No gun. She takes possession of his phone.
“Who?” She tries Turkish then English. Kicks him between the legs from behind. That wins his attention while dropping him lower. Repeats herself in Chinese, wondering too late if she’s revealing too much.
“Besim!” he moans.
She releases his arm. It sags to the pavement as if a prosthetic.
“To watch you. Protect you.” Turkish.
Grace steps away and collects her belongings.
“The password to your phone?” She speaks in his language. He recites four numbers; she clears the screen and looks up his most recent calls. Three of the five are to Besim’s phone. She double-checks her purse; searches the area for her penlight. Finds it.
“You were at the hospital.”
“Yes,” he says. He comes to his feet and turns around. He’s embarrassed by her superiority, cannot look directly at her. A woman, of all things! “Two others. A woman, a man watching the hospital. Israelis. Saw you.”
Grace nearly gasps. “You know this, how?” Condescending disbelief. “It is not possible you could know such a thing.”
“As a boy, I fell through the ice on the Bosphorus. Lost my ears, three years. Learned to read mouths. My grandmother is a Jew. This man, this woman? They spoke in the car. Hebrew.”
The tightness in her chest remains. Israelis. Watching the hospital or watching her? She asks him, already knowing the answer, but wanting to test his honesty.
“The man followed you inside. The lady left the car. Walked the block on phone. I go opposite side, much luck. Saw you in elevator.”
“Unlikely,” she said. She checked for tails.
He shrugs, indifferent. “As you wish.”
“And they?”
“These two not follow. Lost you, I think.”
Grace doesn’t know when they transitioned to English but they’re speaking it now. Crafty, this one, perhaps explaining why he was Besim’s choice.
“But not you,” she says. “Besim did this.”
“Besim is good man.”
“Yes. Yes, he is.”
“Istanbul is not so kind to women alone.”
“Chinese women.”
“Any women. Better with man at side.”
“Is that so?”
No response. He looks to be about thirty. Could stand to lose a few pounds. She keys her number into his phone and returns it to him. “The knee—?”
He moves it. Stiff, but working.
“Keep your distance. Should you spot others watching me—”
“Yes.” He holds up the phone. “I understand.”
“Do not engage with these people.” Her words are intentionally forceful. “Promise me that.”
“As you wish.”
“Besim should have said something.” It’s as close as she’ll get to an apology.
“Besim is man of few words.”
She’s not sure if something was lost in translation. “A good distance. You mustn’t be associated with me.”
“I saw what you did not see. I followed you when they did not.”
She’s thinking of the Chinese proverb: Jiao bıng bi bài. The arrogant army will surely lose. Pride goeth before the fall. “As much as I appreciate it, you do not want to tangle with those following me.” She adds, “With anyone following me.”
“You are popular woman.” He smiles, his teeth gleaming in the dark alley. “I understand Besim’s concern.”
A minute earlier, she was prepared to dislocate his elbow and shoulder. Again, she marvels at the excitement of fieldwork, the joy she feels, the visceral sense of being alive at this moment. This place.
“My phone,” she says. “Others may see it. Text me only the number of those watching for me and their direction. You understand? Like a compass. You know the compass points in English?”
“Of course.”
“Just like that,” Grace says. “In relation to me, not you.”
“This, I understand.”
“Thank you.” She leaves him, returning through the deep shadows of the long alley, eager to find Knox.
42
My God!” Grace blurts out as Knox admits her to the toilet stall at the back of the falafel shop. There are two unisex toilets. Knox has been sitting on the closed seat, awaiting her arrival.
Her reaction is in part to his pants being down at his ankles, but primarily to the bloody lacerations and ugly raised lumps on his shins. Hopefully she’s not paying attention to the red stab wound on his thigh or the similarly repaired injury to his scalp.
“I wouldn’t have called, but it’s nearly impossible to walk.”
Grace stares at his legs, her face pale. “What—?”
“A woman. Rebar. I was supposed to end up in an ambulance for what I assume was a ‘debriefing.’ Did you get it?”
She digs into the paper bag she carries and removes a small brown bottle. “This is meant for toothaches, John.”
“It’ll do the trick, believe me. I usually carry some. I’m out. What about—?”
Grace removes a prescription bottle from her purse. “Vicodin. Take two—”
“How did you—?”
“You do not want to ask.” Yet she explains anyway. “Habit-forming drugs require prescription. Antibiotics, antidepressants? These do not. I used my considerable charms — and my UN identification — to obtain eight pills. One day’s worth. Not enough to satisfy an addiction.”
Knox uncaps the vial, dispenses four and swallows them.
“Size triple X,” he says.
He spills some of the toothache ointment over the injuries, wincing at the contact. Grace kneels and patches him up, using cream, gauze and tape from the bag.
“Any one of these wounds is enough to require you to rest, John. We should abort.”
Knox studies her pained face. Her position makes them both uncomfortable; she’s looking up at him, her eyes level with his waist. He sees something beyond concern flash across her face, but exactly what it is remains out of reach.
“You’d better explain that.”
An impatient knock.
“Let us get you out of here first,” Grace whispers. “Can you walk?”
Knox flexes his ankles. Shoots of pain race through him like fever chills. He puts his weight on both heels. Winces a second time. “Sure. Why not?”
Grace reaches out to help with his pants, but Knox takes over and Grace stands back as he lifts them gingerly past the wounds and fastens them at the waist. She collects the contents of the bag, including the trash. Leave no evidence of injury behind; give your opponent no sense of advantage.
He hobbles forward two steps.
“It’ll be better once the drugs kick in.”
“That will not be soon enough. We will wait here. Put food in you. Medication to be taken with food. When is the last time you ate?”
“Look who’s talking.”
“David just bought me falafel,” she says.
Knox wonders if it’s the pain or her words that stop his diaphragm. “O… kay.”
At a table against the wall, Knox sits, long legs elevated on the chair next to Grace; across the table, she takes him through the meeting with Dulwich and her encounter with Besim’s agent provocateur. She talks at length with the waitress, who brings two bags of ice. Grace places them atop Knox’s wounds.
“You cannot continue, John. Not like this.”
He tells her that the testing of the Harmodius, including the soil samples, indicates Israeli soil. Grace nods; relates that this matches with Besim’s man lip reading the Hebrew spoken by her hospital pursuers.
The reputation of Mossad is not lost on either of them. Mashe Okle’s scientific credentials. The fact that a half-dozen Iranian nuclear scientists have died under suspicious circumstances. Dulwich’s assurances that no killing would take place, when all evidence points to the contrary.