I Am Pilgrim (64 page)

We shook hands, and I walked away. We never saw each other again, but a few years later I was listening to National Public Radio and I heard him interviewed. I learned that by then he’d had a string of hits playing traditional instruments and had become a sort of Turkish Kenny G. His biggest-selling album was called
If You Want to be Free
.

Alone, deep in thought, I headed down the road and into the fading afternoon. I hadn’t taken the VHS tape with me, the one thing that would have helped identify the woman, because I didn’t need it. I had recognized her face when she had stopped to look around.

It was Leyla Cumali.

Chapter Forty-six

SHORTLY AFTER 9/11, when the US Air Force started bombing sites in Afghanistan to try to kill the leadership of al-Qaeda, a woman living in a remote village became a legend in the mosques where

Islamic fundamentalism flourishes.

The air force dropped several laser-guided bombs on a nondescript house but, unfortunately, the US intelligence community had got it wrong again. A man by the name of Ayman al-Zawahiri wasn’t

in the building – just his wife and a group of his children.

Out of nowhere, in the middle of a freezing night, the huge explosions levelled the house and killed most of the kids. Their mother, however – badly injured – survived. Almost immediately, men from

the surrounding houses fell upon the ruins and, cursing the Americans and swearing eternal vengeance, tore at the masonry and rubble with their bare hands to get to the woman.

She was conscious, unable to move, but she knew that in the chaos of the attack she had not had the

opportunity to put on her veil. She heard the rescuers digging closer and, once they got within earshot

– frantic – she ordered them to stop. As the wife of an Islamic fundamentalist and a devout Muslim,

she would not allow any man who was not a direct relation to see her unveiled face. She said she would rather die than be a party to it, and it was no idle threat. Despite the pleas of the rescuers and several of their womenfolk, she could not be persuaded otherwise and, several hours later, still unveiled, she succumbed to the effects of her wounds and died.

I had read about the incident shortly after it had happened, and I was thinking again about such a level of religious devotion or madness – choose the definition which suits you best – as I walked through the streets of Bodrum. In the back of my mind, it had been exactly that sort of woman I had

expected to find using a preconfigured message on a cellphone to communicate with the world’s most

wanted terrorist. Instead I got Cumali – a modern working woman by most standards, driving up alone in her black Italian car, and I just couldn’t square that circle.

Certainly the guy in the Hindu Kush was the first of a new breed of Islamic fanatic – intelligent, well educated, technologically accomplished – the sort of man who made the 9/11 hijackers look like

the thugs and ruffians they were. At last the West had encountered an enemy worthy of our fear, and

my private belief was that he was the face of the future – pretty soon, we would all be longing for the good old days of suicide bombers and hijackers. But however sophisticated he might have been, he

was still a cast-iron disciple of Islam, and yet his only collaborator, as far as we knew, appeared to be anything but a fundamentalist. Yes, she dressed modestly in accordance with her religion, but Leyla

Cumali didn’t appear to be al-Zawahiri’s wife by any stretch of the imagination.

I stopped outside a bar near the waterfront popular with Bodrum’s large contingent of backpackers,

and declined a raucous invitation from three young German women to join them. I glanced around and, further down the road, saw what I needed – a quiet bench deep in shadow – and sat down and called Bradley.

I interrupted him eating a sandwich at his desk and gave him a quick update concerning the history

of the French House and told him about the real estate agent’s phone number. I then broached the real purpose of the call. I said that the only other significant news was that the woman in charge of the investigation appeared to be very competent.

‘Her name’s Leyla Cumali,’ I told him. ‘Remember it, Ben – I think we’ll be dealing with her a lot.

She’s in her mid-thirties, divorced, but apart from the fact she’s only been here a few years, I don’t

know anything else about her.’

It sounded natural enough, but I hoped that I had hit just the right note to indicate to Bradley that he had to call our friend and get his people to find out as much about her as possible. Bradley didn’t disappoint me.

‘Cumali, you said? Wanna spell it for me?’

I gave him the spelling, but I made no attempt to inform Whisperer that she was the woman in the

phone box. As big a revelation as it was, I was worried. I didn’t know enough about her yet, she didn’t fit any profile I had imagined and I was scared that somebody in government – maybe even the president himself – would order that she be secretly picked up, undergo rendition to some Third World country and be subjected to whatever torture it took to discover the identity and location of the Saracen. In my view, that would almost certainly be a disaster.

From the beginning I had believed that the woman involved had a way of contacting him, and nothing had changed my mind that the most likely method was an innocuous message on an Internet

forum – something like a dating site or buried within the personal ads of a myriad different electronic publications. Such a message, unremarkable to anyone else, would have meant volumes to the Saracen.

And yes, as smart as the system was, it had one other great advantage: it could be booby-trapped.

One tiny alteration – changing the spelling of a word, for instance – would tell the Saracen that she was acting under duress and he had to vanish. Once he was warned that we were on his trail, I didn’t believe we would ever catch him.

For that reason I wanted to warn Whisperer directly that rendition would probably be a catastrophe.

I also wanted to be able to tell him more details about the relationship between a modern Turkish cop and a fervent Arab terrorist.

Once darkness fell, I knew I had a perfect opportunity to research Leyla Cumali’s life in far greater depth.

Chapter Forty-seven

STILL SEATED ON the bench, the shadows lengthening all around me, I dialled another number.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Brodie David Wilson,’ the manager said when he heard my voice. ‘Perhaps

you have more adventure for the help of me and the simple carpenter-folks?’

‘Not today,’ I replied. ‘I want to know about the State Circus in Milas – what time does it start and finish?’

