by Will Adams
‘Are they not?’
‘They want my job.’ He let out a heavy sigh. His ministers were all potential rivals, so he couldn’t talk of this to them; and he hated to worry his wife or his old friends with his woes, so he rarely got the opportunity to unburden himself. ‘Let’s face it, I only got this job because the last guy went so fast that none of the others were ready or quite strong enough to seize it for themselves. So they compromised on me as a kind of caretaker, because they knew I’d be easiest to get out later on.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true, Prime Minister.’
‘We’ll get on better, General, if you don’t humour or flatter me.’ Then he smiled. ‘Or not to excess, at least.’
‘Forgive me, Prime Minister,’ said Yilmaz. ‘I find it hard with politicians to know what constitutes excess.’
Baştürk laughed a little too loudly. The Chief of the General Staff made for refreshingly candid company, but he was also in mild awe of him, of his uniform and his war service, and he very much wanted him to like him. But he quickly turned serious again. ‘I’m not under any illusions, you know. I can’t fire any of my main rivals without sparking a civil war in the party. My government wouldn’t last a week. I wouldn’t last a week. I don’t have the support. Nor can I go to the people. They think I’m competent and likeable enough, but they don’t respect me, they don’t love me, they wouldn’t miss me.’ He looked up for Yilmaz’s opinion of his analysis. The General nodded fractionally. He felt himself droop a little, for it was only human to want such a bleak assessment rejected. ‘I have a few months at the most to get done the things I want done. Maybe not even that. Sometimes I think I can hear the footsteps behind me. So if you should happen to hear anything …’
‘If I hear anything, I will of course report it to the proper authorities.’
Baştürk gave a strained smile. ‘The proper authorities are the ones that scare me.’ He glanced meaningfully at the door. ‘Our recent friend is a very ambitious man. In my more suspicious moments, I can’t help but wonder if he’s not tolerating or even encouraging a certain level of disorder simply to undermine me.’
Yilmaz frowned. ‘Surely he’d only be undermining himself.’
‘Except that in every interview he gives he insists that his problem is lack of powers and men. Yet every time we give him more of either, he uses them to bed himself further in, win himself more allies. When I think of all the information he now has access to … On each one of us.’
Yilmaz pursed his lips. Then he said: ‘You are not the only person seeking to do the best they can for the institution they are privileged to lead, Prime Minister. I don’t have to remind you of the modern history of the army in Turkey. Four coups in fifty years. Five, by some measures. Over three hundred officers and their associates recently convicted of attempting another. Those incidents have tarnished our reputation badly. Some would say disgraced it. As you know, the reason I was offered my current position – and the reason I accepted – was to make sure that nothing of that nature could ever happen again. That has to be my overriding purpose. If it should be suspected for one moment that the army was once again involved in deciding who should and shouldn’t lead Turkey, that we were taking sides …’
Baştürk sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Of course you’re right.’
‘But if I can find a way to help without overstepping …’ added Yilmaz.
‘Thank you.’ He shook his head despondently. ‘You don’t know what this job is like. No one does. Not until you sit at this desk for yourself.’
‘Look on the bright side. You may not have it for much longer.’
Baştürk laughed a second time, albeit more ruefully this time. ‘Thank you, General. I needed that.’
III
Iain was on hold for the best part of a minute before Maria came on. ‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey yourself. What’s up?’
‘I’ve been on with Layla. Her sister can look after her daughters, but only for one day. So I’ve booked her a return flight tomorrow. She’ll be arriving really early, but I said you’d meet her at the airport. I hope that’s okay?’
‘Of course. What time?’
She read out flight details. He jotted them down. ‘There’s something else,’ she added, lowering her voice. ‘I didn’t tell Layla, but there seems to be an issue with Mustafa’s insurance.’
‘So Robyn said. What?’
‘You know how all you guys need special coverage for whenever you go on missions? Well, we changed policies for our overseas associates at the start of the year, and I’m not sure—’
‘We did what?’
