by Nathan Swain
Karzan stopped the truck outside what looked like an abandoned resort. In reality, it was a shuttered seaside chateau. Karzan said it had been a vacation home for the Shah. Based on the décor of the main lodge, Eastgate thought he might have been right. A portrait of the Shah or his wife hung in every room of the complex. Eastgate and Olivia were the only guests.
“You must stay here tonight,” Karzan said. “In the morning, we drive for Tabriz and then Turkey.”
“OK?” Eastgate asked, looking at Olivia, hopeful for a sign of approval.
“OK,” she said. “I could use a night not being covered in vegetable matter.”
Karzan handed Eastgate a large brass key. “May I recommend the wine cellar? It was the Shah’s very own.” Karzan pointed to a door leading to the cellar. “We will be in the coach house. I hope you won’t need us,” Karzan said, with a wink.
Olivia rolled her eyes. Please do stop.
Dusk was sweeping over the lush estates dotting the sea coast, turning the sky from blue to shades of pink and then black. Quail and black francolin nested silently in the trees outside.
Olivia and Eastgate put down their rucksacks in adjoining bedrooms on the second floor of the main lodge. The Persian carpets in each room were covered in a thin layer of dust. Otherwise, the chateau suited their needs perfectly. Olivia’s room had an adjoining Jacuzzi. An extraordinary selection of perfumes and soaps filled the bathroom cabinet. Eastgate’s suite featured a small library. The selection of books—mostly in English or French—appeared to focus on the study of astrology and Greek and Roman mythology.
Eastgate and Olivia met on the front porch outside the main lodge an hour later. “Shall we?” Eastgate asked, pointing down the stone stairs leading to the cellar. With a click, the motion-sensor lights activated as they walked through the doorway.
Karzan had lied. The basement was far more than a wine cellar. It was more like a small winery, with enormous oak barrels, a bottling operation, and a tasting room with its own stage for entertainment.
“Well, ain’t this what the doctor ordered?” Eastgate noted happily.
“I doubt there’s enough wine here to cure my anxiety,” Olivia said. “But I’m willing to find out.”
Ornately-carved, wooden wine racks sat against the red-brick walls of the cellar. Stacked six rows high and running at least twenty feet long, there must have been more than a thousand wine bottles stored there, Eastgate estimated.
“Good God,” Olivia said. “Who needs oil? Iran could fix its trade deficit just by selling this wine.”
Eastgate picked up a blue wool glove sitting on a tray of empty bottles. A bristly spider fell from the glove to the floor.
“This place must have been idle since the Shah was deposed in ’76.”
Most of the bottles were covered with a feathery layer of dust. Eastgate ran a gloved finger over the labels. “Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, vintage 1975. This is really extraordinary.”
“I took you more for a beer drinker. Or bourbon.”
“My parents were wine lovers. Dad and mom put two bottles in their golf bags and drank out of paper cups at the tee box.”
Olivia smiled.
“These are all varieties of Syrah. And Shiraz. Look at this: Penfolds, Henschke, this is exactly what dad drank with steak. And let me tell you, he ate a lot of steak.”
“So, are you just going to charm me with your wine knowledge and family reminiscences or are we going to imbibe?”
Eastgate found a rack of glasses and a cork screw set up in the tasting room. They sat down on the stage, their legs dangling over the edge. Punctuated by a sonorous pop, Eastgate extracted the cork from a bottle of the ’75 Hermitage.
The sound of the wine sloshing down the neck of the bottle and splashing into the glasses was oddly comforting to Eastgate. When was the last time I heard that sound? At least two years ago. Before Tora Bora, probably on the deck of the Yellow Jasmine.
“That sound,” said Eastgate. “The glug, glug, glug of the liquid as it leaves the bottle. There’s no better sound in the world.”
“I can’t disagree,” Olivia said. “I don’t mind the company either,” she added with a wink.
Eastgate and Olivia had exchanged affectionate glances the past few days, their eyes tarrying longer than before. Danger and mystery had brought them together. Survival and pursuit had bonded them. Even Eastgate’s reunion with Tadita had not tempered their feelings for each other.
