A Colder War by Charles Cumming Read Free Book Online

landed at a small, functional, single-runway airport on the eastern shore of Chios. Kell identified the air traffic control tower, saw a bearded engineer on the tarmac tending to a punctured Land Cruiser, and took photographs of a helicopter and a corporate jet parked on either side of an Olympic Air Q400. Wallinger would have taken off only a few hundred meters away, then banked east toward Izmir. The Cessna had entered Turkish airspace in less than five minutes, crashing into the mountains southwest of Kütahya perhaps an hour later.
    The island’s taxi drivers were on strike so Kell was glad of the rental car, which he drove a few miles south to Karfas along a quiet road lined with citrus groves and crumbling, walled estates. The Golden Sands was a tourist hotel located in the center of a kilometer-long beach with views across the Chios Strait to Turkey. Kell unpacked, took a shower, then dressed in a fresh set of clothes. As he waited in the bar for his meeting, nursing a bottle of Efes lager and an overwhelming desire to smoke indoors, he reflected on how quickly his personal circumstances had changed. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, he had been eating a tuna sandwich on a crowded train from Preston. Now he was alone on a Greek island, masquerading as an insurance investigator, in the bar of an off-peak tourist hotel. You’re back in the game, he told himself. This is what you wanted . But the buzz had gone. He remembered the feeling of landing in Nice almost two years earlier, instructed by the high priests at Vauxhall Cross to find Amelia at any cost. On that occasion, the rhythms and tricks of his trade had come back to him like muscle memory. This time, however, all that Kell felt was a sense of dread that he would uncover the truth about his friend’s death. No pilot error. No engine failure. Just conspiracy and cover-up. Just murder.
    *   *   *
    Mr. Andonis Makris of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority was a thickset islander of about fifty who spoke impeccable, if overelaborate English and smelled strongly of eau de cologne. Kell presented him with Chris Hardwick’s business card, agreed that Chios was indeed very beautiful, particularly at this time of year, and thanked Makris for agreeing to meet him on such short notice.
    “Your assistant in the Edinburgh office told me that time was a factor,” Makris reassured him. He was wearing a dark blue pin-striped suit and a white shirt without a tie. Self-assured to the point of arrogance, he gave the impression of a man who had, some years earlier, achieved personal satisfaction in almost every area of his life. “I am keen to assist you after such a tragedy. Many people on the island were shocked by the news of Mr. Wallinger’s death. I am sure his family and colleagues are as keen as we are to find out what happened as soon as is possible in human terms.”
    It was obvious from his demeanor that Makris bore no sense of personal responsibility for the crash. Kell assumed that he would want to take the opportunity to shift the blame for the British diplomat’s demise onto the shoulders of Turkish air traffic control as quickly as possible.
    “Did you meet Mr. Wallinger personally?”
    Makris was taking a sip of white wine and was halted by the question. He swallowed in his own good time and dabbed his mouth carefully with a paper napkin before responding.
    “No.” The voice was even in tone, a trace of American in the accent. “The flight plan had been filed before I arrived on my shift. I spoke to the pilot—to Mr. Paul Wallinger—on the radio as he checked his instruments, taxied to the runway, and prepared for takeoff.”
    “He sounded normal?”
    “What does ‘normal’ mean, please?”
    “Was he agitated? Drunk? Did he sound tense?”
    Makris reacted as though Kell had impugned his integrity.
    “Drunk? Of course not. If I sense that a pilot is any of these things, I will prevent him from flying. Of course.”
    “Of course.” Kell