by Graham Marks
“But that’s blackmail!”
“I know.” Christina opened the door. “Shall we go?”
Baba Duan tipped his hat and smiled at the gardener as he walked up to the building and rapped on the front door of the British Consulate. He was eyeing up his reflection in the glass and thinking that, even though the bowler hat was undoubtedly smart, he would still prefer to wear a fez, when the door opened. A young man in a suit that appeared to be rather too tight for him (and who definitely looked like he should sharpen his razor before he used it again) stood looking at him questioningly.
“Yes?”
“Mister, the Honourable George Archibald Stanhope-Leigh, His Majesty’s servant and Trade Secretary.”
“Excuse me?’
“I should very much like to have the distinct pleasure of a meeting. With him.”
“Really...” The junior assistant secretary looked at the large, obviously Turkish man, dressed in a pin-striped suit and wearing a bowler hat, and frowned. “And you would be?”
“I would be the Mister Duan Hendek, journalistic reporter of foreign correspondence for several various international newspapers of much repute...” Baba Duan dug two fingers into one of his waistcoat pockets. “My card!”
“Ah...thank you...” The young man was just about to take the small piece of off-white pasteboard when it was summarily whisked away from him.
“Apologies!” Baba Duan smiled broadly as he drew out another card (one that actually had “Duan Hendek” printed on it, rather than one of his alternative identities), and handed it over. “This one, somehow nicer.”
“Mister...” the junior assistant secretary glanced curiously at the card, “...Hendek. Well, I’m afraid you will need an appointment if you want to see the Trade Secretary, and I’m sorry to say that his diary is rather crowded at the moment. It is possible he might have some time available next week – would you like me to check?”
“Excuse me.” Baba Duan reached out and plucked the card out of the young man’s hand; taking a small, stainless steel propelling pencil from the breast pocket of his jacket he wrote something on the blank reverse side and handed it back again. “Give this to the Honourable Mr. Trade Secretary, and I think maybe it will be sure that his diary can find enough space for me. Today.”
“I really don’t think...” The junior assistant secretary peered at what was written on the card. “Excuse me, but what does that say?”
“It say ‘T. Drummond MacIntyre Two’. Tell it to Mr. Leigh.”
“Stanhope-Leigh, it’s Mr. Stanhope-Leigh...and what exactly do you want me to tell him?”
“Tell him the information that I know where this America gentleman is.”
“So we really are back to square one.” Arthur kicked disconsolately at a stone, sending it tumbling off towards Evren. The four of them were at the back of the small garden, out of sight and, Arthur hoped, out of Miss Renyard’s mind. Quite how long it would be before she came looking for Christina and him he had no idea, but the moment she did Evren and Neyla were going to have to skedaddle pretty quickly.
“My baba say that he is doing something.” Evren flicked the stone between his shoes.
“But that doesn’t help us, because we still don’t know where Trey is, we don’t know where his father is and we don’t have any way of getting round any more – I say, Tina, how much pocket money d’you have saved? Maybe we’ve enough to hire Ahmet ourselves.”
“Even if we have money –” Evren hooked the stone in Neyla’s direction; she took one look at Christina’s delicate shoes and passed straight to Arthur – “it wouldn’t be a useful thing.”
“Why not?”
Evren held his hands out, palms up, and shrugged. “Exactly where to go?”
Arthur’s shoulders slumped. “I hate to say it, old chap, but I think you’re right. I quite fancied getting to the bottom of all this as well, finding out what was what and all that sort of thing...”
“Look here, Arthur...there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Everyone looked at Christina and she blushed, her pale cheeks almost glowing red.
“What would that be, then, old thing?”
“Because I wasn’t at all tired, not having been out all night,” she sniffed and twisted a curl round one of her fingers, “I got up quite a lot earlier than you did this morning.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”
“I overheard something.” Christina looked at her highly polished shoes. “Something I should probably have told you before...”
