Текст книги "Crescent Dawn"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Dirk Cussler,Clive Cussler
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

10

The call to morning salatdrifted through the open hotel window, waking Pitt earlier than he would have preferred. Leaving the warm comfort of Loren’s side, he rose from bed and peered out the window. The black-tipped minarets of Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Mosque scratched a hazy sky just a few blocks away. Pitt noted wryly that the Islamic call to prayer no longer came from a muezzinshouting from the heights of the minaret but rather from loudspeakers situated around the mosque.

“Can you turn that racket off?” Loren mumbled from beneath a blanket.

“You’ll have to take it up with Allah,” Pitt replied.

He closed the window, then gazed through the pane at the towering architecture of the nearby mosque and the blue waters of the Sea of Marmara just beyond. A large contingent of freighters was already assembling in line, waiting their turn to sail up the narrow Bosphorus Strait. Loren materialized out of the bed, slipping into a robe and joining her husband at the picture window.

“I didn’t realize that blaring came from the mosque,” she said a bit meekly. “It’s quite beautiful. Built by the Ottomans, I presume?”

“Yes, in the early seventeenth century, I believe.”

“Let’s go have a look after breakfast. But after last night’s excitement, that may be all the sightseeing I’ll be up for today,” she said with a yawn.

“No shop-till-you-drop at the Grand Bazaar?”

“Maybe next time. I want our lone full day together in Istanbul to be relaxing.”

Pitt watched a red freighter chug off the shoreline, then said, “I think I have just the ticket.”

They quickly showered and dressed, then ordered breakfast brought to their room. They were readying to leave when the phone rang. Pitt answered and spoke for several minutes, then hung up the receiver.

“It was Dr. Ruppé, calling from the airport. He wanted to make sure you were okay,” he explained.

“I’d feel better if you told me the police had captured those criminals.”

Pitt shook his head. “Apparently not. Rey is a little irate, as the local media is blaming the break-in and murders on an anti-Muslim movement. Apparently, some valuable jewelry was ignored at Topkapi in favor of several Muhammad relics.”

“You said murders in the plural,” Loren remarked.

“Yes, there were a total of five security guards killed in the ordeal.”

Loren grimaced. “The fact that several of the murderers were Persian-looking didn’t clue the police in another direction?”

“The police have our account. I’m sure they are operating under a different scenario.” Deep down, Pitt wasn’t so sure but hid his anger at the thought of his wife’s kidnappers escaping scot-free.

“The other news, according to Ruppé,” he continued, “is that they kept our names and involvement out of the paper. Apparently, there is widespread outrage at the theft, which is being viewed as a deep insult to the Muslim community.”

“Even after our near-death experience, that’s okay with me,” Loren mused. “By the way, what exactly did they end up stealing?”

“They made off with a battle standard that belonged to Muhammad. Apparently, the outrage would have been even more magnified if you hadn’t liberated the second black bag.”

“What did it contain?”

“A cloak of Muhammad’s, called the Holy Mantle, along with a letter written in his hand. Part of what is known as the Sacred Trusts.”

“It’s terrible that somebody would try to steal such relics,” Loren said, shaking her head.

“Come on, we better go see the rest of this town before anything else disappears.”

They exited the lobby of the hotel and entered the bustling streets of old Istanbul. Pitt noticed a man in mirrored sunglasses staring at Loren as he passed on his way into the hotel. Tall and sporting a near-ballerina figure, Loren seldom failed to attract the male eye. Dressed in light slacks and an amethyst blouse that nearly matched the color of her eyes, she looked vivacious despite the turmoil of the night before.

Walking down a block or two, they stopped and peered in the window of an upscale rug shop called Punto of Istanbul, admiring an elegant Serapi carpet that hung on the wall. Strolling to the end of the street, they crossed the Hippodrome, a long, narrow park around which the chariots raced in the Byzantine era. Just beyond was the mosque of Sultan Ahmet I.

Completed in 1617, it was the last of Istanbul’s great imperial mosques. The exterior featured a rising cascade of domes and semi-domes that climbed in height and grandeur until culminating in a massive central dome. By the time Pitt and Loren had entered the mosque’s arched courtyard, most of the morning worshippers had been replaced by camera-toting tourists.

