City of the Lost

by Will Adams

  ‘Of course not,’ she said indignantly. ‘It’s history.’

  ‘Our friend didn’t set up the auction merely to sell us a selection of these pieces,’ he told her. ‘He set it up in order to sell us the location of this place too. I think he feared for its safety should Varosha be handed back. And what do your late employer and I have in common, after all? We’re both known for looking after the artefacts we buy, and for donating them to museums. That’s why he chose us.’

  They ventured on. Wherever they went, however, footprints in the dust invariably indicated that Baykam had been there first. They came across a pair of bronze doors that had fallen from their hinges at the head of a long, downward passage. The gradient was so gentle that the top steps were only lightly covered in sand; but the further down they went, the deeper this covering grew, turning it into a ramp of awkward footing, shrinking their headroom so severely that they soon had to stoop and then to crawl. Karin’s eyes grew raw with dust, she fought a cough, she scraped her scalp on the limestone ceiling, but at last she and Butros emerged into a square antechamber with another pair of bronze doors in the facing wall, only their top halves exposed. They were decorated with floral and geometric motifs, and the handles set in them suggested that they were designed to be pulled rather than pushed open, so that their bases were pinned shut by the weight of sand. A small trough in front of the left-hand one suggested that Baykam had tried to scoop away the sand in order to open it, but it was so fine and dry that it must have trickled back almost as fast as he’d cleared it, and so he’d given up.

  Karin grinned at Butros. Butros grinned back. A fine thing to be one of the very first people into a newly discovered site of such extraordinary importance, one that had lain hidden for nearly three thousand years. But being one of the very first wasn’t the same thing as being actually the first. Not the same thing at all.

  They rested their torches on the sand then set themselves to work.

  FORTY-TWO

  I

  It was a quirk of Turkish law that, while firearms themselves were lightly regulated and widely owned, silencers were fiercely prohibited. Guns could be used legitimately for defence, after all. But who except a murderer would need a silencer? There was only one, therefore, among the safe house’s small arsenal, specially adapted to fit a Kilinç 2000 semi-automatic. Asena fitted it then held it out. It made the pistol cumbersome and hard to aim, and there was only a single fifteen-round magazine for it; yet she took it for herself all the same, then stuffed handfuls of spare 9mm rounds into her pockets and the pouches of her pack.

  The others had by now changed into suitable clothing. She made them choose weapons for themselves, then all nine of them piled into the SUV, sitting on each other’s laps where necessary, so that she could brief them on the way. She emphasized how critical this mission was to the success of their larger project and assured them their targets were unarmed. But in truth they needed little encouragement: the mayhem on the news had put them in the mood for some action of their own.

  The army was still crawling over Varosha like ants at a picnic. She sent the Wolves one at a time into the gaps between patrols, then followed in after. She led the way by memory. They drew close. She motioned for quiet then fitted the silencer to her Kilinc and crept forwards. There was no one in sight by the shaft mouth and she feared that she was too late, that they’d found what they needed and already left. But in the thin moonlight a low heap of strange artefacts came into view, along with a pale rope ladder that vanished through the gash in the ground. Then, even as she strained her eyes, she heard the scuffing of a boot and a man emerged from the shadows, muttering to himself and walking bow-legged as he zipped up his trousers. She sank slowly to the ground, took the Kilinc in both hands and aimed it at him. He was too far away for a sure kill, however, especially with an unfamiliar gun; and she couldn’t risk winging him lest he shout warning to his comrades below. She willed him closer but he seemed to sense something awry. He stopped, squinted around him. He took a pace towards her, then another, peering into the darkness. His night-vision goggles were hanging loose around his neck and he had a radio strapped to his belt. When he reached for both at the same time, she knew that she was rumbled. She aimed at his chest and pulled the trigger even as he whirled around and sprinted towards the gash, yelling warnings as he went. She kept on firing until he cried out and went down hard, tumbling into the shaft, his yells of alarm turning into a shriek of terror that ended abruptly in a thump.

