The Ottoman Conspiracy, page 15
part #3 of Jeff Bradley Series
“We’re being followed,” Jeff said, without turning towards Reason. “No prize for guessing who by. If nothing else, Marius is persistent.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want you to go back to the hotel. They have no interest in you. Order room service and if they have a bathtub, have a relaxing bath. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we have a big day. It’s a long drive to Mardin.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all,” Jeff said. “Look, Reason, I know you’re more than competent and can hold your own. I’ve seen you at work. But my gut tells me Marius has arrived with enough men to overwhelm me. This time he is taking no chances. Good tactics on his part. The only way to overcome those odds is for me to keep moving. This is a small town, but it has lots of narrow streets and alleys and lots of hideouts, especially in the cave houses. Two of us looking out for each other will have no chance.”
Reason eyed Jeff. “I can’t give you my weapon. Agents don’t hand over their firearms. Not to anyone.”
Jeff tapped his side. “I have the gun from the warehouse, and an extra magazine. Now, let’s walk. At the next corner, we say goodbye. I’ll catch you back at the hotel. And don’t use my towel.”
Reason stopped. Jeff frowned. “We need to keep moving, Reason.”
Reason said, “Jeff, this place is full of police and military, and I’d say, right now, they’re trigger-happy. If there is a shootout, they will be over you like a swarm of locusts.”
“What do you want me to do? Roll over and let them kill me?”
“No, but remember why we are here. We have a busload of hostages to rescue, and you can’t do that as a dead man. We could give them the slip. Stay out of sight until morning. You said yourself there are plenty of hiding places. The bus will be on the move again, and so will we be.”
“This is not a big town, Reason. Sooner or later, the hiding places would be found.”
They walked the next thirty metres in silence. At the corner, Reason slowed, while Jeff kept walking. Without turning, he raised his hand as a farewell wave, and continued on. He did not want the men following to believe he and Reason were anything other than acquaintances.
Right now, he knew Reason would be struggling with having walked away. She was as much a warrior as he was. And no warrior would ever leave their comrade. In the SAS he wouldn’t do it. He’d sooner cut off his leg. Would he have left her behind if he was in her shoes? No, he wouldn’t have.
The men Marius had tailing him looked Turkish. He would have hired them in Istanbul. The Turks were an unknown quantity but, if they were like the men from the café, not competent. In the end, this might give him a slight edge. If Marius acted the same as he did during the café shooting he would stay back. Jeff had no doubt the Italian was copping flak from whoever had hired him to make the kill. The fear of failure was driving his persistence. In Marius’s world, failure led to a shallow grave in a forest, or a weight tied round the ankles before being dumped in the ocean.
Two men were in front of him now, and two behind. They were keeping their distance. He couldn’t see Marius anywhere. Had he sent the gunmen on their own to do his dirty work and stayed back in Istanbul? The paved streets had filled. Tourists and locals mingled with the media and government officials and police and military personnel. Reason was right: a gunfight in the open was out of the question. He needed to draw them into an environment that gave him an edge or at least balanced the odds.
Marius stepped out of the shadows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Marius watched as his Turkish hoodlums moved into position. Finding Jeff Bradley’s hotel as quickly as they had he had put down to luck. The cop at the roadblock had been only too willing to give news of a taxi transporting an American woman and a New Zealander. He knew the hotel they were staying at and gave easy-to-follow instructions. Marius had gladly given over two hundred euros for the information. He considered the cop greedy, but what the hell.
At first, the hotel manager was deliberately vague, and said he did not know the couple.
“Goreme is a busy town. There are many guests and the hotel is full,” the manager had said.
One of the Turkish gunmen had shoved his pistol into the manager’s ribs. He immediately told them Bradley and the woman had gone sightseeing. Marius told his men to spread out and wait. He would signal when he saw Bradley and the woman return. Why had Bradley come to Goreme? It puzzled Marius. Was he connected in some way to the hijacked bus? Should he inform Gashi? What did it matter? Tonight the New Zealander would be dead and his secret could die with him. Then Marius would return to Italy and relate the details of how he had hunted his prey and killed him to his boss, Pietro Gallo. Of course, he would talk to him by phone first. He would be able to tell by his boss’s tone if all was forgiven. If the danger was still there, he would run. Go to another country. He had money stashed in offshore bank accounts. Enough money to ensure he never need return to Italy.
Jeff kept walking. Each step brought the assassins closer. The net was closing and his options for survival lessening. With the bus in town, the streets had a heavy police and military presence. Curious locals, buoyed by the excitement of the occasion and unconcerned for their safety – they could see on the television the hijackers were surrounded and did not pose a threat – had poured out of their apartments and blended in with tourists and media. The business people, especially the restaurateurs, were not about to miss out on the opportunity to cash in on the unexpected out-of-season bonanza. Goreme was bustling with activity.
Jeff was confident Marius and his men would not fire their weapons in front of so many spectators. The cops and military were armed. Jeff tossed about a variety of offensive scenarios in his head. He rounded a corner, and saw the perfect site to make his stand. A hotel built into one of the upright caves.
