Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay put down the paper, looked out across the water.

  ‘In Spain also this happens,’ said the youth.

  Clay looked at him.

  ‘When I was a boy there were many fish here. Now to catch one is difficult.’

  Clay guessed the kid at seventeen, maybe eighteen, the same age he’d been when he’d made his first kill, watched that SWAPO fighter collapse in the dust. ‘My hand will the multitudinous seas incarnadine,’ he said.

  The boy frowned, not understanding.

  ‘Something I just read.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘We do things,’ Clay said. ‘And then we can’t change them.’

  The boy thought about this, nodded.

  Clay pointed at the telephone. The boy smiled at him, nodded, turned and left, closing the door behind him. Clay picked up the handpiece and tried LeClerc, Rania’s long-time editor at AFP. The receptionist said he was not available, was in meetings all day. Three more times Clay tried the chalet, each time met by that same empty silence, that absence. He checked his watch. If he was going to find her, wherever she was, he needed to get out of these rags, get cleaned up, buy some new clothes and get going.

  After a hot shower and a shave, he walked down to the dock, collected his passport and cash from the priesthole onboard Flame, closed it up tight with the guns and ammunition inside and threw Crowbar’s old leather jacket over his rags. When he emerged from below deck, Gonzales and his son were there on the dock, refuelling a pretty little sloop. They looked up at him and waved. He waved back.

  Clay walked back up to the office, scribbled a quick note of thanks, a promise to call and discuss repairs to Flame, laid out two thousand euros in cash as a down-payment, folded the note around the bills, placed it all on the desk where they would see it, and started into town. As long as he was here, they were in danger.

  After five days on a churning sea he rolled like a lost drunk, his inner ear still compensating for the swell. He walked west, along the tree-lined esplanade of the Avenida de la Reina Victoria, the empty beaches of the Punta de San Marcos on his left, the harbour spreading grey and muddy beyond. He watched the road ahead, stopped and turned every now and again to look back. He had no reason to believe that Medved or Crowbar knew he was here, but the fear was there.

  After the best part of a kilometre his sea legs settled, and soon he was into the old city, treed streets lined with buildings from the turn of the last century, wrought-iron lamp posts standing like elegant reminders of another time, a time of gas light and belief, tradition. He found the Mercado del Este and walked into a men’s clothiers.

  They were not happy to see him. The sales assistant looked ready to call the cops, had even started to pick up the phone when Clay set a pair of heavy drill canvas trousers and five one hundred-euro notes on the counter. The clerk looked down at the cash, up at Clay, an obsequious smile blooming on his face. Forty-five minutes later Clay emerged wearing a dark, good-quality wool suit, a white collared shirt, dark tie and a pair of black leather brogues. In a bag slung over his shoulder he carried the trousers, a heavy flannel shirt and a new pair of sturdy boots. They’d even thrown in three pairs of boxers and sewn up the arm of Crowbar’s leather jacket. He stuffed his torn and bloody rags into a plastic bag and dumped them into a roadside bin fifty metres from the store.

  Not far away he found an Iberia office, bought a return ticket to Geneva for Declan Greene, and in a nearby travel agency another to Nicosia made out to Marcus Edward. The Geneva flight left at 23.30 that evening, the Nicosia flight the next morning. He stopped at a streetside café, ordered a coffee and watched the people go by, the cars, thought about Rania, where she was right at that very moment, what images her retina were processing as if by knowing these he could somehow divine her whereabouts. The sun was low now and the wind came cold from the sea. A young couple walked by, his arm around her bare shoulders. The girl had long, dark hair like Rania’s, a pretty upturned nose. She was laughing at something her man had said. Clay could hear the ring of her voice, the joy there. And then they were past, swallowed by the city.

  It was just after five pm. He bought a phone card, found a public telephone and tried the chalet again. He was about to hang up when the line opened. A woman answered, automated, formal. A recording. This number is not available. Clay checked the number, dialled again. Same result. He put the receiver back into its cradle, a hollow place opening up inside him.

  He keyed in another number.

  LeClerc answered immediately.

  ‘This is Declan Greene.’

  There was a pause, the sound of papers shuffling. ‘Ah yes, Monsieur Greene.’

  ‘Where is Rania? It’s important.’

  ‘Will you wait a moment, please?’

  Clay could hear voices, footsteps, a door closing.

  ‘Monsieur Greene?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘The last time I heard from her she was in Nicosia. That was two days ago.’ His voice was tense, half an octave higher than Clay remembered it. ‘She filed a story shortly after we spoke.’

  ‘I read it.’

  ‘Yes, the turtles. A good piece.’

  ‘Did she go home?’

  ‘This is all I know, Monsieur Greene. Now if you will please–’

  Clay cut him off. ‘She’s in danger, LeClerc.’

  Silence.

  ‘Regina Medved wants her dead.’

  The line burned empty, just air. Clay let the silence hang between them. Finally LeClerc spoke. ‘I am sure she is fine.’

  ‘Fine? Did you hear what I said? They’re going to kill her.’

  ‘Surely it is not as bad as you suggest.’ LeClerc’s voice sounded thin, coming through walls and glass.

