The Empire Of The Wolves

73

Ismail Kudseyi was standing in the rain in the gardens of his property in Yeniköy.

Beside the patio, among the reeds, he stared at the river.

The Asian side stood out in the distance, like a slender ribbon being frayed by the downpour. It was over a thousand yards away, and not a single vessel was in sight. The old man felt safe, out of range of any snipers.

After Azer's phone call, he had felt the need to go there. To plunge his hand in those silvery folds and soak his fingers with green foam. It was an imperious, almost physical craving.

Leaning on his stick, he walked along the parapet and cautiously went down the steps that led directly into the water. A salty smell assailed him; the spray soaked him at once. The river was in a frenzy, but no matter how agitated the Bosporus was, there were always secret hiding places at the foot of the rocks, carved niches of grasses, where the waves rolled up in multicolored glints.

Even today, at seventy-four, Kudseyi went back to this place when he needed to think. It was his real home. He had learned to swim there. He had caught his first fish. Lost his first ball made of tied-up rags that came undone in contact with the water, like the bandages of a childhood that had never entirely healed…

The old man looked at his watch- 9:00. Where were they?

He went back up the steps and contemplated his kingdom: the gardens around his house. Along the crimson-red enclosure, which completely excluded the outside world, forests of bamboo shuffled like feathers, ruffled by the slightest gust of wind; stone lions with folded wings languished on the steps leading to the front door; swans threaded their way across circular pools.

He was about to go inside when he heard the noise of a motor. Because of the rain, it was more of a vibration under his skin than a real sound. He turned around and spotted a boat mounting to the assault of each wave, then flapping down with a jolt, digging out two furrows of foam behind it.

Azer was driving, with his jacket done up to his neck. Beside him, Sema looked tiny, wrapped up in the flapping folds of her poncho. He knew that she had altered her face. But even at that distance, he recognized the way she stood. That slightly cocky air he had noticed twenty years back, among all those other children.

Azer and Sema. The killer and the thief.

His sole offspring. His sole enemies.

74

When he moved off, the gardens came to life.

The first bodyguard appeared from a thicket. The second came from behind a lime tree. Two others materialized on the gravel drive. All of them were armed with MP7s, a close-defense gun loaded with subsonic shells capable of piercing such body armor as titanium or Kevlar at a distance of fifty yards. At least so the merchant had told him. But did it all have the slightest sense? At his age, the enemies he feared most did not travel at the speed of sound and did not pierce polycarbon. They were inside him, carrying out their patient work of destruction.

He followed the path. The men at once gathered around him, forming a human shield. It was always the same. His existence was that of a precious jewel. But the jewel had lost its sparkle. He wandered around like a house prisoner, never going beyond the limits of his gardens, always surrounded by his men.

He headed toward the mansion-one of the last yalis in Yeniköy. A summer house, made of wood, by the waterfronts, on tarred piles. This lofty palace. decked with turrets, had the haughtiness of a citadel, but also the nonchalant simplicity of a fisherman's hut.

The weather-beaten laths on the roof gave off sharp reflections, as vibrant as a mirror. But the façades soaked up the light, producing somber glints of infinite softness. All around this building, there was an atmosphere of transience, of floating, or departure. The sea air, the worn wood and slapping waters made the old man think of perpetual travel, of summer holidays.

Yet when he drew nearer and examined the details of that oriental façade-the latticework on the patios, the suns on the balconies, the stars and crescents of the windows-he saw that this sophisticated palace was in fact quite the opposite. It was an elaborate, well-anchored, stable environment. The tomb he had chosen. A wooden sepulchre with a seashell's hush, where he could watch death approach while listening to the river…

In the hall, Ismail Kudseyi took off his oilskin and boots. Then he put on his felt slippers and a jacket of Indian silk before examining himself in the mirror.

His face was his sole object of pride.

Time had inflicted its inevitable ravages, but beneath the skin, the bone structure still held up. It had risen to his defense, stretching his flesh and pulling at his features. More now than ever, he had the profile of a stag, with his jutting jaw and that perpetual pout of disdain on his lips.

