“Oh.” With effort I climb back to my feet. All those mustached faces follow me as I walk back out into the light.
Libarid
He stretches out his leg under the next seat so the aluminum bar won’t cut into his skin, and as the hijacker returns to his post near Zrinka’s guard, Jirair leaves the cockpit and comes back to him.
The hijacker leans close and speaks in Armenian. “Who’s that girl?”
“I don’t know. I’d never met her before.”
“Is she a spy?”
Libarid looks up at this earnest, confused face. He’s young, maybe twenty-eight, and Libarid almost feels sympathy for him. “If she is, I wouldn’t know.”
“She’s frightening.”
When Jirair straightens and steps back, Libarid draws the bar from his pants leg, watching the bald head of Zrinka’s guard, and wonders if he’ll ever see his family again. Then it hits him-he wasn’t going to see them again anyway. A simple realization, but only now, minutes before risking his life, does the reality of never seeing his son again crystallize in his head. He’s spent the last months and years thinking of what he would gain by leaving, and that he’d only lose the tedium, as if a life lived alone is a joyride.
Unbelievable, he thinks as he listens to Jirair breathe heavily a couple paces behind him. Zara learned from her Bible that what we do affects others to a degree we can never predict. What would his abandonment do to Vahe?
What kind of man is he?
He forces the question from his mind, because Zrinka’s big guard is standing, reaching out.
“Sit down,” Jirair says, then takes a step forward. Zrinka’s guard reaches for the one nearest him, a quick arm around the neck, and Libarid swings the aluminum bar into Jirair’s legs. The Armenian tumbles, and Libarid, low, throws himself on top of him.
There’s a gunshot from the third one, in the other aisle, and screams follow. Libarid brings the bar down on the back of Jirair’s head with strength-he feels the skull give. Ahead, the Ministry man has broken the other’s neck and is rising with his pistol, shooting over heads at the third one. One bullet throws the hijacker back on top of a screaming woman, while a second snaps through a window.
A great sucking sound.
Libarid’s ears pop and he can’t hear a thing as, crouching, he runs forward. The floor tilts and he stumbles past the guard, who’s lying with blood pulsing from his shoulder but alive. From seats, disconnected arms reach out to grab him. He pushes past them to the cockpit door, where a stewardess is screaming something he can’t hear.
Then he pulls open the door and sees her. Those eyes. And for the first time, there’s something like surprise all over that beautiful face. Surprise and real, clear terror.
Gavra
Gavra hailed a taxi from the sidewalk outside Ataturk International Airport and took Adrian to the only Istanbul hotel he’d ever stayed in, the Erboy. On the ride, Adrian acted like a giddy child as he peered out the window at the ship-lights on the Sea of Marmara. “My first time here,” he said. “But you know it pretty well, I guess.”
“I know it well enough,” Gavra said, though at that moment he felt like he didn’t know it at all. The dilapidated buildings they passed, and then the Aya Sofia-they all seemed different now.
He registered them at the front desk, while Adrian picked up a complimentary copy of the Herald Tribune. Then they went up to the room, number 305. Gavra had noticed it on the key ring, then in the elevator looked at it again to be sure. He felt an urge to return to the front desk and ask for a different room but changed his mind. He didn’t want to be superstitious.
While Adrian showered, Gavra opened the window and looked down Ibni Kemal, the busy restaurant row behind the hotel. He still had no answer to the why of what he was doing. Did he really believe that Zrinka Martrich possessed the powers her brother had told him about? He didn’t know, but if it were true-if he did believe-then what about Adrian himself? Was it possible he had the power to influence people around him? Could he influence Gavra into committing an act he still could not entirely understand?
Adrian came out of the bathroom wrapped in a white towel, his wet hair flat over his forehead. “What?” he said.
“They’re going to come after us,” said Gavra. “Ludvik Mas, the man who tried to kill you before. He’s going to come after us.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because we all did what we were supposed to do.”
