The Siren's Sting

by Miranda Darling

  Stevie knew he was right but said nothing. They had bought some time; sometimes that was everything. Whether Krok decided to come after Issa out of spite was an unknown. It might depend, Stevie thought, on how many distractions Krok had . . . All she could do now was deal with the matter at hand.

  ‘Marlena, we have to get them off the island. I’ll need the Zodiac. We need to get to the mainland.’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘Right now, Krok has no idea what has happened; when he investigates, he will hear that the carabinieri were behind the raid. No one on the island saw the boat or our faces. Things will be worse for everyone if Issa and Farouk don’t get away tonight. It’s just a few more hours.’

  Marlena said nothing, conceding the point. The father and son were evidence. The further away from her they were, the better. She nodded.

  ‘Call me when you’re done with it. I’ll meet you at the port.’

  ‘We’ll need warm clothes, food, drink and lots of petrol,’ continued Stevie. ‘I can do food, but the petrol might be a problem.’

  Issa woke from his trance. ‘I can do that,’ he said. ‘I have tanks of it in the hotel stores. The generators run on petrol. Alberto will bring it.’

  ‘Alberto?’

  ‘I would trust him with my life.’

  Stevie said, ‘Well, that is exactly what you will be doing.’

  Issa made the call. Stevie changed into warm, dry clothes, a waxed jacket in olive green, jeans. She ferreted around in an old cupboard and found some old corduroy trousers that had once belonged to her for Farouk, and an old ski parka. For Issa, she found a slightly torn windbreaker and a woollen vest. ‘The wind will make it cold out there.’

  Stevie hunted out the old sea charts from her grandfather’s study. Her plan was to head for Genoa under the cover of night. It was a huge port, busy with ships and ferries and crafts of all sorts. Their arrival would go unnoticed. From there, she would arrange for Leone to meet her. He could drive from Turin to Genoa in less than two hours; she would ask him to take Issa and Farouk to his home in the countryside until she could think of a better plan. They would be safe there.

  ‘Marlena, did you know Krok had taken the boy?’ Stevie asked suddenly.

  Marlena stared at her for a beat then shook her head. ‘If you don’t look, you don’t find.’ Then her expression changed and she added, ‘No, I didn’t know until you asked about him and I made my inquiries.’

  Stevie turned to Clémence, her eyes holding the same question.

  Clémence looked away, her eyes filled with tears. She did not shake her head.

  Stevie took one of Marlena’s cigarettes, lit it and inhaled deeply, willing serenity.

  ‘He’ll find you eventually,’ Marlena said. ‘You won’t be safe. None of us will be.’

  Stevie looked at her, not wanting the boy to hear this. But, thankfully, he had fallen asleep in his father’s arms. ‘I know that,’ she replied. ‘But this will do for now.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then we will think of something.’

  Marlena leant back and lit a menthol, an incongruous figure, more snake-like than ever in her wetsuit. ‘Krok must go,’ she said, exhaling a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘It’s the only way we will be safe.’

  Stevie looked at her. She was right of course, but what was she suggesting? An assassination?

  She read Stevie’s thoughts. ‘Oh no. We won’t get near him again. Clémence was in the prime spot and even she failed.’ Here she looked at her sister, who glanced guiltily at the beautiful, sleeping Farouk from time to time.

  Clémence looked up at Stevie. ‘I will do anything,’ she said, ‘anything at all to take him down. He turned me into a monster like him—and I didn’t even realise it.’

  ‘We won’t get near him.’ Marlena ignored her sister. ‘But I know people who can.’

  ‘What sort of people?’

  ‘Let’s just say, they’ve been after me for years but they’ve never been able to get me for anything.’

  ‘The police?’

  Marlena smiled, her diffidence returning. ‘The police . . . I suppose you could call them that. They are a joint taskforce dedicated to eliminating international criminals—arms dealers, drug dealers, people smugglers, terrorists, and those who supply them.’

  ‘Pirates?’ suggested Stevie.

  Marlena laughed. ‘And pirates. They once offered me immunity if I told them everything I knew about Krok. He’s at the very top of their list but they can never get him.’ She tapped the fine tip of ash that was growing at the end of her cigarette. ‘Or me. But I think we might just be able to get them to do our dirty work for us.’

