The Red Room Read online

  “You’ll need to ask her.”

  Dulwich stabs the phone too hard. Knox takes it back and pockets it. “Motherfucker.” He tries to reassure himself. “She’s a big girl.”

  “She’s tiny.”

  “Inside, asshole. Brass onions, that girl. Clanging brass onions.”

  “And we both know that’s what’ll get her killed. No way she’s going to talk,” Knox says.

  “Not right away.”

  “Iranians. You’re saying they’re Iranians who responded that fast to someone cracking a university site? Give me a break.”

  “They responded that fast to cracking Mashe Okle.”

  “His name’s Nawriz Melemet. He’s a nuclear physicist.” Knox would have gotten the same effect by delivering a blow to the man’s solar plexus. Sarge has gone slightly pale. He looks up to take in the pedestrians, the drivers, the dozens of men and women across the street at tables.

  “You two fucked up. You fucked up good.”

  “You encouraged Grace to dig.”

  “Not with a backhoe.”

  “Kick Xin in the butt,” Knox says. “Get me some reliable intel. We’re not waiting on this. We’re not handling this the way we tell our clients it should be handled.”

  “Agreed.” Dulwich shoots him an unreadable look. “It’s only bigger—nine layers deep, you say—because you two dug the hole.”

  “Present time.”

  “Primer will disavow. There’s no protocol for something like this.”

  “Bullshit! It’s an extraction.”

  “I don’t mean it like that.”

  “There are two of us. We’re going to get her back. Right now.”

  The two men exchange several years of personal history in a single look.

  “Damn right,” Dulwich says.

  Dulwich seldom admits to Knox being right about anything. The win comes at a time Knox can’t appreciate it.

  “We . . . owe . . . her,” Knox says.

  “I know. I know.” Dulwich nods.

  Says nothing more.

  26

  There are few advantages to being small. Grace has rarely had the opportunity to celebrate her feet, breasts or hands. If she so much as looks at food, she gains weight. In the department stores, they point her toward the children’s floor—there’s no fashion for the diminutive. One of the few advantages is expectation: size is mistakenly equated with strength. Her two captors each have six inches and fifty pounds on her. What they don’t know is: it’s not enough.

  As if to illustrate the point, as the three approach the steel door on the second-floor landing, Grace drives her right elbow into the groin of one man, then uses her bound hands as a ramrod, a piston propelled into the unsuspecting chin of her second captor. She chops the glass on the fire alarm, cutting herself. Hooks her fingers around the lever and pulls so hard she loses her balance and falls flat onto her back as the alarm sounds.

  To her surprise, her second captor is already on the floor. A glass jaw. Her single blow rendered him unconscious.

  She rolls hard into the shins of the first man, who won’t urinate without pain for a week. He falls forward onto his knees like he’s in the midst of afternoon prayers. She attempts a last-minute penalty kick—just her and the keeper—splitting his thighs from behind and striking him so hard he vomits before falling fully forward.

  Her phone is all that can save her. Her laptop would be nice, but it’s too much to carry. Hands bound in front of her, she awkwardly searches the downed man, recovering her iPhone from his jacket pocket. No chip, rendering the phone useless.

  She wants so much more: personal ID from both men; weapons; a look at any tattoos; clothing tags; currency. The fire alarm is a sharp peal of possibility; she has bought herself precious seconds.

  Her wrists are bound, her hands bleeding. It’s not as if she can blend in. Temptation points her down—toward the street. Fresh air. Freedom. It’s what any hostage would do.

  Instead, she climbs. One floor. Two.

  A voice from below: one of the captors calling it in.

  Damn wrists.

  She tops out on the fifth floor. Nowhere to go.

  What now?

  27

  Dulwich limps away from the bench. His bad knee has apparently given up along with the rest of him. His bulk looks cartoonish in comparison to the Turks on the plaza. A stovepipe arm lifts what looks like a toy phone. Then, slowly, the man’s shoulders pivot as he turns.

