Authors: Paul E. Hardisty
They sailed on through the night, making good progress in favourable but light winds. Hope slept below deck, curled under a blanket. Clay watched the stars turning in a moonless sky, felt the cold currents streaming deep and sure. After a while he opened the port cockpit locker, found the key he’d hung on a hook under the bench, went below and sat at the nav table. Clay opened his daypack, took out Rania’s Koran and unrolled the chart, using Allah’s words delivered to the prophet Mohamed to anchor one corner. Then he plotted
a dead reckoning position using a sighting on the border post at the deserted no-man’s-land town of Famagusta. Hope stirred, mumbled something in her sleep, settled. Clay took the key, reached down below the nav table, found the hidden latch for the priest hole and opened it up. The duffel bag was still there. Inside, the G21, the MP5 and the driver’s H&K were all as he’d left them in Santander, clean and oiled. He figured about 180 rounds of ammunition all up, .45 and 9mm. He placed the Koran in the bag with the weapons and shoved the bag back into the priest hole, locked it up tight.
Just after dawn, the wind died and
Flame
lay becalmed on a flat, cold, November sea. Clay doused the canvas and fired up the diesel. The engine chugged to life. He opened the throttle and set course for the panhandle as the sun rose over Syria.
Not long after, Hope stirred under her blanket and sat up. Clay watched her from the wheel, looking down into the sunlit cabin as she worked her fingers through her hair, separated three long strands and started braiding. She did it absentmindedly, her eyes moving as she looked about the cabin, examining the brass instruments on the bulkhead, searching the spines of the books lining the opposite shelf. She tied the end of the braid with an elastic band and glanced up. Their eyes locked. She smiled. Clay held her gaze a moment, then looked away.
A while later, Hope climbed into the cockpit carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. She sat beside him, handed him a mug. Clay drank.
‘Where are we?’ she said.
Clay glanced up into the rigging, at the small Turkish flag he’d hoisted while Hope slept.
‘In TRNC waters. We passed Famagusta about two hours ago.’
Hopefully, the flag would mollify any Turkish coastguard they happened to meet.
‘Just tourists out for a cruise.’
Clay said nothing.
‘How long until we reach Karpasia?
‘By nightfall. Sooner if the winds cooperate.’
Hope reached into her purse, pulled out her mobile phone, opened the back panel and thumbed out the SIM card. From a zipped pouch in her wallet she retrieved another card, loaded it into the phone. ‘I wonder if there is service out here.’ She flipped open the phone, punched in a number and looked at the screen. Then she raised the phone to her ear. ‘It’s me,’ she said, and listened a while. ‘Okay.’ She closed the phone, looked at Clay. ‘He’ll meet us tonight, just east of Dune Point. He says he’s found some villagers who are willing to talk to us about what’s going on in Karpasia. And he has confirmed it: Erkan is at the monastery. He can take us there.’
Clay let the anchor slide into the water, paid out chain until he felt the Danforth hit bottom and start to dig into the sandy sea floor. He let
Flame
drift with the light breeze flowing out across the dunes, let out chain until a length four times the water depth lay on the sea bed, then secured the chain at
Flame
’s bow. She swung slowly head to wind as the anchor flukes bit and dug in. Clay stood at the bow, gauged
Flame
’s position against the dark rocky mass of Dune Point on one side, Rigel melting into the horizon on the other, and waited. After a while Hope joined him at the bow, her light dress rippling in the breeze. There was no moon. Starlight, aeons old, danced on the black water, bathed the beach and the dunes antique white and there was not a trace of human endeavour to be seen. The only sounds were the lapping of water against the hull and, in the distance, coming on the wind, the hooting of a pair of owls: one calling, a single rising note, short and clear, asking who, the sound drifting to them across the treed ridge beyond the dunes; and then, moments later, the reply from afar with the same question, falling. It was shortly before eleven o’clock.
