“So,” he said. “Let’s talk briefly.”
He led the way to the balcony.
Either that suggestion had to do with privacy or he planned to throw me over the railing.
I kept my hand in my pocket as we stepped outside.
There were two metal sidewalk café chairs. He sat in one and crossed his leg.
I pulled my hand out of my pocket and I sat on the other chair.
Ströder said, “I am an aide-de-camp of War Minister Enver Pasha.”
Enver had spent time as the Ottoman Empire’s military attaché in Berlin, and he spoke the language fluently. He was keeping his friends close even here. Ströder no doubt got a carefully stage-managed view of things. I understood the Germans’ impulse: they could well use Selene’s pillow talk.
“The plan has changed,” he said. “Enver Pasha is preoccupied. The Italians are negotiating with our enemies to enter the war. This is an imminent thing, if in fact it has not been agreed to already.”
He paused.
I said, “What does this mean for the woman?”
“The Pasha is very ardent about her.”
I knew that when the Turk’s feelings for Selene came up, I’d need to keep my face blank. I struggled now to do that.
The colonel went on, “But we must wait. Perhaps day after tomorrow.”
“I see.”
Though I did see that this was plausible, what I also saw was the more likely possibility that they were waiting for Der Wolf. The good Herr Gutenberg would perhaps hold off any suspicions about Brauer for the time being, but I didn’t know for how long. If things were unsettled in this whole affair, Der Wolf might want to consult with their agent closest to the woman before going ahead.
“Why are you bandaged?” Ströder asked. Abruptly. As if he were trying to make me reveal something. But he had no reason to be suspicious of what might be beneath my bandage. And if he doubted me at all, this would certainly not be his opening shot.
“Didn’t you know?” I said. “I was on the Lusitania.”
He straightened in unfeigned surprise.
I said, “Our U-boat captains were too efficient in this case.”
Ströder shook his head. “You saved the woman?”
I made a short, sharp laugh. “Have they told you about the man interfering with us?”
“Cobb?”
“Yes.”
“They say he is an American agent.”
“He saved her,” I said.
“Cobb?”
“Yes.”
“Was she compromised?”
“She left him at the first opportunity in Queenstown,” I said. “To my knowledge they had little or no contact on board. He must have sought her out when it was clear the ship would sink. To try to take advantage.”
Ströder, who had been sitting upright since his surprise, relaxed back into the chair. “This man,” he said. “I have respect for him as a foe. For him to have the presence of mind to think of his mission in such a circumstance.”
This was interesting to me, of course: the respect among the officer class of civilized fighting forces for their enemy counterparts. It was certain that Colonel Ströder himself had a spying mission. Cobb was his personal, respected foe.
I was.
“He’s a killer,” I said.
Ströder puffed faintly and nodded once. More respect. Of course he was a killer.
I said, “Is Cobb in Istanbul?”
“I do not know.”
I was about to say, Look, he could come after me. These words shaped themselves in my mouth instantly. The Walter Brauer I was portraying would have this worry. But I stopped myself. I did not want Ströder to get it in his head to give me a guard.
But I wanted to know more about Der Wolf.
I said, “I understand we have someone on the way to take care of Mr. Cobb.”
At this Ströder focused his eyes a bit more closely upon mine. He wasn’t sure I was supposed to know this.
“Herr Horst gave me the alert in Berlin,” I said.
Ströder let his eyes go casual as he nodded.
I said, “Have you met The Wolf?”
Ströder shrugged. “No one has,” he said. And he laughed.
It was a joke he expected me to get. I had to be careful what I asked. I didn’t know what exactly to make of the comment. Did it mean that Der Wolf was unlikely to have met Brauer or that he could have met him and Brauer didn’t realize who he was?
I said, “I wonder if he and Cobb have tangled before.”
Ströder shrugged. He didn’t know. “It would be very interesting,” he said.
“Very interesting,” I said.
And now Ströder rose from his chair.
I did likewise, even as he turned and stepped through the French windows.
He was halfway across the room when he stopped and began abruptly to turn to me.
My right hand went instantly into my pocket, clutched the grip, thumbed the safety, put my forefinger onto the trigger, and Ströder was facing me, taking a step toward me. My right arm started to flex.
But he opened his palms to me.
“I almost forgot,” Ströder said. “Enver Pasha said he was looking forward to seeing you again.”
46
The door was shut and I leaned back against it.
Of course, in becoming Walter, I’d wondered what his role would be in all of this. Why him? I’d figured somehow he was a man both the Germans could trust and a bigwig Turk could feel comfortable with. I figured the role of go-between was a cultural nicety that didn’t get widely broadcast. If the leader of the Turkish government wanted to take an American film-star lover by way of her German-director ex-lover, the protocol would be to have such a man as Walter bring her along to him and make the introduction. A formality for a Westerner to enter a Turkish goddamn harem. And maybe it was indeed something of the sort. But Walter had a history with Enver.
I had some planning to do.
And I had to get Selene to talk with me.
I went out of my room and stood before her door.
I put my ear to it.
There was only silence inside.
I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again and I said, “Selene. It’s Kit. Are you there?”
“What is it?” Her voice startled me. It came from inside but very near the door.
“I have some news,” I said.
“I don’t feel well,” she said.
“About the meeting.”
A few moments of silence. And then the doorknob turned.
I expected to enter, but she merely opened the door to the length of the chain lock. Her face appeared in the narrow gap.
“What is it?” she said.
“Are you all right?”
She looked pale. But perhaps no more than usual.
“I already told you I’m not feeling well.”
“Can I help?”
“You can help by telling me what you have to say and letting me rest.”
“Enver Pasha is preoccupied with matters of the war. We have to wait.”
“Not tonight?”
“Not tonight.”
“Good,” she said. “Thank you.”
She closed the door before I could reply.
I stood there for a while thinking what to do.
I had a hunch about her. The things still withheld from me might send her from this room.
I moved away.
I installed myself at a table in a corner of the Kubbeli Salon, my back to the wall, able to watch anyone emerge from the doors that led from the elevator and staircase. She would have to pass by me to leave the hotel, and unless she looked sharply over her right shoulder as soon as she entered the salon, she would never notice me.
I drank raki, a clear, fine Turkish brandy that reminded me in its clarity and burn of the aguardiente I’d come to like very much last year in Vera Cruz. I nursed a moderate sequence of raki all afternoon and into the early evening with an equally slow graze through a few orders of meze, small-portion plates, kashar cheese and mixed pickles and ripe melon and a paste of hot peppers with walnuts.