25 THE LONG ROAD
Trey had been keeping up a steady pace for the last he didn’t know how long (it seemed like hours, but as he had no way of knowing now that his watch was kaputski, it could have been just an hour, or even less). The exercise regime meant that his clothes and shoes were no longer soaking wet, just uncomfortably damp, and he’d kind of warmed up. Or at least he wasn’t as cold as he had been. He knew he’d so little chance of getting back to the city and finding his father that he positively had to keep looking on the bright side or else it was likely he would quit walking, sit down and wait to be caught.
But that was not going to happen.
The leather briefcase bumped against his hip as he walked (he’d thought of getting rid of it, but he was still wet enough to damage the map and possibly the gun, so it wasn’t worth the risk), adding up the pluses of his situation. Choosing to ignore the very large minus that he was now quite hungry, and couldn’t see much chance of food any time soon, he ticked off the fact that he hadn’t encountered any more wild pigs, so far, that it wasn’t raining and that there were trees lining the sides of what passed for a road. Somewhere to hide if any cars – he assumed the Germans must have a car and didn’t fly everywhere – should come either way.
Rounding a bend in the road he saw he was about to go through the middle of a small hamlet. In the gloom he checked the map and it didn’t look like anything more than a handful of buildings, but something made Trey stop and look for a way to skirt round the place. Better safe than sorry being his motto for the foreseeable future.
The unforeseen detour, which took him past a small, ramshackle building, turned out to have a silver lining.
Trey would have crept on straight past the place had one of the occupants not chosen that moment to whinny softly, the sound stopping him dead in his tracks, then sending him off to investigate. So long as there wasn’t some weird Turkish animal that he’d never heard of which sounded exactly like a horse, his luck had just changed. With a horse he could make mincemeat of the distance between him and Constantinople!
Slipping into the stables Trey stood quietly in the darkness, breathing in the familiar scents and odours as he waited for his sight to adjust, and also to let the horses get used to the idea that someone they didn’t know was there. In his mind’s eye he had imagined the horses would be something like the small, sturdy mustangs Gramps had on the Topeka ranch back home, but as he finally began to make sense of the ghostly, moonlit shapes he saw that here were horses of a very different type. They were rather bigger than the ones he was used to riding, or at least two of them were, as the third “horse” turned out to be a donkey.
What had seemed like a very simple solution to his problems now took on a number of irritating complications. Like there were no saddles, as these good old boys looked like they were used to pull things, and he’d therefore have to ride bareback. Plus, of course, he would be stealing a working animal, and probably from someone who didn’t have that much in the first place. But, because he ab-so-lute-ly, completely, totally and definitely had to get one heck of a move on, what else was he supposed to do for crying out loud?
Having discovered a fairly crude bridle made out of rope, he coaxed the marginally smaller of the two horses out of the stable with a handful of oats, promising himself that the very first thing he’d do – assuming everything went according to plan – was see that the horse got taken back home, toot sweet (“and
the tooter the sweeter” he heard his gramps saying). If he made sure that happened then what he was doing was merely borrowing, not thieving. Which, in his book, was an excellent, not to say entirely copacetic way of looking at the situation.
“Over here, boy,” Trey whispered, leading the horse across to a low fence, which he climbed up. Using the great beast’s mane to haul himself onto its broad back, he grabbed the reins and geed it forward. For a second or two the horse stayed exactly where it was, but then, with a snort and a toss of its head, it moved off...
Viktor Becht had joined the Abwehr two years ago and had worked for Reinhardt Gessler for almost all of that time. It wasn’t a bad job, except for when he was stuck in a house out in the back of beyond, in a country where no one spoke a word of German. On his own. And then, when his boss finally turns up it’s with some kid for whom he has to act as a dumm servant. What all this business had to do with army intelligence he couldn’t say, and it was definitely not his place to ask, that much he knew for sure. Herr Oberst Gessler gave orders – which he expected to be carried out to the letter – he did not answer subordinates’ questions.
