[Anthology] Abby & Sei Thriller Starter

by Ty Hutchinson

  “The bathroom is small, but the water is always hot,” she said, placing one of the towels on the bed. “Do you have any questions?”

  I turned my attention back to her. “Not at the moment. Thank you.”

  “Okay. We start serving breakfast at seven a.m.”

  I nodded.

  “Spiro, your room is just across the hall. Room B.”

  “I’ll meet your downstairs at seven,” Kostas said before following the girl out.

  I locked the door behind them and quickly stripped down. While I didn’t have a fresh change of clothing, it still felt good to cleanse the brutality of the day off of me.

  As I toweled off, the quietness became noticeably apparent. The wooden door to my room was thin, yet I couldn’t hear Kostas across the hall, nor could I hear the teen’s family through the wall we shared. Even the sound of water running through pipes was absent.

  I walked over to the window once more and peeked outside. A light fog had begun to drift into the town, not enough to obscure my view but enough to be noticeable. The few shop lights I saw on earlier had gone dark and not a single person appeared to be out. Still I worried that Demir’s men weren’t too far behind. I had to assume they would stop and check each town, no matter the size. That would slow them down and buy us distance. I hoped.

  I laid my head down on the pillow and fell asleep shortly after only to be woken by my bladder. After a quick trip to the bathroom, I peeked out the window once more. All was quiet. I looked at the clock; it was one twenty a.m. and my eyelids were feeling heavy again.

  Just as I pulled my head back from the window, a slow-moving pick-up truck appeared at the far end of the road. It was tan and the windows were tinted black. I kept an eye on it as it drove closer to my location. Was the driver lost or looking for a room for the night? When it slowed outside the café, my skin tingled. Not because it stopped and parked, but because stenciled on the door were the initials AS IZ.

  They found me.

  40

  “Shhh,” I said before removing my hand from Kostas’ mouth.

  “What? How did you get in here?” he asked, startled and confused about waking up in his bed with me leaning over him.

  “They found us.”

  “Who?” Kostas asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “The Askeri Inzibat. They’re the Turkish military police. Kashani had warned me that Demir would utilize them.” I tugged at his arm. “Get up and no more questions.”

  Kostas got up out of bed dressed only in his blue boxers, and reached over to the bedside lamp.

  “No lights,” I said.

  Kostas grumbled under his breath as he felt around the floor with his feet until he found his pants. His shirt was draped over a chair. While he got dressed, I moved toward the door and pressed my ear against it. Kostas’ room had a window, but it overlooked the back of the café, leaving me blind to what the Askeri Inzibat were doing out front. Kostas was still putting his shoes on when I told him to meet me back in my room.

  Just as I was about to open the door, I heard the slow clumping of heavy boots making their way up the wooden stairs. I turned back to Kostas with my finger pressed against my lips.

  “What are you doing?” he asked in a hushed tone.

  I waved at him to be quiet and drew my knife.

  “I hope you’re not doing what I think you are,” he continued.

  By now the thumping of boots had reached the second floor.

  Kostas stood and grabbed my arm. “Don’t do it. It’s too risky. Plus we don’t know that they’ve found us.”

  I shook my arm free and continued to listen for any sign that either my assumption or his was right. We heard shuffling near the entrance to the family’s residence and then the jingling of keys, followed by the opening and closing of a door, and then nothing.

  “I told you,” Kostas said.

  I turned the knob to the door slowly and then opened it just enough to see into the dark hall. My eyes had adjusted and saw that the hall was empty. I quickly moved back into my room with Kostas right behind me. I peeked out the window—the Askeri Inzibat truck was still parked below. Of all the towns and all the families and all the rooms we could have chosen to spend the night at, we chose one that had a family member whose job was to catch me.

  “He doesn’t know we’re here,” Kostas said.

  “It’s only a matter of time before Ayla mentions they have guests. He’ll come investigating soon enough.”

  “He’s probably coming off the night shift and went straight to bed. We have until sun up, maybe even later until he wakes.”

  “We have to get out of here now,” I said.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s not be too hasty.”

  “Look, the longer we stay here, the harder it will be for us to continue moving west.”

  Kostas shook his head. “I don’t know. I think we’re better off staying put. For all we know, Demir’s men are nowhere near this town. This guy is just an unlikely coincidence, that’s all.”

  “Nonsense. We must keep moving.”

  Kostas threw his hands up. “Well, if you’ve already forgotten, we can’t. Our car still needs to be fixed.”

  “We don’t need that car,” I said, looking out the window.

  “No. No way. We can’t take his truck.”

  “We can move under the cover of dark. We only need that vehicle until we can get our hands on another. Get your stuff. My mind is already made up.”

  Before Kostas could make a rebuttal, we both heard the familiar creak of the door opening down the hall. We froze. The light was off in my room, but the door was still slightly ajar, maybe an inch or so.

  A floorboard in the hall creaked, but we heard no steps, as if someone were purposely being quiet. I motioned for Kostas to crouch near the window before moving toward the door with my knife drawn.

