As I stole out of the bank, I knew my problem was threefold:
A. Get out of Turkey
B. Not get caught.
C. Cover up my trail.
In terms of pure theory, it seemed elementary. In fact, the Apparatus continually pounded B and C into one. They were the basis of practically every operating plan.
Now, when you think "spy agency cover-up" you might imagine unexplained disappearances, car accidents or tragic gas leaks that leave behind lingering unease and paranoia, or altered photos. But when Gris is talking about covering his tracks, what he really means is "indiscriminate bombings."
He also thinks Mohammad is trying to kill him.
The minarets of a thousand mosques stood around me with pointing fingers. The very clouds were liable to open and drown the world with the voice of the Prophet hollowly commanding that the words in his Qur'an be followed: STONE THE ADULTERER TO DEATH!
Spooky. You can never tell about these primitive religions. They might come true suddenly. The very towers of the mosques might cave in on me to do just that.
Another one of those great Hubbard moments where a throw-away line leaves the reader going "Whaaaaaaat?!"
So is there precedent for this? Did an Apparatus agent cause trouble on another "primitive" alien world and get zapped by Space Zeus for his heresy? Have Voltarian space probes encountered Valhalla? Why is divine intervention more likely for "primitive" religions than advanced faiths like whatever vaguely-described, undeveloped religion Voltarians follow? And how did Gris retain his belief in things like Manco Devils despite being corrupted by godless psychology?
This is like the "psychic powers" thing from Battlefield Earth, when Jonnie claims he has a psychic link with wossername, and Terl buys it with the implication that such things are plausible, and afterwards psionics are never mentioned again.
Anyway. Gris runs more or less at random, stumbles upon a hotel, and decides upon a cunning plan to escape the police that may or may not already have the building surrounded - he checks in (at past ten at night) but slips out via drain pipe. Then he hits a bazaar and presumably breaks into a clothing store to get an Arab (not Turkish) outfit, specifically a djellaba. The storeowner wakes up and asks for money, Gris realizes he only has US dollars, and gets to wait five minutes for the guy to leave and find a moneylender.
I'd like to emphasize that while Gris is convinced that the storeowner is trying to detain him for the police, Gris doesn't pull a gun and steal the outfit, or run out with the clothes while the man is gone. He patiently waits the whole five minutes even though he's convinced there's a massive manhunt after him.
Which isn't to say that he doesn't kill the storeowner. After completing a legal purchase, Gris cunningly hides one of his plunger-activated time bombs under a clothing rack before he leaves.
I walked out.
I went down the hill. I did not run.
Ten minutes went by.
KERUMPH! BLOWIE!
The shop and a lot of others around it flew into the sky in a pyre of orange flame. The concussion broke a window near me.
It took him ten minutes to walk down a hill?
With that part of his trail "covered," Gris goes back into the hotel, climbing the four-foot drain pipe to reach his room without going through the front door, completely bamboozling the imaginary policemen staking out the entrance. He changes into his new outfit, loads a bandolier with his passport and bombs and pistol, a Beretta Model 81/84 .380 caliber - and thank you, Hubbard, knowing the precise make of the villain's handgun adds so much to the story. Then Gris puts another time bomb under his mattress and slips back out, attributing the lack of police presence to his "distraction" in the still-blazing bazaar district, now screaming with police and ambulance sirens.
Gris calls a cab to take him to another hotel as a ploy to further "red herring" his trail, but then they get knocked around a bit when the first hotel explodes shortly after Gris gets in. When the "hacker" asks "What was that?" Gris bids him stop in a narrow alley, pistol-whips him in the back of the head, and shoves him... well, "onto the floor in front." So either Turkish taxis have absurdly spacious interiors, the author meant to say that Gris shoved the man into the passenger seat, or else Gris was somehow able to reach the pedals despite cramming the man beneath the steering column. Gris takes the wheel, drives to a deserted ferry pier, puts the taxi in low gear, steps out, and guides it by steering through the open window until the car drops into the water with a "Roar--SPLASH!"
So... despite no one having their foot on the pedal, the car accelerated before going off the pier?
Now at the docks, Gris checks the waiting vessels before spotting a fishing ship that Hubbard spends a paragraph describing but I won't. In keeping with the author's heavy-handed naming conventions, the ship is the Sanci, Turkish for "stomachache." Gee. I wonder how Gris is going to handle the voyage.
He wakes up the captain... well, Gris finds the "house" near the boat's stern, pushes his way in, and finds "A huge Turk was snoring on his back. He was the biggest Turk I had ever seen. So he must be the captain." And again, the fact that the author is putting more effort than usual into conveying Gris' mental defects takes all the fun out of ranting about how stupid this is.
But, Gris' insane troll logic aside, the huge Turk is the ship's captain. I mean, it would've been easy to have him be the first mate or something who steals the ship from the real captain, who's still sleeping at home, in order to get Gris' money, but as far as I can tell Hubbard never does anything like that in the two chapters the seaman spends alive. Gris wakes him by fanning a handful of lira, agrees to pay seventy thousand for immediate passage to the Greek mainland and, while the captain assembles his crew, plants another bomb on the docks with a half-hour fuse.
I just realized how convenient it is that every seller of goods or services sleeps in their office or vehicle. The hotel owner is asleep behind the front desk. The storeowner is asleep in his store. The taxi driver is sleeping in the front seat. The captain is sleeping on the boat.
The engine barked and sputtered and complained. The screw churned a wake. We sailed down the Golden Horn. We rounded Seraglio Point. The Ataturk Monument loomed in silhouette against a strangely illuminated sky.
KEROOMP! THUD!
Masked by the point and monument, the bomb flash painted an already blazing sky.
I looked back. I had covered my trail.
The sky above Istanbul was orange with continuing flames.
I was on my way!
There is nothing quite like Apparatus training to help you when you are in peril.
But I was not safe yet!
And so Gris manages a covert escape from Turkey by burning down Istanbul.
As opposed to taking a plane to the States using his Inkswitch ID.
Or taking a plane to the States using his Sultan Bey ID, because adultery isn't illegal in Turkey.
Or executing Ahmed and Ters for their crimes and pleading ignorance to his role in them, perhaps selling off that new Mercedes as a way of compensation.
Or using that bloody "line-jumper" to make a trip to the states without leaving any sort of paper trail whatsoever.
Or transferring his quarters to the secret Apparatus base that the locals can't access.
But, regardless of the alternatives, Gris is now out of Turkey for good - or at least for the rest of the book. No more chapters focusing on Gris and his "concubine," no more Mobster Hospital garbage, no more Gris abusing villa staff, no more preteen boys who have inexplicably been given plastic surgery to resemble 1930's movie stars. We're going back to the US, where Heller and the plot is. We should be pleased - after the nonsense we've put up with in Turkey, just how much worse could Gris in New York be?
Back to Part Forty, Chapter Seven
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