Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

Even today, at seventy-four, Kudseyi went back to this place when he needed to think. It was his real home. He had learned to swim there. He had caught his first fish. Lost his first ball made of tied-up rags that came undone in contact with the water, like the bandages of a childhood that had never entirely healed…

The old man looked at his watch- 9:00. Where were they?

He went back up the steps and contemplated his kingdom: the gardens around his house. Along the crimson-red enclosure, which completely excluded the outside world, forests of bamboo shuffled like feathers, ruffled by the slightest gust of wind; stone lions with folded wings languished on the steps leading to the front door; swans threaded their way across circular pools.

He was about to go inside when he heard the noise of a motor. Because of the rain, it was more of a vibration under his skin than a real sound. He turned around and spotted a boat mounting to the assault of each wave, then flapping down with a jolt, digging out two furrows of foam behind it.

Azer was driving, with his jacket done up to his neck. Beside him, Sema looked tiny, wrapped up in the flapping folds of her poncho. He knew that she had altered her face. But even at that distance, he recognized the way she stood. That slightly cocky air he had noticed twenty years back, among all those other children.

Azer and Sema. The killer and the thief.

His sole offspring. His sole enemies.

When he moved off, the gardens came to life.

The first bodyguard appeared from a thicket. The second came from behind a lime tree. Two others materialized on the gravel drive. All of them were armed with MP7s, a close-defense gun loaded with subsonic shells capable of piercing such body armor as titanium or Kevlar at a distance of fifty yards. At least so the merchant had told him. But did it all have the slightest sense? At his age, the enemies he feared most did not travel at the speed of sound and did not pierce polycarbon. They were inside him, carrying out their patient work of destruction.

He followed the path. The men at once gathered around him, forming a human shield. It was always the same. His existence was that of a precious jewel. But the jewel had lost its sparkle. He wandered around like a house prisoner, never going beyond the limits of his gardens, always surrounded by his men.

He headed toward the mansion-one of the last yalis in Yeniköy. A summer house, made of wood, by the waterfronts, on tarred piles. This lofty palace. decked with turrets, had the haughtiness of a citadel, but also the nonchalant simplicity of a fisherman's hut.

The weather-beaten laths on the roof gave off sharp reflections, as vibrant as a mirror. But the façades soaked up the light, producing somber glints of infinite softness. All around this building, there was an atmosphere of transience, of floating, or departure. The sea air, the worn wood and slapping waters made the old man think of perpetual travel, of summer holidays.

Yet when he drew nearer and examined the details of that oriental façade-the latticework on the patios, the suns on the balconies, the stars and crescents of the windows-he saw that this sophisticated palace was in fact quite the opposite. It was an elaborate, well-anchored, stable environment. The tomb he had chosen. A wooden sepulchre with a seashell's hush, where he could watch death approach while listening to the river…

In the hall, Ismail Kudseyi took off his oilskin and boots. Then he put on his felt slippers and a jacket of Indian silk before examining himself in the mirror.

His face was his sole object of pride.

Time had inflicted its inevitable ravages, but beneath the skin, the bone structure still held up. It had risen to his defense, stretching his flesh and pulling at his features. More now than ever, he had the profile of a stag, with his jutting jaw and that perpetual pout of disdain on his lips.

He removed a comb from his pocket and tidied his hair. He was smoothing down his gray locks when he suddenly realized what he was doing, and stopped. He was being careful about his appearance for them. Because he was dreading seeing them. Because he was afraid of confronting the real meaning behind all those years…

After the 1980 coup d'état, he had had to go into exile in Germany. When he came back in 1983, the situation in Turkey had calmed down, but most of his fellows in arms, the Grey Wolves, were in prison. In his isolation, Ismail Kudseyi refused to abandon the cause. On the contrary, he secretly reopened the training camps and set up his own personal army. He was going to give birth to a new generation of Grey Wolves. Even better, he was going to train a better race of Wolf, who would serve both his political aims and criminal activities.

So he left for Anatolia to choose the children of his foundation personally. He organized the camps, watched the youngsters being trained, kept files on them so as to select an elite group. Soon, he was totally absorbed. Even while he was beginning to take over the opium market, exploiting the opening left by the revolution that was going on in Iran, this baba was interested above all in bringing up his children.

He felt a visceral complicity develop with these peasant children, who reminded him of the street urchin he had once been. He preferred being with them to spending time with his own children whom he had had late in life with the daughter of a former minister and who were now studying at Oxford University or in Berlin-his privileged heirs who had become strangers to him.

When he came back home, he shut himself up in his yali and studied each file, each personality. He weighed up their talents and gifts, but also their will to raise themselves up, to tear away from their stony origins.

He sought out the most promising profiles the ones he would support with grants, then bring into his own clan.

His quest gradually turned into an obsession, a mania. The pretense of a nationalistic cause was no longer enough to hide his own ambition. What excited him was molding human lives from a distance. Manipulating destinies, like an invisible demiurge.

Soon, two names were to interest him more than the others. A boy and a girl. Two children of pure promise.

Azer Akarsa came from a village near the ancient site of Nemrut Dagi. He was exceptionally gifted. When only sixteen, he was already a hardened fighter and a brilliant student. But most of all, he displayed a real passion for old Turkey and nationalist convictions. He had enrolled in the secret Adiyaman camp and had signed up for commando training. He was already planning on signing up for the army so as to fight on the Kurdish front.

And yet. Azer had a handicap. He was diabetic. But Kudseyi decided that this weak point would not prevent him from living out his destiny as a Wolf. He swore to provide him with the best possible treatment at all times.

The other file concerned a certain Sema Hunsen, age fourteen. Born amid the rocks of Gaziantep, she had succeeded in winning a place at school with a state grant. Superficially, she was just another young, intelligent Turk set on breaking with her origins. But she wanted to go further than that and emigrate. At the Gaziantep Idealist Club, Sema was the only girl. She had applied for a course at the camp in Kayseri so as to be with a boy from her village called Kürsat Milihit.

He had at once been attracted by this teenager. He adored her headstrong wildness. her desire to better her condition. Physically, she was rather a chubby redhead, with a peasantlike appearance. To look at her, you would never have guessed how gifted she was, or how politically motivated. Except for her stare, which she threw into your face like a stone.