Golden Chariot

by Chris Karlsen

  Charlotte wondered how he managed without choking. She asked him once. He said he learned it at an early age. His father worked the docks in Istanbul where all the stevedores smoked. For them, hands free smoking was a necessity as they loaded and unloaded containers.

  Refik removed an ashtray that advertised the Panorama Café in Bodrum from a drawer and slid it across the floor to Talat.

  Talat took the cigarette out of his mouth. He opened his eyes only long enough to locate the ashtray and drop the cigarette into it. Eyes closed again, he patted the red and black striped cushion and asked, “Where did you get this piece of junk...a prison fire sale?”

  “My mother-in-law gave it to me. She--”

  Talat swung his legs around and sat up. “Say no more, Refik. I’ve been married. I understand completely,” he said, laughing. He shot a glance at Atakan who chuckled along.

  Talat looked between Atakan and Refik. “Anyone know who that heavyset bearded guy is, the one who stinks like a goat? Which is an offense to goats.”

  “His name is Basri Damla. He claims to live with his brother’s family on a local farm,” Atakan said. “Why?”

  “I saw him leave the conservation lab where I know he has no business. I was about to confront him when Ursula came out. They talked for a minute and then he left. I asked her what he was doing. She said he was making a delivery and she asked him to stop by the lab before he left. She said she gave him a list of items she wanted from the village.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Refik said.

  “I don’t like the fact he was in the lab,” Atakan said.

  “Showing up in places he doesn’t belong is becoming a habit for him.” Charlotte pointed to Atakan and then to herself with her thumb. “We caught him in the men’s dormitory a few weeks ago. He said he had a delivery and didn’t know where the kitchen was. Atakan doesn’t trust him. Do you?”

  “No. I ran a name check on him through the Ministry’s sources and nothing came back. That alone makes me suspicious. It’s hard to tell with his facial hair, but I estimated his age in the middle thirties. Good guess?” he asked Charlotte.

  “Sounds good to me,” she said and added, “Hard to say, it’s like ball parking the age of a bear.”

  “The point is, a man in his thirties with no government documentation of any kind, I find extraordinary, too odd for belief. Too much is wrong with him. He alleges his deliveries here are to assist his brother,” Atakan said.

  “I asked in the village about a family named Damla. The old men at the café remember the name. They said they hadn’t seen anyone from the family in years. Their farm was on the backside of the hills in a remote canyon.”

  “Don’t forget the soft hands,” Charlotte reminded him.

  “Soft hands?” Refik looked puzzled.

  Atakan explained.

  Everyone remained quiet as Refik seemed to consider the stranger’s sudden appearance. “Under other circumstances, I’d ban the man from camp. But I’m going to defer the decision to you,” he said to Atakan. “I assume since your check was unusual, you intend to dig deeper.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How do you want to handle the problem?” Refik asked.

  “Don’t stop him from coming. Let’s watch him. Whatever he’s planning, I believe he’ll try soon.”

  “Based on?” Charlotte was intrigued.

  “A member of a family no one’s seen in years mysteriously appears. On paper, he doesn’t exist. The government takes a dim view of people without documentation. I take a dim view of such people. In my experience, a stranger’s uninvited presence at an archaeological site means trouble, especially one who’s untraceable. Whatever his plan, the sooner he acts on it, the easier for him to evade detection. The longer he remains in the area, the more attention he draws to himself.”

  In Charlotte’s opinion, Atakan was too restrictive in his thinking regarding Damla. “Maybe he’s not in the system because he’s not Turkish. The day we talked to him, did he sound like a native to you? To me, he did. But I wouldn’t recognize subtle dialect differences.”

  Atakan sat silent for a long moment, replaying the conversation again in his head. “He had an accent uncommon to this area. It’s not common to Istanbul or Ankara either. At the time, I placed it from our northeast region. It occurs to me now, he might’ve been Armenian. You made a good point.”

