walked along the edge of the road, his eyes fixed on the barrier ahead. One of the soldiers sensed him coming and turned the black discs of his shaded eyes towards him, twisting his body at the same time so the HK33 slung across his chest was pointing in his direction. Shepherd smiled and raised his hands over his head, one of them holding his badge.
‘I’m an American police officer,’ he said, arriving at the barrier and stopping short of it. The soldier said nothing. ‘I’m looking for an Inspector Arkadian. You speak English?’
‘No, he doesn’t.’ A bear of a man in his early fifties squeezed past the soldiers and peered at Shepherd’s badge through a pair of half-moon, tortoiseshell glasses perched above surgical mask. He held a hand up in greeting and showed Shepherd his own ID badge identifying himself as Inspector Arkadian. ‘You’re a little far from home, Special Agent.’ He looked up and fixed Shepherd with sharp eyes. ‘Normally we have a little more warning about international cooperation efforts.’
‘I apologize for the suddenness of my appearance.’ Shepherd lowered his hands and slipped his badge back in his jacket, his mind flipping through various options of what to say next. The road sat at the bottom of steep walls of drilled rock so the only way to go any further was past the roadblock. But he had no authority here and the soldiers didn’t seem to want to let anyone through. ‘Can we talk somewhere in private?’ he said, gambling on this at least getting him the right side of the barriers.
Arkadian considered for a moment then said something in Turkish and the soldier in front of Shepherd stepped aside to allow him to pass. He stepped through the barrier and heard the clamour of voices double in volume behind him as the other drivers saw what had happened.
‘These people,’ Arkadian said, nodding back at the queue, ‘more of them arrive each day. They were all born here. They don’t care that the city is still under quarantine, they just want to go home. Especially now that this countdown has appeared on the news.’
‘It’s the same all over,’ Shepherd said. ‘Everyone getting ready for the end of the world.’
‘Not quite everyone,’ Arkadian said, reaching a car and unlocking it. ‘For some people the world has already ended.’
He didn’t elaborate and Shepherd didn’t pursue it: but as they drove away from the roadblock and down an empty road he could feel the sadness coming off the Inspector like something tangible. He selfishly hoped it had nothing to do with the news he was about to hear.
96
The cab pulled up outside the battered building on the outskirts of Gaziantep and Eli stared out at the noisy, busy street. He was in some kind of merchant district with warehouse shops spilling onto the streets and men milling about and haggling energetically and loudly over everything. He showed the driver the piece of paper he had written the address on, convinced they couldn’t possibly be in the right place.
‘Is here,’ the driver said, pointing at a faded blue door set into the wall. ‘Is church.’
Eli paid the man and got out, feeling edgy. They’d had to split up at the airport, Carrie following the FBI agent, him heading off to fetch supplies from a local contact Archangel had set them up with. He never liked being away from her, particularly somewhere like this where there were so many triggers for bad memories: the dry heat; the loud conversations in an alien language and eastern-sounding music blaring from somewhere; the shabby buildings lining dusty streets; the missile minarets of a mosque sticking up above the rooftops. He didn’t like it – not at all – the whole place screamed ‘hostile’.
He moved over to the door, scoping the street as he went, automatically looking for sniper positions and ambush points. There were too many to count and the men who had been bartering for goods started to turn their attention to him. Behind him the cab began to move away and he felt a strong urge to run after it, get back in and get the hell out of here. But then Carrie would be disappointed with him and he couldn’t bear to see that sad look in her eyes or know that it was his weakness that had put it there.
He walked over to the door, sweat starting to prickle his scalp, and looked for a name or a sign, anything that might