The strawberry sun rose above a fiery sea as a power cruiser in which Durell lay approached an island with forested hills. He shook cotton from his vision, rubbed a throbbing knot at the back of his head, ran a dry tongue over his lips. He was wobbly as he stared through the porthole. The sea was a flat calm. The vibration of the engine touched the soles of his feet through the teak decking.
He looked around.
He was confined in a small cabin. It was of triangular shape, under the bow, and the plash of the cutwater was clearly audible. He was alone, but he knew there was no way out, not yet. He did not bother to try the door.
The porthole brought in the red glare of the Sea of Marmara. Now a dawn breeze flawed the water’s surface with catspaws as he studied the rounded land mass a few hundred yards away. He judged it to be one of the Prince’s Islands, located just south of the Bosporus, a pleasure park for the tyrants of old as well as a place of exile and execution for innumerable Byzantine princes. Romanus Diogenes, an Eleventh Century emperor, was blinded and imprisoned there after being ransomed from the Seljuk Turks who had defeated him in Armenia at the battle of Manzikert.
Vanishing beyond a point of land was the harbor of a small fishing village, shops and teahouses crowded down to the water, white walls reflecting the dawn with thin, blown-glass hues. Then dark pines and high bluffs shut the morning light away.
The cruiser docked a few minutes later. The cabin door opened, and a man held a gun on Durell while another blindfolded him. It seemed rather late for such precautions. He did not resist or protest as he was led above deck and heard the hollow sound of his heels on the boards of a pier. Then gravel crunched underfoot. A mixture of pine resin and sea salt flavored the air. Reed warblers and robins mixed their morning song with the calls of ducks and gulls.
Rough hands guided him through a door into a hushed interior where the air was still. There was a low exchange in Turkish. A cultivated and surprisingly high-pitched voice ordered the blindfold removed and addressed Durell in excellent English.
“You look rather the worse for wear, Mr. Durell. But then none of us has had much rest since you stole the document of regency last evening. Tell us where it is.”
“It’s in safe hands.” Durell’s tone was bland. His eyes adjusted to the soft lighting, and he found Prince Tahir’s sneering face. Angry red glints of light in his black irises reflected the dawn that shone beyond a cypress-framed window. His lean body whispered in small, impatient fidgeting movements against the satin covering of an immense chair. He wore a long robe of brocaded silk and affected an enormous turban like the sultans of old.
Beside his chair stood a thick wooden staff. A large brass crescent, symbol of imperial Turkey, was recumbent at its peak, its needle-sharp horns pointed at the high ceiling.
Durell’s eyes slid back to Prince Tahir. “How did you find out I took the document?”
“My man Volkan informed us that you had burglarized General Abdurrahman’s house. General Abdurrahman at first told us that nothing had been taken. You were very clever. But a second inspection discovered the loss.” A look of displeasure crossed his brooding face, and he lifted a narrow palm. “Does that satisfy you, Mr. Durell?”
“I suppose it has to.” Durell paused. “What are you willing to pay for the document?”
“What would you ask?”
“Why don’t you just go to the emir and get him to sign another one?”
“I am a wealthy man, Mr. Durell. I will pay you one million dollars.”
“It wouldn’t buy me much on the bottom of the Marmara.”
The prince regarded him with a lifted brow and cynical smile. Only two of his men were in here with them, Durell noted, and they stood back a respectful distance. The large room showed riches in casual profusion, antique carpets, Iznik tiles, precious ivory, mother-of-pearl inlay, exquisite marquetry, Marmara marble.
“I shall guarantee your freedom, if you are worried for your safety, Mr. Durell. Your life is of no consequence to me, one way or the other. The money can be deposited in a Swiss bank today. My plans will bear fruit before you could obtain it.”
“You have a tight schedule.”
Prince Tahir nodded. “And you have interfered with it.”
“So sorry.”
The Ottoman prince’s face darkened. “You do not appear to appreciate your situation,” he said in his high, sinister voice. “I said your life is of no consequence—and you are obstructing events of the highest importance.”
