by Gregg Loomis
Although he couldn't see them, he would bet several other agents were serving as dinner for gnats and mosquitoes in the surrounding woods where they could survey the house from different perspectives.
He turned, took Manfred by the hand and started back. The fact the feds would predictably keep Larry's farm under surveillance, at least for a while, was the reason he had asked Gurt to propose staying there to Darleen. That and the hope the people who wanted him dead wouldn't guess he would return to the place they had nearly killed him earlier.
Or, at least, it would take time before they did.
He had picked up a two-man tail upon his arrival at the Atlanta airport. He had made no effort to keep them from hearing the directions he gave the cabbie before climbing into the backseat.
The cab got lost twice largely due to the driver's unfamiliarity with the city's streets and inability to understand Lang's directions. He could only imagine the growing frustration of his minders as the hack turned and doubled back several times in what must have seemed a random pattern.
He had been grateful when the taxi had made it to Francis's church downtown. The following Chevy parked across the street before Lang could get out.
After paying the fare, he had entered the church, walked through to the rectory and then to Francis's bedroom. There he found the Browning he had concealed before departing for Rome. He helped himself to the key to the aging Toyota the diocese provided his friend and exited to the garage behind the church.
The Chevy had still been parked as he drove away in the anonymous Toyota.
He could only hope Gurt had shaken whatever tail might have been assigned to her.
The next morning he had rented a car and driven to Macon. On the way, he stopped in Barnesville, the county seat, and made arrangements to rent office space from a law school acquaintance. He was now a country lawyer with a single client.
His thoughts returning to the present, he walked back to the house. He listened with half an ear to his son's chatter, mostly soliciting assurances that a fishing expedition to the pond was on tomorrow's agenda. Making only the vaguest of promises, Lang examined what few facts he had.
There was something in the Gospel of James that someone very much wanted suppressed, wanted enough to kill anybody who might reveal it. His only lead to who that someone might be was the gospel itself. The longer he waited to get it translated, the greater the possibility his mysterious assailants would find him. Worse, the greater the chance they would find his son.
But where to get the documents put into readable form? A search had shown no more than a handful of universities listed someone knowledgeable in Coptic Greek. As a consequence, any trip to one of these schools would be both obvious and transparent. He didn't want some unknown professor to be the next victim.
Reaching into a pocket, he produced his BlackBerry and called up a schedule of foundation travel for the next two weeks. He scanned past the usual European and South American destinations. Damascus, Karachi, Istanbul.
Istanbul What did he recall about Istanbul?
That it was, had been, the place whose Orthodox patriarch had sent Father Strentenoplis to Rome. There had been, Lang vaguely remembered, patriarchs in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire. But today? He started to call Francis before realizing the priest would be somewhere between Rome and Atlanta at the moment. Instead, he took the device in both hands, using thumbs to enter an e-mail to Sara.
An hour later, he lay in the four-poster beside Gurt. Her restlessness told him she was not asleep.
"You sure Darleen doesn't mind us camping out with her?" he asked.
"She will have disappointment when we leave. Correction, she will have disappointment when Manfred leaves."
Superficially, Lang found it perfectly understandable that anyone would be delighted to have the little boy around. Realistically, he found it difficult to accept that a middle-aged woman would want a small child underfoot.
As if reading his mind, something she did with disturbing regularity, Gurt rolled over to face him. "With her husband in jail, she is quite happy to have company. She has not been alone since she was seventeen. It has been a long time since she had a child in the house."
Perhaps Lang had underestimated the maternal instinct.
By the dim light from under the door, he could see Gurt's outline resting her elbow on the bed, her head in her hand. "She would be happy to keep him here..."
The slow curveball.
"... so I may help you find those who would harm his father."
The fast break, down and away.
"Are you sure that's smart, leaving a three-year-old with a woman you hardly know?"
Gurt took a moment, composing an answer. "We talk, Darleen and I. She is a good woman. She was not, I would know it. Besides, did you not say there are federal agents nearby?"
"US Marshals, I'd guess. But they're not here to guard Manfred."
Gurt moved her arm, placing her head on the pillow. "How long would we be gone?"
Lang noted the plural Gurt had already made the decision that his son would be fine in Darleen's care. He let it pass. "I'm not sure. I'll know more tomorrow. I've got a doctor's appointment and I'll drop by the office. Between Sara and Francis, I should have some idea then."
Long after her regular breathing told him Gurt was asleep, Lang wondered how she could be so certain his son would be fine left with Darleen. His only consolation was that the child's mother had done without his input for the last three years. That thought was less than comforting for more than one reason.
IV.
Buyukada
Princes' Islands
Sea of Marmara
Turkey
A Week Later
The call of the muezzin from the balconies of a dozen minarets were clearly audible across the water even though the mosques themselves were no more than needles against the silhouette of the shrinking Anatolian shoreline. The electronic enhancement of the five-times-a-day summons to prayer had increased their range if done little to give the flesh-creeping wails any melodic quality.
