by Will Adams
She removed her hand from his, edged carefully from the bed. She washed and dressed and came back out to find him still dozing. She turned on her smartphone to check her messages. That done, she tried to log on to the password-protected website that the police had set up to publish bulletins for people affected by the blast. The page was running some script that kept freezing her phone. It had played up the same way yesterday, so she’d ended up using the hotel’s guest computer down in reception. She was about to head off down there when she noticed Iain’s laptop zipped away in its bag beneath the dressing table. She sat down beside him on the bed, shook him gently by his shoulder. ‘Hey,’ she said.
He turned onto his back, stretched, smiled fondly up at her. ‘Hey yourself.’
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘There’s this website I need to check. Is it okay if I use your laptop?’
His expression didn’t flicker, yet somehow she got the sense he was suddenly on alert. ‘I wish I could,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got client information on there. It’s absolutely against company protocol to let anyone else use it.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘No problem. They’ve got one down in reception.’
‘If you tell me the website address …’
‘It’s honestly no problem,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes. We’ll have breakfast.’ She smiled and left the room, took the stairs down to reception. The computer was free. She sat down and typed in the address. No updates had been posted since last night. Instead of ending her session, however, she stayed where she was. Iain’s story about client information and company protocol had been a lie. She wasn’t quite sure how, but she was certain of it. So what was on his laptop that he didn’t want her seeing? Was it merely embarrassing or something more serious? And, realizing how little she truly knew of him, she opened a new browser and began to Google him.
III
Butros Bejjani was taking breakfast on deck when Michel appeared, reading a folder of documents in the ostentatious manner of someone wanting to be asked about them. He ignored him, therefore, returned to his coffee and his correspondence, until finally Michel couldn’t contain himself any longer. ‘Remember that detective you had me hire to watch Iain Black,’ he said.
‘What about him?’
‘It was a her,’ said Michel. ‘And she’s sent her first report.’ He moved the bowl of manakish and the jug of mango juice, then laid out six photographs of Iain Black with a tall European-looking woman. ‘Black and this woman went out together last night. They ate dinner then returned to their hotel.’ He touched a photograph of them all but holding hands as they walked through the foul night. ‘As you can see, they’re on friendly terms. Very friendly. They’re even sharing a room.’
‘So the man has a girlfriend,’ said Georges, joining them on deck. ‘So what?’
Michel smiled faintly. ‘Her name is Karin Visser,’ he said. ‘She’s a Homer specialist. Until two days ago, she was personal assistant to Nathan Coates, the American who Black himself said had come here to bid against us.’
Butros looked with renewed interest at the photographs. There clearly was something between the two of them. But what? How long had it been going on? And what did it mean for his own plans? Until now, he’d been content to wait here for a few days in case the seller had somehow survived the blast, or had a confederate. If they were dead, after all, he’d have all the time in the world to find the site for himself. But these pictures changed all that. Nathan Coates presumably had been sent the same materials he had. If Visser knew of them, and had teamed up with Black, then suddenly he was in a race. ‘They’re in it together,’ he said flatly. ‘They’re going for the treasure themselves.’
‘That’s certainly how it appears, Father,’ agreed Michel. ‘But it’s not all bad news. Maybe we can even turn it to our advantage.’
Butros raised an eyebrow. ‘How?’
‘This man Black is highly skilled and can call on unusual resources. There’s a good chance that he’ll find the site, even if we can’t. Unfortunately, he’s already demonstrated that he’s likely to spot us if we try to track him. But this woman Visser has no such talent. And, if they’re in this together, then following her by definition means following him too.’
‘If they’re in it together,’ pointed out Georges, ‘then Black will spot us following her.’
