The Red Room (11 page)

G
race chides Knox for his impatience but only because she is no stranger to its irritating and unrelenting hold. It is an unusually warm fall day; golden sunlight floods the vast sea of red terra-cotta roof tiles, spills through the impossibly narrow streets, the ancient buildings so closely packed that, from a distance, they appear as a warped red mass rising slowly to the north, a packed line interrupted by pale chimneys, satellite dishes, minarets, domes and laundry lines.

On the apartment building’s rooftop, Grace occupies a patio chaise lounge. Her laptop is open as an iced tea glass sweats on the side table. Grace wears a collapsible hat; her mother has instilled in her a belief that her skin must never be exposed to the sun. She rechecks the ghost escrow account established by a Cayman lawyer’s office. No deposit has been made. She’s beginning to wonder if Akram Okle and his brother really intend to make a move for the Harmodius. If not, she and Knox will pack up and go home. For every two or three successful ops, there’s a failure. She has yet to be attached to one, dreads the day, but knows it will come.

She sloshes some of the iced tea onto the terrace’s rough gray tile
as a thought paralyzes her brain like a seizure. Returns the glass to the side table with her right hand; her left is already working the computer.

Her vision dances between the expansive view, attempting to isolate a single large structure she knows is out there, and her computer’s screen, where Google maps is now open and determining her current location. Her right hand seeks out her iPhone, enters its passcode and texts a message to Knox.

missed overlap

Blames her racing heart on the tea. The map directs her eyes. She gets her bearings. Throws her legs off the chaise, moving to include the area 160 degrees from north.

?

Knox is perplexed by her text.

meet across from FNH—20 mins

He texts:

copy

Grace changes into her only pair of running shoes, not as white as she hoped, a form-fitting Nike T she wears to work out, and a pair of black yoga pants. On each op, she carries five sets of fake glasses. Selects a geeky but stylish pair. Ties a brown scarf over her head, imitating the Muslim women—far more for coverage than looks.

Has the op planned, but continues to hone it as Besim drives her across town. They pass handcarts carrying fruit, clothing and spices. Stall-sized shops manned by a merchant crouched on his haunches. The men smoke cigarettes while women toil. Boys play soccer in the streets.

Besim leaves her three blocks from her rendezvous. She must not attract attention, hopes the scarf hides her well.

On her walk, she passes a three-story white colonial on two acres behind twelve-foot rock walls. She wonders about its history, its former residents, but her mind makes no attempts to supply a story. Grace yearns for imagination. She questions what she and Knox are doing so far from home. She finds Istanbul’s continual reminders of history and the passage of time daunting. Its confused cultural identity dispirits her. She longs for the simplicity of China.

She wonders if this is contributing to her sense of vertigo. The concrete beneath her feet is undulating.

Grace locates a uniform supply store and purchases a slightly oversized nurse’s uniform. Pulling the dress on over her clothes in the dressing room, she now wears the uniform out onto the street. She carries two different colored head scarfs stuffed into her purse—tricks of the trade. Hide and seek.

Knox is enthroned at a café table, his legs stretched straight out, impossibly long as he semireclines. He’s well through a double espresso. Looks half asleep. Detroit Tigers baseball cap low over his eyes. That same windbreaker he always wears, with its many interior zippers concealing his worldly possessions.

For a split second she wonders once again what the world looks and feels like from inside the head of John Knox. Dismisses it quickly; there are times she doubts he has a single thought in his head. She has no idea what that would feel like.

He kicks back a chair for her.

“Now you’re messing with my fantasies, Nurse Jackie,” he says, admiring her garb.

On the facing street, seven-story office buildings trade places with apartments, the street-level retail space occupied by designer boutiques, camera shops, shoe stores and cellular carriers. It could as easily be a street in Moscow or Paris as Istanbul, the road divided, the island planted with scrawny immature trees. The city can go from fascinating to boring in a block.

Knox catches the attention of a twenty-something waitress with wide eyes. It’s clear she’s been awaiting his signal. She delivers a black tea with sugar substitute and milk on the side.

Grace doesn’t know whether to thank him or be annoyed with herself for being so predictable—an attribute to which she attaches negative connotations.

