And sure enough, there was good reason. I stepped outside. My plan was to hail a taxi, just another weary businessman eager to get to his hotel, but I didn’t have time even to reconnoiter the cabstand.
A line of Turkish policemen had fanned out across the walkway, and they were systematically inspecting passports. Okay; but why weren’t they stopping any women? And why did they seem to be targeting men who looked like they’d just dropped in from Europe or America? Couldn’t have anything to do with my recent arrival, could it? Just a coincidence, right? Sure. Absolutely. If only I believed in coincidence.
I stopped and leaned into the shadows cast by a nearby pillar. It was a lousy hiding place. One of the policemen looked in my direction. He was a large man for a Turk, and his uniform didn’t fit him worth a damn. But he had a strong voice, and all his colleagues heard him when he shouted, “There he is. Arrest him.”
He was pointing at me.
CHAPTER 10
Like a school of piranha, the Turkish airport police swarmed in my direction, oblivious now to the crowds exiting the terminal. They had their target. Ten of them in black uniforms with silver accents and black ball caps, POLIS embroidered across the front. Hands on their holstered pistols. Advancing. Clumsy, but calm. One spoke into a handheld radio, and his face was etched with urgency.
I glanced back into the terminal. The glass reflected four more cops jogging my way. Nix that option.
To my right, cars and buses zipped along the passenger-pickup lanes. A three-story wall topped with a glass walkway ran the length of the road on the opposite side. No place to run. It didn’t look good. All I could think about was the mission.
My guts knotted in anger. The cops had had plenty of warning; hell, they’d probably received an engraved invitation from someone. Which meant one thing: my operation’s security didn’t have a hole, it had a goddamn chasm.
The question was, why the police? What had they been told about me to warrant such a display of authority?
I knew one thing. Istanbul was no place to be arrested. Even Mr. Elliot would be hard pressed to spring me from a Turkish prison. And for all I knew, the DDO wanted me arrested; what better way to put an end to my mission. Wiseman knew I was bound for Turkey. He might not have known when or where, but he wasn’t stupid. And if he was working the other side of the fence, then my problems were bigger than a gaping hole in my security.
I’d spent less than a second mulling my predicament, and that was too much time to waste. My feet were taking me away from the converging police and into a new wave of travelers disgorging from the terminal. I saw a hotel van waiting for anyone registered at the Istanbul Regency; the driver was standing outside the van. The motor was running. Hijacking the van was a long shot, but I wasn’t averse to a long shot.
I had made up my mind and was about to make a break for the bus when I heard a car horn blaring. I glanced over my shoulder. A black Mercedes sedan appeared from behind a line of buses, breaking every moving violation in the airport. It caromed over a speed bump and past the cabstand. I heard shouting and saw people scattering.
The car turned my way. The driver hit his horn again. Every muscle in my body tensed. I reached for my Walther, knowing full well I’d left it on the floatplane. I was calculating the distance between the hotel van and the Mercedes when I saw the diplomatic plates on the front bumper. American.
The Mercedes screeched against the curb. Dark-tinted windows masked the interior, but the front passenger door swung open even before the car came to a halt. A man shouted, “Conlan! Get your ass in here.”
The well-coordinated police line disintegrated into a mob, running and yelling in a garble of Turkish and English. I heard the word Halt! and several others that didn’t sound quite so polite.
So I had a choice between an American-embassy vehicle that had pretty much shown up out of nowhere and a dozen or so very unhappy Turkish police. Now that I thought about it, calling it a “choice” probably wasn’t fair.
I sprang for the sedan and dived through the open door. I landed headfirst on leather as supple as newly crushed velvet. I was still scrambling for a handhold when the driver stomped on the accelerator and the Mercedes shot from the curb. Very fancy driving. I folded myself onto the seat and jerked the door closed.
I tossed a backward glance. The policemen had slowed to a jog, their expressions rippling with disgust. The Mercedes bore diplomatic plates; there was no point trying to stop us. I did a split-second inventory. This one had my heart racing, if you could call seventy-two beats a minute racing. My baseball cap was missing. That pissed me off.
I glanced across the seat.
The driver was in his late twenties. He had straight blond hair falling midway over his ears, a slender build, a pressed suit, and a perfectly knotted tie. He might have looked like a surfer, but he guided the Mercedes with the expert touch of a NASCAR racer.
Without taking his eyes off the road, he extended a hand. “Trevor McCormick. American embassy. Or maybe that was obvious.”
I shook it. Dry. Firm. Cool. If this was the enemy, he was very good. If he wasn’t, then I was in good hands. I was betting on the latter.
“That was quite a welcoming committee back there.” McCormick checked his mirrors and switched lanes. We gained speed as we turned onto the overpass linking us with Ataturk Boulevard, heading north from the airport and into Istanbul. Thirty seconds.
“Who are you?”
“Just a guy doing his job,” he answered.
“Just a guy doing his job. Is that a fact? A guy who shows up with his diplomatic plates and takes pity on a poor sucker tap-dancing with the Turkish police.”
He rolled his eyes my way, said, “Consider this an unofficial favor from a friend back home.”
I could have asked, Who? but that would have been a dumb question. The chances of his knowing “who” were exactly none. Plus, I already knew who. It wasn’t General Rutledge; Tom didn’t keep company with the State Department. Mr. Elliot, on the other hand, kept company with anyone who mattered when it came to his guys. I said, “Never mind.”
McCormick chuckled. “Somebody with some juice, that’s for sure.”
His nonchalance did little to put me at ease. First, a rat within the MEK had tried to grease me in Amsterdam. And now, the Turkish cops. Any other day of the week, they wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about a guy like me. Unless, that is, they were spoon-fed bad intel. Maybe I’d been pinned with an international warrant, or maybe someone was calling in a favor. A very big favor. And if that was true, it had to be someone very high up the food chain.
Could have been Wiseman. Or someone close to him. If so, he’d have to play his cards close to the vest and avoid any clumsy moves.
Could be Moradi. If so, he was playing both sides of the fence, and that didn’t sound like Moradi.
“I’m reaching under my seat,” McCormick said.
We locked eyes for three seconds. “Go ahead and reach,” I said.
He did. No jerky movements, no change in facial expression, no blush or blanch. Eyes on the road. Easy in, easy out, and came away with a shoulder harness fitted with a 9 mm pistol. Another Walther PPK/S. How much better could it get! He handed it over. “A Walther guy, huh? I didn’t know they still made those.”
He grinned. I scowled. “Hey, don’t get smart, kid. This is a man’s gun.”
He was still grinning, so I said, “Silencer?”
“They said you’d ask.”
“Too predictable for my own good.”
He reached down again and came away with a flat cardboard box the size of a safety deposit box. “Ammo, silencer, the works. Oh, yeah, and a back-up phone. Just a precaution. Take a look.”