City of the Lost

I

There was no time to treat Andreas with the care appropriate to his wound. Iain tore his shirt into strips to bandage his leg then hoisted him up the ladder of seats to the top, where Karin helped haul him out. His trousers were sodden with blood; he bit back a yelp each time he put any weight on his foot. They took the long way round, staying clear of possible lines of fire from the shaft mouth. Butros had arrived to join them, was surveying his dead men with horror and dismay, while Georges covered Asena with a gun in one hand even as he tried in vain to get a signal on their various cell radios with the other.

‘Any joy?’ asked Iain.

Georges shook his head. ‘When Faisal fell, it must have broken our relay.’

A long-shot, but worth a try. Iain clambered back down the bus to retrieve and then check Faisal’s dropped radio. It was still working, but it had no signal either. The bleak truth settled over him. They were trapped down here, cut off from the outside world, the Turkish army parked above their heads. ‘What now?’ asked Karin.

‘We make things hard for them,’ said Iain. ‘You lot have explored this place. Is there anywhere we can hold them off?’

‘Those doors,’ said Georges, glancing at his father. ‘If we could get behind them…’

Iain saw it from the corner of his eye, a metallic tear-drop falling down the shaft. He yelled for everyone to get down, grabbed Andreas and Karin and hauled them to the ground either side of him. The loudness of the explosion, the brightness of the flash even through closed eyelids, he diagnosed it instantly as a stun grenade, of no direct danger itself but a sure sign of danger imminent. A second detonation, a third, then a beat or two of silence. He risked a glance around even as a cluster of yellow ropes dropped down the shaft, bounced briefly before hanging there like creepers in the rain forest, then dark shadows abseiling fast down them, silhouettes bulked up with body-armour, assault rifles at the ready.

He picked Andreas up, threw him in a fireman’s lift over his shoulder, then grabbed Asena by the arm before she could sneak away. ‘Run,’ he yelled at the others. And they ran.

II

Under other circumstances, Deniz Baştürk would have been heartened by the new spirit of cooperation and even enthusiasm in the cabinet room. Just a shame that he’d had to write and then sign four copies of his resignation letter to bring it about. Nevertheless, for the first time, there was a genuine focus on dealing with the protests and riots. Not that agreement was straightforward, even now. Some argued for showing understanding of the demonstrators’ grievances. Others demanded a crackdown and ruthless retribution. The usual compromise emerged. Make examples of the worst hooligans and anarchists while quietly letting marginal cases slide. Then flood the streets with uniforms and stamp down ruthlessly on anything that sniffed of trouble while simultaneously announcing a package of measures to boost employment and relieve the worst poverty and hardship.

He had no part in this conversation. No one asked his opinion or even spared him a sympathetic glance. He had become a ghost. Six months in office, and it wasn’t just allies he lacked, it was friends. In truth, the only person to become anything of the sort during his tenure was General Yilmaz. And if there was any silver lining to this situation, he reflected, it was that the Chief of the General Staff wasn’t a member of the cabinet, and therefore not here in person to witness his humiliation.

III

General Yilmaz waited apprehensively for Ragip to report back on the success or otherwise of his assault. At last he came on the radio. ‘The main chamber is secure, sir,’ he said. ‘No resistance and no casualties. But there were bodies already down here.’

Yilmaz braced himself. ‘Any women?’

‘No, sir. But my first two men down saw people running, including at least one woman. And there’s a blood trail. We’ll find them soon enough. What do you want done when we do?’

Yilmaz hesitated. This situation was too tangled yet delicate for delegation. He needed to oversee it in person. ‘Wait there,’ he said. ‘I’m coming down.’ He turned to Nezih, his project manager for tonight’s works. ‘You know the plan,’ he told him. ‘Use the approach roads for parking. Keep as much weight off the square itself as you can. But be ready to start pumping the moment we’re back up.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Abseiling was beyond him, so he tossed the rope ladder back down the shaft then sat awkwardly on the broken ground and felt for a rung with his left foot. He took a firm hold then twisted himself around and began his descent. It was a shock to him both how awkward and how taxing he found it. Appearances mattered hugely in the army. You had to look capable. That was why he’d taken to dying his hair these past few years, to improving his diet and adopting a strenuous exercise regime, even to paying annual visits to a discreet Swiss clinic. But then one day you had to climb down a rope ladder and you realized you were old.

The bonnet of the bus was exposed, its windscreen gaping. His heart sank at the thought of all the people who might already have looked inside. But then he’d been living with that fear for forty years. Almost from the 1974 ceasefire, the international community had urged Turkey to hand back Varosha as a gesture of goodwill. Under other circumstances, he’d have lain low and hoped to find anonymity in the general fog of war. But that photograph of him had made anonymity impossible. Besides, it hadn’t been just him and his men who’d stood to lose from discovery of the bodies, it had been the reputation of the whole army too, even of Turkey herself. With great trepidation, therefore, he’d requested a private interview with his commanding officer. It had been the most uncomfortable half hour of his life, choking on his confession like on a stuck bone. Thankfully, his CO had seen where he was going, had stopped him before he could reveal it all. A man experienced in war as well as peace, he’d known how fickle the public could be, how quickly they’d come to declare abhorrent the very tactics for which they’d so recently clamoured. And the next Yilmaz had heard was that Varosha was being permanently sealed off, without real explanation, under the direct command of the Turkish army. And so it had remained ever since, despite the occasional prodding of some new UN initiative, until Baştürk had become Prime Minister and signalled his willingness to treat. What choice had he had then but to destroy that willingness with bombs? No choice at all.

He reached the bottom rung, stepped onto the mound. ‘Well?’ he asked.

Ragip snapped out an uncharacteristically sharp salute, as became this whiff of combat. ‘We’ve found them, sir. There’s a long ramp or staircase at the far end of the site. They’re trapped in some kind of chamber at its foot.’

‘Good,’ nodded Yilmaz. ‘Show me.’