The Light of Day (29 page)

There was a row of tall plane trees close to the wall, and Miller used an overhanging branch as an anchor for the tackle. He lowered Fischer first, in the sling, and then me; but he wouldn't use the sling himself, because that would have meant leaving the tackle in the tree. It was not the tackle itself he cared about, he said; he didn't want to leave any traces behind of how the job had been done. He got off the wall by looping the anchor rope over the branch and sliding down it. Doubled like that, it wasn't quite long enough to reach the ground, so he dropped the last six feet, pulling one end of the rope with him. He landed as lightly as a cat and began gathering in the rope. After all he had done, he wasn't even out of breath.

Fischer took over the lead now, and headed for the outer wall on
a Une
parallel with the road the tourist cars used during the day. Miller walked behind me. After a minute or two, we could see the lights of the guard-room
beside the
huge Bab-i-Hümayun
Gate and Fischer slowed down. We had been walking in the shadow of a row of trees, but now they came to an end. Fifty yards across the road to the right was the bulk of St Irene; ahead the road forked, the right prong going to the gate, the left prong narrowing and curving inwards down the hill towards the sea.

Fischer stopped, staring at the gate.

It was no more than fifty yards away and I could see the sentry. He had his carbine slung over his shoulder and was picking his nose.

Fischer put his mouth to my ear. ‘What time is it?'

‘Five
to ten.'

‘We have time to wait,'

‘Wait for what?'

‘We have to go left down the hill. The guard changes in five minutes. It will be safer then.'

‘Where are we going to?'

‘The railroad—where it bridges the wall.'

A section of the railway ran along the shore-line just inside the big wall for about three-quarters of a mile; but I knew that there were guard posts at both ends of it. I said so.

He
grinned. 'Guard posts, yes. But no gates.’

Miller hissed a warning.

An oblong of light glowed as the door of the guard-room opened. For an instant two men were outlined in the doorway. Then, as the business of changing sentries began, Fischer touched my arm.

‘Now.'

He moved forward out of the shadow of the trees and cut across a patch of rough grass to the road. It descended sharply and narrowed to little more than a track. Within thirty seconds the top of the slope hid us from the sentries. Fischer glanced back to see that we were with him, and then walked on at a more leisurely pace.

Ahead was a strip of sea and beyond it the lights of Selimiye and Haydarpasar on the Asian side. Other lights moved across the water—a ferry and small fishing-boats. In the daylight, tourists, with cine-cameras waste hundreds of
feet of film on the view. I suppose it's very beautiful. Personally, I never want to see it again—in any sort of light.

After a couple of minutes' walking we came to another track, which led off to the right towards the outer wall Fischer crossed
it
and went straight on down over a stretch of waste land. There were piles of rubble from archaeological diggings, and part was terraced as if it had at some time been cultivated as a vineyard. At the bottom was the railway embankment.

There was a wooden fence running alongside it, and Miller and I waited while Fischer found the damaged section which he had chosen on an earlier reconnaissance as the best way through. It was about thirty yards to the right. We clambered over some broken boards to the side of the embankment and walked along the drainage ditch. Five minutes later it was possible to see the big wall again. We walked on another hundred feet, and there the embankment ended. If we were to go any farther we had to climb up and walk along the track over the bridge.

Fischer stopped and turned. ‘What is the time?'

‘Ten-fifteen,' said Miller. 'Where is the guard post exactly?'

‘On the other side of the bridge, a hundred metres from here.' He turned to me. 'Now listen. A train will be coming soon. When it starts to cross the bridge we go to the top of the embankment. As soon as the last wagon has passed us we start to follow along the tracks at walking speed. When we have gone about twenty metres we will hear a loud explosion ahead. Then we start to run, but not too fast. Have you ever smelt tear-gas?'

'Yes.'

‘You will smell it again, but do not worry. It is our tear-gas, not theirs. And there will be smoke, too, also ours. The train will have just gone through. The guard post will not know what is happening. They may think the train has blown up. It does not matter. The tear-gas and the smoke will make it hard for them to think, or see. If any of them tries too hard he will get a bullet or a plastic grenade to discourage him. In the confusion we run through. And then, as I told you, the Volkswagen will be waiting for us.'

‘What about oar confusion?' I said, 'How do we see where to go with tear-gas and smoke?'

Miller nodded. ‘I asked the same question, my friend. We should have had respirators. But Karl's argument was good. With so much to conceal, how could we carry respirators, too?’

'I made the experiment,' Fischer said defensively. ‘I tried to take a respirator in. They stopped me because of the bulge in my pocket They thought I was trying to smuggle a camera into the Seraglio. They are strict about that, as you know. It was embarrassing.'

‘How did you explain it?' Miller asked.

'I said I was a doctor.'

‘They believed you?'

‘If you say you are a doctor, people will believe anything. We need not worry where to
go. We simply follow the rail tracks and leave everything to Karl. We have done our work for this evening. Now we only wait for our train.'

We waited twenty-five minutes.

It was a mixed train, Fischer said, carrying newspapers, mail-bags, local freight, and a few passengers, to the small towns between Istanbul and Pehlivankoy. It chuffed towards the bridge as noisily and importantly as the Orient Express. There was a slight off-shore breeze blowing. The thick black smoke from the engine rolled along our side of
aie
embankment and engulfed us.

'Los!
Vorwärts!’
Fischer shouted, and, coughing and spluttering, Miller and I scrambled after him up the embankment.