They walked across the coachroof, stepped down into the cockpit. Hope went below. Clay unlashed the inflatable dinghy from the foredeck and let it slide into the water. After a moment, Hope reappeared in the cockpit and handed Clay a mug of coffee and a bowl of hot beef stew. ‘There are no labels,’ she whispered, cradling her mug in both hands, letting the steam rise to her face.
‘Aren’t you eating?’ he said.
‘I’m vegetarian.’
Clay set aside his stew, went below, found a can of peaches, opened it, carried it up into the cockpit and gave it to Hope, handing her a spoon from his pocket. ‘It could be a long night,’ he said.
They ate in silence. Hope looked out over the water. ‘You see how dark it is, how quiet?’ she said. ‘This is what the turtles need. Come summer, the females will return from years of wandering the seas, ready to lay their eggs. They return to the same beaches where they were born, guided by the magnetic fields imprinted on them at birth. They stand off here in the shallow water waiting for nightfall, then, when all is quiet, usually around the full moon, they come ashore. They lay three times over a six-week period, about every two weeks, clutches of about 120 eggs in chambers half a metre deep. Incubation is seven weeks.’
She looked off along the sweeping phosphorescent arc of the beach. ‘This beach has the single-largest remaining population of nesting green turtles in the Eastern Mediterranean. But every year, about eighty percent of nests are dug up by foxes. So the odds aren’t good. At our research station at Lara Beach in the south, we’re protecting the nests and helping the hatchlings get to the sea. Thirty years from now, when they mature, with a lot of luck, a few of them will be back to continue the line.’
Clay watched the star-white crests of gentle waves curl and wash up onto the beach, listened to the hiss of water retreating across the carbonate sand, timeless.
‘That’s why development is the end,’ said Hope, taking Clay’s hand in hers. ‘Any noise, any light, and the females will choose to abort their eggs at sea rather than come ashore. Each beach represents a distinct family line, a tribe if you will, going back to the darkest reaches of time, megaparsecs, Clay. Develop, and that line is wiped out forever.’
A point of light flashed on the shore, twice, three times. Clay looked at his watch. Midnight. He went below, opened up the priest hole, took the G21 from the bag, checked the mag, stuffed the pistol into the pocket of his jacket. Then he put the Beretta Crowbar had given him in Istanbul into the bag and closed everything up.
They rowed ashore, drew the dinghy up over the sand to the tide line and stood peering into the darkness. Soon after, a dark figure came sliding down the closest dune, surfing on his feet, the sand hissing like water as it flowed beneath him. Hope stepped forward. They embraced, kissed alternate cheeks. He was older, mid-sixties Clay guessed, with thick, silver hair that shone in the starlight.
‘Thank you for coming,’ the man said in English, the Turkish accent heavy in the consonants. ‘They are waiting for us, not far from here. Five men from the village. The only ones I could find who would talk. But I warn you, they are frightened.’ He looked at Hope. ‘I have told them that you are from the EU, an official leading an important commission. They will only speak with someone in authority.’
‘I understand,’ said Hope. ‘Well done.’
‘The monastery?’ said Clay.
‘I have a car in the village. It is not far. After we speak to these men, I will take you there.’ Without another word, the man turned and led them inland.
After half an hour’s hard walking across country unchanged for generations, they came to a narrow, crumbling, tarmac road. Low stone walls, just ruins in places, frayed, overgrown with dark, tangled vines, lined the road on both sides. Beyond, the lighter shapes of terraced fields, more stonework, dark woodland. Clay looked back towards the beach and picked out the breast and nipple of Dune Point, the tiny black shape of
Flame
lying at anchor just beyond, barely visible. He figured they’d covered the best part of two and a half kilometres, gained perhaps five hundred metres of elevation. Hope walked barefoot, strap sandals swinging in her hand. Her friend – she hadn’t given his name – pointed up the road and kept walking.