He removed a comb from his pocket and tidied his hair. He was smoothing down his gray locks when he suddenly realized what he was doing, and stopped. He was being careful about his appearance for them. Because he was dreading seeing them. Because he was afraid of confronting the real meaning behind all those years…

After the 1980 coup d'état, he had had to go into exile in Germany. When he came back in 1983, the situation in Turkey had calmed down, but most of his fellows in arms, the Grey Wolves, were in prison. In his isolation, Ismail Kudseyi refused to abandon the cause. On the contrary, he secretly reopened the training camps and set up his own personal army. He was going to give birth to a new generation of Grey Wolves. Even better, he was going to train a better race of Wolf, who would serve both his political aims and criminal activities.

So he left for Anatolia to choose the children of his foundation personally. He organized the camps, watched the youngsters being trained, kept files on them so as to select an elite group. Soon, he was totally absorbed. Even while he was beginning to take over the opium market, exploiting the opening left by the revolution that was going on in Iran, this baba was interested above all in bringing up his children.

He felt a visceral complicity develop with these peasant children, who reminded him of the street urchin he had once been. He preferred being with them to spending time with his own children whom he had had late in life with the daughter of a former minister and who were now studying at Oxford University or in Berlin-his privileged heirs who had become strangers to him.

When he came back home, he shut himself up in his yali and studied each file, each personality. He weighed up their talents and gifts, but also their will to raise themselves up, to tear away from their stony origins.

He sought out the most promising profiles the ones he would support with grants, then bring into his own clan.

His quest gradually turned into an obsession, a mania. The pretense of a nationalistic cause was no longer enough to hide his own ambition. What excited him was molding human lives from a distance. Manipulating destinies, like an invisible demiurge.

Soon, two names were to interest him more than the others. A boy and a girl. Two children of pure promise.

Azer Akarsa came from a village near the ancient site of Nemrut Dagi. He was exceptionally gifted. When only sixteen, he was already a hardened fighter and a brilliant student. But most of all, he displayed a real passion for old Turkey and nationalist convictions. He had enrolled in the secret Adiyaman camp and had signed up for commando training. He was already planning on signing up for the army so as to fight on the Kurdish front.

And yet. Azer had a handicap. He was diabetic. But Kudseyi decided that this weak point would not prevent him from living out his destiny as a Wolf. He swore to provide him with the best possible treatment at all times.

The other file concerned a certain Sema Hunsen, age fourteen. Born amid the rocks of Gaziantep, she had succeeded in winning a place at school with a state grant. Superficially, she was just another young, intelligent Turk set on breaking with her origins. But she wanted to go further than that and emigrate. At the Gaziantep Idealist Club, Sema was the only girl. She had applied for a course at the camp in Kayseri so as to be with a boy from her village called Kürsat Milihit.

He had at once been attracted by this teenager. He adored her headstrong wildness. her desire to better her condition. Physically, she was rather a chubby redhead, with a peasantlike appearance. To look at her, you would never have guessed how gifted she was, or how politically motivated. Except for her stare, which she threw into your face like a stone.

Kudseyi was sure that Azer and Sema would turn out to be far more than mere scholarship students, or anonymous soldiers serving the extreme right-wing cause or his network of organized crime. They would be his protégés. But they would not know this. He would help them from a distance, from the shadows.

The years went by and the two chosen ones lived up to their promise. At the age of twenty-two, Azer had earned a master's degree in physics and chemistry at Istanbul University; then two years later, an international business degree in Munich. Meanwhile, Sema was seventeen, had left Galatarasay school with full honors and had gone to the Robert College in Istanbul. She spoke fluent Turkish, French, English and German.

Both of them had remained political militants, baskans who could have run local clubs. But Kudseyi pushed them toward different horizons. He had greater ambitions for his creations projects linked with his own drug empire…

He also wanted to cast light on certain darker regions. Azer's behavior revealed dangerous fault lines. While still at the French school, he had disfigured a fellow pupil during a brawl. The wounds were serious and clearly inflicted not in a fit of anger but instead with a terrifyingly calm determination. Kudseyi had to use all his influence to stop the boy from being arrested.

