But their methods had grown increasingly suspect in his estimation. Even now, Kabil smiled and reached across the table to shake this foreigner s hand: a business transaction completed. Not an uncommon occurrence in this lobby, excepting the commodity in question.
"So, Duman," Kabil said, once the foreigner had left. "When did you say you'd have the bus ready?"
Kemal pressed his lips together, smothering objection. Kabil had slipped that part of the deal past him when he'd allowed his imagination to . . . wander. He'd subsequently resisted the statue's haunting presence, but by then, it had been too late, the transfer arrangements made. Besides, if they were caught, losing his job would be the least of his worries.
"Eight-thirty, no later. And wear light clothes: it'll get hot in there. We can change into the blacks later."
"I still don't like this," Mart whined. But then, Mart whined every time he opened his mouth. "I don't want to spend all morning in a baggage—"
A soft thud from beneath the table. Mart cursed and glared at Kabil, but he shut up.
"Well, we'd best get going. Tomorrow morning, then." Kabil rose, the others followed suit. "Cover it, will you, Duman?"
And they were gone before Kemal could object.
"Damned upstart."
"Who's that, darling?—Why, those scum! They've left the poor child with the tab. He looks positively ill. —Who's an upstart, darling?"
"Tek. Thinks he's so important. Look at this."
He slapped the paper down on her plate. She stifled complaint—this being a class hotel—and obligingly inspected the article on the "New Look of War."
Good PR—that's all. I tell you, Diana, he only fights the wars. I make them."
"Yes, darling, I'm sure you do." Having made desperate peace with the waitress, (who surreptitiously slipped a bill in to cover the balance—curious behavior in a waitress, but this one was Kemal's special friend), the kid was leaving. "—Oh, my, such a view."
As the painted-on slacks passed their table, she blew a gentle breeze into his ear—
He stopped abruptly, rubbing his ear.
—and with a second breeze, she wafted a fifty into his back pocket, carefully smoothing the fabric afterward so as not to disrupt the pleasing line, all without removing her hands from the table.
He jumped. She met his eyes and smiled. He blinked and bowed politely, his dark eyes flicking to her hands folded demurely on the table, blinked again and moved quickly (from his mortal viewpoint) out of range.
She chuckled and let him go. "Oh, he is sweet."
"He was had, you know." Mammon was back behind his paper.
"Who's that, darling?"
Mammon's hand waved vaguely in the direction of the; momentarily empty table. "Shouldn't have gone over seven per, US."
Mammon insisted these days on using the New World currency, convinced it was the way of the future market; Diana didn't bother figuring the exchange. This began to sound as if Mammon knew more about her newest conquest's business than she did. And if it affected Kemal's future, she wanted to know it, too.
She double-checked the numinous disruption wall that turned their voices into white background noise Even for the nearest mortal ears, then aslced:
"Seven per for what, darling?"
"Guns. No overhead. Bulk quantities. Hell, I made it easy for the bastard to get them out of Israel in the first place. —If this is any indication of the next aeration's business sense, I'm sure I don't know what the world is coming to. Appalling, I say."
Diana didn't bother reminding him he knew exactly what the world was coming to—or could, if checking out specific Futures didn't take all the fun out of living the moment's Possibilities.
"Which 'bastard'?"
"The 'banker,' naturally."
"Banker? You mean Yellow-hair?"
A grunt from behind the paper. "Deals contraband. Front man. Arms, mostly. His newest commodity is a rather lovely lot of fresh-from-the-factory Uzis."
"Uzis?" Such names these boys came up with.
"New version of the Israeli automatic. I suspect that's the shipment your boy's friends are after. Funny, I figured he'd go for Korudan's crowd in Greece. They're much better organized, ready to make their move on the Junta—and these guns could have tipped the balance. But they were too canny this time. Kabil paid too much, but he'll get the guns."
"What did you mean, you made it easy? What did you do?"
