Alex Archer - Paradox

Belatedly Annja was having a cold flash at the prospect of those gray flat eyes scanning her dossier.

“How did they happen to hire you as their official chronicler?” Annja asked, eager to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Back when I was a prominent international left-wing journalist I was often critical of Mr. Bostitch’s attempts to influence foreign policy—especially since they all seemed peculiarly geared toward enhancing his own defense contracts. Also, if I may flatter myself, I proved something of a thorn in the side of special-operations murderers Mr. Baron so joyously served before deciding the grass was greener on the civilian-contracting side of the perpetual-war fence. I think it was because that established my objectivity—at least, gave credibility to the notion I wouldn’t slant my reportage to suit my employers, even though of late I’ve become noted for my harsh criticism of my former comrades. All of it quite sincere, by the way—a bunch of humorless dolts, and most of them unacknowledged fascists.

“But I digress. A frequent weakness of mine. One among many.” He sipped his drink.

“Also, in much of my recent writing I’ve been most critical of Islam, especially the more violent sectarians. That’s made me more attractive to a good many people to whom I was once distinctly persona non grata. And finally, I suspect a certain element of revenge, as it were, my former foes making me subordinate to them.”

“They must be paying you well.”

He beamed. “Oh, they are. They are.”

His expression turned troubled. He stared into his half-emptied glass as if seeking oracle there. “I only hope it’s enough,” he said. “I confess, I doubt things will proceed near as smoothly as our beloved pet Turkish army general is at such pains to assure us they will.”

He tossed back the rest of his drink. It had no visible effect on him. He set the empty glass on the table with a decisive thunk.

“Ah, well,” he said. “Our vicissitudes should make a ripping story, anyway. Perhaps I’ll win a journalistic prize of my own. Or at least get a bestseller for my pains. A decent return on the sale of one’s soul, wouldn’t you say?”

The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations was a beautiful museum converted from an old covered marketplace situated close to the Ankara Citadel. It contained samples from Asia Minor’s long cultural history, specializing in artifacts from the Paleolithic through Classical periods. Annja was admiring an ancient Hittite statue of a highly stylized deer of some sort, whose rack of antlers totally dwarfed its actual body, when her cell phone rang.

She flipped it open. “Yes?”

It was her team from Chasing History’s Monsters, who had just arrived at Ankara’s airport. Imagining what sparks might fly when a trio of doubtless liberal young New Yorkers came in contact with Charlie Bostitch’s born-again culture warriors, she hastily offered to meet them at the hotel to help get them settled in.

Three hours later they were all sitting on the big mossy stone foundation blocks of the ruins of the stage area of Roman Theater. It also stood near the castle on its lava outcrop atop one of Ankara’s many hills. Excavation of the theater’s seating area was still ongoing; Annja hoped she’d have time before they took off for the wild, wild east to pay a visit and see if she could schmooze her way into the dig as a visiting archaeologist. She might even be able to make use of it for Chasing History’s Monsters. The team told her they were looking for local-color shots to establish setting at stages of their journey to the forbidden mountain.

“I always thought Ankara was kind of a pit,” Trish Baxter, the soundwoman, said. She was a pretty, medium-size blonde with a snub nose and ponytail. She dangled legs left bare by her cargo shorts over the edge of a block. A green slope stretched down toward the city center below them. “But it’s really kind of pretty.”

“There’s a lot of green here,” Annja said. “I was surprised the first time I visited Istanbul by how much greenery there was. I expected something more of a blend between desert desolation and cement-canyon modernism.”

“Ankara doesn’t seem to be much of a tourist Mecca,” Tommy Wynock said. He was a stocky blond guy of medium height with a Mets cap turned around backward. He was the chief techie and secondary cameraman.

“So to speak,” said lead cameraman Jason Pennigrew. A wiry black kid an inch or so taller than Annja, he had a brash but engaging manner and an olive-drab do-rag tied around his head. He sat with his back to a pillar and his long legs drawn up before him. “I wonder how much of that might be because of problems the government’s having with Muslim fundamentalists.”

“Actually, the government kind of is the Muslim fundamentalists,” Annja said. “The democratically elected civilian government, anyway. They’re in a state of more or less perpetual confrontation with the army, which turns out to be the guardian of Turkey’s officially secular status. The religious-minded members of the government insist they don’t want to turn Turkey into a full-on Islamic state. But it seems like a lot of people in the street do.”

“I thought Turks were supposed to be, you know, kind of lax in their observance,” Trish said. She’d impressed Annja as the most bookish and widely knowledgeable of the bunch. Television production types didn’t always have the deepest understandings of foreign affairs or foreign cultures, even when they spent a lot of time traveling overseas, Annja had found.

“That’s true, traditionally,” Annja said. “And there’s still a solid sentiment with the public for Turkey to maintain its secular status, even with a lot of very religiously fundamentalist Turks. Or that’s the impression I have. Listen to me, sounding like Ms. Turkey Expert. The truth is I only know what the other members of the expedition tell me, and what I read on the Internet.”

She nodded at Trish’s bare legs. “You might want to change out of those shorts, just to be on the safe side. Ankara’s a lot less cosmopolitan than Istanbul. And even if the real crazies are still a marked minority—well, it only takes a run-in with one to spoil your day, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh,” Trish said, “yeah. I wasn’t thinking. It was so hot and stuffy on the plane, and then when it turned out to be hot here, too, I just wanted to kind of, well, air out.”

“You’re not going to have much opportunity to do that anyway,” Jason said. “Ankara seems to be the only place in the Northern Hemisphere that’s getting unseasonable warmth. Everywhere else it’s even colder than last year.”

“Great,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “That’s all we need. We already have too many people questioning global warming.”

Jason unfolded himself from the stone pavement. “Okay, Annja. We’ve stretched our legs, which I gotta tell you was welcome after all those hours sitting around in airports and on airplanes. We should probably get back to the hotel. I could use a shower anyway.”

“I think Annja wanted to prep us to meet the rest of the crew first,” Trish said.

Annja made a humorless noise in the back of her throat. “And prep myself. This is liable to be a pretty hazardous undertaking. I hope that was all fully explained to you in advance?”

The new arrivals looked at each other and laughed. “Are you kidding?” Jason said. “Dougie? He assured us this was all going to be a piece of cake.”

“My uncle back in Waco always used to say, ‘Don’t piss down my leg and tell me it’s raining,’” Trish said, allowing a touch of Texas Panhandle she’d obviously been carefully suppressing before to slip into her voice. “It’s like he knew Doug.”