Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

“Shopping?”

“What do we do if they come in after us? There’s no second way out. Should we make it look like we have not noticed them?”

Anna handed me the phone. “Sinem can help us provision. She wants to talk to you.”

“To me?” I didn’t know what to do with it. “Whoa, too many inputs: cousins, shopping, Sinem, provisions. Cousins first; maybe there’s an advantage in them not knowing we spotted them, carry on shopping.” As a second thought I added, “They probably know what boat we’re on anyway. We’ve gotta let Omar know about them.”

“Good idea, but talk to Sinem first, she’s waiting.” Anna pointed at the phone. “We are probably safe here for a while.”

“Oh yeah, Sinem! Sorry, you still there?”

“About time! What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving. We’ve got to go right away.”

“Anna’s cousins … right? Anna said something like that.” The phone accented the scratchiness of Sinem’s smoke ravaged voice. “I’ve got friends in the wholesale business. I think I know what you need. My friends provision mega-yachts, even warships when they come to town.”

“Warships?”

“Yeah, navy boats — lots of food. I don’t know what you guys are thinking, but you’re not going to provision at the bazaar.”

I didn’t know what to say, it was all happening so fast. “Today, can we do this today?”

“Nyet problema amigas… I’ll call my friends. We’ll get it done. Relax, you’ve got Turkish friends.” Sinem half laughed, half choked. I couldn’t believe she was barely in her thirties. “You girls crack me up. Really… you’re in the bazaar to provision for a non-stop ocean crossing. Hah, I thought you were nuts when you wanted sailing lessons to get to Canada.” More wracked, consumptive laughter. “I love you guys, I hope you don’t kill yourselves. Gotta go. Later gators.”

Returning to Shadow, Anna was first to spot the cousins again. “I can not believe this, they are here. Look there, on that Lagoon.” She pointed at a catamaran a hundred meters down a perpendicular dock.

Two blonde thugs waved at us from a charter catamaran halfway down a passage between two docks and the marina’s exit. “That’s their way of telling us we aren’t going anywhere.”

From below deck Anna used binoculars to confirm it was her cousins on the catamaran. She didn’t recognize the name or logo it was adorned with. It was a charter yacht, but not locally owned. I Googled the name she read to me. Sure enough, the catamaran had come from Bodrum, the next major seaside town up the Aegean coast.

Tom folded his tall lanky frame down the companionway moments after I phoned. “Well, shit. You don’t make it easy, that’s for sure. Still, you’re not dead yet. That’s a good sign, Jess. A damn good sign. With the protection you’ve got from your friends you’ve got nothing to worry about from those two for now, at least. What’s got me nervous is them making it clear as day they’ve got their eyes on you.” He raked his fingers back and forth through his hair. Made it look like a bumper crop after a hail storm. “They know they can’t do anything with the kind of friends you’ve got, but I reckon they’re biding time until someone else shows up who’s not afraid of the local Turkish organization . It’s time to make tracks.”

“Sinem, she will help with the provisioning.” Anna said, starting for the companionway. “She has told me of her wholesaler friend . Together, they are on their way now to here and I’m heading out to meet them.”

“While you’re at it, get Erdem, and his uncle — and anybody else you can think of. We need to come up with a plan of action to get you guys past the charmers on the catamaran.” Then to me, Tom added, “You get that satellite phone gizmo from customs?”

“Not yet. The sleazoid wants a thousand Euros…”

“Jesus, this is Turkey! You’ve done pretty damn well up ’til now. Either you pay the grand or don’t and forget the thing, but you better do something.”

Customs was closed. A ferry from Greece had come and gone. The customs office wasn’t going to open until that ferry showed up again, tomorrow or the day after. Things work like that in Turkey. With everything coming down at once, I sure didn’t feel like being left blind, deaf and dumb at sea without the sat-comm system.

As for provisioning, the task was mind boggling, nothing like snagging a few veggies off a farmer’s wagon and going sailing. I had no option but to force myself to let that task go to Anna and Sinem. The hard part was trusting them with it. I’ve never been big on trust when it comes to getting things done. Probably the teachings of my father; “If you want it done right, you’ve got to do it yourself!”

I leaned against a flagpole jutting from a patch of dead lawn in front of the customs office. An hour earlier, Omar had called the customs official to set up a meeting for me. At home, celebrating his birthday at the time, he’d told Omar, in no uncertain terms, that the inconvenience of going all the way to the customs office had better be worth his time. Hanging up, Omar apologized to me, saying it was all he could do. He explained that the government had its business and he had his. There was a line that not even Omar would cross, and waiting for the agent to show up and take my bribe, I felt like my neck was stretched across it.

I was about to give up and walk away when a Fiat Panda flattened a sandwich board, mounted the curb, then coughed and died in front of the customs office. The driver rolled out and staggered toward the building muttering something unintelligible. I watched him without moving from the flagpole.

“You have money?” He asked.

“I’m here to get my customs cleared package from the USA.”

“You pay to me for special trip on my birthday.” He concentrated intensely on getting a key into the deadbolt. The bolt turned and he steadied himself on the door before opening it. “Office closed! I come just for you. You must pay.”

I followed him inside, past a front counter, down a corridor to an office door he had more trouble unlocking. Once inside, he rummaged through what I assume were confiscated goods, for a bottle of vodka. Setting two glasses upright on his desk, he sat heavily in the wooden chair and filled the tumblers to the rim. “It is my birthday — we drink!” He drained his glass and banged it on the desk. With the back of a swollen index finger he pushed the other tumbler toward me. “Drink!”

I sat in a banged-up gray stacking chair by the corner of his desk and reached for the glass.

“Thousand euro. You have it and I have your package.” He worked on sounding businesslike.

“Right, that’s what you said on the phone.” I saw my package by the door. It was adorned with a bright orange “Customs Cleared” sticker. The date, scrawled on it in marker was several weeks prior. “You’ll take dollars?”

“Of course. One thou… no! Two thousand dollars. You know… the exchange, of course.”

“Most certainly.” I bent forward and surreptitiously poured my vodka onto the floor. “A fair exchange, I’m sure.” I leaned back putting my empty glass on the desk by his. “But first, a toast to your birthday.”

The official, swaying like a cobra, refilled both tumblers. Shaking, he raised his glass to mine, and congratulated himself. “To me!” He tilted his head back and drained his tumbler in several swallows.

I grabbed his empty glass, arcing toward the desk on its return trip, to prevent it being smashed. Seeing both of his hands safely at rest, I switched his empty glass for my full one and proposed another toast. He stared deliberately at the full glass, carefully wrapped his fingers around it, and tilting his head back, he drained it with ease.