The Lucifer Code (15 page)

‘Sevki, let me in before I break the door down.’ Cleena kicked the door again, harder.

‘God, have you no decency, woman?’

‘None, nor shame either. Let me in, Sevki, or you’ll think the three little pigs got off easily.’

‘As I recall, the three little pigs won.’

‘Not in my world.’

Sevki shot the bolts, seven of them, and opened the door. It was heavy and swung on well-oiled hinges. Beneath the aged wooden veneer was a metal core thick enough to withstand bullets and low-yield grenades. Sevki believed in security.

‘Is anyone with you?’ he asked. He stuck his head out and glanced along the walk.

Cleena slapped him on the back of the head. ‘It’s stupid to stick your head out like that. Someone will shoot it off.’

‘No, no, no, no one will shoot my head off. I knew you were here, and I knew you were alone. I took your advice and put in a precautionary measure.’ Sevki pointed at the building across the alley. ‘Look along the rooftop under the eaves.’

When Cleena did, she spotted the small camera mounted there.

‘Wireless feed,’ Sevki explained. ‘I see what it sees on my computer.’

‘Very well done.’

Sevki grinned like a kid. He stood a little taller than Cleena and was lanky. His black hair was thick and in obvious disarray. Blue highlights showed on the ends. He wore olive cargo khakis and a black flannel T-shirt sporting a costumed superhero with a glowing ring under a green shirt. Round-lensed glasses softened his narrow face.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,’ he said.

‘A few months,’ Cleena agreed.

‘Five months, three weeks and two days.’

Cleena wasn’t surprised that he knew that. Sevki had a phenomenal mind, which was what had originally brought her to him.

‘You look well,’ he said. ‘Life has been good?’

‘I’m in trouble.’

Some of the carefree attitude slid from Sevki’s face. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘The bad kind. The kind you don’t know how bad it really is until it’s on you.’

‘And it’s on you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has any of this bad kind of trouble followed you here?’

‘No. I’m sure of that.’

Sevki stepped back and opened the door wider. ‘Come in.’

CHAPTER

10

Stone Goose Apartments

Zeytinburnu District

Istanbul, Turkey

17 March 2010

‘I
’m surprised you don’t know where the police department is.’ Sevki sat in a comfortable chair in front of a desk that had six computer monitors spread across it. His fingers clacked across the keyboard with practised ease. Images changed on the monitors with astonishing regularity. Cleena didn’t know how he kept up with everything, but she knew he did.

‘I’ve made a habit of never getting arrested.’ Cleena lounged on the couch with accustomed familiarity. When she was in Istanbul, she and Sevki spent time together, as friends and as lovers. Neither of them could afford to have someone permanent in their lives, and neither of them was willing to give up the world they felt safe in to live together. Besides, though the friendship and fringe benefits were good, both preferred independence.

Sevki shrugged. ‘Getting arrested isn’t so bad.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘It’s when they try to keep you that things become less fun.’

‘I’m going to try never to put jail and fun in the same sentence again.’

The apartment was a mix of adult and child, of technician and dreamer. Everything in the kitchen was neatly in its place. Sevki liked to cook, which was one of the things Cleena appreciated about him. The computer area was immaculate, neatly organized and carefully arranged. That was where he did his work.

One wall held shelves filled with boxed American comic books and graphic novels. Each box was carefully coded. Posters of scantily clad women carrying magic swords and impossibly large handguns cluttered the walls. Cleena recognized Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, but none of the others. A few were even alien, but unmistakably female.

‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

‘I’m famished,’ she admitted.

‘There is some
arabasi
soup in the refrigerator.’

‘Sounds delicious.’ Cleena got up from the couch. ‘Want some?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Is there enough for two?’

Sevki turned and grinned at her. ‘Yes, even when one of the two is you. I also baked some
ekmek
a couple of days ago. Warm that up in the oven—’

‘I know how to fix leftovers,’ Cleena interrupted. ‘I’m not exactly helpless.’

‘You’re right. Not exactly helpless.’

A warm feeling spread throughout Cleena as she set about preparing the simple meal. It felt good to be in the kitchen again, doing something domestic with someone who knew all her secrets. She located the
arabasi
, poured it into a pan, and warmed it on the stove. She unwrapped the small loaves of
ekmek
and placed them on the tray inside the oven. Within minutes, the delightful smell of chicken broth and bread filled the apartment.

