Trojan Horse (40 page)

Jeff had killed the engine twice. Backing up in such a small area with a crowd screaming at him and rocking the car, all the while trying to work the clutch and gas, keep the Fiat straight, and not hurt anyone was proving daunting. The reverse gear was higher than the first forward gear and it was giving him lots of trouble.

He kept moving backward, working at staying in the street, moving slow enough so as not to run over anyone. Fortunately the street began to widen. He backed beyond the apartment he’d been watching and as he neared the broad area beside the roadway he’d driven up on, the crowd came to a stop, including the man who’d pounded on his window and started it all. They were satisfied they’d driven him from their neighborhood.

Jeff reached the road, stopped, changed gears, then merged into busy morning traffic to put some distance between himself and the crowd. As soon as he could, he turned onto a quieter street and pulled over. He took out his phone and called Daryl.

The phone rang and rang, and finally rolled over to her new voice mail. “Call me,” he said, then disconnected.

Next, he checked Daryl’s location using their app. She should be with Saliha. He saw the location. He glanced around, then made a sharp U-turn and continued in the direction he’d been going. As soon as he found a major street turning right he’d go with it.

It was nearly six in the morning when Ahmed and Hamid landed in Ankara. The passengers were surly and in a rush, and the car rental agencies were either unmanned or overwhelmed. They’d finally rented a black Korean car, then driven toward the city.

“Are you certain she stays with her mother?” Hamid asked.

“She always stays with her mother.”

Hamid had given him a tight smile. “You mean, that’s what she tells you. For all you know, she has an old boyfriend here. You should not assume things, Ahmed. You were taught that, remember?”

Saliha? With a boyfriend? It was impossible. Of course, he’d had his afternoons with others but she wasn’t that kind of woman, he was certain.

As they reached the outskirts of Ankara, Hamid made a call, then directed Ahmed to drive to a small café. He told him to wait while he went inside. Two minutes later, he climbed back in the car carrying a small gray travel bag.

Ahmed was driving while Hamid gave him directions from the navigation system. Even then, the obscure street was difficult to locate. “What is that?” Ahmed asked as they finally approached it. There was a street disturbance just ahead. A red car was lurching onto the road, its driver having some difficulty before he joined the traffic and drove away.

“This is the street,” Hamid said. Ahmed turned, pulled to the side, and stopped. “It should be right here.” Hamid climbed out of the car. Ahmed joined him, careful to lock up. The men set off down the street, looking for the address.

Hamid was a legend in the VEVAK. He’d been in charge of European operations for more than a decade and had been responsible for turning it into one of the most professional organizations on the continent. He’d removed the fanatics, brought in cooler heads, and exercised considerable discretion in selection of operations. His preference, it seemed to Ahmed, was the gathering of information. Overt operations were quite restricted.

No one knew his base of operations or his cover. Ahmed had heard rumors that he was ruthless in suppressing opposition within the Iranian ex-patriot community in Europe. From Ahmed’s perspective, the most disturbing aspect of his tenure was his absolute ruthlessness when it came to failure. He was a field man, fortunately, so he was not without understanding, but if an agent truly made a mess of it, there was no homecoming.

Two things about his predicament concerned Ahmed. The first was that his latest operation had been a botch almost from the start. Though they’d successfully taken the couple, both of them had managed to escape. Karim was dead at the hands of a woman. Ali had successfully killed the UNOG official but it had cost him his life. That part of the operation, he suspected, was compelled by the man’s escape. No, this had been a mess from the beginning.

Karim’s body had surely been discovered by this time. The Prague police would be looking for witnesses and suspects. They’d certainly have the American couple’s description, and that of the two Chinese men. Worse, someone might remember Ahmed or, despite his specific instructions, there might be a link in Karim’s apartment to him.

No, he’d have to assume everyone in Prague was burned. He’d have to relocate, move the other two agents there. And all this would have to happen immediately. He might even be too hot to remain in Europe. He’d tried to think of a way to raise the subject with Hamid but it would only make matters worse. The man had not wanted to talk. He’d done his job with an absolute minimum of words.

Then there was the other part of this that more than troubled Ahmed; it terrified him. The fact that Hamid was here at all.

“This one,” Ahmed said, glancing at Hamid for approval.

When he hesitated, Hamid said, “Go ahead. We haven’t much time.”

Ahmed knocked and a moment later Saliha’s mother answered the door.
“Evet?”
Yes?

Ahmed smiled and spoke in English as he knew no Turkish. “I am Ahmed, from Prague. Is Saliha here?” He smiled.

Hamid didn’t wait for a reply. He simply walked into the apartment, and pressed the woman back with his hand, sudden fear in her eyes. “Close the door,” Hamid ordered, glancing over at the three children. “This won’t take long.”

The streets wandered in ways that Jeff found impossible. On the cell phone, the way from here to there seemed straightforward but there were any number of streets not on the screen and a great many of those turned out to be one-way. He was getting better with the clutch and gears but that was small consolation.

Then his phone rang. “Yes?”

“She ran. I lost her for a while but I finally found her. She’s at a car rental agency. I’m across the street watching her. Can you get to me? I’ll try and talk to her again when she comes out. You need to stay back, though. She’s scared to death of you. I think she suspects you killed Ahmed.”

“What?”

“Hurry.” Daryl disconnected.

Jeff checked her cell location again. She was close and if he could just find a street that connected he’d be there in a flash. The problem was that traffic was getting worse by the minute. The vehicles mostly crawled with short spurts of modest speed. Pedestrians treated the roadway as a parking lot, weaving through the intermittently stopped and moving cars with casual indifference.

