The Istanbul Puzzle (22 page)

‘In the water, near where you picked us up,’ I said loudly. Anyway it was true, relatively speaking, if you stretched the meaning of the word near.

Kaiser turned his head and looked up at the roof as if he’d heard something.

‘We gotta get outta here at zero three thirty.’

‘How come?’ I asked.

‘That’s when the Turkish Coast Guard comes by, to check that we’re gone. If we’re not, they board us. It gives ’em something to do. We get a two-hour window each night. After that the ferries start up.’ He looked at the shiny brass clock high up on the wall. It read three ten.

‘We got a few minutes,’ he said.

Isabel patted her pockets and retrieved her phone. I was amazed she still had it. She shook it. A little water dripped from it. She wasn’t going to be calling up the cavalry any time soon.

‘Anyone know how to fix wet phones?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to take some photos.’

‘Sorry, honey,’ said Kaiser. ‘But don’t worry. I’m gonna take all the shots we need.’ He took a sleek black Leicon camera with a hooded lens from a shelf above the table, and began taking shots of the manuscript. He closed it so he could get a shot of the cover. I took a step sideways. His Leicon was similar to the one Alek had bought recently. There was a red light flashing on its side. It reminded me of one of the camera’s best features.

‘You’ll get some good shots with that,’ I said. I came up behind him, right up beside his shoulder. ‘Good camera.’

He nodded. ‘Only the best, man.’

I’d seen what I’d wanted to see, so I stepped back.

He turned the pages of the manuscript. A few of the pages were clearly letters that had been sewn in with other pages. They had seals at the end of the page, folds and headings at the top. Some of the letters had multiple seals. His camera whirred.

Most of the text was tightly packed and hand written. Some pages were decorated with a single ornately designed letter with spirals or corkscrew shapes around it in faded colours. Some of the pages were in Greek. A few were in Arabic. Kaiser stopped taking pictures.

‘The Greek parts are Koine Greek. 5th to 7th century, I’d say. You can tell from the thin strokes,’ he said. He bent closer. His nose was almost touching the page.

‘The Arabic text is early Abjad, from that time or a bit later.’

Kaiser peered at the page, then moved his head back.

‘That’s the word Mohammad,’ He pointed halfway down a page. There was a word written in faded red. ‘This page must have been written after Islam appeared.’ He turned the book to face me. His finger traced the words without touching the parchment.

A gust of wind rattled the hatch at the top of the stairs. Isabel looked as if she was about to say something. Then the lights flickered.

‘The Islamic history nuts are gonna love this. Nothing like this has been discovered for years, no – centuries,’ said Kaiser.

‘We’ll have to get this examined properly,’ said Isabel. ‘I’d love to see it translated.’

‘Books in this city were pretty important,’ said Kaiser. ‘There’s a story that the original Book of Revelation, the one written by St John himself, used to be kept here.’

‘This isn’t the Book of Revelation,’ said Isabel.

Kaiser waved his hand towards the book. ‘I can get this translated, dated, we can see exactly how old each section is. I know this expert on Byzantine symbols. He works here in Istanbul. And there’s another guy I know who’s written a bunch of papers on early Arabic. Their university will know what to do with this.’ He paused, put his hands up. ‘I’m just saying, that’s probably the best thing we can do, get the academics involved. Do this right.’

Next, he’d be asking for me to leave it with him. ‘Thanks for the offer, buddy, but we’ll take it from here,’ I said.

‘Hold on,’ he said, leaning towards me. ‘I’m part of this now.’

We stared into each other’s eyes. His were cold, blue, determined.

I didn’t blink. ‘Thanks for the offer, but like I said, we’ll take it from here.’ I wasn’t going to put up with any bullshit from this guy.

We stared at each other.

Then the shrill wail of a siren split the air. It was so loud it seemed as if someone had let it off right on top of us. Isabel’s head jerked upwards. Kaiser’s eyes rolled.

‘Goddamn coast guards. They’re way early. What’s got up their ass?’

He hurriedly placed the manuscript back in its inner wrapping.

I wondered if we should hide it.

As if he’d read my mind, he said, ‘We never deceive these guys. It ain’t worth it.’

Within seconds the hatch at the top of the stairs swung open. Along with a gust of wind and rain, a rapid burst of Turkish poured forth.

‘Come on in, get out of the rain, guys,’ shouted Kaiser in reply. He added something in Turkish.

Dripping coast guard officers with see-through, plastic- covered, white-peaked caps filed down into the cabin.

Kaiser’s hands were already raised in greeting. ‘Hey guys,’ he said. ‘Welcome aboard.’ His tone was friendly.

One of the officers said something to him in Turkish. Kaiser replied in Turkish. Isabel said something. I heard the words British and Consulate. The officer shook hands with her.