  Knox knows the call has to do with Grace. He rises from the bench and closes the distance, moving with extended strides. His pounding heart drums in his ears.

  “What?” Knox says.

  Dulwich’s expression is patronizing. He says, “Got it,” and shuts down the call.

  “Her,” Knox says.

  “You told Kamat to watch the grid for fire alarms?” Perplexed. Annoyed. “You going to run all over town chasing mattress fires?”

  “Talk to me.”

  “It’s a confirmed safe house. On a list we got from the Pakis before things went to shit with them.”

  “Iran,” Knox says. Gets no pushback from Dulwich. “How long ago?”

  “Came in just now.”

  “It’s her.”

  “Could be. Trouble is, we don’t know.”

  “Address?”

  “You can’t make a one-man raid on a known Iranian safe house.”

  “Two-man. Address?”

  “There are so many reasons why this is a no-go. I don’t have time to list them all. We can ask the local police to roll a fire truck to the scene. Nothing wrong with that. They can do a room-by-room for us. The Turks are friendlies. We can—”

  “I’m on that truck.”

  “Not possible.”

  “We’ll see what Primer thinks.”

  “Thin ice, my friend. You have no idea how deep and dark a hole you’re digging.”

  “We’re digging. This is Grace. I’ll tell you what: you get on the truck. You give me the address in case they’re tardy or lazy.”

  “If she tripped that alarm, they beat her senseless and/or moved her. By now she’s a dozen blocks away and moving fast.”

  Knox steps forward. “If she pulled that alarm, then her hands are either free or in front of her. I’ve seen her in the field. You, too, in Amsterdam. You gotta pity those bastards. Now give me the fucking address.”

  Dulwich spins his phone to reveal the message from Kamat. Knox types the address into his map app, careful of each number and letter. As precious as pearls.

  “I’m going to need you as backup,” Knox says.

  28

  Thinking is not an option. Grace reacts because she’s been trained to react by the PLA’s intelligence force. There’s a communal laundry wire strung between this building and the next, barely ten feet away, open windows on both sides. A vinyl basket tied to the wire holds clothespins. Handicapped by her bound wrists, Grace dumps the clothespins inside, unties the basket with her teeth and places it over the woven wire, holding the basket by its opposing handles. The basket collapses under her weight but serves as protective strap to guide her across the wire. She tests it against her weight, throws her ankles up onto the wire, contracting her knees to pull her along. She does not look down, but can’t ignore the basket’s vinyl is being slowly sawed into by the wire. She says a few prayers, grateful it’s ten feet across, not twenty, and speeds up her efforts. The basket about to break, Grace switches to her bare hands for the last few feet. The wire cuts through the flesh of her fingers.

  Once she reaches the far building, it takes her three precarious tries to get her feet through the opposing window, and she’s losing strength by the time she manages.

  An older woman in a hijab sees Grace’s bloody fingers and wrists and silently withdraws back into her apartment, shuttin
g her door.

  Grace hurries downstairs, before realizing she should have asked the woman to cut the ties.

  No one follows. She would like to attribute her continuing freedom to her evasive skills, but Grace knows better. It’s not as if she incapacitated both her captors, so where are they? She pushes into a busy bodega, self-conscious at the stares caused by her lack of a head scarf, her bound wrists and the sweat cascading down her face.

  A pair of scissors is chained to the counter alongside a beat-up calculator.

  “Please,” she says, extending her wrists to a man in a soiled turban.

  The clerk looks at her wrists and then meets eyes with Grace.

  “My husband,” Grace says, appealing to a matronly woman behind her. “My husband. He beats me. Please!” She raises her voice. “He did this to me. He’s coming for me.”

  “It is God’s will,” the clerk says. His eyes are dark brown, dead.

  “Step aside!”

  The woman who comes to Grace’s aid is college-aged and dressed unconventionally in a zippered jacket and blue jeans. She wears a head scarf, but fashionably. All eyes are on her as she shoves past the solemn matrons in line.

