He had started to review the file at six thirty, just after the early evening news programme had finished on the television. He made himself a coffee at eleven o’clock, and then carried on reading. He finally finished looking at the typed set of pages, and the various other official documents, at around four thirty in the morning. The very next thing he did was to take a paper tissue from the box on the table nearby.
Then, for the first time since he was nine years old, he cried.
Chapter Forty Three
The manuscript was all about a man called Atakan Polat, who was born in Istanbul, Turkey in the spring of 1950. His father was a trader of fabrics, and had built up a small but profitable business operating out of three shops in their local neighbourhood.
When Atakan was just six years old, the family moved to live in Cyprus. They bought a small house in a mainly Turkish district of Limassol. The boy’s early years were fairly uneventful, just the typical stuff that youngster’s normally do - school, girls, and football.
When he was sixteen, he got a part-time job at the local Keo drinks factory. The little amount of money that he was paid helped him through college over the next couple of years.
In 1972 he found out that his girlfriend at the time had fallen pregnant. A wedding was hastily arranged, and the young couple set up home not far from their parent’s house. The Turkish community in Limassol was a close-knit one.
On the day of 15th July 1974, the island of Cyprus was plunged into chaos. There was a military led coup, attempting to overthrow the government of President Makarios. Reports say that this uprising was backed by the government of Greece, who made no secret of the fact that they wanted the island to be united with their own country. ‘Enosis’ they called it. Five days later, Turkey launched an invasion, landing troops on the northern coast of Cyprus.
There had always been tension between the Greek and Turkish communities, and the events in July of that year sparked off a series of unpleasant actions. Stories began to surface about Turkish and Greek communities attacking each other. There were alleged murders of innocent civilians, houses being burnt down, and reports of brutal rapes being carried out.
Greeks living in Northern areas of Cyprus suddenly felt quite vulnerable, as the Turkish forces imposed their will on the population. Equally, Turks living in southern regions, such as Paphos and Limassol, felt isolated.
The manuscript then goes on to tell first hand, of an event that happened in Limassol shortly after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus.
The three men burst into the house. They were armed with a variety of weapons. The first man through the door was carrying an old Kalashnikov rifle. He must have been the leader because he immediately started shouting out orders to the rest of his group.
Atakan had been sitting with his family in the middle of the room. They were eating a small meal of flat bread and tomatoes. There was a jug of water also on the table. They had closed all the curtains in the house, and kept the lights on low. He was trying to keep a low profile. It seemed chaotic out there. They could hear occasional sporadic gunfire, and a low, muffled, thudding noise, which Atakan assumed was mortar fire.
The men who had invaded his house were all of Greek origin. He was well aware of his predicament. They were living in a small enclave of Turkish people, right in the heart of the Greek-Cypriot community of Limassol. There had been nasty incidents in the past between the Greeks and the Turks, even though many of the occupants of the town had grown up together.
Atakan’s wife, Hazan, quickly picked up their two year old daughter. She sat the girl on her lap and held her tightly. Atakan remained seated at the table. He didn’t want to aggravate the intruders. Let them take what they want and be on their way, he thought.
One of the Greek men had a small, black patch over his left eye. It was tied around his head with a thin, leather strap. Below the patch was a scar which ran down his face almost as far as his left nostril. The scar protruded slightly above the skin and made the man look scary. Atakan assumed the man had lost the eye in a fight perhaps.
The man looked over towards Atakan with his good eye. As he did so he pulled out a long, steel bladed knife. He strode across the room, pulled Atakan’s head back violently, and held the knife against his throat.
‘Can I slice him open,’ he said eagerly.
The leader looked over at him. ‘No, just tie him up for now. Make sure it’s secure.’
Atakan still believed the way to handle this was to give them no reason to harm him or any of his family. So they bound him to the chair. He didn’t resist.
The Greeks were looking around the house to see if there were any valuables. They didn’t find very much. One of the men discovered an old-looking, silver necklace in one of the drawers near the fireplace.
‘Not my mother’s …’ Hazan had started to say. She was cut short when her husband threw her a hard stare, accompanied by a shake of his head. She got the message. Don’t antagonise these people.
There was also a small wad of bank notes in a carved, wooden box on a shelf near the front window. One of the intruders quickly counted it, grunted to himself, and then pocketed the cash.
The leader of the Greek gang was a tall man, with a hard-looking, wiry face. He moved toward Atakan now, and pulled a chair across to sit next to him. He looked into the man’s face. He didn’t like Turks. He never had. Even as a child he had fought with them. In the playground, down by the market, and on the beach. He confronted Turks wherever he could. Now his beloved Greek island had been invaded by an armada of these foul people. He had anger in his blood. He wanted to extract revenge.
‘Are you afraid to resist us my Turkish friend? Are you scared?’ He turned to one of his men. ‘Take the woman into the bedroom. I’ll be through in a moment.’
