Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

It worked for me. Anna didn’t need a rating and having Sinem freelance for us was cheaper. I was rather proud of what I’d engineered. Sinem would instruct Anna aboard Shadow, and I would learn surreptitiously over her shoulder.

“Hey, grab the door.” Sinem wheeled her bike into the mall’s courtyard. Outside, she looked down at our boots — my heavy tall boots and Anna’s Doc Martens. “You guys haven’t been in Turkey long?”

“You can tell, huh?” I tugged the collar of my turtleneck away from sweaty skin. Looking at her tanned muscular legs, I admired Sinem’s aggressive looking, seriously practical, sandals.

“You’re not going to last long dressed like that.” She handed me the bike while she manhandled a giant key fob. “And you don’t sail in those clod-hoppers, I hope.”

Anna shot me a puzzled look.

“Your boots, my dear. You won’t get near a yacht wearing those.” Sinem pointed at Anna’s bright green, super-trendy mock work boots. “I’ve got a friend in this complex. He just opened. Sells sportswear and casual stuff for sailing. I’ll introduce you. He’ll set you guys up with some good deals.”

I was learning more about business — Turkish style — every day. It was like we’d dropped from the sky into a place where everyone’s a friend and nothing’s impossible.

Getting back to the marina, the first sign of trouble was Shadow dangling at some weird angle in the travel lift. The crowd of men arguing around the suspended yacht, long after Harvey’s deadline, was more bad news. A quick scan of the area didn’t turn up Harvey or his floppy hat.

“Wasn’t the boat supposed to be back at the dock before now?” Anna asked.

“That was the plan.”

Several men broke from the group and headed toward us. In the lead, a middle aged Turk with a prominent belly, called out, “You are owner of this boat, yes?” He was dressed in casual business wear and was followed closely by a couple of men in coveralls.

“Not yet, I am in the process of buying it, though.”

“Then you will have to pay. This is very serious. Lift is out of service now. Many customers need lift and launch. Work is canceled. Workers must be paid. Very, very bad, indeed.”

“Uh, who are you and what’s going on?” I handed Anna an overflowing shopping bag in order to shake the guy’s hand.

“I am manager of marina. Look, everything stopped. Bad for people working here, bad for customers on schedules.” He grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the travel lift. The crowd parted and let us through. Nothing looked wrong until the manager dragged me under the boat, bent down and grabbed one end of a severed nylon strap. The crowd oohed and clucked. The manager waved his cut end of the strap toward its mate, dangling from twisted chunk of metal above the yacht’s deck. “Look, man working on your boat cut this !”

“You have got to be kidding!” I ran a finger along the fraying edge.

“I assure you, nobody is kidding. Boat could fall. Kill someone.”

The guy had a point! I scrambled out from underneath. There were plenty of other straps, in pairs, holding the boat up, but the metal brackets holding the pair with the severed strap were twisted at a crazy angle. It really did not look good. “Who did that?” I asked.

“These men.” He grabbed one of the two coverall clad workers who’d been following him like puppies. He thrust the smaller of the two men toward me.

“Do you work for Harvey?” I asked.

The man just stared at me, grinning.

“Ach, he speaks only Turkish.” The manager snarled. He grabbed him by the arms, barked something in Turkish. The man mumbled on until the manager cut him off. “He says it was his brother who cut that strap. Says Harvey need to see underneath strap and his brother cut it.”

I looked at the brother, a big man with Down’s syndrome. He smiled at me and I couldn’t help but smile back until that oh shit feeling rose in my throat. Several more men came running from lean-to shops and offices around the marina’s yard. It felt like there was going to be a lynching and I was going to be it.

Anna was on her own, orbiting the throng, balancing the bags of groceries we’d picked up on the way back from town. She was retreating from a couple of Turks in suits. They weren’t backing off, Anna was. Lawyers or salesmen, no doubt. Either way, Anna was back stepping toward the seawall. From the corner of my eye, I saw a tall reasonably fit, middle aged westerner standing astride a folding bike, arms crossed, taking everything in with a bemused smile.

“You must pay for this!” The manager waved the severed strap at me. “It is your boat, you must pay!”

“Don’t wave that thing at me. I’ve seen it already.”

“Jess! What do these men want?” Anna yelled, still backing toward the seawall.

“It is not my bloody boat!” I exploded. “Anna, turn around, you’re going to fall in. Everybody else just leave me the hell alone!”

I spun around and found myself face to face with the westerner. “Stop right now. You’ll be okay if you just keep quiet and hold still.” He spoke calmly and clearly with an American accent. His little folding bike lay abandoned on the tarmac. “These people are playing you for a fool. Losing your temper is not going to help you any. You’re on their turf.” He held up his hands and said something in Turkish then turned back to me. “I’m Tom, by the way.”

Tom shouted something in Turkish at the suits hounding Anna. They stopped and turned in surprise. With the cavalry on the scene, the crowd lost interest. Anna hadn’t moved.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Come on over and say hello. I don’t bite.” Tom called out.

She approached with caution. “What happened here? Is something wrong with Shadow? ” Tom left Anna’s query hanging, turned and told me to tell the marina manager everything I could about the incident .

“We need to find Harvey. I don’t remember his last name. I hired him to do a survey on that yacht. This is Anna. She and I left the marina and came back to this craziness! I don’t know whose fault this is, but I’m getting the flack.”

“Well, it’s not this guy’s fault” Tom indicated the manager, “And he has a bigger problem than you do with the travel lift out of service.”

“This man, you say, ‘Harvey,’ I never have seen before. He is not authorized to do work in the marina. These brothers I also do not know.” Turkish was exchanged and the manager went on in English. “They are not mechanics. They are laborers. This man, Harvey, he pays them to work for him.”

Tom turned to me. “Who on Earth is Harvey ? Did you hire him?”

“Yeah, for a pre-sale inspection; a survey, I guess. If it turns out okay, I’m buying this boat.”

“Un-huh, conditional survey then. So you don’t own the boat, but you hired some guy who damaged marina property. The way I see it, the buck stops with you. You should have checked with the marina to see if Harvey was authorized to work here. By the way, I didn’t catch your name.” Tom held out his right hand.

“Jess Ducat. I’m from Canada trying…”

“Mighty pleased to meet you.” We shook, then Tom turned to the manager. “This is Jess and Anna. I am Tom, and we are friends.”

“Hey, I need the marina’s permission to let someone work on my boat? That’s nuts.”

“You must check! You can’t take your mechanic to a garage. Why to a boat yard?” The manager argued.

“Yeah, he’s right. And, I don’t mean to meddle, but you look like you don’t know a whole lot about buying a boat.”