The Searcher

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  No one in either group seemed to want to speak, least of all to each other.

  “What’s going on?”

  The goon looked at Vekua, who looked at Hammer.

  “So you have no client,” she said, with a final glare, and walked away.

  “Outside,” said the big man.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Hammer’s new chaperone guided him firmly through the airport, back the way he had come to the passport barrier, where a grunted conversation in Georgian was all it took to release him again into the city. In the departures concourse Hammer shrugged his arm free of the man’s grip and came to a stop.

  “Where are we going?”

  Iosava’s man just looked down at him and held out a great thick arm to usher him toward the door. To Iosava, no question, with a new set of crazed demands.

  “I need to make a call,” said Hammer. “Give me some money.”

  Still he held his arm out.

  “Coins. I need coins.” Hammer rubbed his fingers together, “Look, you great fucking galoot.”

  He set off across the concourse toward a bank of phones, pulling the bigger man after him by the lapel.

  “I need to make a fucking call. OK? Now.”

  He barely noticed that Iosava’s man didn’t resist, but even in his desperation had a dim sense that they cut a peculiar figure, the little bald man dragging the giant meekly behind him. Stopping by the phones he rubbed his fingers in the man’s face.

  “Coins. Change. Money.”

  Pointing emphatically at the slot he pulled out his notebook and leafed through the pages. There they were, under Thomas North, her initials reversed: her number and the number of the phone he had given her. Iosava’s man patted the pockets of his trousers, then of his jacket, and shook his head. Strangely he seemed now to be in Hammer’s power.

  “Well, fucking find some.”

  Three phones down a young man with long, matted, mousy hair leaned against the wall, the receiver pressed to his ear, his back to Hammer. A backpack rested by his feet. Iosava’s man walked over to him, spun him round by the shoulder, and saying something in Georgian held out his hand. He was a kid, all of twenty, and he didn’t seem to understand.

  “Dollars,” said the goon. “For phone.”

  Scared, the kid muttered something into the phone in what sounded like German and reached into his pockets. He came out with an assortment of stuff, and from his open palm Iosava’s man picked out three coins.

  “Gamarjobat,” said Hammer, but the kid had turned his back again and gone back to his call, shaking his head.

  Hammer fed the coins into the slot and dialed her cell phone. It rang—once, then again, then again. Six rings in all, and then a constant tone. He tried again, and again it rang out. The third time he dialed the untraceable cell he had given her, and listened despairingly to the dead tone that instantly filled his ear.

  He replaced the receiver, let the coins tumble down, and walked over to hand them back to their owner.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

  • • •

  Iosava’s car was a sleek, long German thing parked illegally and all on its own directly in front of the terminal. It couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. But Hammer had no room for Iosava and his grandness, his pomposity. His head was occupied by one question alone.

  The goon put Hammer’s suitcase in the trunk, opened a door, and steered him into the backseat.

  “You try to leave.”

  The door shut, and as the lamps dimmed Hammer saw Iosava’s grotesque image fading back into the amber half-light.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We have contract. You try to leave.”

  Despite everything, Hammer laughed, and shook his head.

  “You people are fucking crazy.”

  Iosava, who had been looking straight ahead, turned to face Hammer.

  “I am only man in Georgia who can keep you in Georgia. And you laugh?”

  “She wants to throw me out because of what I know, and you want to keep me here. What’s funny is, I don’t know anything. Nothing. There are stray dogs in Tbilisi who know as much as I do. I don’t even know what you really want.”

  “She is nobody.”

  “Everyone’s nobody to you.”

  By now the goon had joined the driver in the front. Iosava said something in Georgian to them, the engine started with the gentlest rumble, and the car pulled away.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where you want. Is your job.”

  “Take me here.” From his wallet he slid a piece of paper and passed it to the driver. “Quickly. Fast. And I need to charge this phone.”

  Iosava said something in Georgian and the car made a controlled surge forward.

  “What is here?” said Iosava, as the driver passed the slip back to him.

  “None of your business.”

  “We still have contract.”

  Hammer buckled his seat belt and took a deep breath. “Mr. Iosava, I don’t make contracts with people like you. Your idea of a contract is my idea of an order, and I don’t take orders. You got me off that plane, great. It suits me, but it suits you, too, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it. I have no reason to be grateful to you and no reason to do what you say.”

  Iosava shut his eyes for a moment, in impatience or contemplation. As he did, what little light there was in his face went out, and all that was left was a lifeless canker.

  “You are clever man but you see me and you judge. It makes you go wrong, think wrong. No trust, OK. But you and me, we want same thing. Find your friend, finish president. Is same thing. Understand? I work, you work. We work together.”

  Hammer took a long, slow breath. If he could have trusted this man at all, there was truth in this.

  “So. You tell me. Your friend is here?” He flicked the piece of paper with a stubby finger.

  “I don’t know where my friend is.”