And Viktor had a lot of questions. There was so much going on back home in Germany, but he was stuck here in Turkey, unable to get involved in anything, only picking up occasional bits of gossip. Hardly the position for someone who wanted to be in the thick of things, catching spies, even doing a bit of spying himself. He’d be good at that; instead, here he was acting as a waiter!
Climbing up the final flight of stairs, Viktor balanced the tray on one hand, unlocked the door and pushed it open. The morning sun was streaming through a big gap in the curtains and falling in a bright slash across the bed. The boy was still asleep and the previous night’s tray was on the floor.
“Wach auf! Wake u...” Viktor stopped in the middle of putting the breakfast tray down. There was something not quite right about the shape in the bed, but he did not want to believe what his instincts were telling him. “Verdammt...”
Dropping the tray with a crash, Viktor ran across the room and pulled the sheet and blanket back to reveal...just pillows. No boy. No boy! Whirling round he swiftly checked the wardrobe – nothing – and then moved over to the window and drew the curtains back, immediately noticing the scratched and gouged paintwork.
“Verdammt...verdammt...verdammt...”
Pushing the sash up with such force one of the panes of glass cracked, Viktor stuck his head out of the window, frantically searching left and right and left again in the vain hope that the boy was, hope against hope, still there on the roof...knowing, in his gut, that he wasn’t.
“What happened, Viktor? I heard a noise...”
Viktor jerked backwards so fast he cracked his head on the edge of the window and saw stars as he attempted to stand to attention. “The boy has somehow escaped, mein Herr.”
Reinhardt Gessler was a man used to making decisions under pressure and his mind clicked into gear, ranking the probabilities and the possibilities in order of likelihood, and what should be done about each of them. “Get out on the roof, now, and check that he isn’t hiding...I shall go and see, if he did jump, whether his actions may have resulted in an accident.” He turned to leave the room. “When you have had a thorough look around, come straight down. I will have the car out – I assume you have made sure to keep it in good working order?”
“Absolutely, mein Herr, perfect working order.”
“Good.” Gessler marched out of the room, leaving Viktor, who now had a dull headache, to his assigned task.
The horse had a mind of its own. While it seemed perfectly happy to go wherever Trey wanted it to, no matter how nicely he asked it wouldn’t speed up faster than a fairly gentle trot. Which was, true enough, quicker than he could walk, but he had kind of imagined travelling at more of a gallop. But even though the sedate pace allowed him to occasionally consult the map as he rode, he still had no more than the roughest idea where he was.
The sun was now well up, which he estimated meant that it was probably around about seven o’clock and his disappearance may well have been discovered by now. If they’d also discovered that he’d got hold of the map (as well as the gun) then they must’ve figured he was on his way back to Constantinople. Which also meant that they might already be in hot pursuit. He had seen the odd person since dawn had broken, but no cars; so far not one, going north or south. So if he heard an automobile coming from behind him there was a fair chance it would belong to the man he now thought of as “The Enemy”. It made him sound like one of the villains that the tough-but-good-guys, like Trent Gripp, were regularly pitted against. Trent always beat the bad guys. And so would he.
Although Trey knew he must cut a pretty strange sight, a bedraggled boy riding this jumbo of a horse, he ignored the few quizzical looks that came his way, looked straight ahead and acted as if everything was completely as it should be. While the nag trotted on at its own sweet pace it occurred to Trey that his erstwhile captors would likely assume he was on foot and keeping fairly close to the road, which pretty much followed the shoreline. So, maybe, it would be a good idea if he got off it.
Up ahead Trey saw that there was a fork in the road and thought this might to be the time to take a detour. He swung the briefcase round onto his lap, got the map out and had another go at trying to match the real world around him with the two-dimensional representation on the printed cloth, with not a lot of success. Taking another route would keep him safer, but there was a risk that, even with a map, he might get lost. Except that this race wasn’t all about speed, but mostly just about getting there and not getting caught. So, if he went right at the junction, and that way still basically went south, he would eventually end up where he wanted to go. Hopefully.
