The Red Room

by Ridley Pearson

  Knox considers himself something of a linguist in that he knows how to swear in a multitude of languages. The agent is not happy with tires of the Audi Quattro 7, parked at an angle to the curb. Two flats.

  “What the—?” The agent shouts obscenities at the nearest bellman.

  “Taxi!” the other agent says, his English decent. “Now!”

  The bellman, no more than a kid, gestures nervously to the street. “Much rain, sir, as you see. One moment, if you please! Right away! Right away!” He runs out into the maelstrom, rain bouncing off his red fez. Blows a whistle, looking left and right.

  “You need car? Private car!” A man’s heavily accented voice calls out from Knox’s left. The driver stands beneath an open umbrella. He moves toward his quarry, extending the shelter provided by the plastic.

  “Private car. Very reasonable, very cheap. Where you go, please?”

  The whistle for the taxi continues to blow. A crowd of wet Turks gathers around the foreigners, looking curiously at their man in custody. They shout questions in Turkish and English. Wet cigarettes dangle from their lips. Trial by jury on the streets of Istanbul.

  Staring bitterly at the incapacitated Audi, the lead agent answers, “Istinye. How much?”

  The driver rattles off a price.

  The agent launches into negotiations.

  “We take it!” the other agent says, moving himself under the extended umbrella while leaving Knox in the rain.

  It’s not just raining. It’s apocalyptic. It’s an Old Testament deluge. The wet is a wake-up call. Knox’s brain is a computer spinning beach balls; he’s processing data from twenty seconds earlier.

  “This way, if you please.” The driver.

  In his dazed and beleaguered state, Knox allows himself to believe he knows the voice. Or is he confusing it with one of the agents?

  Someone pushes his head down. He’s soaking wet as he lands in the backseat of the private car and is shoved to the center, his bound wrists behind him. The agents climb in on either side. One wet. One dry.

  The doors power-lock. Knox leans forward, staring down at his knees, which are practically higher than his shoulders.

  “You’re going to pay for this,” says the agent whose whipped face limits his ability to speak.

  No doubt, Knox is thinking. He grunts, looks up and happens to catch the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  The eyes. The voice.

  Besim.

  57

  It isn’t the first time Grace has faced a difficult decision, so why does she hesitate now? What hold over her does Knox possess? Dulwich hires her because of her pragmatism, her cultural tendency to follow orders to the letter and leave her imagination at the door. She supposes he balances her against Knox for this reason, sees this as the logic behind their recent pairings.

  Has she allowed herself to be seduced, corrupted? After all the sacrifices for her career, is she willing to risk a setback? For what? For whom? A testosterone-charged renegade? A maverick, that by his own admission is only in it for the money? A mercenary?

  The problem is, she has had the occasional glimpse of the overprotective brother, the defender of women—the sensitivities Knox doesn’t want exposed. Dulwich exploits these vulnerabilities for his own benefit. As the op supervisor, he’s no doubt willing to sacrifice the troops to win the battle. Turning the opposing loyalties in her head, Grace finds herself uneasy and undecided, two qualities she would never associate with her usual logical assurance.

  Cancer or cure, John Knox is under her skin.

  In the hotel’s lobby bathroom, she uses a safety pin she’d snagged previously to narrow the waistband of her pants to attach Mashe Okle’s business card behind the interior garment tag. Her pants slip lower but hold above her hips; it’s not a look she would normally tolerate, as the hems of the pant legs drag behind her flats. But if she’s searched, the card will be difficult to find. A cursory look at the contents of her handbag and pockets will yield nothing.

  The accountant in her ticks off the successes of the op: she and Knox got to Okle and sent him to the hospital, ensuring the implantation of a customized pacemaker in place of the defective model. They did so without the involvement of any government agency. A highly sought-after shopping list of what is likely parts for nuclear reactor maintenance, a list perhaps intended for the Russians, Chinese or North Koreans, is currently pinned by her hip bone. Any such agents could be in the hunt.

