City of the Lost (41 page)

Authors: Will Adams

He was out of time.

The deaths of his wife and son had been the most brutal experience in Iain’s life. It hadn’t just been the overwhelming grief of bereavement itself, it had been the mixture of guilt and self-loathing and falling short that had come along with it, and which he’d never quite managed to shake off since, irrational though it was. For he’d always seen it as his fundamental role in their family to keep Tisha and Robbie safe, whatever it took. And so what use was he? What possible use was he?

There was a knob of rock at the foot of the shaft. He knotted one end of the rope around it then tested it to make sure that it would hold. When he was satisfied, he threw the other end down to Georges. ‘Stay where you are for the moment,’ he told him. ‘There’s a blockage I need to clear first.’

‘A blockage?’ asked Karin.

‘Wait until I come back here, or until it’s all finished spilling out. Then climb up and we can get the fuck out of here.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ he told her. He could hear the slightly tinny note of falseness in his voice, so he didn’t hang around to argue. He climbed briskly back up to the trap-doors. It was difficult to get leverage on the second bar. The way the doors had lurched down had pinned it even more tightly into its slots. He’d need to relieve the pressure on it somehow. He turned around so that his back was against the wall then bent his legs and straightened his back and pressed his hands and head up against the trap-doors, like Atlas carrying the heavens. He breathed in deep to flood his bloodstream and muscles with oxygen, then he gave it everything, straining to straighten his legs, a weightlifter going for gold. The locking-bar loosened a fraction, enough for him to knock it away with his elbow. The trap-doors instantly burst open, releasing a torrent of dry sand. He grabbed the wall and clung gamely on for a second or two but the deluge was too much, it ripped him free and sent him tumbling down the shaft, helpless as a child caught by a freak wave. The sand already fallen at least buffered his landing, but instantly he was pinned beneath the extraordinary weight of the continuing cascade, like some vast grain elevator in full spate. Within moments he was buried so deep that an eerie silence fell. He was lying on his front with his back bent and his arms up to protect his head, creating a tiny pocket of air beneath him. He tried to move an arm or leg, but he simply couldn’t. The weight upon him was so crushing that it was all he could do to breathe.

A minute passed. Another. The air turned sour. A headache started and quickly grew fierce. He began to feel dizzy and knew it wouldn’t be much longer. An image came unbidden to him then, of Tisha and Robbie the last time he’d seen them alive, cheerfully waving him off after his final leave. He knew it was only his oxygen-depleted brain playing tricks, but the way they were waving felt like forgiveness; it felt like letting go. And the burden of having fallen short that he had been carrying around all these years finally lifted from him, leaving him feeling almost weightless. A voice began whispering in his ear. He tried to ignore it but it wouldn’t go away. It kept telling him that it wasn’t his imagination, that the weight of sand truly had lessened. And suddenly he realized the significance of that, that the torrent must not only have poured itself out, but also have spilled out of the cleft onto the cavern floor, leaving only a relatively small mound of it above him. With his last reserves of strength, he wrenched himself around. He began to scrabble at it with his hands and it was so fine and dry that it parted easily now and then he was breaking clear of it and gasping for air even as Karin, digging down to him from above, cried out in relief and threw her arms around him and hugged him with a fierceness that was almost a declaration in itself.

They lay there together for a while as he recovered. The shaft rose high above them, offering a miraculous glimpse of night sky. And then, astonishingly, a helicopter, drawn perhaps by this inexplicable new sink-hole in the ground, passed clattering overhead; and its searchlights caught him and Karin for the briefest moment in its twin beams, as they basked in the relief of it, in the sheer physical joy of being utterly spent, yet still alive.

EPILOGUE
Nicosia, four days later

The sun was out, making rainbows on cobbles slick with soapsuds. Across the square, waiters were laying tables for lunch, stiff white cloths and heavy steel cutlery and fat glasses for water and wine. Karin felt an immense contentment as she watched them. What a pleasant life, to move from café to café with the sun, holding hands with Iain.

She felt fifteen again. Fifteen, and in love.

Every so often, someone would notice her or Iain and do a double take; but less than yesterday, in turn less than the day before.
Sic transit gloria mundi
, as her old professor would have put it.
Thus passes the glory of this world
.

A waiter sashayed through tables to bring them new drinks. Grenadine for her, orange juice for him. Alcohol was somehow redundant. They clinked out a toast, eyes meeting over the top of the ice-misted glass. Another thrumming of the strings. It was absurd. But that wouldn’t last forever, and then what?

Iain, seemingly, had no doubts. He was possessed of a new serenity since their ordeal beneath Varosha, as though he’d put old ghosts to rest. He talked of their future together as a settled thing. At dinner the night before, he’d explained how he’d reconfigure his flat for her. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she’d protested. ‘We’ve only known each other a week.’

‘So?’ he’d asked.

At times his certainty thrilled her. At others it made her wary. It meant she’d have to be the sheet anchor, the rational one. And there was plenty to be rational about. Money, for a start. Good jobs were hard to come by in her field, and her debt wouldn’t retire itself. Iain waved all that aside. But damned if she’d live off him; damned if she would. She drained her grenadine, put down the empty glass, got to her feet. ‘You know that thing I have to do.’

