Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  ‘I’ve spoken to every neighbour, every person I know who uses that little park – it’s only at the end of the street – anyone who might have been there that afternoon. Nothing. No one saw anything. I mean, how can you take a child to a park and then just lose him?’ She buried her face in Crowbar’s chest again.

  Crowbar let her cry.

  ‘Did you find Rania?’ she said, wiping her eyes.

  ‘No,’ said Crowbar. ‘Chrisostomedes has her.’

  ‘That asshole,’ she snapped, eyes flashing.

  ‘I’m pretty sure he has Alexi, too,’ said Clay.

  Hope gasped. ‘My God. Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, Hope. But I intend to find out.’

  She turned her face away, sobbing. ‘How could anyone…?’

  Crowbar walked her to the couch, sat her down. ‘Have you heard anything, had any communication from Chrisostomedes?’

  She straightened up, took a few deep breaths. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You will,’ said Clay

  Hope sleepwalked to the little open-plan kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee and one each for them. She wrapped her hands around the cup, clasping it to her chest. ‘We have to find him,’ she whispered into her cup.

  ‘Both of them,’ said Clay.

  ‘Both of them,’ said Hope. ‘How?’

  ‘Chrisostomedes’ rally starts in just over an hour. I’m going to pay him a visit.’

  Hope put down her cup and ran her hands through her hair. ‘How about some breakfast before you go?’ she said, trying a smile, failing.

  Soon the flat was filled with the smells of toasting bread and frying bacon. Crowbar hunched over a plate of fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes and hot buttered toast. Hope put a similar plate in front of Clay.

  ‘Delicious,’ Clay said, mouth full.

  ‘Playing house,’ she said, frying pan in one hand, spatula in the other.

  ‘Never played that game,’ said Clay, looking over at Crowbar.

  ‘It was fun, for a while.’ She topped off his coffee. ‘Until he started to hit me.’ She smiled wide, pulling back her lips in a full-on grin, anger there still in her eyes, the gap in her teeth clearly showing.

  Clay felt a distant fury start to simmer within him somewhere then wither on a chill gust of memory. There was no question now, none at all. He had to go back. Until he did, he would never be the man Rania deserved, never have the courage to look his own son in the eyes.

  Crowbar wiped the last of the egg from his plate with a corner of toast. ‘I’ve been looking into who owns what around here;’ he said, still chewing; ‘the two beaches where you found the buried cables.’

  ‘EcoDev wants to develop Toxeflora,’ said Hope. ‘Royal Crown, Erkan’s outfit, has already started to develop Karpasia,’

  Crowbar nodded. ‘Trace the majority ownership of both companies back far enough and where do you get?’

  ‘One’s a Greek Cypriot company, the other is Turkish,’ said Hope. ‘Neither government would allow common ownership.’

  ‘If there’s enough money to be made, anything is possible.’ Crowbar took a big bite of toast and a swig of coffee.

  ‘So tell me, Marie-Claude, for heaven’s sake. What’s the connection?’ Hope asked.

  Clay looked over at Crowbar, raised his eyebrows.

  Crowbar frowned. ‘It looks like EcoDev is owned eighty percent by a Cyprus-registered shell company, which is majority-owned by a Bermuda holding company. According to my contact, that holding company is owned by the Medved family.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Clay. ‘That’s why Rania’s been digging around in this.’

  ‘But Royal Crown is owned by Erkan, from what I’ve heard,’ said Hope.

  ‘Only partially,’ said Crowbar. ‘Proxy companies owned by Regina Medved have a controlling interest.’

  Hope gasped. Despair filled her eyes. ‘So that’s it,’ she said. ‘Of course. Kill them off, blame it on some mysterious illness, or just on general environmental decline, overfishing, disease, and your problems are gone. Up go the resorts, in come the tourists who will never even know what has been lost, happy in their ignorance, and the whole fat fucking economic balloon just keeps going up and up until there’s nothing left.’ She stood with her hands on her hips, breathing hard. ‘It’s so sad. It’s too much to take in. It’s so unbelievably cynical.’

  ‘And the other buried lines?’ said Crowbar. ‘What about those?’

