by Leo Gher
The next morning, Jake met Father Wysocki at his rectory office at St. Andrew the Apostle. Sister Justine knocked on the door and said, “Father, Jake Moynihan is here.”
“Show him in,” said Wysocki, and a moment later, “Come in, Jake, and take a seat.”
“Thanks.”
“So, you’ve been to the funeral home?”
“Yeah, Wozniak’s on Archer Avenue.”
“Kathleen still insists on a casket, then?”
“Yeah, says it will bring some dignity to his memory, Father Wysocki.”
“You can call me Ed,” the priest replied. “We’ll hold off on the Father business until your next confession.”
“Not likely, Ed. I’m finished with religion.”
Edmund Wysocki shook his head. He’d been through such moods many times. “Okay, Jake,” he said. “About the cemetery costs, a double plot at St. Andrew is $4,000, and perpetual maintenance is another $1,000, so five grand, altogether.”
“I’ll make the check for $7,500.,” Moynihan said. “My donation to the church.”
“Not quite finished with religion, then?”
“Honorarium for my mother and father. That’s all.”
“By the way, the entire parish heard about your exploits in Azerbaijan,” he said, “saving your brother and all.”
“Thanks,” Jake mumbled. “It seems I’m good at killing.”
The priest shifted uncomfortably in his chair, “Last fall, when we spoke you talked about killing those men who murdered your father, did you kill them?”
“Didn’t have to,” Jake replied. “One was dead, and the other was all banged up, crippled and in a wheelchair.”
“You have fulfilled one of your promises, to bring your father back home for burial. What about the second?” Wysocki asked. “Did you find out who was behind Tom Moynihan’s murder.”
“I had a long talk with my brother about that. Conor had nothing to do with it. In fact, he is the one who killed the real killer – Elshan Kedar, a relative of sorts.”
“Circle closed, then?”
“Yes, closed. Just this burial left, and then all the promises I made are fulfilled.”
“What about that Bedrosian girl,” the priest asked. “You two were so close.”
“Had a falling out,” Jake replied, “and just broke up.”
“Maybe you should reconsider,” said Wysocki. “Don’t give up so easy, Jake. Maybe there is another promise to be made.”
Jake laughed, wondering how Lindy was getting along within the male-dominated VDW.
He was unsure about the reason for their breakup, did she understand why he abandoned the VDW cause, really understand? He brooded, does she know that I still love her? It was probably too late for such considerations. If I ever go back, he thought, I will, at least, try to visit with her… so we can talk about things.
33
Wind Rising Up
from the Sea
Day-10. In the deep recesses of her mind, Tali suspected that something dreadful had happened in her world. She could feel it closing in – the assault in Istanbul must have been part of a coordinated attack on her family, her House, or even a conspiracy against the Azeri government itself. Otherwise, Conor and Georghe and Seyfulla would have been breaking down the damn doors of this prison. Where were they? she asked repeatedly.
Day 17. Twice each day, Karun came to bring Tali food and unlock her chains so she could use the bathroom and shower. It was Tali’s only respite from the long hours of weighing fear against hope in her struggle to know what might be coming next. She enjoyed a few minutes of chit-chat with her keeper while loathing her at the same time. In the afternoons, a man named Serge came along with an armload of firewood for the stove. Tali believed it was April, but it was still cold in the cabin at night, a sure sign that they were likely in the mountains. Long after Tali had finished her afternoon workout, and Karun and Serge had disappeared, Tali would sit close to the stove and let her imagination run wild. Mostly, she wondered about Conor and their future together.
But those dreams would have to wait. Tali was in a fix and all alone. So, she had made up her mind. There was no other conclusion – it was up to her – time to find an escape plan and put it into action.
At University College Hospital, it had been weeks since the Kedar Bey had fallen unconscious before arriving at London City Airport. The doctors did not know whether the young man was in a coma or merely suffering from the strange condition known as locked-in syndrome. In either case, to the outside observer, he seemed to be vegetative. But that opinion wasn’t entirely right. To none other than himself, Conor was now detecting human activity just beyond his ability to communicate.
