The Washington Stratagem (39 page)

Two more men came up the center staircase and a further two appeared at the top of the third staircase at the back of the deck. All six advanced on Yael and Yusuf. One sat next to Yael, another next to Yusuf; two sat on the facing bench, and the last pair split, one man standing at either end of the bench.

A seventh man, potbellied, with a wide face and dark brown hair, came up the staircase by the prow of the boat. He stood in front of Yael and Yusuf. A pistol was jammed in his belt.

“Funny,” finished Yusuf, completely unfazed.

Yael looked around, her heart racing, processing their situation, calculating potential angles of attack. All the men were armed. Four were carrying Uzi submachine guns; the remainder had pistols. She had nothing except her hands and feet. Yusuf had a pistol.

They would be mown down in seconds. Their best chance was to try and make a break for it when they disembarked at Eminönü. There would be a vehicle waiting there, she was sure. Getting the target into the vehicle was always the hardest point of any abduction. Once inside, it was virtually game over. If she and Yusuf created enough of a furor, if they could somehow involve passersby,
if
… Yael looked at Yusuf, wondering how to communicate this to him.

Yusuf glanced at her and smiled reassuringly. He stood up and shook hands with the potbellied man, then turned to Yael. “This is Mehmed. A colleague.”

Mehmed nodded at Yael in greeting. She frowned as she tried to process what was happening. Were she and Yusuf being arrested, or was this their security escort?

Mehmed reached into his pocket and took out two pairs of handcuffs. Yael sensed the six men with him tense. Her question, she realized, was answered.

Yusuf glanced at Mehmed. “In a minute,” he said. “Can I have a cigarette first?”

Mehmed gestured to one of his subordinates, who handed Yusuf a cigarette and lit it.

Yael watched Yusuf standing by the men, lazily blowing smoke rings.

Mehmed’s mobile rang. He pressed a button and spoke rapidly into the phone. “Yes, we have them. Both of them. Is the transport ready when we dock?”

He listened, nodded, and passed the phone to Yusuf. “It’s for you.”

“Good evening,
patron
,” said Yusuf. “How is Natalya?”

The instructor is a legend. Her black hair is shot through with silver, but she is still beautiful
—her posture erect, her eyes clear and shining
.

The other students speak about her in whispers, that she was used as bait, three times, to lure the architects of the Munich Olympics massacre. Once everything was in place, she was to leave and let others take over. But on each mission she finished the job herself
.

“There are three rules when meeting a contact. What are they?” she asks the class
.

Yael raises her hand. “One: be early.”

“Yes. And two?”

“Carry out anti-surveillance drills on the way and reconnaissance once you arrive. Check it’s not a trap. Work out contingency plans, map escape routes.”

“Good. And if your contact changes the plan at the last minute, wants to meet somewhere else?”

“Don’t go. You choose another location. Always make them come to you.”

The instructor nods and turns to the whiteboard. She writes, “Make Them Come to You.”

The Mercan Kapısı, the Coral Gate, had a dilapidated charm. A lesser-used entrance to the Grand Bazaar on its northern side, the gate was framed by two gray marble columns and a portico. The gate stood at the top of Tiǧcilar, a crowded, narrow alley flanked with shops that sloped down toward the waterfront at Eminönü and the Galata Bridge.

Yael leaned against the right-hand marble column while she checked her watch. It was 10:45 a.m. The weather had changed overnight, for the worse. The sky was dark and overcast; a light rain had fallen all morning, in fact was still falling, making the sidewalks slippery and greasy. The wind blew in hard, funneled along the alley. The rain spattered on Yael’s black baseball cap and wraparound Ray-Ban sunglasses. She shivered, suddenly cold in her thin cream jacket, as she ran though the events of the previous evening in her head.

Yusuf had handed the telephone back to Mehmed after saying the name Natalya. Mehmed had listened for some time, then put the handcuffs away and apologized to Yusuf. He and his men walked to the other end of the deck, out of earshot.