  ‘Do you know enough for them to take the bait?’ asked Stevie cautiously.

  It was Clémence who replied. ‘Between the two of us, we know everything there is to know about that man.’

  Stevie downed her grappa and made a face. She could never get used to the local firewater, but it certainly warmed the cockles. ‘So,’ she said, ‘how do we whistle up this taskforce?’

  Marlena leant in. ‘It’s not safe to use phones or any other electronic communication devices. Krok has extraordinarily advanced eavesdropping technology pointed their way, with programmes designed to pick up on key words, phrases, names and so on. But I have other ways of contacting the man we need. He is in Baku. You’ll need to go there.’

  ‘Azerbaijan?’ Stevie raised an eyebrow. ‘And you?’

  Was she walking into a trap?

  ‘I’ll meet you there. We’ll draw less attention that way, and it appears I’m not wanted on your little boat trip so . . .’

  Stevie finished the rest of her grappa. ‘Baku it is, then.’

  The night was calm and clear as the three fugitives set off. Stevie kept her eyes on the soft glow of the compass and prayed for safe passage; Issa stared into the blackness, his arms cradling the sleeping Farouk. With the Costa Smeralda behind them, the sea was quiet save for a few enormous car ferries lit up like skyscrapers, and the odd yacht or the occasional fisherman laying nets. Dawn rose as the northern tip of Corsica vanished behind them. The sea was silver and pink and there was not a ripple. The Mediterranean felt like a pond. Out to starboard there was a movement in the sea, rising humps of water . . .

  ‘Dolphins,’ shouted Stevie, grinning, and the boy awoke. ‘Look, Farouk, dolphins.’ A pod of around thirty were undulating their way west, tails sending up silver spray. They had the sea to themselves, as they had once at the dawn of time. It was a glorious sight and Farouk was smiling. That too was good. Stevie felt sure the dolphins were a good omen.

  The mainland of Italy appeared as a grey haze in front of them; it was not so much distance as the heat and pollution that caused the venerable old land to smudge on the horizon. With Issa’s help, they unbolted six of the engines as Genoa came into sight. The engines sank to the sea floor and, without them, the beast became a normal, if somewhat bigger and slightly misshapen, inflatable dinghy. The engines were easily replaced. Marlena would have to take care of that when she got the boat back. But with Krok out of action, she doubted engine repairs would raise any red flags. That was the genius of these crafts, she thought as a carabinieri launch passed by without giving them so much as a second glance; they operated completely under the radar. That reminded her . . .

  Stevie took out her phone and dialled the underpanted captain of the carabinieri. Stevie wanted to congratulate the captain on a job well done—his men had excelled themselves and brought great honour to the force. The whole of the Costa was grateful. Stevie would not let him ask a single question, her praise rolling over him. The missing boy had been found by his men and everyone was grateful. The boy was being sent to Corsica by ferry that evening to stay with an aunt.

  The chief managed to hide his confusion quite well, thought Stevie as she rang off. Hopefully he would go on to the next step and publicly take credit for Farouk’s rescue in the newspapers.

  She the
n made a second call, this time to Switzerland.

  ‘Stevie!’ Josie snapped when she heard her colleague’s voice on the phone. ‘I’ve been trying to call you. Where the devil have you been?’

  ‘Is David alright?’ Terror tightened at Stevie’s throat.

  ‘Out of the coma—the doctors are very surprised. He’s very weak but he can talk.’

  ‘Oh, thank god,’ she cried.

  ‘Some paralysis in the left leg,’ continued Josie, ‘but so far, so good.’

  ‘That is the second piece of good news today.’ Stevie smiled.

  ‘Where are you?’ Josie’s voice was sharp, but Stevie carefully ended the call without another word.

  17

  Having safely settled Farouk and Issa with Leone, Stevie caught a flight to London. Once in the city, she checked in at her favourite hotel by the park, The Gore, where she briefly debated calling Henning to apologise for being so abrupt in Zurich. He had been wonderful with David . . . and yet her message would still be the same, wouldn’t it? Leave me alone.

