The Red Room (10 page)

B
ack on the same bench in front of the Sisli mosque, Grace speaks softly.

“Detroit is up in the World Series. Congratulations.”

“Verlander is a god,” says Knox.

“He cannot pitch every game. I will put ten dollars on the opponent in tonight’s game three.”

“You, gamble?”

“Consider my heritage. You think mahjong is a game of fun?”

“What do we know of our boy’s movement?”

“His chip went unused the morning after we spotted him surveilling. He’s obviously careful.”

“Or well informed.”

Grace respects Knox’s ability in the field, is trying to learn from him. This work, the work she is doing right now, is dream work. Out from behind the desk, yet still able to use her accounting skills, sitting on a plaza bench in Istanbul riding an adrenaline high. She senses how close she is to being given a solo assignment. Sees down the road a boutique security firm, her picking and choosing ops that
satisfy more than the bottom line—like the work she and Knox did in Amsterdam.

She worries that Knox won’t forgive her once he realizes how she has used him. She has evolved from tolerance, through acceptance, to appreciation of her sometime collaborator. Knox is like a piece of contemporary art: meaningless at first glance, but in time comes to speak to you.

“Sarge has withheld information from us,” Knox says.

“Possibly.” Grace feels a rush. “SOP. NTK.”

“Protecting the client?”

“And the mark,” she says. “This is how he explained it to me. Yes. Perhaps not only the client and mark. You were rescued by that van, or so you said.”

“But then what we’re saying is that this is something so heinous a government can’t be associated with the outcome. That’s the reality break for me. Sarge promised there would be no targeting of Mashe.”

“Sensitive, perhaps not heinous,” says Grace.

“Their own spooks handle sensitive. This has to be more than that.”

“David prefers we perform the operation as assigned.”

Knox ignores her. “It could be someone connected to Mashe. I could buy that—using Mashe to lure out a bigger fish. That would allow Sarge to promise me nothing’s going to happen to Mashe. I didn’t expand the playing field. My bad.”

“I could suggest we stay with the operation,” Grace says.

“Says the woman doing all the digging around. What’s gotten into you, anyway?” When she fails to answer, he asks, “Is there actually any hope that these videos will mean anything?”

Knox gets restless easily. His legs bounce. His feet start tapping.

“There is, of course, something of significance here. Four separate visits by the person we now think of as an agent of the client.” She speaks encouragingly. “A few more minutes, please.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“If you sit still, the image will be clearer.”

“Point taken.”

The two ride out the remaining seven minutes. In that time, fifty or more people stream in and out of the mosque entrance. Several hundred cars flow past. It is a remarkable sight. Europeans, Americans, Africans, Japanese tourist groups, Arabs.

“Maybe your guy just likes people-watching.” Knox is in a snarky mood. She can’t blame him; he’s not a stakeout type. More the brass knuckle variety.

“Your opinion of Akram?” She tries to read his face.

“My opinion doesn’t matter. Sarge puts him as the messenger. He and his brother know that even an ancient copy of the Harmodius is invaluable. Many times what I’m asking, and I have a problem with a client willing to sacrifice millions—many millions—just so we can spend five minutes with Mashe Okle. Translation: whatever it is we’re supposed to accomplish would either cost the client those same millions, or the desired outcome is so impossible for them to accomplish on their own that it’s worth those millions. You see?”

Knox has a way of clarifying things. Grace is overly sensitive about her lack of this ability. She equates Knox’s faculty with the much-heralded American ability to create and innovate; her own tendency is toward rote technical skills. She thinks of Knox’s Chinese violinist example and flushes. Here, he has turned a double negative into a positive. It’s not the high price of the art; it’s the amount being given up by establishing a lower price that tells them something about the seller.

“You are more clever than you give yourself credit for,” she says softly.

“Do you hear me disagreeing?”

“You are also arrogant and rude.”

“And I wear it proudly.”

She reminds herself never to compliment him. “You can be such an ass.”

She expects another of his snide comebacks. Is surprised to see that she has stung him.

“I put out a feeler for a meeting with Sarge. I got back postponement.”

“He is here in Istanbul,” she says. “I feel it.”