Yusuf then talked some more on the telephone. His voice was confident, as though he were explaining something. Among the torrent of Turkish, Yael picked out the words “Bank” and “Bernard.” Mehmed and his men returned as the boat docked. A white van was waiting for them, parked on the pavement a few yards from where passengers disembarked from the ferries. Mehmed had ushered them inside. Yael remained tense, despite the obvious change in atmosphere.

The van took them to the
MI·T
office in Sultanahmet. There, a man with a face carved from stone had introduced himself as Kemal Burhan and apologized profusely to Yael. A young woman, whom Yael recognized from the airplane, had brought endless trays of teas, coffees, plates of kebabs, rice, and salads, blushing fiercely every time she entered the room. Ravenous, Yael ate everything on offer.

Yusuf and Burhan had gone into another room. There had been a lot more talking, even some shouting, with more mentions of Bank Bernard, Geneva, Natalya, and Galata. Then the racket stopped suddenly. There were several seconds of silence. Yael was alert, until she heard loud laughter. The two men emerged, and Yusuf explained that his boss was going to call the Ministry of the Interior to have the arrest warrant for Yael lifted. In addition, all police officers were to aid her if she so requested. Burhan had ceremoniously presented her with an
MI·T
identity card, assuring her that it would extricate her from what he called “even the most delicate situation.”

They had spent the night in the apartment, Yael sleeping on the sofa bed and Yusuf on the floor in the room next door. In the morning Yusuf had gone back to work, and Yael had insisted on meeting Isis, ignoring the ever-louder question nagging inside her:
Why had the information about David suddenly come up now?

Yael arrived at the Coral Gate just before nine o’clock. She had walked from the safe house in Sultanahmet. The journey would normally take fifteen minutes. Yael had spent almost two hours scouting out the area around the gate, doubling back on herself, taking last-minute turns, proceeding slowly through choke points—narrow alleys, underpasses, and gateways—always alert for the same face twice, or a familiar car. Members of a surveillance team could change their jackets, hats, glasses, sunglasses, even wigs. The best professionals even brought different shoes, but they still could not alter their faces in a hurry. There were two key giveaways that someone was watching: multiple sightings of the same person or people in the vicinity, and suspicious behavior. Talking when no mobile telephone was visible could mean a radio earpiece; a hand always in a pocket could indicate a pressel—a small switch connected to a radio that an operative could use to tap out signals about the target’s movements, according to a prearranged code. So far, everything seemed clear, yet Yael’s unease was growing.

Yael took her UN mobile telephone from her purse and swiped through the menus until a plain gray icon appeared. She tapped on the image. A 3-D computerized image of the bazaar appeared. It revealed aspects of the complex that tourists never saw, the secret tunnels that dated back to the bazaar’s construction in the fifteenth century after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, as the city was then known, from the Byzantines; long-abandoned storerooms, bricked-over doors; a network of narrow passageways that ran under the roof; and a map of passageways along the roof. Yusuf had given Yael the app, which was highly classified. He had been strongly opposed to Yael meeting Isis. If it all goes wrong, Yusuf had said, get up on the roof and we will come and find you. Yael was tracing a virtual path through the hidden passageways when her phone beeped.

It was a message from Isis.

On my way. Was stuck at work with summit BS. Good news about the Interpol warrant being lifted. Xxxx.

How did Isis already know that? Because she clearly had excellent contacts—
the type of contacts that might know something about David
, Yael told herself. Again. She stepped aside to let a young French couple pass by. The man had a goatee and a large mole on the side of his nose, the woman thin lips and short blond hair. They were both well dressed in stylish black woolen coats, holding hands and laughing. Yael instinctively checked the woman’s shoes: she wore a pair of black and pink Geox loafers.

Yael waited a few more minutes, but there were no more messages from Isis. She turned around. She had waited enough and decided to carry out another anti-surveillance drill. Mercan Kapısı was a good choke point, a narrow funnel through which anyone following her would have to pass. Assuming, that is, that they were on the Tiǧcilar side of the entrance. Once inside the maze of the bazaar, it would be far more difficult to know if she was being followed.

