, but he kept the windows open and used a saucer as an ashtray, which he then deposited on the little balcony before locking his room. In the lobby he spoke to the beaming man behind the reception desk.
‘Do you have a telephone directory? I’m looking for an old friend of mine and we lost touch over the years.’
‘But of course, Amin Bey. You have only to ask,’ Haluk smiled. ‘Might I enquire, what is the name of your friend?’
‘Hatice Aksoy. She’s a lecturer at the university.’
‘No problem, Amin Bey. Your wish is our command.’ The diminutive figure bowed his head. All he needed was bells on his toes to complete the image of a court jester. He disappeared from sight, resurfacing with a tower of directories which he dumped on the counter. As he began to leaf intently through them, he continued to bark orders over his shoulder to his staff without even turning his head.
‘Aksoy is her married name or maiden name?’ Haluk’s eyes boun
ced upwards with interest.
‘I don’t know,’ said Makana, which was the truth. Haluk’s face clouded with confusion. Makana smiled at him. Of course he had no idea. The question raised a whole list of further queries: if she was married, would she adopt her husband’s name or stick with her own? She was a chemist of some kind, a scientist. Not sentimental. Makana suspected it made no difference as far as the listings in the phone book were concerned, but he didn’t blame the man for his curiosity. An occupational hazard, one might imagine. Twenty minutes later, however, the diminutive receptionist had to concede defeat.
‘A thousand apologies, Amin Bey, but I fear I cannot fulfil your request.’
‘Never mind, Haluk, it was a nice try.’ It would have surprised Makana if they had found the professor so quickly.
Nevizade Sokak, on the other hand, proved easy to find. It was closer than he’d thought, although locating the right restaurant proved slightly more difficult, since the street was lined with tables on both sides. It was crowded too, with tourists hungry for their evening meal. Before he was even halfway along, Makana was cursing Nadir Sulayman for not choosing a quieter spot. No doubt he was trying to be a good host and show his guest the kinds of places that visitors tended to love, having not realised that this was the exact opposite of what Makana would like.
Ignoring the pleas of waiters waving menus in his face, Makana made his way slowly along, reading off the names of the restaurants as he went. The Tanpinar was a small place towards the end of the narrow street. No more than four tables set outside and perhaps twice that many inside. In contrast to most of the others around it, the Tanpinar seemed to take a nonchalant approach to the matter of attracting clients. No one stood out on the pavement trying to drum up business. Inside, the décor was simple and somewhat dated. The walls displayed medieval sketches of the city and old maps. The tables were covered with simple white cloths. The fact that it was deserted might mean that it was popular with locals rather than with tourists, who tended to eat later in the evening.
There was no sign of Sulayman, so Makana chose one of the tables outside and sat with his back to the window. They brought him a bowl of pistachios and a small bottle of raki. He poured himself a glass and added water, watching the clear liquid turn cloudy. By his watch he was five minutes early. He sipped the aniseed-flavoured drink and wondered whether he would ever be able to acquire a taste for it. As people wandered by he studied their faces, looking for anything familiar that might have lodged in his subconscious over the past few days. Nothing stood out. He thought about Ayman Nizari: how he seemed to have been able to observe him over several days without him noticing.