The Evolution of Fear (Claymore Straker #2) - Paul E. Hardisty Page 0,141

something. He patted her arm, continued. ‘They were going to kill Mademoiselle Moulinbecq, after she returned to Cyprus. I tried to warn her. I thought you were…’ He trailed off. ‘I thought you might be one of hers.’

‘Medved.’

‘The Devil, Mister Greene. There is no other explanation.’

Clay closed his eyes. You don’t understand, he thought. I didn’t either, for a long time. For years I searched for someone else to blame. But now it is clear. There is no devil. There never was. There are only people. ‘That’s why you insisted Rania come alone,’ he said.

‘Yes. But I was betrayed by one of my oldest employees.’

‘The chauffeur.’

‘Never would I have believed it. He had been with me for over twelve years. I haven’t seen him since that day.’ Erkan winced in pain, indicated the two body guards lying on the floor. ‘These, at least, are loyal.’

‘Help us now,’ said Clay. ‘You can make it right.’

‘I didn’t want to do any of it,’ Erkan said. ‘The Greek properties were not ours to take. I tried to tell her, but she insisted. They were the best sites, the best beaches, the most valuable. Regina made it happen. She bribed politicians here in the north, silenced dissenters. That’s how she works. No one is safe. And when the environmentalists started bringing pressure through the EU and the UN to protect the nesting beaches, she developed a plan to make that go away, too.’

‘The poison dosing lines.’

Erkan nodded. ‘And the acoustics.’

‘Are they still in operation at your sites in Karpasia?’

Erkan hung his head. ‘You must understand. This is where I spent summers as a boy. These beaches, the sea,’ he waved the gun in a long arc, ‘all of this. It is God’s holy creation, his perfection. What I have done is a sin, and I will burn for it, I know. But I had no choice.’ There were tears in his eyes.

‘There is always a choice.’ Something Rania said to him once.

‘No, Mister Greene. You are wrong.’ Erkan twisted half around, faced the back of the room. ‘Anastasia, come out.’

A girl appeared from behind the couch. She was wearing a pink-and-blue flowered party dress. Her dark hair was pulled back and tied with pink ribbons. Tears streaked her pre-adolescent face. She had her mother’s beautiful bone structure and light complexion.

‘This is why they were here, Mister Greene, or whatever your name is. They have already taken my son. If I do not continue to serve, they will take my daughter.’

How young she looked, Clay thought, how frightened. ‘Testify,’ he said. ‘Tell the world what Regina’s doing here, doing to your family. The authorities will be forced to act. It’s the only way.’

Erkan raised his chin, Turkish for ‘no’. ‘Impossible.’

‘Help me, and I’ll help you.’

‘How can you possibly help me?’

‘She wants me dead, Mister Erkan. She’s put a price on my head.’

Erkan’s eyes widened.

‘I killed her brother.’

‘Then you are already dead.’

‘Maybe,’ said Clay. ‘But not if I kill her first.’

For just a moment, Clay thought he saw a glimmer in Erkan’s eyes. But then it was gone and Erkan was staring at him, lips pursed, jaw clenched. ‘No, Mister Greene. You cannot help me.’ He raised the pistol. ‘Now, get out of my house.’

This was the price you paid. A cost quoted in options foregone, in freedoms lost, in principles and beliefs abandoned. It would be so easy from here: hire a boat, sail to Turkey or one of the Greek islands, and disappear. He had money, documents, weapons. He knew places where no one would ever find him, not Medved, certainly not the government of Cyprus. But he no longer had a choice, just as Erkan didn’t have a choice. And he could no more fight against it than change his blood type or the colour of his eyes. He had to go back. And he would have to testify.

Clay put his open palm on his chest. ‘None of us are saints, Mister Erkan. And she’s not the Devil.’ And then he turned his back on the father and the mother and the daughter and went out the way he came in.

55

Death Comes Soon Enough

The old man did come back with the car. Three and a half hours later they reached the eastern outskirts of Turkish Nicosia – much smaller and less built up than the Greek part of the city. They trundled through deserted, half-lit streets, the twin grafted minarets of the Semiliye mosque – previously the Cathédrale Sainte Sophie – reaching heavenward