The Red Room

by Ridley Pearson

  “He’s on phone,” Besim says in her left ear.

  “Joy!” Grace says to Xin, whose typically quiet face registers a thrill. “That’s the one we want.”

  “Got it.”

  “Off phone.”

  She mutes the video. “Thank you, Besim. That’s all for the night. But please, don’t leave for at least another thirty minutes. I will tell you when.”

  “As you wish.”

  She will turn off the apartment light before allowing Besim to drive off. She wants as little connection to the wrong number as possible.

  Back with Xin, she says, “I need all calls, text messages and web access to and from that number over the past ten days to two weeks.”

  “It will take a few hours. Likely a lot of data. I will post here. You can access it once I post. I will let you know.”

  “Give me the GPS data as well.”

  “Copy.” Xin ends the video call.

  Grace is left with nothing on her computer screen but her wallpaper photo of a dog and cat curled together at the foot of a wingback chair. They’re not hers. She has no pets. No wingback chairs.

  She isn’t who she pretends to be. She isn’t who she is.

  As bad as that makes her feel, she feels damn good.

  14

  Nee-hao.” Knox speaks over the phone’s earbud wire to retain his peripheral vision. His feet are tired, his belly empty; he’s back down the hill in Jabal, the nearest thing Amman has to a historic district. With each conquering army, one civilization has replaced the next, going back millennia. While the Jabal neighborhood is arguably also the most modern, these contemporary edifices are built cheek-to-jowl alongside ancient ruins. It’s a human stew of body odor, food scents and fossil fuel. Livelihoods are made on the streets, other lives are lost on the streets, and still others repair the streets.

  Now they are teeming in the evening hour.

  “Nee-hao,” Grace answers.

  “Can you change a FedEx delivery address for me?” He speaks Shanghainese, a specific dialect of Mandarin. Of all the words, only “FedEx” is in English. It stands out like a black sheep.

  “Are you sender or recipient?”

  “Recipient.”

  “Must be sender.” Grace’s tone is deliberate, professional.

  “Electronically? Can you hack it?”

  “I could check with Data Services, see if we have that capability. I would guess it would come down to timing.”

  “Immediately.”

  “No. I would think not.”

  He hesitates. Victoria turned him in to the police, who will have located the shipment using her address as the point of origin. He’s counting on FedEx being so fast that the Harmodius is already in the air, or perhaps landed in Istanbul. The trick is to move it while the Jordanians debate how much to share with the Turks, and if they come to terms, the Turks set up surveillance to trap the recipient—Knox. Given the bureaucratic tangle likely to ensue, he can’t see either side anticipating the delivery location changing; it’s his one chance to steal the piece back before they seize it. And him.

  Grace informs him that the sender can change the delivery address for a small fee.

  “Can you impersonate the sender?”

  “I am no expert on this. I would imagine there are safeguards. The sender must call from the phone number listed on the air bill. Something like this.”

  “Shit.” Knox put Victoria Momani’s number on the air bill.

  No names. No small talk. No locations. He and Grace haven’t spoken in several months. He likes hearing her voice. It’s an unexpected reaction.

  He ends the call, knowing no offense will be taken.

  —

  FROM A SECOND-STORY stairwell window across the street, Knox keeps watch on the cars—mostly European subcompacts—and pedestrians outside the apartment building across the street. It’s a residential area with no cafés or coffeehouses or galleries to hide in. It’s going on one A.M., yet swarms of youth and pairs of both men and women fill the sidewalks. Oddly, there are few couples over thirty seen together; the Jordanians in this neighborhood separate by gender when out for the evening.

  Knox takes note of every twitch of every tree leaf. Nothing escapes his eye. He spots no solo surveillance, though the complexities of spotting team surveillance that combines mobile and pedestrian remains. He gives himself an extra twenty minutes to make damn sure. The success of the op depends on the next hour. If the Obama bust is studied in depth by Jordanian authorities, if it should end up confiscated, Dulwich’s plan is compromised.

