The Red Room

33

Knox nears a boiling point five hours later when Dulwich has yet to return his messages.

“It’s like one of those fad restaurants where you eat in the dark,” he tells Grace bitterly. “We’re being served warm dog shit when we ordered the pork sausage.”

“Let us hope David was not ‘mugged’ as you were.”

Thanks to nearly uninterrupted work by Grace, Mashe Okle’s finances are tied up with a neat little bow. He has some explaining to do about his sources, and this will require Grace to be part of the meeting, as Dulwich intended. Grace feels as proud as a schoolgirl. She’s drinking coffee on top of coffee.

“We can present this any time you want,” she says. “I am prepared.”

“I’m nearly there, too.” Knox is dancing with the devil. He claims he has involved this woman, Victoria, because she has contacts in Istanbul that offer him a “remarkable opportunity.” Grace detests the idea, but concedes its necessity. Work with the resources you’re given. He’s been texting Victoria, although she is just down the hall. The entire arrangement feels wrong to Grace.

“You trust them so little,” she says.

“The Harmodius is worth millions, Grace. That’s a number, something you know intimately. If we hand it over so they can test its authenticity, you and I are the only things keeping them from walking off with it. I’m being the good Samaritan: I’m leading them away from temptation. The problem is, I haven’t accounted for the Israelis.”

“If that is who they were.”

“Oh, ye of little faith. He was wearing Red Top. Trust me: Israeli. It adds an element of the unknown. Poses a big risk to what’s already a risk.”

“You know I do not mean their nationality, but their role. These men could be private, like us. They could represent the same client as us. More likely, they are art thieves who mugged you hoping to lift a storage receipt or business card that will lead them to the Harmodius. It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to realize you succeeded in smuggling the piece into Turkey. Perhaps they are part of a global team that intercepts stolen art.”

“So why are they tracking a particular FedEx shipment?”

“We do not know it is the same people.”

“Nawriz Melemet, aka Mashe Okle, has attracted more flies than shit,” says Knox.

“If these ancillary people believe you are being used as a courier or cutout, then it follows that someone is set to receive information from Mashe Okle.” Grace feels opportunity returning in her favor. She recognizes her condition as related to that of an addicted gambler — the more one loses, the more all-in. With a little more effort, she can deliver the kind of actionable intel Dulwich needs. He will forgive all if she can pull it together. It’s loose ends he abhors. There is no choice but to pursue the intel. And Knox proves the perfect sounding board: the more she counters his theories, the more he puts forward, giving her all the more angles to pursue.

She feels awkward manipulating John in this way, playing games within games. But she has hurt herself with Dulwich and needs to make it right. Knox would be the first to do the same.

“At the minimum,” she says, “we are dealing with two separate interests: the Iranians and these others — possibly Israelis — who mugged you. The Iranians want to protect the asset, Mashe Okle. The Israeli objective remains uncertain. We must not discount the possibility of a third party: the end recipient of whatever information the Israelis believe you were carrying.”

Grace presents the information clinically. Knox is more seat-of-the-pants field op than strategist, but he’s often a full step ahead of everyone else. She can feel it now: he hasn’t put the mugging behind him. They have not discussed the fact that Akram may indeed have slipped a note onto Knox without Knox’s knowledge. That Dulwich may have put Knox in Istanbul with an ulterior motive — a motive like the drop — in mind.

“Mashe is a nuclear physicist—” Knox says.

“What little evidence we have supports this.”

“—who works for Iran. A government under severe sanctions.”

She inhales sharply. “A shopping list!”

“—can’t be sent electronically.”

“Too easily intercepted,” Grace continues, enjoying the repartee. “The Iranian government assigns one of its scientists, a man who travels to see his ill mother, the role of mule. A dead drop. A double blind. Something to protect your scientist but make sure the list reaches the supplier.”

“And if you are the Israelis and you can intercept Mashe’s parts list, you have a better idea how far the Iranian nuclear program has progressed. Invaluable.”

“It is well beyond the charter of Rutherford Risk,” Grace says. “Aiding a governmental agency? If caught, Mr. Primer would face his company being shut down. No such intercept would be contracted out to the private sector. Besides, the Israelis are better at such intercepts than anyone.”

“Which brings us back to Sarge and his client.”

“I tell you: Mr. Primer would not accept the job.”

“Your argument is also an explanation,” Knox says, testing her. Does he dare go there? It’s like telling the star pupil the teacher cheated in college. When she pauses, he fills in the gap. “Who says Primer knows anything about it? Have you had contact with him? Any contact at all?”

Grace’s eyes go wide, then vacant.

Knox continues. “Sarge told me I couldn’t contact Digital Services directly. Had to go through you. Since when?”

She whispers now. “I have been wondering this myself.”

“No one will get killed, he told me. Implied we were saving the world.”

“However,” Grace adds, “the pretext of the sale — the Harmodius — the requirement that we are physically with the mark for no less than five minutes… these do not so easily add up if the goal is to intercept a dead drop.”

Knox counters. “The art sale is to get me in a room with Mashe. At some point during those five minutes, the shopping list is supposed to be put on me without my knowledge. I walk out of there an unknowing cutout. We would never have considered anything like this if I hadn’t been mugged. Israeli agents — Mossad? — were never part of the Iranian plans. Without meaning to, the Israelis have tipped us off. By jumping the gun, they’ve told us that they have no idea when the exchange is scheduled.”

“But, John, David would not… How can we even think such a thing?” Grace sounds unconvinced. “Crap,” she says. It’s as close to cussing as she usually gets. As close to acceptance as well.

“If he’s rogue, then by association we’re part of it,” Knox says, thinking aloud.

“We lack sufficient evidence.”

“We have plenty of circumstantial evidence. And consider this: if we run, they follow. This isn’t Boy Scouts. You don’t get a pass. Neither of us want to say it, but I think Sarge got taken. He rose to the bait and bit and now it’s us — you and me — with the hooks in good and tight.”

