Morning fog covered much of the water, still, but Chapel could make out enough to be impressed. The broad ribbon of water cut the city into two halves, each rising up away from the strait on steep hills studded with towers and spires. The water was thick with boats of every imaginable description, from huge tankers and freight ships loaded down with multicolored cargo containers to towering cruise ships to square-nosed ferries to little wooden craft with triangular sails that tacked back and forth across the current.
“Look at the yalis,” Nadia said, pointing out a line of structures down at the water’s edge, crowding both sides of the strait. They were houses of elaborately carved wood that looked as if they floated on the water, giving the impression that the whole city was just one enormous raft bobbing on the current.
It was a beautiful view, Chapel had to admit. The constant roar and blare of traffic behind him, the human press, couldn’t spoil that. He found himself almost smiling. He’d always loved the water and watching the way it was in constant motion, constant change.
They found a little place where Bogdan got his coffee, while Nadia and Chapel breakfasted on sweet rolls crusted with nuts and dried fruit. It felt good to be off the train, even in the crowded little restaurant.
“We have hours still, until our plane departs,” Nadia said, wiping currant pulp from her fingers with a tiny paper napkin. “How do you wish to spend the time?”
“We should keep moving. I doubt anyone followed us this far,” Chapel said, “but we shouldn’t take any chances.” He looked over at Bogdan. The hacker was going to be a problem, if they needed to keep a low profile. With his very short hair Chapel himself could blend in with the locals, and Nadia’s Asian features weren’t going to draw much attention in Istanbul. But the tall, lanky Romanian was bound to draw stares. It would be best, Chapel knew, if they could just find some place to lie low, out of sight, but that would mean, say, checking into a hotel. Which would leave a paper trail. The second-best option was to find the biggest crowd possible and disappear inside it.
“Perhaps I may suggest something. Something that has nothing to do with our business,” Nadia said. One corner of her mouth curved upward in a sly smile. She put down her napkin and turned to face the windows at the front of the café. “The Hagia Sophia is just a little bit away. It is supposed to be amazing to see.”
“You’re suggesting we take in the local sights,” Chapel said. The idea sounded ridiculous — this wasn’t a vacation. But he glanced around at the other people in the café, mostly Turks poring over newspapers or checking their phones before they had to get in to work. There were more than a few tourists, though, recognizable by their casual clothes and the bags they all carried. “That might not be such a bad plan,” he said. Among the well-dressed business professionals of Istanbul, Bogdan stood out like a sore thumb. In a crowd of gaudily dressed tourists he might be less conspicuous.
“One must take one’s pleasures where one may, yes?” Nadia said. She pushed her chair back and stood up. “This is the last chance we’ll have to relax, before things get serious.”
They’d already been attacked by Romanian gangsters and had to flee Bucharest ahead of the police. Chapel wondered how serious she expected things to get.
“Before I go anywhere,” Bogdan announced, still firmly seated in his chair. “I finish this cup.”
The two of them stood and watched while he slurped his coffee.
They headed down Kennedy Avenue, following the curve of the strait. Soon Chapel could see a big domed structure rising above them, flanked by four needlelike minarets. Helpful signs confirmed this was the Hagia Sophia, one of Istanbul’s most important landmarks and a major tourist destination. They joined a mob of people from every country in the world flowing into its forecourt. Signs posted everywhere in a dozen languages told him about the place. “This was built in the year 360?” Chapel said aloud. “Is that… is that right?” The signs assured him it was true. They told him the Hagia Sophia had originally been a basilica of the Orthodox Christian Church, the biggest church in the world for a thousand years. For a while it had been a Roman Catholic cathedral, and then in the Middle Ages it was converted into a mosque. In the twentieth century, it had been converted into a museum.
The building was massive, a sprawling complex of domes topped with golden spikes, with broad stone walls that glowed pink in the morning sun. As they passed through its main entrance into the shadowed interior the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees, and Chapel smelled old stone and wood. When his eyes adjusted, he took in just how big the place was — the walls seemed to stretch upward forever, pierced with rows of arches and massive columns. Round panels displaying Arabic calligraphy hung overhead, so wide each character was taller than Chapel. The walls were lined with golden mosaics or cut from veined marble or rich, colorful stone that gave the place a sense of immense solidity, even as the open space between the walls felt infinite and expansive.
Chapel looked up and saw an enormous dome that stretched so high over his head he felt dwarfed, rendered insignificant. Daylight streamed in through hundreds of arched windows, filling the air under the dome with a bright presence that seemed to shimmer and twist like something trying to take form and existence.
All the noise, all the anger in his head seemed to drain away as he stood there, taking in the sheer immensity of the place. The scale, the power of it. It might well look like a mosque, it might have been packed full of tourists laughing and griping and snapping pictures, but it took Chapel back to a very different place. Strangely enough, it made him remember the little white-paneled church in Florida where, as a boy, he’d gone to services with his mother every Sunday. He had spent those hours fidgeting on the pews that stank of wood polish, bored and wondering what he was missing on TV. But now, in this place, he didn’t think about that. He thought of his mother, in her Sunday dress, kneeling with her head bowed in prayer. He thought of the times when the congregation would come together in song, their voices joined over the sound of the church’s pipe organ, and how it had felt like there was something there, something bigger than himself. Something special. The people who had built the Hagia Sophia, he knew, had been looking for the same thing. The sacred.
He realized his jaw was hanging open, and he forced himself to look down, at Nadia standing beside him. She looked up at him with a quiet smile.
“Perhaps you think me trivial,” she said, “for wanting to see this when there is so much work to be done.”
“No,” he said, softly. Inside him, something let go, something he’d been holding on to for a long time. He felt strangely at peace. “No, I don’t. I’m glad I got to see it myself.”
She nodded. “This career we choose, it does not offer us much time to ourselves, to think, to simply be people. We are kept so busy, and our lives could end at any time.” She shivered as if she were cold. “I feel I must take advantage, any compensation I can. Being able to see much of the world is one of the best.”
She reached over and took his hand. His good, living hand. It was such an innocent and affectionate gesture it didn’t occur to him to stop her. Her fingers were warm and soft in his, and after a moment he didn’t want to let go.
He closed his eyes, and just for a moment, a short span of time, he was okay. It was like having Julia there with him. Or even more basic than that — just having another human being to share the moment with, to not be alone.