The Red Room (9 page)

She leads the way outside. Within minutes, they’ve joined the hordes of tourists that are forced to divide themselves between wonders-of-the-world mosques and exquisite Roman ruins. Soon they break away into Gülhane Park, inside which the city disappears.

“Have you been in?” Knox asks Grace, pointing out the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

“Never.”

“You must.”

She checks her masculine watch again. “Not today.”

“Are we meeting someone?”

“I am not sure.”

They continue toward Topkapi Palace. “It once housed four thousand people. Was a miniature city for the sultan. Included a hospital, bakeries, nearly independent of the outside world. And now, tourists.”

“Like the Forbidden City,” she says. She turns them around. Knox can’t keep from surveying their surroundings.

“Anything?” she asks.

“No. But if they’re government . . .”

“I was able to track one. Xin was, actually. Data Services.”

“One what?”

“A man following me.”

“Track, as in . . . ?”

“I have his texts for the past several days. His locations. GPS fixes.”

“And you were going to tell me, when?”

“I just did.”

“Jesus.”

“He revisited Sisli Square four times in three days. Always between four and five.” She pauses. “Sent what could be a coded text at the end of his last visit.”

He now understands her double-checking the time.

“There will be taxis at the museum,” she says.

“And crowds.”

“Just so.”

“It’s good to see you again,” he says.

She hooks her arm in his and they walk. It’s an uncommonly familiar gesture for someone as distant as she. It feels awkward until she speaks.

“In case we missed someone out there.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”

She holds him closer, or does he imagine it? In profile, she appears to be smiling. Or not. He feels off balance. First Dulwich, now Grace Chu. The leaves rustle overhead, sounding dry in the fall breeze. A boat horn haunts the sky. A Turkish kid skateboards past them wearing a Who T-shirt and Air Jordans.

Knox ditches the anxiety. He feels right at home.

—

T
HEY
SIT
together in Sisli Square as afternoon prayers are called. Grace is enchanted by the nasally, electronic summons pealing from the minarets.

“Do you feel it? It is as if the city takes a breath,” she says.

“If they take too deep a breath, they’ll gag.” Car exhaust chokes the city when the breezes off the Bosphorus pause for even minutes. The smog residue crusts the older buildings in a black smudge and, on bad days, causes one’s nose and eyes to run—the scourge of the third world.

They both wear sunglasses; Grace, a head scarf. She explains what
the GPS data has told her about the man seen watching her apartment.

“The mosque makes the most sense,” Knox says. “Afternoon prayers. He didn’t have to be attending. He could be surveilling someone.”

“By your own admission, there are any number of agencies who would want the mark. Yes? More important to me is not the who, but the why. This man entered the country six days ago. This we can assume. Four different times he spends at least an hour on this bench. Why? How does that relate to us? To say it does not is absurd,” she says, cutting off his objection. “A shipment? A middleman? Our safety relies upon—”

“—knowledge of the exigent circumstances. You take this stuff too literally. Chinese violinists are technically the most accomplished in the world, you know, but they lack soul. You need to loosen up.” He’s thinking:
The frog and the scorpion. This is the Middle East. Anybody could be interested in Mashe Okle. Get in line.

“You need to consider what you say before you say it.”

“You realize we’re recording all this?” he says.

They laugh together. He never would have imagined such a moment a year ago.

“What I said,” Grace says, “my mother used to say to me. You would be surprised. I was once more like you than you imagine.”

“Are you implying I never matured?”

“You are impossible.”

“But consistent.”

Knox’s phone is still recording when a low-battery alert chimes. They end their recordings at thirty-two minutes.

“I’ll call Akram tomorrow morning and ask for the down payment. Get things going.”

“To be wired. The funds must be wired into the account.”

“Impossible. These things are always cash.”

“The data will enable me to hack his bank account and determine the source of the deposits.”

“Sarge didn’t explain any of this to me.”

“It is how we win the face-to-face.” Grace is unsure how much to share. If David Dulwich did not include Knox, there must be a reason, the most obvious of which is that should one of them be captured, he or she must not have the full picture. That leads her to wonder why the possibility they might be surveilled and captured was never mentioned.

