by Rik Stone
“How has this happened? Somebody should have heard the fracas. The club isn’t that far away.”
“After the rumblings we’ve been hearing lately, people would have thought it was the beginning of another earthquake,” he said, thinking back to the ground vibrating under his feet when the club exploded. He’d felt it two kilometres away. “An earthquake would have been easier to deal with.”
Gizem sat bolt upright. “What’s done is done. Let’s think. We can’t do anything about the businesses or the money for now. We need to focus our attention on who did it and why. Talk me through what happened.”
Beyrek let out an exasperated breath, was about to protest, but what she was saying made sense enough. “We got to the club and I sent a few men ahead to scout the area. Serkhan, one of my ex-military men, said the attackers had blown the link to the Asparan Road. But he also reckoned they were laying a false trail. Don’t ask me how he figured that out. One of the others found four of our people dead halfway up a crevice on the hillside opposite the club. They had been killed with Russian sniper rifles, Dragunovs. Serkhan determined it was a professional hit, probably military.”
“Have we…?”
“Yes, but wait. You said you wanted to go though the details, so let me finish.”
Her lips set in a straight line, but she sat back and allowed Beyrek to continue.
“My people went over the ridge and found the bus the girls are delivered in. It was halfway down the mountain on the other side, another delaying tactic. The only good news is that there was a lot of blood in it.”
“You think it’s theirs?”
“Who else could it be from? Anyway, the bus proved without doubt they didn’t go north. That left the coast on the other side of the peninsular. They could be sailing away now or holed up locally, waiting for things to die down.
“There are Kurd bandits in that area. I sent Serkhan with a few men to see whether they had anything to do with it. I told him to promise money and amnesty. Believe me, for money those people would sell their souls.
“One of the local whores came to us from the club and she got a good look at two of the bombers. She didn’t know how many others were in on it, but she gave good descriptions of the two she saw.”
Impatience strained Gizem’s face. “Yes and…?”
“Well, she started with a young man and I didn’t make a connection at first. But the more she talked, the more the description of the Istanbul killer began to fit.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? I still have a newspaper cutting in my wallet. I showed it to her and told her to imagine the man with his hair styled as in the photo fit.”
Gizem’s eyebrows lifted quizzically.
“‘I couldn’t swear, Mister Ozel,’ she told me, ‘but it’s very like him. No, no, the more I look at it, the surer I am it is him. Yes, definitely, it was him,’” Beyrek said.
Gizem looked frustrated. “God, none of this makes sense.”
“I’m not finished. When she gave a description of the other man, you’ll never guess whose ugly head reared up – Yuri. I couldn’t have given a better description of him myself.”
Gizem nodded and gave a pained smile. “You’ve done well, Beyrek.”
He continued. “It was good to bring my thoughts to the surface. I think I’ve just realised what’s going on. Yuri is working with an unknown Russian or Russians and they’re trying to move in on the flesh business. I don’t think they could’ve known about the drug trade or they wouldn’t have blown up the Semtex: they would’ve seen it as another business opportunity. I think they killed Ahmet and the others in Istanbul to draw us away from their real intentions.”
“I don’t see how… Okay, yes, I suppose that could be right. So they’ve stolen the peasants to give themselves a stake and destroyed the club to show us up as vulnerable. And Yuri is Russian. He might even know our suppliers. If he were to set up a club somewhere on the Aegean coast, he would be in a position to make a takeover bid to the people in Moscow.”
“Yes, you’re right. We have to turn our partners against Yuri and his people before he has a chance to make his play. The Russian girls in Istanbul waiting to be sold; we’ll bring a couple back, have them tortured and mutilated, send photographs to Nabokovski in Moscow and persuade him Yuri was responsible. Money is what makes Nabokovski tick. The loss of trade will be enough to set him against Yuri.”
“That sounds good, but what about the drug franchise?”
“It pains me to say it, Gizem, but we’re going to have to take the hit on that one. Unless you can come up with something.”
She made no answer and he went into the lounge shaking his head.