“Just because the column adds up to a particular sum, it does not mean the original values were accurate. One misplaced decimal—”

“I was more of a wood shop guy,” Knox confesses. “Gym. Cafeteria. Not exactly AP math.”

“What I am saying—” She wears panic awkwardly; it doesn’t suit her. Grace Chu is a team player; the idea of being separated from the collective appears to nauseate her.

“I get it,” Knox says. It can be cute when his joking goes over her head, but it’s frustrating as well. She doesn’t want to face what he’s suggesting, knows that once it’s inside, the rat can’t turn around in the maze.

The hotel room has become claustrophobic. Victoria texts him to say that she’s made the arrangements for Adjani to assay the Harmodius. Knox stares at the message for a long time, wondering where to put his trust. He’s uneasy and twitchy. A response to caffeine or the right impulse? It comes down to whom he trusts more: Akram Okle, or Victoria?

He presents his plan to Grace, trying to read her face.

“The mind cannot be in two places at once,” she says, quoting a proverb.

“We need a fourth,” Knox says. “Without Sarge—”

“Besim,” Grace says, drawing a blank look from Knox. “My driver.”

“Who must be wondering where you are.”

“He can watch your Victoria for us. He has helped me in this way. David need not know.”

“Your driver could be working for Sarge.”

She shakes her head. “No. I hired him. David did not want any connective tissue tying him—” She can’t finish the sentence.

Knox compliments her on her solution. Her lips purse to contain a smile. She appreciates being appreciated; it is a card he can play when needed, though it slipped out this time of its own accord.

“I will call Besim. You call Akram,” she says. “It is not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck that leads the flock to fly and follow.”

“We say, ‘actions speak louder than words.’”

“And we Chinese say, ‘Man who runs in front of car gets tired; man who runs behind car gets exhausted.’”

He thinks she’s trying for a joke. Reconsiders. “We need to stay ahead on this,” he proposes.

“Just so,” Grace says.

Knox holds up his phone as a signal for both of them to make their calls. It feels more like jumping off a cliff than joining a path.

In the dark, the narrow, twisting streets make Knox claustrophobic. The hills of Istanbul have enough dead-end streets to get a man killed.

Knox keeps his phone’s map app on. The tiny blue dot representing him inches along, providing some solace. Grace sits beside him in the back of the cab, their shoulders warm where they touch. She’s quietly meditative, perhaps rehearsing her role. Hers is a planned and practiced life, organized and prepared. He has no idea what that feels like.

The location and timing of the meet have been dictated by Akram for the second time. The first didn’t go so well.

“I felt better near the aqueduct,” Knox says after the car engine strains for several minutes to climb, the power steering crying with each turn to the left. “More public, more touristy part of town.”

“I understand.” It’s all Grace says.

Knox takes it as her signal that she has no interest in conversation. The talking is behind them. He suspects she, like him, is leery of a trap; she, like him, understands the op has passed a point where they can abort; she, like him, doesn’t appreciate the feeling of being a puppet instead of a player. He can’t help himself; his mouth has a mind of its own.

“Nice view,” he says, turning around.

She does not look, does not speak.

A patchwork of yellow light filling the apartment windows they pass reminds Knox of a nativity calendar. He thinks of Tommy and feels guilt over his failure to stay in touch while on the job. He sees men smoking inside tight rooms; families gathered; television light pulsing. He’s never lived like that in his adult life. He wonders now if he could hack it. Dulwich is responsible for getting him re-addicted to adrenaline after Knox’s successful withdrawal following their contract work in Kuwait.

Would Dulwich willingly sacrifice him and Grace for some wish list of maintenance parts, for the chance to gain intelligence about Iranian nuclear capabilities? Would he see the lives of two colleagues, two friends, as a necessary sacrifice in the bigger picture of Middle Eastern stability? Would he convince himself that despite the risks, Knox can and will prevail, that the danger is worth the reward?

“I’m not liking this,” Knox says, again breaking the silence.

“Act in the valley so you need not fear those who stand on the hill.” She speaks Mandarin, allowing Knox to appreciate the nuance of the proverb.

“Did I miss something, or are we as prepared as can be expected?”

“We shall find out,” Grace says with more dread and apprehension than confidence.

“On convoy, when I felt like this, I ordered us to turn around. Or at least stop.”

“The choice is yours.” She isn’t going to stop him. He can smell her fear.

“We’re going to be all right.”

“Is that for me, or are you thinking with your mouth?”

On the phone, the slow-moving blue dot arrives at the red destination pin.

“Shit,” Knox says.

The location is a quaint tea shop, the sweet smells of chai and tobacco burnished into the nut-colored walls. In a city of Greek, Roman and Ottoman influence, it feels strangely and warmly British. Akram waits at the far end in front of a waterfall of beads that obscures a doorway to a private room that holds floor pillows and a large round table. The table is scarred with cigarette burns around its edge and stained interiorly by a thousand overlapping circles left by wet mugs.

Akram is genial and relaxed. His shirt is white linen under a forest green vest of hand-tied knots, paired with black trousers. His mustache is bold, his cheeks covered in five o’clock shadow, his hair cropped. His bloodshot eyes contradict his congenial smile; he’s uncomfortable, exhausted and uptight.

“I did not expect two guests,” he says, sitting across the large table from them. “Especially one so lovely as you, Miss Grace.”

“You honor me,” Grace says, demurely.

Akram’s eyes inform Knox that Grace’s presence is not appreciated.

“You can understand, my friend,” Knox begins, “that in a deal with a sum so high as this, all precaution and due diligence must be conducted. I must ensure that there are no surprises.”

Akram nods. “So,” he says, palms down on the table. “Tea?”

His eyes flick toward the door, no doubt anticipating the fact that Knox has brought the Harmodius with him to be assayed, its authenticity confirmed. He has another think coming.

An aproned man waits on the other side of the beaded doorway. Grace orders green chai; Knox, Assam with milk and sugar. They wait until the server is out of earshot.

“As Mr. Knox’s accountant,” Grace begins confidently, “you can understand the need to determine the source of funding for a transaction such as this. It was imperative not only that a deposit be placed in escrow, as you have so kindly done, but that the source of the funding also be confirmed. A drop of water does not make a well.”

