Istanbul Express (12 page)

“Topkapi,” Anya corrected. “The sultans' summer palace.”

“Whatever you say. Anyway, she and Jasmyn were led around by a stranger who tells them the Russians have planned some deception to pull us off the track.”

“It would not surprise me,” Anya said slowly. “That would be very much a Soviet-type strategy.”

“This woman also told her we were being followed. All of us. Then they heard something and hightailed it away.” Jake grimaced at the thought. “I was furious that she'd taken such a risk.”

“And she,” Anya finished for him, “was furious that you did not appreciate her efforts.”

“Don't tell me you were in the lobby and heard us.” He dropped his head. “I can't believe we argued in a hotel. We might as well have been standing in the middle of the street.”

“Hotel staffs are paid to be discreet. And no, I was not there, I did not need to be. It is one of the most ancient of disagreements. You want to protect her, she wants to help you.”

Jake lifted his head. “So what's the answer?”

“For you to be grateful, and for her to be careful.” Again the flashing smile. “And keep hoping that the tree will someday grow apricots.”

“Anya, so sorry to have kept you waiting.” A young man in a finely cut Western suit rushed over, took both Anya's hands in his, smiled, then turned as Jake rose to his feet and offered his hand. “And you must be Colonel Burnes.”

“This is my husband, Turgay Ecevit,” Anya said.

“Your husband,” Jake said dully.

“Turgay is director of this office, which runs the party's Istanbul-based operations,” she said with quiet pride. “He is also personal assistant to Celal Bayar, leader of the Turkish opposition.” She looked up at her husband, then back at Jake. “As you can see, I did not need to hear your discussion of last night. I know it all too well.”

Her husband looked from one to the other. “What is this?”

“Just finishing a discussion,” she said quietly. “Perhaps we should begin another. Colonel Burnes has very little time.”

Istanbul was a world of endless contrasts, where modern
met the ancient and the timeless held place with the immediate. Handcarts bustled between smoky buses and clanging streetcars. Donkeys brayed as they pulled wooden carts and impossible loads. Women stepped over craters in the sidewalks, one hand gripping eager children while the other fanned the flames of conversation. Great clouds of noise and diesel fumes and fresh energy billowed in the air. Despite the ache she felt over quarreling with Jake, Sally found herself captivated by the excitement and the mystery of it all.

The fish market was on the legendary stretch of water known as the Golden Horn, an inlet of the Bosphorus. The stalls did not line the streets because there was simply no room. The buildings bellied right up to the street, and the lane dropped directly into the rock-lined water. Enterprising fishermen used broad flat-bottomed boats as stalls, standing in one end, calling their endless song of quality and selection and price and barter, one hand slinging water over the stock to keep it shining and fresh. Potential customers walked the crowded lane, leaned over the railing, waved their arms, and argued prices with exuberance. Overhead, gulls echoed their boisterous refrain.

“Ah, there you are, my dear. And on time yet again. How marvelous.” Phyllis Hollamby walked up, moving briskly even while leaning heavily on her cane. “And where is your lovely companion?”

“She had to attend another reception with her husband.”

“Pity. But it can't be helped, I suppose.” A keen ear picked up on the unsaid. “What did your husband think of the information you got from Jana?”

“I'm not sure,” Sally said dismally. “We ended up arguing about my taking risks.”

Phyllis gave a magnificent sniff. “Men. They are so utterly blind at times, aren't they, my dear?”

“Jake is a wonderful man,” Sally said defensively.

“No doubt, no doubt. And he must love you dearly, to have such concern for your well-being. Yet one would think that,
given the critical nature of his affairs, he would welcome a bit of help.”

“Not to mention the time pressure,” Sally added, and related the three-day ultimatum.

“Well, there you are.” The dimples appeared in age- spotted cheeks. “Still, I suppose if men did ever reach perfection, life would become an utter bore. Don't you agree?”

Despite the weight of her heart, Sally could not help but smile in reply. “I don't think there's much chance of that.”

“That's my girl.” Mrs. Hollamby reached over and patted Sally's cheek. “Your husband is a most fortunate gentleman. I hope he realizes that.”