Chapter 48
Clearing the headland, Yuri reset the course, tethered the helm and dangled Mehmet over the bow of the boat. The sun was hot on his back, and white horses galloped proudly over the Aegean Sea. The craft drove into the oncoming swells and his body tingled and glowed as the water dusted him with a cooling spray. After tearing the label from the hull, Yuri pulled him back up.
“Strictly Business – a fitting name,” Mehmet said, rolling up the label.
They had stuck a false name over the yacht’s original title – Turkish Girl.
“A false trail was necessary. Beyrek’s people won’t get the better of the Kurds – they’re hardened soldiers. But maybe he could sway them by putting money on the table. Still, the name deception won’t help if the boat is boarded, so let’s hope we don’t pick up interest along the way. Take the helm while I change this shirt.”
Yuri took the blooded shirt off before disappearing into the saloon. He’d been right about the madman’s bullet; the graze from it had barely broken the skin. Left alone, Mehmet played the rescue over in his mind and was startled when Yuri came back. His hair was jet black. He had also changed into a pair of black swim shorts. Mehmet was trying to think of a send-up, but before he could, Yuri handed him black boot polish.
“And put these on,” he said, pushing a pair of yellow bathing shorts at him.
He’d brought the two girls with the darkest skin up top with him – maybe because they were the most voluptuous. And they were certainly that.
“Put these swimsuits on. I want you to stay out on the main deck and sunbathe,” Yuri demanded, holding out white bikinis. Both girls shied away as if he were trying to set them on fire.
“No,” one of them answered. “I can’t wear something like that.”
Yuri’s lips blew out like inflated tyres. “Okay, you’d prefer to die or be sold into a life of prostitution than show a little flesh now. Your choice.” He turned to go below.
“Wait,” the same girl said. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Give me a swimsuit.”
He handed the little scraps of cloth over. “I’m sorry too, but it’s important we should look like we’re sailing for pleasure.”
The girls went to change and Mehmet asked Yuri, “Why did you tell the Kurds we were on a heading for Jablah in Lebanon?”
“For the same reason I faked the name on the boat: misdirection.”
The girls came back up and Mehmet had to admit, they filled the bikinis beautifully. The letch on his face must have told his story because Yuri gave him a withering glare.
“Sorry,” he said.
“What’s your name?” Yuri asked of the girl who’d stood up for herself earlier.
“Alyona,” she answered.
“Come, Alyona, I want to show you how to hold a course.”
He took both girls to the helm, moved Mehmet aside and taught them a little basic handling.
“That’s good, just keep her on that heading,” he said and went below with Mehmet. On the fore side of the palatial saloon, they went down into the long passageway leading to the sleeping quarters and knocked on the door where the injured girl was resting. Natasha opened it a fraction.
“I need to speak with you, but not in front of Olga,” Yuri said.
She came out into t
he passage, closed the door and leant against it.
“How is she?” he asked.
“She’s lost a lot of blood and needs attention. But there’s something else, something different. She cries when she hears you in the passageway. She’s terrified of men. I know when we were being held in that room she was taken out by our captors. It’s more or less after her return that she’s acted so strangely. I asked her about it, but she dismissed it as nothing. But now, I think the whole thing has become too much for her.”
Mehmet had no idea what Yuri was thinking at hearing the words, but the men getting off the bus with the cameras was first thing that came to his mind. They’d abused her and filmed the act. The strange thing was Natasha had no idea, so he could only think the other girls hadn’t been touched yet and were being kept virginal to meet a higher price.
“I noticed you’ve changed her dress. Did you see anything unusual about her condition?” Mehmet asked.
Natasha gave him a surprised, quizzical reaction. “Why yes, she has a lot of bruising. What makes you ask that?”
He coughed. He didn’t want to tell Natasha what he was thinking. “Oh, nothing really. I wonder… Maybe the gang beat her for some reason.”
Yuri cut in. “Okay, let’s go and see her. Frightened or not, we have to make some kind of repair, albeit temporary,” he said, the previous piece of conversation seeming lost on him.