Akram’s distrustful eyes dart between Grace and the silent Knox.

“Furthermore,” Grace continues, “due to the sensitivity of such an exclusive exchange, both the source and the depth of the well comes under consideration.”

“I assure you, the funds are there.”

“Yes. And I can only hope you do not take this the wrong way, but again the source of those underlying assets is of keen interest to me and my client. In order to protect my client from possible malfeasance, a sting arranged by law enforcement, you understand.”

“I do not appreciate the implication, Miss Grace.” Again, his basalt eyes flash at Knox. “Since when—?”

She interrupts calmly. “A piece such as this… Authorities would go to great lengths to acquire it. Great lengths, indeed. No man, no country, for that matter, would be able to prevent such an operation. I am not accusing you of anything. I am merely paid to take precautions, so precautions I take.”

Akram’s nostrils flare. He’s ready to get off the pillow and choke her.

“Which is why I took the liberty…” Grace reaches into a portfolio and slides a spreadsheet across to Akram.

The proprietor returns with the iron teapots and black iron demitasse cups, placing everything on the table just so, aiming the spouts and handles away. He genuflects and backs off through the beads. Pomp and circumstance. Akram must have tipped well for this room and for his privacy.

Akram’s dark complexion and day’s growth cannot conceal the color that invades his cheeks. Grace recites from memory the amounts and dates of the cash of which he has taken delivery, the banks that facilitated those deliveries. In some cases, a matching wire transfer to the bank has been highlighted. Akram’s withering expression denotes his astonishment that she has obtained such information.

“I will not put my client in harm’s way, Mr. Okle. The majority of the escrow’s funding is through wire and cash conversions originating in Iran.”

“Inaccurate!” Akram’s adamancy is matched by the darkening of his complexion. Knox deduces it must have been his job to wash the wire transfers and make the deposits.

Grace calmly slides several pieces of paper across. “You’ll notice the various withdrawals, ATM transactions and how the sums match with the resulting deposits and payments.”

His eyes track and he goes pale. He’s a chameleon reacting to his background. Pale, like the color of paper.

Grace keeps him off balance. “You are aware that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has placed into motion what it calls ‘an innovative initiative to support the Islamic Republic of Iran’ in protecting its cultural heritage and combating trafficking in cultural property?”

Her steadiness and resolute determination to win the information from Akram is apparent in Grace’s steady voice and controlled motions. She is a professional driver so accustomed to high speed that she can take her eye off the track to calm her passenger.

“It is a matter of procedure, nothing more. Mr. Knox has assured me he does not doubt the intention behind the exchange, but alas, I cannot take such luxuries.”

Alas. Knox must suppress a grin. Where does she come up with this stuff? Knox strains and pours his tea, adds sugar and milk, and then a bit more sugar. Stirs. An elixir of the gods. But Akram has not touched his. Grace is ahead of both men.

“The Iranian funds originate from the investment accounts of one Mashe Okle, your brother. These accounts received recent deposits. I am unable to verify the origin of all deposits. For this reason, I must speak to Mashe Okle and be provided records of these transactions.”

“Impossible. Absurd!”

“It is no problem — your being a proxy. The way of business, of course. But either I meet the buyer and vet his funds, or there is no sale. I will not have my client spending the rest of his days in a Turkish prison. How will I collect my retainer?”

She smirks. She should copyright that half-grin, Knox thinks. Trademark it. As subtle as the Mona Lisa.

“What prison? What the fuck?” Akram addresses Knox. “We have done business before.”

“Not on this scale, we haven’t,” Knox replies stonily.

“Out of the question.”

“So be it,” Knox says, playing the only card left.

“If you should change your mind.” Grace passes a business card across the table, steering it with a painted nail.

Akram is nonplussed. For a moment, he hesitates, expecting Knox to raise the price to accommodate the risk involved. When it grows apparent that the two have every intention of leaving — never an easy thing to determine — Akram is up and following.

“What do you expect?” He sounds desperate. “It is unreasonable.”

Grace spins. Akram stops short. “It is the very definition of reason, Mr. Okle,” she says sotto voce. “Nothing more.” Now, so quietly it sounds more like a sigh, “There is no shortage of buyers, I assure you. Each with its own uncertainties and possible consequences. Mr.… my client,” she says, judging the space around her, “favored you because of your personal history and your industry.”

Knox says, “I’m sorry, Akram.”

The man’s feet are cemented to the wood floor. He has no choice but to interpret this as gamesmanship. A ploy. A day will pass. Two. Knox will be back, for certain.

“Out of the question!” Akram repeats loudly.

Knox tips the proprietor, asks him to call them a cab. He and Grace wait on the sidewalk, not a word spoken between them.

“Nine o’clock,” Grace says without looking at Knox. She isn’t referring to the time.

“Yes.” Knox is impressed she picked up on a man who has been surveilling the meet. A wink from the rooftop of a building up the hill. Grace continues to surprise him.

The taxi arrives, finally. Knox provides a destination he will change in a minute, but his true motive is to compare the face of the driver against that of the face on the driver’s ID and to evaluate the ID itself, making sure it does not look as if it’s been printed in the past ten minutes. It passes muster. Ali is their driver. Knox and Grace climb in.

Grace has a compact out and is about to touch up her lips when she says, “Damn!” and pulls Knox forward with her as she lurches into a crouch, bending from the waist.

Knox feels heat on the back of his head. It coincides with the thwap of what turns out to be a hole in the taxi’s rear window. For Knox, it’s the bee sting on his skull, the warmth on his neck and the dizziness that wins his attention. The dizziness turns out to be external, not internal. The taxi, aimed downhill, careens off a parked car and ricochets to the opposite side of the street, gaining speed all the while.

It’s only as Knox notices the bullet hole through the Plexiglas barrier and another hole in the driver’s headrest that the red spray across the dash makes sense. This, because the bridge and right nostril of the driver’s nose is lying across the defroster vent. Ali is slumped against the wheel, his body shifting as the car jerks with each new collision. It’s a pinball ride. As if gravity isn’t enough to contend with, Ali’s dead right foot is leaden against the accelerator.

