by Will Adams
She stood and nodded to the shaven-headed man. He got into the Subaru, started it up. The engine roared even as the brake lights flared red, so that his tyres spun wildly, spraying sand. Asena drew back her foot then kicked Iain in the pit of his stomach with savage force, winding him so badly that he gasped in air thick with sand, rasping down his throat and into his lungs. The brakes were released; the Subaru sprang away. The rope snapped taut, jolting through Iain’s ankles, knees and hips, winding him for a second time. Then he was off, flailing after the Subaru like some hapless water-skier, stones stabbing and scoring his skin as he sucked in ever more of the sandy air while still choking on that already in his system, coughing and gasping and suffocating. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. Yet on and on it went, beyond what was endurable so that he thought he was going to pass out, until finally the Subaru began to slow and stop, allowing him to turn onto his side and retch and cough and spit out the worst of it while at the same time trying to suck air down his raw throat back into his starved lungs.
It was perhaps half a minute before he’d recovered sufficiently to even think about anything else, before he could look around. They’d completed a circuit of some kind, were back to where they’d started. The taxi-driver was again on his right, aiming down his handgun. Asena was to his left, drinking in his pain, fists upon her hips. ‘We can do this all night,’ she said.
‘You bitch,’ said Iain.
Her mouth hardened. She nodded at the driver. The engine revved. As he began to pull away, she drew back her foot and kicked Iain again in his stomach. She kicked him as hard as before, but he was prepared this time, it winded him less badly. He turned onto his side and put his bound forearms up in front of his face to filter out what sand he could. They rode up a dune, ploughing furrows as they went, then returned to the crusted sand of the desert floor, where the battering was harder but the breathing was easier. He worked his arms back and forth against each other but the duct tape was still tight. He reached down for his belt instead, undid its buckle then gripped it between his fingers and rolled over to pull it free from its loops. Then he fed it back through its own buckle to fashion a slipknot of his own.
He was barely done when they began slowing for the end of the second circuit. He lay on his front and coughed and hacked and gasped exhaustedly, as if beyond the limits of his endurance. They came to a stop. He could see shoes either side. Asena crouched beside him. ‘The truth,’ she said implacably. ‘Your last chance.’
‘You sick ugly bitch,’ he whispered.
She scowled and stood back up, gestured at the driver for another lap. The engine revved, the tyres turned, they began to pull away. Then she drew back her foot to kick him for a third time.
Now.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I
Iain spun onto his side to release his belt, fashioned into a makeshift lasso that he snared around Asena’s ankle even as she kicked him. She looked surprised rather than alarmed as he yanked the slipknot tight. The Subaru was already accelerating away. She hopped several times before she fell. The taxi-driver ran after them, yelling and pointing his gun but too worried about hitting Asena to shoot. Asena, herself, was kicking out and twisting furiously, doing everything she could to force him to let her go, putting extraordinary strain on his fingers, dragging his arms back over his head. But when you had just one chance to survive, your body would find a way.
Asena took out her hunting knife. She hauled herself up by her own trousers into a sitting position then slashed at Iain’s hands. She couldn’t quite reach him, however, began hacking at the belt instead. And her blade was so sharp that the leather immediately started to fray.
Behind them, the gunman gave up his futile chase. He unscrewed his silencer and fired twice into the air. Brake lights flared. The Subaru slowed and stopped. Iain hauled Asena towards him by the belt. She stabbed at his face. He swayed aside then clubbed her so hard with the hammer of his bound hands that she slumped to the sand and dropped her knife. He picked it up between his clumsy paws and began to saw at the rope around his ankles.
