Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay blinked once. ‘What?’

  ‘She’s pregnant, that’s what. You’re going to be a father, Clay.’

  26

  Dead Reckoning

  Clay walked back to the car, Hope trailing a few steps behind. He opened the passenger-side door for her, closed it, walked around to the driver’s side and sat behind the wheel. The gravel parking area was still empty, the eucalypts weeping onto the car’s windscreen even though the clouds had broken.

  ‘What’s our best go?’ said Clay. ‘We’re running out of time.’ Rania could be dead already. Both of them, now. Jesus Christ Almighty.

  Hope turned to face him, pulled one long, well-shaped leg up onto the seat, the skin of her inner thigh pale, flawless. ‘I don’t know, Clay. I’m sorry. It could be any of them. All of them, for all I know.’

  Clay grabbed the steering wheel, clamped down. ‘Best guess.’ It was all they had.

  Hope took a breath, held it, exhaled. ‘Okay. Erkan, then. With his new development in Karpasia, he’s having the most immediate impact. Rania was about to publish a piece exposing his dealings with Turkish Cypriot politicians. She’d seen documents proving that the land he is intending to build on was stolen from Greek Cypriots and that TRNC officials know about it. It will cause a firestorm, I can tell you. That’s why she went to Istanbul. Now she’s gone, and the story has been quashed. I’d say that’s a pretty good indication.’

  It made sense, to a point. Erkan had been anxious to point Rania in another direction, towards Chrisostomedes and Neo-Enosis. Perhaps put off by Clay’s presence at the interview, Erkan had decided to act, snatched Rania from the hotel. But then, when Clay had showed up in his office later that evening, he’d pleaded innocence – and done it well. Maybe Hope was right, but he wasn’t sure. There was only one way to find out.

  ‘Then I have to go back to Istanbul,’ he said.

  Hope reached out, touched his arm. ‘No. Erkan arrived in Cyprus yesterday, by private yacht.’

  Clay turned in his seat.

  ‘One of my colleagues in the north lives in Karpasia. He’s a fisherman. We started working together years ago, doing turtle surveys in the north. He called me this morning. Erkan’s yacht docked in Kyrenia yesterday. Erkan is now at his place in Karpasia, an old monastery that he’s converted. It’s absolutely beautiful.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘A couple of years ago.’ Hope straightened out in her seat.

  ‘If he does have Rania, why would he have brought her?’

  ‘Do you really think he would leave her behind?’

  ‘It depends on why he took her in the first place.’ Clay’s mind spun then blanked, fury burning inside him. He started the car, jammed it into gear. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he managed.

  ‘I have a seminar. All day.’

  ‘Cancel it.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To see this friend of yours.’

  Within five minutes they were on the new motorway, speeding south. Soon the city was well behind them. An ancient landscape flashed past the open side window, low crumbling conglomerate bluffs and the blunted pines of reforested terraces, each burned field and dry limestone hill a measure of time flowing in the wrong direction. Every hour that passed cut Rania’s chances. It had been two days already since she’d disappeared.

  Hope was on the phone to Maria, discussing the seminar. Clay checked the rear-view mirror. Traffic was sparse, a few small trucks overloaded with farm produce, a couple of cars. He took the Limassol turnoff and started the long descent towards the coast. The air warmed as they neared the sea. Soon he left the motorway and turned along a narrow, winding valley flanked by steep cliffs on one side and a cascade of terraced hillslopes on the other. Immediately after the old stone bridge he turned left onto a dirt track, past orchards and stone-walled fields, olive groves, banks of stringy eucalypts. Flocks of tiny birds, honeyeaters and finches, darted between the trees. He followed the track as it wound through the valley, eventually emerging into the narrow streets of Maroni, a tiny village in the hills overlooking olive and pomegranate groves, the Med overcast grey in the distance. In a few minutes they were on the coast road, speeding east towards Larnaca, certain they were not being followed.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Maria will teach the seminar.’

  ‘Smart girl.’

  ‘I’m lucky to have her.’

  ‘You trust her.’

  ‘Absolutely I do.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘That you were my lover.’

  Clay looked over at her. She was smiling, playing with her hair.

