THE CONTRACTOR

by R. SAINT HILAIRE

  I just love a good bedtime story. But it was not yet time for a nap (though god, I needed one) because we were coming up on one of the shittiest border crossings in the world. Of course, there are many shitty border crossings, but this one was a strange conglomeration of cinderblock buildings painted yellow, some offices, and strange little crappy convenience stores. Then there were a bunch of trailers being used for various things, some with yellow vinyl siding, some without. Apparently, there had been a sale on yellow paint.

  As you approach the border, there are concrete highway barriers that force you to slow down and zig-zag toward the checkpoint. Cars, trucks and people are lined up to show papers and cross from both directions. A watchtower looms in the distance, looking like an air traffic control tower, surveying everything going on in the valley below. There are signs letting you know you are leaving lovely Turkiye and heading into living hell. And there are guns, but really not as many as you would expect. I have seen more in a few airports around the world. Not to say there aren’t some big guns up there on the hill, but you would expect more.

  Dave rummaged through the black bag on the floor in front of him and handed me a cap and a suit jacket. He handed Merlin a 9mm.

  “Get that shit on. We pre-arranged our crossing with some highly-greased palms. They know Fahri is missing, and we told them we have a replacement who is a U.S. Nuclear Scientist. Um, that’s you, now, Nick.”

  I quickly unbuckled, stripped off the dusty shirt revealing a sweat-soaked black t-shirt below, and put on the jacket. A little big, but it would do. Dave then handed me what was certainly a forged government pass on a lanyard. I tossed it around my neck, donned the black cap with a dual US/Turkey flag patch on it, and tried to act “sciencey.”

  The Suburban slowly wound its way through the concrete barriers and approached the gate. Dave handed Rusty a ream of papers, some with large signatures and blue ink stamps, looking all official and shit. Perhaps they were. These guys had all the resources at their disposal, and they were always prepared. In these situations, they were the big men on campus. They knew how the Diplomatic Services worked, whom they worked with, who got paid on both sides of the border, and how to get in and get out “officially.”

  The A/C was on, but streams of sweat were running down both my back and chest. With a grey jacket over a black t-shirt, two days of stubble, and a large ID badge hanging around my neck, I looked more like I was attending an event at the Cannes Film Festival than a dorky scientist. I just had to remain chill and let Dave and Rusty do their thing. The less I said, the better. I chuckled a bit to myself imagining me answering questions.

  “Sir, what facility are you travelling to?” My imaginary border guard asks me.

  “The Nuclear one. The one where the rods make nuclear fission with hard water, and the plutonium strontium coalesces into a core that can be put in a bomb-like apparatus, for mass destruction and nuclear fallout ’n shit.”

  I smiled. Yep, that’s what would have come out of my mouth if I were asked questions, but Rusty and Dave were not gonna let that happen.

  Merlin and I looked at each other side-eyed while the border guard flipped through the paperwork, looked into the back seat at us, asked Rusty if he knew the way to Chalus, and informed us that we should stop in Qotur for fuel if we needed it. Then there was stamping of papers—they like stamps—and we were waved on, the gate sliding open in front of us.

  Wait a damn minute. That was it? How the fuck was that it? We were representatives of a foreign government, coming from Turkey, in a government vehicle, with U.S. DSS agents, who did not hide the pistols in their laps, going into Iran, who doesn’t want us anywhere the fuck near their nuclear facilities, and all they did was suggest a good place to refuel? Nope. Just Nope. All of the Nopes.

  “How’d you like that shit?” Rusty said, smiling widely in the rear-view mirror.

  I just shook my head. “So where are we actually going?”

  No response.

  “Okay, so you want your mind blown?” I awaited their response. No response. Too bad, I thought. I am telling the story anyway.

  “So, after our somewhat less-than-successful landing in the desert…” I heard Jim chuckle. “We wandered around and got our asses nabbed by some locals. At least, that’s what we thought.”

