“Papa, two more down, two to go. Hayk is fine. The girls are drugged but seem otherwise unharmed. Lara is safe. Meet us up there as planned; we’ll leave in ten minutes. Send Saro to take the others.”
Agassi hung up and called Saro, who called Gagik. Then he got into Varujan’s old Russian car and drove up a steep hill just outside of Sevajayr village.
The plan was for Saro to come to the house and take Lara, Hayk, Sago and the other girl back to the village first, and then to Laurian’s house. But when Saro called Gagik, Gagik told him to wait in the village instead. “We’re right here,” he said. “It would be easier if we go to them. We’ll bring the kids home.”
“Is that a good idea?” asked Saro. “Ayvazian will see you.”
Laurian took the phone from Gagik. “Saro jan,” he said, “I cannot just go home and wait. We are headed to the house. We can be there before you. You can come too, if you want, but there’s no need. I’ll take the kids straight to my place and call you.”
Lara came to gradually, but when she saw Avo she returned to full consciousness so fast that she felt her heart jump out of her chest. She accepted some water and clung to Avo for dear life.
“Kurig jan, you’re safe,” said Avo, holding her close.
He introduced Varujan, who gave her a warm smile and said, “Welcome home.”
“You’ve grown,” said Lara softly, eyes glued to Avo. “You look just like I saw you in my dream.” Then Lara suddenly realized where she was and jumped from the edge of the bed, giving out a scream. “Where are they?” she yelled. “Be careful, Avo, they’ll be back.”
Avo took her hand, drew her down beside him and stroked her hair.
“No, Lara, they won’t be back.” He spoke quietly hoping to calm her. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk later, but now we need to move. There is an ugly scene in the room outside that I don’t want you to see, but I’m afraid it is the only way out.”
Lara was still absorbing his first sentence.
“They won’t be back?” she whispered. “They’re gone?”
“They’re gone so far away that they cannot come back. You’re safe, and now you’re free; but the scene in the front room is very messy, Lara. We need to walk out of here and out of the next room, and we need to walk fast. I want you to cover your face and eyes. I will guide your steps. Just hold on to me and walk fast. Can you do that?”
“We’re free and we’re safe,” she repeated, stupefied. “What is it that you don’t want me to see?”
Avo was painfully aware that they needed to move quickly. He found her shoes and helped her put them on. Her knees were shaking, but she could keep her balance and looked alert.
“There is blood and unfinished business, Lara. There are dead bodies. You don’t need to see that. Someone will take you to safety and I’ll follow soon. I promise. I will not lose you again.”
“I will never cover my eyes again,” said Lara standing up. “I will walk with you; I want to see what’s out there.”
Avo knew there was no point in arguing with her. He led her into the living room, but he had a good grip around her waist. Lara looked wide-eyed at the sight of the two men tied to the chairs and the two bloody bodies. She recognized Serge, but Abkar’s face was not visible to her. She stared at Hamo, who was facing the room where they had kept her. Then her eyes came to rest on the other man. His back was to her, and he was sitting motionless in the chair facing the wall. She recognized him. There was no mistaking the round bald head and the heavy torso.
“Avo, kyank, what have you done?” she whispered. To Avo’s surprise, the blood and dead bodies did not upset her. But she was aghast at the enormity of what Avo and his friends had undertaken.
“We are free and we are safe,” whispered Avo in her ear. “All scores will be settled today, yours and Papa’s.”
“Papa’s?” she whispered.
“Yes, I’ll explain later. Now we have to move. A friend will be here soon to take you somewhere safe.”
Lara walked across the room to face Ayvazian. She stood there staring at his face for a long time, as if unable to decide what to do. Spit in his face? Kick him? Grab the gun from Avo and shoot him? But Avo came over and held her, as if reading her mind.
“We have a better plan,” he said. “Now you need to get out of here.”
The woman in the first room was beginning to wake up. Lara went into the room and gave her some water, talked to her, told her all was well, and that she was safe. Gradually, she sat up also, and started gaining consciousness, but Varujan was very anxious to leave.