  The clerk places his hairy hand over the shears, pinning them to the counter.

  “It is inhumane,” the young woman says. “Only a coward must bind his wife’s hands like a prisoner.”

  The sound of approaching sirens carry down the street outside, giving everyone pause.

  The young woman doubts herself. “What have you done?”

  Grace pleads, “Please! There isn’t much time!” The sirens form a chorus. “Whose side will they take?”

  The young woman isn’t going to touch the man’s hand. She snags a butane lighter from a basket and lights its blue flame. She looks down at the curls of black hair on the back of the man’s hand.

  Minding the flame, he takes his hand off the scissors, but the young woman and Grace are of like mind. Grace has angled her wrists and the girl is melting the plastic tie that binds them. It catches fire, emitting dark black smoke, and then pops as Grace applies outward pressure.

  The matrons jump away as the burning plastic whistles to the floor.

  Grace utters a Muslim blessing to the girl, who returns it.

  “There is a door through the back.” The girl speaks English, her all-knowing look holding Grace. “Do not worry.” Again, English. “I say nothing.”

  Grace rushes toward the rear of the shop.

  The streets are narrow and as thick with people as the air, which hangs heavy with the smell of spiced food and human sweat. Smog cloaks the tops of the low buildings like morning fog over a river. She hears coughing and the scratch of grit beneath shoes, the roar of car engines, children’s voices and a barking confined dog. Despite its uncanny similarity to Shanghai’s claustrophobic neighborhoods, it is foreign to her. She is a stranger here, in looks, height, dress. She has no money. Her phone is worthless. She has no idea where she is in relation to the Bosphorus or any other city landmarks. Senses she is a target, that they are coming after her.

  She swipes a head scarf from a woman’s shopping bag as she passes; pulls it on and cinches it beneath her chin. Wishes for a pair of dark glasses. Needs some sense of bearings. More minarets than chimneys in Dickensian London. More people than a parade route. The buildings are too crowded, the street too winding for her to get a glimpse of the landscape. And all the while, there is the inescapable tension of the Pamplona bulls coming up behind her.

  Head down. Long strides. She uses car mirrors to check the street. Cuts in front of taller vehicles, using them as screens. Looks for a bicycle, anything to move her faster. A part of her cannot believe anyone could find her given the crush, but she knows better. Rutherford Risk is in business because of the suffocating hold kidnappers maintain on hostages—even escaped hostages. Informal networks of payoffs. Corrupt cops. Gangs. The underground world is five times the size of the legitimate one. It runs on a currency of favor and fear, is a place where debts are final and betrayal is met with punishment that extends across generations.

  Her phone vibrates in her pocket, stunning her. She fishes it out. The carrier is written in Arabic. Glancing back all the while in search of anyone following, she stops several people, asking in Turkish: “Please!” and holding out her phone. Finally, a woman stops.

  “My phone,” Grace says, speaking Turkish. “What does this mean?”

  The woman tries English. “This says, problem. How you say, problem? Difficulty?”

  “Emergency!”

  “Just so. Emergency. Yes. Like hospital.”

  “I can dial an emergency number?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “What do I dial for police?”

  “This number is the one, the five, the five.”

  “One, five, five. Thank you.”

  “May I help, please?”

  Grace fights back a surge of emotion. Her eyes glass over. The Turks are such warm people.

  “You have. Thank you so much. Indebted.”

  She spots a man a half block back, recognizes him as one of her captors.

  Her newfound girlfriend picks up on the sudden fear coursing through Grace. Looks back and forth between the two with troubled eyes. “This man make trouble you?”

  Perhaps she has seen the red, raw rings on Grace’s wrists or the dried sweat and smeared makeup. But no. It’s Grace’s feet: she is shoeless, wearing only ankle socks.

  Even with its chip pulled, the phone can dial emergency calls.

  “One-five-five. Thank you!” Grace speaks even as she runs from the man approaching.