Gavra sat on a chair as Adrian used the towel on his hair, standing naked by the bed. “What does that mean?”
“You haven’t been listening, dear,” said Adrian. “I did what she asked me to do. And you did what I asked you to do-you passed on the message to Brano Sev. She told me that if these things were done, you and I would be in no danger here.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged and brought down the towel. “Because she said so. Just accept it. You and I, we’re on vacation. That’s all.”
“How do you know she wasn’t wrong? Or that she didn’t lie?”
Adrian went back to drying his hair. “My sister’s entire life since the age of fifteen was about protecting me. She was more of a mother than my mother ever was.”
Gavra unbuttoned his shirt. “I need a shower, too.”
“Water’s hot,” Adrian said as he unfolded the newspaper and began to read.
Under the water, he worked again through all the details of the sister who had protected her brother since the age of fifteen. He pictured young Adrian and his pretty sister living in a clapboard house full of fear and pain.
“Listen to this,” Adrian said from the other side of the curtain.
“What?”
He read from the newspaper. “Last Saturday’s speech at the Interpol International Conference on Crime and Cooperation in Istanbul by Swedish delegate Roland Adelsvard continues to send ripples through the international arena. Adelsvard accused Soviet Bloc countries of funding terrorist cells throughout Western Europe and America in order to disrupt the functions of democratic nations. Of particular focus was General Secretary Tomiak Pankov of-” He stopped. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah,” said Gavra as the water cooled over his skin. When Adrian continued reading, though, he stopped listening. The Swede was talking about what everyone in the Ministry knew but chose not to discuss, because no one wanted to know. Room 305. Disruption Services.
“Amazing, huh?” said Adrian.
“Yeah,” Gavra repeated.
By the time he turned off the water and wrapped the hotel towel around himself, something had occurred to him. He dripped all over the carpet when he came out to find Adrian stretched out under the sheets, the paper turned to the sports page. Gavra said, “It was you.”
“What was me?”
“Your parents. They didn’t kill themselves, did they? You did it, and your sister spent her life protecting you.”
Adrian raised himself on his elbows and cocked his head. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Adrian slid back down, sighed, and spoke to the ceiling. “At first, she believed she had done it. She really did. She believed that she had influenced me to kill them. Unconsciously or consciously, it didn’t matter. But that’s not true. I did what I felt was necessary. And she did what she thought was necessary as well. She allowed herself to be taken away. A saint, like I keep telling you.”
“But you were…what? Eleven?”
“Thirteen.”
“And you…?”
“They had passed out in the backyard, okay? Passed out drunk. I just made it look like they’d done it to themselves.”
Gavra sat on the bed beside Adrian’s feet. “You hid it from me.”
“I was supposed to hide it. For the moment, at least. I really wish you hadn’t figured it out.”
“Why not?”
Adrian shrugged at the ceiling lamp. “I must have said too much. You weren’t supposed to find out.�
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“Why?”
He sat up, staring past Gavra at the mirror on the wall. “But I didn’t say too much.” He looked at Gavra, his features twisted. “That was a guess, wasn’t it?”
“A hunch.”
“I can’t believe it,” he said, frowning. “She was wrong. Which means…” He started rubbing his ear. “The plane.”
Gavra stood again. He wished this man-this childhood murderer-would make sense. “What about the plane?”
Adrian peered at his reflection. “It’s possible…possible, mind you…that she made a mistake on the plane. I’d never considered that. Which would explain why it…”
“Blew up.”
Adrian nodded. “Do you see what I mean? There’s so much for her to keep track of. So many people, variables…so many unforeseen chance events. The brain isn’t wired for that.” He lay down again. “And now this. Our parents. You were not supposed to find out yet. We were supposed to have more time.”
This was enough. Gavra climbed on the bed and pinned Adrian down. Their faces were very close. “Stop speaking in riddles.”
“Kiss me first.”
Gavra did so. “Now tell me why I shouldn’t know about your parents. What difference does it make now? You’re not going to jail for it.”
