Dancing for the General

by Sue Star

  Tommy scrambled around, flinging sand in Anna’s face. Meryem tensed, her wild-eyed gaze darting back and forth from Tommy to Anna.

  “I’ve gotta go,” Tommy said, crawling toward the opening.

  “Wait,” Anna whispered. “First you’ve got to ask Meryem about Priscilla. Go on, hurry!”

  He paused and frowned at Anna. Then he sighed and spoke words Anna couldn’t understand. Meryem responded with anxious whispers and gestures that pointed east, south, and then finally aimed west.

  Tommy listened, and then reported. “She says she saw her going away with a man, that way.”

  “A man?” Anna’s heart skipped a beat. “What man?”

  “Maybe I should call my dad,” Tommy said.

  Anna frowned, not sure she could trust Paul Wingate, either. Get rid of him, he’d ordered Fran last night. Anna trusted Yaziz more than Paul. Not that she had much confidence in the detective, either.

  “Tom-my!” Cora called again.

  “I’d better go,” Tommy said, springing back onto his knees.

  “One more thing,” Anna said. “I won’t give away your games, but you’ve got to promise you won’t say anything about Priscilla to your mom. Not yet.” She couldn’t risk anyone’s endangerment through Cora’s blunders. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  “You? But you’re just Prissy’s aunt from the States. You’re not even a mom. What can you do?”

  Anna bit her tongue. She needed to find Priscilla soon.

  “One...two...”

  Tommy slipped out of the clubhouse. His roller skates thudded away through the grass as Anna contemplated Meryem. She knew something. Anna could tell, the way she slunk into her dark corner. The tang of fear radiated off her as she clawed nervously at the sand, flinging dust into the air. Had she come here to the children’s clubhouse to hide because of what she knew? Her presence here last night also convinced Anna more than ever that there was a connection between Emin’s death and Umit’s. This woman, his sister Meryem, had to know what it was.

  She reminded Anna of a wounded animal, the way she pawed at the sand, burrowing into a hole to recover from its injuries. Meryem took shallow, rapid breaths as she dug, scraping her fingers. A buried object clunked, and she pulled a can from her hole.

  “What on earth is that doing out here?” Anna asked, recognizing the name printed across one side. It was a brand of powdered milk from the commissary.

  The can rattled as Meryem handed it to her. She spoke in a stream of rising hysteria.

  “This isn’t powdered milk,” Anna said, tugging at the lid. “What’s inside?”

  With a jerky motion, Meryem grabbed Anna’s arm with one hand. She said something about the asker. With her other hand she pointed in the direction of the general’s house, and then she lunged for the clubhouse opening.

  “Wait!” Anna cried, crawling after her. “What about Priscilla? Is the asker the man Priscilla went with?”

  Meryem ticked her tongue. No. “Leylek,” she whispered, and then she crawled outside and ducked into the same weeds where Rainer had disappeared the night before.

  Leylek? That meant “stork” in Turkish.

  Puzzled, Anna sank down onto the sandy floor. She would have to call for help, but she wasn’t sure whom to trust. She turned back to the can of powdered milk and pried its lid off the rest of the way. Rolling loose inside were four film canisters, ready to be developed.

  * * * * *

  A telephone rang, a distant sound coming from her house. At first Anna didn’t react, as she stared at the can containing film. Not milk. Finally, the bleat of the phone’s ring penetrated the fog that numbed her mind.

  Maybe it was Priscilla calling.

  Anna sprinted across the backyard, clutching the rattling can all the way to the kitchen door. The telephone continued to ring.

  She flung open the door and pounded inside. The phone was still ringing in the dining room. She dropped the can onto the table and lifted the heavy receiver.

  “Hello?”

  Silence. Then a dial tone.

  Odd. Slowly, she replaced the phone. Whoever had called had let it ring, waiting until she picked up before disconnecting. Alarm blossomed within her and hammered at her. Someone was watching to make sure she was back in the house. Before...what?

  The can with its rolls of film caught her eye. She wondered what photos the film would reveal. Was that what her burglar had been looking for when he’d ransacked the house? Before Priscilla went missing.