‘You are a man of many great surprises – you wish to make a watching of the circus?’

‘No, I was thinking of performing.’

He laughed. ‘You are pushing my leg.’

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘A colleague suggested going, and I was wondering how much time it would take.’

‘I will go on to the line of the Internet,’ he said, and I heard him hitting a keyboard in front of him.

‘Yes, here it is – all in the language of Turkish-men. It is of great good fortune that you have the advantage of my orifices as a translator.’

‘And excellent orifices they are too,’ I said.

‘The times are of the following – the Grand Parade starts at six of the night evening and the extravaganza of the final piece finishes at eleven thirty.’

I thanked him and clicked off. Darkness fell at around eight thirty so, under cover of night, I could be in Cumali’s house by nine. By the time she drove back from Milas, it would be past midnight, giving me three hours to do the job.

It was an assumption, of course – an unquestioned belief that the circus would end on time. You would have thought I would have learned how dangerous assumptions could be.

I glanced at a clock on a nearby building: it was 5 p.m. Four hours until my clandestine date at the old port, four hours to take a boat ride, four hours to find a secret pathway.

First, though, I had to find a store that sold building supplies.

Chapter Forty-eight

THE SMALL FISHING boat ran parallel to the german beach and, at the last minute, the weatherbeaten skipper threw its wheezing inboard into reverse, turned the wheel fast, and drew to a perfect stop next to the wooden jetty.

When I had first approached the old man sitting on Bodrum marina repairing one of the boat’s winches and told him of the trip I had in mind, he had refused point blank.

‘Nobody goes to that wharf,’ he said. ‘The French House is—’ Unable to find the English word, he

mimed a knife cutting his throat, and I got the meaning: it was forbidden.

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I replied, ‘except for the police,’ and got out my shield. He looked at it for a moment then took hold of it to examine it more closely. For a second I thought he was going to bite it to see if it was real.

Instead he handed it back, still looking sceptical. ‘How much?’ he asked.

I told him he would have to wait for me – all up, we’d be gone about three hours – and offered a

rate I guessed was more than generous. He looked at me and smiled, displaying a handsome set of broken teeth.

‘I thought you wanted to rent the boat, not buy it.’ Still laughing at his enormous good fortune, he dropped the winch among his nets and motioned me aboard.

Once we drew alongside the jetty I clambered on to the boat’s rail and, clutching a plastic bag from the building-supplies store, jumped ashore. The overhanging cliff towered above us, and I knew from

experience that nobody in the mansion or on the lawns could see us. Even so I was glad of the cover

provided by the late-afternoon shadow and I couldn’t really explain why: all I knew was that I didn’t like the house, I didn’t like the German Beach much either and I was pretty sure, if I was right, I wouldn’t like what I found.

La Salle d’Attente
– the Waiting Room – and I was already convinced, thanks to the location of the house, that the visitors all those years ago had come to wait for a boat. According to the half-forgotten stories, they would arrive in Bodrum without being seen, spend days in the sinister privacy of the estate and then be gone in circumstances which were equally as mysterious.

I figured that, back then, there was probably a cabin cruiser moored in the boathouse – a vessel in

which the visitors could be hidden from view – while it headed out to keep a rendezvous with a passing freighter.

But to walk down the cliff by the path made no sense – it was totally exposed to the public. That was why I believed there was another way from the mansion into the boathouse.

I called to the skipper, said I was heading up the path, walked along the jetty and, as soon as I was out of sight, started to examine the boathouse. It butted up close to the towering cliff and in the shadows I quickly found what I was looking for – a door that gave access to the interior of the building. Although it was locked, the wood was old and it quickly gave way under the pressure of my

shoulder.

I stepped out of the fading light and into the gloom. The place was huge and there, sitting on underwater rails, was an ancient cabin cruiser, perfectly maintained. I couldn’t help wondering whose asses had sat on the plush seats in its darkened interior.

At one end was a pair of wide doors, worked by electric winches, which gave access to the water.

At the opposite end were changing rooms, two showers, a toilet and a large workshop. Running up

one wall was a set of steep stairs.

I opened the plastic bag, took out the device I had purchased and headed towards them.

Chapter Forty-nine

I STEPPED INTO two tiny rooms. during winter, it was Gianfranco’s apartment but now the furniture was shrouded in dust covers and everything else was packed away.

I turned on the handheld device and watched the needle on its voltmeter flicker to life. It was Swiss-engineered and expensive but, unlike most of the crap Chinese versions, I was confident it would work. The device was made for builders and renovators – it told you where to find power and light

cables in walls and ceilings so that you didn’t nail into them and electrocute yourself.

If there was a secret door or trapdoor in the boathouse, I figured it had to be either mechanically or electrically operated. The problem with mechanical was that it was complicated: you would need levers and pulleys, chains and counterweights. An electrical system, on the other hand, just required an electric motor, and I believed it was the more likely candidate.

I held the device up, placed its two prongs on the wall and started to search the length of it. I was trying to find a power cable that would lead to a hidden switch but, while the device found plenty of wiring, it all led to lights or power points. Once I had finished with the walls, I started on the ceiling and floor, but with no better results.

Moving downstairs, I realized that the wind had picked up and was rattling the sea doors – a storm

was coming in – but I ignored it and stepped into the workshop. The room, full of power tools and

shelves of paint, abutted the cliff and I thought it was the most likely location of a hidden door. I started at the back wall, working fast.

The needle of the voltmeter kept jumping – there was wiring everywhere in the walls – but each strand led to one of a host of power points and light switches, which turned out to be legitimate. The ceiling and cement floor – even under the workbenches – yielded nothing, and my spirits sagged.