The Red Room (31 page)

K
nox unbraids the top of a metal hanger in three quick rotations. He straightens it with two sharp bends and is already swinging the wire whip as he steps around the rolling rack of employee uniforms. It extends three feet from his hands, catching the unsuspecting man across the face, first from Knox’s right and then again on the return blow from the left. It raises welts on the man’s right cheek, draws blood on the left. By the time his opponent reacts, all the man can do is offer up his hands for a lashing. The whip nearly takes his pinky off. Backs him up a staggering step.

Forehand, backhand. Knox, the matador, marching forward relentlessly. The man cowering now, bent at the waist, bloodied hands clasped over his head, charges Knox like a bull. Hits Knox in the belly hard, reversing their fortunes. Knox drops the whip, gets his hands on the man’s shoulders, but it’s too late. Two hundred lean pounds drive Knox back and off his weak legs.

The two men wrestle on the concrete floor. Roll into the clothes rack. Knox pulls it over onto them, drowning them in polyester. He breaks loose and crab-walks away, understanding he’s no match for
this man’s coordinated power. A good pair of legs are vital for defending against a man of his opponent’s strength.

By the time Knox scrambles out from beneath the pile of black jackets, he’s facing two men. One standing; he has a stitched-up ear. One kneeling and not looking good.

All three are winded. Briefly, no one moves—Knox is still inverted on hands and feet like he’s in a camp contest. The message is simple: outnumbered, Knox has lost.

Knox speaks first. “You speak English,” he tells them. “We’re all following orders. I don’t have what you want. I passed it off at the hospital. Check on that.”

The one who’s standing produces a Taser from a side pocket.

“Oh, come on,” Knox says.

The man fires.

As he regains consciousness, Knox registers that his hands have been plastic-tied behind his back. His legs are weak but moving, his head pounding, his heart racing.

“Motherfucker,” Knox groans behind the electronic hangover.

They’re in the hotel basement corridor.

“I like the jacket,” the man who didn’t suffer the face lashing says. “Could use one of those myself.” So they’ve searched him.

“I passed it off,” Knox complains, repeating himself, directing attention back to the card.

“You’ll be fine.”

Knox doesn’t say, “Oh, sure.” He doesn’t say, “Tell that to my head.” He feels something foreign in that moment: hopelessness. Doesn’t know how people can live with such a feeling. His head swims but begins to level out, and he’s already looking for options, has already left the black hole of despair behind.

The man Knox whipped grips Knox’s arm like a tourniquet. Knox won’t give him the pleasure of knowing how much it hurts.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Knox says in a steady voice.

“No one’s shooting anyone.”

The wounded man trips Knox across the shins, hits hard against the bloodstains.

Knox chokes out, “Your boss should make a call. I can give you a number.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.” The wounded one swats the back of Knox’s head. It hurts worse than a cop’s nightstick. “Shut up, do not lie, and you are to be released. This is over.”

Spooks—Israeli spooks?—get away with murder, Knox thinks, knowing he’ll never be released because the business card he handed Dulwich contains nothing more than hospital contact information.

“We’re all on the same side here,” Knox says, not believing a word of it.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

Knox is searching for Grace as he’s led into the lobby. It’s a bad sign that these two don’t care about being seen by hotel employees.

They reach the outside. It’s raining again. The Istanbul traffic is bumper to bumper. Pedestrians slosh along the sidewalk, colorful umbrellas held high overhead. It’s the parade of a dozen cultures. A place for lovers, enemies, allies. Spooks. He feels himself spiraling down the drain; blames the meds for his lack of inspiration. He’s out of ideas—a first. Hopes this isn’t his last glimpse of Istanbul. Wouldn’t mind staying a while longer.

“Hatichat harah!”
the talkative agent says, speaking Hebrew. He wins a flash of scorn from his nearest colleague.

Knox considers himself something of a linguist in that he knows how to swear in a multitude of languages. The agent is not happy with tires of the Audi Quattro 7, parked at an angle to the curb. Two flats.

“What the—?” The agent shouts obscenities at the nearest bellman.

“Taxi!” the other agent says, his English decent. “Now!”

The bellman, no more than a kid, gestures nervously to the street. “Much rain, sir, as you see. One moment, if you please! Right away! Right away!” He runs out into the maelstrom, rain bouncing off his red fez. Blows a whistle, looking left and right.

“You need car? Private car!” A man’s heavily accented voice calls out from Knox’s left. The driver stands beneath an open umbrella. He moves toward his quarry, extending the shelter provided by the plastic.

“Private car. Very reasonable, very cheap. Where you go, please?”