“You know what? I hope not. I actually hope not.”

“Hope leads to disappointment; action to success.”

“Another proverb?”

She doesn’t answer. “What do we do about it? About David?”

“We consider the people that pulled me into the van and the people who followed you as allies, at least of Sarge. Probably working for the client. We assume we are pawns, and you know how I feel about that. We need to come up with a way to do the op without their involvement, client or not. I don’t trust them.”

“Maybe this helps us determine who and why,” she says, indicating the two phones shooting video.

“I’d rather shoot a guy in the leg than shoot video,” Knox says. “Puts a person in a sharing mood real quick.”

“There is a surprise.”

“Akram?”

“I have what I need.” Grace looks toward the mosque. “Xin and Dr. Kamat will help me to breach the bank firewalls. I have every confidence the plan will go forward as designed.”

“You never lack for confidence,” Knox says.

“You exaggerate, as usual.”

“Don’t give me that false modesty . . . that Chinese thing you do, going all humble and demure? It’s undignified.”

“On the contrary, it is quite dignified, which is why you do not recognize or understand it.”

“I won’t dignify that with a comment. Look, we wait a day for Mashe and Akram to settle out the funds. You need to be ready by then. Thirty-six hours, max. Then we’re on a plane home.”

“I may need more time. David’s plan is more . . . evolved. I am to challenge the sourcing of the funds, demand an explanation. This provides you—us—with the meet. The five minutes.”

“Doesn’t mean I like it,” he grumbles. “So, we’ll make our move once the deposit and sourcing are confirmed. ‘Action breeds success.’”

“Given that my work cannot commence until the deposit of the funds,” Grace says, “we are presented with ample opportunity to shoot more video tomorrow. We then download it to Xin for analysis. We meet here again tomorrow, sixteen hundred.”

“You’re putting too much on this,” Knox says.

“It is tangible. Actionable intelligence.” It will impress David. “We must know why this agent spent time here. Perhaps to meet his control.
Neh?
How pleasing would it be to identify not only this agent but also his control?”

“You’ve grown your hair longer,” he says. “And changed perfumes. This is tangible.”

She swallows her surprise, is able to contain her reaction.

“Enough! It is past five,” she says. “We are done here.”

M
aybe it’s the three beers or the bone-aching numbness of isolation, of time spent in his hotel. It may be the lively patter from the terrace below, the internal echo of the earlier call to prayer still reverberating through his body—whatever it is, Knox’s sense is that he’s missing out. His dedication to fixing Tommy up with private care for life rules out all else. Undermines him. He’s either chasing a deal on rattan chairs in Indonesia or pursuing black marketers in Amsterdam. He lives in airport lounges, discount hotels and the backs of cabs. When he gets a break like this—a four-star hotel in a picturesque location, gorgeous women planting their oversized lips on oversized wine goblets that chime when their nails ring against the glass—and he’s confined to his room, whether by dictum or common sense, he curses the likes of Dulwich and Primer—even Tommy and Grace—all those figures who in some way control him.

It’s the beer, he decides. Sometimes it fills him with elevated joy. At other times, despair. He guessed wrong tonight.

His big moment of the night comes when he wheels room service into the hall and heads to the hotel business center, an unpretentious
glorified closet containing three Dell computers and an HP printer. He transmits the videos he and Grace have taken to Hong Kong as requested. But bored—again he blames the beer—he also uploads them onto YouTube without sound. Posts them as tourist videos. Calls one up on the computer to his left, the second on the computer in front of him. Uses Rewind and Play to closely synchronize the two so they play at roughly the same minute of the day. Requests a fourth beer from room service, letting them know his location. Turns off one of the monitors as the beer is delivered.

With the opening of the door, he hears more activity from the lobby and the pulse of a Killers song. He pays for the beer. Lights up the dark monitor.

He studies the two videos side by side in ten-second clips. Chuckles to himself when he identifies the same pigeon. He can envision a children’s picture book,
The Pigeon Is the Spy
. Checking his mirth, he slows his consumption of the cold beer.

Person by person, nearly frame by frame, he compares faces, profiles, shoes, backpacks, head wraps and scarves. Smokers and nonsmokers. Right down to the make of cameras being used by the tourists. He keeps notes on a hotel pad using a hotel pen. The sight of the pigeon has him tracking dogs.

