Once Maria was sure that Evan was in place, she told the old man that she wanted a soda. “Of course,” he said and led her back toward the store. Two minutes after Maria had pulled into the gas station, her shadow’s car pulled up right behind hers.
The old man didn’t notice Evan hiding in plain sight in the corner. He spoke French to Maria, so Evan didn’t know what he was saying to her. His voice was full of excitement, though. Evan figured it was either because female customers were infrequent or because he had a thing for Maria. Evan held his gun down near his waist and readied himself. He wanted this to go smoothly. He didn’t want to have to pull the trigger. He had already internalized the us and them distinction between people in the War and the innocents.
“Coke,” Maria said to the man in response to the question he had asked her. The old man then turned toward the standing refrigerator full of bottled sodas. He started to reach out to open the refrigerator door. Then he stopped. He froze completely. He finally saw Evan standing in the corner, holding a gun.
For a moment, Evan worried about the potential language barrier. For a moment, he worried that the man wouldn’t understand what Evan was saying to him. Then Evan remembered the gun. The gun needed no translation.
“Get into the bathroom!” Evan shouted, lifting the gun and pointing it at the man’s chest. The man’s eyes were full of fear. Evan was beginning to get used to people being afraid of him, but this was different. This time the fear wasn’t based on a news report with Evan’s picture on it. It wasn’t based on an artificial label calling Evan a monster. This time, the old man’s fear was justified. The old man glanced at Maria. “Get into the bathroom!” Evan shouted again, and this time he motioned toward the bathroom with the hand holding the gun. The old man didn’t move. He glanced at Maria again. For a second, Evan worried that the old man was going to try to be a hero. What would Evan do then?
The old man took a small step toward Maria, putting his body between Maria and Evan. He was scared but brave. Evan saw this and it made him want to have to shoot the old man even less. “Allez!” Maria begged the man, faking fear so authentically that even Evan believed it. Or maybe she was afraid. Maybe she was afraid she was going to get the old man killed. “Je vais être bien.” The old man looked at Maria with warm, sad eyes when she said those words, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to let Evan have Maria without a fight. Then they heard the first shotgun blast and that changed everything.
The men following Maria didn’t get out of their car after pulling up to the gas station. Addy saw them. They were exactly like Maria described them. They were real. Addy guessed that they had filled their car with gas before their shift even began so it wasn’t necessary now. They simply pulled up about ten feet behind Maria’s car and waited. Addy wondered what it would have been like to live like that for so many years: to live knowing that people were right behind you all the time, following you, without knowing what they might do at any moment. She wondered this, and then she stepped out of the woods holding the shotgun up near her shoulder.
They never saw Addy. That’s how it was supposed to be. They never knew that it was a young fire-haired woman who ended them. They heard the glass shatter and then felt the burn as the shotgun blast and broken glass entered the backs of their heads. Addy stood behind the car and fired once, aiming the shot at the man in the passenger seat. She assumed that he would have quicker access to a phone to call for help, so she wanted to take care of him first. After the first shot, she pumped the shotgun, aimed it at the back of the driver’s head, and shot again.
Evan, Maria, and the old man heard four shotgun blasts in all—all within about ten seconds. They didn’t see Addy take two shots through the back window of the men’s car and then quickly run to the passenger-side door, open it, and take two more shots at the men inside the car at point-blank range to make sure they were dead. Evan, Maria, and the old man merely heard the shots. They didn’t see anything. The shots were loud and they were scary and they did the job on the old man that Evan couldn’t do alone. The old man heard the shotgun blasts, took one more sad look at Maria as if to apologize, and then, without any more prodding from Evan, walked into the bathroom.
Evan didn’t waste any time. He gave a quick sigh of relief and then slammed the bathroom door behind the old man. Then he took the desk that the old man used as a check-out counter and pushed it in front of the bathroom door. It wouldn’t keep the old man in there forever, but it would keep him in there long enough. The plan was to call 911 as they drove away and report hearing gunshots and seeing a woman dragged into a car whose description didn’t match the description of the car they were driving.