  ‘Just kidding, Clay. Don’t worry.’

  He kept driving.

  An hour later he pulled the car to a stop outside the rundown marina office in Larnaca and switched off the engine. Rain lashed the windscreen, blurring the outlines of the three dozen or so boats rocking in their pens.

  ‘I am banned from the TRNC,’ said Hope.

  ‘Then we won’t tell them we’re visiting.’ Clay stepped outside and walked to the office. Hope followed him.

  The man behind the desk smiled as they entered, raised his considerable eyebrows, obviously impressed by what Hope’s wet cotton dress now revealed.

  Clay put a copy of Flame’s British registration on the desk.

  ‘I’ve come to take possession of a vessel,’ he said in bad Greek. ‘She was delivered here two days ago.’

  The man glanced at the registration papers, pulled out a log book, ran his finger along a column of names and dates then produced a form. Clay signed.

  ‘Six months’ mooring fees with water and power, paid in advance,’ said the man. Clay hoped he wouldn’t need nearly that long.

  As Clay led Hope along the dock the rain relented. Clouds scuttled in low across the arc of the harbour, freighters swinging at anchor. Flame looked as she had that first day Punk had revealed her, brass shining, the new mast stepped, Clay’s makeshift hatch replaced with gleaming new teak. Gonzales had done a good job. Clay jumped aboard and offered Hope his hand. She took it and stepped from the dock into the cockpit.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ said Hope.

  ‘I’m looking after her for someone,’ he said.

  By late afternoon they had cleared the Ayia Napa peninsula and were broad reaching towards Karpasia. Clay had given Hope his jacket and one of Punk’s pullovers, and now she sat curled up in the cockpit, drinking a mug of steaming coffee, staring out at the coast, her long, ash-blonde hair tied in a loose knot that hung across her chest.

  After a while she looked up at him. ‘Did you know that turtles are one of the best examples of reverse evolution?’ she said.

  Clay looked up at the mainsail, reached past her and eased the main sheet a touch. He glanced at her, made eye contact.

  ‘You don’t say much, do you?’

  Clay frowned. ‘Depends.’

  ‘You’re worried.’

  ‘That doesn’t deserve a reply.’

  Hope smiled, just a flash. ‘Don’t worry, Clay. I’m sure she’s fine.’

  ‘We have a long way to go,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘Tell me about the turtles.’

  As night fell over the Mediterranean, Hope taught. Clay could imagine her delivering a lecture, full of energy, pacing the podium, willing her students to share her passion for these strange, ancient creatures who’d been plying the world’s oceans for the last three hundred million years. Sea turtles breathe air. They evolved from land reptiles, reversing evolution and returning back to the sea from where all reptiles had originally come. Laying their eggs on land was a remnant of that terrestrial past, a reproductive strategy that has served them well for countless millennia. Hope paused, looked at him full in the eyes. ‘Do you have any idea how long that is, Clay? Can you imagine?’

  He said nothing, looked up at the first stars shining through gaps in the cloud, the distant past there now, the calculations taking shape in
his head. ‘Two thousand, eight hundred billion billion kilometres, give or take. Ninety-one megaparsecs.’

  Hope looked up at him over the rim of her mug. ‘Pardon me?’

  He pointed to the sky, swathes of stars behind a shifting screen of cloud. ‘Three-hundred-million-year-old light we’re seeing now. That’s how far it’s come. Those stars may not even exist anymore.’

  Hope sat a moment, nodded. ‘Rania told me about…’ she hesitated a moment, smiled. ‘She told me you were good with numbers.’

  Clay watched the main telltale fluttering in the breeze. ‘Now I’m starting to worry. Just how much did she tell you anyway?’

  Hope smiled, played with her hair. ‘Enough.’

  ‘Enough for what?’

  Hope looked right at him, dared him to look away. ‘Sufficient for me to be mortally jealous.’

  Clay looked back at her, lost.

  Then Hope laughed. It was a playground laugh, full of mirth. ‘Don’t worry, Clay. Your secrets are safe.’

  The wind rose slightly, veered. Clay trimmed the sails, got Flame up to six knots, the sun now just the slightest pale blush over the dark horizon.