He nodded. ‘You sure you don’t want company?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Later, then.’

She stooped to kiss his cheek. She liked it when he didn’t shave. It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk from the Old City to the Société Genève. No sign of the manager. But then she’d timed it for his lunch-hour. The way the tellers glanced at each other suggested they’d been gossiping about her amongst themselves. The cocky young man was free. She walked straight up to him and told him what she needed. He led her to the back office for the master key and to register her details. But his composure failed him on their way down to the basement. ‘So that was pretty cool,’ he grinned. ‘You and your friends in Famagusta.’

‘I guess,’ smiled Karin. Maybe it had looked so from the outside. From the inside, cool was about the last word she’d have chosen. Watching Iain climb the wall and then make his leap across the cavern had been a kind of torture; and she found it almost impossible even now to think about that avalanche of sand he’d brought down upon himself; her mind would baulk and flinch away from it, she’d have to think of something else, something soothing.

Courage was odd like that, the way it came and went. It perplexed her, for example, that so soon after losing her nerve in this same bank vault a few days ago, she’d managed to fight her way free from those Grey Wolf thugs, then had insisted on going into Varosha with Iain and Andreas. Had she changed so dramatically in so short a time? She didn’t think so. But how else to explain it?

The cashier tapped in the pass-code, pulled open the vault door. She went directly to 7a. They crouched to fit in their keys and pull it slightly ajar. ‘I hope this is the right box,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’ he asked.

‘I have two of them. I thought I knew what was in each, but now I’m worried that I might have mixed them up.’

‘No problem. As long as you brought both keys.’

‘Let me check this one first. I think I got it right.’ She waited until he’d left and the door was closed behind him, then she checked her watch. Two minutes should be plenty.

She leaned against the wall as she waited. News had come in a torrent these past few days. Revelations about Yilmaz, Asena and the Grey Wolves had kept Turkey riveted. The Bejjanis had returned home to condemnation and acclaim. And Deniz Ba
ş
türk had seized the opportunity of his stratospheric approval ratings to fire his cabinet and replace them with people loyal to himself. Only Andreas had reservations, it seemed, tweeting from his hospital bed about the dangers of a weak man with a mandate.

The second minute passed. She called the cashier back in. ‘I feel such a fool,’ she told him. ‘It must be in my other box.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘What number?’

Five days before, in this same vault, she’d faltered at this juncture. She still stood to lose everything she’d stood to lose then, plus this time Iain too. Yet the thought of the possible cash inside the box bolstered her; or, more specifically, the good things she could do with it: she could provide for Mustafa’s widow and daughters; she could help Iain set up his new company; she could pay off her debts and start a new life in London, a life she craved, a life she deserved. Without a qualm, therefore, she took Rick’s key from her pocket and held it up. And in that moment she realized that she’d been thinking about it wrong. Courage wasn’t about one’s ability to handle fear.

No. All courage was, was having something that mattered more.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

There is always a risk, with stories like these, of plots being overtaken by real events. Even as I was finishing my first draft, the Gezi Park protests started in Taksim Square in Istanbul then spread quickly across Turkey. And, shortly afterwards, the Egyptian army ousted its second president in less than thirty months. This book contains echoes of both episodes, but as it was substantively completed before either took place, any parallels are genuinely coincidental.

I grew up on the Greek myths and legends; I must have read my children’s editions of the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
a dozen times each. I’ve long hankered, therefore, to write a book based on the Trojan War, and what happened to its heroes in its aftermath. But discovering the truth about Troy is surprisingly hard, not least because of the impenetrability of the ensuing Dark Ages, and the radically different theories about them. That, essentially, is where the chronological and archaeological ideas at the heart of this book came from. For anyone interested in learning more about them, I’d warmly recommend Peter James’
Centuries of Darkness
or David Rohl’s
The Lords of Avaris
.

A note on place names. Much of this book is set in Cyprus, where towns and cities typically have different names in Greek and Turkish. To make life as easy as possible for readers, I have used anglicized versions of the more familiar Greek names throughout – most notably Nicosia instead of Lefkos¸a, and Famagusta rather than Gazima
ğ
usa – even in situations where the characters involved would likely have used the Turkish names.

My thanks – as ever – to my agent Luigi Bonomi, to my editor Sarah Hodgson at HarperCollins, and to my copy editor Anne O’Brien, who each helped make the book significantly better than it otherwise would have been. I’m also deeply indebted to all those who so generously shared their knowledge and time with me during my research and on my travels. Finally, I’d like to thank my friend Clive Pearson, who first drew my attention to the mysteries of Dark Ages chronology, and who was kind enough to read an early draft of this book to check for the usual mistakes. Any that remain are, as ever, mine and mine alone.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Adams has tried his hand at a multitude of careers over the years. Most recently, he worked for a London-based firm of communications consultants before giving it up to pursue his life-long dream of writing fiction. His first novel,
The Alexander Cipher
, has been published in sixteen languages, and was followed by three more books in the Daniel Knox series,
The Exodus Quest
,
The Lost Labyrinth
and
The Eden Legacy
. He writes full-time and lives in Suffolk.

Also by Will Adams

The Alexander Cipher

The Exodus Quest

The Lost Labyrinth

The Eden Legacy

Newton’s Fire

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