City of the Lost (8 page)

‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘There are all kinds of explanations. That’s why people like me argue about it. But there are other questions too. More to do with the general history of the era. The ones I studied for my thesis, and which Nathan was particularly interested in.’

‘And what are those?’

‘How his books were even possible. You see, the Trojan War, if it really happened, which is a big debate all in itself, took place towards the end of the Late Bronze Age. Somewhere around 1200
BC
, give or take. Yet the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
weren’t composed until the Early Iron Age: 800
BC
at the earliest, more likely nearer to 700
BC
or even later.’ It wasn’t merely enthusiasm either; it was command, authority. Iain had always had a weakness for smart women confident in their expertise. Watching Karin now, he had a sudden, vivid flashback, waking up weak and dazed to find a tall woman of angular beauty standing beside his bed in a loose white medic’s coat, frowning down at him as she jotted notes upon a clipboard.

‘So we’ve got this gap of around four hundred years to explain,’ Karin was saying. ‘And not any old years. There was a terrible dark age between the Late Bronze and the Early Iron. Do you know about this?’

He’d collapsed, apparently. On a flight back from Pakistan. And, because he’d been delirious with some strange fever, and thus liable to say something indiscreet about his mission, they’d summoned a specialist in exotic diseases with an appropriate level of clearance. ‘Assume I know nothing,’ he told Karin. ‘You can’t go far wrong that way.’

‘Okay. Then this is one of the great mysteries of the ancient world. During the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries
BC
, the eastern Mediterranean was reasonably stable. Roughly speaking, Greece and the Aegean were ruled by a loose confederation of Mycenaean kings; the Hittites ran Turkey; the New Kingdom Pharaohs had Egypt and Israel; and the Assyrians ran Syria, Iraq and Iran. Then something terrible happened. The trouble is, we don’t know what. Archaeologists call it the Catastrophe, but mainly that’s because it sounds cool and what else can you call it? But, whatever it was, it scared the shit out of people.’

Her name had been Tisha Morgan. A professor of microbiology brought in from her London research institute to diagnose his condition, then cure him of it. Scrawny, Mustafa had called her. And maybe so. But what Iain had mostly noticed about her at the time was how fully she’d committed herself to his cause. It was why she’d gone into research, she’d later confided to him; because she’d been prone to get too attached to her wards, and therefore took it too hard when she lost them. ‘How can you tell?’

‘By excavating old cities like Tiryns and Mycenae,’ explained Karin. ‘They
massively
strengthened their fortifications. They built huge storerooms and dug deep wells or secret underground passages to nearby springs. All classic signs that they feared something bad. But it did them no good. They pretty much all got sacked and burned. And this wasn’t only in Greece. Same thing across the whole eastern Med, from the Hittites here in Turkey all the way down to Egypt. And no one knows what or who or why.’

With Tisha’s help, he’d soon overcome his fever. Getting over her, however, had proved somewhat harder. After his discharge from hospital, he’d fought the urge to go see her, telling himself he was being stupid, that there was no way they could fit into each other’s lives, that there were plenty of other women out there. But he couldn’t shake the feeling and finally he’d succumbed. He’d visited her at her institute. They’d taken coffee together in a nearby café. The next day too. On both occasions, she’d mentioned her surgeon boyfriend about once every minute, in that half-conscious way people touch a lucky charm in times of stress. But it had done her little good. ‘You must have some idea,’ he said. ‘I mean, didn’t the Greeks invent history? Surely they had something to say about it?’

‘Not as much as you’d think,’ said Karin. ‘They kind of glossed over it, skipping straight from the age of heroes to the archaic age, despite the centuries in between. But then they weren’t very good with chronology. There are hints of a mysterious tribe called the Dorians invading from the north of Greece, setting off a cascade of displaced people in which each went pillaging the next. A lot of people think that the Trojan War was part of it. And maybe the
Odyssey
too. There’s a bit in there that seems to describe a famous battle fought by the Egyptians against invaders known as the Sea Peoples. Trouble is, there’s no real evidence of these Dorians, or of any new arrivals. The opposite, if anything.’