Knox has it in an instant: Grace saved his life by yanking him down with her; a bullet grazed his scalp and took out the driver; the taxi is heading downhill at an ever-increasing pace, checked only by repeated collisions with other cars parked on opposite sides of the narrow street; Grace is white-knuckled, still hunched over. Each time Knox is about to clear his head, the car crashes again. Neither he nor Grace are seat-belted, and the Plexiglas barrier meant to secure the driver from his passengers proves effective. Knox tries to force his hand into the swiveling pass-through intended for payments. No way.

“Shit,” he says.

Heads are bleeders. His inch-long gash has soaked his hair and spread rivulets of red down his face and neck. Grace gets a fleeting look at him in the strobe light from the streetlamps, and her training fails her. She screams.

Knox pounds on the barrier. The taxi is tearing down the hill at breakneck speed. Their necks. Their breaks. It flies through an intersection. The front wheels get air and Knox’s raw scalp impacts against the ceiling. He swears, loudly.

Grace screams again. She reverses herself, turning so her back is to the floor. She kicks out at the rear window. The safety glass cracks and cubes with each hit but does not yield. Knox tries the same on the Plexiglas barrier, with the same results.

He’s braced for one of the collisions to stop the taxi cold and smash them both into the barrier, but it’s as if the vehicle’s on a track at an amusement park ride. The collisions propel it forward in a rain of metal, which pries loose with a shrieking cry amid the clash of broken glass.

The taxi bumps into a second intersection. A severe collision spins it like a top; they’ve been hit by another car. Grace is thrown into Knox; the two are pressed into the rear door — which pops open. Knox grabs for the unused seat belt and it plays out from its geared mechanism. He falls out of the car, Grace atop him, caught at last as the belt’s speed triggers it to latch. He’s a crewman for the America’s Cup, hiking out over the leeward hull. The taxi’s spinning slows almost gracefully. It skids to the precipice of the continuing hill, teetering there. Seconds before it stops completely, before Knox’s blurred vision can make sense of what the hell’s happening, the taxi dips over the edge and picks up speed.

Backward.

“Fuck!”

Knox rocks forward, carrying Grace with him, driving them both into the backseat as the vehicle’s rear door collides and bends against the frame.

Crying out at a fever pitch, she pulls away from him and returns to kicking at the rear window, this time with twice the power of her initial attempt.

Knox feeds off the adrenaline, his mind clearing quickly. Her efforts are admirable, but it won’t do them any good to climb out of what is now the front of the moving vehicle. The taxi crashes left, right, left in quick succession. The hill is steeper on this stretch, and though the front-wheel drive is still active and sending out plumes of burning rubber, and Ali’s body has shifted and his weight is off the accelerator, it’s not enough to counter gravity — they are once again gaining speed in their descent.

Knox reaches out and pulls mightily against the snapped door. He’s making progress when Grace grabs his shoulder: the taxi sideswipes a parked car, a collision that would have pancaked him. It removes the door completely.

Survival is about timing now. Knox’s bloodied head is on a swivel. The back window is so destroyed he can’t see out of it. He has to judge the taxi’s erratic movement from one side of the street to the other.

“You are not!” Grace hollers, seeing his intention in his eyes.

“I am,” he says, making his move. He lurches out the open cavity, grabs the driver’s door handle, and pulls. The awkward angle allows it to open only inches. He dives back in with Grace as she shouts words he can’t make out. The taxi smashes into another parked car, accordioning the driver’s door. The jolt destabilizes Knox, but he kicks out and opens the crippled door; taking a two-handed hold on the frame, he swings out and around and feetfirst into the driver’s area, kicking Ali’s corpse over. The driver is seat-belted, so the faceless body only leans away.

Knox throws himself into Ali’s lap, digs down between the dead man’s arm and rib cage, and sets the emergency brake. The taxi skids to a stop.

For a moment: silence, intermingled with the mechanical sounds of the car settling and Knox’s heavy breathing. For a moment he expects the vehicle to come to life again, like Stephen King’s Christine. For a moment, his and Grace’s defense mechanisms are held in stasis as they inventory their injuries, seek to determine major from minor, life-threatening from unimportant.

“I’m good,” Knox announces, looking like death warmed over.

Grace slaps the barrier and nods, her eyes like those of a scared horse.

Knox backs out and off the driver, having picked up some of the man’s blood to add to his own wounds. He’s testing his legs and joints as he stands. His wounded thigh hinders him. Grace slides out.

Curious bystanders emerge from the doorways of the four-story apartment buildings on either side of the hill. Knox is less worried about his face being remembered than he is about being surrounded and contained. Crowds form fast in Istanbul. Thick crowds. Deep crowds. He and Grace can ill afford questioning by the police.

He reaches for her hand. Grace places hers in his sticky palm; for a brief moment, she can’t take her eyes off the blood. They’re in shock, but Knox has been here more often than she and so he navigates his way to the sidewalk and starts them off downhill.

At the first intersection, he turns them right. Several daring males follow, a matter of yards behind. Knox can’t find the translation. “What’s Turkish for ‘back’ and ‘off’?”

Grace looks up at him, too disoriented to reply.

Knox releases her hand, spins around and shouts a growl at their followers that so surprises Grace her knees give out.

The men turn and run.

Knox supports her by the elbow, dragging her with him. His mind is beginning to return: he needs to clean up before they go much further. The wound will have to wait, but he’s losing blood, so at the least, compression is urgent. Grace needs a strong drink and a toilet. Transportation. A new location. Time to think.

Something about the way she looks at him; he knows exactly what she’s thinking.

“No,” he moans.

She nods. “He’s our only chance.”

“I don’t trust him.”

Sirens punctuate the night.

“Very well.”

