The Red Room

by Ridley Pearson

  Knox moves straight across and into the raised back of the service truck. It’s all about the appearance of confidence. He doesn’t hurry, doesn’t stoop. He waits until he’s deep into the truck, where he pushes himself behind a stack of dirty trays. When the worker returns, Knox attracts his attention by making rodent scratches on the wooden floor. Silences him with a blow to the trachea and choke-holds him into unconsciousness. Takes the man’s shirt and airport employment ID lanyard. Works the hydraulics to lower the raised truck bed and drives away a few minutes later. Leaving via a secure airport ramp in Turkey amounts to driving up to a security booth and watching the mechanical arm raise fifteen seconds before being close enough to require an exchange. Food service trucks are a regular sight, apparently.

  Knox boards the Metro and rides to Beyoglu. Doesn’t spot anyone following. Rides a bus northwest to Tepebasi and goes on foot the final distance, taking twelve blocks to accomplish what could have been done in eight. His nerves are on edge, an uncommon sensation that causes him to walk faster than usual. Hoping he has lost the tail, he reverses direction and reaches the street Akram named in a text forty minutes earlier.

  The latch hums. He’s through. He climbs to the first floor, conscious that this is but the first of a two-stage process. Here he must convince Akram the Harmodius is legitimate enough to merit investment; next, he must leverage that authenticity to bring Mashe into a room with him and Grace for five minutes.

  The apartment is on the right, likely a flat belonging to a friend of Akram’s. Maybe a mistress, Knox thinks, given a few feminine touches. There’s a ceramic bulldog sitting on a handmade doily atop a tube television. Furniture, that to Knox’s American eye looks like it belongs in a 1960s period film, crowds the small room into which Knox is welcomed.

  Akram wears the same cracked brown leather jacket, dark T-shirt and designer jeans. He looks wider and stronger than Knox remembers, more threatening.

  “The piece?” Akram says. “Where is the Harmodius, please, John?”

  Knox spots the open laptop that Akram was instructed to bring. He sets up a wireless connection over his iPhone, connects to the Internet and places a Skype video call.

  “Dr. Adjani,” Knox says. “As you approved.”

  “I do not see him,” Akram says irritably, gesturing to their surroundings and the studio apartment that barely accommodates himself and Knox.

  “I have taken precautions, given the challenges you and I discussed at the airport.” Knox indicates the laptop’s screen, which now shows an image of a university lab.

  “This will not do.”

  “It will, or I’m gone.”

  Adjani, personally selected by Akram, stands alongside the Obama bust in what could double as a high school science lab. Just off screen, at the back of the room, Knox sees Victoria. Is it Knox’s imagination or is Akram more interested in her than the professor?

  “We are ready at this end,” Dr. Adjani says.

  “I do not understand,” Akram complains. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “You and your expert have two hours. Victoria is there, as you can see, protecting your interests. I cannot travel with the Harmodius. Not after that earlier business. Victoria transported it for me. Two hours. Use it well.”

  Akram appears poised to call it off. Knox is paralyzed with anticipation.

  “Let us see what we have, Hassan.” Akram sits down in front of the laptop.

  Minutes later, Adjani carefully drives a flat, wide blade into Obama’s left shoulder. With a black rubber mallet, he applies small, studied taps. His blows are calculated and efficient. He works a rent into the seam and pries; the plastic separates and two pieces calve away, revealing a lump of gauze in one half. Knox watches Akram’s face. Impressed. Apprehensive. Overly eager for the gauze to be removed.

  Adjani pries the lump from the cast plastic. It’s heavy. The man dons surgical gloves and peels away the veil, revealing a bronze head and partial torso broken below the shoulders, which are angled forward. Akram does his best to suppress a gasp, but his eyes pop. Knox has studied Harmodius and Aristogeiton enough to know that if it’s a copy, it’s a damn good one.

  Good enough to be crafted by Kritios and Nesiotes? he wonders. If so, the value is incalculable.

  Akram has had the same thought. “The second copy was also lost to the ages.”

  “Yes.”

  Akram doesn’t say it, but his face shouts, Could this possibly be real?

  As the bust is fully revealed, it is seen to still contain dirt and gravel, seams of earth packed into its crevices. The piece looks like it was dug up an hour ago and barely cleaned. Knox knows the condition serves a purpose: the dirt and the existing condition can help date the bust, often more than the bust itself.

  “I’m telling you, it is possible. Confirmed by my experts.” Knox says this and then recalls that his expert is Dulwich, whom he no longer trusts. If Dulwich burned him on the Harmodius, there’s no way he’ll get the five minutes with Mashe—and no way Victoria will let him off the hook with the authorities.

  Knox continues, faking a confidence he doesn’t feel. “Adjani should be able to determine the fundamentals. If it’s a copy, how old a copy? The chemical lab work is speculative at best.”

  Knox wears an earbud that Akram hasn’t asked about. It’s an open phone connection with Besim, who’s surveilling the university building where Victoria and Adjani are working. Knox has a chauffeur he’s never met guarding several million dollars’ worth of sculpture. Grace told Besim that Victoria is her husband’s mistress, and that she suspects they have colluded to appraise a piece of art, which they will sell without Grace’s knowledge. Knox is a good friend monitoring the situation. Every element of the op is based on a lie.