Inside the bathroom, the old man sat down on the toilet without lifting the lid. His shoulders slumped and he stared down at his shaking hands in the dark. He could have turned on the light, but he didn’t bother to. He didn’t want to see any better than he already could. He didn’t want to be able to see himself in the mirror. He wouldn’t even try to push the door open. He did nothing but sit there in the darkness until the authorities came and let him out.
Almost as soon as Evan had pushed the desk in front of the bathroom door, Addy opened the door to the store. She was still holding the shotgun and Evan could see a tiny bit of blood splattered on her shirt. “Come on! Let’s go!” she whispered excitedly to Evan and Maria. The three of them left together. Maria and Evan saw the wreckage of the men’s car as they ran past it, the back window shattered and the passenger-side door still hanging open. They saw the two bodies lying slumped in the front seat. They kept running, Maria trying her best not to let the images stir buried memories in her mind. All that was left was for them to run to Addy and Evan’s car. They made their way up the road. No cars drove by them. They got to Addy and Evan’s car without incident.
Once they were inside the car and back on the road, Maria dialed 911 on her phone. She told the dispatcher exactly what they’d rehearsed: They were driving down the road and heard gunshots. Then they saw a woman being dragged into a gray, four-door sedan, which took off driving north. Once Maria had given the operator all the details, she hung up and threw her phone out the window.
Then they drove—south, with no one following them. Maria looked out the back window at the empty road behind them and took a deep breath, one that she hadn’t felt like she’d been able to take in years. She was going to see her son, wherever he was.
Forty-eight
Whereas Asia felt to Christopher like another planet, Istanbul felt like a whole other universe. He felt like he’d stepped onto the set of a science fiction movie about faraway galaxies. It was mostly the smell, he thought—that lush, spicy odor that permeated every corner of the city—but it was also the call to prayer. Christopher jumped the first time he heard it echoing out over the loudspeakers posted everywhere around the city. He thought it was some sort of emergency warning system that he couldn’t understand. The sound was so foreign. Christopher had never heard anything like it before in his life. Reggie laughed at Christopher when he saw the fear in Christopher’s face. “You’ll get used to it,” Reggie said. “It happens five times a day.”
The two of them stepped out on the balcony of the hotel where they were staying. From there, Christopher could see the spot where the Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn, and the Bosporus all came together. Huge shipping boats were floating in the Sea of Marmara and, as Christopher watched one of them, he saw a dolphin leap out of the water next to it. He let his eyes drift toward the city and the giant pillared mosques that dotted it. The city was shining with colors from the flowers and the buildings and the cars.
“Let’s get something to eat before our first meeting,” Reggie said to Christopher, looking at his watch. “We’re supposed to meet Umut in two hours.” Unlike in Asia, Reggie and Christopher knew who they were going to meet here. They knew when and they knew where. They had gained credibility. People were beginning to believe that the
Uprising could be real.
“Okay,” Christopher said. “I’m starving.”
They ate in a rooftop restaurant high above the city. It was only late afternoon, but the restaurant was already bustling. The servers carried around giant metal trays full of meats and other food, and Reggie and Christopher ordered by pointing to what they wanted. They ate lamb and fish and stuffed peppers. Everything tasted like they were living in a dream. Everything smelled like a dream. Everything sounded like a dream too—the language the people spoke so quickly to each other, the call to prayer echoing out over the city again in the afternoon. “How come they don’t all go to pray when they hear the call to prayer?” Christopher asked Reggie.
“A lot do,” Reggie answered. From their vantage point high above the city, Christopher could see men shuffling in and out of the mosques.
“But not all of them,” Christopher said for confirmation.
Reggie shook his head. “It’s not that kind of city,” he told Christopher. “There are the believers and there are plenty of nonbelievers.”