The Subaru swung around. Its headlights picked out Iain attacking his bonds while Asena lay dazed beside him. The engine revved; it began to charge. It was almost upon Iain before he finally freed his feet. He feinted left then dived right. The Subaru blurred past, flicking his heel. He dropped the knife as he fell and was too dazzled by the headlights to find it again. The Subaru wheeled sharply, a bull looking to finish off a wounded matador. Iain’s only hope was the dunes. He ran to and then up the nearest, working at his wrists as he went. The sand was so dry that it caved away beneath him with each step, slowing his progress. The Subaru swung around to build up speed before charging up the steep face. Iain reached the ridge first. His legs were sacks of cement as he ran down the other side. The Subaru crested immediately behind him, its headlights throwing his shadow onto the valley floor ahead. With no chance of outrunning it, Iain turned and ran along the slope then back up. The Subaru tried to come after him but the gradient was too steep for that and its right-side wheels lifted from the sand, forcing the driver to straighten up again, speed down to the valley floor and turn there. Headlights picked out Iain once more as he scrambled back towards the ridge. The engine roared. It came charging. Iain made it over the top and threw himself down. He finally tore his hands free of the duct tape. The Subaru went down through the gears as it struggled to the top. Its fused headlights separated into twin beams. Its bonnet nosed into view. Iain sprang to his feet and hurled himself at the door. It was locked but the window was down. He punched the driver with everything he had. The man grunted and slumped sideways. Iain hauled himself in through the window even as the Subaru began to bump down the dune. His foot caught on a seatbelt. The car began turning at a precarious angle. He freed his foot and brought his legs inside as they reached their tipping point. He grabbed hold of the driver’s seat as the Subaru toppled onto its side then crashed onto the roof, rolling over and over down the steepest part of the slope. Iain’s world span. He clung desperately to the seat. The Subaru finally came to a rest on its passenger-side doors, its windows buckled and frosted, its bodywork rocking and groaning and creaking. The driver lay unconscious among detritus that included Iain’s wallet and holdall. He packed the one into the other then tossed them out the open driver window.
The battered Subaru looked a write-off, but he couldn’t take the chance. He grabbed the keys from its ignition then clambered out, picked up his holdall, slung it over his shoulder. Two shots cracked out. He looked around. Asena and the taxi-driver were running towards him. He put the Subaru between himself and them then sprinted hard for a minute or more. He crested another dune then looped around to head back in what he figured was the way they’d come, because the road surely lay that way, and therefore Cairo too.
The moon was low in the sky, making silver glitter of the mica in the sand. ‘Come back!’ yelled Asena. The idea was so ridiculous that he almost laughed. But then she added: ‘Come back or your girlfriend will pay. I vow this on my life.’
The threat got to him. Asena and her comrades had bombed Daphne; they were capable of anything. He turned and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Do that and I’ll take you down, I swear I will.’
‘Then keep your mouth shut,’ she yelled. ‘Keep your mouth shut and she can live. But breathe one word and she dies.’
Iain hesitated. For a moment, he considered turning back and finishing this now, one way or another. But moonlight, the mismatch of weapons, the open terrain and the easy-to-read tracks he was leaving in the sand all stacked the deck too heavily against him, so he turned his back on them and began once more to run, putting distance between them, intent on taking the fight into another day.
II
The Offices of the Prime Minister were in the heart of the government district of Kizilay in central Ankara. Until recently, the road immediately outside the main entrance had been open to the public at either end; but the growing terro
rist threat had led to its being walled off at its Güven Park end, while sturdy security gates had been installed at the other, with access being strictly limited to those with passes. Unfortunately, it seemed that such passes had been issued to every journalist in the land, and all of them were out there right now, waiting for him to leave for the night so that they could assail him with their questions.
Deniz Baştürk had hoped to wait them out. But it was getting on for midnight and still they remained. And if he simply slunk away in his car, they’d make it look like he was frightened, or had something to hide. ‘Set up the podium,’ he told Gonka. ‘Tell them I’ll make a short statement and take a couple of questions. But no more. And for God’s sake have the car ready.’
‘Yes, Prime Minister.’
