“I’m listening.”
“A policeman, perhaps agent, is most likely to use a pay-as-you-go SIM chip like this. Same way we do. Let us assume, therefore, that this man arrived in-country six days ago. He buys the pay-as-you-go and sets up his phone. From what country he comes, we don’t know. You received my text, yes? This man had access to the airport’s security room. He tagged the mark upon landing. Access to Turkish security. I later identify a similarly dressed man watching the mark’s residence. Could be same agent. He was paired.”
“And is that the same—”
“Unlikely, no. The mobile unit surveilling my apartment was a solo. Who are all these people, sir? It is a crowded field.” Grace takes in her present surroundings of pigeons, pedestrians with white iPhone wires hanging from their ears and a sea of colorful scarves.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Dulwich says. “What you’re seeing is likely protection. The mark is an important man.”
It’s her turn to be unintentionally quiet. Wouldn’t worry? Since when? She collects more data from Dulwich’s body language than the conversation. His posture has tightened with her every revelation.
Grace says, “So why would a man protecting the mark spend extended time on a bench in front of a mosque three out of the six days he has been in-country?”
“He’s religious? Do we care?” Dulwich doesn’t have to try to sound offensive.
Red flag. A rule of the game is to know more about your adversary than he knows about you. “I am not comfortable with such surprises. Such unknowns.”
“You understand the op?”
He’s insulting her. She regrets bringing him in without more information. He doesn’t want to be offered half a meal. She accepts the mistake as a learning moment. It’s all or nothing; he doesn’t appreciate being teased.
“Understood,” she says.
“Well, then…” Dulwich stands and puts his phone away, offers his back and is swallowed by the tumult a few seconds later.
16
What the hell?” Knox sits by himself in a waiting lounge in Queen Alia International Airport. A white wire runs to his left ear; his right remains unplugged so he can overhear the activity in the terminal. He keeps his hand over his mouth to prevent lip reading. He makes the seat look small, like an adult in a preschool parent-teacher conference.
“That would depend,” Dulwich says.
The line is secure. But Knox is in public, so he will dance around specifics.
“If we’d wanted help, we’d have asked for it.”
“Elaborate.”
“I was followed. Lost a step. Right when the guy could have cold-cocked me, he walks. What’s with that?”
Dulwich tells Knox more than he intends with his silence. This is new information; the man was not his.
“We may lose the… trophy,” Knox says.
“You had better not.”
“My lady friend is helping with that.”
“Your lady friend and I had a chat earlier.”
“Bully for you. I’m beginning to think we could use a couple boys from the old team.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Because?”
“It’s an in-and-out. Don’t overcomplicate it.”
“You said I’d be lying in bed with my feet up watching pay-per-view. That isn’t happening.”
“So complain to HR.”
“You said you and I wouldn’t have contact — that you don’t exist.”
Dulwich teases him by leaving only silence on the line.
“Friendlies? Is that why he walked?”
“Don’t overcomplicate it,” Dulwich repeats.
“It’s doing that by itself. Six months ago, Obama convinces Netanyahu to apologize to the Turkish prime minister for Israeli commandos killing ten Turkish protesters attempting to cross the Gaza blockade. Relations between Israel and Turkey immediately thaw; embassies are reopened. Now, wouldn’t you know, Rutherford Risk has an op in Turkey — complete with a priceless piece of art being given away for nothing and spooks that appear out of dust storms and then vanish. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.”
“You’re hallucinating. These are small speed bumps. They happen — especially early on. It’ll sort itself out. Don’t go all double-oh-seven on me.”
“If I’m being shadowed by a bunch of spooks, I could use a heads-up.”
“So here’s your heads-up: it’s not a can-do, it’s a must-do. That’s why the paycheck is so big. Ask fewer questions, keep your fists in your pockets, and it’ll sort itself out.”
“He followed me through a sandstorm.”
“I read about that. Sounded nasty.”
“Who does that? Who goes out in a sandstorm?”
“You, apparently.”
“Now you’re just being rude.”
“Yeah, funny how that feels on the receiving end.”
Knox ends the call unceremoniously. His blood pressure lessens. He trusts Sarge with his life, yet he wouldn’t trust him to walk his dog if he had one. Knows he would never be wholly lied to by the man, but isn’t sure he ever gets the truth.
This operation has started poorly. He’d like to blame it all on the sandstorm. Takes it as an omen. Knox thinks of Tommy back in Michigan, and there’s a nagging ache in his chest telling him to abort. He worries he’s working for the department of defense, Rutherford Risk’s biggest client. Dulwich’s emphasis on importance has Knox convinced a government is behind the op.
But there are so many governments, and Rutherford Risk isn’t particular. Government work gets people killed. That’s why it’s contracted out. Knox has wandered off-trail in search of an extravagant paycheck, knowing all along there’s no philanthropy in his line of work. He’s being overpaid for a reason. Five minutes in the room with the mark, Dulwich said. He made it sound so small, but five minutes can be an eternity.
Knox’s flight is called. He has eyes in the back of his head as he boards.
Every student of history should start with a school trip to Istanbul, Knox thinks. It’s the Kevin Bacon of history — everything’s connected. Throw a rock; dig a hole and try to miss. Turkey’s significance over three thousand years of Western civilization cannot be overstated. Knox is no academic, but his import business and knowledge of art history have given him a crash course in Western and Eastern civilization, an unintended consequence he appreciates, even cultivates. Spends far more time in museums now than he did a few years ago. Beds down with books he’d be embarrassed to be caught reading.
The Demirtas neighborhood of the Eminönü district is a tight tangle of short streets that compress in width the closer one gets to the Golden Horn inlet. Smog-stained Roman columns adorn corner buildings adjacent to the remnants of ancient city walls, all of it surrounded by tasteless two-story apartment buildings that make Knox think of the highway views driving by Detroit. Istanbul has been conquered and occupied by the Crusaders, Ottoman sultans, Romans and the original founders, the Greeks. Built on seven hills, the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara, it was made into a fortress of palaces, golden domes, parks and towers. It has been sacked, nearly emptied of its population and rebuilt numerous times. In the middle of the seventeenth century, it was the largest city on earth.
It is currently the home to every ethnicity, culture, religion and sect, a kaleidoscope of the human species. Every scent. Every color of glass, clothing and skin can be found. Every culinary treat. The city’s Grand Bazaar, an endless warren of booths and shops, is all this diversity boiled down to commercialism. Knox walks the unbearably crowded bazaar first, just to remind himself of where he is and whose company he keeps. Overpowered by sweat, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom, incense, blue jeans and hammered brass lanterns, Knox roams the concourses in a herd of tourists and locals alike, content and comforted by how some things, some places, never change. Squint your eyes, and it could be 200 B.C.