by Anton Gill
‘I still don’t see how –’
‘Dandolo came from one of the oldest Venetian families – one of the ones which founded the city. He was already an old man when he was elected doge – in 1193. His one overriding ambition was to make Venice controller of European commerce. He wanted a monopoly. To that end, he needed to knock out any trade rivals, and he’d stop at nothing to do it. But apart from that’ – Marlow’s voice darkened –‘he had other ambitions …’ He turned to the newspaper report he’d been reading. ‘Well, he succeeded. “Pillaging and destruction” … “Maniacal Crusaders” …’
‘You mean –’
‘You should read some of the reports of the people of Constantinople who were writing at the time,’ Marlow went on. ‘There was one guy, Nicetas Choniates, who was a senior official there. He wrote a whole history of the siege of the city, and the sack of it which followed. The Crusaders burned down his library, along with others. Countless classics of antiquity must have been lost to us for ever. But not only that, they melted down or smashed up priceless statues and monuments, just to turn it all into ready money. They ran amok, in other words. Only the Venetians had the sense to hang on to some of the good stuff to ship back home as prizes. Look at the horses on St Mark’s in Venice. They’re just one of the trophies looted from Constantinople in 1204. And there were religious relics too – the Catholic priests who’d gone along with the Crusaders weren’t slow to snap up everything they could find. There are churches all over Europe today which display stuff – pieces of the True Cross, heads and limbs of saints, that kind of thing – which all came from the looting of Constantinople – the greatest city in the world at the time.’
‘I remember something about that,’ said Graves. ‘Louis IX of France bought the Crown of Thorns from the Venetians, in 1239, I think. He spent half the country’s GDP on it – 135,000 livres – and built the Ste-Chapelle to put it in.’
‘So what were the archaeologists looking for? What had they found?’
‘I think I read something in the background study about Nicetas,’ said Graves, catching some of Marlow’s urgency as she skimmed through notes of her own. ‘Here it is: They have spared neither the living nor the dead. They have insulted God; they have outraged his servants; they have exhausted every variety of sin. That takes some beating.’
‘They did a thorough job. Even two hundred and fifty years later, when the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmet II finally took the city, it was still a kind of ghost of its former self. Mehmet was only twenty-one years old when he rode into Constantinople, and its ruin moved him to quote an old Persian poet: Now the spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars. Now the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasìab.’
‘But what has all this to do with us? And what’s the connection with these missing archaeologists?’ asked Graves.
‘That’s what we’ve got to find out. But I told you – Dandolo was after something more.’
‘World domination? Again?’ Her tone was bordering on sarcastic.
‘Why not? He was one of the first to see beyond Europe and Asia. He knew – somehow – that the world was bigger than that.’
Graves paused, not able to believe it. ‘You mean the Americas? But he lived nearly three hundred years before Columbus!’
‘It’s exactly what I mean.’
She shook her head. ‘But where are you going with this? You haven’t answered my question about how he diverted the Crusade.’
‘That’s crucial. Dandolo must have had a means – a surefire means – of holding on to all the power he wanted, and the way to get it.’
‘Is that what –?’
‘How do you think he managed to control and divert a whole crusading army to suit his purposes? It wasn’t just economic leverage. So – what power did he have over them?’
‘So what now?’
‘Get Leon in here. I don’t care if he’s finished or not.’
8
‘Let’s go over what we’ve got,’ Marlow said fifteen minutes later. Laura?’
‘Taylor and Adkins are both married men in their forties, and research fellows at Yale University. They started their research in Venice back in 2004 – the year of the eight hundredth anniversary of the Fourth Crusade. The project was joint-funded by Yale and Venice universities. Su-Lin de Montferrat is the 33-year-old daughter of an Italian father and a Chinese mother who’d been resident in Genoa for years, but who died within days of each other five years ago. We need more on Su-Lin, but she’d been a senior research student at the time she was co-opted from research in Venice to the Dandolo Project. With a bursary from MAXPHIL – which was also the main sponsor of the dig.’
