It was the eyebolt in the bow that went. I heard a horrible crack, and then it ripped right out of the mahogany. Then I heard the cable warble and looked up as the wave passed over us to see the cable fly back at the Fox. It hit her middeck with a crashing twang. We were half-submerged at that point, but thanks to the scuppers, the engine was still running, so I flipped us back into neutral and then forward, carving a big turn as we pulled away, water gradually draining from the cockpit.
“You ready to bail?” I asked.
Meryem nodded.
“Me too,” I said. “Hang on.”
Chapter 42
I CARVED AN abrupt turn, banking high to encourage the flow of water out of the cockpit. It worked, saltwater streamed over the gunnel, but we weren’t out of the woods yet. Waves were coming at us from every direction and the sea was peppered with gunfire behind us. I turned the boat abruptly again, this time banking high in the opposite direction. More water left the boat, and as it got emptier, we got faster. I continued to zigzag like that, as randomly as I could, doing my best to make us as difficult to hit as possible.
The big rollers were good cover because they made us invisible while we were in their troughs, but I had to be careful to hit them exactly right to avoid flipping the boat. A forty-five degree angle of attack seemed to do the trick, except the waves and the bullets weren’t our only concern. They were readying the helicopter. Its top rotor had already begun to turn.
I focused my eyes ahead. The launch’s bow was seriously chewed up where the eyebolt had broken free. But we were still afloat. And the sun had begun to rise. If we could get far enough away from the Fox, we could begin making our way to land.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” I asked.
“Bodrum Peninsula.”
“Is there a torture chamber around here? A dungeon? Somewhere where in medieval times prisoners would be interrogated, maybe put to death?”
“Bodrum Castle,” Meryem said. “Its dungeon is very famous for such things.”
“That’s good news,” I said.
“Good news? Why?”
“Because if we can get there our problems may be solved.”
I glanced behind us. The helicopter, a silver Eurocopter judging by the enclosed tail rotor housing, was already aloft, speeding low over the rolling sea toward us.
“Search the boat,” I said. “We need a weapon.”
“Like the machine gun you dropped into the sea?”
“Yeah. Exactly like that.”
I glanced down at the left console and saw a red fire extinguisher clamped there. I bent down and unclasped it, feeling its weight in my hand. There was a second extinguisher tacked to the bulkhead of the boat.
“Pass me that one too!”
Meryem climbed forward and tossed me the second extinguisher. She didn’t look happy about it. She looked like she was losing faith. Regardless, I caught it and dropped it on the seat beside me. I didn’t know how much time we had. The helicopter was getting louder, its rotor wash thundering down. It was a Eurocopter. Probably a C-135. Not a giant machine, but a hell of a lot faster than our boat. A gulet was heeled in the wind in the distance. The traditional Turkish sailboat was a good seventy feet long, sunlight sparkling off her polished wooden deck. In the rising sun, she looked like a pirate ship before us. The moment I took my eyes off her, the bullets began to fly.
“Hit the deck,” I shouted.
I cut the wheel hard, powering the boat around. I was worried. Given that I hadn’t helped her, Kate now viewed me as a threat. And threats needed to be eliminated. Fortunately, though the bow of the boat flapped like an open box of crackers in the wind, we still had our maneuverability. But though we could dodge and dart through the waves, we were ultimately going to lose simply because there was nowhere to go. Not against a helicopter.
The Eurocopter came back around, strafing us again. I dived low, but both the stern and the deck took a beating. It wouldn’t be long before both the boat and our bodies would be riddled with holes. I cut the wheel hard to starboard, pulling a tight doughnut in the opposite direction to the one I had just gone. But this time I saw the water flooding the hull as we hauled over. There was little time.
The Eurocopter came around for a third pass. It lined itself up with us and I tried something new. Instead of dodging and darting, I headed directly for the helicopter. The pilot slowed two hundred feet out and we were face to face. The pilot rotated the bird a little to give the gunman a better angle. The shooter leaned out the door, one foot on the skid. From the squareness of his build I was pretty sure I was looking at Faruk. I continued to throttle forward, closing the gap.
The helicopter was in a perfect profile, thirty feet in the air, fifty feet off our bow, point-blank range. The pilot had fallen for the bait. The rising sun was in the shooter’s eyes. I stood and waved my arms in surrender. It gave Faruk pause. And that’s when I reached behind me and took hold of the fire extinguisher.
The top rotor was a tempting target, but it was the tail rotor that I wanted. That was the blade that kept the helicopter under control. And that was where I lobbed the fire extinguisher with all my strength. When it hit at first it seemed as if I had missed entirely. There was only a metallic clunk. Then a grind. And then all hell broke loose. The rear rotor housing buckled and the chopper started to spin. As the helicopter went round and round and the gunner went round and round, dizzily spraying lead as he spun down in a thunderous crash. Water exploded in a wave of white and the bird floated there for a brief moment before slowly filling with water and sinking into the sea.
I was pretty sure I saw Faruk swimming away from the sinking helicopter, but I didn’t stick around to greet him. Instead, I pushed the bullet-ridden launch forward to the hills of the Lycian Coast beyond.
