by Will Adams
II
The lift was out of order, no matter how many times Andreas pressed the button. ‘Is that how it works?’ asked Karin sweetly. ‘You just hit it hard enough?’
Andreas grunted. ‘That’s my understanding.’
The stairwell was gloomy with fire-escape lighting. They passed another couple coming down, exchanged wry greetings. Andreas was wheezing hard by the time they reached his floor. He put his hands on his knees and gave himself half a minute to recover. ‘What kind of a fool buys a top-floor flat?’ he sighed, fishing out his keys and letting them in.
His floor was strewn with papers. They set straight to work. It was Andreas who found the paper-clipped pages of an old street-map printed out from the Internet. ‘Varosha,’ he said. ‘But from before the Turkish invasion.’ He fitted the eight pages together into a strip two wide by four tall, the seafront to the east, the modern city to the west and north. The scale was large enough to name consulates, shops, hotels and other buildings of interest, and there were pencil jottings in the margins.
Rear of hotel
Car park
Perimeter wall, industrial estate?
Two yellow buses
View of Church roof
At least one street in from the sea
These notes were reflected on the map itself. The churches had rings around them, as if someone had placed a glass over them, then drawn around it. And the hotels one street or more in from the sea were highlighted in pink marker pen, while the top four of them had been crudely scratched through.
‘Imagine you were one of the first soldiers into Varosha during the invasion,’ said Iain, ‘but you haven’t been back in since. There’s a place you want to find, but your memory of it is hazy. It was a little way inland, there was a hotel nearby, a pair of buses in a car park. And you could see a church roof. The place is now under military occupation so that you can only visit it at night and at considerable risk, so that you have to minimize torchlight and blundering about. What do you do?’
‘You find yourself a map,’ said Karin. ‘You make a shortlist of places to check.’
Iain nodded. ‘Then you cross them off as you go along. That’s why the rings around the churches and the highlights are neatly done, but the crossings out are so rough. Because Baykam did them on the hoof.’
Karin put her finger on the next hotel down. ‘Until he found what he was looking for, at least. Then there’d have been no further need to scratch anything off, would there?’
A frisson ran through Iain as he looked down. The Daphne International Hotel hadn’t been bombed merely to kill Yasin Baykam, say in punishment for some breach of Grey Wolf security or protocol. No, it had surely been bombed to stop Baykam from revealing the location of this Varosha site. Which meant that there was something in there worth the murder of Mustafa and all those others.
Andreas was still staring down at the map. ‘Do you know how Famagusta got its name?’ he asked.
‘How?’ asked Karin.
‘It’s from the Greek word ammochostos. It means “buried beneath the sand”.’
Iain nodded. ‘Then let’s go dig it up.’
III
Frustration had piled on top of frustration for Asena these past twenty hours. The fiasco in the desert, Visser’s escape from Emre, her Grey Wolf team arrested in Famagusta, an afternoon wasted searching Nicosia for Black. Now, to cap it all, the turmoil in Turkey had persuaded the government to close its airspace until security could be restored; and while that was testimony to the success of their enterprise, it meant that her flight back home had been cancelled, stranding her here in Cyprus.
She sat with folded arms in the cramped rear of the SUV as they headed east to their safe house. The radio was on, provoking cheers every time some new outbreak of trouble was announced. Tiredness got to her. She’d have fallen asleep except that her head kept knocking against the window, jarring her back awake. A haze of memories enveloped her instead. Twenty-one again, and in a different car, heading with her father to some swanky soiree for the Fourth Army’s top brass, her mother having backed out at the last moment with the usual profession of nerves.
Asena had been studying modern history at Bosporus University at the time, and while not quite mutinous enough with liberal ideas to refuse to escort her father, she’d been quite liberal enough to punish him with a sulk. Her ill grace had lasted until he’d introduced her to the Lion. Tall, golden-haired, unbelievably beautiful in his uniform. Late forties, but didn’t look it. Their first conversation had lasted perhaps a minute and to this day she only had the vaguest idea of what they’d said. Yet, by the end of it, by the end of those sixty seconds, her heart had set itself on him.
They reached a roundabout, turned left, headed north out of Famagusta.
He’d fallen for her too. She’d known that instinctively. The difference was, he’d tried to fight it. His wife had been sick with a degenerative disease, and he’d been too loyal to leave her or even betray her. He’d therefore avoided Asena, had refused to take her calls. So she’d concocted an essay on the Cypriot campaign as an excuse to interview him, and had asked her father to set it up. Her father had outranked the Lion back then; he’d been unable to say no. She’d sat beside him at his desk as he’d gruffly pointed out landmarks on a flapped-out map. She’d edged ever closer to him. Their thighs had touched. She’d placed her hand on his leg to support herself while leaning over to look at how he’d outflanked the northern mountains. Then her hand had slipped. Thus had begun a period of squalid joy. He’d been too well known in Turkey for the usual business of country hotels; nor could he visit her at her digs. One of his friends on secondment overseas had lent them his apartment. How well she’d come to know it, and the others that had followed. He was marked out for great things. Promotion had followed promotion. She’d built her life around him, taking jobs wherever he was posted, even dating a series of plausible young men both to give them cover and to get her parents off her back. One of these, a shudderingly narcissistic young officer called Durmuş Hassan, had asked her to marry him, but his proposal had so transparently been intended to gain favour with her father that she’d laughed in his face.