“He’s compartmentalized us,” Knox says. “That can’t be good.”

“I was thinking same thing.” Grace hears herself drop the article as dictated in her native Mandarin. Knows it signals her anxiety. Sees Knox react to the red flag. They know each other too well; it’s a worrisome thought. The op in Amsterdam brought them closer. Not only are they more aware of each other’s idiosyncrasies, but also a shared hour in a brothel stripped them of the secrets typically kept between co-workers. They have information only lovers possess, and yet they are far from lovers.

“It’s got to be cash. He’ll smell it a mile away.”

Grace ruminates. “Yes. I understand.”

“You don’t have to look so glum.”

“It is a complication.”

“Maybe if it was explained to me, it wouldn’t be.”

Grace makes a point of weighing her response. A year ago, she would have stuck to David Dulwich’s instructions without question. Now, she wonders at the forces responsible for testing her this way.

After a moment or two of silence, she speaks quietly. She is afraid he will tease her. Sometimes this cuts her to her core. “‘When the
wind of change blows, some build walls while others build windmills.’”

She sees Knox winding up to lash out, but he swallows it away. Perhaps they are both different from a year ago, she thinks. Condensing the plan she and Dulwich worked out, she offers it to Knox in its most simplistic form.

“Isn’t there some way around the wiring of the cash?” Knox asks.

Knox’s sense of what she does amuses her at such times.

He says, “It’s a boatload of money.”

“Understood.”

“Maybe not if you’re an arms dealer, but—”

“He is not an arms dealer.” She blurts this out. “Or if he is, he is not so very good at it.” She explains the relatively small investment portfolio as well as her inability to follow the deposits. “The point is, the deposits are made directly from other bank accounts. If this was questionable income . . . I deal with questionable income. It is what I do for the company. This is not. You see?”

“It’s only one account,” Knox says.

“Yes. Are you going to tell me how to do my job?”

He’s about to. He stops himself.

She wants to reward him. “I apologize.”

“No. You’re right. You have me nailed.”

Maybe he’s jet-lagged. This isn’t the Knox she knows.

He says, “How certain are you?”

“I should not have said anything. I was mistaken to do so. An opinion is all.”

“Are you going to make me beg?”

“David did not confirm the man’s occupation to me. Did he to you?”

“What a snake.”

“He allowed us our assumptions,” Grace says. “Fair play.”

“He must have loved that we both jumped to the same conclusion.”

“He choreographed this. Yes?”

“I suppose he did.” Knox drops his head into his large hands in concentration. “How can Mashe possibly afford the Harmodius if he’s not in arms dealing?”

“Investors. A consortium. The money will be kept in a phantom account or will be held as cash in a safe-deposit box or home safe. It is possible it cannot be wired. If cash, it would be safer to carry it in. Physically transported.”

“But Mashe is already here,” Knox says.

“A friend or family member. A mule he trusts implicitly.”

“His wife.”

“Or mistress, or cousin. It can be done,” she says. “But to convert such amounts of currency? At black market rates? It is very onerous. Funds wired from a ghost account would convert at bank rates, the most favorable possible.”

“Mashe would wire the funds here,” Knox speculates, trying to follow, “from a fake account. Akram would collect it as cash from various banks, bundle it and deliver to me. Leaving us where?”

“Leaving you stuck with too much cash to legally get out of the country. You say your previous dealings have been cash?”

“Yeah. But we’re talking small amounts.”

“This time it must be different. Can you take a meeting with Akram?”

“Of course.”

“We will need a pickpocket,” she says. “Must be a thousand around the Hagia Sophia.”

“You going to put out a sandwich board offering employment?” he says.

She looks surprised. “Yes! I suppose it should be something like that.”

He wonders: is she mocking him, or is she being sweetly naive? Has she already formed a plan, or is she leaving it up to him? He grins privately as Grace allows a smirk beneath her oversized sunglasses. There is cunning in her expression, a high-spiritedness and a convincing smugness that suggests she is already three steps ahead of him.