From his position at the stern of the ferry, Lang had watched as the ship passed Seraglio Point with its Topkapi Palace, home of the Ottoman sultans. And what a view those rulers of the near east for four and half centuries had enjoyed: the mouth of the Golden Horn to the Bosphorus, separating Europe from Asia. One city, two continents. Idly, he noted a Russian supertanker, high in the water as it made its way north back to the oil fields of the Black Sea.
He recalled the international friction these crafts had caused for years. The Russians, unwilling to hire a local pilot, would not suffer the oil spill resulting from one of the ships going aground less than a mile from Turkish shores on either side.
The foundation's Gulfstream had deposited Gurt and Lang at the customs house behind the main terminal at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, where they had purchased visas for sixty dollars (euro or New Turkish lira would have been equally acceptable) and been welcomed to Turkey. As anticipated, there had been no customs. Both Lang and Gurt's weapons were available if needed and the copy of the Book of James was inside his shirt. A taxi, equally ambivalent as to currency, had taken them to Karakoy, the swarming anthill of piers from which ferries departed. Travel by water was Istanbul's preference when possible, avoiding the crowded streets and confining alleyways. Lang had noticed about half the women covered their heads; half of those with gaily colored scarfs, others with the full-length, long-sleeved black dress, their heads and faces covered by the traditional burka from which only the eyes were visible.
"Roaches!" Gurt had hissed, making no effort to conceal her scorn for women submitting to a male-dominated society.
Turkey was about 90 percent Islamic, mostly Sunni. Its constitution, however, mandated a secular government, freedom of religion and abolishing the fez and other religious dress in its universities. It was the only Islamic democracy in the world. This was beginning to slip, bit
by bit. The country's new president, devoutly religious—
A tug at his sleeve. "Come see!"
Lang followed Gurt to the bow section just as the ship's whistle announced its arrival. Lang saw white two- and three-story buildings ringing a small harbor sheltering hundreds of small boats, a number of them scooting across the sapphire surface like so many bugs. Towering over the activity were green hills with houses stacked along the edges like merchandise on store shelves.
"I don't see any cars," Lang said.
"Motor vehicles are forbidden," Gurt replied. "Other than police or garbage trucks."
Gurt had read the guidebook. Or she had been here before in her past life during the bad old days of the Cold War on some mission neither of them was eager to discuss. This was Lang's first visit to the former capital of the eastern Roman, Byzantine, then Ottoman empires. These islands took their name, Princes', from the fact that the sixth-century emperor, Justin II, had built a palace here. Later, the scattered monasteries served as a place of banishment for overly ambitious members of the royal family or public officials, frequently in addition to blinding, slicing off a nose, having the tongue cut out or castration.
The Byzantines knew how to ensure neither a person nor his potential heirs would ever become troublesome again.
With the advent of steamboat service from the mainland in the late nineteenth century, the islands' beaches and wooded hills became popular resorts as well as home to a number of expatriates such as Leon Trotsky.
Lang noted a number of horse-drawn phaetons obviously waiting for the ship to dock. Bicycles zipped in and out of both equestrian and pedestrian traffic.
"Hope there's one of those carriages left for us," he said, turning to follow the stream of disembarking passengers.
"A bicycle would do you more good," Gurt teased.
Lang took her hand, leading her between a group of giggling high-school-age girls, none of whom wore scarfs. "Some other time when I have a few less broken bones."
"Perhaps a horse?"
"I try to avoid anything that is both bigger and dumber than I am."
As they stepped off the gangplank, Lang inhaled a potpourri of odors: coffee and baking bread, frying olive oil mixed with the pungent smell of horse dung, all blended with a trace of freshly cooked sweets. He and Gurt were standing in a village of shops, restaurants, small inns and businesses the purpose of which was unclear to anyone who did not read Turkish. Outdoor lokanta, cafés, were filled with customers sipping sweet apple tea from small, hourglass-shaped glasses. The mood, both of those just disembarked and those already there, was one of a holiday. Everyone seemed to be speaking at once.
He could have been standing in the center of a number of beach resorts worldwide.
Suitcase in one hand, Gurt's hand in the other, he shouldered his way through good-natured vacationers to where a pair of well-fed horses were harnessed to one of the carriages. The driver, dressed in jeans and golf shirt, held a sign with Lang's name on it.
Francis, who had arranged the visit to their destination, had thought of everything.
"Monastery of St. George?" Lang asked.
The driver nodded and said something in Turkish, gesturing they should climb in. Lang knew better than to attempt to assist Gurt aboard. She resented any effort, no matter how courtly, that suggested she, as a female, was due any treatment not owed to a man.
Without any perceptible signal from the driver, the horses trotted through the town's streets, hooves playing a syncopated rhythm against the pavement. With no change of pace, the coach began a climb up the hills. Absent vehicular traffic, the road could have been a highway from another century. Large villas shared ocean views with smaller cottages and a few hovels that had not seen paint nor repair for ages. Even these were draped with purple and blue bougainvillea.
At each dip or hollow, the driver applied a protesting brake handle to keep the speed at a manageable level.
