Demir and a few other guards ran along the embankment toward an area that looked straight out at the opening of the bay. One of the guards running next to him had an RPG strapped across his back.
“We’ll have a clear shot at them from there,” Demir said, pointing ahead.
The RHIB had reached top speed and raced alongside the rocky break wall, seconds away from rounding the corner and heading out to sea. The guard crouched on one knee and shouldered the RPG. He took aim and followed the RHIB as it glided over the water.
With his finger on the trigger, he held still and brought his breathing under control. The thumping of his heart echoed throughout his body as he felt the heat rise off of his slick neck and the trickle of rainwater dripping from his jawbone. He resisted the urge for a shoulder wipe, not wanting to add to the distraction of gunfire around him. Demir and the other guards were relentless, squeezing off as many rounds of ammunition as they could at the moving target.
The RHIB turned and straightened out, essentially becoming a sitting target as it headed out of the bay. There was enough light from the embankment to trace an outline of the RHIB. That’s all he could see from that distance as the boat traveled farther from shore. The guard steadied the RPG, and the stern of the boat aligned perfectly in its crosshairs.
The grenade rocketed out of the RPG, tracing a smoky path as it screamed toward its target. The gunman, still on his knee with the RGP resting on his shoulder, watched the mini-missile through the crosshairs. He drew a deep breath, and his chest expanded with hope. He had fired the RPG at the right moment. He had set it on a path for the RHIB—a textbook shot. It was only a matter of seconds before the impending explosion would signal the end of the chase.
61
“Hang on!” Kostas shouted as he cranked the steering wheel.
The boat swerved sharply to the left.
The RPG whistled by, missing the right side of our boat by an arm’s length. No sooner had we escaped being hit, the piercing sound of yet another RPG closed in on us. Kostas steered the boat to the right, and we narrowly avoided the second RPG.
The RHIB skipped easily over the small swells we were starting to encounter as we headed out to open sea. By then we were out of range of the RGP and their assault rifles, but I wasn’t sure if we were out of Demir’s grasp.
Thunder reverberated in the clouds and lightning lit up the skies.
I remained crouched near the bow, using the floodlight to light our way. Rain pelted my face forcing me to squint and every bounce added a spray of seawater. “Will you be able to stay on course?” I asked.
Kostas stood behind the steering wheel with one hand gripping it tightly and his other fiddling in the front pocket of his pants. “My phone’s toast but nothing beats old-school technology.” He removed a small compass. “We just need to keep heading west.”
It would have been easier if we could see the North Star, but I had to trust that his compass was enough for him.
“Sei, grab the steering wheel.” Kostas pulled back on the throttle and slowed the boat to a speed that wouldn’t send me flying overboard.
I gripped the rope along the edge of the boat and used it to guide me toward him, pausing when the vessel bounced off a wave. I pulled myself around the steering control box and grabbed the steering wheel.
“The swells will get worse the farther out we go,” he said as he pulled his shirt over his head.
It was then that I noticed the blood on his hand. “Is it bad?” I asked.
Kostas shook his head. “I’ll be fine. A bullet ricocheted off the motor and grazed my hand.” He tore his shirt in half and then tightly wound the material around his left hand and tied a knot.
He took control of the steering wheel. “I don’t intend to slow down, so keep a hand tightly wound around that rope. A wave could send you flying over the side.” He then leaned on the throttle and the boat jerked forward.
Just as Kostas uttered those words, a gunshot rang out. The moon was to the left of the storm and shone bright enough for us to see an RHIB pursuing us. Every so often, we would lose sight of them when we dipped between swells.
“If they get close enough, we’re dead. This boat can’t withstand those assault rifles for much longer.”
“And neither can their boat.” After we ambushed the RHIB, we dumped the bodies overboard but kept their rifles. I grabbed one and returned fire.
“Can you outrun them?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, but it looks like they’ve got a similar boat so I doubt they can pull up next to us, but I’d rather not take the chance.”
I continued to exchange fire with the Askeri Inzibat until I emptied the clip. I picked up the other rifle. Just then, the trough pushed up, transforming into the peak of a gigantic wave, making us a sitting target on top of it. More bullets flew our way. We both ducked down as the shots came dangerously close to hitting our boat.
“We can’t keep on like this,” I said. “Eventually those bullets will find their mark.”
By then, the swells had quickly grown into mountains. “I might be able to use these waves to our advantage,” Kostas said.
As we dipped down the backside of the wave, Kostas turned the boat to the left and gunned the throttle, sending us skipping across the valley created by two swells. Dark grayish walls rose as high as twenty feet on either side of us, eliminating the moonlight above and creating a dark crevice. The sound of the motor became more apparent as it echoed off the water. Just seeing the massive walls of ocean surrounding us sent an uneasy shiver throughout my body, as I couldn’t help but envision it crumbling in on us.
When we popped up on the top of the white-capped swell, we were a good thirty feet to the left of the other RHIB. Kostas did that trick once more and gained a few more feet of distance.
We employed that strategy successfully for the next few swells, switching up our direction every so often. It would take longer to get to Chios, but it seemed to be worth if it kept distance between their bullets and us. What didn’t help was the queasiness from the relentless bouncing.
