McCormick returned his full attention to the road and gave me a chance to examine my new toys without the commentary. I started with the iPhone. Did an app check. The five or six I needed and a shitload more I didn’t. Excellent. The aluminum silencer fit the Walther like a sucker on a stick.
McCormick followed the wide boulevard through the western sprawl of the city. High-rises towered over low neighborhoods and city parks. Although Turkey was a proud Muslim country, its attitudes were decidedly relaxed, judging by the billboards showing women in bikinis. Not that I minded.
Out of habit, I glanced into the passenger-side mirror. A BMW motorcycle darted behind a cargo truck trailing us by four car lengths. The rider wore a black helmet with a tinted visor and black leathers. If the guy wasn’t following us, he was following someone else. Or maybe he was just an asshole who thought the entire road was his playground, traffic be damned. I doubted it; not the way my luck had been running.
I knew one thing. Riding blind behind a truck was a dangerous thing for a guy on a motorcycle. Unless he was hiding.
“You see him?” I said to McCormick.
“The Beemer tucked in behind the truck like some kind of stunt rider?”
“That’s the one.” I was supposed to be deep cover and now it was like my itinerary had been broadcast on the evening news. “What was your plan?”
“The plan was a safe house.” He shrugged. “Won’t do much good with that guy on our tail, I don’t suppose. Let’s see what we can do about that.”
McCormick engaged the cell phone attached to the center console and activated the voice control. He said, “Chelsea.”
The phone replied, “Dialing Chelsea.”
McCormick snatched the phone from the console and put it to his ear. “We’re being followed. BMW motorcycle. Single rider.” He listened for a moment, replied, “Okay,” and dropped the phone back into the console. He glanced my way. “Got it covered.”
He accelerated, switching into the fast lane and moving three cars ahead. Then he eased back into the traffic lane and took the O-3 interchange east. The motorcycle didn’t miss a beat, staying three cars back and looking far too obvious.
A quarter of a mile ahead, a dump truck merged onto the interchange, and McCormick said, “That’s our guy.” Not five seconds later, a white van fell in behind us, and McCormick’s cell phone rang. He punched the speakerphone and said, “That’s us behind you. The Mercedes.”
“What else would you be driving?” a voice from the dump truck quipped.
“Got the bike?”
“Yeah, I got him. A real yo-yo.”
“Let’s play.”
McCormick kept the phone alive. He checked his mirrors. The BMW jumped one car; now he was two back, including the white van. When McCormick saw this, he pulled the Mercedes to the left, gained speed, and slipped in front of the dump truck. The guy on the Beemer responded, jumping the van and settling in behind the dump truck.
McCormick barked into the cell phone, “He’s all yours.”
Two things happened simultaneously. The white van slid into the fast lane and came up next to the motorcycle, boxing him in behind the dump truck. At the exact same moment, the bucket of the dump truck jerked upward, the rear gate opened, and a curtain of dirt sloughed off the back and onto the road.
The motorcyclist had nowhere to go. As the dirt rained down over him, he had no choice but to put the bike down. The bike tumbled through the wall of dust, smacked the pavement, and disintegrated. The rider slid across the concrete on his back and spun to a halt in the soft dirt.
I tipped my head back and laughed. “I love you guys,” I said.
McCormick shrugged. “It’s not usually this exciting.”
I glanced out the back window again and saw the white van skidding to a stop. Two men in civilian clothes jumped out and jogged in the direction of the fallen biker.
“They’re with us,” McCormick said with a grin. “U.S. Marines and OJKB detailed to the embassy.”
OJKB. Özel Jandarma Komando Bölüğü. Turkish Special Forces, and the very last people on earth you’d want interrogating you. “I have a feeling our friendly biker is going to wish he’d followed someone else,” I said.
“I can pretty much guarantee it,” McCormick said. He took the O-3 south into old Istanbul.
I was tempted to ask McCormick exactly who in the embassy he worked for, but I decided to respect his anonymity. All manner of people were assigned to the embassy besides the boot lickers from State. DIA. CIA. NSA. FBI. It was a cook’s stew of more or less meaningless acronyms. It was no wonder nothing ever got done. But I had to give McCormick credit: he had acquitted himself well.
At the next intersection, he cornered onto a busy thoroughfare and a collection of mixed neighborhoods. An open market on one corner, a mosque on another, a meeting hall on yet another. I could see that we were headed for the tip of the peninsula.
McCormick made a right at Kennedy Street, a wide boulevard that paralleled the coast of the Sea of Marmara. The Mercedes slowed as we approached a three-story hotel at the end of the block. The building was a simple boxy structure slathered in white paint with pastel-blue trim. Plain and dowdy: perfect for a safe house. We parked outside the entrance. A sign read: HOTEL MARMARA.
“It’s not five-star,” McCormick said, “but it’s got plenty of what you need most. Security.” He handed me a business card. “Tell the front counter I sent you. They have your room ready.”
“You coming in?” I asked. There were two points to this question. If he said yes, it told me the American embassy wanted me watched and more people knew about my arrival than was healthy; that was not Mr. Elliot’s style. If he said no, then I could take a deep breath and maybe even enjoy a drink and a hot shower.
“Why? You need a chaperone?” He shook his head and his expression turned serious. “Duty calls. I want to see if our mysterious biker has a name.”
“And maybe you could ask him real politely who his employer is,” I said. McCormick grinned. “Thanks for the lift.”
We shook hands, and I let myself out.
The Mercedes pulled away and disappeared around the corner.
I walked empty-handed into the hotel, realizing how good a change of clothes would feel right about now. The lobby was floored with terracotta pavers and wainscotted in pink tile. Palms and lush plants grew from planters fired a brilliant blue. Arcs of light painted the walls beneath amber sconces. The tropical colors and garden fragrance gave the lobby a relaxed, festive ambience.
I told the front desk clerk that McCormick had sent me. He didn’t ask for my name and didn’t bother with ID. He just handed over a key card. “Room 203. Enjoy your stay,” he said simply.
I decided on the drink before the shower, and said to the clerk, “There a place nearby where a man could get a drink?”
The concierge overheard my query and hurried over. “Yes, sir. A drink? Right this way.” He pointed to an arched door that led to the hotel restaurant. “It’s not fancy, but it is comfortable.”
“That’s all I ask.” I followed the tile floor to an open staircase that rose to a mezzanine. I took a corner stool at the bar, close to a wall of beveled-glass windows that allowed a view of the greenway on the other side of Kennedy Street. The silvery waters of the Sea of Marmara trundled toward the horizon.
The bar looked like a cross between an Irish pub and an English public house, all dark woods and brass, beveled glass and Tiffany lamps. A huge mirror ran the length of the bar, and shelves of liquor bottles reflected in the glass. Wine goblets and cocktail glasses hung from overhead racks.
It wasn’t crowded, but then it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.