by Rik Stone
Mehmet knew Oz’s problem was about them not telling Selim what they were up to. “Look, Oz, it was you who said you wanted to be included in the escape. You can go back to the detail now if you want. I’ll do it alone. It will be easier like that anyway.”
Oz huffed in submission. He wasn’t exactly overjoyed, but Mehmet knew how desperate he was to get out. He’d been in Synopi nearly ten years longer. He was sure he’d be happy enough once they put distance between them and the prison.
“Good. If we go unnoticed today, we make our move tomorrow.”
They re-joined the detail late afternoon and returned to the compound. Oz wandered off sulking after saying, “I’m going to the cell.” Mehmet slouched against the wall, let the sun baste his face.
A few minutes later, Selim came over from the other side of the yard. “Seen Oz?” he asked without slowing his footfall. Thank goodness: he was in a hurry.
“He’s in the cell, felt a bit sick.”
“Okay, tell him I’ve got that rolling tobacco I promised,” he said, and with that was gone.
Another hour passed and Oz came back into the yard, still dragging his feet. “Selim has that rolling tobacco he promised you,” Mehmet told him.
“Rolling tobacco,” Oz said, eyes lighting up. “Good old Selim.”
Mehmet wasn’t sure if he’d said that on purpose. If he had, it worked; he felt as guilty as hell. But he pushed the comment aside. Except for the scheming behind Selim’s back, everything was going well. He felt excited, left Oz where he was and walked away with his head down. Almost to the cell block, he hadn't noticed Selim and walked into him.
“Sorry, Selim, my thoughts were somewhere else,” he said.
He gave Mehmet a suspicious look. “No problem. Is everything all right with you, Mehmet? You seem … I don’t know, awkward.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. “I think the heat of the day has worn me down.”
Oz caught up having dogged Mehmet’s footsteps. Selim handed him the tobacco without asking if he still felt sick and Oz whooped with delight. Then what Oz had been feeling hit Mehmet. Selim was his friend and he was betraying him. And he was making it obvious.
“Well, it’s certainly stopped you badgering me about an escape,” Selim said.
Mehmet laughed but knew it didn’t sound sincere. “Oh yes, we must talk about that,” he joked and that didn’t sound convincing either.
Selim skewed his head slightly sideways and stared at Mehmet, but then turned away, left them to complete his check of the inside perimeter wall.
“He knows, Mehmet,” Oz said when Selim was out of earshot.
“No, he doesn’t,” Mehmet said. “He couldn’t.”
*
Mehmet didn’t sleep well that night. Thoughts were of Selim when he dropped off and were still there the many times he woke with a start. After the life he’d had, he hated the idea of betrayal, but… Should he tell Selim and be dammed? A noble thought, but every time it passed through his head, the persistent desire for freedom overruled it. No, he had to get out!
Morning came, Mehmet mustered, and the idea of telling Selim had dissolved along with the night. The detail was first in the yard for breakfast and after eating, they gathered by the gates. The guards led them down the hill and they spent a cloudy morning picking olives.
“It isn’t overly hot today. Do you think we’ll still get our break?” Mehmet asked Oz.
“Definitely,” he said. “Look, the guards are gathering at their usual place.”
The group disbanded, headed for the shade of bushier olive trees. Mehmet and Oz found the spot they’d hidden in the previous day and lay there motionless for hours. The detail finished the afternoon shift and left for the compound. The sun went down and darkness came. The penitentiary walls were a good distance away, but the laughter coming from the gun tower cut through the silence as if they were right next to them.
Mehmet gave Oz a tug. “C’mon, we’ve got to go.”
They crept away, backs hunched and footfall a whisper. Mehmet always felt the first grove would be the telling point, but they crossed through easily and entered the second, creeping forward, but on the other side a stranger’s footsteps dragged in the dust. Mehmet and Oz picked their heads up at the same time and then stopped dead.
“Selim,” Mehmet croaked.
“Going somewhere?” Selim asked, standing at the end of the dirt track, hand cupping a smouldering cigarette. He lifted the stub to his lips and drew deeply. Smoke dribbled from his nostrils like dragon breath. “You think I’m stupid, Mehmet?” He looked more hurt than angry.
