But even though the bandaging was real, it did serve an additional purpose. Under the heavy wrapping, between the two splints that held his index and middle fingers in fixed positions, he had secreted a small injector. It was positioned so that with his thumb he could push the narrow tip out of the wrapping, pop off the cap that covered the needle, and plunge it into his target.
But that was plan B, the less desirable action, and John had decided to go for plan A.
He removed the injector and placed it in his pocket, and then slowly and gingerly rewrapped his hand.
The injector contained two hundred milligrams of a special form of succinylcholine poison. The dose in the plastic device could be either injected into a target or ingested. Both methods of transfer to the victim would be lethal, though injection was, not surprisingly, the far more efficient delivery method for the poison.
John left the bathroom with the device hidden in his left hand.
Clark’s timing was less than perfect. As he came out of the bathroom and passed by the entrance to the kitchen, he had hoped to see his target’s waiter exiting with the entrées, but the hallway was empty. John pretended to regard the paintings on the walls, and then the ornate gilded molding in the hallway. Finally the waiter appeared with a tray full of covered dishes on his shoulder. John stood between the man and the dining room, and he demanded the server put down the tray on a tray jack right there and fetch him the chef. The waiter, hiding his frustration behind a veneer of politeness, did as he was told.
As the man disappeared behind the swinging door, Clark quickly checked the covered dishes, found the veal, and then dispensed the poison from the injector directly into the center of the thin piece of meat. A few clear bubbles appeared in the sauce, but the vast majority of the poison was now infused in the veal itself.
When the head chef appeared a moment later, Clark had already re-covered the dish and pocketed the injector. He thanked the man effusively for a splendid dinner, and the waiter delivered the food quickly to his table so that the dishes were not refused by the guests for being served cold.
Minutes later John paid his bill, and he stood to leave his table. His waiter brought him his raincoat, and as he put it on he glanced over quickly at Target Two. The Libyan was just finishing the last bite of the Kulbasti veal; he was deep in conversation with his Omani companions.
As Clark headed out into the lobby of the hotel, behind him Target Two loosened his tie.
Twenty minutes later the sixty-five-year-old American stood under his umbrella in Büyüksehir Belediyesi Park, just across the street from the hotel and restaurant, and he watched as an ambulance raced to the entrance.
The poison was deadly; there was no antidote that any ambulance on earth would carry in its onboard narcotic box.
Either Target Two was already dead or he would be so shortly. It would look to doctors as if the man had suffered a cardiac arrest, so there would likely be no investigation into the other patrons of the Tugra who just happened to be dining around the time of the unfortunate, but perfectly natural, event.
Clark turned away and headed toward Muvezzi Street, fifty yards to the west. There he caught a taxi, telling the driver to take him to the airport. He had no luggage, only his umbrella and a mobile phone. He pressed the push-to-talk button on his phone as the cab rolled off into the night. “Two is down. I am clear,” he said, softly, before disconnecting the call and slipping the phone under his raincoat and into the breast pocket of his suit coat with his left hand.
Domingo Chavez took the calls from Driscoll and then Clark, and now he focused on his own portion of the operation. He sat alone on the old state-owned passenger ferry between Karaköy, on the European bank of the Bosphorus, and Üsküdar, on the Asian bank. On both sides of him in the cabin of the huge boat, red wooden benches were full of men and women traveling slowly but surely to their destinations, rocking along with the swells of the strait.
Ding’s target was alone, just as his surveillance indicated he would be. The short forty-minute crossing meant Chavez would need to take his man here on the ferry, lest the target receive word that one of his colleagues had been killed and adopt defensive measures to protect himself.
Target Three was a thickly built thirty-five-year-old. He sat on the bench by the window reading a book for a while, but after fifteen minutes he went out on the deck to smoke.
After taking a few moments to make certain no one else in the large passenger cabin paid any attention to the Libyan as he stepped outside, Chavez left his seat and headed out another door.
The rain was steady and the low cloud cover blocked off even the faintest light from the moon, and Chavez did his best to move in the long shadows cast from the lights along the narrow lower deck. He headed to a position on the railing some fifty feet aft of his target, and he stood there in the dim, looking out at the twinkling lights of the shoreline and the moving blackness as a catamaran crossed under the Galata Bridge in front of the lights.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched his target smoking near the rail. The upper deck shielded him from the rain. Two other men stood at the rails, but Ding had been following his man for days, and he knew the Libyan would linger out here for a while.
Chavez waited in the shadows, and finally the others went back inside.
Ding slowly began approaching the man from behind.
Target Three had gotten lazy in his PERSEC, but he could not have made it as long as he did as both an operative of his state security service and a freelance spy by being a fool. He was on guard. When Ding was forced to cross in front of a deck light to close in on his target, the man saw the moving shadow, and he flicked away his cigarette and spun around. His hand slid down into his coat pocket.
Chavez launched himself at his target. With three lightning-fast steps he arrived at the edge of the railing and shoved his left hand down to secure whatever weapon the big Libyan was reaching for. In Ding’s right hand he swung a black leather sap down hard against the left temple of the man, and with a loud crack Target Three went out cold, slumping down between the railing and Chavez.
The American slipped the sap back into his pocket and then hefted the unconscious man by his head. He looked around quickly to make sure no one was around, and then with a short, brutal twist he snapped his target’s neck. After a final glance up and down the lower deck to make sure he remained in the clear, Ding rolled the Libyan up onto the railing and let him tip over the side. The body disappeared into the night. Only the faintest splash could be heard above the sounds of the ocean and the rumbling engines of the ferry.
Chavez returned to a different seat on the red bench in the passenger cabin a few minutes later. Here he made a quick transmission on his mobile device.
“Three is down. Ding is clear.”
The new Türk Telecom Arena seats more than fifty-two thousand spectators and fills to capacity when local Istanbul soccer team Galatasaray takes the pitch. Though it was a rainy night, the huge crowd remained dry, as they were protected under a roof that was open only above the playing field itself.
The match tonight against crosstown rival Besiktas had the stands overflowing with locals, but one foreigner in attendance did not watch much of the play on the field. Dominic Caruso, who knew precious little about the game of soccer, instead focused his attention on Target Four, a thirty-one-year-old bearded Libyan who’d come to the match with a group of Turkish acquaintances. Dom had paid a man sitting alone just a few rows above his target to trade seats with him, so now the American had a good view of his target, as well as a quick outlet to the exit above.