The Searcher (8 page)

A
s his taxi pulled out of the square Hammer thought he saw the tail; after a mile he was certain. Two men in an old burgundy Toyota sedan, doing quite a nice job two cars back but inclined to panic a little at junctions. As far as he could tell they were alone, which meant that he only warranted a two-man team, which told him something, even if he wasn't sure what. He didn't envy them, trying to do their job in this chaotic traffic.

It was a while since he'd been followed. He wondered whether this was routine for prominent foreigners or whether he really was a special case. Had the same men tailed Ben?

He checked his watch. Nine twenty-five. This would add half an hour to his schedule.

Whoever they were they kept close during the drive to the embassy, where it took him an hour to secure a temporary passport, and then to the newer part of the city, where Rostom had assured him he would be able to find clothes, shoes, a toothbrush. Everywhere he went his appearance prompted stares, but much of the city looked just as he did: broken, assaulted, a mess.

Some shops were open, but many weren't. As he walked, Hammer saw shopkeepers boarding up windows, sweeping up debris from the pavement, going through what remained of looted stock with the unhurried air of people who had had to do such things before. This was the smart part of the city, where those with money came to spend it. The streets were wide and lined with fine old plane trees and flower beds that had somehow survived the night untouched; the buildings, solid and European, housed
banks and hotels. None of this was what Hammer had expected. Turkey lay one way, Azerbaijan the other. This was meant to be the Middle East, but Tbilisi felt like a part of Europe that had drifted loose across the Black Sea.

Every fifth shop, maybe, had had trouble, but around them the life of the city went on, oblivious or resigned, and soon he had reconstructed himself completely: canvas trousers, sneakers, a sports shirt, a plain navy sweater, and a light zip-up jacket. Decent clothes, not his style, but apart from their newness anonymous enough. A little more youthful than he was used to, not to mention more casual, so that in his reflection he saw himself in costume: a younger character, less moneyed and more relaxed. Hammer was precise about how he looked, as he was about most things, and this enforced slackening felt a little like an escape. For the first time in a long while he had a sense of how others might see him. He threw his old clothes away, but kept the shoes.

It took him a while to find a pharmacy and when he finally did he left it empty-handed. Mirtazapine, he told them: Avanza, Mirtaz, Remeron, to give it its other names. At first he thought he was failing to make himself understood, and then that he needed a prescription from a doctor, but no, they simply didn't have any. They had Prozac, and Seroxat, and for a moment he wondered whether he should be taking something, at least, to take the edge off. God knew there were enough unknowns in this without having to worry about what his brain was going to be doing.

Forget it. He was on the other side of the earth, in the middle of an insurrection, under surveillance, and fighting for his freedom. And what, he had time to be depressed? Old patterns didn't apply, he resolutely told himself, even if the thought scared him. How long had it been since he last went a day free of the stuff? For years now, it had done its job; kept the encroaching blackness at the edges of his thoughts, where he could feel it waiting now. He resolved, as he always did, to fight it.

At the Kopala, once Hammer had dropped off his bags, the driver turned to him and asked where next.

“The Hilton hotel, gmadlobt,” Hammer said, sliding into the backseat.

The driver frowned. He was an old man, with a white shirt and a white mustache, and from the deep creases of his forehead it seemed that he had
frowned a good deal during the course of his life. He said something in Georgian, but when it became clear that Hammer hadn't understood he shook his head all the way from one shoulder to the other and said, “Hilton, niet. Niet Hilton.”

“No problem. The Marriott? That's OK? Great. Gmadlobt.”

Letting Hammer know, with a succinct puff of his cheeks, that he thought all foreigners were crazy, the old man shrugged and pulled out of the square.

Hammer couldn't see the Toyota, but as they turned onto the first main road there it was, making a one-eighty turn across traffic. Not subtle, and a foolhardy move on a busy Georgian road. Cars charged chaotically past, braked abruptly, swung across lanes, without warning pulled out from the curb. Hammer had seen it all morning but was not yet used to it.

The tail stayed close, and in ten minutes they were at the Marriott, a drab cream block of a building on the other side of the river.

“Marriott,” said the driver, who seemed inexplicably put out by the last leg of their journey.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said, and giving him a good tip told him as best he could that that would be all. As he got out of the car, the Toyota drove past and pulled in fifty yards ahead.