  With the veil removed, Adjani’s meticulous methods suggest more than an expert doing his job. He’s reverential. The man attempts to start a video camera to record his work, but Knox stops him. Akram speaks Turkish with Adjani. Knox puts a quick stop to that, though ostensibly Victoria is in the room to protect Knox’s interests.

  The lab work draws out. Soil is scraped from the bust and tested. The piece is subjected to ultrasound. Adjani dons surgeon’s glasses and examines the surface of the bronze in a dozen places, picking at it with dentist tools. Nothing is heard but the occasional scratching, Adjani sniffling or Victoria, offscreen, rearranging herself. The silence is painful. Knox breaks it to maintain his sanity.

  “The remainder of the funds?”

  “It is as we discussed. To be transferred upon delivery should the verification prove out.”

  Knox enjoys getting what he wants. “My associate must meet him. As discussed.”

  “I cannot confirm this demand at present.”

  Knox doesn’t belabor the point. He’ll let the Harmodius sell itself. It will give him leverage. Adjani is already obsessed with the piece. He rolls up a stool and faces the camera.

  An hour has passed. To Knox, it feels like most of the day.

  36

  Dr. Osman’s offices are on the hospital’s cardiology floor, beyond a waiting area and receptionist desk. Grace might as well try passing through the Topkapi’s Sublime Porte during Ottoman times. She’s not going to be able to steal the pacemakers. She faces having to accomplish the next best thing: get someone to give them to her.

  Her Chinese heritage affords her many benefits in the West, among them the fact that Western men appreciate Asian women. Or the fact that the West secretly considers all Asians academically smarter and less physically able. Grace can use these stereotypes to her advantage. Because it worked so well in the mail room, she presents her UN business card to the receptionist, a matronly Turkish woman with an enormous chest, a double chin and pigmented green contact lenses that make her look like a Martian.

  Grace tries English. The woman isn’t ignorant, but she’s far from fluent. Toget
her they stitch together some Turkish and English, which works in Grace’s favor because she doesn’t want to present her needs in technical speak.

  There has been a shipment from BioLectrics that may have been sourced in China, Grace informs the woman. The parts are possibly counterfeit and unsafe. She needs a sample from the following shipment. She presents the FedEx tracking information.

  A nurse is called out, arriving ten minutes later. Grace repeats her story. The woman is younger and unfortunately her English is good.

  “The UN’s interest?” the nurse inquires.

  “Is regulatory,” Grace says. “You need not concern yourself. I’ve traveled a great distance, and have farther to go. Istanbul is not the only location that received a shipment, as you might imagine.”

  “World Health I could understand.”

  “You need not concern yourself.”

  “These are expensive parts.”

  “Inspection purposes only. The parts will be returned within the week. If they sustain damage in the process of inspection, they will be replaced at no cost to the hospital.”

  The nurse is acutely suspicious, but there’s so much downside for the hospital should the parts prove counterfeit that she relents.

  “We . . . the truth is . . . there is no order to our supplies.”

  “In the case of the pacemakers,” Grace says, vamping, “protocol calls for FILO.” First-in-last-out. “If you are so disorganized, you can, at the very least, look at the expiration dates on the pacemakers themselves. Correct?”

  “I suppose. Yes.”

  “I would appreciate a single sample from the batch with the latest expiration date. You can first check and copy the invoice for me. I must leave with at least one sample of each of the items shipped.”

  “It will take a few minutes,” the nurse says unpleasantly. She leaves.

  Grace checks her watch.

  37

  Knox was not made for waiting. He moves to the window and parts the blinds an inch to peer out at the street below. Isn’t sure what he’s looking for. Something different. Something unexpected.

  But Istanbul is unexpected—the hustle, the street side conversations, the smells, the mix of Western and Middle Eastern dress. He viewed most of this as an obstacle when he arrived; now it’s under his skin and welcome. The mayhem is damn near comforting, a kind of elixir; its absence would be troubling.

  He and Akram have been waiting twenty long minutes for some word from Adjani. For any word. Knox reaches for the laptop and mutes their end of the conversation.

  “Tell me about Victoria,” Knox says.

  Akram appraises him. “I think not.”

  “You haven’t taken your eyes off her.”

  “I do not believe this your business, John Knox.”

  “She is in possession of my artwork—she, and a man of your choosing.”

  “Hassan is no thief.”

  “And yet you are on a first-name basis with him,” Knox says.

  Akram demurs.

  “Not the first time you’ve needed a piece of art authenticated.”

  Still nothing.

  “She speaks fondly of you. She was hurt. Is hurt.” Knox hits the target.

  Akram is all flashing eyes, a wicked temper caged. His carotid artery working overtime.

  “Perhaps you two can patch things up,” Knox says, hoping to give his being alive added value.

  “She will have none of it.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Knox sees a crack of hope. “The only way a person hurts is if she cares. And she hurts.”

  Knox doesn’t have to work too hard. Akram wants this to be true.