Trey tried egging the horse on, pressing in with his heels again (what he would give right now for a pair of proper cowboy spurs, like he had at Gramps’s ranch!), but to no avail. This animal, who more than likely spent his days hauling a plough, or something equally laborious, was obviously not about to speed up for anyone, let alone some upstart Yankee boy.
Then, somewhere behind him, he couldn’t tell how far away, he heard the sound of a car being downshifted, like his father did when he was taking a corner. It was going fast, the driver revving the engine and changing back up as the way straightened out. Just like his dad would do.
It was him, The Enemy!
Trey’s empty gut clenched and he felt sick to his stomach. What was he going to do? He was about to be caught right out in the open, stuck up on a horse that refused to move faster than a snail, and with nowhere to hide! A sense of failure, mixed with dread at what was going to happen next, began to sink through him and he drooped, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his imminent defeat.
And then, just as suddenly as the cloud had settled over him, there was a burst of mental sunshine as an idea occurred to him. Quickly sliding to the ground Trey took his shoes and socks off and rolled his trousers up to just under his knees; he then liberally rubbed his legs with dust from the side of the road. This was a big horse. Big enough for him to hide behind, or at least hide the recognizable top half of himself. If he played his cards right, and the horse played ball, the only person The Enemy would see, if he paid him any attention at all, would be some shoeless farmer’s boy going off to work.
The car was getting louder and nearer by the second. Trey grabbed the reins and held tight, talking calmly to the horse, who was getting a tad twitchy.
“It’s okay, boy, it’s okay...” he whispered as he stroked the animal’s neck, praying that he wasn’t just kidding himself as well. “He’ll be gone soon.”
Trey glanced back the way he’d come and there was the car. He moved so that the horse blocked any view the driver might have of him and held his breath as The Enemy got closer and closer. Was he slowing down? Had the man spotted him? He was slowing down! Trey forced himself to move so he kept the horse between him and the oncoming motor...and then, in a cloud of
dust, the car was gone.
It was all over.
Until, that is, The Enemy realized that he’d driven further than one boy on foot could possible have got, and came back to look more carefully.
Watched by an incurious old man who had appeared from somewhere, Trey put his shoes and socks on, rolled his trousers down and made something of a meal of remounting the horse. Kicking harder than he really meant to, he urged the animal on towards the fork in the road.
26 MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT
Baba Duan sat on a really quite uncomfortable leather upholstered chair in a sparsely furnished, rather stuffy room. On the wall opposite him was a large, ornately framed portrait, a black and white photographic print of a bearded man, dressed in a highly decorated ceremonial uniform, who looked not unlike one of the old sultans – without the turban, of course. This man, whom Baba Duan knew was His Majesty George V (by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, as it explained underneath the picture), appeared ill at ease as he stared, pale-eyed, out of the picture. Quite often, Baba Duan mused, as he waited to be seen by Mr., the Honourable Stanhope-Leigh, being a king or a sultan was not a matter of choice but of birth; it was a job you got, whether you wanted it or not.
“Mr. Hendek?”
Baba Duan looked round at the sound of his name to see a man he’d not met before beckoning him. “Mr. Stanhope-Leigh?” he asked as he stood up.
“No, no...I’m his secretary.” The man smiled, one eyebrow raised. “Please come this way, he will see you now.”
Baba Duan buttoned his jacket and smoothed it down, checked his reflection in the glass covering King George’s portrait, made a final adjustment to his bowler hat, and went after the man. The room he was ushered into wasn’t all that much bigger than the one he’d just come from, and the man with greying temples and a dark mustache getting up from his chair behind a quite plain, leather-topped desk looked the same as any other civil servant he’d ever seen. Which was exactly as Baba Duan had expected. In Mr., the Honourable Stanhope-Leigh’s business, it would pay to appear unexceptional.
