He could feel the cart begin to move. He could feel cold and pain. And finally, he could feel no thins.
Chapter Five
Clancy Packer had finished his coffee and had started back to his office when he saw Miller signaling him. Miller was holding his phone with his hand over the mouthpiece.
“It’s Joy Carpenter, Chief. She wants to know if we’ve heard anything from T. C.”
Packer took the phone, cradled it between his head and shoulder, and took out his pipe. He was stalling.
“Packer here,” he finally said.
“Clancy, it’s Joy.”
“Good morning.” Packer was doing his best to sound cheerful on a day that had started out all wrong. Sara was closing up the cabin in Vermont, his breakfast consisted of cold cereal, he had been caught for over an hour in traffic, he had already fielded two calls from Lattimere Spitz, the second informing him he was being summoned to a meeting later in the day — and now Joy. Joy had barely spoken on the flight back from Paris.
“I owe you an apology, Clancy,” she said.
“I acted like a spoiled child and I’m ashamed of myself.”
“I’m not certain I wouldn’t have acted the same way if someone had interrupted my vacation in Paris,” Packer admitted.
“Am I forgiven?”
“No apology necessary. Joy, you know that. I’m just sorry we had to bust in on you two like we did. The department owes you and T. C. one.”
“Actually, the apology isn’t the only reason I called, Clancy. I was wondering if you had heard anything from Tobias.”
Packer stalled before he answered.
“Unfortunately, no. We were expecting him to get through to us after he arrived in Istanbul. But so far, no word.”
“That isn’t like him.”
“I know,” Packer admitted, “but he probably has a good reason.” Packer glanced at his watch, it was only nine-thirty and he was already into his first hedge of the day. Even though it was what Sara called a “soft lie,” he disliked being less than honest with someone as close to him as Joy. Both he and Sara regarded Joy and T. C. as family.
“I know you can’t tell me where he is or what he is doing, Clancy, but will you do this for me?
When he gets in touch with you, call me. All I want to know is that he’s all right. We didn’t exactly part on a happy note, and I feel like a real bitch.”
“As soon as I hear something, I’ll call.”
There was a softly articulated “Thank you,” and Packer heard the phone click in his ear. As he walked away from Miller’s desk, he heard his longtime assistant mutter, “If I was in Paris with someone who looked like Joy Carpenter, Chief, you would have had a helluva time getting me to go to Istanbul.”
Bogner opened his eyes slowly, uncertain what to expect. The first thing he realized was that his vision was blurry. And then for some strange reason he thought about one of the lectures he had heard when he went through his Psych Warfare training in Nevada.
“Your an osmic senses are the first to return after a prolonged period of trauma,” the instructor informed them.
“Despite your injuries, you will reference odors, fragrances, and the like before anything else…” Now he knew the instructor was right. Bogner could smell something cooking. He wasn’t sure what, but it was definitely food.
He began trying to take an inventory, avoiding exertion but testing, trying to determine what worked and what didn’t. He started with simple moves like trying to flex his fingers and hands.
Then he wiggled his toes and tried moving his feet.
So far, so good. Then he rolled his head to the right toward the light.
A small, dark-skinned face with curtained features seemed to be staring at him. When he saw Bogner’s eyes open the child blurted out, “Shuismak?”
Bogner blinked.
“He wants to know what your name is,” a voice somewhere off in space said. Bogner’s vision finally cleared enough to see the vague image of a woman standing behind the child. As near as he could tell, she was smiling; a maternal smile, gentle and indulgent.
Bogner was tempted to shake his head — as if the gesture would clear his vision, his thinking, and enable him to speak — but he was eager to avoid the pain. Finally, in desperation, he tried, and though he had made the effort, what materialized was little more than muted half-words and punctuated sounds that even to him made no sense.
“Do not try to talk,” the woman warned. Her voice was soothing.
“I have been at this long enough that I can probably anticipate your questions.
My name is Andera. I am a nurse. And while you have no serious injuries that I can determine, you are suffering from multiple contusions, perhaps a concussion, and you have some distressing burns about the face and hands. Your vision will be impaired for a while.”
Bogner listened, closed his eyes, rested, opened them again, and tried to raise his head to get a better look at the woman.
“And the little boy who finds you such an object of curiosity is my son, Bondil. He thinks I brought you home to be his playmate. At the moment he does not understand why you don’t get up and move around. Forgive him, he is only five.”
Bogner ran the tip of his tongue over his lips.
They were cracked and blistered. He was recording half images and confusion. There was a fire and there were flickering images on the ceiling above him.
“Where — where — where am I?” he managed to ask. His voice sounded smothered.
“You are in a Kurd settlement known as Koboli.”
“An — Andera,” Bogner repeated, trying to hold on to the reality of the moment.
“How — how long — long have I been here?”
“A matter of hours — only since your helicopter crashed last night.”
One by one the pieces were starting to tumble into place. Bogner was beginning to sort his way through the web of his disorientation, and gradually what he was discovering was beginning to make some semblance of order.
“There-there were-were four of us. Did — anyone else — make it?”
The woman’s expression changed. The smile went away and she moved closer to him.
“One other survived. He was not seriously hurt.”
“What about — the others?”
“We buried them at the crash site.” The woman was matter-of-fact about what had happened.
“Both of them were badly burned. I do not think they suffered long.”
Bogner made another effort to move, winced, and sagged back again on his makeshift bed.
“Would you like something to eat? I have made a hot broth with lamb.”
Before Bogner could respond, he felt himself spiraling back into a gauzy world where time and space and pain lost their impact.
Andera Kritara, unlike most of the Kurd women she knew, had attained a position of some importance in the village of Koboli. Her strength, education, and determination had elevated her in the eyes of the village leaders. But because she was a woman, she had not yet been granted a place on the council of elders. Still, everyone in the small settlement recognized her as a voice who would insist on being heard.
Now, as she crossed the open area between her hut and that of Sairan Buk, she wrapped herself in a drab wool blanket and shawl to shield her from the raw mountain wind. She entered Buk’s hut and found him sitting at a table in front of the fireplace. The small portable radio she had purchased for him when she left Nasiriya had been turned off to conserve its batteries. With the border closed by the Turks, there was no telling when they would be able to cross over to Ishna to buy more.