by Jim Geraghty
After carefully entering and scanning the greenhouse for any signs of human life, he was disappointed. The flickering light left a strobe effect, but the illumination was sufficient to see most of the greenhouse was a mess: overgrown weeds, plants hanging, ranging from wildly overgrown to dying, pots of every shape and size everywhere. Water dripped from the misting system and pooled at his feet in puddles.
On the far side of the long room, he saw a table and plants, clipboards, a ruler, beakers, a mortar and pestle. Clearly, someone had been working over on that far side. He heard a distant rumble of thunder; it was a little unseasonal for a thunderstorm, and the constant flicker of the lights made Ward wonder whether he was seeing lightning outside.
The hairs on the back of his neck went up. The thunder’s slow tumbling noise would cover up the sound of anyone approaching, and he was quick to turn back every few seconds. Dang it, this was another time where Alec would be useful. If Raquel knew he was here, she would have been screaming bloody murder, livid that he hadn’t waited for backup or the FBI. On the other hand, he had figured out how to get Norman Fein to talk when every other law-abiding official had failed. He had generated this lead himself, and he felt adamantly that he had earned the first shot at catching this Fabrice Vuscovi woman. He would try his best to take her in alive. That didn’t mean unscathed, of course, as he examined all the pruning shears, blades, and other tools piled in the gaps between the tables. Vuscovi apparently wound up these killers and set them loose, putting as much blood on her hands as theirs.
Another rumble of thunder, and now Ward was convinced he hadn’t seen lightning outside. Was it a recording? Some sort of auditory trick? He kept checking his back, careful, peering around corners, certain he wouldn’t let himself get ambushed. Where he heck was she? Ward felt his heart pumping, the beat seeming to throb in his ears. Adrenaline surged. Ward thought he had long since acclimated to life-and-death moments, the sense of hunting and being hunted, so why was he suddenly so nervous, on edge?
And then he saw it, before he heard it: the misting system was turned on, and a gentle hiss announced that something had been flowing through it all along. Ward rubbed his fingers against his skin, feeling faint moisture, and smelled. Something sweet, but distinctly unnatural.
Chemicals. Gas.
They’re hitting me with what the same drug they hit the director with, he thought, wondering how long he had until the chemical hit his brain and altered his perception, overtaking his self-control and ability to control his fear, or perhaps the drug would just knock him out so that suddenly, without warning, everything would just sto
CHAPTER 65
VAROSHA TURKISH REPUBLIC OF NORTHERN CYPRUS
SATURDAY, APRIL 3
Varosha was, long ago, a beautiful beach resort, the playground of the rich and famous, a Greek-influenced pleasure port—the French Riviera of Cyprus. Brigitte Bardot posed in a bikini there, and if ever there was compelling evidence of God’s love for man and his desire for his creations to be happy, it was the sight of Bardot in a bikini. The Greek coastal resort of Varosha was a Technicolor dream—aqua blue waters, ochre sand, pink flowers, tangerine beach umbrellas, and smiling, happy people, swimming, sunbathing, drinking, and carousing—all the joys of life, compressed into one slightly hedonistic, glamorous corner.
Then in 1974, long-simmering tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots finally boiled over. A group of the island’s Greek Cypriot military officers, allied with Greece’s military junta, launched a coup and burned down the presidential palace. Once they had taken over, the military began carrying out the early moves from a depressingly familiar playbook: censor the independent press, search homes and seize weapons, arrest and kill known supporters of the previous regime. Most consequential, the brutal new rulers threatened the enclaves of Turkish Cypriots scattered throughout the island.
Five days later, the nation of Turkey gave their answer to the threat to their ethnic compatriots: about three thousand troops, twelve tanks, twenty personnel carriers, and twelve howitzers landed in the early morning hours on the largely unguarded northern coast of Cyprus. The new military junta seemed unprepared for this wave or the nearly forty thousand additional troops lining up behind them; Greek Cypriot forces couldn’t muster any significant resistance until late morning. The first Greek Cypriot forces to respond found they had more cannons than tractors to pull them, and were strafed by Turkish air forces.