"Nothing much. Just a little temptation. A single truck can carry a lot of these little suckers. Slip the necessary clue to the Banker, run the transport truck out of gas at the properly isolated point, tweak the driver's greed at the right instant. Voila." He took a sip of coffee, never taking his eyes from the paper. "All in the timing. But the banker had deeper laid plans than I gave him credit for. This Kabil is so delightfully ignorant—very easy to influence him."
She frowned at the paper. 'Influence? Kabil? Just now?"
The paper slipped until she could just see Mammon's face. "He s terribly anxious to take over Turkey, lock, stock and barrel. And he's so delightfully certain of his own power. He can't possibly succeed, of course, but that unforgivable price he just paid will generate flux in the world black market, open new avenues for those who seek wealth and power." He smiled tightly. "My kind of people."
"Which? The Banker? Or Kabil?"
The grin widened. "Both, darling. Obviously, both. Power on that scale doesn't happen without the fools to support it."
The paper snapped back into place.
Well, Mammon could have his followers. She didn't want them. Could care less what happened to them. It was her Kemal she worried about. Kemal was not one of Mammon's fools, nor was he a shark. He couldn't be.
Could he?
Without a word, Diana faded out and floated out the Hotel Diana's front door.
Kemal throttled the motorcycle's engine back, let the smooth-running machine coast up to the guard's station. Berk came out, the frown on his face clearly visible in the moonlight, and Kirsi's arms tightened around Kemal's waist, her face pressed against his neck.
Kemal murmured reassurance, had that confidence rewarded when the frown lightened in recognition.
"Kemal!" Berk cried, grinning. "What are you doing here? And where'd you get this?"
A wave of the hand which might mean the cycle—or Kirsi.
"This—" Kemal tapped the leather-covered hand grips. "—was a gift from Mr. Simons."
The man whose daughter tried to investigate the sewers the hard way?"
"That's the one. He was—grateful. I was going to sell it, but Mama—"
"And right she was, Kem," Kirsi interrupted him, arms tightening for a different reason. "You deserved something nice for risking your foolish neck. You send everything to her and your sisters. If I hadn't covered for you this morning—"
"And who is this pretty thing?" Berk asked, giving Kirsi his most lecherous smile.
"Mine," Kemal said firmly. "Keep your hands to yourself. I wanted to show her the temple by moonlight. —Mind?"
"For you, kid—" Berk stepped back a pace and waved them through the gate.
"Thanks. I owe you one."
"Hell, just put in a good word with the Lady for me and we'll call it square."
Kemal laughed and put the cycle in gear. "I'll do that."
As a tour guide, young Kemal was good, exceptionally good with his attentive audience of one besotted girl. Kemal knew his history and told it well. Kirsi, the waitress from the Diana, seemed to hang on his every word, and, from the intelligence of her occasional question, it wasn't just for Kemal's good looks.
But to Diana herself, it was all just—ancient history, and she soon wandered off into her own memories. The white marble ruins of Ephesus glowed in the moonlight, even to the marble street down which she floated. Memory filled in the lines, the larger than expected scale, and memory populated the wide road. The vast majority of the traffic had been tourists, even then, visitors come to experience her city,
to worship at her temple. The temple to her Mother Earth aspect: so much more interesting than Artemis. That virgin goddess aspect was a bitchy bore.
Too bad, really, that she daren't reveal herself to the lad. The stories she could tell him of this place . . . far more personal and exciting anecdotes than he could possibly know. But he'd never believe her. That level of faith had vanished in this age of skepticism; gone to ruins like the marble rubble surrounding them.
All the beauty and the grandeur—gone, thanks to the arrows of Apollo and the damned, disgusting little bugs they carried.
Apollo and Diana. Day and night. Life and death.
They'd shared Ephesus once upon a time. Too bad they hadn't seen the truth sooner, that they hadn't known which Possibility to explore. Perhaps they could have saved the city from its decline. Perhaps they might have planted a careful suggestion in a ready ear, as she'd planted the fifty in Kemal's pocket. Drain the marsh. Get rid of the mosquitoes.