The whistle for the taxi continues to blow. A crowd of wet Turks gathers around the foreigners, looking curiously at their man in custody. They shout questions in Turkish and English. Wet cigarettes dangle from their lips. Trial by jury on the streets of Istanbul.

Staring bitterly at the incapacitated Audi, the lead agent answers, “Istinye. How much?”

The driver rattles off a price.

The agent launches into negotiations.

“We take it!” the other agent says, moving himself under the extended umbrella while leaving Knox in the rain.

It’s not just raining. It’s apocalyptic. It’s an Old Testament deluge. The wet is a wake-up call. Knox’s brain is a computer spinning beach balls; he’s processing data from twenty seconds earlier.

“This way, if you please.” The driver.

In his dazed and beleaguered state, Knox allows himself to believe he knows the voice. Or is he confusing it with one of the agents?

Someone pushes his head down. He’s soaking wet as he lands in
the backseat of the private car and is shoved to the center, his bound wrists behind him. The agents climb in on either side. One wet. One dry.

The doors power-lock. Knox leans forward, staring down at his knees, which are practically higher than his shoulders.

“You’re going to pay for this,” says the agent whose whipped face limits his ability to speak.

No doubt,
Knox is thinking. He grunts, looks up and happens to catch the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

The eyes. The voice.

Besim.

I
t isn’t the first time Grace has faced a difficult decision, so why does she hesitate now? What hold over her does Knox possess? Dulwich hires her because of her pragmatism, her cultural tendency to follow orders to the letter and leave her imagination at the door. She supposes he balances her against Knox for this reason, sees this as the logic behind their recent pairings.

Has she allowed herself to be seduced, corrupted? After all the sacrifices for her career, is she willing to risk a setback? For what? For whom? A testosterone-charged renegade? A maverick, that by his own admission is only in it for the money? A mercenary?

The problem is, she has had the occasional glimpse of the overprotective brother, the defender of women—the sensitivities Knox doesn’t want exposed. Dulwich exploits these vulnerabilities for his own benefit. As the op supervisor, he’s no doubt willing to sacrifice the troops to win the battle. Turning the opposing loyalties in her head, Grace finds herself uneasy and undecided, two qualities she would never associate with her usual logical assurance.

Cancer or cure, John Knox is under her skin.

In the hotel’s lobby bathroom, she uses a safety pin she’d snagged
previously to narrow the waistband of her pants to attach Mashe Okle’s business card behind the interior garment tag. Her pants slip lower but hold above her hips; it’s not a look she would normally tolerate, as the hems of the pant legs drag behind her flats. But if she’s searched, the card will be difficult to find. A cursory look at the contents of her handbag and pockets will yield nothing.

The accountant in her ticks off the successes of the op: she and Knox got to Okle and sent him to the hospital, ensuring the implantation of a customized pacemaker in place of the defective model. They did so without the involvement of any government agency. A highly sought-after shopping list of what is likely parts for nuclear reactor maintenance, a list perhaps intended for the Russians, Chinese or North Koreans, is currently pinned by her hip bone. Any such agents could be in the hunt.

Might kill for it.

She leaves the hotel using a side exit; she conceals herself among a group of conventioneers wearing blue lanyards and plastic-shrouded white badges. She hesitates beneath a metal canopy that holds back the steady drum of gray rain. Smothered by conflicting emotion and reason, she battles the two sides of her conscience.

Then she pulls her phone to her ear.

“Xin, I am sorry to wake you. If you inform Dulwich of what I am about to request, I will make what is left of your life a living hell.” She knows what it’s like in Digital Services, knows the degree to which the myth of field ops pervades the culture. She counts on her bluster to rattle the man, hopes he doesn’t identify her words as a hollow bluff.

“You threaten me?”

“I have three phone numbers. I need a ‘last-known position’ for each of them.”

“iPhones?” Xin is already coming awake.

“The numbers won’t be registered.”

“Understood.”

“How quickly?” Grace asks. With a laptop and secure Internet connection, she could do the work herself. She’s being polite and they both know it. Xin can accomplish this as fast as he’s willing.

“Five minutes,” he says, perhaps sensing the trap she’s laid.

She rattles off the numbers of Knox’s SIM chips. They are committed to memory, not carried in her phone’s contact list.

Xin repeats them, double-checking.

“Nothing personal,” she says.

The line goes dead.

A
ccustomed to following a navigation system, neither of the men bookending Knox seems to notice that the car has missed the exit for Barbaros Boulevard, the most direct route north to the Istinye district. Instead, they travel the O-1 southeast, and Besim takes a long exit ramp toward Bahçesehir University. The men look nondescript, Knox thinks as he surreptitiously studies them; the two could be of any European nationality. Judging by the accent of the few words spoken in the hotel’s laundry room and the swearing, he’s convinced they are Israeli or are on contract to the Israelis. If Israeli, they apparently don’t know about Besim. Boxes within boxes.

