Evolution of Fear (8 page)

He bailed to exhaustion.

By evening he had managed to remove most of the water from the cabin. In the last of the day’s light, the boat still pitching in wild seas, he winched the boom back aboard, lashed it to the deck, retrieved what was left of the mizzen rigging, and made fast whatever could be salvaged. He scanned the eastern horizon: no sign of land.

As darkness fell, he retreated below deck and collapsed into the main berth. He was asleep before his head touched the sodden cushion.

When he woke the starboard portholes glowed yellow, filling the cabin with morning. Waves lapped the hull. Clay closed his eyes and felt the ketch rock gently beneath him. Shaking off a forgotten dream, he swung his feet to the floor, winced at the pain in his arm. He pushed open the makeshift hatch, stood on the second gangway step and stuck his head outside.
Flame
bobbed on a sea almost calm under a blue cirrus sky, yesterday’s storm just a distant rumour on the northern horizon. The breeze was fair from the northwest. He was alone, rudderless, adrift and without power, the universe of the sea stretching away to every distant meridian.

First, he needed to look after himself. Every part of his body ached. He tore the wet bandages from his arm, examined the wound and applied a fresh dressing. Soon he had the stove going, water heating. He opened the food locker and rummaged through the jumble of disintegrating packaging, smashed glass and diesel-smeared plastic. The labels of most of the tins were either gone or indecipherable, so he picked a big can that didn’t look like beans and opened it. Peach
slices in syrup. He gulped them from the can, the juice running down his chin and shirtfront. Amazing. He grabbed another tin, larger. It was some kind of meat stew, thick and rich. He dumped the contents into a pan and put it on the stove, his body quivering with the promise of healing protein.

After eating he set to repairs. Basic steering was the next priority. It took him the best part of the morning to hack away the shorn wheel sleeving and flange the emergency tiller to the rudder shaft.

With the sun nearing its zenith, it was time to start determining just exactly where he was. Clay found Punk’s sextant and took a noon sight. His calculations put him at approximately 6° 15´ W longitude, about sixty-five nautical miles west of Ushant, latitude uncertain. From here, any course east of south would land them on the north coast of Spain, anywhere from A Coruña to San Sebastián.

By late afternoon he had rigged a makeshift mast by lashing the boom to the main mast’s shorn stump, cannibalising stays from the tangled wreck of the mizzen and making them fast to the deck plates that had survived the dismasting. Soon he had the smallest of the reserve jibs up and flying as a mainsail in a reaching wind. It gave him less than a third of the original sail area, but with careful trimming and adjustment, he soon had
Flame
foaming along at what he estimated to be four knots, bound for Spain. There was still a long way to go, but it was a start.

As the sun set over the Atlantic, he sat at the tiller and sipped a mug of strong, sweet coffee, guiding
Flame
down the back of a following wave. At this rate, he could be in Spain in three days.

By now, Koevoet would have realised he hadn’t landed in France. Not at any of the major ports, anyway. How many places could they watch? Did they have a line into French customs? If the company was working for Regina Medved, which seemed almost certain now, they could bring their combined forces to bear. He wondered how long it would be until they shifted their attention to Spain. Koevoet already knew Rania was in Cyprus – had told Clay so himself. Maybe they wouldn’t even bother trying to intercept him on the continent.
They’d just wait for him come to them. Clay imagined Eben’s killers, brush in hand, painting that horrifying message in blood on the clinic wall. Suddenly, three days seemed like an eternity, stuck on a crippled ship in the middle of nowhere, at the whim of winds and tides, travelling at four nautical miles per hour. He could run faster.

What had Rania said on the phone? He replayed their conversation in his head, the words she’d used: genocide, extinction. What the hell was she mixed up in? He couldn’t have made the danger any more clear. Surely she had seen sense and was by now back in Switzerland. At the chalet in the Alps, holding a cup of herbal tea, the early-winter snow thick already on the mountains, icicles hanging from the eaves. He wiped the image away. Premature. Go, she’d said, go make peace with the one person you can never forgive.

