City of War (54 page)

“Thanks, how’s the weather down there?”

“A little overcast, but nothing significant. Five miles visibility.”

“Good, I’m pretty lousy on instruments too. You got a runway I can drop onto so we can chat?”

“It’d be nice to have a mission name or an authorizing officer.”

“How about Marlon Hood?”

Silence, then, “Use One-Four Right. See you in a few minutes.”

“Major?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to need a full set of shackles and a car. Nothing military.”

“And just this morning I was saying nothing ever happens around here.”

The road northeast out of Incirlik had turned hot, flat and empty. The red Chrysler with the super-tinted windows was
Major Borden’s personal car. He’d bought it over the Internet from a dealer in Dallas and had it shipped out in a C-5. He said the air force had dinged him two grand for handling, but now he had the best air-conditioning in the country, and it was worth every penny. Looking at the temperature gauge and seeing 121, I agreed.

Truman had made some commotion during the switch-over from tape to shackles, but when you’re wearing a hood, it’s hard to get a bead on your opponent, and I clocked him again. Now he rode alongside me, alternately grunting and calling me a motherfucker. The pillowcase was dripping blood now, so the last punch had either smashed his nose, or he’d bitten his tongue. I didn’t bother to check which.

I hadn’t told him where he was, but he knew. After you’ve lived abroad for a while, you realize that every place has its own unique smell. Southern Turkey’s verdant green, salt wind, even the sun, all carried their portion of the region’s olfactory identity. The rest was borne by the people themselves: baking bread, livestock, spices, decaying fish, blue exhaust and rivers of sweat. All giving dimension to a thriving democracy.

But Truman York wasn’t interested in travel brochures, and neither was I.

Ilker Koca was no longer mayor of Tasar, but a kid named Farouk in white cotton shorts, a Cowboys T-shirt and a tattered fisherman’s cap offered to lead me to him for twenty bucks. I followed the Vespa east for an hour and eventually into a dusty, sprawling town where camels and donkeys stood alongside big Mercedes. Here, Farouk had said, Ilker ruled over the extended Koca family.

A hodgepodge of two-story, vaguely European-style homes was set amid hundreds of tents, some small and worn, others large and ornate, and I struggled to keep sight of the Vespa as Farouk zigged and zagged through the impossibly narrow lanes, scattering dogs, goats and chickens. Once or twice I brushed against something I’m sure I wasn’t sup
posed to, and I worried some curious citizen would wander out and I wouldn’t see him until it was too late.

We finally stopped at the entrance to a majestic, bright crimson tent accented by woven gold. In the shade of the entrance’s portico, several veiled women knelt on rugs working at something. I left the car running and got out. As I approached, I saw the women were sorting silver beads of all manner of design. None of them looked up, and my guide frantically motioned for me to go back to the car.

I leaned on the hot door while Farouk took off his fisherman’s cap and entered the tent. I glanced at Truman, who was straining against his seat belt, as if by getting his head closer to the windshield he might be able to see through the cotton cloth.

Suddenly, there was loud shouting inside the tent, and the women scattered. A few moments later, a bearded man in his thirties wearing traditional tribal dress came out. He had Farouk by the neck with one hand and was brandishing a dagger in the other. The kid started struggling even harder, but the man tightened his grip.

He looked at me. “You, why do you come to this place?” he called out.

“I have business with Ilker Koca,” I answered.

“I am Mehmet Koca, his son,” he said. “Any business you have with my father, you have with me. But first, you will watch while this young fool has an eye taken for bringing a stranger to our village.”

I looked at Farouk. The terror on his face told me it wasn’t an empty threat.

“I forced him to do it,” I said.

This seemed to take Mehmet off-guard. “How could you force him?” he said angrily. “He could have ridden away at any time.”

“I told him that my business with Ilker Koca was of such importance that if he did not take me, someone would slit his throat for his negligence.”

Mehmet looked at me for a moment, then laughed loud
and long. “I do not believe you, but you are clever and quick.” He pushed Farouk away, and the boy stumbled to his Vespa and was gone in a heartbeat. “Come inside out of the heat,” Mehmet said. Then, for the first time, he looked at the idling car. “Is there someone else?”