‘And MAXPHIL is the philanthropic arm of MAXTEL.’
They all knew about MAXTEL. Everyone did. MAXTEL was a household name.
‘The guy who runs it is Rolf Adler. He was born in Cottbus, in what was East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, in 1959,’ said Marlow, scanning through a secure file on his terminal.
‘Tough town,’ remarked Lopez, remembering a rare field trip he’d made there years ago. ‘Remember?’
‘Don’t live in the past, my friend,’ said Marlow, but he remembered too. That time, Lopez had saved his life. He turned from the computer and rapidly went on, not needing to refer to notes. ‘MAXTEL was founded in 1991, so Adler didn’t waste any time after Germany was reunited. He got some capital together and started selling reconditioned TV and radio equipment, then went into cars, Mercs and BMWs mainly, then branched into the media. Started a small local radio station in 1992, but Cottbus isn’t that far south of Berlin, so he had access to a biggish audience – if anyone was interested in what he was pumping out.’
‘What was he pumping out?’ asked Graves.
‘Western pop, pretty old stuff, and some soft-political right-wing material – nothing Nazi, but some people thought there might be undertones. That’s when the first files on MAXTEL were opened.’
‘Where’d he get his money?’ asked Graves.
Marlow shrugged. ‘Basket of backers. Some pointers to the Russian mafia. Kept its head down when Gorbachev was in power, but grew a little bolder under Yeltsin. The rest is history.’
‘Any proven connection?’ Lopez pursued.
Marlow shrugged again. ‘Adler was already wealthy by the mid-nineties, and he was one of the first East Germans to put investment feelers out towards the West. He was never one of the true in-crowd, but no one could accuse him of not being pushy.’
‘I remember working on this,’ said Graves. ‘He went from strength to strength to strength but kept his sheet clean. By the end of the nineties the papers here were calling him the Murdoch of the East.’
Marlow nodded. ‘One or two of his competitors sold out to him without any argument, even when their own market share was strong. But there’s nothing definite. Except that their acquiescence was sudden – dramatic, even. Boris Isarov of Global Technology was flying high when Adler shot him down. Global started to lose ground, senior executives peeled off – all of them, in fact, except one, Vladimir Bilinski, Isarov’s right-hand man and a hard nut, ex-KGB colonel, all that.’
‘What happened to him?’ asked Lopez. ‘I remember the name.’
‘He went off to the Moscow office in his Volvo with his chauffeur and his bodyguard one morning as usual, after kissing his wife and kids goodbye, and that was it. None of them was heard of again. The Russian and the German police looked into it, not very hard. Isarov launched an investigation himself. Whether he found anything out, nobody knows. But soon afterwards his own family was killed in a fire at his house. Wife and four children, oldest twelve, youngest two. Isarov sold his majority share in Global to MAXTEL soon afterwards and went into retirement.’
Graves and Lopez exchanged a look.
‘I know what you’re thinking, but don’t forget Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1990s were like the Wild West. Adler wasn’t the only guy to play dirty. And there is nothing at al
l to link him to any of this. Isarov and Adler were close friends, and remained so. He went to the Isarov family funeral, there were photos on the front pages of Isvestia and Die Welt that spring showing him comforting Isarov, and he invited Isarov to his villa near St-Tropez that summer. The autumn following the accident, Adler paid generously for his interest in Global.’
‘Where was Adler when the tragedy struck?’
‘In Dallas, closing a deal for a radio station there.’ Marlow looked back at the screen. ‘Later on, he dabbled in derivatives and credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, special-purpose vehicles, and all that sort of banking finagling, even sub-primes, but managed to steer clear of trouble when the financial balloon went up in 2008. He got rich and he stayed rich, and now he controls a network of TV and radio stations across the globe, as well as a clutch of newspapers, mainly here in the States, but he’s also got a toehold in India and China.’