On August 20, 1974, tens of thousands of Varosha Greek Cypriot residents awoke to the terrifying news that war was almost literally at their doorstep. They fled, grabbing only what they could carry. They left their homes, businesses, stores, and the once-luxurious hotels on the beachfront abandoned, doors unlocked. They were right to flee; a few Turkish bombs and artillery took chunks out of buildings like bites from a giant monster. Within a few days, the Turkish army controlled the area; they walled off the entire neighborhood behind barbed-wire and chain-link fences and lines of rusting oil barrels.
The shooting stopped, but the relationship between the new “Turkish Republic of Northern Cypru” and the southern Greek Republic of Cyprus remained tense. Months under the new separation stretched into years. In 1984, the United Nations ruled that only the original inhabitants could legally occupy any land within Varosha; Turkey had no interest in handing back prime property without concessions, so the small resort city remained walled off. Red forbidden zone signs warned trespassers that the Turkish guards’ orders were to shoot on sight. The military authorities barred visitors or inspections.
And in those empty buildings and streets, nothing happened, decade after decade. The only glimpse of Varosha came from the occasional daring photographer who snuck past the fences and snapped shots of the ultimate ghost town, depicting a small city frozen in time. A car dealership with “new” 1974 models sat untouched. Towers of once-gorgeous beachfront balconies succumbed to rust. Bottles, glasses, and empty plates stood on café tables, covered in dust. Long-since-spoiled food sat in kitchen cupboards. Clothing displays remained in store windows. It was as if some strange bomb had suddenly removed all the people, but left almost all of the buildings standing, a modern Pompeii.
Varosha was, in many ways, a dangerous spot for Sarvar Rashin and Gholam Gul to come ashore. But the whispering Voices had urged them to this spot, and the no-man’s-land between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot rivals seemed to please the voices. This place represents a future, the voices told Rashin and Gul. Your triumph.
The Voices had guided them to sort through a long list of European, Russian, and Turkish plastic surgeons willing to travel, take cash, and not ask too many questions, and led them to Solak Osman.
They had led them to Force Commander Julian Veer, who had acquiesced to their disguised requests, deeming them odd but unlikely to threaten the security of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.
The reports of the storm approaching from the south kept the local navies and coast guard patrols at bay. Rashin and Gul’s boat, the Naonhaithya, cut through the waves like a knife, and once their GPS indicated they were at the edge of international waters, they switched to their inflatable Zodiac boat.
***
If some cheerful nuts wanted to fix up the husk of the Cyprus Airways airliner that had been sitting on the tarmac of the long-abandoned Nicosia International Airport as part of a documentary on aviation engineering, what did UN Force Commander Veer care? The work had been slow and methodical; only God could know where they were finding the parts for an airliner that went out of service two generations ago.
Tonight Veer had much bigger problems to worry about. For the past month, incendiary graffiti had cropped up on both sides of the border. His blue-helmeted team didn’t usually spend a lot of time focusing on what was, in all likelihood, the work of angry teenagers. But the graffiti was followed by reports of shots fired across the border. Thankfully, the locations of the alleged shots were far from known Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot military forces. But
three nights ago, a Greek Cypriot border patrol officer claimed he had been shot at by a sniper.
Both sides elevated their alert status and the rhetoric from politicians in North Nicosia and Nicosia had grown louder in recent days. Veer found it bitterly ironic that both national leaders had used the same phrase, “we will not let this insulting provocation stand.” Already tonight Veer’s men heard reports of explosions on each side, trying to determine if they were fireworks or artillery. Veer had the distinct feeling radicals on either side—or both sides—were trying to provoke an all-out shooting war. Thunder from the approaching storm created more booms, more tense questions of whether the divided island was about to erupt.
