Istanbul Passage (10 page)

A full morning of it, pacing, then staring at the phone, expectant. Turhan, Leon’s secretary, one of the Atatürk new women who didn’t cover her head, but still went home to her family at night, gave up any pretense of working, answering calls in a breathless voice, eyes wide with interest. During a normal day not much happened at R.J. Reynolds; today the phone kept ringing. But not with the call he wanted.

By noon, standing at the window overlooking Taksim, he realized
that no one was going to contact him, that he was alone. Nobody knew. Did his name even appear on any record, some payment voucher? Tommy spreading his bets over the table, the way he liked it. Using someone outside so he could distance himself, someone to blame if anything went wrong. But why should it? A job so routine it hadn’t required the usual precautions. Tommy hadn’t even asked where the safe house was, just the neighborhood.

Why not? But the answer was the same one he’d been getting all night, sitting up with it. The address didn’t matter. Alexei was never supposed to get there. He was supposed to die on the quay. And Leon? Would he have been left there, Tommy squealing away in his car, not sure if he’d been recognized? Impossible to risk that. Of course he’d have to be killed too. An easy target, not expecting it, just picking up a package. Two people left dead. Who’d killed each other? How would Tommy have arranged it? Dressed the scene? He thought of his face at the Park bar, pink, reminiscing. Already planning it. And that always led back to why and the other answer he circled around, the one he wasn’t ready to accept. He gripped the windowsill as if his body had caught the swirling in his head.

Meanwhile, he had to hand Alexei on to someone. Who? Tommy’s people at OWI were already gone. The plants at Robert College, whoever they were? But Tommy hadn’t used any of them; they didn’t know. Nobody had called. His operation now. He had to find the next link in the chain. There must be a name, maybe in Ankara, maybe lying around Tommy’s desk.

But when he got to the consulate he found it surrounded, small clusters of people drawn by the police cars in the street, patrolmen at the gate cadging cigarettes from the guards, the carved American eagle over the door staring down at them all. Not just a consulate matter anymore, a courier assignment. A crime. Police. Wanting answers. Tommy setting up his own man. Why would they believe it? Why would the Consul? The only story they’d hear was that he had killed
Tommy. His word against a dead man’s. What proof did he have besides Alexei himself, who wasn’t here, not to the police.

He looked up, some movement at the door, the Consul shaking hands with a Turk in a bulky suit. Cigarettes doused, orders being given, a few policemen staying behind, everyone else moving toward the gate. They passed around Leon as if he were a stick in a stream. Nobody knew. Getting into cars, writing up reports, not one of them looking at him. He stood there for a minute feeling them all around him, unable to move, invisible. Nobody knew.

They had arranged to meet in the secondhand booksellers market, a narrow passage shaded by plane trees near the Beyazit Mosque. Mihai was waiting at an English-language stall near the end, flipping through a book.

“You’re late. Anything on the car?”

Leon shook his head. “Nothing. If anybody saw it, they’re not saying. No calls from the consulate, either. Nobody.”

“You said there was a plane arranged.”

“That was Tommy’s job.”

“Then now it’s yours. You have to get him out. He starts to panic— Where’d you park him?”

Leon said nothing.

“They’ll be checking the hotels. First thing they do.”

“He’s not there.” He picked up a book, the cover a blur.

“As long as he’s in Istanbul, we’re— A man who’d sell out anybody. Cheap. He says what’s good for him. Not us.”

“But we didn’t— I mean—”

“Which explanation do you think they’ll believe? Let’s say the real one, what we were doing there. Just for the sake of argument. Your new friend can vouch for it,” he said, his voice suddenly hard. “A wonderful history of telling the truth. And then what? Your ambassador intervenes? An embarrassment for him. But let’s say he does. A deal. No prison. They deport us instead. Resident permit? Revoked. If they believe us.” He looked away. “We don’t want to explain anything.”

“We won’t have to. I’m telling you, nobody knows. If I can get him to the consulate—”

“The consulate. It’s police now. With a body. Murder. The Emniyet have to have at least one pair of ears over there. At least. Take him in and the police—” He let the thought finish itself. “And the Russians. If they’re watching, you wouldn’t even get him to the gate. Maybe what he deserves, but not the best thing now, an incident. More police.”

“He has to talk to somebody eventually. Tell them.”

Mihai made a wry face. “His American confessor. Discretion guaranteed.” He lifted a finger from his book. “But not here. If he’s gone, the Turks have nothing to use against us.” He placed the book on the barrow. “Except each other.” He looked at Leon, quiet for a second. “What are you going to do if there’s no plane?”

“Tommy said there was.”

“He said a lot of things. I know someone at the airport. I can have him check the manifests. Not a scheduled plane, I suppose, not for this passenger. Military?”

Leon shrugged his shoulders.

“Wonderful. All right, I’ll check all of them.”

“Look, you don’t have to get involved in this. You weren’t there, remember?”

“If everyone says so. But will they?” He looked over. “I’ll let you know about the airport.”

“You think there is a plane, then.”

“Probably. Your Tommy was passing him along. He’d want his end covered. It’s just that Jianu wasn’t going to be on it. Thanks to you. Given that any thought?”

Leon met his glance. “All night.”

“It’s something to think about,” Mihai said, turning to go, then put his hand on Leon’s upper arm, a good-bye gesture. “How long have you known me?” he said quietly. “There’s blood here. Like blood. We have to look out for each other.” He squeezed the hand tighter. “Keep your head. Everything normal. Or they’ll smell it. It’s not just for us. You know what I’m doing here. What Anna did. These people, it’s the last hope. For them I’d even help a pig like Jianu.” He dropped his hand, still looking at him. “Since you want him alive. Your new American friend.”

