The scooter kid’s appearance was the first sign we’d run out of time. Until then, I’d hidden from reality under an avalanche of incessant boat work, heat, pain, filth, panic, expense, and frustration. I deliberately ignored the ticking clock. Suddenly everything was at stake and we had to leave. I knew nothing about planning for the kind of time, distance or conditions we had to cover, or how to survive in an environment I knew nothing about. I was in trouble and Anna was too – only she didn’t know it yet.
I ran back to Shadow, grabbed Anna and we made our way to the sprawling bazaar. As usual, we were hounded by desperate salesman asking where we came from, how we were feeling, and how we could pass up their deals of a lifetime. I grabbed a potato from a bin. Tossing it from hand to hand asked, “So, food for the next three hundred days or so, you came up with a menu, what do we need?”
Anna snatched the potato from mid air and put it back. “Stuff that keeps a long time. Potatoes are good, but this just isn’t going to work. We need stuff in cans. A lot of stuff.” She looked around, distracted. “And how are we going to get it all back to the boat, Jess. There’s no way we can do all this today.”
Wandering by a farmer’s wagon piled high with root vegetables, Anna snapped her head around and froze. “Look,” she whispered. “It’s my cousins. What are they doing here?” She was right. A couple of muscle-bound dudes were hanging around a tacky T-shirt shop trying to look inconspicuous. They were clearly Russians; self-consciously insecure and clad in flip-flops, loud low-rider shorts, t-shirts, and mirrored wrap-around sunglasses. On their belts they had the obligatory man-purses.
“Shit! do you see your mother?” I moved behind the wagon and we sidled into the crowd.
“No mother, just the cousins. Could their being here be a coincidence?”
“Right! In town for a little T-shirt shopping in the bazaar, I suppose. Damn, they’ve bloody been watching us.”
“If they see us, why not try to catch me?”
“I’d say they don’t want to or they would have, besides, this isn’t Russia. Maybe they’re not ready to kidnap a woman in a crowded bazaar. Could be they’re waiting for a better setup. Maybe they’re keeping an eye on us until somebody else gets here.” Obsessed with the damn boat, I sure hadn’t seen that coming. What an idiot I’d been! Maybe that Russian madam, who had it in for Anna, found out just who was looking for her.
We slipped back into the bazaar. Narrow streets shaded by awnings, clogged with shoppers and reckless scooter drivers. I was sure the cousins were right behind, but controlled the urge to turn around and confirm it. We came to a street filled with schoolchildren in matching blue and white uniforms and ducked into a store opposite a partially completed building draped in a three-story portrait of Ataturk gazing heavenward.
Several women watched me scoping the store’s entrance. Anna faded into aisles overhung with piles of bottom end consumer goods. Seconds passed. Then minutes, and nothing happened. I was vaguely aware of Anna speaking English somewhere in the back. When she approached, she had the phone to her ear and a reasonably nice looking set of place-mats in her free hand.
“Shopping?”
“What do we do if they come in after us? There’s no second way out. Should we make it look like we have not noticed them?”
Anna handed me the phone. “Sinem can help us provision. She wants to talk to you.”
“To me?” I didn’t know what to do with it. “Whoa, too many inputs: cousins, shopping, Sinem, provisions. Cousins first; maybe there’s an advantage in them not knowing we spotted them, carry on shopping.” As a second thought I added, “They probably know what boat we’re on anyway. We’ve gotta let Omar know about them.”
“Good idea, but talk to Sinem first, she’s waiting.” Anna pointed at the phone. “We are probably safe here for a while.”
“Oh yeah, Sinem! Sorry, you still there?”
“About time! What’s going on?”
“We’re leaving. We’ve got to go right away.”
“Anna’s cousins… right? Anna said something like that.” The phone accented the scratchiness of Sinem’s smoke ravaged voice. “I’ve got friends in the wholesale business. I think I know what you need. My friends provision mega-yachts, even warships when they come to town.”
“Warships?”
“Yeah, navy boats — lots of food. I don’t know what you guys are thinking, but you’re not going to provision at the bazaar.”
I didn’t know what to say, it was all happening so fast. “Today, can we do this today?”
“Nyet problema amigas… I’ll call my friends. We’ll get it done. Relax, you’ve got Turkish friends.” Sinem half laughed, half choked. I couldn’t believe she was barely in her thirties. “You girls crack me up. Really… you’re in the bazaar to provision for a non-stop ocean crossing. Hah, I thought you were nuts when you wanted sailing lessons to get to Canada.” More wracked, consumptive laughter. “I love you guys, I hope you don’t kill yourselves. Gotta go. Later gators.”
Returning to Shadow, Anna was first to spot the cousins again. “I can not believe this, they are here. Look there, on that Lagoon.” She pointed at a catamaran a hundred meters down a perpendicular dock.
Two blonde thugs waved at us from a charter catamaran halfway down a passage between two docks and the marina’s exit. “That’s their way of telling us we aren’t going anywhere.”
From below deck Anna used binoculars to confirm it was her cousins on the catamaran. She didn’t recognize the name or logo it was adorned with. It was a charter yacht, but not locally owned. I Googled the name she read to me. Sure enough, the catamaran had come from Bodrum, the next major seaside town up the Aegean coast.
Tom folded his tall lanky frame down the companionway moments after I phoned. “Well, shit. You don’t make it easy, that’s for sure. Still, you’re not dead yet. That’s a good sign, Jess. A damn good sign. With the protection you’ve got from your friends you’ve got nothing to worry about from those two for now, at least. What’s got me nervous is them making it clear as day they’ve got their eyes on you.” He raked his fingers back and forth through his hair. Made it look like a bumper crop after a hail storm. “They know they can’t do anything with the kind of friends you’ve got, but I reckon they’re biding time until someone else shows up who’s not afraid of the local Turkish organization. It’s time to make tracks.”
“Sinem, she will help with the provisioning.” Anna said, starting for the companionway. “She has told me of her wholesaler friend. Together, they are on their way now to here and I’m heading out to meet them.”
“While you’re at it, get Erdem, and his uncle — and anybody else you can think of. We need to come up with a plan of action to get you guys past the charmers on the catamaran.” Then to me, Tom added, “You get that satellite phone gizmo from customs?”
“Not yet. The sleazoid wants a thousand Euros…”
“Jesus, this is Turkey! You’ve done pretty damn well up ’til now. Either you pay the grand or don’t and forget the thing, but you better do something.”