  “Wait, you guys were together this whole time? And some locals kicked your ass and absconded with you?” Dave said looking over his shoulder.

  “Yes and no. We were together, and we got caught, then shit happened, and we got separated. We found each other later, but that’s not the point. Initially, when we got caught, we ended up in some dusty little cell somewhere. Why do I feel like I am explaining why I came home drunk to my mother?”

  Dave and Rusty both laughed.

  “Anyhow—I come to, and you will never guess who the fuck is standing over me, surrounded by heavily armed henchmen.”

  “Your mother?” Dave blurted out without hesitation.

  We laughed and laughed. Not so much.

  “Fuck you guys. It was friggin’ Erik!”

  There was silence for a minute as Dave and Rusty looked at each other.

  “Like ginger Erik, with-your-wife Erik, H2H Erik?” Rusty asked, eyes squinting in disbelief.

  “Damn skippy! Believe it or not, he is…ready for this? A double fucking agent.” I told them in the same tone I would use to tell someone his wife was cheating on him.

  “How?” asked Dave.

  “He’s helping the Iranians get nuclear materials across the border, and at the same time is letting the U.S. military leaders know where and when the smuggling is taking place. He’s getting paid by both sides! And guess what? He doesn’t give a shit either way. He said it’s all about the oil. It’s not even about the nuclear materials or Iran getting a nuclear bomb. None of it. It’s just an excuse for the control of the oil fields.” I let the weight of the story sink in.

  “And,” Jim chimed in, “he electrocuted my ass just for effect. Fucker.”

  Rusty stared into the distant valley as they drove into Iran. “That’s fucked up as a football bat.”

  There wasn’t any more talking for a few minutes. I think everyone was just trying to digest the words, think of the hows and whys, and come up with what we would do next.

  I broke the silence. “So…where are we going again?”

  CHAPTER NINE - Miss Badass

  Iam telling you this little story totally out of order. But in order for you to get what comes later, you need to understand what a complete and total badass my wife is and how that all led to…well, you’ll see.

  You might remember that red-haired prick Erik’s answer as to where my wife was…

  “Oh yes, Miss. Last I saw her, she was tied to a chair in a similar setting in Istanbul. I sent a little dispatch to the consulate there—an anonymous tip that there was an American spy who had entered the country as a tourist. I gave some hints to the location. I gave her a fighting chance. Maybe she’ll find a way to escape. Maybe she will be found by the Turkish government first. I let fate handle that one.”

  Well, sometimes male combatants forget how tough bitches can be. They put them out of the way so they can’t get in the way. For Erik, he got blinded by me. That’s where all his focus went. Well, me, and all the shenanigans he had to go through to get his various paydays. That blindness had been a mistake, and fucking with Melissa had been a bigger mistake.

  What I am relating to you here is the story I was told, after the fact, by my very scary wife, and a few others who had witnessed her fury. I guess this also gives away the fact that neither of us are dead. But I guess I couldn’t tell you this story if we were. Anyhow…

  It was a dark and stormy night…

  For real—it actually was.

  The rain battered down on the corrugated metal roof of a storage shed somewhere in Istanbul, Miss told me. She went on…

  So, Erik fucking tied me to a chair. I don’t remember how I got there. In the end I gues
s he decided not to take on the task of physically controlling me, so he drugged me. Piece of shit. It took a few minutes for my head to stop pounding and become clear enough for me to piece together what had happened.

  We were really having a nice time before that. We were going to take a train to Edirne to see the wrestling but found there was only a night train that took about a million hours, so we took a bus from Avrupa Otoyolu, which was just a couple scenic hours from Edirne.

  Once in Edirne, we followed the traditions of visiting the various statues of past wrestling champions and walked the ancient streets to the Suleiman bridge, where we crossed the Tunca river to the Kirkpinar Stadium.

  Kirkpinar Stadium is a somewhat modern, open-air stadium surrounding a field where the wrestling takes place. The field used to belong to the Sultans.