And now this American C-17, somehow horrifically off-course from its filed destination of Incirlik, Turkey, was requesting an emergency landing.
***
“US Air Force C-17, this is United Nations Air Traffic Control,” Alec heard the voice, with a strong British accent, and it reminded him a bit of Basil Fawlty. “We are preparing to clear a flight path for you to Lacarna International Airport.”
“No can do, good buddy, I’m carrying some very sensitive, highly classified material and equipment and I am not authorized to land this at a civilian airport,” Richards improvised. Alec and Katrina nodded approvingly.
They could hear the UN air traffic control officer sigh. “Is this a bloody emergency?”
“Sir, I’d like to avoid a crash landing and not get thrown in the brig for endangering classified information,” Richards answered. “We’re on course for Nicosia, inbound, ten minutes.”
“Negative, US Air Force C-17. That airport hasn’t been used in years.”
“Is the runway flat? Because that’s all I need.”
“I repeat, negative, US Air Force C-17. I’m arranging a corridor for you to divert to Royal Air Force Akrotiri,” the air traffic controller said with audible impatience.
“That’s a little far, I’m going to stick to Nicosia,” Richards answered. “We’ve had issues with unresponsive ailerons. Right now it’s a straight, short shot to the main runway.”
“Are you listening, you bloody stubborn Yank?!” the control officer snapped. “Nicosia Airport has been shut down and abandoned for decades. There is no electricity there, no fuel, no maintenance or air crews. You’ll be stuck there once you land. I’m not even sure the runway lights still work. Wait.”
They heard the control officer ask, “Are you sure?”
“Well, this is bizarre. I’m told the runway lights just went on at Nicosia.”
Katrina and Alec looked at each other. The lights hadn’t suddenly come alive to help their “emergency” landing; they were turned on because the Atarsa flight was ready to take off.
***
The deal for Solak Osman was generous. A $75,000 fee up front and airfare to Ercan International Airport. His employers had already arranged a rental car, and with it, instructions to drive to the United Nations Protected Area on the site of the old Nicosia International Airport. He was to introduce himself at the gate as Solak Osman, the producer of a documentary film about restoring the long-abandoned Cyprus Airways Trident, coming to review the work of his documentary team.
There he would meet Kolak, the supposed documentary filmmaker who had handled all the arrangements; Naresh, the pilot; and Bahadur, the bald, mustached, barrel-chested engineer who looked like he wrestled animals in his spare time.
Osman’s journey ran relatively smoothly, until the guard at the checkpoint entrance to the United Nations Protected Area shook his head and said that the documentary crew was supposed to have left hours ago.
“We’re in elevated alert status, we can’t have civilians running around the airport unaccompanied,” the guard said firmly.
With tensions on the island rising tonight, the civilians should have left. The United Nations commanders had grown increasingly laid back about civilians on the compound; about a decade ago, an outdoor concert, a “peace symphony,” featuring many Greek Cypriot musicians and one Turkish Cypriot musician, was held in front of the terminal building’s ghostly façade. Another photographer had brought old Cyprus Airlines employees to pose in front of their now-crumbling workplaces in their old, ill-fitting uniforms, making some sort of grand statement about the tragic division of the island.
Osman had some improvisational skills. He showed the man his airline ticket stub and said he was exhausted, but he had driven here straight from the airport because that damn filmmaker had been avoiding his calls and he wanted to see just what the hell his investment in the documentary was getting him. Osman whined and pleaded and made enough of a nuisance of himself that the guard finally relented and told Osman to go to the documentary film crew and tell them they were supposed to leave more than an hour ago. The guard debated calling for a team to escort the documentary crew off the base, but the elevated alert status meant everyone had other duties.