For the first time, their feet dangling and knocking, their eyes locked and their warm gazes held.
Olivia swabbed a drop of ruby-colored wine from Eastgate’s upper lip. “Typical frat boy. Very messy.”
“I think a typical frat boy would probably insist on a drinking game.”
Olivia nodded, delighted by the suggestion. “Yes,” she said, clasping her hands in the air.
Eastgate grasped the mid-section of an empty bottle nearby and gave it a twirl.
Olivia guffawed. “Spin the bottle with two people?”
The bottle stopped spinning and the mouth pointed directly at Olivia.
“I reckon I have to kiss you now.”
Eastgate shrugged. “Sorry, the rules will be strictly observed.”
Olivia shimmied herself closer to Eastgate and looped her right hand around Eastgate’s back.
And then Eastgate’s phone rang, and Olivia jumped. “What is that?”
Eastgate groaned. “My sat phone.”
Olivia stood up.
“This better not be a telemarketer,” Eastgate said. The call was from Jarrett. “I’ve got to take this.”
Olivia walked toward one of the grime-covered windows.
“Beck, how are you?”
“Will, I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time?”
If only he knew, he’d never forgive himself. “No, go ahead. What do you have?”
“That Noah guy you mentioned. My buddy in the NSA ran the intel on him.”
“Assassin?”
“Yup, a real good one too. Does work all over. Europe, Southeast Asia.”
“Middle East?”
“Sure does. Appears to favor the dark side. Gigs with Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram in Nigeria.”
“Any British or American connections?”
“The database returned one connection. Someone with the alias ‘Pearl,’ identified as an American.”
“Say that again, alias what?”
“Purrrrl,” Jarrett drawled. “Like pearl necklace. I’m sure he’s no stranger to those, if you catch my meaning,” Jarrett chuckled.
Eastgate was speechless.
“Heck, that’s probably how he gets paid for this crap. Maybe Noah—”
“I’ve got it, Beck.”
“OK, well, just trying to bring a little levity to the situation.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Hey, how you doin’? Any closer to finding out about that tablet?”
Eastgate looked for Olivia, but she was gone. “Maybe. I hope so,” Eastgate said. “Anyone asking about me?”
“All the time. CIA. Internal Affairs. They’re not letting it go. Something’s up. Something’s wrong.”
“Try to hold them off as long as you can. We’re almost at the finish line. And stay safe.”
Eastgate pressed the dimpled red button on the satellite phone, ending the call. He bounded upstairs and found Olivia asleep on the couch clutching an Umberto Eco novel. He covered her with a blanket and went outside with another bottle of wine. There would be no sleep for him tonight.
Chapter 67
Samir was agitated as he drove his Renault sedan on the clogged Istanbul highway. Sheets of rain slapped at the car’s windshield and jagged lightning flashed in the distance over the Black Sea. But that’s not what bothered him. It was the feeling of weightlessness on his rib cage. It was where he normally holstered his pistol. But Reso warned him not to bring arms into Turkey. If customs discovered his gun, he said, Samir could end up a permanent reside
nt of one of the country’s famous prisons.
“They are not famous for their hospitality,” Reso added.
The moment Samir left the airplane and walked into the Istanbul Ataturk Airport, he was on guard for the American. As he walked down the staircase from the airplane he looked for a gunman, half expecting to be felled right there by incoming fire. His eyes scanned the people crowding around him in the baggage area. At any moment, a group of US Army thugs might swarm in and abduct him, he feared.
Confronting the American had become an obsession for Samir. For hours, he searched the internet for information about Special Forces tactics, and read chat groups with Army veterans discussing old operations and field gear.
Even after his father called him home, and told him to stand down, Samir knew somehow he would see the American again, and have a chance for retribution. He set up a shooting course at his family’s estate and practiced his marksmanship. He even had time to custom design each target. His favorite was an American flag. He made it large enough so that he could shoot out all fifty stars. Each time the bullet pierced its target, renting the fabric and leaving a curl of smoke, he pictured the American’s head exploding.