  ‘You know what her story did to them. The story you published.’

  Silence.

  ‘LeClerc, are you there?’

  ‘Please. This is all I know.’ The guy was seizing up. Clay could hear the cold terror in his voice.

  ‘Jesus, LeClerc. What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Nothing is…’ Shaky. ‘Nothing is going on.’ An attempt to stabilise. ‘I am trying to run a news agency. Now if you will please allow me–’

  ‘I need your help, LeClerc.’

  Another pause. And then: ‘Please, Monsieur Greene, if that is your name. I have told you what I know.’

  ‘You sent her to Cyprus. You insisted she go. Why? Why this story in particular?’

  ‘Do not insinuate.’

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘It was her interest. Hers.’

  ‘When do you expect to hear from her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tomorrow perhaps. I don’t know.’

  ‘Expect a call from me tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Please, non. I will be in meetings all day. I cannot.’

  ‘Convince yourself.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Tomorrow, LeClerc.’

  Clay expected LeClerc to hang up but he did not, just stayed there on the line, the silence thick between them. ‘There is something…’ LeClerc stopped dead.

  Clay waited. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Something, something difficult…’

  Clay let the line hang, gave him time.

  LeClerc stalled a moment, restarted. ‘I’m sorry, Mister Greene. I…’

  Now he had Clay worried. This was not the decisive, confident LeClerc he knew, the one Rania held in such esteem.

  Clay pulled in oxygen. ‘What’s wrong LeClerc?’

  Nothing back.

  ‘Tell me. I can help. Is it Rania?’

  More silence. Clay could hear him thinking it over. And then: ‘Something has just come across my desk.’

  Relief in his voice; this not the something he had started to tell.

  ‘A suspect in the murder of Rex Medved has just been apprehended by police in England. He was caught on the south coast, trying to flee the country by boat. He is now in hospital under close guard, recoveri
ng from a gunshot wound. The police haven’t released his name, but apparently he’s South African.’

  Well, leave me in the sun for the vultures. The police must have picked up the Boer he’d wounded near the cottage, the one he’d seen in the passenger seat of the Merc in Falmouth. It had to be him.

  The line went dead.

  Clay put down the phone, considered this a moment, the obliquity of things. After a while he picked up the phone again and punched in the number for his Cayman Islands bank. He was going to need more money.

  A ring tone, far off, the line engaging. Clay gave his name and codeword.

  He was put on hold, a thin, drifting melody.

  Then: ‘There is a message for you, Mister Greene.’

  ‘Read it to me please.’

  The sound of paper being shuffled, the bank clerk clearing his throat. ‘It says only: “I know where she is.”’

  Clay took a breath, his heart arrhythmic. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Nothing else. No sender identified.’

  13

  Purgatory

  A few hours later Clay boarded the Iberia 737 non-stop to Geneva, managed a flat smile to the pretty stewardess, adjusted the tie that felt like a noose around his neck and settled into his business-class window seat. In his new suit and black brogues he looked like any of the other three dozen or more businessmen on the flight, off to make deals, sign contracts, pitch for sales. As the doors closed and the engines started, Clay thought of the little ketch that had delivered him through the storm, now lying in her cradle at Gonzales’ boat yard. Over the phone from the airport departure lounge, Clay had agreed to pay the old guy nine thousand euros to step a new mast, fit new rigging, fix the hatch, service the engine and make her seaworthy again. After some intense bargaining via Gonzales junior, Clay had agreed to wire three thousand euros direct to Gonzales’ account, plus four thousand more once the work was complete. Gonzales promised to have the ketch safely in Larnaca harbour in Cyprus in three and a half weeks, in a secure pre-paid, six-month berth. Punk’s queen would make it to the Med after all.

  With all the tourists coming and going, access to Larnaca harbour was easy and anonymous. The Suez Canal was within a couple of day’s sailing. He would find Rania, wherever she was, and they’d sail south, to Africa like they’d planned. Through the canal, down the Red Sea, past Yemen, down the east coast, maybe stop for a while in Zanzibar. He’d always wanted to see the Spice Islands.

  His nerves tingled at the thought of her, a deep biological faint that seemed to bloom from within the fibre of him, the sinew grafted to his bones, the cartilage of his joints. She knew he was coming. A matter of hours, now. He reached for his soda water, took a long drink, wished it was whisky, let the ice cubes rattle his teeth.

  After a while he fell into a stuttering sleep, edging in and out of consciousness, still urging himself to stay lucid, clawing at the fuzzy threshold of what was real, the need to keep Flame on course, guide her safely over the surging waves. The plane hit the runway and jerked Clay awake. He opened his eyes, looked out at the rain, the low grey cloud. Geneva.

  After clearing customs he found a phone box, called the chalet again and listened to the same mechanical female voice. An hour and a half later he was in a new rented Renault Laguna, hurtling along the E62, Lake Geneva spreading grey and unsettled on his right. He checked the rear-view mirror. The same black Mercedes had been with him since before Lausanne, almost forty minutes now, two cars back, steady like a star turning in the sky. At Vevey, where the autoroute bifurcated, the black Merc stayed with him towards Montreux. He hadn’t seen anyone following him in the airport, but if Medved or Crowbar had access to flight passenger records or even customs clearance data, they would know that he had surfaced. The message sent to the bank had been designed to rattle him, push him towards Rania, flush him out. They needn’t have bothered.

