The Ottoman Conspiracy, page 1
part #3 of Jeff Bradley Series
PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
“Ryan is that rare breed of thriller writer, a craftsman and an artist!”
—Acclaimed American writer Lee Jackson, author of Redemption
ALSO BY THOMAS RYAN
In the same series:
The Field of Blackbirds
The Mark of Halam
Short Stories
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 Thomas Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503942196
ISBN-10: 1503942198
Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com
For Meg,
to whom I owe everything
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
A gear change and a turn caused the Starliner bus to lurch to the right. The sudden movement stirred Barry Briggs from his catnap. He opened an eye. The early afternoon sun caused his eyelids to flicker as they adjusted to the light. His head bounced off the window pane. Neck muscles stiffened, holding his head steady until it settled back against the glass. Bethany, his fiancée, her head on his arm, remained undisturbed by his fidgeting. For two hours the bland music filtering through the bus speakers had caused him to drift in and out of sleep. He had wriggled about each time he woke. He envied Bethany’s ability to sleep in such uncomfortable conditions: to sleep well, he needed a comfy bed and a flat pillow.
The vehicle pulled to the side of the road. Barry checked his watch. It wasn’t a scheduled stop. Outside, through the misted windows, he could make out shadowy, uniformed figures, but not how many. He would be pissed off to hell if the driver had stopped to take on passengers. The trip to the ANZAC commemorations on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula had been in part to celebrate his thirty-third birthday and in part a pre-wedding gift from Bethany. In a few days, they would leave for Rome, and in Rome they would be married. A trip to the battlefields of Gallipoli was not the most romantic lead-up to the most important day of their lives. But he was Australian and Bethany was a New Zealander, and ANZAC Day at Gallipoli was a pilgrimage for the citizens of both countries. They were in the region and Bethany had readily agreed when he suggested the visit, so why not?
He had joined an organised tour group. The group had chartered the bus to take them from Istanbul to Gallipoli and back to Istanbul, and they had paid good money to have it to themselves. Even if he was in a generous mood, and he wasn’t, where would the extra passengers sit? Okay, there were spare seats in the rear and a couple in the front, but that wasn’t the point. What if one of the group wanted to stretch out? Turkish bus drivers might look to make extra cash on the side by taking on extra passengers and not declaring it, and good for them, but not on this bus.
A hiss of compressed air and the door opened.
The driver climbed out of his seat. Barry put him at fifty years old, could be younger. He was overweight, with a round face that had not been shaved for a week. The driver glanced down the aisle: twenty-five rows of light-grey, soft-leather upholstered seats to the back, with two seats either side. Barry thought there was something shifty about the driver’s actions, like a shoplifter in a department store checking if anyone was watching. Satisfied there was little interest in his movements, the driver pulled on his mustard jacket with its sheepskin collar and stepped off the bus. Barry lifted himself up in his seat and quickly checked the passengers. Some were sleeping, some reading a book or leaning heads on hands, but no one seemed interested in the bus driver. Barry turned back to the window.
He blew hot air on to the window and used his sleeve to rub a space in the moisture. Now he could see clearly. As the driver spoke with the men, he repeatedly looked over his shoulder. The men, agitated, waved their arms. One poked his finger at the driver’s chest. An argument, but over what, Barry couldn’t hear. The driver must have lost. He kicked at the ground then stomped to the luggage compartment and loaded two bags. The bus was an expensive, luxurious experience, fitted with the latest gadgets, and Barry was not happy to share with freeloaders. He would need to complain.
When the driver climbed back aboard, four men dressed in Turkish police uniforms followed. A fifth man, scruffily dressed in unironed civilian clothes, jumped on to the first step and the door closed behind him. The civilian had piercing slate-grey eyes, set in a face chiselled from granite. At first, Barry thought he might be a prisoner. But the man looked too relaxed. And the manner in which the police spoke to him was respectful, not authoritative. The police looked scruffy, the uniforms unkempt. Not the smart look of the cops in Istanbul.
The man in civilian clothes sat.
The police remained standing, speaking in whispers with the driver. The driver was shaking his head. It looked as if the police were demanding the driver take them somewhere and, wherever that might be, it didn’t appear the driver was keen. Barry dismissed any ideas he had of enforcing his authority as self-selected tour manager. Even in Australia, if the police wanted a free ride, there was no argument. If these guys wanted to go all the way to Istanbul, what could he do?