Oz moved behind Mehmet. Mehmet felt a lump cram for space in his throat and squeaked his answer. “No, Selim, of course not. We were making the escape without your knowledge out of respect. I swear.”
Selim shook his head. “Oh please, tell me how it’s a mark of respect for the pair of you to go behind my back and ridicule me.”
“No, no, not the pair of us,” Mehmet said, and Oz tucked in behind him so much, Selim probably couldn’t even see him by now. “Oz didn’t want to go along with it. I made him, I promise. I’m desperate, Selim. I have to get out. I have unfinished business and it must be seen to, even at the cost of my life. Please believe me when I say I didn’t want to offend you. If there was anything else I could’ve done, I would’ve done it. You’ve been like a brother to me and I wouldn’t want to do anything to … please, Selim.”
Selim turned away, his head hung low and he kicked up dust from the road. Suddenly, a light flared a beam wide and strong from atop the wall. It lit up the groves and beyond.
“Who’s there?” a voice shouted.
Selim stood firm while Oz and Mehmet ducked into the olive trees.
“Stand down,” Selim shouted. “It’s me, Selim. I’m having a smoke and checking the area. Turn that fucking light off; you’re blinding me.”
The beam died. Mehmet and Oz came out and silence hung in the air as they all stood staring at each other.
Selim broke the quiet. “Mehmet, you’re a ghost. You won’t be missed, and I do understand your need to leave. But you, Oz, you’re on the register and will be missed. Go together and they’ll hunt both of you down. Mehmet, you can go. Oz, you must come back with me.”
“No…” Oz wept weakly, his weight falling against Mehmet as his knees buckled.
Mehmet’s loyalty kicked in and his heart grew heavy. “Thanks, Selim, but I can’t go without Oz.”
“Then you must both come back.”
“But you and I are brothers, Selim,” Mehmet pleaded.
“I thought so,” he replied. “But a brother wouldn’t put me at risk.”
Mehmet’s shoulders slumped. He nodded and the three of them started back to the stockade. But there must be a way, he thought, there had to be… If only he could talk Selim round. And then it hit him. There was a way – the other ghosts. Mehmet’s sympathies had often been invoked by one. A man called Altan. He was bullied, beaten, and rumour had it the guards were raping him. If only Mehmet could persuade Selim.
“Wait, Selim. There is one way we could both go.”
Selim stopped. He looked irritated as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Well?”
“You can give Oz’s identity to one of the ghosts. When the roll call is made, the ghost you choose can say he’s Oz.”
“Yes, of course,” Selim smirked. “And one of the ghosts is sure to go along with that, for the good of his fellow man.” He shook his head and a cynical laugh grated from his throat.
“But some of them are being abused, especially the one called Altan. Offer him your protection and tell him that one day there might even be a chance of reprieve… Who would refuse such an offer? Please, Selim.”
Selim walked back and forward, and then back down towards the dirt track. Mehmet and Oz trailed a half-step behind. Selim smoothed his chin and rubbed his hand over his face. He shook his head, scraped his boots across the dust and Mehmet’s heart was in his mouth. He just
couldn’t tell which way Selim’s thoughts were going. He almost stopped breathing as he waited to find out and then had to grab for air to appease his lungs.
Selim stopped, stood with his legs apart and his hands on his hips, and nodded triumphantly. “Yes, it will work,” he announced. “But you must go now. Both of you – go.”
Oz ran to Selim and tried to embrace him. Selim pushed him off and walked away, but then stopped and came back.
“You’ll need this,” he said, stashing a heavy roll of lire into Mehmet’s hand. Then he turned and walked back up the hill.
Chapter 28
Icmeler, Turkey, 1967
Beyrek Ozel sat in one of the warehouses where the heroin was stored. His wife, Gizem, sat across from him. He would rather have been at the club, The Turkish Delight, with his Russian girls, but he wasn’t, so he and Gizem stared at each other over a couple of coffees that had long since grown cold. Gizem wore the expression she always had when there was a problem and Beyrek hated it; like she’d been drinking curdled milk. Sighing, he pushed away the coffee, retrieved a bottle from the stationery cupboard and poured a Raki.