  29

  Go around,” Knox instructs the cabbie in crude Turkish.

  The cabbie’s posted ID reveals a Muslim name to go with his Egyptian face. The vehicle skirts a small fire engine and two police cars pulled to the curb, negotiates the crowd of curious onlookers. Knox strains to look up from within the cab. It’s a nondescript apartment building, a perfect safe house.

  He’s traveled by ferry to the Asian side of the city. Now the cab. Knox has no idea what he’s looking for, only knows that he’ll recognize it when he sees it. Tops on his list is the clothing seen in the Skype video—a distinctive light brown leather jacket on one of the two men; a more ubiquitous dark windbreaker worn by the other. Turks, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians—the stadiums of any futbol match are filled with a hundred thousand clones of the men he seeks.

  To his left, a group of young boys flees down the sidewalk—following someone in a hurry? Somewhere nearby, sirens; hopefully Dulwich with the cavalry.

  “This address?” The cabdriver points to the meter. He has tired of Knox’s impatience, wants to be free of him.

  Knox isn’t much of a gambler. Feels himself coming apart. Raid the building or follow the boys? Pictures Grace, her hands free enough to trip a fire alarm. Her captors playing her for the female computer hacker she is. A nerd. They wouldn’t expect her punch. No one would ever expect a woman as complex as she.

  The sky in front of them is brighter than rain clouds behind. Knox knows the psychological reaction of someone frightened, someone fearing for her life, would be to move in the direction of the light.

  The direction the boys were running.

  “Drive on,” Knox says. “I will tell you the way.”

  The driver huffs.

  Grace needs a sanctuary, he thinks, somewhere to lose herself in a crowd. A mosque is too male-dominated. A restaurant is too static, and therefore risky. The neighborhood around the safe house is upscale: sidewalks of hand-laid pavers, trees in abundance, a mixture of contemporary and ancient architecture. The sidewalks remain a Benetton ad: Western, Indian, Arab, African. Not a Chinese in sight.

  “A market? A street market?” Knox says.

  “The Grand Bazaar, mister, is most famo
us—”

  “This side of the strait! The south side!” Knox’s abrupt tone is off-putting to the driver. The man looks away from the rearview mirror, pretending his cab is empty.

  Knox drops some liras into the front seat. “A food or spice market. Clothing? Household goods? A street market near here.”

  “Kadiköy is not familiar,” the driver says.

  “Call someone! Find out!” Knox says. “Turn here.” He points right. Directs the cab left at the next intersection. He’s all raw instinct—a water witcher. The purpose of training is to make you unpredictable, and Grace is well trained. She’s likely stuck on foot if she’s not dead in the safe house. He shudders. “Call someone now!” he shouts. “Public market!”

  Cursing beneath his breath, the cabdriver reaches for his phone.

  Knox attempts to further untangle the knot of Grace’s abduction. Mashe Okle, a nuclear engineer. The record of his higher education obscured but not redacted. Grace’s captors will want her to explain her interest in the man. To kill her would be to invite others to follow the same path. If she has escaped—as Knox is assuming—the Iranians will be trying to recapture her.

  “Street market today,” the cabbie says, ending the call. “Many apologies. I forget the day it is.”

  “Near here?”

  “Up the hill. Quite near.”

  “Up the hill?” Grace has played contrarian, assuming that, like Knox, her pursuers will head downhill.

  “I take you there?” The man wants Knox out of his cab. Smells trouble.

  “You take me there,” Knox confirms. He wants Grace in the backseat with him. And he wants any one of the personnel pursuing her, too. Wants to confirm them as Iranians, wants to tune up someone to rid himself of the adrenaline poisoning him. Experiences a pang of guilt: he should have protected her from this ever happening.

  Knox’s phone vibrates. “Yeah?”

  “Police emergency line.” It’s Dulwich. “Woman speaking English says kidnappers are after her. Said she’s near a bull.”