Two of the cops walked to the rear of the bus, casting their eyes over the forty passengers. The tour group was mostly couples from New Zealand and Australia. Barry and Bethany were the youngest couple, Reg and Mildred the oldest – in their eighties, Barry thought. Two American women, not much older than twenty, were travelling with the group. Barry had no idea why they had tagged along. They had kept to themselves, and other than a friendly smile whenever he caught their eye he’d had no communication with them. Another passenger had passed on that the request for them to join the trip had come via the American Consulate. All he could think was that, despite their youth, they were a token response from the US government to add an American presence to the Gallipoli proceedings.
As the cops passed each seat, heads followed their movements, but no one asked what it was they were looking for. They were cops. No one questioned cops. Barry’s first reaction was it might be a passport check or a search for drugs. When they reached the seats he and Bethany occupied, sly eyes slid in his direction. Cold and calculating was Barry’s reading of the police officers. Most cops he had met on his world travels had a surly manner. Why would Turkish cops be any different? He considered asking one of them, ‘Why the hold-up? Start the bus and let’s get moving.’ He didn’t. When the two cops returned to the front of the bus, he relaxed. Maybe now they would be on their way. He leaned his head back against the window and let his eyelids close again.
The sound of metal tapping against metal roused him.
One police officer was tapping the barrel of his side arm against the handrail next to the driver’s seat. Barry swivelled and looked behind him. Heads rose above backs of seats. Graeme Beattie, in the seat across the aisle, a can of beer in his hand, looked Barry’s way. His eyebrows arched. ‘What the hell is going on?’ was the unspoken question. Barry shrugged a response. How the hell did he know? Graeme’s wife looked at the beer can and then directed a frown towards Barry. ‘This is your fault,’ she seemed to be accusing him. Barry wanted to yell back at her, ‘Your husband’s an alcoholic, lady.’
Bethany stirred beside him. “Who’s making the noise?” she mumbled.
“I think we’re about to find out.”
Confused, she saw something amiss in Barry’s face and sat upright.
The pol
The man in civilian clothes stood. He squeezed past the men in uniform and moved up the aisle a few paces.
“I am known as The Sheriff,” he started, his English not fluent but clear enough to be understood. “My men and I have taken control of this bus. Before boarding, I placed explosives in the luggage compartments.” Forty pairs of eyes glanced at the floor. “Enough, I assure you, that if the bombs explode not even your teeth will survive the blast. A black mark on the ground is all that would be left. Identifying your bodies will not be possible.” The Sheriff held up an object the size of a cigarette packet. “This is the trigger mechanism. If I push this button it will send a signal to the detonators. And boom, in the blink of an eye you will be dead.”
Barry stretched his neck as he looked out the window and down the side of the bus to the baggage compartment. He didn’t know what he expected to see, and he saw nothing. Bethany, now fully awake, looked to Barry for an explanation. He stroked her arm.
“I do not wish to blow the bus,” The Sheriff said. “This is a last resort, but be assured: if I need to, I will. As long as you behave and do nothing silly, when we have reached our destination you can walk away.”
Graeme Beattie jammed his can of beer between his thighs. He grasped the back of the seat in front and pulled himself to his feet. The can fell to the floor and brown liquid splashed over his wife’s leg. She slapped him on his thigh and glared.
“Who the hell do you think you are, mate?” Beattie yelled, his words belligerent, slurred. “You can’t tell us what to do. Now take your fucking bombs and get the fuck off this bus.”
A sneering grin broke across Beattie’s face. He looked round for support. But, instead of an encouraging en masse thumbs-up, the passengers’ shocked and pale faces turned away, careful to avoid his gaze. Over the last few hours, his companions had slept off the booze. Beattie had kept supping.
Barry ducked down in his seat and waved to attract Beattie’s attention. He wanted to warn him to shut his mouth and sit down. The gesture went unnoticed. Beattie’s wife pulled at her husband’s jacket to try and make him sit. Beattie pushed her hand away. His brain was sodden with alcohol, and now he had become the centre of attention, he was too caught up in his bravado-induced theatrics to spot the perilous course he had embarked upon.
The Sheriff’s eyes narrowed. His lips thinned.
Barry likened The Sheriff’s sudden transformation to the mannerisms of a trapped animal in the wild. He had seen it in men in the mountain villages of Kosovo and Albania. They were hard men who survived in uninhabitable regions, eking out an existence for themselves and their families. And like wild animals, when threatened, a welcoming smile became a snarl in an instant and their reaction was swift and savage. Barry would bet every cent he had in his wallet that almost from the day The Sheriff could walk, any fight he participated in had been a fight to the death. Queensberry Rules did not exist with such men. He would have a primal instinct for survival and, in Barry’s opinion, had been in survival mode for many years.
