The Winter Thief

68

The small steamboat docked at the warehouse pier just after dusk, its outlines indistinct in the encroaching gloom, its deck in shadow. It appeared to be flying the Ottoman colors, although Vera hoped that, in this light, it would be hard for the men guarding Yorg Pasha’s warehouse to make anything out for certain. Vera and fifteen comrades in makeshift Ottoman navy uniforms stood at attention on deck as a man in the uniform of a navy captain emerged and stepped from the ship onto the pier, followed by an armed lieutenant. The captain had a prominent nose, high cheekbones, and a trim mustache. As he approached the two guards, Vera saw them spread their legs and lift their rifles belligerently, and a chill went through her. They had researched what they could, but so much of their plan was based on chance, the quality of light and shadow, the inattentiveness of the guards.

Yorg Pasha, like the sultan, preferred Albanian guards because they were noted for their fearlessness and prowess with arms, but many had not learned the local language beyond what was required for their duties. Vera hoped they wouldn’t notice Apollo’s accented Turkish. Even if they did, Apollo had reassured her, Ottoman officers could hail from anywhere in the vast empire, so it wouldn’t matter much.

“I have orders.” Apollo’s firm voice carried across the pier to the ship. She saw him whip out a case, extract a document, and hand it to the guard. The man took it but didn’t look at it. Perhaps he couldn’t read, Vera thought anxiously. Instead the guard barked out a name, and, after a few moments, a man emerged from a small house adjoining the storage area. The house was faced by neatly tended rosebushes, a contrast with the rumpled appearance of its inhabitant, an unshaven, jowly man in his fifties. He looked out at the ship, then shuffled over to the guards.

He said something to the captain as the guard handed him the document.

“This is urgent business,” the captain responded tersely, his voice loud and officious.

The clerk took the document and twisted his head to read it in the half-light. Apollo and one of the men on board who was an engraver had labored hours over a forgery of Yorg Pasha’s seal. The clerk squinted at the captain and waved the document. Vera couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she feared their subterfuge had been discovered. She saw Apollo’s lieutenant, a young Armenian named Yedo, adjust his rifle.

Apollo reached for the document. The clerk hesitated, then, to Vera’s relief, gave it back to him and turned to instruct the guards. Apollo was already striding toward the warehouse doors. Vera saw the clerk shrug and pull his robe around him as if he were cold, then shuffle back to his house. As soon as the door shut behind him, a neat file of uniformed men emerged from the ship and marched in formation down the pier. Vera remained behind as lookout.

Before long, a line of men moved between the warehouse and the ship, where they wrestled the barrels onboard and stowed them. The Albanian guards stood idly by, smoking. It took less than an hour to load all fifty barrels.

By the time they were done and had cast off, it was fully dark. From the deck, Vera could see a light bloom in the clerk’s window. The tension was unbearable. She couldn’t believe they had pulled it off and expected at any moment to see a pursuing warship in their wake.

“Hush,” Apollo whispered to the excited group that clustered around him, all discipline forgotten. “Sound carries at this time of day.” He grinned at Vera as he stripped off the captain’s jacket that, at these close quarters, revealed its patchwork nature. The fifteen comrades embraced her and one another in barely restrained joy. One waved his fiddle in anticipation.

The engine huffed and the gears meshed as the steamboat headed up the Bosphorus toward the Black Sea and Trabzon. Strapped in its belly were a thousand rifles, pistols, and ammunition-the full shipment that had been confiscated by the police and then, to Apollo’s great advantage, released by the authorities to be stored in Yorg Pasha’s warehouse. This many rifles, he had told Vera, would ensure the survival of the commune. When they reached the open waters of the Black Sea, Vera allowed herself to breathe.