  He wraps a white scarf bought from a street vendor in an open-air market around his head to fashion a turban. Angles his chin low as he descends the stairs and crosses the street. Enters the apartment building and climbs to the second floor.

  Knocks. Waits. Knocks again.

  Victoria Momani opens the door. She wears a large scarf like a robe. “Go away,” she says. “I was asleep.”

  “It can’t wait.”

  “You have been hurt.”

  Knox hasn’t gotten to a mirror. The scuffle in the van, he assumes. “It’s been a busy evening.”

  She checks the hall before she admits him. Once the door is shut: “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Regularly.”

  “I could be watched.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Who are you?” She waits. “I knew you people would not stop.”

  “Stop what, Victoria? I told you: you got me wrong the first time. I am as I represented,” he says, still weighing his options. “Why else would you have let me in? You believe me. That’s important to me. To us both.” If only Grace were here, he thinks. She could make this smoother. “But let’s stay here for a moment: who do you think I am? What have these people done?”

  She appraises him. Shakes her head.

  “‘You people,’” he repeats to her. “Organized crime?”

  She is incensed by the suggestion.

  “Police? Special police?” he asks.

  His ignorance is winning her over. Her second evaluation of him is more forgiving.

  “Are you police?”

  She coughs up laughter. Doesn’t know what to do with him.

  “Innocent bystander,” he says. Her eyes go glassy, contradicting her outward confidence. He’s a dentist with a pick.

  “I need a favor,” he says.

  “Because we are such old friends.”

  “What caused the split with Akram?”

  Impressively, she manages to keep her obvious emotion from her voice. “It is not yours to consider.”

  “His brother,” Knox says. “Mashe.”

  It is as if all the air is let out of her. As she contracts, she finds a chair to sit upon while she coils inward. “I knew it.”

  “I am neither what nor who you think. I am, in fact, as I told you, a merchant. But I am helping others, as I know you would, were you able.” He stares her down; he’s reached her.

  “You think me so gullible?”

  “I think you’ve been hurt. Lied to, more than likely.”

  “And you are the great purveyor of truth.”

  Her command of English suggests he should avoid talking down to her. He regroups.

  “I fashion the truth as needed,” he says. “I lie about another’s beauty, my own politics, my vices. But not about this.” Having little to no idea of what he speaks, he says, “Mashe Okle is trouble. He can be stopped. I am offering you that chance. The crate contains a piece of legitimate art. I promise you that. But, believe it or not, it’s important to my effort. I do not work for any government or police. I am a merchant enlisted by others—neither government nor police, nor any kind of criminal effort—to help expose the man for what he is. By now the Jordanians have alerted the Turks to monitor my packag
e when and where it is delivered in Istanbul.”

  “I do not believe you. It is a bomb. Something like this. I will not hurt Akram or have him involved in hurting Mashe, no matter what I think of the man. I will not be part of this.”

  “It is not any kind of weapon or device, nor can it be used to make a weapon or a device. It is as I said.” He considers her. “Very well.”

  He makes for the door, a gamble that causes each stride to seem artificially long and slow. Has he judged her incorrectly? Since when?

  “Wait!”

  He works to hide the smirk. Successful, he turns.

  “A phone call is all. One phone call,” he says.

  15

  Standing in Sisli Square, Grace can understand why a person would return to this place multiple times. Worn like a cocked cap, morning sunlight the color of candle flame catches the top of the minaret. There are more pigeons than people, more cars than pigeons. The mosque’s three gray-roofed domes rise above the rectangular entrance wall, trees lurching up from within an unseen courtyard. It’s all in the middle of a bustling neighborhood awaking for the day.

  She’s arrived early, having sneaked out of the apartment and snagged a cab, leaving Besim to sip his morning tea out front for the sake of anyone watching.