The barometer was rising steadily now, the air warming, the wind steady from the west-north-west, the aftermath of the storm moving away towards France. He sailed on through the night, south across aeons of stars. Once, he spotted a ship’s running lights on the horizon, but she was moving fast, and soon there was only darkness again and the shimmer of distant planets reflecting on the black waves. Towards midnight he trimmed the makeshift rig, found he could gain an extra knot by rigging another stay and bracing the foot of the sail. Later, the sky cleared enough for a crude fix on Venus, allowing him to plot a position 170 nautical miles north-north-west of Santander.

And in this reduction of the universe and his place in it into the calculus of sidereal hour angles and distances from the first point of Aries, there was no lessening of the mystery of it. No diminishment of awe.

Sometimes just to be alive seemed the miracle it surely was.

The westerlies held till sunrise, strengthened through morning. By midday
Flame
was humming along, doing five knots on a broad
reach. Clay sat in the cockpit, tiller under his left arm, Koevoet’s copy of
Macbeth
open in his right hand. As the water slipped away beneath him, he read until night came.

The instruments of darkness tell us truths.

The next morning Clay stood at the bow, searching through the binoculars for the northern coast of Spain. The star sights he’d taken just before sunrise had given him a reasonable fix. If his navigation was on, Santander’s approach beacon should be coming into view soon. Trimmed up in a following wind,
Flame
slid noiselessly through the morning calm. Clay looked down into the clear, cold, Biscay water, watched the swell of
Flame
’s bow wave flexing like a translucent muscle. He was about to raise the binoculars again, scan the horizon, when a pair of sleek grey backs surged up through the water and finned into
Flame
’s bow wave. It was a pair of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, pale and sleek, hitching a ride. Clay sat in the mangled arms of what was left of the pulpit and watched the dolphins, legs dangling over the side, water splashing on his bare feet, just the three of them in an empty morning world, speeding along together to some unknown future. The dolphins were close enough to touch, inches from the hull. They looked up at him. Where are you going? their eyes seemed to ask him.

They stayed with him for a long time, dancing for him, talking to him in a language he did not understand. And then, all at once, they exhaled in a double burst,
pfough pfough
, snatched breaths of air, held there for a moment and dove deep. Clay watched them fade from view, waited a while hoping they’d come back. After a while he looked up. There was the coast, big and close and dirty.

Clay stood tiller in hand and piloted
Flame
into the channel leading to Santander harbour, the timeless gratitude of landfall warm inside him. Despite hours trying, he hadn’t managed to get the engine going. It was cool, a late-autumn day on the northern coast of Spain, a light breeze blowing in off the sea, feathers of cirrus wisping in a hazy sky. The old port city opened up before him, the sand spit and lowlands of the eastern shore, and to the west, ridges of whitewashed buildings, turn-of-the-century façades cascading down to shingle beaches. He brought
Flame
about, made for the protective embrace of the Punta del Puerto, a cluster of masts half-hidden behind a rocky islet.

Twenty minutes later he glided
Flame
past the rocks and into a narrow embayment, a notch in the limestone bluff. Big pines clung to the slopes, an amphitheatre of boughs, and above, the rooftops and dormers of the city. Two dozen boats hugged both sides of a single plankwood dock that bisected the cove. The dock ramped up to a small stone building. A man was standing outside the doorway, hand raised to shield the sun from his eyes.

Clay let the mainsail luff. The man started down the dock towards him. He walked slowly, with a slight limp. As he approached, Clay could see that he was older, slightly stooped, with a thick grey beard. He wore a colourless woollen jumper and black cloth cap. The man reached the end of the dock, stood for a moment looking out at
Flame
. Then he smiled, raised his hand and waved. Clay raised his bandaged hand. The man pointed to the west side of the dock. Together they guided the battered ketch to a safe standstill. Clay
jumped down, making fast stern and spring lines, the old man the bow.

They stood together looking at the wreckage of
Flame
’s deck.

‘
Madre de Dios,
’ said the man, crossing himself, running his fingers through his beard.

‘
Allah akhbar, broer
. Absolutely.’

The man smiled, shook Clay’s hand. He had soft brown eyes, kindness there, history. ‘
Inglés?
’ the man said.

‘
Si, inglés
.’

