by Camilla Monk
He starts typing. “Would you be interested in purchasing a mithril rake?”
Dries, Isiporho, and I wait with bated breath as the door creaks open, and a little turtle with equally large and shiny eyes appears—a ninja turtle, judging by the shuriken secured to its shell by a yellow belt.
“Anyone else bidding on it?” the turtle asks.
March’s lips stretch into a rare grin. “No, only me and my girlfriend.”
Barely a second after he’s pressed the enter key, the 3-D scenery dissolves into a shimmering dust of pixels until the screen turns black and a video conference window pops up. A young Asian guy sits in a big blue gaming chair behind a cluttered desk. Jet chin-length hair curtains his glasses, and I make a mental note of his green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt: someone’s a fan . . . He combs his bangs back with his fingers, and an ecstatic grin lights up his face. “Oh my God, you’re seriously back!”
I smile in return, because the joy bubbling inside me instinctively tells me he’s a friend. “Yeah . . . I guess I’m back.”
Behind the glasses, his eyes train on March, and his mouth purses in solemn admiration. “You’re hardcore . . . If you print Struthio T-shirts, I’ll buy one.”
“Struthio?” I ask March, searching my memory for everything he told me last night. “It’s that private security business you founded after you stopped . . . um . . . killing people?” I realize as I say this that he hasn’t really stopped, but at least he tried, so I guess it’s a good start.
Colin’s eyebrows pinch at my comment about Struthio. I offer him an apologetic wince. “Sorry . . . I don’t remember everything. I’m still catching up.”
Shock registers on his face and, right afterward, sadness. “But . . . you remember me, right?”
On the table, March’s hand squeezes mine as I answer, “No . . . I’m sorry. No.”
Colin slumps in his chair, looking even younger as he clasps a hand over his mouth, looking devastated. Somehow I feel like I’ve failed this guy I don’t even remember, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg: there’s an entire life to learn all over again, and so many people who’ll feel like Colin . . . like March felt when I wouldn’t let him in.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I say softly. “We can get to know each other again, and maybe someday I’ll remember.”
Colin gives an uncertain nod and seems to relax until Dries pops up behind me. The moment he sees him, his face scrunches up in visible dismay.
Dries greets him with a carnivorous smile. “Yes, it’s me again. And you’re going to sing for me, or I’ll find you, and I’ll plastinate your—”
“That’s unnecessary,” March cuts him off dryly. “I already explained to you that our relations with Mr. Jeon are nothing but cordial.”
“That little snitch works for the NSA,” Dries snaps. “He might as well report to Erwin directly . . .”
“But I don’t!” Colin counters in outrage. “And he already told you not to threaten me like that.”
“All right, all right.” Dries waves off Colin’s complaint. “Odysseus—what do you know about it?”
Colin sobers and leans on his desk. “That it was awesome, but NASA lost it at the bottom of Litke Deep, and their congressional hearing won’t go well?”
“And what can you tell us that we won’t hear on television?” March probes.
He cringes. “One day they’re gonna find my body, and it’ll be all your fault. You know that, right?”
Dries glares at Colin. “And they’ll find it much sooner than you expect if you don’t start talking.”
I elbow him discreetly with a disapproving look while, behind me, Isiporho stifles a laugh at their antics. Colin shakes his head and starts typing on his keyboard. On-screen, a map of the Arctic Ocean pops up in a new window. A cursor appears over a dark blue spot, not far from a cluster of frozen islands. “That’s Litke Deep, about a hundred miles north of the archipelago of Svalbard.” The cursor glides half an inch down. “And that point here, that’s where they think Odysseus crashed.”
“That’s not in Litke Deep,” I say. “Was it carried north by sea currents? I mean, it weighs two thousand tons . . .”
Colin sighs. “Probably not.” Another window flashes on-screen, containing what I recognize as a spectrogram. Represented with a pattern of bright colors forming columns is a series of powerful, low-frequency sounds. There’s a date in the bottom right corner: October 17—recorded two months ago. “What did they record?” I ask.