“He does,” she said, then amended, “most of the time.”

“Well, we shall just have to remind him, then, won't we?” She spun about. “Come along, my dear. I smell adventure on the wind.”

Sally hung back. “Jake doesn't want me taking any more risks.”

“Who said anything about risks?” Phyllis sniffed. “From now on, we shall limit ourselves strictly to a bit of sightseeing. Not even your gallant but somewhat overprotective husband can object to that.”

“Have you heard, Colonel, of
yagli gúres?
”

Jake accepted a tulip-shaped tea glass from the attendant, holding it gingerly by the rim. “I don't even know if it's animal, vegetable, or mineral.”

“None of them.” Turgay accepted his glass, thanked the young man, sipped noisily. “It is a distinctly Turkish form of wrestling in which men oil down their bodies, then grapple for a hold to throw their opponent off his feet. It is a dance of conflict and balance and opposing powers, and it says much about my land. We grapple with ourselves, Colonel. The modern with the ancient, the Muslim with the
secular, the democratic with the authoritarian, the internal with the great powers to every side. To govern Turkey is a constant struggle in which one slip spells disaster.”

Jake lifted his glass, felt the liquid's near-boiling heat before his lips touched the rim, lowered it without tasting. Drinking such tea had to be an acquired trait. “Sounds like a risky business to be in.”

“To understand just how risky, Colonel, it is necessary to explain a bit of our history.” A more thoughtful sip, then, “In 1453, after a bombardment lasting fifty days, the city fell to the Ottoman Turks. It is said that the paintings and mosaics upon the church walls sweated from fear. The pope himself offered daily prayers for deliverance from what he saw as two equally great evils, a large comet and the Ottoman ruler, Sultan Mehmet. But the city did fall to the sultan. The city of Constantinople was renamed Istanbul, and a period of Ottoman domination began which lasted almost exactly five hundred years. The domination was absolute. Opposition to the ruling sultan and his court was strictly forbidden. There was only one voice, one law. And with time, this law became increasingly corrupt. By the time World War One broke out and the sultan decided to side with the Germans, Turkey was trapped within the nightmare of a hopelessly backward, hopelessly corrupt regime. Time and the rest of the world had passed us by.”

Turgay had more the air of a passionate professor than a politician. He was tall and striking, with chiseled olive features and intelligent eyes. He carried his authority with the ease of one for whom such trappings mattered little. The fire of conviction ignited both his gaze and his words. “After the debacle of World War One, a general called Mustafa Kemal, later renamed Ataturk, which means Father of the Turks, led a war of insurrection against the corrupt Ottoman rule. The struggle ended in 1923. In the eyes of the common man, Ataturk had won a victory on par with Mehmet's original taking of Constantinople. This gave him the power to sweep aside Ottoman history and declare Turkey a republic.

“Ataturk was determined to drag Turkey out of the Middle Ages and into the twentieth century. To him, this meant a complete break with the Ottoman religious past. So Turkey became not only a republic, but also secular, meaning that religion and state were separated once and for all. Ataturk also embarked on a rapid expansion of state enterprise, education, and health care. The Latin alphabet replaced the Arabic, and the entire nation, literally, went to school. For the first time in its history, the common man was given the opportunity to read and write. And women were freed from imprisonment behind the
sharia
, or Islamic code of law.”

Anya Ecevit sat listening to the history lesson with a patience that surprised Jake, seemingly content to set aside her normal drive and energy and share in her husband's interest. Jake found himself watching her as much as Turgay. “Yet there was a downside, as you Americans say, to this reform,” Turgay went on. “A very great one. All these new laws were strictly enforced. No opposition, or even opposing thought, was permitted. Anyone who voiced an opinion contrary to the new, modern, secular state was considered a traitor.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Indeed, yes. Fortunately for Turkey, Ataturk was both a charismatic leader and a statesman, a figure greater than life, one determined to lead Turkey not toward aggression, but rather toward a new future.”

“You sound almost awed when you talk of him,” Jake said. “Strange to hear, coming from an opposition politician.”

