by Jack Ford
Cooper snarled. ‘Precautions? You beat us. Tie us up. Keep us prisoner. And you call them precautions? I call them a Goddamn liberty!’
Ismet gave a sickly smile, not sounding the least sincere. ‘As I say, Mr Cooper, I can only apologize again; a misunderstanding. My men weren’t sure who you were. After all, we were expecting you three days ago.’
Maddie, rubbing her wrist, stopped. Looked up at Ismet in shock. ‘What? You mean to tell us, you’re the person we’re here to see?’
‘Exactly.’
Cooper lurched forward but Rosedale held him back. ‘You son-of-a-bitch, what makes you think you can get away with this?’
With a chuckle, Ismet opened his arms, gesturing to the men standing on the harbor, guns ready and waiting. ‘Mr Cooper, don’t make this harder. If it’s any consolation, I… how do you say it? I squared it with Granger. You’ll be compensated well.’
Maddie turned to Cooper. ‘I can’t believe Granger’s okay with this.’
‘Oh I can, honey, that man’s got a dollar sign where his heart should be.’
Ismet continued. ‘There are shower facilities in the building and I had my men take your bags up. I’m sure you’ll want to change. And, afterwards, we can talk through the details of the job.’
The three of them stood in the heat of the sun and with blood, dirt and sweat-stained clothes they looked incredulously at Ismet. Rosedale said, ‘You think after what you’ve done, we’d still do your job?’
‘Yes, Mr Young, I do. Isn’t that your motto? No job is too big or too much trouble?’
‘This one’s the exception. I don’t like your attitude. Go figure.’ Rosedale paused. Touched his head and added, ‘Where the hell’s my hat? And my boots for that matter.’
‘With your bags. And hopefully after your shower, once you’ve refreshed, you’ll reconsider. I’m sure we can sort this out… Now if you’ll follow my men, they’ll take you up to the bathrooms. I’ll see you in my office shortly.’
As the trio followed, resentful but grateful at the idea of a hot shower, angry but relieved that the situation wasn’t a lot worse – as it certainly could’ve been – Ismet pulled Cooper back, waiting to speak until the other two had disappeared inside.
He went into his pocket.
‘I think these are yours, Mr Cooper. My men found them when they searched you.’
Ismet passed Cooper a cellophane wrap of pills. ‘You should be very careful, Mr Cooper. Smuggling drugs in or out of Turkey carries a very heavy prison sentence. And our prisons aren’t what American ones are.’ He winked, adding, ‘I’m sure you’ve seen Midnight Express.’
‘They’re not drugs. Well, not like you think they are.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe it would be better to store them in your wash bag rather than in the heel of your shoe. Seems an odd place to put them if there’s nothing to hide.’
Cooper’s manner stiffened. He looked down. He looked up. ‘They’re not all there.’
‘No? Is that a problem?’
Cooper stepped forward, smelling the deep, rich aroma of coffee on Ismet’s breath.
‘Where are they?’
‘Mr Cooper, I have no idea. Perhaps my men dropped some when they removed them from your boot.’
‘And you think it’s okay to go around searching a person when they’re knocked out cold?’
‘They were being vigilant. As I say, you can’t be too careful. Who knows what a person might be hiding. I hope this doesn’t cause too much of a problem to you.’
Cooper exhaled. Hands on hips. Eyes down. ‘No problem.’
With perception having led him already to this point, Ismet smiled. ‘Mr Cooper, I’m no doctor, but I think there might be.’
‘And I think you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’
‘Are you sure about that? Because if there was a problem, perhaps I could help.’
As if somebody else was controlling his mind and his voice, but more importantly his integrity, Cooper found himself saying, ‘How?’
‘If you and your friends stay and do my job, Mr Cooper, I’ll make sure whatever it is you need, you’ll get. And of course if you prefer we can keep our arrangement between ourselves.’