They made their way into the prayer hall, its expansive interior dimly lit by high banks of stained-glass windows. Overhead, the curving domes were covered in a maze of intricately patterned tiles, many in shades of blue, which gave the building its nickname, the Blue Mosque. Pitt studied an archway filled with familiar-looking floral tiles, which were manufactured in the nearby city of Iznik.

“Look at that design,” he said to Loren. “It’s nearly identical to the pattern on the ceramic box we pulled from the wreck.”

“You’re right,” Loren agreed, “though the coloring is a little different. Congratulations, it’s more evidence that your wreck sank around sixteen hundred.”

Pitt’s satisfaction was short-lived. Eyeing a green-tiled wall on the opposite side of the prayer hall, he spotted a man in sunglasses looking in his direction. It was the same man who had gawked at Loren outside the hotel.

Without saying a word, Pitt slowly herded Loren toward the exit, consciously staying close to a group of German tourists on a guided tour. He casually surveyed the crowd scattered about the mosque, trying to discern whether Sunglasses had any partners. Pitt noticed a thin Persian man with a bushy mustache shuffling along nearby, a serious scowl on his face. He appeared incongruous among the other tourists standing with their necks craned toward the ceiling. It seemed unlikely that the Topkapi thieves would have tracked them down so quickly, though Pitt recalled the threatening words of the woman in the cistern. He decided to find out for sure.

Following the Germans out of the prayer hall, Pitt and Loren pulled on the shoes they had removed earlier and followed the tour group into the courtyard. Pitt watched from the corner of his eye as the Persian followed suit.

“Stay here,” Pitt told Loren, then turned and quickly strode across the marble tile toward the man.

The Persian immediately turned, pretending to study a nearby column behind him. Pitt strode right up and gazed down at the man, who stood a head shorter.

“Excuse me,” Pitt said. “Can you tell me who’s buried in Atatürk’s tomb?”

The man at first avoided Pitt’s gaze, peering instead toward the prayer hall exit where Sunglasses now stood. Spotting a shake of the head, he turned and faced Pitt with a look of contempt.

“I wouldn’t know where that dog lies,” he spat, his eyes glistening with an arrogant intimidation born of a hardened life in the streets. An undercover police agent he was clearly not. When Pitt noticed the telltale bulge of a holstered handgun under the man’s loose shirt, he decided not to press the issue. He gave the man a cold, knowing look, then turned and stepped away. Walking back to Loren, he half expected a bullet in the back and silently hoped the crowds and mosque security were sufficient deterrents to spare an immediate attack.

“What was that about?” Loren asked as he returned.

“Just checking the time. Come on, let’s see if we can catch a cab.”

The German tour group was slowly moving toward the courtyard exit, but Pitt grabbed Loren’s hand and dragged her past them, slipping out before they converged on the doorway. Pitt didn’t bother looking back, knowing full well that Sunglasses and the Persian would be in pursuit. Prodding Loren to the street, he got lucky and commandeered a cab that was off-loading an elderly pair of tourists out front.

“To the Eminönü ferry docks, as fast as you can,” he directed the cabdriver.

“Why all the rush?” Loren asked, slightly agitated at being hustled into the car.

“I think we are being tailed.”

“That man you spoke to inside the mosque?”

Pitt nodded. “And another fellow wearing sunglasses who I saw earlier outside our hotel.”

As the cab pulled into traffic, Pitt looked out the back window. A small orange sedan screeched up to the curb with a lone driver inside. Pitt looked across the mosque grounds to see the German tourist group still congregated around the mosque exit. He smiled as he spotted the Persian clumsily fighting his way through the thick crowd.

“Why don’t we go to the police?” Loren asked, a rising note of alarm in her voice.

Pitt flashed a reassuring grin. “What, and ruin our one and only relaxing day in Istanbul?”

11

The yellow taxi quickly melted into traffic, leaving the domed mosque and its minarets in the rearview mirror. Had the driver turned north and wound through the crowded maze of the historic old city, he would have easily lost the orange sedan to thick traffic. But the judicious cabdriver, thoughtful to make good time, instead turned south and headed toward a divided motorway called the Kennedy Caddesi.

The pursuers desperately attempted to catch up. The orange sedan sped away from the mosque after picking up its two passengers, nearly getting sideswiped by a tourist bus as it wove through traffic.