A hotel guest enters and prints a boarding pass on the third machine. Nothing is said between the two. But Knox knows the guy’s name and frequent flyer number, the flight he’s on and the fact that he’s not checking bags.

It’s the only interruption over a two-hour period. Knox shrinks the open windows when he takes a break to the washroom, returns to work refreshed. The cause of boredom isn’t sitting around; it’s lack of purpose. Energized by the puzzle of trying to spot similarities on the two screens, time passes quickly. The roughly one hour of video takes three hours to get through.

“Forest for the trees” becomes a mantra for him when he catches himself going screen blind. Rewinding.

When he spots the boy, he’s eager to call Grace and loop her in. But he knows the trap of such knee-jerk reactions; it’s better to finish the job and deliver a full list. Nearing midnight, he has all but settled on making the call. He’s reached the end of the two videos. Both are paused on their respective screens. Catching himself studying a woman’s backside, he runs a hand over his face: it’s bedtime.

Frozen alongside the woman is a white Mercedes G-Wagen in traffic and he’s reminded fondly of a buying spree in Morocco where he suffered two flat tires and was stung by
Buthus occitanus
, a scorpion that caused a painful lump on his calf the size of a navel orange, an injury that nearly itched him to insanity.

“Oh, shit.” Knox says it out loud, acutely aware of his own nervous perspiration. “Fucking idiot!” A little too loudly. Doesn’t want to set off alarm bells for a sedated night desk clerk. Doesn’t like talking to himself. Hits buttons to return the two videos to their respective starts. Does his best to resynch them, but is less concerned with it this time through.

It’s all making sense now. Maybe the beer fog is lifting. Maybe it’s the stab of common sense, an ah-ha moment when the crystallization of thought coincides with reason. Maybe he’s overly tired and making less sense than he thinks. But at the moment, he’s Einstein. He’s being played by Russell Crowe or Vince Vaughn or Sullivan Stapleton. Tense music.

He deletes the two YouTube videos. Erases the history in both browsers and closes them. He returns to his room, moving with an invigorated stride. He can’t wait to call Grace.

“Are you kidding me?” He can hear Grace moving.

“It’s early.”

“In Delhi, maybe.”

“As if you were asleep.”

She doesn’t have a comeback.

“There’s a kid in the video. School uniform. I caught the backpack. Black and white. Unusual. Most of ’em are black or another solid color. This thing looks like a panda.”

“We are off the scent?” she asks, her voice more vibrant. “Not about Mashe or Akram, but one of their children? Or the child is to be used as leverage.”

“It has to be factored in.”

“Listen to you!”

He can hear the mirth in her voice. He’s used a math reference. She will take credit for it. Grace wants to change him. He wants to tell her others have tried, but he enjoys the pursuit too much to stop her now.

“You’ve been drinking,” he says. It slips out. It’s what his brain was thinking but not what he wanted to say.

An unnerving silence settles between them. He’s seen her hit the vodka before. Not often, but hard. Her reaction throws up the guilt flag.

“I’ve had four beers.” He tries to make light of it, to include her in the club. It isn’t working.

“Factored into what?”

“There’s more.”

“We were going to send the videos to Xin. What happened to that?”

“I did as you told me,” he said. That isn’t a sentence he’s used often in his life. Doesn’t sound like him. He looks around for anyone else, another speaker, but he’s all alone.

“Traffic,” he says. “We were focused on people. Faces. Shoes. Repeat visitors. We have the kid—the student, the panda—and maybe he’s worth something, but . . . listen, I don’t expect this to make
sense, it’s more of intuition . . . and thinking it is one thing, saying it, another, but we’re in the business of speculation, right? Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. I watched the videos side by side, just now, trying to focus on nothing but the traffic—the cars, the trucks, motorcycles. Both lanes, okay? Forest for the trees,” he says, wondering if she’ll understand the reference. “And maybe there was . . . I mean there could have been . . . something I missed. Easily. But I tried to separate out the same vehicles, the same colors by antennas or how dirty they were, wheels, dings, stickers—anything to distinguish them. Okay? And sure, way too many Fiats, Opels and Renaults to know if I accounted for them all. It’s something your team back at the office can do better, or do again. But the one thing I did see, the one thing there was no mistaking, was a FedEx truck. White FedEx van in the near lane. North to south. If my timing’s right, and it may not be, it was maybe five minutes later the second day. But here’s the thing: in both videos, its blinker is on. Driver’s hitting the brake lights.”