Cooper looked down at the pills in his hand. Worked out there was less than a day’s worth remaining. Then tried to swallow the panic as he looked up at the hundreds of acres of blue sky and across to the cerulean sea as a memory of Ellie came into his head and visions of the person he’d once been, once liked, who’d once been full of honor, danced about in his mind. He looked at Ismet. ‘I can’t do it. It’s impossible.’
‘Impossible? What’s impossible, Mr Cooper? Because all I’m asking you to do is a seek and observe of my ship. Nothing else. The same job you came here to do. No harm.’
‘I’ll have to lie to them.’
‘Not really. All you’re doing is getting them to do what was agreed, and for that you get what you need to stay well, which is probably something the others don’t understand.’
Slowly, as if he was dragging himself through quicksand, Cooper nodded. ‘Okay. Fine. But I can’t promise the others will go for it.’
‘Mr Cooper, I have no doubt your powers of persuasion will find a way. Now come with me, so I can show you something.’
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Ismet’s office, at the top of the white building, jutted out over the sea, giving Cooper a slight sense of floating on air. Though he had to concede that his feeling of light-headedness could be in part down to the heavy blow to the bridge of his nose.
Scrapping off some dried blood which itched and irritated his face, Cooper looked about. ‘It’s a bit out of the way here, isn’t it?’
‘It’s perfect for our small family business.’
‘And all those men you have around you, are they part of this small family business?’
‘I hear a tone of skepticism, Mr Cooper.’
‘Just reckon, it must be expensive hiring all those henchmen to be on a twenty-four-hour guard.’
‘Jobs around here are scarce, especially out of the fishing season, and although we don’t pay a lot, we pay fairly. So we recruit the locals to protect our land and help out with the business.’
‘And they have to do that with a Heckler & Koch submachine gun?’
A wry smile twitched on the corners of Ismet’s mouth. ‘You know your weapons, Mr Cooper.’
‘I was in the US Navy. And I find it a bit of a surprise to see weapons which are used by the United States Special Forces in rural Turkey.’
‘They’re just a deterrent.’
‘Tell that to my Goddamn nose.’
‘I understand how you feel, and I can only hope eventually you’ll accept my apologies, but we have to be vigilant. We have to look after ourselves.’
‘Why not work out of a commercial port then? Wouldn’t that be safer?’
‘I only have two boats, that’s enough to import and export all our products. We don’t need the facilities at a huge port, and we like it here. You see, I was brought up in a small fishing village, Mr Cooper, and I have happy memories of those days.’
Cooper looked around the office as he talked, taking in the glossy posters of Turkish food products covering the walls. ‘So you thought you’d recreate your childhood. A shrink would have a lot to say about that… Where?’
‘Where what?’
‘Where was the village?’
‘In Qatar.’
Cooper studied Ismet’s face. ‘You’re Qatari?’
‘Yes, Mr Cooper… Now here, take this. It’s a photo of the boat.’
Staring at the photo, Cooper took a few stunned seconds before he spoke. ‘This is the boat? Seriously?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t get it.’
Coldly, Ismet said, ‘There’s nothing to get.’
‘But I assumed…’
‘You assume too much, Mr Cooper. Like
you clearly assumed I was Turkish because I’m based here. Assumption is a dangerous pastime…As I say, all I need you to do is locate the boat. You have the coordinates which are probably accurate down to a twenty square mile radius. I can’t be more precise because the boat’s radars are turned off, but it’s what the crew gave me.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘They were taken ill and now they’re back home in Libya. It’s very unfortunate but sometimes, things aren’t in our control… Now once you locate the boat, it’s just a question of a quick external assessment. That’s it. Very simple.’
‘It seems too simple.’
‘Maybe in a complex world, but life doesn’t always have to be complicated.’
Cooper looked at him suspiciously ‘You know, for someone who said their English wasn’t great, it’s pretty damn good. Surely it’d be easier just to get another crew to go and get it rather than leave it out there?’
A look flickered over Ismet’s face which Cooper read as impatience.