The Sheriff’s slate-grey eyes twitched and then fixed on Beattie.
“Your name is what?” The Sheriff’s icy voice cut across the silence.
“Graeme Beattie, mate, and I’m not taking any shit from you or your buddies. Now you guys get off this fucking bus before I take matters in hand. Do you dumb shits get what I’m saying here?”
The Sheriff’s eyes narrowed even further. He seemed to pause and consider things, and then a tiny hint of amusement flickered across his lips.
“As with all Westerners, you have a mouth that is very big. When it drops open there is much noise, but always the noise is bluster. You should have learned to keep your mouth shut, Graeme. Because of you, I have to do this.”
The Sheriff stepped back a few paces. With each step, he held Graeme Beattie’s eye. He pulled a handgun from his belt and held it in the air for Beattie to see. The action brought gasps. Barry couldn’t stop an involuntary inhalation of air. Was Beattie about to be shot? Then The Sheriff swung his arm away and brought his weapon down until the barrel was inches from the side of the bus driver’s head. Just above his ear. The driver had been sitting face forward, scanning the road ahead and waiting for the order to drive on.
The Sheriff pulled the trigger.
A loud crack exploded through the bus. Blood and brains splattered across the steering wheel and on to the windscreen and side window. The Sheriff stepped aside for the passengers to see the driver slump from his seat.
“Fuck!” Barry blurted out. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
From his seat, Barry had had a clear view of the killing. Those seated behind the driver would not have seen; a partition wall separated the cab area. But everyone had heard the pistol shot.
“What happened, Barry?” Bethany asked.
“He shot the driver.”
Bethany’s eyes widened in disbelief. She looked at Barry for confirmation. He nodded and Bethany paled and began to shake. Her fingers stroked the cross round her neck. Elsewhere, there were stifled screams and sobbing.
Barry fixed his eyes on the four Turkish cops and the killer in civilian clothes and then across to Graeme Beattie. What an idiot. Bethany gripped Barry’s arm. Her nails dug into his flesh. Without looking he pulled on her fingers until her grip eased. In Kosovo, they had lived through civil unrest, been shot at on occasion and hidden in doorways as rioters roamed the streets. Barry had fought with terrorists while Bethany stood at his side. She was a strong woman. The shock would pass. His main concern right now was whether Beattie would survive the day.
“Look what you made me do, Graeme,” The Sheriff said. His voice was raised, angry. He pointed at the dead bus driver. “This man has a family. Now they have no one to care for them. No more income into the home. His wife, what can she do?” He shrugged. “Beg on the streets, become a whore, and why? All because of you, Graeme. You and your big mouth. Now tell me, do you have more to say? I have no more bus drivers. I will have to kill your friends. I will start with the woman next to you. Is she your wife?”
Beattie swallowed. His shoulders sagged. Pale and open-mouthed, he shook his head and fell back into his seat. His eyes picked a spot on the floor and his head did not move.
His wife made to touch his arm, but pulled her hand away.
“Good, Graeme. Good decision. Anyone else want to speak?” A broader smile now showed a row of worn, yellowing teeth. “Good.”
The Sheriff returned to his seat.
Two of the police officers dragged the driver’s body to the back of the bus. Frightened eyes followed the trail of blood, and then followed the policemen as they made their way back to the front. One of them climbed into the vacant driver’s seat.
The police officer who had tapped the railing said, “Now the unpleasantness is over, I have one more task. We need to collect your mobile phones. Please do not play games with me. It is the modern age and you people come from first-world countries. I know every single one of you will have a phone. I will shoot anyone who does not pass a mobile to my man.”
He nodded to one of his men.
The man, gun in his right hand, held out a plastic supermarket shopping bag in his left and moved along the aisle. Trembling hands dropped mobile phones into it. Barry focussed his attention on the gun barrel when his turn came. He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. Bethany had taken her pink phone from her purse. He dropped them both into the bag. The man moved on until he had collected the last of the phones. He returned to the front of the bus and deposited the bag into an overhead luggage compartment.
“Good. Well done. It is good we have reached an understanding,” the policeman said.
He nodded to his companion in the driver’s seat. The engine gunned into life, and the bus moved forward.
CHAPTER TWO
Ex-Special Forces soldier Jeff Bradley looked for a table that would give him the best view of the gates into the Port of Bari. Not that there was much choice. There were only two roadside cafés opposite the entrance to the docks. They were fifty metres apart. Between them, a stone stairway wound its way up a slope, but as far as Jeff could see it led to nowhere. He chose the café to the right.
