The Red Room

1

Two men await a delivery van. Nameless men. Professionals. Proficient at blending in. The man with the camera — call him Alpha. The man who stands in the camera’s frame is Beta.

A white FedEx minivan appears in the camera’s field of view. It serves as the starting gun. Alpha eases the Nikon onto his chest. Turning away from the Sisli Merkez Mosque, he is jostled by Istanbul tourists posing for the perfect picture. It’s nearing the end of the day. Slanting sunshine slices through the smog, playing across the mosque’s stone dome and adjacent minaret. Hell of a photo.

Beta, looking so much like Alpha they might be mistaken for twins — each in a navy blue knit cap, black leather jacket, blue jeans — sees the camera lower and moves toward the curb. He cradles a canvas messenger bag beneath his right arm.

The van double-parks in front of a pharmacy, its emergency flashers pulsing.

Alpha walks incrementally faster, entering the pharmacy only seconds behind the FedEx deliveryman. His job is to provide cover. Beta opens the van’s panel door and slips inside. After five days of surveillance, they know the delivery kid, always in a hurry, never locks the van in this part of town.

The pharmacy smells chemical. Alpha reaches the FedEx kid and, as if trying to slip past, allows himself to be tripped. He brings down most of the contents of a shelf as he falls. Turns and pulls the deliveryman along with him.

There is shouting as employees hurry to help. Boxes of medicine are spread across the floor, causing the employees to tiptoe as they approach. The delivery package has slid out of reach of both men.

The lens hangs broken from the camera’s body.

“Idiot! You clumsy bastard!” Alpha speaks English with an Eastern European accent. More training. The deliveryman is young, red-faced and unsure. He spouts apologies in Turkish.

Beta searches the contents of the first of six plastic bins arranged on the van’s open shelves, his fingers flipping through the packages like a collector in a vinyl-record store. He knows exactly what he’s looking for: he has its clone in his messenger bag.

Bin two. Bin three. An internal timer runs. The op calls for an abort at thirty. He’s at twenty-seven when his fingers stop at the air bill listing:

Seven packages. More slowly now. The third shows the sender as a Swiss address. He makes the swap, his for theirs.

Forty-three seconds and counting…

No reaction. No adrenaline or concern or anxiety. The lapsed time is merely a statistic to be noted. It’s filed and processed. He stuffs the switched package into the messenger bag and comes out of the van with his back to the sidewalk. He walks the curb like a balance beam. No one has shouted at him. No one has approached. He slips out his phone and sends the text. The signal.

Alpha’s phone dings at his hip.

“My fault, my fault!” Alpha says. He helps the cautious deliveryman to his feet, making sure to keep the man faced away from the windows. In tourist Turkish, he manages something close to “Üzgünüm.” Sorry.

He inspects his broken camera, trying to force the lens back into place. He and the deliveryman exchange agonized looks. Alpha extends his hand, a peace offering. The deliveryman is delighted by his change of heart. They shake.

Alpha says in English, “All for some toothpaste.” A shared moment of tense humor.

Leaving the pharmacy, Alpha reads the text. It’s a smiley emoticon. Success.

He makes a phone call. Hears a click. No voice. He keys in a five-number string followed by three pound signs. Hears a second tone.

“It’s done,” he says, speaking Hebrew.