‘They’re gonna bring us in,’ said Kaiser, angrily, as he turned to me. ‘They say they’re looking for someone.’

I didn’t reply. There was a chance they were looking for someone else, but if they were looking for us, at least we were in the hands of the Turkish authorities, not some private gang hired by whoever was in charge of that place we’d escaped from.

Trespassing couldn’t be that big a deal here, could it?

Then one of the officers who was standing beside me looked down at the leather package.

A few minutes later, as I stepped on board the coast guard vessel, I turned and watched the same officer, who was still on Kaiser’s yacht. In his hand, pressed into his body, was the manuscript, back in all its layers of animal skin and in a see-through plastic bag. It was an evidence bag and he was carrying it as if his life depended it. I’d tried to bring it with me, but my request had been met with a lot of shaking heads.

For a chilling moment, I thought he might drop it into the Bosphorus as he came on board. Was it going be lost so soon after it had been found? I looked around, tried to get a bearing on where we were. The rain was still beating down, but the sea was calmer. Before he stepped onto the short gangplank between the two vessels the officer put the plastic bag under his jacket.

‘You know, in some places, they still kill people because of books,’ said Kaiser breezily, as we went down into the gleaming grey bowels of the coast guard vessel.

He was right, of course.

It was 1:25 in the morning in London. Arap Anach heard the front door of his suite close. Lord Bidoner had taken his time with all his stories and plans, but Arap knew better than to interrupt him. Lord Bidoner would be the public face of a new United Kingdom.

He looked at the LCD screen, where thirty minutes ago they’d watched images of the rioting across Europe. Everything was ready. Years of work were about to be rewarded. The world needed a new beginning. And before rebirth came death. It was the natural order of things.

Europe, the western world, had been in the ascendant for five hundred years, since Christopher Columbus had discovered America. But its inhabitants had grown weak from not having to defend their borders in recent centuries. Military ascendancy could easily be lost in the next one hundred years if things didn’t change.

People had to realise that compassion had run its course. The distaste for outright war which had permeated the West since only the Second World War had to end. Europe’s elite, fearful of being overrun, should use the weapons at their disposal. Soon the West would be on top again.

The new Black Death, about to be unleashed, would kill enough people in Europe to help make fear more important than compassion, as it had always been. Deaths would be in the millions, but they would all die for a good cause. What were their lives worth anyway? The future of humanity was at stake. The resources of the earth would last a lot longer now. And the quality of life would improve for the survivors. The reality of declining birth rates in Europe, and a Muslim population explosion, would be tackled too.

Humanity would be saved from itself.

All the West needed was a little nudge every now and then to keep its destiny on track, and the people who knew how to do it. People such as him. The current generation of leaders had lost the will to be strong. New leaders were needed, new figureheads too. And blood would flow to make it happen. When every family in the land had lost half its members things would change.

Despite the hour, the police station near Taksim Square where we were taken was as busy as an anthill. I saw my first drunken Turk in a corridor there, and two Russian hookers. Both had thick flaxen hair, purple marks on their faces and the vacant expressions of long-time drug users.

We were, it transpired, under arrest.

I was pissed off. Not only had they transported us like everyday criminals in the back of separate police cars from the wharf, they’d kept me waiting in a bare corridor for what seemed like ages without even bothering to tell me what was going on.

‘What do you know about this book you found?’ was, surprisingly, the first question I was asked after being escorted, alone, to a windowless interview room. It had exactly the same dirty blue tiles on its floor as on its walls. The room had a foul nicotinic air, as if it had been used in the past to interview a troop of chain-smoking mass murderers.

‘Not a lot,’ I replied. We stared at each other.

‘Mr Ryan, I need you to cooperate.’ He leaned forward. His English was very good, though heavily accented. ‘This is a serious matter. People are in prison for less.’

‘I haven’t done anything,’ I said. ‘And I don’t expect to go to prison for looking at something. I’m not a smuggler.’

‘Let me remind you that our prisons are not holiday camps. If you tell me everything, I will make sure you are dealt with quickly,’ he said.

‘I appreciate that,’ I said. I gave him a thin we’ll-see smile.

‘You admit you found this book we discovered on Mr Kaiser’s boat, yes?’

He wore a uniform similar to the policemen who’d brought us here, but he had stripes on his epaulets and more badges. He was older too, tanned, and had thinning black hair brushed over an egg-shaped head.

A security camera in a metal box high up on one wall observed the two of us.

‘Yes, I did. I found it, in its wrapping, at the shoreline. We were robbed at gunpoint. I gave them my camera. We were forced down the rocks to the Bosphorus to give them time to get away, I expect. I spotted the parcel. We got soaked retrieving it. That’s all there is to it.’ The policeman stared at me with his head to one side.