“I think they turned right,” the driver said in a hesitant voice.

“Go,” Sunglasses directed from the front passenger seat while nodding at the driver to follow his instincts.

The car turned south, bolting through a red light, before slowing behind a procession of crawling vehicles. Seated in the backseat, the Persian suddenly pointed down the road, spotting a yellow cab two blocks ahead turning onto the Caddesi.

“I think that is their cab,” he shouted.

The driver nodded, his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel. There was little he could do to prod his way through the clogged traffic, and he anxiously cursed the surrounding vehicles while the seconds ticked by. Finally spotting a break in oncoming traffic, he burst down the left lane for a block, then nosed back into the right lane. The traffic moved forward, and he quickly entered the Caddesi, flooring the accelerator and weaving down the highway like a Formula 1 racer.

The highway looped around the eastern boundary of Topkapi, hugging the Bosphorus shoreline. Traffic moved briskly as the road turned north then west along the Golden Horn, a natural water inlet that divided the European sector of Istanbul. Pitt looked down at the waterway, admiring a large green dredge ship that was churning the waters off the shoreline. As the cab approached the Galata Bridge, which stretched north over the Golden Horn into the district of Beyoğlu, a throng of cars and buses suddenly materialized, impeding movement to a crawl. The cab exited the Caddesi at the first opportunity, snaking down to a ferry dock near the base of the bridge.

“Boğaz Hatti dock at Eminönü,” the cabdriver announced. “The next ferry departure will be right over there,” he added with a wave of his arm. “If you hurry, you can just catch it.”

Pitt paid the driver, adding a healthy tip, then surveyed the road behind them as he exited the cab. Seeing no sign of the orange sedan, he casually escorted Loren to the ticket window.

“You just can’t stay away from the water, can you?” Loren said, eyeing several large ferryboats on the waterfront.

“I thought a relaxing cruise on the Bosphorus was just what the doctor ordered.”

“Actually, that does sound enticing,” she admitted, relishing some fresh-air sightseeing. “Just so long as we’re alone and there’s lunch involved.”

Pitt grinned. “Lunch is guaranteed. And I think we’ve lost our friends.”

Purchasing their tickets, they walked down one of the busy docks and boarded a modern passenger ferry, grabbing some seats by a window. A triple blast of the ship’s horn signaled its departure before the gangway was pulled aside.

On the road out front, the orange sedan screeched to a halt, its two passengers flying out of the side doors. Bypassing the ticket booth, they sprinted down to the dock, only to watch the ferryboat churn into the strait. Panting to catch his breath, Sunglasses stared at the ferry, then turned to the Persian.

“Find us a boat,” he hissed. “Now!”

* * *

At twenty miles in length and seldom more than a mile wide, the Bosphorus Strait was at once one of the world’s busiest and most scenic waterways. Dividing the heart of Istanbul, it had been a historic trading route, utilized by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. In modern times, it had become a major conduit for Russia, Georgia, and other countries bordering the Black Sea. Tankers, freighters, and containerships constantly clogged the narrow waterway that split the European and Asian continents.

The ferryboat steamed north at a comfortable clip, easing past the hilly skyline of Istanbul under a clear blue sky. The vessel soon passed under the Bosphorus Bridge and later the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, both towering suspension bridges that rose high above the waterway. Pitt and Loren sipped hot tea while surveying the neighboring boat traffic and the hillside architecture. The crowded shoreline slowly receded into a line of stately waterfront mansions, diplomatic missions, and former palaces that resided against a green forested backdrop.

The ferry made several leisurely port stops before approaching almost within sight of the Black Sea.

“Care to go up to the top deck for a better view?” Pitt asked.

Loren shook her head. “Looks too breezy for me. How about another tea instead?”

Pitt duly agreed and walked over to a small café and ordered two more black teas. Had they climbed to the top deck, Pitt might have observed the small speedboat carrying three men that raced up the strait toward the ferryboat.

The ferry soon turned toward the European shore and docked beside a pair of smaller car ferries at the Port of Sariyer. An old fishing village, Sariyer still exuded the historic Turkish charm of many upper Bosphorus havens that were slowly being overrun with affluent retirees.

“There are supposed to be some good seafood restaurants here,” Loren said, reading from a tour book. “How about we get off for lunch?”