“So,” he says, studying the nurse’s uniform in a John Knox way that makes her incredibly self-conscious. “I can pretty much guess the first part of whatever’s going on.” He contemplates the hospital across the street. “But I seem to be missing something.”

She mixes the tea like a lab scientist. Sips. Adds a speck more sweetener. Examines her lipstick residue on the cup’s white china.

“The mother,” Grace says. She, too, looks across the street.

“Oh, shit. How stupid can we get?”

“It was late.”

“We’re idiots.” Knox attempts to process the FedEx shipment, to suss out how it connects to Akram Okle’s sick mother, who occupies a bed across the street. “What the hell?”

“I know, right?” Grace hears herself sound American. She attributes it to the two years in grad school in Southern California. Wonders if Knox notices. These expressions bubble up occasionally,
catching her by surprise. She thinks of herself as entirely Chinese; not a view shared by her father, who considers her a traitor to tradition.

A young boy skateboards past. Grace instinctively squeezes her purse between her thighs.

“Why would they care about the mother?” Knox’s face is not meant for confusion. He looks boyish and lacking in confidence.

“One wonders.”

“Come on. What the hell do you hope to accomplish dressed like that?”

Knox is threatened by her fieldwork. She takes this as a compliment, but knows she still has much to learn. She wonders if a person can learn to ignore the ordered, logical, straight-line thinking that defines her. Envies the ability of his mind to spark and jump as it does.

“Before you go in there, we need to work this backward,” Knox says, his voice soft now. Sexy. “First, we have to consider whether or not the client is simply ensuring that whatever medical device the mother needs is on schedule. Perhaps he is literally tracking it, making sure no one messes with it en route. In that case, Mashe’s in league with our client and our client is simply looking out for his mother. Right?”

It’s like listening to chamber music, a melody going to an unexpected place.

“Or, the opposite, of course,” he says. “This agent interrupts the delivery of a medical device. Steals it in order to determine the true extent of her illness. Knowledge is power. Perhaps they want leverage over Mashe? Then there’s substituting one device for another. It’s more difficult and tricky, but possible.” He ruminates. She isn’t about to interrupt. Two years ago it might have been different,
but they’ve both learned the footsteps of this dance. “Oh . . . God.” Her system charges with adrenaline as she meets his intense gaze. He’s looking through her.
Into
her. “Long shot,” he announces, warning her. “The medical device is part of a dead drop. The device being shipped contains a data chip intended for Mashe. No Internet, no chance of interception. All you need is an insider at the device manufacturer who solders an extra memory chip into the device, and you’ve shipped information across borders. Which begs the question: who is Mashe Okle, or Mashe Melemet, or whatever name he’s traveling under this week? An Iranian arms dealer? Your financial investigation says no. An art dealer? A rich businessman? Maybe an agent, an Iranian agent? And what are the Iranians up to these days that they might be seeking classified information?”

Grace has the urge to reach across the cigarette-scarred table and take his rough face in her hands and plant a kiss on his lips. But Knox would take that as her handing him her hotel keycard. All she can do is let a ripple of excitement surge through her, sit back and sip the tea.

“You’re the computer tech,” he says. “Find him.”

“You think I have not tried? Mashe Okle’s past has been expunged.”

Knox says sarcastically, “Try harder. His university records. Scour the West for immigration records, trips abroad.”

Why is he able to conceive of a strategy she’s missed? She has asked Dulwich for Okle’s immigration records, but looking at that request through Knox’s suspicious eyes, she wonders if Dulwich has been honest with her, if there really is no significant travel out of country as Dulwich earlier reported.

“There are more than two hundred universities in Iran,” Grace says. “Do you know how long it would take to hack each of the
admission servers? Years. Do you think you can throw a switch and hack a national immigration database? You think the terrorists wouldn’t love to control such information? It is impossible, John. Firewalls as thick as the Great Wall.”

“He’s an agent,” Knox says.

“No. He is an unknown.”

“The device is a package. The mother, an unknowing courier.”