  ‘The samples should have been analysed by now,’ said Clay.

  Hope’s face set hard. ‘Shit, I’d forgotten all about them.’ She opened her phone and dialled the laboratory. She spoke, waited, listened. Her face blanked. ‘Are you sure?’ she said into the phone. ‘Check again.’ After a while she put down her phone and stared past them.

  ‘What is it, bokkie?’ said Crowbar.

  Hope looked at him as if confused. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  They waited.

  ‘They say they never received any samples. That Maria never came in. They never saw her.’

  From outside on the street came the sound of dogs barking, car doors closing. Clay walked to the window and peered through the shutters. A police car was in front of the building. Two cops were walking to the front entrance.

  43

  The Illusion of Mercy

  Clay left Crowbar and Hope in the flat and took the stairs to the roof, emerging into the smoky calm of a winter morning. The rooftops of old Nicosia spread before him like a Cubist’s cry for help, a patchwork hide of red clay tile, exhaling chimneys and weeping water tanks, the whole carapace bristling with aerials, wires and cables. He found the fire-escape, descended two flights of creaking iron stairs and hopped across to the flat, tile-strewn roof of the neighbouring building. He struck east towards Ledras Street, paralleling the Green Line where the UN blue caps still conducted regular rooftop patrols across the old walled city.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Clay quickened his pace.

  Moving across the jumbled rooftop landscape, he could see people in the streets below, streaming towards the centre of the citadel. Some carried placards. Blue-and-white Greek flags flapped in the breeze. He could hear it now, too, that sound of excited people gathered together, voices cancelling, adding, echoing from the walls of buildings, channelled up like steam from the churning streets below. As he approached Ledras Street he could see a police cordon, strung out in a wide semi-circle around the Ledras Street bunker, the manned Greek Cypriot army outpost that looked out to the Turkish side of the city across a time capsule of mined and wired UN buffer zone. He crouched next to the lip of the building’s façade and scanned the rooftops. The police had taken up positions on top of at least three buildings that he could see. In bright-yellow reflective vests, they were making no effort to conceal themselves. On the Turkish side, another crowd was assembling, like an opposing army, Janissaries streaming towards the epicentre of the city, drums beating, red banners flying, crescent moons. Clay checked his Beretta, secured it back under his belt at the small of his back and pulled his jacket down on top. A ragged chant rose from the Greek side, built, then was drowned momentarily by the thrum of a low-flying helicopter. It was ten-thirty. Chrisostomedes was due to address the rally at eleven.

  At a crumbling concrete parking garage two streets from Ledras, Clay descended to the street and joined the river of people. Swept along, glad for the anonymity, he was now part of the crowd streaming towards the rally point. Some people carried banners or cardboard placards. A man carried a small boy on his shoulders. The boy wore Mickey Mouse ears and held a small Greek flag, which he waved back and forth. A young woman in a business skirt and tennis shoes walked beside Clay for a while, a pair of high heels swinging from one hand. She glanced up at him for a moment then disappeared in the crowd. Everywhere the excited voices and smiling faces of people expecting to be entertained. Ledras Street was packed as far back towards the old mote as he could see, hundreds of people facing the buffer zone. Flags whipped in the
breeze. A few young men had shimmied up lampposts for a better view. People lined the second-floor balconies of the storefronts, sipping tea as if watching a parade. A wooden scaffold stage had been set up not far from the border. It was draped in Greek flags. Behind, a lone Greek Cypriot flag flew from the army outpost. Clay worked his way forward through the throng, towards the stage. As he got closer, he could see the security cordon. Half a dozen men – big, bouncer types dressed in dark suits – patrolled a crowd fence that ringed the platform. More lined the approach to the stage stairs and milled in the small side street that led off the main mall. This was where Chrisostomedes would soon approach by car. The police would have cleared a back route for him, would hold it open for him when it was over.

  The crowd was chanting now, pushing towards the stage. Clay was close, perhaps ten back from the crowd fence. From across the divide, the sounds of the Turkish rally rose to greet them, horns and cymbals, voices joined in angry unison, drumming. The crowd surged forward. A young man moved past him, towards the border post. As he passed, he reached into a satchel slung over his shoulder and pulled out a bottle. He disappeared into the crowd.

