The Winter Thief

49

“Huseyin Pasha is Kamil Pasha’s brother-in-law,” Vahid mused. “I love the efficiency of it. Did Feride Hanoum lead you to her husband?”

“No, Commander.” The Akrep agent shifted his stance uncomfortably before Vahid’s desk. There was a bandage beneath his right eye. “The hanoum was traveling with four men, a Jew, a Frank, and two servants. We followed them to the Valide hospital in Üsküdar. An orderly told us she had identified one of the patients as her husband, so we dealt with him.”

“Excellent,” Vahid said, a surge of pleasure rising in his chest at having bested both his rivals, Huseyin and Kamil, and avenged Rhea. He repressed a smile.

“Unfortunately it wasn’t the pasha, sir,” the agent admitted in a subdued voice. “The doorkeeper was killed too; that was an accident. When they discovered the bodies, the director called the authorities and we went in disguised as policemen, but the hanoum and her group had left before we got there. It took us a while to locate them. They spent part of the night in a peasant’s hut. We found them just before dawn.”

“And then you tracked them through the woods. What is this? A fairy tale?” Vahid’s disappointment was doubly bitter at having imagined Huseyin dead.

“It was me and four agents, Hilmi,…” He began to name them, but Vahid cut him off.

“Just tell me what happened.”

The agent crossed his arms, then dropped his hands to his side. Vahid could smell his anxiety. “I thought we could bring the pasha’s wife in to be questioned about where her husband was. It wasn’t working to follow her around. We weren’t finding out anything, and we were making people suspicious.”

Vahid’s voice rose with exasperation. “You wanted to bring the wife of a pasha in for interrogation.” He slammed the palm of his hand on the desk. “Are you insane?”

“She’s just a woman. And the pasha would be dead anyway, as soon as we found him.”

“Did it occur to you that she doesn’t know where her husband is?”

The agent’s shoulders were hunched, and he looked down at his hands, clasped before him.

“Go on,” Vahid commanded.

The agent fastened his eyes on the wall behind Vahid. “I took the hanoum, but she stuck a knife in my face and ran off.” His hand reached up involuntarily to touch the bandage on his cheek. “Then we heard a sound, I tell you honestly, it made my hair stand on end. It was surely a djinn.”

Vahid leaned forward and stared at the agent. “What do you mean?” This account was getting worse and worse. A mistaken murder, the involvement of the local police, an attack on Huseyin Pasha’s wife, and now his agents believed they had been attacked by djinns. A feeling like ants crawling invaded his extremities. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He could feel his heart beat against his collar. “Go on.”

The agent’s eyes widened. “One minute our men were fighting, the next they were lying there in pieces like dog meat. Hilmi and I backed up a bit to…to reconsider our strategy.”

If he wanted to build Akrep into an organization to be feared, Vahid thought, he’d have to weed out superstitious cowards like this.

“How many agents dead?”

“Three,” the man admitted softly.

Vahid’s finger tapped on the desk, a steady drone like water dripping. “And Huseyin Pasha’s wife?” Kamil Pasha’s sister, he added to himself with the satisfaction of knowing that destroying Huseyin would also wound Kamil. The symmetry of it gave it the stamp of fate.

“She was gone. The next thing we knew, they were all back at the hospital, except for one of their party, who was dead.”

Vahid rose to his feet. His chest was so tight that he could barely breathe. “This whole operation was a disaster,” he pointed out in a deceptively gentle tone. Vahid was considering what might happen if Vizier Köraslan or Sultan Abdulhamid discovered that he had been using Akrep resources in a personal vendetta against one of the empire’s most highly placed and respected citizens. Vahid was aware that to the old elite families, he was little more than a roach underfoot, one they tolerated because he was useful but wouldn’t hesitate to crush should that become necessary.

There were limits even to his hold over the vizier. An attack by a lowly bureaucrat on a member of the royal circle would not be tolerated. Now both Huseyin Pasha and his wife would have to die to make sure the attack could never be linked to Vahid. This was all a consequence of the colossal incompetence of his agents, he thought, turning his glare on the man standing before him.

The agent had gone pale. He bowed his head, hands pressed to his sides. “I have no excuse, sir.”

Vahid let the silence stretch out until, finally, he said, “Are you satisfied with your work here?”

The agent looked surprised. “Yes, Commander.”

“But you could always use more income, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Commander.” The man’s eyes sought the window, as if he wished to escape.

“You have two daughters, don’t you?” His finger tapped once.

The agent stiffened. “Yes, Commander.” His voice had fallen to an uneasy whisper.

“Despite your abject failure, you’ll find that I’m a fair man. Bring the youngest in next week, and we’ll find some work for her here.”

The agent took an involuntary step backward. “But…I can’t. She’s been very sheltered.”

Vahid gazed at him with interest, wondering at the predictability of human interaction. “Of course you can. She’ll be very happy here, I assure you, and her salary will be half of yours.” He smiled, exposing his perfect white teeth above his pointed beard. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”