‘You’re assuming again, Mr Cooper. Assuming getting a trustworthy crew is easy when costs and reliability have to come into it. It takes time to recruit, so in the meantime all I want is to make sure my boat is safe and it’s anchored where they say it is because, at the moment, I’m just taking their word for it.’
‘But why not get us to bring it back for you? Seems odd you wouldn’t.’
‘You talk too much and ask too many questions. Not everybody sees the world like you do. Now do we have a deal or not?’
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With wet hair dripping down his back and sitting with a thick towel wrapped around his muscular waist, Cooper kept his voice low as he spoke to Maddie and Rosedale. ‘Come on! The guy wanted to make a deal with me, he’s desperate for us to do the job. And the thing about desperate is that it makes me curious.’
Rosedale, dressed in a clean pair of khaki pants, a lurid orange linen shirt – as was his usual fashion – and happily back in possession of his cowboy hat, kicked at the legs of the chair Cooper was sitting on. ‘What kind of deal, Thomas?’
With a big sigh along with a hesitation, Cooper shrugged evasively. ‘A deal where he thought he was being smart, where he thought he could buy me for a price. I persuade you guys to do the job and he makes it worth my while.’
Rosedale said nothing, instead he stared at Cooper strangely and with his Texan drawl sounding like a summer’s day, he gave a crooked smile as he pulled heavily on his cigar. ‘And nobody could ever accuse you of agreeing to a Faustian bargain, could they, Thomas?’
Cooper stared back at Rosedale ice cold, but directed the rest of his conversation to Maddie. ‘What Ismet said about the Syrian border is true; we could’ve been anybody. No-one’s going to wait and see if we were wearing suicide vests, or about to pull a bomb. Act first and ask questions later. I understand that. But there’s definitely more to it all. Take a look at this photo… This is the boat. The boat which supposedly imports and exports products… See that expression on your face, Maddie, that’s exactly how I felt when I saw it.’
‘Where did you get this?’ Maddie said as she stared at the photo.
‘Ismet gave it me when I was talking to him. Right from the beginning this job seemed odd, but more so now.’
‘So, what do you want us to do?’
Cooper smiled at Maddie warmly. She looked fresh and flushed from the hot shower.
‘I want us to find out what’s going on. It might be nothing, but my gut tells me something different… All we have to do is go see the boat.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on, Maddie, what harm can it do? We’re here now. Don’t tell me you’re not interested.’
‘I am, but…’
‘So why the but? We’ll go along the coast, find a fisherman to take us out there. They’ll not only know the sea around that area, but because we’ll be travelling in a trawler boat nobody can find out or be suspicious. All we’re doing is looking.’
‘And Granger? What do we say to him?’ Maddie asked. ‘He’ll be on our case if he knows we’re staying out here unofficially.’
‘We tell him what we always tell him; a bit of bull… Flights delayed. Anything. We can get Levi to back up our story, it’s the least he can do.’
Rosedale said, ‘You’re damn right it is.’
‘So what do you say? Maddie? Rosedale?’
Maddie looked at Rosedale who looked right on back. And, being drawn by what her Daddy always told her got the better of her, curiosity had her. ‘Okay, I’m in… Rosedale?’
‘Looks like I’m in too.’
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Ten minutes later they were throwing their bags in the back and climbing into the grey SUV. Maddie sat in the front, Rosedale at the back, watching as Ismet, with a look of puzzlement underlined with steely anger, walked up to Cooper.
‘Where are you going, Mr Cooper? What about our deal?’
‘Stick your deal and go to hell.’
Cooper, lighting a welcome cigarette, got in the car. Put his foot down hard on the gas. Sent a cloud of dust spinning up in the air as he took the tight bends of the dirt track roads at speed, driving away from the small, private harbor, leaving Ismet covered in a haze of dust.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
USA
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Walking from the executive residence back to the West Wing, to have a meeting with his VP, John Woods slowed down his pace. Real slow. Because this walk, however short, in the open-columned walkway which looked across the Rose Garden, filled with a multitude of blossoming flowers, trees and plants, was his moment of clarity. His moment to take in the enormity of what was before him, what was behind him and what was the here and now. But more importantly his moment to give himself the pep talk he sometimes needed when the doubts seeped in, responsibilities overwhelmed, and decisions needed making which meant that lives would be lost.
