Slowly, Vicky regained control of her body. Tears ran down her cheeks, a mixture of pleasure and pain. Despite the adrenaline and lust that filled her eyes, Webster saw fear in there as well.
‘I’ve never felt anything like that before,’ Vicky gasped.
‘I know,’ Webster told her.
‘Awfully confident of yourself, aren’t you?’
‘Do I have any reason not to be?’ he taunted.
‘No, not at all.’ Vicky kissed him. ‘I have to admit, I expected you to turn me away after we arrived here.’
‘I don’t have to play the grieving widower any more.’ Webster kissed her again.
‘You were playing?’
‘No. I loved my wife.’ Webster was certain that was why she had been taken from him. Her loss had been one of the few setbacks in his relentlessly successful life. But now his plans were at last nearing fruition. He could afford a bit of amusement. He turned to her again and took her in his arms.
She opened herself willingly.
Nothing could stop him. He wouldn’t allow it.
Oceanview Offices
Eminonu District
Istanbul, Turkey
24 March 2010
‘Would you like tea?’
Lourds looked up from the notes he had taken the previous night, still groggily struggling to make sense of them. He’d had a plan of attack, more likely a conjecture he realized now, but it had been starting to make sense before he’d lain his head down and gone to sleep.
Olympia stood in front of his borrowed desk and looked as tired as he felt. She and the monks had been busy searching through books they’d borrowed from local libraries, the university and bought along Cagaloglu, the street filled with a collection of booksellers and printers. Their efforts had gleaned a few facts no one else had known, not even the monks, but it hadn’t helped with the translation Lourds was struggling with. Cleena had stayed with him as his bodyguard, but she hadn’t seemed happy about it. Lourds wondered again what kept her with them when she’d seen first hand how dangerous it was to do so.
‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ Lourds answered.
‘What about breakfast?’
‘We have breakfast?’
‘I went to market this morning,’ Olympia explained. ‘It’s nothing fancy, but it will help hold body and soul together.’
‘I’d be very interested in breakfast.’
‘Good. Why don’t you go grab a shower and we’ll take breakfast out on the balcony. The sun has only just risen, and the weather’s perfect for early morning dining.’
‘I really don’t have time to-’
‘Thomas,’ Olympia said gently and reached out to hold his face between her hands as if he were a child, ‘for the last four days, you’ve done nothing but sleep, eat and breathe that scroll. If you ask me, you’ve exceeded all expectations of human endurance. All you’re doing at this point is locking yourself into tunnel vision.’ She smiled at him. ‘Take a shower. Eat breakfast with a beautiful woman. Catch your breath. Take a nap. Then look at the scroll with fresh eyes.’
‘You do make sense.’
‘Of course I make sense.’ She leaned in to kiss him. In that tender touch, he realized that he had missed sharing her bed the last four days.
Some vacation, he thought ruefully.
Olympia glanced down at him, and smiled. ‘Maybe you should make that a cold shower.’
‘Or,’ Lourds prompted, taking her hand in his and kissing her fingers, ‘you could shower with me.’
‘And who would get your breakfast ready?’
‘When we get back, all scrubbed clean and satiated, I’ll help you get both our breakfasts ready.’
‘You do realize that if we get caught it would mortify my brother.’
‘I suspect it would take rather more than that to mortify your brother.’
Olympia hesitated only a moment, then she nodded and took Lourds by the hand.
Oceanview Offices had at one time been the workspace for an import/export business. Lourds hadn’t heard the whole story from Joachim, but the gist seemed that the business had ended suddenly. A few bullet holes and suspicious-looking stains decorated the walls and floor of two of the rear offices. Lourds had pointedly stayed out of those rooms. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he didn’t want to chance the negative energy that might be left over there.
Whatever business had actually taken place in the offices, the enterprise had been well accoutred. In addition to the conference room where Lourds worked, which had a view of the coastline and of the Hagia Sophia, there were five other smaller offices, two bathrooms – one with a small shower and a kitchen. The monks had brought in simple sleeping bags and kitchen utensils. At the moment, the offices were between leases. Lourds didn’t know if Joachim had made arrangements with the owners or if they were simply squatting there. In the end, it didn’t really matter. They wouldn’t – couldn’t – be there long.
Feeling refreshed from the shower, Lourds helped Olympia make breakfast from the breads, fresh fruit, cheeses and sausages she’d brought back from the market. When they finished filling their plates, they retreated to the balcony with a pot of dark Turkish coffee.
Some time over the last few days, someone – and Lourds suspected it was Olympia – had brought a stray table and five mismatched chairs out onto the small balcony overlooking the waterfront.
‘I’m surprised your watchdog hasn’t made it up yet,’ Olympia said, referring to Cleena.
Lourds looked out over the water and the line of restaurants that stood at its edge. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a little unfair to her?’
‘She did force her way into our group.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And that’s only because she bungled the original kidnapping for Qayin and his people.’
‘As I recall, she rescued me from Qayin.’
‘Only after bringing you to him.’
Lourds couldn’t argue the point there.
He buttered a roll and ate it thoughtfully. His mind still churned through all the symbols he had been studying for the last few days. A few times, he had thought they were starting to make sense, then they would just slip away like minnows through his fingers.
‘And the little friend she keeps in her ear is another problem,’ Olympia said. ‘How do we know we can trust him?’
‘How do you know it’s a him?’
Olympia gave him a look. ‘Please. It shows in the way she acts. The friend is a man. You can trust me on this one.’
‘Okay, I trust you.’
A look of frustrated disbelief filled Olympia’s face. ‘You’ll trust me that her friend is a man, but you won’t trust me that having her with us is a bad idea?’
Olympia picked up her tray, silverware and cup and departed without another word.
Lourds sighed tiredly. Obviously there were two languages he presently didn’t understand. He sipped his coffee and caught movement from the corner of his eye. At first he thought it might be Olympia returning. Instead, it was Cleena.
The young woman only had a couple of pieces of buttered toast, grapes and melon wedges on her plate. She wore her red hair pulled back.
‘Are you planning on going anywhere for the next hour or so?’ Cleena asked.
‘I hadn’t planned to. Why?’
‘I’ve got an errand I have to run.’
Suspicion darkened Lourds’ thoughts immediately, and he knew it must have shown on his face.
Cleena smiled at him and lifted an eyebrow. ‘You don’t trust me?’
‘I do,’ Lourds assured her. ‘As much as I can.’
‘Do you trust me as much as you trust your girlfriend?’
‘She’s not my-’
‘Maybe no one else noticed you slip off to the shower together a few minutes ago, but I did.’ Cleena bit into a melon wedge. Juice trickled down her chin.