“A whale, of course.” When he sees my mouth twist in doubt, Colin laughs. “That’s what Zwicky is gonna tell Congress tomorrow anyway.”
“That a giant whale sank their trillion-dollar spaceship?”
“That should go over well . . .” March comments with a sigh.
Colin shrugs. “Better than telling them we suspect it’s a nuclear submarine signature.”
My jaw goes slack, and I hear March’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Unconfirmed?” Dries asks, his fingers rapping on the table.
“Kinda not entirely confirmed,” Colin replies. “Let’s put it like this: you’d need something pretty powerful to tow a hundred-foot ship, and the docking would be noisy . . .”
“And?” Dries insists, his nostrils flaring.
Colin squirms in his chair. “Something like the brand-new type 099 the Chinese lost a year ago, along with a dozen nuclear warheads. Which is totally a rumor, and maybe it’s still being tested in a secret location like their official news agency is telling everyone . . .”
There’s a beat of silence in the briefing room as the enormity of the news sets in. It’s Isiporho, having been listening quietly until now, who first manages to speak. “The brothers . . . stole a nuclear submarine to tow Odysseus?”
Colin’s eyes widen until I fear they’re going to roll out. “Oh, my fucking God! The Lions did it?”
Dries sends him a murderous glare. “They didn’t,” he hisses. “And the quieter you are, the longer you’ll live.”
In my ears, their voices are muted, a distant din when my thoughts have concentrated, narrowed down to a single point. The butterfly. Anies brought it back from his trip to the factory . . . “It’s in Ecuador,” I say out loud.
March’s fingers lace with mine, his features taut with worry as he listens to me.
“Anies said he’d take me to Ecuador with him when his project was complete. He’s been shipping things there for months; it was his obsession. He said”—my voice falters—“that it’d be a surprise.”
And what a surprise. If he really crossed that line . . . I can’t imagine what he’s cooking there, but none of the scenarios my brain slaps together are any less than disastrous. With the combined power of Odysseus’s reactor and the warheads that were in that Chinese submarine . . . he could wipe a small country from the map.
I’ll give you even more. An entire new world . . .
I’m still breathing, but my throat is so tight I’m not sure the oxygen is reaching my lungs. “We need to find that ship . . . I think he’s gonna make a huge mistake.”
A strong, warm hand squeezes my shoulder. I look up to find Dries gazing at me. In his eyes, the gold darkens as he tells March, “I’ll go make a call of my own.”
TWENTY-SIX
THE MERMAID
After Dries locked himself in the cabin to make a call that seems to have added ten years to the lines on his face, March confirmed that our next stop would be Istanbul. He remained evasive as to what we’ll do once we’re there. He keeps saying he’ll keep me safe, but we both know that’s not what I’m asking. Anyway, that would be my second most immediate concern. The primary one being whether I’ll live long enough to see the Blue Mosque at all . . .
Dries said the whole thing is perfectly safe, but like with most of his plans, I have doubts. It’s too late to chicken out though: I’m sitting between March’s legs in the long and narrow speedboat, my life jacket is secured, and in front of us, the ekranoplan’s ma
ssive rear-loading ramp is opening as the aircraft slows down, revealing a trail of crashing waves and whirlpools of foam. Cold air rushes in, along with the engines’ deafening noise. Around my waist, March’s arms tighten their hold. “It’s going to be all right.”
I grip his hands, my breath coming in short pants. I’m starting to identify a pattern: he always says that sort of thing before shit hits the fan . . . I get that Jan has to hide the ekranoplan, that it’d be a bad idea to cross the Bosphorus Strait in plain sight, with its populated shores, constant patrolling, and in a country that’s barreling fast toward dictatorship on top of that. So yeah, it’s a great idea to drop us twenty miles away from the strait so he can turn back and seek refuge for Dries’s “baby” on the safest shores of Bulgaria. But I didn’t sign up to be tossed into a washing machine, and since we all had to put on waterproof coveralls and goggles, I’m getting the feeling that it’s exactly what’s about to happen.