  There is an answer here, some reason the man following her has repeatedly visited the square. She watches for it, expects it. Awaits its jumping out at her. This added depth of knowledge is exactly what Dulwich will treasure: not just the fact that she’s being surveilled, but by whom and possibly why.

  Dulwich has failed to answer calls she’s made from one of several anonymous pay-as-you-call SIM chips she carries. He had warned her that she and Knox would be on their own. Nonetheless she holds out hope she’ll hear from him. She has provided him this place and time. She waits, and then spins once, slowly, holding her head scarf in place.

  It reminds her of a Parisian avenue but with Turkish spices in the air and overseen by a towering minaret. Sisli was countryside in the late nineteenth century, transformed into a residential neighborhood at the end of the Ottoman Empire in the early years of the Turkish Republic, when French culture was au courant—wide avenues edged with wrought-iron balconies. It was an area of trade, soon taken over by Greek and Balkan immigrants. There isn’t a parking space to be had. The streets and even the newer buildings seem poised to be pushed over by the crush of pedestrians.

  On her iPhone, she once again reads the data pertinent to Sisli Square. The man she and Besim identified as watching her the night before, the man from the airport, visited this place four times in three days. His phone’s GPS data reveals that he’s been in Istanbul but six days. Other than a discount hotel across town, this is the only place he has frequented.

  Why? Beauty alone cannot account for it. Given that each visit was between four and five o’clock, it’s possible he performed afternoon prayers at this mosque, but it’s unlikely given the absence of any other repeated visit in the city. Grace decides to return at that hour if possible.

  Her phone vibrates; the caller is listed as “Hopper 1.” Dulwich. The “hopper” designation assures her that the line is secure; Grace checks around her to ensure the area is as well. That’s when she sees him, sitting on a bench in the shade closer to the mosque, his back to the avenue.

  “So?” Dulwich says.

  “My apartment is being watched.”

  “Then you were careless.”

  “The GPS data from this man’s phone reveals a pay-as-you-go SIM chip initiated six days ago,” Grace says.

  “You have tracked his phone?”

  She thrills at the sound of his voice: shock and awe. “He has since visited this place where I sit four times in the past three days.” Grace waits. “Hello?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “A policeman, perhaps agent, is most likely to use a pay-as-you-go SIM chip like this. Same way we do. Let us assume, therefore, that this man arrived in-country six days ago. He buys the pay-as-you-go and sets up his phone. From what country he comes, we don’t know. You received my text, yes? This man had access to the airport’s security room. He tagged the mark upon landing. Access to Turkish security. I later identify a similarly dressed man watching the mark’s residence. Could be same agent. He was paired.”

  “And is that the same—”

  “Unlikely, no. The mobile unit surveilling my apartment was a solo. Who are all these people, sir? It is a crowded field.” Grace takes in her present surroundings of pigeons, pedestrians with white iPhone wires hanging from their ears and a sea of colorful scarves.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Dulwich says. “What you’re seeing is likely protection. The mark is an important man.”

  It’s her turn to be unintentionally quiet. Wouldn’t worry? Since when? She collects more data from Dulwich’s body language than the conversation. His posture has tightened with her every revelation.

  Grace says, “So why would a man protecting the mark spend extended time on a bench in front of a mosque three out of the six days he has been in-country?”

  “He’s religious? Do we care?” Dulwich doesn’t have to try to sound offensive.

  Red flag. A rule of the game is to know more about your adversary than he knows about you. “I am not comfortable with such surprises. Such unknowns.”

  “You understand the op?”

  He’s insulting her. She regrets bringing him in without more information. He doesn’t want to be offered half a meal. She accepts the mistake as a learning moment. It’s all or nothing; he doesn’t appreciate being teased.

  “Understood,” she says.

  “Well, then . . .” Dulwich stands and puts his phone away, offers his back and is swallowed by the tumult a few seconds later.