From where he stood he could see it had a roof terrace. Did it have an easily accessed stairway or was a guest key needed? He had little choice but to take the risk. Once inside the hotel there was no turning back. Marius and his men would have him trapped. He estimated the height of the building to be at least three storeys, maybe four. As he made his way to the hotel, he used the reflections in store windows to keep track of his pursuers. Thirty metres from the hotel, he turned and caught the eye of the closest of Marius’s gunmen. He feigned nervousness and increased his walking pace. As he neared the entrance one of his pursuers drew his handgun and aimed. Alarmed, Jeff ran for the hotel entrance.
A helicopter passed overhead. Surrounding heads turned upwards. As Jeff jumped on to the first step of the stairs leading to the hotel entrance a bullet splintered a wooden sign screwed into the block wall.
“Bloody hell!”
A shot. And a miss. The miss did not surprise him. Hitting a moving target in dim light from a distance was not likely to happen unless the shooter was a marksman. He gambled that Marius’s hired guns were not sharpshooters. The helicopter had drowned the noise of the shot. No one near him looked startled. No one gave the gunman a second glance. It had surprised him Marius’s man had fired. Now it was clear. Marius wanted him dead, and it didn’t matter how it was done, as long as by the night’s end his bloodied body lay in a heap.
Jeff had avoided drawing his own weapon. He needed Marius’s men to believe he was unarmed. His plan depended on it. He stepped into the foyer and eyed the desk. Reception was busy attending to a queue of a dozen guests. Unnoticed, he ambled across the grey slate floor in a relaxed manner so as not to attract attention. Nice hotel, he observed. It was more up-market than the one he and Reason had booked into. An arrow at the bottom of the stairwell pointed up. A sign in English read, TO THE ROOF, HOTEL GUESTS ONLY. Jeff waited on the bottom step until one of Marius’s men entered. The pursuer blinked when he saw Jeff watching him.
Jeff turned and ran up the stairs.
Marius joined his men at the bottom of the stairwell.
“It goes to the roof balcony,” one of the men said.
Marius looked up. The stairwell had been carved out of rock. There was no way he could see all the way to the top. It was like looking into a spiralling cave. Bradley could be waiting round any bend with a gun in his hand. He glared at his hired men.
“What are you waiting for? Get after him,” Marius said.
“What if he is armed?” one of the men said. “We would have no chance.”
Marius turned to their appointed leader, who had advanced up the stairwell a few metres to peer round the next bend. He returned to the second step.
“What do you think?” Marius asked.
“He saw me draw my gun and aim. He reached into his pocket, I think for a weapon, but his hand came out empty. A little panic set in and he ran for the hotel door. I think that he is not armed. But I cannot say for certain. We have him trapped. The stairs are the only way out. We can wait him out. It is much better to do it this way.”
Marius shook his head. “No. Waiting is out of the question. The hotel staff will grow suspicious. What if they call the police? Then he will have an escort to safety.” The six men had gathered round him. Marius pointed to two in the rear. “You two go outside and keep watch. There might be another way out, and if any police walk this way, come and warn us.”
The two men nodded.
“Now, the rest of you get up the stairs. I will be right behind.”
He saw the hesitant looks. No one wanted to be first into a potential tunnel of death, even if the man they were trying to kill did not have a firearm. Marius did not trust that Bradley had no weapon. If nothing else, the New Zealander had proved resourceful on a number of occasions. If Bradley did have a weapon, in the stairwell, even with his eyes closed, he couldn’t miss.
“I’m paying you guys, remember. And there is a bonus in it for you. I will double the payment to the man who fires the fatal shot. Now, do your job.”
At the top of the stairwell was a steel door that opened inward. When Jeff stepped through the doorway, he pulled the door closed. An advantage to him. Whoever opened the door could not do so without being fully exposed. If they thought he was armed it would make them hesitate.
The owners of the hotel had utilised all the roof area for their balcony garden restaurant. It would be a popular spot in summer, especially with tourists. The rooftop offered a panoramic view of Goreme and the brightness of the city’s lights allowed him to see all the way to the main highway and back to the surrounding white hills. Off-white and cream homes constructed of tufa blocks stood amidst the giant toadstool cave hotels and retail stores and restaurants.
In one corner of the terrace, there was permanent overhead cover and, to provide extra shade through the summer months, canvas awnings. The awnings, now rolled up, hung from walls, ties holding the rolls in place. In the heat of the day, the awnings could be stretched across the exposed area to hooks on poles embedded in the cement surface. An ornate wrought-iron safety railing encircled the rooftop. A stack of tables and chairs stood in the corner next to the bar. Behind the bar was a small fridge. Jeff opened the fridge door, looking for anything he might use as a weapon instead of his gun. The fridge was empty.
Marius and his men would be making their way up the stairwell. He ran to the railing and looked down into the street. Two men were shuffling about a few metres in front of the entrance. Even in a crowd of pedestrians, they looked like men up to no good. It was obvious they were Marius’s lookouts. Good. It was two fewer gunmen for him to worry about.