The future was flux. So many possibilities. Some—like the one which had Happened—had led to an understanding and cure for malaria. Others—well, none would have found it soon enough to save Ephesus, and while the Future was flux, the Past was singular and done.
Too late now. She missed the Sun God aspect more than she cared to admit. Mammon was another bore. Perhaps, one day soon, conditions would favor Apollo's return.
The couple had worked their way down to the temple—her temple—or what was left of it. Time had been cruel to them both. She was thin and wasted; her temple, seventh wonder of the world, reduced to its marble foundations.
". . . They're talking about rebuilding it." Kemal's voice, drifting to her on a breeze. Diana pricked up her ears, glided back to the temple.
"Would you like that?" Kirsi asked, sensible, insightful question.
"I honestly don't know." The lad walked out into the middle of the vast, rectangular foundations, head thrown back, eyes glowing in the moonlight. "It must have been wonderful. Largest pillared roof ever built . . . all in white marble . . . I'd love to have seen it. But—" He turned to her, biting his lip. "It's for all the wrong reasons, Kirsi. They want the money—the tourism. That's not right."
"Not all of them, Kemal." Kirsi walked up to him, took his hands in hers. "Some love the past as much as you do. There are others who would like to rebuild the glory that was."
"Do they? I wish I could believe that."
"I do."
His eyes were swimming between the long lashes. His head bent above Kirsi's. The kiss lengthened and deepened until Diana felt obliged to leave the temple's aura for the cool breeze coming off the sea and up the hill. When she'd regained control, she drifted back to the temple and silently urged the youngsters off the immediate premises. Some spots were too ripe with past energy, and she had the present to worry about.
Kirsi had sensed Kemal's upset and was probing the arms deal. He was resisting explaining for good reason. On the other hand, a little pressure at the right moment might just give her the information she sought.
Kirsi . . . she'd worry about Kirsi later.
The great theater of Ephesus stretched out around them, row upon semi-circular row. The round marble spot marking the acoustical focus glowed moon-white in the dark, grassy stage far below. Beyond the stage, rows of cap-stoned pillars, was the prop-storage and beyond that, the straightline demarcation of the theater gateway, lying at a perfect perpendicular to a wide marble road that vanished into the misty flat distance.
Once upon a millennium ago, some other young man had sat, hour upon hour, on these stony seats, as Kemal did now, with his sweetheart wrapped in the circle of his arm as Kirsi was in his, watching, listening, learning . . . "Imagine the plays they must have seen from here," he whispered into her soft, wavy hair. "Oedipus Rex, Antigone, the Oresteia . . ."
"Ugh, king-sacrifice." Kirsi giggled and pressed his arm against her side. "Morbid taste you nave, Kem. Give me the comedies, thanks anyway."
"They're all right, too, but think about it. Oedipus, Agamemnon, Orestes—and all the other powerful kings whose deaths brought prosperity to their people. We need kings like that. Kings willing to sacrifice all for our people, our country, not for someone else, and not for their own wealth.'
"Agamemnon didn't exactly jump under the knife, Kemal."
"You know what I mean."
"I suppose so. But do you honestly think Kabil will be such a leader? A man who spends the equivalent of your monthly salary on a sweater he'll never wear, then leaves you to handle the bar tab?"
He blushed. "Not really; I don't believe in him. Not any more. Once . . . but he's not what I'd hoped. Now, I 'm sort of stuck."
"Why? Why not just leave them?"
"At the moment, they need me. And they know my family." He squeezed her arm. "And they know about you. They know I won't risk any of you. But once they leave this stupid shipment, they won't need me any more and I'll be free of them."
"You don't really believe that."
He shrugged, setting his personal future aside as he'd learned he must: in it mere was little cause for wonder, only gratitude for surviving each day. But wonder was far from dead in his soul as his eyes tracked a moonbeam to its source. He leaned back, resting his elbows on the stone. The moon was almost full tonight—would be tomorrow. . . .