  16

  What the hell?” Knox sits by himself in a waiting lounge in Queen Alia International Airport. A white wire runs to his left ear; his right remains unplugged so he can overhear the activity in the terminal. He keeps his hand over his mouth to prevent lip reading. He makes the seat look small, like an adult in a preschool parent-teacher conference.

  “That would depend,” Dulwich says.

  The line is secure. But Knox is in public, so he will dance around specifics.

  “If we’d wanted help, we’d have asked for it.”

  “Elaborate.”

  “I was followed. Lost a step. Right when the guy could have cold-cocked me, he walks. What’s with that?”

  Dulwich tells Knox more than he intends with his silence. This is new information; the man was not his.

  “We may lose the . . . trophy,” Knox says.

  “You had better not.”

  “My lady friend is helping with that.”

  “Your lady friend and I had a chat earlier.”

  “Bully for you. I’m beginning to think we could use a couple boys from the old team.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Because?”

  “It’s an in-and-out. Don’t overcomplicate it.”

  “You said I’d be lying in bed with my feet up watching pay-per-view. That isn’t happening.”

  “So complain to HR.”

  “You said you and I wouldn’t have contact—that you don’t exist.”

  Dulwich teases him by leaving only silence on the line.

  “Friendlies? Is that why he walked?”

  “Don’t overcomplicate it,” Dulwich repeats.

  “It’s doing that by itself. Six months ago, Obama convinces Netanyahu to apologize to the Turkish prime minister for Israeli commandos killing ten Turkish protesters attempting to cross the Gaza blockade. Relations between Israel and Turkey immediately thaw; embassies are reopened. Now, wouldn’t you know, Rutherford Risk has an op in Turkey—complete with a priceless piece of art being given away for nothing and spooks that appear out of dust s
torms and then vanish. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.”

  “You’re hallucinating. These are small speed bumps. They happen—especially early on. It’ll sort itself out. Don’t go all double-oh-seven on me.”

  “If I’m being shadowed by a bunch of spooks, I could use a heads-up.”

  “So here’s your heads-up: it’s not a can-do, it’s a must-do. That’s why the paycheck is so big. Ask fewer questions, keep your fists in your pockets, and it’ll sort itself out.”

  “He followed me through a sandstorm.”

  “I read about that. Sounded nasty.”

  “Who does that? Who goes out in a sandstorm?”

  “You, apparently.”

  “Now you’re just being rude.”

  “Yeah, funny how that feels on the receiving end.”

  Knox ends the call unceremoniously. His blood pressure lessens. He trusts Sarge with his life, yet he wouldn’t trust him to walk his dog if he had one. Knows he would never be wholly lied to by the man, but isn’t sure he ever gets the truth.

  This operation has started poorly. He’d like to blame it all on the sandstorm. Takes it as an omen. Knox thinks of Tommy back in Michigan, and there’s a nagging ache in his chest telling him to abort. He worries he’s working for the department of defense, Rutherford Risk’s biggest client. Dulwich’s emphasis on importance has Knox convinced a government is behind the op.

  But there are so many governments, and Rutherford Risk isn’t particular. Government work gets people killed. That’s why it’s contracted out. Knox has wandered off-trail in search of an extravagant paycheck, knowing all along there’s no philanthropy in his line of work. He’s being overpaid for a reason. Five minutes in the room with the mark, Dulwich said. He made it sound so small, but five minutes can be an eternity.

  Knox’s flight is called. He has eyes in the back of his head as he boards.

  —

  EVERY STUDENT of history should start with a school trip to Istanbul, Knox thinks. It’s the Kevin Bacon of history—everything’s connected. Throw a rock; dig a hole and try to miss. Turkey’s significance over three thousand years of Western civilization cannot be overstated. Knox is no academic, but his import business and knowledge of art history have given him a crash course in Western and Eastern civilization, an unintended consequence he appreciates, even cultivates. Spends far more time in museums now than he did a few years ago. Beds down with books he’d be embarrassed to be caught reading.