  Wrestlers are broken into ten groups according to their standing and wrestle in forty-minute bouts after covering themselves in olive oil.

  During most of the matches, Erik had a running narrative of the various moves they were executing and got very animated when they didn’t execute the moves Erik thought they should have. We ate and drank and cheered and tried to stay out of trouble, generally.

  It was actually an amazing couple of days with no signs of what was about to come. Even sitting together on the bus back to Istanbul, we chatted, looked at pictures on our phones, talked Jujitsu and grappling, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. No worries—or so I thought.

  After getting back to the hotel, we had agreed to clean up and meet at the terrace bar for some views and wine. When I arrived, Erik was already seated at one of the black wicker tables under the red awning looking over the Sea of Marmara. Two glasses of wine awaited. Perfect end to the day.

  Now, I have had a couple drinks in my life, and can usually hang with the best of them, but either this was 80-proof wine, or something was very wrong. I tried to hide what I was feeling but finally had to admit to myself and Erik that I was really feeling dizzy. I told him that I didn’t want to scare him, but I was feeling unusually dizzy. I was definitely expecting a wisecrack from my old teacher, which didn’t come. That’s when I really knew something was wrong. Erik just sat and smiled at me. That was the last thing I remember until the sound of the rain on the metal roof.

  So, there I was in the dark, pinpoints of light letting me know that it was night but that there were streetlights or lights from a home or shop just outside. I was definitely duct-taped to a chair. But not over my mouth. That was weird. I could just yell for help—which told me immediately that I should not yell for help. Not covering my mouth was not a mistake. If I called out, I bet men would come running in and beat the shit out of me or something. So I stayed quiet and tried to assess the situation.

  Smells? Not so much. Something like a musty closet. Maybe plastic or vinyl. There was a slight smell of sewer. Sounds? Not so much. An occasional faint voice in the distance. A dog barked. Mostly quiet. Probably the middle of the night. No sense of someone else in the room.

  Okay, I thought, now why the hell would Erik do this to me? Did he even do this to me? Maybe someone at the hotel did this and it wasn’t Erik. No, wait. Wait! The plane crash. It was Erik. He told me about the plane crash. Oh, fuck—Nick was gone! It wasn’t clear. It was like remembering a dream. It was definitely Erik who did this. Fucker.

  Okay. So maybe, maybe not. I wasn’t sure what was real at the moment except for where I was and that I was taped to a chair. I didn’t waste brain power on thoughts that may have been false. I needed my brain power for getting out of the situation. But I couldn’t move. I needed light. I thought about how to get closer to the wall so I could see what was outside. I rocked the chair to move closer, but all that did was cause me to topple backward, slam onto a very hard floor, bang my head, and take another nap. Stupid.

  Sound is what woke me. There was a bustle of activity. Voices. Light streamed in through large cracks between metal siding. For a moment I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Gowns, hats, boots, vests, masks, wigs hanging all around me like something from a murderous clown horror movie. A storage shed full of old costumes. What the hell? Wait—I remembered seeing a whole street of costume shops near the Grand Bazaar. Maybe I was near that. The ever-increasing sounds of a new day of business told me I was right.

  How to get out of the tape? I had no idea. There was nothing I could see to use to cut the tape—which, by the way, is not as easy as it looks in the movies.

  You had taped me naked to a chair once, and I tried to cut the tape…it was hard…and that’s a very different story—so let me move on!

  The only choice I had was to yell and see who the sound attracted and deal with that when they got here. So I started easy with “Hello, can someone help me?” “Hello?” Then a little louder. “Help.” Help!” I heard footsteps.

  There was a sound of keys and a lock, and I was ready for whatever was about to happen. The door to the shed slowly opened, and a boy of about twelve peered into the room.

  “Mehraba?” he said in a scared whisper, eyes squinting into the dark. “Selam?” “Alo?”

