How to Betray Your Country by James Wolff (spicy books to read .TXT) 📕

didn’t just take a handful of facts you remember from when you worked for us and make the whole story up.

august: I made up the context, that’s all. I’m admitting that. The facts are all true.

elif: Why did you do that?

august: Make up the context? Youssef is trying to find his wife and daughter. [Sound of coughing.] I thought that if I gave him this information and created a way for him to use it, he could find out in return from Lawrence where his family are. I owed him that, especially after what he did for me. Look, I can see that I’ve made some huge mistakes, Elif. The only thing I ask is that you don’t punish Youssef for things that I’ve done.

lawrence: It’s a bit late for that.

august: Did you find out where his wife is?

lawrence: I’m not going to answer that. To be frank with you, August, I find it very hard to believe anything you say. It would take more time than we have today to untangle this ridiculous story. And I imagine Elif feels the same. There’s absolutely no evidence that —

august: It’s not as though you didn’t know any of this before today, Lawrence.

lawrence: What do you mean?

august: I called you the night I was going to the house to meet him. [Sound of coughing.] There’ll be a record of that call. And then you came to the house to look for me. You spoke to the Daesh guy.

elif: You went to the house? You didn’t —

lawrence: I was going to mention this. August left a long and frankly incomprehensible voicemail about needing to see me. I went out of my way to go and check he was okay, but I didn’t find him. End of story. Listen —

august: That was the second time you went there. I assume you’ve told Elif about the first time.

elif: There was a first time?

august: He had a … proposal for me. Is that what you’d call it, Lawrence? He wanted me to look into a sensitive matter for —

lawrence: It was nothing, just old acquaintances catching up.

elif: You haven’t been running round doing secret things without telling us, have you, Lawrence?

lawrence: Of course not.

august: We’ve gone off-track a bit. We were talking about Youssef’s wife, weren’t we? Where she is now?

lawrence: In a town called Altenburg. Not far from Leipzig. Not that he’ll be able to do much with that information from a prison cell.

elif: What are you two doing?

lawrence: What do you mean?

elif: Do not treat me like an idiot, Lawrence.

lawrence: I wouldn’t dream of it. I went to the house and spoke to a caretaker and didn’t see or hear anything that raised my suspicions. That’s the extent of my involvement in this.

august: He’s right, Elif, that’s the whole story.

elif: Bullshit. And the money?

august: What money?

elif: What money? You said that two Daesh guys came to the house to do the deal. Those are your words. I assume they brought money with them. But we didn’t find any in the house, and you said your captor left in a hurry.

august: I imagine he took it with him.

elif: That’s what you imagine, is it?

august: Look, can we talk about Youssef and what’s going to happen to him? He really hasn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t involved in any of the stupid things I did. Please, Elif. He shouldn’t be punished for something he had absolutely no responsibility for or involvement —

lawrence: Nonsense, you’re both up to your necks in this —

elif: Enough. Stop talking, everyone. I am reaching the conclusion that we could sit here all day and things would not become clearer than they are right now. And August, I’m not sure you’re going to be able to sit upright for much longer. So let me summarize. Firstly, we have a handful of alleged facts about a former Daesh emir who may or may not be in Turkey. We file this information, August, and we wait to see what happens. What else can we do? If he is here, thanks to you we have no idea where he is or what he is doing. Secondly, we have a Syrian national who was aware of some of this and chose not to make a full statement to the police. Instead he played this game of yours, August, and went to Lawrence with a made-up story. Okay, a partly made-up story. But that changes nothing. You should have done this differently. I am afraid that he is currently in detention and he will remain in detention. We do not want people like this running around free in Turkey.

august: But —

elif: Thirdly, we have a former British spy who has admitted here today to breaking the law many times. In ordinary circumstances we would arrest you, August. But the British ambassador has already been on the phone to the minister to say that he would be grateful if this matter could be cleared up quietly, and we have enough problems without creating a diplomatic incident. So, your visa will expire in seven days. Before that date you will leave the country. If you remain here after that date, you will be here illegally and you will be arrested, whatever the British ambassador says. My suggestion is that you eat a big Turkish meal, have a good night of sleep, go to the airport in the morning and never come back. You will need to see a doctor, this is obvious. You may need to see someone else, after the things you have experienced. Do you know that your hands are shaking? I have some sympathy for you. I am angry with you, but I have some sympathy for you. But you need to leave Turkey quickly. And if, God forbid, you see someone behaving strangely on the plane home? My advice is that you ignore it. Is that clear?

lawrence: Hear, hear. Can I say, Elif, you have handled this whole thing magnificently, both in terms —

elif: This