The Red Room Read online

  The Demirtas neighborhood of the Eminönü district is a tight tangle of short streets that compress in width the closer one gets to the Golden Horn inlet. Smog-stained Roman columns adorn corner buildings adjacent to the remnants of ancient city walls, all of it surrounded by tasteless two-story apartment buildings that make Knox think of the highway views driving by Detroit. Istanbul has been conquered and occupied by the Crusaders, Ottoman sultans, Romans and the original founders, the Greeks. Built on seven hills, the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara, it was made into a fortress of palaces, golden domes, parks and towers. It has been sacked, nearly emptied of its population and rebuilt numerous times. In the middle of the seventeenth century, it was the largest city on earth.

  It is currently the home to every ethnicity, culture, religion and sect, a kaleidoscope of the human species. Every scent. Every color of glass, clothing and skin can be found. Every culinary treat. The city’s Grand Bazaar, an endless warren of booths and shops, is all this diversity boiled down to commercialism. Knox walks the unbearably crowded bazaar first, just to remind himself of where he is and whose company he keeps. Overpowered by sweat, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom, incense, blue jeans and hammered brass lanterns, Knox roams the concourses in a herd of tourists and locals alike, content and comforted by how some things, some places, never change. Squint your eyes, and it could be 200 B.C.

  He keeps the Tigers cap pulled low as he settles himself onto a stone step across town. Doesn’t want his height and physique drawing undue attention. He wears his important belongings on his person, thanks to the Scottevest. Needs a stop at a department store for a change of clothing.

  He continues his surveillance of the Yurtiçi Kargo storefront. Satisfied he’s spotting nothing out of the ordinary at the shipping center, but wary nonetheless, he crosses the street, lengthening his strides to reduce his height. He was with Victoria Momani when she called FedEx and requested an alternate delivery. He trusts that between the hand-off to Turkish authorities by the Jordanians—if such a hand-off ever took place, which is unlikely given the reluctant, sluggish nature of overly possessive international security divisions—any live monitoring of the bust’s movements is unlikely. More credible is that its air bill destination might have been shared or be under surveillance. He can’t imagine Victoria’s redirect to this branch office being picked up on. Bureaucracy has its blessings.

  Inside, he presents false ID in the name of one of three covers he carries, John Chambers. The delivery is efficient, no tell apparent from the woman behind the counter. The bulk and weight of the crate creates problems, or would for most. Knox carries it like a hatbox in one hand, stunning the woman, who struggled to move it from cart to scale.

  An instant later, he’s out in the street, eyes alert for those alert to him. It’s a strange and disconcerting element of this work; he imagines it being akin to the weight of celebrity. Knox is rarely indifferent to his surroundings, is perpetually preoccupied with survival. It’s a condition shared with animals in the wild—fight or flight, the underlying awareness that every moment is kill or be killed. Some will claim they can feel it, that they possess a prescience that can alert them to surveillance. Knox is not so lucky; he needs some sign. And although he has trained his senses well beyond those of the “average man,” spotting group surveillance continues to elude him. His only hope is to identify one of many and expand from there.

  This is the task he puts himself to as he climbs into a taxi. His eyes roam, searching for faces he saw during his curbside vigil. He makes comments about how beautiful the city is to satisfy his driver’s curiosity. Knox makes an excuse of forgetting something, directing the driver to circle a block to return to the pickup—an attempt to spot mobile surveillance. Feigns discovery of the missing item on his person and redirects the cab once again. It’s a familiar routine, but far from comfortable. He’s crawling out of his skin within minutes.

  He checks into the Alzer Hotel as himself. Is a returning guest and, as such, is treated like royalty. He declines an upgrade in order to remain on the first floor, one above street level. He looks down on the hotel’s café seating, has a view across an open plaza and a mosque beyond. Its spires and walls suggest an exotic fortress, a world secreted from prying eyes like his. Such treasures await the unsuspecting visitor on nearly every corner: a Roman bath, a Greek column and a mosque.

  He keeps the Obama bust in its crate in the bottom of the armoire, displacing a pair of courtesy terry-cloth slippers and a shoeshine kit. Thinks back to Dulwich’s description of the op and wonders if things will settle down now.

  They need no introduction when he makes the call, as the caller ID on her end has identified him as Hopper 7.

  “We need to get together and go over the books,” she says. Her use of their cover, Grace as his bookkeeper, tells him she’s speaking somewhere she doesn’t believe is secure. He finds it easy to slip into his role.

  “Indeed. Work up a budget for me, please, with an eye toward the improving climate.”

  “My pleasure.”

  There’s something about the way she says it that takes his mind off the job at hand. “Why don’t you pick the location, as I’ve just arrived?”

  “I am somewhat . . . preoccupied,” she says, choosing the word carefully, “with other clients. I could fit you in around drinks.”

  She’s suggesting she’s being watched or followed. Knox mulls this over, compares it to his own situation in Amman. He should have pushed Sarge for more details about his “chat” with Grace; sometimes his wisecracking banter is a detriment, though he’s loath to admit it.