‘Not necessarily. Our London friends have developed an app for Android devices like this one here.’ He tapped a photograph of Karin Visser checking her smartphone at the dinner table. ‘Load it on to her phone and it will send us copies of all her texts, emails, conversations and browsing activity. It will also send us her GPS coordinates every fifteen minutes. And she’ll never know a thing.’ He smiled broadly. ‘That way, if they do find the site first, they’ll lead us straight to it, like truffle pigs. Then we simply haul them back by their collars and say thank you very much.’
Butros laughed at the image. ‘And how exactly do we get this app onto her phone?’
‘If yesterday proved anything,’ said Michel, ‘surely it proved that Georges is far more suited to such tasks than I am.’
Butros turned to him. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
Georges nodded. ‘It’s worth a shot.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Butros. ‘It is.’
IV
Iain cursed himself as he turned on his laptop. As he’d feared, he’d left thumbnails of the four video-files visible on his desktop. He hadn’t worried about them because his laptop was password protected; but passwords offered little protection against a friend who asked nicely. Now Karin no doubt suspected him of something shameful or even nefarious. Just when things had been going so well.
He moved the video-files to a secure folder, wiped away all traces of them. Then he checked his inbox. He had two emails from colleagues. The first was from Quentin, a curt message that if he still wanted to know who their client was, he should call a certain London telephone number, ask for Richard Brown and cite reference number 26301. Iain recognized the phone number instantly as the main switchboard number for the SIS. So their client was British Intelligence. It wasn’t the first time. They often used outside help where deniability was important or where they lacked good sources. But why their interest in Bejjani? He could only imagine it was on behalf of the Americans, perhaps in an effort to get at the Mexican cartels for whom he laundered so much money. Whatever, he wouldn’t find the bombers there. The CIA might conceivably take out a hotel if the target were important enough, but they’d never risk it in an ally country like Turkey.
The second email was a long and distressed message from Maria. Layla had called three times asking for details of her husband’s life insurance, yet he hadn’t been covered under the new policy, and Quentin was refusing point-blank even to discuss it with her, or to acknowledge Global Analysis’s responsibility. She couldn’t stonewall Layla forever, nor could she file a false claim. What should she do?
Iain rested back his head and stared up at the skylight. He’d planned to stay in Antioch as long as his clients wanted. But maybe it was time to go home. The trouble was, Quentin was clearly struggling for cash, and he had no way to force him to do the right thing. Besides, he had his other promise to fulfil: to find Mustafa’s killers and make them pay. He sighed heavily. What a mess. He’d known Mustafa for eight years, since working with him on a counterterrorism mission that had straddled the Turkish–Iraqi border. They’d got on from the first, had become firm friends. When he’d decided to open an office in Istanbul, he’d only seriously considered one candidate for the job. He’d thought he’d be doing him a favour.
A shower. Fresh clothes. They did little to cheer him. Karin wasn’t yet back. He was about to go look for her when he heard soft footsteps on the corridor carpet outside. They reached his room and stopped. Then nothing happened. Maybe she’d forgotten her key. He went to the door, opened it. It was hard to say who was the more surprised, he or the squad of armed and body-armoured policemen poi
sed outside with a battering ram. He tried, instinctively, to close the door on them, but they were too quick for him, too many and too strong. They charged their way in and threw him to the ground, spinning him onto his front then cuffing him and hauling him roughly to his feet and frog-marching him to the door and out.
SEVENTEEN
I
Karin was still at the lobby computer when the police arrived in numbers at the hotel. While most hurried upstairs, two stayed by the front doors and tried with bright false smiles to intimate that all was normal, when clearly it wasn’t. Even so, it came as a profound shock to see their colleagues come back down again, a scrum of them surrounding a handcuffed Iain. He looked quite incredibly composed, all things considered, just as he had in the aftermath of the Daphne bomb. He looked around the lobby as he passed through it. His eyes glanced her way but didn’t settle on her even for a moment, as if trying to convey the message that this was his crisis and that she should stay clear. She stood to watch through the window as they bundled him into a squad car. Sirens turned on; a three-car convoy sped away.