Their marriage had lasted three wonderful years. He’d become a father, which had changed him in ways he’d never have imagined possible. He’d been inside Iran when this idyll had abruptly ended, courtesy of an overworked truck driver on a damp and foggy night. The importance of his mission and the difficulty of exfiltration had persuaded his handler neither to inform him nor to pull him out early. It had been the correct tactical decision, the decision he’d probably have made himself had the roles been switched, yet it had been a betrayal all the same. And though he’d returned to active service afterwards, in an effort to slough off his encasing grief, his heart had never again been in it. He’d begun to cast a jaundiced eye not merely at the fine expressions of intent behind his missions, but at the consequences of them too. And he’d grown to hate the things he’d seen. His own bereavement, to put it crudely, had sapped his will to maim and kill. And so he’d quit.

‘You see, what’s so remarkable is how little changed. Three to four hundred years of absolute turmoil, yet the Greek world emerged from it still recognizably Greek. The Hittites were succeeded by neo-Hittites, the Phoenicians by more Phoenicians, the New Kingdom Pharaohs by Late Period Pharaohs, the Assyrians by neo-Assyrians. All still in the same places, worshipping the same gods, speaking much the same languages, crafting the same kinds of goods with the same materials and techniques. So maybe a terrible region-wide famine caused a bunch of local resource wars; except we can find precious little evidence for that either. Earthquakes, then, except that earthquakes simply don’t happen on that scale. They may take out an island or a province, but not the whole Mediterranean.’

Life after the army had proved hard for Iain. Without Tisha and Robbie to give him purpose, a dreadful lassitude had set in. He’d lain on his sofa, drinking beer, watching daytime TV, loathing himself for not having been there when his family had most needed him, sinking into the downward spiral that had claimed so many of his former comrades, half of whom now seemed to be Born Again, while the other half were drunks. A long, hard look in the mirror one hung-over morning had finally jolted him into action. He’d cut out the booze, got himself fit, sent his CV to anyone in the market for his particular skills, eventually joining Global Analysis. And time had done its usual healing. These past few months, in fact, he’d finally begun to feel better about the world. Like glimpses of blue sky on a dull day, an unfamiliar sensation would sometimes spread right through him, and he’d realize to his mild surprise that it was happiness. Yet, in one way, he hadn’t moved on at all. Despite the efforts of well-meaning friends to fix him up, the few dates he’d been on since Tisha had had all the spark of a wet match struck against a wet box; so that tonight was the first time in years that he’d felt even the possibility of flame. ‘How about a tsunami?’ he suggested.

‘Maybe,’ nodded Karin. ‘Except much of the destruction happened inland; and, afterwards, people settled on the coast, which you’d hardly do if you were scared of tidal waves. Besides, these cities were
burned
. I know you might expect earthquakes to knock over candles and oil lamps and so start fires, but actually it doesn’t work that way because—’ She broke off, however, looked around. They’d been talking so long that the restaurant was empty, except for staff leaning wearily against the walls, waiting to close up for the night. ‘We should go,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘We should.’

It made for a long day, wondering whether you’d killed one person, five people, fifty. But, once Asena and Hakan had found themselves caught between police roadblocks, they’d had no alternative but to hole up in a tumbledown farmer’s hut and wait them out.

The roadblock had lasted only a couple of hours beyond nightfall. No stamina, these rural police. They’d got back on her Kawasaki and headed on their way. A first drizzle at the forest fringes quickly turned into a downpour that made the track treacherous with mud and puddles and sodden leaf litter. With Asena’s rear tyre a little bald, and Hakan riding pillion, it kept sliding out of her control, so that they both kept having to thrust out their feet to stay upright. But they arrived at last at the lair of the Grey Wolves, eight large wooden huts hidden from spy planes and satellites by thick camouflage nets. She drove past the armoury, gave the engine a final roar as she pulled up between the horse-box and the other trucks, enough to bring Bulent, U
ğ
ur,
Ş
ükrü, Oguzhan and various others out of their cabins, most holding waterproofs above their heads. ‘Well?’ she asked, embracing them briskly in turn. ‘What news?’

‘A success,’ nodded Bulent, but soberly.