“Yes, but he’ll be fine,” I said. He’s very good at waiting.”

Given the blast furnace outside, the comfort of the tent was surprising and welcome. I removed my shoes and followed Mehmet onto the raised platform that constituted the main living area. Ringed by a ground-level walkway, it was roughly thirty by fifty feet and carpeted with a checkerboard of Middle Eastern rugs overlaid with animal skins.

A dozen squat dining tables with three-foot-round hammered metal tops dotted the room, and each of the elaborately carved support posts running down the center of the tent had a shallow oil bowl hanging from it to provide light. Along three sides of the far end of the platform was a long wicker sofa covered with crimson, green and gold cushions, and there, a group of bearded older men sat, talking among themselves.

Mehmet turned to me. All pretense of menace was gone, replaced by an amused look. “So, what is this important and deadly business, my friend?”

“I don’t wish to offend you, but it is business for your father only. If he wishes to include you, I have no objection, but that must be his choice.”

He started to say something, but I stopped him. “It is about the past, and it concerns your sister.”

I watched his face change. After a moment, he turned and walked toward the old men. They spoke quietly, then Mehmet gestured for me to join them.

Ilker Koca had probably never been a large man, but now he was shrunken almost into his skin. His naturally dark complexion was a deep gray, and the whites of his eyes were yellow. Liver cancer, I guessed. Perhaps kidney failure setting in.

When he spoke, it was in a rasp, and he didn’t waste words. “You have brought me something?”

“Truman York.”

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.

“And the second man? The base commander?”

“He will not be coming.”

Ilker Koca looked deeply into my eyes. “In good time,” he said. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“You are doing it. My sympathies for what happened to your daughter.”

When I got back to the Chrysler, they had already taken Truman away. I fingered the key to the shackles and decided they didn’t need it.

I wheeled the big machine around and headed toward Incirlik. A mile out of the village, I stopped and got out. I threw the key as far as I could. When I got back in the car, I felt a lot lighter. I hoped Major Borden had a bed I could fall into.

44

Grandfathers and Ashes

It was a perfect autumn day in London. The wind whipped red and gold leaves across the Stansted Airport runway like welcoming confetti and pushed banks of clouds about the sky so the sun could alternately tease the landscape with the last remnants of the season gone, then plunge it into a preview of the coming months of gray.

Mallory had been staring out the window. “My grandfather spent his entire life soldiering for the Empire, yet every letter he wrote home opened with his memories of this lovely, gentle land. And each time I see it after an absence, I realize it is a stamp upon my soul I shall never lose, nor wish to.”

Archer was seated on the opposite side of the cabin, and she had been quiet since we’d crossed into British airspace. “I’ve always flown into Heathrow or Gatwick. This is…how can I say it…more Englandy.”

“I think you have a future in travel posters,” I said. But she was right. The first great city after the Fall of Rome is making great strides at devolving into another neon-encrusted theme jungle engorged with chain hotels, logoed boutiques and Disney musicals. In my formerly marvelously quirky homeland, where unique was as ingrained in the national character as understatement, one can now order the exact same overdressed dish while sitting in exactly the same bilious décor as in a dozen other “world-class cities.” Meaning that if you happen to drain an extra martini or two, it is entirely possible to forget which language to use when you stumble outside to hail a cab. One can only marvel at the advancement.

Some hard-core traditionalists chart the beginning of the end of British civilization to the day Harrods opened a pizzeria. I’m inclined to go with the razing of my favorite drinking establishment, The Four Swords—in the business of quenching thirsts since 1744—to make room for a day spa called U! U! U! The Philistines have clearly won, so “more Englandy,” anywhere, is to be applauded.

The livery service had sent a pair of Range Rovers, but I released one after Eddie and Jody said they were going to fly Jannicke back to California the following morning. “It’s not that I haven’t had a marvelous time,” she said as she embraced me. “How many opportunities does one get to escape assassins then hide out with a professional wrestler
and
a princess? But Neiman Marcus is jamming my voice mail, and if I don’t start paying attention to business, I’ll have to move into your screening room.”

“I can think of worse things,” I replied. “But I’m not sure I’d wish Old Grumpy full-time on anybody.”

Mallory didn’t disappoint. He grunted and led her away for a private good-bye.

“And I promised Julien I’d follow up on the new Aquascan,” Eddie said. “And I really miss my boat.” Then, after a look from Ms. Cayne, he hastily added, “Liz too, of course.”

Of course. “Steer clear of Texarkana,” I said.

“If you need me, I can turn around and come right back.”

I shook my head. “You’ve done enough, Eddie. When I get home we’ll have that dinner at Titanium.”

“Good, that gives me an excuse to stop and slap that fuckin’ Bernard around a little so he’s with the program when we get there.”

Archer, Mallory and I waited until they booked rooms at a bed-and-breakfast in Bishops Stortford and a car was sent. I thought for a moment that Archer might decide to join them, but then I felt her warmth against me, and I put my arm around her.

As our driver headed north, Mallory dozed in the front seat, and Archer nodded off beside me. We left the main highway at Nottingham, didn’t see Robin Hood, and meandered through the autumn countryside until we turned onto the narrow, tree-lined lane that led to Strathmoor Hall. With no other cars on the road or houses in sight, the world seemed as if it belonged only to us and the large contingent of squirrels making hay while the sun still shone. I told the driver to stop, and as he did, Archer came fully awake.

“I’m going to get out and walk,” I told her.

“Then I am too,” she said.

“I should warn you, it’s a couple of miles, mostly uphill.” I looked at her shoes. “And those Ferragamos are going to feel like…like Ferragamos.”

“Lead on, my liege. Need be, your humble servant will go barefoot.”

We got out, and the Range Rover accelerated on. The lane ran along a narrow stream, crossed at intervals by stone bridges constructed when the property was just a farm. A few were only wide enough for foot traffic and connected paths once used as shortcuts to the grazing lands beyond.

Archer led me across a particularly narrow one, and as we
walked along the opposite bank, her heels sank deep into the soft ground. As promised, she took off her shoes and carried one in each hand. “Did you used to play here?”

“If there’re any frogs left, it’s a tribute to their ancestors’ cunning.”

She laughed with the first genuine joy I’d heard for some time. “How could you not want to live in a place as incredible as this?”

“Come back in a month.”

“Don’t be glib. That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s a good question. Maybe I just don’t want to be alone.” I wasn’t proud of myself for saying that. It wasn’t true, but I thought it was what she wanted to hear.

“That kind of horseshit get you laid a lot?”

“Excuse me?”

I saw her face flush, and her voice rose. “‘Excuse me’ doesn’t begin to cover it. I’m not your fucking prom date, Rail. We weren’t looking for one another, but the last few weeks have been…oh, fuck it, anyway.”

I’m the first to admit I’m terrible at these kinds of conversations. When you’re blundering through a scene with a woman you’ve slept with and you don’t have a copy of the script, it’s like waking up with a rattlesnake in your sleeping bag. You know that as grateful as it might have been for the warmth, now it’s going to bite you. Sometimes the best thing to do is get it over with.

“I’m not very good at reading minds, so why don’t you mime it.” As soon as it was out, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. I tried to grab it and missed.

“You’re an asshole.”

She had me there. She turned and faced me, her cheeks red. It wasn’t that cold. “I’m going to say two words, and I want an honest answer. Do I have your promise?”

“Maybe.”

“That doesn’t make it. Yes or no?”

Now
I
was irritated. “You want to know something, ask. If
I have the answer, I’ll probably give it. But if it’s something I prefer not to share, I won’t.”

I thought she was going to blow, but she didn’t. “Okay. Konstantin Serbin.”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. “And…?”

“You’re a smart guy, let your imagination run.”

“We’re in London because I have a board meeting. Period.”

“But you intend to see him, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

I took a breath. “Is he unfinished business? Yes. Do I have an agenda? No. One of the things a soldier learns is when to let things go. Otherwise, wars would never end. Every person who was responsible for the death of someone you cared about would have to be hunted down and killed…as would the person who gave the order…and so on…until there was no one left.”