The other two Greek men moved towards Hazan and grabbed her arms. The little girl on her lap started crying, and one of the men took her and sat her down roughly in a corner of the room. She continued to cry, and held her arms out towards her mother. Hazan had one of her arms twisted harshly behind her back, forcing her forward towards the door to the bedroom. Once inside she was thrown roughly onto the bed.
Atakan was fighting against the rope holding him to the chair. He was shouting at the tall Greek, but the man didn’t understand what he was saying. He had never been interested in learning any of the Turkish language.
The Greek man had listened to enough of his captive’s rantings, and so he pulled off the dirty neckerchief he was wearing, and tied it tightly around the Turks mouth. Atakan continued to shout out, but the words were now heavily muffled.
The wiry-faced man leaned close to his victim’s ear. He whispered slowly so that Atakan would be able to easily translate what he said.
‘I have to leave you for a few minutes now. I have to go and fuck a Turkish woman. I’ll be back soon though.’
Atakan went wild, trying with all his might to pull out of the bonds holding him. His face was red, and his eyes were wide open. He started rocking the wooden chair, until he fell over. He lay there on the floor, tied to the chair, unable to move. He heard the screams of his wife coming from the bedroom. The terrible noise seemed to last for ages, and then all was quiet. The Greek leader came back into the main room. His face was red and he was breathing heavily. He hastily zipped up the front of his cotton trousers, and tied his belt back in place.
Atakan could hardly believe what was happening to him. Surely his neighbours must have heard something. Maybe they were too scared to react. Perhaps they had all left. He knew many had already departed for the north of the island.
There was a gentle sobbing coming from the bedroom. The door was still open. The Greek was looking for where he had left his rifle, and then he spotted it. He picked it up, made a play of checking the loading mechanism, while looking down at Atakan. Then he stepped back into the bedroom.
Atakan was shouting through the material pressed hard against his mouth. ‘No! No! No!’ He tried to ge
t up off the floor, but he was helpless. The other Greek men in the room were laughing at him as he struggled.
Then there was a loud bang. The noise reverberated around the small house. The sobbing sounds from the bedroom stopped abruptly. The little girl in the corner stopped crying. Atakan stopped shouting.
The Greek men carried on laughing.
The tall man came back into the room. He aimed the rifle at Atakan and fired a single shot. The bullet went through the back of the hardwood chair. The Turk’s agonising screams were muffled by the gag around his mouth. Then he went silent, and his body lay still. A pool of blood quickly formed around the chair.
The leader nodded in satisfaction. His work was done. Well nearly. He just had to pass on the little girl to the desperate Greek family. They had agreed to pay him two thousand Cypriot pounds for an adopted child.
Atakan had been in terrible pain. The bullet hitting him had felt like a red hot shard of metal was burning his flesh from the inside out. Then the agony had subsided, and the blackness was descending. The last thing he heard before his eyes finally closed was the Greek man with the rifle shouting out an order.
‘Bring the infant girl. Her new parents are waiting for her.’
Chapter Forty Four
The manuscript ended abruptly at that point. It looked like there had been a lot more pages to the original document, but from the presence of torn edges of paper along the binding, it seemed that these had been ripped out.
The next thing that Cole had read through appeared to be a military record. It would have originally been written in Turkish, but like the other papers in the file, it had been painstakingly translated into English.
There was no name mentioned in the report, it simply referred to someone known as ‘Agent Twenty Two.’ It included a fully detailed training programme, including courses attended on unarmed combat, interrogation techniques, and counter espionage strategies. The report listed various operational activities carried out by Agent Twenty Two, although the code names of the operations were blanked out in thick black ink.
Cole realised that he was looking at someone’s military record from the Turkish army. The subject of the record seemed to be a person involved in military intelligence. Many of the missions detailed involved working in Cyprus, both northern and southern sectors.
‘But who are you Agent Twenty Two?’ he muttered to himself. ‘And what relevance is it to me?’
The last entry in the military record was dated 1994. Clipped to the back of this last page was a clear, plastic envelope. Inside was a copy of what looked like an army discharge certificate. The wording was all in Turkish of course, but Cole had seen similar documents for other service personnel. There was a date halfway down the page in large typeface – January 1995.
At the bottom of the page was a large number followed by the letters YTL. Cole had seen that before and he thought hard for a few seconds to remember. The old Turkish Lira had also been known by the words Yeni Turk Lirasi, hence YTL. The number represented a payment, quite a large one by Turkish standards.
There were three other items in the clear envelope, all black and white photographs. The pictures were of middle aged men. All were hard, well tanned faces, with a strong Mediterranean appearance.
Cole flicked through the photos, they meant nothing to him. That was until he got to the third one. He looked at it closely. There was a small lamp on the table nearby, and he moved across the room and held the picture close to the light.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said out loud. ‘I know that face. Why have you got a photo of our Greek friend Spiro in this file?’
Cole thumbed through various other reports in the file. Some had not been translated from the original Turkish form. There were reports of educational achievements, and a collection of certificates relating to competence in rifle shooting.
