The Burgas Affair

by Ellis Shuman

  “Boyko!” she called out. “Boyko!”

  No reply.

  The lodge exploded into a furnace of rising flames and smoke. A smoky mushroom cloud rose furiously to the sky, the night’s sounds sucked into submission with this nocturnal spectacle. What was left of the building imploded. Fragments of wood, roofing, tile, and glass flew through the air.

  A smoking beam crashed to the driveway between Ayala and the lodge’s front steps. Another one followed, creating a smoldering barrier. The blaze obstructed her view of the fallen man. She could no longer see if he was moving, or even breathing.

  The guns were silent. It was possible the police had achieved their goal. No one inside the burning lodge could have possibly survived the rocket attack. Yet, there was one man who had escaped. A man who appeared to be seriously injured. And that man was lying on the ground, nearly surrounded by fire. Only Ayala had seen him emerge.

  She rose to her feet, gazing through the flames of the raging fire. The fallen figure was barely visible on the ground. As she stared, the man moved his arm slightly, tried to raise himself to a sitting position. But then he fell back, half hidden by clouds of smoke.

  Boyko!

  He was injured, and he was about to die. The blazing beams blocked the path in front of him and prevented his escape. He was going to be burnt alive and she would witness the atrocity.

  No!

  She stepped forward, trying to find a way around the burning timber, some path that would lead her to his side. There was nowhere to go! The fire blocked her access; the smoke was becoming unbearable. The intense heat forced her back, away from the flames.

  The man raised his hand. He appeared to be signaling to her, calling out with an unspoken cry for help.

  Without thinking, she raced straight ahead. Using her jacket to cover her mouth and nose, she dashed into the thick of the blaze, stepping on fallen logs and flaming wood. She didn’t look down to notice that the flames had singed her pants. Smoke billowed from her shoes; her entire body steamed. Still, she pressed forward until she stepped over the last of the burning beams and reached the man’s side. She leaned down and touched his shoulder. Was he even alive? She started shaking him. Wake up!

  His body jerked. He tried to back away. He raised his head and turned his blackened face toward her. One eye was swollen shut; the other was bloodshot and unfocused. He sucked in a deep breath as he struggled to regain his senses.

  “Ayala?”

  “Boyko! Are you all right?”

  The slightest indication of a smile formed on his swollen lips. “Do I look all right?” he said, the words barely audible above the crackling roar of the fire surrounding them.

  “You will be. I’m going to help you,” she said as she attempted to get him up.

  “You came through fire.”

  “What? Come on, get up!”

  “You walked over the coals. Fire-walker,” he mouthed.

  He was delirious, she thought, talking nonsense. Fire-walker? What was he doing, spouting out drivel when he should be concentrating on his escape? The man was obviously suffering from shock. She had to save him!

  “Hurry, we need to go!”

  She helped him to his knees and onto his feet. His body was in severely bad shape, but at least he was all in one piece and capable of moving. His clothes were scorched, hot to touch. Finally, he was standing, almost erect, doing the best he could under the circumstances. With her arm around him, she supported his weight. She turned to consider their best route to escape the fire.

  The blaze on the driveway seemed to have died down a bit. The height of the flames was lower than before. Seeing it from this angle, she thought that if they skirted around from the left, they would bypass the worst of it. The obstacles were formidable, but they had no choice. This could be the only way to safety.

  The charred beams crackled; sparks shot into the night. Red-hot embers sizzled everywhere. Red-hot embers, just like a field of smoldering coal.

  She understood now what Boyko had said.

  They mark the festival by dancing barefoot on smoldering wood coals. Those who truly believe are able to dance like that without getting burned.

  The Strandzha, land of the fire-walkers.

  Ayala’s shoes steamed, sizzled. The plastic was melting; the laces were blackened threads. She was walking on fire; her feet were blistering. She didn’t have time to consider these painful wounds. Boyko was in much worse shape.

  “I see a way,” she said, urging him forward into the fire.

