The Eighth Day (29 page)

The Gator navigated a gravel drive, bordered on either side by rows of pollarded willow trees. A slight breeze ruffled the silvery leaves, turning them inside out so that they seemed to glitter in the sunlight. As lovely as it was, every rut in the road drew a wince of pain from Danny, who kept his feet crossed at the ankles and rolled on their sides. The Buddy/Buddy Guy shot him a sympathetic look but never actually slowed down.

The little road ascended a hill to an arched entryway in a long stone wall topped with the usual shards of broken glass. A guard leaned out the window of a small gatehouse, exchanged greetings with Buddy/Buddy, and disappeared. Moments later, an electronically controlled gate slid open and the Gator moved slowly forward, passing through the archway into an expansive courtyard planted with flowers and trees. Amid the trees was a stately villa of honey-colored stone.

Danny saw at a glance that it was a two-story affair, with the main residence sitting atop an arcade of what looked like utility rooms—kitchen, laundry, servants’ quarters, and so on. With the Buddy/Buddy Guy’s help, Danny climbed from the Gator and mounted a flight of stairs to the second floor. There his escort tapped a keypad on the wall and a pair of antique wooden doors swung open on silent hinges. Even as his eyes adjusted to the change in light, Danny heard first a piano playing and then a low growl that froze him in his tracks. Standing as he was, stock-still, he soon picked out a second growl—a somehow wetter noise, maybe three or four inches from his balls. Lowering his eyes, he found himself caught in the ferocious gaze of a muscular Rhodesian Ridgeback and its snarling twin.

The Buddy/Buddy Guy chuckled to himself, then cooed the dogs’ names. “Castor . . . Pollux . . .” Instantly the snarls turned to yawns. One of the dogs padded away. The other lay down and began licking himself.

Accompanied by his former torturer, Danny moved deeper into the house and soon found himself in the most spectacular private room he’d ever seen. It was a huge space, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling at least twenty feet high. Two of the walls and the ceiling were carved from massive blocks of honey-colored stone. The third and fourth walls were glass. One looked out upon the garden, the other upon a lush atrium at the center of the house. Oriental rugs glowed like jewels on the marble floor. The Goldberg Variations danced in the air.

One of the walls was traversed by a stone bench whose hard surface was cushioned with kilim-covered pillows. Above the bench were paintings and drawings by German Expressionists. At a glance, Danny recognized works by Otto Dix, Emile Nolde, and Oskar Kokoschka.

A third wall was given over to a long slab of hand-rubbed chestnut that held a computer, a Bose stereo system, and a quartet of flat-panel monitors set into the wall. Seated in an Aeron chair before the monitors, a man tapped away at Microsoft’s idea of an ergonomic keyboard. Jammed into the waistband at his back was a decidedly unergonomic forty-five-caliber handgun. The Buddy/Buddy Guy touched Danny on the shoulder and gestured for him to wait. Then he approached the man at the computer.

Danny squinted at the bank of closed-circuit monitors, which showed various gates and doors, the road leading up to the villa, and the interior of the shed in which he’d been beaten. With a shudder, he turned his attention to the paintings and, in particular, to one that was very different from the others. This was an Impressionist work, one of the blue-and-green palm-leaf cut-outs that Matisse had made during his travels in Morocco. Perfectly placed, it mirrored the vibrant colors to be seen through the window overlooking the atrium. Danny was so taken aback to find a Matisse in such an improbable place that he didn’t notice that the man at the computer had come to his side.

Too played out to jump, the most that Danny could manage was a slow double take.

The man beside him was a few years older than himself and about the same size. He had jet-black hair that needed cutting and a shadow of beard on his cheeks. As he reached out to shake hands, a gold Rolex glittered on his wrist. “Remy Barzan,” he said, then gestured to the kilim-covered divan. “Can I get you something?”

Danny didn’t reply at first, just took the seat that he’d been offered. He was trying to understand how someone who owned a Matisse could sit in front of a television monitor and watch another person being tortured. With the Goldberg Variations playing softly in the background. It took a minute for Danny to get his bearings, and when he did, he said, “Yeah. A shot of Novocain would be nice. And a champagne chaser.”

His host looked surprised. “Champagne?”

“I’m celebrating,” Danny explained.

“
Are
you?! And why is that?”

“For a while, I thought I was getting an acetone bath.”