Natasha went into the cabin first. It wasn’t a large room. The gulet was designed for commercial use and there were six passenger cabins and two more for crew. Natasha was sharing the biggest of the cabins with Olga.
Mehmet followed her in with Yuri close behind. Olga lay propped up on the double bunk. She was as white as the cotton castles of Pamukkale, but even distressed and injured it was clear that she would easily be the most beautiful girl in the group. She looked up startled and her formerly sleepy eyes widened in terror. Natasha rushed to her, wrapped her in her arms and consoled her.
“Get me the medical box and bring a glass of water,” Yuri told Mehmet as he edged past.
Mehmet got the box and Yuri took out a jar, spooned white powder into the glass, handed it to Natasha and pushed Mehmet out into the corridor with him. Mehmet looked back and saw Natasha holding the drink to Olga’s lips, encouraging her to drink. A minute passed and Olga was sleeping like a baby.
“I had to drug her,” Yuri said, coming back in. “If she bleeds much more, she could slip into a coma.”
He rummaged in the box, took out scissors, safety pins, gauze, cotton pads, iodine and tape and laid them out neatly on the table next to the bed.
“Shit,” he said, “no catgut or needles. This isn’t going to be pretty.”
He poured tincture of iodine over the cutting edge of the scissors, letting the spill go into a bowl, and trimmed the girl’s dress from elbow to neckline. Gingerly, he pulled the material away from the bits of blood that were trying, but failing, to congeal and folded it down and over her chest. Using swabs and more iodine, he set to work cleaning the area around the wound. Olga remained unconscious, but moaned deliriously.
The arm was purple with bruising as far down as her wrist, and it was badly swollen. The bullet had torn a channel through the muscle a fraction below the shoulder joint.
“These’ll do the trick,” Yuri said, finding tweezers and using them to pick the remaining particles of cotton dress from the wound.
Finishing, he cleaned the area with iodine, poured some into the bowl, and dropped several safety pins into it.
“Mehmet, pinch the wound,” he commanded.
While Mehmet nipped the flesh, Yuri pinned the two sides of the wound together. They did the same all the way along the lesion until it was completely sealed.
“Not much of a fix, but it will have to do until we get back to Istanbul. The bleeding has stopped and I don’t think she has lost as much blood as we first thought.”
He finished up with more iodine, dabbed her arm dry, sprinkled antibiotic powder over the safety-pin stitches and wrapped her arm with cotton pads and gauze. He used the leftover pins to fasten her dress back up over her shoulder.
“There, she shouldn’t get any painful knocks with that lot on.”
As if on cue, the girl came back to life, mumbling incoherently.
“Almost as good as new,” Yuri said and rested a giant hand against her cheek, but she pulled back and cried out pitifully.
Yuri nodded to Natasha and left the cabin. Mehmet followed him out, closing the door as he left.
“Nothing else we can do there. Let’s see how my new crew are managing,” Yuri said.
They cleared the passageway and were about to climb the steps out of the saloon when the helmswoman shouted, “Yuri, you should get up here now.”
“Get out of sight,” Yuri shouted to the girls scattered around the area and rushed up onto the deck.
A helicopter hovered close by, moving ever nearer. The blades whipped and whumped, unsettling the stillness, and Mehmet had to wonder how they hadn’t heard its approach.
“Ignore them. Go,” Yuri told the girls. “Soak up some sun… Take the helm, Mehmet.”
Mehmet moved to the helm, keeping under the shadow of the Bimini cover. He picked up the polish and rubbed it onto the shaven parts of his head. Yuri joined the girls and Mehmet slipped the shorts on.
The helicopter neared, inching as close as it could safely get. The blue skies darkened and Mehmet felt as though his eardrums were being pulled out, as the whumming of the blades seemed to draw up the air from around him.
The side door of the helicopter was open and two men sat on the floor, legs dangling over the side. Another two stood behind them, each held a sub-machine gun across his body and stared down without greeting, without question. They just hovered, watching. The sound of the machine’s blades throbbed and Mehmet peeped through the rigging. The pilot was up front, chatting incessantly into a microphone that looped down from earphones and made a horizontal line across his mouth.