  She ordered a vodka and tonic from room service and kicked off her sandals. When the drink arrived, she took a large sip and decided that she should definitely leave things as they were.

  The next morning, she went back to Heathrow and bought a ticket to Azerbaijan. London to Baku was a direct route for British Airways, thanks to all the oil rig workers and oil men who came and went every week. This also meant that, apart from a gingery grandmother with a gold tooth who came from Aberdeen, Stevie was the only woman on the flight. The other passengers were, to a man, tattooed, with large forearms, battered clothes and faces.

  She remembered the last time she had flown this route—from Baku to London—with a planeload of exhausted workers flying home for leave. When the inflight service began, the passengers had asked for Venezuelans or Bloody Marys. It was quarter past eight in the morning. Stevie had turned to the man beside her, a small, top-heavy oil man with stick legs that made him look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He was so tired that he fell asleep between drinks, always managing to wake when the stewardess passed to offer refreshments. During a bout of wakefulness, he had explained that a Venezuelan was named after a Venezuelan oil worker he had met on a previous trip home. This fellow had ordered a whisky and soda while waiting at the bar in the airport. It cost five US dollars and he only had a ten-dollar note. So he just drank two. Hence, two whisky and sodas were known as a Venezuelan.

  No one on today’s flight was drinking except Stevie and the grandmother from Aberdeen. The oil rigs had a strict ‘dry’ policy, so the drinking only happened on the flight home. For nostalgia’s sake, Stevie ordered a Venezuelan; the grandmother ordered a beer and raised her glass to Stevie in the aisle. Stevie raised one of hers in return and smiled, then she sat back and opened her peanuts. The in-flight entertainment began with the news. When oil prices came on the news, you could literally feel every ear in the plane prick up. It was followed by a showing of Garfield, an unusual choice for such a raw-looking bunch, although she did remember they had shown Harry Potter on the last flight, so perhaps it was some kind of airline policy to show children’s movies on this route. Perhaps anything with Steven Seagal might have roused unpredictable energies. Stevie reclined her seat, put on an eye mask and settled in to get some sleep.

  The man behind her snorted loudly, startling her awake. Just as she was making herself comfortable again, the man behind snorted again. After a few more sharp, gurgling intakes of breath, Stevie grabbed her napkin and turned to offer it to the snorter, muttering, ‘For goodness’ sake!’ A forearm the size of a Christmas ham was sitting on the armrest behind her. It was colourfully decorated with daggers and skulls and a fanged octopus with mammoth tentacles. On second thoughts, the snorting really wasn’t so bad. Stevie started on the second whisky and soda and settled in to watch the antics of an overfed tabby cat.

  One chicken Kiev and half a chocolate mousse later, they were flying over Georgia. Stevie craned her neck for a view of the gorgeous Caucasus Mountains, nature spinning glory despite man’s violent assaults on man in the valleys and troughs. The sun was setting fast, lighting the peaks a red gold. They were wild and deserted mountains, not a village to be seen. They would be over Azerbaijan shortly.

  It was dark by the time they started the descent. The city of Baku was spread below in uneven patches of light; the half-finished moon hung low and orange, and the Caspian was so still it reflected the moon like a spotlight. Poisonous-looking clouds the colour of lint hung in dense, eerie clumps. The reflected moon was bright enough to see the oil tankers lined up in rows on the silver lake, waiting to take their fill. She felt a shiver of excitement: this part of the world held so much fascination for her because of her grandmother’s time in Persia, and her mother’s—and who could not be transfixed by a place where Zoroastrians and caviar and the currents of history collided? The Great Game had been played out here, and in so many ways it was still being played . . .

  Marlena and a hard blond man were at the airport to meet her. Marlena did not introduce the man, who had muscles like brick and a stare as hard, and Stevie did not ask. He was obviously the man they had come to see. Their driver—could his name really be Jumanji?—sped like a demon along the highway towards the city. Through the tinted windows of the black four-wheel drive, Stevie saw a huge oil derrick—known as a ‘nodding donkey’—made out of neon lights advertising one of the plethora of petrol stations on the road. It felt a bit like Las Vegas—or at least, the way Vegas must have felt when it was just a desert outpost servicing GIs.