Most surprising, drivers seemed to have no sense that they were not alone on the street. Cars abruptly stopped while the driver looked over his shoulder to wait for an opening so he could change lanes, backing traffic behind him. Horns blared constantly and fists were waved through open windows. Though there was surely some measure of order to it, the streets looked chaotic to Jeff.

He moved his way to the right, searching again for a significant street that headed toward Daryl’s location. The car behind him honked. There was a slight opening and Jeff moved toward it only to see the car off his right rear speed up to block him in. Jeff turned on the blinker, then steadily moved to the right. The other car could give way or they’d collide.

A moment later he felt the crunch.

They knew the pretty woman in the rental office. One of the young men was flirting with her and she flirted back briefly while indicating she was in a hurry. Daryl had been lucky to find Saliha after losing her in the busy streets. She’d worked systematically on the assumption she would continue in the same general direction. She’d spotted the rental agency and seen the dark-haired woman at the counter, glancing nervously over her shoulder every few seconds. Daryl had remained across the street, standing in the morning shadows.

Saliha emerged with the attentive young man, clutching papers. He smiled as he talked, leading her along the sidewalk. They turned up a driveway and though the rental cars weren’t apparent from her location, Daryl was certain they were parked back there. She looked left, then right, then left, then right. Finally, she stepped onto the street and started weaving through the busy traffic the way she’d seen other pedestrians do.

Just as she reached the other side of the road a midsized black car drove by her. It slowed, and something about it caused her to move to the side of the sidewalk and seek cover with a group leaning against a cement retaining wall.

The black car pulled up almost entirely onto the sidewalk, stopping just short of the rental agency. Two men climbed out. One was wearing a dark charcoal business suit without a tie. He had a short cropped beard and luxurious hair. He was small for a grown man. The other was . . . Ahmed.

Daryl caught her breath. Ahmed. Here! How was that possible? He was
here,
on this street, at this moment, with her. The men entered the rental office, only to emerge a moment later. They walked quickly in the same direction as Saliha had headed. When they reached the driveway, they abruptly turned and ran back to their car.

Just then a car honked at the curb. She ignored it and watched the men climb into their car, then saw Saliha pull out of the driveway in a blue compact. The young woman looked both directions, then turned to her right. Ahmed and the other man pulled into traffic and followed.

The car honked again. It was Jeff. Daryl ran to the Fiat, which had a new, large dent on the passenger side, and climbed in. “Follow the black car!” she snapped. “It’s Ahmed with another man and they’re after Saliha. Hurry, Jeff! Hurry!”

ANKARA

TURKEY

10:27 A.M. EET

W
u eased the SportCruiser off the runway with a sense of relief. He lifted the nose and relaxed back in his seat as the plane gained altitude. At last, he was beginning to feel that his endless stream of problems were behind him.

Li sat beside him as impassive as ever but Wu was warming to the man, feeling almost a kinship with him. He’d long suspected Li had been sent to Turkey to spy on him but it turned out he was being punished for an incident he didn’t want to discuss.

Wu slowed the rate of climb to cut the engine noise and began his slow turn north. He was still exhausted despite his few hours’ sleep. The long flight from Prague had just about done him in. He’d never imagined night flying was so demanding or isolating. There’d been times when he felt as if he were floating in space. He’d clung to what his meager instruments told him, even when their readings defied his senses. And they’d always been right. The frightening night landing had been almost too much for him. Looking back on it, he realized it had been closer than he’d thought at the time.

After settling Li in, Wu had gone to bed though still tense. When he finally dropped off, his dreams were unsettled, evading his memory each time he was awakened. He’d risen early and stepped into the shower, scalding water beating on his skin as he struggled to relax. After shaving and dressing, he checked his phone. The message from Feng told him that they’d located credit card purchases in Prague and had new cell-phone numbers for the couple.

Wu knocked on the spare bedroom door and saw that Li was ready. The men went to the parking garage to claim his Buick, then had driven to a small eatery Wu often visited. Over strong Turkish coffee he checked his iPhone and the locations for the cell phones again. He was not familiar with the area since it was a poor working-class district.

Now, as he inched forward in rush-hour traffic, Wu reviewed again the situation. The Iranian agent Ahmed had claimed this couple were skilled CIA agents, then he’d added they were computer experts. Feng wanted the laptops so Wu was confident the last part was true. Ahmed also said the woman had killed his associate so she at least must be trained and ruthless.

It all seemed improbable to Wu. Computer experts and skilled killers? The two just didn’t go together.

Feng had forwarded to Wu a great deal of information overnight, so much that he’d read it this morning on his laptop during breakfast. Ahmed, it seemed, was the conduit for secret code being sent to Iran. Saliha was his mule. A vital patch had just been sent and she was carrying it into Iran. It was important she get through.

Wu thought about that. It wasn’t his job but when he and Li got the computers they’d make certain the American couple were stopped. They couldn’t be allowed to interfere.

Wu glanced at his watch. They’d moved perhaps ten meters in half an hour. There were all the signs of a serious blockage ahead. He checked the location again and cursed. Li looked at him. “They’re moving away from us, leaving the city, I think.”

“They are after the courier, then. They must have missed her.”

“Yes. She’ll be on her way to Iran. We’ve lost our chance to get them in the city.”

“Perhaps it will be easier in a less crowded place.”

“All right. We need a change of plans.” Though he hated it Wu could think of no alternative. He turned the wheels sharply left and when the oncoming traffic left the barest of openings, he punched the gas. He cringed as his Buick smashed into the low concrete divide, then up and over it, the bottom dragging across it and sounding as if the heart of his car was being torn out. The cars braked and honked. He wheeled the car around, then joined the faster traffic.