It turned out that the old man, Señor Gonzales, owned the place, had for years, his father before that. His son soon appeared. He had a La Liga haircut, wore a Barcelona football shirt and had the kind of good looks that older women swoon over. Soon, they’d led Clay up to the building, installed him before the hearth, got a nice fire going, poured him a cup of hot coffee and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. The son, who spoke passable English, explained to Clay that he could clear customs tomorrow. No rush. The family doctor showed up shortly afterwards, checked Clay’s bruised ribs, the blue under his left eye and put ten stitches in the knife wound in his arm, the son watching all of it, staring intently at Clay, at the sewing. After a while Gonzales and the doctor left and walked down to the dock. Clay watched them through the window, the two of them standing there gazing at the battered little ketch.

‘Your hand,’ said the youth.

Clay pulled up his sleeve, let the boy look at the stump.

‘How?’

‘Trying to help some friends.’

‘From a danger?’

Clay nodded.

‘And you did? Help them, I mean?’

‘Some. Some not.’

‘It hurts?’

Clay looked at the boy, considered how to answer this. He wanted to tell him some of what he’d learned. That no one ever walks away
from a fight without damage. That the pain never leaves you. Ever. That he’d lost so much more than a hand. Instead, he said, ‘Yes.’

The boy nodded.

The doctor and Gonzales returned. Clay offered the doctor a fiftyeuro note, but he waved it away, said something to Gonzales that made the old man laugh.

Clay thanked them for their hospitality and asked directions to a good hotel.

‘No,’ the youth said, translating for his father. ‘You must stay with us. Our home is just here, beyond the trees. We are crowded there, but here there is a bed in the back room, a toilet and shower around the back. My father says you will eat with us and tell us of your crossing through the storm.’

Clay nodded to these good, kind people, thanked them. He pointed at the telephone on the desk, looked at the father, the son. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I can pay. I must call someone, long distance.’

Son and father smiled together, nodded. ‘My father says of course, please, as you like.

The old man and the doctor left. Clay gave the son the fifty-euro note and asked him to bring an English newspaper, buy him a razor, a toothbrush, shaving cream. The kid smiled, took the money and left.

The crossing had taken six days. Long enough for his pursuers to know he hadn’t landed in France. Long enough, he hoped, for Rania to have finished whatever it was that she had to do and get back to Switzerland. He picked up the phone, dialled the chalet and waited with a loping heart.

Silence. Nothing. No connection.

He replaced the receiver, tried again.

Same thing – a few random clicks, then dead air.

Cradling the receiver between his shoulder and neck, he dialled the Nicosia Hilton. Three ring tones, an immediate connection. Reception. Ms Moulinbecq checked out two days ago. No forwarding address.

He tried the chalet again, checked each digit of the number as he dialled, the same number he’d used to reach Madame Debret a few days ago from England. Again, no ring tone, no busy signal, nothing – as if the line had been disconnected, had never existed. He filled his lungs, let the air go, closed his eyes, felt the floor pitch beneath him. For hours and days he’d thought of nothing but this one call, the rush of her voice on the other end of the line. Had she quit Cyprus as he’d asked? Or had she simply changed hotels, checked in somewhere else under an assumed name, understanding his warning that she was in danger, but not heeding his advice to leave the island? And why was the line to the chalet down? What had happened there over the last six days to cause this? Fear marshalled in his chest, nightmares making ready to escape their starlit prison.

He put down the phone, walked outside, tried to do his breathing, stood looking down along the dock, the boats there shimmering in the midday sun, halyards flapping in the breeze, the cloud-strewn harbour beyond, all of it pure in its indifference.

When he went back inside the boy had returned with a copy of
The Independent,
the other things and whatever money was left. Clay thanked him and gave him a ten-euro note. The boy smiled. Clay spread the paper on the table, pinned the fold with his stump and peeled open the front page. He scanned the headlines. The eighth of November 1994: the Space Shuttle Atlantis mission, Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s, Johan Heyns, long-time critic of apartheid, assassinated at his home in Pretoria. Clay was surprised it had taken them this long. And, on page eight, just below the OpEds, a piece by Lise Moulinbecq, byline Nicosia. As he read it the youth stood behind him, gazing over his shoulder.

Clay put down the paper, looked out across the water.

‘In Spain also this happens,’ said the youth.

Clay looked at him.

‘When I was a boy there were many fish here. Now to catch one is difficult.’

Clay guessed the kid at seventeen, maybe eighteen, the same age he’d been when he’d made his first kill, watched that SWAPO fighter collapse in the dust. ‘My hand will the multitudinous seas incarnadine,’ he said.