Ever the geek, Grace snaps a screen shot of the phone’s map app that shows the blue dot representing their GPS location on the streets of Istanbul. She texts the image along with what could easily be mistaken for a failed attempt at a social media hashtag but is something else altogether, something worked out days ago.

Knox assumes there will be an attempt made to confirm the kill. When only poor Ali is found in the vehicle, the shooter will try to complete the assignment. Given the distance the taxi traveled down the hill and depending on whether or not the shooter is on foot, they have anywhere from a few minutes’ head start to ten or more. But Grace is in no condition to outrun an executioner, and Knox cannot find a single spot on his body that is not throbbing with pain or bleeding.

The sirens draw closer.

“Damn.”

She tells him, “We need to get you cleaned up if we are to have any chance of running under the radar.”

Her use of the expression “under the radar” amuses him. It’s a non sequitur coming from her mouth. He cracks a smile and winces.

Grace works her phone. “There is a hamam three blocks”—she looks in both directions to determine their orientation—“this way.” She points to the right. East, away from the wrecked taxi.

“No thanks. No appetite,” he says.

“Turkish bath,” she tells him. “Neighborhood bath.” She adds, “It could have been a solo back there, or there could be a dozen of them after us.”

Knox hadn’t considered a team effort. He nods. They help each other along, arms locked, both hobbled. Sitting ducks if they stay out on the streets.

The Turkish bath dates back to the fifteenth century, when a lack of running water in homes inspired public works. The numbers of such baths mushroomed in the eighteenth century and then dwindled again; only twenty survive. Some served other functions in the interim, like cheese storage, until the tourist industry discovered them. Grace describes this one well as a neighborhood bath, more a spa for affluent Turks in the hills above downtown. It’s one of the few segregated spas, offering a man’s and a woman’s side, though men attend the women.

“I hit my head,” Knox tells the attendant, a surly man who gives him a curious look.

Grace translates, adding that her friend found himself in a romantic tangle with a woman belonging to a powerful man. She’s trying to cover in case their pursuers should inquire. The Turks are romantics at heart. She nudges Knox, causing him to wince.

“Tip,” she whispers hotly. “Big tip!”

Knox puts out a hundred dollars on top of the seventy for the bath.

“We do not wish any trouble,” Grace says.

The man smiles, displaying two gold teeth. “Nor shall you have any,” he says in English. “No blood in baths.” He points to a sign: NO BODILY FLUIDS is listed as one of twelve bathhouse rules. “You need help, my friend,” he tells Knox, pointing to his own head.

“Tape,” Knox says.

“Takes more than tape.”

“For now,” Knox says, testing. “She will help me.” He has the Super Glue in the Scottevest.

“Scissors,” Grace says. “A razor?” She pushes the hundred dollars closer to the attendant. “We can help you.”

The entrance opens into the camekan and a number of changing stations. Fountains. They are given pestemâls, checkered cloths they are told to wear. Knox keeps the Scottevest with him, which draws the receptionist’s attention as the man shows them into the women’s restroom, dragging an orange traffic cone to ensure their privacy.

Wearing the pestemâl like a toga and carrying her phone, Grace clips, cleans and shaves the area around Knox’s scalp wound. Cleans it again using hand sanitizer. The burn makes Knox curse. Cleaning it the second time is a mistake; the partial clot comes free and it’s bleeding again, badly. Grace glues it, tapes it and glues it again, but it’s a mess by the time it stops bleeding, and there’s a 4x2-inch strip of missing hair on the dome of Knox’s head. He jokes about needing a comb-over, but she doesn’t understand the reference.

Both are troubled by the fifteen minutes that have passed. If it’s Turks after them, it won’t take long to search the neighborhood. Grace has texted their new GPS icon. Their nerves, on top of their physical exhaustion, leaves them spent. Grace cleans up the small space.

“So?” she says.

“Into the baths,” Knox says. “Women’s is over there.”

“Where we will be naked and defenseless should they find us.”

“The steam room is first. The hararet. Hard to see in, which gives us the advantage. Be near the door to get the jump on them. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that. We’ll each be led into the bath and the warm stone area, where we’ll be scrubbed and cleaned before bathing. Tip your man before the rubdown.”

“Man?”

“Most places, yes. Now focus. These places have to have exits, so there will be a way out. You hear a shout, that’s me. I’ll head east, toward the river. We both text him again. With any luck—”

“Agreed. The plan is a good one,” Grace says, uncharacteristically complimentary.

Still, Knox can’t relax. The steam soaks into his joints and removes some of the pain but his head wound is screaming, and the accompanying headache makes it nearly impossible to think.

He gets through the steam room without incident, though he’s naked and a Westerner and this attracts envious attention from the other men. It’s been this way since middle school, through the sports locker rooms of high school and dorm showers in college: John Rocks. Knox Johnson. Long John Knox. He’s not sure why women don’t appreciate being objectified, at least a little; for himself, he loves it. If he attempts to cover himself, it only draws more attention because it requires a two-handed effort, so he carries himself with an upright posture and lets them marvel. What the hell?

His attendant, a potbellied forty-something with so much hair it grows from his shoulders, draws closer and winces audibly at the ripe bruises covering Knox. Knox wishes he knew the word for “gently.” But the man gets the point. He scrubs Knox tentatively, like he’s bathing his own grandchild.

Thirty minutes have passed since they abandoned the taxi.

Knox’s attendant looks up, as do several others surrounding the water, their clients prostrate on the hot stone. They’re looking at the receptionist, who quickly crosses the room, moving toward Knox.

“Your woman asks meet her at desk. She waits for you.”

Knox thanks him.

Five minutes later, Grace and Knox ride low in the backseat of a sedan driven by Besim. He drives conservatively. He’s barely acknowledged them. Finally, he speaks Turkish into the rearview mirror.

“He says you need a hat,” Grace translates. “He will stop and buy you one.”

Knox thanks the man directly.

Fifteen minutes later, they briefly visit a teeming street market under sagging strings of lightbulbs that remind Knox of shopping for Christmas trees. Besim delivers the hat, falafel, dolmas and two sodas to the backseat.

Knox and Grace eat greedily.