She stepped through the gate into another world. The bazaar was a city within a city, with four thousand shops, many just a few feet square, jammed into sixty-six streets and alleys through which flowed tens of thousands of people a day. Rich with the smell of coffee and leather, spices and dusty carpets, the air crackled with the promise of commerce. Owners stood outside their emporiums, instantly switching between a babel of languages. Turkish flags and powerful electric lights hung from the vaulted ceiling. The edges of the yellow stone arches had been painted red, a delicate floral pattern. Hordes of tourists examined trays of gold and silver jewelry, bright woven kilims, tea sets, fake Louis Vuitton handbags, leather jackets, sacks of dried fruit, and painted ceramic plates and dishes. Within a few steps Yael heard English, Russian, German, French, Hebrew, and Hungarian. A sign pointed the way to Zincirli Han.

She stopped to look in the window of a jewelry shop, apparently admiring the rows of fine gold chains on display, but in reality using the glass to check who was walking through the gate behind her. It seemed clear. She walked a few yards farther into the bazaar and stopped to look at a backpack, one of many neatly piled outside a shop. The top half of the backpack was made out of a kilim with a bold blue and red geometric motif, the bottom of brown leather. Instantly sensing her interest, the shopkeeper, a gray-haired man in his sixties, put down his glass of tea, poured another one, placed both on a small tray, and stepped outside, ready to start his sales pitch. He offered the tea to Yael. She was about to accept when her telephone rang. She looked at the screen. It was Isis.

“Hey, I’m so sorry. I’m still on my way.”

“Where are you?”

“On the Galata Bridge. I’m stuck in a car. The traffic is horrendous. It’s worse than New York. The whole city is gridlocked because of the summit.”

Yael looked at the shopkeeper, smiled, pointed at her telephone, and raised two fingers. He nodded and went back inside.

“How long will you be, do you think?” asked Yael.

“At this pace, at least another twenty minutes.”

“Why don’t you get out and walk? It would be quicker.”

“Sorry, babe, US diplomats aren’t allowed to walk anywhere at the moment. Do some shopping. You are a free woman now. I will be there soon.” Isis paused. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“I’m in a blue Ford van, tinted windows, registration….” Her voice faded slightly. “Can I tell her the registration?”

“No,” Yael heard a man in the background say. “Walk toward me. I’ll meet you on the corner, where Ti-ǧcilar turns onto Mercan Caddesi. We can talk in the van.”

Yael walked out of the bazaar, wearing her new backpack, her other purse jammed inside. She headed down Tiǧcilar, toward the turning where Isis had suggested that they meet. The wind was blowing harder now, its damp spray covering her face, the T-shirts and blouses hanging on display outside the shops flapping back and forth.

Yael briskly wove a path through the crowd, her senses on high alert. The shops on Tiǧcilar sold more practical goods than those inside the bazaar: pots, pans, groceries, bolts of fabric. Many of the customers were local women, observant Muslims wearing ankle-length dresses and head scarves with brightly colored patterns. Yael almost slipped on the wet stones, barely avoiding a statuesque Turkish matron with four young children in tow. They watched in awe as their mother haggled with a shop owner, relentlessly driving down the price of a cast-iron saucepan. There were police officers everywhere, stopping passersby, checking their identity papers, calling their details in on their radios. A helicopter roared by overhead, “Polis” painted on its underside, the downdraft so strong that Yael’s hair flew every which way.

Her mobile telephone buzzed. She checked the screen. Another message from Isis.

Don’t tell anyone I told you: 34 DF 1987.

Yael memorized the registration number and carried on walking. The blue van, she saw, was parked on the corner where Tiǧcilar met Mercan Caddesi, a wide, busy street crowded with midmorning traffic.

She walked past a vendor selling roasted corn on the cob, each seared chunk wrapped in paper. Her sixth sense was an almost physical force inside her, trying to turn her around. She was breaking every rule in the tradecraft book. Why
had
Isis appeared at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza last Thursday at 9:15 a.m., when the US mission held a compulsory staff meeting every morning at nine o’clock? Had Isis known she was there? If so,
how
had she found out? And
why
, in the middle of the world’s most important summit, did Isis need to share new information about the death of her brother, inside a van with tinted windows?
Why
wouldn’t she come out and meet her? Yael twisted David’s ring around her finger. If there was any chance that Isis knew something about David—any chance at all—she would be there.