  I used a soft voice replying “Yardim.” I knew that was one word in the phrase “help me” and was hoping it made some sense to the boy.

  He pushed aside some dark costume dresses and saw me on the floor. He looked around the room as if he thought someone else might be there. Then he slowly came to me, I am sure wondering why a woman was tied up in his shed. He looked over his shoulder for a second as if he was thinking of getting help from a parent. Slowly, he pulled a pocketknife from his pocket. Was he already a proficient killer? His expression didn’t look murderous. The boy smiled and reached the small knife out to cut the tape around my ankles and wrists. I crawled to my feet, still a little dizzy and with a lump on the back of my head. He smiled and waved for me to follow him.

  The light was blinding as I walked out the door, and it took me a second to see where the boy was headed. He walked under a small awning, under which sat two large pots with flowering plants, through a portico and into what looked like another storage room, but this one was attached to a costume shop. The next room I could see through the doorway was an office with two metal desks, stacked high with papers, invoices, bills of lading, and books. As I got closer, I could see two men talking in front of one of the desks, their backs to me. I stood for a moment and pulled the rest of the tape from my wrists. I took a step forward, one of the men looked at me for an extended second, and then all hell broke loose.

  Both men—probably in their fifties, with gray beard stubble—lurched at me. I instinctively took a defensive stance, hands splayed out in front of me ready to defend against any strikes. But there were no strikes, and in an instant they had me by both arms, I assume in an attempt to drag me back to the shed. I lost my balance a bit as they dragged me backward but regained my footing and then used their momentum to drive a low back-kick into the back of one of the guy’s knees. I forced it all the way to the ground, and he moaned with pain and anger. The second man now pulled even harder, which released me from the other guy’s grip.

  Just for a flash, I saw the face of the boy—scared, surprised, knowing he was in trouble.

  Pulling even harder, the second bastard spun me so I was almost facing his back. I used that momentum, grabbed the back of his head with my free hand, circled, and dropped him with an Irimi Nage. He hit the ground hard in the middle of the small storage room just behind the office. I turned and ran through the costume shop, eliciting shocked looks from the patrons.

  Let me just stop for a minute to have us all savor that move because it was one that took me years to get. It had been one of my worst self-defense moves, which kept me frustrated for a long time. Think of spinning someone around only to clothesline him by the neck, which slams him down on his upper back as his feet fly out from underneath him. Technically it’s not a clothesline, but that’s the easiest way to describe it. If you have ever watched the old martial arts movie Above the Law, you’v
e seen Steven Seagal do it several times. Well—it works like a mo-fo! And all those hours, weeks, months, years of practice finally paid off. I have my go-to self-defense techniques, and Irimi Nage isn’t one of them. But it was that day!

  Melissa became very animated while telling me the story of her captivity and escape. I went through several beers as I listened to her tale of badassery.

  So, through the costume shop and into the street I went. Having no idea where to go, and assuming I would be pursued, I turned right and ran down the bustling street, soon to find out I was heading directly into the Grand Bazaar. I immediately recognized the labyrinth of stalls, then shops under canvas, and then shops under roofs. I could get lost from pursuers there.

  Some areas of the Bazaar are better lit than others. Areas with jewelry or pottery or food are very well lit. But there is also a whole section where they sell lighting. Everything from traditional hanging lamps to tabletops, oil lamps and candles. That area is darker to accentuate the ambiance of the lighting fixtures. A better place to hide.

  You don’t often get to browse through a shop in the Bazaar. The shop owner or employee immediately starts the sales job on you. So you get what in this case was too much attention. I couldn’t just duck into a shop and “hide.” I had to stay on the move. So, I ran in and out of the sixty-one various lanes and alleys that crisscrossed one of the largest markets in the world—constantly looking over my shoulder.

  Where to go? Find my way back to the hotel? That didn’t seem like a good idea. Make it to the consulate. Maybe a good idea, but really far away. Police? Nope. Contact the DSS agents somehow? That sounded like the best....