The Lion’s wife had fallen sicker. The term had been uncertain, the final outcome not. They’d pledged their futures to each other the moment he was free. But then they’d been blind-sided by the notorious Sledgehammer investigations, in which hundreds of senior Turkish officers had been arrested and charged with plotting a coup on evidence so flimsy that it would have been tossed out of any self-respecting court; except that it was never about justice or a coup, it was all about the government grabbing the army by its balls, and then slicing.
Her own father, absurdly, had been among the accused; and the key witness against him had been her old suitor Durmuş, taking vengeance for her rejection of him by concocting malicious lies about covert planning meetings. She’d testified in her father’s defence, but no one had believed her. She’d gone to the Lion instead, but he’d been as helpless as she, for any officer who tried to defend his comrades was instantly added to the charge sheet. He’d begged her to be patient, had confided her that the fightback was already underway, that he was leading it himself. But it would take time. There was a vast quantity of work to be done, not least in finding someone to rebuild and then lead their shadow army of Grey Wolves, for their ability to create covert mayhem was a necessary precondition of success.
Still furious about her father, Asena had volunteered herself for the job. He’d refused even to countenance it. The chances of discovery were too high. It would involve unspeakable acts, not suitable for his future wife. And she was too precious for him to risk. Instead of arguing further, she’d bought herself a handgun and had gone to wait outside Durmuş’s Istanbul apartment one frosty morning. She’d called out his name as he’d emerged, so that he’d know by whose hand nemesis was come, then she’d put twelve hollow-point rounds into his chest and face, one for each year of her father’s sentenc
e. Thus had begun her new life as Asena, leader of the Grey Wolves, the Lion’s liaison and right-hand.
They turned right off the main road. An estate of holiday homes, quiet with the off-season. They pulled up behind a white Renault saloon. Doors opened. She shook herself from her reverie then followed the others through the cactus garden and inside.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I
The suspension of the horse-box had been stiffened to suppress excessive movement. The undercarriage had been lubricated to minimize creaking. An observant passer-by might still, however, have noticed its fractional rocking or heard the faint squeak of metal on metal as a series of bolts were drawn beneath the floor, then a metal panel was lifted up and slid to one side.
But there were no passers-by.
The horse-box settled again. There was silence for perhaps half a minute. Then a man sat up slowly and broke a glow-stick, enough to see by but not enough to be seen from outside. It gave a greenish tint to his hand and wrist as he set it down, as though in sympathy with how he felt inside, for it was no joke lying for two hours in a fume-filled, poorly ventilated and overheated space some thirty centimetres high – a space, what was more, that he’d had to share with three other men.
Haroon moved away from the floor panel, stretched his cramped legs. Erol now emerged. Samir and Mehmet. When all four of them were safely out, Haroon and Erol went to the wall that separated the main body of the horse-box from the back of the driver’s cab. They pushed hard against it and the internal locking mechanisms released. Two large, flat panels now swung outwards, revealing shallow cavities filled with grey packing foam that had been precision cut to accommodate weapons, munitions, clothing and other equipment.
In silence, they removed and distributed this equipment. They closed the panels again then stripped to their underwear and began to dress. The body-armour and the bomb vests first. Then the uniforms, jackets, boots and caps of Special Protection Squad officers. Assault rifles and spare clips. Handguns, grenades and enough military-grade explosives to blast their way through bulletproof glass and reinforced doors.
Ideally, tonight would happen on the front steps, for maximum visual impact. But they’d take it inside if they had to.
The glow-stick faded. Darkness returned. Haroon put in the earpiece of a digital radio and tuned it to the news. The crowds in Güven Park had apparently been dispersed by the police, but the riots were ongoing elsewhere. He shared this bulletin with his comrades, then they settled down to wait.
II
There was little breeze tonight, but Butros wouldn’t have ordered the masts rigged even had there been. They needed to keep as low a profile as possible. He stood on deck as they left their mooring and passed out through the harbour mouth, headed east-south-east out to sea, off for their supposed night of fishing. Then he went into the bridge, where Michel was at the helm. ‘Any more news on Visser and Black?’ he asked.
‘They haven’t moved,’ Michel assured him.
‘Visser’s phone hasn’t moved, you mean.’
‘Sami’s sitting outside the apartment building,’ said Michel. ‘The moment anything happens, he’ll let us know. But I must tell you, Father, I don’t like this. It’s too big a risk, your going in. Think what it would do to the bank if you were caught. Think what it would do to the family.’
‘We’re doing this,’ stated Butros flatly. ‘That being the case, we need someone there familiar enough with Phoenician history and material culture to make good decisions about what to bring out. That effectively means me. However, you have some small expertise in this area. If you’re genuinely so concerned about my being caught, you could lead the team in yourself, and both Georges and I could stay behind. That way, only one member of the family would be at risk. How about that for an idea?’
Michel flushed. ‘This is foolishness, Father. This whole thing is foolishness.’