In point of fact, they could work for any government, any agency, any security company or corporation or individual wanting nuclear secrets.

The man to Knox’s left gets twitchy, perhaps sensing the detour. Besim has made the mistake of not averting the rearview mirror, which carries in its upper corner the dull green compass heading: SW. How long until it’s noticed?

Knox wrestles his body forward in an attempt to divert attention.
His activity serves its purpose, though it gains him a blow to his sore ribs. Pain is an expected part of the process, but he’s worn down by the accumulation of wounds. He resists physical limitations, is able to overcome most of them; it’s another part of what makes him valuable to men like Dulwich. The fact that he’s succumbing to the toll now makes him question his longevity in this line of work, the thoughts coming in a series of panicked flashes. He hopes to hell Dulwich has not picked up on it, is worried it might make him dispensable.

Thinks of Tommy and the risk he’s taking and questions whether or not he’s fooling himself by thinking he accepts the work for Tommy’s sake.

“Hey!” The agent has it now.

“Traffic bad. Golf tournament, Sahasi,” Besim says calmly. “This way better.”

Knox wonders how many languages the man speaks; how many dialects; how easily this clipped attempt at English comes to him. It’s convincing enough to ease the agent back in his seat.

The car turns right, north, back toward Barbaros Boulevard, but yips to a stop at the entrance to a forested park on the left. Besim auto-unlocks the doors without being asked to do so, and they come open simultaneously. In a flurry of box cutters, swinging arms and fierce shouting, Besim reaches back to contribute the sting of a Taser. Seat belts are cut with razors. Both men are dragged out. It’s over in ten seconds or less.

Fucking Israelis.

The two men are replaced by two others, and the car races off, leaving Knox’s captors behind, one on his hands and knees, the other unconscious, facedown. The plastic binding Knox’s wrists is cut free. He exercises his sore shoulders.

Besim has the car moving fast. South, toward old Istanbul. South,
toward the train terminal on the European side and, beyond, the airport.

No one speaks. Knox observes the protocol. Knows better than to mess with Mossad.

After fifteen minutes it’s apparent that they are indeed headed for the airport.

So many questions tug at Knox. He understands that he’s unlikely to ever get a single straight answer. There is no question—none—that Besim is with these two. The mood in the car is relaxed, other than at stops or when the car slows, which sets the men’s heads pivoting like radar dishes.

But then why did Besim attack him to get the shopping list? The only answer Knox can come up with is that Besim is doubled, working for both sides of Israeli security—the side that hired Dulwich and the side that doesn’t want to spare a thorium reactor from the fires of hell about to descend upon Iran. So which are these two?

He has to take the risk.

“Just to be clear,” Knox says, “I don’t have what you think I do. What those guys back there thought I did. I was told it could buy me a pass in a situation like this, but I’m sorry to say I don’t have it.”

The man on Knox’s left eye-signals Besim and the car pulls off the main road and onto a side street. This agent gets out of the car and makes a phone call. A moment later, the agent climbs back into the car, searches Knox’s Scottevest, and locates Knox’s iPhone. Five seconds later, the phone purrs and Knox answers.

“What’s this?” It’s Dulwich.

“I don’t have it.”

“I got that much.”

“She has it.”

Silence. Then, “Fuck.”

“I’ll never get through Immigration anyway.”

“You think too much.”

“So hire Schwarzenegger.”

“Not the time for it, pal.”

“We stopped being pals a while ago.” Knox wonders if he’ll ever get a call from Dulwich again and if, by association, he’s ruined Grace’s dreams of fieldwork. He wonders if Dulwich will pay him for this op if he makes it out. Wonders what the hell to do for Tommy.
Fuck.

“You think? I was the one responsible for dumping those two back there. Don’t be so quick to pass judgment. I’m risking some serious capital here.”

“I’m feeling bad for you.” Knox notes the use of “back there.” Dulwich is close by.

“Where is she?” Dulwich asks.

“Someplace safe, I hope. I thought you and your friends here had teams on both of us?”

A yellow taxi approaches from up the street. Besim backs up expertly, running the rear tires up onto the sidewalk and cutting the wheel sharply. He’s about to peel out when the man on Knox’s right shouts too loudly for the confines of the car,
“Atzor!”
Stop!
Hebrew.

Knox ends the call and returns the phone to the jacket.

He’s found Grace.