The sonic boom didn’t actually come first. First was the blinding light. The southern sky twenty miles beyond the castle lit up. I knew that there was a peninsula out there because we had sailed around it. What I wasn’t sure of was whether it was there anymore because the white light gave way to an orange fireball. Then, finally, an incredible percussive boom echoed over the sea. There was fire, but no waterspout, which suggested that the Tesla Device’s beam had hit land, not the sea. The tiny hairs on my arms stood up as a result of the static electricity in the dry air and I smelled the sharp odor of ozone, but other than that there was no information at all. Just the searing white light which then gave way to a yellow and orange conflagration on the land beyond.
After that I heard Meryem's voice, but not from a distance. It was right behind us.
“Raise your hands slowly,” she said.
Chapter 59
I did as I was told, so did Kate, because Meryem hadn’t just snuck up behind us, she’d alerted the others, soldiers from the crane’s base now covering us with their machine guns. I raised my hands slowly, surreptitiously snagging my phone from the front pocket of my T-shirt as I did so.
“Drop your weapon,” Meryem said.
Kate dropped her Glock.
“Now kick it down.”
Kate kicked the gun aside. I heard a thump as it hit the courtyard floor below.
“Hands on your head,” Meryem said.
I put my hands on my head, Kate following my lead. A soldier patted us down from behind. He did a thorough job too. Patted my torso, my groin, my legs. However, he did miss the phone that I held carefully concealed under my palm on the top of my head. It wasn’t exactly a lethal weapon, of course, but it was what I had.
“Good to see you again, Meryem,” I said.
“You too, Michael. I see that you are well.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the dirt bath.”
“The dirt bath, as you call it, was not something I wished to do. I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice,” I said.
“Not always. Now, for instance, you have no choice. Now, please, walk.”
The soldiers below had us well covered. Meryem might have been right about me having no choice. At least not a desirable one.
“I said walk,” Meryem said.
I didn’t walk. Instead, I turned to look at Meryem. But not before I put my hands down, dropping the phone back into my front pocket. Luckily it was dark, or I’m not sure I would have been able to get away with pocketing the phone. Meryem held her SIG pistol aimed squarely at my head. She had learned her lesson. She was careful not to get so close as to be in danger of me disarming her, or too far away as to be in danger of missing. In short, she was the consummate pro, cool, calculated, deliberate.
“I am sorry that things between us ended as they did,” Meryem said.
“Really?” I said. “Why be sorry? You got what you wanted.”
“I’m sorry, because you have value, Michael Chase.”
“Is that your way of saying you like me?”
I smiled, but Meryem was in no mood for games.
“No, Michael. It is my way of saying that sometimes the wind changes direction. My superiors, once again, see your value.”
She was right about the wind. It was picking up. I tilted my head toward the conflagration burning on the horizon. I could smell smoke now. Smoke and ionized air. Like a woodstove burning after a thunderstorm.
“What do you want, Meryem?”
“The only thing that matters. Peace for my people. Between Faruk and me, we represent the security forces and the army. How long do you think your country will let the current Turkish government stand after forces within destroy their Sixth Fleet?”
“They’ll never believe it was the government,” I said.
“The entire Corlu Regiment is here in Bodrum. They will believe.”
“They’ll know it was a terrorist attack.”
Meryem smiled. A close, tight-lipped smile.
“You use that word terrorist. You use it like it is all that is evil. But what is evil, Michael? Is evil merely what the other side wants?”
“Evil is killing the innocent,” I said.
“You think men on a warship are innocent?”
“I think their families are,” I said. “And their children. And most of the rest of the Navy, a lot of whom just signed up to see the world, a lot of whom are a whole lot younger than I.”
“They are still soldiers,” Meryem said. “Call it a terrorist attack. Call it an act of war by the Turkish Army on the United States. Six thousand of your sailors will be dead. The United States of America will not allow our government to remain after this. The real terrorists, our esteemed prime minister and his cabinet will be gone and a better group will follow. But only if we make them. Only if we do the difficult things.”
“Doing this won’t help your people, Meryem. It will only hurt others.”
“I am a Kurd, Michael. My father was a Kurd, and his father before him. We will do as we have always done. That which is necessary to survive.”
“Killing six thousand people is equal to survival?”
“Killing six thousand people is equal to change.”
Finally, she had said it. She had reduced the issue to its simplest terms. And there was an appeal to her logic. An appeal that made me consider it. Was six thousand people a reasonable cost for change? Or sixty thousand? Or six hundred thousand? Because the cost would be less than the benefit. But only if you weren’t one of the six, or the sixty, or the six hundred. If you were, it wouldn’t be worth it. Because the problem with paying for a result, even a good result, with other peoples lives, was just that. The lives you were paying with weren’t your own. They weren’t even borrowed. They were stolen. And you can’t buy honesty with a lie. It just can’t be done. The legal profession calls it fruit of the poisonous tree. Everything that follows is tainted.
“You buried me once. What do you want with me now?” I said.
“A change of plan,” Meryem said. “We know about your work with technology,” Meryem said. “We require your expertise.”
I was staring down the barrel of her SIG. It was a 9mm. It was probably loaded with a soft-nose round with enough power to blow a cauliflower-sized hole in the back of my head. But I didn’t care. I just laughed.
“You’re not going to get it,” I said.
“No? What about now?”
Meryem pointed the barrel of the SIG down. Then she shot Kate clean through the foot. One casual pull of the trigger. Kate grimaced. She bit her lip. But she didn't scream. And I admired Kate at that moment. I admired her grit. Kate had a lot of questionable qualities, but being a whiner wasn’t one of them. No, she could take as good as she could put out. I saw that she was now favoring her good foot, blood staining the cream-colored fabric of her shoe.
“You think that’s going to convince me?” I said.
“Perhaps not,” Meryem said, “But I know what will.”
Meryem raised her arm and waved a soldier over to guard Kate. Then she pushed me forward with the barrel of the gun toward the parapet. I looked down on the town square from the castle wall. I saw military vehicles, big transport trucks and Jeeps, lots of them. I also saw people. Regular people, tourists, backpackers, all gathered in the square. I even saw the Irish family whose photo I had snapped. I recognized the freckled little kids from their lit-up shoes, dancing around their tall, backpack-wearing parents. The kids were still happy enough, but there was a growing sense of unease, a sense of panic in the crowd. Everybody had seen the light in the sky, but the square was very crowded and there were only two exit points. Those exit points had men in uniform stationed at either one of them.