The Red Room

by Ridley Pearson

  But not she in him. She closes the gap quickly, clear-minded and fleet of foot. Confrontation and combat require emotionless focus. This man is her prey now, their roles reversed. If he wants to turn and face her, it will be at his own peril.

  There’s no such resolve. He’s on the run—a surveillant assigned to see but not be seen. He’s out of luck; she has him in her sights.

  Disguised within Grace are power, coordination, training and experience. She brings this combination to bear on the man, who is attempting to pretend she does not exist. Chops his right knee from behind just before he exits the alley.

  He didn’t come looking for a fight. She drops her purse and its contents spill. His right arm swings in a failed attempt to maintain his balance. Grace grabs the arm as it passes, throws her right shoulder into his armpit and steps forward, thrusts her right elbow into his back, ducks beneath the arm and turns his wrist as she lifts it to connect with his shoulder blades. He drops down to his knees, stunned with pain.

  No gun. She takes possession of his phone.

  “Who?” She tries Turkish then English. Kicks him between the legs from behind. That wins his attention while dropping him lower. Repeats herself in Chinese, wondering too late if she’s revealing too much.

  “Besim!” he moans.

  She releases his arm. It sags to the pavement as if a prosthetic.

  “To watch you. Protect you.” Turkish.

  Grace steps away and collects her belongings.

  “The password to your phone?” She speaks in his language. He recites four numbers; she clears the screen and looks up his most recent calls. Three of the five are to Besim’s phone. She double-checks her purse; searches the area for her penlight. Finds it.

  “You were at the hospital.”

  “Yes,” he says. He comes to his feet and turns around. He’s embarrassed by her superiority, cannot look directly at her. A woman, of all things! “Two others. A woman, a man watching the hospital. Israelis. Saw you.”

  Grace nearly gasps. “You know this, how?” Condescending disbelief. “It is not possible you could know such a thing.”

  “As a boy, I fell through the ice on the Bosphorus. Lost my ears, three years. Learned to read mouths. My grandmother is a Jew. This man, this woman? They spoke in the car. Hebrew.”

  The tightness in her chest remains. Israelis. Watching the hospital or watching her? She asks him, already knowing the answer, but wanting to test his honesty.

  “The man followed you inside. The lady left the car. Walked the block on phone. I go opposite side, much luck. Saw you in elevator.”

  “Unlikely,” she said. She checked for tails.

  He shrugs, indifferent. “As you wish.”

  “And they?”

  “These two not follow. Lost you, I think.”

  Grace doesn’t know when they transitioned to English but they’re speaking it now. Crafty, this one, perhaps explaining why he was Besim’s choice.

  “But not you,” she says. “Besim did this.”

  “Besim is good man.”

  “Yes. Yes, he is.”

  “Istanbul is not so kind to women alone.”

  “Chinese women.”

  “Any women. Better with man at side.”

  “Is that so?”

  No response. He looks to be about thirty. Could stand to lose a few pounds. She keys her number into his phone and returns it to him. “The knee––?”

  He moves it. Stiff, but working.

  “Keep your distance. Should you spot others watching me—”

  “Yes.” He holds up the phone. “I understand.”

  “Do not engage with these people.” Her words are intentionally forceful. “Promise me that.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Besim should have said something.” It’s as close as she’ll get to an apology.

  “Besim is man of few words.”

  She’s not sure if something was lost in translation. “A good distance. You mustn’t be associated with me.”

  “I saw what you did not see. I followed you when they did not.”

  She’s thinking of the Chinese proverb: Jiao bıng bi bài. The arrogant army will surely lose. Pride goeth before the fall. “As much as I appreciate it, you do not want to tangle with those following me.” She adds, “With anyone following me.”

  “You are popular woman.” He smiles, his teeth gleaming in the dark alley. “I understand Besim’s concern.”

  A minute earlier, she was prepared to dislocate his elbow and shoulder. Again, she marvels at the excitement of fieldwork, the joy she feels, the visceral sense of being alive at this moment. This place.

  “My phone,” she says. “Others may see it. Text me only the number of those watching for me and their direction. You understand? Like a compass. You know the compass points in English?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just like that,” Grace says. “In relation to me, not you.”

  “This, I understand.”

  “Thank you.” She leaves him, returning through the deep shadows of the long alley, eager to find Knox.

  42

  My God!” Grace blurts out as Knox admits her to the toilet stall at the back of the falafel shop. There are two unisex toilets. Knox has been sitting on the closed seat, awaiting her arrival.

  Her reaction is in part to his pants being down at his ankles, but primarily to the bloody lacerations and ugly raised lumps on his shins. Hopefully she’s not paying attention to the red stab wound on his thigh or the similarly repaired injury to his scalp.

  “I wouldn’t have called, but it’s nearly impossible to walk.”

  Grace stares at his legs, her face pale. “What—?”

  “A woman. Rebar. I was supposed to end up in an ambulance for what I assume was a ‘debriefing.’ Did you get it?”

  She digs into the paper bag she carries and removes a small brown bottle. “This is meant for toothaches, John.”