“I need to return to the hotel,” Knox says once they’re moving again. He dons the trucker’s cap Besim bought. It boasts the red flag of the crescent moon and single star with TURKEY stenciled in all caps beneath. It looks stupid on him. “Then to the airport via a taxi arranged by the hotel. We stick to the plan.”

“Impossible!” Grace spits small pieces of falafel onto the seat. “Too dangerous. A safe house. Some place Besim knows.”

“There’s a ritual to act out,” Knox says. “I need to leave bread crumbs.”

“A blood trail is more like it.” She pauses. “It is the woman, is it not?”

“It is not,” he says avoiding the contraction in order to mock her. “They must know the transaction is off. No sale. Without playing that card, we lose Akram, trust me.”

“Whoever shot at us will be watching the hotel.”

“Presumably. Which will give you and Besim something to occupy yourselves.”

“You joke?”

“No. I’m serious. We stop and buy you a camera. Besim can find us one. We pass the photos to Hong Kong without getting Sarge involved. Run face recognition on them. It’s time we fill in some of the blanks.”

“The hit to your head was more serious than I believed,” Grace says, scrunching down again to keep her profile out of the rear window.

“The item…” Knox says. “It’s there as well. Arrangements must be made. I cannot leave the hotel with it. No one coming for it would have tried to kill me. So we know that much.”

“The attempt was made because you were mistaken for the cutout,” Grace says. She doesn’t miss much. “Insurance. Covering all bases, all possible meetings. Am I correct? They must make certain that if there is a list, it goes no further.” When Knox says nothing, she continues. “So it was not the Iranians shooting at you because they wish the information to be passed, the exchange to be made.”

“Doubtful, as they would want the list passed on to whoever it’s intended for.”

“The people who mugged you,” she proposes.

“Likely. Or a third party who knows more than we know and wants to start preventing loose ends.”

“They’ll kill Akram,” she speculates.

“I would,” says Knox. “Not Mashe — he lays the golden egg. But the brother? Why not?”

“I do not like the way you talk, John.”

“Maybe it was the same people who mugged me. By killing me, they force Akram to try again to pass the list. He might be safe for now.”

“David would not betray us,” she says. Her words hang in the car like a foul smell.

“I’m not going to say I told you so.”

“Ha-ha.” She adds, “Too many variables.”

“For us and for them. Yes. Knowing the way the world works, no one knows shit about anything. That’s when people start getting killed.” He waits, bracing himself as Besim takes a sharp turn too fast. “The point being, we can only deal with what we know. Move forward while trying to limit casualties.”

“So far, we have not done such a good job at that.”

“We stick with the plan. If they let me leave, I leave. You, too.”

“Just like that?” Grace is appalled.

“I’m open to suggestions.” Again, he’s mocking her. They don’t know enough to do anything more than Dulwich planned for them. If they can’t get the five minutes with Mashe, they head home. Sarge controls them even from a distance. Resentment burns through his body; Knox uses the last of the soda to combat the flames.

“Too dangerous,” Grace complains. “Besides, I must search the Nightingale hospital. This package? The FedEx that was intercepted? The operation suggested agency involvement.”

“It did, didn’t it?”

“This now makes more sense. Neh? Fit into bigger picture. Need follow up.”

“When you get angry, you speak like a Chinese girl learning the language,” he says. He’s insulted her. Honesty kills.

A minute elapses. Two. Shutting his eyes, Knox hears Grace talking with Besim. They’re discussing cameras.

He grins, leans his head back and passes out.

Knox returns to the Alzer and its busy sidewalk café scene in the shadow of the mosque. Victoria sits at a café table alone, drinking a South African Chardonnay and smoking an American cigarette. She leaves the table and follows Knox as he passes, the silver cigarette smoke rising like an antenna into the festooned umbrella.

Wisely, she boards a separate elevator. Proceeds to her room. This is where he finds her.

“That’s a stupid-looking hat,” she says, securing the door behind him. No comment about his bruises and lacerations.

“I have a better one.”

“Sit down beside me.” She pats the edge of the bed.

“Can’t stay. I’m heading to the airport, Victoria.” He waits for her to collect and contain her emotions. She is remarkably in control, this one.

“It looks as if you are not terribly popular.”

“Maybe too popular.”

“Police?”

He shakes his head. “I promise you — I promise — that I am not taking the sculpture with me. It remains in safekeeping here in Istanbul. I am in no way attempting to distance myself.” His eyes convey what she most wants to hear. He hides that he’s using her to let Akram know he’s serious about leaving the country. Hates such tricks, but they’re his bread and butter. “It must be done. If I don’t leave the country, and I’m hoping I won’t have to, I’ll text you.” He pauses. “I’ll text you either way, but if I do leave, I’m not returning. Can’t.”

“And the art?”

And so she shows her true colors.

“Will be retrieved by its owners.”

“I thought you were the owner.”

“You might call it more a consortium, and me, its front man.”

“If you leave Istanbul, I’m out of the deal. How convenient.” The bitterness with which she says this makes him worry she’ll have him pulled aside at Immigration.

“It has become dangerous.” He takes a risk by revealing the lump of gauze beneath his cap.

She emits a sharp, horrified sound at the sight of his patched wound.

“I don’t want it spreading,” he says. “Best if you trust me. I’ll give you your commission if and when I complete the sale.”

“Why would you?”

Indeed. He can’t afford honesty, can’t tell her how he feels without sounding trite and adolescent. Can’t afford to have her be the one with a bullet in her skull. “A crime like this crosses borders. Countries, governments, they disagree on a hundred different fronts, but they defend each other’s cultural rights. You don’t seek asylum for art theft, for gray market resale of a national treasure. There’s nowhere to run.”

“There is no need to run. Dr. Adjani is available,” she says, reminding him of his own plan. “I could tell Akram the schedule must be moved forward. Made more to hurry.” Now she’s getting the idea.

It’s tempting. “No. Too much of a risk. Better I leave.”