 • • • 

T
he Marriott was a shinier, less Georgian affair than the hotel Webster had chosen. At reception there was no queue, and the young man in the company suit was happy to tell him that there were just a few rooms left, all in the higher price brackets.

“How much is higher?” said Hammer.

“The cheapest room we have is three hundred lari, sir.”

“And how many rooms do you have empty?”

“I couldn't say, sir.”

“You told me you had only a few left.”

“That's right, sir.”

“But too many to count?”

“I'm not allowed to say.”

Hammer nodded, sympathetic. “Look,” he said, leaning in a little over the counter and keeping his voice low. “You have your policies, and I understand that. Also, you're not the boss. Not yet. But it's two o'clock on a Friday afternoon. Lots of people leave town on a Friday. But even if Friday's a real busy day in Tbilisi I wouldn't mind betting a bunch of people saw the riots and aren't coming to town today, and maybe a few more decided to cut their trips short and are now at the airport. If you're half full I'd be amazed. Now, I don't want to pressure you but do you think you could give me one of those three-hundred-lari rooms for a hundred and fifty lari? I think that's a fairer price.”

The young man looked a little thrown but saw that Hammer was serious and picked up the phone, saying that he would see what he could do.

“Yes, sir,” he said a moment later, the conversation complete. “That will be fine.”

“Thank you,” said Hammer, looking out through the lobby's great glass walls onto the street. “Most accommodating.” He handed over his credit card and his new passport, waited patiently for them to copy it and return it with his key, and, declining the offer of being shown upstairs, took the first elevator, to the fifth floor.

The room was modern, square, identical to ten he'd slept in that year alone. It looked onto the street, and from his window he could see the Toyota, which had now turned round so that it was on the opposite side of the street and facing the hotel. It was empty, though, and there was no sign of the two men; probably they were downstairs, finding the manager or the security guy they knew and asking what the little American had wanted. Once they found out, they would wonder who he was meeting upstairs, or when he would reappear, and might begin to investigate taking a room next door to his.

Hammer turned on the television, tuned it to CNN, set the volume high, and left. The elevators were in the center of the building, and on each floor corridors lined with doors ran from them along its entire length, marked at either end with green fire escape signs. He walked back past the elevators to the far fire escape and took the stairs down to the ground floor, where one door gave onto the public rooms and another led outside. Pushing the bar
that released the lock, he found himself in a narrow service alleyway behind the hotel, just wide enough for the two trucks to his right that were unloading food and huge bags of linen.

Feeling the thrill of the truant, he peered carefully round the edge of the building and walked briskly away from the main road, taking the first side street he could find and checking behind him at every turn he made.

N
atela Toreli's office was in an annex of the Ministry of Education, a worn modern building four stories tall that crouched humbly next to its grander sibling. It didn't invite attention or, Hammer imagined, many visitors. Taking one of the battered metal doors, he found himself in a bare lobby, whose oddly fine marble floor was interrupted by a single desk and a single chair, on which sat a man wearing a nondescript uniform and a magnificent gray mustache. Shaded by the peak of his cap, his eyes followed Hammer without expression.

“Gamarjobat,” said Hammer. What a lovely word it was. Not just to say, with its improbable sequence of consonants, but because it warmed things up. Georgians seemed to doubt that any foreigner would take the trouble to get through it. “Gamarjobat,” he said again, laying it on thick, smiling. “I have a letter—here.” He fished an envelope out of his jacket pocket. “For Mrs. Toreli. Mrs. Natela Toreli. I think she works here.”

The security guard held Hammer's eye with his own, implacable. He didn't look altogether like Stalin, but the elements were there: the coarse nose and the low brow and the black look. His gaze fell on the letter. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand before putting it down and smoothing it out with his palm.

“It's a letter,” said Hammer. “Just paper.”

The guard said something in Georgian, and pointing with the letter up the stairs behind him nodded gravely, as if to say he understood and would make sure the letter found its destination.

“No. I need to give it to her.” Hammer gestured at the floor. “Here. I,” he put his hand on his chest, “need to see her,” he raised his eyes, “here. Right
here.” The guard was doing his best but wasn't quite there yet. “Call her,” said Hammer, his eyes on the single phone on the desk. “Natela Toreli. Gmadlobt.”