‘We changed policies. And the new one is basically workplace only. I don’t think Mustafa’s covered.’
Iain didn’t speak for a moment. He didn’t trust himself. The work they did was nothing like as dangerous as serving in a war zone, but it was dangerous enough. Their regional client-list read like a Who’s Who of oil-and-gas oligarchs and other power-brokers, all engaged in fierce competition with each other, seeking information that they could use as leverage or even as weaponry to destroy; and although incidents of lethal violence were rare, they were far from unprecedented. ‘Was this Quentin?’ he asked finally.
‘I don’t know for sure,’ she said reluctantly. ‘But I think it must have been.’
‘Put me through to him.’
‘He’s left for the day.’
‘Then put me through to his mobile.’
‘Iain, I’m not sure that’s so wise right now, not until I’ve made sure—’
‘I said put me fucking through.’
She gave a sigh, put him on hold. Quentin came on a few moments later, sounding as cheerful as ever, over Mustafa already. ‘This’ll have to be quick, old chap. I’m on my way to a meeting.’
‘Is it true about the insurance?’
‘Is what true?’
‘That you downgraded our overseas offices all to workplace only?’
‘Downgraded is a very loaded word,’ said Quentin. Iain could hear someone angrily tooting a horn in the background. ‘All I did was update our policies to something more appropriate to our new structure.’
‘More appropriate,’ said Iain. ‘Cheaper, you mean.’
‘This is a business I’m running, not a charity. Income is down. We’re only profitable at all because I clamped down on unnecessary overheads.’
‘Unnecessary?’ exploded Iain. ‘Since when has insurance been unnecessary?’
‘You’ve no idea how expensive those policies were.’
‘Yes. Because this is a dangerous fucking business we’re in, particularly out in the field.’
‘Uh, oh,’ said Quentin. ‘Tunnel.’ The phone went dead in Iain’s hand. He glared at it for a moment then made to hurl it against the wall, controlling himself only just in time.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
He looked around in surprise to see Karin in the doorway. In his distraction, he hadn’t heard the door. ‘My colleague,’ he said. ‘The one who was killed this morning. There’s a problem with his insurance.’
‘Oh, hell. Does he have family?’
‘A wife. Two daughters.’
‘Oh, hell,’ she said again, coming over to touch him on his arm. ‘What will you do?’
He shook his head. He couldn’t face thinking about it tonight, not after everything else. ‘I’ll sort something out, I guess. But not right now. Right now I need something to eat. Fancy joining me?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’
IV
It was dark by the time Georges Bejjani returned to the small fishing port of Kapisuyu. Lights on the boats and around the harbour walls reflected charmingly upon the ruffled water, while the light breeze made steel cables tinkle like wind-chimes against the masts of the pleasure boats. He walked briskly to the Dido’s berth, found his elder brother Michel waiting impatiently on deck. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded.
�
�Hospital.’
‘Hospital?’ Michel frowned over Georges’ shoulder to look for Faisal and Sami. ‘Is one of the guys hurt?’
‘No. They’re fine. They’re parking the car.’
‘Then why hospital?’
All his life, Georges had looked up to Michel. He was his elder brother, after all, and heir apparent to the Bejjani Group. But then Michel had let himself get played by a third-rate Mexican conman on a fictional property deal in Acapulco, losing the bank several hundred thousand dollars and making an international laughing stock of them all for a few months. The succession had thus been put in doubt, and suddenly Georges had discovered in himself an unexpected ambition. ‘Perhaps I should explain to you and Father together. No point going through it twice.’
‘Father’s on with the executive committee. He won’t want to be disturbed unless it’s—’
‘He’ll want to be disturbed for this. Where is he? His cabin?’ He didn’t wait for an answer but made his way along the starboard deck to his father’s suite. As Michel had indicated, he was on a conference call. He held up a finger to beg their silence for a moment then told his management team he had to go and that they’d pick it up again tomorrow. Then he rang off. ‘About time,’ he told Georges. ‘Where have you been? Why didn’t you call in?’