It appeared to be destiny, therefore, when Reso informed Samir he would get one last chance to stop the American and Olivia. They had somehow slipped through the fingers of the Iranians, and had set out to Anatolia, the Southeast region of Turkey, to plunder the holy site. “Continue your pursuit of the American, my son,” Reso said. “Until you run him to ground. Until he can run no more.”
Despite all of his preparation, at the moment, driving through the European section of Istanbul on the D100 highway, Samir was an easy target. Traffic was bumper to bumper. He rolled down the window and smoked the last of his Marlboro Reds, tossing the final fingertip of ash onto the highway as he left Europe and began a slow crawl over the Bosphorus Bridge.
Just 3,500 feet to go.
The bridge spanned the Bosphorus Strait, a spit of water dividing Europe to the West and Asia to the East, and splitting Istanbul in two. But traffic was abysmal. Only two lanes of the eight-lane bridge were open to traffic headed to the Asian side of the city—an attempt to accommodate the many morning commuters who worked on the city’s European side.
The American could get to him ten different ways, Samir feared. A helicopter attack on the bridge. A drive by.
Samir pounded the steering column. I need a gun! Damn this, I need a gun!
At last, the toll booths came into view. He steered the Renault to the far-right lane.
This better work, or I’m a dead man.
The toll booth attendant accepted lira from the cars ahead and patiently distributed change. Eternity seemed to pass as the driver in front chatted on about something. Was it an ambush? Samir wondered. Was the American in the car ahead, waiting to riddle him with bullets?
The car ahead finally lurched forward and speeded away. In his haste to move, Samir nearly stalled while the engine shifted gears.
Pulling up to the toll booth at last, Samir looked expectantly at the attendant. “Your payment?” the attendant asked.
Samir passed him a roll of paper. The attendant examined Samir for a moment and disappeared into his booth.
Samir’s mind raced. There’s a 30 percent chance he shoots me dead. No, 50 percent. The attendant reappeared and handed Samir a brown paper package. Samir carefully placed the package on the passenger seat, and then put the car into gear, hurtling forward and, at last, out of Europe.
The burning smell of the screeching tires lingered in the air above the toll both. Another car filled the space left by Samir. But the attendant didn’t look at the driver. His eyes were focused on a stack of 5,000 liras handed him by Samir and a small cherubim idol, speckled with purple half-moon symbols, wrapped inside.
Chapter 68
A foghorn sounded as Samir’s Renault entered the Selamsiz neighborhood of Istanbul in the Asian half of the city. Straddling the Bosphorus Strait, the old neighborhood was soaked in the acrid scent of the sea. Three seagulls flew overhead as the sedan moved parallel to the water along Pasa Limani Caddessi Street and into the narrow red-brick corridors of the Selamsiz.
Samir drove past the restaurants and bars on Gazi Caddesi Street and speeded up as he saw a group of Roma children playing in the middle of the road, nearly running them over as they tripped over their long skirts and scarves and tumbled into a side street. He smiled at their desperation.
Samir stopped the car in front of Café Mustafa. It was here that Reso told him to go to prepare for his mission. He carefully removed a silver and black Sarsilmaz 9 mm pistol from the brown paper package and armed the chamber with six rounds.
Inside, middle-aged men were eating paçanga böreği, a fried pastry filled with pastrami, potatoes, and cheese. Others quietly sipped coffee, or continued a conversation that might last the rest of the afternoon.
“Ah, Samir,” said Batur Baris, “it’s good to see you again.”
“Have we met?”
“You were a young boy. We took a trip together.”
“I don’t remember you,” Samir said, dismissively.
Samir looked around the coffee shop. It isn’t much. Why did Reso send me to this shithole?
“Can we get down to business?” Samir asked.
Batur scowled. “You are just like your father. All business, huh? OK, let’s go.”
A white sheet hung between the front of the shop and the kitchen, where pots and plates were soaking in a sink, and a tubby cook rolled dough underneath a flickering lightbulb. Batur waived Samir forward, removing a dusty rug that hung in the back corner of the kitchen. It revealed a metal door.