They reached the crest, a narrow ridge dropping almost straight down on either side. The view was as spectacular as it was unobstructed. In the distance, the Turkish mainland was only a suggestion in purple. Other islands were set like emeralds in a placid ocean. Lang was so enchanted with the scenery, he hardly noticed an increase of breeze on his face. A squeeze of his hand brought him back to his surroundings. The phaeton was headed downhill fast enough to make him uncomfortable and the body of the thing was swaying dangerously, leaning first one way toward the deep valley on the right and jagged rocks lining the coast hundreds of feet below to the left.
Local custom or were they riding with a madman?
He leaned forward to speak to the driver.
Before he could say a word, the man bent over. With a grunt, he snatched loose a pin and the wagon's tongue and horses were gone, a blur as the carriage careened past. Then the driver hurled himself onto the only grassy shoulder Lang could see and rolled to a stop. Lang saw or imagined a smile on his face.
There was no other place to jump without a fall of hundreds of feet.
It was clear the rig was not going to make the next turn where the road disappeared around a stand of trees.
As happens when events move too fast to comprehend, Lang's mind went into slow motion.
The brake handle loomed before him.
Hand on the back of the driver's seat, Lang leaned forward. He couldn't reach the handle.
The bend in the road was rushing toward him, a giant mouth open to devour the carriage and its passengers. The speed increased, slow motion notwithstanding.
Seeing what he was trying to do, Gurt grabbed him by the belt, allowing him to fully extend.
His fingers brushed the wooden handle. Leaning as far as he could, he still could not close his hand around it.
Just ahead, the pavement ended in open space.
V.
Buyukada
A Few Minutes Earlier
Emniyet Polis Inspector Mustafa Aziz stood behind his desk and tried to calm the man down long enough to understand what he was saying. Something about being bound, gagged and hidden in the woods just off the road after he had been forced from the phaeton he drove for a living. He had picked up the fare, supposedly to take him to one of the island's beaches, and then been forced at knifepoint to surrender his rig.
Obviously, something was missing. In the first place, why would someone be stupid enough to steal horses and carriage on a small island where search and detection would be all but certain? Second, the man had not been robbed of his money, little enough to make robbery an unlikely motive. Third, crime on the island consisted almost entirely of pickpockets, small-time theft and an occasional burglary.
He winced at the last part. The dearth of crime was why he would serve his last few years before retirement in this political backwater, guarding tourists and vacationers against purse snatchers. A beautiful place to work but hardly a place he could regain the reputation he had once enjoyed.
There had been a time when the young Aziz had a career as full of promise as a fruit tree in bloom. Then there had been what he mentally referred to as the Mohammad Sadberk Affair.
Sadberk had been prominent in Turkish politics, distinguished enough that not only Aziz's emnit polist, security police, were alerted when his wife reported him missing but the Yunis, Dolphin, rapid-reaction force as well. The politician had reputedly been on a fact-finding excursion to southeastern Turkey and there was reason to fear Kurdish rebels had taken him hostage. Stellar police work, a tip deemed fortunate at the time and plain luck led young inspector Aziz to a shabby resort on Turkey's southern coast.
Certain of fame and promotion, Aziz had not paused to consider the improbability of Kurds, or any other terrorists, choosing a hideout in an area favored by European tourists on all-inclusive, hundred-euro-a-day beach vacations, particularly since retreat by the suspected abductors across the Iraq border at the other end of the country would all but have guaranteed the end of pursuit.
Instead, Aziz had assembled a sizable
force of police to surround the small inn a few streets back from the beach. He had not forgotten to include members of the press to record what would certainly be the turning point of his profession as a policeman.
And indeed it was.
Kevlar-clad Yunis smashed through a door as the cameras rolled. Their focus was on Sadberk, lipsticked and clad only in the finest French lace panties, and his companion, a young boy.
Although the Turks wink at a number of the Koran's prohibitions, homosexuality is not greeted with the same secular blind eye as, say, alcohol. Sadberk was politically ruined and his powerful friends outraged at what they viewed as an overzealous investigation to ruin a man who, like Aziz, had had a bright future.
The inspector had been transferred to turizm polist, tourist police, where his main duties had been to sit in the Sultanahmet district office in view of both the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, writing endless reports of lost or stolen cameras, wallets and passports. Even this had apparently not been enough for Sadberk's cronies. A year later, Aziz was exiled to Buyukada as though he had offended some Byzantine emperor.
Exiled or not, he intended to do his duty even if all that was involved was a pair of horses and a carriage, more likely borrowed than stolen. But first he had to calm the driver into coherence.
One again, the distraught man went through his story: a passenger had taken his rig at knifepoint. No, he had never seen the man before. In fact, the robber appeared foreign.
Aziz ran the tip of his index finger across his mustache. "Foreign? How?"
"He didn't speak at all, just gestured. He just didn't look like a Turk to me."
"Well, what did he look like?"
The driver shrugged as though saying it was the duty of the police to know such things. "Just under two meters, dark hair, brown eyes. Heavy, perhaps a hundred or more kilograms."
In other words, almost any adult male on the island.
"Did you get any idea where he was going?"
The man shook his head, bewildered. "On a small island?"
This time Aziz's hand went to his bald head. "No, no. Where on the island?"