Two years later, Azer had been caught skinning live mice. Some female students also complained of the obscenities he addressed to them. They had later found the gutted bodies of cats rolled up among their underwear in the changing rooms at the swimming pool.

Kudseyi was intrigued by Azer's criminal impulses, which he at once saw could be exploited. But he was still unaware of their true nature. A freak incident was to reveal it. While studying in Munich, Azer Akarsa was hospitalized after his diabetes got out of control. The German doctors had decided to treat him in an unusual way: periods spent in a pressurized chamber so as to oxygenate his body better.

During these sessions, Azer had experienced the rapture of the depths and had started to rant. He had yelled out his desire to kill women-all women!-to torture and disfigure them, until he had reproduced the ancient masks that spoke to him in his dreams. When he was back in his room, this fit continued, despite the sedatives he was given, and he scratched effigies of such faces into the wall beside his bed. Mutilated features, with their noses cut off and bones crushed, around which he had stuck his own hair with his sperm-dead remnants, eaten away by the centuries, but with heads of living hair…

The German doctors alerted the foundation in Turkey that was paying the student's medical fees. Kudseyi himself made the journey. The psychiatrists explained the situation and suggested committing him at once. Kudseyi agreed but had Azer sent back to Turkey the following week. He was sure that he could control, and even exploit, his protégé's murderous streak.

Sema Hunsen's problems were of a totally different order. Solitary, secretive and obstinate, she was constantly slipping away from his organization. She had run away from school at Galatarasay several times. Once, she had been arrested at the Bulgarian border. On another occasion, at Istanbul 's Atatürk Airport. Her independence and will to be free had become pathological, leading to aggressiveness and a constant desire to run away. Once again, Kudseyi had seen this as a plus. He would turn her into a nomad. An elite drug smuggler.

In the mid-1990s, Azer Akarsa, the brilliant businessman, had also, become a Wolf, in the occult sense of the term. Via one of his lieutenants, Kudseyi had given him several missions of intimidation or escort, which he had carried out brilliantly. He was to cross the sacred line-of murder-without the slightest qualm. Akarsa liked blood. Too much so, in fact.

There was another problem. Akarsa had set up his own political group of dissidents whose opinions were far more violent and excessive than the official party line. Azer and his companions showed their disdain for the old Grey Wolves, who had sold out, and even more so for nationalistic Mafiosi like Kudseyi. The old man felt increasingly bitter. His child was turning into an increasingly uncontrollable monster..

He sought comfort by turning toward Sema Hunsen. But in a purely abstract way. He had never seen her and, since leaving the university, she had practically disappeared. She accepted transport missions-aware of what she owed the organization-but in exchange had demanded a quite exceptional isolation from her masters.

Kudseyi did not like that. Yet each time, the dope arrived at its destination. How long would this reciprocal agreement hold up? But at the same time, he found her mysterious personality more and more fascinating. He followed her career, delighting in her abilities…

Soon, Sema was a legend among the Grey Wolves. She had faded away into a labyrinth of languages and borders. There were many rumors about her. Some said that she had been seen on the border with Afghanistan, wearing a veil. Others claimed to have spoken with her in an underground laboratory on the Syrian frontier, but she had been wearing a surgical mask. Others still swore that they had had dealings with her on the coast of the Black Sea, in a dark nightclub torn by strobe lights.

Kudseyi knew that these were all lies. No one had ever really seen Sema. At least not the original Sema. She had become an abstract being, changing her identity, movements, style and technique depending on the objective. A shifting being, with just one concrete aspect-the dope she was transporting.

Sema did not know it, but in fact she had never really been alone. The old man was always by her side. Not once had she conveyed dope for anyone else but the baba. Not once had she run a consignment without his men watching over her from afar. Ismail Kudseyi was inside her.