Barzan looked embarrassed and regretful. Then he sighed and said, “Well, the night’s young.”

SIXTEEN

There wasn’t any Novocain available, but Barzan came up with the next best thing—oil of cloves. Danny dribbled the extract onto a wad of cotton and gingerly pressed it against the ragged edge of his tooth. The gum began to sting, but, to his surprise, the pain receded almost immediately.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Barzan told him.

“No problem,” Danny mumbled, although he didn’t mean it. Barzan’s generic apology hardly made up for what had happened to him. But for now, he’d learned his lesson about questioning authority from a position of weakness. This guy was his host. He could hardly walk. Better to wait and see.

“I didn’t know about Chris, you know,” Barzan said. “Although I suspected something had happened to him.”

“He was your friend?”

“Yes.” Barzan ran a hand back through his hair. “Look. Why don’t you rest for a while? I’ll see that you get some clothes, and we can talk later.”

It wasn’t a suggestion, really, and anyway, Danny wasn’t in the mood to talk—not just then. Whenever he spoke, something went off in his left ear and a shooting pain bolted through his jaw. One of Barzan’s retainers was sent for and returned pushing an antique wheelchair. Danny would have preferred to walk, but his feet were swollen and throbbing. Like overripe tomatoes, they felt and looked as if they might split open at any second. With a ragged sigh, he eased himself into the chair and fell back against it.

“Till dinner, then,” Barzan said.

He fell asleep in a leather easy chair beside a window in a bedroom overlooking the courtyard, his feet soaking in a numbing bath of ice-cold water. It was a deep and dreamless sleep that went on for hours, then ended in a myoclonic jerk that sat him bolt upright, uncertain of his whereabouts. And scared.

Then he remembered.

Beyond the window, the sun was a suggestion of pink behind the courtyard’s walls. The water at his feet was tepid. Billie Holiday’s voice floated down the hallway.

Slowly he got to his feet and hobbled across the stone floor to the bathroom. There he opened the taps to the tub and adjusted the temperature of the water. Then he went to the sink and leaned on it, feeling woozy, bruised, and nauseous. Warily he turned his eyes to the mirror and, seeing himself, groaned. The front of his shirt was flecked with blood, as if he’d been sprayed with muddy water. His lower lip was torn, his cheek bruised, his right eye swollen shut. Grimacing, he was startled to see the gap where a tooth should have been.

The bath restored him—though not to the point of feeling
well
. That was a condition jump-started with the Percocet that came to his room on a silver tray, accompanied by a cold bottle of St. Pauli Girl. He washed down two of the pills and put on the change of clothes that Barzan had arranged for him. Dark linen slacks, a white shirt, and leather sandals. Big leather sandals. Wondering when the pills would kick in, he limped along behind a servant, following him to a sitting room, where Remy Barzan was seated in a chair beside a crackling fire.

A servant delivered a second round of beers. Barzan held his up, a kind of toast. “Cheers,” he said. “Now, tell me about you and Zebek.”

It was difficult to talk, at first, but as the Percocet came on and the pain receded Danny became almost garrulous. It took him nearly an hour, but he covered most of the bases—from the meeting in the Admirals Club to the quest for Terio’s computer, Inzaghi’s murder, and his own flight to Istanbul. Barzan listened hard, as a good journalist would, asking only a couple of questions. At some point, a servant came in with steaming bowls of garlic soup and a platter of bread and cheese. Danny wolfed it down, surprised to find how hungry he was. When the story was done, Barzan took Danny back through it a second time, eliciting details that he had omitted—Terio’s calls to Patel, the way Zebek kept tracking him, the loss of the backup floppy that Danny had made.

“So you gave him the names of the people Chris called,” Barzan said.

Danny nodded.

“How many names?” Barzan asked.

“Just a couple,” Danny replied. “Well, three.”

“This man, Patel—”

“—a guy named Rolvaag—”

“The Norwegian,” Barzan said, almost to himself. “So that was his name.”

“Ole Gunnar Rolvaag.”

Barzan nodded. “So there were three names on the list, then.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Patel, Rolvaag, and—?”

“You,” Danny admitted.

Barzan thought about it. “And that’s how Zebek knew about me and Chris. That we were in touch.”

“I guess. I mean: yes. That’s absolutely how.”

The Kurd shook his head and sighed.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” Danny told him. “Getting the toll calls was like routine. It’s what a PI
does
.”

“Well, in this case it got some people killed, didn’t it?”

