I wasn’t going to mention anything about the poisoning. The embassy would learn what had happened when I filed my after-action report. Although McCormick and I were on the same team and Mr. Elliot had vouched for him, he really didn’t need to know anything extraneous to the task at hand.
“Nah,” I said casually. “I was just in the mood for a little sightseeing.”
McCormick stared across the front seat at me. I didn’t move. Then he said, “Okay. Where to?”
“We might want to start with a full tank. We got a helluva drive ahead of us.”
I flicked on the navigation app on my iPhone. Field 27 was due east, nearly 400 miles away. I plugged it into the GPS on the Mercedes dash. It popped up on the navigation screen. McCormick studied it. Shrugged. “Glad I brought coffee.”
He reached into the backseat. The thermos was stainless steel and good for ten or twelve cups by the looks of it. The cups were paper. I poured. He drove.
We stopped for kebabs and manti at a food stand near Korfez. Typical Turkish fast food served with hot tea. I was famished, and even food on a stick tasted good. McCormick tried to make small talk, but I spent most of my time retraining my mind for a HALO jump from forty thousand feet in the air.
I offered to drive, but McCormick shook his head and smiled. “You’re in good hands,” he said. “If I were sitting in that seat and had my choice between the Turkish landscape and sleep, I’d already be sleeping.”
“In good hands, huh? That’s what a friend of mine said, too.” I looked across the console for three seconds. Made a decision. I lowered the back of the seat and closed my eyes. “Wake me up when we get to Sorgun.”
He did. I opened my eyes, repositioned my seat back, and stretched. My eyes went immediately to my watch. The time was 12:22 A.M. An hour and twenty minutes of solid sleep.
“Thanks. I needed that,” I said, and he seemed to know what I meant. I gazed into the pitch black of a moonless night. Two minutes later, I pointed to an exit leading into the low hills off the E88 highway. “Left here.”
The road angled north through plowed fields set against shallow clay hills. Lights from farmhouses shone within the draws surrounding us. Clusters of stars peeked through a ghostly layer of feathery clouds.
I followed our progress on the iPhone map, searching for the road to the airstrip. It had been years since I was last here. It was dark as the inside of a gun barrel, and the rugged terrain was not marked by a plethora of outstanding landmarks. At least not ones that I recognized.
Always have an escape route in mind in case of trouble — basic tradecraft — and McCormick and I were mindful of both the potential trouble and the potential exit strategy. He slowed to a crawl and shook his head at the same time. “We’re shit out of luck if this goes south,” he said, but his voice was calm when he said it.
We rounded the bend, and our headlights shone against the back of a pickup truck parked beside the road fifty meters ahead. Its lights were off, but the vapor wisping from its tailpipe told me the motor was idling.
I slipped my hand under my jacket and gripped my pistol.
McCormick eased off the gas. “We expecting company?”
The placard on the tailgate of the truck came into view. It read: MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR.
“What the hell’s a government truck doing out here?” he hissed. “Coincidence?”
“Like hell.” My chest tightened.
A man in a dark uniform stepped into the road from the left side of the truck. Strips of reflective tape glowed on his jacket. He cradled an MP5 submachine gun and called us to a halt with a raised hand.
“He’s got company,” I said, seeing the silhouette of a second man in the truck. “Passenger side.”
McCormick whispered, “Okay. Excellent. Now what?”
My mind flipped through a dozen possible action plans, none of which had a chance in hell of working. We could run the guy over and come back for his companion, but that made less sense than seeing what the hell he was doing out here, not a half mile from Field 27 and my transportation into Iran. In any case, it was a good bet the landing zone had been compromised and my mission was dead in its tracks anyway.
“Keep cool. Let’s see what he wants.”
The cop put up his hand, and McCormick eased to a stop.
The cop came around to my side of the Mercedes. I thought that was kind of odd, but maybe that was the way they did things in Turkey. He kept his head down and skirted the periphery of the light created by our headlights.
I wrapped my hand around the Walther’s grip and kept it nestled along the door panel. Safety off. Finger on the trigger.
If there was something urgent or out of place happening here, the cop gave no indication. His step was even. His posture was relaxed. Of course, he had a machine gun capable of displacing twenty rounds in a split second, so maybe he had a right to be nonchalant. Then I got a glimpse of his face, and my memory traveled back in time nearly fifteen years.
He made a circle with his hand, telling me to roll my window down. I pressed the window control on the side of the door, and it opened. The cop leaned in. I recognized him.
“Atif! Jesus! What the hell?” I said. Atif Hakan. An operative from the Turkish State Security Bureau. He and I had worked together for nearly six months, busting narco rings and cracking heads from Izmir to Budapest. He was as ruthless as I was and just as dedicated. “You’re still alive.”
“You sound surprised.” He extended a hand. “Jake Conlan. I shouldn’t be surprised to find you in the middle of nowhere.”
“What’s an old fossil like you doing out here?” I replied. I was still gripping the Walther. This was weird. McCormick had used the word coincidence, but coincidence didn’t explain this. “Who’d you piss off?”
“Duty calls. You know the drill.” His grip was firm, pleasant. His tone easy and relaxed.
“The last time we met,” I said, “you were wearing the uniform of an air force colonel. That’s quite a fall to flatfoot cop.”
Hakan laughed. “Well, with all the cutbacks, I’m lucky to have a job. This time it’s something really important. Like making sure a certain airstrip is clear of stray goats.”
“You’re kidding?” I was genuinely surprised.
“Would I do that?” He straightened. “Follow me up the road.”
Hakan climbed into the cab of the truck. Its headlights came to life. A spray of white illuminated the road, and the truck rumbled out ahead of us.
“Who is he?” Trevor McCormick wanted to know, and rightfully so.
“An old colleague.”
“Is that why you were gripping your gun like a man holding on to his last dollar?” He glanced over at me.
“He’s Turkish. Turks take it as an insult if you trust them,” I said.
The American embassy attaché shook his head. “Our guy back in D.C. didn’t tell me you were completely full of shit.”
A half mile ahead, we turned off the road and followed a dirt path bordered by slender poplars, through newly turned fields, and up and over a rocky slope. The air outside was chilly and smelled of rain, but I kept the window down. The road dead-ended in a small wooded valley. The truck stopped and turned off its lights. Hakan got out. The airfield was just beyond the crest of the hill.
“Cut the lights and motor,” I said to McCormick.
I combed the surroundings. The trees were a tangle of black against the purple of the night sky. The night had fallen under a spell of dead silence. All I heard were Hakan’s footfalls approaching. He had left the MP5 in the truck and instead carried a radio.
He touched the side of his wristwatch. A dim yellow glow chiseled his features with soft light. “The bird is ten minutes out. Better get going.”