Kamil hauled his prisoner out of the boat and onto the pier. There he found the policemen squatting over the other two smugglers, their heads pressed against the wooden planks, arms pinned behind them. Kamil handed his captive over.
“He’s finished,” Kamil answered to Omar’s questioning look at the water. “Let’s see what we’ve caught.”
While Omar held the lamp, Kamil stepped back into the boat, slipped his knife from his boot, and slit open one of the sacks. He pulled out a tin box with a red lid. On the lid was the image of a silver sickle moon and star and the words, Régie des Tabacs De L’Empire Ottoman, Constantinople. He opened it, then turned and showed Omar. The box was filled with cigarettes, the musky odor lifting pleasantly to their noses. Kamil could see Omar was as disappointed as he was.
“May it profit Allah,” Omar exclaimed, throwing the box into the water in disgust. “For it hasn’t profited us.”
Kamil took out another box and looked at the cigarettes closely in the light. “No tax stamps.” He slit open the other sacks and soon the boat was knee-deep in tin boxes and cigarettes.
“Run-of-the-mill smugglers’ fare,” Omar said dejectedly. He handed Kamil a heavy-bladed knife.
Kamil used it to pry open the wooden chest, fully expecting it to hold more of the same. But when Omar held the lamp closer, both men smiled broadly. The light glinted from a hoard of gold and silver items, some set with jewels. Kamil recognized objects from across the ages, a highly decorated Roman silver platter, a gold Byzantine chalice, and what appeared to be a silver candleholder engraved with the sultan’s seal that could have come from any imperial mosque. He pulled aside some of the pieces and spotted a nielloed ewer. He pulled it out and examined it.
“This was stolen from Fatih Mosque,” he concluded.
“So we’re on their tail,” Omar said with undisguised pleasure. “Let’s go and sit on these thugs and see what information they spill.”
They closed the chest and hauled it onto the pier, then turned to the five policemen standing proudly over their three captives.
“Well done,” Omar told them. His good mood infected the men, who grinned and nodded at one another.
Omar pulled aside the stout policeman. “You, Shishko, I want you to ride as fast as you can to Oun Kapanou station. Tell them to send five more armed men and two wagons. When you get back, take the prisoners to the Fatih jail in one wagon and that chest to the Fatih station in the other. And hurry.”
The man pressed his fist against his heart and bowed his head. “On my honor.” Then he ran off into the night.
“And you,” Omar singled out one of the older policemen, “make sure the chest is still here when he gets back.”
“Chief?” The man looked confused.
“Aren’t we going to wait for them?” Kamil asked Omar.
Omar stared at the archways at the back of the building. “I’d like to look for that tunnel,” he confided to Kamil in a low voice. “They won’t use it again, but we need to see where it goes.”
“Better in daylight,” Kamil cautioned. “You’ve got your proof now,” he pointed to the boat, “so the French will allow you to search the basement. At least wait until reinforcements get here.”
“If we wait, they might block off the tunnel.”
“That may be so, but it’s too risky. We don’t know how many men are in there.”
Omar walked up to the door the smugglers had used and yanked it open. Beyond was darkness. “They’re long gone.”
“You don’t know that.”
Kamil took stock: three trussed prisoners and four policemen, now that Shishko had been sent for reinforcements. If he and Omar went into the basement, four armed men should be enough to guard the prisoners. Kamil could see the policemen’s faces in the light and found them to be energetic, muscular young men, not the faded civil servants he had imagined. One was a particularly handsome youth, with a head of dark curls and an easy smile. They were joking around, but Kamil sensed this was to cover their apprehension.
“These donkeys stink,” the older man said. “Shall we roll them off the pier and wash them before they stink up the station?” He nudged the captive at his feet with his boot and asked him, “Can you swim?”
Two of the captives struggled crablike against their ropes, eliciting more laughter from the policemen. The third, the man Kamil had subdued in the boat, lay still. At first, Kamil thought he was unconscious, but then he noticed the man looking about him with hard, observant eyes.
Kamil called Omar over and pointed him out. “That’s their leader.”
Omar watched the prisoner for a moment, then nodded and went over to speak with his men. Kamil noticed their hands moving to their revolvers.
When the prisoner noticed he was being observed, he closed his eyes.
Omar returned, Ali and Rejep trailing behind. “Coming?” he asked Kamil.
“If you take Ali and Rejep, there’ll be only two men to guard the prisoners,” Kamil objected. “What if the other smugglers come back?”
“My men are armed,” Omar pointed out. “And if there are others, they’ll be inside and have to get past us first. We won’t be long. I just want to find the damn tunnel before they have a chance to block it off. They could be doing that right now while we’re standing here jabbering.”
He took a baton from one of the policemen and walked over to the prisoners. He bent over and neatly and systematically bashed each of them on the head once, hard enough to make them go slack but not hard enough to draw blood. A master in full control of his tools, Kamil thought grimly.
“Was that necessary?” he asked.
“Just putting your mind at rest. They won’t be giving anybody any trouble.”
“It’s not them I’m worried about.”
The policemen remaining behind looked serious now. They shifted about, staring into the darkness. Kamil snapped open his cigarette case and held it out to the young men. They shoved their revolvers into their holsters, accepted the cigarettes, and cupped hands for each other to light them, grateful for something to do.
“Omar, don’t do this,” Kamil appealed one last time.
“We’ll be back before they finish those cigarettes. Friends, have your guns ready.”
The men snapped to attention and pulled out their revolvers. Kamil wondered if any of them had ever fired a gun before.
“Ali, Rejep, come on.” Omar grabbed the second lamp and headed through the door. Kamil swallowed an expletive and followed the men into the basement.
They passed along a damp corridor that smelled of mold and urine and led steeply downward. Despite his wool jacket, Kamil was chilled. Omar’s light wavered up ahead. They emerged into a large room with brick walls, and Kamil could just make out a vaulted ceiling. The room felt limitless and cold as a grave. The lamplight picked out carcasses of rusted machinery, broken crates, piles of crumbling bricks.
“Ah, you decided to join us, Magistrate,” Omar said, his voice magnified in the cavernous space.
“If the basement is as large as the building, you’ll be here for hours.”
“We’re here now. Let’s see what we can see.” Omar moved forward with the lamp. Greek and Roman capitals sprouted like enormous mushrooms from the dark rubble of the floor. Marble pillars were stacked like firewood, some cut into roundels to be used as building material.
Despite his unease, Kamil found he was fascinated. He remembered what Malik had said about empires building upon the remains of earlier civilizations. Given its size and the pattern of brickwork, Kamil guessed the basement had once been the foundation of a Byzantine palace. Perhaps these columns had been harvested by the Byzantines, sliced and stacked and inventoried in their own version of technological progress. The Ottomans had built a modern factory on top of it all, full of printing devices, stamping and calculating machines, the clatter of modernity. But in its hidden recesses, the Ottoman Tobacco Works was infested with history, its subterranean heart riddled with ancient tunnels. They passed the rusting hulk of a large machine that looked like a press or printing device. A thick iron square hung suspended in the air like a giant hand blessing the unidentifiable remains beneath it.