The Russians weren’t the only danger. Without gold, without weapons, the community would starve or, defenseless, be slaughtered by the Ottoman authorities, who would feel threatened by a system with no privileged leaders and no distinction between rich and poor. None of the members of the commune were peasants, although several had grown up in the countryside and others had studied modern agriculture and animal husbandry. All would receive weapons training. If they got through the first year, word would spread, and as more people joined them, the commune would become self-sustaining. He had an image in his mind of white homespun cloth drying on a line before the restored walls of the monastery. He saw his sister lift one of the sun-soaked sheets and walk through into shadow.
Gabriel rose from the bed and moved the curtain aside. The light reflecting from the snow blinded him momentarily, but then he saw that the morning was well advanced. There was no sign of the cat. The gold was out there, he thought with satisfaction, just a few meters away beyond the frozen garden. When he first arrived in Istanbul, Gabriel had asked Simon’s permission to store some supplies in the pasha’s vast stables. After the robbery, he had simply added the chests from the bank, well camouflaged, to the jumble of other chests and supplies he was accumulating for his trip to the east. As long as the gold was safe and within reach, there was a future.
Gabriel tried the door to the room, but it was locked. He balled his fists and pounded on it, ignoring the pain that blazed through his hands, but there was no response. There was still Vera. He had to find his wife.
10
Omar tried the door to the second strong room, but it was locked. “Well, at least they didn’t rob this one.”
“I wouldn’t make that assumption,” Kamil corrected him. “They could have gone in and then locked the door again. They appear to have had the keys. None of the doors were forced.”
Omar nodded.
“We’ll need an account of what’s stored in these rooms,” Kamil told him. “I’m surprised there aren’t already bank officials here. Weren’t they notified?”
“I was busy with the fire, getting people out. Maybe the Karaköy police sent word.” He called over one of his men. The policeman was young, with the face of a much older man. His eyes were serious and attentive. “Rejep, go ask Chief Muzaffer where the bank officials are.”
“The keys to this room might still be here,” Kamil suggested, looking around. He set two of the gendarmes to search the bank systematically. They came back with handfuls of keys taken from various offices. None of them fit.
Rejep returned, red-faced. “Chief, Chief Muzaffer said to tell you…” He hesitated, and Omar bellowed at him, “Just tell me what that rat-faced excuse for a policeman said. I’m not going to kill the messenger.”
“Yes, Chief,” Rejep rattled off. “He said that if you want to be the cook, you have to also peel the onions.”
Omar turned back to Kamil and translated. “No one has told the officials, although you’d think they could smell their bank burning even in the suburbs. Rejep, find out who the top officials are and where they live.”
“Just a minute,” Kamil interjected. “The central cashier is a Frenchman named Montaigne,” he said. “The comptroller is British. Swyndon is his name, I think. There’s a third official, a German, but I don’t know him.” He had met the bank officials several times at social events. Kamil remembered Montaigne as a narrow-eyed man who tippled champagne. Swyndon had a leonine head and a loud voice. He generally could be found in a gathering holding forth on some obscure subject, like the best way to hunt tigers, and tended to be the center of attention of a group of admiring ladies.
Omar gave Kamil a surprised look, as if he had suddenly remembered that Kamil was a pasha and not a simple ex-soldier like himself. “The addresses,” he reminded Rejep.
The policeman began to move off, but Omar called him back. “And keep track of what the Karaköy police find out. Talk to the neighbors and people in the restaurants around here yourself. Find out what they saw.” He explained to Kamil, “I only trust my own sources.”
“As you command, Chief.” The policeman turned to go.
“Rejep,” Omar called out again. “Make sure you write it all down. The magistrates like fat reports.” He winked at Kamil.
They climbed out of the basement into the smoke that still filled the lobby. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Pieces of it lay splintered across the floor like a spill of diamonds. The tellers’ stations were behind cages of gilded wrought-iron bars. Bars that had kept no one out, Kamil noted grimly.
Beside him, Omar huffed, “Why bother blowing anything up when you have the keys? If they hadn’t made all that racket, the theft might not have been discovered until morning.”
“Probably they meant to kill the guards. They might have recognized them.”
“Don’t you think blowing up the building is an exceptionally elaborate way to kill a few guards?”
“Have you spoken to the surviving guard?”
“He wasn’t in any condition to talk last night. They took him up to the Austrian infirmary. I hope he’s still alive. From what I saw, the burns looked bad.”
The sun was rising, flushing the sky orange, as they strode up the hill to the Austrians. Nuns with broad white wimples tacked across the unpaved yard like sailboats, carrying baskets of laundry, buckets, and trays of food between the two-story wooden house that served as their residence and a former barracks they had turned into an impromptu infirmary. As one of the wimples moved inexorably in their direction, Omar fell a step behind Kamil and muttered, “Allah protect us.”
“From what?” Kamil scoffed. “Nuns?”
“Women,” Omar responded with a growl. Kamil smiled, knowing how much Omar, despite his gruffness, doted on his wife.
“I am Sister Hildegard,” the nun announced loudly in passable Turkish, then paused to give her visitors the opportunity to state their business. She tilted her head to the side, which made the entire starched wing of her headpiece tilt as well. Another solid-looking expanse of starched linen extended over her bosom. Her robe was blotted with blood and other fluids.
“Bulletproof,” Kamil heard Omar comment sotto voce behind him.
Kamil explained that they were looking for the wounded bank guard. Sister Hildegard nodded once, then swung around and led them to the infirmary.
A line of beds stretched down both sides of the cavernous stone room. Between the beds a row of coal-filled mangal braziers exuded warmth, but the room was still chilly. An iron chandelier holding dozens of oil lamps hung from the ceiling and cast delicate shadows across the walls, the beds, and their occupants. Kamil heard groans and the keening sound of someone crying. He felt a deep pity for the featureless forms wrapped in white bandages that inhabited the beds. A novice who was tending the braziers jumped to her feet when she saw Sister Hildegard.
“Suzanna, bring our guests some tea,” Sister Hildegard told her.
Kamil nodded toward the patients. “Have you identified the burn victims yet?”
“Most of them. Their families heard about the fire and came to look for them. Those that didn’t find their loved ones here went on to the mortuary.”
Omar clucked his tongue in disapproval. “Such needless pain. If you’re going to kill someone, just shoot them.” Sister Hildegard flashed him an unfathomable look.
The bank guard’s body was invisible under a casing of bandages, but his face was burned red, the skin blistered along one cheek. His lips were black and his eyes squeezed shut. He seemed unaware that they were beside his bed.
Omar leaned close to the guard’s face and said softly, “Fuat, tell us what you saw, so we can go get the bastards. I’ll bring you back their left ears.”