She took down a couple of big bowls from the shelves, filled them with soup, and cut the loaves into manageable chunks. She put a couple of pieces of bread into each bowl, then added slices of Havarti cheese.

After she handed Sevki his bowl, Cleena returned to the couch and peered over his shoulder at the monitors while she ate. The soup was good, just spicy enough with the red pepper, and the sourdough bread complemented the taste.

‘According to what I can find here,’ Sevki said, ‘your Professor Lourds—’

‘He’s not my Professor Lourds.’

Sevki glanced at her and smiled. ‘Struck a nerve, have I?’

‘The man is an idiot. He nearly got us both killed. Several times.’

‘Anyway, he’s here in Istanbul to deliver a series of lectures to classes a colleague teaches.’

‘What colleague?’ Cleena blew on her soup to cool it, then soaked a chunk of bread and ate it.

Sevki rattled the keyboard with his lightning fast strikes. ‘A professor at Istanbul University.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘
Her
name, actually. Professor Olympia Adnan.’ Sevki brought up an image from the university on one of the monitors.

The woman in the picture had dark hair styled to fit the shape of her head, dark eyes and a smooth olive complexion. She wore square-rimmed glasses. Cleena put her age at late thirties, but most of that ageing was done out of spite. The woman looked too beautiful to be a university professor.

‘Hey, she’s quite the babe,’ Sevki commented.

‘If you like older women,’ Cleena retorted.

‘Uh, yeah.’ Sevki turned his attention to his soup. ‘It might help if I knew what I was looking for.’

‘I need everything you can find out about the professor, and what he’s doing here. Beyond what you see in the news.’

‘So I’m supposed to be a mind reader?’

‘Think outside the box on this one, Sevki. I need you to use those brilliant instincts of yours.’

Sevki smiled. ‘Now you seek to play on my ego.’ He nodded and tapped his forehead. ‘Very good strategy. You must really be in trouble.’

‘Yes.’ Cleena’s appetite nearly soured at that thought, but she forced herself to keep eating. That was one of the things her father had drilled into her from the beginning: when she was tired, she slept, and when there was time, she ate. Someone malnourished and overly tired couldn’t function in survival mode. And she was certainly there.

‘I’m not the only one in trouble,’ Cleena said. ‘I have a younger sister. Last night someone got to her and threatened her. The professor isn’t my job. He’s someone else’s.’

Sevki remained still, taking in everything she said and showing no emotion.

For the briefest instant, Cleena wished she could take it all back. But she couldn’t. Brigid needed Sevki at his best, and Sevki needed to know what he was up against.

‘This guy who threatened my sister, Sevki, he’s not a commonplace thug. He’s connected somehow. A major player on the international scene.’ Cleena told him about the phone call she’d had and the visit Brigid had received to her work.

‘You think he belongs to an espionage agency,’ Sevki asked when she’d finished the summation.

Cleena nodded.

‘Not my government?’

‘If it had been the Turkish government, why travel all the way to the United States to threaten my sister?’

‘What do they want you to do with Professor Lourds?’

‘Just to watch him,’ Cleena answered.

‘Why? What is he supposed to do?’

‘That’s why I came to you. I want you to dig around and see what you can find out.’

‘Without bumping into these American spies that are threatening you.’

‘They may not be spies. They could be corporate interests. Someone like Blackwater. The espionage threats aren’t just political these days. Economies are uncertain, and religious fervour ignites everywhere.’

Sevki nodded. ‘I know. The Middle East has been increasingly restless of late. The disruption of the balance of power, of the uprising in Iran and of the Americans’ insistence that the Shia followers outnumbered the Sunni followers in Iraq, still hasn’t settled. I’ve been tracking that.’

Cleena hadn’t. She didn’t care for politics. Her father had been swayed by them, and been murdered because of a man who’d waved the flag of the Irish Republic under Ryan MacKenna’s nose. Her father would have never tried to make that weapons deal if he hadn’t been chasing politics. He’d known how Cleena felt about it. That was why he hadn’t taken her with him that morning.