  Iosava screwed the paper into a tight ball and threw it, hard, at Hammer, who raised a hand to parry it.

  “You do not tell me, my men will cut your face. Like this.” With his finger he slit his mouth from one corner up to his ear. “One second it take.”

  Hammer ran through his choices. Two things he knew. If Iosava had wanted him killed, it would have happened by now. And if he’d killed Ben, they wouldn’t be going through all this. He plunged in.

  “What’s in Tusheti?”

  “Where?”

  “Tusheti. Is that how you say it?”

  “Nothing. Mountains. Sheep.”

  “No connection to anything? To the bomb.”

  “Sure. Truck was in Tusheti.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “The bombers. Truck was found, hidden. In Diklo. On border, next to Dagestan.”

  “That wasn’t in the press.”

  “Press prints what I want. Police were there.”

  “Diklo?”

  “Diklo, Tusheti.”

  “What else should you tell me?”

  Iosava shrugged. They were well clear of the airport now, driving with speed through the light traffic heading into the city.

  “What is this?”

  He retrieved the ball of paper from the seat between them.

  “Something I have to do.”

  Iosava rolled the ball between his fingertips, crushing it down.

  “My men take you.”

  “I told you. I work alone.”

  “You need driver.”

  “I have a driver.”

  Iosava blinked slowly in quiet frustration.

  “Mountains not safe.”

  “And this place is?”

  • • •

  Luka opened the door like a man disturbed from his sleep for
the third time that night, and even before he threw his arms up and muttered something in angry Georgian, Hammer knew she wasn’t there. Where is she, he asked; did she go alone? But Luka just shrugged and muttered some more. How could he be expected to know? He hadn’t seen the woman for five years and now he was her keeper? If this wasn’t what he said it was something like it. Hammer asked for pen and paper and once Luka had grumpily returned with them wrote down his phone number, pressing it into the man’s reluctant hand with enough urgency to make the message clear.

  There was some comfort. Recluse he might be, but even Luka would have behaved differently if Natela had been dragged away by secret service men. He wasn’t alarmed, merely cross.

  It had been five hours since he left her here. Of course, she hadn’t just sat and meekly waited. At a guess, she had gone home to pack some things, anticipating a spell in hiding; or she had gone to her brother’s, because a mere attempt on her life wasn’t going to upset her routine.

  Parked up on the pavement, the Mercedes was laughably conspicuous, the very last thing for discreet intelligence work. But the time for discretion was past. Once he had found her he could figure out how to hide her again.

  “What is here?” said Iosava, not for the first time, as Hammer got back into the car.

  “I have to talk to someone.”

  “OK. Good. We go home. Tomorrow you go to mountains.”

  “She wasn’t here. We need to go to 23 Gudauri Street. And on the way I need you to find out the name of Natela Toreli’s brother. Or brothers.”

  Iosava laughed, a dry gurgle.

  “Of course. You have to talk.”

  Hammer shook his head. How could he be in league with this piece of shit?

  “Just take me there.”

  “She has new man quick, yes? One week since funeral? Karlo deserve better.”

  “You say one more word about her and I will fuck you up. Goons or no fucking goons.”

  Even as the words came out he knew he should have kept them to himself. She could protect her own honor, no doubt. But at that moment all he wanted to do was throttle all the ugliness out of the man.

  Iosava cocked his head to the side, put his hand on Hammer’s thigh, and squeezed, strong fingers locking deep into the muscle. There was only deadness behind his eyes, an expanse of black.

  “You make threat, I kill you. Myself. Here.” Hammer tried to raise his hand up but it was stuck fast. “We have agreement. For this, I let you live.”

  He held his grip for a moment then let go.

  “Out.”

  Hammer smoothed his trousers down, keeping his eyes on Iosava’s. A week earlier this episode would have shocked him; now it barely registered.

  “My experience, men who want to do things do them. The rest is talk. And for such a big man I think you’re a big talker, too. OK? So let’s cut all the posturing, and let’s try to tolerate each other like a pair of fucking grown-ups. Yes?”

  Iosava said nothing.

  “Good. Half an hour ago you offered me a driver. You can start by driving me to Gudauri Street.”

  Iosava continued to stare at him with those blank eyes, so empty of anything human. Then, without looking away, he said something to his driver, and the car raced away down the narrow street.

  • • •

  Natela wasn’t at her apartment—or if she was, she wasn’t coming to the door or answering her phone, or responding to Hammer’s shouts from the street.

  She had two brothers, but only one in Tbilisi, and he lived in the old town, in a rare well-kept house. His wife answered the door, letting the sounds of laughter and boisterous conversation out into the street. Blankly shaking her head at Hammer’s question, she fetched her husband, and in a broken exchange he managed to explain that Natela hadn’t been there—and no, no phone calls either. Why, he wanted to know, but Hammer just thanked him and went back to the car.

  “Maybe there is third man,” said Iosava when he saw Hammer’s face.