  ‘The turtles are dying,’ said Hope after a time. There was finality in her voice, resignation. The gaiety that had surprised him before was gone.

  ‘What’s causing it?’

  Hope sipped her coffee. ‘Over-harvesting, pollution, entanglement in discarded plastic causing drowning, loss of critical habitat. You name it. In 1971, Cyprus passed a law protecting them, and for a while there was stabilisation in numbers. But then, about five years ago, we started to see the first cases of fibropapillomatosis.’

  Clay trimmed the main, looked back down at her. ‘Fibro what?’

  ‘Green turtle disease. A viral infection which makes the turtles more susceptible to parasites. And now, with average sea and land temperatures rising, there’s another threat. The sex of turtle hatchlings is determined by incubation temperature. Above twenty-nine Celsius, you get females. Below, males. Over a normal cycle of years it evens out. But now the population has started to skew heavily towards females.’ Hope glanced up at Clay. ‘It takes one of each, you know.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  Hope continued. ‘We’re down to the last few hundred nesting females. That’s from hundreds of thousands a century ago. In the last two years, the population has gone into free-fall. And I don’t know why. It’s way off trend. There’s some new factor at work, but we can’t figure out what it is. If something isn’t done soon, it’s the end for the green turtle in the Med.’ Her eyes glinted in starlight reflected from the sea, her face shrouded in darkness now. ‘And the really sad thing is, no one seems to give a damn.’

  ‘Not no one, Hope.’

  Hope frowned. ‘No. You’re right. Not no one. Did you see the paper yesterday?’

  ‘I haven’t had much time for reading.’

  ‘The UN and the EU have announced that they are setting up a commission to investigate coastal development in Cyprus. The official enquiry starts next week. Cyprus is desperate for EU membership, and compliance with European environmental directives is a big deal. Given the country’s dependence on European tourists, being seen as negligent in protecting such an iconic species and its habitat would be a huge blow. Overall, it’s a major step in the right direction. And we have Rania to thank.’

  ‘A big reason to want her silence,’ said Clay.

  ‘Or her cooperation,’ said Hope. ‘Erkan and Chrisostomedes will be among the first to be interviewed by the commission. I’ve made sure of that.’

  ‘You’ll be involved?’

  ‘I’m chairing the enquiry.’ Hope drew her knees up to her body, crossed her arms over her shins. ‘What Rania has done is fantastic, Clay. Truly. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for her.’ Hope fell silent.

  Clay held the wheel, felt the water flowing over Flame’s rudder, the lights of Ayia Napa now small in the distance.

  After a while he said: ‘She told me, Hope. About you.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘How do you feel about it?’

  Clay eased off the jib, let Flame fall off a couple of degrees, tightened down the wheel. ‘Wrong question,’ he said.

  They sailed on through the night, making good progress in favourable but light winds. Hope slept below deck, curled under a blanket. Clay watched the stars turning in a moonless sky, felt the cold currents streaming deep and sure. After a while he opened the port cockpit locker, found the key he’d hung on a hook under the bench, went below and sat at the nav table. Clay opened his daypack, took out Rania’s Koran and unrolled the chart, using Allah’s words delivered to the prophet Mohamed to anchor one corner. Then he plotted a dead reckoning position using a sighting on the border post at the deserted no-man’s-land town of Famagusta. Hope stirred, mumbled something in her sleep, settled. Clay took the key, reached down below the nav table, found the hidden latch for the priest hole and opened it up. The duffel bag was still there. Inside, the G21, the MP5 and the driver’s H&K were all as he’d left them in Santander, clean and oiled. He figured about 180 rounds of ammunition all up, .45 and 9mm. He placed the Koran in the bag with the weapons and shoved the bag back into the priest hole, locked it up tight.

  Just after dawn, the wind died and Flame lay becalmed on a flat, cold, November sea. Clay doused the canvas and fired up the diesel. The engine chugged to life. He opened the throttle and set course for the panhandle as the sun rose over Syria.