  All of this was connected. Somehow.

  She thought of the camera she’d found in Mitzi’s closet. The asker’s interest in—or distaste for—the goings on in this house.

  Had Mitzi been photographing the general?

  And now someone was after that film. Anna swept up the milk can. Glanced around the room. Where could she hide it?

  The phone rang again.

  She ran into the kitchen, removed the film from the can, and dropped the four canisters into her deep pocket, hidden beneath the gathers of her skirt. Then she shoved the can onto a cupboard shelf, along with other canned goods, displaying it in plain sight. The phone kept ringing. Someone wanted to make sure she was still inside the house.

  She ran back to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

  This time she caught the faint sound of breathing, then a click. Then the dial tone.

  She left the phone off the hook. Next time he called back, he’d get a busy signal.

  She wondered what was happening outside that her caller—if he was the same person watching her house—didn’t want her to see. Tiptoeing across the room, she crept over to the French doors to the verandah. Maybe he could hear her movements as well as see her. She had no idea where he was hiding. She kept thinking of him as a “he,” but was he?

  She thought of Meryem, small and delicate as a child, and discarded the thought.

  From behind the protection of the filmy curtains, she peered out across the verandah and into the backyard. A strip of grass needed mowing. Lawn chairs scattered across the grass. Priscilla’s bicycle lay abandoned under the quince tree. Beyond, a periphery of tall weeds lined the fence. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Meryem had crawled into those weeds. Was she out there still? She’d handed over whatever evidence those roles of film contained. Why? What did she know?

  What was the significance of “stork”?

  Emin had been killed for the photographs he’d taken the night before. Was it his film that hid now inside the milk can?

  “Get rid of him,” Paul Wingate had said. Rainer had been there, too. He’d heard it. She hoped he hadn’t been the one who carried out Paul’s directive.

  Should she call Paul? Something told her no.

  Think!

  A chill crept down Anna’s spine as she stared vacantly across the backyard. There was an apartment building on the other side of the vacant lot to her left. Rainer, aka Viktor Baliko, lived there with his fake wife. Blocky and modern, it was tall enough at four stories, near enough, with an unobstructed view across an empty field. Empty except for weeds. A stalker could easily watch her movements from an upper-story window.

  Rainer?

  Maybe Priscilla had followed him there.

  Anna shrank away from the French door. Turned and sprang back across the living room, bolted up the step into the dining room, past the phone off the hook, and sailed out the front door. She had to believe that Rainer wouldn’t—couldn’t—hurt Priscilla.

  * * * * *

  Anna raced down the hill, choking on her breath by the time she reached the apartment building. She pounded up the concrete steps and pulled open the heavy, central door. Just inside the entryway, she scanned the row of buzzers that conveniently displayed the residents’ names in small hand printing. V. Baliko. There it was. Fourth floor.

  She plunged into a modern stairwell, so new it smelled of fresh concrete. Treading lightly, she raced up the stairs. If Priscilla was in danger, she could not
risk announcing herself.

  The climb forced her to slow, and she paused on each landing to catch her breath before racing on. On the fourth landing, she caught the sound of raised voices, floating to her on a current of dusty air. A central hallway pierced through gloom to a back stairwell. She tiptoed down the hallway, scanning the numbers for Rainer’s apartment. The paper-thin walls muffled the bursts of voices, but couldn’t entirely block out arguing voices.

  She found Rainer’s apartment on the east side of the building, the side that faced Anna’s house. Thudding sounds came from inside, and voices.

  “We must hurry,” said a woman’s voice in broken English. “Not much time left.”

  No doubt they used English to keep their Turkish neighbors from understanding them. Language would work as their protection from paper-thin walls with ears.

  Something slammed inside, a man’s voice cursed, and footsteps beat across the floor.

  Anna lunged toward the back stairwell, hoping she could reach it before he came bursting out of the apartment. The footsteps died, and she backtracked, stepping softly, creeping closer to the door where Rainer pretended to live as Viktor Baliko.