  A cheer rippled through the air, clapping. Chrisostomedes had arrived and was moving towards the stage, his entourage in train, Rania not among them. He was dressed in a dark suit and tie. His hair shone in the sun. As he climbed the steps the crowd grew louder, the clapping more enthusiastic. He reached the podium and raised his arms.

  ‘Nicos, Nicos,’ they chanted.

  From the other side of the buffer zone, a Turkish chant rose until each drowned the other.

  Chrisostomedes raised a microphone, tapped on it with two fingers. The crowd quietened, letting the wave of Turkish noise sweep over them.

  Chrisostomedes started to speak. His tone was calm, like that night at the dinner table – rational, reasonable. In short, clipped sentences he spoke of friends, of the mother country, of enemies. Single, simple ideas. He stopped frequently. He basked in the applause that greeted each statement, each appeal.

  Clay worked his way forward until he stood four back, five metres from the stage. An easy shot on the range, but difficult enough surrounded by shifting, moving people. Chrisostomedes was building now, his voice louder, the tone more insistent, theatrical. Someone jostled Clay. He turned. The man beside him smiled, murmured something then stepped away, a stone the size of a plum clenched in his fist. Chrisostomedes finished a sentence. The exclamation point hung in the air, drifted across the rooftops. The crowd erupted into frenzied cheering. Chrisostomedes stood looking out across the crowd, watching the effect of his words on his countrymen.

  A sudden movement to his left sent Clay flinching instinctively right and down. A flash of orange flame, an arm whipping forward, a flaring arc smoking up towards the border post, sailing across the narrow no-man’s land. Then a burst of flame, the sound of an explosion, people screaming from the Turkish side.

  Someone yelled nearby. More projectiles curved into the air, stones, flaming bottles. Outgoing. Some landed short, smashed into the border post, others fell into the churning sea of demonstrators on the other side.

  And then that moment of confusion when people are still not certain that what their eyes see is actually happening. Those further back were still cheering, still chanting.

  Clay watched the first Molotov cocktail come in. It was a strong throw, a catapult shot perhaps, the bottle tumbling end over end, the flaming rag spinning out black smoke. He followed it as it arced up, reached its apex. The bottle seemed to hang there, waiting for Earth to pull it back down. Total time to impact: twice the initial velocity multiplied by the sine of the angle of trajectory divided by 9.81 metres per second squared (gravity). The calculations flashed in Clay’s head. Three seconds to impact. Clay counted it out, watched the thing hurtle in, held his breath.

  A man standing ten metres away disappeared in a flowerburst of orange flame. Glass scythed through the crowd. People fell screaming, bleeding. Others stumbled back, pushed up against the press of the crowd trying to move forward. Stones rained down, clattering off balconies, smashing roof tiles. Clay saw a woman go down, blood gushing from her forehead, a man crouch to tend her. Everywhere was panic. Unable to retreat, the crowd surged towards the stage, trampling the barrier, streaming into the alleyway, sweeping aside the security men. Chrisostomedes held his ground, the podium now surrounded with people, an island in a raging river. He was pointing towards the Turkish side, screaming into the microphone. Clay was almost at the podium now. Another Molotov cocktail sailed in. Clay watched it start its descent. It was coming straight for him. He dropped as the bottle crashed into the base of the podium, engulfing the platform in flame. One of the security guards stumbled, burning, stood waving his arms, then fell, disappearing under the crowd. The rush had become a stampede. Chrisostomedes was still on the stage, gesticulating madly as the flames climbed around him, smoke swirling thick and heavy now in the narrow street.

  Clay moved closer to the podium, held his ground against the surge of panicking bodies. Chrisostomedes looked down, the microphone still glued to his mouth, his jaw still working, the sound system still pumping out his words. He was looking right at Clay now, eyes flashing. Clay pushed forward to the edge of the stage, reached up through the flames, grabbed Chrisostomedes by the leg and pulled hard. Chrisostomedes crashed down onto the platform, bounced and hit his head on the plywood edge as Clay dragged him to the ground. The flat of his back hit the pavement with a thud, then his head.