I
n order to harpoon his pickpocket, Knox performs a gag he learned off a middle schooler named Cameron Wood on a school trip to New York City. Warned by their chaperone of thieves in Times Square, Cameron and his buddies bought a street vendor wallet and put a note in it reading, “You are being electronically tracked by the NYPD.” Cameron then volunteered to be the one to carry the decoy wallet in his back pocket, keeping his real one in the front. When the class returned to the hotel from a walk around Times Square, Cameron realized the wallet was gone; he never felt a thing. He and his pals got a good laugh at what the pickpocket’s face must have looked like when he read their note.

Knox’s three notes, written in Turkish by the hotel receptionist, read, “I will pay five times this. Look for the tall American by the ticket window.”

He, too, carries a dummy wallet showing slightly from his back pocket. But unlike young Cameron, Knox knows exactly when each of the three wallets is stolen. Each carries a handwritten note and the equivalent of ten USD in Turkish liras.

He waits thirty minutes by the mosque’s ticket window. The
apprehensive boy is twelve years old with oversized eyes and a choirboy complexion. He keeps himself at arm’s length in case Knox turns out to be trouble.

Knox is trouble, but not in any way the boy will ever know.

—

K
NOX
AND
A
KRAM
O
KLE
meet two blocks from the DoubleTree on Mithat Pasa Caddesi, a narrow street that could be Paris or Brussels except for the occasional Red Crescent on a sign. Art galleries intermingle with boutique hotels. Nothing over three stories. Freshly painted neoclassical alongside colonial. The men are in blue jeans, long-sleeved shirts and sweaters. Running shoes. Not a woman in sight. Knox is spitting distance from the Grand Bazaar, the Beyazit Tower and the Calligraphy Museum. In any five-block area of the European side of Istanbul, there is more history than in all of Athens. He thinks they should put a glass dome over the entire city and preserve it as it is. The Syrians or Georgians or Kurds are bound to destroy it in a forgettable conflict and the world will lose a treasure, as it has lost Lebanon. He absorbs what he can with what little of him is not preoccupied surveying his immediate surroundings. He plays far too much defense; he’s eager to get himself on the other side of the ball.

Someone is grilling lamb nearby. There’s the scent of cardamom in the air, carried on a charcoal breeze. Knox is ready for lunch; to his delight, the source of the aromas is their meeting spot. He passes through a beaded curtain, keeps his eye on a pair of low ceiling fans and asks Akram to switch sides of the table with him as they shake hands, providing Knox a view of the entrance. It is an uncomfortable moment that neither man draws attention to.

They talk briefly about the time of year and the approach of cooler days. Knox expresses concern over the illness in the man’s
family. Akram orders for them, telling Knox of a dish this restaurant does better than any other in the city. Knox settles in for a long lunch. Akram likes his food.

There are tourists scattered throughout, none fitting the descriptions provided by Grace, but Knox has every person sized up and he’s located the exit by the two restrooms, as well as the entrance to the kitchen. He drinks coffee that should be considered an alternative fuel, tolerates the cigarette smoke. Realizes a dentist could make more money in this city than a bond trader. He’s high on adrenaline and the approach of negotiation, feels it in his loins like he’s about to try to flirt an underwear model into leaving a party with him.

“So, this thing we talked about,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Should I consider you interested?”

Akram lowers his eyes in consent. Knox finds the man’s face to be a confusion of contradictions. Bronze facial skin covered by a salt-and-pepper balbo beard that adds ten years to what is likely his early thirties. Nearly shaved head to lessen the impression of a receding hairline. Heavy, expressive eyebrows shield wide-set eyes that could be black glass, yet his gaze reveals that he’s multitasking. He’s an IRS agent who knows everyone cheats on his or her taxes, a priest awaiting the first stone. He’d run a fillet knife through you if you crossed him, but he’ll attend your son’s bar mitzvah no matter how far he has to travel. He wears a cracked brown leather jacket that might have trouble zipping shut when it reaches his chest. The tight fitting black T-shirt supports this assessment. He wears no jewelry. The face of his rubber sports watch is scratched, its black band cracked.