He got on the tram at Beyazit, preoccupied. It’s something to think about. Shooting at Jianu, shooting at him. How long had Tommy been someone else? But how do you prove it? Make one thing lead to another, like the stations on the map over the door. Next to him two women in robes and headscarves were talking to each other, as cut off from the rest of the car as if they were still in the harem, the men barely noticing, staring out the windows, stubble and bushy moustaches. Not Europe. Outside, the old city jerked past. The Blue Mosque. The Hippodrome. Chariot races a thousand years ago. Old enough to have seen everything, Alexei’s Iron Guard a modern version of an old story, infants impaled, blood smeared over doorways,
bodies flung into the Golden Horn, staining the water. Everything. Not what Anna had seen, clutching her guidebook. The Iznik tiles. The delicate carvings on the
minbar
. A city of wonders to her, not the other one, no longer surprised by anything.

At Topkapi, a group of sailors fresh off the seraglio tour crowded into the car, and Leon had to turn, facing the back. At first there were just the same anonymous faces, then he felt a prickling on his skin. Someone he knew. Head down, reading a Turkish newspaper, the same man who’d come out of Marina’s building. A coincidence? When had he got on—before Leon? with Leon? So good Leon hadn’t noticed. Still not looking up from his paper.

Leon turned back. Or was it just his imagination, jumpy about everything now. A public tram, a man Marina said she didn’t know. Don’t turn to look again. The car was heading down the hill into the swirl of Sirkeci. He had begun to sweat.

When the doors opened, the crowd pushed in. For a second he felt out of breath, as if they had taken all the air out of the car. The buzzer rang. He held back, waiting, then plunged through the door just as it was closing. Don’t look back. A face at the window. Or maybe not. Something he’d never know. Keep moving. He took a gulp of air, heavy with diesel fumes and charcoal smoke, and headed over to the Eminönü piers. Out on the water you could think. Follow the logic, one thing leading to another. Tommy had used someone outside.

He took the ferry to Üsküdar, sitting in the open back of the boat with a glass of tea, something warm, his coat pulled tight. He went over it all again, each move like a step into open space with nothing to break the fall. He glanced over at the birds, circling, and tried to fix on landmarks, Galata Tower, the shipping offices in Karaköy, but they seemed insubstantial too, just something to graze with your fingers as you fell past. In over your head, a phrase he could actually picture now. Where Tommy had wanted him to be. Grab onto that, follow it.

Someone must still be expecting Alexei. There had been people
in Bucharest, the fishing boat. Only Tommy’s link had broken. And now they’d come looking. But not for Leon, not yet. It was the trap that folded in on itself: the minute he went to someone about Alexei he was putting himself on the pier. And Mihai. He watched the boat crunch against the rubber tire buffers on the dock, the gangplanks being slid into place. Everybody in one another’s hands.

He changed boats for Beşiktaş, looking at people, half expecting to see the man from the train. Two places, a coincidence? But there were only clumps of men in woolen peacoats, smoking, indifferent. Didn’t anything show in his face? A man dead. When they landed, he stood on the pier for a minute, at a loss. Commuters brushed past him as if he weren’t there, like the police at the consulate. Nobody knew. Go back to the office. Everything normal. But nothing was normal.

Anna was sitting in a chair, and she lifted her head when he came in. She was aware of physical activity, knew when she was being dressed, helped into clothes, even though her face showed no expression. When he leaned down to kiss her forehead she didn’t flinch, simply accepted it.

“Something’s happened,” he said, then hesitated. Too abrupt. “Are you warm enough?” he said, fidgeting. The nurse had opened the French windows, letting in a crack of air. He put a shawl around her shoulders. “I was thinking about you on the ferry. How you love the water.” But he hadn’t been. Her eyes stayed fixed on the garden. Just say it. “Tommy King’s dead. Shot. In a robbery, they think—”

He stopped and sank into the other chair, falling again.

“Am I doing that? With you? It wasn’t a robbery.” And then he couldn’t say anything more, not out loud. Instead he followed her gaze to the garden, the patch of sun on the bare Judas tree. “I was there,” he said softly. “He tried to kill a man we’re bringing out. He tried to kill me.”

Anna stared ahead, not moving.

“There wasn’t anything I could do. I had to.” Still not finishing it. “It didn’t feel like anything. Not at the time. It’s only later you— But
I can’t explain what happened, to anybody, until I get him out, the man we’re moving.” He took a breath, looking away from her. “And I don’t know if I can do it. Tommy was supposed to—” He stopped. “And then there he was, with a gun.”

He heard her question in his head and nodded.

“I’ve been going over it. All night. It has to be. Why else would Tommy have to kill him? I keep coming back to that. Why he’d have to. But think what it means. Tommy. It turns everything upside down. All these years working for— Christ. I worked for him. How long was he—”

He stopped talking, the two of them sitting in silence.

“Nothing was supposed to happen. Just a babysitting job. And now I’ve got him. He’ll be killed if I—” He looked down. “A man who would have killed you. Not even thinking twice.”

He got up and walked over to the French window, careful not to step into her line of sight. A bed of late asters near the wall.

“But if I don’t help him, the Turks’ll get involved. Then it’s murder. And Mihai—” He let the thought drift, his eyes following a bird fluttering between branches. “You know what I was thinking before? If I can do this, deliver him—it’s the kind of thing people notice. In Washington. It would be a chance to show them I could—” He stopped. “And then I thought, maybe it would have been better if Tommy had got him. They’d both be gone. Nothing to explain. Easier if he were dead too. And what kind of person thinks that? What kind of person.”