Several police officers remained behind in the reception area, joking and laughing with the release of tension that accompanies the successful conclusion of a hazardous mission. She could only imagine that they suspected him of having some connection to the bombing. It seemed absurd to her, but what did she really know of him? Her searches on Google had turned up little, for there were no photographs of him and Iain Black was too common a name for her to be sure of anything.
She had visions, suddenly, of being pointed out to the police, of being arrested as a suspected accomplice, of interrogation and incarceration and tangled explanations falling on deaf ears. She logged out of the computer and hurried from the hotel while she still could, more in need of her passport and her own money than ever. She glanced behind as she climbed the short hill to the bus-stop, but no one was following. She caught a minibus out to Daphne and made her way to the warehouse the forensic team had sequestered to process debris from the hotel. Fatma saw her by the doors and came across. She was her liaison officer, thanks to her good English. From a distance she looked deathly pale, but it turned out to be plaster dust. She had bad news: the bodies of Nathan Coates and Rick Leland had been recovered overnight. Karin nodded. She’d already accepted the certainty of their deaths. Fatma waited a moment or two out of respect then added that they’d also recovered a number of safes, including hers. They’d open it for her just as soon as their locksmith arrived.
Karin bought water and fruit from a nearby shop then breakfasted on a bench beneath blossom trees. She felt like she should be grieving for Nathan and Rick, but she had too many problems of her own. The warehouse door opened. Fatma called her over. They walked together down a long corridor to a large storeroom where a man in grimy blue overalls stood by a sturdy work-table. ‘What room number?’ asked Fatma.
‘One one five,’ she told her.
The safes had their numbers written in black marker pen on their rears. The locksmith found 115, unscrewed a front panel and tried to pick it open. The mechanism was fried, however. He fetched an electric drill. The screech was hideous. Karin covered her ears and looked away. It saddened her to see the stack of battered safes and know their contents would likely never be reclaimed. The door popped open. She stooped to look inside. Her belongings were all there, dusty but unharmed. Relief flooded through her.
Fatma checked her against her passport photo, then wrote up and printed out a receipt. ‘Thank you so much,’ said Karin, signing it. ‘Is that everything?’
‘Your friend Nathan Coates,’ said Fatma. ‘We need someone to sign for his belongings too.’
‘Oh,’ said Karin. ‘Of course.’
The locksmith began to drill. Karin felt a sudden twinge of alarm. What if Nathan had already bought an artefact from his mysterious dealer? What if he’d stowed it in his safe? How would she explain that? The door opened. She craned to look. It was empty. Her heart-rate settled back down. ‘Oh, well,’ she said.
‘Now for Mr Leland’s,’ said Fatma. Karin braced herself again. She hadn’t much liked Rick, to be honest. He’d mocked her accent, had had her make him drinks and the like. Then Nathan had fallen for her, and he’d become resentful of her, even jealous. But there was no disputing how heavily Nathan had relied upon him, especially when anything murky needed doing, say like holding black market artefacts on his behalf. Her mouth was dry as the door opened, but again her fears proved unfounded. A bunch of keys, a black-jacketed notebook and a sheaf of travel documents. Her involuntary loud sigh of relief prompted Fatma to glance quizzically at her. ‘My friends,’ explained Karin.
‘Of course,’ said Fatma. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
II
The police took Iain down to a windowless basement room with a broken air-con unit, damp white walls scratched with defiant graffiti, and a pair of dark blue moulded-plastic chairs set to face each other. They uncuffed him and sat him on one of them then left him alone again.
Arrest was an unavoidable risk in his line of work. He’d previously enjoyed the hospitality of Afghan, Libyan and Sudanese police forces, compared to whom the Turks were champions of the rule of law. He had powerful friends and extensive contacts to call on, should the need arise. But, when all was said and done, this was still an investigation into a terrorist atrocity in which dozens had been killed or badly injured, so he had to assume the normal rules suspended.