“You?” he asked, tottering the bottle over an empty glass.
“No. I’ve got no more stomach for that than I had the coffee,” Gizem answered curtly.
“It might be nothing. Don’t worry,” Beyrek said, voice singing, but feeling as bitter as his wife looked.
They’d not long been told that his Russian partner, Captain Otto Mitrokhin, had sold his side of the business to another Russian: a man called Vladislav Nabokovski. Otto had struck up the partnership with Beyrek in the fifties to launder his money, and then in the sixties the business grew. Russian girls were tricked into thinking they were headed for a better life while, in reality, Beyrek groomed them for prostitution and sold them on. Otto had kept his nose out of the dealings, happy to take his cut from afar. But now Nabokovski was stepping in to take his place and he was the ‘hands-on’ type. All well and good, but if he got too close, he could stumble onto the drug trade, and Beyrek’s other Russian partners had made it clear that if the flesh traffickers found out about the drugs, they would move the business.
Gizem kept on prodding. “You’re wrong. Nabokovski could be the biggest problem you’ve had to date.”
Beyrek let his mind drift. It was because of the partnership with Otto that he’d had to kill Levent. Strange how things…
“Are you listening?” Gizem demanded.
His feathers ruffled. “Yes, of course. I’m giving it my full attention, woman.”
She started again. “Otto has forewarned you that Nabokovski is Russian mafia, so you can’t just ignore what is happening, hope it will go away–”
“Oh, for… Gizem let me think.” He swallowed the Raki in a gulp and poured another. Everything had been perfect; why had Otto had to go and spoil it?
Again, Gizem’s mouth flapped. “Leaving Russians here to oversee things can only mean trouble for trade … and we’ll probably lose the most lucrative of them.”
Beyrek sighed heavily. “Look, I know what Nabokovski thinks he’s doing, but it’s not going to happen. He won’t find out about the drug operation because I won’t let him. If you think I’m taking this lightly, Gizem, you’re wrong. We just need time to work–”
“But–”
“Enough!” he said, holding up a hand. He was tired of listening to her incessant bullying. Why couldn’t she just talk things over?
“We can’t start a war,” Gizem continued, refusing to be cowered. “If we do, you lose the trafficking business and the drugs.”
There she goes, stating the obvious. But he supposed he should let her have her say. She often came up with good ideas. “So what is the answer, my love?” he asked sarcastically.
The fire in Gizem’s eyes burnt into his and he flinched then straightened his back, smoothed his lapels between thumbs and forefingers and coughed into his chest. Mother of his children or not, she should be very careful about treating him with such contempt. People have died for less. But he knew the thoughts were just that, thoughts; he could never hurt Gizem.
“The answer isn’t totally clear yet, my love,” she said cynically. “But we have to keep him sweet and at the same time, persuade him it would be wrong to keep any of his people here.”
“Yes, but before that can happen, we have to let him leave two or three people here; we have no choice with that.”
Gizem agreed.
“Good,” Beyrek said. “I need to sort a little business out at the club.” He stood to leave.
“Make sure you take precautions,” Gizem said bitterly as his hand took hold of the door handle. “I don’t want you lying next to me with a disease oozing from you.”
He grunted and left the office.
*
Several days passed. Nabokovski was due in and Beyrek waited at the end of the runway in the Dalaman suburbs. His two cars had travelled forty kilometres over rough, winding roads from Icmeler. He was hot. He was tired. And he was far from euphoric. Beyrek knew this meeting with Nabokovski was about him learning his place in the greater scheme of things – bastard.
At last, a medium-sized aircraft came into sight, flying low over the hills. The hard lines of the plane distorted as they broke down in the shimmering heat. Beyrek stared blankly, wishing it would fall from the sky. But no such luck; it came in to land and rigid rubber tyres bounced several times on the runway, kicking off wafts of yellow cloud with each encounter. At the side of the strip, the dry grass was rustled and dust motes scattered into the air. The plane taxied and then came to a stop. Two field workers then pushed a set of steps up to the front door. An air hostess flung the door back and came down, waited to bid her passengers a pleasant onward journey.