  But Hammer was now too anxious to fight him.

  “Take me to my hotel.”

  Iosava said something in Georgian to his driver and the car pulled away.

  “You think your friend is in mountains?”

  Barely hearing him, Hammer looked across.

  “I think that’s where he was going.”

  “Why does he go? What is there?”

  “You tell me.”

  Iosava kept his gaze on Hammer, then reached across and pulled down an armrest from the seat between them. In the space it left was a small wooden cabinet with a glass door, and inside a neat row of cigars, each in its individual slot. He took one, took a clipper from the cabinet, trimmed one end, and then spent thirty seconds lighting it from a single long match. Hammer opened his window and watched as it began to suck the smoke from the car.

  “Is good place to hide a man,” said Iosava, when he was done. “Or to kill him.”

  ONE

  In the morning it rained hard, and on the slick, newly wet roads that wound into the mountains Koba’s big arms had to work hard to keep the Toyota from sliding into the shoulder. But still he drove fast, swinging round long corners, racing up behind ancient army trucks, overtaking on the shortest clear stretch, and finding fewer and fewer checks on his speed as the traffic gradually thinned. Hammer, keen to get on, discovered a handle above the window and gripping it firmly did his best to concentrate on the world outside. Dark, twisting tunnels of oaks gave way to gently rising plains, and through the gloom he could just make out shadowy peaks ahead. Grasses and wildflowers everywhere grew uncontained.

  “The road’s not too bad,” Hammer said, after a long period of silence.

  Koba threw back his head and laughed one of his tremendous, grand laughs.

  “This is not road,” he said.

  “That’s great,” said Hammer, and watched the landscape change around him. He wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to say.

  “Koba,” he said at last. “Last night. You OK?”

  Koba looked across at him, frowning.

  “Ya,” he said, with emphasis. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

  “Isaac, is best thing. Motherfuckers die. So? They are motherfuckers. Is OK.”

  It seemed to have made no more impression on him than the car in the ditch the day before. Hammer envied his robustness. Georgians had to be tough, he guessed.

  “Did they talk to you? The police?”

  “Ya, is normal.”

  “Did they mention my friend?”

  “No. Only you.”

  That was interesting. Heaven knew what it meant.

  Before leaving town Hammer had called each of the two numbers he had for Natela three times before giving up. Finally, he had sent her a text, and tried to consign her to the back of his thoughts, where she had no intention of remaining.

  He had slept patchily, and woken without appetite—either for a run, which would have helped him, or for breakfast, which he forced down in any case. He couldn’t leave, but couldn’t stay. What would he tell Elsa, that he’d ignored his only lead to wait for a phone call that might never come?

  The truth was, of course, that he had no power over Natela’s life. She could be dead, or in danger, or she might simply never want to see him again. He would never know, and in each case there was little he could do. So he had called Koba, and once they had driven round enough to be sure that no one was following them—to Koba’s great enjoyment—they had stopped only to buy phones, boots, and a winter coat before heading out on the road east to the mountains.

  “You are quiet, Isaac,” Koba had said, half an hour in.

  “I’m sorry, Koba. I didn’t sleep so well.”

  “Mountain air. You will be good.”

  Now, after an hour’s climb, still in trees, the
way began to level out and then slowly descend. Through gaps in the green Hammer thought he could see a great plain below them, and wondered when they would start to climb again.

  “Is this Tusheti?”

  Koba turned to look at him, gripped his shoulder with a sturdy hand, and beamed.

  “This is Kakheti. Tusheti like this.” He raised his hand to the roof.

  “I thought these were the mountains?”

  “No,” he said, stretching out the syllable on one low note.

  “This isn’t the road, and these aren’t the mountains. OK. How long to the real mountains?”

  “One hour. Two. First we stop and eat, buy food. Wait for end of rain.”

  It took Hammer a moment to register this.

  “We don’t have time to wait.”

  “Road not possible in rain. Too much danger.”

  “Koba, we have no choice. I need to get up there.”

  “Only way in rain is fly.”

  “Fly?”

  “Helicopter. From Tbilisi.” He looked at Hammer. “It’s OK. Rain will stop.”

  Hammer checked his watch. It was noon, and the city was already more than an hour behind them. Their route was set—and besides, this was the way that Ben would have come. There was only one road up.

  Soon they were down on the flat, at the edge of a wide plain that was checkered with fields and bounded in the distance by an immense wall of mountains that rose sheer out of nothing and disappeared into dull clouds. So straight was this wall across the horizon, so abrupt and complete, that it was little effort to imagine a just god setting it down to protect the blessed land of Georgia—less a part of the land than a fortification. Down here the world was human; there were vines and crumbling square houses and tractors left abandoned at the side of the road, and every so often the distinctive conical tower of a church, but it was all made tiny by the mass of black rock behind, where men and women were surely never meant to live.

  “Caucasus,” said Koba, with pride and respect. “We must cross.”