  Might kill for it.

  She leaves the hotel using a side exit; she conceals herself among a group of conventioneers wearing blue lanyards and plastic-shrouded white badges. She hesitates beneath a metal canopy that holds back the steady drum of gray rain. Smothered by conflicting emotion and reason, she battles the two sides of her conscience.

  Then she pulls her phone to her ear.

  “Xin, I am sorry to wake you. If you inform Dulwich of what I am about to request, I will make what is left of your life a living hell.” She knows what it’s like in Digital Services, knows the degree to which the myth of field ops pervades the culture. She counts on her bluster to rattle the man, hopes he doesn’t identify her words as a hollow bluff.

  “You threaten me?”

  “I have three phone numbers. I need a ‘last-known position’ for each of them.”

  “iPhones?” Xin is already coming awake.

  “The numbers won’t be registered.”

  “Understood.”

  “How quickly?” Grace asks. With a laptop and secure Internet connection, she could do the work herself. She’s being polite and they both know it. Xin can accomplish this as fast as he’s willing.

  “Five minutes,” he says, perhaps sensing the trap she’s laid.

  She rattles off the numbers of Knox’s SIM chips. They are committed to memory, not carried in her phone’s contact list.

  Xin repeats them, double-checking.

  “Nothing personal,” she says.

  The line goes dead.

  58

  Accustomed to following a navigation system, neither of the men bookending Knox seems to notice that the car has missed the exit for Barbaros Boulevard, the most direct route north to the Istinye district. Instead, they travel the O-1 southeast, and Besim takes a long exit ramp toward Bahçesehir University. The men look nondescript, Knox thinks as he surreptitiously studies them; the two could be of any European nationality. Judging by the accent of the few words spoken in the hotel’s laundry room and the swearing, he’s convinced they are Israeli or are on contract to the Israelis. If Israeli, they apparently don’t know about Besim. Boxes within boxes.

  In point of fact, they could work for any government, any agency, any security company or corporation or individual wanting nuclear secrets.

  The man to Knox’s left gets twitchy, perhaps sensing the detour. Besim has made the mistake of not averting the rearview mirror, which carries in its upper corner the dull green compass heading: SW. How long until it’s noticed?

  Knox wrestles his body forward in an attempt to divert attention. His activity serves its purpose, though it gains him a blow to his sore ribs. Pain is an expected part of the process, but he’s worn down by the accumulation of wounds. He resists physical limitations, is able to overcome most of them; it’s another part of what makes him valuable to men like Dulwich. The fact that he’s succumbing to the toll now makes him question his longevity in this line of work, the thoughts coming in a series of panicked flashes. He hopes to hell Dulwich has not picked up on it, is worried it might make him dispensable.

  Thinks of Tommy and the risk he’s taking and questions whether or not he’s fooling himself by thinking he accepts the work for Tommy’s sake.

  “Hey!” The agent has it now.

  “Traffic bad. Golf tournament, Sahasi,” Besim says calmly. “This way better.”

  Knox wonders how ma
ny languages the man speaks; how many dialects; how easily this clipped attempt at English comes to him. It’s convincing enough to ease the agent back in his seat.

  The car turns right, north, back toward Barbaros Boulevard, but yips to a stop at the entrance to a forested park on the left. Besim auto-unlocks the doors without being asked to do so, and they come open simultaneously. In a flurry of box cutters, swinging arms and fierce shouting, Besim reaches back to contribute the sting of a Taser. Seat belts are cut with razors. Both men are dragged out. It’s over in ten seconds or less.

  Fucking Israelis.

  The two men are replaced by two others, and the car races off, leaving Knox’s captors behind, one on his hands and knees, the other unconscious, facedown. The plastic binding Knox’s wrists is cut free. He exercises his sore shoulders.

  Besim has the car moving fast. South, toward old Istanbul. South, toward the train terminal on the European side and, beyond, the airport.