Batur pressed his thumb against a small screen where a door handle had once been. With a loud screech, two metal plates separated and the door popped open.
“Remember, you never saw this. You came for coffee,” Batur said.
Samir brushed aside the comment and entered. Like a kid walking into a football stadium for the first time, his eyes widened.
Holy shit. This is an arsenal.
The room was twenty feet deep. Guns and other tools of combat filled the shelves up to the ceiling.
“Where did you get all of this?”
“The black market. Russians. Also, the Americans. CIA.”
“What do you use it for?”
“Mostly to arm the PKK. Or one-off sales to mercenaries, guns for hire, terrorist groups.” He paused. “And to people like you.”
Samir wondered what Batur knew about him. Apparently, not much. There is no one like me. No one in the world.
Samir wished he had a longer shopping list. But Reso told him to be reasonable.
“I need equipment for amphibious warfare,” Samir said. “Do you have any?”
“Yes, of course,” Batur said, pointing to a series of shelves by the door.
“You want weapons for underwater use, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Here. The ATP amphibious,” Batur said, handing a sleek, black rifle to Samir. “It’s used by Russia’s special forces, capable of firing ammunition above ground or underwater.”
“Bullets?”
“Bullets underwater? No. In that case, it fires a steel dart.” Batur motioned as if he was throwing a dart at an invisible board against the wall. “But no less deadly.”
Samir pictured a puncture hole in a wet suit, a stream of blood diffusing into a cloud, a limp body sinking to the bottom of a cave. “This will do.”
“You’ll need scuba gear?” Batur asked, wondering if he had a wet suit large enough to fit Samir.
“Of course, the best.”
“What will be your depth?”
“Not very deep. Maybe fifty feet.”
“Good. Then you can move light and fast. Look at this,” Batur said, handing Samir a black mask encircled by metallic tubes. “The TAP V Pronger rebreather. It’s closed circuit,” Batur said. “All air breathed out is recycled and the CO2 is filtered.�
��
“No bubbles?”
“Right, perfect for clandestine operations.”
“Who uses this?”
“The SEALs, Special Forces dive teams, US Marines.”
“Perfect. And what are these?” Samir asked, lifting what appeared to be an extra-long flipper.
“Oh, well, those are very expensive. Straight from the US. I don’t know if—”
“The price is irrelevant, what are they?”
“They’re called Jetboots Diver Propulsion System,” Batur said. “They’re basically thrusters that are placed on both legs that make paddling unnecessary.”
“Good. Have it all loaded into my car,” Samir ordered, with a wave of his hand. “Send the bill to my father.”
“OK, just remember what I said. You weren’t here.”
Samir grabbed Batur by the shirt collar and pushed him into the back wall of the armory. “Listen to me now,” Samir said, taking hold of a long dagger set out on a nearby shelf.
Batur glowered at Samir. But he was more bemused than pissed off. It was a joke if Samir thought he could intimidate him, especially in his own armory. I’ve killed hundreds of Samirs. I could kill one more.
“There is no danger if I speak about your little closet of toys,” Samir continued, his fingers slipping as he quickly lost his grip on Batur’s massive frame. “But if you mention me or my mission to anyone, I will return here and butcher you in this very room, do you understand?”
Straightening the lapel of his jacket, Batur didn’t bother to respond. He had seen the likes of Samir before. Naïve and new to the game, full of bluster but incapable of exacting any real harm. A river of psychosis flowing underneath a steely veneer.
It was a shame. Samir had reminded Batur of himself when Batur rescued him from Istanbul twenty-five years ago. When Batur found him, Samir was bleeding in an alley, catching his breath after suffering a beating at the hands of a street gang. A pair of old gypsy women taunted the boy. “Do not touch that boy. He is the bastard son of the devil,” they warned Batur, as he put Samir into his car to take him away from there. Batur had brushed aside the comment. He had plans for the boy. He would change his life forever.
