Ryker didn’t leave Istanbul after the fight. He laid low while the carnage played out in the media, while his wounds healed, while he awaited Winter’s presence.
Winter appeared on the third day and he and Ryker agreed to meet out in the open, by the water on the European side in the Besiktas area, a few miles south of the burned-out mansion.
Ryker arrived early and took up a place on a bench in the sunshine, overlooking the water, the ornate Dolmabahçe Palace directly behind him. Which also meant the area was pleasantly busy with tourists.
He spotted Winter approaching, still a slight hobble to his walk, several years after a bomb blast had taken many lives, but not his.
Winter sat by him and the two of them looked at the water in silence for a few moments.
‘Your burns are OK?’ Winter eventually asked.
‘They will be,’ Ryker said, looking at the white fabric wrapped around his left hand. He had similar bandages from his right wrist up to his shoulder. On the back of his neck. His lower left leg. ‘Nothing that the bandages and time won’t heal.’
‘You were lucky.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m… sorry. About Everett.’
‘Angel.’
Winter didn’t say anything to the correction.
‘She was a good person,’ Ryker said.
Still, Winter said nothing.
‘If she hadn’t been wronged like that… Who knows how her life would have turned out. She should have been a big asset to the likes of MI6. Instead Podence, the Syndicate, created a monster.’
He squirmed at that last word. He hadn’t meant it. Angel hadn’t been a monster, not in the sense of being evil, at least. The real her had certainly been pushed aside by something much darker. But in her last throes, she’d shown herself to be noble, courageous, even if she remained deadly to the end.
‘She’ll get a posthumous pardon,’ Winter said. ‘It’s not been officially announced yet, but I’m going to make it happen as soon as possible. Her family deserve to know the truth.’
‘Thank you,’ Ryker said. ‘And Podence?’
‘There’s a hell of a lot more investigation to come yet,’ Winter said. ‘To unpick all the deceit that’s rippled through his career, but… I think he was telling you the truth.’
‘Which part?’
‘The threats. Podence wasn’t leading the Syndicate. He was carrying out acts at the behest of people far more influential and more powerful than him.’
‘And do you know who those people are now?’
Winter sighed. Which usually meant he was about to say something that Ryker didn’t want to hear.
‘The thing with the Syndicate… I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but, Ryker, it’s not like it’s this secret society with handshakes and a group of men walking around in the candlelight with big robes on.’
Ryker scoffed. ‘You know that’s pretty much what Podence said, right before he died. So the official MI6 line hasn’t changed, even now?’
‘There is no official line. But that’s my take based off everything I know.’
Ryker glared at his long-time ally. Winter shrank a little as though he understood exactly what Ryker was saying, accusing him of.
‘And Lebedev? Did you look into whether he faked his death?’
Winter took his time answering. ‘There’s no evidence he’s alive. I think Karaman was messing with you. Like he messed with Angel, with Podence, everyone.’
‘No evidence he’s alive? Is there concrete evidence he’s dead?’
‘There’s DNA confirmation. From the crash scene. Very convincing dental records. All signed off by a certified pathologist.’
‘But no body or remains to re-perform that DNA test on.’
‘No. But even if he hadn’t been cremated, I don’t think anyone would have the appetite to do that, anyway. Certainly not the Russians.’
Ryker humphed. He didn’t really have anything else to say about it. The evidence that Lebedev was really dead wasn’t irrefutable, as records could have been doctored or falsified, but in reality it was as strong as he could expect.
‘Ryker, you need to trust me,’ Winter said. ‘The Syndicate, if it exists like you think it does, isn’t something we can break open in one go. But we’ll go after each and every person connected to Karaman, Lebedev, Podence, where we see evidence of crimes. I promise you that. And if there’s any rot left in MI6, MI5, I’ll see it’s cut right out so it can never return. I honestly will, whatever the politics involved.’
‘And what about me? Do I get to help cut that rot out? To find the other corrupt billionaires running amok.’
‘You? But you’re dead, aren’t you?’ Winter said with a smile just a bit too bright and cheery.
Ryker humphed. But yeah, technically Winter was right. James Ryker was dead. Every major news site that had carried the story of the carnage in Istanbul had him down as one of the fatalities. At his own request. He’d get a state-paid burial along with Angela Everett, both of them heroes, killed in the line of duty as they attempted to bring down a terror cell being run by the escaped terrorist, Ismail Karaman.
Ryker’s life was simply safer that way. Whatever the Syndicate was in practice, whoever was still left who cared, if they believed Ryker to be alive he’d be a target.
‘And what about Karaman?’ Ryker asked.
‘I honestly haven’t any intel on where he is now. But you know as well as I do there aren’t that many countries that would welcome him.’
‘You think he’s back in the Middle East?’ Ryker said, looking directly across the water as he spoke, Asia almost within touching distance.
‘I said I don’t know. But it’d be a good place to start.’
‘Have you?’