  No one speaks. Knox observes the protocol. Knows better than to mess with Mossad.

  After fifteen minutes it’s apparent that they are indeed headed for the airport.

  So many questions tug at Knox. He understands that he’s unlikely to ever get a single straight answer. There is no question—none—that Besim is with these two. The mood in the car is relaxed, other than at stops or when the car slows, which sets the men’s heads pivoting like radar dishes.

  But then why did Besim attack him to get the shopping list? The only answer Knox can come up with is that Besim is doubled, working for both sides of Israeli security—the side that hired Dulwich and the side that doesn’t want to spare a thorium reactor from the fires of hell about to descend upon Iran. So which are these two?

  He has to take the risk.

  “Just to be clear,” Knox says, “I don’t have what you think I do. What those guys back there thought I did. I was told it could buy me a pass in a situation like this, but I’m sorry to say I don’t have it.”

  The man on Knox’s left eye-signals Besim and the car pulls off the main road and onto a side street. This agent gets out of the car and makes a phone call. A moment later, the agent climbs back into the car, searches Knox’s Scottevest, and locates Knox’s iPhone. Five seconds later, the phone purrs and Knox answers.

  “What’s this?” It’s Dulwich.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “I got that much.”

  “She has it.”

  Silence. Then, “Fuck.”

  “I’ll never get through Immigration anyway.”

  “You think too much.”

  “So hire Schwarzenegger.”

  “Not the time for it, pal.”

  “We stopped being pals a while ago.” Knox wonders if he’ll ever get a call from Dulwich again and if, by association, he’s ruined Grace’s dreams of fieldwork. He wonders if Dulwich will pay him for this op if he makes it out. Wonders what the hell to do for Tommy. Fuck.

  “You think? I was the one responsible for dumping those two back there. Don’t be so quick to pass judgment. I’m risking some serious capital here.”

  “I’m feeling bad for you.” Knox notes the use of “back there.” Dulwich is close by.

  “Where is she?” Dulwich asks.

  “Someplace safe, I hope. I thought you and your friends here had teams on both of us?”

  A yellow taxi approaches from up the street. Besim backs up expertly, running the rear tires up onto the sidewalk and cutting the wheel sharply. He’s about to peel out when the man on Knox’s right shouts too loudly for the confines of the car, “Atzor!” Stop! Hebrew.

  Knox ends the call and returns the phone to the jacket.

  He’s found Grace.

  59

  Grace holds the business card in her left hand, a butane cigarette lighter in her right. She steadily brings the two closer. The two agents are out of the car and pushing their palms at her in a rush of bodies and limbs.

  “No . . . no . . . no!” they say, nearly in unison.

  The taxi driver seizes the moment and backs up the Hyundai, leaving an unsuspecting Grace standing alone. The taxi continues backing up at an alarming rate all the way to the intersection. Then it’s gone.

  “The card for him,” Grace says, “or I burn it.”

  Besim climbs out from behind the wheel, and Knox watches Grace’s emotions get the better of her. Betrayal burnishes her face angry red.

  “Release him!” Grace hollers, the flame now precariously close to the lower corner of the card.

  “We do not wish to possess the card, ma’am,” Besim says, “but it must not be burned.” He checks with the man originally on Knox’s left, who nods. “It is truly the only chance for the two of you. We have promised to do everything in our power to get you out alive. The loss of this card will be our failure. Your failure.”

  “Get him out of the car, now!” Grace is having none of it.

  Besim checks with the agent for a second time. They speak in Hebrew. The three move away from the vehicle. Their hands remain in plain sight.

  Grace is unable to keep the confusion from her face.

  “The card!” she says again.

  Knox comes out of the backseat, grinning appreciatively. He moves around the open door to the front, where he assesses the agents and Besim.

  “Grace! Get in,” he says, indicating the passenger door. “And don’t for a moment take that flame away from the card.”

  Besim and the others back away slowly.