  55

  “Ayala! Ani poh!”

  Hebrew? Was her mind playing tricks?

  With Boyko’s battered body leaning against hers, and with the searing heat of the fire at her back, she crossed over the last of the smoldering beams and stepped onto the solid, secure gravel of the driveway. Her eyes were so full of tears she couldn’t focus on anything. She coughed, spitting out smoky phlegm. Her knees buckled, no longer capable of supporting her weight.

  “Ayala!”

  She looked up. Someone was calling her name.

  A line of men awaited her near the vehicle that had previously given her cover. Two policemen still wore their bulky riot gear while others wore regular uniforms. Several plainclothes officers were gathered there as well, all of them staring at her intensely. In the middle was someone familiar. Very familiar. Shorter than the others, with a bald head and dark skin, it was, unmistakably, unbelievably, her uncle!

  “Yaniv? What are you doing here?”

  A medic rushed forward to Boyko and eased his body to the ground. Sirens could be heard in the distance. The trees lit up with flashing lights. Men shouted at each other as they ran back and forth, dealing with the aftermath of the operation and the fire. Thick columns of smoke plumed from the burning lodge into the night sky.

  Ayala, her eyes stinging and her throat parched, fell into her uncle’s embrace.

  “How did you find me?”

  “We’ve been chasing after you ever since you left Sofia. You shouldn’t have run off on your own, Ayala. This time I did follow you, out of both duty and concern. You should be back in Israel.”

  “I couldn’t leave him,” she said, looking over at Boyko. A medic was leaning over her Bulgarian partner, attending to his most serious wounds.

  “Are you all right?”

  It was Zhekov, commander of the raid, an operation which had ended with a fiery blaze.

  “Did you get him?” she asked, slipping out of the Kevlar vest and handing it back. “Did you get Damian? Did you kill the Hunter?”

  “No, unfortunately, he got away.”

  “He got away!” She was shocked. Had all of this been for nothing? She had nearly been killed, Boyko was severely injured, and in the end, their target had escaped. “How did that happen?”

  “He drove out through back roads a short while before we arrived,” Zhekov said.

  Back roads. Ayala thought of the open gate where she had entered the fenced-off estate. It was through that gate that Damian had driven to safety. He had abandoned his men, and his prisoner, leaving them to battle the police on their own.

  “He knew we were coming,” Zhekov continued. “He knew this because he, himself, asked us to come to the lodge. It was Kamen who relayed this invitation to us, as strange as that may seem. Damian’s intention was for us to arrive and arrest Boyko, but it is becoming clear to me this was all a setup. Kamen—he’s the one who actually sided with Damian. Boyko was framed. I see that now. Anyway, how is he doing?”

  They walked over to where Boyko was stretched out on the ground. Boyko’s entire face was contorted with pain and colored dark from smoke. He appeared to be unconscious, but he surprised them by opening his one good eye to look up suddenly.

  “Ayala, you saved me,” he whispered.

  “I’m here,” she replied, standing back as the medic wrapped a bandage around Boyko’s arm. “You are going to be okay.”

  “What about you?” The effort to ask the question
clearly tortured him.

  “I’m fine, just a little scraped up. Nothing serious.”

  “Ayala, your shoes are on fire!” Yaniv said, pointing to smoke rising from the ground.

  “Lie down and let me look at you,” the medic instructed her.

  An ambulance pulled up and paramedics emerged from the back. They lifted Boyko onto a gurney and pushed it inside. Seconds later, the siren sounded and the ambulance raced down the driveway on its way to the hospital in Burgas.

  “Comrades, where the fuck is Kamen?” Zhekov asked in English. Turning to his officers, he barked out commands in feverish Bulgarian. The police fanned out, searching for the missing detective.

  “Kamen?” Ayala said, more to herself than to anyone else. She turned to her uncle, as he helped her to the ground so that the medic could check her. “Kamen drove me across Bulgaria,” she told her uncle. “He must have warned Damian we were coming.”