“Let me explain for you something: Akram is in love. You understand? He never knows when I am not telling the truth.” She adds, “No man knows when a woman is being honest.” And punctuates her words for Knox’s benefit.

“The only chance you have of profiting from this is to trust me. To find a new hotel and take great care in doing so. Wait to hear from me. End of story.”

“It is not the end of the story.”

They kiss. More is said in the kiss than in all the conversation that has gone before. There is trust, longing, hope. Surprise, as he pulls away, because he doesn’t want to. Enchantment.

Victoria wears a mask of indifference. Knox knows better, or hopes he does.

The Roman numeral “II” appears on Knox’s phone. He switches to the second of his three SIM chips as he packs the interior pockets of his vest. As the phone registers cell service, a new text appears: a single period followed by “11:00.” Sent by Grace, it tells him that a lone wolf is watching the hotel from eleven o’clock, a spot to the left of the hotel’s front door.

He is the model of physical efficiency; there’s not a wasted motion as he downs three extra-strength Tylenol, double-checks the contents of his windbreaker using gentle squeezes and pulls it on. Uses a toenail clipper to notch two tears in the bedsheet. He knots three six-inch-wide strips, inspects and tests his knots, and then heaves the bed against the exterior wall, ties one end of his improvised fire rope to the frame and tosses the remaining length of it out the window. Lowers himself to a connecting rooftop. Is crossing another roof when he unexpectedly disturbs a pair of lovers who have made a privacy lean-to out of drying beach towels. The woman is topless, her skirt around one ankle; her screaming boyfriend more terrifying than the presumed assassins Knox is fleeing. The young man hollers at Knox in Turkish at the top of his lungs. The damage is done before Knox finds the propped-open doorway leading down. The kid has announced him to the world.

Knox is out on the street and hoping for a cab, listening for his phone to chime, signaling another text message from Grace. He expects to be told his surveillants are on the move.

The cab activity is two streets away, serving the hotel and café guests. As the only Westerner standing alone on the busy sidewalk, Knox might as well be wearing neon.

Grace has gone silent, likely having had to move away from her observation point. He won’t be suckered into returning to the hotel.

An explosion to his left. Knox dives and rolls only to realize it’s a flowerpot dropped from the rooftop by the young man, who is attempting to avenge his lover’s modesty. The blow would have killed him. Love complicates everything, he thinks. He’s up and moving away from the Alzer when his peripheral vision picks up a man moving in concert and slightly behind across the street. Knox grits his teeth, clenches his fist. He can imagine such a man squeezing off a shot at the back of the taxi. Can see Ali slump forward, lifeless. Feels responsible. Feels like crossing the street to return the favor but knows he’s outnumbered, outgunned and likely weaker than his opponent.

This last thought is the most difficult to embrace, but he’s been repeatedly wounded and is physically and emotionally exhausted. The more troubling thought is that assassins who take potshots at the backs of taxis and openly pursue you from a sidewalk across the street are not in the business of taking prisoners. Abduction is a team effort. Killing is a solo enterprise. This guy’s brass has Knox worried. He doesn’t care if Knox sees his face because in his dim view of the task at hand, Knox won’t be telling anyone who he was.

The next time Knox steals a sideways glance in his surveillant’s direction, his bowels threaten: the man’s right arm has ceased its pendulum motion at his side. Only his left swings. He’s holding something at his side, something he wants concealed.

Knox is about to be shot at by a marksman who only fractionally missed his target through a back windshield at sixty yards. He’s unlikely to miss from across the street.

He turns left at the intersection and crosses the street, running along the wide pedestrian boulevard in front of the majestic Fatih Cami, a white-stone mosque that rises in domes and towers seven stories high alongside an even higher minaret. Tourists are gathered around it, admiring the artistic geometry of the mosque’s spotlighted walls. Knox aims in a jagged dance for the queue of taxis, where drivers hawk for customers.

He’s gambled correctly: his assassin won’t risk killing a tourist. Knox waves a cabdriver into the driver seat as he approaches, shouting one of the few Turkish words he can properly pronounce: “Fast!”

He’s in the back of a taxi stitching through traffic like a rabbit through underbrush. Head low, he checks out the back and watches the assassin take the next cab in line.

“Airport.” Drops liras onto the passenger seat. “Fast.”

The ride is marked by bone-numbing, axle-bending collisions with potholes and poor surfaces. The contest with the trailing cab never reaches the level of NASCAR; his tail maintains a manageable distance, looming back like a hungry wolf waiting for his prey to tire. Knox is beyond tired. He’s exhausted. It’s everything he can do to fight the movement of the cab, keep it from lulling him to sleep. The dissonant Turkish folk music from the radio doesn’t help. Knox asks the driver to silence it. Earns a scowl in the mirror. Feels friendless.

Maybe he has it wrong. Maybe this tail is nothing more than what he wants: Mashe’s Iranian guards following Knox to the airport, realizing he’s serious about leaving the country if the meet doesn’t go his way. Maybe the device held at his tail’s side was nothing more than a cell phone. Maybe his fatigue isn’t helping anything.

The order of the taxis holds, keeping Knox in the lead for the remainder of the trip to the airport.

As Knox arrives at the curb, the trailing cab pulls over well behind him and… nothing. The rear door does not open. Knox sees no motion on the other driver’s part, no attempt to stop the meter. The two cabs sit curbside, twenty meters apart. A few moments later, the space between is filled by other vehicles. Knox no longer has a clean view; he angles to pick up the curbside in his own taxi’s passenger mirror. His driver repeats several times, “Please,” in English. He motions to Knox’s door.

Knox ignores him, watching the side mirror, waiting for the timing to be right. His moment comes when a minivan disgorges a three-generational family whose numbers could challenge the Guinness World Records book. Knox uses the cover to make it safely into the terminal. Once inside, he looks back. His taxi is gone. The other sits, unmoving, reminding him he remains the prey. The occupant could be calling in his status or awaiting an order.

More likely, he is painfully aware of the inescapable security cameras covering every square inch of the airport from multiple angles.

