“It’s only one account,” Knox says.
“Yes. Are you going to tell me how to do my job?”
He’s about to. He stops himself.
She wants to reward him. “I apologize.”
“No. You’re right. You have me nailed.”
Maybe he’s jet-lagged. This isn’t the Knox she knows.
He says, “How certain are you?”
“I should not have said anything. I was mistaken to do so. An opinion is all.”
“Are you going to make me beg?”
“David did not confirm the man’s occupation to me. Did he to you?”
“What a snake.”
“He allowed us our assumptions,” Grace says. “Fair play.”
“He must have loved that we both jumped to the same conclusion.”
“He choreographed this. Yes?”
“I suppose he did.” Knox drops his head into his large hands in concentration. “How can Mashe possibly afford the Harmodius if he’s not in arms dealing?”
“Investors. A consortium. The money will be kept in a phantom account or will be held as cash in a safe-deposit box or home safe. It is possible it cannot be wired. If cash, it would be safer to carry it in. Physically transported.”
“But Mashe is already here,” Knox says.
“A friend or family member. A mule he trusts implicitly.”
“His wife.”
“Or mistress, or cousin. It can be done,” she says. “But to convert such amounts of currency? At black market rates? It is very onerous. Funds wired from a ghost account would convert at bank rates, the most favorable possible.”
“Mashe would wire the funds here,” Knox speculates, trying to follow, “from a fake account. Akram would collect it as cash from various banks, bundle it and deliver to me. Leaving us where?”
“Leaving you stuck with too much cash to legally get out of the country. You say your previous dealings have been cash?”
“Yeah. But we’re talking small amounts.”
“This time it must be different. Can you take a meeting with Akram?”
“Of course.”
“We will need a pickpocket,” she says. “Must be a thousand around the Hagia Sophia.”
“You going to put out a sandwich board offering employment?” he says.
She looks surprised. “Yes! I suppose it should be something like that.”
He wonders: is she mocking him, or is she being sweetly naive? Has she already formed a plan, or is she leaving it up to him? He grins privately as Grace allows a smirk beneath her oversized sunglasses. There is cunning in her expression, a high-spiritedness and a convincing smugness that suggests she is already three steps ahead of him.
17
In order to harpoon his pickpocket, Knox performs a gag he learned off a middle schooler named Cameron Wood on a school trip to New York City. Warned by their chaperone of thieves in Times Square, Cameron and his buddies bought a street vendor wallet and put a note in it reading, “You are being electronically tracked by the NYPD.” Cameron then volunteered to be the one to carry the decoy wallet in his back pocket, keeping his real one in the front. When the class returned to the hotel from a walk around Times Square, Cameron realized the wallet was gone; he never felt a thing. He and his pals got a good laugh at what the pickpocket’s face must have looked like when he read their note.
Knox’s three notes, written in Turkish by the hotel receptionist, read, “I will pay five times this. Look for the tall American by the ticket window.”
He, too, carries a dummy wallet showing slightly from his back pocket. But unlike young Cameron, Knox knows exactly when each of the three wallets is stolen. Each carries a handwritten note and the equivalent of ten USD in Turkish liras.
He waits thirty minutes by the mosque’s ticket window. The apprehensive boy is twelve years old with oversized eyes and a choirboy complexion. He keeps himself at arm’s length in case Knox turns out to be trouble.
Knox is trouble, but not in any way the boy will ever know.
Knox and Akram Okle meet two blocks from the DoubleTree on Mithat Pasa Caddesi, a narrow street that could be Paris or Brussels except for the occasional Red Crescent on a sign. Art galleries intermingle with boutique hotels. Nothing over three stories. Freshly painted neoclassical alongside colonial. The men are in blue jeans, long-sleeved shirts and sweaters. Running shoes. Not a woman in sight. Knox is spitting distance from the Grand Bazaar, the Beyazit Tower and the Calligraphy Museum. In any five-block area of the European side of Istanbul, there is more history than in all of Athens. He thinks they should put a glass dome over the entire city and preserve it as it is. The Syrians or Georgians or Kurds are bound to destroy it in a forgettable conflict and the world will lose a treasure, as it has lost Lebanon. He absorbs what he can with what little of him is not preoccupied surveying his immediate surroundings. He plays far too much defense; he’s eager to get himself on the other side of the ball.
Someone is grilling lamb nearby. There’s the scent of cardamom in the air, carried on a charcoal breeze. Knox is ready for lunch; to his delight, the source of the aromas is their meeting spot. He passes through a beaded curtain, keeps his eye on a pair of low ceiling fans and asks Akram to switch sides of the table with him as they shake hands, providing Knox a view of the entrance. It is an uncomfortable moment that neither man draws attention to.
They talk briefly about the time of year and the approach of cooler days. Knox expresses concern over the illness in the man’s family. Akram orders for them, telling Knox of a dish this restaurant does better than any other in the city. Knox settles in for a long lunch. Akram likes his food.
There are tourists scattered throughout, none fitting the descriptions provided by Grace, but Knox has every person sized up and he’s located the exit by the two restrooms, as well as the entrance to the kitchen. He drinks coffee that should be considered an alternative fuel, tolerates the cigarette smoke. Realizes a dentist could make more money in this city than a bond trader. He’s high on adrenaline and the approach of negotiation, feels it in his loins like he’s about to try to flirt an underwear model into leaving a party with him.
“So, this thing we talked about,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Should I consider you interested?”
Akram lowers his eyes in consent. Knox finds the man’s face to be a confusion of contradictions. Bronze facial skin covered by a salt-and-pepper balbo beard that adds ten years to what is likely his early thirties. Nearly shaved head to lessen the impression of a receding hairline. Heavy, expressive eyebrows shield wide-set eyes that could be black glass, yet his gaze reveals that he’s multitasking. He’s an IRS agent who knows everyone cheats on his or her taxes, a priest awaiting the first stone. He’d run a fillet knife through you if you crossed him, but he’ll attend your son’s bar mitzvah no matter how far he has to travel. He wears a cracked brown leather jacket that might have trouble zipping shut when it reaches his chest. The tight fitting black T-shirt supports this assessment. He wears no jewelry. The face of his rubber sports watch is scratched, its black band cracked.
“It’s many times greater than that of any of our prior transactions.”
Knox withholds comment.
“First, let me say, my friend, that I mean no insult to your integrity.” He allows that to fester in Knox. “I must question how it is an item that has eluded the top archaeologists and researchers for several centuries, suddenly appears in the hands of a…” He’s searching for a word other than “amateur.”