The guard raised his ample eyebrows, shook his head to himself, and before dialing ran a finger down a frayed piece of paper taped to the desk. When he was done he sat back, crossed his arms, and nodded with great purpose. Hammer thanked him and waited. In time, the illuminated indicator on one of the elevators began to count down.

The first thing that Hammer learned about Natela, from just a glance, was that she didn't dissemble. She approached with her arms crossed and her lips set, the lower pushing out a little, and Hammer knew that she knew exactly who he was and why he had come. Her eyes were down, not from shyness so much as ill-contained rage, but he couldn't look away from her face. There was a power in her presence that held him just as it unnerved him.

“How do you find me here?”

Hammer had considered all manner of approaches to this meeting: looking at Natela now, he ditched them all.

“I'm an investigator. It's my job to find things out.”

Now she looked right at him, and Hammer had to resist an impulse to take a step back, so strong was the set of her face and the fury behind her stare. She had the worn skin of a smoker. Flecks of orange and silver moved in her green eyes, which were tired and alive.

He did his best to show her that she had nothing to fear from him but Natela only closed her eyes and sighed.

“I want you to leave. You cannot be here.”

“Five minutes, Mrs. Toreli.”

“No. Go.” Her eyes wished him away. “I am leaving.”

“I'm a very persistent person. I can wait.”

By now the guard was sitting upright in his chair. He said something to Natela in Georgian and she raised a hand as if to say, don't worry, not yet.

“I can just wait outside,” said Hammer.

“I will bring police.”

“The police are kind of busy at the moment. You may have noticed.”
He watched her making up her mind. “I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.”

She closed her eyes again. “Outside. Two minutes.”

She led the way, her shoes clicking briskly on the floor.

Two hulking Soviet trucks hammered past on the street, and she waited for the noise to die before speaking, pulling strands of dry black hair back behind her ear. In the light she was beautiful, suddenly, clutching her arms to her, furious and defensive.

“Two minutes. What do you want?”

“To find my friend. And to give you this.” He held out the envelope.

“What is?”

“A check. Karlo did a lot of good work for my company. When the people who work for my firm die or retire I like to make a contribution. It's not much.”

She looked away and shook her head.

“Everyone, they think they can buy us.”

“I'd do this for anyone, Mrs. Toreli. It's a token of respect.”

Natela gave an abrupt laugh. “To give money is not respect.”

“Take it. Please.”

“And then I answer your questions?”

Hammer didn't have an answer to that.

“Your name is Hammer, yes?” He nodded. “American? Yes. I thought. An American man. For you it is easy to give money. Easy to take money. Easy to answer questions.” She shook her head, tensed her bottom lip. “Nothing here is easy now.”

“All I want . . .”

She jabbed a finger at him, and her voice was harsh. “No. I want. I want no more husband. I want forget him and me.” She paused. “Since three years he was not my husband. I leave him. He refuse divorce but I go, yes? And now, he leave me. He leave us, all of us. And you know, you know who give money to put him in ground? I do. All money. Because his idiot family? No money. No lari. Understand? And my children, still they love their father. So now I have no money, and my children do not know if he is traitor, or hero, or how you say, a man of fear.”

“A coward.”

She jabbed her finger again, just below Hammer's shoulder.

“I know he is not any of these things. He is a man. A Georgian man. Is all. Full of words and drink and bullshit. And when he dies, does he go? No. He is here now. You bring him here. To my work. Understand, please. There is no money. No money in Georgia. They see you here, my work? They find reason, I go. Out. So I want quiet, peace. But you come here, you make noise. Just like him. Bang, bang, bang. Always. You are just like him.”

“No one saw me come here.”

“This you think.”

Hammer couldn't hold her eye any longer, and looked away.

“I'm sorry.”

“You are sorry. He is sorry, probably, where he is. You are all sorry, always.”

Shaking her head, she looked past Hammer up the street.

“I never met your friend. He was at funeral. That was all.”

“You saw him?”

“There were not so many foreign people there.”

With a last glance at him she turned and walked back toward the building.

The wind flapped the envelope in Hammer's hand. “Maybe I'll give this to his idiot family,” he called after her, loud enough to be sure that she heard.