  Just outside Villeneuve, the Merc steady two back, Clay braked hard and swerved from the outer passing lane across three lanes of traffic, rumbling across the hatched warning median onto the exit sliproad for the Shell Villeneuve services. The black Merc flashed past, unable to follow. Clay watched it pass, two kids in the backseat, mum checking her makeup in the vanity mirror. Jesus Christ.

  After a plastic sandwich and a cup of coffee, Clay was back on the road. He rejoined the autoroute at Lavey-Les-Bains, took the Colombey exit and started the climb towards Champéry, the countryside familiar now but changed from when he was here with Rania in the last bloom of summer, the frosted anticline of Pointe-de-Bellevue looming now through the clouds, the forests thick-covered in fresh white, the roads high-banked with graded snow.

  Traffic slowed to a walk behind heavy trucks panting up switchbacks thick with slush. He willed them forward, his impatience for her burning a ragged hole in his chest. By the time he reached the outskirts of Champéry, the air was thick with big, spinning flakes and the cloud hung low in the valley. At the téléphérique, Clay left the main road and started up, past the old hotel, its window-boxes piled with snow, icicles hanging like rows of silver teeth from the eaves, then over the one-lane bridge, the road climbing through dark forest, snow thickening under the Renault’s tyres.

  In his mind he could see the chalet, the pitch of the roof, snow corniced along the eaves, smoke wisping from the chimney, light glowing through frosted windows. And she would be inside, expecting him perhaps, sitting by the fire, her hair down, and if not there, then somewhere just like it, solitary and safe.

  Emerging from dense woodland, Clay peered out through cloud and driving snow into the swirling beams of the headlights. He had walked this road so many times during that short time that he and Rania had spent together here, after Yemen – she still weak and recovering from the gunshot wound, he struggling with the loss of his hand – that despite the snow he could feel himself anticipating every curve and rise as he contoured the mountainside. Rania’s chalet stood alone looking out over the valley, set into the slope just below the road. He stopped the car and stared out through the windscreen and the flapping wipers at this place that he did not now recognize. At first he wasn’t sure. The snowburst and the cloud and the throw of the headlights in the deepening gloom distorted everything: the layer of fresh snow frosting the confusion of bare black beams; the wisps of smoke that rose from the dark open middle of the place; the smell of charred timber reaching him now.

  He pulled the car to the side of the road, shut down the engine, opened the door and stood looking out through the flying snow. A chill shuddered through him. He took a few steps forward, stopped, kept walking, the soles of his shoes sinking into the powder as he trudged down the drive, the full extent of the damage now clear to him, the old oak beams and trusses blackened and burnt away, the roof caved into the wet, charred guts of the place, the gleaming pine floors gone, the hand-laid stone chimney rising from the ash, and everywhere the fiery taste of purgatory.

  Part II

  14

  The World Can Go and Fuck Itself

  7th November 1994: Somewhere over Bulgaria

  Transiting Europe at ten thousand metres, Clay considered again the circumstances of his position. Before he was killed, evading capture near the Omani border no more than three months ago, Claymore Straker had been wanted for at least eight murders in Yemen, had been officially labelled an Ansar Al Sharia terrorist by the Yemen Government and the CIA. Despite LeClerc’s surprising news that someone had been arrested for the murder of Rex Medved, Clay was far from safe. He would have to be doubly careful back in the Middle East. He had spent more than six years working in the region as an independent consultant on oil and gas projects, mostly in Yemen, Egypt and Libya. He’d also done work in Turkey, spent time in Istanbul. For three of those years he’d lived in Cyprus, and his Cyprus-registered company, Capricorn Consulting, was still in existence, its affairs still, he supposed, nominally handled by his Cypriot accountant. His flat in Nicosia would surely have been rented out by now, his possessions boxed up and di
sposed of – however the system dealt with a dead man’s stuff when he had no next of kin.

  At least he now had some idea of Rania’s whereabouts. He’d stayed at the chalet for a long time watching the snow fall into the black pit – a mourner at a grave. Then he’d trudged the couple of kilometres up the road to the Auberge des Arcs, the place where he and Rania had spent a couple of summer afternoons drinking beer and looking out over the valley at the glaciers of les Dents du Midi shimmering in the sun. Clay spoke with the patron, who remembered him, remembered Clay’s very beautiful wife. That’s what he’d called her: femme. Clay didn’t bother correcting him. The fire had been two days ago, he said. It had started at night, and by the time les pompiers arrived it was too far gone, a total loss; such a shame, a beautiful place, very old. Clay nodded in agreement and enquired about the occupants. The aubergiste answered that no one was home at the time, and no one had seen or heard of Madame Debret, the elderly owner, since before the fire. Clay thanked him, ordered something to eat, which he only picked at, then called LeClerc from the patron’s phone. The conversation had gone something like: