The Searcher (7 page)

H
ammer believed in enduring what came his way, and while he might not look like much, he could put up with a lot. Cold, hunger, boredom, all glanced off him; before he had settled into comfort, for two decades he had reported the world's deepest injustices and darkest horrors as if they left no mark (though the reverse was often true). It was important to him not to burden others with his weaknesses.

Sleep, though, he had always needed. Seven hours was the right number; six and a half was livable; less than six, he was not himself. His brain clouded, and when there was thinking to be done, as there almost always was, he resented the handicap. To clear his head, he had taken up running. Now he ran almost every day, so that to miss it was as bad as missing his night's rest, and for all that it kept him fit, he recognized in his bondage to it something of the rigidity of an old man's routine. But this morning there would be no running, because his shoes and his kit were in the same bush as his clothes and his razor and his books.

Dogs barking woke him at first light. He was dreaming of home, which even after twenty years in London was still New York; of running up an endless set of steps in Central Park toward a policeman sitting reading a newspaper in a chair.

Outside, Tbilisi was finally quiet, bar a drunk or two on the bridge and the pack of strays gathered at the base of the cliff beneath his balcony. This morning it seemed utterly benign. Lined with plane trees, the river rolled silently by and above it, dotted over a great ridge of land, twenty squat churches with identical cone-topped towers glowed like torches above
yellow floodlights. A castle sat on top of the ridge, with a heavy keep and a snaking wall, and from it galleried, pink-roofed houses tumbled down the hill as if they had been dropped there and left to settle where they might. The place was old and stubborn and ageless, waiting patiently for the next invasion that would fail to altogether destroy it.

Calm and beautiful it looked, with the sun slowly bringing the dawn. He might be tired, dried out, hungry, still sore, a little jet-lagged (it was barely two in London), but it was hard to resent this place that had done its best to reject him the evening before. For an instant he imagined being in his own bed, ahead of him a regular day of running and talking and thinking, and felt the uneasy satisfaction of knowing that here he would have no choice but to extend himself.

He showered, checked the progress of the bruises on his arms and chest and the dark crescent under his eye, adjusted the bandage on his nose, and dressed in yesterday's battered clothes. What a sight he was; like a hobo, or a ghoul. Sander might enjoy seeing him this reduced.

Without dwelling on the thought he left his room and wandered without purpose into this strange, raging, enchanted place that didn't seem to want him. He couldn't blame it for the rejection; it was a wonder it allowed strangers in at all. In the scant ten pages of history he had read on the plane there had appeared so many invasions, sackings, and razings that even he, a student of conflict, began first to marvel and then simply to lose count. For hundreds of years the Persians and the Turks and the Mongols and the Armenians had taken turns to savage Georgia, drawn by its fertility and its place at the heart of the world, forcing its people to retreat into the mountains in the north and leaving its history an endless seesawing of raid and counterraid. Being destroyed and rebuilt had become the pattern of Tbilisi's existence. And then, only two centuries ago, the Russians had arrived, finally crossing the Caucasus range, to offer protection and deliver the rawest betrayal.

This, he imagined, was why its people rioted. He would have built a wall around the city and let no one in.

In the brightening morning he went down to the river, giving the dogs plenty of room, across the bridge and up into the old town, past elegant,
sagging buildings, old plane trees, courtyards shaded by vines, walls collapsed into heaps of brick and laths and plaster, rusted pipes crossing above his head, glazed balconies with not a pane of glass intact.

Tbilisi looked as if it had been sacked again last night, but there had been no rioting here. It was decay that had done all this, the long, slow violence of poverty and time. Hammer, revived by the beauty of it, walked at a slowing pace, up through steepening streets toward the castle. This early, with no one in sight, everything felt ancient and unused, like some ruined citadel abandoned long before, but people still lived here, and as the sun rose his eye began to pick out the signs: clothes hung on washing lines, flowers growing in tubs on sills, fresh graffiti inside houses whose outer walls had fallen away.

In his torn jacket and bloodstained shirt, hungrier than he had been in years—going through his own process of revival—he seemed to belong, and he began to feel a faint and forgotten sense of freedom. The trials of the day before were over, and here he was in this stirring, seductive, illogical place, so distant from London, without papers or possessions, without a client, with no authority or support; with nothing to return to except trouble; with nothing, in fact, but a purpose, and much work to do. Today was Friday. By Tuesday he had to be on the way home with his bounty. Anything else was too little or too late.

As he reached this conclusion he stopped, and found himself by one of the churches whose conical towers rose up all over the old city like the tips of lances. Backing up against the hill under the castle, it seemed like the last forgotten building in a forgotten city; its pinkish brick was crumbling and its windows were dark. The only sign of use was a yellow notice taped to the carved and blackened door setting out a crude code of conduct in a series of symbols crossed through with thick red lines. No sundresses, it said; no shorts, no smoking, no guns.

 • • • 

E
arly that morning he had discovered from the wan young girl in reception that Ben had left the hotel on Tuesday, three days before, and that while room 27 was not available, an identical one above it was free. No,
Mr. Webster had left nothing behind, and because she hadn't worked on the weekend, she hadn't really noticed him during his stay. But she could see from her screen that he had paid in full for three nights and had checked out in person.

She was there again when Hammer came back from his walk, and at the sight of him still in his ripped clothes gave him the same look of pity and alarm.

“Gamarjobat,” he said, cheerfully, compensating for his appearance. He had mastered three Georgian words on the plane. “You work a long shift.”

“Gamarjobat.” She tried a weary smile that made her look a little paler than she had last night. Hammer waited for her to volunteer what he wanted, but it didn't come.

“Will you be here after breakfast? I need to know where to buy some new clothes. I'm frightening people.”

This time the smile was real. “I leave now. My colleague, he will help you.”

“You get some sleep. Although it looks like a lovely day.”

He was the first at breakfast, but by his second plate of eggs the small room had begun to fill up. A pair of Russian businessmen, an Indian family, an elegant German woman with her teenage daughter. He was a figure of some interest: as they came in each would look at him, then look away, not wanting to engage with whatever trouble had driven him here. Even without him, he sensed the atmosphere would have been tense. From the cliff on which the hotel sat they could see the river cutting through the city and by it various signs of last night's trouble: broken placards, a car turned on its roof. Conversation was sparse.

As he ate, he flicked through the pages of his notebook and tried to get a purchase on the day. There was so little in there. Elsa hadn't known Ben's e-mail password, or his credit card number, both of which would have helped. He had Karlo's cell phone number, for what it was worth now, and through Facebook a name and place of work for his wife, which some bright spark in the Ikertu research department had managed to convert into a home address and landline number. And he knew where Karlo had worked, of course. That was about it. On the plane he had read through each of
the reports Karlo had written for Ikertu but none had contained anything relevant.

Otherwise there was the standard stuff. Call the hospitals, check with the police. If he could trust Vekua there was nothing there, but he had Katerina back in London go through the motions to be sure. She was to try all the hotels in Tbilisi as well, and through her Russian sources to keep an eye on the border, because it would be like the bastard to have crossed into Russia; it drew him. Elsa and Katerina were the only people who knew where Hammer was.

As for his own job, it was simple, to the point of being slender: try to pick up Ben's trail, as quickly as he could.

A man and a woman in neat travelers' clothes, the kind that don't crease, sat at the next table to him. Pushing his plate away, Hammer nodded a good morning and made to leave.

“Anything in there about last night?”

The man nodded at Hammer's paper lying on his table. If he'd been more observant he'd have noticed that it was still perfectly folded. The voice was American; Northwest, if Hammer had it right.

“To tell you the truth I haven't looked. Probably a bit soon for the
Tribune
.”

“I guess.”

Hammer smiled at the man and pushed his chair back.

“Arnold Witt.”

Witt held out his hand and Hammer took it. The grip was self-consciously strong.

“Ike Hammer.”

“This is Mary.” Mary half smiled. “Looks like you had some trouble of your own.”

“I took a wrong turn on the way from the airport.”

Pressed up against the little table, Arnold Witt was big, broad across the shoulders, and he had a thick gray mustache that entirely hid his upper lip. His wife—somehow she could only be his wife—smiled tightly in a way that suggested that she had sat through many conversations at breakfast with strangers. Witt shook his head and smoothed the corners of his mustache.

“You got caught up in it? Heavens!”

“I've had smoother welcomes.”

“They take your stuff? You need to borrow a shirt or something?”

Hammer imagined himself for a moment with a huge checked shirt hanging off him like a boy in his father's clothes.

“That's good of you. Thank you. But I'm going shopping. I'll be fine.”

“You think the shops'll be open?”

“Something will. I'll be fine.”

“Anything you need, you let us know. That's awful. Really. We nearly didn't come after the bomb but then we figured no, lightning won't strike twice. And we'd paid for those tickets. Guess we got that wrong. They hurt you?”

“More than I hurt them.”

“Well, that's terrible. Awful. I guess most of it happened a ways upriver but we could see it from our room. You wouldn't want to be down in that.”

“No, you wouldn't.”

“Jeez, I'm sorry. Clumsy of me.”

“Don't worry.” Hammer stood, nodded a good-bye. “I should be going.”

“I guess I'm a little rattled. This your first time here? We've traveled all over but this is our first time out here. May be our last, too. Shame. It's so quaint. It's like there's a war on in Fairyland. You staying on?”

“I've got business here.”

“You need to get out of here. No business is worth getting caught up in something like this. I've spent the last hour trying to find a flight out but everything's all messed up.” He looked at his wife. “Our guide, he told us we could get a bus to Yerevan, fly out from there, but it's twelve whole hours and you should see the bus. It's not what I'd call a bus. We're going out to the airport this morning, see what we can get.”

“Good luck.” Hammer backed away.

Witt shook his head and whistled a low note. “Got to watch these things. Remember the riots in LA? Broad daylight, everything's calm, next minute there's dead people on the corner. And that's Los Angeles. California, for heaven's sake. The civilized world. This place may be pretty but these things escalate. That's what they do.”

D
ownstairs at reception the wan girl had gone, and in her place was a young man with heavy black glasses and a bowl of thick hair. Hammer greeted him cheerily, and explained that his wife would be arriving later, around six, and they would go straight for dinner, he imagined, and afterward she, being tired, would probably come straight back to the room but he had plans to see some friends, although they weren't yet set in stone. The plans, that was. The upshot being that it would be good, to be on the safe side, to have an extra key card for the room.

Charmed or baffled, the young man was sweetly, incuriously eager to help, and to practice his English, and in a minute or two Hammer had a key to room 27. That was easy, at least: had he been asked his name he would have had to go down the messier route of tricking or bribing the cleaners.

“Gmadlobt,” he said, trying out his second Georgian word, which was odder even than the first. The “g” was silent. “You're most kind. This is for you.” And he handed him a twenty-lari note. “What's your name?”

“Rostom.”

“I'm Isaac. Pleased to meet you, Rostom.”

By leaning out from the balcony of his room and peering down, Hammer could see that the doors leading onto the terrace of number 27 were open and could make out no movement inside. Chances were they'd have shut the doors before leaving for the day, which meant they were either still asleep, or showering, or at breakfast.

His room and theirs were set apart from the main body of the hotel and occupied an annex with its own staircase. He propped his door open so that he might hear any noise from the little stairwell, sat on the bed, and looked
at his phone. The police, or whoever Vekua worked for, had had ample time to clone it while he was in the cell, and in any case he should assume that any calls he made would be intercepted. His e-mail was encrypted and secure enough. The hotel phone was no better, because they knew where he was staying and by now in which room. He needed a local cell phone.

From downstairs he heard people coming back from breakfast and the click of a door closing. He'd give it till nine for them to leave.

 • • • 

F
or twenty minutes Hammer sat on his bed and answered e-mails with the absent attention of someone whose mind is occupied by more important things. Responses to clients he liked and clients he didn't, letters of instruction to his bankers, polite refusals to unlooked-for invitations, and a late reply to his sister in Connecticut about his next trip to New York, now very much on hold. He wondered when he would see the city again. He missed it, especially this time of year when the leaves were turning. He wrote a note to Dr. Levin postponing their next session and finally one to Hibbert, who had sent two of his own since last night: one trying to confirm a time for their meeting and another wondering whether Hammer was taking this whole business seriously. As seriously as it's possible to take it, thought Hammer, in my own way, and stalled him with a scarcely believable tale of a trip to see clients in Glasgow that wouldn't keep him quiet for long.

When all this was done he sent a text to Elsa telling her that he'd arrived and was starting work, and a final message to his personal solicitor—so many lawyers in his life—asking to change his will to include an annuity to be paid to Mrs. Elsa Webster of Hiley Road, London NW10, the sum to be taken from the charitable trust he had arranged to be set up on the occasion of his death. This settlement to be put in place immediately and to remain until you hear from me again, and this e-mail to serve in lieu of a signature, which will not be possible.

A practical measure, by and large, and the right thing to do; one night in Georgia had told him that he should prepare for the worst, for Ben and himself. But it was also a challenge, a side bet, something else to focus his mind on finding what he had come for and getting out as cleanly and as
quickly as possible, and there might have been superstition in it, too. Set this up for Elsa and she wouldn't need it, like taking an umbrella to discourage the rain.

From outside came the sound of a door opening, then voices. American voices, faintly irritated. Have you got the key? I have the key. What about the passports? Of course I've got the passports.

Hammer crept out of the room and onto the landing. Through the banisters he could see the running shoes and khaki trousers of his friend from breakfast, who stopped to let his wife go first and then followed her along the corridor that linked the annex to the lobby. They were both wheeling large suitcases. Hammer waited. From here he could see the small square at the back of the hotel where taxis congregated, and in a minute or two the Americans appeared, looking around for their driver. In a minute more they were in the car and away.

On the door handle of room 27 hung a sign asking the maid to make up the room. Hammer turned it round so that it read “do not disturb” and went in.

The room was identical in plan to his own, with a sitting room and a small bedroom that both gave out onto the terrace, but where his was rather brown this was painted white and more cheerful. Trying to remember when he had last searched a room, he set to it, peering under the mattress, checking the wardrobe, squashing the spare pillows, unfolding blankets, feeling under every piece of furniture. Twenty to one there was nothing here but it had to be done, and he knew from traveling with him Ben's habit of leaving things hidden in hotel rooms. Passports, sensitive documents—he preferred not to have such things on his person, especially in a place like this.

Hotel rooms at least were blank spaces, and easy enough to search. He tried the bathroom, feeling along the edges of the mirror, prying a panel away from the side of the bath; lay at full stretch on the floor to grope under the heavy sofa in the sitting room, leafed through the phone book, shuffled the little fridge out of its space, ran a hand behind the tops of the curtains. He was on the terrace, turning the little wicker table upside down, when he heard the click of a card in the lock, and the opening of the door.

He was in plain sight, and there was nowhere to go.

“Hi there,” he said to the man in the doorway, whose face in the dark room he couldn't yet see. Hammer let the table down and walked inside with his hand held out. “Mr. Witt. So it's you under me. I'm sorry. This is embarrassing.”

Witt just looked at him, no longer so talkative, and shook.

“The maid let me in. I was out on my terrace going through the few papers I have in my wallet—they left me my wallet, thank heaven—and my social security card slipped out and fell down onto yours. Your terrace. See how yours is a little bigger than mine? Because—sorry, this is all back to front—I have to go to the embassy and get an emergency passport this morning, because they took mine last night, and I'm going to have to prove I'm me. So the maid let me in, but I guess the wind must have taken it because it sure as hell isn't there now.”

Shocked and polite, as Hammer had hoped he would be, Witt still didn't know what to say.

“That's tough luck,” he managed at last.

“I promise you, I'm no cat burglar.” He laughed at the absurdity of the thought. “Not at my age. I went straight in and I'm coming straight out. You get on with your day. Mine just got a little harder.”

Standing, Witt was a head taller than Hammer, and a big presence in the doorway. Soon he would start to think, and that wouldn't do, so Hammer grinned, put a friendly hand on his arm, apologized again, and skirted round him through the open door, past the “do not disturb” sign, his heart beating a little faster than when he went in.

 • • • 

W
ith the Witts finally gone and probably discussing the strange little man at breakfast from the safety of their car, Hammer went back downstairs and explained to Rostom that he didn't want to pay the hotel rates for a local call he had to make and would it be OK if he gave him a few lari to borrow his cell phone? That would be no trouble, not for Isaac, who thanked his new friend and wandered outside into the square, where the sun was already hot and the wind seemed to blow in from all the surrounding streets.

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and dialed. The phone rang and rang, and he began to think that she must have already left for work.

“Gamarjobat.” A woman's voice, low and hoarse.

“Gamarjobat. Mrs. Toreli?”

There was a pause. “Who are you?”

“My name is Hammer, Mrs. Toreli. Isaac Hammer.” He heard the click of a lighter's wheel and the crackle of paper and tobacco. “I knew Karlo. Your husband. I'm a friend of Ben Webster.”

A long, deliberate exhalation.

“I have no husband.”

“I have something for you. I wanted to know when I might deliver it.”

“I do not understand.”

“A letter. I have a letter for you.”

“I do not want it.”

“My friend has disappeared, Mrs. Toreli. Did you talk to him?”

“Your friend is not here.”

The line went dead.