  “It’ll do the trick, believe me. I usually carry some. I’m out. What about—?”

  Grace removes a prescription bottle from her purse. “Vicodin. Take two—”

  “How did you—?”

  “You do not want to ask.” Yet she explains anyway. “Habit-forming drugs require prescription. Antibiotics, antidepressants? These do not. I used my considerable charms—and my UN identification—to obtain eight pills. One day’s worth. Not enough to satisfy an addiction.”

  Knox uncaps the vial, dispenses four and swallows them.

  “Size triple X,” he says.

  He spills some of the toothache ointment over the injuries, wincing at the contact. Grace kneels and patches him up, using cream, gauze and tape from the bag.

  “Any one of these wounds is enough to require you to rest, John. We should abort.”

  Knox studies her pained face. Her position makes them both uncomfortable; she’s looking up at him, her eyes level with his waist. He sees something beyond concern flash across her face, but exactly what it is remains out of reach.

  “You’d better explain that.”

  An impatient knock.

  “Let us get you out of here first,” Grace whispers. “Can you walk?”

  Knox flexes his ankles. Shoots of pain race through him like fever chills. He puts his weight on both heels. Winces a second time. “Sure. Why not?”

  Grace reaches out to help with his pants, but Knox takes over and Grace stands back as he lifts them gingerly past the wounds and fastens them at the waist. She collects the contents of the bag, including the trash. Leave no evidence of injury behind; give your opponent no sense of advantage.

  He hobbles forward two steps.

  “It’ll be better once the drugs kick in.”

  “That will not be soon enough. We will wait here. Put food in you. Medication
to be taken with food. When is the last time you ate?”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “David just bought me falafel,” she says.

  Knox wonders if it’s the pain or her words that stop his diaphragm. “O . . . kay.”

  At a table against the wall, Knox sits, long legs elevated on the chair next to Grace; across the table, she takes him through the meeting with Dulwich and her encounter with Besim’s agent provocateur. She talks at length with the waitress, who brings two bags of ice. Grace places them atop Knox’s wounds.

  “You cannot continue, John. Not like this.”

  He tells her that the testing of the Harmodius, including the soil samples, indicates Israeli soil. Grace nods; relates that this matches with Besim’s man lip reading the Hebrew spoken by her hospital pursuers.

  The reputation of Mossad is not lost on either of them. Mashe Okle’s scientific credentials. The fact that a half-dozen Iranian nuclear scientists have died under suspicious circumstances. Dulwich’s assurances that no killing would take place, when all evidence points to the contrary.

  Grace walks Knox through what Dulwich told her about a single client, informs him that they are in the midst of a black op multilayered to ensure deniability. She impresses him with Dulwich’s apparent surprise at hearing about a possible dead drop, adds that Sarge’s emphasis remains on the two of them getting their five minutes with Mashe Okle. “Your condition, John, is the perfect excuse for us to abort,” she finishes.

  “What about all his flag waving?” This is the part of her story that intrigues Knox—Dulwich’s plea to stay with the op. Dedication to the job is one thing, but the way she described it, it sounds more like passion. Knox knows Dulwich to be truly passionate about one thing only: the flag and all it represents.

  “Let us accept this: the Harmodius was dug up in Israel. Real or a copy, it hardly matters. It is presumed to be extremely valuable. The client, either acting alone or on behalf of the Israelis, has used it as bait. What if the Israeli agents we have encountered are assigned to ensure its security? Its eventual return?”

  Knox likes her explanation, appreciates her ability to be concise. She takes his relaxation the wrong way.

  “I am boring?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  She laughs, covering her mouth, an annoying habit of hers he has failed to break.

  “It’s the drugs kicking in.” He feels good. Too good. Recognizes that he’s speaking too freely.

  “You were supposed to take only two,” she reminds him.

  “Sarge claimed ignorance regarding a drop,” Knox says, attempting to clarify.

  “I am reading into this something that may not be accurate,” she says, carefully prefacing her words, “but I would say David was not surprised by the suggestion of a dead drop, although it was news to him, if you are able to discern the difference. The trip here serves two purposes, it seems. This makes sense to him, but troubles him, too.”

  “He’s not the only one.” Knox lets this information roll around in his head. It’s getting gooey in there. The rough corners are smooth now, his body warm. His shins pulse but no longer scream. “You know what this means?”

  Grace shakes her head patronizingly. He must be slurring his words.

  “Either the Israelis or the Iranians are responsible for the mother’s illness.”

  A ceiling fan creaks. Cars rumble past on the street.

  “It’s what got him here. Mashe. What created the excuse for him to come.”

  “A son cannot possibly condone such a thing.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know. He won’t have put it together. And we don’t know what he condones or what kind of hold, if any, they have over him. Perhaps the threat is that they finish her. It’s impossible to say. If Sarge knows, he isn’t telling.”

  “We either have two unrelated ops,” she says softly, “or we misread your mugging.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Grace says, “Let us assume the Israelis are assigned to keep track of the Harmodius. They follow you. They account for your every move. They search your hotel room when you are away. The Harmodius is gone. What is next?”