At the front of the boat, Dominik checks the Kevlar line connecting us to a winch while, in the back, Isiporho gets in position by the outboard engine, ready to lower it as soon as we hit the water. Sitting next to me, Dries grins at the whirling, roaring hell under us. “Best time of the year for a cruise!” he yells.
It’s the only warning I get before a whirring sound announces that the winch is spinning fast, and we’re being dropped. I grit my teeth, and screw my eyes shut as we accelerate down the ramp and toward the sea. We’re weightless for a split second before the boat hits the water and bounces on the turbulent rolls, shaking us like lotto balls. The next few minutes feel like a race in rapids as the ekranoplan’s trail drenches us in cold, salty water. My nails dig into March’s hands when a powerful wave threatens to make the speedboat capsize. It gets better though. Around us, the sea goes quiet, and we’re now rocked by a lazy swell as the aircraft becomes a blurry dot in the horizon.
“Woohoo!”
We all turn to Dominik, who just confirmed my suspicions that he’s a complete adrenaline junkie . . . He shakes his head to partially dry the water dripping from his skull and face. “Let’s do that again.”
“Perhaps some other day,” March offers before removing his goggles and running a hand through his own water-soaked hair, much in the same fashion Dries is.
Isiporho lowers the engine into the water. It gives a low gurgle and hums to life, and soon we’re gaining speed on the tranquil surface. When he notices that I’m still sitting frozen against him and give no sign of uncurling, March combs my hair back, squeezing a little water from the damp waves. “Biscuit, are you all right?”
I glower at Dries’s smug expression. “Let’s never do that again.”
“See?” he tells March. “She’s fine.”
The weather is kind enough that we’re eventually able to shrug out of our coveralls, and it doesn’t take us long to reach the Bosphorus. Hills rise and fall past us on each side, peppered with tile roofs and shrouded in afternoon mist. As we progress toward Istanbul, the number of seagulls circling over our heads increases exponentially. Villages become towns and harbors until modern buildings and beautiful white villas crowd the shores. I start to worry about the patrol boats cruising the straits, but Dries shrugs it off with a comment that Turkish coast guards have enough on their plates with the rubber dinghies on which thousands of refugees risk their lives every day to reach Greece: with only five passengers and a razor-sharp silvery hull that screams “rich tourist toy,” they couldn’t care less about us.
Against all odds, I lived to see the Blue Mosque. I shift on March’s lap to get a better look when we reach the southern mouth of the Bosphorus. There it is, overlooking the bay and competing with the equally majestic Hagia Sophia basilica. I squint at the complex stack of richly adorned domes guarded by six minarets, like arrows reaching for the sky.
March rests his chin on my shoulder, following the direction of my gaze. “When they built it, the Mecca mosque was the only one in the world to have six minarets. They had to build a seventh one there to keep up.”
“Gotta have standards,” I say in a laugh.
“Exactly . . .”
We sail west, around the old district of Fatih, the jewel that travelers once called Constantinople. Concrete progressively replaces old stones as we reach Bakirköy, a commercial district on the European side of the city, where Atatürk Airport lies, surrounded by shops and hotels. Our destination is a tiny marina south of the airport, right in front of a park. You’d think the winter weather would deter the locals, but there’re quite a few people sitting on benches or enjoying a drink in nearby cafés. The place must be a little summer paradise, if the number of yachts lined along the pier is any indication. We moor between Simarik and Latin Lover in the general indifference of the Istanbulites strolling by with their kids.
Once we’ve left the speedboat behind us, Dominik’s eyes scan the area until a predatory grin curls his lips. My money is on that blue Land Rover . . . and yep. With a casual stride, he crosses a patch of lawn to reach the coveted vehicle. He’s so quick, so sure-handed that to the external observer this must look like nothing more than a man briefly fumbling with his car’s key lock.
We follow in his footsteps, and I shush my guilt when climbing into the back seat between March and Dries while Isiporho sits in the front with Dominik. Dries pats my shoulder, watching his disciple switch the engine with smug satisfaction. “He’s almost as good as your mother. She had gifted hands . . . and expensive tastes,” he adds with a wink.