  “They are more a prize than any piece of art, neh?” Knox hears himself add the Graceism to the end of his sentence; the gesture sends him tumbling through his own spiral of emotions. Is he talking to Akram or to himself? What drove him to this line of conversation? Just how much trouble is he in? And with whom?

  “You would do this for me?” Akram’s childish tone reminds Knox a woman can bring a man to his knees. “Do you know my ringtone for her? ‘Brown Sugar,’ Rolling Stones.” He quotes, “‘I’m no schoolboy, but I know what I like.’”

  Knox arrives at the moment for which he’s aimed: the reveal that he, Knox, knows more than expected. He measures his words carefully. “She is afraid of your brother.” Pauses. “I have a younger brother. It is not easy for the younger to escape the elder’s shadow.”

  “You know nothing of this matter.”

  He’s testing. “True,” Knox says cruelly.

  “Family blood is thick,” Akram says, rubbing his fingers together.

  “Sticky,” Knox says, supplying the word for him.

  “Exactly this! Sticky.”

  “Our sense of family evolves.”

  “She asks too much.” Akram’s anger is overshadowed by his pain. This is not the first time he’s reached this particular crossroads.

  Knox shrugs. “Not every deal can be negotiated.”

  “Why would you do this?” Akram must read some tell on his face; Knox has slipped. “The truth. Eh?”

  Knox chuckles. The truth evolves as well, he thinks. “The last time we met, as you will recall, I was shot at within minutes.” He touches his baseball cap. “There is no reason for me to think this will not happen again.”

  “You want to be of value to me.”

  “I am of value to you. What I want is protection as I leave here.”

  “If I help you live, I get my woman back.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, John.” It’s the first time Akram has smiled in some time.

  Dr. Adjani’s face distorts as he arrives too close to the laptop’s camera. As he does, Knox taps a key to remove the Mute. The lab man’s eyes sparkle with excitement as he speaks.

  “The soil carried on the bust is consistent with what was once termed the Great Rift Valley, now part of Israel and adjacent to the Jordan Rift Valley. That is, there are high percentages of rock salt and gypsum. Unique to that area. This is in sharp distinction to the red and gray-brown podzolic soils that cover nearly a third of Turkey. The bust is almost certainly Greek. The soil is not. It would not be the first Greek treasure unearthed in the Rift, though the Harmodius was believed lost in Greece, as you must know. The casting, metalwork and craftsmanship are consistent with the era. As to the metallurgy, I took a small sample from inside the cast and subjected it to gas chromatography.” Adjani pauses to move his glasses in a nervous tick. “The composition of the bronze is unique to the epoch in question. Extremely difficult to reproduce, I should add. I should also caution that this is not a wholesale endorsement.

  “It’s suggestive, but such things can be duplicated, no matter how unlikely.

  “That said, if duplicated, it is exemplary work, well above anything I have seen outside of authentic pieces.”

  Akram and Knox watch the screen, awaiting the bad news. None is forthcoming. Adjani fiddles with his glasses again, shakes his head and says, “Extraordinary, gentlemen. Upon cursory inspection this object would appear to be a fragment of a bronze casting forged approximately five hundred B.C. It might easily have been recovered from the Jordan Rift. Soil compaction would suggest it has been buried for, shall we say, several hundred years at minimum. Such soil compaction is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce. Only months of exhaustive testing will confirm its authenticity. Such testing should begin immediately. It would be . . . criminal”—he leans on the word intentionally—“to not complete such tests regardless of the outcome of the piece’s future. This is a work of major importance. I urge you to allow the proper testing—confidential testing, if necessary—to begin at once.”

  Knox masks his own surprise as Akram stares him down. Both men know Knox is too insignificant a p
layer in the art world to be trusted with such a piece. The only possible explanation is theft, and clearly Akram did not believe Knox up to such a task.

  For his part, Knox is wondering where and how Dulwich came up with such a piece and, by extension, how important Mashe Okle must be to the client to sacrifice an antiquity worth millions for the sake of an op. It’s an inconceivable price to pay, forcing Knox to question once again if the sale will ever take place. If Mashe is not to make it out of Istanbul alive, that’s a play Knox wants no part of. His own life is at stake, too: if the client proves willing to sacrifice a piece as valuable as the Harmodius, what kind of chance does a low-level operative like Knox have?

  A single word floats in Knox’s consciousness: Israel. It is the sun around which all logic spins.

  On-screen behind Adjani, Victoria lurks like a beta wolf awaiting the sating of alpha’s appetite. Knox’s offer of 10 percent must be titillating. More important, she has to realize that to attempt to steal a piece of such extraordinary value would likely get her killed or arrested. The Obama bust was destroyed to reveal the Harmodius; something equally clever and effective will need to be devised and installed in order to smuggle the Harmodius out of Turkey.

  He texts Grace a thumbs-up emoticon signaling the verification is good. Understanding the role of the Israelis and the switched pacemaker is more important now than ever. Fearing Dulwich may have been misled by the client, they must attempt to determine the purpose of their proposed five minutes with Mashe.

  “My protection,” Knox says, reminding him. Akram has yet to admit openly he’s under watch by the Iranians.