by Ellis Shuman
“We will call it in soon enough. No need to report it before we get to Plovdiv.”
“But that is hours away! We should alert the police to stop the train. We have a very detailed description of the men. We know what they look like and where they’re going.”
“Listen, my Israeli friend. You have joined the investigation being run by the Bulgarian police force. We work in certain ways here. I would not dare call and report something if I wasn’t one hundred percent sure the information was absolutely accurate. Can you imagine what would happen if I alerted the Plovdiv police and this turned out to be a false alarm? Can you imagine that?”
“This is a hot tip, vital to the investigation!” she replied. “This may be our only chance to catch the bomber’s accomplices before they leave the country. We can’t afford to wait around until the train leaves the station.”
“First, we must ascertain that it is today’s train on which the suspects are traveling,” he said calmly. “Perhaps the hotel owner was mistaken. Maybe they will travel tomorrow, or the next day. We will check today’s train, of course, but I do not want to raise the alarm just yet. It’s not called for until we have more evidence.”
“It doesn’t make sense!”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“This could be our biggest lead so far. What if we don’t report this lead and the men escape to Turkey?”
“Nobody’s escaping, especially since we haven’t established where the suspects are.”
“I should update my team,” she said, looking at her uncharged phone in despair.
Boyko was acting impulsively, she thought, and quite irresponsibly. The decision to head straight for Plovdiv without informing his superiors—who did he think he was? Did he believe he could track down and apprehend the Burgas terrorists entirely on his own?
“Give me your phone,” she demanded, but he didn’t look at her. Instead he reached into his pocket and fumbled around for his last remaining cigarette.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Sorry, but I cannot offer you one.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“No? I thought all Israelis smoked.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I guess it is the stereotyped image I have of Israelis. Your men are tall and muscular. Macho men, all commandos in elite troops. And your women are short and gorgeous, with dark skin, just like yours. And, you all smoke.”
“I really don’t appreciate that.” She saw what he was doing. He was trying to take her mind off the urgency of reporting the lead they were following. He was joking in attempts to distract her, to calm her down. Yet, she couldn’t help but take his preposterous stereotyping seriously. She looked out the window, at the verdant countryside so unlike the much more arid scenery in Israel. “I don’t smoke,” she said, hoping he would drop the subject.
“I am only stating the facts.”
“You are stating your prejudices.”
“I am not prejudiced. I am a very open man, very accommodating. I happen to have a good friend who is a Roma. Do you know what that is?”
“Aren’t they gypsies?”
“Yes. The Roma are not particularly liked in our country, much like the Palestinians are not liked in your country.”
“Stop it! You keep throwing out these statements—I don’t know where you get them. This is diverting our attention from what is important, what we should be talking about. The case. Our plans. What we will do when we get to Plovdiv. Can you please give me your phone? I need to call my team and report the names we received at the hotel?”
“We will call them very soon. I promise you.”
“Can we stop?”
“Stop?”
“Yes, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“No, I do not think so.”
“What do you mean, you don’t think so? I need to pee.”
“You just want to stop to make a phone call. I see what you are doing. We cannot afford to make any stops if we want to arrive in Plovdiv before that train departs. There is not a moment to lose.”
“You’re being absolutely ridiculous!”
“No, I am being absolutely professional. This is an important case. Our governments are depending on us. We cannot miss the train.”
“I really do need to pee.”
* * *
Entering the Plovdiv train station, Ayala didn’t have a clue which way to turn. A myriad of signs directed passengers to the platforms and the trains, but the wording was posted in undecipherable Cyrillic letters. While she could understand basic Bulgarian, Ayala had never learned to read the language. Bulgarian script was as foreign to her as Arabic or Chinese. She stopped, confused, at the station’s entrance. Where would they meet the Istanbul-bound train?
“This way,” Boyko said, leading her toward one of the long, crowded platforms.
Ayala pushed past an overweight woman wearing colorful, stained skirts dragging on the cement. A young mother, wearing an oversized winter coat inappropriate to the season, clasped a naked baby to her chest. Three skinny, unshaven men smoked nervously near the platform’s edge. Two backpackers with long dreadlocks chatted with a teenager while consulting their Lonely Planet guidebook. A one-legged beggar hobbled along, his hand outstretched for alms.
Ayala’s eyes roamed through the waiting passengers. The men’s description, as provided by the hotel owner, ran through her mind. “One was short and muscular, with a round face. He was clean-shaven. In fact, he was bald and his head was shiny. Maybe he polished it after shaving? I remember he had these thick black eyebrows. That was the only hair on his face. The other one was skinny, but not as much as the American. He had dark-black hair, a goatee, and these mean eyes, the kind that keep staring at you. He was mean, that one.” Ayala could picture the men clearly in her mind, as if she had actually seen them herself.
The loudspeaker blasted out announcements of arriving trains and upcoming departures. Ayala followed Boyko as he made his way to the far end of the platform, but the men they were seeking were not there.
“It looks like the information we received was incorrect,” Ayala said. “We didn’t see the rented Fiat in the parking lot and those men aren’t anywhere around. Let’s call this in and see if the team has come across any new leads.”