He waited in his office until the time came. He checked himself in a mirror then strode boldly out. He briefly addressed the scandals engulfing his cabinet then switched to tomorrow’s Day of Action, assuring the country that peaceful protest was welcome but that any efforts to cause trouble would be severely dealt with. Then he invited questions. ‘Have you spoken to the ministers?’ shouted out a man. ‘Have you asked for their resignations?’
‘I thought I made that clear,’ answered Baştürk. ‘Yes, I have spoken to them. They all deny the allegations categorically. They’ve each served this country well and so deserve the chance to defend themselves. But I promise you that the charges will be quickly and rigorously investigated. And if they prove true, appropriate measures will be taken.’
The fusillade of flashbulbs made him blink. Sometimes he wondered if they coordinated it that way in order to make him look shifty.
‘Three scandals in one day,’ called out Yasemin Omari. ‘Doesn’t that suggest a government not only hopelessly corrupt but also in terminal crisis?’
‘The corruption, if true, pre-dated my administration. As for—’
‘You invited them to join your cabinet. What does that say about your judgement? Or don’t you think you should be held responsible for your choices?’
‘No, of course I—’
‘Then if you accept responsibility,’ demanded Omari, ‘what choice do you have but to resign? When can we expect a statement?’
He found a strained smile. ‘You can have a statement right now. It’s late and I wish you all a very good night.’ He nodded to them then made his way over to his waiting car. Rarely in his life had he ever felt quite so conspicuous, yet so alone.
III
Iain ran at a decent pace for half an hour or so, then dropped to a more sustainable jog and finally a walk. It grew cold. He trudged on, hour after hour. Ahead, he could now see the soft orange glow of a city at night. Cairo, presumably. And then, behind him, the sky began finally to lighten with the promise of dawn. As if to welcome it, a gentle breeze picked up and gradually grew strong, hinting at further sandstorms ahead. Still no sign of a road, of anything. It puzzled him that they’d taken him so deep into the desert. Then he realized a possible answer that would also explain Asena’s curious choice of interrogation technique. Forcing him to breathe in all that sand would make it seem as if he’d got lost out here during the khamsin, and suffocated. Though what might have brought him out here in the first place, he couldn’t imagine.
A dark dot far ahead swelled into a car. He drew closer and saw last night’s taxi. It appeared to be stuck in the sand. Its doors were locked. It was old enough to hot-wire if he got inside, so he looked for a rock to break its window when he remembered the keys he’d taken from the Subaru. He checked them now. One fitted and turned. He climbed in. His receipt from the Antioch hotel was lying on the passenger-side floor, which was odd, because he was sure it had been in his wallet. Asena or one of her friends must have left it there for some reason. But he had more urgent concerns. He tried the ignition but nothing happened. He checked beneath the bonnet, reattached a loose lead. Now it started. He tried to reverse out but it was stuck. He scooped sand away from behind the rear tyres then laid down stones to give them traction. This time he came free, made it onto harder ground. He swung the taxi around and headed along the track until he reached a road. He followed it to a junction then headed west.
The receipt kept catching his eye. Asena must have had some purpose in leaving it there. But what? He was on the outskirts of New Cairo before he realized a possible explanation. He pulled in, got out, went around to the boot. He checked that no one was watching then unlocked it and lifted it a little way. Yes. A man, presumably the taxi’s real driver, was lying inside. His face had been beaten to an ugly pulp. His left arm looked broken, and there were ligature marks around his throat.
Asena’s plan finally became clear. Crude, yes, but likely to have worked. Egyptian taxi-drivers were notorious for taking tourists off on magical mystery tours to perfume shops, papyrus dealers and the like. The police would assume that something of that nature had transpired, that Iain’s protests had turned into an argument until finally he’d lost his temper and bludgeoned and strangled the poor man to death. Then he’d panicked and stuffed him in his own boot and driven him out into the desert to dump his body, where the taxi had got stuck in sand and broken down. So he’d left it there and legged it, only to get hopelessly lost in the sandstorm and swallowed by the desert.