He did not look impressed by my story.

‘That’s not what your friend is telling us.’ He paused to gauge my reaction.

I stared at a point low down on the far wall. There were shouts from outside the room. One of the drunks was letting off expletive-laden steam.

‘You know the penalties for smuggling artefacts from Turkey, don’t you?’

‘We haven’t smuggled anything. Are you not listening?’ I looked him in the eye. How crazy was this going to get?

‘But you were planning to, no?’ He had a triumphant look on his face as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

Sweat ran down my forehead. It was hotter here than in a sauna on Coney Island on the fourth of July.

‘The Directorate of Monuments Investigations Division have been contacted, Mr Ryan. They told us your name is known to them, that you are involved in some work in Hagia Sophia. Is that correct?’

I nodded.

‘So, tell me the truth. You found the artefact in Hagia Sophia, yes?’ His eyes were gleaming.

‘No,’ I replied, forcefully. ‘Now when can we go?’

He shook his head. ‘The artefact in question is incredibly valuable, is it not?’

I wondered what would happen if I asked him to open the door, so we could get some air. I smiled grimly to myself. I knew the answer I would get.

‘Do you find this funny, Mr Ryan?’

‘Yes, I do. It’s funny that my colleague gets murdered here, but I’m the one that ends up in a police station. Wouldn’t it be better if you were trying to find out who killed him?’

‘We know all about your colleague, but right now we want to find out about this artefact.’ He paused. ‘Did your friend Kaiser help you find it, Mr Ryan?’ He shifted towards me, placed his elbows on the metal table that separated us, and crossed his arms. ‘Is that not the truth?’

‘How about you tell me what progress you’ve made on Alek Zegliwski’s case?’

His mouth was set in a thin line. He did not look pleased.

‘Christians aren’t the only ones who believe in justice, Mr Ryan. We too believe God will send evil doers to their doom, and the righteous to their reward in heaven.’ He leaned closer to me.

I could smell his sweat. The tic in my cheek, which had been coming and going since we’d been arrested, started up again.

I slapped the side of my face. The tic stopped. My interrogator looked at me as if he thought I’d gone mad. Maybe he thought all westerners were mad.

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Then we’re on the same wavelength.’

He leaned closer, as if he was getting to the nub of his questions. ‘Do you know about the speculation about some Greeks wanting to reclaim Hagia Sophia?’

I shook my head.

‘Are you working with the Greeks, Mr Ryan? You had better tell us if you are. We will find out, you know, and if you haven’t told us, I promise it will be worse for you.’

I shook my head slowly. Talk about being obsessed, fighting previous wars over and over.

My interrogator looked pained, as if he didn’t believe me, and didn’t like what he was going to have to do next. ‘We know all the tricks, Mr Ryan. I promise you, you will regret not telling us, if you are hiding something.’

I stared at him. Did he really think I was working with some crazy Greeks? I’d expected to be quizzed about trespassing at Hagia Eirene, not about some far out conspiracy theory.

I raised my hands. ‘Look, honestly, I had no idea what was in that package when we found it. You came up on us right after we opened it. Surely that says something. You’ve got all the wrappings. Ask Kaiser or his friend. Now, I’m tired. I haven’t had a wink of sleep. Let us go. I’m not being charged with anything, am I? Doesn’t that rule apply here?’

My brain was slowing and my exhaustion was making me even more irritable than usual.

The policeman let out a knowing laugh. He shook his head. ‘You’ll be released when we are ready. And yes, that rule does apply here, unless you’re a terrorist. You’re not a terrorist, are you?’

‘No,’ I said, indignantly. ‘Do I look like one?’ I raised my hands.

He shrugged. ‘Who knows, these days. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell us? This is your last chance to come clean. We will be reasonable.’

‘I’ll tell you this.’ I paused. ‘I need to sleep.’ I put my head on my arms. The policeman said nothing. After about a minute he stood and went to the door. As he opened it, he said, ‘Don’t get too comfortable.’

I picked my head up and replied, ‘Where’s the book?’

‘Where is it? It’s already been taken by someone from the British Consulate. We received word from our Ministry of Culture that we should hand it over to them. The best place to verify what it is is in England. It will take some time to do that, I’m sure. I doubt you’ll be seeing it again soon.’

The door closed with a bang behind him. I put my head back down on the table. Bastards. We’d found it, they’d taken it.

I could smell a lemony disinfectant from the table as I lay my head down on my arms.

Was I going to be charged? Was this how it would all end, with me in a Turkish prison?

I moved my head, tried to get comfortable. I was almost overcome with exhaustion, but it was difficult to sleep.

