Gurt was gazing out of the window. "We will not make it to the consulate, I think."
Lang was emerging from the bathroom where he had taped one gun under the sink. The other he had stuck to the bottom of a drawer. The popularity of The Godfather had made underneath the toilet tank top the first place anyone looked.
"Why not?"
"There are two police cars outside."
With perfect timing, there was a frame-rattling knock on the door.
Lang opened up and looked into the faces of two officers. The flaps on their holsters were undone as if they expected trouble.
Lang bowed deeply, gesturing. "Do come in, gentlemen. It was so very kind of Inspector Aziz to send two men to return our passports."
Neither seemed amused.
"Come with us," one said gruffly, peering past Lang into the room.
Lang continued the charade, giving Gurt time to make sure there was no scrap of tape, no clue something had recently been concealed. "Oh, that won't be necessary. He doesn't have to return them in person. Just drop them off at the front desk."
Cops are not known for their sense of humor and these two were no exception. The one who had spoken grabbed the front of Lang's shirt. "I said, come with us."
As close as the two stood to each other, it would have been relatively easy to disable and disarm both. That, however, wasn't going to get the passports back or make the inspector any more cooperative.
Lang held up his hands, a gesture of submission. "OK, OK! I'm coming."
They drew the attention of the three or four people lounging in the lobby/reception area as they were herded through and stuffed into the backseats of different police cars, separated from the front by the wire mesh common to law enforcement vehicles. One behind the other, they descended to the Golden Horn, crossed the Galata Bridge and entered Istanbul's commercial center, Beyoglu. Dominated by the Galata Tower at its highest point, it had been first settled by Genoese traders and merchants in the thirteenth century, soon to be followed by Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, Arabs, Greeks and Armenians. It was also here that the European powers established embassies to further trade with the Ottoman Empire. Except for the fourteenth-century tower, the area could have been the center of any modern city.
None of this interested Lang as much as their possible destination.
Both police cars stopped in front of a building distinguished only by the white star and crescent on a field of red, the Turkish flag. Inside, they were subjected to inspection by a metal-detecting wand. It chirped merrily at Lang's watch, belt buckle and the change in his pocket. The offending items removed, it beeped again, at what Lang could not guess. The attendant seemed satisfied. They were marched up a staircase carpeted with a runner showing more thread than weave. At the end of a hall, the two policeman stopped and knocked on a door. Inside, Inspector Aziz sat behind a scarred and dented metal desk whose twins could be found in any police station Lang had ever visited. On its surface was a thin manila folder. On top were the passports. At his elbow, a cracked cup was filled with cigarette butts next to a rotary phone. There was no other furniture in the room other than the chair the inspector occupied. From the total absence of personal effects, Lang gathered the inspector only had temporary use of this office.
Aziz nodded and the two policemen stepped outside, closing the door behind them.
The Turkish policeman said nothing, staring first at Gurt, then Lang. It was a basic interrogation technique, one intended to unnerve the subject. Lang made a conscious effort not to shift his weight as he stood there, looking out of the single window behind the desk. The view was of a brick wall.
Realizing his ploy wasn't working, Aziz moved to another. He opened the file and pretended to read.
"You have an interesting record, Mr. Reilly. Suspicion of a couple of homicides in London… Definitely killed a man there a few months ago."
Lang was not surprised. The price of the information age was the death of privacy. He was sure the inspector had entered his name into any number of crime-reporting systems. "The English haven't seen fit to detain me."
The Turk's brown eyes flicked up from the paper. "Presumption of innocence, fair play and all that, I suppose." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desktop. "Here in Turkey, our laws are quite different. You may be detained with or without such suspicions."
"I'll bear that in mind before I commit any crime in Turkey."
Aziz turned his attention to Gurt. "And you, Ms. Fuchs, how is it you have an American passport, but your primary language is not English? Surely you must be able to speak English to be an American."
"Try calling customer service at any public utility," Lang said.
Aziz gave him a glare that could have burned the wallpaper had there been any. "Well?"
"I was born in Germany," Gurt said, leaning forward and resting her hands on the desk.
It was a natural gesture but one that showed monumental cleavage. Aziz was clearly fighting to keep his eyes on her face.
"East Germany," she continued, appearing oblivious to the conflict between the policeman's eyes and his professionalism. "I fled to West Germany a few years before the wall came down. I got a job with an American company…"
This could be shaky ground, Lang thought. They had no way to know how much the inspector had learned. It was a safe bet that Gurt's employment with the agency wasn't to be found by browsing international police sites. Still, some long-ago cover story, some forgotten identity might jump up, alerting this detective to some perceived inconsistency in her story.
Aziz managed to shift his gaze to Lang. "And last night at the Grand Bazaar?"
"A couple of young men attacked us. One of your officers witnessed the whole thing."
Aziz ran his index finger across his mustache as he turned to Gurt, struggling to keep his eyes above the neckline of her blouse. "So I heard. Just where did you learn to defend yourself like that?"
Gurt, still leaning over the desk to the man's distraction said, "It gives good exercise to join the many judo classes in the United States."
"And in these classes, they teach you to disrupt religious services?"
Gurt and Lang exchanged bewildered looks.
"I'm not sure we know what you're talking about, Inspector," Lang finally said.
The policeman glared first at him then at Gurt. "Do you deny you entered the Nuruosmaniye Mosque during prayers last night?"
Lang shrugged. "Is it a crime to enter a mosque?"
"It is if you in any way interfere with worship."
Lang shook his head. "We know nothing about any disruption of any mosque. Unless you have evidence to the contrary…"
Aziz smiled. "We are not in the United States, Mr. Reilly. As I think I mentioned, I can hold you on suspicion."
"Then you better call the consulate and tell them we won't be coming," Lang bluffed.
"Consulate?" For the first time the inspector seemed less that certain of what he was doing.
"The American consulate," Lang continued. "We were on our way there when your men showed up. We were going to see what our government could do about your taking our passports on a mere whim."
Aziz's eyes darted from one to the other. His computer search had revealed not only Reilly's potential criminal past but also that he was a very rich individual, head of an international charitable foundation. The rich were usually well connected. The last thing he needed was to cause an international incident. He would not only never get off Buyukada, he might well wind up shoveling horse manure from the roads there.