“Seasick?” Kostas asked.
I crinkled my brow at him.
“You don’t look like your chipper self.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, adjusting my grip on the rope. My clothing was soaked, and goose pimples exploded all over my body. The adrenaline that had been flowing through my body earlier had slowed a bit. The last thing I needed was bronchitis. Kostas was in worse shape than I with his injured hand and lack of shirt, though I’m not sure having one would made much of a difference. He had already begun to sniffle.
“Are you sure you can stay on course with all of this zigzagging?” I asked.
“As long as I have this compass, I will. Eventually we’ll be able to make out the city lights on the island, and that’ll help as well.”
Kostas made a left and then a right and decided to make another right in the next trough. “They’ve figured out our pattern, but this move should throw them off,” he shouted confidently.
62
Replace the shark in the movie Jaws with an RHIB, and you’d have a pretty clear image of what surprised us when we crested the top of the swell.
The world seemed to slow to an impossible speed as the stern of the other RHIB slapped down on the top of the choppy waters directly in front of us. Inside, with their assault rifles aimed at us, were the three Askeri Inzibat. They didn’t fumble to aim. They didn’t jump to attention upon seeing us. It was as if they had methodically calculated our next move and put themselves on a course that would have our vessels meeting. The cat had pounced on the mouse.
My mind raced as it searched for a viable counter-move. We were out of bullets and had no cover, and it was too late to turn and run. All we had on our side was hope and luck. And those two had a habit of calling in sick when you needed them most.
At the moment, my instinct was primal: Save myself. I thought of diving overboard and swimming underwater as far as I could be
fore surfacing. Where to? I wasn’t sure. Even if they did lose sight of me, I might as well have been treading water in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. That last-ditch effort might save me from being riddled with bullets, but all it did was postpone the inevitable.
Up until that point, I had always prided myself on quick thinking and ingenuity: both were failing me. I couldn’t help but think my time had come. Had I honestly run out of moves? It was disheartening to think a pathetic, self-absorbed prison warden had hammered that final nail.
Before I could manage another thought, the boat jerked forward. I nearly toppled back and overboard. Had that rope not been wrapped around my hand, I would have been gargling saltwater to the theme song of the movie Titanic.
“Hang on!” Kostas shouted as he steered our boat straight toward the other one. Bullets rang out from the assault rifles as we bore down on the Askeri Inzibat.
Within seconds, the bow of our boat slammed into their port side. The collision catapulted the boat, sending it over an ineffective speed bump. The motor let out a high-pitched whir as we left the water but was quickly replaced by a chopping low growl. I could only imagine were the propellers mangling something below. Kostas had gambled and took the only move we had: to become a battering ram.
We landed more smoothly than I had expected, and Kostas opened up the throttle. The engine sputtered before evening out.
“It doesn’t seem like the engine sustained any major damage,” he called out.
I looked back behind us. The Askeri Inzibat’s RHIB limped around in a circle, leaning heavily to the left. Strewn over the side of the right side of the boat, face up, was a man. From what I could tell, it looked as if he had given the propeller a chest bump. Another was treading water, while the third stood behind the steering wheel pounding his fist against the control panel.
“They won’t be following us,” Kostas said as we pulled away.
“How did you know ramming them would work?” I asked.
“I didn’t. You okay?”
“I have rope burn but I’ll manage,” I said, rubbing my right hand before gripping the floodlight handle.
It didn’t take long for the other RHIB to disappear from sight and for us to stop looking back over our shoulders. By then, the rain had started to lighten, and the swells appeared smaller. Above we could see patches of clear night sky opening up at the edge of the storm.
“Keep an eye out. We should start seeing signs of Chios soon,” Kostas said.
We traversed the open ocean for another fifteen minutes before we saw dim sparkles in the distance. The closer we got, the brighter they burned.
“Is there a plan once we dock?”
Kostas shook his head. “But I need to make it to Athens as well. There’s a ferry that leaves at eleven-thirty p.m. I have no idea what time it is, but I’m guessing we’ll have a shot at making it.” He patted his pant pockets. “I still have euros on me, enough for two tickets.”
For the duration of the trip, we didn’t say much. We were both thankful to have made it out of Turkey. As we approached the harbor, I shut off the floodlight. Kostas eased off the throttle and looked for an inconspicuous place to ditch the boat.
Tourists walked along the wet cobblestone embankment, and a few were dining al fresco at the seafood restaurants under awnings, but no one paid any particular attention to us. On a building with spirals on top, I noticed a large clock attached to the façade. “It’s nine thirty. We should be able to make the ferry,” I said looking over at Kostas.
He nodded and steered the boat to the far left of the embankment where the foot traffic and sidewalk lighting were minimal. We slipped between two fishing boats and quickly jumped off the RHIB.
“This way.” Kostas led me into a nearby souvenir shop. The bell hanging on the door rang out, and the shopkeeper glanced up from her book. “I’m out of umbrellas,” she said.
We each picked out a T-shirt. I choose a white one with an illustrated drawing of three windmills overlooking the bay. Kostas opted for a black T-shirt with Chios stenciled across the chest in yellow. It was the best of the worst. Our pants were still wet but not terribly uncomfortable.