  Not long after, Hope stirred under her blanket and sat up. Clay watched her from the wheel, looking down into the sunlit cabin as she worked her fingers through her hair, separated three long strands and started braiding. She did it absentmindedly, her eyes moving as she looked about the cabin, examining the brass instruments on the bulkhead, searching the spines of the books lining the opposite shelf. She tied the end of the braid with an elastic band and glanced up. Their eyes locked. She smiled. Clay held her gaze a moment, then looked away.

  A while later, Hope climbed into the cockpit carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. She sat beside him, handed him a mug. Clay drank.

  ‘Where are we?’ she said.

  Clay glanced up into the rigging, at the small Turkish flag he’d hoisted while Hope slept.

  ‘In TRNC waters. We passed Famagusta about two hours ago.’

  Hopefully, the flag would mollify any Turkish coastguard they happened to meet.

  ‘Just tourists out for a cruise.’

  Clay said nothing.

  ‘How long until we reach Karpasia?

  ‘By nightfall. Sooner if the winds cooperate.’

  Hope reached into her purse, pulled out her mobile phone, opened the back panel and thumbed out the SIM card. From a zipped pouch in her wallet she retrieved another card, loaded it into the phone. ‘I wonder if there is service out here.’ She flipped open the phone, punched in a number and looked at the screen. Then she raised the phone to her ear. ‘It’s me,’ she said, and listened a while. ‘Okay.’ She closed the phone, looked at Clay. ‘He’ll meet us tonight, just east of Dune Point. He says he’s found some villagers who are willing to talk to us about what’s going on in Karpasia. And he has confirmed it: Erkan is at the monastery. He can take us there.’

  27

  Extinction

  Clay let the anchor slide into the water, paid out chain until he felt the Danforth hit bottom and start to dig into the sandy sea floor. He let Flame drift with the light breeze flowing out across the dunes, let out chain until a length four times the water depth lay on the sea bed, then secured the chain at Flame’s bow. She swung slowly head to wind as the anchor flukes bit and dug in. Clay stood at the bow, gauged Flame’s position against the dark rocky mass of Dune Point on one side, Rigel melting into the horizon on the other, and waited. After a while Hope joined him at the bow, her light dress rippling in the breeze. There was no moon. Starlight, aeons old, danced on the black water, bathed the beach and th
e dunes antique white and there was not a trace of human endeavour to be seen. The only sounds were the lapping of water against the hull and, in the distance, coming on the wind, the hooting of a pair of owls: one calling, a single rising note, short and clear, asking who, the sound drifting to them across the treed ridge beyond the dunes; and then, moments later, the reply from afar with the same question, falling. It was shortly before eleven o’clock.

  They walked across the coachroof, stepped down into the cockpit. Hope went below. Clay unlashed the inflatable dinghy from the foredeck and let it slide into the water. After a moment, Hope reappeared in the cockpit and handed Clay a mug of coffee and a bowl of hot beef stew. ‘There are no labels,’ she whispered, cradling her mug in both hands, letting the steam rise to her face.

  ‘Aren’t you eating?’ he said.

  ‘I’m vegetarian.’

  Clay set aside his stew, went below, found a can of peaches, opened it, carried it up into the cockpit and gave it to Hope, handing her a spoon from his pocket. ‘It could be a long night,’ he said.

  They ate in silence. Hope looked out over the water. ‘You see how dark it is, how quiet?’ she said. ‘This is what the turtles need. Come summer, the females will return from years of wandering the seas, ready to lay their eggs. They return to the same beaches where they were born, guided by the magnetic fields imprinted on them at birth. They stand off here in the shallow water waiting for nightfall, then, when all is quiet, usually around the full moon, they come ashore. They lay three times over a six-week period, about every two weeks, clutches of about 120 eggs in chambers half a metre deep. Incubation is seven weeks.’

  She looked off along the sweeping phosphorescent arc of the beach. ‘This beach has the single-largest remaining population of nesting green turtles in the Eastern Mediterranean. But every year, about eighty percent of nests are dug up by foxes. So the odds aren’t good. At our research station at Lara Beach in the south, we’re protecting the nests and helping the hatchlings get to the sea. Thirty years from now, when they mature, with a lot of luck, a few of them will be back to continue the line.’