  She ran to the mouth, looked down. A ballet of torchlight beneath as his companions came to see what had happened. Her immediate instinct was to haul up the rope ladder and maroon them down there. But what if they had some other way out? What if someone heard their cries for help? Maybe it would do as a last resort, but she owed it to the Lion to try for a more final solution.

  She popped out her magazine, refilled it with rounds from her pockets, clipped it back in. Her pack gathered around her. Bulent was the least mobile of them, not yet fully recovered from last night’s tumble in the SUV. ‘Stay here,’ she ordered him. ‘If things go to shit, pull up the ladder and leave. Understand? The rest of you, follow me.’ She took two deep breaths to steel herself then she grabbed the rope with her left hand and swung herself around and began her fast descent down the ladder into the site, firing at anything that moved.

  II

  The crisis cabinet had entered its fourth hour when Deniz Baştürk finally accepted that his premiership was over. It was partly the way in which his Interior Minister had just cut him off so rudely while he’d been talking, but it was more how none of his colleagues even blinked at it, not bothering with even the pretence of respect any more. Power had so clearly passed from him that they were all intent on manoeuvring for advantage or at least for the avoidance of blame.

  All day long, Baştürk had been fighting on two fronts, both to restore order across Turkey and to keep himself in office. In conceding the loss of this second front, if only to himself, he freed himself to focus on the former and more important task. The relief of this, of being able to do what was right, re-energized him and gave him back some moral courage. He slapped the table loudly for attention, but Iskender Aslan kept on talking. He slapped it again and kept on slapping until the room finally fell silent. People looked curiously at him, as though they thought he’d finally completely snapped. He pointed at the Deputy Prime Minister, then at his Ministers of Interior and State. ‘You three stay. Everyone else out.’ He stared down anyone who tried to challenge him and, rather to his surprise, they all complied. He waited for the door to close. ‘My congratulations,’ he said, when only the four of them remained. ‘And my commiserations too.’

  The Deputy Prime Minister squinted at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

  ‘My premiership is over,’ said Baştürk. ‘We all know that. I will stand down the moment order is restored, and one of you three is certain to succeed me. So I would like to congratulate that person. On the other hand, at least one of you will have their career and reputation destroyed. So I offer that person my commiserations.’

  The Secretary of State shifted uneasily in her seat. ‘Prime Minister?’ she asked.

  ‘When I go, I will use my resignation speech to take at least one of you down with me. At least one. You know I can, if I so choose. And I do so choose. I tell you now, if any of you, either directly or through your surrogates, continues to put your own personal prospects above the national interest during the next few days, I will destroy you. I give you my word on it.’ He met and held their eyes in turn until it was clear that they all believed him. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then let’s call the others back in and sort this fucking mess out.’

  III

  Iain and Andreas were still at work on their dispiriting exhumation when they heard shrieking above and then Bejjani’s guard crashed into the mound and tumbled down its side and came to settle on the bus’s bonnet, his head, shoulder and right arm hanging through the empty windscree
n, his cell radio clattering down the bus seats until it landed among the bones.

  Andreas instinctively shone up his torch, but Iain grabbed his wrist and pulled it back down again, turned it off. ‘Not a sound,’ he said. ‘And wait here.’ The seat frames creaked as he climbed, but he couldn’t help that. No need to check Bejjani’s man for a pulse. His skull was smashed like an egg dropped on a kitchen floor, leaking albumen and yolk. He heard voices above and then saw the rope ladder twirl into an elegant double helix as a figure in dark clothes began to clamber down. A couple of Bejjani’s men, rushing into the chamber to investigate the ruckus, were foolish enough to shine up their torches, revealing the descending figure as Asena, but also offering themselves up as targets. Gunfire popped. The men shouted with fear and then with pain and shock and dread as her bullets found their targets.

  She reached the rubble mound, stepped onto it. She had her back towards him and he might have risked rushing her except for the fallen body blocking his way. And then it was too late, her friends arriving down after her, all with handguns of their own. He retreated quietly back down inside the bus, moving as slowly as he could. The old metal still creaked treacherously, however, as he shifted his weight from seat to seat. Torchlight converged upon the bus’ bonnet above him.