Chapter 43
WE DIDN’T STAY in the launch. The Fox may have been a large yacht, but she was no slouch. There was a good chance she could catch up with our damaged boat. So we decided to abandon ship. The trick was abandoning the launch in such a way that they wouldn’t come after us.
Of course, abandoning ship also meant that we needed a ride. Fortunately, the closer we got to Bodrum, the more sailing ships we saw. Ideally, we wanted a ship without a radio, but I knew that was probably a pipe dream, so I looked for the next best thing—a gulet, not too fancy, but not too rough—a boat that might help a backpacker out. I found what we needed as we rounded a dry, rocky point, the Fox four or five miles behind us.
She was a solid gulet. An all-wooden boat, but without the sheen of the typical tourist vessel. She was moored in a small barren cove, but she was pulling anchor, and most importantly, she looked like her captain could use the money. I pulled up beside her, hailing her captain as he minded the anchor well. Meryem did the talking. Then the captain turned to me.
“Yes, yes, no problem,” he said. “I will bring you. You come with me.”
I let Meryem off onto the gulet, then piloted the launch straight up onto a tiny sand spit between two rocky outcroppings. I could have anchored her, but she was half full of seawater now and unlikely to stay afloat much longer, and the point was, I wanted her to be seen. Once I felt the sand beneath her hull, I walked the anchor onto the beach, and trailed my footprints off into the tall grass. I didn’t think the ruse would last for long, but even if it could distract Kate and her crew for a few minutes, it would help. After I’d sufficiently cluttered the beach with footprints, I waded back into the sea and swam to the gulet. A minute later we were under way, the gulet’s diesel engine throbbing with a staccato beat.
“Thanks,” I said to the Captain. “How long until we reach Bodrum?”
“With this wind, perhaps five hours or six,” he said. “You are my guest. Relax. Shower. Sleep. You like olives? I have olives. I have bread.”
“You don’t have to worry about us.”
“No, no. You are on a Blue Water Cruise now. I will give you the best of Turkey.”
When I looked up at t
he banner on his furled sail, I saw a telephone number and a painted boat. I had no idea what Meryem had promised to pay the Captain, but we were indeed on a Blue Water Cruise. I was salty and tired. If I was going to sleep, or bathe, or generally behave like a human being, I’d have to do it now, before we got to port.
I HAD ASKED Meryem whether she wanted to use the shower before me, but she had insisted that I go first. The shower was good. There was decent water pressure and the stall was wide enough for me to reach around and soap my back. The sea had calmed and the sun was out as well. The day was looking bright. Before I was quite done, Meryem entered the cramped bathroom. I turned off the faucet and grabbed my towel.
“Knock much?”
“I want to know about you and this woman, Kate Shaw.”
“You don’t beat around the bush do you?”
“If she is trying to kill me because of you, no, I do not beat around the bush.”
Meryem had a point. I cinched the towel around my waist.
“Last year my father went missing. I thought he was dead but he wasn’t. He’d been kidnapped.”
“This is a terrible thing.”
“Tell me about it. Kate and I worked together in China, trying to find him.”
“And at this time you became lovers, yes?”
“Lovers is pushing it. Like I told you, it was a onetime thing.”
“What happened after that?”
“She tried to kill me, and I handed her over to the CIA for questioning.”
“What happened to your father?”
“I’m still looking for him.”
Meryem looked me up and down. She was still wearing the same wet clothes, but there was no denying she looked good, hardened, yet at the same time vulnerable.
“I think there is more to it than this.”
“Kate says she had an affair with my father too.”
“Do you believe her?”
I thought about it.
“On some level, yeah. Yes, I do.”
“How does this make you feel?”
I laughed.
“How do you think it makes me feel? It makes me angry. Angry for my mom and angry at my dad and angry that on some level I bought Kate’s crap in the first place.”
Meryem seemed to think about it.
“Thank you, Michael. Thank you for telling me this.”
Meryem’s cheek had developed a bruise from when they had kicked her into the storage locker. I ran my finger over it. She lifted her chin toward me.
“Does that hurt?”
“No, it is nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Meryem had asked me what she wanted to know. Now I needed to ask her something. I needed to ask her about a situation that had been bothering me. A low-grade worry that wouldn’t quite go away.
“The man in Istanbul? Azad?” I said. “ What is he to you?”
“Not is. Was. Azad was a job. That is all.”
“Is that everything?”
“Yes.”
I stepped toward her, but she turned from me. I was closer, but I still wasn’t sure that I had the truth. I put a hand on her waist and turned her toward me. She was close, very close, her body tight with mine. I felt the warmth of her smooth olive skin, her rhythmic breath on my neck, her heart beating next to mine. I looked down into Meryem’s eyes. I knew that the truth was there, somewhere, and somehow, in that moment, our lips met. I kissed her, gently at first, then longer and more deeply, tasting her, feeling her there beside me. My hand was on her back, the other in her hair, and for those few seconds we were one. Then something changed. The boat was suddenly quiet. Meryem and I broke gently apart and turned to the porthole. The Captain had cut the engine.