His greatest pleasure, however, was not seeking that world just beyond, but his escape to recurrent dreams of an alternate reality. For the present, it was impossible for Conor to know which was genuine and which was not.
I was seven and already in the second grade; my brother was five, but for some reason, not yet in school. After I came home, he would want to play in the yard. He was such a pest.
“Conor,” the man on the porch said, “don’t tease your brother.”
I looked at the man strangely, not because he called me out, but because he always wore a green belt with a gold harp on the buckle.
“He’s so dimwitted,” I yelled. “Stupid, stupid, three-times stupid.” Then this Jacob thing began to cry.
“Baby!” I teased. And so he ran onto the porch and jumped into the man’s big welcoming arms. I stared at my brother disgustedly, and then wondered, “Why does that man coddle him so?”
The man with the green belt was a marvel with Jacob, and could always trick my stupid brother into smiling. “Itsy, bitsy spider,” he’d sing, “went up the water spout.” Jacob would walk his hands up the man’s arms, his fake tears disappearing as the game went on.
“Not really a part of the family, that boy,” I said. After that, a woman appeared from the house, picked up Jacob, and took him inside.
The next day, I heard a distant voice calling, but I had no interest in what it had to say. I asked my cousin, “Where did that boy go?”
“You mean Jacob?” the little girl said. “You sent him away.”
“He was chasing me,” I said, “and wouldn’t let me be alone.”
“He just wanted to play,” the little girl replied.
Then I asked, “Why did the man with the green belt with the gold harp on the buckle leave?” The girl shrugged, having no answer to that old question.
Day-24. One night, just after she had finished her exercise routine and was getting up to go to bed, Tali noticed that one of the oaken floorboards behind the stove had been slightly dislodged. When she walked to the back of the stove and stepped on a board there, it gave way. Rotten! Tali immediately stepped back, not wanting to reveal her surprise to any of the kidnappers. She had no idea what to do with her secret, but it was something to ponder.
The next day, after Karun had left the bedroom, Tali checked the floor carefully. She thought, not built on a concrete slab. There’s a crawlspace below. The owners of the cabin had placed the potbellied stove on a 4-inch chunk of fire-resistant stone that rested on the floor. Through the years, something had rotted the wood. Termites, she guessed. A layer of ash permanently covered the stone slab, so the casual observer would not know its poor condition.
Day-30. One week later, Tali had carefully removed the layer of ash and found that the slab was cracked into several large pieces, the largest, which was approximately a 20-inch square, fell directly under the belly of the stove. For the currently very muscular Tali, it was not hard to remove. Beneath, two boards were almost completely rotted out and only hanging on because of the tension against the others. If she could somehow remove another two boards, Tali could squeeze through the opening and find the crawl space below.
Tali had no idea what she would stumble upon in the darkness under the cabin. Whatever she discovered would be better than facing endless confinement, and the fear of violence and rape in the form of the shadow man that she expected at any time.
Meanwhile, in Baku, Georghe Markirov grew increasingly worried about Conor’s safety in London. It was no place for the Kedar Bey. He decided that Conor could be protected at home with family, more so than in a foreign land, wholly a continent away. The doctors at University Hospital had flushed away all the effects of the Polonium, and the patient was getting stronger. One of the nurses, moreover, had noticed a change in the Kedar Bey’s bedside mannerisms. He could not yet speak, but she had observed some marked facial movements. She was sure that Conor now had mental cognition and would be communicating within a few days.
“Probably mid-stage locked-in syndrome,” the doctor told his staff. He then reported his diagnosis to Georghe Markirov, who took it to heart and called his daughter. “He’ll be better off in Baku.”
Mira agreed, “I’m ready to come home too.” Two days later, the Zümrә jet left London with Conor on board. It stopped briefly in Istanbul to pick up Mira, but they were all home by eight that night. Yet, Conor still dreamed.