  People streamed past, oblivious, blinded by thick smoke. Another volley of stones ripped into the crowd, clattered to the ground. The security men were gone, swallowed up. Clay jammed his knee into Chrisostomedes’ solar plexus and applied weight. Chrisostomedes opened his eyes, blood pooling around the back of his head.

  ‘Where is she?’ asked Clay

  Chrisostomedes winced. ‘You.’

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Clay leant into him. ‘Bullshit. She’s your house guest, remember?’

  Chrisostomedes grunted as the air left his lungs. ‘Whoever you are, you’re here illegally. You won’t get far.’

  Smoke swirled around them thick and blue. Clay pulled out the Beretta, pushed the barrel hard into Chrisostomedes’ forehead so he could feel the muzzle cutting into his skin.

  ‘You want to talk about illegal? You kidnapped and murdered Rania’s aunt. Let’s start there.’

  ‘You can’t prove that.’

  Clay pushed harder on the Beretta, brought his face up close. ‘Still want to be President?’

  Chrisostomedes’ eyes wavered. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he coughed.

  ‘How sure are you?’

  A drop of blood trickled across Chrisostomedes’ forehead. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t have her.’

  Another petrol bomb whooshed nearby. More screaming, more bodies flooding past, shadows in the smoke, voices raised now, shouting, Chrisostomedes’ entourage calling out to him, to each other. Clay was out of time.

  ‘Bullshit.’ Clay pulled back the Beretta, pushed the muzzle into Chrisostomedes’ left calf and fired. Chrisostomedes’ body jerked as the bullet blew through the muscle. He howled in pain, his voice lost in the stampede, just one more scream among hundreds.

  Clay pointed the smoking barrel at Chrisostomedes’ face. ‘Next time is the last time.’

  ‘I don’t have her,’ Chrisostomedes choked through the pain, terror in his eyes. ‘I … I sold her.’

  Clay pushed the gun into Chrisostomedes’ forehead again, felt his finger twitch on the trigger. ‘What the fuck does that mean, you arrogant son of a bitch?’

  ‘I traded her,’ he gasped. ‘To Regina Medved. For the reward money.’

  Clay sprang back to his feet, the implications of this staggering like a drunk through his brain. Of course. Now that Chrisostomedes no longer needed Rania to write his version of events, he’d cashed her in. It had been his plan all along, p
robably conceived and facilitated by Zdravko Todorov, each one thinking that they were using the other, probably congratulating themselves on their cunning. Jesus Christ. Made for each other.

  Clay raised the Beretta, aimed at Chrisostomedes’ head, tightened down on the trigger, rage burning inside him. Clay watched his eyes open wide then close, as if eyelids could deflect bullets. Flames reached out from the stage. People stumbled past in the smoke, ghosts. Time slowed. Projectiles rained down in graceful arcs, the din of their impact filling his head to empty it. And it was like the last time, the flood of debilitating conscience, mercy’s childhood grip still tight despite the dulling. His hand shaking violently now, the screaming so loud that he could no longer tell what was real and what was in his head. Then, just a few months ago, he’d walked away, let Zdravko live. And everything that had happened since, all the death and the killing yet to come, was a direct result of that single decision. Mercy. Another illusion.

  Shouting close by. The shape of someone moving through the smoke towards the podium. Chrisostomedes opened his eyes, looked up as if unsure why he was still alive. A voice calling now in the smoke, very close. Another.

  Clay took a deep breath, braced his arm with the crook of his other elbow and aimed between Chrisostomedes’ eyes. ‘Nicos,’ he said. He wanted him to see this.

  Chrisostomedes opened his eyes, looked up at the gun.

  ‘Where is Bachmann’s son?’

  Chrisostomedes’ eyes fluttered a moment. He opened his mouth as if to speak, what Clay imagined to be a vowel – was it I? – forming on his lips. And then his eyes rolled up in his head and he was gone, from the pain, from the fear, or both.

  Clay held the gun there for a brief moment, tried to breathe. Then he shoved the handgun into his jacket pocket, spun around and walked away into the noise and smoke.

  44

  The Only Thing That Mattered

  At first he walked, tried to stay calm. Tried to think.