I stare at him in amazement. This isn’t much—almost nothing, really—but he’s never talked about her until now except that one time back at the cabin, and all I had to jog the ruins of my memory were Anies’s lies and March’s faithful but limited account.
“How did you meet her?” I ask eagerly while we drive past shops and palm trees toward Atatürk Airport.
A wistful smile softens his features. “In a circus.”
“What were you doing in a circus?”
“Nothing. It was in ’87; we’d just finished a job in Rome, and with nothing to do for the next twenty-four hours, I went for a walk around the city.”
“And you ended up in a circus?”
He rolls his eyes. “The great Federicci circus . . . They’d set up their tent in the northeast, and it was . . . pathetic. The crowds were scarce, and they were barely making ends meet. Have you seen Down and Dirty, by Ettore Scola?”
I shake my head, unsure whether to answer “no” or “I don’t remember.”
“It was something just like that. Filthy trailers, haggard clowns . . . and the ringmaster’s wife—what was her name?—Mandorla . . . No, Mandorlina . . . ‘Little almond.’ Who must have weighed a quarter ton and dyed her hair blue, because she had this act . . . as a mermaid in a water tank.”
Behind the wheel, Dominik snickers, and March and Isiporho too can’t contain a smile.
“And my mom worked there?”
“Oh, yes, she did . . . It was in August, and the heat was crushing. I walked around that dump, bored and curious, I suppose. And I saw a sign on a trailer that said they had lions, so I looked for the cages, and I then saw her.” He pauses, visibly pleased by his little effect on an audience that’s now captivated by his story. “She was standing there in a bikini, hosing two mangy lions.” He shakes his head. “They were poor beasts, declawed, with their fangs filed down. But her . . . she was barely twenty, and you should have seen her . . .” He clasps his hands in a silent prayer to the goddess who lives in his memory, the young woman with long red hair and mysterious green eyes I saw in the sparse pictures Anies showed me. “It took me all of five seconds to make a move.”
Something is happening in that stolen car: for a moment, Anies and his terrifying plans have been forgotten, and a concert of laughs rises: deep chuckles—Isiporho’s and March’s—echoed by Dominik’s breathless chortles and my giggles.
“What did you tell her?” I ask. On my left, I glimpse planes waiting on the tarmac, and I want
to hear more, to make this moment last before reality catches up with us.
Dries crosses his arms with a grin. “It’s like for women with children: you always pet the baby first to break the ice. So I went for the lions. I played with them, showed a bit of dominance to impress her.”
I clasp a hand over my mouth, my shoulders shaking in hilarity.
“And it worked,” he goes on, nodding to himself. “We chatted a bit. She had this magic act back then: pulling rabbits from her hat, card tricks . . . She’d tell everyone she was a Romanian orphan who had fled Ceaușescu’s dictature.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Sandra the Romanian wonder.”
My brow flies up. “You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious. She had a little side act lifting the parents’ wallets while the kids petted the rabbit. We got to know each other better, and I discovered she knew her way around safes too . . . I did a little digging up on her, and it turned out that trouble seemed to follow the Federicci circus wherever it went.”
“She was a thief . . .” I complete, my joy turning bittersweet.
“Artist would be more appropriate in her case. It’s not every day that you meet a twenty-year-old who does jewelry stores without getting caught.”
“How long did you stay together?” I probe.
Dries draws a sigh and goes quiet. I gather he doesn’t want to get that personal with his disciples listening. “It never really ended,” is all he says before Dominik parks the SUV a hundred yards away from a low building on which a sign reads General Aviation Terminal.
Dries clasps his hands, his confident façade falling back in place. “At least we’ll be flying into the storm first-class.”
Next to me, I feel March stiffen, but he doesn’t comment and instead opens the door for me. I look up at the cloudy sky from which a light drizzle has started to fall. With a sigh that’s part exhaustion, part delight, I inhale the damp air, heavy with the scent of gasoline and wet grass.
