Given Dulwich’s briefing about the sick mother, Grace has assumed the hospital would be an early stop. The location doesn’t help her. She works to keep the irritation from her voice. “After that? His final destination?”
He catches her eye in the rearview mirror, his mental gears clearly grinding. She’s following a man, her supposed former lover, who just landed and is heading straight to a hospital; her tone suggests she knows all this and yet somehow knows the hospital is not his final stop.
“His mother is ill, Besim,” Grace explains in a more intimate and caring tone, trying to stay a step ahead of her savvy driver. “Of course the hospital must come first. If I am to speak to him, it must follow.”
“I have address,” he says. “You desire I should drive you this place?”
“Yes. Please. Tell me, Besim, can we arrive at the hospital ahead of him?”
“It is doubtful — possible, but doubtful. Very fast driver, as you see.”
The Audi has sped out of sight since Besim’s initial backing off.
“I would like that,” she says. “No matter, I must arrive to his final destination ahead of him. I must be waiting.”
His dark eyes slide into the mirror and out again.
“He has wronged me,” she explains.
Besim keeps his thoughts to himself, but he’s an open book: she needs a good backhand to the face. A little tune-up. Eye-tunes.
“The money he gambled was mine. The money he lost. The money these other men want.” The invented story comes with surprising ease. She’s not a natural born storyteller; she’s a number cruncher.
The true story reads differently: she has left her first and one true love behind in China, both disallowed by their families from pursuing the relationship. She was eager to do so; he refused, held tightly by the family reins. Besim doesn’t need to hear this. For him she is translating the language of the heart to the language of money. Stories are so interchangeable, she thinks, wondering why lives are not.
“He has taken my heart,” she says honestly. “I want my money back.”
Besim’s chipped teeth sparkle white. He wants to say something about her being Chinese, to sting her for entering a relationship with an Arab. She knows that look and resents it. Objectified. Reduced to what’s between her shoulders and legs. So easy to choke or garrote a man from the backseat. Her emotions swing with every lane change of the car. Besim knows his stuff; they are stitching their way through the congested traffic.
She doesn’t want to follow, would rather leapfrog.
“His final destination, please. You will drop me there, then wait with my bags at my apartment. It is okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her decision made, she sits back. Her thought process is linear, mathematical. If A equals B and B equals C, then… Were the agents waiting for Melemet, aka Mashe Okle, as they appear to have been? The “why” isn’t important to the equation, but the “how” definitely is. They must have been aware of his cover identity prior to his booking the ticket. If a known arms dealer, why not arrest him on the spot? Okle is in Istanbul to be at the bedside of his dying mother. Why put off his arrest? No matter how she manipulates the variables, the equation won’t yield a result. It’s an unsolvable proof. Unacceptable.
What is Dulwich not telling her, and why? This is the parenthetical product she’s lacking, the value that is throwing off the result.
When her phone vibrates and a sixty-four-character string of symbols and alphanumeric characters appears in the Messaging balloon, she knows it’s the password she’s been waiting for, the one she needs to raid Okle’s investment portfolio. She stares at the phone as if it belongs to someone else. The message doesn’t come from Rutherford’s Data Sciences division, but from Dulwich himself, the most digitally challenged man she knows. It’s a small inconsistency, but she’s trained to identify such variables.
She drums her fingers on her knee. What is Dulwich up to?
Outside the vehicle, the sparkle of the Istanbul lights emerges.
“You like?” Besim asks. He’s caught her look of awe in the mirror.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, admiring the twinkling hills, the dozens of mosque spires, and the sparkling vessels on the Bosphorus Strait. She doesn’t want to get her driver talking. She needs time to think.
The illuminated minarets of the mosques look like chalky fingers pointing to heaven.
Besim nods thoughtfully. “You will like this place.”
Grace is not so sure.
10
The storm has turned the streets of Amman into a beach parking lot. The grit beneath Knox’s shoes gives him shivers; it’s like biting into a dry Popsicle. The air quality sucks, but at least he doesn’t feel as if he’s standing in front of the nozzle of a sandblaster anymore. It’s tolerable, and people return cautiously to the sidewalks and streets, their faces protectively covered. Some cars are moving. Many hoods are open, the driver leaning in to deal with a clogged air filter. There is little sense of irritation; such storms are an accepted occurrence here. Knox marvels at the universal adaptability of humans.
A text from Dulwich: Shepard Fairey’s Obama Hope poster and an address. A parentheticaclass="underline" eight P.M. It’s coming up on seven. Knox knows not to put this off. A possible rendezvous, though the Obama reference eludes him. Dulwich’s cryptic messages can be frustrating. Knox returns to his thought about spooks, wondering what Dulwich and Primer have gotten him into. Rutherford Risk rarely discriminates against its clients. Knox is allowed that luxury. He picks and chooses, though Dulwich has his number, quite literally. Anything in six figures and Knox can’t seem to keep his fingers off it.
The corporation is in the business of problem-solving those problems that can’t be solved by conventional means. Over half their business is international kidnapping resolution. Knox can’t yet figure the client on this job, but assumes it’s a government wanting to block an arms sale, one that lacks a security division as capable as Rutherford Risk. Many countries fall into this category, leaving Knox to marvel at the power of Primer’s corporation and the leniency it is afforded. He is a small part of that, and often wonders if it’s a blessing or a curse. He understands this: the further down the food chain, the more expendable the individual. Working with Grace has taught him as much. In Amsterdam, it became clear that Brian Primer and Dulwich would protect Grace over him, making Knox feel like the team veteran about to be replaced by the rookie. As he does more jobs for Dulwich, does he become more of an asset, or a liability? Again: what the hell has he gotten himself into?
He flags down a share taxi, a white Volkswagen minibus. The driver sits on a backing of wood rollerballs. Talismans dangle from the rearview mirror. Knox crams in with eight others, the smell of body odor overpowering. He feels like Gulliver next to the two women on his bench. Eyes stare at him from headscarves arranged to limit his view. The passengers have gone quiet. The ride through the recovering city is treacherous; the driver does his best to control the skidding. They detour several times because of breakdowns blocking the road. Knox’s command of the Jordanian dialect is too pathetic to attempt conversation. He sits uncomfortably, banging his head on the ceiling with every bump. Someone lights a cigarette. No one complains. Knox is close to losing his temper by the time the van pulls over. The driver has to point at him to let Knox know they’re at his stop.
Merchants have come downstairs from their second-story apartments to sweep the sidewalk in front of shuttered stores. Women in abayas worn from the shoulders and colorful headscarves move silently and efficiently while men gather in small clusters, smoking. Knox dodges cardboard boxes, discarded appliances and a pair of worn shoes as he passes some unhappy shop clerks who were caught by the storm, unable to salvage their wares ahead of time. Discouragement weighs down their bent backs and slows their movement. The struggle of daily life hangs in the air as thickly as the residual dust left behind by the storm.