The bullet wound in Durell’s thigh ached. He did not know how far he could trust his wounded leg. He thought of Dara and wondered if they had taken her after she left the safe house. “What about Dara Allon?” he asked.
“Ah. You’ve discarded the pretense that she is your wife. Good.” He shrugged sleek shoulders. “We do not have her. She is unimportant.”
“And your daughter—aren’t you going to ask what I did with her?”
“We know you did not take her.”
“I see. But you don’t know where she is.”
“Do you wish to sell me that information also? I have no need of it from you. I shall have it within the hour.” Prince Tahir’s long finger stabbed at Durell. “Only one thing. The document. It is worth one million dollars—and your life.”
“I’ll think it over.”
Prince Tahir must have made a signal, but Durell did not see it. Something crashed savagely into the back of his skull, shattering his vision, and he found himself on all fours, dimly aware of his own ragged gasps as the prince’s men kicked him. That first blow had rendered him almost helpless. His head reeled so that he could not have got to his feet even if they had let him. He was half blind, his ears deaf to all but a wild ringing and the sharp grunts of the men as they labored over him. He doubled up instinctively to save his bones and vital organs. They worked him over methodically, rhythmically, as if they knew how to inflict pain with a calibrated precision and impersonal care for the limits.
It seemed to go on, and on, and on. . . .
Chapter 20
Dara was puzzled.
Sheik Zeid had left his hotel alone, and she would have expected Pat McNamara at least to accompany him. Maybe McNamara had not been as lucky as Durell last night, she thought. For all she knew McNamara might be still in the cistern, dead and butchered. She gave a little shudder as she started her car. All the dying had begun to get to her. But it did not bother her half so much as the thought that you never knew when or how it would come to you. She remembered the look of terrified surprise on the faces of her victims. She shuddered again.
She was proud of her select profession. But after this mission, she would kill only in self-defense.
She was through with cold-blooded murder.
Except for one last hit.
She followed at a discreet distance as Sheik Zeid wove his black Mercedes through the first stages of Istanbul’s commuter traffic, catching Kemeralti Caddesi and then hurtling northwest on Abdullezel Pasa along the bustling Golden Horn. The minarets of the ancient city’s helmeted mosques were dusky blue pillars holding up an ivory sky as the faithful bowed toward Mecca and said their first prayers of the day. The calls of the muezzins were lost in the din of trucks and cars, boat and train whistles, the pounding clatter of the city’s fevered awakening.
Sheik Zeid finally parked, and Dara sat in her car and waited to see what the short, muscular man would do. She scanned the neighborhood of small houses and shops. Looming above were the city walls, their gray stone battlements scoured and crumbled by the passage of some sixteen hundred years since they had been thrown up by Theodosius the Great. Later rulers had added two more walls on the outer side, beyond her vision, ,and it seemed no wonder that the defenses were not breached for a thousand years.
Sheik Zeid left his automobile and walked into a narrow lane that led toward the dark, weathered towers. Dara waited a moment longer, then followed. A donkey clopped by, pulling a water cart. A few people were on the street,
sweeping sidewalks, gossiping, cranking down awnings. The tapping noise of hammers came from somewhere.
The emir slid into shadows beyond a stone portal. Dara hesitated, glanced over her shoulder, then went after him.
Inside the fortification a musty corridor turned, split, went up and down. Dara halted and debated. The tapping sound was louder now, overlain with voices. A stone clicked down a dusty staircase to the right. She watched the stairs, listened intently. The slap of climbing feet rewarded her patience.
She ascended cautiously and silently, face tilted to the higher shadows ahead. Then she was on a windowed landing where a beam of sunlight broke the gloom. The tapping and voices came from below now, and she looked out from the shadows. The sight below released tension that had been coiling in her with a springlike rush, and she gave a long sigh of relief. Turkish workmen were busily chipping away at the marble tombstones of a Byzantine graveyard, using them to manufacture the slabs that covered Turkish latrines with footprints carved into the marble.