  ‘Nice flight?’ Marlena asked, finding the question amusing.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ Stevie replied, suddenly feeling quite worn out. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I thought dinner in a caravanserai . . . Do you want to go to your hotel first?’

  Stevie was longing for a shower and said so. They were driving through the old part of town, surrounded by intricate Moorish-style buildings; they passed a giant ‘boom’ mansion, now the headquarters of the Azeri national oil company. By the early twentieth century, half of the world’s oil production was supplied from Baku, and like bees to the sticky black honey-pot came the Rothschilds, the Nobel brothers, Persians, Russians, Jews, Armenians . . . They built great ‘oil boom’ mansions in the city, glorious stone structures with styles ranging from imitation-Versailles to Gothic gargoyles. Many were monogrammed with the initials of the oil barons who built them.

  They drove through an industrial wasteland called ‘Black City’ and the driver pointed out the Nobel brothers’ house. The once-grand mansion was now a ruin; the park around it was completely overgrown and roamed by wild dogs. A rusting slide and a dilapidated merry-go-round squatted in the front garden, looking sad and sinister as only once-jolly places can. Finally, the Maiden Tower rose ahead of them, and they pulled into a small square in front of a building made of blocks of creamy, honey-coloured stone. The hotel. ‘We’ll wait in the bar,’ said Marlena. ‘Don’t be long.’

  The water was steaming hot and plentiful. No trouble in Baku, where fire burnt just beneath the earth. Stevie felt the scalding shower cascade over her shoulders, releasing the knots. She turned the taps to icy cold, suppressing a squeal as her skin tingled in protest, then jumped out and towelled herself vigorously dry. The hotel had thoughtfully provided a thick-toothed wooden comb. Stevie picked it up and read the inscription: Greetings from Siberia. Wondering if it was convict labour or Siberian birch—or both— that the comb was advertising, she smoothed her mop of hair and applied her Louis Widmer moisturiser; there was no need to eschew the beauty essentials just because the situation was tense. Indeed, Napoleon, on the morning before Waterloo, said to his manservant: ‘Dress me slowly for I am in a hurry.’ Not that she liked to think of what happened to Napoleon at Waterloo . . .

  Stevie glanced at the bed, with its deep red terry-cloth spread with gold border, its black leather pillows, and hoped that sleep would be possible in a bed l
ike that. Someone had left the television on and, in the far corner of the room, Peter Andre was singing. When she looked back, the programme had changed: a man appeared to be strapping explosives to the belly of a female suicide bomber. Stevie hoped it was not an omen. She lined her eyes in black and strapped her knife to her calf. Then she pulled on a pair of dark grey jeans, black leather ankle boots with deceptively good grip and a flat heel, a T-shirt covered in indigo sequins and her navy safari jacket. Finally, she wrapped a pale grey scarf in raw silk loosely around her neck. She was ready.

  Marlena’s caravanserai was in the old town. Originally built as a rest house for travellers taking the Silk Road, the camel stables in the ancient stone courtyard had been converted to private dining nooks, decorated with carpets and flags—Nigerian, Venezuelan and Georgian—and having the great advantage that you could not be overheard. A gnarled fig tree grew at the centre of the courtyard, probably since the beginning of the world. It was bedecked with oil lanterns. Azeri musicians played in one of the alcoves and the scene was charming. The restaurant was, however, deserted. Marlena ordered caviar to start, shashlik to follow, and several bottles of wine.

  Marlena’s companion was a little more talkative within the privacy of the stone walls. His name, he claimed, was John. It may well have been. He was an American, probably. He ate with his hands, suggesting that he had spent time with the Bedouin. He also spoke Azeri, but not to the waiter, to whom he spoke Russian. Speaking Azeri would draw attention to himself here.

  Stevie looked at Marlena. Was this man the key to the problem? Where did they go to from here?

  Marlena’s expression betrayed nothing. She took a sip from one of the goblets that served as wine glasses, then smiled slyly and reached for her onyx cigarette case. ‘I’m getting married.’

  Stevie started. Her first reaction—which she was fortunately able to quash in time—was to ask, ‘To whom?’ Instead, ‘That’s wonderful,’ Stevie managed cautiously. Who knew what Marlena would say or do next?