“We should be able to board the ferry without any questions,” Kostas said as I exited the changing room.
“Has the bleeding stopped?” I asked, looking at his hand.
“I’m fine. I’ve already paid for the shirts. Let’s go.”
As I followed him, I realized his journey was coming to an end. At least his mission was. However, mine had just started.
Escaping Demir’s grasp was merely a hurdle I’d had to overcome in the search for my daughter. It had tried my patience and pushed me. I suspected it would only get harder. Finding my daughter seemed like an impossible task. I was looking for a needle, and I had no idea where the haystack was or how big it would be.
63
Well past the imposing cliffs lay a thicket of trees that stretched for miles, where the only noticeable tracks found imprinted on the damp forest floor were from Persian leopards, wolves, red deer, and brown bears. Humans had no reason to find themselves in these parts of the mountainous region of the Caucuses, at least not since war ravaged the area. The forest had recovered from the fighting and swallowed all but one of the remaining dirt roads abandoned by the Russian military during the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. Yet in the middle of this treacherous no-man’s land, hidden under a canopy of camouflage, stood an imposing compound.
It was unlikely that someone would accidentally stumble upon the dwelling. To do so, a person would need to make it past multiple anti-personnel land mines. If he did manage to do that without losing a limb or his life, there were well-trained snipers positioned on wooden platforms built on enormous ironwood trees populating the area. These men were handpicked for their ability to shoot the tail off of a rabbit from a hundred yards out. But if somehow, someone were able to bypass those sharpshooters, he would have only succeeded in coming face to face with a twenty-five-foot high concrete wall that encircled the compound. And if this person were truly determined and made it over that obstacle, well, he would then have the honor of being eliminated by the man who lived on the other side: the Black Wolf.
The original structure was a military bunker erected by the Russians in the Shaki-Zaqatala region, the most northern part of Azerbaijan, sandwiched between Georgia and Russia. The Wolf had the fortified building enlarged to suit his needs: a kitchen, additional bedrooms, a communications center, a gym/training center, and an armory were added. This was the Wolf’s new home. He’d spent most of his life in Tbilisi, Georgia, but as a native Azerbaijani, he knew he would always come back to his homeland.
The Wolf rarely left the compound other than to conduct business. His incarceration in Turkey was the longest span of time that he had been away since commandeering the building.
The Wolf had been back at his compound for only a day, and his men were eager to celebrate his return. Spread out over a rustic wooden table were chilled bottles of vodka, fresh black caviar from the Caspian Sea, lamb kebabs, mutton dolma, perfectly baked tandoor bread, smoked cheese, traditional Azerbaijan plov, and an assortment of pickled vegetables.
A muscular man in military fatigues sat next to the Wolf. He was clean shaven including his head, and he had a large squared-off jaw, a hooked nose, and a heavy brow that made his gray eyes appear deeper set then they really were.
His name was Vasili Ivanovich, and he had worked for the Wolf for nearly seventeen years. He was a Russian but was abandoned as a child in a Georgian orphanage. All of Ivanovich’s skills and education had been acquired from the Wolf, starting shortly after the two met when he was only ten and had tried to pickpocket the master assassin. The Wolf was impressed with the little boy’s tenacity and took an immediate liking to him. He became a younger brother to the Wolf and over the years, eventually his most trusted advisor.
The shot glasses were filled again with the clear liquor and raised in the Wolf’s honor. “To our lead
er, a brave man, a man who makes the impossible possible. May you live forever,” Ivanovich said in a strong, baritone voice. The group of ten cheered Ivanovich’s toast and added their own praises in a mix of Russian and Azerbaijani before clinking their glasses together.
“My brother, it is good to have you back home,” Ivanovich said under a chorus of song the men had begun.
The Wolf leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, content to enjoy his homecoming.
“If anybody else,” Ivanovich said with a wave of his finger, “had told me about this plan, I would have laughed in their face. But you are not just anybody.” He threw an arm around the Wolf’s shoulders and squeezed.
“Do not underestimate your contributions, Vasili,” the Wolf said. He then took a moment to look at his men. They were laughing and singing, drinking and eating. The Wolf chuckled over the irony in his most challenging contract: saving himself. It required him to remain jailed and alive until he was extradited; something he couldn’t be one-hundred-percent certain would happen. No easy feat in itself. He had to trust his loyal circle of mercenaries who, under Ivanovich’s command, were tasked to get him out of the country. But there were other elements to the plan, two things specifically that gave the Wolf an undeniable conviction that it could be done: a little girl and the skills of a certain assassin.
The Wolf filled two shot glasses with vodka and slid one over to Ivanovich. “Afiyët oslun!” he cheered. They both emptied their glasses and slammed them down on the table.
The Wolf rolled his shot glass back and forth with the tip of his fingers. “The girl assassin, what have you heard?” he asked.
“We believe she was able to exit the country.”
The Wolf nodded gently and pursed his lips. He already knew that Sei had escaped prison, but he didn’t think she had the means to get much farther. He had put too much confidence in Demir’s ability. What an incompetent fool. Two high-profile escapees.
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