Soon they left the paved road and threaded along a narrow footpath adjacent to a stone wall until they came to a break in the wall next to a wizened, ancient pine tree. The man stopped, crouched low. Clay and Hope did the same. The man pointed down-slope towards
the dark shape of a building, what looked like an old farmhouse, about two hundred metres away, squat and square, with an open forecourt, set back perhaps a kilometre from the road. ‘They will meet us there,’ said the man, his voice low.
They waited. Clay glanced at his watch. Gone one-thirty. He looked out towards the farmhouse. A light flashed three times.
The man stood. ‘It is them,’ he said, starting down-slope.
Clay followed, Hope behind. He had just cleared the wall when lights flashed on the main road. Two cars, the hunger-bright eyes of a pair of jackals. He stopped, grabbed the man’s shoulder, pointed. The headlights swerved, flashing through the trees, across fallow fields. They were coming towards the farmhouse, half-way there already.
The man stopped. ‘
Bok
,’ he said. Shit.
‘What is it?’ whispered Hope.
‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘Perhaps the police.’
The cars had closed on the farmhouse now, painted the walls and buildings with their headlights. Five men stood in the courtyard, silhouetted against a big stone wall. The cars skidded to a halt in the gravel. Doors opened. Men emerged from the vehicles. Clay counted seven, all carrying weapons.
He didn’t need to see more. He set off at a sprint down the hill towards the farm. Breathing hard, he crouched behind a stone wall, the two groups of men no more than fifty metres away now across an open field. The villagers were crowded together, five of them, up against the wall of the building, some sort of barn with big, wood-beamed sheds buttressing the stone walls, a large, oak-plank door and no visible windows. Eight gunmen he counted now, some armed with shotguns, some with what looked like Uzis. He could hear voices, the men with guns shouting, the villagers mute, blinking into the glare of the headlights. Clay’s stomach lurched. He knew this, could see it unfolding as if in a dream, a nightmare he’d lived before. He pulled the Glock from his pocket, chambered a round. One mag, eight targets. Unlikely, but if he could take out two or three of them quickly, the darkness might give the villagers
a chance. He’d have to get closer. He looked both ways along the wall, out across the field. Open ground, but the shortest, most direct route. That’s what Koevoet had always taught them: go in fast and hard, take the most direct route. He was about to stand when Hope appeared behind him.
She’d lost her sandals. Her dress was torn at the hem. She crouched beside him, breathing hard. ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped. ‘What are they doing?’
Voices rose in a crescendo.
‘Not what it looks like, I hope,’ said Clay.
Hope looked down at the gun in his hand. Her eyes widened. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘What I can,’ he said. ‘Stay here.’
By now the old man had joined them, panting, out of breath. He put his hand over Clay’s gun. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They are only trying to frighten them.’
‘Who are they?’
‘I don’t know. They are not from here.’
‘Then how can you be sure?’
‘There are many of them and only one of you.’ He glanced at Hope. ‘We are unarmed. It cannot be done.’
One of the gunmen had opened the big door. The villagers were being herded inside the building. Two of the gunmen followed them in.
‘I’m not just going to stand here and watch,
broer
. Take your hand away.’
‘Please, Clay,’ said Hope. ‘He’s right. You can’t just go in shooting. You don’t know what’s happening here. And you certainly can’t get them all by yourself. They’ll kill you. Wait, please. I’m sure they’ll go away.’
Three armed men now stood outside the building, lit up by the car headlights like actors on a stage. The other three had moved back to one of the vehicles, a Land Cruiser parked furthest from the barn. Clay was ready, calm, focused. A plan mapped itself out in his head. He pushed aside the old man’s hand and stood.
Hope reached up and grabbed his arm. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’ Her eyes burned in the headlights’ reflected glow.
A single shot, hollow and muffled by stone, jarred the night. It had come from inside the barn.
‘Jesus.’
Two gunmen ran from the barn. Two more started barring the door, chaining it closed. Another had split off from the group and was doing something to the wall of one of the outbuildings, waving his arm at the plastered surface, rendering, painting. The others ran back to the cars, returned with jerry cans and started jerking them around the sides of the building, over the wooden sheds. The sharp mineral tang of gasoline filled the air.