Christopher and Reggie met Umut later that evening in Umut’s apartment which was deep in the heart of the city, miles from the tourist attractions—the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace—surrounding Christopher and Reggie’s hotel. They traveled unchaperoned this time, hailing a cab at random, thinking that this was the safest way to go. Reggie passed the cabbie his cell phone so that Umut could give the cabbie directions in Turkish. Then they left, driving up a steep hill and into the mass of endless civilization that is Istanbul. “They say that there’s over twenty million people in this city,” Reggie told Christopher after he caught Christopher staring out the window with his mouth wide open. The buildings grew shorter as they went farther from the central city until they passed what appeared to be shantytowns with makeshift houses layered one on top of the other. “If you cross the river, you go from Europe to Asia, but you’re still in Istanbul,” Reggie told Christopher. Christopher kept staring out the window as they drove and Reggie kept staring at the cabdriver. Eventually the cabbie pulled up in front of a small, unassuming apartment building.
Umut was waiting outside when they got there. He was an average-sized man with dark hair and bushy eyebrows. He was dressed like an American, in slacks and a button-down shirt. He shook Reggie’s hand as Reggie stepped out of the cab. Umut paid the cabdriver. Then he turned to Christopher. Christopher feared that Umut was going to bow to him, but Umut didn’t bow. He simply reached out his hand for Christopher to shake and Christopher shook it. “I’m glad you made it,” Umut said in nearly perfect English. “Come inside. I have tea.”
The three of them went into the apartment. It was sparsely decorated. A small table sat on a beautiful rug in the middle of the main room. The rug seemed to change color as you walked around it. Umut led Christopher and Reggie in and asked them to sit down. Then he set a glass of hot tea before each of them.
“I heard the Far East was quite an adventure,” Umut said to Reggie with a half smile.
“The adventure is what convinced them to join us,” Reggie confided to Umut. “It gave the kid here a way to prove his mettle.” Reggie motioned toward Christopher. “They wouldn’t have agreed to the plan if it weren’t for that.”
Umut stared at Christopher. “I guess only prophets can tell the difference between good and bad fortune before all the cards are laid on the table.”
“I’m not a prophet,” Christopher said, remembering what Jung-Su had said to him before Christopher had ordered that he be killed.
“Thank Allah for that,” Umut said with a loud belly laugh. Then he stood up and slapped Christopher on the back, making Christopher choke on his tea. Once Umut laughed, Reggie laughed with him. Christopher merely coughed, trying to clear his throat.
“What are we up against here?” Reggie asked Umut.
“History,” Umut answered.
“What does that mean?” Christopher asked, having recovered.
“We go in front of a tribunal tomorrow to argue our case,” Umut said.
“Who is we?” Christopher asked.
“The three of us,” Umut told him. “I’m already in. It’s the others we need to convince.”
“How hard are they going to be to convince?” Reggie asked.
“What I’ve heard is that after what happened in Asia, they have faith in Christopher’s ability but they’re unsure of whether or not they believe in the plan.”
“What is my ability?” Christopher asked Umut, still trying to figure it out for himself.
“Depends who you ask,” Umut told Christopher. “And that’s an ability all by itself. Just don’t show them any leaks and they’ll believe that the dam will hold.”
“But they don’t believe the plan will work?” Reggie asked.
Umut shook his head. “They’re not even worried about what happens if the plan doesn’t work. They’re past that. They’re worried about what happens if it does work.”
After three hours of preparation, Umut sent Reggie and Christopher on their way into the night. They were supposed to meet again the next day near the Süleymaniye Mosque, by the university, where the three of them would talk one last time before going before the tribunal in the afternoon.