Unbeknownst to her, he had had her sterilized when she had been hospitalized for acute appendicitis in 1987. Her fallopian tubes had been tied, an irreversible mutilation that does not disturb the menstrual cycle. The operation had been done using laparoscopic surgery via minute incisions in her abdomen. No traces. No scars…

Kudseyi had had no choice. His fighters were unique. They could not reproduce themselves. Only Kudseyi could create, develop, or kill his soldiers. Despite his certainty, he was always worried about that mutilation, with an almost holy dread, as though he had broken a taboo, had trodden on forbidden ground. Sometimes, in his dreams, he saw his white hands holding her innards. He vaguely sensed that a catastrophe would be born of that organic secret…

Today, Kudseyi had admitted his failure regarding both of his children. Azer Akarsa had become a psychopathic murderer, at the head of an independent group of activists-terrorists who made themselves out to be ancient Turks who were planning attacks against the Turkish state and those Grey Wolves who had betrayed the cause. Kudseyi himself might well be on their list. As for Sema, she was more than ever an invisible messenger, both paranoid and schizophrenic, awaiting the moment to run away for good.

All he had done was to create two monsters. Two rabid wolves ready to tear out his throat.

And yet, he continued to give them important missions, hoping that they would not betray a clan that thought so highly of them. Above all, he hoped that destiny would not inflict such an affront, such negation on him, who had invested so much in their lives.

That was why, last spring, when he had to organize a consignment, which would inaugurate a new alliance in the Golden Crescent, he mentioned just one name: Sema.

That was why, when the inevitable finally happened and the renegade vanished with the dope, he had chosen just one killer: Azer.

As he had never made up his mind to eliminate them, he set them against each other so that they would do the job for him. But nothing had gone according to plan. Sema had remained untraceable. And Azer had merely succeeded in sparking off a series of murders in Paris. His name was now on an international arrest warrant, and Kudseyi's own criminal cartel had sentenced him to death-Azer had become too dangerous.

Then, suddenly, something had upset the entire situation.

Sema had reappeared. And asked to meet with him. She was still leading the dance…

He took one last look at his reflection in the mirror and abruptly discovered a different man. A dotard with a burned frame, his bones as sharp as blades. A charred predator, like that prehistoric skeleton that had just been dug up in Pakistan., He slid his comb into his jacket and tried to smile at his reflection. It felt as if he was greeting a death's-head, with hollow eye sockets.

He headed toward the stairs and gave an order to his bodyguards: "Geldiler. Beni yalniz birakin."

75

The room he called his meditation room measured a good thousand square feet and had a parquet floor. He could also have called it his throne room. On the top of the three steps of a dais stood a long off-white sofa covered with cushions of golden braid. In front of it was a coffee table. On either side, two lamps shed arcs of shaded light onto the white walls, along which chests of carved wood were aligned like solid shadows, secrets sealed with mother-of-pearl. And nothing else.

Kudseyi liked this simplicity, this almost mystic void that seemed ready to receive the prayers of a Sufi.

He walked across the room and up the steps and stopped by the table. He put down his stick and picked up a carafe of ayran -made of yogurt and water-which was always there for him. He poured a glass and drank it all in one gulp. Savoring the freshness that was filling his body, he stared at his treasures. Ismail Kudseyi had the finest collection of carpets in Turkey, but the true masterpiece was kept there over the sofa.

The small ancient rug, just three feet square, glimmered with a dark red, trimmed with tarnished yellow-the color of gold, of corn. of baked bread. In the center was a blue-black rectangle. a sacred color evoking heaven and infinity. Inside it, a large cross was decked with ram's horns. symbolizing the male warrior. Above, an eagle spread out its wings. crowning and protecting the cross. Meanwhile, on the bordering frieze.

"They're here. Leave me alone."

Could be seen the tree of life, the saffron, the flower of joy and happiness, beside a marijuana plant, offering eternal sleep…

Kudseyi could have examined this masterpiece for hours. It seemed to sum up his world of war, drugs and power. He also loved the mystery contained in the stitch of its wool, which had always intrigued him. Once again he asked himself the question: "Where is the triangle? Where is fortune?"

First, he admired the metamorphosis.

That buxom girl had turned into a slender brunette, in the modern style of femininity-small breasts and narrow hips. She was wearing a black padded coat, straight trousers of the same color and square-tipped boots. A true Parisian.

But above all he was fascinated by the transformation of her face. How many operations, how many incisions had been needed to obtain such a result? The desire to run away, to flee its own yoke, was written all over that unrecognizable face. It could also be read in the depths of her indigo eyes. Their blue gleam could barely be seen beneath her drooping eyelashes, and it pushed you away, like an intruder, an unwanted presence. Yes, behind these modified features, in those eyes he could make out the primitive hardness of his nomadic people, a wild energy born of desert winds and the burning sun.