The young girl asked, “Where are all the adults, Conor?”
“We are safe here,” I replied, “and I can build a fire to keep you warm.” I really had no idea how to build a fire – I was ten. It was just something I thought might reassure my cousin.
We had been in the juniper forest but had gotten lost. So, we headed up a rugged ravine and found a craggy overhang. A leopard was chasing us, a big one, maybe 150lbs.
The nine-year-old Tali said, “We need an adult, Conor.” Then I heard the leopard, hissing, and growling. It seemed very close.
“Run, Tali,” I yelled.
She took off down the canyon, and I followed close behind. When Tali got to the bottom, she turned past a large boulder. “Wait for me, girl,” I shouted.
But I hesitated and then twisted around to see if the leopard was on my heels. Surprisingly, I saw nothing. So, I listened – again nothing. Confident that our hungry pursuer had given up the chase, I hiked slowly to the bend where Tali had fled. When I rounded the bend, she was nowhere in sight.
I shouted over and over, “Tali, where are you?” But like the leopard, she had vanished.
When they arrived in Baku, Mira and Conor were split up: Conor to his residence on the Zümrә Estates, and Mira to her home in Gobustan. The arrangement was adequate for a few days. Georghe, Mira, and Seyfulla spent much of their time assessing their political situation and planning a survival strategy. They thought they were safe, but there was no way of telling for sure. Conor had around the clock care at the residence but was comatose most of the time.
It was a joyous day when Conor was finally able to speak. Mira had come to town for the day and was in the kitchen when the nursed called out. “Mrs. Nadirov, the Kedar Bey is awake.”
When Mira entered his bedroom in a wheelchair, Conor was bewildered. “I know,” she said emphatically. “I have much to tell.” Though she had had plenty of time to prepare for the moment, when it finally happened, Mira was at a loss for words. She had put it off, hoping against hope that Tali would find her way home before Conor awoke.
“Tali?” he mouthed. The nurse used a wet cloth to swab his dry, cracked lips.
“Yes, yes, Conor, I’ll get to that in a minute. Nurse, will you please find Georghe and Seyfulla. Tell them that Conor has awakened, and ask them to come ASAP.”
Day-49. Tali had been into the crawlspace below the cabin twice. It had taken her two weeks to chip away enough floorboard space under the stove so that she could squeeze through easily. The first time, it was during the night, after Karun and Serge had made their rounds and disappeared for the evening. The descent into darkness was terrifying, and she learned nothing. Tali had better results the second time, but she had to take a chance during the day. Once below, there was enough daylight seeping through the cracks that she could see the four walls and two air vents at opposite ends of the cinder block foundation. The light coming through at the nearby wall was substantial, and she had enough length in the tethering chain to reach that wall. So, she crawled through the smelly ground debris and realized that the vent had been partially dislodged, probably by one of the wiggly forest creatures that now likely inhabited the crawlspace with her. Satisfied, Tali felt she had discovered the means of her escape.
When Georghe and Seyfulla arrived at the residence, there was a feeling of relief – the Kedar Bey was on the road to recovery. But for everyone involved, the next few hours would be gut-wrenching. How would they put into plain words the predicament they were in, let alone explain that Tali had been missing for almost two months? The sum of their fears, however, had to be revealed – one thunderbolt after another. Upon learning the truth of things, Conor’s face went ashen and his eyes vacant, returning to the corpse-like state that had plagued him throughout his time in London.
But the depression only lasted a short time, and Conor was no longer bothered by dreams or hallucinations, so he asked the nurse to move him to the sunroom next to the kitchen. There he could see his garden, his Cappadocian maple trees, his azaleas, and the dock where the Zarifa was moored. He cheered up quickly and made a request for Mira, “Will you please ask Mrs. Nadirov to join me?”
Minutes later, Mira wheeled herself in. “Conor, you’re feeling better?”
“Where is Sam?” he asked.