One thing was sure, if Father Gregory had been alive he’d have been a help in deciphering what we’d found. He’d probably have known straight away what that symbol at the back meant, and what those letters towards the middle were all about.

I slept fitfully. And the interview room was hotter and even more airless when I woke. I felt as if I’d been beaten up, then put into an airtight container. My eyes were stinging, a muddy taste filled my mouth, and my body had aches and pains I didn’t even know were possible.

I was angry. When were they going to let us go?

I got a cramp in my right calf. I stood and pressed my foot down hard. Slowly it went away.

‘
Gun eydin
,’ said a woman’s voice.

I looked around. The door to the interview room was open. A slim Turkish police officer was standing in the doorway, holding a clipboard. She was fidgeting, as if she had enough nervous energy for the two of us.

‘My name is Adile,’ she said. A rush of cool air had come into the room.

Hope and anxiety poured through me as if I’d been injected with them. I kept my expression as blank as I could.

‘You are released, Mr Ryan. The British Consulate is taking full responsibility for you, because you were with a member of their staff.’ She stepped to one side.

A surge of relief flowed through me. I looked past her. Isabel was standing down the corridor, looking in my direction. She was still wearing the black T-shirt and trousers Kaiser had given her. She gave me a restrained wave.

We were escorted by the lady police officer to the exit. I didn’t even have to sign anything. We walked out into the busy car park. It was wonderful to be out of that interview room, to be in the open again.

‘I had to wake up our chief security officer in Ankara,’ said Isabel. ‘He wasn’t happy.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

‘It’s my neck on the line. Did you keep to our story?’

‘Would they have let us out, if they knew where we’d been?’

She shook her head. ‘No, and the last thing we need is the local police to be stumbling around where we were. Trust me, I know how they do things here.’

She glanced back towards the police station. ‘They had one hell of a bee in their bloody bonnet about antiquities smuggling. ’

Was this the right time to tell her about Kaiser’s camera?

I rubbed my hands through my hair and groaned. I was almost too tired to think.

‘Are you OK?’ she said. There was real concern in her voice.

She was right beside me. Our bodies were almost touching. I was acutely aware of her presence, the glow of her skin, her curves. I hadn’t felt so attracted to someone in a long time.

I pushed away the feelings. I was just tired. We’d been through an emotional wringer together. I had to get a grip.

‘Do you know what happened to Kaiser?’ I said.

She shrugged.

That was when it happened.

We were only a few steps from the police station. I had just turned my head to check if we could cross the road, when something needle sharp, which made a phttt noise, stung me on the cheek. Dust spurted from the wall, as if it had exploded. I could taste gritty concrete. At first, I thought something had happened to the wall.

Then dust splattered again. I grabbed Isabel’s arm. ‘Get down.’

We ducked and scuttled across like crabs towards a shiny new black BMW parked by the curb. My brain was alert again. Amazing, isn’t it, what fear of imminent death can do.

But where were the shots coming from? The only people on the street I could see were two couples, a block away. Neither of them was even looking at us. I could hear cars rumbling, a horn blowing. Then a rotten smell reached me, as if there was something dead in a drain nearby.

I turned my head. The tree-lined street looked completely safe. I couldn’t see anybody with a gun. Maybe it was over. They’d sent their message.

Then there was another… phttt. Isabel yanked hard at my arm, pulling me further down.

In the polished black sheen of the BMW, I saw a dark streak on my cheek. I put my hand to it. It felt wet. I caught the scent of iron as I pulled my fingers away. What the hell? I shivered hard, as if I had a fever.

Then that noise again, like an over-excited bee, and a bullet hit the pavement by my feet, digging a crater into the ground. I tasted more grit, felt it in my throat. Someone was trying to kill us. Or me, at least.

I pushed Isabel down, tried to cover her with my body. I could feel her warmth under me.

As I listened for that noise again, I looked under the car, tried to see across the road, to catch whoever it was that was coming to finish us off. Then I looked around and saw them.

‘Help!’ I shouted. I raised my arm, started waving frantically at a group of police officers standing in the station car park, no more than a hundred feet away.

As they turned to see who was shouting, it was like watching people reacting in slow motion. First, they all stared at us. Then, after a cloud of dust skipped into the air near us, two of them pulled guns.

What followed was a cacophony. An alarm went off, and in a display of real courage two Turkish police officers raced out into the street, guns raised.

Someone began screaming. A woman carrying a mop and bucket in the police car park had noticed what was going on.

The next thing I heard was the sound of a motorbike. I peeked around the side of the BMW. In the alley directly opposite where we were hiding, a motorcyclist in black leather was speeding away. The bike turned a corner and was gone. I looked at my hands. They felt sticky. They were covered in something red.