What now?
Egyptian police weren’t exactly known for subtlety. If he went to them with this story, they’d laugh in his face. Even if they did check into it, their obvious first move would be to call their counterparts in Turkey. Yet Asena clearly had connections inside that investigation. How else could she have known he’d be in Sabiha Gökçen Airport unless she’d been tipped off? How else could she have known so much about his conversation with Karin last night unless they’d put a tap on …
With a small shock, he remembered Karin telling him she’d be staying at the Nicosia Grand Hotel. If Asena’s friends had been listening in, they’d know exactly how to get to her. He checked his wallet then his pockets and his pack for her number, but he must have lost it somewhere. He drove over to the Cairo Institute of Archaeometry, but there was no sign of Mike and he couldn’t hang around so he wrote him a note warning him to be careful and slipped it under the door. Then he headed on into Central Cairo and parked beneath an overpass. He cleaned himself up in the rear-view mirror then put on fresh clothes from his holdall. He pocketed the invoice, wiped down the steering wheel and every other surface that he might plausibly have touched, then he locked up and walked briskly for ten minutes before waving down another taxi and taking it out to Cairo airport.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I
The orders had been issued the night before. As morning arrived, so fleets of armoured buses drove into city and town centres across Turkey. Tens of thousands of riot police set up steel barricades, while cells were emptied and paddy-wagons deployed in anticipation of hundreds of arrests. And it wasn’t just the police on the move. Great convoys streamed out of army garrisons around Istanbul, Ankara and other major cities. Squadrons of tanks divided into troops then parked with maximum visibility next to major road junctions and by international airports, while units of light infantry went into towns and cities, establishing defensive positions outside government offices, national monuments, railway stations and the like.
People arriving for their day’s work, or for the marches, grumbled about intimidation; but in truth most were glad to see the army, for they trusted them more than they did the police. Conscription meant that they’d all served themselves, still had friends and relatives in uniform. And the soldiers themselves took pains to diminish any sense of threat. They stayed well away from the main rally points and march routes, and they waved in solidarity, and assured them that their orders were only to protect and deter, and on no account to intervene.
Not unless something truly cataclysmic should happen.
II
Asena led the way back to the Cairo road, bowed down by the enormity of her failure. Every so often, she’d catch herself
favouring her left leg slightly and it would make her scowl. Her ankle still ached from Black’s makeshift lasso, yes, but the limp wasn’t about that. The limp was self-pity.
The sun rose behind them, grew warm upon their backs. Yet still she had no signal on her mobile. She had little appetite for the calls ahead, but they needed to be made. ‘Keep up,’ she said to Uğur and Bulent.
‘His leg’s hurt pretty bad,’ said Uğur.
‘We need to catch Black.’
‘Sure,’ scoffed Uğur.
The insubordination rankled, but she let it go. They reached the place they’d left the taxi. It was gone. She glared at Bulent to remind him who’d added the keys to the Subaru’s ring, but this fiasco was all hers. She’d underestimated Black. It was simple as that.
Never again.
They trudged on. Finally she acquired a signal. She pinged the Lion at once, knowing it would take him several minutes to call back. Then she rang Emre in Famagusta. ‘It’s me,’ she told him, when he picked up. ‘Where are you?’
‘The safe house,’ he grunted. He sounded half asleep.
‘Then who’s on watch?’
‘Tolgay and the others.’ He fought a yawn. ‘We could always go join them if you reckon it needs all six of us to watch an empty house.’
‘Your mission there is important,’ she said tightly. ‘I wouldn’t have sent you on it otherwise. But this is about something else. You’ve all got clean passports, yes?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. Then I want you to go to Nicosia for me.’
‘Why? Is there an empty house for us to watch there too?’
‘There’s a young Dutch woman staying in the Nicosia Grand Hotel. Her name’s Karin Visser. You’re going to pick her up for me.’