For half a minute we stayed there with the train wheels clacking over a join in the rails about three feet from our noses. Then the last axle-box went by.

'Los!' said
Fischer again, and we were stumbling along the side of the tracks between the jutting ends of the sleepers and the parapet of the bridge.

We must have been about seventy yards from the guard post when the concussion grenade went off, and even at that distance the detonation made my ears sing. In front of me Fischer began to trot Almost immediately he tripped over something and
fell.
I heard him gasp with pain as his left
arm hit a sleeper; but he was on his feet and moving again before I got to him.

Hiere
was shouting ahead now, and I could hear the plunking, sizzling noise of tear-gas and smoke grenades detonating. The train smoke was still billowing around, but a moment later I got the first whiff of chemical smoke. Three yards more and I saw the white bandage on Fischer's right hand go to his forehead. Then I was in the tear-gas, too, and the first excruciating reaction of the sinuses began to spread into my eyes. I blundered on, choking. As the tears began to blind me, another concussion grenade went off. Then a shape loomed up out of the smoke and a respirator goggled at me; a hand gripped my arm and steered me to the right. I had a vague, tear-blurred impression of a lighted room and a man in uniform with his hands above his drooping head leaning against a wall. Then the arm belonging to the hand was supporting me as I stumbled down a long flight of steps.

I was out of the smoke now and I could just see the door of the Volkswagen van. The arm shoved me towards it. I almost fell inside. Fischer was already there, hawking and coughing. More grenades were exploding on the bridge above as Miller scrambled in after me. Then there was- a sound of running feet and the men in the respirators piled in. Someone pressed the starter. A moment later the van was on the move. I was crouched on the floor against one of the empty packing cases and somebody was treading on my feet. The stink of tear-gas was everywhere. I heard Harper's voice from the front passenger seat

‘Everything okay, Leo?'

Miller was coughing and chuckling at the same time. ‘The dogs have fed and clothed themselves,' he wheezed

chapter: eleven

There were five men besides Harper in the respirators, but my eyes were still so painful that I didn't see any of their faces well enough to be able to identify them. One of them was named Franz and he spoke German as well as Turkish. I know, because I heard him use both languages—ate German to Fischer. The other four only spoke Turkish, I think. I can't be certain because I was only with them a few minutes, and I was coughing most of the time.

The van must have gone about three mites when it slowed down, made a wide U-turn and stopped.

Harper opened the door from the outside.

Miller was nearest the door and he got out first I followed, with Fischer behind me. The other men just moved enough to make way for us. Then Harper shut the door again and the van was driven off.

This way,' Harper said.

We were opposite one of the big wood yards by an unloading pier and some beached caiques. He led the way along
lhe
pier. I was beginning to see well enough now to recognize
Giulio
standing up in the
Bulut's
outboard dinghy. We climbed down into it. I heard
Giulio
ask who I was and be told that he would find out later. Then the motor started, and we shot away from the pier.

The
Bulut
was anchored a quarter of a mile away, and a man on deck, Enrico presumably, was at the small gangway waiting to help us on board. I followed the others to the saloon.

By the time I reached the bottom of the narrow com-panionway that led down to it, Harper was already untying the draw-string of Miller's velvet bag, while the others crowded round to look. I saw the glitter of dozens of green and red stones and I heard
Giulio
draw
m
his breath. The stones didn't look all that large to me; but of course, I am no judge of such things.

Harper was grinning his head off. 'Nothing but the best, Leo,' he said. 'You're a great man.'

‘How much?' said Fischer.

'Better than a million and a half,' Harper replied. "Let's be on our way as soon as we can,
Giulio.'
'Pronto.’

Giulio
brushed past me and went up the companionway. There were sandwiches and drinks set out at the other end of the table. While they drooled over the stones, I poured myself a large whisky.

Harper looked across at me. 'Aren't you interested in the loot, Arthur?'

I had a sudden desire to hit him. I shrugged indifferently. ‘I’m not interested in counting chickens,' I said. 'I’ll settle for two thousand dollars, cash on the barrel.'

They all stared at me in silence for a moment The deck began to vibrate as the boat's
diesels
started up.

Harper glanced at Milter. 'I take it Arthur behaved himself this evening.'

'He was a damned nuisance,' Fischer said spitefully.

Harper ignored him. ‘Well, Leo?'

'He was afraid,' Miller answered; 'but what he did was enough. Under the circumstances I think he did well.'

Harper looked at me again. ‘Why the cracks, Arthur? What's the problem?'

‘How do you imagine you're going to get away with it?'

'Oh, I see.'
 
He relaxed again, all smiles. 'So our Arthur's worried that the bloodhounds are going to start snapping at his butt,
is
he? Well, forget it. They
 
won't. All they know so far is that a bunch of armed men in a Volkswagen van roughed up one of their guard posts. So the first thing they'll do is set up blocks on all the roads leading out of the city and look for the van. They'll find it, abandoned, over in
Gaiata.
Then they'll start the usual routine—Who's the owner? Where is he? What did he look like?—and get no place. By then, though, they'll have done some thinking, too, and some big brain will be starting to wonder why it had to be that particular post and why nobody got killed —why a lot of things. He may even think of checking out the Treasury Museum and so come up with the right
answer. When he does, they'll double up on the road-blocks and throw out the dragnet. Only we won't be inside it. We'll be going ashore at a little place sixty miles from here and two hours' easy driving from
Edirne
and the frontier.'
 
He patted my arm. 'And where
 
we go ashore,
Arthur, Miss
Lipp will be waiting to pick us up.'