Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

For me, dreams are sometimes the key that unlocks mysteries hidden too deep for my conscious brain to decipher. Sometimes they illustrate my anxieties, fears, insecurities. Sometimes they link clues in unexpected ways. In the case of this particular nightmare it reflected a disturbing sense that events were out of my control, that I was completely out of my depth.

Or perhaps it was foretelling my death.

Still shaken by the intensity of the dream, I got myself a glass of water from the tap, sipping at it while I wondered what to do next. My watch said 3 a.m., the low point of the dark hours, the time when the old and the sick finally give way and join the ranks of the dead. Too late to call Saltanat, too early to eat breakfast. There seemed nothing else to do but go back to bed and try to sleep.

Four hours later I was still awake, feeling restless. After getting dressed, I made my way downstairs and out into the early-morning daylight. I could see men and women practicing yoga in the small park next to the hotel. I wondered if this was how people coped with living in a city where the car rules, where there’s nowhere to walk and no mountains at which to gaze.

I walked to where I was out of earshot of the bellboys and valets, who were busy even at this hour, and called Saltanat.

“Where shall we meet?”

“Coffee? The same place?”

“In an hour.”

Then she hung up. No farewell. No one could ever accuse Saltanat of wasting time on pleasantries, but somehow that made the memory of our lovemaking the previous night more vivid, deeper. Perhaps it was nothing more than scratching an itch for her, but for me it felt like a reconnection to life after a collision with death.

I walked to the main road, flagged down a passing cab and gave him the address of the Dôme. I spent the journey wondering when—if—the Chechen would call. Ten million dollars was surely too much to pass up, even if there wasn’t also blood to avenge. The stain on his honor would be too great to contemplate if he didn’t take my life in exchange for those of his countrymen. There are men in my own country who also think that way.

At the Dôme my usual waitress greeted me with a smile and led me to the furthest booth. I gave her my order, black coffee, and sat back to wait for Saltanat. The caffeine would kick-start my brain and we could start to plan.

The whirlwind that blew in through the door could only have been Saltanat. In the space of a few seconds, she’d sat down across the table from me, ordered a large espresso, pulled out her cigarettes, only to put them away when she remembered the NO SMOKING sign. Dressed as always in black, she looked fearsome, focused, beautiful.

“No affectionate peck on the cheek?”

She looked at me as if I was hallucinating. I smiled to show that I hadn’t taken offense and sipped my coffee. That didn’t stop me remembering the sweetness of her body.

“You’ve heard nothing from the Chechen?”

I shook my head. “They’re not going to rush into anything, two men down, and I have an accomplice they haven’t identified yet.”

“Only a matter of time.”

“Time we can make work for us, I hope,” I said.

Saltanat drained her espresso in a single gulp, waved to the waitress to bring another.

“We’re in a city with some of the most advanced surveillance systems in the world,” I explained. “The authorities can monitor Internet traffic, phone calls, watch all the roads. They have the expertise, the manpower, the drive to make this one of the safest cities anywhere.”

“Doesn’t that apply to us as well?” Saltanat asked.

“So far we’ve done nothing wrong, at least nothing that the police know about. But these guys are a team, and that’s suspicious in itself. You’re just a tourist getting ready to work on your tan and do a little shopping therapy; I’m here to try to drum up business for Kyrgyz products. I even have a diplomatic passport to prove it, if anyone asks.”

I didn’t mention that Tynaliev would revoke my status in thirty seconds if I didn’t find his money or his girl.

Saltanat took another hit of caffeine with no indication that it was having any effect. My nerves would have been snapping and lashing out of my body like enraged serpents.

“So we just sit and wait and hope they call?”

“No,” I said. “We keep asking around.”

“That sounds like an excuse to hang out in a hooker bar,” Saltanat said.

“I don’t even drink, remember?” I said, doing my best to look a little hurt. “And as for sex, how quickly you forget.”

“There wasn’t much to remember in the first place,” Saltanat said, but gave me a smile that suggested she was only teasing me, hoping to puncture my masculine ego, I imagined. I didn’t bother to tell her there wasn’t much of that left.

Suddenly I felt the desire to make, if not a confession, at least a declaration. Perhaps I was goaded by the dream or the need to establish some kind of emotion between the two of us. I drank more of my coffee, but I wasn’t sure if it helped.

“When you left Bishkek with Otabek,” I began, my voice scratching my throat, “I know you thought I’d given in, that Graves had won, that the realities of wealth and power had managed to buy me.”

Saltanat held up her hand to silence me.

“Akyl, all that upset me was that you seemed to have betrayed all the values that made me like you in the first place,” she said. “Honesty, integrity, a vision of the truth and the determination to uphold it. Shit like that.”

She waved for another espresso, and I wondered if her heart was going to burst. If mine was, come to that.

“Otabek is… healing,” Saltanat said. “You’re here, I’m here, doing what we have to do. I’m not saying there’s a common purpose. But there is trust, at least for now. And let’s leave it at that.”

I wanted to say more, maybe even use the terrifying word that begins with L.

But then I was saved by the bell.

Or to be precise, the ringing of my mobile.

“It seems we underestimated you, Inspector.”

“It’s pretty common,” I replied.

“I think we should consider last night a trial run, a failure that allows us to work out a more appropriate course of action.”

“Natasha is still alive?”

“Of course; she’s worth considerably more to us that way. And to you.”

“It’s good of you to think of my financial welfare,” I said, “but I still don’t know your name, and it’s hard to do business that way.”

The Chechen laughed, the same unamused way he had used before.

“You may call me Boris, if that makes you feel any more comfortable. And I may call you Akyl?”

“I think Inspector will do nicely, for the moment.”

The Chechen repeated his strange gurgling laugh. “Do you have a suggestion about how we might proceed… Inspector?”

“I do,” I improvised, “but I need a few hours to find out if it’s feasible. Let me call you this afternoon… Boris.”

“ Da .”

And then he broke the connection.

Maktoum Bridge was the first structure to be built across Dubai Creek, joining the two districts of Bur Dubai and Deira. Before that, the only way to cross was by abra , the small, shabby and uncomfortable boats that still ferry people across the water, the drone of their engines a constant reminder of slower, simpler times. As well as being a six-lane highway, the bridge has a footpath that pedestrians can use. And it was there that I planned to meet Boris.

Saltanat was skeptical when I told her that I would set off from the Bur Dubai end, meet Boris and Natasha in the middle and broker the deal.

“Like swapping spies in Berlin during the Cold War?” she scoffed. “Walking through Checkpoint Charlie at dawn with the autumn mist creeping around your legs? I think you’ve been watching too many movies.”