  “Thank you. Every once in awhile the cop DNA in me comes through,” she said, pleased.

  “I need a better picture of him to request a face recognition search through Armenian NCB.”

  “We all have camera cell phones,” Talat said. “One of us is bound to snap a photo of him.”

  Encouraged by Atakan’s compliment, Charlotte asked, “Can you find where he’s staying? If this family doesn’t exist, he’s bunking somewhere.”

  “Too many questions in the village will raise gossip which might get back to him. I don’t want him tipped off. In a perfect scenario, I’d follow him. If I see him in camp and it’s feasible, I will.”

  “Big problem there,” Charlotte said, visualizing the landscape. “You can slink around for a short distance behind the scrub and rocks. Once he gets to the road it’s flatter than flat. You’ve got no cover. It’s worse when you hit the village. He’s going to know you’re tailing him.”

  “’You’ve got no cover, tailing him.’ American police talk, stirs the blood.” Talat continued to amuse himself with more cop clichés. “’Take him down, freeze or I’ll shoot, hands in the air, douche bag.’”

  He quit after noticing the annoyed looks from the other three. “Sorry, go on.”

  “As I was saying,” Charlotte shot another nasty glance at Talat. “A lone male following him, especially you, and Damla will take evasive action. He’ll lose you.”

  “Like I said, it’s a feasibility issue,” Atakan reiterated.

  “Take me,” Charlotte told him.

  His brows dipped. “You?” he said, in a condescending tone she didn’t care for.

  “Yes, me. Nobody’s suspicious of a couple walking the same way.”

  “No.”

  “Atakan--”

  “No. Should any of you see him here just contact me.”

  “I’d like to discuss my idea further, later in private.”

  “Lucky you,” Talat commented wryly.

  Atakan stood to leave.

  “I’ll catch up,” Charlotte told him and turned to Talat. “Do you even know what a douche bag is?”

  He shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so.” Charlotte started out the door when Talat asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

  “Ask Rachel.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “You had all night to sleep on my suggestion. What about it?” Charlotte asked.

  “I did not need sleep to consider your scheme. The answer was no yesterday and still is.” Atakan leaned against a section of bulkhead in the shade.

  “Are you always this obstinate?”

  “Only when silliness requires it.”

  “Can I at least ask questions?”

  “I doubt saying no would stop you.”

  “What’s going on?” Charlotte smacked the side of her leg with her fins and paced a circular path on the Suraya’s bow. She stayed on the wet part of the deck avoiding the sole-blistering sun-drenched areas.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our backup team today was Ursula and Gerard. Then, with no explanation, Refik pulls Ursula and replaces her with Uma.”

  Atakan shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “I bet you do.”

  “No idea.”

  He’d shown too much interest in Ursula for him not to know. Charlotte tried to piece together the few clues she had. Atakan’s interest in Ursula came on the heels of his suspicions about Damla. He must think the two are involved in some kind of illegal activity together. What?

  The logical choice was the theft of an artifact. But that didn’t make sense looking
at Damla. No one in their right mind would buy a stolen piece from him. Hand him cash and trust what you’re buying is legit and not a Chinese copy, hardly. Even if he possessed forged paperwork authenticating a piece, only an idiot wouldn’t doubt the document.

  The more she thought about the possibility, the more remote it seemed. Refik’s stringent control over everything they recovered made theft almost impossible. Ursula would never get away with it not with Atakan keeping watch too. No, he had to be suspicious of her for something else.

  Charlotte pressed Atakan for an answer. “No idea? She’s scheduled and suited up for the dive. You and Refik talk and she’s yanked. But, you had nothing to do with it.”

  “Why do you care? What’s the difference who’s our backup?”

  “She got removed for a reason. I want to know why.”

  “Ask Refik.”

  “I’m asking you.” Charlotte stopped her monotonous loop.

  Atakan pushed off the bulkhead and slipped his fins on.