‘They’re going to burn them,’ said Clay.
Hope gasped.
Clay sprang forward, moved across the stubble field at an even jog. A flaming bottle arced up, crashed onto the roof, exploded. Two more followed. In seconds, the roof was ablaze. Clay was metres now from the first car. Muffled screams rose from inside the barn, incredulous, animal wails, then the dull hammering of fists on wood. Within moments the building was engulfed in fire, the flames roaring like a turbine. Orange firelight jerked across the courtyard. Clay could already feel the heat on his face, smell the smoke pouring into the night.
He was at the first car now, some sort of Japanese sedan, its lights pointing towards the inferno. Two men were walking towards the car, backlit by the fire, eyes narrowed as they looked into the car’s headlights. One carried a jerry can, the other what looked like a tin of paint and a brush. Clay stepped towards them at a walk, as if he were one of them. In the darkness they didn’t register him as a threat until it was too late. Clay raised the Glock from five paces and put a .45 calibre bullet into each man’s chest. They toppled to the ground without a word.
Clay crouched and darted back behind the car, out of the lights. The Glock was loud. Despite the roar of the fire, the other men
turned towards the sound and saw their two comrades lying in the dirt. Shouting now, a voice of command, arms waving. Two men, one taller, the other short and overweight, both armed with shotguns, detached from the group and started moving towards Clay. The others started running towards the Land Cruiser, twenty metres to Clay’s left.
Clay hugged the ground, looked out from under the car, watched the men’s feet approaching, the orange firelight jerking across the gravel. The others had reached the Land Cruiser. Doors opened, closed. The engine started, a tapping diesel, poorly tuned. The two men stopped next to the bodies of their comrades. A voice shouted out from the Land Cruiser. One of the men shouted back. There was a loud crash as a section of the barn’s roof caved in. Embers flooded the night sky. Clay took a deep breath. Bastards. He had to get to the barn, and quickly. He bounced into a crouch then moved along the right side of the car, keeping it between him and the men. The two were right there, just inside the throw of the headlights. Tall crouching down, examining his dead colleagues, Short looking back towards the Land Cruiser. Clay stood, widened his stance, steadied the Glock on his stump, fired three times. The first bullet hit Short in the side of the head, sent him pitching backwards into the dirt. The second missed altogether, hurtled away into the night. The third slammed full force into Tall’s trapezium. At that range, the heavy slug tore through the back of his neck, exploded milliseconds later from his lower back. He slumped face-first onto his prone colleague.
Short was on his back, feet scrabbling in the dirt, blood streaming from the side of his head, squinting into the headlights. The bullet must have grazed him at low angle, deflected off the skull. Still on his back, he raised a sawn-off shotgun, aimed it at Clay. A hundredth of a second later the concussion of the charge exploding, loud, very close, shot spraying the car, tearing into metal, smashing glass. Clay felt himself picked up and thrown, kicked hard in the jaw, the right shoulder and upper chest. He fell to the ground, aware he’d been hit, the pain not coming yet, just the dull ache of impact. He
rolled, looked under the car. Short was standing now, backpedalling towards the Land Cruiser. Another blast from the shotgun. The car lurched as the pellets slammed broadside into the windows and door panels, smashed out the front lights. Short was at the Land Cruiser now. A door opened. Outstretched hands pulled him inside. The vehicle’s engine roared. Gravel spat as the Land Cruiser swerved and sped away down the track.
Clay sat up with his back against the car, put the Glock on the ground, raised his hand to his shoulder, felt the blood there, wet, gritty. He could see Hope and the old man running across the open field toward him, their faces a blur, painted in firelight like denizens of hell. He touched his fingertips to his face. His eyes were starting to swell shut and a thick, warm liquid trickled over his top lip and into his mouth and out over his chin and neck.