  “In!” Knox says, pulling his own door shut.

  Grace climbs in. The flame steadies. Knox glances out his window at the men.

  “What the hell?” she says.

  Knox shifts into gear. Halfway down the block, he tells her to extinguish the lighter. She doesn’t seem to hear him. He repeats himself and she quiets the flame.

  “That took balls,” he says.

  “Always so vulgar.”

  Knox waits until the car is on Kennedy Avenue, airport bound. He explains his theory that Besim vandalized the SUV and paid off the bellmen to keep their mouths shut, reiterates the likelihood of two Israeli payrolls; one set, Dulwich’s, surprising and replacing his hotel captors. His phone buzzes repeatedly, as does Grace’s. Neither answers.

  “The card?” she says.

  Knox answers. “In order for things to remain status quo, they need the dead drop to go as planned. If it fails, it will call for internal review by whatever party of whatever government is supposed to get it, and maybe someone figures out what’s really going on.”

  “Tracking Dr. Okle.”

  “Sarge spit-balled it for us. Did he lie? Of course. But maybe less than we think. More like he omitted facts.”

  “You would defend him?”

  “Bloodlines. He and I share history.” Again, he wonders if he’s sabotaged Grace. Feels shitty about it.

  “The airport.”

  “Yeah.”

  She speculates, “The Israelis had a plane for you.” Her voice quavers. “I interrupted . . .”

  “Grace . . . we don’t know anything. Not a damned thing. These guys are all spooks. Sarge should have known better. Out of our league.”

  “Railway,” she suggests.

  “By now, the Israelis dumped out of the car will have called it in. The hawks are not going to roll over for anyone. They’ll make the charge of cultural theft against me, play anything they can so I don’t get out. The train is too slow. Gives them too long to get their shit together.” He can’t take the time to switch out SIM cards. “The Turks will have to weigh the claim, put out a Be On Lookout for me. The Israelis supporting the thorium research know you and I have a shot at getting through Immigration or they wouldn’t have been aiming for the airport in the first place.”

  “Or they paid a bribe.”

  “Or that.”r />
  Knox follows the airport signage. They can see it now to their left, and beyond it, the Bosphorus. On the opposite shore starts the Asian half of the city.

  “May be a strait, but it certainly looks like a river,” she says. “What is it with us and rivers?”

  She watches him smile. With more planning, more knowledge, they might have left by the Bosphorus. Always water. Bloodlines.

  “We go through security in separate lines.”

  “Of course.”

  “If I’m detained . . .”

  “I will notify David.” It’s the best they can hope for. She would gladly make a sacrifice to take this off of him. Has no idea where that thought comes from. Sacrilege. Her career path is entirely singular.

  She speaks abruptly. “Everything I do or have done, it is to prove my father wrong.”

  Knox glances over at her curiously.

  “Deepest apology,” she says, sounding entirely too Chinese. She hangs her head.

  “Well, that’s awkward,” Knox says.

  She starts to laugh, but it borders on tears and she bottles it up as she has learned to do so well in the time they’ve spent working together.

  “My shit’s always been about protecting Tommy,” he says, adding, “at least that’s what I tell myself.”

  “We never know if we will see the other again,” she says wistfully.

  “True story.”

  Her heart races. She’s unsure why. “I have feelings for you, John Knox.”

  The car enters the Departures ramp.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  She waits. The car slows toward the curb. “That is all? ‘Yeah’?”

  Knox parks. “Yeah.” His smile conceals a deeper message; concern for her? Attraction? Whether he means it as such, that smile floods her with warmth.

  Knox says, “Check your phone. Find us the first flight out of the country.”

  60

  Follow me, please.” The immigration officer is soft and in his mid-forties, probably nearing the end of his career. The uniform stretches tight across his belly. His pant legs bunch at his ankles as he steps out of his booth to block Knox’s exit. The irregular beeping of the magnetometers in the distance is reminiscent of hospital sounds.