Christopher didn’t ask Reggie what would happen if they couldn’t convince the tribunal to join them. He knew the stakes. With a plan like this, every stone is a cornerstone. They took a cab back to their hotel. Christopher thought that the city was even more beautiful at night. He couldn’t get over the sight of the mosques lit up like giant moons that had landed on Earth. They went into their hotel and took the elevator up to their floor. Reggie checked the room before he let Christopher go inside. It wasn’t late, but Reggie suggested that they get some sleep. They’d talked enough for one night. Christopher agreed even though he wasn’t ready to sleep. Instead, he waited for Reggie to fall asleep. Then he got out of bed and snuck out into the city because, sometimes, that’s what a teenage boy needs to do.
When Christopher stepped outside the door, he realized that it was the first time he’d been alone since he met Max, the morning after his eighteenth birthday. The city was quieter this late at night, but no less alive. Christopher walked quickly away from his hotel past streets lined with youth hostels and cheap restaurants buzzing with young travelers. He didn’t know where he was going and didn’t care. He wanted to be alone and to walk and to forget. He didn’t even know what he wanted to forget. Everything, he supposed. For a few minutes he wanted to forget everything.
Even though it was nearing the middle of the night, the city wasn’t dark. Christopher doubted that the city, or at least this part of it, ever went dark. He walked past more tourists. He walked past an outdoor restaurant where Whirling Dervishes were dancing inside for the customers. The men in long white skirts and tall hats danced to strange-sounding music, spinning in circles and letting the white cloth from their skirts balloon around them. Christopher thought about how dark it would be at home at this hour. He remembered the nights in Maine. He remembered chasing fireflies like they were tiny, flying stars and catching them in his hands. Sometimes the fireflies were the brightest thing in the night. He remembered competing with Evan to see who could catch more. It was the one thing that Evan could regularly beat him at.
There were no fireflies in Istanbul. They would have gotten lost in all the light anyway. The light seemed to come from everywhere. Lights were draped in trees. Buildings with restaurants and bars on their roofs shined light down onto the streets. But mostly the light came from the giant mosques. All of that light didn’t mean that there wasn’t any darkness. It was merely confined to the corners and the shadows. The corners and shadows were even darker because of the light. Christopher ignored the darkness, at least for now, and kept on walking. He wasn’t ready to see what was inside the darkness, even if it was following him.
Christop
her walked down two more streets, turning randomly, reveling in the moments of freedom. What if I keep going? he thought to himself as he stared down the empty street in front of him. If there really are twenty million people in this city, what if I keep walking? Would they be able to find me? Would it even matter? For a few moments, it all seemed possible. It all seemed very real. Christopher was going to walk away and disappear. If he had only looked forward, he might have done it. If he had only kept his eyes in the light, he might have left everything—but he couldn’t not look into the darkness. So before he walked away forever, Christopher looked into the shadows behind him. The shadows were dark, but they weren’t empty.
Everything that Christopher had been trying to forget came back to him in a flash. He remembered every skill he had ever taught himself. He remembered every lesson he had ever taken. He remembered why he’d learned all of that in the first place. They were always watching him. Christopher began walking faster, trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed the man in the shadows, but the man followed him. The man in the shadows wasn’t tall, but he was broad, with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. Christopher turned a corner, looking back only then to try and get a better look at the man following him. The man was young, but he looked young only in age, not experience. Christopher thought back to the men in the woods and Maine and wondered if the man following him was armed. Christopher tried to look at the man’s hands, but they were still shrouded in darkness. After turning the corner, Christopher sped up even more.
Christopher cursed himself as he opened up his stride to a near jog. He thought that maybe he could turn another corner before the man saw where he’d gone. How could he have been so stupid? He wondered if Reggie was still asleep, if he was still lying in bed oblivious to how quickly Christopher had ruined everything. Hadn’t there been other sounds? Hadn’t the city only moments ago been full of music and noise? Now, the only sounds that Christopher could hear were the sounds of his own feet on the cobblestones, followed beat for beat by the sounds of footsteps of the man chasing him. There were other sounds, Christopher knew. He simply couldn’t hear them anymore.