So it was here, at this spot, before he stepped inside the Oval Office that, he told himself he could do it. And although he might at times, sometimes – often – not feel like the President of the United States, but like the small-town boy from Hannibal, Missouri, who dreamt of one day helping change the world, he had to tell himself he could still do what was needed. He could still do his job. Holding onto the integrity of the young man he once was.
‘Good morning, Mr President. You okay? That’s a pretty serious expression on your face. What’s on your mind? Need to share?’
Woods looked up at Teddy Adleman. Friend. Chief of Staff… But that damn moustache. Wondered how he was going to break it that there was a very definite similarity between his moustache and what Sean Connery was sporting on his face in the 1974 movie, Zardoz. He smiled gratefully but was unwilling to share. ‘I’m not thinking anything really…Nothing.’
Teddy grinned and winked and touched his moustache proudly. ‘Maybe that’s something we better keep from the American people. I’m not sure knowing the mind of their President is filled up with nothing will be good for your Gallup poll rating… Anyhow, I know you’re about to do a meet with the VP, but I really wanted to catch you as soon as possible, tell you about the kid from Chatham. If that’s ok?’
‘Sure. Funnily enough I’ve been having doubts about the wisdom of asking you to go. Damn well woke me up in the night. I felt I’d somehow overstepped my position. I really should’ve spoken to the proper channels but sometimes, Teddy, you hear something that nags at you and it just won’t leave you. You want to find out quietly, but you’re not quite sure who you should trust. As much as this job I’m in ought to make me one of the most powerful people on the planet, at times, Teddy, I’ve never felt so powerless in my life.’
‘Mr President, right now, can we put aside our roles and just stand here as two old friends with no agendas, because as your buddy and nothing else, I’m worried about you… Is everything alright, John? And you know anything you tell me goes no furthe
r.’
‘I know, and thank you. You’ve helped me through a lot over the years, both personal and professional, but there’s nothing here to worry about. It’s just been a rough couple of weeks and I’m feeling the weight of everything at the moment.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Absolutely… And on top of that I feel guilty.’
‘Guilty?’
‘Well, look around you. This place is like a fortress. Snipers on the roof, surface-to-air missiles, armed agents and emergency response teams, all to keep me safe in my bubble. But out there, Teddy, folk are terrified. The country is still on code red and although there haven’t been any more bombs lately, it’s only a matter of time. What the hell kind of world is it when you’re frightened to go to work or school in the morning, or even when you go to watch a ball game there’s a sense something might happen. It’s bullshit, Teddy. And I feel guilty that I’m wrapped up in cotton wool, especially as I don’t feel like this administration is anywhere near winning the war on terror… Anyway, tell me how your friend was in Chatham. Was he able to tell you anything more? Is the kid still insisting that he took a seismograph reading?’
‘Well maybe he would, if he could. I didn’t even get to go to see my friend.’
‘Why?’
‘My friend Shane called me, told me not to bother… The kid’s dead, John.’
‘Jesus, what happened? Was it an accident?’
‘No. He was murdered.’
‘What? How? When?’
‘My buddy Shane had tried calling him several times over a few days, but he’d got no answer, so he took a drive to the kid’s apartment. Found the door open. He was lying in his bathroom. Single bullet to his head. And the long and short of it is, nobody knows anything.’
‘No-one saw anything at all?’
‘Nope. Not a thing. No witnesses. No CCTV. No plate recognition. Nothing. Nobody heard or saw anything. And get this. No prints anywhere in the apartment either. Apparently there’s been a few violent robberies in the area and they want to put it down to a break-in gone wrong.’