Included in the file was a small grey booklet, again all in the Turkish language. Someone had translated certain parts of it by simply writing in the book using a black biro pen. On the inside cover was scribbled two words in English – Medical Record.
The pages of the book listed many entries and only a few had been translated. Under several lines on page three in large handwriting was ‘Inoculations.’ On page five was written ‘Glandular Fever.’ Page eight contained a scribbled reference to ‘Shrapnel removed from leg’ followed by three question marks. Perhaps they were a reference to an approximate translation. The final English words in the booklet were on page fourteen, ‘Successful treatment for skin cancer.’
Cole placed the grey booklet down and looked at the last remaining documents from the file. There were two items. He picked them up carefully one at a time. Somehow, he had already realised that these two pieces of paper were important. He didn’t know how, he just sensed it.
He couldn’t possibly have imagined just how important they would be to him.
Chapter Forty Five
The first item he picked up was a photograph.
It was black and white like the other three he had already looked at. But it was older, much older. There was a name written at the bottom of the photo in small, black, handwritten letters.
But he hadn’t immediately registered that. He couldn’t take his eyes of the girl in the photograph. It was someone he recognised, but didn’t recognise. It was someone he knew well, but didn’t know at all. It was someone he had spent most of his life with, but he also had never met.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the features of the girl in the photo. He studied her eyes, her nose, and tried to absorb the rest of her facial features. The hair looked so soft. The complexion seemed innocent and smooth.
He forced himself to breath, not realising that he hadn’t inhaled in all the time he had been studying the girl.
The face in the photo was that of someone who had not seen the bad things in life, or the cruelty that man can inflict on his fellow beings. It had not seen how neighbours can turn on each other, or how friendships can be broken in an instant.
It wasn’t surprising though.
The girl in the photo looked to be about two years old.
The name on the bottom of the page was ‘Athena.’
Chapter Forty Six
The last item that Cole picked up was a brown sheet of paper.
It was faded badly and looked like it was an original document. The wording was all in Turkish, but again someone had identified key parts of the page and had written in the English translation.
Near the heading at the top of the sheet, somebody had written in black pen – ‘Certificate from the Superior Court in Ankara.’ There were several dates on the sheet, and a lot of writing in small letters.
Halfway down the sheet were the words ‘Distinguishing features.’ There was a long list underneath this, but next to number 4 it said ‘evidence of surgery to skin on left arm.’ Above item number 7 it simply stated ‘walked with a limp – left leg.’
At the bottom right hand corner of the page was a large official stamp, in bold letters, with a red, rectangular border. In English next to this was written ‘Application approved.’
It was the last English words written on the page that held Cole’s attention the longest.
There, on the bottom of the page, on the left hand side, someone had written ‘Old name’ and ‘New name’.
Underneath the first heading was written ‘Atakan Polat.’
Directly below the second heading there was just a single word.
‘Solomon.’
Epilogue
Cole took Alice away for a couple of weeks on a luxurious cruise around the Caribbean. He really hoped that the trip would help her to recover from the ordeal she had been through. It did. They had a lovely time visiting many of the exotic islands in the region. She particularly liked the beauty of the island of Barbados, and the food they were served in Antigua. Alice was still having the occasional nightmares, but that was to be expected. Cole decided that he would not tell her the full story regarding her
abduction, as it may be too painful. So she remained unaware of the fate of her real father, and the true nature of her ethnic background.
Jeremy Potts, the senior boy from Upperdale, otherwise known as Prem, eventually moved on to Brighton University. After graduating, he went to live in the United States, not far from San Francisco. He tried to launch his own magazine aimed at young male readers, but this project failed to get off the ground. He started to spend more and more time frequenting gay nightclubs. One evening, he got into an argument with a group of young men in the wrong neighbourhood. The police found his body the following day in an alleyway. He’d been repeatedly raped. There was almost half a pint of semen found inside his anal cavity. This was found to be made up of nine different types of DNA. Subsequently, it appears he was strangled with a dirty, silk stocking. The police never found his killers. In fact, they didn’t even bother to look.
Elena wasn’t too concerned when Solomon didn’t return home. As it happened, she never saw him again. Two weeks after he last left their rented flat, she moved out. It had been an interesting time for her, but he was a bit of a strange guy. She needed to find a new lover, preferably one that didn’t mind touching her occasionally. She was also hoping that she wouldn’t have to fake her orgasms any more, although she was sure that Solomon never suspected it of her anyway.
Lisa and Robin Smith returned to Bruges, in Belgium, the following Christmas, as they did every year. This time though they decided not to bring back any local tobacco ‘products’ from Holland on their return journey. Lisa had decided that they weren’t good for her health. She felt convinced that she had become involved in an SAS operation the last time that she had enjoyed a relaxing smoke. It was an incredible feeling. The dream had felt so real. Never again, she had promised herself.
The Terminate Code: A gripping, page-turning, action adventure revenge thriller, with a fast pace, and a terrifying twist in its tail ! (Hedge & Cole Book 2) Page 17