“Sam Mansour? By now, he’s back in the States.”
Still having trouble with his parched throat, he asked for paper and pencil. He knows how to find Tali, he wrote.
Mira glanced at the note, and then asked, “How is that possible?”
When we spoke in March, he said a man named Ali might be able to help.
“Who is Ali?”
Conor stumbled across a few words, “Hunting guide…” He took a drink of water, “the guy who saved Rufet and nursed him back to health.”
“Go on.”
“Rufet told him many secrets about the Kos,” said Conor. “Ali might have an idea where the Dark Triad is holding Tali.”
Mira’s eyes brightened, and she smiled gleefully, “It’s worth a try.”
Conor felt the spark of hope and lifted himself to the side of the bed. “I’ll call Sam tomorrow,” he said raspingly. “He’ll know what to do.”
Mira was startled by Conor’s sudden turn for the better. “Do you feel up to it?”
“I have no time for any more of this,” he replied. “Mira, please find Mo Chinske. Tell him I need to see him right away.”
With that, Conor motioned to Mira to help him from the bed. With her support he found his land legs, and they walked to the windows facing the garden. One of the windows unexpectedly blew open, and Conor could feel a red-hot wind rising up from the sea.
34
Iza and Ali
Mo Chinske asked, “How’s your mother, Iza?”
“She has home care now. A nurse comes to the house every other day.”
“What happened?”
“Crohn’s Disease. You know, diarrhea, anemia, fatigue,” Iza explained. “Chira has had it for years. It’s just gotten worse as she’s gotten older.”
“Manageable, then?”
“As soon as I got here, we put her in the hospital,” said Iza. “She will be okay with time; just got to keep her stress level down.”
Chinske continued, “So, you can get away for a few days?”
“No problem.”
“I talked to Conor, and he has asked me to help in the search for Tali, but I’m tied up with this hunt for Viktor Kos and his sons,” the CIA officer said. “President Guliyev wants them caught immediately. I’m headed for Ganja right now.”
“So, it was the Dark Triad behind the murder of Sec
retary Kazimov and Tali’s kidnapping.”
“Absolutely. The assassin that Jake shot at Parliamentary Hall didn’t die right away. He implicated Viktor, and General Aslan saw Vanya with the hitman. They disappeared sometime after the Hall was cleared.”
“So, why Ganja?”
“The Kos is directly tied to Kirovabad.
“Kirovabad?”
“It’s the old Russian term for Ganja. After Perestroika, the city regained its original name. Lots of Russians there and a small Armenian community as well. The Kos have relatives there. More importantly, Kirovabad is the code word they’ve been using for their cabal.
“Do you know of any secret sanctuary there?”
“Not in the city,” Mo replied. “But likely somewhere outside, maybe in nearby Goygol National Park.”
Iza thought for a moment. “Ali said Rufet talked about Lake Goygol. He believed the Dark Triad might have a hunting lodge there.”
“Qurb would know about hunting lodges.”
“Then we’ll head straight for Lake Goygol; it’s a place to start. I’m at the airport right now, waiting for Ali.”
Mo asked, “How long will it take you to get to Lake Goygol?”
“Never been there before. But Ganja is a little more than three hours, and then Lake Goygol is another hour away according to Google Maps. Ali’s been there. He’s guided birdwatcher tours everywhere in the Aras and Kur Valley region.”
“We’re headed in the same direction. I’ve got a contingent of 20 men in the field. I can spare a few if you get into a bind.”
“Thanks, Mo. Let’s keep in touch.”
“Right.”
Day-52. For almost two months, Tali had fought off fear and loathing, but now she was just angry and ready to explode. Last night, she had descended into the bowels below the cabin with two, fist-sized stones that she would employ as hammer and chisel to knock out enough cinder block around the vent opening to escape. But Tali also thought they might be a useful weapon should her wiggly friend appear suddenly. The only matter now remaining was getting rid of the chains that bound her to this prison. She was ready.