“Pulling over,” Grace says.

“Could be.”

He hears the blood in his head like a tsunami. It’s too late at night. He’s had too many beers. It was stupid to call her. He should have slept on it. You maintain your position of strength by keeping your trap shut until you know what the fuck you’re talking about. He knows this. Boy Who Cries Wolf, otherwise.

“You are brilliant,” she says softly and as intimately as if pillow talk. It arouses him. His groin is pulsing. Warming. Hardening. He wants to switch it off. Feels somewhat sick to his stomach over it. Grace? Since when?

“The text,” she says. “Hang on.”

He listens. Another rarity. She’s up and moving. He can see her in his mind’s eye. Remembers what she looks like from that hour in
the Amsterdam brothel. His friend in his pants is straining the seam of his jeans. No wonder they put rivets on the pockets.

“The fourth time,” she says—breathlessly, which doesn’t help matters. “The last time the man was at this GPS fix he sent a fifteen-string number by text.”

He doesn’t know whether to stroke his friend or ignore him. Checks that the shade is down. Works his belt loose.

“You there?” she says. He can hear her nails clicking on plastic keys.

“I’m here,” he says.

“You sound out of breath.”

“I get off on this stuff.”

“Right. If I am boring you, I can call back.”

“No!”

More tapping. More images of Amsterdam. More confusion. What the hell?

“Oh . . . my . . . God. . . .”

She shouldn’t have said it. Not that way. His throat tightens. Eyes close.

“FedEx international shipments? The numbers? Fifteen digits.”

Say something more.

“This is it!”

Good girl.

“This is exactly what we wanted.”

So right.

“That’s it! That’s the connection. John? . . . John?”

Eventually, he speaks. “I do what I can.”

“It may be nothing, but it adds up.”

“Certainly does.”

“Hong Kong can—No! What am I saying? Hold on.”

It’s way past that. He’s headed for the sink, the phone pinched to his shoulder. Six, seven minutes pass.

“Florence Nightingale,” she says. “The tracking number that was texted.”

“Brushing my teeth. Speak up.”

“Florence Nightingale Hospital. Sisli. Same district. It is on Abide-i Hürriyet Caddesi.”

“Say that three times fast.”

She misses the reference. Is about to ask him to explain.

“Date?” he says.

“Shipped overnight. Delivered the last day his GPS tagged him at this location.”

“Origin?”

“Switzerland. The company is BioLectrics.”

He towels off. Puts the call on speakerphone while he Googles the company. Can hear her doing the same. It’s a race for him. Everything is a competition.

“Bizarre,” he says.

“Strange,” she replies.

“Medical electronics? Why would these bozos care about the delivery record for a package containing medical electronics?”

“It is too broad, too large a company. BioLectrics makes everything.” She reads, “Vascular intervention. Cardiac rhythmic management. Stents. Pumps. They run clinical trials. We need the invoice to know why this delivery is important. A product number. Product description.”

“Is this making any sense to you?” he asks.

“No.”

“I got it wrong with the FedEx van?”

“No.”

“It’s got to be one or the other.”

“We need more data. Do we copy David?”

There it is: the question he knew she’d ask. He wants to call her a goody-goody. Teacher’s pet. Knows he resents her rising importance in the company, an ascendance he’s witnessed over the past two years. If there’s a sacrificial lamb on Primer’s altar, it’s him. She’s immune.

“And look like we can’t figure this out ourselves?” He knows he’s appealing to her profound fear of appearing weak; he’s learned to trigger her paranoia as much as compliment her strengths, to feed her the information she needs—filtered, if necessary—to move her off of an idea and into his corner. If he had resisted her outright, she would have gotten her back up and been intractable.

He’s learning, or so he convinces himself.