  She blocked him from walking away.

  Atakan ignored her and busied himself double checking his equipment.

  Voices and laughter from mid-ship carried to where they talked. Charlotte glanced behind her to make certain no one else was in listening distance.

  “First you mess with her cell, now Refik has her under Talat’s nose. Your attitude, even your body language changes when you talk to her. Maybe she hasn’t noticed but I have.”

  “Uma’s here,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “This isn’t over,” Charlotte said, poking him in the chest. “You pushed me for answers when you wanted them. Now, I’m pushing back.”

  “Fine. This afternoon, when we’re done with our second dive we’ll go to the café and talk. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  #

  The bakery woman brought two bottled colas with straws and a plate of unsolicited orange slices. She gave Atakan’s shoulder a familiar squeeze as she set the plate down, then left.

  “If Ursula is involved with Damla, then what do you suspect he intends to do?” Charlotte peeled the paper from the straw. “Why would she help? They’ve no common ground,” she observed, tying a knot in the plastic straw.

  “There’s the problem. I don’t know.”

  “You tapped her phone, didn’t you?”

  “I did not tap her phone.”

  “Semantics. Bottom line, you messed with it in some way. Bugged it or whatever secret spy term you use.”

  “I’m no spy, but if I were, I’d be excellent.”

  Atakan leaned an elbow on the table and arched a brow. In the worst English accent Charlotte ever heard, said, “Bond, James Bond.”

  “Say that again.” She was working it now, sucking him in so he’d think his impression was remotely good.

  “Bond, James Bond.”

  “That was almost cool.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You say Jams. It’s James, long ‘a’. Jam is for toast and what was that accent?”

  “English, of course.”

  Cocking her head, she said, “hear that?”

  “What?”

  “The sound of Ian Fleming turning over in his grave.”

  “Friends tell me I sound like T.E. Lawrence.”

  Now she leaned forward on both elbows. “Lawrence of Arabia, that T.E. Lawrence?”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding incredulous that she had to ask.

  “Yeah, whatever you say, Jams.”

  Charlotte played along with Atakan’s effort to change the subject and now brought the topic back on track.

  “Your distraction attempt was valiant, but we were talking about Ursula. Have you learned anything from her phone tap?”

  “Yes,” he said, finally admitting to the tap.

  “Is it criminal?”

  “I don’t have definitive proof.”

  “Why wait? Take her in and interrogate her. Lord knows you had no trouble putting the screws to me.”

  “You make my questioning of you sound medieval.”

  “Your term, not mine, but--”

  “Regarding Ursula, no crime’s occurred as yet. If she’s plotting something, I doubt she’s acting alone. I want to discover who her cohorts are.”

  “Isn’t it Damla, according to your suspicions?”

  “I’m convinced she’s doing something illegal with him. I don’t know if one act is separate from the other.”

  He implicated her possible involvement in two unrelated crimes. Charlotte sipped her drink and wondered if either related to the murders. If Ursula’s co-conspirators were responsible, then the Ministry had no business letting Atakan work without a partner.

  A shout went up from the OK players table. The same friends were regulars at the café. A small pile of change was pushed in front of the winner amidst ribald comments about his luck. The winner smiled taking the ribbing well. He was a jolly looking man, moon-faced, with shaggy grey hair, and old-fashioned black frame glasses with lenses as thick as her cola bottle. Give him a bow tie and tweed jacket and he’d pass for a mad scientist.

  Charlotte keyed on his tee shirt. The well worn yellow shirt had a winged fish emblazoned on the front with Carpe Diem written below. Carpe Diem. You don’t see many of those shirts around anymore. What the flying fish symbolized, she didn’t know, but she knew the Latin phrase.

  “You blew off my idea about the two of us following Damla together.”

  “And?”

  “And, I said we’d talk later. Later is now.”

  Atakan groaned. “I hoped when I repeated no this morning you’d drop it.”

