‘Everybody you know seems to have guns,’ Lourds said.
‘Don’t blame me. They’re after you. I could have ducked out and not risked my neck. And you want to blame me for this?’
‘How did you find me?’ he asked.
An exasperated look filled Cleena’s face. ‘You’re kidding, right? You’re here to speak at the university. It’s been in all the papers. Especially after the scene at the airport. All Istanbul, those who care, know you’re here.’
Without warning, she cursed and ducked into the room just as bullets shattered the doorframe. Lourds stepped back and nearly fell on top of the desk. Olympia’s frightened scream echoed in his ears and galvanized him into action. He reached down for his backpack and slung it on. Cleena ducked back round the door and fired several quick shots, then came inside and took cover.
She glared at Lourds. ‘At gunpoint, do you always have to ask so many questions?’
Lourds glared back. ‘I’m not up on all the protocol for getting abducted.’
‘I’m not abducting you. I’m protecting you.’
‘By bringing these men here?’ Olympia still had the phone pressed against her ear.
‘I didn’t bring those men here.’ Cleena sounded really put out.
‘I’d have seen someone following us,’ Olympia insisted.
‘You haven’t seen me for the last few days,’ the woman snapped. ‘You’ve been busy tearing up the sheets at the hotel. I’ve been expecting footage on YouTube. Now let’s get moving. They want the professor. I don’t think they care if either one of us are alive.’
‘I’m on the line to the police.’ Olympia spoke rapidly in Turkish.
Another fusillade of bullets slammed into the open door and tore gouges in the wood.
‘The police won’t get here fast enough.’ Cleena changed magazines in her pistol and released the slide. ‘By the time they get here, you’ll either be in the custody of those men – or you’ll be dead. It’s a cellphone. Take it with you. You can talk to the police on the way. Just try to keep up and dodge the bullets.’
She grabbed Lourds by the elbow, but he resisted. He trusted her not to shoot him. She had, in a way, saved his life down in the catacombs. And she hadn’t shot him. Yet. She cursed again and tried to push him into motion.
‘Cleena MacKenna,’ a man’s voice boomed.
Lourds immediately recognized the accent as American, probably by way of Philadelphia. He looked at Cleena as she returned to the door.
‘Cleena? That’s your name?’ Lourds asked.
‘So not the time for introductions,’ she growled.
‘Cleena MacKenna,’ the man called again, ‘you don’t have to die today. You can just walk away from this. We’re just here for the professor. Back away and you can go.’
Cleena looked at Lourds. ‘Do you believe him?’
Lourds started to answer, but wasn’t sure what he was going to say.
‘I don’t believe him,’ Cleena went on. She looked around. ‘There’s a back door to this room?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lourds replied.
Cleena shot a scathing glance at Olympia. ‘You could have mentioned there’s a back door to this office.’
Olympia crossed her arms and looked defiant. ‘The police are on their way. I have them on speaker phone.’
‘I don’t think the speaker-phone function is going to stop those guys.’
Olympia raised her voice and said for the benefit of the men outside, ‘I have called the police. They are on their way.’
Cleena ignored her and raced to the back of the room. ‘Where’s the door?’ she asked. A second later, she swivelled her head to the left and looked at the bookshelf covering one of the walls. ‘Shelving and books cover that wall.’
Lourds realized she was talking to someone else, not him. Then he saw the glint of metal in her ear.
‘Okay, okay. I’ll look.’ Cleena raked a shelf clear of books. The heavy volumes toppled to the floor, along with a snow globe containing a statue of the Greek god, Poseidon.
‘Hey!’ Olympia protested. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Abruptly, out in the hallway the fire alarm rang, strident and harsh. Lourds guessed that someone, a student or a professor, had set it off. That had been good. At least all the students would get clear of the situation.
‘Ma’am,’ a man’s voice called from the phone in Turkish, ‘is something wrong? Is everything all right?’
Undeterred, Cleena moved on to the second shelf and began clearing those as well. In the shadowy recesses, the door was hard to see, but Lourds spotted the straight lines. Impulsively, he went to help the woman, wading over and through the books.
‘Thomas?’ Olympia called.
‘Ma’am?’ the Istanbul policeman enquired loudly. ‘Please stay on the line.’
‘There’s a door back here.’ Lourds pulled at the higher shelving.
‘Olympia, you don’t think those men are really here after me, do you? I don’t make enemies like this. They have to be after the book I got down in the catacombs. And if they find out you know something about it, they’re not going to stop at just questioning me.’
Cleena swung round with a shelf and nearly caught Lourds in the face with it. She locked eyes with Olympia. ‘Get over here!’
‘Don’t tell me-’
Out in the hallway, something metallic struck the floor and skidded to a stop near the door. Lourds took in the spherical shape, then redoubled his efforts to get to the door.
‘They’ve got a grenade!’
‘It opens inwards!’ Cleena yelled.
Understanding, Lourds reached for the doorknob but found it lacking. Someone had taken it off. As he turned to Cleena, she shoved him aside with her free hand and fired the pistol three times at the locking mechanism. The bullets cored through the cheap metal and splintered the wood. Before the echoes of the shots died away, Olympia had joined them and the grenade blew up.
The tremendous noise deafened Lourds and vibrated through his body. He expected shrapnel to rip through him, but it didn’t. Bright lights and gas followed the explosion. Flash-bang, he realized. He’d read about those in the novels he consumed during long plane flights and dead time at sites. Those grenades were used to confuse and disorient people.
Cleena grabbed his arm and shoved him towards the door, which still hadn’t opened. Lourds saw her mouth moving but heard nothing. Knowing what she wanted, he set his shoulder to the door and threw his weight against it. The door shivered and sprang open, revealing that it had been covered over by Sheetrock on the other side. Evidently some alterations had been done to increase office space.
The other room was thankfully empty. Lourds didn’t want anyone else in danger or joining their little group. His attempt to open the door ripped it from its hinges and it smashed into someone’s painstaking model reproduction of the Ottoman Siege of Constantinople in 1453. Ships and warriors went flying, followed by the blue waters of the Golden Horn and the fabricated brown coastline.
Olympia followed, almost running over Lourds in her haste. She held the cellphone to her ear, but if anyone was on the other end she apparently couldn’t hear any better than Lourds.
He looked round the room, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next. They were still on the third floor, too high to risk jumping and breaking a leg.
Olympia grabbed his arm and, when he turned to face her, spoke to him anxiously. He read her lips, missing it the first time because she was speaking her native tongue, not English.
‘Where do we go?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied enunciating carefully. ‘Up? Down?’
He used his hands in case she couldn’t read his lips. His mouth, eyes and nose all stung from the gas contained in the flash-bang. Tears blurred his vision as he swept his gaze round the room. Two sharp cracks pierced his deafness and he recognized the sounds as gunshots. Anxiously, he peered back into the opening, wondering if Cleena had made it out of Olympia’s office alive.