‘The coverage in Antioch is terrible,’ said Georges. Which was true enough, but he’d also turned off his mobile for tactical reasons, so that he’d have the chance to present his ideas and discoveries in person.
‘Well? What have you learned?’
Georges sat in an armchair and stretched his legs out in front of him. In this world, the trick was always to look in command. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard how they’re saying the bomb was Cypriots. In which case, we don’t need to worry about it. We can leave it to the police.’
Michel sighed theatrically. ‘It’s really taken you all afternoon to work that out?’
‘We only need to worry if it wasn’t Cypriots,’ continued Georges imperturbably. ‘We only need to worry if the bombers really were after Father. Imagine for a moment that that’s the case. We all know how hard it is to kill a well-protected target with a car bomb, even one that big.’ Every Lebanese citizen was painfully familiar with assassination techniques. ‘You can’t simply set a timer and then leave. The kill zone is small and you have to make sure your target is in it when you detonate. That means having line of sight not just on the bomb itself but on all the possible approaches too. And the only way to guarantee that is by being on the spot. Which makes it a dangerous business, because you’ll be in the danger zone yourself should it trigger early for any reason. And, if this one was meant for Father, then by definition it triggered early.’
Butros nodded thoughtfully. ‘You think the bomber was caught in his own blast?’
‘I thought it worth exploring,’ agreed Georges. ‘So we tailed an ambulance to Antioch hospital, where they’ve taken all the victims. Then it was a matter of finding a friendly nurse willing to sell us a casualty list.’
‘And?’
‘One of the dead men was called Mustafa Habib,’ said Georges. ‘Executive manager of the Istanbul branch of a British company called Global Analysis. According to their website, they provide business intelligence services to multinational corporations.’
‘Company spies,’ muttered Butros. He glanced at his elder son. ‘Are they the ones your London friends warned you about?’
‘They only told me they’d been approached themselves,’ answered Michel. ‘They didn’t know who if anyone had been hired.’
‘Anything else?’ Butros asked Georges.
‘Mustafa Habib wasn’t alone. He had a companion with him. This companion gave his card to a paramedic in case they should need to contact him. His name is Iain Black. He is director of Global Analysis’s Middle-Eastern operations. Which makes it all but certain they were in Daphne on a job.’
‘A job!’ scoffed Michel. ‘They were there for us. They set that fucking bomb.’
Butros shook his head. ‘What kind of assassin takes business cards on a hit with him? What kind of assassin would then give one to a paramedic?’
‘You’re not suggesting it was coincidence, are you?’ protested Michel. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Nor me.’ He brooded a few moments before he came to his decision. ‘Michel,’ he said. ‘Get in touch with your London friends. Have them find out what they can about this man Black and his company Global Analysis. Their clients, their reputation, their range of services. But discreetly, discreetly. I don’t want them knowing we’re onto them.’ He turned back to Georges. ‘I want to talk with this man Black myself. I want to look him in the eye when I ask him what he was doing at the hotel. I want to look him in the eye when I ask him if he tried to kill me.’
‘You’re not leaving the boat, Father,’ said Georges. ‘Not until we know what’s going on.’
‘Then perhaps we should invite him here for lunch tomorrow.’
‘As you wish, Father,’ said Georges. ‘But what if he says no?’
Butros smiled thinly. ‘I really wasn’t thinking of that kind of invitation,’ he said.
V
Iain and Karin chose a restaurant close to the hotel, too weary to explore further. They sat upstairs on an open roof terrace of polished terracotta tiles hedged by potted cypresses. Few tables were taken; the atmosphere was subdued. Every so often voices would be raised in anger, not only against the bombers, but also against the perceived feebleness of the government’s response. Everyone seemed agreed that someone new was needed to take up the fight; someone with the stomach to do whatever was necessary to restore order. And everyone seemed keen to take part in Friday’s Day of Action.