“We have to go,” he told Avo, peeking into the room. “We can’t have too much time go by between the two accidents. We need to leave now. The Mayor will be here any moment.”
“Hayk, go get Sago,” said Varujan. “He’ll return with you to the village.”
Hayk ran over to the barn and returned with Sago.
“Saro, the Mayor of this village will take you, the girl, Hayk and Sago to the village,” Avo told Lara. “Then you’ll be moved to another friend’s house. All is very safe. Every person you see from here on will be a trusted friend. You have nothing to worry about.”
“No,” said Lara firmly. “They can go to the village with Saro; I will come with you. You cannot keep me away from this now.”
The other girl was now on her feet, with her shoes on. She’d be ready to leave when Saro arrived. Avo left Lara with her and stepped back into the living room. Just then, Laurian and Gagik walked in.
“Small change in plans,” said Laurian, surveying the room in awe. “I couldn’t bring myself to go back home. We’ll take the kids home from here.” Neither Varujan nor Avo was surprised; they were happy to have the two around. Gagik went around the room and studied every detail carefully. The position of the two bodies was right. All they had to do was remove the evidence that anyone else had been in the house.
While Gagik was busy inspecting the murder scene, Laurian went to Hayk and gave him a long hug and kissed him on the forehead. Then he walked over to Ayvazian. The plan had been that Ayvazian should not see him or know of his involvement. But Laurian stood in front of him and looked long and hard into his shocked and terrified eyes. He saw his fear, his confusion, his lack of understanding of what was happening and his total surprise at seeing him. Then he turned his back and walked away.
As Laurian walked back to the center of the living room, Lara emerged from the first bedroom. They almost walked into each other. The surprise on her face was no match for the complex currents of emotions that ran through Laurian’s mind and heart. She simply hadn’t expected the Mayor to look like that, and was surprised. But he saw so much in that wide-eyed, surprised face in one instant that it would take him weeks to process and decipher. Even though he had heard that Lara was supposed to be beautiful, he was not prepared for the face that was staring at him. But the silent exchange between them was much more than that; this was the moment he had always imagined as the vindication of Sirarpi, to see Lara alive, free, safe, to see Ayvazian defeated. This was the culmination of months of anguish. Do not be surprised, he said in his mind to the baffled beauty staring at him, from the beginning I have searched for you…
They led Ayvazian back to the car, with his hands still tied behind his back, and put him in the passenger seat as before. Then they took Hamo and made him sit in the driver’s seat, with his hands still tied. Varujan had already wiped his fingerprints from the guns and put Hamo’s pistol in Serge’s hand and Serge’s pistol in Abkar’s hand. He had also changed Abkar’s position slightly and returned their cell phones to their pockets.
They climbed into the back seat, Lara in the middle, Varujan behind Hamo and Avo behind Ayvazian. Then Varujan cut the fishing wire from Hamo’s hands and removed the tape from his mouth.
“Drive,” he said, pointing with his gun to the road bearing right toward the dirt road. “I believe you’ve already been to the place we’re going.”
Varujan was not sure
of the exact location where Samvel Galian had fallen to his death. Agassi had a better idea, because he had visited the general area a few times with Laurian. Avo had also been there once with Laurian. They had established that Hamo, who was Ayvazian’s personal driver and the most experienced in driving around the upper villages and over the slopes where Ayvazian did his goat hunting, had been present when the accident happened. His testimony, signed by him, was in the police records, which Saro had managed to see.
Varujan was directing Hamo, but had not yet told him their intended destination. There was no point in alerting him or Ayvazian about what they meant to do. The road, if one could call a pair of tire tracks on the rocky slopes a road, was treacherous, but Hamo was managing the drive very well.
Lara was resting her head on Avo’s shoulder. She suddenly looked up with a jerk. “How is Mama?” she asked. Avo just held her tighter, kissed her head, but did not say anything. Lara tried to look up at him again, but he held her close, as if to keep her still. Lara knew then that her mother was dead. She closed her eyes and surrendered to Avo’s embrace.
At the end of one of the steeper climbs they came to an open field, where they saw Agassi standing next to his car at the far end. Hamo parked next to him.
