This drew him away from the broader face recognition he’d been attempting. It was a big thing to a man like him, this university fencing scar. It was a nobleman’s badge of courage.
His eyes were still on it.
He had no such scar.
I smiled and chuckled patronizingly. “Heidelberg,” I said.
He clicked his heels.
After all, even if he recognized me, what had he seen me do yesterday? I’d simply checked into the hotel dressed as he was now. And with a beautiful woman.
“I am sorry to be out of uniform,” he said. “They’ve asked us to look like civilians when we are off duty. I am Colonel Conrad Lüdike.”
I clicked my heels and flipped him a courtesy salute. He was flattered, giving an ardently crisp salute in return.
Then we shook hands with Germanic fervor.
“You are new to Constantinople,” he said.
“I am. Let’s soon have a drink together, Colonel,” I said. “And we can speak of it.”
“Yes,” he said. “By all means.”
And he continued the handshake.
“And now if you’ll excuse me,” I said, gently extracting my hand.
“Of course,” he said, bowing at the waist.
“Perhaps tomorrow,” I said.
“Of course.”
And I turned my back on him and stepped through the iron door and across the carpet and into the elevator carriage, and I stopped in the center of the floor.
I turned.
Colonel Lüdike was already passing into the Kubbeli salon, and I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. “Der fünfte Fußboden,” I said to the operator.
And I was on the fifth floor.
I walked briskly, stifling the urge to run.
I passed Lucine’s room.
I arrived at my door. I went in.
I would not be back, I realized. I’d be either dead or on the USS Scorpion before this night was through.
Too bad. I’d lose my third Corona Portable Number 3 in barely more than year.
I pulled my valise out of the wardrobe and set it on the bed.
I extracted the false bottom.
I pulled out the sawed-off and reshaped Winchester. I screwed the silencer into the muzzle. I laid the weapon on the bed and I put all the.22 Long heavies from the box into the two lower side pockets of my tunic.
I removed the remaining documents and stuffed them into the inner tunic pockets. No tracks left behind.
All that remained at the bottom of the valise were a few sets of whiskers and a bottle of spirit gum.
The German officer persona would help me in making progress through the villa. But it was possible Der Wolf was waiting with Enver Pasha. I figured I might find myself, in my improvisation, needing a little delay time before I was recognized. He’d seen my face. The revealed scar was not enough.
I removed a Kaiser Wilhelm uptwitched mustache — a good one, densely tied onto sheer lace in two parts — and the screw-stoppered bottle of spirit gum, and I stepped into the bathroom.
I turned the electrical switch and stood before the mirror.
I took one bracing glance into my own eyes, shaded beneath the brim of the peaked cap. I removed the cap and laid it aside. I gave myself one last look. My eyes again. And then the scar: that too was mine. It was me. Let anyone else interpret it as they would. I’d earned it.
I got to work. I brushed on spirit gum and applied the two parts of the mustache, leaving the central hollow of the lip appropriately naked. Done. I dropped the bottle into the basin.
I pressed my officer’s cap onto my head.
I strode to the bed. I picked up my Winchester 1902, which had been mutilated and hushed into a deadly frame of mind. A one-handed weapon, all right, but not a small thing. I had to pass across the salon and lobby of this hotel.
I still had the leather portfolio Metcalf had given me in London. I retrieved it from the Gladstone in the wardrobe, and I stuck the Winchester inside, on the diagonal. I put the portfolio under my arm and went out of the room and down the staircase — hotfooting the steps — and through the salon, reining myself in now, making myself slow down. I should not draw attention, though the brain in my head and the heart in my chest were pounding at me to rush, to run, but I walked, briskly purposeful but controlled, across the lobby and out the door and to the left and to the corner and to the right and across the street and I was walking faster now and the Unic was ahead and I wrenched the passenger door open and slid in next to Arshak.
He reared back at my mustache. “Mother of God,” he said.
“She’s far away tonight,” I said.
And we drove off.
59
We made the best time we could down the Grand Rue, quiet for now, Arshak concentrating on rushing without killing the oblivious pedestrians, me catching my breath.
The streets loosened up after Taksim.
And Arshak said, “So what’s the plan?”
I said, “I only caught a glimpse of the place. Two guards at the front entrance. I don’t know what’s inside. But whatever it is, I need to get as far as I can without letting anyone know I’m coming. As soon as the audible shooting starts, Lucine’s in immediate danger.”
“As opposed to inaudible shooting?”
“Exactly. I’ve got a silencer.”
I pulled out the Winchester now and dropped the portfolio beneath my feet.
Arshak whistled between his teeth.
“The problem,” I said, “is that it’s a single-shot.”
“I want to go in with you,” he said.
“The uniform is the best trick we have to make this silent. You’re a walking red flag.”
“What can I do?”
“Stay at the front gate after I get in. Take care of anyone arriving from outside. And when you hear a shot, come find me.”
“All right.”
“Not till then,” I said.
“I understand,” Arshak said. “Lucine first.”
“Yes.”
“If Lucine can’t do what she came to do. .” Arshak said, breaking off briefly. “I hope you won’t let my daughter die in vain.”
I knew what he meant. He wanted me to kill Enver Pasha.
“I intend to save her,” I said. Indeed, that was the only intention I had at the moment. Whatever else might happen remained to be seen.
He did not reply. I wondered if he’d heard my own reply as a simple no. Wondered too, if it came to be a mutually exclusive proposition, whether he would prefer to lose his daughter if it meant killing Enver Pasha.
But that was all we said as we ran through Ortakiöi — I was getting to know this route quite well — and we headed up the shore.
And then, at last, the road took that curve to the right and moved closer to the water and then straightened.
Arshak and I glanced at each other. We both recognized the approach to Enver Pasha’s villa.
And now we saw a bright flare of electric light up ahead.
“Drive past into the dark,” I said.
We kept up our speed and approached the villa.
I watched carefully as we neared.
The villa’s second story and peaked roof were visible in the spill of electricity, and I focused on the entrance to the grounds. Two Germans were standing with rifles slung over their shoulders, one on each side of an open iron double-wide gate. They were confident. They were still expecting Ströder.
We flashed by and they hardly glanced our way.
And now we were in the dark.
Arshak slowed immediately.
“This is good,” I said, and we pulled off onto the side of the road in front of a stand of cypress.