“I have a feeling the suspects will be boarding this train, as the hotel owner suggested. We are in the right place at the right time,” Boyko said, although his worried look did not connect with his confident words.
A train appeared in the distance. A rust colored engine followed by long passenger carriages. As the train drew near, its whistle shrieked for several seconds. The people on the platform picked up their baggage and prepared to board.
“This is the train?”
“This is it,” Boyko responded. “Let’s move over there. We will be able to see the passengers as they board.”
With sharp, metallic screeches of catching brakes, the inbound train pulled to a stop. All along the platform passengers pushed and shoved, fighting for position. When the doors finally clunked open, arriving passengers emerged into the bright Plovdiv afternoon and forced their way through the rowdy crowd. Even before the last of them had disembarked, they were replaced by new travelers clambering up the steps.
Boyko and Ayala hurried along the platform. Workers, students, backpackers, and gypsies all boarded the train. Noisy teenagers, a very pregnant woman with a permanent scowl on her face, her three small children, an elderly mustached man with a cane, and two matronly women traveling together—they all fought their way into the carriages. But the two Middle Eastern men described by the hotel owner were nowhere in sight.
“They’re not here!” Ayala said with frustration. What a waste of time this has been, she thought. Her actions would have repercussions. She would be severely reprimanded for not reporting what she had learned at the hotel and for making an unsanctioned trip to Plovdiv. It would be embarrassing to report that she had chased the long-shot possibility of the su
spects traveling on a train bound for Turkey. She should have known better. She shouldn’t have allowed Boyko to decide where they would go, what they would do. They were supposed to work as a team!
She stopped in her tracks, letting him get ahead of her. Her shoulders sagged with the realization she had failed at this simple task. She had fucked up.
“There they are!” Boyko shouted, urging her down the platform.
“Where?”
“Near the end, at the last carriage,” he said, pointing toward the end of the train.
“I don’t see them!”
“They just got on. We must board the train.” He tugged her toward the nearest open door. A conductor stood to the side, calling on the last of the passengers to climb the steps.
“I’m not getting on the train!”
“Of course, we are getting on. The suspects are on board!”
“We need to report this.”
“We will report this once we are on the train. The police will stop the train before it reaches the border. Do not worry about that. Come! We must hurry!”
The narrow carriage was crowded; every wooden seat was taken. Suitcases and backpacks blocked the passageway; sacks overflowing with carrots and apples and lumpy boxes tied with twine made passage extremely difficult. The overhead compartments were stuffed; parcels were crammed between the seats. Those standing were in constant motion, either pushing forward or heading back toward the doors, everyone juggling for breathing space. The mass movement in both directions suggested that some of the travelers held out hope for vacant places elsewhere, perhaps just one carriage away.
Three lanky teenagers crowded together on a double seat, lost in a world of rap music pumped through their earphones. A gray-haired man wearing a wrinkled suit and tie blew his nose and stared out the window. A tired-looking woman with mascara smudges below her eyes searched desperately through her purse while a young girl tugged at her sleeve. One of the backpackers with the Rastafarian dreadlocks pulled out a guitar and began strumming lazily, accompanied by his companion’s humming. A man wearing a faded brown uniform safeguarded his tray of fresh eggs as though his life depended on it. The dark-skinned woman sitting across from him sorted through her possessions, making sure nothing had been misplaced during the journey. Many passengers seemed to have come straight from the market while others were piled down with a plethora of household goods.
“Excuse me,” Ayala apologized repeatedly, following Boyko as he shouldered past passengers in the aisle.
The doors shut. The wheels eased into motion. Slowly picking up speed, the train pulled away from the Plovdiv platform and began its journey south to the Turkish border.
Ayala joined Boyko at the end of the carriage. He ignored the warning painted on the glass and pulled open the sliding door to make his way through. As an afterthought, he held it open for Ayala so that she could join him in the space between the two cars.
“Oh, such a gentleman.”
“Do not get any wrong ideas about me,” he replied loudly, his voice nearly lost in the roar of the train. He opened the door to the next carriage.
The train took a curve, its wheels screeching loudly. Leaning with the turn, they again pushed through a throng of weary, agitated passengers until a conductor stopped them and asked for their tickets.
“Official police business,” Boyko said, pulling out his SANS ID card.
“What about her?”
“She’s with me. Foreign police. Very official.”
The conductor nodded and walked away while they continued through the crowded car and then through the next one as well. The train was now traveling at maximum speed, yet the countryside passed by the windows at an incredibly slow pace. Farms, lush green pastures, the occasional peasant on the back of a donkey. Picturesque rural scenery but Ayala didn’t have the luxury of regarding it with pleasure. She focused on the passengers, those sitting and those fighting for legroom in the aisle. She scanned the faces, rejecting each one in turn.
“This way,” Boyko said to her, as if there was another way to go. He pulled open the dividing door.