“Let’s have a look around,” said Varujan. “You stay in the car,” he added, pointing his gun at Ayvazian.
They got out of the car, Lara holding on to Avo, Varujan keeping a close eye on Hamo. Agassi was standing right at the edge of a cliff.
“Is this where Samvel Galian had his accident?” asked Agassi, looking at Hamo. Both Lara and Avo were on full alert now, looking down the steep drop and then back at Hamo. Lara shuddered at the thought of her father making that fall. The drop was very sharp, almost perpendicular, with virtually no slope or incline. There were only tall, angular boulders, lined up densely at irregular intervals stretching several hundred meters down, looking almost like human statues standing in silence down the cliff. Lara imagined her father taking the fall, crashing and breaking bones against those boulders on the way down, and tears began to well up in her eyes. The fury that Avo had managed to suppress so well began to rise again, just like the storm that had gathered in his chest when his mother died. He let go of Lara and walked close to Hamo.
“Is this where it happened?” he asked, still appearing calm. “We know that you were with him at the time.”
“It was here,” said Hamo, now trembling. “He had his back to the cliff and was surveying the field, and then he took a step backwards, stepped on a log and slipped, and …”
With incredible speed Avo launched himself at him and pushed him over. They watched as Hamo rolled down the cliff, banging against pointed rocks, and finally came to rest several hundred meters below. His torso was broken and his limbs spread over the human-shaped boulders, which looked from above as if they were carrying him over their shoulders.
Ayvazian was struggling in the car. He had somehow managed to open the car door and was about to roll out, with his hands still tied behind him. Avo walked over and pulled him to the ground. He was kicking violently, his face red with anger and fear. No one in Armenia would believe the events of today, even if presented with evidence. No one would believe that someone as powerful and ruthless as Ayvazian could be taken and destroyed with apparent ease by a handful of powerless peasants. The shock of the absolute implausibility of what was happening left Ayvazian totally speechless, overwhelmed by the terror and impotence of an animal being led to slaughter.
They removed the duct tape and forced him to walk to the edge of the cliff, where they sat him down, legs dangling into the void below, holding his shoulders to make sure that his struggle to set his hands free didn’t send him into the abyss prematurely. Agassi and Varujan were holding his arms on either side. Avo approached him from behind; Ayvazian had his eyes shut tight, shaking with fear.
“You have only one chance to save your life,” said Avo calmly. “Tell me why you killed my father. Tell me the truth, and tell it to me right now, if you want to avoid his fate.”
This glimmer of hope helped Ayvazian take a breath. He wanted to turn back to look at Avo, but Agassi and Varujan held him down firmly. He opened his eyes, saw the rocks below, and shut them again. He was still shaking.
“The truth, now!” said Avo again, placing his hand on his back.
“He wouldn’t let us have Lara,” mumbled Ayvazian. “We made him a very good offer, but he refused.”
Lara moved next to Avo, who took out his knife and cut Ayvazian’s hands free. Varujan slipped Ayvazian’s cell phone into his coat pocket, and just as Agassi loosened his grip on him, Lara and Avo pushed him. Ayvazian went down screaming and kicking, his heavy torso caroming off the rocks with loud thuds. He landed a few meters from Hamo, face down, as still as the silent and unseeing rocks around him.
Epilogue
The villagers’ testimonies were all regarded as plausible beyond any reasonable doubt. Agassi, who was visiting his friend the beekeeper in Sevajayr, had heard the sound of an automobile crashing on the other side of the valley. He and Arakel, the bee keeper, had dropped everything and run to investigate; it was a good ten minute run from the beehives to the crash site. They had approached carefully, afraid that the car might blow up. The car was totally demolished. They had seen two bodies, one in the driver’s seat and one in the back. Carefully, they had checked their pulses from the open windows, and, having determined that they were both dead, had touched nothing else, and called Mayor Saro to report the incident.
Mayor Saro had received the call and immediately called the police in Yeghegnadzor, reporting an accident with two fatalities in Sevajayr.
