Hard Rain

Thirty-two

I woke as we flew into Istanbul, the Turkish Airlines 737 sweeping low over the Bosphorus. The city felt like an old acquaintance. I took in the view out the window as we broke through the sparse cloud. I could spot all the great monuments — the Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, the home of Doctor Aysun Merkit.

Barely a day later, the five days we’d spent in the cistern almost seemed unreal. Masters had come across a four-by-four belonging to some forestry workers parked amongst the pines, miles from anywhere. The keys were left in the ignition. Conveniently, it also had a winch and a hundred feet of steel cable mounted on the front fender. An hour later, we left it where she’d found it — the owners none the wiser — hiked down to the road snaking through the trees and waited for a tourist bus. The newspapers would be all over the discovery of the cistern hidden between two small hills, so we decided to keep it under wraps for as long as possible. We had a little strategic advantage up our sleeves; be a shame to give it away instantly. Better to let Yafa continue to believe for a while longer that her lust for Masters would remain unfulfilled.

Codeine forte was taking the edge off the pain in my knuckles, which had been wrapped up temporarily by a quack back at Izmir. The guy had wanted to reset and recast them properly, only he first had to duck out and geld a horse for a neighbour. I decided to wait, get more specialised medical help at the consulate-general, preferably from someone whose patients walked mostly on two legs.

The 737 landed, taxied, and pulled up with a jolt before shutting down. I saw that the terminal was across the ramp, way over on the other side of the airport. A buzz of concern rippled through the cabin at this, so I gathered parking halfway to Greece wasn’t normal practice.

‘Please remain seated,’ said a woman in Turkish, followed by English, followed by a language that sounded like she had a sticky fly caught in the back of her throat.

The doors at the front of the aircraft and down the back opened simultaneously. And suddenly there was a rush of black. An anti-terror team swarmed aboard. They raced down the aisle in the familiar hunched crouch, MP5s raised to their eye goggles.

‘Shit, it’s —’ Masters was suddenly jerked from her seat and dragged to the floor. All nice and efficient.

I got the same treatment an instant later. They pulled and pushed until I was on the floor, nose flattened against the carpet. Expert hands patted me down, took my wallet. Handcuffs came next, steel jaws around my wrists. We were then hauled to our feet and shoved forward past the terrified passengers to the front hatch.

Arrayed around the front of the plane were assorted marked and unmarked Istanbul police vehicles, their lights all flashing now the job was done. I was lifted down the stairs towards a couple of guys I was getting to know quite well, Detective Sergeants Karli and Iyaz.

‘You are under arrest,’ said Karli, his pants riding especially high.

‘Hey, Detective,’ I said, keeping it light. ‘I see you’ve dressed to the right today. What’s the occasion?’

‘You will be quiet.’

‘What’s the charge?’ Masters asked.

‘We arrest you for the murder of Adem Fedai.’

They had taken my belt and shoelaces, the bandages off my hand and chest — anything I might use to stretch my neck if I was so inclined. Standard practice. I sat on the cot and listened to a guy in a cell two down from mine try to knock himself out by diving off his cot head first. The jailers hadn’t thought about confiscating gravity. I was surprised how many attempts it took him to succeed. They carried him out cuffed to a gurney, his face looking like bolognese sauce.

I invoked Ambassador Burnbaum’s name and got nowhere. We didn’t kill Fedai, but I had a fair idea who did. I thought we’d have been released with a brace of apologies within an hour. But seven hours later — thousands more of those listless seconds later — I was still sitting on the cot consoling my knuckles. Karli and Iyaz eventually strolled into my cell, unaccompanied by any US officials.

‘I want to speak to someone at the United States Embassy,’ I informed them.

‘When we are ready and not before,’ said Karli, which made me think perhaps the embassy wasn’t even aware of our detention.

‘Where is Special Agent Masters?’

‘We are holding her also.’

‘If you’re going to charge us, get on with it so as we can post bail, or however you run it here.’

‘Yes, it is different here. This is not the United States — you have the rights we are prepared to give you.’

‘If you like, we could make it worse for you,’ Iyaz added.

‘You’re gonna sing?’ I asked.

‘We found your rental car five days ago at the town of Kusadasi, near Izmir,’ said Iyaz, ignoring me. ‘Adem Fedai was found dead inside the car. He had been beaten and shot through the ear. We found your DNA in the car, and your partner’s. Also, we have many eyewitness who saw you and Special Agent Masters with the deceased at Ephesus.’

‘You find anyone else’s DNA lying around inside the vehicle?’ I knew it was a dumb question the moment I asked it.

‘Of course, it was a rental car,’ said Iyaz.

‘Don’t you think that also accounts for the presence of our DNA?’

Both detectives were implacable.