“I know.”

Barzan looked regretful. “Patel and then . . .” His hand came to his face, a pained gesture. “My housekeeper—she just wanted to borrow the car, that was all.”

“They told me about her—in Istanbul. Donata—at your office—she mentioned the car bomb. I’m sorry.”

“The police said it must have been a kilo of C-4,” Barzan went on. “Rigged to the ignition. When it went off, it was like the whole street exploded. There was glass everywhere. Body parts.”

“So you came here,” Danny said.

Barzan nodded and changed the subject—sort of. “You have any idea what Zebek was looking for?”

“When?” Danny asked.

“In Italy.”

Danny thought about it. “You mean, on the computer . . . ? No. He never said. I didn’t ask.” A pause. “Industrial secrets?” Another pause. “Do
you
know?”

To Danny’s surprise, his host nodded almost imperceptibly. “I think so. . . .”

Danny waited for Barzan to elaborate and, when he didn’t, nearly exploded. “Well!?
What
then?”

“Tree rings.”

Danny thought he’d misheard. “Excuse me?”

“I think he was looking for tree rings. JPEG files, showing tree rings.”

It must be the Percocet. . . .
“No,” Danny said. And then: “What do you mean, tree rings?”

Barzan didn’t answer. “That’s the reason Chris was on the phone to Rolvaag in Norway. Have you tried to get in touch with him by the way?”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe it’s time. Do you know what city he’s in?”

“Oslo—the Oslo Institute.”

“If it’s not too late, we could warn him,” Barzan said in a neutral voice. A thought brightened his face. “And perhaps get the report!”

“What report?”

But the face had clouded again. “I don’t like Rolvaag’s chances.” Barzan stood up and walked over to an antique desk that held a very modern-looking telephone. He sat down and began making calls, trying to get the number from Information in Norway. It wasn’t easy. Danny was feeling the effect of the drugs and stared at the flickering fire. He’d nearly fallen asleep when he heard the amplified sound of a phone ringing: two-burst rings. Barzan had switched the telephone to speakerphone.

A machine answered, the recorded female voice rattling away in Norwegian.

“Of course,” Barzan said. “It’s nighttime in Norway—what am I thinking? The place is closed.” Barzan had leaned over and was about to hang up when someone picked up the phone.

“Hallo! Vaersa snill.”
This had happened to most of the people on the planet. Clearly she meant for the caller to hang on until the message finished. Barzan did so. It took about twenty seconds.

“Hallo,”
the woman said again.
“Taak.”

Barzan picked up the receiver, but the phone still broadcast into the room. “You speak English?” Barzan asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“I’m trying to reach Ole, Ole Rolvaag.”

“Ole?” she said in a surprised voice. “I’m sorry, it’s not possible.”

“Can I leave a message?”

“I’m sorry, that’s not possible.”

“But—”

She rushed on. “I mean—he’s . . . died?” The way she said it, it sounded like a question. “He’s—August eleventh—he’s killed.”

“I see,” Barzan said. There was a staticky hum on the wire, then both of them spoke at the same time.

“I—”

“He—”

“Please,” Barzan said.

“It’s an accident?” the woman said. “Ole is leaving work on his bike and a car—what do you call—run and hits him.”

“Hit-and-run,” Barzan said in a flat tone.

“Yes—this. He’s killed on the spot. They don’t find this car.”

Barzan cleared his throat. “Mr. Rolvaag—”

“Dr. Rolvaag, yes?”

“He was doing some work for a friend of mine, a Christian Terio.”

“Oh, yes?”

“An analysis of an artifact. Is there someone I could speak to about obtaining a copy of that report?”

“You can speak to me,” she said, in a kind of Scandinavian singsong. “They all are going into the database, you see. All reports are available for paying the fee.”

Barzan spouted information: Terio’s name, the approximate date of submission, but the woman stopped him.

“We catalog by requester name, alphabetical. That is the first criterion. Spell the name, please.”

Barzan did.

“Ohhhhkay. I take a look.”

They could hear the clacking of the computer keyboard. A minute’s worth or so. “No?” she said. “I’m not finding this? But recently we have trouble with the computer system. Perhaps I take a look in the physical files, which are kept with the artifacts. Do you like to wait? Or calling back?”

“No, I’ll wait,” Barzan said. “I’ll wait.” Danny didn’t know why this “tree ring” stuff was so important, but he could tell from Barzan’s impatient and anxious body language that it
was
.