Marlow scrolled rapidly down a page. ‘Nowadays, he’s one of the good guys. A Maecenas where charities are concerned, especially in Africa, where he’s got a lot of goodwill; and he’s endowed university chairs all over the place, from Nigeria to Nebraska. Backing research undertakings like the Dandolo Project is a hobby of his. And he leads a simple life. Widowed – his wife died young – never remarried. Lives in Lausanne, and in the grounds, in a glass case, is an East German Trabant car, the first thing he treated himself to when he began his ascent. He’s had the thing gold-plated. He doesn’t spend much time in Switzerland – just enough to secure residency requirements.’ He sat back. ‘That’s it, but if we’re going to take a closer look at him, we need more on his background.’
‘I can help,’ said Graves.
‘Go on.’
Graves scanned her own screen. ‘I’ve got this much. His father was a technician at the Boxberg power station. Mother was a housewife, did some cleaning for a local politician’s family. Adler had an older brother, who died aged seventeen in some kind of hunting accident, in 1974. Adler went to a local school, then got a scholarship to Humboldt University in Berlin. He read physics, switched to economics.’
‘Any more on his business training?’ asked Marlow.
‘Nothing formal. I think he saw his opportunities when the Wall came down, and went for it.’
‘He was thirty-ish then. Late starter by the standards of a lot of the new boys.’
‘He spent 1982 to 1988 teaching in a Fachhochschule back in Cottbus. Travelled in the East a lot after his wife died. No children.’
‘So, what led him to take an interest in the Dandolo Project specifically?’ said Marlow.
‘It’s just one of several, on the face of it.’ Graves looked at the onscreen notes. ‘MAXPHIL is involved in investigating ways of salvaging the damage done to Iraq’s cultural heritage, for example, and another venture has to do with a research programme into the history of the origins of mathematics and astronomy. Both university-run projects. The principal one for the Iraq undertaking is Houston, the other is Humboldt, his old alma mater.’
‘All very respectable.’
‘Yes,’ said Graves evenly, locking the file she’d opened and snapping it off. She took her glasses from her nose, and pinched the bridge.
The blue telephone rang. Marlow spoke briefly then listened, his expression changing as he did so.
‘So soon?’ he said. ‘But I haven’t had time to brief them fully –’
The voice at the other end interrupted him.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘OK.’ He listened some more, his expression changing again, to one of incredulous surprise. ‘Yes, of course. At once.’
He put the phone down carefully and stood up before speaking. ‘That, it goes without saying, was Sir Richard.’
‘What’s he handing down from the mountain now?’ asked Lopez.
Marlow looked at Graves. ‘You and I are flying to Istanbul tomorrow. We’ve a meeting with Detective-Major Haki, Turkish security service. He’s handling the disappearance that end.’
‘What a way to start your job,’ grinned Lopez. ‘No such luck for me, I gather.’
‘You know you hate travelling,’ said Marlow. ‘You’ve got to clear your decks completely for anything we send you for analysis. Premier urgency.’
‘What’ve they found?’
‘They’ll give us the details when we get there, but there’s a coded email coming through now,’ he replied. ‘But right now, Hudson wants me in his office. He has a visitor who’s keen to meet me.’
‘And that is?’
‘Rolf Adler.’
9
Marlow filled Graves in on the meeting with Adler on the way to the airport.
‘Why was he there?’
‘God knows how much influence he has to have reached us in the first place,’ replied Marlow, ‘but he knew all about the archaeologists, and offered his services in helping to locate them. Hudson was non-committal, but it’s obvious that Adler’s got some pull.’
‘What’s he like?’
Marlow shrugged. ‘He’s got that patina the very rich have: a kind of sheen, a kind of confidence other people just don’t possess. Looks younger than he is, obviously works out a bit. Grey hair, hooded eyes. Too much bling, but all of it’s there to make its point – cufflinks, rings, tie-pin, watch – all signalling that his corner shops are Asprey’s, Cartier and Tiffany’s.’
‘But you didn’t pick anything up from him?’
‘Sixth sense, you mean? No.’
‘Anything to bring us closer to the archaeologists?’