Suddenly, he felt old, finished. A charred mummy, with lips of dust.

Remaining on his sofa, he let her approach. She had been thoroughly searched. Her clothes had been examined. Her very body had been x-rayed. Two bodyguards were now standing beside her, holding MP7s, with the security catch off, bullets in the breach. Standing slightly behind them, Azer was armed as well.

And yet, Kudseyi felt vaguely apprehensive. His warrior's instinct whispered to him that, despite her apparent fragility, this woman was still dangerous. It made him feel slightly queasy. What was in her mind? Why had she given herself up like this?

She was looking at the rug, hung on the wall behind him. He decided to speak in French, to give an even more formal nature to their meeting. "One of the oldest carpets in the world. Russian archaeologists discovered it in the middle of a block of ice, near the frontier between Siberia and Mongolia. It must be nearly two thousand years old, and is thought to have belonged to the Huns. The cross, the eagle, the ram's horns are purely masculine symbols. It was probably hung up in the clan chieftain's tent."

Sema remained silent. A mute needle.

"A carpet for men, except that it was woven by a woman, like all the kilims of Central Asia." He paused and smiled. "I often try to imagine the one who made it. A mother excluded from the world of warriors, but one who managed to impose her presence even in the tent of the great Khan."

Sema did not make the slightest movement. The bodyguards drew closer.

"At that time, the weaver always concealed a triangle among the other patterns, to protect her rug from the evil eye. I like that idea. Patiently, a woman would produce a virile design, full of warlike symbols, while somewhere, on the border, amid a frieze, she would slip in a maternal touch. Can you see where the triangular charm is on this rug?"

Not a word, not a gesture from Sema.

He grabbed the carafe of ayran, slowly filled a glass, then drank it even more slowly.

"You can't see it?" he said at last. "Never mind. This story reminds me of yours, Sema. A woman hidden in a world of men, concealing an object that concerns us all. An object that should bring us good fortune and prosperity"

His voice faded away with these words, then he suddenly yelled violently, "Where's the triangle, Sema? Where's my heroin?"

No reaction. The words ran off her like drops of rain. He was not even sure if she was listening to him.

But then she suddenly said, "I don't know"

He smiled again. So she wanted to negotiate.

But she went on, "I was arrested in France. The police brainwashed me, gave some special mental conditioning. I can't remember my past. I don't know where the dope is. I don't even know who I am."

Kudseyi looked over at Azer. He, too, seemed amazed.

"Do you think I'm going to believe such as ridiculous story?" he asked.

"The treatment was a long one," she continued calmly "It's a method of psychic suggestion, using a radioactive product. Most of the people involved in the experiment are now either dead or in prison. You can check if you want. It's been all over the French newspapers these last few days."

Kudseyi weighed up these facts suspiciously. "So did the police get hold of the heroin?"

"They didn't even know that I had a consignment of dope.”

“What?"

"They didn't know who I was. They chose me because they found me in a state of shock, in Gurdilek's baths after Azer's raid. They finished off the task of removing my memory without knowing my secret."

"For someone with no memory, you seem to know a lot."

"I've been investigating myself."

"How did you find out Azer's name?"

Sema smiled, as rapidly as a camera's shutter could snap a picture. "Everyone knows it. Just read the Paris press."

Kudseyi remained silent. He could have asked further questions, but his mind was now made up. His long life had convinced him of an unbreakable law: the more the facts seemed absurd, the greater the chance they were true. But he still did not understand her attitude.

"Why have you come back?"

"I wanted to announce the death of Sema. She died with my memories." Kudseyi burst out laughing. And you think I'm going to let you go like that?"

"I don't think anything. I'm another person. I don't want to keep running because of the woman I no longer am."

He stood up and took a few steps. Waving his stick at her, he said, "If you've come back empty-handed, then you really must have lost your memory"

"There's no guilty party anymore. So there's no punishment."