“The first step,” Grace says, “is for me to get in there and see her chart. To determine the extent of her illness. The office is working on this, too, but I can speed it up. Determine what device might have been shipped. Slip a piggyback onto the hospital’s network as I did in Amsterdam.”

Knox drags his hand down his face in frustration. “We’re off-mission,” he says. “Way off.”

She imagines Dulwich’s appreciation for her delivery of the information—her insight into Mashe’s true role and her discovery of the agent working behind the scenes. She doesn’t want to seem too eager, conceals her excitement from Knox. “You are right. We should perhaps go back to our respective rooms. Await contact from Akram. Proceed as intended.”

“Says the woman in the nurse’s uniform.”

Grace hangs her head demurely. Caught. These acts of contrition seem to be in her DNA, passed down a hundred generations. There is no place for such reactions in her professional life; she wishes she could rid herself of them. She strains to lift her head, but her neck muscles resist. Rigor mortis.

“We need Sarge to come clean.”

“David has been consistent, John. He has emphasized Need To Know protocol and demanded we protect the wishes of the client. You are correct, we are off-mission.” Knox reacts best to reverse psychology.

“Drastically.”

“We should return to our lodgings. Regroup.”

“Of course we should,” Knox says.

“If you go in the hospital, you are impossible to miss,” Grace says. “Whereas I am far more invisible.”

“You sell yourself short.”

She wonders if she was fishing for the compliment. Worries she was.

“How do you expect to find her room? It’s a big hospital.”

“Taken care of,” she says. Answers his inquisitive look. “I was forced to pull her account financials to get the lead on Mashe. Her room number is four-three-one.”

“Four-thirty-one,” he says correcting her. “You can be so Chinese.”

“Just imagine.”

“I’ll flag a taxi,” Knox says. “I’ll find an alternative exit—something other than the front lobby—and text you my location. You will call me now, leave the line open. I want to hear everything you’re up to.”

“Agreed,” she says. It’s standard operating procedure, at least for the two of them.

“Nothing absurd,” he cautions. “You may meet some of these people later.”

“Understood.”

“An in-and-out.” A look overcomes him.

“What?”

“That’s what Sarge called it. Made it sound so—”

“Simple.”

“Yes.”

“That is his job,” Grace reminds him.

—

G
RACE
SLIPS
into the nurse’s role as effortlessly as she donned the uniform. She crosses the hospital lobby head bent, shoulders slumped and the head scarf worn down her forehead as a brim to screen her face. She rides the elevator aware of the likelihood of security cameras.

She walks out onto the fourth floor wanting to impart a sense of familiarity with the floor plan when in fact it’s foreign to her. Many of the men in the waiting area wear the ubiquitous black leather jacket and she wonders if any of Mashe Okle’s bodyguards are among them. She angles her head away.

She marvels at how small the op’s boundaries have become. They are shrink-wrapped by a need for secrecy, by the clandestine nature of the work. Everyone wants the same thing while no one knows exactly what they want.

Three hallways extend like spokes off the hub of a semicircular nurse’s desk that roils with activity. It’s like an airline check-in counter twenty minutes before the flight. Doctors, nurses and orderlies swarm together with a clear delineation of power visible in who concedes to whom for countertop space.

Spotting an incorrect room number, she pivots in a course change and bumps into a doctor. Recovering, she moves toward the Melemet mother’s room. She didn’t need the tea; she’s riding an unhappy marriage of caffeine and adrenaline. Visitors crowd the rooms into which she peers. Some emit laughter. Some stifle sniffles or tears. Grace processes it in her gut rather than her head, suddenly weighed down by loss and shattered hopes. She harbors a fear of illness. Is worried that someday one of these beds will hold her mother or father; recognizes that her mother would welcome her company, but would her father allow her in? Worries she has waited too long
to repair the damage between her and her father—heritage, generational tradition, familial honor. She allowed the love of a boy—a mere boy!—to separate them. Her father has not reached out to her since; but neither has she.

She must focus. The trick—the skill in such situations—is invisibility, to move among others in such an obnoxiously mundane manner as to not exist. The scarf and glasses create a decent enough disguise. What she must prevent is anyone addressing her or paying her any attention. She will, with any luck, meet Akram Okle in the near future.