* * *
TURKISH AIRLINES FLIGHT TK 7 TO WASHINGTON DULLES
23:32 LOCAL TIME
Connor squeezes into the window seat, his bony knees pressed against the seat in front of him. Penny takes the middle. She has no luggage—just her boarding pass, Brenda’s envelope, and an emergency passport, tucked into the string backpack Carolyn Sokolof found for Penny at the Consulate. Relic of some long-forgotten election night party, it’s printed with an American flag and the jaunty slogan BE SMART! DO YOUR PART! VOTE!
“Uçaktayım. Evet.” A pudgy, shaggy-haired Turkish executive plops down beside her in the aisle seat, speaking loudly into his enormous shiny phone. “Öptüm. Haydi bye-bye.” He holds out his smartphone, scrolling through the news, flicking past a photo of police outside the latticed marble of the Çırağan Palace Kempinski. “Not again,” he groans in English. “Fuck.”
Penny feels suddenly sick. “Was there another attack?”
“No, no.” The shaggy-haired executive shakes his head. “You know about the peace summit? There were protesters. Peaceful. Then the police came. Arrested them all. Kids. Journalists. Everybody.” He scrolls down. On the bright rectangle of the screen burns a photo of a handsome dark-haired man in his early forties: nose bleeding into his close-cropped beard, both arms pinned back by helmeted Turkish riot police.
Nick Abensour.
Oh, God, what will they do to him?
“Some of the signs were in Kurdish. Palamut’s threatening terrorism charges—pretending the protesters are PKK.” The executive makes a face. “Those poor bastards.”
Penny feels like her throat is closing. “Yeah.”
“Sir.” A flight attendant stands over them. “You need to put that phone in flight mode.”
Penny grips the armrests. She gave Nick Abensour the only proof she had. There’s nothing left. Was Melek behind the arrests? Winthrop? Christina?
She realizes with a jolt that the plane is already arcing up into the air.
Istanbul falls away beneath them. And then it’s gone. She can never go back. Not while Palamut’s in power, and that bastard will rule until he dies.
“You look gray,” Connor says, laying a hand on her arm. “You’ve got to try and rest.”
* * *
Six hours later, Penny stares through the condensation on the oval window, out at the blank darkness, miles above the sea.
Beside her in seat 39A, Connor sleeps heavily, still on major painkillers. His bandaged hand is braced in the sling against his chest, rising and falling with his slow breaths. The young Turkish executive snores like a congested rhino. One of the Mission: Impossible movies plays silently on his little seatback screen—tiny harmless explosions, blood that’s really nothing but red pixels.
Wrapped in her blanket in the desiccated half-light, Penny feels hot and strangled. As long as she held on to hope, as long as she believed some justice would come out of this, she could bear it.
But now?
She fought. She survived. She did the right thing. And none of it made a goddamn bit of difference.
So much for truth.
The clouds are pale pink now. She can see trees and houses far below. America. She’s home.
* * *
WASHINGTON DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
08:39 LOCAL TIME
“Alex is meeting us near baggage claim fourteen,” says Connor, as they head out of passport control and into the international-arrivals area.
Penny nods numbly.
“Penny.” Connor grabs her shoulder, pointing at the TV suspended from the ceiling. “Look.”
The TV is set to CNN. A green-and-black graphic swoops across the screen: The Abensour Files.
“Breaking news in the scandal now rocking the administration,” says the pancaked anchorwoman, eyes wide. “Last night, BBC journalist Nick Abensour was deported from Turkey. Less than an hour ago, he broke what many are already calling one of the most explosive stories of the decade. A thumb drive Abensour miraculously recovered near the wreckage of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara allegedly implicates senior U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Robert Winthrop, in the illegal supply of weapons to the Hashashin terrorist group, possibly including the actual bomb used in the devastating attack in Ankara on the Fourth of July. We take you live to David Zhang in Istanbul.”
“Thank you, Meg.” Zhang is clutching a microphone in front of the Kempinski. “This is shocking. Secretary Winthrop has been recalled from his scene of triumph at the NATO Summit in Istanbul. Leaders on both sides of the aisle have already issued statements demanding Winthrop’s immediate dismissal. So far, no word from the White House. The State Department has refused to comment, but it’s pretty obvious: if the Abensour Files are authenticated, losing his job will be the least of Secretary Winthrop’s problems. In fact—”
“Sorry, David,” interrupts the anchorwoman, “we’re getting exclusive breaking news from Howard Hennessey, outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Howard?”
The screen splits in three.
“Meg, I can’t believe what we’re seeing here.” Hennessey can barely contain his excitement. “This is unprecedented. Christina Ekdahl, a very senior CIA official implicated in the scandal, has just been escorted from CIA headquarters by multiple police cars. According to sources, she may be facing not just civil but criminal charges—”
Connor turns to Penny. “You didn’t . . .”
She smiles. “Of course not.”
He pulls her into a hug. “I take my eyes off you for five minutes . . .”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “Miraculously recovered.”
“He must just have good luck.” Penny slings the American flag backpack over her shoulder. “I’m starving. Let’s go.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Piers, who has stuck by me since the reign of Richard III. Thank you to Rick for dedication and a leap of faith. I never imagined eastern Bulgaria would be the place where dreams come true. Thanks to Jo, Nita, Sally, Emily, and everyone else who has helped Liar’s Candle become a book. DITD was there from the start. JKCF helped give me the freedom to try. Many thanks and much love to the London Wing. Elizabeth Hunt Davis Mazzocco was a wonderful mentor, a dear friend, and a “kindred spirit.” She never saw this book, but she helped make it possible. Thank you to the FSOs who serve with integrity and humanity, often in hardship. To my professors, classmates, friends, and neighbors in Turkey: your courage and kindness remain an inspiration. My mother raised me to be a writer and showed me how to be brave. She stood by me every step of the way. This book is for her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© ROSANNE DARYL THOMAS
AUGUST THOMAS began her first novel, Liar’s Candle, at age twenty-three. Fluent in Turkish, she has traveled and studied in Turkey as the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and holds Master’s degrees from Boğaziçi, Istanbul’s top public university, and the University of Edinburgh. She also has two degrees from the University of Massachusetts. A travel writer as well as a novelist, she lives in Massachusetts.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by August Siena Cohn Thomas
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First Scribner hardcover edition April 2018
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Interior design by Jill Putorti
Jacket design by Christopher Lin
Jacket photographs: Mosque © xavierarnau/E+/Getty Images; Birds © Volanthevist/Moment Open/Getty Images; Woman © Ildiko Neer/Arcangel
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thomas, August author.
Title: Liar’s candle / August Thomas.
Description: First Scribner hardcover edition. | New York : Scribner, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017061722| ISBN 9781501172847 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781501172854 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781501172861 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501194320 (pbk. (export))
Subjects: LCSH: Espionage—Turkey—Fiction. | Diplomatic and consular service, American—Turkey—Fiction. | Terrorism—Turkey—Ankara—Fiction. | Terrorism investigation—Turkey—Ankara—Fiction. | Intelligence officers—Turkey—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction
Classification: LCC PS3620.H62464 L53 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061722
ISBN 978-1-5011-7284-7
ISBN 978-1-5011-7286-1 (ebook)
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