‘So tell me, do I look a little thinner than the last time you saw me? And Masters, too?’ I asked, trying a different tack. Karli and Iyaz looked at each other. ‘We’ve been on a rat diet for the past week. Karli, you ought to try it. Makes Atkins look like a glutton. Incidentally, your killer is a woman named Yafa. She’s around thirty-two years old, height five eight, 125 pounds, dark complexion, great figure and sado-lesbian tendencies. She has a partner: male, dark, same age, five nine, 190 pounds. Has an appetite for silver toothpicks. They travel with a bunch of thugs I’d loosely describe as deadshits. But you know all that, because I gave you their descriptions well over a week ago.’ Stringer had said that involving the Turkish police was a tick in the box. Now I was pleased I’d done the ticking. ‘When you find them,’ I continued, ‘you should also ask them about the murders of Portman, Bremmel, and a guy called Denzel Nogart, otherwise known as Ten Pin, down at Incirlik Air Base. And while you’re at it, you could drill them about the entire crew of the good ship Onur.’

‘So you do not deny that you met with Adem Fedai at Ephesus?’ Karli enquired, getting back to something he could deal with.

‘Of course not. He chose the venue. He knew we were investigating his boss’s murder. He wanted to tell us what he knew about the night Portman was killed.’

‘What did he tell you?’ Iyaz asked.

‘That he wasn’t the one who did it,’ I replied.

‘And that is all?’ Karli asked.

‘Pretty much.’ I wondered whether Masters had been interviewed first, and if she had, what she might have told them. I gambled on as little as possible. ‘Fedai gave us a rundown on what he saw, what time he came to work that morning, the time he left — the details. It all tallied, by the way.’

‘What about the safe?’ said Iyaz.

‘He said he opened it but there was nothing inside.’

‘Nothing?’

I shook my head and added a shrug, the disappointing-but-there-you-have-it combination.

‘Did he see Portman’s murderers?’

‘No.’

‘He told you nothing else?’

‘He said he wanted us to leave him alone, that he believed people were trying to kill him — Yafa and the folks I just described to you — and that he would only feel safe back at his home in the mountains somewhere in northern Iraq. Seems his fears were justified.’

Iyaz’s arms were folded. He was buying this. ‘Adem Fedai made you go all the way to Ephesus to tell you nothing?’

‘Like I said, the guy was scared. He saw what happened to his boss. And after the little adventure Masters and I have just had, neither of us feels all that secure around here either. Maybe once you let us out, we might head for those mountains too… Seriously, you guys need to put some manpower onto finding this hit squad running around your neighbourhood.’

Iyaz and Karli shared another glance.

‘Tell us what happened to you and Special Agent Masters,’ Iyaz said, leaning against the basin, making himself at home.

I began with the meeting at Ephesus in the rain, leaving out — as I hoped Masters had also done — any mention of a USB stick, water-quality report, radioactivity, the words ‘uranyl fluoride’ and the town of Kumayt. I then moved on to the shredded bus tyres, road spikes, our subsequent off-road detour, the moonlight meeting with Yafa and her buddies, us waking up in the cistern and, finally, a rundown on our escape. When I’d finished, Karli came in for a close-up on my knuckles. They were badly swollen with fluid, the pale skin marbled with dark bruising.

The two detectives talked amongst themselves for a moment. There was plenty of nodding. Karli said, ‘The tourist bus you saw with tyres blown. It was stolen. We found it in the valley near Ephesus, burnt out.’

‘What about the Michelins on the rental?’ I asked.

‘They were all new. One was the wrong type — it did not match the others.’

‘So maybe the folks I’ve been telling you about had difficulty locating a new identical set of four.’ And maybe Yafa and her team were starting to make all sorts of mistakes — and I counted not shooting Masters and me dead amongst them — that were going to snowball and run right over them.

I looked at Karli and Iyaz, and they looked back at me. There was a lot of looking going on. It occurred to me that these guys were so in the dark, it was a wonder they weren’t bumping into things in broad daylight.

‘Your story is the same as that of your partner’s,’ said Iyaz after he’d done enough looking. ‘We did not believe her but now we are sure you are innocent of this crime. Also, your hire car. It had been in an accident — hit a tree. But there were no trees in the area we found it in. This confused our forensics people. Your story also explains it. We apologise for your treatment at the airport.’

‘Forget about it,’ I said, feeling benevolent. ‘Just let me out and we’ll call it square.’

‘However, we are unhappy that you chose not to keep us informed of your movements. If you had done so, perhaps you would have been found and rescued earlier.’

‘Sure. When you’re right, you’re right.’ I stood up and gestured at the barred door. ‘Now, if you don’t mind…’

‘When you find new developments or evidence on this case, you will tell us.’

‘Cross my heart,’ I said.

Neither detective made a move. I could sense some resistance to ending my incarceration.

There was a little more conversation in Turkish, punctuated by nods and smiles. A consensus between them had been reached and there was happiness all round. They walked towards the door, opened it, walked out and closed it behind them. Through the bars, Iyaz said, ‘We believe your story ninety-nine per cent. For this one per cent we don’t believe your story, we will keep you here overnight.’

Karli leaned up against the bars. With a smirk he added, ‘Yes, seeing an American policeman in a Turkish prison. This is the occasion for which I dress to the right.’