He made another check of his surroundings. There was nowhere to hide. He took note of how high up the terrace rooftop was. If a gun battle took place, the gunfire would be heard at a distance and the gun flashes easily seen; they would quickly be targeted by the military and the police. He needed to keep the fight undercover. Any police or military involvement and they would all be arrested and thrown in a cell until the hostage crisis was over, and that would not help him save Barry and Bethany. If he tried to shoot it out in the stairwell, the fight would end in a stalemate. The gunmen could stay where they were and he would be trapped on the rooftop. Eventually, the hotel manager would call the police. And a foreigner with a gun would have a lot of explaining to do, especially if there were bodies. This needed to be over, and quick, and without shooting anyone if possible.
The noise of men coming up the stairs alerted him. They would argue about who should go first. The local hoods weren’t going to get themselves killed over a few bucks. Jeff had little doubt if Marius was with them he had taken up a position behind them and was not leading from the front. He had a minute at most.
An image sprang into Jeff’s head.
His would-be killers would be lined in single file. The stairwell was too narrow for two men on a step. He took another quick check of his surroundings. His eyes narrowed on the half-fridge. He dashed to the bar and pulled the fridge out from under the bench. It was light-ish. He grasped hold of two corners and tried to lift it. He easily raised it above his waist. He jostled it until he held it firmly, then stepped back into the centre of the terrace.
Satisfied he had the perfect weapon, he readied himself.
The doorknob turned to the right. A faint click as the lock released. A gap appeared as the door was carefully pulled back. That was the signal. Jeff, holding the fridge to his chest, charged at the door and smashed against the metal panel. It swung on its hinges, and crashed back. A cry of pain came from the man behind the door as his head slammed back against the stone wall. He crumpled to the ground like a bundle of wet laundry. Jeff stomped his legs, the extra force driving his body forward as he rammed the fridge against the line of men; they fell like pins in a bowling alley. He ran over the top of the first three and then Marius was in front of him. The last man had stumbled backwards against the Italian gangster as he was raising his weapon. Marius was knocked off balance, and they both fell on to the stairs. Marius was pinned by the man on top of him. He looked up at Jeff. Eyes wide open. Jeff smashed the fridge on to Marius’s head. Marius grunted, eyes clouded over with fear. His head rolled to the side, dark blood pumping from the gash on his temple and running down his face.
Jeff pulled his handgun from his pocket and spun round to movement behind him. Without taking his eyes off the downed gunmen, Jeff reached across and placed two fingers on Marius’s neck. There was no pulse.
The man who had been close behind the door and borne the brunt of the impact when Jeff smashed it open had recovered enough to be searching for his dropped weapon. Jeff stepped back from Marius and aimed his handgun. The assassin reached for his pistol and managed to wrap his fingers round the grip.
“Don’t,” Jeff ordered. His gun aimed at the man’s forehead. The man stopped moving, his weapon halted halfway to targeting Jeff. Eyes widened as they focussed on the barrel of Jeff’s pistol. “Do you speak English?” Jeff asked.
The man nodded.
“Your boss is dead. Has he already paid you for this job?”
The gunman nodded. Nervous. His eyes danced about, looking for an escape. Deciding there was none, he refocussed on survival. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He licked his lips. Death was a fraction of a second away. Jeff’s knuckle whitened on the trigger.
The gunman’s chin jutted out. Eyes narrowed. Jeff read the sign. The asshole was going to try to beat him to the draw. He sighed and held up his free hand, waggling his index finger. “Do not be an idiot. Drop the gun,” Jeff said. “You have your money. That means no more money for you and your friends no matter what happens from here on. Your boss is dead, so what happens doesn’t matter, does it? Do you understand?”
The man nodded, and let the gun fall from his fingers.
“Good. Do you want to die tonight, or are you happy to call it quits?” Jeff said.
The man said, “You will have no more trouble from us.”
“I’m leaving now. If you follow, I will kill you,” Jeff said, his voice steady.
The man responded with a slow nod.
Jeff, keeping his pistol trained on Marius’s men, backed away. He needn’t have worried. No one moved. Once round the bend and the gunmen gone from sight he made his way down to the foyer. He wiped the gun clean of prints, and placed it on the last step. If there were police outside, now was not a time to be stopped and searched. He no longer needed to worry about Marius. The Italian assassin was gone, but that did not mean it was over. Leka would send someone else.
The hotel management paid him no heed as he made his way towards them. The rock walls must have muffled the sounds.
“There are men in the stairwell with guns,” he said. The blonde behind the desk looked confused. “I think one of them is dead. You’d better call the police.”
The startled concierge standing next to the blonde peered across the top of his glasses. Not believing.
“Men with guns,” Jeff repeated. “Call the police.”
The concierge, with one eye on the stairwell, reached for the phone. Jeff turned away. A couple stepped through the door ahead of him and he followed after them, keeping close behind. As he walked past Marius’s two sentries, they scrutinised him and frowned. They looked at each other and back at the hotel. When Jeff glanced over his shoulder they had entered. Sirens could be heard, and as he entered the street of his hotel a flashing light swept past.
Someone emerged from the shadows a few metres in front of him. Reason fell into step beside him as he walked past.
“I see you didn’t go to the hotel,” Jeff said.
“I thought I’d better hang about. Just in case. Any bodies?”