Adrian cleared his throat. “Because, my dear, I am a murderer. And that knowledge will change everything for you. Not yet, no, but soon. The love you feel for me-and if she was right, it is love-will crumble.” He paused. “Before this moment, I was elusive, a mystery to you. But that allure will start to fade, and you’ll begin to wonder why you’ve thrown away your life, and your good career, for a simple butcher like me.” He swallowed, blinking. “You’ll think back. You’ll start to imagine me, as a child, murdering my parents. And you have a good imagination. You’ll wonder what kind of creature could do such a thing and then live his life as if nothing had happened. I won’t be a mystery anymore; I’ll be a monster.” He swallowed again, a sound like choking, then whispered, “And then, my dear, you’ll do what you were ordered to do by Brano Sev. You’ll kill me.”
“No,” said Gavra, because that was unimaginable. He kissed Adrian’s forehead. “I’d never kill you.”
Adrian smiled. “We can hope she’s wrong about that, too, can’t we?”
They kissed, and neither was surprised when Gavra’s tears dripped onto Adrian’s cheeks.
“It’s all right,” said Zrinka’s brother. “Really it is. By that time we’ll have had a good run, such a good run. You’ll have enough memories to last you a lifetime. Because in the end, a life doesn’t require so many, does it?”
Zrinka
The details. The details. If only I’d let that fat guard rape me, then we wouldn’t be here. But my reaction was a reflex, as with any woman, and I told Petrov that I knew about Sasha, that we all knew that he had fondled his son years ago. He believed no one knew about that. But I did. I know everything.
That’s not pride talking.
As Jirair walks me to the cockpit I work back over the details. I’ve called the hotel and Adrian, yes, I’ve told him everything. That side is taken care of. If he follows the instructions-if — then my brother will be free. He’ll be liberated. And Gavra will remember that he once loved a beautiful man who slipped away in the night. Like names on a list, I can see them all so clearly that it cannot be wrong. Peter Husak, the easiest of all to control-the liars always are-will lie dead in his hotel. A kind of liberation as well. He will get what he deserves from the person he deserves it from-Katja Drdova-and in the process save my brother. She will save herself as well.
And this militiaman, Libarid-a good choice. A frightened man will do nothing, will sit and remain calm and make no trouble because he wants his own liberation too much. He wants the peace of solitude and many many women. But the hatred-the family history in Turkey-how did I not see that? No, it won’t change a thing. He’s just right, so at the cockpit door I give him a smile and mouth It’s okay, just to let him know he’s the right one for me.
And we’re inside.
“What is this?” says Emin in his own language, turning from the radio and ending contact with the ground.
Oh, the fear is everywhere. Emin is covered in it, poor man. This will sicken him. This act. Afterward he will no longer trust himself, and he will land smoothly at Ataturk International and give himself and his men up. After a childhood like his, and then killing a woman like me, everything will be undermined. I hate myself, he will say, just like I say it every day.
I’ve got it right. I swear I’ve got it right.
If the numbers are right.
They are. They must be.
But there’s so much to keep track of.
The two Turkish pilots are no trouble. None. They’re crouched in their seats wishing for nothing more than to see their children again as Emin grips that suitcase with the button on its handle that, if pressed, will send a brief shortwave pulse to the gray suitcase in the baggage hold. To the blasting cap embedded in the six pounds of C-4 explosive Peter Husak passed to him in the restaurant of the Hotel Metropol.
He repeats himself. “Jirair, what is this?”
What I’ve said has terrified poor Jirair. How can she know? What is this woman? So he will leave us in peace for it to be done.
“This woman, she needs to speak with you.”
“What?” says Emin. He’s had trouble keeping control of his frightened men these last several days and says what I know he’ll say: “Get her out of here. I don’t have time for her.”
Because he doesn’t remember me. Because all I said to him was Excuse me, but are you Armenian? I have a cousin who’s Armenian and watched as he tried to get rid of me. Watched and learned.