The absentee Dulwich is on Knox’s mind as he waits overnight in the airport terminal. The waiting taxi was shooed away hours ago by a police officer, and Knox has not seen it again.

International airport terminals are among the safest places on earth. The only real threat would come from people posing as police or security officers, and if Knox makes enough noise, others will come to verify his attacker’s credentials.

Knox wonders fuzzily why he’s still alive. The man trailing him could have had him at any number of red lights. He wonders if his going to an airport didn’t save him in more ways than he’d intended. What if whoever shot at him simply wants Knox out of the equation? What if trying to reason him into leaving the country was too risky, beyond the scope of his pursuer’s mission? By arriving at the international terminal, Knox has signaled surrender. Perhaps that’s enough to buy him a pass.

The Israelis again? Mashe’s assassination appears less important to the Israelis than the status of Iran’s nuclear program. Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been covertly assassinated in the past seven years, four while inside Iran. Yet Mashe Okle lives.

Dulwich promised no killing. He would not appreciate being made to lie to Knox. Silence is the easier alternative. He has stressed repeatedly that Knox’s sole mission is to get into a room with Mashe for five minutes. Knox anticipates the asset being placed onto his person, but how?

Lack of verifiable information is what gets operatives like Knox killed. Ali’s death, his murder, sits badly with him. Operatives deserve what they get, not taxi drivers. All this concern and confusion, and yet, in the end Dulwich has given Knox exactly what he loves: the irritable panic of uncertainty and an irretrievable confidence that makes every footfall tentative. He’s living the life.

Booking his ground transportation through the hotel desk was an intentional risk. It pays off at six A.M., three hours before his scheduled departure, when an exhausted looking Akram Okle traipses across the nearly empty expanse of marble-tiled air terminal. His face is a contortion of patronizing disappointment, regret and relief as he sits alongside Knox.

“Do not do this,” Akram says.

“Such art comes and goes. It will come around again. We both know this. I had a bit of a scuffle after leaving you. For the second time. There was a similar encounter after we met near the aqueduct. A man knows when to leave.”

“A scuffle.”

“I was shot at.” Knox removes his Tigers cap — the Turkish flag hat long since pitched — and spins his head to give the man a good, ugly look.

“Disgusting!”

“Think how I feel,” Knox says.

“Who?”

Knox chuckles, stares down the man’s profile, shakes his head and looks directly forward.

“We are being filmed,” Akram says, bringing up his open hand to cover his whispering mouth. “Possibly eavesdropped upon.”

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I feel safe here.”

“John—”

“Obviously, Akram, compared to you I’m a simple man. I can do without the intrigue, without being shot at. Lied to. Without my accountant being kidnapped and my taxi crashing because the driver’s been head-shot. I work extremely hard to make sure I avoid doing business with what we in the U.S. call ‘organized crime.’ The Russians, for instance.” Knox tosses it out there, pauses, and picks up a slight nostril flare from Akram, but nothing else. Wonders how much significance to give it? “I came to you for this very reason: I wanted to avoid all this shit. Now, I come to find—”

“I am not who you say, but who you think. I am the man you know me to be.” His voice exudes pride.

“It was supposed to be a simple transaction.”

“Given these numbers, not so simple, my friend.” Akram is noticeably loosening. “But as to that: it can yet be made such. No?”

“No. It’s not important. Nothing is worth getting shot. Abducted. Are you kidding?” Knox drums up a frightened voice; works hard to sound appalled. “You want it for free, that’s not going to happen. If you kill me, you’ll never find it. And don’t tell me you weren’t trying to kill me.” He returns the cap to his head, pulling it on gingerly.

“These are people—” Akram checks himself just as Knox latches on to his words. “You tell your accountant to do what she must. I respect her efforts to protect your interests. But I tell you now: the buyer is my brother, a humble university professor and, because of this, an adviser to… interests outside Turkey. The window to make this deal was short to begin with and now it is closing fast. My brother is to be leaving soon.”

Akram is no agent; he’s disclosed more than his brother would wish. The information exchange — whatever data is being passed along — will happen soon.

“If your accountant must also meet with him,” Akram continues, “this can be arranged. But it must be on my brother’s terms. It is only to happen after authentication of the Harmodius and, respectfully, the application for information on specific investors by your accounting partner. There is no point in making such a meeting as this should the loose ends remain.”

Knox eyes him, feigning disinterest. “It was never supposed to be half this difficult.” He adds, “Or risky.”

“It was night, was it not?” Akram inquires. “One can only assume this bullet was intended for me.”

“Then you have issues you clearly need to work out.” Knox believes otherwise: his presence has troubled one of the players and his removal is now seen as a way to simplify the op. “I’m scared, Akram.” He lies, savoring the role. “This is well outside my purview. You understand ‘purview’?”

Akram nods. “My brother has pulled together several investors, as I have mentioned. This has not been easy given such short notice. These investors cannot be, will not be, revealed to your accountant. I would not wish to upset such people.”

“Your reputation is not my concern,” Knox says.

“No, of course not.”

“I was nearly killed.”

“I… that is… I believe my brother could arrange for protection.”

“No, thank you. If we’re going to do this, it’s going to be today. Authentication. Dr. Adjani. Then we will make the exchange, the four of us. My accountant will ensure that the remainder of the funding is clean. All remaining funds must be deposited into escrow within the next three hours. From there, she will—”

“Today? Impossible! That kind of money—”

“Is either available or not.”

“Authentication of the piece will take weeks.”

“You will have to be satisfied with what is possible given the limited time.”

“Absurd.”

“At your request, I have arranged for Dr. Adjani to evaluate the Harmodius. That was scheduled for early afternoon. Now, given the threat level, we will have to wrap the deal by tonight or I leave and take the piece with me.”

“Be reasonable, John. The deal is easily within our grasp, but such a sched—”

“I was shot at,” Knox says, “following a meeting with you. You will meet my conditions, Akram, or I will be forced to move on. The choice is simple, and it’s yours to make. The safest place for me is on the other side of security.”

Akram stands. “You will contact me.” He walks away, clearly less tired than when he arrived.