Approximately at the same time, the two teenage boys, Sago and Hayk, who were playing by the deserted barn in Sevajayr, had heard gun shots from the house across the street. The second and third shots were within a second or two of each other. There was a car parked outside the house, but the boys had not paid much attention to it until they heard the shots. Since neither had a watch, they could not tell exactly what time it was, but they figured it was early afternoon. They had gone over and seen the front door partially open. They had pushed the door and seen the two dead bodies, one on the floor and one in the chair. Too scared to look further, they had left the place in a hurry and called Sago’s father, who had told them not to touch anything, and then called the police department in Yeghegnadzor to report a possible double murder in Sevajayr.
It was much later that afternoon that two shepherds had seen two bodies over the rocks at the foot of the steep cliffs in Sevajayr and had gone to investigate. Even from a distance, they could tell from the contorted shapes of the torsos and limbs that both men were dead. They too had called the police department in Yeghegnadzor to report two deaths.
No one could establish a connection between the three incidents, other than the fact that all of those involved were somehow related to Ayvazian. The first looked very much like a car accident. Both bodies were confirmed dead from the car crash. They both had their guns, wallets, money and identification cards still on them. Nothing seemed to be moved or taken, and there was nothing to challenge Agassi’s story.
The second incident looked like two men had shot each other. The analysis indicated that Abkar had shot Serge first in the shoulder, and then just as he shot the second time, aiming at Serge’s chest, Serge had shot back. The boys did not recall anyone else coming to the house or leaving. They said they had been playing around the barn and in the fields all afternoon, and did not notice any car traffic. No one else had been in that area, as both the house and the barn were deserted and none of the villagers had any business being there. Checking inside the house, the police had found no sign of anyone else having been in the house. The place looked dirty and deserted, and other than some bottles of water and pieces of leftover bread, there was no evidence that anyone had actually lived there. Sago and Hayk did not remember when the car parked outside had arrived. They said that when they got the
re in the early afternoon, the car was already there.
There were no witnesses to the Ayvazian and Hamo incident. Only Nerses remembered seeing both the Mercedes and the Lexus SUVs drive by his restaurant a few minutes past noon, but he had no idea who the passengers were. As far as anyone could make out, there was no one else near the field where the fall had taken place. Ayvazian’s car was still there, and the keys were found in Hamo’s pocket. Hamo’s cell phone and gun were in the car. Ayvazian’s gun was not found, and everyone assumed that if he did carry a gun that day, it must have slipped from him during his fall, and it probably was lost somewhere among the rocks. There was no evidence of any other tracks to suggest that the two men may have had company. Either they had fallen together by accident, or Ayvazian had slipped and Hamo had tried to help him but they had both tumbled. It was even possible that they had had an argument leading to a fight, resulting in both of them rolling down the cliffs.
Six deaths in one afternoon in Sevajayr was totally unheard of, especially when someone like Ayvazian was involved. But just as Ayvazian himself had feared, no one even gave the villagers a second thought. This was way over the heads of the peasants and looked like a carefully planned and executed plot by a competing oligarch. Ayvazian had many enemies, any one of whom would have the motive and the means to execute something like this. Whoever did it had done a superb job of covering their tracks. Several weeks later, the police closed the case as two accidents and one double murder.
It was an emotionally overcharged night for all of them. Saro and Agassi were there for a while recounting the events of the afternoon, but took their leave early with Hayk and Sago, after enjoying one of Vartiter’s feasts. Gagik, Avo and Lara spent the night and sat with Laurian a long time talking, recounting and catching up. Lara had bathed, changed her clothes, retouched her light makeup, and sat leaning against Avo on the sofa wrapped in one of Laurian’s light blankets. The previous evening she had been a prisoner in Istanbul, and now she was sitting with Avo, in this strange house, with two strangers who had proven to be the best friends she and her brother had ever known. In order to fight back the wave of emotions building up in his chest, Laurian wanted to talk of future plans, and as usual had many ideas and questions, but had to suppress them all. This wasn’t the right time; there’d be enough time for that when he returned to Saralandj as soon as things had settled down.
A Place Far Away Page 36