  There was a beat or two of silence before Asena spoke. ‘With me,’ she said.

  IV

  They’d reached the western fringe of Famagusta when the shipping list arrived. Yilmaz scrolled through it on Colonel Ünal’s smartphone. He wasn’t expecting anything, had only asked to see it to keep the good Colonel on his toes, but one of the moored boats was registered to a Butros Bejjani, the very man Iain Black had claimed in his interrogation that he’d gone to Daphne to watch.

  It couldn’t be coincidence.

  ‘This boat the Dido,’ he said. ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘In harbour, I assume, sir,’ said Ünal, taking back his phone. ‘Do you want me to double-check?’

  ‘Yes. I want you to double-check.’

  The Colonel made the call, posed the question. He looked more than a little troubled at the reply. ‘They’ve gone out,’ he reported. ‘Night fishing.’

  ‘Night fishing!’ scoffed Yilmaz. ‘I want them found at once. I want them boarded.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘On the grounds that I’ve just given you the order, Colonel.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll oversee it myself, sir.’

  ‘I’ll have two of my men help you.’

  ‘No need, General.’

  ‘I insist,’ said Yilmaz. They’d reached the base while they’d been talking. The trucks, mixers and tankers he’d ordered were all there, parked in neat ranks. Yilmaz had briefed his men on their assignments during the flight and they now made their way directly to their vehicles then arranged them into working clusters. The staff car would be unequal to the broken terrain ahead so they switched to an open Jeep instead. Ragip took the wheel then led their convoy through the final checkpoint and into Varosha itself, while he stood up beside him and held onto the top of the windscreen even as he looked out over it at the ruined city.

  Inevitably, it took him back to his previous arrival here, forty years before, at the turret of the lead tank. They’d expected stiff resistance on their advance, had themselves met only boys with shotguns. Not that the place had been deserted, just that the speed of their breakout and advance had caught everyone by surprise. Villagers had gawped from balconies and shops. Turkish Cypriots had waved and cheered while Greeks had slunk into the shadows. When they’d reached the coast road, tourist sunbathers had stood up on the beaches, then had laid back down again. Their biggest problem had been all the people wanting to surrender to them. They’d told most of them to make their own way south, but they’d taken prisoner all likely looking Greek Cypriot men of fighting age, plus any women and children too stubborn to leave them. They’d had to commandeer a bus to hold them all, then a second and a third.

  The Varosha road was of fair quality near the base, but it quickly disintegrated. They lurched and bumped their way over buckled tarmac and spinneys of intrusive vegetation. He began to recognize buildings. He tapped Ragip’s shoulder to have him stop. The convoy came to a halt behind them, their array of beams lighting up a street of derelict shops and cafés. Yes, he remembered driving down here before. It had been empty that day too. Word of their advance had evidently reached this section of town, at least.

  A truck that had been delivering cement to a building site ahead had simply been abandoned in the road, blocking their further progress. He could have shunted it aside with his tank, but he’d been under strict orders to avoid wanton damage where he could, especially if it was liable to be photographed or even filmed. He’d therefore checked his maps for an alternate route, and had turned inland instead.

  At the time it had seemed the smart move. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it had proved the worst decision of his life.

  FORTY-THREE

  I

  The bus had creaked. Asena was sure of it. There was someone inside it. In which case they needed to be dealt with now, before they could launch a counter-attack. She reloaded her magazine then removed her silencer and stowed it in her pack, for there was no need for it down here, and it was cumbersome. She knelt carefully upon the bonnet. The windscreen had been smashed in. She counted to three, then moved with controlled speed, pointing her torch and Kilinç down simultaneously, her finger trembling on the trigger.

  A second passed. Another. ‘What’s down there?’ asked Emre.

  His question brought her back from her mild daze, staring down at the grim ossuary below. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing?’ he asked, coming to look for himself.

  ‘Stay back,’ she ordered, half-raising her gun.