Butros nodded to himself. ‘I won’t make this decision for you,’ he told him. ‘But, if you choose to stay here, I assure you I will go with Georges.’
Silence stretched. It went on so long, it was clear that Michel had got the double message. ‘If that’s what you think best, Father.’
‘Yes.’ He went back out on deck. For years he’d tried to convince himself that his son was merely prudent, as befitted a banker; but the hard truth was that he was a coward. He gripped the rail tight as they left the shore behind. The old harbour dwindled to a twinkling of coloured lights. Georges and his team had unpacked the two black inflatable dinghies on deck and now began pumping them up. They were eight-seaters, and only six of them were going in, but they needed both in case they found the site and had to bring out artefacts. They secured them with ropes then lowered them over the seaward side. They made splashes like silvery soft felt. They climbed down the ladder onto them. Water sloshed around the bottom so that his feet quickly grew wet and cold, almost as if with fear. They attached the outboards, passed down packs that were bulky not just with their comms and night-vision equipment, but with more old-fashioned supplies too: torches, cameras, emergency medical kit, coils of rope both to climb down into the site and to hoist up artefacts. They also had food and water to last them for a day or two should anything happen to trap them ashore. A final check then they hunkered down and let go the ropes, drifting to a stop behind the Dido as she burbled sweetly on her way. They lay still in their inflatables for a full two minutes, lest some diligent sentry was watching from the shore. Then Butros murmured the word and they sat up carefully, turned on their electric motors and puttered quietly for the beach.
The water was dark yet faintly florescent in places, perhaps from algae. Though the chop was light, inevitably they all took their share of splashes. The inflatables soon smelled of fuel; his lips smacked of salt. Headlamps lit the roads to their right before being eaten by the black hole of Varosha, a mere silhouette of darkness. Yet he remembered it well from their earlier approach. A thin strip of sand in front of a jagged wall of beach-front ruins, their guts exposed and dangling, red flags fluttering weakly on the roofs of the tallest hotels in a feeble assertion of Turkish sovereignty. The rusting cranes behind that surely would soon topple.
They turned their engines down to a mutter as they neared the beach. The waves were so weak they barely broke at all. It would be reckless to leave unnecessary footprints on the sand so they burbled south to a crumbling pier where pleasure boats would once have moored. They hitched the inflatables to it then climbed a rusted ladder and made their way ashore. He glimpsed movement on the beach but wasn’t unduly alarmed. It was so long since people had used this beach that birds and turtles had taken to nesting here.
Their first task was to establish a communications link. Georges set up the modem a little way inland from the pier. It sought out and quickly connected to its geostationary satellite, providing them with an encrypted, high-bandwidth link to the Dido’s bridge, where Michel was monitoring local army and police radio channels for any signs that their incursion had been detected. Nothing yet, he assured them, and still no sign of Visser or Black, but he’d contact them the moment anything changed.
They couldn’t move the modem without breaking its satellite link. They could, however, link their cell radios to it. These were tactical, ultra-high-frequency models based on an British army design, with a range of around 250 metres in built-up areas that made them all but invisible except to the most sophisticated of scanners. Yet they could work in relay, too, so that by dropping them off at intervals, like breadcrumbs in a children’s story, they could extend their effective range to well over a kilometre.
All the packs were now ashore. They hoisted them to their shoulders then pulled on their night-vision goggles and slipped stealthily into the lost city of Varosha.
III
The lift was still out of order, but at least gravity made the stairs easier on the way down, allowing Andreas to brief them on Varosha as they went. Superficially, it appeared almost impregnable, what with the sea to its
east, army garrisons to its north and south, and checkpoints and guard-posts along its western flank – a lightly used road that ran all the way south to a closed border with the Cypriot Republic. It had high walls topped with barbed wire and festooned with menacing signs showing soldiers with guns that warned people not even to photograph, let alone intrude.
‘So how do we get in?’ asked Karin.
‘Easily,’ he assured her. For one thing, Varosha was huge. They were only interested in the northern third themselves, where the resort had been. But the Forbidden Zone as a whole was a rough oblong several kilometres long and over a kilometre wide. That was a lot of ground to watch. More to the point, nothing had happened there for over forty years, other than for a few incursions by mischievous children and reckless thrill-seekers. It had become such a burden and an embarrassment that people barely even acknowledged its existence any more. Its perimeter walls had crumbled and even collapsed. The wire had stretched and sagged and snapped. Such repairs as had been made at all were shoddy efforts of corrugated sheets and nailed planks that had themselves fallen apart, making it absurdly porous. And so the guards yawned away their days and made tired jokes about the world’s most closely protected nature sanctuary.
They stopped en route for supplies: dark clothes, torches of varying power, a compass, some water and energy bars, matt-black packs to carry it all in. Then they continued south until they were driving alongside it. The crumbling wall to their left looked as easy to clamber over as Andreas had promised, but the road itself was another matter. Instead of a deserted lane, army Jeeps and trucks were driving by every thirty seconds or so, their headlights on full beam. ‘Shit,’ said Andreas, turning onto a side road, pulling in and dowsing his lights. ‘I’ve never seen it like this.’