"You know, the Americans say they'll land a man up there next year. Another of Diana's secrets revealed."
"I don't think she'll mind."
"I'm certain she won't. I think she'll be waiting to greet them. I wish I could be there. Touch her with them. And if not me, one day, my son . . ."
"Or daughter."
He smiled down into her moonglow eyes and kissed her lightly. "Or daughter," he amended, willing to accept even the most outrageous tonight.
She returned his kiss, less lightly, then snugged in against him. "I don't think you really hate the Americans enough to be a part of Kabil's coup."
"I don't know what I want any more. The Americans give us tractors—and our people use them to pull drag boards around the threshing floors. Might as well go back to using oxen."
"At least some of them have tractors to pull the plows."
"I want our people to have all the good things the world has to offer, but I want them to understand what those good things are and to have the satisfaction of adding new ideas to the world pool. I don't want those good things to be owned by people who've never touched the soil of Turkey. I want us to be leaders in the world, not beggars. Producers. Inventors. Proud, as we've a right to be."
She shivered against his arm.
"It's getting cold," he commented generically, giving her an opening to bring the evening to a close he didn't personally care to suggest.
"We should count our blessings. This summer, the mosquitoes would eat us alive."
"True." Thinking she was perhaps being martyristically accommodating: "Want to go home?"
"I . . . suppose."
But she didn't seem inclined to sprint for the parking lot, either. They worked their way slowly down the theater's stone steps, and through the ancient gateway. The ruins closed in on either side as they passed under the arch of Mithradates, bringing black shadows with them.
Fortunately, Kirsi seemed no more inclined toward senseless chatter than he was as they walked hand in hand toward the Temple of Diana. In the distance, the barely visible archaeological excavation tents were multiplying rapidly. Soon—very soon—the supply trucks would begin deliveries. And soon after that, this year's crop of foreign students would begin unleashing the secrets hidden beneath Turkish soil.
"It's tomorrow, isn't it?" Kirsi asked from a shadow.
Kemal bit his lip, fighting the urge to confide in her. She was a friend. A good friend. And an honorable man didn't pull friends into trouble with him.
"Where are you going to stash them?"
He turned his head away from her scrutiny, at a disadvantage in a shaft of moonlight.
"Here?"
He nodded briefly, then: "Please, Kirsi, let it alone. I don't want you to know. If I tell you, and something went wrong, they'd blame you. Come after you."
"Only if they knew."
"They'd know."
"Don't you trust me?"
"You know I do. It's them I don't trust."
She paused beside a crumbling wall, leaned her elbows on it, looking into the warren of walls, rocks and weeds.
"So many small rooms. What was this place? Do they know?'
He laughed, grateful for the change of subject.
"Well, let's see. The temple is just across the street. Lots of small rooms. What do you suppose?"
"Aha. Diana's priestesses."
"You might call them that. They undoubtedly gave a percentage to the temple coffers."
"They gave more than that."
"What do you mean?"
She turned and leaned her back against the low wall, tracing his arm with a fingertip. "Life. Death. Love. War. All different aspects of the same coin. Many of the ancient camp followers were priestesses. Before a battle, the men came to them, garnered strength from their—coupling. The good will of the goddess. Good luck in the battle to come."
He had a battle to fight tomorrow. God willing, it would be quick and clean, without bloodshed. A simple transfer of—merchandise.
Kirsi knew that. Knew the situation disturbed him and tried to coax him free of the worry. And at the moment Kemal was more than willing to be coaxed.
He hung his head and said morosely, "I've nothing to give. No money left." He blinked up at her. "Do you suppose the goddess would like a used 'cycle?"
Kirsi smiled, took him by the hand, and drew him uphill into the weed-choked maze, into shadows, where moonbeams and wind would not reach them.
"We'll think of something."
Such sweetly naive coupling. Completed almost before it was begun. Diana smiled and brushed each young cheek with her lips, wishing them both gentle, restful sleep, surrounding them with a blanket of warm air to keep them comfortable until they were ready to return home.
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