“It’s many times greater than that of any of our prior transactions.”

Knox withholds comment.

“First, let me say, my friend, that I mean no insult to your integrity.” He allows that to fester in Knox. “I must question how it is an item that has eluded the top archaeologists and researchers for several centuries, suddenly appears in the hands of a . . .” He’s searching for a word other than “amateur.”

Knox saves him. “Even a good copy is worth serious consideration. We both know that. And this is not a good copy.”

“The original Harmodius? This is not possible.”

“And yet we are here.”

“So it is.”

“I expect you will want authentication. I will agree to the specialist of your choosing, but I am to accompany the piece at every step, and I will determine the location. Your man has three days.”

Akram purses his lips. “Absurd. Three months, perhaps. Analysis of mineral composition, weathering layers, historical comparison. This takes time.”

“I have paperwork with me. An independent, well-respected expert. You can call him directly and he will confirm the contents of the paperwork. As to the funds, half will be placed into escrow. At that time I will permit verification to begin. Time is of the essence.”

“Someone has done a good job of selling you, my friend. I do not know whether to feel sorry for you or happy for them.”

“I mean no insult to your integrity,” Knox says deliberately, “but I will need a credit check, or asset verification. The sum is large and not easily raised.”

“I cannot think of a museum that would not do business with you, whatever terms you demand.”

“Do you read the news? The art world has become too accountable. What has happened to everyone?”

“Globalization,” Akram says. “We were far better off when
isolated in our own countries. We wanted blue jeans. We ended up with the EU. If only we had known.”

“You are able to raise the funds?” Knox asks.

“For a good copy, certainly. For the original? How long do we play this charade?”

The food arrives. Knox inhales deeply.

“I told you,” Akram said. “The chef is an artist.”

The presence of food lessens the tension. Akram shares a story about one of his six daughters, who is training as a gymnast back in Irbid, Jordan. She has started to grow taller, maturing early, and it’s a family crisis.

“You are wondering how I can afford such artwork,” Akram says, as the third course, the lamb Knox smelled out on the street, arrives.

“Not my business. Only that you’re able.”

“Let us assume it is a copy, to your great surprise.”

“Very well.”

“It would be wise for us to have two prices in mind. Yes?”

“As to that, the down payment will be held in escrow. If you pass, your money will be returned.”

“So confident! Please pardon me, my friend. But are you so naive?”

Knox shrugs. This is some of the best lamb he’s ever tasted.

“It’s the marinade,” Akram says.

“Secret recipe?”

“More precious than your Harmodius, believe me.”

“I do not,” Knox says. “Five hundred thousand, U.S.”

Akram Okle offers his first tell: he pinches his nose to clear it. Knox had taken note of the tic earlier, but now he establishes its significance.

“I offer it to you first out of respect. You have only a matter of days to fund the escrow. I will then deliver the piece for analysis at a place and time of my choosing. It will be very last minute, I am
afraid.” There are only a few labs in Istanbul capable of authentication. Arranging an ambush at multiple locations will present a challenge for Akram. Knox must cover every base.

“I would request the same.”

“As I said, I have test results,” Knox says. He unzips two of the nineteen pockets in the Scottevest to locate the paperwork Dulwich supplied. Passes it across the table, keeping his hand atop it. He wants the symbolism of the exchange to register.

Knox says, “I will accept half as a down payment. It must be received at least twenty-four hours before your people assay it.”

“Twenty-five percent.”

“Fifty percent. No less.”

“As you wish,” Akram says. He studies Knox carefully as he slides the paperwork his way. He shows tremendous strength in not looking at it. He won’t trust the contents, but it will set him drooling. It will help his people know what to verify in the short time Knox will give them at the lab. “Can you handle this, John? A deal like this? This size?”

“Our earlier deals . . . I was testing you,” Knox lies. “I thought you ready for this. If I am wrong . . .”

Akram pinches the bridge of his nose again and inhales. “It is impossible, the Harmodius. You must understand.”

“Half now,” Knox says. “The other half wired to the account of my choosing upon delivery.” He goes back to the lamb. Delicious.