Jirair isn’t sure what to do, and so it’s time for me to speak. Calmly, now. Don’t show a thing.
“Your father told you the stories, Emin. He told you about what happened in Trebizond on the Black Sea coast, back in 1915. One day, the streets were filled with Turkish soldiers holding bayoneted rifles, who searched the Christian Armenian houses for weapons that did not exist. The town crier told the inhabitants that in four days all Armenians-there were about a thousand in Trebizond-would be evacuated for the duration of the Great War, and that any Muslim caught hiding an Armenian would be killed by hanging.”
His grip on that briefcase is loosening. Slowly now. Down to a whisper.
“Your father was ten years old at the time of the march inland, and he told you that when people fell behind they were bayoneted and tossed into the river, which would wash them back out, past Trebizond, to the sea. The river was choked with bodies that had caught on branches, the stink of decomposition hovering over their long march. Your grandmother fell during that march, was stuck through with a bayonet and tossed into the water; four days later your grandfather was shot. Your father escaped from an internment camp in the desert, where the starving rolled in the sun, cut apart by dysentery, and made his way back to Trebizond, where he found an apartment picked clean by Turkish peasants. Even the linoleum had been ripped from the floors.”
The surprise on Emin’s face-wide-eyed, mouth gaping-is almost comical. Don’t laugh. Don’t smile.
“That wasn’t the end, because your father and other stray boys were gathered and auctioned off to Muslim families so they could be converted to Islam. Again he escaped-which was lucky for him, because in the coming weeks even the converted Armenians were shipped off to their deaths.”
Emin’s face is apoplectic, shifting through emotions. All the power he’s been trying to sustain leaves him quickly. Right. His eyes are wet, but he’s not crying. Not yet. He says, “What are you, a spy?”
“That’s exactly what I am,” I tell him. “A spy into your soul.”
Emin turns abruptly to Jirair. “Go.”
Jirair leaves and will walk back to the corner where Libarid is sitting in terror. They will speak, but briefly, because Jirair wonders who I could be-what I could be-and Lib
arid will sympathize with his confusion. That’s the nature of this. Confusion. With confused people you can do anything.
“Who are you working for?”
“For so many people, Emin. For Wilhelm Adler.”
“Wilhelm? But he’s…”
“He was never on your side. He works with Ludvik Mas, as do I. Remember that name. Ludvik Mas.”
He dwells on that a moment, and it connects to a memory he has of an early girlfriend, Yeva, whose father sabotaged their relationship, turning the young lovers against one another. “You’re here to ruin me,” he says.
“Yes, I am.”
He raises his gun to the side of my face, presses the cool barrel into my cheek.
Do it.
He won’t do it yet. Shooting a woman is not what he’s come here to do.
He must be forced.
“Yeva was a bitch. You know she was.”
“What?”
Keep him confused. “I’m not scared of you. Yeva wasn’t scared of you. No one is. Go ahead, pull the trigger. Your bullets can’t hurt me.”
This close, his face is coarse with all the sweat.
I spit into it.
He snaps back as if bitten, furious now. He’s going to do it. I know he will. First he’ll try to get answers wherever he can.
He steps back and snatches the radio handset. He’s weeping now. “She told me,” he says. “How did she know?”
“What did she say to you?” asks the radio.
“They’re lying,” I say quietly. “They know me.”
He peers through teary eyes at me as he speaks into the radio. “Just that…that…” He raises the pistol.
A gunshot.
But not his.
Another pistol, from beyond the door.
No.
I grit my teeth as the numbers fall apart and then line up again.
Emin’s head jerks around. He squeezes the handle of his briefcase.
Out there among the passengers. Could only be Adam, my guard, or—
Childhood in Turkey. Slaughter by troops. Family on the run, then landing in a strange country with nothing to their name. Hatred grown old over the years and replaced by pragmatism. Pragmatism gives way to disappointment-where is the tough young man now? So he leaves the family, looking for that youth, and is put in the middle of a situation where he can rediscover that tough, angry young man.
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