‘I’m telling you this because you need to be careful,’ she said. ‘For yourself. And for my sister.’

He nodded.

‘And if you choose to back away from this thing, I’ll understand.’

‘But you will still do it.’

‘I have no choice.’

Sevki licked his spoon thoughtfully. ‘What you’re asking … this is a very dangerous thing, Cleena.’

‘I know.’

‘But it’s for family. I understand family.’

Before she knew it, tears trickled down Cleena’s face. She wiped them away.

‘I will do this thing for you. Carefully, as you say. But only so far. I myself have family.’

‘Thank you. Do you know about the kidnapping at Ataturk International Airport?’

‘Of course. It was in the news. I keep up with the news.’

‘Three of those men there were killed or wounded. I need to know who they are, or at least who they worked for. If possible.’

Sevki tapped on the keyboard for a moment. Pages of archives flashed up on the screens, then one of those on the right suddenly showed the airport.

He grinned. ‘Isn’t technology marvellous?’

A chill ghosted through Cleena as she watched the scene again. She’d known she and Lourds had been close to death, but she hadn’t known the eye of the storm had been so near.

‘The camera work is sloppy,’ Sevki said. ‘Taken by a tourist.’ He froze a screen that showed her and Lourds together. ‘If I’d been looking, I might have identified you.’

Cleena stared at her own red hair and thought a change might be in order.

‘If you do anything to your hair, make sure it’s temporary,’ Sevki told her.

Cleena looked at him. ‘Maybe you do read minds.’

‘That one was easy. But if you are caught, if you are questioned, dying your hair with something permanent might be suspicious. If you punk it out …’ Sevki halted and made spraying motions with his hands.

‘Highlight it with effects.’

Sevki snapped his fingers. ‘Yes. No one would look for a redhead wearing outrageous hair. And you seem young enough to look like you’re going for that kind of style.’

‘I
am
young enough.’

‘Pardon me.’ Sevki pulled out a flat device and drew on it with a computer pencil. On the screen, bright yellow circles appeared around the three men. ‘These men, yes?’

‘Yes. There are also men who were killed in a car accident only minutes later.’

‘And the exploding helicopter? That was
you
?’ Sevki looked surprised.

‘I didn’t shoot the helicopter.’

Sevki cursed and turned his attention to his computer. ‘There are bodies all over the city.’

‘There are also some in the catacombs beneath it,’ Cleena said. ‘They’ll be connected to the men in the car accident.’

‘But not with the men at the airport?’

Cleena took a deep breath. ‘I hope not. If they are, this is getting too twisted to follow.’

‘And this is just getting started.’

‘Oh, one other thing. These other people, the ones in the catacombs, they gave Lourds a book.’

‘A book?’

‘Yes.’

‘Finding bodies, I can do. But do you know how many books there are?’

‘Not like this one.’ Cleena described the book and what Lourds had explained about the Greek language code.

Sevki folded his hands together and cracked his knuckles. ‘Ah, now that is something I can work with.’

Cleena took his empty soup bowl and put it with hers. She returned to the kitchen and placed them in the sink.

‘I’ve got to get going,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got to catch up with Lourds. I’ve already stayed here longer than I should have.’

Sevki shrugged. ‘At the moment, Lourds is not going anywhere. The police have him.’

‘They could let him go at any time.’

‘They don’t appear to be in any hurry to do that.’ Sevki performed a short rhythm of keystrokes. A moment later, two screens changed images and showed a picture of Lourds seated inside a sterile room and another scene of a hallway.

‘Is this coming from inside the police station?’ Cleena whispered.

‘Of course.’ Sevki grinned. ‘I am very good at what I do. I am not the only one who does this, but I am one of the few who hasn’t been caught spying on the police. This is very expensive.
Very
expensive. But I pass those expenses on to others. And I find it good to know things the police don’t know I know.’

‘They haven’t found you out?’

Sevki shrugged. ‘Every now and again, yes. But I cover my tracks most carefully. When I get discovered, I wait a few months, then I hack into their systems again. They are not as impregnable as the police would have you think. For now, I am undiscovered once again. The addition Cisco Systems made of the Mobile Electronic Systems Integration has tied together a lot of information from all over the city. The infrastructure is complicated, but I like a challenge.’