City of the Lost. Will Adams
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displaced people in which each went pillaging the next. A lot of people think that the Trojan War was part of it. And maybe the Odyssey too. There’s a bit in there that seems to describe a famous battle fought by the Egyptians against invaders known as the Sea Peoples. Trouble is, there’s no real evidence of these Dorians, or of any new arrivals. The opposite, if anything.’
Their marriage had lasted three wonderful years. He’d become a father, which had changed him in ways he’d never have imagined possible. He’d been inside Iran when this idyll had abruptly ended, courtesy of an overworked truck driver on a damp and foggy night. The importance of his mission and the difficulty of exfiltration had persuaded his handler neither to inform him nor to pull him out early. It had been the correct tactical decision, the decision he’d probably have made himself had the roles been switched, yet it had been a betrayal all the same. And though he’d returned to active service afterwards, in an effort to slough off his encasing grief, his heart had never again been in it. He’d begun to cast a jaundiced eye not merely at the fine expressions of intent behind his missions, but at the consequences of them too. And he’d grown to hate the things he’d seen. His own bereavement, to put it crudely, had sapped his will to maim and kill. And so he’d quit.
‘You see, what’s so remarkable is how little changed. Three to four hundred years of absolute turmoil, yet the Greek world emerged from it still recognizably Greek. The Hittites were succeeded by neo-Hittites, the Phoenicians by more Phoenicians, the New Kingdom Pharaohs by Late Period Pharaohs, the Assyrians by neo-Assyrians. All still in the same places, worshipping the same gods, speaking much the same languages, crafting the same kinds of goods with the same materials and techniques. So maybe a terrible region-wide famine caused a bunch of local resource wars; except we can find precious little evidence for that either. Earthquakes, then, except that earthquakes simply don’t happen on that scale. They may take out an island or a province, but not the whole Mediterranean.’
Life after the army had proved hard for Iain. Without Tisha and Robbie to give him purpose, a dreadful lassitude had set in. He’d lain on his sofa, drinking beer, watching daytime TV, loathing himself for not having been there when his family had most needed him, sinking into the downward spiral that had claimed so many of his former comrades, half of whom now seemed to be Born Again, while the other half were drunks. A long, hard look in the mirror one hung-over morning had finally jolted him into action. He’d cut out the booze, got himself fit, sent his CV to anyone in the market for his particular skills, eventually joining Global Analysis. And time had done its usual healing. These past few months, in fact, he’d finally begun to feel better about the world. Like glimpses of blue sky on a dull day, an unfamiliar sensation would sometimes spread right through him, and he’d realize to his mild surprise that it was happiness. Yet, in one way, he hadn’t moved on at all. Despite the efforts of well-meaning friends to fix him up, the few dates he’d been on since Tisha had had all the spark of a wet match struck against a wet box; so that tonight was the first time in years that he’d felt even the possibility of flame. ‘How about a tsunami?’ he suggested.
‘Maybe,’ nodded Karin. ‘Except much of the destruction happened inland; and, afterwards, people settled on the coast, which you’d hardly do if you were scared of tidal waves. Besides, these cities were burned. I know you might expect earthquakes to knock over candles and oil lamps and so start fires, but actually it doesn’t work that way because—’ She broke off, however, looked around. They’d been talking so long that the restaurant was empty, except for staff leaning wearily against the walls, waiting to close up for the night. ‘We should go,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘We should.’
I
It made for a long day, wondering whether you’d killed one person, five people, fifty. But, once Asena and Hakan had found themselves caught between police roadblocks, they’d had no alternative but to hole up in a tumbledown farmer’s hut and wait them out.
The roadblock had lasted only a couple of hours beyond nightfall. No stamina, these rural police. They’d got back on her Kawasaki and headed on their way. A first drizzle at the forest fringes quickly turned into a downpour that made the track treacherous with mud and puddles and sodden leaf litter. With Asena’s rear tyre a little bald, and Hakan riding pillion, it kept sliding out of her control, so that they both kept having to thrust out their feet to stay upright. But they arrived at last at the lair of the Grey Wolves, eight large wooden huts hidden from spy planes and satellites by thick camouflage nets. She drove past the armoury, gave the engine a final roar as she pulled up between the horse-box and the other trucks, enough to bring Bulent, Uğur, Şükrü, Oguzhan and various others out of their cabins, most holding waterproofs above their heads. ‘Well?’ she asked, embracing them briskly in turn. ‘What news?’
‘A success,’ nodded Bulent, but soberly.
Asena felt a twinge. Success was such a loaded term for operations like these. ‘How many?’ she asked.
‘Thirty-one so far,’ said Uğur. ‘Thirty-one and counting.’
‘Thirty-one?’ protested Hakan, appalled. ‘But you promised me we’d—’
‘That was a bomb we set off today,’ said Asena sharply, before he could finish. ‘Not a fucking hand-grenade.’
‘I know. But—’
‘One, two, ten, a hundred?’ snapped Asena. ‘What does it really matter? This is a war we’re fighting. A war for the soul of our nation. Or have you forgotten?’ She glared around at them all, daring one of them to challenge her authority. No one did. She stalked into the main cabin, poured two fingers of raki into a glass then splashed in water to turn it cloudy. Lion’s milk, they called it: aslan suku. She held it up as if in a toast then knocked it back and poured herself another. She could hear Hakan muttering with the others outside, but right now she didn’t care. Let them grumble if they must. As long as they obeyed.
The glass casings of the oil lamps, blackened with soot, threw eerie shadows on the wooden walls. These cabins were fitted with electric lights, but they only used their generator once a day, to recharge batteries and put a chill on the deep freeze. She rinsed her plate, poured herself a third glass of lion’s milk. The rain had stopped, but still drip-dripped rhythmically from the eaves. Wolves howled in the distance. They were in good voice tonight. Usually the sound cheered her with its hint of camara-derie, as if some higher power was letting her know the justice of her cause. But tonight it merely made her feel all the more alone.
The Lion and the Wolf.
The milk wasn’t going to be enough. She needed to talk to the man himself. She needed his assurance that those thirty-one lives and counting had been necessary. She went to her room, set up her satellite phone, pinged out an encrypted message. Ten minutes dragged by. Nothing happened. His job kept him absurdly busy and he had to be extravagantly careful about how and when he contacted her. She understood this intellectually yet she resented it all the same. The things she was doing for him, he should find the time. Today, of all days, he should find the—
Her screen blinked. A black box appeared. In the box, his face, grey-lit and jerky and craggy, yet so handsome withal that he still had the power to lift her heart. ‘My love,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ he asked, glancing at his watch.
His brusqueness hurt her. ‘I only wanted to know if today went as you’d hoped,’ she said. ‘And if there were any ramifications we needed to know about.’
‘Today went as hoped. There are no ramifications you need to know about. I’ll notify you through the usual channels if that should change.’
‘Only you never said this morning what it was we—’
‘It had to be done,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
‘Thirty-one