  “The police now view Kamen as a person of interest in this case,” Yaniv said. “I guess this puts your friend in the clear.”

  “Your feet are badly burnt,” the medic informed her in stilted English. “Many blisters. The next ambulance will be here shortly.”

  “I don’t feel anything,” Ayala said, her voice weak.

  Those who truly believe are able to dance like that without getting burned.

  Apparently, she hadn’t been a strong enough believer when she stepped across the burning timber to rescue Boyko, but at least she had saved him. He was going to be all right. They would both be okay.

  “Locked in a dark cellar, attached to a belt of explosives, and now rescuing a detective from a burning building. I think you’ve done enough here in Bulgaria,” Yaniv said to her. “Ayala?”

  Ayala didn’t hear her uncle say her name. She passed out, exhausted by her efforts and just beginning to feel the effects of smoke and fire.

  56

  “How is the fire-walker today?”

  Standing at the entrance of Boyko’s hospital room supported by crutches, she smiled. Despite being connected to an intravenous drip and a steady supply of painkillers, and appearing somewhat outlandish with his swollen face and the bulky bandages covering his right arm and his legs, Boyko still had a sense of humor.

  “My feet feel like crap,” she said. “Those villagers who dance on coals must have a secret. I wish they had shared it with me before I ran to rescue you.” She smiled at Boyko. “Kak si?”

  “I’m doing much better, thanks,” he replied. His voice had regained its strength and its warmth, a clear sign he was on the road to recovery.

  “I bet you’re dying for a cigarette, for a drink. Do you want me to bring you some rakia?”

  He laughed, his face flinching with the effort. “I have not had a smoke or a drink since I got here. Maybe I have finally kicked my bad habits. We will see what happens when I get out. Ayala, come sit down,” he said, pointing to the chair at the side of his bed.

  She hobbled around the second bed in the room, occupied by another policeman wounded in the Strandzha shootout. She rested her crutches at an angle on the cold metal frame before sitting down. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, having gladly removed the unflattering hospital gown just an hour before. After her own hospitalization one floor below, she was about to be released. She would soon be on her way home.

  “Tell me, did they capture Kamen?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but they will,” he assured her. “There is a manhunt for him all over the country. Soon enough, he will be apprehended. Someone like that will not escape.”

  “He was working with Damian all along?”

  “It would seem the two of them were in cahoots for years. I should have suspected it. The Hunter could not have been released from prison without the assistance of a high-ranking police official. I am sure Kamen was well rewarded for bribing the judge who set the Hunter free.”

  He shifted in his bed, a move that made him grimace. Finding a more comfortable position, his features eased and he grinned at her. “Ayala, do you remember when we drove to Plovdiv to get on the train and I refused to update my colleagues about the lead we were following? I was sure that if I mentioned where we were going, an informer on the Burgas police would alert the terrorists and help them escape. At that point, I already suspected that one of my colleagues had a direct connection to the bombers. I never imagined it was Kamen who was assisting the Hunter.”

  “I remember how angry I was with you,” Ayala said. Their journey on the Istanbul-bound train seemed like a lifetime ago. “Is that how the gunmen knew we were staying overnight on the Turkish border?” she asked, the whole picture coming into focus.

  “Yes. In the end, I did update my team on our whereabouts. Kamen passed on the information and the Hunter’s men issued their warning with bullets. We are lucky, extremely lucky, we were not killed that night.”

  “What about the Hunter? What was he planning when he held you in his hunting lodge?”

  “He had Kamen tell the police I was there. The Hunter’s men intended to hand me over peacefully. There was not supposed to be a firefight in the Strandzha. But, lucky for me, the lodge burned down.”

  “Why was it lucky? You were almost killed!”

  “Ayala, I can tell you now the lodge was full of documents, incriminatory evidence against me. False, of course. If those forged documents had been discovered, I would be revealed to be a corrupt officer, one who had taken bribes throughout my career. You see, for the Hunter, this would have been the perfect payback. I arrested him after having planted evidence in the lodge, and he planned to have me arrested after planting false evidence about my alleged crimes in that very same structure.