A strange warmth entered his veins. Incredibly, he was tempted to pardon her. This was a possible conclusion. Perhaps the most original, most refined one… just let this new creature fly away, take wing… forget about it all… But he then stared straight into her eyes and said, "You have no face. You have no past. You have no name. You have become a sort of abstract being, that is true. But you have kept your ability to suffer. We will cleanse our honor in the stream of your suffering. We will -"

Ismail Kudseyi was struck dumb. The woman was stretching her hands toward him, palms uppermost.

Each of them was covered by a henna design. A wolf, howling below four moons. It was a rallying sign. The symbol used by the members of the new movement. He himself had added the fourth moon, symbolizing the Golden Crescent, to the three on the Ottoman flag.

Kudseyi dropped his stick, pointed at Sema and yelled, "She knows.

She knows!"

She seized this moment of stupor. She leapt behind one of the guards, grabbing him brutally. Her hand closed on the man's fingers, which were on the trigger of the MP7, sending a hail of bullets toward the dais.

Ismail Kudseyi felt himself take off from the ground, before being pushed to the foot of the sofa by the second guard. He rolled over and saw his protector spin in an explosion of blood while his gun fired in all directions, blasting the chests into a thousand splinters. Sparks shot up like electric arcs while the ceiling filled with clouds of plaster. The first man, who was being used by Sema as a shield, collapsed at the very moment she pulled his gun from his hand.

Kudseyi could no longer see Azer.

She dived toward the chests and overturned them for protection. At that moment, two other men burst into the room. No sooner had they arrived than they were hit-the dull, isolated sound of Sema's pistol punctuated the rattle of uncontrolled automatic weapons.

Kudseyi tried to slip behind the sofa, but he could not move-the orders from his brain were no longer being relayed to his body. He was paralyzed on the floor, inert. A signal rang though his being. He had been hit.

Three more guards appeared in the doorway, taking turns at shooting and then disappearing behind the jamb. Kudseyi's eyes blinked at the fire from their guns, but he could not hear the shots anymore. It was as if his ears and brain were full of water.

He curled up, fingers gripping a cushion. A painful convulsion ran through him, down to the pit of his stomach, pinning him into a fetal position. He looked down. His intestines were gushing out, unrolling between his legs.

Everything went black. When he came to once more, Sema was reloading her gun at the foot of the steps, beside one of the chests. He turned toward the edge of the dais and reached out his hand. One part of him could not believe what he was doing. He was calling for help.

He was calling to Sema Hunsen for help!

She turned around. With tears in his eyes, Kudseyi was waving his hand. She hesitated for a second, then bent below the continuing gun blasts, climbed up the steps. The old man groaned in thanks. He raised his shivering, gaunt red hand, but she did not take it.

She stood up, braced herself and took aim, like a bent bow.

In a flash, Kudseyi understood why she had come back to Istanbul.

Quite simply to kill him. To cut off that hatred at its source. And perhaps also to avenge a tree of life, which he had had cut off at the roots.

He blacked out again. When he next opened his eyes, Azer was diving onto Sema. They rolled down to the foot of the steps, among the scraps of leather and pools of blood. They fought as waves of fire still continued to break through the smoke. Arms, fists, blows-but not a single cry. Just obsessive, obstinate hatred. The physical fight for survival.

Azer and Sema. His evil brood.

On her stomach, Sema was trying to raise her gun, but Azer was pushing down on her with all his weight. Holding her by the nape of the neck with one hand while with the other he pulled out a knife. She slipped from his grip and rolled onto her back. He lunged and stuck the blade into her belly. Sema spat out a muffled cry of blood.

Lying on the dais, Kudseyi could see it all. His eyes, like two slow valves, were pulsing in a counterrhythm with his arteries. He prayed that he would die before the end of the fight, but he could not resist watching.

The blade flew down, rose, then went down again, ferreting its way into her flesh.

Serra arched up. Azer grabbed her shoulders and forced them back to the ground. He threw away his knife and plunged his hand into the open wound.

Ismail Kudseyi drifted far away into the shifting sands of death.

A few seconds before the end, he saw crimson hands stretched toward him, carrying their cargo…

Sema's heart in Azer's fingers.