  My mind flourished with options as to how to dispatch this person. Attack first? Wait and strike? Another body would only complicate things. I thought more about what Kostas had said, that maybe it was all an unlikely coincidence and my active imagination had gotten the best of me. Still, my thinking had kept me alive all these years in a profession where the life expectancy wasn’t very long.

  Another creak pierced the silence followed by soft steps moving closer until they stopped just outside the door. My breathing slowed. I gripped the handle of my blade tighter. I knew that, from this person’s position in the hall, he could easily see that my door was open, but that was it. It was too dark to see inside my room. I, on the other hand, stood blind to the left of the door. While I couldn’t see into the hall, I had the advantage of striking from behind should that person enter the room.

  I could hear shoes and then the twisting of the knob to the door of Kostas’ room. A soft click and then a barely audible squeak signaled the door had been opened. I heard nothing after that, not even the slight shuffling of feet. Had the person entered the room, or were they simply standing in the doorway?

  Each second of silence felt like an hour. Why had that person stopped? Could he see that the room was empty? Was he deciding his next move? My muscles remained tense, waiting to strike. I kept anticipating a hand gripping the knob to my door. A droplet of sweat snaked down the left side of my neck, tickling me, but I maintained my current stance with my knees slightly bent.

  And then the moment came. The one I had been patiently waiting for. The door to my room inched its way open. I drew a breath. A shoe softly scuffed the floor. I raised my knife.

  41

  Demir remained in Siverek much longer than he had anticipated. He had already ordered his men and the Askeri Inzibat to comb every town along highway E96 and set up checkpoints on the small roads heading west to the coast. It was a lot of distance to cover entirely, though Demir had no intention of sounding the alarm of both escapees by utilizing more men. The hunt for Sei and the missing Wolf were both being kept under wraps. He already assumed he had lost the Wolf via a border cro
ssing out of Turkey. He had no intention of losing the assassin. One was better than none, and he could pin the Wolf’s escape on her.

  But before Demir himself could join the hunt for Sei, he received word that the Askeri Inzibat had picked up Basir Kashani as he attempted to board a fishing boat in the small coastal town of Karatas. Demir figured Sei had to have help, and created a list of people who were to be apprehended and brought to him for questioning. Kashani was at the top of that list.

  Demir entered the same jail cell he had used to interrogate the goat herders earlier; the floor was still dotted with red stains. There was hope in Demir’s demeanor, for Kashani had a lot of friends. If there was something worth knowing, he would know it. The Askeri Inzibat had already loosened Kashani’s mouth and had assured Demir that he was on the verge of saying anything to stop them from snipping off any more of his fingers.

  “My friend, it’s been a long time,” Demir said as he entered the cell. “Almost a year, if my memory serves me right,” Demir continued as he took a seat.

  Kashani sat slouched on a wooden chair. His left hand had fresh gauze wrapped around it, and both of his eyes were puffy and swollen shut.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve only just noticed your eyes. It’s me, Rakin Demir, your old friend.”

  While Demir had met Kashani on one or two occasions, they were not friends. The missing fingers were a definitive sign of that.

  Demir took a seat opposite Kashani, who was flanked by two guards from the Askeri Inzibat. They had noticeable bloodstains on their uniforms. “I trust my friends here have treated you well, as you are a very important guest of mine.”

  Kashani mumbled a few indistinguishable words.

  “What’s that you say? You want to help me? So thoughtful, aren’t you? Well, since you’ve broached the subject, no sense wasting our breaths. I’m looking for an assassin, an Asian girl. She goes by the name Sei. Do you know where she is?”

  Kashani shook his head and mumbled.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear your answer. It sounded like you told me to go fuck myself, but we’re friends, so I must have misunderstood you.”

  Kashani cleared his throat and repeated what he’d just said, only louder and clearer this time. Demir had hoped for more cooperation. He drew a deep breath, exhaled, and then signaled to the guards.

  One placed his hands on Kashani’s shoulders and held him put on the chair. It wasn’t too difficult, as he could barely put up a fight, having no strength from the loss of blood. The other guard gripped Kashani’s right hand and selected a finger.

  Kashani yelled, low grunts at first until he worked his way up to a coarse cry. He struggled to free his hand but couldn’t. The guard removed the clippers from his back pocket and within seconds had snipped off half of Kashani’s pinky finger. Kashani’s mouth widened and emitted a long wail. A stream of blood spurted from his finger stump with each pump of his heart.

  Demir watched as tears rolled down Kashani’s cheeks. He felt no compassion for the injured man. Here was a man who trafficked weapons on the black market to anyone who had money. He had no qualms about selling to terrorist groups in the region, some who even used the same weapons to attack the Turkish military at the border. In Demir’s mind, Kashani had operated in Turkey with impunity for much too long. Demir ordered the guard to wrap the wound. All that crying irritated him.

  “I’m sorry about that, my friend, but I have a feeling you know where this woman is, and the luxury of time isn’t something I have. So I’m going to ask you once more.”

  Kashani lost two more fingers on his right hand before relenting and telling Demir of his involvement in helping Sei plan her attack and providing her weaponry. He also told him where she was headed with Kostas.

  Demir knew it would be very easy to cross over to the Greek island of Chios from her destination in Cesme. And if that were to happen, he and he alone would face the blowback from his screw-up.