Marlow didn’t know Graves yet, and one instinct which was strong in him, especially now, was never to show his hand to anyone until he was sure of them. He knew his own weaknesses and he also knew how, even with his guard up, they could still take him by surprise. There’d been times when he’d thought he’d give up, hand in his resignation, but each time he’d hesitated, and now his career had taken him beyond that option, and what he’d been deluded enough to believe was the love of his life had gone. What was left to him – all that was left – was his work. And a chance to redeem himself.
Graves went on. ‘How does he want to help?’
‘How do you think? By throwing money at the problem.’
‘But he’d want to know what we know too?’
‘Didn’t seem to concern him.’
‘Does that concern you?’
‘What do you think?’ said Marlow, with a slight smile. He was sitting close to her in the car, and Graves felt the warmth of his thigh along hers. She was wondering if that was intentional or not when he shifted slightly in his seat, and moved away.
‘Do you think they’re still in Istanbul? Adkins and his friends?’
‘I doubt it,’ he replied, still smiling that faint smile.
Istanbul was dark and rainy. Streetlights dazzled, along with the lights from dozens of tiny shops, filled with everything from coffee pots to carpets – from simple kelims to ornate Persian silk rugs selling at $50,000 apiece. Everything doubled itself in reflections in the glossy, rain-slicked tarmac and cobblestones. The area in and around the grand bazaar of Kapari Carsi glittered red and gold.
They checked into the hotel near Sultan Ahmet Square, and made their way west across the European side of the city in a yellow Hyundai taxi, after the usual debilitating argument with the driver about the fare. The impression they’d got of the Grand Bazaar had been fleeting.
Driving at the usual breakneck speed of the Istanbul cabbie, they sped through the Sehzadebasi district, and took a right up Kimyagar Dervis and Vezneciler, passing university buildings, turning left before they got as far as City Hall, to reach an unassuming street just north of the Laleli Mosque.
Letting their driver drop them not far from the address they’d been given, and making sure he’d driven off, muttering darkly for their benefit about the size of his tip, they walked back through the fine rain to a building with a plain façade and a scattering of brass plates by its forbidding street door
to indicate the professions of the occupants. They sheltered under the entrance awning. A row of bell-pushes on one door-jamb were identified by numbers only. Graves pressed number five.
It didn’t take long for the buzzer to click the door open, but Marlow looked up and down the empty street while they were waiting. Just to make sure. But there was nothing to indicate that they weren’t alone out there in what had now become freezing drizzle.
A young man with a black moustache stood in the vestibule. He was dressed in the international secret service uniform – dark suit, white shirt, dark tie – and had the kind of features – regular, unexceptional – that you’d immediately forget. It had occasionally crossed Graves’s mind that a lot of her colleagues might have been recruited on the basis of such looks, so perfect were they for the job.
He greeted them gravely and led the way along a dimly lit corridor to a door at which he knocked softly before opening it immediately and gesturing them to enter. Then he melted away.
The room they found themselves in was large and bright, and a chaos of untidiness. The books that lined most of one wall were in disarray, many spilling out on to the floor, others, mingled with buff folders, tottering in uncertain piles on the fine Isfahan carpet, which they half smothered. The other walls were dotted with a collage of maps, graphs, children’s drawings and one or two reproductions of dark Rembrandt portraits. A table bore an old Dell computer, evidently not often in use and half buried by more paperwork. An ornate desk stood in front of the tall windows. A closed MacBook Air perched precariously on one corner, in danger of being shoved to the floor by another Manhattan of what looked like ledgers but might have been law books.
The man behind the desk rose to greet them. He didn’t look unlike the middle-aged Rembrandt himself. He was clean-shaven, with a plump face, and a body to match. His nose was bulbous and his greying hair wispy and unruly. The eyes were small, grey and shrewd, and his expression a mixture of humour and sadness – the face of a man who’d survived a lot by taking stuff on the chin, but never letting anything floor him. A man, thought Marlow, whose company you’d probably enjoy but whom you’d never take anything other than seriously.