Pitt agreed, and they soon joined a throng of sightseers clogging the gangway to exit the ship. The dock was near the base of a large hill, with the town spread along shoreline flats to their right. The town’s main road fed into a small waterfront park to their left, which caught Pitt’s eye when an old Citroën Traction Avant motored onto the grassy field.

They walked through a small fish market, observing a fresh catch of sea bass being unloaded from a small fishing boat. Ambling past a row of competing seafood restaurants, they selected a small waterfront café at the end of the block. A spry waitress with long black hair seated them at a patio table along the water’s edge, then quickly covered their table with meze, small appetizer portions of various Turkish dishes.

“You have to try the calamari,” Loren said, shoving a rubbery blob into Pitt’s mouth.

Pitt playfully crunched one of her fingers with his teeth. “A nice match with the white cheese,” he replied after swallowing the fried squid.

They enjoyed a leisurely meal, watching the sea traffic maneuvering down the strait, along with the tourists bustling through the adjoining restaurants. Finishing their seafood dishes, Pitt was reaching for a glass of water when Loren suddenly clutched his arm.

“Swallow a bone?” he asked, noting a tight-lipped grimace on her face.

Loren slowly shook her head as she released her grip. “There’s a man standing outside the door. He was one of the men in the van last night.”

Pitt took a drink from his water glass, casually turning his head toward the café’s front door. Outside the entrance, he could see a brown-skinned man in a blue shirt milling about the door. He had turned toward the street, obscuring his face from Pitt.

“Are you certain?” Pitt asked.

Loren saw the man steal a quick glance through the window before turning away again. She looked at her husband with fear in her eyes and nodded.

“I recognize his eyes,” she said.

Pitt thought the profile looked familiar, and Loren’s reaction convinced him she was right. It had to be the man Pitt had slugged in the back of the van.

“How could they have tracked us here?” she asked, slightly hoarse.

“We were the last ones on the boat, but they must have been close enough to see us board,” Pitt reasoned. “They probably followed in another boat. It wouldn’t have taken long to scout the restaurants near the ferry dock.”

Though he kept a calm demeanor, Pitt felt a deep uneasiness over the safety of his wife. The Topkapi thieves had proven last night that they weren’t afraid to murder. If they had taken the trouble to track them down, it could be for only one reason – retaliation for disrupting the burglary. The threat by the woman in the cistern suddenly didn’t sound so hollow.

The café’s waitress appeared and, while clearing away their lunch dishes, asked if they wanted dessert. Loren started to shake her head, but Pitt spoke up.

“Yes, indeed. Two coffees and two orders of your baklava, please.”

As the waitress scurried back to the kitchen, Loren admonished Pitt.

“I can’t eat any more. Especially not now,” she added, glaring toward the front door.

“Dessert is for him, not us,” he replied quietly. “Make a show of heading for the restroom, then wait for me by the kitchen.”

Loren responded immediately, pretending to whisper in Pitt’s ear, then slowly rising and moving down a short hall that led to both the kitchen and restrooms. Pitt noted the man at the door stiffen slightly as he observed her movement, then relaxed when the waitress delivered the coffee and dessert to the table. Pitt surreptitiously slipped a stack of Turkish lira on the table, then poked a fork into the thick slab of baklava. Taking a peek toward the door, he saw the blue-shirted man turn again toward the street. Pitt dropped his fork and rose from the table in a flash.

Loren stood waiting at the end of the hallway as Pitt rushed by, grabbed her hand, and yanked her into the kitchen. A startled chef and dishwasher simply stopped and stared as Pitt smiled and said hello, then squeezed past some boiling pots with Loren in tow. A back door opened onto a small alley that curved to the main front street. They hustled up to the corner and turned to head away from the restaurant when Loren squeezed Pitt’s hand.

“How about that trolley?” she asked.

An antiquated open-air trolley used to shuffle locals and tourists from one end of town to the other was moving slowly down the street toward them.

“Let’s board on the other side,” Pitt agreed.