They ordered beers that arrived already poured into miniature brass tankards, to protect the sensibilities of their more devout customers. They clinked them together in a dull toast then tried some small talk, but it proved hard work and Karin soon fell into an introspective silence.
‘Tell me about him,’ prompted Iain.
‘About who?’
‘Your boss. His assistant. Whichever one it is you’re thinking of.’
Karin shook her head. ‘I really didn’t know Rick all that well.’
‘Nathan, then. What was he like?’
‘He was fine. He was nice. He was rich.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s simply that some people have so much money it becomes part of who they are. You can’t describe them without it.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I used to think of money as something you bought stuff with. That the more money you had, the more stuff you could buy. But it’s not like that, not when you’re born into an oil dynasty, as Nathan was. At that level, it’s more like a force. Like gravity. It shapes the world and everyone bends to it, whether they want to or not.’
Iain looked curiously at her. ‘Including you?’ he asked.
‘You know us Dutch?’ she said. ‘How tolerant we are. Live and let live, all that shit? Well, my family isn’t like that. Not one bit. My parents are very Calvinist. They raised us to think a certain way: that money was slightly disgusting, that hard work should be its own reward. And so I worked hard. I studied history at Leiden. I got a good degree, good enough that I was offered the chance to go study at the University of Texas in Austin. They had an excellent programme there, right in my area. I was offered a partial scholarship too, so that at least my tuition was paid for. But it’s still an expensive business, being a student in America. I had to take on a crazy amount of debt, which my parents were not happy about, let me tell you. Anyway, I got to know Nathan while I was there, because he was the one sponsoring the programme. It was on the Homeric Question, you see, which was his thing too. And he saw how stretched I was with my studying and my bar-jobs, so he hired me as a sort of PA to help him manage his collection and deal with museums on his behalf, that kind of thing. But the work was pretty light and really
it was another way for him to support my research, you know?’
‘Yes.’
‘So eventually I got my doctorate and then Leiden offered me a job. It wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted but it was a start, a foot in the door. For some reason, however, Nathan decided he wanted me to stay and work for him full-time. He offered me twice what Leiden were. I said no. So he offered me quadruple.’
‘He must have thought highly of you.’
‘Yes. But I think also he wanted to demonstrate something. I’d been so pleased at the Leiden job, you see. And my attitude towards money always amused him. The rectitude of it. All that hard work bravely done shit. This will sound awful, but I think he wanted to corrupt me a little. And he had so much money that my salary was effectively meaningless to him. Like filling a thimble from his lake. So he kept offering me more and more until finally I said yes. It was all that student debt; suddenly I could pay it off.’ She sat back in her chair as their main course arrived: succulent charred lamb kebabs garnished with yoghurt, onions, tomatoes and eye-watering peppers. ‘But the thing about a big salary is that you start taking it for granted. You think it’s what you’re worth. So instead of paying down your debt, you rent yourself a nice apartment, you lease a car, you fly home four times a year. Which was stupid, because no one else would ever have paid me half what Nathan did. I was his friend as much as his employee. I was his escort for openings and family events. It got so that people began to talk. I tried to ignore all that. I mean, Christ, he was as old as my grandmother. Literally.’ She took a deep breath, looked defiantly at Iain. ‘Last Christmas, he asked me to marry him.’
Iain nodded. He’d guessed something of the sort. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said no. I told him I was fond of him, but not like that. He kept at it. It seemed almost like a game to him. He kept making exploratory little advances. Like he’d buy me gifts small enough that I’d have been churlish to refuse them. But then the next gift would be a little bigger, so how could I fuss about that after accepting the one before. Or he’d touch my elbow in public. Then my shoulder and my back. Or he’d tease me and call me pet names. That kind of thing. And whenever I tried to draw a line for him, he’d joke about my salary, only not altogether a joke, you know. Once you’ve grown used to a good income, the prospect of losing it is a bit like vertigo.’