“Canada,” I said.
Because I was effectively impersonating Jean-Marc, I was also operating under his old cover. That cover said he was from Montreal, though I hoped dearly that he hadn’t shared the legend with his contact. Things were sketchy enough without me having to rhapsodize about the glory of hockey and gravy-soaked French fries.
“Canada, Canada,” the response echoed around the table. The women were attractive and on any other night I might have lingered. But I was on task. I looked inside the bar and the mystery as to why I was so readily offered a seat was solved. I hadn’t simply stepped into a regular evening at a regular bar. I’d walked into a private event. Apparently, I was meeting my contact at a henna party.
Henna parties and their ilk weren’t something I’d learned about in training. There was, however, a photo of one in my guidebook. From what I’d read, the events were essentially the Turkish version of a bachelorette party with henna, the deep brown, plant-based dye, thrown in. The bride and her unmarried friends blobbed the dye on their hands and there was plenty of singing and dancing. They were traditionally female-only affairs, but like any tradition, I supposed it was open to interpretation. Mystery solved, I smiled a thank-you to my companions and rose, shuffling my way inside the tall doors of the bar.
I entered the double-high space to be greeted by a booming Turkish pop ballad and a number of older woman sitting in a group. On the other side of the older ladies, young women danced wildly while others smeared henna on their hands. The henna paste went on a bright orange, but had already darkened to a reddish-brown on some of the women. I noticed two chairs covered in lush red satin fabric with gold trim. They were thrones. And when I turned back around I saw the queen of the evening — the woman who was about to change my life.
Chapter 16
I knew that she was my contact without even seeing her face because I saw the sun-shaped golden brooch in her luxuriant long hair. She had indicated she would be wearing it in her reply to Jean-Marc. What she hadn’t indicated was that she would also be wearing a red veil which told me that, in addition to being my contact, she was also the bride to be. She looked to be in her late twenties and, aside from the veil, she wore a close-fitting cream pantsuit, the honey brown of the back of her hands visible from behind. The outfit seemed an odd mix of the traditional and the modern, but I kept my focus on the tactical. So far, all I was certain of was one exit. I didn’t want to get stuck in the crowd if my cover was blown.
Then my contact turned and I felt the ground shift below my feet. Every working supposition I had relied on was suspect. Every notion of risk was squared because I had met my contact before, and I knew that it was next to impossible that my previous meeting with her had been an accident. She was the server I had run into in the bakery that morning, and after considering the astronomical odds of us just happening to bump into each other for a second time, I have to admit that my next thought was that she cleaned up pretty good.
She was radiant, her dark eyes reflecting the elaborate lighting as I strode forward. Jewel’s laced her veil. She looked fantastic, but I was concerned. Had she been surveilling me all along? It certainly looked that way. The problem was, I had no idea who this woman was or what she knew. One way to find out. She took a seat on the farthest throne and I decided to make the point of contact easy. Formal and sweet. A brief pass and we’d be done. But it wasn’t as easy as I had hoped because the groom sat down on the throne beside her, a golden crown on his waxy, balding head, his fingers stained orange from the henna.
The groom was older than her with a ruddy, pockmarked face and a broad build. What was left of his black hair was carefully combed back. He looked pleased with himself and more than a little inebriated. But the wine couldn’t hide the cruel cast to his eyes. Or the broken slant to his nose. I guessed him to be in his late thirties to early forties. His shoulders were wide, and his large hands had seen rough, physical work. If things went south, he could prove a tough opponent.
I stepped forward through the crowd. Nothing wrong with wishing the bride well. She put out her hand and another woman knelt with a silver tray of henna in her hand. She tapped it onto the bride’s palm and I admired my contact’s slender, tanned fingers. Showtime. I walked right past the groom, glancing at his bride. And she tripped me. Just like that. And though I’d trained myself to expect plenty, a pretty girl can always stack the deck. I nearly fell face forward onto my hands, but she reached out, grabbing me by my right arm.
“Dikkatle olmak,” she said.
She helped me up, and as she did, I heard a quick message in my ear.
“Front of the bar, five minutes.”
I straightened myself.
“Teşekkürler,” I said, which I knew was the Turkish word for thank you.
I smiled, embarrassed, and continued on my way, looping around to the back of the bar and down a short corridor. I wanted to check the exits and using the washroom was a reasonable explanation for me being back there. I was, after all, just another lost backpacker. I passed what looked like a storeroom on my right before hitting the men’s room immediately behind it. Beyond that, there was what looked like a street exit at the end of the hall.
I stepped inside the men’s room and admired the handsome, wall-high porcelain urinals. They looked like they’d been pulled straight out of the workers’ revolution, their highly polished surfaces scratched yet still gleaming in the halogen spotlights. My mind was reeling. My contact had been surveilling me. That was a fact. But it didn’t mean that she knew I was impersonating the mole. It did, however, strongly suggest that she knew more about me than I did her.
I zipped up and began to notice that I was thinking less and less clearly. Was it the beer? I didn’t know. I’d only had a small pull. Still, by the time I had washed up and returned to the corridor, I was definitely not feeling right. By that point, however, it wasn’t the feeling in my head I was focused on. It was the thick-necked apes in suits. Four of them guarded the mouth of the corridor leading into the bar. They didn’t motion to me or otherwise impede me, but by the way they treated my exit, I knew that something was wrong.
I stepped past them and toward the front of the bar. Things were different now and it wasn’t just in my head. The two thrones sat empty, and all the old ladies had moved to the far side of the bar, as though they had been corralled away. I tried to fight the foggy feeling I felt building around me, but every time I attempted to clear my head, it only got worse. It had to have been something in the beer. I had been drugged and I needed to stage a tactical retreat. Quickly.
I looped my thumb under the right shoulder of my backpack as I headed for the door. The double-wide entry was open, a narrow beam of light extending across the concrete floor from the outside. Everyone was still out at the tables in front and it took me a moment to determine what was strange about the situation. The thought dawned on me a little slower than normal, maybe a lot slower, but it was the floor. I could see the floor, whereas before it had been a mass of dancing feet. I smiled briefly at the realization before a broad-shouldered man stepped directly into my path.
I recognized him, but barely. It was the groom. Up close I saw that he hadn’t shaved for at least a day. His oft-broken nose looked even more out of joint than before. He was an arm’s length in front of me. A perfect setup really. That’s what karate is all about. In theory, the first move is always defensive but, in reality, karate is a striking sport. It’s just as suited to an offensive first move. The quick strike and takedown. I could lunge in with a straight jab followed by a leg sweep and have the guy on the floor before he could spit. Or, alternatively, I could sweep my pack off my back with my right arm and take him in the head with a wide swing. It wouldn't put him down, but it would give me time to get out of there and regroup.