  “You wish.”

  “I’m hungry,” he said, changing the subject again.

  “I want to help. What can I do?” she asked as he read a menu he’d taken from a neighboring table.

  His eyes shot up.

  “Don’t look so appalled. I’m capable of helping with the investigation.”

  “This is a Ministry matter. If necessary, I’ll send for additional men from my unit.”

  “But I’m here right now. Why work alone?”

  “I’m a professional, and I’m fine. I usually work alone.” He studied the limited menu they’d all memorized long ago. “A kebab sounds good.”

  “On a straight-up smuggling case working solo might be fine. What if she’s involved in the murders? You’re not safe,” Charlotte persisted.

  “You do not work for the Ministry. You cannot interfere. You have no idea what you’re doing and that’s more dangerous.”

  “I’m not clueless. I’ve heard stories and tactics and every kind of cop incident all my life. My family’s poured safety tips in my head for years. I’d be a great partner for you. Okay, maybe not great, but good.”

  “This would be the family that sent your brother across thousands of miles to check on your safety?”

  “I never said they don’t worry about me. Come on, give it a chance.”

  “I forbid you to get involved.”

  She rolled her eyes at the silly edict and at his stern demeanor. She’d heard and seen the same routine a million times growing up.

  “You can’t forbid me to do anything. You don’t own me.”

  “If I owned you, I’d sell you for such impertinence.”

  “Too bad for you because I’m going to talk and you will at least listen.”

  “Pislik herif,” he mumbled, resorting to Turkish for the blunt comment.

  He forgot she spoke the language semi-fluently, including some slang. “Shitty luck, indeed,” Charlotte repeated back.

  The bakery woman came to the table and asked if Atakan wanted to order food. She shot a hopeful glance at the menu.

  “No, thank you. I have lost my appetite.”

  She took the menu and left.

  “I’m not asking to assist in an arrest or stayed glued to your hip. I can follow Ursula. I can check for a diary or incriminating papers in her personal stuff.”

  “Do you have an a
spirin in your purse?”

  “Yes.” She retrieved a small tin from the center pocket and handed it to him.

  There was one pill left. Atakan popped it into his mouth. Her mouth watered hearing him crunch on the bitter tablet before chasing it down with a swallow of the cola. She felt like asking why he didn’t chase the whole pill with the cola.

  “Charlotte, if you won’t listen to my order forbidding you, then I ask you to please, for my sake, honor my strong request. Stay out of this.”

  “I worry. I’m afraid you’ll get hurt. You shouldn’t be alone on this. Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m not laughing. I am smiling. You are very sweet to be so concerned for me.”

  “Do not call me sweet.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a lame compliment. You call Miss Congeniality in a beauty contest sweet.”

  “I will rephrase. Your concern pleases me, but I know how to handle myself in a bad situation. If you’re involved my concentration is split. Fear you’ll be injured will be a constant worry.”

  He reached over and pushed the corners of her mouth up. “At last a smile. Trust me. I’m good at my job.”

  “Promise me, if you need help, you’ll ask. I mean, if the shit really hits the fan, I can shoot a gun.”

  “Of course you can. You’re an American.”

  “Very funny, but I didn’t hear a promise. Are we agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Atakan ate a kebab on the walk back to camp. They discussed Lawrence of Arabia and his contribution to the revolt by Arab tribes. Although Charlotte neglected to credit him, Atakan impressed himself with the objectivity he’d shown regarding Lawrence. After all, it was the Turks they rebelled against.

  His phone rang when they reached the compound entrance.

  “I’m off to the shower,” Charlotte said.

  He nodded and checked the caller I.D. It was the Director.

  “Vadim.”

  “Minister Zeren called me a few minutes ago.”

  No salutation. No polite hello, how are you Vadim?

  “Yes,” Atakan said, irritated with Firat’s tone.

  “You met Ekrem’s woman?”

  “Yes, several times.”