That was all Osman needed. He drove out to the tarmac and saw the restored Trident under a few floodlights. Kolak greeted him; Naresh and Bahadur were conducting the final inspection. Osman was welcomed aboard, and inspected the surgical table built onto the plane with a gyroscopic stabilizer. He had described what he needed, in great technical detail, to the Iranian man and woman, and they had met every last one of his specifications. Within an hour, the couple would join them; his assignment was to give them distinctly different appearances. The instruction was to make their faces “more Western.” Behind the surgical bay Osman saw cameras and the equipment used to make official passports. Osman couldn’t read the faded plaque that read “Property of the Syrian Government” in Arabic.
Within an hour or two, the man and woman would walk off the plane with completely new identities … and he would walk off the plane a half-million dollars richer.
***
Kolak, Naresh, and Bahadur felt slightly tense as they saw a United Nations–labeled jeep approaching their site. They exhaled and smiled as Sarvar Rashin and Gholam Gul emerged from the jeep, in not particularly well-fitting uniforms, identifying them as part of the UN Peacekeeping force.
“Somewhere on this island there are two very unlucky soldiers,” Kolak laughed. “Shall I salute?”
Instead Gul embraced his old Iranian VEVAK comrade and turned to Naresh and Bahadur. The three men bowed to Rashin and assured them everything was ready.
“Luck is with us and against us,” Kolak summarized. “The authorities have been cooperative and barely paid attention to us. Tensions between the Cypriots were bad when we arrived and are worse now. Just one spark could ignite an ugly border skirmish.” He cast a careful glance at Sarvar. When they had laid out this plan, she assured Kolak that at the key moment, both sides would be itching for war. Was it clairvoyance? Or had she somehow helped feed the tensions on the island?
“Good work,” Gul said. “You’ve arranged to ignite that spark if needed?”
“Absolutely,” he nodded. “The bad luck is the storm. You can feel the wind picking up already. It could make our flight out of here difficult.”
“I am ready,” Naresh said tersely. Gul put a hand on his shoulder and nodded with confidence.
Dr. Osman stepped forward, greeted the two arrivals professionally and studied their faces; he had much to work with. Sarvar Rashin was particularly beautiful; he would strive to preserve some of that beauty. They climbed aboard.
***
Across the tarmac, United Nations troops turned in surprise. The documentary team and their engineering team had managed to get the plane’s engines revving in the previous nights, but it had never moved. It hadn’t moved in decades. And now it was suddenly jolting forward, lurching, shaking, moving away from its comfortable longtime home next to the terminal and toward the long, empty runway.
The staffers and peacekeeping troops started shouting; this wasn’t scheduled or planned and no one had been notified.
In the cockpit, Gul, out of the ill-fitting stolen military uniform and back in h
is all-black outfit, sat next to Naresh in the pilot’s seat. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the seemingly hapless United Nations peacekeepers trying to run toward the runway and waving their arms. The fools. His team had operated right under their noses the entire time. His chuckle turned into a full laugh. Nicosia International Airport was about to have its first departure in decades. He looked back over his shoulder at Sarvar, who had changed, with little modesty, out of her uniform into a tight, dark-green jumpsuit. Their eyes met and she smiled at Gul; it was a triumphant moment. Within a few months, with new faces, they would reconstitute Atarsa, recruit more troubled minds, and set forth new wind-up toys of death into public squares of the West. What was left of the United States and Europe would once again find itself under siege by angry young men lashing out through violence in public places, and the people of the West would turn against themselves in fear. The Voices would be pleased.
The Trident completed its slow turn so that the nose was parallel to the runway, and Naresh pushed the lever forward to increase the thrust from the engines. He looked at the instruments, looked up, and then suddenly his eyes went wide. “What the hell is that?” he screamed in Persian.
Coming right at them, down the runway, was a US C-17 Globemaster cargo plane, at an exceptionally high speed, in a giant airplane game of chicken.
***
In the opposing cockpit, Richards and Cook had managed to get the massive C-17 down on the runway—no easy task—and Alec and Katrina sat behind them, bracing themselves with one arm and pointing out the cockpit window at the Cyprus Airways Trident directly ahead of them.
“Hit them! Hit them!” Katrina screamed.