  42

  Baki let out a shriek before I could clamp a hand down over his mouth and silence the little boy. “What are you doing sneaking around?” I asked as I lowered my knife.

  “I, I… Why do you have a knife?” he asked.

  Kostas stood up in front of the window, revealing himself and giving the boy yet another scare, but this time I kept his mouth shut.

  I closed the door behind us and locked it. “I asked my question first,” I said ushering the boy to the bed where I sat him down.

  “I’ve come to warn you.” His voice was timid and cracked slightly.

  “Warn us about what?” Kostas asked.

  Baki held a piece of paper in his hand. “My brother brought it home from work. He left it on the kitchen table.”

  I grabbed it and pushed the curtain back, letting the moonlight stream into the room. It looked like an official document, but it was written in Turkish.

  “I think it’s about you,” Baki added.

  I turned to Kostas. “Can you read Turkish?”

  Kostas took the document and scanned it for a few seconds before his head nodded in agreement with the boy. “This document was issued by the Askeri Inzibat. It’s basically a wanted poster. It has a pretty good description of you. It says you were seen traveling in a truck transporting goats to Siverek where you switched vehicles, possibly to a silver Peugeot driven by a man. The military police are instructed to apprehend you, as well as the driver. If necessary, deadly force can be used.” Kostas handed the paper back to me. “Seems like they have a pretty good handle on us.”

  “Demir must have intercepted the goat herders.”

  “Still, it doesn’t say anything about where we might be heading, so that’s a positive.”

  “Demir isn’t stupid. He knows I need to get out of the country and will assume we’re heading west to one of the coastal towns near the Aegean Sea.”

  “There are many. He can’t cover them all.”

  Baki sat quietly on the bed while Kostas and I carried on with our conversation. I turned to the boy. “Where’s your brother now?”

  “He’s sleeping. He won’t wake up until lunch.”

  I looked back at Kostas. “We have until noon to distance ourselves as far as possible. Expect the Askeri Inzibat to be looking for us in every town. We can’t stop until we reach the coast.”

  Kostas let out a breath and nodded his agreement. “But the car?”

  “I told you, we don’t need it.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  I shifted my weight from one foot to another. “I am. We’ll hide in the open. They’ll never suspect.”

  Kostas rested his hands on his hips and then looked out the window. “I hope you’re right.”

  I bent down to look Baki in the eyes. “Do you know where your brother keeps the key to his truck?”

  Baki nodded.

  “Could you get it for us without waking him?” The boy paused long enough for me to think he had grown a conscience. “It’ll be our little secret, okay?” I continued.

  “That won’t work. He only understands one thing.” Kostas dug into the front pocket of his jeans and fished out fifty euros. “Hey, buddy, how much candy do you think you can buy with this?”

  Baki’s eyes widened and huge grin appeared on his face before he snatched the bill from Kostas. He then jumped to his feet and hurried over to the door.

  “Shhhh,” I said. “Remember to be very quiet.”

  He nodded and then slipped out of the room.

  We sat quietly on the bed, waiting for Baki to return.

  “What are the odds he tells his brother that we took the truck?” Kostas asked “Maybe we should tie him up and leave him in the room. I mean, he could go running back and blab right after we leave.”

  There was a real possibility that our bribe wouldn’t work. “Okay, we’ll tie and gag him. Hopefully that’ll buy us time until the morning when the family wakes and realizes he’s missing.”

  It seemed like every decision we had to make relied on
the actions of some other person. But I had to remain positive; I had a daughter to find. However, there was a silver lining—Kostas was as just as deep in that mess. From that point on, I figured I could count on his full cooperation.

  It felt longer, but ten minutes later, we heard a soft knock on the door. I looked at Kostas and pressed a finger against my lips before making my way to the door. I turned the knob and pulled it open… only I didn’t find Baki on the other side. I found the barrel of a gun pointed at my face.

  The man holding the revolver grunted something in Turkish and motioned with his weapon for me to back up. I did, and he followed me into the room, flipping the light switch on along the way. The low wattage bulb in the ceiling fixture lit the room in a brownish light. If it had been brighter, our eyes would have had a harder time adjusting.

  At that moment, Baki’s head popped into view from behind his brother. He had an even bigger grin on his face than before. You little shit.

  “You’re in big trouble,” Baki sang playfully. He then spoke to his brother in Turkish. He sounded as if he were gloating about how he helped his brother catch us. It was sad to see, but it distracted his brother just enough. A mistake.

  I reached up with lighting speed and disarmed him before he could utter another word in Turkish. I pointed the gun at him and gestured with my finger for him to lie on the floor. Kostas acted just as fast and silenced Baki as he started to yell.

  “Now what?” he asked as he held the squirming boy, muffling his screams.

  I hit Baki’s brother on the back of the head with the butt of the gun and knocked him out cold. I looked back at Kostas. “I took care of mine.”

  Kostas rolled his eyes before slipping an arm under the boy’s chin and applied a chokehold. Baki lost consciousness, and Kostas laid him gently down on the bed. “We have no more than a few minutes before the kid wakes up.”