  “Please,” the woman said. “We must go now.” Mrs. Baliko.

  “Not yet,” said a man from within the apartment. It must be Rainer, but Anna didn’t recognize him, not with the tightness of anxiety in his voice.

  “But the police, they are coming any minute. Why do we wait for them to come?”

  “If we pull out now, it’ll ruin everything. Is that what you want?” Hatred seethed along with his clipped words. It couldn’t be Rainer.

  If it was, then he was not the Rainer that Anna had known.

  Mrs. Baliko laughed a high-pitched wail, or perhaps it was a cry. “Is already too late. General will not stop the revolution. We can still save ourselves. I know a place where we can hide in Bolu Mountains, then go up to Black Sea. From there, across to Russia.”

  “You want to run, go ahead. I’ll meet you in Bolu. I’ve got to take care of the kid first.”

  The kid? Did he mean Priscilla? Anna lurched forward, ready to break down the door and whisk Priscilla away. But then she stopped, realizing that Priscilla must not be here after all. They wouldn’t argue in English in front of her, wouldn’t argue about running away, not if Priscilla was here. Anna forced herself back into the shadows. Forced herself to wait.

  “No, Viktor,” the woman pleaded. “Leave her out of this.”

  “Too late. She knows.”

  Anna felt her knees grow weak. It wasn’t true. Priscilla knew nothing.

  “She is an unnecessary complication,” Rainer said. “We took the house apart, and the film wasn’t there. Now the minister will have to take care of it.”

  Film? Minister?

  What minister? This was a Moslem country. Unless...did he mean...someone like their neighbor, the assistant minister to the Interior? Ahmet Aydenli?

  “But no one will find her at Roma Hamani,” the woman wailed. “No one goes there.”

  “Shut up, I told you!” Rainer’s voice snapped, and then came the sound of smacking flesh. He’d hit her.

  Anna recoiled, as if she was the one who’d been struck. Dizzy, she swayed on her feet. She tried to make her mind work, but her thoughts tumbled around loose inside her head.

  Priscilla... Held hostage by Ahmet Aydenli? And Rainer, somehow in league with Ahmet... That’s why Ahmet had abandoned her downtown today at his rug shop. To return home for Priscilla, conveniently left behind with Gulsen. It was hideous.

  Mrs. Baliko sobbed. “What if they do not bring it to you?”

  “They will if they want her back.”

  Then the pieces fell together. It was the film they wanted. In exchange for Priscilla. She’d been snatched in order to force Anna to turn over the film. They knew she had it. They did not know where.

  Anna brushed the side of her skirt with her hand and felt the lumps that indicated the canisters of film still lodged in her pocket.

  Her stomach roiled. Roma Hamani. They’d taken Priscilla there, to the ruins of the Roman baths.

  Somehow, she had to get there. She groped for the wall for support and stumbled down the hall. Tripped down the steps. No longer cared about the noise she made. On the second floor, her legs felt stronger, and she ran. Down to first. Out to the street.

  She didn’t stop running. Tears choked her, streamed down her cheeks. Her lungs were on fire. She sputtered and coughed and ran on. Up the hill.

  Anna didn’t know how, but she would get there, to Roma Hamani. She would get there fast, and she would save Priscilla.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Anna only knew of one way to get anywhere very fast. She would have to drive Henry’s stick-shift car. Never mind that she didn’t know how.

  She raced into the Burkhardts’ house. There was no time to lose, searching for Henry’s car keys. She started with the telephone table, where the menacing, black receiver still lay off its hook atop the lace doily. Yanking open a drawer of pencils and notepads, she saw no keys among the clutter.

  Her vision swam before her. She wasn’t thinking properly. She must call the police instead. Why hadn’t she realized that sooner? Choking on her breath, she snatched up the receiver and stabbed with her finger at the hang-up button, pumping it several times. Or, maybe she should call Paul instead. After all, Mrs. Baliko had said the police would be here any minute, as if she’d known that they were already alerted. But were they really? And anyway, they wouldn’t know to go to Roma Hamani, instead of coming here, the opposite side of town. Although, Anna didn’t know if she could trust the word of Rainer’s spy partner.