  He spread his arms out wide. ‘Okay,’ he said, looking at her like she’d gone crazy. ‘It’s nothing.’

  She gestured vaguely at the expanse of main chamber. ‘Get to work,’ she said. ‘This place won’t clear itself, you know.’

  ‘What do we do with anyone we find?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  She waited till he was gone, issuing orders to the others, then looked back down inside the bus. When she’d set out with the Lion on this hard course, it had been a matter of honour for her, of fighting the gross injustice perpetrated against her father and his fellow officers. Her targets had been traitors or liars or at least legitimate combatants. But wars weren’t clean; their borders blurred, collateral damage became inevitable. And violence abraded you; you grew inured. So one day you found yourself parking a truck bomb outside a Daphne hotel and murdering over thirty innocent people. And all that kept you going then was the belief that your end justified your means, because at least you’d had right on your side when you’d started.

  The bus creaked again. Maybe it was merely settling after earlier intrusions. Or maybe Black or one of his friends were laying low, hoping that the sight of the killing field beneath would spook her off. If so, they didn’t know her very well. She reached her right foot down upon the steering wheel. From there she stepped down onto the back of the driver’s seat. The metal groaned softly. She could smell sweat. She didn’t feel afraid so much as heightened, her every sense working at its peak. She shone her torch down the aisle, then above and below the parallel lines of bench seats. Uncut diamonds of windscreen glass glittered amid the skulls and bones beneath, like some gruesome pirate treasure. But she could see no sign of anyone hiding. She lowered herself carefully onto the back-rest of the topmost passenger seat, knelt upon it, risked a glance over its back at the space between it and the seat beneath. It was large enough to hide a man, but it was empty, as was its companion across the aisle.

  Gunfire erupted in the main chamber; hoots of triumph. ‘Got one,’ shouted out Emre, for her benefit.

  Her heart began to clatter. These seats were awkward, an invitation to ambush. She knew how rash it was to take it on alone
, but she owed it to the Lion not to let these others see his shame. She took hold of the luggage rack to steady herself. She reached a foot across the aisle, then bestrode it. She crouched to check under the seats she was standing on. All clear. She made her way methodically down the bus in this way, seat by seat, until she was almost down to the bones. The frame of the next seat had buckled and wouldn’t take her weight. And was it her imagination playing tricks, or was that breathing she could hear, pregnant with fear, beneath her right foot? She remembered the speed with which Black had surprised her in the desert, a snake striking.

  Never again.

  The seats had metal frames but their backs were of toughened plastic. Enough to slow but not to stop a 9mm round. She shone her torch about her, hoping to get a better fix on him, but the reflections were all too indistinct. She shifted her right foot out of the way then aimed down. Without the silencer, the noise of the triple discharge in such a confined space half-deafened her. But the real shock was Iain Black erupting from beneath her left foot. She turned her gun on him and pulled the trigger again but too late, he was too fast for her, he seized her wrist and wrested the gun from her. She cried out and tried to clamber away from him but he grabbed her by her ankle and pulled her down so hard that she tumbled into the bones beneath, and something about it terrified her and she screamed with primal fear, as if the demons of hell itself were clawing at her and dragging her in.

  No sympathy from Black. He put his foot square on her face then sprang from seat to seat up the aisle to the windscreen and out. She followed him a little groggily, arriving up top to find him already engaging her Grey Wolves. One against seven. It should have been no contest. And, to her great dismay, no contest was exactly what it proved. A trained soldier against thugs with guns: the difference between them was shocking to her. The way he moved, with such pace, precision and purpose, while her own men seemed glued by fear to their defensive positions, or tried to hide behind each other, or gave themselves away with torches and panicked bursts of wasteful gunfire, as if unable quite to come to terms with the notion of a target with the effrontery to shoot back. She saw Emre fall first, then Tolgay, Ali and Uğur, Black taking their guns to use against the rapidly dwindling survivors when the Kilinç’s own magazine ran out, until finally the shooting stopped and silence returned.