Another jam-packed carriage, more passengers to push past. Fatigued workers staring ahead without focusing on anything. Colorfully dressed gypsies, their hair held tight under faded headscarves, setting up encampments on the wooden seats and in the aisle. Wide-eyed children for whom the train ride seemed to be the adventure of a lifetime. A woman with a cackling chicken on her lap. A man with a weathered face, a scrawny goat at his feet tethered securely to his wrist.
One passenger uncapped a thermos of steaming coffee and poured it into small glasses for his fellow travelers. Plump, elderly women unpacked smoked meats, sharp cheeses, and dried fruit. Many of the passengers had brought along enough food to feed themselves for several days.
The smell was overpowering, a malodorous mix of frying onions, garlic, sweat, unlaundered clothing, and a possible trace of urine. Apparently it had been quite some time since these people last bathed! Ayala instinctively reached to hold her nose but the rocking of the train forced her to drop her hand and grasp the seat ahead of her.
“Second class,” Boyko explained, looking at her strangely.
Ayala couldn’t tell if he was referring to the compartment itself or to the kind of people who were traveling in it. The train’s whistle shrieked, temporarily drowning out the rhythmic clacking of the wheels. She forged ahead, trying to keep pace with Boyko.
Near the far end, two men. Slumped forward, baseball caps dipped to hide their faces. Two dark-skinned, very suspicious men whispering to each other.
Baseball caps! Very similar to the cap worn by the bomber in the grainy video!
Boyko said something, causing the men to look up and stare. The two men bolted, racing toward the carriage door. They bumped into the other passengers, knocking them rudely against the seats and shoving their personal belongings to the floor. The rough collisions slowed their escape, but the two pressed deeper into the train. As they forced their way along the narrow corridor, their baseball caps fell from their heads. Even from behind, her vision half obscured by those standing in the aisle, Ayala could see that both men had short, brownish hair. Neither of them was bald.
These were not the men described as staying at the hotel, Ayala realized with a start. She stopped to catch her breath. Ahead of her, Boyko continued down the aisle in fast pursuit. Why were these men running away?
“Stop right there!” Boyko shouted. His words silenced the carriage. Several standing passengers raised their hands, thinking the plainclothes policeman was addressing them. Gypsies and peasants cowered in their seats, afraid they were the target of the officer’s command.
The two men backed up against the last door, unable to hide their nervous apprehension. Escape was impossible as the train ended here. Outside the small glass window, the railroad tracks receded one by one all the way back to Plovdiv.
“No ticket, no ticket,” one of the men cried, raising his hands. He motioned to his partner to do the same.
Boyko approached them, breathing quickly. “Show me your identification.”
The men didn’t respond. Boyko’s words had bounced off of them. Bulgarian was a language they didn’t understand.
“They’re not the men from the hotel,” Ayala panted, pushing through to Boyko’s side.
Boyko ignored her remark and began to frisk one of the men. They were very skinny, Ayala noticed, but they had strong muscles. Construction workers.
“They’re not Bulgarian,” she whispered to Boyko in English.
“I am handling this,” Boyko said, dismissing her comment with a wave of his hand. “They’re . . .”
Boyko didn’t finish the statement. He searched vigorously through the first man’s pockets, finding nothing. He stared into the man’s frightened eyes and then pulled back.
“Family,” the man said to Boyko, breathing rapidly. “I go to family.”
“Turks. Bloody Turks,” Boyko cursed, hardly hidin
g his disgust.
Ayala quickly comprehended the situation. These men were migrant workers from Turkey and they had been working in Bulgaria . . . illegally, apparently. Now they were bound for the border to reunite with their families. The two undocumented workers had boarded the train without buying tickets.
Boyko did a perfunctory body search of the other man, but the effort was useless. He stepped back and stared at the Turks. His shoulders slumped with the realization of how wrong he had been in his assumptions.
“These are not the men,” he said, his voice dry and barely audible.
11
“Where the hell are you?”
“We’re in some god-forsaken village near the Turkish border,” Ayala said, moving closer to the wall to avoid accidentally pulling out the cord as her phone charged. “We traveled halfway to Istanbul, and all for nothing. The suspects were not on the train.”
“Eize rakevet? What train are you talking about?” Boaz asked in quick Hebrew.
“We were following up on a lead. This Bulgarian I’m with—he never updates headquarters; he doesn’t follow their orders. He refused to call for backup when he thought it likely that the suspects would be on the train. In the end, we rode on the lovely Bulgarian Railroads all for nothing.”
“I still don’t have a clue what you did today, Ayala.”
“I’ll explain later. What have you been doing?”
“We’re checking into car rental agencies. We’re convinced the terrorists drove to the village near Sozopol where they stayed in the days before the bombing. There were three of them, as you well know. In a short time, I’m sure we’ll have the rental forms with their signatures.”
“Were they acting alone?” she asked.
“I can’t imagine they could do this without local support. Think about it. We assume they came to Bulgaria with the sole intention of perpetrating the attack, an attack which may have been planned elsewhere. Where did they get the explosives? How did they know what time the flight was arriving from Tel Aviv? Did they know on which bus the Israelis would be traveling? We can presume they gathered intelligence in advance of the bombing and that someone on the ground helped them. Someone local. We’ve discussed all this before, but we have yet to make progress.