  “Ayala, you are the only one I have told about the terrible misjudgment I made when I arrested that man. Now that the lodge has burned down and the Hunter’s plan to discredit me has failed, I have finally been set free.”

  It was touching to hear Boyko share these secrets, but Ayala’s mind was still focused on the case and its strange aftermath. “Do you think the police will ever get their hands on him, on the Hunter?” she asked.

  “Eventually, we will,” Boyko said, confirming his intention to be part of that effort. “There are signs he may have fled the country—that he crossed into Serbia or Macedonia. Interpol is on the case. The Hunter may be at large today, but one day we will apprehend him.”

  “It’s strange what we learned about his connection to Hezbollah,” she said, looking down at the floor for a moment. “As I suspected, as we both suspected, the Hunter and his organization had assisted Hezbollah. The Hunter’s men arranged the terrorists’ documents; they facilitated the bomber’s travel around the country. But, I guess we can take comfort in the fact that he did this out of greed, because he wanted their money. He didn’t act because of ideological reasons, or out of hatred for Israel.” She raised her eyes to again look at Boyko’s wounded face.

  “The Hunter is an evil criminal, but he is no terrorist,” Boyko agreed. “He would do anything for money—prostitution, drugs, smuggling, and even, if the price is right, setting up infrastructure for foreigners planning to bomb a bus at the Burgas airport. His men prepared the groundwork for the bombers. We have confirmation now, thanks to you, that the Hunter’s men also prepared the explosives used in the bombing of the bus.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “Of course. The belt wrapped around your waist in Sofia, and the bomb used on the bus at the airport, were of the same make, the same kind of explosive. It is clear where the bombers got their device. Did your Israeli friends not inform you of this discovery? No?

  “Listen, Ayala. Whatever else we have learned, we know for a fact that there are no Hezbollah terrorist cells here in Bulgaria. If there were, we would have exposed them long ago. No, instead we learned that the doors of the Hunter’s shady operations were open to anyone who could afford his exorbitant fees. Hezbollah was looking for local assistance for its terrorists, and at the price they paid, the Hunter was m
ore than willing to assist.”

  “I don’t feel any satisfaction in this conclusion,” Ayala admitted. “The terrorists are long gone, back home safe and sound in Lebanon. We know their identities, but they are out of our reach. The bomber—we’re not certain who he was or where he came from. Some new information suggests he was an Algerian citizen and not someone from Europe as we originally assumed. It’s discouraging to think that the criminal who assisted them here in Bulgaria is on the loose. It seems like we didn’t solve our case.”

  “I think I told you this once: not all cases have happy endings. We did our part; we did our best. In a small way, I think our joint efforts helped in the investigation. You should not let this worry you. We will bring the Hunter to justice one day very soon.”

  She smiled, sure that Boyko was committed to this cause. She wondered if she would ever know the final outcome. Would she have another opportunity to team up again with Boyko, to assist him on an investigation either here in Bulgaria or back in Israel? She would miss being by his side.

  “Ayala, there you are!”

  It was Yaniv, ready to transport her to the airport. She would be leaving Bulgaria again, this time on crutches and with no last-minute changes preventing her from getting on the airplane.

  It would be strange to return to Tel Aviv without full closure. And it would be especially difficult to part from Boyko. But at least he was going to be okay.

  Boyko appeared to be hesitating, as if he wanted to say something to her. Something personal. Or possibly she was confused by a spasm of his facial muscles, as it was obvious he was still in constant pain. Her uncle was in the room, leaving them no opportunity to have a more intimate parting.

  “I learned a word in Hebrew,” he said, surprising her. “One of your colleagues taught it to me. I hope I say it right.” He paused. “Lehitraot,” he said. See you again soon.

  She smiled and repeated the same farewell in Bulgarian.

  “Do skoro.”