The boy frowned, not understanding.

‘Something I just read.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘We do things,’ Clay said. ‘And then we can’t change them.’

The boy thought about this, nodded.

Clay pointed at the telephone. The boy smiled at him, nodded, turned and left, closing the door behind him. Clay picked up the handpiece and tried LeClerc, Rania’s long-time editor at AFP. The receptionist said he was not available, was in meetings all day. Three more times Clay tried the chalet, each time met by that same empty silence, that absence. He checked his watch. If he was going to find her, wherever she was, he needed to get out of these rags, get cleaned up, buy some new clothes and get going.

After a hot shower and a shave, he walked down to the dock, collected his passport and cash from the priesthole onboard
Flame
, closed it up tight with the guns and ammunition inside and threw Crowbar’s old leather jacket over his rags. When he emerged from below deck, Gonzales and his son were there on the dock, refuelling a pretty little sloop. They looked up at him and waved. He waved back.

Clay walked back up to the office, scribbled a quick note of thanks, a promise to call and discuss repairs to
Flame
, laid out two thousand euros in cash as a down-payment, folded the note around the bills, placed it all on the desk where they would see it, and started into town. As long as he was here, they were in danger.

After five days on a churning sea he rolled like a lost drunk, his inner ear still compensating for the swell. He walked west, along the tree-lined esplanade of the Avenida de la Reina Victoria, the empty beaches of the Punta de San Marcos on his left, the harbour spreading grey and muddy beyond. He watched the road ahead, stopped and turned every now and again to look back. He had no reason to believe that Medved or Crowbar knew he was here, but the fear was there.

After the best part of a kilometre his sea legs settled, and soon he was into the old city, treed streets lined with buildings from the turn of the last century, wrought-iron lamp posts standing like elegant
reminders of another time, a time of gas light and belief, tradition. He found the Mercado del Este and walked into a men’s clothiers.

They were not happy to see him. The sales assistant looked ready to call the cops, had even started to pick up the phone when Clay set a pair of heavy drill canvas trousers and five one hundred-euro notes on the counter. The clerk looked down at the cash, up at Clay, an obsequious smile blooming on his face. Forty-five minutes later Clay emerged wearing a dark, good-quality wool suit, a white collared shirt, dark tie and a pair of black leather brogues. In a bag slung over his shoulder he carried the trousers, a heavy flannel shirt and a new pair of sturdy boots. They’d even thrown in three pairs of boxers and sewn up the arm of Crowbar’s leather jacket. He stuffed his torn and bloody rags into a plastic bag and dumped them into a roadside bin fifty metres from the store.

Not far away he found an Iberia office, bought a return ticket to Geneva for Declan Greene, and in a nearby travel agency another to Nicosia made out to Marcus Edward. The Geneva flight left at 23.30 that evening, the Nicosia flight the next morning. He stopped at a streetside café, ordered a coffee and watched the people go by, the cars, thought about Rania, where she was right at that very moment, what images her retina were processing as if by knowing these he could somehow divine her whereabouts. The sun was low now and the wind came cold from the sea. A young couple walked by, his arm around her bare shoulders. The girl had long, dark hair like Rania’s, a pretty upturned nose. She was laughing at something her man had said. Clay could hear the ring of her voice, the joy there. And then they were past, swallowed by the city.

It was just after five pm. He bought a phone card, found a public telephone and tried the chalet again. He was about to hang up when the line opened. A woman answered, automated, formal. A recording. This number is not available. Clay checked the number, dialled again. Same result. He put the receiver back into its cradle, a hollow place opening up inside him.

He keyed in another number.

LeClerc answered immediately.

‘This is Declan Greene.’

There was a pause, the sound of papers shuffling. ‘Ah yes, Monsieur Greene.’

‘Where is Rania? It’s important.’

‘Will you wait a moment, please?’

Clay could hear voices, footsteps, a door closing.

‘Monsieur Greene?’

‘I’m here.’

‘The last time I heard from her she was in Nicosia. That was two days ago.’ His voice was tense, half an octave higher than Clay remembered it. ‘She filed a story shortly after we spoke.’

‘I read it.’

‘Yes, the turtles. A good piece.’

‘Did she go home?’

‘This is all I know, Monsieur Greene. Now if you will please–’