A glance beyond revealed a breathtaking view of the spired city, the silver-flaked Golden Horn and peacock-blue Bosporus.
She was within shouting distance of the ruined palaces of the Blachemae, residence of Byzantium’s last emperors, near the little sally port called Kerkoporta, where the fierce Janissaries had penetrated Constantinople’s defenses on that bloody May morning in 1453.
Somewhere nearby, Constantine Palaeologus, the last Byzantine emperor, fought to the death and went to an unknown grave.
Dara looked up the next flight of stone stairs and moved on with supple determination. She stalked with the single-minded purpose of a cat. There came the sound of a voice, and she checked herself.
“I’m sorry we had to meet like this, Your Highness.” A regretful laugh. “I guess it isn’t exactly your style.”
The voice belonged to Nadine. It was strained, agitated, nearly unrecognizable to Dara. The emir said something, and Nadine’s voice came back sharply. . . people watching me. Spying on me.”
Dara moved two steps closer and heard Sheik Zeid say: “Were you followed here?”
“Could be. I don’t think so, though. I think we beat them out of bed. At least that was the idea.”
“You called me to Istanbul, then would not speak what was on your mind.”
“I—I had to think some more. Sam Durell—”
“Did he interfere again?”
“Don’t hold it against him.”
“I do not trust him.”
“He’s tough, but he’s on the level.”
“He betrayed my man last night. Left him to a pack of wolves.”
“He must have had good reason. He wants to help.”
“He sows discord.”
“He doesn’t know the whole story, that’s all,” Nadine said.
There was a brief pause, and Dara heard the tinkle of a sherbet seller’s bell, the crackling of magpies’ voices.
She smelled hot pastries and coffee from the street below.
Sheik Zeid’s feet made a pacing sound on the stone floor.
Then he said: “You did not tell him the whereabouts of Princess Ayla?”
“I haven’t told anyone.”
“Not even Prince Tahir? Durell says your husband and daughter may be plotting against me.”
“I’m scared of him,” Nadine said in a pinched voice. “Durell?”
“Prince Tahir.”
“Nonsense.”
“Aylais afraid of him, too.”
“What?”
“She made me promise not to tell him where she is; she made me promise not to tell you, either.”
“Then perhaps she is afraid of me, too, silly woman.”
Nadine sounded offended. “Look, Your Highness, I know my own daughter.”
“Then tell me: has she gone mad to do this thing?”
“I don’t know her reasons. She kept them to herself.”
“Then perhaps she is plotting, as Durell said.”
“Where is Sam now?”
“I do not know.”
“I’d feel better if he could accompany you.”
“Then you will tell me where she is?”
“Yes.” Nadine’s voice faltered. “Because I know you love her—and she needs someone.”
Dara held her breath, her ears straining to hear, as Nadine’s words came in a sudden rush. “She is at the home of friends in central Anatolia, near Göreme. Do you know it? Beyond Lake Tuz. . . .”
Dara listened and committed it to memory. When Nadine had finished giving directions and Sheik Zeid was reassuring her that he would make everything well again, Dara slipped quickly down the dusty stairs and ran to her car.
Her lovely face was grim as she gunned her car out of its parking space and rushed for Yesilkoy Airport.
At last, for Israel, the princess was almost within her grasp.
“Are you ready to resume, Mr. Durell?”
Consciousness ebbed and flowed. Durell’s extremities felt cold and numb as he rode with the tide, a scrap of flotsam in a universe that expanded and contracted. Lights winked, reeling mockingly as the sore pain of bruised and battered flesh awakened in his awareness. His head was full of the dark smell of bloody nostrils.
He lay still, taking his time.
“Answer me, Mr. Durell. Are you ready to bargain?”
The high voice of Prince Tahir raised a burning wrath in him, but he did not move. Each second that passed infused his tormented body with renewed strength, his mind with clarity of purpose.
He had to get out of here.
