The Red Room

11

Mashe Melemet and his two bodyguards take an additional two hours before arriving at the residential address that Besim, Grace’s driver, uncovered. It was likely time spent at the hospital, given that one of his guards is carrying takeaway food; dinner was an afterthought.

Grace has failed to spot anyone else interested in the apartment building, though she assumes that Dulwich could be watching. She expected to see the men from the airport, including the agent who descended the escalator, but she has not.

They interest her, and they will certainly interest Dulwich. The more information she can put together on them, the more thorough her work into who’s tailing Mashe Okle is, the more she’ll impress Dulwich. She has the men pegged as police, immigration officers or possibly Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization. Getting it right will earn her bonus points.

Is the takeaway dinner the result of a long day of travel or Mashe Okle’s — aka Mashe Melemet’s — avoidance of public places? If he’s afraid of restaurants, of being seen in public, it explains why Dulwich needed a plan — needed her — to put herself and Knox in a room with him.

To that end, she has to black-hat an investment server before she sleeps. Staying with Melemet is a guilty pleasure from which she finds it difficult to pull away. She left Besim and the black Mercedes four blocks back, going on foot, a scarf pulled tight over her head to hide her Asian features. She enjoyed walking the busy Turkish neighborhood for the past two hours. An operative. She continues walking past as the mark arrives. Takes no interest in him at all.

Comes around the block to the north — for the third or fourth time — and spots two men, one wearing the Euro-ubiquitous black leather jacket. Her suspect in the airport wore a jacket just like it. She’s unable to get close enough to see them clearly. They smoke cigarettes while talking, like a million other men in Istanbul.

Their location is significant. From where they stand, they have a view of Okle’s apartment building. His safe house? she wonders. A family residence? A rental? Are they protecting him, or pursuing him?

At this moment, she can’t be sure of anything.