  “Name it.”

  She picks a Starbucks near the Firuz Aga Mosque in the old city. Knox knows the adjoining park well: its handcarts selling fresh melon and bananas, the vegetation an unexpected mix of tropical and temperate. The choice of Starbucks disappoints him but is so in character he should have thought of it first. The time is set for three-thirty.

  He gets a shower and a much needed nap. Buys two sets of clothes, head-to-toe, and puts them into the hotel express wash. Where once there was adrenaline and urgency, there is routine, a condition he cautions himself against.

  —

  GRACE’S FACE REMAINS PASSIVE, but her eyes light up at his entrance. They kiss cheeks and he sits across a small table from her. Before anyone else has a chance to enter the coffee shop, she reviews her arrival to the airport and the tail she collected, speaking quietly and fast.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say Dulwich is a lying sack of shit,” Knox says.

  Grace bites back a smile, chastising him with her expressive eyes, and opens her laptop to actual spreadsheets of Knox’s import business. They sit closer and she traces lines on the screen with a blue fingernail.

  “You do not think this,” she says.

  “No. I think he’s into something big—we’re into something big—that has political ramifications, and is likely another attempt to improve something that will never be fixed. He knows I’m a sucker for lost causes. He uses that. And even knowing that, I fall into it, so it’s on me.”

  “This common interest in Mashe Melemet is shared by others,” she says.

  “Who?”

  “The mother is Melemet. Hospital records,” Grace says. “Oldest son, Mashe. Younger son, Akram. The spying is on Mashe.”

  “You’ve had company,” he says.

  She nods.

  “Me, too. You ID them?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Me, neither.” He never stops checking out the other occupants. Has them memorized by face and clothing. “So tell me about him—the brother.”

  “He is quite well off. Income is paid through Iran’s Ministry of Industry and Mines.” Grace answers before he asks. “Regulation of industry, including mining. Promotion of export of mining products, including engineering and technology.”

  “A cover for mi
litary research?”

  “Possibly, though his investments suggest an academic. Sciences. Pharmas. Aviation. Space exploration. He could indeed be a researcher. And get this: all listings are on the NASDAQ and the NYSE.”

  He smirks.

  “I thought you would like that.”

  “So, a scientific academic in Iran,” Knox says, leaving it in the air between them.

  “He liquidated investments ahead of your previous sales to Akram.”

  “He’s my collector.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And Brian Primer wants us both in a room with him for five minutes, but he swears it’s not a hit.”

  He sees surprise.

  “What?” he asks.

  “The request is from David, neh, not Mr. Primer?”

  Ever the realist, Knox thinks.

  “My immediate role is to ensure the meet between you and Mashe.”

  “You do that how?”

  Her eyes say, please. Her voice says, “You like things clean.”

  “Cleaner than this. We don’t know who we’re working for. We don’t know who we’re working against.”

  “I . . . in the airport. It’s government, or someone who can buy his way into the Turkish equivalent of your TSA.”

  “Well, that certainly clarifies things.”

  “Have you made the call?” she asks.

  “Tomorrow. I don’t want to appear overeager.”

  “You are flirting. No wonder Mr. Dulwich selected you for this job.”

  He almost finds it in himself to smile at her.

  Checking her watch, she says, “Would you help me with something?”

  “Shopping for a new watch, I hope.” She wears a Michael Kors aviator, platinum ringed, hinge-snap clasp. Its masculinity has no place on her delicate wrist.

  She leads the way outside. Within minutes, they’ve joined the hordes of tourists that are forced to divide themselves between wonders-of-the-world mosques and exquisite Roman ruins. Soon they break away into Gülhane Park, inside which the city disappears.

  “Have you been in?” Knox asks Grace, pointing out the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

  “Never.”

  “You must.”

  She checks her masculine watch again. “Not today.”

  “Are we meeting someone?”

  “I am not sure.”

  They continue toward Topkapi Palace. “It once housed four thousand people. Was a miniature city for the sultan. Included a hospital, bakeries, nearly independent of the outside world. And now, tourists.”

  “Like the Forbidden City,” she says. She turns them around. Knox can’t keep from surveying their surroundings.

  “Anything?” she asks.

  “No. But if they’re government . . .”

  “I was able to track one. Xin was, actually. Data Services.”

  “One what?”

  “A man following me.”

  “Track, as in . . . ?”

  “I have his texts for the past several days. His locations. GPS fixes.”

  “And you were going to tell me, when?”

  “I just did.”

  “Jesus.”

  “He revisited Sisli Square four times in three days. Always between four and five.” She pauses. “Sent what could be a coded text at the end of his last visit.”

  He now understands her double-checking the time.

  “There will be taxis at the museum,” she says.

  “And crowds.”

  “Just so.”

  “It’s good to see you again,” he says.

  She hooks her arm in his and they walk. It’s an uncommonly familiar gesture for someone as distant as she. It feels awkward until she speaks.