Yuri returned aft with the girls and tried to look indignant. He shouted to Alyona above the noise. “Wave your arms at them.”
The girls waved and the faces of the men softened slightly. One wrote something and Mehmet thought he was going to throw down a message, but he returned the notepad to his breast pocket. It wasn’t about the girls. He would be taking the name of the boat so he could check out its credentials. Or maybe just keep it for reference: there were hundreds if not thousands of gulets like this one in these waters. They would want to keep track of what they were doing.
“Wave for them to join us,” Yuri told Alyona.
“But what if they do?” she asked.
“And how would they do that from a helicopter?” Yuri replied, probably with fingers crossed. They could easily drop a line and rappel down.
The girls jumped up and down, breasts jiggling. Mehmet turned his attention to the helicopter; this was no time for the kind of thoughts he was having.
Yuri shouted at the girls while waving his arms in the air and then put his hands on his hips, stretching them back out to the helicopter crew in question. “What do you want?” he yelled.
The men in the chopper laughed uproariously while making obscene gestures to the girls. But a man in a uniform came into sight and spoke through a cupped hand to the notebook man. The man listened, nodded and then banged his rifle stock on the floor. The chopper made a quarter-turn and flew off in the opposite direction to the course of the yacht.
“They’ll be looking for boats on a heading for Jablah. They only checked us out because … because we were there,” Yuri said, looking pleased with himself.
“But they’ve taken the boat’s name. They’ll radio ahead and make a check on ownership against the registry,” Mehmet said.
“Yes, I think they did that before they left. But Turkish Girl is registered legally in the name of an Istanbul businessman. Even if Beyrek were to guess I’m involved from the descriptions he’ll have got from his prostitutes,
there isn’t any paperwork to tie my name to this boat. He’ll have no reason to suspect.”
“But if they follow up with a check on Strictly Business and find that name was false, they might come back.”
“No, that one’s legally registered as well. I mean, what’s the point of me having all those city officials under my control if I never make use of them? Don’t worry, they’ll forget about this boat and continue their search for Strictly Business.”
Yuri gave his attention to Alyona. “You don’t have to stay in those bikinis if you’re uncomfortable. They won’t be back… And thank you, what you did could well have saved us all.”
They held their arms across their bosoms, arched their bodies forward and scurried below as if they’d just been released from cages.
*
The gulet followed the same course to Istanbul as when taking Hannah and Becca to the awaiting merchant ship. But now, before reaching the Bosporus strait, they made way to Yenikapi.
“It’s the middle of the night. We’ll have to moor up and hang onto the girls until someone at the embassy can come and meet us,” said Mehmet.
“I radioed ahead to the embassy when you nodded off some hours ago. I’ve arranged for someone to be waiting on our arrival,” Yuri told him.
The gulet made its approach and Mehmet saw a Russian diplomatic car, large, black and gleaming, waiting at the quayside. An embassy guard jumped out on seeing them and came to assist. Mehmet threw him a rope from midships. He caught it and pulled it taut around a bollard, shortening its length as the boat manoeuvred closer.
The driver in the limo got out, stretched, took a last drag of a cigarette and stubbed it under a dark brogue as he watched the proceedings.
One by one, the girls stepped up onto the gunwale, the embassy guard helping them ashore. Olga took a step up but then cowered back as the guard reached out a hand. Natasha then got up onto the jetty and helped her off the boat. As they walked to the limo, Olga leaned heavily against Natasha and still looked like she might break down at a moment’s notice.
Mehmet began unloading the other girls, but watched Natasha take Olga to the awaiting car. A woman, probably a nurse, was sitting in the back. Gingerly, she helped Olga in next to her and checked the bandaging after she’d sat her down. The nurse beckoned Natasha into the car, the driver took the front seat, doors swished shut and the limo pulled silently away. The other girls watched from the quayside, looking lost and abandoned, but the embassy guard who had helped Mehmet tie up was quick to pacify, leading them off to a mini-coach parked in a side street. Not long after that, they were gone too.