There came a thin clatter of china as someone replaced a cup in its saucer. Strong, fleshy fingers clutched Durefl’s face, craned it up from the prickly rug until his neck popped, and he flinched and a grunt escaped his bent throat.
He opened his eyes.
Prince Tahir’s twisted mouth smiled scornfully at him. The man released Durell and stepped back, out of sight. Durell lifted his shoulders, head sagging down, rested a moment, then got slowly to his feet. Tahir still sat in the enormous satin chair, beside the pointed horns of his golden crescent standard. He sipped his coffee and studied Durell’s face over the shell of his cup, and when he took the cup away his malicious smile showed a sparkling bead of coffee, like black venom.
Durell held back his fury.
Prince Tahir spoke in a reasonable tone. “I offered you one million dollars for the document of regency, before your, ah, unfortunate—”
“Make it five,” Durell snapped.
“Five?” The prince’s eyes narrowed to thoughtful slots. “Five was rather more than I had expected to pay. However. . . .” He nodded his agreement.
“Ten?”
“Do not toy with me, Mr. Durell, I warn you.” His lean body stiffened angrily. Violence was in the air, its electric odor thick in Durell’s awareness. He knew he was pressing his luck, but that was what he had to do.
He said: “What difference does it make? You’ll agree to any price, because you have no intention of paying it. Once your hands are on that document, I’m a dead man.”
“There is such a thing as honor among gentlemen.”
Durell spoke bluntly. “A gentleman wouldn’t scheme to kill his son-in-law. You need that document because you are afraid Sheik Zeid may have second thoughts about signing another like it. You took it out of the country to make sure he did not destroy it in your absence, while you came to find your daughter. It’s the key to your whole plan.”
“And what plan is that?”
“To kill Sheik Zeid and rule his country from behind your daughter’s throne,” Durell charged. “You will use Turkish troops to shore up her regency, if necessary. That’s where General Abdurrahman comes in—with or without the sanction of his superiors and the Turkish government.”
Prince Tahir’s swarthy face paled, then flushed, and rage bulged his black eyes. “Yes, and that will not be all.” His voice became cunning. “Once Dhubar is in my grasp, I shall bargain its billio
ns of dollars, its immense oil reserves for a military coup that will restore the Ottoman ruling dynasty to its rightful throne. Of course, a person of your utter insignificance can hardly be expected to comprehend the injustice done my family.” A vengeful glitter lighted his eyes. “But no measure is too stem, no path too bloody to keep me from rectifying it.”
He gazed beyond Durell, abruptly solemn, as if contemplating the vision of the founder of the Ottoman imperial line. Sultan Osman, legend said, had seen the horns of a crescent moon grow until they encompassed the limits of his future empire.
“From the wealth of Dhubar will spring the beginnings of a new Ottoman Empire,” he breathed.
“And new slavery for the Arabs and Jews.”
Prince Tahir’s charcoal brows dipped between his scowling eyes. “The terrible Turk, as you westerners called him, will reclaim what is his.”
“What about the superpowers?”
The prince’s chuckle was dry as an Anatolian gully.
“They are like our musclebound Kirklareli wrestlers, locked together in holds of suspicion and fear. They heave and groan, but nothing much happens. By the time they disentangle themselves, it will be too late. We shall overcome all difficulties.”
“You’re crazy.”
Tahir was fidgeting again. “My patience has worn thin. I had not expected these delays. Where is the document?”
“I don’t have it.”
Prince Tahir sat up, his mouth warped with rage. “Tell me, or I’ll see you skinned alive.”
Durell sensed the approach of the guards as they moved up behind him. He knew he had played out his respite. “There won’t be time for that,” he said, his face calm. “The others will arrive any second.”
“Others?” The prince’s eyes widened. “What others?”
“Turkish Security, of course.” Durell bluffed with a grin. “You don’t think your men took me without me wanting them to, do you? There’s a homing transmitter in the heel of my shoe.”
Assignment- 13th Princess Page 16