Asena felt a twinge. Success was such a loaded term for operations like these. ‘How many?’ she asked.

‘Thirty-one so far,’ said U
ğ
ur. ‘Thirty-one and counting.’

‘Thirty-one?’ protested Hakan, appalled. ‘But you promised me we’d—’

‘That was a bomb we set off today,’ said Asena sharply, before he could finish. ‘Not a fucking hand-grenade.’

‘I know. But—’

‘One, two, ten, a hundred?’ snapped Asena. ‘What does it really matter? This is a war we’re fighting. A war for the soul of our nation. Or have you forgotten?’ She glared around at them all, daring one of them to challenge her authority. No one did. She stalked into the main cabin, poured two fingers of raki into a glass then splashed in water to turn it cloudy. Lion’s milk, they called it:
aslan suku
. She held it up as if in a toast then knocked it back and poured herself another. She could hear Hakan muttering with the others outside, but right now she didn’t care. Let them grumble if they must. As long as they obeyed.

The glass casings of the oil lamps, blackened with soot, threw eerie shadows on the wooden walls. These cabins were fitted with electric lights, but they only used their generator once a day, to recharge batteries and put a chill on the deep freeze. She rinsed her plate, poured herself a third glass of lion’s milk. The rain had stopped, but still drip-dripped rhythmically from the eaves. Wolves howled in the distance. They were in good voice tonight. Usually the sound cheered her with its hint of camara-derie, as if some higher power was letting her know the justice of her cause. But tonight it merely made her feel all the more alone.

The Lion and the Wolf.

The milk wasn’t going to be enough. She needed to talk to the man himself. She needed his assurance that those thirty-one lives and counting had been necessary. She went to her room, set up her satellite phone, pinged out an encrypted message. Ten minutes dragged by. Nothing happened. His job kept him absurdly busy and he had to be extravagantly careful about how and when he contacted her. She understood this intellectually yet she resented it all the same. The things she was doing for him, he should find the time. Today, of all days, he should find the—

Her screen blinked. A black box appeared. In the box, his face, grey-lit and jerky and craggy, yet so handsome withal that he still had the power to lift her heart. ‘My love,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ he asked, glancing at his watch.

His brusqueness hurt her. ‘I only wanted to know if today went as you’d hoped,’ she said. ‘And if there were any ramifications we needed to know about.’

‘Today went as hoped. There are no ramifications you need to know about. I’ll notify you through the usual channels if that should change.’

‘Only you never said this morning what it was we—’

‘It had to be done,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

‘Thirty-one people,’ she said. ‘Thirty-one and counting.’

‘It was necessary.’

‘So you said. But why?’

‘I can’t tell you.’ He looked uncomfortable for the first time. ‘Please trust me.’

She shook her head, but only because she was unhappy. ‘I hate this,’ she said. ‘I want it to be over.’

‘It won’t be much longer,’ he said. ‘A few months at the very most and then we’ll be together forever, with everything we’ve worked for. Our nation will be free again. And your father too, don’t forget.’ He checked his watch again. ‘But right now I have to go.’ He softened the message with a smile. ‘You may have heard that a bomb went off today.’

‘Call me tomorrow,’ she said.

‘If I can.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Call me tomorrow.’

He nodded seriously. ‘As you wish.’

She reached out and touched his cheek upon her screen. ‘The Lion and the Wolf,’ she said.

He nodded and touched his own screen. ‘The Lion and the Wolf.’

Somehow, during the course of their meal, sharing a room with Karin had become an issue for Iain to manage. They fell into a slightly awkward silence on their way back to the hotel. Their footsteps synchronized on the pavement, that heel-and-toe cadence that sounds weirdly like heartbeats. The receptionist gave a curious frown as she wished them good night, and the lift seemed a bit more cramped than it had while coming down earlier.

He let Karin into the room ahead of him, the better to follow her cues. She invited him to use the bathroom first. He did so. When it came to her turn, he heard the toilet flushing, the running of a tap, the vigorous brushing of her teeth. She came out wearing his olive T-shirt, its hem hanging loose around her thighs like some skimpy miniskirt. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Never looks like that on me.’