  It was better to let Paul handle things, even if she didn’t trust him, either. At least he worked on her side, although she couldn’t be sure what side that was anymore. She dropped the receiver back into place in its cradle and shuffled through papers, searching for Paul’s number at the embassy.

  The phone rang.

  Each bleating trill pierced her, and she flinched, as if it had come alive and had stung her.

  He was still watching her. He’d watched her run up the hill. He knew she was back inside the house. No, she scolded herself. He only knew that someone had hung up the phone. That’s all. She stood frozen in front of the table, her hand extended in mid-reach. If she answered, she would listen to his breathing, which would tell her that he knew her every move.

  The air shifted behind her, and a footstep swooshed across the thick pile of Mitzi’s rug. Before Anna could whirl around, an arm encircled her, pressing her spine against a solid body. She opened her mouth to scream, and a hand slammed against her face, cutting off her shout to a gurgle. The hand shoved her head backwards, snapping hard against prickly whiskers.

  They were the strong fingers of a man’s hand, and they pressed hard under her nose, bruising her jawbone. They reeked of day-old sweat.

  “Where. Is. It.” His words strained, as if through gritted teeth, under a heavy accent.

  The film, oh God, that’s what he wants. Anna willed all of her mental strength to force herself to go limp in his grip, to keep from fighting to reach for her skirt pocket. To keep from revealing the presence of the film.

  But if giving it up would get Priscilla back, then she would gladly hand over the film.

  Not yet. Not until she saw Priscilla safe. Until then, the film was her ace, and she would not hand it over.

  His grip on her loosened the barest amount, probably in response to her submission, or maybe because of the steady ring of the telephone. In that instant, she twisted and squirmed and tried to lurch away. In a flash, one of his arms squeezed around her, tight enough to take her breath away. A cold, hard, blunt tip dug against her back.

  “Stop,” he said with a growl.

  He had a gun! She stopped struggling.

  The phone kept ringing.

  “Where’s Priscilla?” she tried to say, but her words gargled in her throat, muffled by his hand.
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  The blunt end of the gun pressed steadily against her back, but the man slid the fingers of his other hand from her mouth, up to the bun atop her head. He yanked, undoing the pins that held her hair in place. A few of her black hairs came loose from her scalp, but she didn’t mind the wrenching pain, as she took that opportunity to scream. It was a loud, blood-curdling scream. Surely someone would hear. Cora. The asker. Another neighbor. A hawker in the street. Surely someone would run to her aid. Or at least telephone the police.

  Riiiing.

  “Shut up,” he said, tossing her aside, aiming the gun at her.

  Biting off her scream, she tumbled onto the woolen carpet. A black scarf wrapped around the man’s head like a hood and shifted across his shoulders as he backed towards the phone. The gun still pointed at her. She could not tell who he was, dressed in his faded black suit. Dust the color of sand splotched the cuffs of his pants and his worn, scuffed, brown leather shoes.

  The scarf slipped away from his face as he lifted the receiver to his ear. Right away, she recognized his thick mat of hair that curled into the shape of a V. Like a bird’s nest, she had thought before. He was the policeman whom she thought Yaziz had assigned to watch her house. The same man who’d followed her to the bazaar the day before. There must be some terrible mistake. He was pointing a gun at her as he spoke into the phone in Turkish and then paused to listen.

  “You’re making a mistake!” she cried. “Call Mr. Yaziz. He’ll tell you. It’s not me you want. I’m innocent.”

  He switched to English, mumbling into the phone, but she caught the words “you can come now” before he hung up. Then he turned a deadpan look on her. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t have it. The police have it.”

  “You lie!” He sprinted forward and slapped her cheek with the back of his hand not holding the gun. “I am police. You think I don’ know?”

  There was police, Paul had said, and then there was secret police. This man couldn’t work for Yaziz. She’d made a mistake. Her detective was only incompetent. Not corrupt.

  He slapped her again, a dull force thudding her face. Something warm trickled across her upper lip. Blood.