At last the woman picked up the telephone again. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t find anything—this file is missing!
Even the artifact
is not here—although I see it was here. I see even the Plexiglas sample container. And no one is signing
anything
out.” Her outrage was clear. “This does not happen at the Oslo Institute. There are procedures. . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“Well,” Barzan started.

“Perhaps I ask some question tomorrow,” she suggested, “and you will call back?”

“That would be great,” Barzan said in a dejected tone. “Thank you.”

“Okay. You are . . . ?”

“Remy Barzan.”

She asked him to spell it, wrote it down. “Okay,” she said. “I will leave message for you?”

“Thank you.”

“Ha det,”
she said brightly. “Good-bye then.”

Barzan hung up.

“What’s this report? What
artifact
? What’s she talking about?” Danny asked, although it sounded, even to him, as if he was half-asleep.

Barzan cocked his head, looked at him. Then he glanced at his watch and got to his feet. “We can talk about this tomorrow. I’ve got to make some calls, and you’re going to need a dentist. You should get some sleep.”

In the morning, Danny’s lip was stitched together by a shy young woman who might or might not have been Barzan’s girlfriend. When she was done, she led him outside to where a Jeep waited. Seated in the Jeep, reading a comic, was a big kid with an M-16 at his side. Seeing Danny, he smiled and tossed the comic into the backseat. They drove in silence to a small town about thirty miles distant, finally stopping at a storefront whose business was hinted at by a large sign above the front door. Depicting a giant bicuspid from which little lines of joy radiated, the sign reminded Danny of a British pub—the Happy Tooth or something. The prospect of dentistry in such a place gave Danny pause, but Dr. Cirlik was both painless and efficient. Within an hour, Danny was fitted with a stainless-steel cap and sent on his way with a blister pack of antibiotics. The dentist held up a hand mirror so Danny could take a look. To his eye, the gleaming metal cap on his tooth looked almost as bad as the gap.

Back at the villa, he found Barzan sitting at a long wooden table in the courtyard, reading a newspaper. Like beige parentheses, the Ridgebacks lay on either side of him, snoozing on the ground. Barzan gestured to a chair across from him and Danny eased into it.

“Your house has a nice feel.”

Barzan smiled. “It’s not mine.” Seeing Danny’s surprise, he added, “It belongs to a friend in Ankara. He’s in parliament. If I’d stayed at one of my family’s houses, Zebek would have found me in a day or two. This way, it will take a little longer.”

“Hnnh,” Danny said.

“And at the moment, he has a bonus. He finds me, he finds you also.”

“So maybe I should—”

Barzan interrupted before Danny could finish the sentence. “You’re quite free to go.”

But of course the truth was that Danny had nowhere to go and no place to hide. He reminded himself that Danny Cray was a starred item on Zebek’s to-do list, just like Remy Barzan. Barzan hadn’t exactly tracked him down and kidnapped him. No. He’d been brought to this villa because his intentions had been misunderstood, but he was the one who had traveled to Uzelyurt
searching
for the man across from him. Because Remy Barzan had been one of his two remaining leads. Ole Gunnar Rolvaag had been the other.

“Maybe he won’t find us at all,” Danny suggested.

Barzan shook his head. “Oh, he’ll find us,” he said. “He’s a Yezidi. Even with half of the guys at the checkpoints reporting to
me
. . . it’s just a question of when.”

“So, what you’re saying is: we’re fucked.”

Barzan smiled. “Maybe not. Maybe we’ll move on before he finds us. Maybe we’ll sort it out before
he
sorts us out. Let’s hope so.”

Despite the fact that the man had watched him being tortured, Danny couldn’t help liking Barzan. He liked the guy’s droll sense of humor and self-effacing manner. He found that he was curious to know more about his host.

“What’s your family like?” Danny asked.

“Big,” Barzan said. “Six sons, three daughters, four uncles, five aunts, twenty cousins, grandparents. I’ve got two brothers in the military—one in the army, hunting the other in the PKK. Two in business—one legal, one not. The others—one in politics, one not. That’s me. I have a vineyard near Cappadocia with a line of interesting wines coming along, and then I’ve carved out something of a niche for myself in the French press, reporting on Kurdish affairs. I’m the family dilettante.” He laughed and poured each of them a tumbler of single-malt scotch, no ice. “You?”