‘There is no official investigation under way to find him and recapture him.’
‘Why not?’
Winter sighed. ‘Because SIS can’t police the entire world. And right now there is no tangible threat from Karaman to the UK, Syndicate or no Syndicate. But like I said, the Middle East would be a good place to start looking for him. If someone was to look for him.’
A pretty big hint.
‘And if that someone is me?’ Ryker suggested.
‘I’m not going to warn you off. I’m not so naive to think it’d make a difference. But I do ask only one thing from you.’
‘And that is?’
‘Try to do it as quietly as you can. For your own sake as much as anything else, but also to reduce the chances of any fallout in a region that you know damn well is only ever a single bullet away from a new wave of terror attacks.’
Ryker didn’t say anything and they both sat there in silence a few moments. Ryker focused on the Bosphorus once more. Thoughts of two very different fateful nights that started on rippling water burned in his mind. Both left a horribly sour taste still.
He’d remove that taste for good.
‘So you’re good?’ Winter said.
‘Not yet,’ Ryker said. ‘But I will be.’
* * *
Two months later
Some would call it hiding in plain sight. Ryker would call it being a narcissistic megalomaniac who thought he was bigger and more important than the world around him. A man who literally thought he was untouchable.
Which was the only explanation for why Ismail Karaman had so quickly returned to his life of wealth and privilege on board a super yacht. Not in the Middle East though, as Winter had suggested. That other yacht remained in Dubai, but Karaman wasn’t exactly short of cash, or other ‘friends’ who had such big beasts, and Ryker had tracked his man thousands of miles from his home to the waters of the Pacific, and the shores of Malaysia.
Two weeks Ryker had been here. Two weeks the boat had been moored in the same spot, less than a mile from Telaga Harbour, a popular yachting destination on the island of Langkawi. Mountainous rainforests rose up behind the harbor. Occasionally Karaman made trips to the shore, perhaps to explore the beautiful island. Perhaps for some female ‘company’. Perhaps to enjoy the local cuisine, although more frequently he took deliveries directly to his yacht. Of both ladies and food.
Like this morning. When, for the tenth straight day, he had the exact same order being delivered from the exact same restaurant – a little stall just off the beach that served traditional Malaysian fare. Nasi Goreng with satay beef skewers was Karaman’s go-to dish. Every morning the same young man would drive the food on his moped from the restaurant to the harbor, where the same second young man would take the food on his little put-put boat out on the water and over to the yacht.
Karaman was a good tipper, apparently. Fifty ringgits for each of the young men, each day. The moped driver was called Isa Dahari. The boat guy was Sammy. Ryker didn’t know his last name. He hadn’t needed to, really, because he’d never spoken to him face to face.
He had spoken to Isa face to face. A few times over recent days. Which had culminated that morning in Ryker giving the young man two thousand ringgits to allow Ryker to take a quick look at the food order before he took it from the restaurant to the harbor.
That exchange had come all of ten minutes ago. Ryker watched now from his high perch in the hills behind the harbor, the binoculars up to his face. Isa had already made the handover and was heading back to the restaurant. Sammy was out on the water, steering his little craft toward the yacht.
He arrived. Karaman didn’t have the decency to greet the young man at the stern for the handover, although did stand up from his sunbed on the top deck to wave down.
Minutes later, as Sammy made his way back to shore, Karaman was tucking into his food. It didn’t take long for him to finish it. He went back to his sunbed after that to soak up some more of the early morning rays.
After twenty minutes Ryker wondered if he’d fallen asleep up there…
No. He came back down. Minutes later he was on one of two Jet Skis that bombed away from the yacht. His daughter was on the other. She’d joined him on the boat only two days ago. A nice little jaunt away from boarding school in Dubai which, technically, was still in full swing. Coincidentally her arrival had coincided with a temporary pause to Karaman’s female companions. What a good dad.
The two of them swirled around on the water for a few minutes, never venturing too far from the yacht and the men watching on from there.
Until Karaman did.
At first, it didn’t look like anything untoward. Rather than twisting left and right, staying close to the yacht, his Jet Ski simply carried on away in a straight line, further and further from the boat. His daughter took notice but didn’t follow. Perhaps she’d been told not to go too far.
After a while, Karaman’s Jet Ski slowed and the white churn from behind it died down.
Then Karaman slumped onto the handlebars. The next moment his body slid off and into the water.
His daughter raced over but didn’t climb off her Jet Ski to get into the water after him. The goons from the yacht managed to get a boat into the water to chase after their boss but by the point they reached the abandoned Jet Ski, Karaman had already been in the water… No, under the water for more than six minutes. No sign of him at all in that time. No bobbing head. No flailing arms. He’d simply gone straight down.
And Ryker knew, given the concoction the man’s breakfast had been laced with, that he never would return to the surface alive.
He pulled the binoculars down, stood up straight, and began the walk down the narrow rainforest trail for his motorbike.