  “In case we missed someone out there.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”

  She holds him closer, or does he imagine it? In profile, she appears to be smiling. Or not. He feels off balance. First Dulwich, now Grace Chu. The leaves rustle overhead, sounding dry in the fall breeze. A boat horn haunts the sky. A Turkish kid skateboards past them wearing a Who T-shirt and Air Jordans.

  Knox ditches the anxiety. He feels right at home.

  —

  THEY SIT together in Sisli Square as afternoon prayers are called. Grace is enchanted by the nasally, electronic summons pealing from the minarets.

  “Do you feel it? It is as if the city takes a breath,” she says.

  “If they take too deep a breath, they’ll gag.” Car exhaust chokes the city when the breezes off the Bosphorus pause for even minutes. The smog residue crusts the older buildings in a black smudge and, on bad days, causes one’s nose and eyes to run—the scourge of the third world.

  They both wear sunglasses; Grace, a head scarf. She explains what the GPS data has told her about the man seen watching her apartment.

  “The mosque makes the most sense,” Knox says. “Afternoon prayers. He didn’t have to be attending. He could be surveilling someone.”

  “By your own admission, there are any number of agencies who would want the mark. Yes? More important to me is not the who, but the why. This man entered the country six days ago. This we can assume. Four different times he spends at least an hour on this bench. Why? How does that relate to us? To say it does not is absurd,” she says, cutting off his objection. “A shipment? A middleman? Our safety relies upon—”

  “—knowledge of the exigent circumstances. You take this stuff too literally. Chinese violinists are technically the most accomplished in the world, you know, but they lack soul. You need to loosen up.” He’s thinking: The frog and the scorpion. This is the Middle East. Anybody could be interested in Mashe Okle. Get in line.

  “You need to consider what you say before you say it.”

  “You realize we’re recording all this?” he says.

  They laugh together. He never would have imagined such a moment a year ago.

  “What I said,” Grace says, “my mother used to say to me. You would be surprised. I was once more like you than you imagine.”

  “Are you implying I never matured?”

  “You are impossible.”

  “But consistent.”

  Knox’s phone is still recording when a low-battery alert chimes. They end their recordings at thirty-two minutes.

  “I’ll call Akram tomorrow morning and ask for the down payment. Get things going.”

  “To be wired. The funds must be wired into the account.”

  “Impossible. These things are always cash.”

  “The data will enable me to hack his bank account and determine the source of the deposits.”

  “Sarge didn’t explain any of this to me.”

  “It is how we win the face-to-face.” Grace is unsure how much to share. If David Dulwich did not include Knox, there must be a reason, the most obvious of which is that should one of them be captured, he or she must not have the full picture. That leads her to wonder why the possibility they might be surveilled and captured was never mentioned.

  “He’s compartmentalized us,” Knox says. “That can’t be good.”

  “I was thinking same thing.” Grace hears herself drop the article as dictated in her native Mandarin. Knows it signals her anxiety. Sees Knox react to the red flag. They know each other too well; it’s a worrisome thought. The op in Amsterdam brought them closer. Not only are they more aware of each other’s idiosyncrasies, but also a shared hour in a brothel stripped them of the secrets typically kept between co-workers. They have information only lovers possess, and yet they are far from lovers.

  “It’s got to be cash. He’ll smell it a mile away.”

  Grace ruminates. “Yes. I understand.”

  “You don’t have to look so glum.”

  “It is a complication.”


  “Maybe if it was explained to me, it wouldn’t be.”

  Grace makes a point of weighing her response. A year ago, she would have stuck to David Dulwich’s instructions without question. Now, she wonders at the forces responsible for testing her this way.

  After a moment or two of silence, she speaks quietly. She is afraid he will tease her. Sometimes this cuts her to her core. “‘When the wind of change blows, some build walls while others build windmills.’”

  She sees Knox winding up to lash out, but he swallows it away. Perhaps they are both different from a year ago, she thinks. Condensing the plan she and Dulwich worked out, she offers it to Knox in its most simplistic form.

  “Isn’t there some way around the wiring of the cash?” Knox asks.

  Knox’s sense of what she does amuses her at such times.

  He says, “It’s a boatload of money.”

  “Understood.”

  “Maybe not if you’re an arms dealer, but—”

  “He is not an arms dealer.” She blurts this out. “Or if he is, he is not so very good at it.” She explains the relatively small investment portfolio as well as her inability to follow the deposits. “The point is, the deposits are made directly from other bank accounts. If this was questionable income . . . I deal with questionable income. It is what I do for the company. This is not. You see?”

  “It’s only one account,” Knox says.

  “Yes. Are you going to tell me how to do my job?”

  He’s about to. He stops himself.

  She wants to reward him. “I apologize.”

  “No. You’re right. You have me nailed.”

  Maybe he’s jet-lagged. This isn’t the Knox she knows.

  He says, “How certain are you?”

  “I should not have said anything. I was mistaken to do so. An opinion is all.”