  “They search me for a receipt or locker key—evidence of where I’ve stashed the statue. They make it look like a mugging. Ergo, no dead drop.”

  “It is a possibility, neh?”

  It’s genius, but he doesn’t tell her so. “Then what’s with the pacemaker?” Knox would rather be telling than asking, but the shock of the wound combined with the medication is limiting. He’ll let Grace take the lead for now.

  “It could be nothing more than proactive intelligence. Let us assume the Israelis have connected a Swiss medical supplier with a foreign intelligence organization. Medical devices are being used to convey intelligence. The Israelis cannot take the chance that software vital to the nuclear program might be smuggled to the Iranians inside the electronics of sealed pacemakers—”

  “So they interrupt the supply chain and place clean pacemakers in the hospital. They collect the suspicious shipment and deliver it to their lab for analysis.” Knox exhales. “Clever bastards.”

  Grace overreacts instinctively, worried about his pain. “John!”

  “I’m good.” There are warm marbles rolling around behind his eyes. He could sit here for hours. “Doesn’t explain the shot Ali took. You don’t try to kill the guy who’s hidden what’s yours.” It’s an unintended slap in the face.

  “No,” she says.

  “What are you keeping from me? Sarge told you something.”

  She does not hesitate. “He said, I quote, it is ‘bigger than stink.’”

  The expression hits Knox. “He said that? Those exact words?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Knox inhales through his nose, feels sick. Knows it’s not the drugs. “Well then,” he whispers. “Phones off.” He digs his out and turns his off and waits for her to do the same. Tries to stand. “They’ll have this location by now. We need an alternate exit. And we’ve got to stay moving.”

  “John?” Grace allows fear into her voice. She helps him to stand. He’s unsteady.

  He allows her to help. It surprises them both. He talks to himself. “I’ll need to turn mine back on: Akram’s going to text me the location for the meet. But for now . . .”

  He’s rambling. Scared, she repeats his name, imploringly.

  Knox steadies himself with hands on both her shoulders. “Bigger than stink. It’s a Sarge expression: the end justifies the means, which in our case is us.” He meets eyes with her. “We’re fucked.”

  43

  The city bus smells of human sweat and greasy food. Grace had to help Knox climb up into it. Now that they’re seated, Knox has no intention of ever getting up again.

  Neither he nor Grace was willing to risk a taxi. Walking any sort of distance was out of the question. The Alzer Hotel is off limits. They ride the bus to have somewhere to be, like the homeless, and receive their share of stares from the predominantly Turkish passengers. The driver has taken to watching them in his oversized mirror.

  “So, we wait,” Grace says. As if they’ve done something else in the past ninety minutes. Knox dozes in and out, grateful for her presence and for the drugs running through his system.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he says, coming awake.

  She dismisses this as delirium.

  “Given the circumstances, the complexities, there’s no reason for two of us—”

  “You are delirious. Go back to sleep.”

  “Plans change based on the conditions. These are unusual conditions.”

  “I know where you are going with this. No chance, John. None. We wait for the text or the call. We do this together.”

  “As what, martyrs? Why?”

  “The plan has not changed. Two of us in the room with hi
m for five minutes. We hand over the Harmodius. We go home.”

  “I don’t like going home. Home is what got me into this.” She can see he regrets his words, but his tongue is loose. “Sarge pushes whatever buttons are required to get what he wants. Same as anyone else.”

  “Tommy?”

  “A new medication. Did I tell you?” He looks delirious. She should have let him go back to sleep. But she can’t control her curiosity. Wonders if it’s an asset or a liability.

  “Expensive,” she says.

  “Insanely so. Yeah. I must have told you.”

  “You are a good man. A good brother. You must not equate Tommy with—”

  “I’m a fraud. I’m the Harmodius. I look like the real thing, test like the real thing, but I’m a copy. An old copy.”

  “You should sleep.”

  “Do I do this work out of benevolence? Brotherliness? No. I do this because it takes me away from all of the shit back there. I live for this.” He touches his cap and the wound beneath it. “I don’t want to die. Far from it. But this shit matters. You know? You realize that, right, Grace? This shit matters.”

  He’s drunk on the medication. Adorable, in an oversized, testosterone-laced kind of way. “She sure as shit better deliver it as promised,” he mutters, and appears to doze off.

  Besim is tasked with watching Victoria, who controls the Harmodius. Grace is unconcerned. She studies him, feeling honored he would share such things with her, whether the drugs or not. His relationship with his brother is as complex as hers with her father. She feels close to Knox and knows that it’s unhealthy; but so is vodka, and that never stops her.

  Twenty minutes pass. She has no idea where they are. It’s late afternoon, the sidewalks crowded once more. She catches a glimpse of the Bosphorus and reorients herself.

  “We’re traveling northeast toward the university,” Knox says, his eyes still closed.

  She doesn’t understand how he does these things, worries it’s what separates successful field agents from wannabes like herself. Admires and resents him at the same time.

  “It’s bus 61-B,” he says, as if reading her mind. “Did you think the choice was random?”