“In your country, perhaps. But in my country, Ataturk was in truth the
only
politician. It is because of him that we are free to be politicians at all. So you see, Mr. Burnes, although I disagree with where the country has arrived, I do not disagree with the path upon which it trod nor the leader who brought us here.”

“This Ataturk must have been quite a man.”

“Indeed he was.” He grimaced apologetically. “But Turkish politics remain treacherous, Colonel, with intrigue and
corruption practiced with a skill learned over hundreds of years. That is what we the opposition are up against when we begin speaking of much-needed change.”

Jake decided his tea had cooled enough to risk a sip. “So what is the answer?”

“We of the Democratic Party do not condemn Ataturk's policies. Our leader was himself once a prime minister under Ataturk. But we feel that if progress is going to continue, private enterprise must be given a chance to succeed. We are worried that if both political power and business remain within the hands of central government, the old problems of corruption and intrigue will resurface.”

“And strangle you all over again,” Jake agreed. “I don't see why there hasn't been American support for this.”

The couple exchanged glances before Turgay responded quietly, “Nor do we, Colonel. Especially after we won almost a third of the parliamentary seats in the last election. But your government persists in seeing any opposition as a threat to stability and an entry point for the Communists. We have been trying to tell them that unless we are given an equal chance to express our views, in other words, be the opposition in the truest sense of the word, the risk of Communist revolt is even stronger. But it has been hard to find someone willing to hear us out. So very hard.”

“I have been trying to set up a meeting like this one,” Anya added, “for almost a year.”

“People are too busy, there is too much going on, they are worried about rocking the boat,” Turgay said. “We understand some of the reasons. But we disagree as well.”

“So do I,” Jake agreed. “I don't know if I can help, especially as I might be replaced in a matter of days. But maybe, just maybe, we can set some wheels in motion.”

“This is the chance I have been searching for,” Turgay exclaimed, leaning forward in his seat. “Tell us what we need to do.”

The ferry from Istanbul to the Asian shore was a welcome release from the city's fierce grip. “Istanbul is one of the most marvelous cities in the world,” Phyllis declared fondly. “It straddles Europe and Asia and joins the cultures of East and West. Not to mention the wealth of its past. So much history, so many civilizations, that time blurs, and the city comes to count the years as mortal man does minutes.”

She pointed toward the approaching shore. “The lands that lie in Asia are known as Anatolia. Some of the local villagers declare themselves citizens of Anatolia, not Turkey. They are a fiercely patriotic lot.”

Sally gazed across the azure waters to the gently sloping hills. “This is beautiful.”

“There is talk of a bridge, but many are against it. I most certainly count myself among them. It would only mean more hurry and rush, and the city already has far too much of both.” She took a deeply satisfied breath of the sea breeze. “Crossing the Bosphorus by bridge would be like holding hands with gloves on. The thrill would simply be lost.”

The city rising from the opposite shore had the look and feel of a sprawling village. The pace was slower, the air stiller, the buildings seedier, the people from a different age. Sally walked alongside the older woman and relished the delight of discovery.

They passed a shop filled with vast piles of clutter. Outside, two men sat at a rickety table, the younger man listening eagerly to the elder's lecture. Despite the heat, the old man wore a blue knit skullcap in the manner of one who seldom if ever took it off. Sprouting from either side was a flowing white beard that fell broad and square to cover the top three buttons of his tattered shirt. One hand curled around his cane, while the other directed the flow of conversation in the air between him and his younger companion.

“My husband operated one of the largest foreign-owned companies in Turkey,” Phyllis said as they walked, her tone as casual as though she were discussing the weather. “In a land
such as this, it is utterly impossible to disengage something of that size from the realm of politics and intrigue, so he inevitably found himself in the midst of things. He was as adamantly opposed to my own involvement as your husband is to yours. But in time he came to see me as an invaluable asset, able to hear things and visit places utterly closed to him.” She gave Sally a reassuring smile. “You must give him time, my dear. It is not true that men don't change. They do, but ever so slowly.”