Knox wonders how many languages the man speaks; how many dialects; how easily this clipped attempt at English comes to him. It’s convincing enough to ease the agent back in his seat.
The car turns right, north, back toward Barbaros Boulevard, but yips to a stop at the entrance to a forested park on the left. Besim auto-unlocks the doors without being asked to do so, and they come open simultaneously. In a flurry of box cutters, swinging arms and fierce shouting, Besim reaches back to contribute the sting of a Taser. Seat belts are cut with razors. Both men are dragged out. It’s over in ten seconds or less.
Fucking Israelis.
The two men are replaced by two others, and the car races off, leaving Knox’s captors behind, one on his hands and knees, the other unconscious, facedown. The plastic binding Knox’s wrists is cut free. He exercises his sore shoulders.
Besim has the car moving fast. South, toward old Istanbul. South, toward the train terminal on the European side and, beyond, the airport.
No one speaks. Knox observes the protocol. Knows better than to mess with Mossad.
After fifteen minutes it’s apparent that they are indeed headed for the airport.
So many questions tug at Knox. He understands that he’s unlikely to ever get a single straight answer. There is no question — none — that Besim is with these two. The mood in the car is relaxed, other than at stops or when the car slows, which sets the men’s heads pivoting like radar dishes.
But then why did Besim attack him to get the shopping list? The only answer Knox can come up with is that Besim is doubled, working for both sides of Israeli security — the side that hired Dulwich and the side that doesn’t want to spare a thorium reactor from the fires of hell about to descend upon Iran. So which are these two?
He has to take the risk.
“Just to be clear,” Knox says, “I don’t have what you think I do. What those guys back there thought I did. I was told it could buy me a pass in a situation like this, but I’m sorry to say I don’t have it.”
The man on Knox’s left eye-signals Besim and the car pulls off the main road and onto a side street. This agent gets out of the car and makes a phone call. A moment later, the agent climbs back into the car, searches Knox’s Scottevest, and locates Knox’s iPhone. Five seconds later, the phone purrs and Knox answers.
“What’s this?” It’s Dulwich.
“I don’t have it.”
“I got that much.”
“She has it.”
Silence. Then, “Fuck.”
“I’ll never get through Immigration anyway.”
“You think too much.”
“So hire Schwarzenegger.”
“Not the time for it, pal.”
“We stopped being pals a while ago.” Knox wonders if he’ll ever get a call from Dulwich again and if, by association, he’s ruined Grace’s dreams of fieldwork. He wonders if Dulwich will pay him for this op if he makes it out. Wonders what the hell to do for Tommy. Fuck.
“You think? I was the one responsible for dumping those two back there. Don’t be so quick to pass judgment. I’m risking some serious capital here.”
“I’m feeling bad for you.” Knox notes the use of “back there.” Dulwich is close by.
“Where is she?” Dulwich asks.
“Someplace safe, I hope. I thought you and your friends here had teams on both of us?”
A yellow taxi approaches from up the street. Besim backs up expertly, running the rear tires up onto the sidewalk and cutting the wheel sharply. He’s about to peel out when the man on Knox’s right shouts too loudly for the confines of the car, “Atzor!” Stop! Hebrew.
Knox ends the call and returns the phone to the jacket.
He’s found Grace.
59
Grace holds the business card in her left hand, a butane cigarette lighter in her right. She steadily brings the two closer. The two agents are out of the car and pushing their palms at her in a rush of bodies and limbs.
“No… no… no!” they say, nearly in unison.
The taxi driver seizes the moment and backs up the Hyundai, leaving an unsuspecting Grace standing alone. The taxi continues backing up at an alarming rate all the way to the intersection. Then it’s gone.
“The card for him,” Grace says, “or I burn it.”
Besim climbs out from behind the wheel, and Knox watches Grace’s emotions get the better of her. Betrayal burnishes her face angry red.
“Release him!” Grace hollers, the flame now precariously close to the lower corner of the card.
“We do not wish to possess the card, ma’am,” Besim says, “but it must not be burned.” He checks with the man originally on Knox’s left, who nods. “It is truly the only chance for the two of you. We have promised to do everything in our power to get you out alive. The loss of this card will be our failure. Your failure.”
“Get him out of the car, now!” Grace is having none of it.
Besim checks with the agent for a second time. They speak in Hebrew. The three move away from the vehicle. Their hands remain in plain sight.
Grace is unable to keep the confusion from her face.
“The card!” she says again.
Knox comes out of the backseat, grinning appreciatively. He moves around the open door to the front, where he assesses the agents and Besim.
“Grace! Get in,” he says, indicating the passenger door. “And don’t for a moment take that flame away from the card.”
Besim and the others back away slowly.
“In!” Knox says, pulling his own door shut.
Grace climbs in. The flame steadies. Knox glances out his window at the men.
“What the hell?” she says.
Knox shifts into gear. Halfway down the block, he tells her to extinguish the lighter. She doesn’t seem to hear him. He repeats himself and she quiets the flame.
“That took balls,” he says.
“Always so vulgar.”
Knox waits until the car is on Kennedy Avenue, airport bound. He explains his theory that Besim vandalized the SUV and paid off the bellmen to keep their mouths shut, reiterates the likelihood of two Israeli payrolls; one set, Dulwich’s, surprising and replacing his hotel captors. His phone buzzes repeatedly, as does Grace’s. Neither answers.
“The card?” she says.
Knox answers. “In order for things to remain status quo, they need the dead drop to go as planned. If it fails, it will call for internal review by whatever party of whatever government is supposed to get it, and maybe someone figures out what’s really going on.”
“Tracking Dr. Okle.”
“Sarge spit-balled it for us. Did he lie? Of course. But maybe less than we think. More like he omitted facts.”
“You would defend him?”
“Bloodlines. He and I share history.” Again, he wonders if he’s sabotaged Grace. Feels shitty about it.
“The airport.”
“Yeah.”
She speculates, “The Israelis had a plane for you.” Her voice quavers. “I interrupted…”
“Grace… we don’t know anything. Not a damned thing. These guys are all spooks. Sarge should have known better. Out of our league.”
“Railway,” she suggests.
“By now, the Israelis dumped out of the car will have called it in. The hawks are not going to roll over for anyone. They’ll make the charge of cultural theft against me, play anything they can so I don’t get out. The train is too slow. Gives them too long to get their shit together.” He can’t take the time to switch out SIM cards. “The Turks will have to weigh the claim, put out a Be On Lookout for me. The Israelis supporting the thorium research know you and I have a shot at getting through Immigration or they wouldn’t have been aiming for the airport in the first place.”
“Or they paid a bribe.”
“Or that.”