Beyrek stood within a couple of metres of the stewardess as the first passenger alighted. Clearing the steps, the man stood behind Beyrek without having acknowledged him – uncomfortable: he was a big man with a fearsome expression. Four more men came out; three looked the same as the one behind him and Beyrek wondered if they were standard issue. The fourth was different: not overly tall, but as wide as any Beyrek had ever seen, almost monstrous in proportions; his bald head glistened as it bent forward to meet a white handkerchief, lifted to mop at the sweating dome. Nabokovski.
The Russian capo wore a brown, Italian-style suit with a darker brown chalk line running through the material. It was single-breasted with wide lapels and looked like pure wool. His white silk shirt was laced at the neck with a brown tie that was a smidgeon lighter than the suit. Everything matched perfectly down to his small feet, which were fitted with brown, patent-leather shoes that looked stylish and costly. A little respect crept into Beyrek’s mind; the man knew how to dress.
Nabokovski drew closer and Beyrek could smell perfumed skin – classy.
“You must be Beyrek Ozel,” Nabokovski said in not-very-good Turkish. “Else I want to know why he sent minion.”
“Yes, I’m Beyrek, and you must be Vladislav Nabokovski.”
“Yes. And I feel very hot here direct from Moscow. Too fucking hot. I don’t like,” he said, but he moved forward and embraced Beyrek, planting a kiss on each of his cheeks – not a pleasant experience.
Despite a stiff language barrier, they dropped surprisingly easily into conversation while crossing the runway to the limousines. Beyrek relaxed a little. As usual, the worst part of any problem is the anticipation. They got into the first of the two cars and sped off on their journey to Icmeler.
Chapter 29
Six days later, Beyrek took Nabokovski back to the airstrip and the awaiting plane. “Beyrek, been pleasure meeting. And remember, only left men with you, give you more muscle.”
Of course Beyrek believed that; how could he have managed all these years without them?
“I understand, Vladislav. They will be a welcome addition to the running of the business.”
Nabokovski embraced him, took to the steps and boarded the plane without
looking back. Beyrek, on the other hand, felt compelled to watch to make sure he left. The propellers thrummed, the plane taxied onto the runway, raced along it and took off, leaving a haze of dust in its wake. With the craft in the air, Beyrek’s shoulders sagged with relief and he made his way back to the car.
He got himself comfortable in the back and ordered the driver to go. The Russian heavies Nabokovski was leaving in Turkey had come along to chaperone their master, so now Beyrek would drop them off at The Turkish Delight, let them get lost in the fleshpot. It would keep them out of mischief. As they drove, the strength of the sun magnified through the window, he tired under its warmth and thoughts of Nabokovski ran sleepily through his mind.
He was a gross man, Beyrek couldn’t imagine anyone giving him an argument on that thought, and maybe that was why the fact filled him with disgust. The girls he used while in Icmeler were locals, said he needed a change from the usual Russians, and they were much too young. Beyrek had never given a shit about who liked what in that department, it was just business, but Nabokovski turned his stomach. Watching the young girls being led to his room caused a thread of sympathy to run through him that he never knew he had.
The car jolted him to the present as it drew to a halt at the club. He got out with the Russians, went into the club and told the manager to let them have who and what they wanted. Back in the car, he ordered the driver to take him to the warehouse. Gizem had said she would wait there for him. With Nabokovski gone and the remaining Russians not appearing too bright, his feelings towards Gizem had changed yet again. And why not? She was the mother of his children after all. But, getting through the door, his spirits sunk on seeing the sour look on her face – what now?
“I’ve racked my brains, Beyrek,” she told him, “but a plan to rid us of these people will be harder than I had first imagined.”
“So, plain and simple, we’re in the shit,” he replied with venom. But then a spike of fear suddenly ran up his back as another scenario jumped to mind. He shared the thought with Gizem. “If these goons find out about the drugs, Nabokovski might think he’s been double-crossed… If that happens, we could lose more than the businesses.”