The door opened. His interrogation team filed in. Apparently he warranted four. The first, who sat down in the chair opposite, was the only one in uniform. Iain recognized him as the inspector who’d taken his statement after the bomb. The second was a low-ranking bruiser who stood behind Iain in an obvious effort to intimidate him, while the remaining two stood against the walls either side. Both wore expensive dark suits that implied senior rank, but otherwise looked very different. The one to Iain’s left was badly out of shape. He had grizzled gelled-back hair and a bushy Stalin moustache that he kept stroking, as though to imply that he’d gladly consign Iain to the Gulags should the opportunity arise. The man to Iain’s right, by contrast, had the shaven scalp and lean and hungry look of a career soldier: military intelligence, if Iain had to guess.
‘So then,’ said the inspector. ‘Tell us about the footage.’
The trick in situations like this was to stick as close to the truth as you could. The more lies you told, the greater the chance of one of them being discovered. So Iain explained what he did for a living, and for whom. He told them about Mustafa and how he’d recruited him from the National Intelligence Organization. He told them how they’d been hired to find out who Butros Bejjani was meeting in Daphne, which was why they’d been filming the hotel. He told them how his laptop had been badly damaged by the blast, but that he’d recovered the video-files yesterday afternoon and had immediately sent the crucial clip in from an anonymous account, lest he get into trouble for conducting the surveillance in the first place.
‘Why were you watching this man Bejjani?’ asked Stalin.
‘I told you. It was a job.’
‘For whom?’
‘They’re called Hunter & Blackwells,’ said Iain. ‘They didn’t tell me what their interest was, but I’m sure they’d tell you if you explain the circumstances.’ He was sure of the absolute opposite, if he was honest, but there was no harm bluffing.
‘Did you send them the footage you recovered?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? They were paying you, weren’t they?’
‘Not for that.’
‘So who else has seen it?’
‘No one.’
‘Are there copies?’
‘On my laptop and my old hard-drive. Both of which you now have.’
‘What about in the sent folder of the email account you used?’
‘I deleted it. Hotmail accounts aren’t exactly secure.’
The inspector rose from his chair. He left the room and returned with
Iain’s laptop. ‘Show me,’ he said. The station had its own wi-fi. Iain logged on to it then complied, showed them the empty sent folder. ‘Now let’s see your proper email account,’ said the inspector.
‘It’s private,’ said Iain. ‘But I assure you—’
‘Monday’s bomb killed over thirty people,’ said the inspector. ‘Including two friends of mine. It will be easy to get a warrant if you insist. But then I will make you pay for it. How does a week in one of our cells sound?’
Iain shrugged. The laptop was new and it was basic trade-craft not to keep anything sensitive or incriminating in one’s email. He logged in to his company account then turned the laptop around to let the men browse. ‘Satisfied?’ he asked.
Stalin nodded at the door. The four men all left, taking his laptop with them. It was another half hour before the door opened again and Stalin came back in alone. He sat in the facing chair. ‘The two bombers you filmed are foot soldiers,’ he told Iain. ‘We want to catch them. Of course we do. But our priority is to catch the people behind them. The ringleaders, if you will.’ There was an evasive look in his eyes as he talked, giving Iain the strong impression that he wasn’t sharing the full story. ‘Should news of this footage leak out, it will give those ringleaders time to cover their tracks. Should they successfully evade us, they’ll recruit new foot soldiers to bomb more hotels and murder more of our citizens. I will not let that happen. So I ask again: are there any other copies of this footage?’
‘No.’
Stalin glared at him for maybe ten seconds. But then he relaxed. ‘I spoke to a friend at the National Intelligence Organization. She vouched for your colleague Mustafa Habib. Your office and your client both broadly confirm your account of your mission. We therefore accept that you were here on surveillance and that you filmed the bombing by chance. We also accept that, under the circumstances, you have been tolerably helpful. However, running surveillance is a clear violation of your tourist-visa status, and there have to be consequences for that.’