I thought he might be raising his sails, but then I felt a large wave hit us on the port side of the ship in what had been a calming sea. And I knew what that meant. A wake. Then I heard another engine. It didn’t take long to see where it was coming from. The Fox. She pulled across our bow, men yelling in Turkish. Meryem put a finger to my lips.
“What are they saying?” I whispered.
“They are asking him if he has seen a launch.”
“Has he?”
“Yes. Yes, he has seen one.”
“That’s not ideal,” I said.
I listened to the talk from the deck above. Then the Fox rafted up against us. She had her bumpers down and there was a loud squeak as the air-filled plastic balloons contracted in unison. I knew that a boarding party would follow. We were in the head. There was nowhere to hide. I took Meryem’s hand and moved toward the door. The rear stateroom would provide more options. There were portholes there. Windows over the sea that could provide us with a way out. But Meryem put her left finger to her lips and her right hand on the doorknob. I heard footsteps above, and then the bumpers squeaked again. A moment later the Fox’s engines growled and she pulled away.
“How did you know they would go?” I asked.
“Turkish people believe that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” she said.
“Freud?” I asked.
“Yes. The psychologist Freud said this. It means that sometimes a thing is exactly what it seems. The Turkish people, many times they believe this. They saw the boatman and they believed him when he told him he had no passengers. So a cigar is just a cigar.”
“But he did have passengers. The cigar wasn’t just a cigar,” I said.
“No,” Meryem said. “It was not. In my experience, the Turkish people are often wrong about this. Freud as well. A cigar is never just a cigar.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
I put a hand on her waist, drawing her near.
“I think maybe this is not a good idea, Michael.”
“Maybe not, but is it such a bad one?”
“At this time, I think so, yes.”
Meryem gently turned her cheek and removed my hand from her waist and even though I really wanted to stay, I brushed past her and away.
Chapter 44
THE MOMENT HAD been lost with Meryem, but I was too exhausted to dwell on it. Instead, I lay down in the rear stateroom. I was out before my head hit the pillow, and when I finally awoke, several hours later, we had already reached our destination. Meryem stared out of the porthole.
“Bodrum?” I asked.
“Yes. We got here quickly. The wind picked up, I think. It was very strong.”
The harbor was filled with the masts of sailing yachts, white against the blue sky, but that wasn’t what made the harbor unusual. It was the castle. The fortress sat on a peninsula, its walls on three sides plunging directly down to the cliffs that sprung up from the sea below. It was an imposing structure, and its location high above everything else meant that not only would it be difficult to attack from the rear, it would be almost impossible to breach from the sea.
“Is that the place?” I said.
“Bodrum Castle,” Meryem said. “It is very old. Not so old as the temple of Apollo, but old. The knights from long ago, they built this castle.”
I stared up at the castle. It fit. I saw the tall rock wall around it and four towers, yachts moored all around the structure. I knew that Turkey was on the way to the Middle East, a good stopover point en route to the Holy Land, but I hadn’t imagined that there was enough call to build a castle. Still, there it was, testament to the knights who had built it.
I thought about Tesla. I thought about Bayazidi, a rogue sculptor, a champion of the arts. I thought about irony. The irony that the many orders of knights who were great plunderers, also had a legacy of keeping articles of great power safe. And then I thought about my shorts. I needed to get into my back pocket.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I shuffled forward and pulled on my shorts, reaching into my pocket to pull out a folded sheet of paper. Meryem recognized it immediately.
“How did you get that?” she asked.
“On the Fox. With Kate. She showed me this page from th
e journal. Then she asked me whether I needed anything else. I managed to tear it out while she pushed the triggers away from me.”
“So they do not have it. This page?”
“Not unless they made a scan. If we were lucky, they didn’t get around to it.”
I unfolded the wet page, brown ink running together in long rivulets.
“So what does it tell you?”
“Are you sure that’s the castle?”
Meryem looked at me like I was stupid.
“Yes, of course. There is no other castle here.”
“And are you sure the knights used it as a base, a stopover point to raiding the Holy Land?”
“What you call raiding, they called protecting, preserving in God’s name. But, yes, they used this place.”
“Then I don’t think there’s any question that Bayazidi was telling us something when he drew this.”
I displayed the page to Meryem. It was only a brown ink drawing, but the figure drawn there seemed almost alive. It was a figure of a man chained to a block wall, but Bayazidi had taken liberties. The man had lacerated skin and a torn ear, but most strikingly, he had the head of a wolf. Sharp incisors dripped saliva, the wolf-man staring directly at us with sad, pleading eyes, a collar around his neck and a manacle on each wrist. The worst part wasn’t the lupine head, or the manacles, it was the knife through the figure’s heart. Blood spurted in every which direction. Nobody could say Bayazidi didn’t have an imagination. The drawing was really creepy. There was a caption in Cyrillic below it.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“I think it is a Kurdish proverb,” Meryem said. “It says death.”
“What about death?”
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