They crossed the street just before the trolley approached and then quickly jumped aboard. The seats were all taken, so they were forced to stand as the trolley passed by the front of the café. The man in the blue shirt still stood out front and casually surveyed the trolley as it motored by. Pitt and Loren turned away and tried to screen themselves behind another passenger, but their cover was limited. The man’s eyes froze at the sight of Loren’s purple blouse, then he swung around and pressed his face to the restaurant window. Pitt could see the shock in the man’s face as he turned back and watched the trolley recede down the street. Quickly stumbling after the trolley, he yanked a cell phone from his pocket and frantically dialed as he ran.

Loren looked at Pitt with apologetic eyes. “Sorry, I think he spotted me.”

“No matter,” Pitt replied, trying to stifle her fears with a sure grin. “It’s a small town.”

The trolley made a brief stop at the fish market, where most of the passengers climbed off. Observing their tail still in pursuit a block away, Pitt and Loren grabbed a seat and crouched low as the trolley resumed speed.

“I think I saw a policeman earlier near the dock,” Loren said.

“If he’s not around, we might be able to short-hop another ferry.”

The trolley cruised another block, then approached its stop near the ferry dock. The old vehicle’s wheels were still turning when Pitt and Loren jumped off and scurried toward the dock. But this time, it was Pitt’s turn to grab Loren’s arm and freeze.

Ahead of them, the dock was now empty, the next ferry not due for another half hour. Of greater concern to Pitt was the appearance of two men near the dock’s entrance. One was the Persian from the Blue Mosque, pacing about the quay, alongside his friend in the sunglasses.

“I think we best find some alternate transportation,” Pitt said, guiding Loren in the other direction. They quickly stepped toward the road, where a 1960s-era Peugeot convertible rambled by, followed by a small group of locals on foot trailing it to the waterfront park. Pitt and Loren approached the Turks and tried to melt into the small party for cover. Their attempt failed when the blue-shirted man from the restaurant appeared down the road. Shouting to his cohorts on the dock, he waved excitedly, then pointed in Pitt’s direction.

“What do we do now?” Loren asked, seeing the men on the dock move in their direction.

“Just keep moving,” Pitt replied.

His eyes were dancing in all directions, searching for an avenue of escape, but their only immediate option was to keep moving with the crowd. They followed the group into the park, finding the open grassy field now lined with two uneven rows of old cars. Pitt recognized many of the highly polished vehicles as Citroën and Renault models built in the fifties and sixties.

“Must be a French car club meet,” he mused.

“Wish we could actually enjoy it,” Loren replied, constantly gazing over her shoulder.

As the group of people around them began to disperse across the field, Pitt led Loren to a cluster of people in the first row. They were congregated around the star of the show, a gleaming early-fifties Talbot-Lago with a bulbous body designed by Italian coach-maker Ghia. Working their way to the back of the crowd, Pitt turned and surveyed their assailants.

The three men were just entering the park together at a brisk pace. Sunglasses was obviously the team leader, and he promptly directed the other two men to either edge of the field while he slowly moved toward the center row of cars.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to leave the way we came in,” Pitt said. “Let’s try to keep ahead of them. We might be able to cut up to the main road from the other end of the park and flag down a car or bus.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to attempting a carjacking at this point,” Loren replied grimly. She moved quickly, skirting around and between the cars, with Pitt a step or two behind. They tried as best they could to use other onlookers as cover, but the crowds thinned as they moved down the row. They soon reached the last car, a postwar two-door convertible painted metallic silver and green. Pitt noticed an older man seated inside taping a “For Sale” sign to the windshield.

“The last of our cover,” Pitt remarked. “Let’s move fast to the trees.”

Pitt grabbed Loren’s hand, and they started to run across the last section of grass field. A thick line of trees circled the park’s perimeter, beyond which Pitt was certain the coastal road lay just to the west.

They’d run just twenty yards when the sight ahead ground them both to a dead stop. Beyond the trees, they could now see a high stone wall that enveloped the southern half of the park. As a deterrent to the private residence on the other side, the wall was topped with shards of broken glass. Pitt knew that even with his help there was no way Loren could quickly scale the wall and outrun their pursuers, let alone avoid a bloody scrape in the process.

Pitt wheeled around and quickly spotted the three men. They were still picking their way through the cars, slowly converging on them. Tugging Loren’s hand, Pitt began walking back toward the line of cars.

“What do we do now?” Loren asked, fear evident in her voice.

Pitt looked at her with a devilish sparkle in his eye.

“In the words of Monty Hall, let’s make a deal.”